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captainsspnanon · 1 year

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C2E63 - Intervention - rewatch

Lots of announcements this episode, but AAAH one shot with Stephen Colbert! Surprise, Matt, this is just the FIRST one.

(it’s such a cute one shot though, just seeing Stephen’s delight with it!)

I love when Ashley makes a joke “maybe I should do the talking this time” and everyone just holds her to it. Both supportive friends and roasting friends at the same time.

I’ve said it before, but I really do prefer Sam’s flask here to what he does in C3. It just feels more disruptive in C3, they always seem to have to stop and look at it, whereas here the roleplay keeps going and there’s only bits of acknowledgment.

Nothing shows that this is a real dnd campaign that isn’t scripted more than Jester ringing the bell as soon as they’re in the Lucid Bastion and Matt having the NPC come out and be aggravated, even though the bell and the guy are in Asarius and not Rosohna. If it was scripted, would they do that bit in the completely wrong building and city? (also, fuck the spelling of Rosohna, I NEVER remember how to spell it. Especially because I want to spell it like Rosh Hashana, which is something completely different XD)

Poor Beau and Caleb, desperately trying to get the Bright Queen to not go full slaughter on the Empire. On a shallow watch, I fully stand in their shoes. On this more in depth watch, …. yeah, trying to think about this in terms of actual military strategy and stuff? What the Bright Queen is doing makes sense. I don’t like it in terms of a fictional narrative, but trying to put it in real world terms? Now, not only is it super above my head, but also I’d suspect that if they are more gentle and withdrawing as Beau suggests, then the Empire would just move in and conquer just that much more easily.

Also, Essek tells the Bright Queen that the Nein not only can be trusted since they are capable, but also that they had his ‘tutelage’. There’s been a lot of analysis (and lots with shipping goggles on) of the moment that Essek decided to teach Caleb dunamantic spells. I wonder now if this was something that had already been run by and approved by the Bright Queen – hence why a persuasion roll of 12 was able to work, because it had already been decided that it would be done.

In hindsight, it’s very interesting to see Caleb be so fervently gung-ho about having the Xhorhasians take the Nein along to defeat the Assembly, how much of his plan relies on the Bright Queen essentially using the war to do it for him – give him the opening, versus how it ends up by the end of the campaign with Caleb and Beau working with the Cobalt Soul and mostly just themselves to try to take the Assembly down. Personally, I think the end result is better. Having the Assembly taken down in a war? All it will do is push the Empire to immediately rebuild it, probably even stronger. Have it taken down by people in the Empire, proving crimes? That might work to disband it eventually, or clean the corruption out of it.

Jester going “let’s form our own country!” and just BREAKING everyone. LOVE IT

I honestly forgot so much of the stress for Beau with having to contact Dairon, and the fear she had regarding it. Knowing that it turns out well, I just remember the good parts of it like the promotion and leading the charge for the arrest. It makes the rewatch and re-experiencing this tension all the better because it feels so real, so honest. Beau HAS no way of knowing that it will turn out well, hell, MARISHA has no way of knowing. And so in this fictional game is the truth of a new and quick mentor relationship where there is a level of appreciation and respect for being the one authority figure who listens, couched with the fear of knowing how authority figures tend to act.

I love Caleb’s hypocrisy. Nott accuses him when Yeza was taken – “these are YOUR people”, Caleb throws up and freaks out. Caleb wants to get Dairon involved, constantly tells Beau that she needs to get “your people” involved. Never once considers that Beau might not want to be so tightly linked to the Soul like people assume Caleb is linked to the Assembly. Maybe he considers it fine because she hasn’t abandoned the Soul (except she basically did except for Dairon, at least at this point), but it’s a level of self-centeredness that adds a lot to Caleb’s character. Honestly? I don’t remember if he stops being as hypocritical by the end of the campaign, or if this is a flaw that he continues to have. I THINK he gets better, at least by a good amount?

Also with Caleb – for some reason him acting like he’s the smartest one in the room usually doesn’t rub me the wrong way that Molly and Kingsley do. I’m trying to figure out why, and I think it’s because Molly and Kingsley would act like the smartest by acting like others were stupid, whereas Caleb doesn’t even seem to be thinking about the intelligence level of others? ...that’s a terrible way of describing it. I don’t know! There’s also a good chance that it’s just character bias, or the fact that people are way more willing to call out Caleb being an ass than Molly or Kingsley (one shot spoilers for part one, but notice that no one has called out Kingsley at all yet? Despite him being a massive asshole to Fjord? And pretty flippant to everyone else re: their capabilities? Seriously, with Taliesin it seems that he deliberately designs PCs who need to be called out, and only Marisha seems willing to call him out. Improves in C3, but STILL.)

I really like this map of the Overcrow. It’s not a very complex map, just houses and some exterior items, but it really FEELS good. We’ve had a few exterior maps like this in C3 that haven’t felt as nice. I’m not sure why – if it’s just the angle we’re seeing at it or something different.

...this has GOT to be the episode that Jester turns into a moth, right?

(off topic, but I told my mom that I find Sam sexy when he has a beard, and she doesn’t see it at all. I’m not alone in this, right???)

I actually really enjoy when they all overlap a bit and get confused, it’s the occasional moments that really remind me that this is just a game like any other, just a bit more polished and put on the internet. Sam rolling but then not knowing if he was rolling investigation or stealth because there were like three different things going on a the same time, yup, that’s happened.

CONTROVERSIAL HOT TAKE TIME: I don’t like when Tal has his PCs just show up during other people’s moments when it doesn’t make sense for them to be there. This happened a LOT with Percy and Molly, but every once in a while, Cad hits it too. Like right now. Cad is hopping in through the window after Nott has entered the building sneakily, with all the rest of the party NOT going there, and him not knowing what’s going on. In character, there’s absolutely no reason and also no MOTIVATION for Cad to go in there. It just doesn’t make sense for him as a PC! He never sneaks off on his own or joins Nott for stealthy things, basically just moves with the group when they do. But all of a sudden he’s now jumping in a window that no one else has gone into and hasn’t been confirmed clear? It just feels a lot more like Taliesin than Caduceus, that’s all I’m saying. Luckily, most of the time that Tal does this it’s more for exploratory stuff so usually doesn’t hit the RP or story that hard. It just bugs me. (for clarification purposes, a scene like where Percy ended up killing Vex because Tal didn’t wait for Laura to finish checking for traps? Does NOT fall in this category. The scene where Vex and Vax were upstairs in some building having a conversation about something or other and then Percy interrupts despite not being involved at all and not even in the area, but then claims that he heard over the earrings when they protest that he wasn’t there? DOES fall in this category. Don’t ask me what episode or what it was about though because I have no recollection and searching transcripts isn’t helping. I’ll find it and give my mini-rant when I do my C1 rewatch.)

YESSSS Moth with an intelligence of ONE!!!! Oh, the looks of realization on their faces!!! To be fair to them, they are very used to wildshape from C1 in which the mind is kept, and they really haven’t polymorphed THEMSELVES much yet, only enemies. Before this, it was only Jester as the dire badger digging through the tunnel.

Oh lol after just typing that up they literally bring up themselves how wildshape is different

Holy shit, Jester used her channel divinity to turn invisible!! I swear I thought she only used this once when she was showing it off to Nott, when she didn’t realize that it was only for a few seconds.

Ten hours total for everyone to get a long rest? I’m guessing this is probably the episode where Matt gets spammed with a ton of corrections about how long rests work.

Oh dear, I just realized I’m going from the last one shot (so much combat!) right into combat and then a dungeon crawl. *le sigh* Ah well, not as bad as the last few episodes of the campaign will get. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy combat! Just, when it lasts a long time, I tend to zone out. And the last two/three episodes of the campaign? OOOF. One of the reasons why I struggled at times with C1? SO MANY LONG BATTLES. I’ll have to see if I feel the same after the rewatch of both campaigns, but having seen C2 first and then into C1, I DID feel that C1 had more tense on-the-edge-of-your-seat battles. With C2, and now even into C3, it doesn’t feel the same. I genuinely can’t figure out why, because the combat in C2 and C3 isn’t bad! There’s just as much risk of people dying! I suspect that it’s due to the level discrepancy. C2 is mostly low to mid level combat, C3 is currently in low level combat (only level 7 at the time of me writing). C1? STARTS at level 10 combat and only goes up from there. I mean, look at Kevdak! Level 16! PLUS there were 20 other NPCs in the fight! Vox Machina was between level 13 and 14 at the time, and this was around episode 53. For comparable Mighty Nein? They weren’t between level 13 and 14 until episodes 108-124. This was undead Avantika and Aeor fights. I think people who really worship the C1 combats and are highly dismissive of C2/C3 combats need to realize the immense level difference. (Then again, there’s also just a case of feel. There was a somewhat recent combat in C3 with unexpected outcome, if you know you know, and yet despite what happened and how it went, I still ended up not feeling as intense as the C1 fights? In the moment, I think it was a failure to process what was happening. SIDEBAR, I’m looking forwards to my eventual C3 rewatch, because I DO think that watching it on a weekly basis rather than being able to binge the entire campaign in a go DOES make a difference as to how things feel, especially pacing.)

WOW TANGENT SORRY

and now I’m back from the tangent break, where I made the stupid mistake of trying to stay informed with the news and everything is awful here and there, local and global, and I almost set myself into a panic attack. FML. LET ME DROWN MYSELF IN FICTION.

Oh hey I just noticed Marisha’s wearing a shirt that says “Everything is Awful”. ...YUP

Jester as noble woman demanding her money back, lots of comments are talking about Vex, but I’m assuming in character that this may be influenced by people she met at the Chateau.

Glad that everyone does get a full rest though. I could not remember, was worried that Beau and especially Caleb would be going in with a broken rest.

You know what. I keep wanting to watch this episode, and keep stopping because I don’t have the energy to write. So fuck it, gonna watch the rest of this and if I don’t write any more, that’s fine! TIME FOR ME TO HAVE FUN.

I was about to say I wonder what the payoff was for this dragonborn, because I don’t remember any context for her. Looked it up in the wiki, she dies in the fight. Whoops oh well. Wonder what her role in all of this was.

They REALLY do use “making my way” as a crutch phrase, don’t they? The singing bit (which hasn’t started yet) probably helped them recognize how much they were relying on it and try to diversify their language usage.

I’m feeling very strongly about this being one of the strongest table setups (maybe I would switch Ashley and Taliesin, but I’m not sure, WAIT I KNOW. Switch Sam and Taliesin. THAT I think would be strongest table setup), and a big part of that is the constant casual touches throughout the campaign. Sam and Laura are always poking each other, top table is flailing into each other constantly, Tal and Ashley collapse into each other a few times. It’s hard for me to remember if Travis has as much casual touch with the C3 table layout, I feel not? I feel like the new bottom table is the more touchy one. But yes, I think my ideal table layout for a campaign is Top Left – Travis, Top Middle – Marisha, Top Right – Liam, Bottom Left – Taliesin, Bottom Middle pt1 – Laura, Bottom Middle pt2 – Sam, Bottom Right – Ashley. Yes, this feels good.

They completely forgot that Beau still had an action left here, I wonder how the encounter would have changed once she got inside if she realized she could still attack as well.

Love rewatching the reactions when the Mysterious Drow says “Orphanmaker” and everyone FLIPS OUT. Or rather, Taliesin flips out first, Ashley’s eyes pop open wide, and then Travis and Sam are getting into it while everyone is going ‘oooooooo’

Fjord’s first counterspell!

Stop. Fucking. Hitting. Me. UGH such a great Yasha moment, and perfect Ashley timing.

What is it with the second half of this episode and me having such a struggle watching it??? Basically since they started the stakeout I have just NOT been able to watch this in more than brief chunks. There’s nothing wrong with it, but for some reason I am just Having Issues. I only have half an hour left! But that just feels so hard!

Mmmm, Fjord deception. It’s weird though, because I just watched the reunion recently so the british accent is in my head, even though right now he’s still using texan accent, so it SHOULD feel like a fake accent but my brain is going ‘real’ even though he’s about to drop back into texan again

I got through the rest of it by being zoned out half the time, and looking at my phone. Really really unsure why this was a struggle for me, as it was filled with a lot of fun and is taking us right into the Obann arc.

#critical role #the mighty nein #cr c2 rewatch #man i just petered out at the end because of dumb brain reasons

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