On the Edge | DesiQuest Episode 6 

Can confirm!

Yay for extra!!

Happy to see this. I heard "penultimate" and thought "weren't there 8 episodes? ☹"

I absolutely love her baby/cutesy creature voice, all the way back to battle from the beyond

I'm not sure where but I've seen some mention of Season 2... hoping it gets renewed!

This! I’m totally down for backing a kickstarter if they do another. I missed the first one.

@vee_tinymoose same. I missed out on first one. I support em on patreon but would def double down for more content in the future.

​@@vee_tinymoose There is stuff for sale to continue support! And for anyone else who hasn't checked back this week, the soundtrack was just released.

That is truly awesome. Hope nothing got spoiled for you and sincerely appreciate your passion for DesiQuest.

I see your yay and raise you a WOOHOO!

Is that obscure? It's old, but I've heard of it, and I'm not on social media and don't follow meme stuff. I guess you could say old memes are obscure now when they're not still widely used. Anyway, yes, not shocked that Erika made that reference :P

(continued) 1:39:55 - As a mundane snake, you can't cast spells. That was an artificer class feature. When polymorphed, you set aside your character sheet and can only use the beast's statblock. (Unlike wild shape.) Is Batcha a familiar, mechanically? That's a creature, not equipment. (With the narrative flavour of being a construct.) If so, yes, it's exactly like if a mundane snake had someone cast Find Familiar. So they can use their action to warg their vision/hearing into the familiar, for example. And if they had any touch-range spells, they could cast them through the familiar, but they don't. (update: no, he can command Batcha as a bonus action, so not a familiar. Is it a Steel Defender? I thought Murkha was an artillerist not battle smith. In the Tasha's version of Artificer, nothing lets you cast spells through your defender, but it's otherwise similar to a wildfire spirit.) (Companion creatures like Batcha or like a wildfire spirit still have their own statblocks, so Batcha could take the help action. But can't attack, so RAW at least he can't come and step on the snake to do 1 point of damage and revert Murkha to his human form. Unless it's a steel defender.) For something like a wildfire spirit or steel defender where the ability to command them is part of your statblock (a class feature), being polymorphed would stop you from doing that because you don't have any of your druid features anymore. A wildfire spirit won't take and action except Dodge action unless their master uses a bonus action to command them to do something (flame seed, fiery teleportation, or any standard action like disengage, help, etc.). Unless the master is incapacitated, then the spirit can take an action of its choice (e.g. fiery teleport the master closer to a healer). RAW that wouldn't apply when the master is polymorphed into a snake. They don't have the incapacitated condition, but they aren't able to take the bonus action to command the spirit, because a mundane snake isn't a druid or artificer. But a DM could rule that the intent is that the spirit can act when the master can't command it; 5e rules intentionally only cover the simple case and intend for DMs to fill in the corner-case interactions. Anyway, none of this helps Murkha / Batcha. Casting spells through a familiar, wildfire spirit, or other creature is still you casting a spell, which you can't do when polymorphed. Narratively, the familiar just does the touching to apply the spell, the master still does the somatic and verbal components, and mentally forms the magic using their training (i.e. using their class feature.) 1:41:50 - "reach 5ft" isn't special, it's what normal melee weapons wielded by normal humanoids have. It's that lets you attack creatures in spaces you're standing next to. Also, Bardic inspiration can be spent or not *after* you see the d20 roll. So you don't have to waste it if the roll was already really high or really low. (Unlike DM inspiration for advantage, where you do have to choose before the roll, at least RAW, because it's "advantage", not a reroll like the Lucky feat). > The creature can wait until after it rolls the d20 before deciding to use the Bardic Inspiration die, but must decide before the DM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. 1:48:04 - Interesting use of War Caster with Lightning Lure. RAW, you can't make it non-lethal damage because it's a strength save; if they get pulled, they automatically take the damage. If it was a melee spell attack like shocking grasp, spiritual weapon, or flame blade, you could make it non-lethal, RAW. But that seems pretty arbitrary. Lightning Lure says: > You create a lash of lightning energy that strikes at one creature of your choice that you can see within 15 feet of you. The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be pulled up to 10 feet in a straight line toward you and then take 1d8 lightning damage if it is within 5 feet of you. So it only does damage at all if they're pulled next to you, not automatically for being grabbed by the "lash of lightning energy". So narratively it seems like an experienced caster should be able to tweak the spell to leave that part out entirely. Makes sense to me that Erika's character could just choose not to do damage at all, just pull, if the DM was feeling generous, but just allowing it to be non-lethal is a good compromise. (And a scared beholder firing eye-rays randomly is a problem, knocking it out for now is perhaps helpful.) IDK what situation could result in a creature being pulled but not ending up next to you. Like maybe if you cast it through a tiny window and the target gets pulled 5 feet until they hit the wall? I thought at first maybe sorc Distant Spell metamagic could you target a creature more than 15 feet away, but no, Range: Self (15-foot radius) is different from Range: 15 feet. Distant Spell can make touch spells into range 30, but can't help with Self spells, and doesn't increase the self-AoE radius for this or burning hands or whatever. 1:48:30 - Strength *save* not *check* - there are 3 kinds of d20 rolls in 5e, attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks. (Ability checks might or might not allow adding your proficiency modifier if there's a skill that's relevant.) Attack / Check / Save are important game keywords. It's a good idea to use the correct term; it does matter since some monsters have a saving throw modifier higher than their ability modifier: i.e. they're proficient in the save, just like PCs can be. 1:51:30 - She actually still does have inspiration; lightning lure isn't an attack roll so she never actually spent it. But easy to forget to put back the die after realizing that mistake. Generally, saving a bardic inspiration for important saving throws is a good idea when there's a beholder running around. (OTOH, Murhka spending it on the snake attack was good RP of the poisonous snake's Int of 1, and Nuri spending it on lightning lure made sense because it's not just damage, it's positioning and solving a problem. And spending it on an attack that might finish off an enemy is solid. Or for an expensive attack, like a high-level inflict wounds. Or for a rogue, their attack if they haven't already done a sneak attack this round.) 1:55:28 - a natural 20 on an attack roll hits regardless of AC. You don't need to say the total. The only thing that can make it miss is something like mirror image or armor of hexes, where some other roll can cancel it. (This applies even if a grave cleric uses their reaction to make it a non-crit. Hitting automatically is separate from being a critical.) 1:56:20 - Ash has 3 attacks as just his action? I thought he was a cleric, but it's been a couple months since I watched the earlier episodes. A lot of builds get 2 attacks with their action and a third with an off-hand. Getting 3 with just the attack action is rare, like high-level fighters, or samurai subclass if they have advantage they can turn into multiple attacks. Also, disarm as a bonus action is pretty generous. There aren't AFAIK official rules for disarming in 5e, but I think I've seen people allow it as a special attack, similar to a grapple or shove, so replacing one of your normal attacks. The usual rule of thumb is, if the PCs can do it to enemies, they can do it to the PCs. (Having a tail does make it a bit special, since most enemies won't have that.) 1:58:10 - Nobody mentioned that the piercing damage is halved by rage (acid damage isn't). Maybe that got edited out, but it looked like her HP moved a lot on the bar graph. I'd have thought 6 total damage (10/2 + 1) would be a smaller fraction of a 5th-level barbarian's max.

(continued) 2:01:25 - RAW, Flame Blade doesn't work like a weapon you're wielding; you can't use it for your bonus-action off-hand attack. (And attacking with it as your primary also wouldn't let you make a bonus-action attack with a different weapon in another hand. Which is something any character can do as long as they're both light weapons; feats and fighting styles just make that more flexible, like not needing to be light weapons.) Flame Blade is its own thing; the action you take to use it is a special one granted by the spell, mechanically like when you use your action or bonus on Bigby's Hand or Heat Metal. It's not the Attack action, even though in this case it involves an attack roll. (So for example you don't get to use Extra Attack with it, or the hexblade invocation.) It's also a melee *spell* attack, so not even a weapon attack or attack with a melee weapon for things that can trigger from that (like divine smite.) > You can use your action to make a melee spell attack with the fiery blade. On a hit, the target takes 3d6 fire damage. And yes, that makes Flame Blade a fairly weak spell. You also don't get to make opportunity attacks with it. One use-case is for a long fight or series of fights (it lasts 10 minutes) where you want to only spend one spell slot (or cast bonus-action spells) and do a bit more damage than a cantrip. (Especially for character levels 1-4 where cantrips are only one die of damage. Or if you upcast flame blade as a higher-level character). Or for using as a tool like a lightsaber to carve through metal, if your DM allows it. To do what Erika is trying to do here, you want Shadow Blade which her guest character on Critical Role used. Presumably Jasmine OK'ed Erika's build, and allowed the dual wielder feat to work with flame blade as the off-hand attack even though it's not a "light weapon" (or a weapon at all). It is literally made of light, or at least flame which emits light :P (But her main-hand weapon doesn't have the light property). (Not that it matters, but it's the dual wielder feat which does that; the flight style two-weapon fighting lets you add your ability modifier to damage. Which shouldn't work for flame blade since you can't do that even when it's your primary attack. I always have to look up which one's which. But if Nuri's pure hexblade, they probably don't have a fighting style at all, just the feat.) Flame Blade is pretty weak as-is, taking up your concentration just for one attack per round that's maybe a bit better than a cantrip. Unless you're a warlock with the invocation that adds your Cha to each hit of Eldritch Blast. In terms of balance, buffing a weak spell doesn't make it OP, it just allows the player to have the mechanics and narrative flavour they want. Seems reasonable in this campaign for this character at least. 2:03:25 - That's correct, a creature can only have one Bardic Inspiration die at one, even if there are multiple bards. 2:03:45 - Being Charmed by a creature doesn't make you forget your previous friends. It's not like Dominate Monster that can force you to switch sides, you just can't attack the creature that charmed you. (Mechanically, it doesn't stop you from attacking their allies. You think they're great, but any other people fighting you and your friends still suck, and you probably wonder why your new friend is hanging out with them.) You *can* choose to lean in harder with the RP, like Rekha did a couple episodes ago. And being an Int 1 snake probably doesn't help. 2:08:15 - There we go, that's how a standard grapple works. You *can* use your action to attempt escape, or you can just kill them so they let go on their own :P The amount of damage you can do per round, compared to the HP most PCs have, means that it's often good to spend 12 to 18 seconds (2 or 3 rounds) at least cutting down the number of enemies before you spend actions on anything else, unless it's absolutely critical. Just from a purely tactical consideration, which doesn't always fit with character RP. --- I hope that helps, if anyone was curious about rules details. 5e rules are something I find fun to see how they interact to make a game that works well. Definitely enjoying the series, the folks at the table, and this flavorful taste of Desi culture. (Plus the great production values, well done.) I point out cases where the game was played differently from rules-as-written in case other folks are curious. It's not even a bad thing in some cases.

Pretzels Up!! 🥨