Picture it: The finishing arrives and up steps Tom, he prays to Hespa for a miracle. Out of nowhere a low whistle sounds begins getting closer, then in a surprise to everyone in the party a fridge drops on the monsters head with a note saying "best regards, Zim Zam xx"
It amazes me how they get so emotional when someone dies, but when Quill literally has 2 failed death saves, and - because he died before - all it takes is a single bad dice roll and he’s gone forever, they’re so fucking chill as if he had 100,000hp left or something. Like, i would be shitting myself the instant I’d have to start doing death saves.
Calling it now, Nova's powers have become a combination of Tiang-gong, Harmony and Shansara. (Pretty sure I spelt at least two of those names wrong though)
A great episode. I listened on podcast, and just finished it. Mark's ongoing challenge of creating level 19 encounters has definitely pushed his skills. Must say I was really impressed by his mechanics here, with the armour, and the dynamic resistances. At times it felt a little videogame, but TBF most video games owe plenty to DnD and TTRPG over the years. (Specifically the % health part felt clunky IMO). The challenge was just right, with those solid damage rolls stripping HP at pace. Characters down left and right- great stuff, very exciting, and Quill's 9th level heal was amazing. Can't wait for the next couple of weeks.
The Quest to Catch Up continues! Another video down! Also: Did they stop doing the critical injuries after how mangled Quill got? I only realized now I haven't noticed any recently. Side note: Mark imitating people freaking out is hilarious in 2x speed. 😆
That was an awesome fight! Major props to Mark for coming up with plenty of interesting mechanics while also not making, at least in my opinion, the fight bogged down 👍But also, regarding that ending, I have two things to say... One, what a cliffhanger. And two, to paraphrase Kaz Miller, the DM played us like a damn fiddle! 😛
Now that was an epic battle, PCs nearly dying, NPCs pulverized into mush, crazy healing, teamwork with NPCs, and coordination across different battlefields. Not just a slug fest. More please. MORE STORM CHASER! It should be a main character! 😊😊
Oo a little thing I realized just now. I still loved how he did it but Lucius ignores cold resistances so the 33 cold may have been enough unless the gap between resistant and immune was small. Really glad he didn't take the chance tho 🤣 cos it was fucken awesome
Me hearing a fucking tarrasque is coming for these fools: …well damn, guess we’re never seeing Hadar. On a more serious note, what a perfect moment to implement the mother of all dnd monsters (outside of Tiamat, I guess? Who knows, maybe we’ll get her with Hadar as a pet or something). Well done Hulmes, and good luck Champions of Aerois!
Honestly, taking a look at the tarrasque stat block makes you realize how silly Mark has been with a lot of the encounters up to now. He sets attack bonuses appropriately, and saving throw DCs WAY too high. The Tarrasque only has saves from DC17 to DC20. This thing had DC 24 abilities. Just strictly unsavable most of the time.
@@em688 The Tarrasque is actually the outlier for its power level, most creatures of a CR 20 or above have DCs above 20, the aspect of Tiamat (a creature of the same CR or power lvl as the Tarrasque has DCs of 27), I think the only "problem" Mark did was not setting the DC for escaping a grapple lower, but that would also go against Aila's power fantasy of using brute strength to help her friends Does that mean that most characters that aren't great at those saving throws can never save on those features? Yup and that's one of the many problems of high lvl d&d 5e
@@fire_dog220 I think in a group like this however, with different pcs heavily specializing in different roles, allowing different characters to be accentuated makes for good storytelling
Well I guess It's a good thing they never destroyed Project Vanguard, they might need it. I can already hear the Shin-Godzilla mix of "Decisive battle" in the distance.
Finally! I caught up today. Been blasting these episodes out for a fes months now. In the van to work, at work on Spotify and every opportunity... and now it feels weird that I have to wait for the next episode. A great ep though. Shame the dragons didn't get a turn
Um AksHUally, at 1:20:00, Kim could have used her bonus action to resummon her echo closer to Stonemaw and made all of her attacks from its space Also 3:12:52 Sunbeam blinds targets if they fail the save reeee
Wait...is Nova the new Harmony? Has she been chosen as the new Harmony, and every time she summons her echo and her magic, it channels the elemental magics of her people?
I think Tom is reading mass cure wounds wrong. He keeps saying that he can heal anyone within 60 feet of him, and that's not true. You can cast the spell up to 60 feet away, and 6 creatures in a 30 foot radius of that point are who the spell targets. It's like fireball. You pick a point and it's a radius from where you cast it
Didn't Tom summon elder quill last episode? So when he cast holy weapon and dropped shield of faith due to concentration, that should've stayed up. Unless he already had concentration spell I'm forgetting? Super exciting episode though!!
Imagine how much more difficult this combat would have been if they calculated critical damage correctly with brutal critical. The extra dice aren’t considered part of the normal attacks damage so they shouldn’t be maxed and rolled again
@@TheLegoLord100 a weak feature? On a 1dx weapon it literally doubles the EXTRA (important in the reading of the feature) damage (on average). Going from 1dx to 3dx is massive. Going from 1dx to 5dx is insane. I personally think rage damage should be doubled on crits, too.
@@kyleweir689 it's simple maths really. Brutal critical gives you 1 to 3 extra damage dice on a crit, which itself already has doubled dice. But how much damage does it acrually add on the average swing of the hammer? This is where it could get complex with chances to hit against a vaeiable ac, but luckily, brutal critical only works on a nat 20, and a nat 20 never misses. Aila uses a warhammer she wields two handed, so her damage die is a d10, meaning an average damage up on the base level of brutal critical of 5.5. From lvl 17 onwards it is maxee out at an addition 3 dice, so an average damage of 16.5. However, this is only on a crit, so it only happens 5% of the time on a normal roll, 14% with advantage, 1/400 chance with disadvantage. So the damage Brutal Critical on average actually adds to all swings is a whopping 16.5x0.05=0.825 damage on normal swings, 16.5x0.14=2.31 damage on average on a swing with advantage. Wow. Divine favor, a lvl 1 spell, gives you 1d4 radiant damage extra on every hit. Average damage of a d4 is 2.5. The 3 extra crit dice gained as a LVL 17 BARBARIAN adds less damage on average compared to a lvl 1 spell. Lvl 17, the level that lucius gained lvl 9 magic and the wish spell
Tl;Dr version: getting a +1 to damage is better for your dpr then lvl 17 Brutal critical if you roll normal. Getting a +1d4 to damage is better for your dpr then lvl 17 Brutal critical if you roll with advantage. This is the level full casters get lvl 9 magic. There is a massive gap between martials and spellcasters in 5e. Mark's crit changes make the game more dangerous while, in the long run, favoring martials due to them being basically only attack rolls, while spellcasters use some attack rolls but mostly saving throws. The martials NEED the OP homebrew that Mark brings in order to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the casters, who have OP official material. So if that comes in the way of very strong weapons that add enough dice to create a new diceset or through rules and features that let a barbarian outcrit a paladin (which they should, imo, it's part of their fantasy, and I hope Aila's new lightning explosion on crit is a circle AoE as that is another thing martials lack: all the martials in the party currently have are line attacks that statistically only hit 2 targets, the same amount as their attack actions do), I fully welcome it. This is near highest level dnd, everything should be overpowered, and without homebrew, neither the martials in the parry nor the enemies the party fights would be.
Great great episode. But.. Poor Aila missing those heroic moments she should have had - automatic minimum 25 strength checks for being a L19 Barb. Also for being thrown off a dino because it had to be acrobatics. Aaand temp HP do not stack.
I love how when players get a nat 1 on attack, Mark would have to come up with some copium reason as to why their characters just can't land the hit. "not used to the new weapon", "distracted", "eMOtiONaL DAmaGe." hahaha. I know cause I have to do that when my players roll nat 1's LOL
I have played Warhammer T.T.R.P.G. e1 2 3&4 many times they are all good Excluding e.3. They have never fleshed out magic enough for my liking however.
What is “within reason” though? It not stacking is much easier to interpret/rule on than “well normally it stacks but this instance it doesn’t stack but if you had done xyz it would have”
Trott should have resistance to all damage because of the prismatic ability he used for 6 sorc points plus the abiliity to use his bonus action to do chromatic damage his sorc level plus whatever everyturn. all i have to say about the "Stonemaw" as a dm i understand trying to make a challenging fight while keeping it fresh and engaging especially late game but i have to say it is more broken then a Tarrasque. The ability to gain immunity to damage during a fight it great but think of this in the long run if the players run from the fight that monster is impossible to kill in a second battle since their is a damage threshold for damage types before immunity. the change i would make is very minor but important if "Stonemaw" reachs a threshold for a damage to gain immunity to it it adapts and shifts its immunity to say fire to lightning next would say lightning to cold also changing the abilities it can use as a result even the gods dont have the abiility to become immune to all damage and your telling me a creation of a demigod can. just my two cents. for comparison a ancient red dragon has 22ac Tarrasque has 25ac the higher the ac in dnd the more luck of the dice is needed if your table has a bad roll streak this leads to TPK situations.
Y’all are doing great but, for the love of Siaska, why does not one person on the team review the previous episode before recording? A literal recording of the past episode exists, so how is there a question at the beginning of the next episode about what happened at the end of the last session? With an image of the map, how is the map not set up the same? At the very least, someone on the team should be reviewing the last 10 minutes or the last round of combat of the previous episode prior to the new one to help the team maintain the continuity of the events/story…
