Welcome to Critical Role Demystified, I’m
Mike Christensen and this is the series where I break down the lessons we can learn - as
GMs and as players - from episodes of “Critical Role.” Today we’re tackling episode 51, “Test
of Pride.” And this is going to be a fun one, because unlike most of our episodes, all
of these lessons today will circle the same topic - how to react when your players actually
come up with a pretty good plan! But before we get to the episode, a quick announcement -
we hit 40,000 subscribers a few months ago, and we were going to do a livestream in February
to celebrate, but then I was going through a lot, so I had to postpone. But we’re finally
gonna do that livestream, it’s back on the books for Friday, March 8th at 5pm Pacific.
So come and join us for that livestream! And I’ll probably try to do some more livestreams
throughout March, keep an eye out for those, but this is the big one that I would love to
have you there for. Now, on with the episode. As the game opens, Scanlan asks Kaylie to help
him create a diversion to distract the goliaths who are looking for him. Then the goliaths start
pounding on the temple door and pushing their way through the barricade. Scanlan blows his horn
of fog to obscure the inside of the temple, then he conjures a static image of the severed
head of Grog’s father, Stonejaw Strongjaw, and he gives Kaylie lines to read as Stonejaw’s
scary voice, like a very high-stakes Cyrano. SAM: Quick, say “You idiot,
I am but a projection”. MATT: “You idiot! (laughing)
"I am but a projection!” SAM: The real Stonejaw is
currently outside the main gate, waiting for a battle of revenge
against Zanror. Send him now. LAURA: That's a lot. SAM: I know. Sorry, Kaylee. MATT: “The real Zanror stands outside this city
gate, waiting… For vengeance against Zanror!” SAM: You're doing great, you're doing great! MATT: “Bring him now, or you all shall suffer!” SAM: That last part was improv!
That was amazing, Kaylee! Now, this is a pretty good plan. And Matt just
has the herd members roll to see if they’re fooled or not, probably rolling Insight checks.
Sam didn’t roll anything on his side, so they’re not opposed rolls, so Matt probably just set
a DC that the herd members have to beat. Now, he’s rolling because, while it *is* a good
plan, there still has to be some chance of failure. And the reason he doesn’t have Sam
instead, as a deception roll or something… is because there needs to be some chance
of failure, so Matt didn’t want to deal with Sam’s absurdly high bonus to deception. I’m
kidding, obviously you could do it either way, these are both valid approaches. And I actually
think Matt rolls because it’s more interesting for different herd members to have different
reactions. For example, in this scene there’s a goliath and a bearded human. The goliath just
quickly nods to Stonejaw and dips out, but the bearded human is more suspicious. I don’t know if
they had different DC or different modifiers based on their different life experiences, but whether
or not that’s the case, Matt still felt that there should be separate rolls for each, because
this shouldn’t just be a situation resolved by a single die roll on the player’s part. I would
still be so curious to know what DCs Matt set, but there’s only so much I can comment upon
because of the format of Critical Role. Matt also had a lot of power here because he’s also playing
Kaylie, and Kaylie’s doing the voice of Stonejaw, so he’s in control of what she says, which
means he’s in control of the goliaths hear. SAM: The main gate, the main gate! MATT: “The main gate.” SAM: Wow! MATT: “There's like four gates
into the city. Which main gate?” SAM: I don't know, do I know what it looks like? MATT: The western one.
SAM: The western gate, the western gate! MATT: “The western gate!”
(laughing) “Right, right, I'll let him know.” And he just leaves. Doesn't
even touch the door, he just bolts out the back. It seems like Matt is in such a strange situation
here, in so much control over whether or not this plan succeeds. But that’s actually kind of
always true when you’re running any session. As Game Masters, we always have an unfair amount
of control over whether or not the players’ plans succeed. Not only do we know more than they ever
could about the scenario, but we can also change anything we want about the scenario at the drop
of a hat to make it more interesting and dramatic. And ideally you won’t abuse that authority just
to screw the players over - that’s the kind of behavior I’m referring to when I say “Play
fair” at the end of every one of my videos, I’m talking about not using your power to just
win any scenario. But I also think it *is* reasonable to adjust your plans to make sure the
situation remains dramatic and engaging for the players - we’ll see something along those lines
a bit later in this episode. But this *is* a good plan. It plays off of the research the cast
has done into the psychology of the goliaths, through questioning Horace, doing recon on the
town, and asking Grog lots of questions about his past. But it also integrates material from
*way* back in their campaign. They fought the undead Stonejaw Strongjaw back in their second
session ever. And I think Matt really likes it when his players incorporate details from
the history of their game, when they dig into their resources and their deep lore like this
and find solutions to their current problems. Anyway, the herd members leave, presumably to go
deliver this message. Dr. Dranzel urges Scanlan to help evacuate these survivors, so Scanlan decides
they should sneak everyone out through the sewers. And I think it’s interesting that Matt has Dranzel
say, “Hey, we need to evacuate these people.” You could argue he’s doing this to help provoke Sam
into action, or to give him an excuse to reunite with the other members of Vox Machina outside the
city - but there’s also some relevant details to Dr. Dranzel’s backstory that might play a role.
This will not be a spoiler for the rest of this campaign, it never ends up being relevant,
but we do learn in the “Tal’dorei” campaign book that Dr. Dranzel is secretly a member of
the Golden Grin, an anonymous faction of good guys. We’ll talk another day about the factions of
Tal’dorei, but I get the sense that Matt already knew this about Dr. Dranzel, and that’s why
Dranzel is encouraging Scanlan to do the right thing here. Although, if Dr. Dranzel was secretly
a Robin Hood-style figure, it seems a bit strange that he couldn’t make a more compelling case
to the party to rob General Krieg’s house at the beginning of the Chroma Conclave arc, but
you know what? That’s neither here nor there. We cut back to the party as they prepare for
some goliaths to burst out of the city. Also, Grog realizes that his whole plan to “come back
from the dead” may not work… because Zanror knows he’s alive. They crossed paths with him right
before Kraghammer, he sort of forgot about that. Anyway, nothing they can do about that now. The
herd members rush out the gate, and they see Grog across the field. Grog actually pretends to be
the undead Stonejaw Strongjaw, so he’s basically adapting his plan to get the effect he was going
for - pretend a goliath has come back from the dead and see how these herd members react. And
he knew Scanlan was potentially going to use Stonejaw as a distraction, so it is just barely
metagaming for him to pretend to be Stonejaw here, it still works. A few goliaths rush forward, and
all but a few of them fall almost 200 feet into these pits. However, a giant eagle attacks Keyleth
from the air and flies away - that was weird. But a few goliaths are still on their feet, so we
go into an encounter, but it is pretty quick, and just gives Grog a chance to stunt on a few
folks who are a lot weaker than him. Again, Matt knows that the players had a good plan, so he’s
kind of just letting them execute it, and letting them enjoy this successful result. There’s still a
chance of this plan failing, which is why some of the goliaths get a chance to roll before falling
into the pit - and he also throws a few curveballs at the party, thus the giant eagle, which they’ll
have to deal with a little bit later. But speaking generally, this is a cakewalk, because it seems
like Matt thought it was a pretty decent plan. However, after the fight, Keyleth flies
over the city and sees the herd members pulling sobbing civilians out of their
homes and dragging them toward the town square. It seems the herd has a
plan for an incident like this. This is one example of what I was referring
to earlier - Matt just changed the situation to make it more dramatic. But he did so
diegetically - the situation is changing because the villains themselves are reacting
to the heroes’ presence and their actions. And this is a useful lesson - your bad guys can and
should react to the thing your heroes do. Now, we hear that piece of advice all the time in
this hobby, and it’s easier said than done. Sure, you probably understand that bad guys
*should* react, but how *do* your bad guys react? So this is an excellent example
that we can learn from. We’ll see exactly what they’re doing with the civilians in a
little bit, but basically, they want hostages, because they know the good guys are here,
and the hostages can be useful as leverage. We cut back to Scanlan, who casts Seeming on his
group of survivors to make them look not like goliaths, but like mangy humans and half-orcs,
like the kind who might have been in the other tribe that the Herd of Storms absorbed. They
step out of the temple - and almost immediately, they get spotted by a couple of herd members.
Now, Matt is not doing this to thwart Sam’s plan, because it *is* a good plan. But Matt does still
want to challenge it, to put it to the test. Now, in some scenarios, you might just say, “Well,
all the herd members know each other, so they would know that anybody they didn’t recognize was
an imposter.” And there are some scenarios where I do think that works. I've done that before when
I didn’t think it was reasonable that the heroes could pretend to be new faces when entering an
existing enemy ecosystem. But Sam was smart - he chose to mask his survivors as the members of the
*other* tribe, the ones that the goliaths wouldn’t know as well. And while that isn’t foolproof
and doesn’t completely solve the problem we were just talking about, it was basically his
best effort to solve that problem, since the goliaths would *definitely* all know each other
- Vox Machina’s entire plan for Grog’s dramatic return hinges on the fact that the goliaths in
this herd all recognize each other. Additionally, since Seeming can’t change your height by more
than a foot, Scanlan knows it’s going to be a lot easier to mask these villagers as non-goliath
herd members, otherwise they might be on the small side for goliaths. But anytime your players
pull the “pretend to be stormtroopers” plan, you don’t just have to give them an easy time of it -
because while their disguise may be seamless, they probably don’t know any of the
protocols or current mission objectives. MATT: “We need you to the west gate!” And
he kind of steps up. “Who's your watcher?” I think this is Matt’s way of making this scenario
make sense. You can argue that the herd members would all know each other so this plan would
be immediately doomed to fail, but instead, Matt finds a nice middle ground, where the
players can still potentially succeed. This NPC doesn’t think it’s strange that there are
herd members he doesn’t recognize - but he does still ask them to give him a name he would know,
*because* there are no herd members here that he recognizes. Obviously, Sam does not know the
appropriate response. He doesn’t know what a “watcher” is in this context. And that’s the
point. You don’t just say, “Oops, you fail, womp womp” - but you do challenge them in another
way, so this part isn’t a cakewalk. It would be boring if they just walked to the sewer entrance
with no issues, so this just helps spice it up and keep things dramatic. And it invites
the players to make interesting choices. SAM: I step forward and say,
“He was killed by that gnome.” MATT: “Gnome? Where'd you see it?” SAM: Right in the center of town.
He was a scary undead gnome, and he's roaming about. Kevdak
sent us to search for him.” MATT: Make a deception check. (groans) SAM: 19. MATT: 19! TALIESIN: So ugly. So, your players respond with their lie, in
this case Sam does a good job of basically dodging the question about the Watcher. But
once again, because Sam didn’t roll *amazing*, Matt keeps putting the pressure on him. He
doesn’t say, “Oops, this guy has now figured out that you’re the gnome posing as a goblin and
using an illusion to disguise the other survivors as half-orcs, womp womp,” because that would be
way too strong of a leap of logic. But he does borrow a page from “The Return of the King.”
When Sam and Frodo pose as orcs in Mordor, they don’t get found out immediately
- they get drafted into the orc army. MATT: “Center of town, aye? Well then, you should probably come with us,
then. See if we can swarm it.” SAM: If I may, if I may actually,
(laughing) Kevdak said to follow the gnome, and he ran this way. I'm sorry,
we have to follow Kevdak's orders. MATT: Make another deception
check with disadvantage. MARISHA: Oh, no! TRAVIS: Come on, baby. LIAM: “Gotta get there before they
run out of cucumber sandwiches!” MARISHA: Come on, come on. SAM: Same thing! 19. MATT: He goes, “All right, we'll
send a few more men your way.” TRAVIS: Oh, fuck. MATT: “Stay on that trail! If I see you again, and you ain't got a dead gnome in your hands,
I'm gonna cut that head from its shoulders.” SAM: All right, you have my word,
we're gonna do– see ya later! (laughing) MATT: “Strange one, keep an eye on him."
And the two of them head back as one of them just kind of keeps their distance behind
you guys, following you as you travel. Again, it’s just enough pressure that feels
reasonable, and that Scanlan can conceivably handle, but not so much that it feels like you,
as the GM, are deliberately trying to undermine the player. Sam made a good plan, but it’s hardly
a flawless plan, so this would be a reasonable consequence. Now, Matt is really good at this,
but if you’re not sure where the line is for what’s reasonable, that’s okay - it’s something
you will get better at with time. But I do think looking at examples like this is useful to see
what it looks like when you get the balance right. They come to the sewer grate and they
start sneaking into the sewers - but one of those herd members followed
the party, and I’m not really sure Sam realized that they were literally right
behind them, following and watching. In fact, *I* didn’t even realize it at first, I missed that
detail when Matt said it. But Matt did, in fact, say it. He said they were being followed,
so now somebody has some questions for them. MATT: Dranzel and Kaylee are helping get the
peasants down inside first, at which point the one that was following you guys turns the
corner in the alleyway and starts approaching from behind. This is the guy with the long black
and gray beard. “You, where are you going?” SAM: That gnome again. One of us saw
him go down this sewer. We're following. MATT: “I'm gonna have to go back
and report this. I don't trust it.” SAM: Hold on one second! And I'm
gonna cast Hold Person on him. Sam fails to hold this herd member, but
Kaylie is able to cast Sleep on him and knock him out. Scanlan tells Kaylie and Dranzel
to go into the sewers and protect the refugees, but he’s going to stay in the city
until this is all dealt with - and then he scampers off before
this herd member can wake up. Now, fun fact - as Keyleth was flying over, she
spotted Scanlan’s group of fake herd members - but when she rolled an insight check to figure out
what their deal was, she rolled really low, so she also did not recognize them. So she comes
back to Vox Machina, and credit to Marisha for not metagaming here, she basically says, “Hey, there’s
a group coming our way, I don’t trust it, I think we should get out of here before they show up.”
And given what little information the characters have, the group concludes that Scanlan may have
been captured along with the other civilians. Once again, excellent reverse-metagaming. But
before they can do anything, those two giant eagles attack again, and Matt drops the rest of
Vox Machina back into initiative. Vex shoots one eagle in the air and it transforms into an elf -
and then just plummets out of the sky. So, these are the druids they were warned about in the last
episode. Percy is able to shoot the other one out of eagle form, and that one also drops. Scanlan
meets up with them at this point just inside the city, and Grog confirms that those hostages were
taken to serve as meat-shields - if the goliaths see Vox Machina approaching, they’ll start killing
folks. And then… the party starts discussing going to Wilhand’s house, or going to Master Quall’s
house. And it’s not until Keyleth asks, “Hey, will those goliaths just keep the hostages
indefinitely, or will they eventually start getting twitchy and kill people,” and Grog confirms
that the goliaths aren’t known for their patience, that’s when they realize they have to go to the
center of town *now*. But I think that moment is really interesting. Because, frankly, it’s kind
of insane that Vox Machina discusses going to look for some slight tactical advantages when there are
hostages with their lives on the line. But I think we can take this as a signal that the players are
just really apprehensive about this fight with Kevdak still. So they start sliding into analysis
paralysis, because they want to do whatever they can to stack the deck in their favor… or maybe
just stall. They don’t even really believe they have a good justification for going to Wilhand’s
house - I mean, he *is* a cleric so it might be helpful, but he’s either safe in his house or
he’s a hostage in the town square, so it would be a meaningless trip - but they still discuss
going to see if he’s okay, because, realistically, that *is* what their characters would want to do.
But they can’t keep putting this Kevdak fight off any longer, and even if one person snuck out
to Wilhand’s house, it would cost resources for them to get there and bring Wilhand back,
and Wilhand would just be in more danger than he is right now. They talk about it for a while,
but Pike eventually relents and says that Wilhand is not more important than all of the innocent
people in the town square. But interestingly, Matt doesn’t say anything in this scene to nudge
them one way or the other - they just almost talk themselves into a delay, and then talk themselves
back out of it. And I don’t know if there's a lesson here, other than to say that this is
perfectly understandable player behavior. You’ll probably see your players get analysis paralysis
when they’re preparing to face a severe threat. But if you've already done the work to make your
villains feel reactive and organic - like real people who won’t just wait for the heroes to
arrive in town, but instead like they might just start killing hostages if they get antsy -
then hopefully your players will pick up on that, like these players do here. They do decide to
hide in a building and take a short rest so Keyleth can recover her wild shapes, because
an hour is a more reasonable amount of time to take. Then they’ll sneakily follow Grog as he
challenges Kevdak in the center of town - because he believes that showing up *will* get Kevdak’s
attention without getting the hostages killed. It’s still their best plan. And if the battle goes
badly or the goliaths start killing hostages, then they’ll jump in. So they cast some buff spells and
inspiration, and then Grog has his cowboy moment. TRAVIS: I reach into my Bag of Holding
and I pull out my trusty salt lick rock, and I kneel down to Pike. I say,
“Hey, hold this for me, all right?” ASHLEY: Okay. TRAVIS: Yeah. Just keep it safe,
I don't like getting blood on it. ASHLEY: But listen. I can't
lose you twice in one day, okay? TRAVIS: Oh, no, I'm not going anywhere. We're just going to meet some really bad folks
and we're gonna set 'em straight. It feels like it’s straight out of a Western,
I love it. Hey - Western. Westruun. Is that anything? … No. Grog sets off, and he pretty
quickly runs into a few non-goliath barbarians - and rolls a natural 20 to convince them to
escort him to the town square, as Vox Machina sneaks behind. But it’s not just the natural 20 -
it’s also that he makes a really decent argument. MATT: They look at each other and begin
to walk forward, drawing their weapons. TRAVIS: Oh, lads, lads, no need for that.
I've traveled quite a long way. See, I'm part of a ranging party for Kevdak.
It's very important that I see him. You see, we're family. Now, you can either take
me to him, or I can drag you to him. “Kevdak, you say? Family, you say?" TRAVIS: Don't make me repeat myself. And as these goons walk with him,
he continues to needle at them, undermining their confidence in Kevdak. TRAVIS: As I was approaching this city, I saw
a dragon fly over. Picked up one who looked just like me and flew away. What's
it like being the bitch of a dragon? As Vox Machina follows Grog, Pike causes some
noise, so a few barbarians go to check it out, and Vox Machina quietly executes them.
Scanlan uses Mythcarver against one of them, something he has no idea how to do,
he’s never done a physical attack with a weapon before. This is the first use
of Mythcarver. The first of many, I’m sure. As those barbarians go missing and
Vox Machina continues to roll not very well on stealth - thanks to Pike -
Grog’s escort party sends more folks to check out the suspicious goings-on. But again,
Grog keeps trying to keep their focus on him. TRAVIS: Good lord, you're awful jumpy.
See, when I was last with this herd, the mates that I ran around with weren't so
quick to jump and hide behind their mother's skirts. Keep your attention focused on me,
son. We've got important dealings to meet with. MATT: “You hold here, Goliath.” TRAVIS: No. No, I don't think I
will. But I tell you what, you make the choice. Walk me to Kevdak
or go check out your little spook fest. Grog knows exactly what he needs to say to
provoke these NPCs, because their entire culture is steeped in toxic masculinity.
So he questions their strength as warriors, he implies that they’re cowards, he
emasculates them. And it works. Sure, he’s not able to keep all of the barbarians on
him - they keep sending some more members of this escort team to go check out those sounds, because
Matt needs to produce some sort of consequence for Vox Machina’s poor stealth rolls. But
Grog is still able to get what he wants, because he is really good at getting
under the skin of these herd members. Vox Machina eventually just splits off rather than
keep causing issues for Grog by following directly behind, though again, Pike rolls terrible stealth
as they’re trying to retreat, thanks to her armor. Matt mentions that Pike had commissioned some
silent heavy armor from Gilmore and never picked it up, and Ashley didn’t remember that at all
- because of course she didn’t, she hasn’t been playing since she ordered it. Like, I get what
Matt is doing, he’s implying that this is an issue she had tried to solve before but didn’t have a
chance, but I honestly might’ve reminded her about this armor back in episode 37 or 38, when she
was back in Emon but it hadn’t been devastated by dragons yet, because it’s kind of not on Ashley
to remember that detail given the extenuating circumstances around her not being able to be
at the table. When a player is not able to make the time they normally could make to play, then
you kind of do need to give them a bit of extra help when they come back. But because she never
picked up that silent armor, she keeps rolling garbage on her stealth. And bringing it up now -
while it’s not how he intends it - it just kinda salts the wound in a way I think is unnecessary
and maybe unfair. I honestly think this is why almost no other main cast members ever again roll
up a character with heavy armor for the rest of the show. Anyway, thanks to that very bad stealth
roll, some more barbarians come sniffing around to see what’s going on, but Vox Machina is able
to hide and avoid the patrol, although Keyleth does have to use her wild shapes to become an air
elemental. So she’s going to have to stick in that air elemental form, otherwise she will have wasted
her wild shapes before the Kevdak conflict even starts. But the barbarians eventually move on,
and Vox Machina follows at a greater distance. As Grog arrives in the town square, he sees
peasants being held hostage by the barbarians. He also runs into Greenbeard, a goliath
herd member who is elderly, he’s a seer, he has some sort of weird moss-like
green fungal infection on his neck, thus the name. And Greenbeard starts to order
Grog’s execution - but then Grog makes his pitch: TRAVIS: You know what I remember? I remember
a herd that nations used to part for, I remember a herd that towns used to quake and run from, I
remember a herd that was so proud and dangerous, they would never hole up in a shit-stick city like
this. But what do I see when I come here? Kevdak prancing up in a place like this and what, bending
the knee to a dragon? How far you have fallen. MATT: (laughs evilly) “You sound like
your cousin, Zanror. The two of you enjoy a night drinkin' in the hole. But sure,
you want to go ahead and talk to the big man. Let's see you say that to his face before
he crushes it. Call him out. Thunder Lord! Real quick, when Greenbeard mentioned Zanror, and how he and Grog could enjoy a night
“drinkin’ in the hole,” that was foreshadowing, that was a clue for Zanror’s current
situation. More on that next episode. Anyway, after Greenbeard calls out to
him, Kevdak emerges from the balcony of the Margave’s mansion. Kevdak says that he
thought Zanror was lying when he said Grog was alive. I wonder if that’s something Matt
added or retconned because he had Horace the goliath say “You’re supposed to be dead”
when he saw Grog a couple episodes back, but now that Grog has realized the herd should
know he’s alive, Matt essentially has to make that continuity match. And it’s a pretty clean
solution, they thought Zanror was lying. Again, Kevdak talks down to Grog, but Grog is able
to say all the right things to provoke Kevdak. TRAVIS: I've grown, I've learned. I've also
watched as dragons took the mighty Kevdak, wielder of the Titanstone Knuckles, and
made him bend the knee. I was wondering, do you also squat when you piss now? MATT: There are a few chuckles, that are
immediately silenced at the realization. “If you pick a fight that you can't win,
history won't remember a blood smear on anyone's boot. The dragon was a stage. I've
not bent the knee like you think I have, I've merely let it co-exist for the
time being. But let's just say that dragon's days are numbered. But it's a
shame that you won't be around to see. TRAVIS: Oh, fancy words for what I hear as
surrender. But that's all right, I've always believed the world is what we make of it, and
you've shown me exactly who you are. You've shown this herd exactly who you are and what they
can expect: to live a nice domesticated life, where the booty runs dry, where the women are
scarce, where I'm sure there are plans this very minute to unseat you from your high horse.
But I've come to do them a favor, they're not going to get that chance. You and me. I challenge
you to single combat for the pride of this herd. Now, only members of the herd can
issue a challenge - because rationally, you don’t just drop into one-on-one
combat with anybody who challenges you, and potentially handing over the herd to
some strangers. But Vox Machina’s whole plan hinges on one-on-one combat with Kevdak.
And they’ve been talking about this plan for several episodes now. And quite frankly,
given the scenario going on in Westruun, a one-on-one combat with Kevdak for the leadership
of the herd *is* their best option. So Matt offers a justification for why this plan will work.
It’s a contrivance, but it also doesn’t seem like something Kevdak would have said if Travis
hadn’t chosen the right words to provoke someone like Kevdak, who finds all of his value in
his masculinity. So Kevdak takes the bait. MATT: “For the purposes of this bout,
let it be known that Grog Strongjaw is a temporary member of the herd. But the
moment his lifeless corpse hits the stone, he will be stripped of any
honor and fed to the wolves.” And then Matt calls for someone
to “fetch the town square.” Because Matt has been leveling up
his maps, and so the town square is much more elaborate. Kevdak pulls out
a red battle-axe called the Bloodaxe, and then slams his Titanstone Knuckles
together and doubles in size. Which, considering those Vestiges are intended for
Grog, is a really cool power to give Grog… if he can earn those in this fight. Then the
party places themselves wherever they want to be so they can be ready to jump into the fray…
and then Grog and Kevdak roll for initiative. Grog uses his first turn to attempt
Intimidating Presence - and it works, Kevdak can’t move closer to him. Travis has been
trying to use this power on someone for ages, so he basically says he just wanted it to work on
somebody before the end. Kevdak rages, and a bear tattoo lights up among his other tattoos. Because
he’s a path of the totem warrior barbarian. And here, they just start swinging on each other.
We’re not gonna go round-by-round, it’s a very tense scene but it’s a bit reduced by watching
people do math, and certainly it’s not going to be compelling to watch me describe their rolls and
turn-by-turn moves. So here are the highlights: Grog’s attacks don’t do as much damage as he would
like, thanks to Kevdak’s special rage. So he tries to disarm Kevdak and take away his Bloodaxe, but
he fails. Kevdak drives Grog into the spikes on the side of the town square, impaling Grog
and restraining him. Grog pulls himself off, but Kevdak is able to disarm him, because Kevdak
has levels in battle master fighter. So he keeps moving Grog around the battlefield - and he
keeps landing these powerful hits, so Grog is taking some damage. They’re in combat for about 15
minutes of real time, which is *not* a lot of time in 5th Edition D&D, especially at this level. And
then Grog finally pulls out his ace in the hole: TRAVIS: I'm going to look at
Kevdak and drop my arms to my side. MATT: It's already on your
side actually. He disarmed you. TRAVIS: No, not my arms. MATT: Oh, your arms, okay. TRAVIS: Straight down. And I'm going
to say, “Clearly I've been a fool. You are truly a foe to be reckoned with.”
And I will slowly drop to my knees. SAM: (gasps) (quietly) No, no, Grog. TRAVIS: And I will shout out:
“Vox Machina! Fuck shit up!” (cheering) MATT: And we're going to go
ahead and end it there this week. (loud exclamations) It's 11 o'clock guys! So, that brings us to the end of the
episode, but we also do get to hear a little bit of Travis’ thoughts based on the
fight so far - and we get a lesson here! LAURA: Dude. TRAVIS: I was not expecting that.
LAURA: He was so much more powerful than what… TRAVIS: Yeah, I was not expecting that. MARISHA: He's so big. SAM: I think you can take him.
TALIESIN: We'll figure it out. TRAVIS: I think it's going well.
SAM: I think you can take him. TRAVIS: I think we've got
him right where I want him. MARISHA: Just five more
minutes, five more minutes. MATT: Yeah, that's rough. Where
are you at hit points wise? TRAVIS: 133. SAM: You're fine, you could
go for another six rounds! MARISHA: You're at 133 out of your total? TRAVIS: 201. (groaning) SAM: He's fine, he's fine. TRAVIS: I'm doing *nothing* to him. TALIESIN: That's true, you haven't done a thing.
MARISHA: That's true. ASHLEY: Has he done any damage to him at all? SAM: Yeah, a little. MATT: Yeah, Grog's done 34 points of damage. LAURA: Wow, out of like 500 hit points probably. MATT: There's different paths to a
barbarian, there's the frenzy path, which is all about damage, there's the totem path, which totem of the bear means you're half
damage for everything except psychic damage. LAURA: Grog, quick, be psychic. (laughter) MATT: Good luck with that, guys. But yeah,
this is where that totem really shines. LIAM: If I steal your Kevdak
mini, he can't be killed. SAM: That's true. MATT: I've got four. (laughter) Not really. So, my first thought was, “Wow, Matt just told
them a lot of information” - because that *is* something we’re going to talk about in a few
upcoming episodes down the road. There will be some times when Matt will give the cast a lot
of info right at the end of a session so they can know what’s coming in the next fight, and I’m
really excited to discuss those, they’re going to be some really lessons there. But then I realized,
no, actually, in this case, he didn’t really give them any information they didn’t already have.
Or rather, he didn’t give them any information they *couldn't’* have already had. He told them
what subclass Kevdak uses - well, one of them, the fact that he’s also a battle master was
already pretty clear - and he told them how many hit points he was down. Now, that feels like
a lot of information because Matt does not usually do that. But then again, it’s not that often
that they fight a villain, and then call the session right before fighting them again, so this
is somewhat of a special scenario. But also… the cast could’ve figured out the hit points thing if
they had been tracking the damage Grog was dealing and then just cutting it in half - because Matt
was being very clear that Kevdak was not taking full damage from those strikes, so they could’ve
accurately guessed that he’s been taking half damage. And as for the subclass - well, setting
aside the fact that they all have the Player’s Handbook and all of them can look up the barbarian
subclasses, let’s not forget that Matt has already been telegraphing this information specifically
so they can know it. That’s why the bear tattoo lit up when Kevdak raged - so his players would
know he’s a totem warrior. Now, he could’ve just not said anything after the session, but this *is*
something they could’ve figured it out on their own, either during this session or in between
sessions. And now they don’t have to worry or wonder whether or not that would be considered
metagame knowledge. And besides, everyone at Twitter is already going to fill their replies
with messages about how Kevdak is a totem warrior, so they’ll find out one way or another. And in this case,
now the party does not have to feel like they’re being spoiled by the audience - because
they’ve already heard this from Matt. Now, your players probably don’t have an audience watching
your games and tweeting at them in between sessions, but even still, I do think we can still
see the virtue of what Matt is doing here. He’s pulling back the curtain *just* a bit and letting
them know, “Yeah, you can talk about what you’ve figured out about Kevdak - it’s not metagaming,
because I wanted you to know this about him.” And if you’re going to give character class levels to
your NPCs and villains - something I’m personally not wild about, but it’s a very common technique
for Matt to use in his 5th Edition games - well, this is one of the advantages of that. You’re
establishing a shared language that your players can use to strategize. Matt fully told them,
“Kevdak is resistant to everything but psychic damage,” so the party starts talking about ways
they can potentially deal psychic damage. Sure, it’s a joke right now, but it’s still a legitimate
discussion they can have before the next session. And now you’ve given them a fighting chance
against what is about to be a really intense challenge. So when you let them in on this sort
of information, it gives them a fighting chance, and it makes them feel better prepared for this
upcoming encounter. And it’s not giving them an advantage they couldn’t conceivably have if
they were a different type of player who had perused the other subclasses between games or
had been tracking Kevdak’s damage across this battle. Again, this is a way Matt is playing
fair. And his players are going to need every advantage they can potentially get. Because
what’s gonna happen next… is anyone’s guess. MATT: Please do come back next
week, because this shit's going to be crazy. (laughter) You're
not going to want to miss this. Well, it’s not gonna be next week for us, but
in two weeks, we’re gonna talk about episode 52: “the Kill Box.” This is honestly one of my
favorite encounters in the Vox Machina campaign, it’s so dynamic and exciting, I have no idea how
I’m gonna make a video about an episode that is so heavily weighted toward combat, but I do know we
are still gonna have a lot to talk about - so much that Matt literally went live on Periscope the
day after this next episode to answer questions from the fans, sort of like a proto-Talks Machina,
because this wound up being quite the episode. So come back here for some lessons about that episode
in two weeks. I also want to give a shout-out to some folks who sent me some gifts off of my
Amazon wishlist! Christopher K. sent me the Ultimate RPG Game Master’s Worldbuilding Guide by
James D’Amato, the Pathfinder Player Core book, the Mighty Nein Origins comic about Yasha, and
this pad of graph paper - it was on my list, it’s for a video about the different ways
to do maps at your table. Thank you so much, Christopher! I also got a couple gifts
that did not have a name attached, I got two more Critical Role books - I got
the comic about the Bright Queen, and the Nine Eyes of Lucien tie-in novel. If you sent me those,
please let me know so I can thank you properly! I am planning to make videos about all of these
book in the future, but I also have a sneaking suspicion that some of these will be among the
first books I read to my child once they’re born. If you want to support this channel, there are
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good, and then it gets shared with more people, which really helps a lot. You can help me take
this series weekly by visiting my Patreon or signing up for a YouTube Membership. Don’t
forget about the YouTube livestream coming up on March 8th at 5pm Pacific, it should be
a really fun time. Join my Discord server to hang out with other awesome people, and sign up
for my newsletter to keep up with my updates. If you want to hear me talk about other games besides
D&D, check out this video here about “Shadowdark,” it’s a ton of fun, things got very weird in that
video. Until next time, play fair, and have fun!
