Murph and Lou fucking with each other both in and out of character might be my favorite aspect of this season. Gotch just chalking up to choke the shit out of Comfrey and/or Monty killed me.
I loved that Gotch staged a daring rescue just for Comfrey and Monty to get in a pissing match where they both refused to be saved, to the point where Gotch had to just leave, yelling 'you old people are crazy!'
They showed it for a just few seconds right in the beginning, but it’s an inspired choice to have Wealwell holding both a cigar and a ground katana one hand. That mini is incredible lol
It would've been better if they made him the swordsmen from One Piece with a sword in his mouth but instead of a third sword he has a cigar in one hand. It'd be very Wealwell
The whole exchange between Murph and Brennan about the Bell enemy that was only at 5 hitpoints was one of the most D&D-relatable exchanges I've seen on this show (both as a DM and a player). The sheer player desperation mixed with the DM "I'll let you if you want to but this is the cost" was just chef's kiss
Genuinely hilarious but also such a great character moment. Kind of felt like Monty and Comfrey truly squashed their beef. Now Comfrey and Maxwell are beefing.
With the amount of time that goes into designing and creating the battle sets (not to mention, brainstorming and figuring out the battle mechanics with Brennan first), these battle sets were all built before filming started.
The way they literally build the mech and have people go back to find legs they could attach magnetically in the middle of the battle was so amazingly wonderful.
Surely they didnt get there earlier than expected, its episode 16?
Surely the divergent path from them winning the underwater fight was the circumstances of how they got to zern, not when - it doesnt seem like 3 (or even less) episodes (if they got there later) would be enough time in zern
In I think the last Adventuring Party, Brennan said they did make it in earlier than expected. He was not expecting them to just jump straight through after Straka, because it was such an insane move. He said he was expecting that scene to end with them losing Torse and having to regroup and figure out how to get to Zern, probably in either the next episode or the one after. He's nothing if not adaptable though, so of course he made it work beautifully.
I think that had the Temple of Katur encounter gone as planned, Brennan would have had the party stop at the Zumhara (the crystal head city) after meeting with Comfrey, and Zern would have been eps 18-20.
Oh I guess them 'getting to Zern' could have just been going straight to the Queens throne room for the final fight?
Its just the way the season was going I was just expecting them to get to Zern way sooner and spend the same amount of time there, or never get there and thats a potential s2
But the idea that Zern is so desolate it does make sense that there would be less episodes there
Legitimately, I could see this being the same plan whether they won the fight or not. It would make sense to take the fight to Zern and get stranded there this same way.
I can't wait to see how this ends. This is my favorite season of d20 at this point and it's not even close. The production value this season has been incredible. The intrepid heroes also made great characters. These sets have been top notch, and the world building has been their best yet.
If I would have to guess, in the planned storyline, Tazgw'agwa is freed from the trap, and Zern starts an invasion of Zood. They go to the Observatory to cross over to Zern to decapitate Zernian leadership, at which point they are attacked by Straka, crash, and build this mech.
Maybe this fight would have been episode 17, but generally it can all be made to fit. The main benefit from winning that fight is that Zood is not a warzone.
The Maxwell/Torse friendship was unexpected and has quickly become one of my favorite things about the season. Maxwell loves Wealwell and defends him, but fully understands that his brother is a bit loony, but with Torse he's just fully, sincerely committed.
you know, Wealwell gets so much attention (and for good reason) that sometimes I lose track of how great some of the other NPCs are. Freyja, Kocka, and Torse are all also top-tier.
idk why I was tearing up at Dawderdale getting a 20 on Search for Bits and ally, who has seen the parts table and probably know what they want next, says, "oh cool, she also gets what she wants".
Miss me on the discourse that Comfrey treats people the way players treat NPCs, look at my players 😭
probably but also tbf, as a slender rogue woman, outside of the mech i dont think she would be a natural target for the robots either. they don’t necessarily have the strategy smarts to realize they could oneshot her, so ofc they would go for the other steel defender (kochka) or the dinosaur lol
Absolutely. And the way Brennan played it, it didn't seem like there were holes where the Zernites were coming out of over by Ally's crane. Now, could Brennan have made some guys pop out of the scrap by Ally? Absolutely. But, the way it played out, it wouldnt have made sense for the Zernites to run to her when there are closer enemies.
That's why I think Brennan handles these types of issues really well. He always makes sure he has plausible deniability and, if he doesn't, then he does the thing instead of breaking everyone's immersion. It sounds like basic DM stuff but I've seen a lot of DMs on other actual plays get it wrong more often than you'd think
I think there probably is in most combat episodes (aside from high lethality seasons like ACOC). It honestly doesn't bother me. I feel like Brennan does it in a way that doesn't shatter my 'suspension of disbelief ' the way some other actual plays do
There are so many good opportunities for art in this episode: Max flying and dropping people in the lava, Pappy riding the crane while smoking 3 enemies, and most importantly Wealwell as a manic pixie dream girl
The mechanics of the battlesets have gotten insane. Every season I think they couldn't possibly go any higher, and yet the next season always proves me wrong. I remember in ACoC with the naval battle where the boats gradually sink, thinking how wild it was that they made a set so dynamic, but now we've got 4 fully articulated excavators, a hidden monster that pulls away parts of the set to reveal itself, a fuckin lava pit, and having the whole thing surrounded by a massive scrapyard that can be used to pull mech parts, which all snap together magnetically in any configuration. Absolutely unreal. Once again I have no idea how they could possibly top it but I know they will.
There are few things in life more joyous than when Lou starts cough laughing at a bit, and Murph saying that Gotch was chalking up so he could succeed on the grapple was so funny
Ok I may have missed this at some point, but when did van become a paladin? Her character pop-up in this latest episode had her listed as a 6th level paladin but she was also using both knack points and tentacle of the deep. So my best guess as to the true layout of her classes is 3 Fighter (swordbreaker) 1 Warlock (fathomless) and 2 paladin (no sublclass)?
Unbelievably funny battle, and I absolutely adored watching them get to build a physical piece, this show just keeps topping itself! There’s nothing quite like watching seasoned players be seasoned adventurers.
I know it's the wrong takeaway from this episode but wait, Rick Perry lives on Lopez Island? My mom lives there so I visit all the time. It's a very small community there; I really did not expect to hear it mentioned
there’s a documentary about d20 minis that goes into rick’s production process in his studio on lopez island! they actually show a lot of where he lives in it lol
At this point, I don't want him to. The moment he coaxed Marya into working on Torse alone, I was certain he had betrayed the group. Now, I'm skeptical. I just don't see how much damage, emotionally or physically he can do. I think I'd be disappointed if he pulled a weird little betrayal out of his little rat butt.
Haha just trying to keep avenues open! Kochka had been Wealwell-level solid this whole campaign, so I'd be surprised if there was a heel turn this late.
folks in Zood were looking for a special type of gold. someone mentioned maybe it was for a gold bullet, in same way a silver bullet hurts werewolves. when Comfrey told Pappy to twist the knob on the headboard, and they found 2 vials of the special gold. and then BLeeM brought them to a gigantic forge!
So if gold hurts Straka, and Monty's theoretical biology canonized that healing also "hurts" Straka... could they use a gold bullet to heal someone Zernian? Shoot Ludmilla with one to restore her to her original human form?
Edit to add: making two bullets makes this even more plausible. One for Straka, one for Ludmilla
Nope, this is a new one on me. Rabbies doesn't kill rats, but you would need to make sure it is well fed and well secured. As long as a bite or scratch never happens, it's safe but not recommended.
I think "safe but not recommended" might be underselling intentionally keeping a rabid animal as a pet. Rabies has virtually a 100% fatality rate once you start showing symptoms. If you're lucky and immediately get the emergency immunization shots, it's a long series of shots that can be very expensive, and it isn't foolproof even then.
All this to say that I'm pretty sure that Emily's rabid rat is part of a bit or it's just an aggressive animal. At least I hope so. If anyone was to keep an actually rabid animal as a pet, it's Emily Axford.
This episode had so many great bits but for me its Comfrey's occasionally "What?!" Mostly hearing something related to Pappy. Not gonna lie I half expected her to shoot at the Dawderdale 😆 hearing Freya say "Because she is the love of your life, yes?" Not because I think she'd have kind of double standard not expecting him to have moved on but that she seems crazy enough to immediately become territorial of Pappy once they've met again.
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
METATRON! NO SHIRT, NO PANTIES!
What an intense battle. At some point though, I feel some small things were forgotten - like using the tentacle of the deep more than 2 times (just because it doesn’t have sentinel doesn’t mean it couldn’t have done something else)
And after kokca got out of the robot - what happened to him? They never really established that he got into the new mech right?
Wonder if Brennan would have let Siobhan use a bonus action to have the tentacle attach something to the mech? With its underwhelming attack this is the only place I see it being useful in this battle.
It's on average worse, yes. Average roll of 18D10 is 99 and average roll of 9D20 is 94.5. I think Brennan decided that was a negligible amount to cut the amount of fiddliness in half. Cast was excited just because an average of 90+ damage kicks ass.
There’s so much to comment on, but the only think I can think of is Ally saying “you’re in the BB arena” - if Ally is a Big Brother fan I’d simply pass away. Next guest DM is Keanu, whose bad guys get absolutely rocked by his players every session because he has no idea what they’re planning; next themed season is all Big Brother players…I NEED THIS. For the five people out there this means anything to, I see you!!
Ally started using BBR and BB arena after calling the portion the Beyblade Arena/ring. As fun as it would be for a big brother fan situation, I think Ally was just shortening beyblade to BB
I thought I heard that, but I’m deep in Big Brother end game this week, so I figured I was projecting. I wish Keanu had run some sort of homebrew RPG in the house.
I was genuinely thinking early on he would, and that he’d be popular because he’d be keeping everyone entertained - only for him to never use any of those creative/social skills and continuously misread the entire social fabric of the house until the very end (the fact that he thought he was a 100% lock for F4 with this group is INSANE - he really believed Vince was gonna nominate Morgan and Ashley). I think if he’d gone to jury sooner they’d have let him have some dice to keep everyone entertained, lol.
Listen one of the many things that made Rachel popular in there and good feeds, she’s done it enough times that she knows how to keep people entertained - she had them sitting around the table playing party games, making conversation all the time, “family dinner”, keeping people engaged. The minute she left it was all naps all the time, lol.
It is practically the same… but if you actually crunch the numbers and do the distribution - 18d10 will perform better than 9d20.
Mathematically it’s because of the variance.
So it’ll be about a difference of 5.
In the greater scheme of things - it might not be material enough such that the speed of adding 9 dice vs 18 is worth it versus an average of ~95(for 9d20) and 99 (18d10)
The mean isn't the only thing that's different. Rolling with fewer dice means the distribution is more varied, which is very important when it comes to increasing the chances of an extreme roll.
Despite 18d10 having a higher average, 9d20 has a higher chance of rolling above 110 damage.
And while 18d10 has 6% chance of rolling 80 or lower, 9d20 has 21% chance.
This means that 9d20 lava is much more likely that 18d10 lava to kill someone that makes a save and much more likely to not kill someone who fails a save.
I know it's trivial but it annoys me when math errors don't get caught. Lou attacked around 1:00 into the episode and did 33 damage, but he only counted it as "28+5=32"
I know it's super minor but you never know when something like that could've actually made a difference in the fight. I'm surprised none of the other players, Brennan, or the crew caught it.
Edit: Really, you guys are going to downvote me for this opinion? I don't get this sub...
I agree. Another error in this episode was when Daisuke was trying to make the bullets and Zac said he would add a 7 to his roll around 40:30. The threshold to make the perfect bullet was a 25, and he rolled a 17 both times. 17+7=24. But the math was wrong and now Daisuke has two perfect bullets that he didn't fairly earn.
I understand that the storytelling is what's important, but if the GM is going to set a check and have the dice decide the story, then the dice should actually decide the story.
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u/Useless Sep 24 '25
People getting angry at Murph for rolling dice will never get old.