Not a Smiley Day | Critical Role Episode 91 Highlights and Funny Moments 

I was just about to do okay and then I read this. That's beautiful. Damn you.

Such a dad tone, too.

I feel so bad for FRIDA. Effective immortality sucks when the boyfriend you were supposed to spend it with blew himself out.

I always knew it was gonna be fcg giving up his life for his friends … at first I thought it was cause he thought he was lesser. But it was still very well played as always by Sam.

I don't believe he disliked the character. She was always meant to be a persistent, deadly enemy. This is the 2nd time she alone nearly wiped the party. He's giving FCG's sacrifice the gravitas it deserves.

Normally I'd believe that, but this fight was awful. 9 years. There have been some really rough episodes, some fights that were absolute slogs. There have been lots of mistakes. There have been some really questionable decisions. This is the first time I would ever say, this was bad DMing. He built a broken, way too overpowered character and threw her at a party that was already half down, with no avenue for escape. This was a slaughter. The only question was how many would die, whether or not it would be a TPK.

@@jonathanhibberd9983 It was not bad DMing (come on, man). And Otohan was not overpowered, she was merely VERY challenging and these guys were underestimating her. They had plenty things to use against her and they decided not to prepare properly for the fight, even despite saying pre-campaign that they wanted to be challenged (and boy, did Matt deliver). For example, they tried way too hard to force attack rolls (which in second phase was NOT the best move since she had 25 AC), Imogen wasted a WHOLE ROUND on Sending and tried, of all spells, SHOCKING GRASP against her and never moved away (like, come the hell on, Otohan had NO REACTIONS) and the last two rounds they were discussing running away instead of plain focusing on damage. Plus, Ashton didn't stay on melee range either when he went down (which was also not good). So I blame it more on them not taking Otohan seriously and less on Matt making Otohan work as intended.

@@DiscoSamurai Let's examine it, shall we. Major problems: Ashton collapsing the tunnel not having any effect. "I collapse the tunnel." "Ok, there's another one right next to it, and she's right on top of you." Bullshit. Your player did something smart, reward that. Have her delay getting there so there's a chance of escape. Or have it collapse on top of her so she takes damage. He threw a fully rested level 20 character against exhausted level 13 characters. Being so much lower is already a disadvantage. Being down in abilities and health is even more so. He gave her a weapon and abilities that, with their level disparity, means that she is always going to hit, always going to knock them down, giving her advantage on every subsequent attack, and always going to do significant damage. With her abilities, she minimum does 130 damage per round, with a max of 312. A tarrasque only does 98 minimum, with a max of 358 per round. Even at minimum damage, takes down at least one, maybe 2 characters per round. Despite all that, they were holding their own. This was a battle of attrition, and they were managing to stay slightly ahead of her. So Matt brings out this ridiculous exultant mode. 25 AC - which is the same as a tarrasque resistance to all damage - a tarrasque has a limited list of resistances restoration of action surges, giving her back her 12 attacks per round (4 base attacks, 4 surge attacks, 1 bonus attack, and 3 legendary actions) - a tarrasque has 8 with its multi-attack and 3 legendary actions. And again, despite being unhittable, undamageable, and able to down 1-2 characters per turn, they STILL held their own in this battle of attrition. If that had been it, they probably would have been able to down her through conventional means. Maybe they lose someone, maybe not, but it would have been, if not a fair fight, at least not ridiculously broken. Then Matt breaks out a homebrew potion that has twice the healing dice of the biggest potion in the game. It undid half the damage they had done that fight with one potion. This was a broken, overpowered, badly DMed battle. If anyone else were to describe this battle on a forum, you absolutely would say they fucked up.

@@jonathanhibberd9983 According to the step by step analysis of the fight, I still do not think it was "badly DM'ed" as you so desperately want to claim. They did poorly despite WANTING a deadly challenge and, because of their own fuck ups, Sam decided to blow FCG up. Sure, it didn't help Matt rolled high on certain things, but they were NOT ready for the deadly encounter they so desired. A sorcerer does NOT stay in melee ranged after a Shocking Grasp and Ashton should have stayed in front all the time. Plus, Passwall was used with the staff and they couldn't use it either. Matt didn't fuck up, they did. As such, the consequences of their actions bit hard and it showed. Next time, plan a strategy instead, specially when you're going against someone like her (and who you know is gonna be deadly).

exactly the quote I was thinking

And then there is Chiaotzu...poor little Pokemon...

I like to think that, of the pieces of FCG that survived, the piece that said “Faithful” in Faithful Care Giver definitely did.

YESSS! The BEST fucking quote for this!

He loves that SHIT

I always enjoy how Travis just loves the chaos and seeing the other people shine in their moments. " do you have this", was such a wait, is this an ability you have or something off the fly you trying

Because he's having fun playing an epic game.

That and his character was already down, so he wasn't mentally in-character seeing his friend die. He was a player watching his friend come up with an incredible story beat.

Travis' high on emotional damage

Opposite. Travis said it's 100 (triple 0s) that will kill Chetney. Closest he's come is like 96.

Its more like a moomoo milk

They only had that 1 chance and fcg took it …I’m going to go cry some more.

bells hells already returned to exandria with all 7 still alive. he does not.

remember the portal with the water? when they tried to rest off of ruidus? that was exandria.

He did say they were close a few times to finishing her, but ANY DM would've ignored the numbers at that point, whatever he rolled for it would've been enough

I think if this was a normal death there could be the chance of bringing him back, but the sacrifice makes that unlikely I think.

@@TheeSweetboy I know, I just want to live in my little fantasy. This sucks so much.

FCG is also my favorite, but I hope they don’t bring him back. I like the idea of him having died not only after reaching a conclusion to his “am I machine?” thesis, but also saving all of his friends.

@@SevillaLorenzo-kd2ef I guess that is true. Wonder what Sam's new character will be.

They way Matt was asking Sam if he was sure what it meant to go out the way he was doing it makes me believe that Matt wanted to confirm and convey "there is no coming back from this, there won't be anything to come back to".

Campaign is almost over. I cant imagine him coming back at this point. Hes out for at least 4 to 6 weeks assuming the campaign has 6 months left in it. 🤷‍♂️

no way is he out for good, and also idk why but i get the feeling that matt has a trick up his sleeve after ruidis. no way is predathos the end of this campaign.

I have a feeling he’ll reprise an old character from another campaign. Of course, could overshadow what the others have got going on

I’m hoping he brings Tarry to the table again

Nah there's no way he's out for good. He'll come back, it just might take a few episodes

Sam has always been one of the smartest DnD players when it comes to combat pacing. He's almost always in a clutch position when most needed.

FCG frees orym without even knowing. Same saves Liam again!

Unless temporarily returning from Ruidus through the underwater portal counted.

@@camgor4048 nope the deal stated that orym will be nana's helper in the manor "IF" they all come back together safe, and orym expressed to her that "all of them".

@@rotsenmerecido5334 Yes. It just depends on whether coming back through the portal counted as “coming back” for the sake of the contract.

​@rotsenmerecido5334 the point is they already came back together once. And she's a hag, you gotta be careful how you word shit.

Honestly I personally think if it was not his sacrifice, the seven of them would all die in this battle, unless Matt narratively got them out someway. She was still holding up well while the rest of them started running out of their things😢

@@lanmu738 it would be up to the dice I'm sure. It's definately possible they would have enough in the tank to kill her, but if they gave her two or three more turns it would be at the very least 4 deaths. But you're right, the TPK was more probable Edit: I forgot FCG was already berserk. Yeah they needed a miracle.

I think it was just a improvised moment that Sam initiated that Matt decided to roll with

It was established eariler in the campaign that automaton cores detonate explosively when comprimised. During the Basurus arc.

With a party this size at their level, enemies with only a couple hundred hp don't last more than a round or two on average. Sure, this paired with being a level 20 fighter with an ascended form capable of being Ludinis' left hand makes for a really overpower build. However, things like this is how you make combat matter and be impactful at the higher levels in 5E.

It can be seen like that if your party's expectation is to in the end have everyone survive, however, early on in the campaign the cast was talking about what the expectation was, and they all wanted more. Yes, Matt designed Otohan to be lethal, but that was the intention. They are experienced players at a large table who wanted more danger in this campaign. From the first introduction of Otohan with the first almost TPK and character loss, they knew this game was more lethal. I highly recommend watching the 4-sided dive episodes because they do end up talking about this.

People are supposed to die in the campaign, this brings challenge and brings your party together, if he didn’t make lethal villains it’d be boring af, your party shouldn’t be babied

​@@Nyx_404 there's a difference between lethal and bs. Like go read some ttrpg horror stories and come back and look at Otohan. I find it funny that because its critical role, this type of character is deemed "ok" to have. It's a level 20 fighter with level 6 sorcerer abilities and the 18th level barbarian berserker rage with the titan stone knuckles. plus it resists necro and force damage, so it's better than what Grog had at level 18 with a legendary item. And that all without her pack that gives teleportation and clones. It's just a funny little double standard, cause if this was any other dm they would get so much hate because of this character.

All you beautiful people, I know that said encounters should be scary. I'm talking about DESIGN. She has no weaknesses nor ways to circumvent her strenghts. She is essentially a gestalt character with legendaries

Otohan was designed to be the pinnacle of Ruidis strength while needing to be able to solo the likes of Keylith and Vax and likely other level 20 characters. She served her purpose through and through. She was a cold and very effective killer. Likely only those of Ludinis and Imogen's mother could stand up to her solo. It would likely take the combined efforts of a few level 20's to put her down.

My problem? So Matt is really good at informing the party about damage reductions and immunities... and factoring every reduction Matt told us about (which I think were the ONLY reductions) Otahan had taken (after reductions) 418 pts of damage when she used the Superior Potion. Taken her down to 352 after the heal. Was brought back up to 409 pts of damage before FCG's detonation for 79 damage... so Otahan's HP between 419 and 488! What the F***?!?!? But what's more? Their first fight, Matt was clear that it went the way it did because the party scattered, leaving her free to bounce around the map and OHKO players. So this fight, the wrecked her backpack before she could utilize it, fkrst thing... then pinned her against a wall... and still the fight seemed entirely out of there depth. And you cannot convince me that Matt didn't fudge the HP and let them off the hook with FCG's sacrifice. "She looks like she's taken some hits" was at 384 damage. So if he used that to signify 1/3rd health remaining... that means her HP would be 584... and like I pointed out above, if FCG damage wasn't reduced, that would have been 488... double damage would have been 567.

For a normal party of 4-5 people, this would be overkill for sure. For a party of 7 at their level and this being an individual they were likely never intended to fight until way later. This is just a natural close of events. I think you are trying to to stir a fire here that was caused by the party's overall choices. This was a recon mission only. They chose to stay. Chose to get involved with an insurgency on ruidis. Chose to start getting into fights. Chose to join along a rescue and sabatoge mission. Chose to trust Ira again after being betrayed once by him. Chose not to work harder to trap Otohan and escape. Last time they fought Otohan killed 3 of the party members. The only right choice they made in the fight was to remove the backpack and ability to make her clones. The trade off is they still took down the left hand and central leader of the military force while convincing the right hand to join the cause and turn on prodathos and ludinis.

How does that make her a worse character, a bad fighter certainly but I quite like Fearne as a character

To be honest, all of the characters are pretty mediocre and/or cliché. Fearne and Ashton are probably the only characters that has nothing to do with previous campaigns/side one shots.

@@scott898586 why does their connection mean anything? I mean the context helps but their backstories are explained either way, I never watched the first two campaigns but I understand fully what’s going on

@@Nyx_404 It means a lot in terms of being able to connect to the characters on an individual level. This makes the slow campaign feel even worse than what it really is. People are just tired of living in campaign 1 and 2 while sitting through 3. Campaign 3 still lacks its own identity after nearly 100 episodes. It is still just campaign 1 and 2 being relived from another outside perspective in a very slow crawl of a campaign.

@@scott898586 I’ll agree it’s a bit slow, but I think it’s you living in the previous campaigns more than the campaign itself is, the only reason C2 didn’t have references was because Matt wanted to make sure C1 wasn’t an anomaly, this feels like a natural progression and the old pcs coming back as npcs does feel natural for the world and story