Transcript:Q&A and Battle Royale: Take II

Pre-show
MATT: Hello everyone, and welcome to tonight's pseudo-episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy voice actors will be answering your questions and then doing a fantastic battle royale showdown between Pike, Vax, Keyleth, and Percy.

ASHLEY: Woo-hoo!

MATT: For those of you who were here for our last battle royale, it's going to be a fun circumstance where the players are dropped into a scenario they do not yet know. They'll be forced to battle with only one victor, the last man standing. But we'll get into that for the second half of this evening. First, let's get through some quick announcements. If we want to get through those, I probably should have loaded them up on my phone.

MARISHA: Yeah, Let me see if I can beat you to that.

MATT: You want to get to that right now. But in the meantime, this comes to our fourth and final week of this run, being sponsored by Loot Crate, who've been fantastic for this month run of Critical Role. It's our first time trying out a sponsorship. You guys have been awesome in checking out their stuff, and I hope a lot of you guys have enjoyed becoming part of the Loot Crate membership family. We are!

MARISHA: And you can get $3 off your subscription with code 'criticalrole'.

MATT: Yeah, at www.lootcrate.com/criticalrole. I talk for a living. Anyway, what else do we want to announce this evening?

MARISHA: Also, the Dear Vox Machina article series has been going on on Friday nights. Wait, whose came out last?

MATT: Grog, I thought it was.

MARISHA: I think mine's coming out tomorrow. I think Keyleth is tomorrow.

TALIESIN: I better get mine turned in.

MARISHA: You should probably turn yours in. You should probably do your work.

MATT: I should probably turn mine in too.

MARISHA: Jeez, fucking slackers. Galavanting in Hawaii.

ASHLEY: Yeah, whatever, getting a tan.

TALIESIN: Well, a burn.

MATT: I do have to point out, strong appreciation for Taliesin to really fly the true nerd banner by having a trip to Hawaii and spending a portion of it in his hotel room playing D&D on Skype.

TALIESIN: There was a beautiful sunset happening right offscreen. My friends who I'm sharing a room with were like-- "We're going snorkeling!"

LIAM: Got to kill a dragon.

MATT: That's pretty great.

MARISHA: And then your first episode of Signal Boost went live on Tuesday.

TALIESIN: Yay! My first episode of Signal Boost went-- oh, ow, that hurt-- live on Tuesday!

MARISHA: Don't burn yourself!

TALIESIN: I'm going to burn us down. This whole game is coming down now. Yeah, you should check it out. I'm really proud of it, and I'm happy with it, and there's more fun.

MARISHA: Good, I'm glad! I'm glad you're not totally embarrassed.

TALIESIN: Mortified.

MARISHA: It's very fun, the internet loves you. It's uncanny.

ASHLEY: I finally splurged on your episodes, Marisha. I did. And I've liked all of the things that you liked. Now I'm going to watch Hector's.

LIAM: We should all like bees, really.

MARISHA: Bees are great. Bees or die.

TALIESIN: Well, I will have a hive soon, it is happening. It's being built right now.

LIAM: Right next door to the chickens?

TALIESIN: Technically, next door to my room, but yeah, right next to the chickens. Screen window, crucifix, it'll get the whole thing stopped.

(laughter)

MATT: Love the bees at a distance!

MARISHA: Oh, they're very nice. They're sweet.

MATT: What other announcements have we got?

MARISHA: That's it. No one else added anything else.

MATT: I have a quick announcement. Those who haven't seen or had an opportunity to play yet, this week had the launch of Overwatch, Blizzard's new game. I'm lucky enough to play the character McCree, the space cowboy. You guys get to have an opportunity to shoot a six-shooter in the game and tell people (McCree voice), "It's high noon." If you haven't played it, you should, it's a lot of fun. I have enjoyed the crap out of it.

MARISHA: It's so good.

LIAM: You bring it on yourself just saying that catchphrase.

MATT: I get tweeted pretty much at every time zone's noon. Every day, people barrage me with, "Hey Matt, what time is it?"

MARISHA: Every time zone! Once an hour on the hour! What time is it?

TALIESIN: It's about four o'clock, why? Oh.

MARISHA: And not to be confused with MacCready.

MATT: No, apparently any gun-slinging guys with McCree in their name have been me this past year.

MARISHA: Yeah, you got the cornerstone. McCree, MacCready, and then what is the name of your character in Evolve, which is also a cyber space cowboy?

MATT: Space cowboy, that's Abe. (Abe voice) Abraham Presley. Yeah, guys in hats with guns has been a theme this past year, some of them with really great facial hair. I love that theme.

TALIESIN: I'm really looking forward to Overwatch. I haven't hit it yet.

MARISHA: It's so good, you guys.

MATT: We're going to have to sync up and play it.

TALIESIN: It's going to be a thing.

Q & A
MATT: Anyway! We've got questions to get to. So, first and foremost, we have a few sources of questions. Obviously we're not going to get to a lot of them tonight, because there's a lot of questions. But there's a Reddit thread that's been up for a little while, we're going to be pulling questions from there. The chat room as well, we have at our side here. We have questions coming from you guys there as long as we can keep track of it because it goes pretty fast. Is my mic bad, not getting a good mic? I'll lean this way then and try and get to this section. Should work fine.

MARISHA: You could adjust the boom.

MATT: Yeah, but the camera is there. Karen?

KAREN: You're very audible. They're just being picky.

MATT: Just being picky? Guys, stop being picky. It's all good. So long as you guys can hear me, I think we're okay. Yeah, we have Reddit, we have the chat room, and then we have on Twitter the hashtag Critical Role questions as well. We'll be going through those and picking questions, answering them as they come. So, let us begin. We're apologizing now for all of us looking at our phones. It's not because we're bored, it's because we want to answer your questions.

LIAM: That's where the questions are.

MARISHA: Ermagerd, querstions!

MATT: This comes from Groghammer on Reddit. "After the episode 'Cows and Consequences', Matt said it "was one of the weirdest, but not the weirdest, D&D experience he's ever had. To him and others with experience, what is the weirdest thing that's happened in a game you've played?" This is an interesting question.

MARISHA: Offscreen, I guess? Outside of 'Cows and Consequences'?

MATT: It could be something in Critical Role if you want to, but if you had other stranger experiences. I'll begin. This was weird but dark. This was when I was running the Ravenloft game for a few years with my old group back in the late 2000s. As they began to make their way through Barovia, the atmosphere of it was drawing them down and every night they'd sleep there, they would take corruption similarly to how you did when you were in Whitestone under the watch of the Briarwoods. We had our bard begin to grow sharpened teeth. We had our rogue character, who had a long-dormant mummy rot that had been subsiding in his body begin to spread again. We had our blood mage, who had died and been resurrected, came back not quite right and went a little feral. And then we had our paladin, whose skin all of a sudden was pulled tighter against his body, and as a person whose whole ideal was to fight undead, to look in the mirror one day and see that he resembled one, he went crazy and started smashing stuff. It was a cool buildup, but one of the weirder, fun experiences was when they had finally finished the battle with Strahd, when they had defeated him and, in theory, saved Ravenloft, the epilogue ended up being a "at what cost?" circumstance. Well, the cleric died in the final battle, the paladin killed himself, the blood mage disappeared into the forest and was never seen again. The rogue, who was like the older Indiana Jones character of the group, took the castle for himself and became the new lord of Barovia, Batman-style, supposedly to watch over the city, but his corruption had gotten so heavy that it wasn't sure if they were replacing one monster with another. And the bard, who had had a constant feud with the rogue, got, in the final moments of the game, in a huge argument post-battle, and the rogue grabbed him and tore his tongue out. And the bard now served him as this mute, subservient Gollum figure and was at the edge of his throne in the epilogue as the rogue took the throne of Barovia for himself.

LIAM: It's like an Edward Gorey poem.

MATT: Pretty much. It was a hell of an end to that campaign.

MARISHA: The bard went full-on Theon Greyjoy style?

MATT: Kind of, unintentionally. That was my friend Shaun.

TALIESIN: Oh, yes, of course. That makes perfect sense.

MATT: How about you guys?

TALIESIN: I got so enraptured in that story, I'm trying to think--

MARISHA: Can mine be from Mansions of Madness? Can mine be from board games?

MATT: Sure, this is any game.

MARISHA: I'm partial to the time where I was playing as Ashcan Pete, who's my favorite character to play as in any Cthulhu universe. I was down to one hit point, had lost my weapon, and was hiding in a chest. And I popped out of a chest and punched a shoggoth and killed him.

MATT: Yeah, last hit point. It was the hobo jack-in-the-boxing and punching a shoggoth.

MARISHA: The old hobo jack-in-the-box technique! And it was great, and I'll never forget it.

TALIESIN: Ashcan Pete.

MARISHA: Ashcan! Who can? Ashcan!

TALIESIN: Thank you, that was all I hoped for.

MATT: Any of you guys?

LIAM: My tabletop is high school, which I don't remember too well. And then our home game, the show was far crazier than our home game was. As fun as the home game was, nothing as lunatic as the cow episode--

ASHLEY: I wasn't a part of that cow episode, but I remember watching it, and I was like, "This is ludicrous." I was laughing so hard, I had projectile tears. I was like, "This is the weirdest thing that's happened in this game."

MATT: It was pretty legitimate-- hopefully this will work better for audio, thank you so much.

TALIESIN: We did a Sabbat Vampire game tabletop years ago at my friend Don's house that involved a savage burn on the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland, and we were resurrected as vampires inside the Haunted Mansion. And he had built an elaborate map of the entire ride, it was really spectacular.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: It's forever colored both of those rides.

MARISHA: I want to see, is there a Barovia travel poster out there? Someone has to have made something like that, right?

MATT: I hope so, like a pamphlet?

MARISHA: Yeah. "Come visit sunny Barovia!"

MATT: "Not-quite-sunny Barovia!" If you do find that on the internet, please send it to us or find us on Twitter, I'd love to see that. Question. "Ashley, what classes would the cast of Blindspot be in your opinion?" From Zodaru in the chatroom.

ASHLEY: Probably Sully, who plays Kurt, the main guy-- or no, we'll start with Jane Doe. I think she would be a fighter, straight-up fighter class. I think Kurt Weller, Sully, would be a barbarian. I think Zapata would be a rogue. I would probably be a bard or probably still a cleric.

MATT: Yeah? You said so on the show.

ASHLEY: Yeah, so I am.

MATT: That was my favorite in-joke I've ever seen in television from a nerd point ever. Those who haven't seen it, there's an episode of Blindspot where Ashley's character gets teased about playing your wizard and elf game. And you correct them with--

ASHLEY: It's called Dungeons and Dragons.

MATT: I'm actually a gnome cleric. And I was like, "Yes!"

ASHLEY: Put it in where we can. Just stick it right in.

LIAM: It's called outreach.

(laughter)

MATT: It is a way to put it.

ASHLEY: Outreach, our outreach campaign.

MATT: Liam, did you find a question you wanted to tackle?

LIAM: Um.

ASHLEY: I know, they're coming in fast. Coming in hot!

MATT: Here, I'll throw one in while you guys are looking. Question for the players, "A few of you have come close to trading blows before." This is from StoryBeforeNumbers on the Reddit page. "Within the actual narrative of Critical Role, do you believe your character could ever be capable of seriously fighting or killing another party member, and if so, what would it take to reach that point?"

LIAM: I think it would take a lot, and I got a lot of static after Vax punched Percy. A week later, everyone's like, "Like Vax has any horse to stand on, with what happened with his sister." First of all, that was what was running through my head as I punched Percy. None of you had to tell me about that, that's what I was thinking about. And if that hadn't happened, I probably would have done more than punch him one time. I probably would have went a little bit further. But I would say, on one hand, Vax thinks it's a little different because Vax rushed in to try to save his sister, not exactly the same situation. But on the other hand, you're kind of right, he doesn't have any moral high ground, and I'm not trying to play anyone on moral high ground. And I thought, do I have the right to do this? Probably not, who cares? We're all playing imperfect people.

TALIESIN: Percy would absolutely kill another member of Vox Machina if he thought that it was for the good of the whole group. He thought if there was a situation where it was like, put one down because they were a threat to everybody else, he'd probably be okay. Probably.

MARISHA: Yeah, Keyleth has a hard time killing the scum of the earth. So no.

TALIESIN: I couldn't kill Trinket. I think I'd feel really bad. I couldn't live with myself.

LIAM: You're going to get diCaprio'd.

(laughter, bear grunting)

ASHLEY: I don't know if Pike could do it. Even if they were really bad or something was terrible, I feel like Pike would try anything to not kill one of the members.

LIAM: You should stay in that mindset after the break.

ASHLEY: No, I will not! Tonight is an exception, my friend!

MATT: Well, Sarenrae, part of her sphere of influence is redemption, too. With Pike, I could see her, definitely. She feels that even somebody's who's fallen that far from what she knew, she could find a way to bring them back.

ASHLEY: Yeah, there's still something in them that should still be there. I don't think there's anything that can make her kill somebody. Except tonight.

MATT: Except tonight. There you go, we'll have it.

TALIESIN: Tonight's special.

MATT: Anyone find any questions they prefer for this one?

MARISHA: I have a good one. This is from @CaraKiriyama on Twitter, "If the characters hadn't found each other and formed Vox Machina, what do you think they'd be doing instead?"

TALIESIN: Percy'd be dead by now.

MARISHA: Keyleth might be dead.

TALIESIN: He would have walked into something stupid and that would have been the end of it.

LIAM: I think the twins would have been doing mercenary work somewhere.

MARISHA: Keyleth would try and continue on her Aramente, by herself if she had to, maybe find other people to pal around with along the way. She tagged along with you guys because she was afraid that she'd die out there alone, which, once again, probably would've.

ASHLEY: I feel like Pike would've probably stayed, hanging out in the Bramblewood, living with Wilhand. I feel like she's pretty small-town, I think this is such a huge adventure for Pike, and the only thing that brought Pike out of it was because of Grog, was a family, and being like, "Well, I guess I'll leave, try to help him and find him." I don't think she would've explored that much, she would've stayed. So Vox Machina brought out the best!

MARISHA and TALIESIN: (singing) Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world!

(laughter)

MATT: That is now your theme song.

ASHLEY: Yes, such a good theme song!

MATT: I'll answer this quick question. @Mandalore_Cauldley on Twitter asks, "What has been the worst or best, if funniest, way there has been a TPK in any game you've played?" For those of us who've had that happen before, it was the Paranoia game that we played on here was pretty fun. There was definitely a universal TPK, as in we accidentally wiped out all of existence and reality, so that was fun. I wasn't actually part of this game, but I loved the story behind it. This was an evil campaign that-- same guy who was the rogue in my Ravenloft game, Shaun-- and a few other people were playing. This was 3.0 D&D, and they were an evil campaign, they were all evil characters. This was in Ravenloft, the Swords & Sorcery setting, not the Expedition to Ravenloft, the whole plane of Ravenloft. And his evil cleric had set up, for half the game, a plot to eventually to kill the rest of the party and take them for power, but only the DM knew. And eventually he found the right moment, right towards the end of their story arc, and they were on the cusp of finally completing their adventure. And he told the DM, "This is the moment." And he systematically killed each member of the party, took their heads, preserved their heads, still living, and put them on the shelf in his now-dark tower. And that was the end of the campaign, he ended up TPKing the rest of his own party and putting them on the shelf.

TALIESIN: Bless Shaun.

MATT: Shaun's an interesting character. Actually, I think I'm seeing him this weekend at MomoCon in Atlanta. See you in a few days, Shawn!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: I feel like it would be so fun to be an evil character.

LIAM: I want to do a one-off sometime that goes further than the goblin game.

MATT: That can be arranged. Next time we have a day off like this and people can't make it, whoever's around, we'll do an evil one-shot.

MARISHA: You started salivating almost.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: (evil voice) We should do an evil one-shot.

LIAM: I know what that character is for that game.

MATT: That makes me happy. Chat room, let's see.

MARISHA: @LChow on Twitter says, "Who comes up with and assigns the episode titles?" I think this is a funny story. Mainly, they come out organically.

MATT: Yeah, I have my own titles when I give the adventure preparation for each session in the actual documents in my folder. But then when the episodes happen, that very much informs what the episode titles are. Usually, it's--

MARISHA: Like "At Dawn, We Plan."

ASHLEY: That was so, I was like, "This has got to be it."

MARISHA: We all walk out and go like, "Well, that's the title."

MATT: The titles come out the next Monday morning, Taliesin texting or emailing me at 11:30 AM.

TALIESIN: Okay, we need a title now, you've got 20 minutes. Good morning, what's up?

MATT: And I'll be in the middle of a session like, "Okay, bathroom break? Okay. Ooh, that'll be good." And that's all it is.

ASHLEY: I actually didn't know that. I didn't know that you thought of the titles. Because they're fantastic.

LIAM: Well, you got the bird's-eye view, Matt.

MATT: That's the thing, I'd feel a little weird if somebody I didn't know did the titles. Like the last episode that came out, somebody was like, "The Dragon Episode," I'd be like, "Hmm." I'm not saying that would be the case, whoever would possibly do the titles here at Geek & Sundry, but I'm a little attached.

ASHLEY: It makes sense, I don't know who else I thought would've done it besides you.

MATT: We can do a vote.

TALIESIN: Draw lots.

MARISHA: We do most everything ourselves.

LIAM: I got one. People all week-- all year, really-- but a lot this week, have been asking me-- and telling me-- asking me does Vax have a death wish or saying that Vax has a death wish. You are free to think I have a death wish. I don't have a death wish, I don't want to roll a new character, I love my character, but I'm not going to play him like an accountant. I'm going to rush in and try to save people and kill the motherfuckers who killed my parents, my mother, I don't have a father.

MATT: You do have a father.

(laughter)

LIAM: We'll get to that. I don't have a death wish, I do not want to stop playing my character. He could die next week, and I'll be bummed for a while, but this is how I'm going to play him.

ASHLEY: Would you cry? I would cry.

MARISHA: I would cry so much.

MATT: We cried so hard when you died that one time.

ASHLEY: That was horrible.

LIAM: If I survive next week's game, I will do something just as dumbfuck two to five episodes later, so strap in. That's what I'm doing.

MARISHA: It's not like we have a plan. I think people assume we have plans.

MATT: Well, first off, no plan survives contact with the enemy, this is the general term. And also, that's what D&D is about. There have been many games that I've played where I could do the smart, safe move, but then I stop myself and go, "Why?" To me, I'd rather try something spectacular and fail spectacularly than keep it safe and on its own. And even if a character could possibly die, those are the moments that you remember.

ASHLEY: It's true.

TALIESIN: What's the video game from Rick and Morty? I'm trying to remember.

MATT: Oh, the one where he goes and lives the life?

TALIESIN: You're taking him off the grid, he doesn't have his Social Security card!

(laughter)

LIAM: The game can be different things for different people, and if people want to treat it like a WoW raid, go for it, have fun with that. But if I had to be like, "Okay, how I can max out my opportunities here and my chance to get my Devout--," that's not why I play. I play to stick myself in epic books that I loved reading as a kid. And sometimes characters die.

TALIESIN: Many of those people in those books die.

ASHLEY: I feel like we've all become the characters so much.

LIAM: Yeah. Someone else asked how long did it take to create your characters, and I feel like it's still happening. The first game was like, "Yeah, I'm a rogue! We're twins? Cool! Okay, what do I do? I sneak around, Grog doesn't even know that he can do whatever the hell he wants, great." It's so loosey-goosey.

MARISHA: It's such an Urban Outfitter inspirational poster: "Our stories are never over."

(laughter)

LIAM: It's still ripening. And sometimes we have one-on-one conversations with each other or in a group, we feel like we're learning new things about the character-- every game-- or each other, or ourselves even, playing this game.

TALIESIN: I feel knee-deep in act two right now. Yeah, he's totally act two.

MATT: You two especially have had some interesting changes. You changed from pre-stream to stream because of your whole experience on the ship, and after death, Pike has become a lot more hardened and accepting of the harshness of reality, and that's been cool to watch that happen.

ASHLEY: It's been fun. I almost still feel like Pike is a little bit of act one. Even with everything that's happening, I'm still a little like, "Ooh, there's more there."

TALIESIN: Waiting for that big break to happen.

ASHLEY: Yeah, but it's getting there. Someone asked what led to Ashley and Travis deciding to link their backstories together? That was actually not my decision.

LIAM: That was how you hooked her in.

ASHLEY: That was how he put it together, which I thought was really cool because I came to the second game that you guys played?

MATT: Yeah, it was the second game. Travis couldn't be there for the second game, so I worked it into the story-- I didn't give you exactly what it was, but I said, "If you want to tie it into why Travis can't be there with his character, how would you want to work these together?"

ASHLEY: Which is so crazy because how our friendship in-game has turned out is so huge in the game for me. Which I wonder if that wasn't the story, how different that would have been. But that's such a huge part of the story for me. So crazy.

MATT: It evolves in a really strange way.

LIAM: Vax has a-- wishing he could follow a bit in her footsteps, or did, and I don't want to get too much into that, and obviously all this. I didn't have any beef with you at any time in the past, but now I don't trust you as far as I can throw you.

TALIESIN: Good, that's a really good decision.

LIAM: Grog and Vax never had any real digging at each other, but it's a little dicier now. They're okay, but a little bit of--

MARISHA: One of these days, me and you, our ideals are going to come to a crashing head.

TALIESIN: Oh, it's going to be a crashing head. I'm curious. There's so many things that are on the cusp of happening.

ASHLEY: There's a lot of things. Because I haven't even gotten to deal with this motherfuck yet about what's been going on with him.

MARISHA: Oh, yeah, yeah.

LIAM: I'm a cutter, I've been cutting.

MATT: Dagger dagger dagger.

ASHLEY: Him being Vax, not Liam.

LIAM: I'm Vex.

MATT, MARISHA, TALIESIN: Don't.

MATT: Don't fuck with her. You're right.

LIAM: How long have we been playing this game for?

ASHLEY: But still, the split-second where I was like, shit, I got it wrong. No, I didn't!

MATT: That's your own fault, by the way. One letter off, you dicks. Real fast, I want to put this out there, because this question has come up a lot this week. Yes, I'm well aware that Dimension Door, from a rules standpoint, says that if you are to teleport to a space occupied by a creature, it would shunt you out and take 4d6 psychic damage, I think. I agree with that. However, the players came up with a very interesting plan, formed two of the smallest possible members into a creature that is so large that I considered in that moment that there would be enough space where you wouldn't be occupying technically the same space as the creature. So I allowed it for that circumstance. Most of the time, yes, they would be shunted out, and if you'd rolled a lower intelligence roll, you probably would have been pushed out the side. But as a Dungeon Master, you have to justify things, consider what makes sense versus what doesn't, how much do the mechanics written in the rules rule your game in the narrative, and how much you want to allow because the players have been creative or it's an interesting way that could make sense and you can justify. I chose in that moment to justify that, and it didn't necessarily work in their favor in some ways, but that's the nature of making weird, cool plans and seeing if they come to fruition or not.

LIAM: Still a fun game.

MATT: So I'm well aware, and yes, I did let it. That doesn't mean you have to. You can be angry that I didn't follow the rules. I thought it was fun and cool.

LIAM: Sure you did. There's a rule in the rulebook that says bend the rules whenever you want to bend the rules. That's a rule. So Matt followed the rules.

ASHLEY: This is actually a cool question. This is for Matt, and I would like to know this. Has there been something in-game that's happened that has absolutely shocked you? Where you were like, this is something that's never happened in a game I've DMed.

MATT: Teleporting inside a dragon is definitely new. The Cows and Consequences episode in general was ridiculous. There have been a few moments. Well, first off, everyone going for the treasure at the end of a boss encounter without healing up or checking for traps, and that trap that I had set up there just as a possible blockade being enough to knock Vex out based on the bad roll. I've never had a player death that was directly after the conflict and danger. You know what I mean? Where the calm, everything's cool. (explosion) It was, from a narrative standpoint, really cool how it played out, but I wasn't expecting that to happen at all. It was going to be one other annoyance and warning of the power behind this artifact, and it just happened that way.

ASHLEY: That was the worst.

MARISHA: We all felt like such assholes about that. We were all like, wow, that was dumb.

LIAM: Personally one of my most insane moments, because I've always told myself, all right, the twins, Vax is going to give himself up for his sister whenever he does it. And in that split-second I was like, here it is, here we go. I'm going to end my game, I'm ending it, Laura's going to go on, I'm out. Just like I planned. And you went-- flipped it on me.

MATT: That's what I do.

LIAM: All my ideas for the future went (pfft).

MATT: Good.

LIAM: Had to change everything I was thinking.

MATT: No, that was pretty cool. Other moment, I would say honestly the showdown with Kevdak. I wasn't sure if you guys were going to survive that, or at least a few of you were going to fall. A couple of key rolls in that fight. The Grog escape, the broom escape, using the necklace in a way that I never considered it to be used. That was-- the way you guys planned that battle worked out almost perfectly to just barely save your asses, because that fight was one of the harder encounters I'd ever developed, and it was more like I wasn't sure how it was going to go down. I had three other maps on the side in case you guys had a sewer journey, if you guys wanted to stealth in during the night and assassinate Kevdak in his room attempt, or find a way to try and--

MARISHA: That would've been a good idea.

TALIESIN: Wow, fuck, why didn't we think of that?

MATT: There were different ways this could have worked. The way this all went down, I left it open to see what you guys were going to do, and this was possibly the hardest way to handle it, but it also ended up being one of the most dynamic and cinematic, so I was excited how it worked out.

LIAM: It was such a back-and-forth, too, because we were like, okay, here's what we're going to try to do, shit, it's working, it's working, we got this, we got this! And then it went (explosion) and flipped into 180, and we're like, we're dead, we're dead, and then a Hail Mary pass at the last second. Ripping expectations back and forth.

MATT: If anybody had got the death blow aside from Grog, they wouldn't have stopped. That was the sad and scary part. Because it's one thing having an old member of the herd that challenged him dealing the death blow to give them pause and really consider, has this power move shifted, is he the new leader? That was enough to cause everyone to stop and really consider the situation, and with Zanror being brought forth and released, it put them into this tense period of-- not subservience or respecting or accepting the new rule, but not really knowing what to do because their leader was gone, and the one who challenged and killed him in a spectacular death, and it gave them pause. If it was a shitty half-elf that ran up and stabbed their ruler--

MARISHA: Hey.

MATT: From their perspective, you guys were shitty half-elves, all right? And a shitty gnome, and a shitty human.

ASHLEY: Hey! Rude.

MATT: It would've continued in their mind to be an aggressive act, and they would've continued to steamroll you. That was so crazy. Anyway, yeah, we should answer another question.

MARISHA: Similar kinds of things happened with the dragon, though, where it was like, this is going well, this is going pretty well-- oh, shit.

ASHLEY: It's going not well at all. This is very not good.

MARISHA: Once again, internet, I think-- everyone's like, well, pretty much everything that could've went wrong did. That pretty much--

TALIESIN: That's so not true. So many things that could've gone wrong didn't.

MARISHA: We did pretty well, considering.

LIAM: I'm a ground fighter. If I'd been on the ground, I'd probably be goo in shoes.

MATT: If you guys had not managed to-- the whole mechanic I'd used was if the trap succeeded, based on the dragon's perception roll and how well you guys hid things-- had the dragon even noticed there was something different and wrong, it wouldn't have landed. It would've stayed up there and started spraying you guys down. Maybe throwing spells. It would've been bad.

ASHLEY: We did pretty well, considering.

MATT: Considering. And you holding it to the ground was important, because it prevented it-- because its breath weapon is a line, it limited its range and what any powerful dragon does to its advantage is stays in the air and uses-- Those few rounds were key. Once it did get free, you saw how fast it could turn in a negative position for a group. And the chains were good. It sacrificed damage, but it also raised the DC of its ability to escape from the grapple that was holding it on the ground. You guys did a really good job and had some rolls going in your favor, but once it started turning over and it escaped, it went south very quick.

MARISHA: But we have him on the run.

MATT: You have him on the run. Kind of?

ASHLEY: That was the worst cliffhanger of a game.

MATT: I know! It wasn't my intent! I had to sleep.

ASHLEY: I know, I know.

MARISHA: Someone asked a question, when are you getting shirts on Geek and Sundry that says 'Your Fun Is Wrong'?

MATT: (laughs) I don't know. That's a polarizing term in the community. I'm glad and I'm excited

that people are passionate enough to be so invested that they are frustrated that things they came up with didn't happen, or that they saw circumstances that outside of the game could have worked. To me, I think those discussions are great. There are some people that take it too far and actually make verbal attacks on the players via social media, or go out of their way to use those circumstances to really be unfairly dark and necessarily down on us, and I'm like, those are shitty. And those are more of what that's referring to. But overall, I love the discussion, and I think it's great. Everyone will handle a situation differently, and I love people who will have those talks. So I don't know if the #yourfuniswrong is in a good enough spirit to put on a shirt. I do eventually want to do a 'You Can Certainly Try' shirt.

MARISHA: I think 'You Can Certainly Try' is next.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that's the darkest thing that we ever hear in the game. "You can certainly try."

MATT: (laughs) I love it so much.

TALIESIN: I'll roll my die to spite you.

MATT: All right. Let's find another question here. Let's see.

MARISHA: Someone asked if Keyleth was a vegetarian. Again, no. She's not. She's a druid. She just acts like it.

(laughter)

MATT: From GeekSpiral on reddit. For Ashley. "Do the Blindspot writers work out the Critical Role references with you, or do they sneak it in themselves?"

ASHLEY: They asked-- when I brought the mug to set, because I asked them, I was like, "I want to have one mug that my character uses." And they were like, "Okay, pick out a mug," and I was like, oh, I already have one. And I brought the Critical Role mug and they were like, "Oh, cool. What is this?" And I was like, "Just the coolest thing ever. Don't worry about it. This is what I'm using." But then I couldn't do it for so many episodes because it had to be cleared by NBC. And they're like, "Well, what is this Critical Role?" And I'm like, "Well!" So I had to go through and, they're like, "Can we use it?" I was like, "Of course." Yeah. And I was like, "Well, it's a Dungeons & Dragons game I play with my friends--"

MARISHA: Well, it's online, Grandma. It's online. No, no, it's not like on TV.

TALIESIN: It's not the email.

ASHLEY: And then with the writers, I think they started hearing about it. Some of them have started watching it, which is so funny. And then they started adding little stuff here and there about that my character plays Dungeons & Dragons. And then the last one with the gnome cleric, I didn't tell them that. I just read the script. Yeah, and then when I read the script, the person who had written that episode, he came over and he was like, "Yeah, because I watched it, and I know you're a gnome cleric," and I was like, "This is the best day ever."

(laughter)

ASHLEY: It was like my favorite day at work. My favorite episode, yeah. My favorite scene that I shot. So I was like, that made my day. Made my day!

LIAM: I get asked frequently if I'm ever going to DM a one-shot for our show, like when you're out of town. Theoretically like a year from now or more, if you wanted to go to Aruba or Burning Man or whatever. Maybe in a year or so. But I'm playing with kids. The kids have low expectations or no expectations. I don't remember any of the rules. Seeing all of the Quivering Palm business and dragon fight business, I'm not ready for that. Talk to me in a year. But I do it at home. It's great. My kids love it.

TALIESIN: You guys are intimidating out there. Legitimately.

MATT: It's one thing to play a game. It's another to play it on the internet where a lot of people can tell you immediately what you did wrong. But we're still having fun.

LIAM: So far.

ASHLEY: I like this one. Somebody asked, "What do you think is your character's biggest fault?"

TALIESIN: Oh, I saw that rolling through. It's a good one.

MATT: What do you think is your biggest fault, guys?

MARISHA: I feel like some of them are apparent, right?

MATT: That you can say.

MARISHA: Our biggest fault. I guess her tragic flaw? Extreme self-loathing and guilt. Fairly transparent on that one there, I think. Yeah, Keyleth pretty much hates everything she does and feels worthless. Yeah.

MATT: There you go. (laughs) To bring it up on you, guys.

TALIESIN: I'd say an interesting mix for Percy of self-loathing, which is definitely a big thing for him too, and the unbridled belief that his parents put into him that he's the only adult in the room. Someone also said, "Is it fair to call Percy the Doctor Doom of his world?" No, he is definitely the Reed Richards of his world. And if you read Fantastic Four, you will know that Reed Richards is a terrible person. He's a terrible, terrible person.

MATT: Like that. You, Vax?

LIAM: Well, I think that Vax has a little bit of self-loathing, too. I don't know, people think that Vax thinks he's a Boy Scout. I don't. And I don't think he does either. For the backstory, I was a thief for years. I did shitty things and stole from people so he could get by. I think he at this point in life feels like he's been a fuck-up and a waste of time most of his life, and the only good thing he's had in his whole life is his relationship with his sister, which is like one, good, true thing. But everything else, they're dead-enders.

ASHLEY: No, he's not!

LIAM: Well, maybe. Maybe things are changing. But that's what he was. And then also he follows his heart now, to a fault.

MATT: Right. And you, Pike?

ASHLEY: Gosh. Pike is-- Perfect. Just no faults whatsoever. No. Gosh. I think that with the death that was before the stream, I think she felt like she was not as helpful in the group, and I think that sticks with her, with trying to be like, "I need to earn my place!" Yeah, I don't know. She's got some weird stuff with her family, which we haven't really gotten into, because she comes from the deep gnomes. They're a little bit of tricksters. Hence the last name Trickfoot. It probably would be the equivalent of coming from-- I don't want to say that, because it sounds so judgmental. Never mind.

MARISHA: We're all degenerates. We're all fuck-ups.

LIAM: And that's what we love about them. None of us are trying to be white as snow. Even those of us who think they mean the most good for the world, we're all fuck-ups. We're going to continue to fuck up.

MATT: Yeah. I'm going to do a couple quick Twitter questions here rapid-fire, so we can get through some of these. Taliesin, did Matt tell you about the demon in the gun, or when did he?

TALIESIN: No, he didn't tell. I found out when you did! Yay!

MATT: (laughs) He knew Orthax, or he knew that some sort of smoke entity had attached to him and made an offer, but you didn't know what bound it to you, and it was the weapon, yeah.

TALIESIN: Nothing at all. I didn't even know. I left it open to have just been nothing. It could have just been that he had a dream one night and went nuts. It literally could have been nothing.

LIAM: You clever bastard.

MATT: It's fun. The fact that Sam caught up on that and got rid of it was one of my favorite character moments for him. Because that was going to stick around.

TALIESIN: I want my gun back!

ASHLEY: No you don't! You do not need it!

MATT: Build a new one!

TALIESIN: I haven't had time! Everything keeps exploding!

MATT: I know. (laughs) It keeps exploding?

TALIESIN: If something could stop blowing up for five minutes, I'll finish four projects around the house. Waffle iron.

ASHLEY: There's so many questions. Ooh!

MATT: Yeah, there's a lot of questions. Any you want to pick up on?

ASHLEY: No, I've already asked a lot.

LIAM: Laura says by text, is the chat not working?

MATT: Chat's working.

TALIESIN: Maybe their video is broken.

LIAM: Chat's working, La.

ASHLEY: Hi, Laura! Hi, Twavis!

LIAM: Hi! Are you guys on the other side of the planet now?

MATT: Someone asks, did Sam get experience for destroying the gun? Yes, he did. Moments like that, key moments, big story moments like that, those are the marks I make. Those are like the bump-experience bonuses. He got a few hash marks for figuring that out, and finding a way to make it happen without you murdering him in the process.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Yeah, that was very impressive.

MARISHA: Here's a question that I actually get a lot. This was from @tiamat_zx on Twitter. Why was Keyleth hostile towards Kima in the past? In the very beginning?

LIAM: Shifty eyes.

MARISHA: Yeah. You can't trust her shifty eyes. No, a lot of it's starting to slowly be revealed now, actually, I feel like. But Keyleth doesn't trust really any type of religious establishment. It's not necessarily where she comes from, and I think she's had a few bad experiences. Enough in the past to where she's seen the corruption of a church. And at the time, Kima was full-heartedly running into a blaze of glory and death and we were sent there to go grab her with really no other lead on who she actually was or what she actually wanted. I didn't trust that.

TALIESIN: She's not exactly Miss Charming either, is she?

MARISHA: Right. And I think we happened to have two personality types. Like, Keyleth and Kima had two personality types that butted heads.

MATT: Yeah. It's true. Question here real fast: @matthewmercer, do you discuss the night's events in the car ride home or days later, together with Marisha, I guess is what they're referring to? Yeah, on the ride home, we'll definitely be like, "That was crazy." And we'll recall events that happened, and she'll mention things or ask questions, and I'll say, "I don't know," and she'll get angry at me.

MARISHA: That's mainly most of it.

MATT: Yeah. It's also about why chat is so toxic. Like, guys, calm down, it's okay, it's a game. Calm down about Keyleth, guys. She's having a fun time.

LIAM: We're not deciding laws in the Supreme Court. We're being doofuses.

MARISHA: I'm the awkward, unlikeable one. I get it.

MATT: Well, the interesting point was, we were talking about that. It was like, "Why is there this polarizing anger about Keyleth out there?" And I think a lot of it may come from the fact that you are, your character by nature is, an awkward character, who isn't the heroic, grandstanding hero, isn't the trickster, Han Solo rogue, and as that personality type, against a banner of other characters who fit more in those realms.

TALIESIN: Let's stick a Miyazaki princess in the middle of the show and see what happens. That'll be great.

MATT: Essentially!

LIAM: 16 years old, jaded.

(laughter)

LIAM: Tatted up the sleeves, and Princess Mononoke dropped in the middle.

MATT: Yeah, it's an interesting psychology experiment to think about that, from my standpoint. I think Keyleth's a great character. Completely unbiased, from a DM's standpoint.

TALIESIN: I like everybody. I'm horrified by the thought of losing any of us--

MATT: I'm horrified and excited.

TALIESIN: I know.

MATT: I know that sounds awful, but from a narrative standpoint-- I'm never going to force it, by any means, so if people are like, "Matt killed someone." I'm like, I'm not going to kill anybody on purpose. I'm going to let circumstances work out. So far there have been a couple close calls. One of these days, one of those dice is going to roll lower than that resurrection DC.

LIAM: Close calls are getting closer and closer together, Matt.

MATT: I know. Hey! Stakes are escalating, guys!

LIAM: Could you give us a list of the easiest encounters to the hardest? Or could you put a skull next to the super-hard ones like in Fallout, where you're not supposed to go near the bad guy because the skull is floating there?

MATT: There's an ancient dragon.

LIAM: I didn't want to fight it!

TALIESIN: I thought we weren't, and then suddenly, oh, this is happening now!

LIAM: We need to go get some of these things and come back.

MARISHA: About fighting the dragon?

LIAM: Yeah! I said it like 20 times.

MATT: Hey, man, depending on how this works out, some lessons will be learned, and hopefully prepare you for the next encounter a little better. Depending on who's left.

ASHLEY: I don't like the sound of that. "How this turns out." I know, maybe we let him-- after we get you out, run.

MARISHA: They're going to be so angry at us, those dragons.

ASHLEY: It would be really interesting with this group, though, if someone did have to reroll a character, since we all do already know each other so well. That would be a very interesting dynamic.

MARISHA: I feel like it'd be like transferring high schools, and you're the new kid in class, walking in for the first time, and you're like, "Hey."

LIAM: Also, the whole cast is this-- we're all very ripened, mature characters with lots of nuance, and the first one will be like, "Hey, I'm a new bard! Where are my spells?"

MARISHA: I've had that legitimate fear, because when we came into this, we were already two years into our characters, and I was like, jeez, it took us a while to find them and make them as deep and complex as they are.

LIAM: Although when you play every week, we used to play every six weeks, so things were a little shallower at home, and now...

MATT: Yeah, it's going to be interesting.

ASHLEY: Let's make it not happen.

MATT: Yeah. Just make sure you pay attention to the lore and the previous experiences you've had with dangerous entities.

LIAM: There is a lot of lore, Matt.

MARISHA: I feel like he's feeding us hints.

ASHLEY: I know.

TALIESIN: For the first time ever, I feel like Matt is actually--

MATT: I've told you nothing, I just like messing with you guys.

LIAM: Somebody asked how you and I avoid awkwardness in real life after Vax and Keyleth moments.

TALIESIN: You guys are really awkward. It's weird.

MARISHA: Who are you, the chat room?

LIAM: We're pretty cool with it. It's like an acting gig, really.

MARISHA: Yeah, we're mature adults, I think.

ASHLEY: We're probably all more awkward with it. We're all like, how do you feel?

MARISHA: Okay, I will say that Liam and I walked away, we were like, "Wait. No one flinched at a Scanlan and Pike scene." No one flinched.

LIAM: Not at all. Everyone crawled inside their own assholes when we had our--

ASHLEY: I think because you guys had the maiden voyage.

LIAM: That's right. We were pioneers.

ASHLEY: You were the pioneers, and we all learned from that moment of, oh, you can have moments like these, and everybody has to not be 12 about it.

LIAM: It was like that moment when you first get to prison and they put you on the wall and take the hose and bring it.

MARISHA: Hey, stings!

LIAM: Hey, do you maybe want to go out sometime, I kind of like you, ow!

ASHLEY: I know, we were the worst. We were the worst.

MATT: I'm going to pull up another Reddit question here.

LIAM: Laura and/or Travis.

MARISHA: They're not here.

LIAM: I'll answer for Travis.

MARISHA: I'll answer for Laura.

MATT: There you go. You guys should do that.

LIAM: (Grog voice) What? What?

MARISHA: Wink. Wink. Wink.

MATT: Let's see. "Ashley. Do you prefer as a player to watch things unfold, or do you want to be in the driver's seat more? Also, would you ever convert anyone to worshipping Sarenrae?" From Jojorious on Reddit.

ASHLEY: I think, for me personally, I still feel a little like a newbie, in a way, because they've played so many games consistently, week after week, and because of work, I still feel a little rusty. So for me, there's a part of me, not as Pike, that likes to watch things unfold first before making a move, because I'm like, can I do this? I'm a little unsure sometimes.

LIAM: That's Pike or that's Ashley, you're saying?

ASHLEY: That's Ashley. But I think I feel like Pike is the same way, but I feel like these things blur together. But I think with Pike, it's almost better to hang back because of being a cleric, because you can do a little clean-up after. Just, who's hurt, who can we protect and keep alive and keep in the battle? There was another part to the question.

MATT: Oh, would you ever convert anyone to worshipping Sarenrae?

ASHLEY: Oh, yes. Probably not. I feel like with Pike there's a lot of-- which we've had so many times talks in the game and out of game about how Pike sometimes veers away from worshipping Sarenrae and wants to do bad things. I just want to do bad things with my friends! Hoodrat things with my friends. Sometimes she can't. There are consequences.

LIAM: You make Sarenrae look really good on the outside.

ASHLEY: Well, all right. I don't think Pike would ever be like, "You need to convert to Sarenrae because you're a bad person." So no.

MARISHA: You will never be those protesters outside of Comic-Con.

ASHLEY: No, never ever ever.

LIAM: Oh man, can we do a photoshoot with Ashley with the sign for Sarenrae?

(laughter)

MATT: Standing out on a street corner at Comic-Con?

ASHLEY: Done, we're doing it.

MATT: Question real fast from Atlas_Adams on Reddit, saying: "Do the Vestiges still draw their power from the deities? If so, wouldn't they not work for a person who is disloyal?" I'm not going to go too deep into that. I will say that not everyone who was part of the battle and the whole Divergence itself was a religious individual. Many of the artifacts did stem from religious power. Some of them also from arcane secrets. Not everything is tied to a specific deity, per se. Also, there's two sides to every battle. Not going to say any more than that.

MARISHA: Someone said, I think it's supposed to be @Alkie on Twitter, "How did Mary Elizabeth and other guests come about? Are you friends with them and they just wanted to join?"

MATT: My apologies. I was looking for another question, thinking that was to you. My apologies. Well--

MARISHA: "Are they friends and wanted to join?"

TALIESIN: Not really. Just kidding.

MATT: Mary had never played before and had not really exhibited interest when we first-- she was invited to the very first session that we were going to run, but she couldn't make it, she was like, "I don't know." But then hearing all the stories over the years of us playing privately, she was like, "Oh, this sounds like fun." I'm like, "Yeah, I already have too many players. Sorry."

LIAM: Knew she'd be good at it, though.

MATT: I know. She'd never played an RPG before. When we had the opportunity to bring guests on the show, it was like, oh, we have to see if Mary can make it. And Will, who I'd worked with on Thundercats and a few other projects between, he's a huge fantasy buff, as you've seen in the previous Q&A. He loves fantasy, but he'd never played an RPG before. We had conversations about D&D back when we began our campaign, and he kept asking about it, and I could see that twinkle in his eye of interest, and I was like, "Well, we have a guest spot coming up. Would you be interested in playing?" He was like, "I have no idea what I'm doing. Sure." And so we got together at the Coral Cafe, and we built a character, went over the rules a bit, and he's like, "I still don't know what I'm doing, but sure." And he did great, and the dynamic's been fantastic, and I'm glad they had an opportunity to actually play together when they came back for a couple episodes. That was cool.

LIAM: Back in seven seconds.

MARISHA: I love that, in classic Windows fashion, the tablet decided to update and restart in the middle of all this, so we don't have access to the chat anymore.

MATT: Good job, Windows Surface. Windows Surface kicks ass. We'll get back to you, chatroom, here, in a minute.

TALIESIN: Twitter asks, "When making sketches for inventions, does Matt ever shut you down, or 'you can certainly try' you?" And, no, usually if it comes to the sketch point, it's the, "I don't understand what you want to do, please explain to me what you want to do", and I'm pretty good-- I try really hard not to push the technology of anything Percy makes past 1901, 1880. I'm not looking to bring the Vietnam era to D&D.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Machine guns are fancy and wonderful, but I'm shooting musket balls, so I don't even have bullet technology yet. And even with the lightning glove, I sent sketches of something that would sort of pretty much work. I don't know what would have happened if you hit it with lightning, but it was definitely a rudimentary electrical generation system that would have fit in a glove.

MATT: Yeah. There's, for Percy, this consideration of what your ideas are versus what, number one, would be functional in the world, two, how far, these designs, could you actually produce based on your experience in the engineering realm. Even things that were available in a historical sense, in certain time periods, those were people that spent their entire life steeped in these feats of engineering. Whenever you bring me an idea, it would be like trying to marry what you're trying to accomplish versus what would be viable within the game, and finding balance as it is, but an aspect of your class features.

TALIESIN: I have no interest in breaking the world any further than where his story is literally that he broke the world, which I'm sure will come up again at some point.

MATT: What are you talking about? I can't imagine it'll ever come up.

TALIESIN: No. That's fine. It's all over.

MARISHA: @NerdyEquestrian on Twitter: "Is there something growing between Vex and Percy?"

LIAM: Actually, hold that thought. Because I have a question that's not the same question, it's not for me, but it's related to that, and that is, "Who is Pike in love with?" And I don't want an answer. Instead I'd ask the audience, people who are asking questions like that or what's in the letter. Don't you think that's like asking while you're reading the first Harry Potter book why Harry wasn't killed by his nemesis? It's a book. Do you really want to know the last chapter when you're in the first chapter?

ASHLEY: Because we could tell you!

LIAM: Wouldn't you rather the story unfold in front of your eyes?

MARISHA: There's a lot of who-are-you-guys-jonesing-for questions about the two of you.

TALIESIN: I don't talk about who I'm jonesing for, in general. Percy does not talk about these things.

LIAM: Taliesin or Percy?

TALIESIN: Oh, Taliesin does. Taliesin will never shut up about it.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: I am terrible, as everybody knows. I am terrible at that.

MATT: That's pretty great.

TALIESIN: Yeah, Percy has no interest in--

LIAM: What's in that letter, I would much rather, as an audience member who gets to sit on the set while we play the game, see that come out in the story and have my mind blown, rather than on Twitter be like, "Oh, well, it's this and this and this and this." Just enjoy the roller coaster.

MARISHA: I desperately want to know what's in the letter.

ASHLEY: The letter!

MATT: I want to know really bad.

LIAM: I want to know at the right time!

ASHLEY: That letter was so lovely that in the game, there was about five minutes where I wanted to cry. Sam wrote this letter.

LIAM: It's 30 shit jokes, isn't it?

MATT: It's just dickbutts for four pages. So many dickbutts.

ASHLEY: But it was so beautifully written. He knew nobody would see it, except for me, maybe unless I were to just post it and be a jerk about it.

LIAM: I took a photo of it, but I deleted it. I could have read it, but I didn't.

ASHLEY: I know. You did. You could have read it. But it was paragraphs and paragraphs that were so beautifully written, and that was a moment in the game for me where I was like, "Does Pike have-- whoa! There could be a little something-- Scanlan!" Just because it was so beautiful, it made me pause. Life is so complicated! Yes, he might have Cyrano de Bergerac-ed me. Who knows. That sounds a little weird.

LIAM: You just got cubed.

MATT: Lucas, real fast, we lost the chat room over here on the tablet, if you could get that going.

MARISHA: Windows decided to update. It's not your fault.

MATT: It was like, oh, hey, guys, updating, because Windows.

LUCAS: It does that.

MATT: As a hardcore PC user, you get used to it. I've been using Windows 7 for so long, and every two days, it's like, "You want Windows 10? You sure you don't want Windows 10? Here's Windows 10!"

ASHLEY: "I'm just going to give it to you."

MATT: "All you've got to do is press this button. You've just got to press this red button right here." You can't really click anywhere else but the button. All the buttons install Windows 10. Thanks, guys. And I finally was like, "Okay. I'll install. I'll try this out." Five minutes later: back to Windows 7. I'll eventually get there, I'm sure. Cool, thank you, buddy. "Matt, did you plant Zahra's flying cloak and Vex's flying broom?" No. The flying cloak she purchased with funds that her character had accrued up until that point, based on what was established after the dragon fight, the first battle she did. Between the cloak and the dragonslaying arrow are the two things she used all of her funds on. That was purely on her end.

(Windows startup noise)

MATT: Oh, thank you! You're working! Updates are installed. As far as the broom, that was purely chosen by Hardwick when we made his character. With his funds that he was given, he was able to choose to spend it on items he wanted. He was like, "Oh, flying broom! That looks cool. I'll take that." And I was like, "All right. I know who's going to want that." I immediately knew as soon as it happened, if he pulls that out, who's going to gun for it. And as soon as he did, Vex's eyes went--

ASHLEY: Gimme!

MATT: I wasn't expecting that to happen. I think Hardwick's still jokingly bent out of shape about it. I've seen him a few times. We went to Renn Faire the week before last, and he was like, "I got to get my broom back, man." And I'm like, "Yeah, have fun with that. Good luck."

TALIESIN: He'd have to come back on the show at the very least.

MATT: I know. We'll see.

LIAM: Work on your sleight-of-hand technique.

MATT: Exactly. Arcane casters can be tricksy. I'm just glad he was able to guest. His schedule is so crazy. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, that broom was fully on him. He brought it and he lost it.

LIAM: I'll answer another quick Vaxleth question, which is, what inspired it? I think that all during the home game, and even at the beginning of the game on the show, Vax had the same opinion of Keyleth as his sister, which was, "Come on. Are you serious?" most of the time. "Goody two-shoes? Really?" I don't remember what it was, I promise I don't remember what it was, but something happened in one game. I remember thinking about it after the show and then talking to Matt in the next day or two, going like, "Can you do this in Dungeons & Dragons? Like, would this be okay? Would you be okay with it? I'm not going to go anywhere with it, but would that be okay?" That's where it came from. And the reason I thought it would be fun for the game is the same reason I think why Taliesin had Percy give Grog an evil, sentient sword. Because it would make the game interesting. It would totally shift the game pieces on the board and add new dynamics in unpredictable ways. I'm not treating it like a dating sim where the end result for me playing D&D was "winning the princess". It's just to see how things could change in the next year of gameplay.

TALIESIN: Absolutely, there are decisions that you make that are specifically like, I don't want my character to learn that much that quickly. I don't want him to be that smart and that, "Well, I've learned a valuable lesson about how to treat people and how to--" Nope! Here. Yours. Cool.

LIAM: It's been done this way for a year. Let's see what happens if we move this over here and that over there.

MARISHA: A lot of people think I'm leading Vax on.

LIAM: Ah, whatever. I'm having fun.

TALIESIN: It's fun. I'll say both Taliesin and Percy are really amused by the entire situation.

MARISHA: That's good.

ASHLEY: Same. So is Ashley/Pike.

MATT: Question from AaronShot on Reddit, saying, "Matt, give us a little tease. When you talked about illegal substances being on the market in Emon during one of the Q&As at a con last year, how much world-building have you done to date that we have not seen yet? Wildemount, Marquet." As much as I can. It's a progressive thing I'm developing and have been for years. Free time has not been copious. This show is a fantastic thing every week that takes up a lot of my free time. We have a lot of cool things we have coming up that we want to hopefully announce that take a lot of my free time. This is one thing that I'm always working on. I have fleshed out a good portion of Marquet. I've fleshed out elements of Wildemount. It's not as fleshed out as others. Othanzia and Tal'Dorei are the two most fleshed out in my world, because those are the two where you guys have spent your most time. Whenever this game's done, we start a new campaign, it'll probably still be in Exandria, but it might start in Marquet. It might start somewhere else in the world and have a whole different cultural flavor and flair, and it'll be a whole different side to this world. And there'll be references to and history that exists that you would know, because you were part of it before, but you'll be a whole new group of adventurers in a whole different part of the world. That'll be fun.

LIAM: I would say part of the reason that I didn't want to fight Umbrasyl, most of it was because I didn't think we were ready. But part of it is because I'm looking at this game like a game of Fallout. I want to go to the corners of the map. I want to go to Marquet. I want to go to the bottom of the ocean. I want to go to all of these places where the Vestiges are.

MARISHA: I want to go off the map!

LIAM: Are we really mainlining the quest? Really? That's what we're doing? What about all these side things that Matt's got? I want to be a completionist.

MARISHA: There's so much to do.

MATT: You play it carefully, you still can. Whatever that means.

(nervous chatter and laughter)

MATT: Oh, it's so much fun to mess with them.

ASHLEY: People have asked this before, but I actually like this question. "If you could play another character in-game, who would you pick?"

LIAM: One of the other characters?

ASHLEY: One of the other characters.

MARISHA: Grog. No holds barred. Like, zero fucks. Kill shit. It's great. He's like the polar opposite of Keyleth.

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: It would be such a nice palate cleanser. It would be so nice. To be able to be reckless and not care. Break people's necks whenever I want to. Must be nice being Grog.

LIAM: I would go Keyleth because I want access to the broad range of magic, and I've been so non-magic the entire time. I don't know shit about magic. I barely know anything. Yeah, Vax-- and side note, before we go into this game, Vax is totally impressed with Keyleth and thinks that she's the most powerful one in the group, and is in awe of it, and feels like a weak dingus, basically, in comparison to everybody. To everybody.

ASHLEY: But you do so much damage!

LIAM: That's fine. Not Liam! Vax looks at everybody and is like, "Oh, my God! Look at you, shining beacon of hope! Look at this crazy fucking motherfucker who can build stuff out of a tin can! Look at Scanlan, staring into the maw of horror and stupidly thinking everything's okay! Look at my sister, who's not scared of anything!"

MARISHA: And look at how much we all hate ourselves.

MATT: Oh, that's pretty great.

MATT: Vax is Sokka, someone said in the chat room. Vax is Sokka from Avatar.

MARISHA: Oh! We've got to find Sokka a master! Got to find you your own sword!

LIAM: I've seen the first three seasons of Korra, but not the early one.

MATT: Watch it with your kids. They'll love it. Seriously. It's great.

LIAM: Okay. I'll get there.

MATT: (laughs) It says, "Gilmore started out as kind of a caricature and was a fleshed-out character--" Question went away, but Gilmore didn't start out as a caricature in my head. I never want to make an NPC a caricature per se. There are characters that have strong personality traits and they emerge themselves, because for an NPC, you have to make an impact quickly. You don't have a lot of time with them, and you want to try and make the world lively and interesting for your players. So I have certain personality points that are at the forefront of each personality. Gilmore to me was never a caricature, partially because I built him around somebody I used to do theater with when I was younger in high school, so I already had a personality print for him. But also I really wanted to show a character that could be ostentatious and flamboyant in a way that was fun and not a caricature. If that didn't come across, my apologies. Gilmore is a very charismatic, very outgoing salesman, and that's part of his job. He uses that to his advantage.

MARISHA: He's also very deep. I don't think any of us have looked at him as a one-dimensional character.

MATT: But people have their interpretations. I care very much about the character.

LIAM: First appearance, we were rolling laughing. We didn't know what was coming. There was so much panache.

MATT: That's his whole thing. He's a showman, and that's so much of his personality. And as you guys got to know him better, especially you, he let you peek behind the veil a bit and see--

ASHLEY: Yeah, you peeked behind the veil.

MATT: The world-wearied individual, there's a lot of depth to the character.

TALIESIN: I love your Scarlet Pimpernel--

MATT: Very much so. Percival from Scarlet Pimpernel-ish.

MARISHA: Also someone was asking if he was based off of a real person.

MATT: Yes, he was. He was based off a person in high school that I did theater with. I'm not going to say who, because he's on Facebook.

(laughter)

LIAM: He's also been one of the greatest pleasures for me for this game, because it wasn't anything that I saw coming. It was really funny and surprising the first time at home, and then he came back several times, and right from the first time that Gilmore appeared, he zeroed in on Vax and was sweet on Vax. It was nervous laughter the first time, and then slowly over time it got more charming, and more charming, up to the point where you guys have seen that probably Vax is legitimately taken with him, definitely intrigued by him.

ASHLEY: He charmed your pants off.

LIAM: Charmed my-- almost charmed my pants off. Just before. And then some people are like, "It should be Vax and Gilmore!" Like, I get it. Gilmore's a great character, and Vax was definitely taken with him. We probably saw Gilmore two to three weeks of the last three years? Maybe more? I've traveled-- Vax and Keyleth, though, have been traveling together for years. So, I mean--

ASHLEY: It's a deep-rooted love.

MARISHA: And we were friends first, which is how they always say you should do it.

(laughter)

MATT: I will say on that fact, too, because someone asked this question, and they said there have been hints on the characters that have exhibited LGBT relationships in the game, but a lot of characters seem to be husband-and-wife-type personalities. Are those only a small number of people, and I'm like, no. I don't make a big deal of sexuality in the game unless it comes up, because I don't think it's something that should drive the story, it just exists in the world. I think there's relationships of all kinds in Exandria. And I think culturally, just like in the real world, some places it's more appropriate than not, based on wherever they live. It doesn't mean I agree with that, by any means. I believe love is love no matter where you find it. And there are places in Exandria where it is more acceptable than others. And that's a whole different story element that might come up depending on where you travel in the world, I don't know.

LIAM: Hey, guys, we're in Hollywood. We're all leftie communists. We're good.

ASHLEY: We're all commies.

MATT: But yeah. Like many writers, I err on the side of creating an interesting character who might happen to be gay. Or an interesting character that may happen to be bisexual. I try not to make that a defining characteristic of the personality, nor do I want to try and go out of my way to have a one-off NPC that you encounter be like, "Oh, by the way, I have a wife and I'm a girl." Because that to me seems like it's forced, it's shoehorned and now it's not about the story, it's about that relationship, whereas if the relationship were to come about as part of the story then that's just how it is, because that's life.

LIAM: My primary character trait is heterosexuality, and I mean as Liam.

MATT: (laughs) How high did you roll on your heterosexual roll when we started your character?

LIAM: Four.

MATT: Good on you! Hey guys, this isn't FATAL. We're not rolling for vaginal circumference.

(sounds of disgust)

MATT: Yeah, there's an RPG that does that. It's the most misogynist, awful RPG. It's a great example of how not to develop and design a game if you haven't seen it, or don't see it, it'll just make you angry. Don't look up FATAL.

TALIESIN: No. There's places you just don't go on the internet.

MATT: All right, anyway. We got time for a few more questions before we take a break and go into the Battle Royale. For those guys who didn't have your questions answered tonight, I apologize, we've gotten a lot of questions. I'll try and go on the Reddit occasionally to answer questions through this thread in the coming months or so, off and on, and feel free to throw them back at us on Twitter afterward. We'll answer them as we can.

MARISHA: Someone was asking for you to explain where the College of the Maestro came from.

MATT: Oh, College of the Maestro. Yeah, I put up a College of the Maestro bard college on DMs Guild recently, and that came from a character-- I may have mentioned it in previous Q&As. I've never played a bard, but I've always wanted to. I love bard classes, I love the aspect behind them. They were really underappreciated in previous editions, but I loved the idea of a guy who knows a little bit about everything and is an inspiration to the party around him, and so I had this character concept for a long time to make a bard-- probably a dwarven bard, because I love dwarves also-- who, as opposed to playing music or singing music, could pluck the sound from the air around them. The sound of battle. The impact of a sword against a shield, or the sound of a creature chittering as it attacks, and mold it into a symphony, almost like a soundbender where they pull and turn it into music, and that was their basis. So instead of fighting with a weapon, they have a wand and an open hand, and they stand in the middle or the back of the battlefield and conduct it, like an orchestra conductor.

ASHLEY: That's rad.

MATT: Eventually I got really frustrated and was like, "I'm going to make this as a bard college and we'll see if people like it." It's gotten a good response. It's still being tweaked. Anything homebrew you try and balance it as best you can. At first blast, I don't have a lot of time to really finetune it, and I wanted to get it out there to get the community response, and it's been really great. You guys have had great feedback and I'm tweaking things as we go, so there'll probably be a couple more updates in the next few weeks or months. So thank you all, people who have reached out and given comments on DMs Guild or on the Reddit thread. It's making its way towards hopefully being a fun option for those who want to try it out. If you don't like it, you don't have to play it.

TALIESIN: In my mind I'm imagining Fronk, our local noise DJ. "I take the sounds, the sounds, I put them together, and they make noises."

MATT: Oh my God, please somebody make a College of the Maestro bard that is a deep noise DJ.

(laughter)

MATT: "I now use my bardic inspiration die to drop the beat." Dubstep bard. Please, please.

MARISHA: @ChaoticNachos on Twitter asks: "What shirt are you wearing, Liam?"

LIAM: Oh, this is a Loot Crate shirt. It's from one of the last couple of boxes, you can still get it. It's alien-involved.

ASHLEY: This has been one of my favorite shirts that they've put out.

MARISHA: This is the X-Files shirt. This is when X-Files came back.

ASHLEY: It's so good.

LIAM: I'm going to answer a super quick one and then pass one on to Matt that I want to hear the answer to. "Why did the twins know Abyssal?" We learned it in elf school, like Latin. And then TukRoll asks: "The vegetables of the virgins is such a cool story arc, will you release the quest line after this?"

MATT: Vegetables of the virgins?

LIAM: Yes.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: What?

LIAM: Vestiges of Divergence.

MATT: The vegetable of the virgins, that's a DVD set you don't let anyone know you own.

ASHLEY: I completely misunderstood. The vegetables of the virgins.

MATT: We've all made that mistake, right?

LIAM: Tuk means the Vestiges of Divergence. Are you going to drop that on the earth?

MATT: Possibly, a lot of this content right now, I'm developing as we go and I can't really release too much when we're still playing through it.

LIAM: You know, really, I just wanted to read that tweet out.

MATT: You did good.

ASHLEY: You did great.

MARISHA: How did I miss that? Is that like a thing that's been happening, because I missed that.

MATT: I'm hoping in the future to release elements of Exandria or elements of the campaign on DMs Guild or other means to have you guys play more in what we've done if it interests you, or to take and alter as you like. But time has to fight itself to me first.

LIAM: Send you that pocket universe to get inside of.

ASHLEY: People do keep asking who Pike is in love with, and same as what Liam said. We'll see. It might not ever happen in game. Maybe it won't. But she's in love with somebody. It's something that happened prior to playing the show. It was a moment that happened and feelings were formed. It might not even be somebody in the group. It could even be an NPC character.

LIAM: Trinket. Totally Trinket. It's Trinket. That's the forbidden love.

ASHLEY: It's Trinket. It's Trinket. God, you guys! Figured it out.

MARISHA: @CmdrDara on Twitter says, "How do I get my fellow party members to not be murderhobos?"

LIAM: Good luck.

MATT: My suggestion is, consider, if your character is a murderhobo, there are ramifications for that type of action in a society. You as a DM, it's your responsibility to keep in mind, there probably-- unless they're in some sort of destitute place where that's totally fine-- there are going to be guards. There are going to be sentinels. There are going to be people that their job is to stop murderhobos from coming in and being murderhobos. So they will become wanted. They will become hunted. There's a possibility there might be a bounty put on their heads, from individuals that are more powerful than the party. And if they're going to be real dicks about it and not try and play the story you've created, and want to murder everyone, they're probably going to end up shot to death in an alley with a bunch of crossbow bolts and that's the end of their game. That's a valuable lesson to learn. If it's a world which enables a murderhobo-type circumstance, that's different, and you can find narratives in there, but it's definitely more of an evil campaign, and a little harder to run unless you have some experience as a GM. But if it's something you don't want to happen in the game, keep in mind, there are ramifications for such horrible, murderous actions, which could lead to a really interesting story. Perhaps they killed a few people and they all of a sudden meet the families of these individuals, or the person that captures them is related to someone they murdered, and decides no, I'm not going to execute you, I'm going to make you work for me until you realize what you've done. Or perhaps a paladin or a cleric that actually feels sorry for them is like, "You did a horrible thing, but I don't understand why you did this. I want to understand it. Until then, you're under my watch." Now they're working for this individual who is trying to understand how you were so corrupted as people. You can find different ways to turn that behavior into part of the story. But if it's just the players trolling you, maybe have a talk with your party to work with you and respect the time you've put into the game.

MARISHA: And what happens if your fellow party members are murderhobos and you're not?

MATT: Then stand up. Stand up in the story and pull a Keyleth, and be like, "Guys, this is wrong!"

ASHLEY: #PullAKeyleth.

MATT: And if they turn around and stab your character to death? Perhaps this isn't the gaming group you should be hanging with.

LIAM: Maybe your DM could create an all-powerful hobo lich who could murder them.

ASHLEY: #PullAKeyleth, except if it's children.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Just like in real life, though, you really have to pick your friends. We've had games where not everyone's playing the same game, and it becomes a problem. I've been in that game several times in my life, where there's three different games happening. Find everybody who wants to play the game you want to play.

MATT: Yeah. And as a GM or DM, before you even start the game, have a conversation with all your players to discuss the kind of game you're all looking for. Be like, "Hey, guys, this is the kind of game I want to run. And it's got some story, some intrigue, political elements, and some combat balanced in." Some players may be like, "Oh, I just want to come in, kick down doors, kill shit and take loot." You want to make sure you all are agreed upon the type of game you want to play, so you don't end up four games in before everyone hates each other. I will also--

TALIESIN: I've got one here.

MATT: Go for it.

TALIESIN: This one kind of amused me. Stefan Pennington said, "You said what your characters' greatest flaws were. What do you think your characters' greatest virtues are?", which I thought was funny. We've never talk about what's good about our characters very often, because what's wrong with us is so much more interesting.

MARISHA: That is true.

TALIESIN: I know. This is an interesting thought. Percy I would say is-- he is genuinely filled with gratitude towards the people who saved him from the abyss that he was falling into. He is very grateful. He is many, many things, but he is deeply, deeply grateful for the people in his life, and is willing to do some dumb stuff that he knows is dumb because of it.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: I know. I want to hear what I'm going to be killing in here. Let me know what dies tonight.

MARISHA: Well, I was going to say, I think Keyleth has her blind guidance, that I don't think she's aware-- like, her positive effect that she has on Vox Machina, that I don't think she's even aware of, that I think she-- because Keyleth is under the assumption that she's constantly ignored and that people are like, not-- No. Right! No, I know!

LIAM: I feel like she doesn't know that, but--

MARISHA: I know that, but she's-- I don't think she realizes the influences that-- I don't think she actually realizes the power of her influence that she actually can wield for the better.

TALIESIN: I'm so glad that she hasn't learned the mom voice yet.

MARISHA: No. Pike gets close.

TALIESIN: I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. Oh my god.

MARISHA: Pike has gotten close a few times with Grog, with her-- you're like, one look, man. One look, Grog.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I've got it down to a look instead of a word. I think that was a moment in game of me with Travis being, stop it! Do not die again.

MATT: That's pretty great.

LIAM: We're not going to clean this up afterwards, we're going to cut it off right now!

ASHLEY: When I watched it back, I was-- when I watched it back, when I saw the little gif, I was like, yikes! I was so intense.

LIAM: Colin Dorrey @e_jeansegast asks, "Speaking of Gilmore, is Vax bisexual?" Duh. Good question.

TALIESIN: Three on the Kinsey scale.

MATT: Oh! We have Zoaga on Reddit asks: "Quick question for Matt: As we've seen, you've tinkered with the stats of the ancient dragons in the Conclave. Without going into specific details, do you have any idea what kind of challenge rating these modifications might put them at?" I don't. I try and measure it, but a lot of the measurements are based on parties of four, maybe five. We have a party of seven, sometimes eight people when we have guests on, and because of the nature of us coming from Pathfinder to this game, and I tend to run games a little higher-power than the average, I've had to adjust a lot of the difficulty in the game, which has been an interesting challenge for me as a DM, but also means that the scale is going to continue to get more epic. I have to tweak it, because we have a lot of powerful characters with powerful items, but that's the kind of game I wanted to run anyway. The next game might be a little more low-powered depending on where it starts. We shall see. I've learned a lot. Remember, I came into this -- we went from Pathfinder to Fifth Edition when we started the stream, really our first time playing Fifth Edition, so there's been balancing lessons learned as we progress, and a lot of circumstances that caught me and the players off-guard as far as difficulty. That's part of the fun of the game. So for me, it's learning through experience, previous encounters, learning the players' strengths and weaknesses, and finding ways to tweak creatures that better fit those to be a real challenge when it has to be and to not be a real challenge when it doesn't have to be. Not every battle has to be a fight to the death, to the teeth ever, because sometimes fights are enjoyable for players to show up and fight basilisks that once tore them asunder and be like, oh, we come back and we tear you down! It's fun to have those quick victories sometimes. But yeah, you have to find it through practice, and the DMG scaling does help a lot, but on this level, this size of a party with what they have at their disposal, I kind of have to wing a lot of it.

LIAM: The Raistlin level.

ASHLEY: Do we have-- does this go towards anything, like is this extra credit?

MATT: What, this? No. There's no experience points for this. This is for fun. This is just for fun. This is for the bragging rights of saying you can beat the shit out of the rest of your own party.

LIAM: There's a fun one for me. Someone said, "What characters do your kids play? Would you ever introduce Vax or Vox Machina into their quests?" I hadn't thought of that. I'm going to do it. Thank you for the suggestion. I started with my son who's nine. He's with three boys, and my son is a half-elf druid with a dragonborn fighter and a dragonborn rogue. Then my daughter got interested, so I started doing a separate game with my daughter and my son where my son plays a dwarven wizard and my daughter plays an elven druid, and then my daughter got into it, so now I'm doing one with four girls where my daughter is a gnome rogue, and there's a gnome cleric, and there is a gnome druid, and a human monk. And I am up to my neck in Dungeons and Dragons lately, thank you Matthew Mercer.

MATT: (laughs) You're welcome. Someone send him some Best Dad awards.

MARISHA: Because Ashley made a Keyleth killing a child joke, now I got the questions, "Were there ramifications for Keyleth killing the child?" Yeah.

TALIESIN: She still has to hear about it all the time.

ASHLEY: But it was the-- one of the funniest moments in the game? It was-- For me, I thought it was so funny, which is terrible. Because you were just doing this amazing thing--

LIAM: You're all learning a lot about Ashley right now.

ASHLEY: I know. I think, if I ever rolled another character, it would be the most evil, terrible person.

LIAM: Yeah, I think you have to.

ASHLEY: For me, I thought it was kind of funny because you were like, I just want to help! And then he was like, and you killed a child.

LIAM: You know, it's not real. You know, it's paper and dice.

TALIESIN: And it's really hard to find a greeting card for that. Like, I've been looking for years to find a pop-up-- snap!

MARISHA: Hey, sorry you killed a child. Oh god, oh god!

MATT: That's horrible, that's horrible!

LIAM: A musical card?

ASHLEY: It was up there with the moment Scanlan had the knife ready to go and then he kept going out the window.

TALIESIN: Yeah, that was so amazing.

MARISHA: Well, I pretty much did the same thing, too, when I accidentally killed the half-dead dwarf as Minxie by picking him up by the neck when we were in the Underdark.

ASHLEY: By his scruff?

MARISHA: Yeah, I picked him up by the scruff and he had one hit point left. It was just enough.

MATT: Like, snap. Ooh.

MARISHA: That was where the "I try so hard and I'm the worst" came from.

ASHLEY: You have had so many of those moments and those are some of the best moments. You've had so many of those where you're like, guys, I got this. I'm here to help.

MARISHA: Yeah, Keyleth's the worst. She's--

ASHLEY: No, she's the best.

MATT: The reactionary push into the lava's one of my favorites. She's like, "I don't know what to do! I'm sorry!" Just pushing him down into the lava as he's like (screaming). "I'm sorry!" That was so funny.

MARISHA: Go to sleep. Go to sleep. It'll be over soon.

(laughter)

LIAM: On the flip side, one of our home moments was amazing-- it's actually on my vine account-- which was Keyleth walking up to a shambling mound? Was it a shambling mound?

MATT: It was a corrupt treant.

LIAM: A corrupt treant. We were going to have to fight that thing and you went (blugh) and it went (groaning) and wandered off and we were all like (yelling).

MARISHA: No, it was great.

MATT: I can't remember what spell it was, but it was something that essentially you can charm a specific plant-based monster, and it failed its saving throw. It was going to be this epic encounter with this giant corrupted treant in the middle of the Bramble Forest.

MARISHA: It was Dominate Plants. During Pathfinder days.

MATT: Yeah. It was this big old bramble forest that led up to the actual home of the Dread Emperor and it walked out and was like (roars) and you're like, "Sit down and sleep." "Okay." And that was it and I was like, well done.

MARISHA: You know, I like-- believing in the what I like to call the Community zodiac, as in Dan Harmon's Community, and Keyleth is definitely the Britta of the Community zodiac. She's Britta.

MATT: I like that.

TALIESIN: No, yeah. I totally see that.

LIAM: What you got under that blanket?

MATT: Well, we'll find out here shortly. Let's do one more question and then we're going to take a break and come back here for the Battle Royale.

MARISHA: Make it a good one!

MATT: I know! I'm trying to see. Let's go for the chat. We've done a lot of these. Chat, let's see what we got. This'll be our last question for the night.

MARISHA: Keyleth is totally Britta. See?

LIAM: Unless that is a hedge maze, I am a dead man.

TALIESIN: That's another thing. I think we need Community fanart.

MARISHA: Community fanart? Crossover Community fanart?

MATT: Chat is going so fast. It's going so fast, oh my god!

LIAM: If that's a big room, I'm gone.

ASHLEY: That is not true.

MATT: This is a quick throwaway. It won't be the last one. Someone asked if I could ever join Vox Machina, what class and race would I be? Dwarf bard. I think I've already specified that.

TALIESIN: That's pretty good.

MATT: A good final end question.

MARISHA: Someone said, "What's worse, doors or dragons?" That's a pretty good question.

MATT: We'll find out. (laughs) We'll find out.

LIAM: Can't read that stuff.

MATT: I know, it's going so fast. It's okay. I'm glad you guys are so excited to ask questions, but I can't.

TALIESIN: Wow, it's like--

MATT: It's like looking into the abyss.

MARISHA: Yeah, this is about the time where I'm like, do I need glasses?

TALIESIN: It's going to be three minutes of us staring at the--

MATT: I can see through time.

LIAM: Somebody asked-- here's a big question. I didn't see it on there, but somebody asked which character dying would have the biggest overall effect on the group?

MATT: I don't want to answer that, because then it's going to subconsciously make me feel really awful if they die. I don't want to answer that.

LIAM: Never mind. Bad idea.

MATT: I don't want that to happen. Interesting idea.

ASHLEY: Do you have someone in your head, though?

MATT: No, I don't. I don't want that in my head. I don't want any of that in my head. If it happens, it happens.

LIAM: Forget it. What are the dimensions of the cube?

MATT: The dimensions of the cube? (laughs) Sam's cube?

LIAM: That's one by one.

ASHLEY: Forget it. Just how do we kill the dragon, and then we'll stop.

MARISHA: Yeah. Someone asked if Umbrasyl was suicidally depressed yet.

MATT: Who's the Hodor of the group? Oh. We're not going to talk about that. Also, spoilers.

TALIESIN: Spoilers! God, some of us haven't had time.

ASHLEY: Have you watched it?

TALIESIN: I haven't even started this season yet.

MATT: Hodor has an amazing moment.

TALIESIN: I've heard. The internet told me.

MATT: Hush. It's awesome. Have you ever regretted a decision you made, either in character or while DMing? We'll have this as our final question for the evening.

MARISHA: Regretted a decision in character or while DMing?

LIAM: I got mine ready to go.

MARISHA: Go.

LIAM: Using my Cape of the Mountebank for the first time to teleport to the other side of the glass and save everybody! (clunk) Oh fuck. It was like, my stomach just went--

MATT: That was going to be their turn, leave, and hit the button as they left circumstance, and you went right there and hit it. I'm like, well, that saves them the problem of it.

LIAM: Thought it was the door opener. Nope. That's all right. It was a great moment.

MATT: It was a great moment, but didn't quite work how you thought.

LIAM: Whoops! Still alive for one more week.

MATT: How about you guys?

TALIESIN: The treasure chest, by far. If I had killed Vex, I would have felt really, really terrible. Actually, weirdly, more out-of-character than in-character. I would have felt really awful because that's such a fourth-grade mistake. Really, junior-high-level foolishness.

MATT: That's okay. Anything with you guys?

MARISHA: So many.

ASHLEY: Man, there's so many. There's so many little ones where I'm like (groans).

MARISHA: I know. All the time.

LIAM: Death by a thousand cuts?

MARISHA: Yeah. Oh no. Fuck you, Kilgrave. Well, I get angry at Keyleth sometimes for not being more assertive. And then there's some times that I want to say things as Marisha for Keyleth, but I'm like, no, she wouldn't. She would be bowled over right now and she would go with it. So there's several times where I'm like, (inhale) fuck! Why couldn't you speak up? And then there's some times where the game moves faster than we can keep up with it, and sometimes you're like, I want this to happen. God, there have been three separate times where I've wanted to come knock on your door and it (snaps) the game rolls past it.

LIAM: It's a lot of theater etiquette and improv. It's like, you're like, I'm going to, oh no, they're having a moment. And then you kind of forget it, or the moment passes and you got to let it go.

MARISHA: Yeah, theater etiquette. I remember, and the audience noticed it, and they were like, if they don't come back to this moment-- I came over, and I sat down and I said-- we were in a tavern, and I said Keyleth puts her head on Vax. She leans her head on Vax.

LIAM: Right, and what I was thinking was, Gilmore's over there, and he's looking at this.

MARISHA: And then Gilmore walked in.

LIAM: He's looking at this and I can't explain this.

MARISHA: No, it was literally like a fucking bar scenario. I was like, "Oh, there's Gilmore. Got to go."

(laughter)

TALIESIN: That whole bar episode was great.

ASHLEY: I love that bar episode so much.

TALIESIN: Yeah, I want to yell at Percy all the time. He does dumb shit a lot and I'm like, I got to let it happen.

LIAM: Vax and Keyleth really like each other, but this is them.

MARISHA: Yeah, can't sync up. Cannot.

MATT: Ross and Rachel.

TALIESIN: Did you just say that? Oh my god.

MARISHA: So much Ross and Rachel. Oh my god. So Ross and Rachel.

MATT: That's my biggest regret as a DM was saying that right there.

(laughter)

MATT: No, I can't say I have any regrets as a DM story-wise because I let you guys guide so much of it. I build stuff and let it happen and I'm usually happy with things, how they turn out, whether or not I planned on it or not. That to me is what's fascinating and interesting and fun as a DM is being caught off-guard and having to justify and work with it on a constant improv level. I may have regrets mechanically. I might forget elements in battle or might be circumstances that happen. For instance, when Gilmore came in and gave you guys the Heroes' Feast, not thinking at the time, it set you up for a battle with a purple worm and essentially disabled its most dangerous element: its tail poison. I didn't realize it at the time because it just organically happened. But I'm not going to try and hold that back or restrain it in the moment. It happened to work out to be in your favor, and that's how it works sometimes. I just let it happen. So I wouldn't say I really have any regrets. Not because I'm too good for them, just because I let things happen, and I appreciate it for the good and the bad that comes with it and let the story guide itself.

LIAM: We entertain ourselves.

MATT: I hope so. (laughs) The moment that stops, we need to stop doing this.

MARISHA: Oh, and to Greg who says Keyleth probably regrets not reading her spells, and I'm going to join Ashley and speak for you, even though you're not asking for it. We have a lot of fucking spells, man!

ASHLEY: So many spells! It's so hard to keep track in the moment when you're stressed!

MARISHA: You're so stressed!

TALIESIN: And you'll turn to me and be like, am I reading this right? And I'll go, oh yeah. And then a thing will happen like whoa!

ASHLEY: That's happened so many times where you're like, and I'll show it to Laura or Travis and be like, is this right?

TALIESIN: Yeah, yeah, no, this is going to be fine.

MARISHA: Well, and people don't understand either, along with DM rule-bending, we don't necessarily know how you're going to interpret the spell. There's a ton of things like Mist Form that I didn't know how it was going to act in the moment and it didn't mean I didn't read it. I read all of my spells hundreds of times. I have hundreds. I have hundreds, and I've read all of them and I will try them in the moment and sometimes they'll work in my favor and sometimes they won't. I don't always know.

MATT: Which is fine. A big part of D&D is fucking up. That's just how it is. In any good game there's going to be fuck-ups. We just roll with it.

TALIESIN: Yeah.

LIAM: It's not appellate law.

MATT: Yeah. Well, guys, we're going to come back here in a few minutes and do our Battle Royale. We're going to go ahead and get you guys to use the restroom and get ready, get your characters-- We've leveled everybody up--

(fierce growls, laughter)

MATT: --for the purposes of this fight, everyone's been leveled up to a baseline level 14, so everyone's at an even scope.

ASHLEY: Because I'm behind.

TALIESIN: I'm behind.

ASHLEY: Oh, okay, okay, okay.

MATT: So let's go ahead and take a break. We'll be back here in a few minutes and we'll see which member of Vox Machina in this battle will stand supreme.

LIAM: The answer is "not me."

Break
[break]

Battle Royale
MATT: Welcome back, everybody. We're about to jump here in the Battle Royale. We wanted to let you guys know as part of our final week of the Loot Crate sponsorship. Their June theme is dystopia.

MARISHA: Is it really?

MATT: Yeah, it's dystopia, which is cool.

ASHLEY: That sounds awesome!

MATT: It's going to feature RoboCop, Terminator 3, Matrix. It involves Fallout 4 and Bioshock Infinite stuff.

MARISHA: Wait, did you say Matrix?

MATT: Yes.

ASHLEY: Wow.

MARISHA: I haven't heard that in a while.

TALIESIN: No, the world that created the Matrix film is a desolate, sad place.

MATT: (laughter) Compared to the sequels, yeah. In order to get this crate, you have to sign up by the 19th at 9:00 PM Pacific to be able to get the dystopian crate when it goes out. But once again, you can get three dollars off your subscription by going to lootcrate.com/criticalrole and enter criticalrole as your code, one word, criticalrole. I was really happy when they printed the Pip-Boy statue. Marisha's going to get her dice.

MARISHA: Are these mine? Yeah--

MATT: There you go. All right, so welcome back as we kick into--

(dramatic music)

MARISHA: Oh my god, you guys.

MATT: So. Suddenly, a flash of white takes your vision, and as the white fades, you see, at the end of a long, blue sky-like tunnel, a man standing, dark, curly, almost permed hair, a suit with a white, wide polyester lapel, white track pants, and white shoes. He approaches, his chest almost visible. He speaks with you with confidence, the voice of God, the voice of everything. He goes "Hello, Vox Machina, I am the Beyonder."

(laughter)

MATT: "And I have decided for fun, I wanted to see which one of you guys could fight. I did this thing once with a bunch of heroes and it got crazy, so I am scaling it down. You four, let's see who beats the crap out of the others, shall we?" He snaps his fingers and with that, it flashes to black and the air around you gets hotter and hotter. You feel yourself sweating in darkness and suddenly, your vision comes to you and you see before you a landscape of molten rock and lava.

TALIESIN: Is that actually your Beyonder voice if it ever happens?

MATT: That's exactly how I think a Beyonder would sound if he were to show up in an event. So, that being the case, ladies and gentlemen, let's go ahead and roll initiative.

(groans)

ASHLEY: What?!

MARISHA: Where am I?

MATT: You're right there.

ASHLEY and MARISHA: This is ridiculous.

LIAM: I'm using a luck right now.

MARISHA: Already? So soon.

MATT: Roll initiative, guys.

MARISHA: 18.

MATT: All right, Ashley?

ASHLEY: Seven

MATT: Okay, so a total of seven. We have 25-20? 20-15?

TALIESIN: 17.

LIAM and MARISHA: 18.

LIAM: (singing) I got you, babe.

(laughter)

MATT: All right, to see which of you goes first, I am going to have you guys both roll off again for initiative.

LIAM: 20 again?

MATT: 20 again, both of you.

MARISHA: (groans) Natural one.

LIAM: Four.

(laughter)

MATT: All right, so Vax is going slightly before Keyleth, then Percy, then we have Pike. All righty, so first round is Vax's. Vax, what are you going to do?

LIAM: Holy crap. Okay, with the assassin feature, I have advantage now because I'm going first. I'm going to throw a dagger right at Percy's head. Am I within 60 feet?

MATT: You are, yes. (counting)

ASHLEY: Right out of the motherfucking gate.

TALIESIN: Do you have my sword or do you not have my sword right now?

MATT: Yes, he is within 50 feet.

LIAM: This is our basic stuff. Even if I had it, I'm not using that.

MATT: Yeah, this is basic weapons.

LIAM: Oh good, that's a 29.

MATT: What's your AC, Percy?

TALIESIN: My AC is 18, but I'm going to try and use the gloves of missile snaring. That brings it to a--

MATT: The damage of it, at least. Let him roll damage first.

TALIESIN: Oh yeah, roll damage. That hits.

LIAM: (counting) 39, and this is the dagger of venom, and I want him to roll versus poison.

MATT: So 39 damage, and you want to do your gloves of missile snaring?

TALIESIN: I'll do my 39 damage right now. I didn't roll the right die.

MATT: Set it aside.

TALIESIN: That's 13 points off that, so that's--

LIAM: How does that work?

MATT: He basically grabs your dagger out of the air and stops some of the damage before it strikes.

LIAM: Automatically, or does he have to succeed to do it?

MATT: No, it just lowers the damage.

TALIESIN: That's 13 points off that, so that's--

MATT: 26 damage you take, piercing damage. And I need you to go ahead and make-- is it a constitution saving throw?

LIAM: Yes, 15 is the DC.

TALIESIN: Constitution saving throw. That's a d20, right?

MATT: Yes, it is.

TALIESIN: Yep.

MATT: It succeeds.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: What are you doing, Vax?

LIAM: Now, quick question, Matt. If I were to attack him three times in a row, right? The next two get no sneak attack, I know that. If I move to another target, do they get sneak attack or no in this instance?

MATT: No, you only get to sneak attack once per round.

LIAM: One time per round.

MATT: Correct, and remember, you have not activated your boots yet.

LIAM: I click them now.

MATT: Okay. (laughter)

LIAM: Thanks, buddy.

MATT: Looking at the item real fast, too. Is there an activation cost for the boots?

LIAM: Boots of haste, Laura has that piece of paper.

MATT: Oh right. We will say for the purposes, it would be a bonus action to activate it.

LIAM: What's the lighting like in here? There's the light from--

MATT: This whole room is low light. It is just the glow from the lava in here. Since a number of you have darkvision, it's not a huge deal within 60 feet, but it is considered technically low light.

LIAM: Okay, I'm going to use my action to go stealth. That's action, action, bonus action. You're saying the boots-- I don't think I have ever used a bonus action before when clicking the boots, so we need to change things from here on out. You've never called me on it in 50 games.

MATT: Right, usually it was the first round that you did it, but it's fine.

LIAM: Okay, then with your permission, I am going to use my-- I am going to throw another dagger. I totally miss and I am going to let it go. It was a one. I am going to step past that wall there, I can do it myself.

MATT: You can! You can reach out and actually change things as you are.

LIAM: Okay, I'm hasted so I get double speed. As soon as I'm there-- (whispering)

MATT: Okay, go ahead and roll a stealth check.

MARISHA, TALIESIN, and ASHLEY: (singing) Secrets!

MARISHA: Second luck down already. Damn.

MATT: All right, I need Keyleth and Percy to roll perception checks.

MARISHA: 29.

TALIESIN: 11.

MATT: Okay, you guys both-- actually, all three of you watch as Vax turns behind the corner and vanishes from sight. You have no idea where he is. You know he is somewhere in this area, but that's all you know.

MARISHA: (groans) Every damn time.

(laughter)

MATT: That is the end of your turn. Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: All right, so bonus action is different than a free action, right?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: Okay. As my action, I am going to cast Sunbeam.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: And I guess since Percy's the one in my line of sight, I am going to be beaming it right at Percy.

TALIESIN: Am I in line of sight? Yes, I am in line of sight, aren't I? Do I have partial cover from that? No, I don't.

MATT: All right, so you're firing it this way? So, what is the-- Sunbeam! All right, Percy, I need you to go ahead, because it is within a 60-foot line, a constitution saving throw.

TALIESIN: Constitution saving throw?

MATT: Correct.

TALIESIN: Constitution saving throw. That's a 19.

MATT: What's your DC?

MARISHA: 19.

MATT: So he saves.

MARISHA: Fucking balls!

MATT and MARISHA: You take half damage.

MATT: As Keyleth, you go and you reach your hand out, and suddenly the room blasts into bright light as a beam of pure solar energy streaks into Percy's face. Percy, you manage to close your eyes and bend out of the way just in time, still taking some of the impact.

MARISHA: (counting) 38 halved.

TALIESIN: 19 points?

MATT: You take 19 points of radiant damage. You are not blinded because you made your save.

MARISHA: That is true. As a bonus action, I'm going to cast Grasping Vine-- sorry, Percy.

MATT: Grasping Vine, unfortunately, is a 4th-level spell. You have already cast a 6th-level spell. It has to be 2nd or lower.

MARISHA: That is true. Never mind then.

MATT: I got to pay attention to this stuff. Otherwise, the internet lets me know.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I'm going to go earth elemental.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: Is it going to fit any more?

MATT: Barely.

LIAM: Holy cow. How high is the ceiling?

MATT: (laughing) The ceiling actually is about 30 feet up. It's a domed cavern.

LIAM: So watch your head.

MATT: You are set into this pocket of very hot earth with no foreseeable exit.

MARISHA: And I am going to sink into the ground.

MATT: Okay. Keyleth sinks beneath the ground. As you do, you suddenly feel yourself plummeting into a pocket of molten rock which is beneath this entire area here.

MARISHA: Okay, I come up really fast.

MATT: Okay, but you still go ahead and take damage from this.

ASHLEY: And we are dealing with molten lava?

MARISHA: This is happening fast!

MATT: We will say here, for the purposes of this, everyone gets a nice view of the top of my head.

TALIESIN: Bonus camera.

MATT: (counting)

ASHLEY: We don't know where Vax is?

TALIESIN: We do not know where Vax is. We know that he is back there somewhere.

MATT: 35 points of fire damage from suddenly submerging yourself partially into molten rock and as your rock form does help resist it somewhat, it still begins to severely damage your earth elemental form and you immediately pop back up into the space you were.

MARISHA: In that case--

MATT: In that case?

MARISHA: I'm happy where I am.

MATT: Happy where you are?

MARISHA: I'll stay there.

MATT: Okay, Keyleth ends her turn. Percy, you're up.

TALIESIN: Let's figure out what we are doing with this. First of all, I'm going to-- You got away, you little son of a bitch. You're hiding back there, aren't you?

MATT: You see this giant earth elemental submerge and then come back out of the earth with elements of superheated rock around the edges of its surface. Pike is off to the side, looking about, trying to decide what she's going to do, but you have the jump on her.

TALIESIN: First off, I'm going to cast Hex on Keyleth for the moment, because I've got to get that thing off the board.

MATT: As a note, Keyleth by the way, because you took fire damage, I need you to make a concentration check to maintain your Sunbeam.

MARISHA: What do I have to roll?

MATT: Half the damage for-- how much did you take from that?

MARISHA: I took 35 damage-- yeah, I am good.

MATT: You rolled a--

MARISHA: 15.

MATT: 15 plus your constitution-- yeah, you're good.

TALIESIN: And I'm going to make you have disadvantage on strength checks.

MATT: Strength checks are at disadvantage while you're hexed. What else you got, Percy?

TALIESIN: I'm going to hit her with the Retort pistol--

MATT: You whip out Retort.

TALIESIN: First shot is 23.

MATT: What's your AC for your earth elemental?

MARISHA: That hits.

MATT: Okay, so go ahead and roll damage on that.

LIAM: It's amazing how careful PVP is making us all be.

ALL: I know!

ASHLEY: Seriously.

TALIESIN: That's 15 points of piercing damage plus four necro damage.

MARISHA: Okay, piercing is halved for me?

MATT: It is not magical, correct.

TALIESIN: Oh, good to know.

MATT: That's seven damage plus four necrotic, so a total of 11 points of damage. The blasts are hitting the hide of the earth elemental, not quite impacting as strongly as you thought.

TALIESIN: All right, I'm going to take one more shot then and I'm going to spend a grit for a headshot to give her disadvantage on attacks until the end of her next turn.

MATT: Okay, make a concentration check by the way from the first hit, so you have to roll an 11 or higher.

MARISHA: 11.

MATT: Yeah, you're fine.

(laughter)

TALIESIN: Oh, thank God, it's not Bad News. 15. That doesn't hit.

MATT: Your AC?

MARISHA: 17.

MATT: 17, no. This one actually does manage to hit the shoulder, but it ricochets off and blasts the volcanic rock near her.

TALIESIN: Damn it. And just for fun, I'm going to take a third shot to see if I can do anything.

MATT: Go for it. Third shot against the earth elemental Keyleth.

TALIESIN: That does hit. That's a 21.

MATT: That does hit. Go ahead and roll damage on this.

TALIESIN: And that was not a grit shot. So that's... that's nice. 15, halved again.

MARISHA: Seven.

TALIESIN: Plus six necrotic damage.

MATT: All right, so 13 points of damage total. I need you to make another concentration check.

MARISHA: Ugh. Three.

MATT: What's your constitution modifier?

MARISHA: As an earth elemental? Plus five. So eight.

MATT: With that, Sunbeam drops. The impact manages to actually knock the spell out of your peripheral.

TALIESIN: And also, make a constitution saving throw.

MARISHA: 14.

MATT: 19. So yeah.

TALIESIN: 19 is the DC, so does she make it?

MATT and MARISHA: Yeah, she makes it.

TALIESIN: Damn it! Ugh, should've done better. And then I'm going to dive back here. For now I'm going to try and get some cover. Yeah, dive back there for some cover.

MATT: Okay, that ends Percy's turn. Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay. So we're going to start-- I'm going to cast Guardian of Faith and I would like to place it--

MATT: Where would you want to place Guardian of Faith?

ASHLEY: It's ten feet?

MATT: Let me see the spell here real fast to make sure I've got this right. So, Guardian of Faith... there we go. It's within 30 feet of you. Any hostile creature to you that moves to a space within ten feet of the guardian has to succeed-- so where are you putting it?

ASHLEY: I'm going to place it right there.

MATT: Right there?

ASHLEY: Yeah. And then I am going to cast, for my bonus action, Shield of Faith on myself, which brings my armor class up by two points.

MATT: Guardian of Faith is 4th-level. What level is that one?

ASHLEY: Shield of Faith is first.

MATT: Yeah, that's fine. So, Shield of Faith... perfect. It's coming. So you have a plus two bonus to AC for the duration. It's concentration. Good for you. Are you going to move or stay right there?

ASHLEY: I'm going to just kind of-- well, he's there. I'm going to stay. I'll stay.

MATT: Staying right there in that little corner. All right, that ends Pike's turn. Top of the round. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: Okay. I'm from a hidden position, right? Advantage. Obviously.

MATT: Technically, they didn't see you. And from what you're aware, nothing has seen you yet, so.

LIAM: Right. And as soon as I go, I'm giving away my position to everybody or to the person that I'm attacking, or--?

MATT: Essentially, everybody who could see where you are, so you'd be giving it away to whoever that individual is. Do you have your mini, by the way?

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: I was wondering where it went.

LIAM: Should I just place him as soon as I attack?

MATT: Yep.

LIAM: Okay. I throw a dagger at Keyleth.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: But I'm partially covered.

LIAM: Doesn't matter. I'm a sharpshooter.

MATT: Yeah, he avoids cover.

LIAM: So that's a 19.

MARISHA: Hits.

LIAM: Okay, so here we go. That's two, plus (counting) 24 plus six is 30.

MARISHA: Is that halved? Is that magic or no?

MATT: His weapons are magic, so does not halve.

MARISHA: So 30?

MATT: 30 points of magical slashing damage against you.

LIAM: Then I will use my bonus action to hide. Can I?

MATT: You, right now, are completely visible to her.

LIAM: Okay. So instead, I'm going to go-- I don't know if this is slowing me, but (counting) six. Can I attempt to now?

MATT: You can attempt to hide from her, yeah. However, Percy does have sight to you.

LIAM: Can I attempt to stealth from both of them?

MATT: Right now, you're only obscured from one of them.

LIAM: I thought it was low light everywhere.

MATT: It is dim light, actually. Let me see what the hide circumstance is. Let me double-check, just to be safe. Hide action. In just a minute. Hide. Chapter seven for hiding! All right, let's go to chapter seven, then.

TALIESIN: Meanwhile, in chapter seven.

MATT: I know, it's great, isn't it? Isn't it wonderful?

TALIESIN: Chapter seven is actually hiding in chapter four.

MATT: I just want to make sure we're doing this properly.

TALIESIN: It's really hiding from itself. Aren't we all?

MATT: You are not helping me by telling me it's there! This is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure you have to be entirely obscured; it's not so much having dim light. I might be wrong, but I don't want them to tell me--

MARISHA: Hiding is poorly explained in the Player's Handbook, honestly. Yeah. It's great.

LIAM: Got it, never mind. Hold on. Instead. Oh. I have a backup idea.

MATT: Hiding. There it is. You can't hide from a creature that can see you.

LIAM: Can he see in dim light?

MATT: He can see in dim light. It's not darkness. He has disadvantage to perception checks because it's dim light. He does not have darkvision.

LIAM: What's her line of sight? She can see here, obviously.

MATT: She can see there. She would not be able to see you in this area here behind that wall. That's how it would work. Okay, I feel better about that.

LIAM: I'm going to use an action to hide where I am. Gosh, how would this work? I want to hide and then run past here. If I'm stealthed successfully, I'm invisible to Percy by the time I get here, and if I'm past the wall, she's lost sight of me. That's what I think. That's what I'm going to try to do.

MATT: So what are you trying to do?

LIAM: I'm going stealth. That's great. That is a 32.

MATT: 32. You move past here.

LIAM: I'm using my bonus action to dash. I'm going to real quiet, tippy-toe in dim light. I'm a 32, still stealthing tippy-toe.

MATT: I need Percy to make a perception check with disadvantage.

MARISHA: What about me? No?

LIAM: I've just passed the wall.

TALIESIN: 16.

MATT: He vanishes from sight from both of you guys. Where do you want to go? Okay. cool. That ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: It's my turn again already?

TALIESIN: There's only four of us.

MARISHA: Wow.

TALIESIN: I know.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: No, it was half the damage you took. I'm trying to remember. You actually would still have Sunbeam still up.

TALIESIN: It was also full necrotic damage.

MATT: It was, but even then it's half the damage or a ten or higher. I was thinking of full damage at the time. It's half the damage or ten, whichever's higher. So you would still have Sunbeam.

MARISHA: That changes everything.

MATT: I'm sorry. I just realized that.

TALIESIN: I'm out of sight now.

MATT: You are, yeah.

TALIESIN: Thank god.

MATT: She still saw where you walked.

MARISHA: Fucking fuck. I still have Sunbeam. Sorry, that changed my whole plan. Sorry, Pike.

TALIESIN: Does that mean there's that much light in the cavern that I'm not at disadvantage?

MARISHA: Whenever I blast. I'm going to flip around here. Fling! Sunbeam blast Pike.

MATT: Need you to roll constitution, I believe.

MARISHA: Constitution!

MATT: Roll a constitution check, Pike.

ASHLEY: All right! What's the--

MATT: Wait, you rolled a three with a plus five con mod. I apologize. I'm so sorry about this. The chat room is really distracting me on this. It was a 13 halved, but ten, whichever's higher. Ten would have still been the DC. You rolled a three with a plus five, so you did still lose Sunbeam. My apologies. You guys are helpful sometimes. I really need to ignore chat.

MARISHA: So I lost Sunbeam.

MATT: You did lose Sunbeam, yes.

MARISHA: But I rolled higher than half?

MATT: Half or ten, whichever is higher, is how concentration works.

MARISHA: So I always have to beat a ten?

MATT: Always have to beat a ten no matter what.

MARISHA: That sucks.

MATT: Yeah, sorry.

MARISHA: You're sure it's not the other way?

MATT: I'm sure it's not the other way.

MARISHA: Okay. That changes things again.

MATT: That's why I don't have chat on during the game. I start second-guessing myself and I realize it's okay. You guys are kind of helpful sometimes, it's fine!

TALIESIN and ASHLEY: Guys!

MATT: You are hexed, you do not have Sunbeam, but you are still full earth elemental form.

MARISHA: Okay. This is a lava pool right here?

MATT: It is a portion of the wall in which there is molten rock pooling out of the side, yes. You get the feeling this whole room has pockets of it that are based around molten rock. You can see which ones seem to be closer than others.

MARISHA: Fuck it. I'm going to come here because I do double damage to rock things. I'm going to smash this open.

MATT: You want to smash that open?

MARISHA: I want to smash that wall.

MATT: Roll an attack!

TALIESIN: Yeah! Break it down!

MARISHA: 16 plus whatever I do against-- what do I roll? It's just a regular attack? It's just a regular attack. Then I'm adding plus five, so 22. No, 21.

MATT: Your fist slams into the wall. Roll double damage because you're siege and this is technically part of a structure. Roll damage on your slam.

MARISHA: Hang on. It's plus eight to hit, so it was actually more. 2d8 plus five.

MATT: 2d8 plus five and then double.

MARISHA: I double the dice?

MATT: Double the whole thing.

MARISHA: So I roll two more? Oh, I double the whole thing. Ten plus five. 30 damage!

MATT: 30 points of damage to the rock wall with one fist. Your knuckles take out a portion of the wall and molten rock begins to spill into the alley here. This whole area right now is spilling molten rock and is now considered an area of lava that is slowly expanding.

MARISHA: With that, I am going to back up, move, and tuck here behind this wall.

MATT: You'd have enough movement, I think, to do that.

MARISHA: With my earthglide as well.

MATT: With your earthglide? Yeah. Instead of going around it, you just boof through the wall. That's fine. That ends your turn. Percy, you're up. You see the glow of fresh molten rock beginning to spill from around the wall side, though you're not sure what the source is. Pike, the heat's causing you to sweat within your armor.

TALIESIN: I'm coming in around here. I'm going to take some shots at Pike.

ASHLEY: Come on! (singing) Shot through the heart!

ALL: (singing) And you're to blame!

MATT: As soon as you step into that spot--

TALIESIN: Am I not ten feet away from it? Oh, I wouldn't even know, would I?

MATT: You wouldn't know! You have no idea. As soon as you step into that spot, what's the saving throw on the guardian?

ASHLEY: 18.

MATT: That's the DC. Guardian of Faith. I need you to roll a dexterity saving throw.

TALIESIN: Dex saving throw?

MATT: Yes.

TALIESIN: That's a 15, but I don't like that, I'm going to reroll it.

MATT: With your feat.

TALIESIN: Yeah. That's a natural 20.

ASHLEY: All right.

MATT: You take half damage. You take ten points of radiant damage. Mark a 50 for you so keep track of the damage.

TALIESIN: So I took ten points.

MATT: Ten points of radiant damage as you stop right there in that spot. Suddenly, you see a glow emerge from the stone pillar and this armored half-golem made of pure radiant energy scoops out and slams you with a fist. You manage to pull out of the way just in time, but it still slams you in the shoulder, almost knocking you off your feet. You catch yourself.

TALIESIN: Can I back up away from it?

MATT: With the rest of your turn, you can.

TALIESIN: I still have one more space of movement. Okay. Fuck that guy. First thing, I'm going to use my bonus action to run a quick heal. That sucked so bad. That's 13 points back. (counting) That was just awful. That just makes me sad. That couldn't have gone worse. That's burned all that. I'm going to take a shot at Pike.

ASHLEY: (singing) Bring it on!

TALIESIN: And my gun seizes.

MATT: Oh no!

TALIESIN: Flipping that out for Bad News.

MARISHA: Oh fuck!

MATT: So Retort goes back in the holster as you see Percy around the corner, pull out from his back, unfolds and locks into place.

TALIESIN: I have room for one shot before my turn is over. Here we go, my one shot. Let's not do that again, that was really inappropriate. Better! 32 to hit.

ASHLEY: (laughing) Yeah, that hits. That'll do, pig, that'll do.

TALIESIN: 23 points of damage.

MATT: 23 points of piercing damage against Pike.

LIAM: I'm known as a scavenger.

TALIESIN: Yeah, no, I'm really annoyed right now. I'm really annoyed.

LIAM: (laughing) It's all I got. I ain't got any hexes or bullets or bits of spells or help from the gods.

ASHLEY: Okay. Oof.

TALIESIN: You know, the minute I have sights on you, you're dead.

LIAM: You'll never have sights on me.

TALIESIN: I know I'll never have sights on you. I may have to burn a turn fixing a gun, too.

ASHLEY: Okay, well, I got to heal myself because I have such low hit points. I have a different plan now since that happened. Where did it go? Okay, I'm going to do Cure Wounds on myself.

MATT: All righty.

ASHLEY: With a 3rd-level.

MATT: Cure Wounds at what level?

ASHLEY: Third.

MATT: 3rd-level? What else are you doing in your turn?

ASHLEY: What else am I going to do? I'm going to move.

MATT: Just so you're mindful, 3rd-level means you can't cast another spell that's not above 2nd-level. Just so you know.

ASHLEY: Yeah. I'm just going to do that and then move.

MATT: Okay, cool.

ASHLEY: Okay. (counting)

MARISHA: Tensions are so high, you guys.

MATT: I know.

TALIESIN: Not with Liam, Liam is just like, whatever. It's like, "You don't know. You don't know me."

LIAM: Could still easily die. As soon as I go for it, pops his head up, he's getting shot.

ASHLEY: I'm going to move over here.

MATT: Over there? All right. So you scoot over into this mid-area as the gnome cleric hides between the two boundaries of this rock formation, this small hallway. There you are, and you hear the burbling of slow-moving molten rock behind you. All right, that ends Pike's turn, we're back up to the top. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: Oh my gosh, okay. Great.

MATT: So you move?

LIAM: Yeah, no. Well, it's fine, it's where I was, but I was going to just use-- and I'm here and then I throw a dagger. That's the flame-tongue--

TALIESIN: He's being so secretive. This is pressure. I'm feeling some pressure.

LIAM: That hits. That's a 25. And here we go again.

MATT: Another ranged sneak attack against the earth elemental?

LIAM: Mm-hmm, okay. (counting) It's not that good, another 30 total.

MATT: All right. 30 points of piercing damage against your earth elemental form, the dagger striking part of your armored self and causing the stone to shatter and break in a section. How you at health-wise, Keyleth?

MARISHA: I'm still an earth elemental.

LIAM: Then I take one step this way, which I think takes me out of her line of sight? Or do I need to go one more?

MATT: You have to keep going.

LIAM: How about here?

MATT: Wherever you think you need to be.

LIAM: All right. I'm here and I'm going to use a bonus action and an action and use another action to go stealth.

MATT: Of your Haste? Okay.

LIAM: Good, real good. 29.

MATT: Okay. Percy, I need you to roll another perception check.

LIAM: Isn't he covered by this?

MATT: He can still see past that. There's a base-to-base visible. You do not have disadvantage, though, because Sunbeam actually does give bright light in the room for a vicinity.

LIAM: What'd you get?

TALIESIN: What is it, perception? That's a 25.

MATT: Nope. You have no idea.

TALIESIN: Literally, I rolled a 17.

MATT: Yeah.

ASHLEY: Do you have to roll a natural 20?

TALIESIN: I would probably have to roll a natural 20 to actually see him.

MATT: Yeah, you do. All right, you're there. That brings us to Keyleth.

MARISHA: Shit. This keeps happening.

MATT: You do drop Sunbeam. God, I'm so confused now. I'm so confused. You guys have confused me.

MARISHA: I have not cast Sunbeam since you told me I--

MATT: No, I know. So you still had disadvantage, but you would have missed anyway.

TALIESIN: I rolled a 17, there's nothing I could have done.

MATT: Ugh, I'm going to just cover the chat now.

MARISHA: You can face it away.

TALIESIN: No, it's good that tonight is your derp night.

MATT: I'm covering it up for my own purposes. But yeah. No worries, it's fine.

MARISHA: I'm going to do something similar and I'm going to move and I'm going to go bam and slam into that one. Come over here, reach, you know?

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll your attack.

MARISHA: Okay. That's good. It's a plus eight. 14.

MATT: That's fine. It's enough to hit the rock. Go ahead and roll damage.

MARISHA: Shit. 18 damage.

MATT: 18 damage? Doubled? Okay. So 18 points of damage. Your fist slams through the piece of rock there. It does open up some of the area and some of the lava begins to spill out, but it's just a slow trickle, it's not a large deluge.

MARISHA: Okay, I'm going to do my second attack, then. Bam. That's much better. That's a 16 plus eight.

MATT: Go ahead and roll damage. All right, chat.

MARISHA: All right. Also much better damage. So that's 13 plus five, 18, so that is 36. MATT: Splintering pieces of volcanic rock go shattering through the room, skidding across the ground. You guys hear the blast as suddenly molten rock begins to spill out from that side now, also beginning to illuminate that portion of the floor. This whole vicinity is now also covered in lava. This one has actually expanded outward to cover that area.

MARISHA: Okay. And then I move back and I hide again.

MATT: Okay. So that's five, ten, 15, 20, 25, 30. What's your full move on the earth elemental?

MARISHA: Just walking, 30. If I'm earthgliding, 60.

MATT: Are you then subterranean gliding through, based on what you did before? Because if not, your full movement's going to take you to there.

MARISHA: Well then I'll stay there, I guess.

MATT: Okay. Just so you know. All right, so you're right there. Cool. Ends Keyleth's turn. Percy, you're up.

TALIESIN: Okay. I'm peeking around. I see the giant earth creature, and I'm taking a shot.

MATT: Go for it.

TALIESIN: Yep. Here we go. Actually, I'm going to make it a-- no, I'm just going to take the shot. I have to reload Bad News anyway, so this is the reload shot.

MATT: So the first shot is reload, second attack is a shot.

TALIESIN: Thank god. Nope, never mind, oh my god, for the love of god and all that is holy. Gun broke.

MATT: Do you have any Lucky left? Don't forget you have your luck points still. Your feat.

LIAM: Oh, did he take that feat?

MATT: He did for his level 14 feat for tonight.

TALIESIN: For tonight. I will never actually take it, but for tonight.

ASHLEY and MARISHA: Oh no!

MATT: You can't double Lucky.

TALIESIN: I didn't know that. Well, it doesn't matter, because the second luck was also a gun break, anyway.

MATT: Okay. Bad News is also broken.

TALIESIN: I'm going to burn an action surge to fix the gun.

MATT: Okay. Oof. All right. On which gun?

TALIESIN: On Bad News. And yes. It's fixed. Yeah, it's way above the number.

MATT: Cool. All right. So, after the gun echoes back, you can see the little bit of dull grey smoke spilling from the barrel, which immediately warns you of an impending blast, you put the gun down and shake it to get the explosive material out of the side as it just scatters upon the ground and burns naturally. You manage to fix it and ready it in time. A quick, swift action.

TALIESIN: And I dive right back there.

MATT: Okay. Right there?

TALIESIN: Yeah. Actually, I'm going to dive all the way back here.

MATT: Okay. Gotcha. Ends your turn, Percy. Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay. Can I make my way to Percy?

MATT: This way or this way? You step out to there. You can see Percy right across the way.

ASHLEY: How close can I get to him?

MATT: You can get pretty close if you want to.

ASHLEY: I want to get very close.

TALIESIN: Aww. Wait, no. Damn it.

MATT: You can get right there, yeah. Right up next to him.

ASHLEY: I am going to Inflict Wounds. Because I can't use these necromancy spells in the regular games. I'm gonna use them. I'm a monstah!

TALIESIN: Okay! I'm going to be fine. This is fine.

MATT: All right, at what level are you inflicting wounds?

ASHLEY: You know what? I'm going to do it at just second level. Yeah, just second level, which is only--

MATT: Okay. So go ahead and roll a melee spell attack. So roll a d20 and add your spell attack modifier, which I believe is plus 11.

ASHLEY: Yeah. That would be a 28.

MATT: 28. You see Pike run around the corner, this glowing beacon of energy, and as she goes towards you, the radiant divine energy from her holy symbol shrieks into a deep black dark purple. As her hand reaches out and grasps at you, you try and dodge out of the way but her hand touches you and pain courses through your body. You take 4d10 necrotic damage, so go ahead and roll 4d10.

TALIESIN: Wow, really? Okay.

MARISHA: 4d10? Holy balls. Oh, shit.

TALIESIN: Oh my God, that's so-- oh, God. Oh, God!

ASHLEY: It was cocked. 21.

MATT: 21 points of necrotic damage as, all of a sudden, the pain courses through your body, and a side of Pike you've never seen before all of a sudden frightens you.

TALIESIN: Yes. Yes, I am frightened. I am very frightened.

MATT: All righty. You're just going to stay right there? You still have your bonus action.

ASHLEY: Can I tuck back?

MATT: You don't have enough movement, you just got there with your movement.

ASHLEY: Okay. Can I use my Sprinter's Boots?

MATT: You could. He will get a melee attack of opportunity. You only have Bad News out, so it's not really going to--

TALIESIN: Yeah, I was about to say, Bad News is--

MATT: Yeah, no. So you could if you want to.

ASHLEY: I'm going to use my Sprinter's Boots and go back behind that wall where I was.

MATT: All right, you get right back to where you were, yeah. Okay.

TALIESIN: I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

MATT: All righty. That brings it to Vax's turn. This is getting interesting.

LIAM: Let's get dicey here. Okay. Can I have the miniature? Oh, I have him right here, sorry. So I want to step right out here, throw a sneak attack dagger right at Percy. Here we go.

MARISHA: Whoa, you made good ground.

MATT: Haste, man.

LIAM: That is a 21. Does that hit?

TALIESIN: I'm going to use my amulet and bring it up to 23.

LIAM: Then I'm going to use my last luck.

MATT: You already confirmed the attack.

LIAM: Oh, okay. All right. That's fine. I didn't know that I had to--

MATT: Yeah, you have to roll, see what the roll is, and then see if you want to reroll it before you go ahead and confirm, I believe.

LIAM: Okay. I'm going to use my bonus action to dash. Everyone sees me go (footsteps) and I'm going to go stealth there.

TALIESIN: I hate you. I hate you so much! Oh! Oh, from the depths of hell.

LIAM: I like better telling you. Well, ugh, yes.

MARISHA: As he says it out loud! 29?

MATT: Yeah. All right. So, that being the case, I'm going to need-- no, you're just out of the way. No one seems to see you.

LIAM: Okay. But I'm not done yet, because I've still got quite a bit of movement left.

MATT: Right. Where are you moving to?

TALIESIN: Where you going, Liam? Where're you going?

MATT: Okay. Let me see. Yeah. Okay. All righty. Got it. Okay! All right. That ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up.

TALIESIN: God damn it. God damn it. I've had to burn all my good stuff already.

LIAM: Easy pickings on de Rolo! Get him!

MATT: At the start of your turn, Keyleth, the lava has now spread out into this way and has created a complete bridge there.

MARISHA: What about over here?

MATT: That is beginning to spread. It will, probably by next turn--

ASHLEY: Ooh, she's making a whole lava pool. Remodeling.

TALIESIN: This is good. This makes my life easier. I'm excited.

MATT: So, what are you doing, Keyleth?

TALIESIN: Did I just scare you?

MATT: And actually, Percy, I need you to roll a concentration check against the damage you just took. Oh, no, you missed, that's right.

TALIESIN: He missed! I was about to say.

MARISHA: Can I turn and see if I can spot Vax?

MATT: Well, it would be against Pike's damage. So roll a concentration check against the damage that Pike did to you.

TALIESIN: Concentration?

MATT: For Hex.

TALIESIN: Oh, Hex is not concentration. Is it? Oh, okay.

MATT: I usually forget to mention it because you don't take a lot of damage in battle most of the time.

TALIESIN: That might be new, because it's been so long since I've had to--

MATT: Hex is concentration, yeah.

TALIESIN: Holy cow. Okay.

MATT: So roll a constitution check. Not save.

TALIESIN: That's a four.

MATT: Four. Hex has vanished from Keyleth.

MARISHA: Oh, cool. Awesome. Okay.

TALIESIN: I'm not having a good roll night. Not having a good roll night.

MATT: It's been kind of rough for you, Percy.

TALIESIN: Yeah. This has been ugly.

MARISHA: I want to see if I can sense Vax with my tremor sense. Can I do that?

MATT: You have tremor sense as an earth elemental?

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: That's good to know. Hmm. Hold on a second. Let me check something in here. It might be in here.

MARISHA: I wasn't sure if it would actually work.

MATT: No, that's an important note to bring up. Thank you for that.

LIAM: Someone knows where I am.

MATT: Let me pull up the DMG here.

TALIESIN: Break him into sticks. To twigs and feathers.

ASHLEY: Break him. Break him.

TALIESIN: Smear him across the cave.

MATT: All right. Let's go ahead and make sure I get this right.

MARISHA: Here it says I have tremor sense, but I use my own perception, because it's mind-based.

MATT: This is the DMG. Now, Monster Manual, you'll answer my question. Pardon me, folks.

LIAM: Come on. Drama.

MATT: This is going to be interesting if this works.

TALIESIN: I will be so pleased if this works.

MARISHA: This is so nerve-wracking. I can feel my blood pressure going through the roof.

MATT: Yeah. What's the radius of your tremor sense?

MARISHA: 60 feet.

MATT: Vax, you know, is right there.

LIAM: Now the whole group knows!

MATT: We're not going to play it that way. They have no idea.

TALIESIN: We're not going to act on that intel.

LIAM: Well, once she starts smashing the ground there, you'll have a good idea.

MATT: It's possible. Oh no, you'll take some damage finally. What are you doing?

MARISHA: I'm going to beat Vax's face in.

MATT: Okay. So you're going to move into here? Okay. As you think you're--

LIAM: All of her attacks are at disadvantage because of my cloak.

MATT: It's true. So, all of a sudden--

MARISHA: Even with the tremor sense?

MATT: Yeah. It's not the hidden, it's his Cloak of Displacement. So, all of a sudden, you turn the corner and you see bounding up Keyleth's earth elemental form zoning right in on you. Go ahead and make your first attack with disadvantage.

MARISHA: (deep voice) I love you!

(laughter)

MARISHA: Not great! 15!

MATT: Nope. First attack misses.

MARISHA: Second attack, even worse! It's a two.

LIAM: Well, that was the first attack, the two rolls with disadvantage.

MATT: Right, with disadvantage. Yeah. So she misses.

MARISHA: Oh, that's fun to know. That's fun. Doesn't matter. No. Three. Terrible! I rolled fucking terribly.

TALIESIN: Wow. That was painful to watch.

MATT: But he's visible and he's there with you.

MARISHA: I'm going to go (deep voice) Hug! Hug!

MATT: All right. The lava has now spread and connected with the other pool there. There are now two streams of molten rock. All right. That brings us to Percy.

TALIESIN: Damn it. Okay. One, two, three, four, and I'm taking my shot here. Let's hope this goes a little better than the last one, since this has been really sucking. Straight Bad News shot. Better! That's a 32 to hit.

MATT: That'll hit. Go ahead and roll damage on Pike.

ASHLEY: No, it doesn't hit!

MATT: It was already loaded, right? Actually, it's not already loaded, right? Because you had to fix it last round.

TALIESIN: Yes, which is why this is my only shot.

ASHLEY: (singing) Give it to me, baby! Uh-huh, uh-huh!

MATT: Sorry about that, guys.

TALIESIN: That could be worse. 18 points of damage.

MATT: 18 points of piercing damage. The blast hits your armor. It rings in your ear for a minute, but the pain from the impact of the bullet actually touching past the inside of your chest is pretty rough. You can feel the bullet probably lodged itself an inch or two in.

TALIESIN: And I'm backing up for cover. Yep, that's my run. That's what I got.

MATT: Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: What'd you say it was? How many points?

TALIESIN: 18 points. Not that hardcore.

ASHLEY: Okay, write it down. Where'd he go?

MATT: He's over here. You saw him rush up.

MARISHA: We kind of paired off, you guys. I've literally successfully split the battlefield in half. At least I've accomplished something.

ASHLEY: I am going to walk over to him and I'm going to Inflict Wounds again.

MATT: What level for the spell?

ASHLEY: Third.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and roll another spell attack.

ASHLEY: That would be 30.

MATT: Yeah, that'll hit. So go ahead and roll another 4d10.

ASHLEY: I'm not here to heal you, I'm here to kill you!

MARISHA: I am Pike from your nightmares.

TALIESIN: Oh, God, I just saw a zero pop up. Oh, God. I don't want to look. I just don't want to look. That's what you get.

MARISHA: Hex faded on me, correct? So I don't have disadvantage anymore on my strength rolls?

MATT: On strength rolls you do not, no.

ASHLEY: 24.

MATT: 24 points of necrotic damage as Pike once again comes running behind, slams her hand onto you, and another jolt of horrible necrotic energy strikes through your body. Your vision's beginning to blur a little bit at the edges.

TALIESIN: 24, okay, so that's-- I can do that. All right, yeah.

MATT: What are you at now?

TALIESIN: I'm fine. I've taken 87 points of damage, so I'm fine. Not dead.

MATT: Good. All righty. Pike, you still have your bonus action if you wanted to, or move if you want.

ASHLEY: I'm going to move back behind the wall.

TALIESIN: I'm going to take that attack of opportunity.

MATT: He'll be able to get a melee attack on you if you pull away, and you only have one more square of movement anyway.

ASHLEY: I can't move just the one square behind this wall?

MATT: You can move there.

ASHLEY: Can I move behind-- I mean, I know that's not very far from him.

MATT: He'll get an attack on you for free.

ASHLEY: I will heal myself a little more. I'm going to Cure Wounds on myself.

MATT: You've already used your action this turn to do the Inflict Wounds.

ASHLEY: Oh, that's true. I'm going to Healing Word as a bonus action. I'll just do a level one. That's not that much, actually.

MATT: Nope. It's 1d4 plus five is what it'll be.

ASHLEY: Okay, I'll just do that.

MARISHA: Every little bit helps.

MATT: It's true. So you gain six hit points. All righty. That ends your turn, Pike? You good?

ASHLEY: That'll end my turn.

MATT: All right. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: What I'd like to do is take two steps back from the earth elemental.

TALIESIN: Attack of opportunity.

LIAM: You shut up. Let her do it.

MATT: Go ahead and make an attack of opportunity on him with disadvantage.

MARISHA: But don't I get advantage because it's an attack of opportunity?

MATT: No.

MARISHA: First one was a 16. Second one was a six, which isn't great, so that's 14.

MATT: It meets air as he sweeps backward.

LIAM: For my first action, I would like to open up a pouch in my belt and dump a bunch of metal marbles out towards the elemental underneath, keep moving so they're all around her feet is the intention.

MATT: A bunch of various metallic and glass marbles all spill out onto the ground around you.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: All right.

MARISHA: What are you looking for?

MATT: There it is. The DMG. It spilled down.

TALIESIN: There's a marble stat.

MATT: (chuckles) What else are you doing, buddy?

LIAM: I'm going to use dash on my bonus action, I'm going to move to here, and this'll be up to the whim of the gods. Between this wall and all of this stuff, I want to try to stealth right there.

MATT: Okay, go ahead and make a stealth check.

LIAM: Not great. I have one last luck.

MATT: All right. Is now the time?

LIAM: Yes. Same exact roll. It's not my day. All right. It's okay, I am at 25 stealth. I'm not done with my movement.

MATT: Percy, you do get to make a perception roll.

MARISHA: What about me and my tremor sense?

MATT: You know where he is.

MARISHA: That's so good to know that that's how that works.

TALIESIN: 17 is my perception.

MATT: You have no idea whereabouts he's gone off to.

TALIESIN: Unless I can add my passive perception to that, no.

MATT: I need you to go ahead and make an athletics check to leap.

ASHLEY and MARISHA: (singing) Secrets, secrets, secrets don't make friends.

LIAM: Not acrobatics? Can I parkour?

MATT: No. You can't parkour over molten rock.

LIAM: 19.

MATT: You manage to just skirt over the molten area and not go plummeting a second time with your foot in lava.

LIAM: It's okay, it's all a dream.

MATT: That brings us to Keyleth's turn. What are you doing?

MARISHA: Can I hear where Vax is?

MATT: It's a 60-foot radius, right? Where are you again, show me?

TALIESIN: I won't look, you can show him.

MATT: I'm just seeing the range here. All right, no, you do not sense him. You felt him run this way and then vanish.

MARISHA: Okay. What do I do now?

LIAM: Fall.

TALIESIN: Fly, you fool.

MARISHA: As an earth elemental, I want to bust down this little wall right here.

LIAM: Still a square of marbles in front of you.

MATT: So you go ahead and take a blow on this wall there?

MARISHA: Well, I'm going to do right here.

MATT: The whole wall is technically what you'd be going for.

MARISHA: I don't want to tear down the whole wall. I just want to tear down a section of it.

MATT: Okay. You have to move forward to do that.

MARISHA: All right. Let's try it.

MATT: I want you to make a dexterity check.

TALIESIN: That's akimbo. That's cocked.

MARISHA: 14.

MATT: You (grunting) sliding on the marbles, just barely get yourself there. You don't fall prone but you get yourself to the wall. Make your attack.

MARISHA: (singing) Tiny dancer in my hand. (punching)

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Sam's not here, but his spirit is.

MARISHA: That's a one for the first one, so negative.

MATT: The first fist hits it and the wall is stronger than you thought. It kind of hurts your knuckles at the impact.

MARISHA: The second one's a 19.

MATT: Yeah, go ahead and roll damage for the second strike.

MARISHA: That is 22 points total.

MATT: You slam into the wall and rocks break and shoot forward. This section of the wall now is currently visible through. You can travel past or see through it. Percy and Pike, you look behind you as you hear the slamming of rock and you can see part of the wall slam forward, and behind it a very angry earth elemental. I'm going to go ahead and mark that as an open part of the wall. You can still move, or do you want to stay there?

MARISHA: I want to back up, just kind of tuck a bit.

MATT: Into that area? You're still scooting over the marbles, but you made your check this turn. You pull back and this area is still pretty bad for you. That finishes Keyleth's turn. Percy, you're up.

TALIESIN: All right. I'm putting Bad News aside and pulling out my sword, and I'm going to start hacking away at the cleric. I'm cutting at the cleric, like we do. Slash number one. 16.

MATT: (clang) Across her armor. Her thick, armored exterior deflects the blow. The blade doesn't make any sort of impact or wound.

TALIESIN: 21.

MATT: What's your AC right now?

ASHLEY: 22.

TALIESIN: God damn it. Ah, 23.

ASHLEY: There you go.

MATT: All right, that hits. Roll your damage. I've been forgetting the concentration checks for your spell that you had on giving you the AC bonus. It's fine, we'll do it now.

TALIESIN: And that's nine points of slashing damage.

ASHLEY: I'll take it.

MATT: Go ahead and roll a constitution check. Just roll a d20 and add your constitution modifier.

ASHLEY: Nine.

MATT: Total nine? You lose your plus two AC bonus spell. So your AC is now naturally the 20 normally. That ends your turn, Percy? Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: I have a sword, too. I'm going to take out my Frostbrand. Time to melee.

MATT: Go ahead and roll a physical attack against Percy.

ASHLEY: 23.

MATT: 23 I believe hits against your armor class, right?

TALIESIN: Yes, it does.

MATT: Go ahead and roll damage. It's a d6 because it's a shortsword, an extra d6 of cold damage, and an extra d8 of-- sorry, 3d6 is what it is. No, it's an extra d8, I think. Let me go check. The war cleric bonus, you don't do a lot of melee. Pardon me, folks.

ASHLEY: No, I think I have the d8 for the mace.

MATT: Right, but because you're war-based, you have Divine Strike, it's an extra d8. So 2d6 plus 1d8. There we go. My apologies.

ASHLEY: 17 points of damage.

MATT: Pike reaches back and slams into you with the Frostbrand. The cut of the blade is hard enough, but the cold enchantment on it causes the wound itself to seal with ice.

TALIESIN: Wow, I'm looking rough.

MATT: Anything else you want to do, Pike? You have your bonus action still, and your movement if you wanted to try to move away. It's up to you.

ASHLEY: I'm going to cast Shield of Faith on myself again, can I do that?

MATT: You just used your action. Shield of Faith is a bonus action? Then yeah, you can.

ASHLEY: Okay, I'll cast Shield of Faith on myself.

MATT: So with that, your radiant field of protective energy begins to shimmer across your upper torso again, helping to improve your armor class. Are you going to stay where you are, or are you going to move?

ASHLEY: I can move ten feet? Oh, I haven't even moved yet. I'm going to go back behind the wall.

MATT: This way?

ASHLEY: Yeah, tuck into there.

TALIESIN: I'm going to take my slashing attack.

MATT: You do get your attack of opportunity against her.

TALIESIN: That hit. That's a 31.

MATT: So roll damage.

TALIESIN: That's ten points of slashing damage.

MATT: Ten points of slashing damage against you, Pike. As you back away, Percy gets one strike with the weapon as you turn around the corner. All right, that ends your turn. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: Oh, jeez, okay.

MATT: Oh, Vax, real fast, I need you to go ahead and make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: I have advantage because of the boots. Dexterity? 17.

MATT: That is not going to work. You take 20 points of radiant damage as a guardian in this vicinity all of a sudden--

LIAM: Well, I use evasion.

MATT: So you take half damage. You take ten points of radiant damage as you rush by. All of a sudden, an unseen guardian of energy comes forming out of the wall and slams into you as you pass.

LIAM: Pass what? What do I pass? I didn't even move yet.

MATT: Yeah, you did. This technically would have happened last turn. Yeah, because I forgot it last turn. So it's another ten damage. Mark that.

TALIESIN: Does that drop stealth?

MATT: No, it's just damage.

ASHLEY: Is that the only damage you've taken this game?

LIAM: Yes, and Vax reappears right here, on the move, and I am throwing a dagger right at Percy's forehead.

MATT: Okay. 24? All right. Percy, what's your AC?

TALIESIN: My AC is 18, yeah.

MATT: All right, so that's a hit. A dagger comes out of nowhere as you look over just in time to see it coming at you, you're going to go ahead and--

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm going to do a catch.

MATT: All right, go ahead and attempt to Missile Snare. Well no, it's a reaction to do it, isn't it?

TALIESIN: It is a reaction.

MATT: You've already used your reaction to do that attack of opportunity against Pike.

TALIESIN: Oh, does that burn my reaction?

MATT: Yeah. So, yeah, you don't have the reaction to do it, unfortunately.

LIAM: 36.

MATT: 36 points of piercing damage against you.

TALIESIN: No, I'm done.

MATT: With that, Percy, you fall to the ground, the dagger sticking out of the side of your neck. You are currently-- Pinned you to the wall?

TALIESIN: Yeah, I'm out.

MATT: We'll say as you fall back the blade takes you and pins you against the wall. You are (dying sound) eyes roll back closed.

TALIESIN: I rolled a lot of ones and twos this fight.

MARISHA: You rolled a fuckton, and twos and threes!

LIAM: So, what I'd like to do, because I didn't even stop moving, is use my bonus action to kinda dive this way and hide here, right on top of Percival's body.

ASHLEY: Are we allowed to loot the body?

MATT: I mean, you could.

LIAM: So I'm going to roll for stealth.

MARISHA: Being the person who died first last time, I know it sucks.

TALIESIN: No, I was prepared.

MARISHA: At least it wasn't a Finger of Death like five minutes in.

MATT: All right. Pike, I need you to go ahead and roll a perception check.

ASHLEY: Okay. 12. Or wait, hold on. 13.

MATT: 13, okay, yeah, you see a flash as Vax runs past you and then disappears around the corner.

LIAM: Okay, and I'm going to run to-- hold on, I'll tell you where I'm going to run to.

MATT: All righty. So, with that, it is Keyleth's turn. You sensed Vax run this way and then vanish from your current visual range of tremor sense.

MARISHA: Okay, I want to very carefully step forward here.

MATT: Yep, go ahead and make another dexterity saving throw.

MARISHA: Ooh, yeah, 15.

MATT: Yeah, you manage to just scoot past him again without falling over.

MARISHA: Can I sense Vax again, or anybody else for that matter?

LIAM: Not moving.

MATT: You would have sensed Vax actually moving last round even then, because you didn't move that far. You do know where he is.

MARISHA: Yeah.

TALIESIN: Well done, no, you took, yeah. You did some intense damage.

ASHLEY: Aw, sorry, Percy.

TALIESIN: It's okay. That was awesome.

ASHLEY: (sighs) Sucks. I don't know if I like this.

TALIESIN: Aww.

ASHLEY: You're my friends!

MARISHA: "You're my friends!"

LIAM: Remember all that time out on the ocean, worrying about Percy, was he okay? How is his soul?

TALIESIN: I only feel that that's fair.

MATT: What are you doing, Keyleth?

MARISHA: I want to drop my earth elemental form.

MATT: Okay. You can see through this wall still. I mean, you still remember where he was, but your tremor sense is no longer there, so you have to--

MARISHA: Kind of guess. Well, guessing, I want to do a Flaming Sphere.

MATT: Flaming Sphere?

MARISHA: Doing it 4th-level, why not? Wait, I need to-- I'm trying to keep track of two different sets here, from my real game and from this fake game.

MATT: Okay, where is Flaming Sphere going to go?

TALIESIN: Oh, yeah, I should probably kill me.

MARISHA: Sorry, sorry, sorry.

MATT: You're still not dead yet, you're unconscious. If you manage to-- which happened in our last battle royale-- roll a natural 20 on a death saving throw, you come back to consciousness. So Flaming Sphere at 4th level?

MARISHA: Correct.

MATT: That means you'll be doing 4d6 fire damage.

MARISHA: 60-foot range, 4d6?

MATT: Where are you putting it?

MARISHA: I want to go (explosion) in this corner.

MATT: Okay, right there, or right on there?

MARISHA: How big is it?

MATT: It's a five-foot diameter sphere, that's how big it is.

MARISHA: Oh, it's only a five-foot diameter? I'm guessing there.

MATT: Okay. Bright light shines in the area, and from your visual perspective, you show up because of where you are. Where's your figure?

LIAM: Sorry. Where'd you go, buddy? I'm around. Oh, there he is. I was sitting on Percy.

MATT: The Flaming Sphere appears. So that's your action, and as a bonus action, you can move the sphere up to 30 feet if you wanted to, to ram it into something.

MARISHA: Sure, I'll ram it into Vax now that I can see him.

LIAM: Evasion.

MATT: The sphere starts slamming into you. Make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: I get advantage because of the boots.

MATT: You do.

LIAM: That is a 26.

MATT: 26. Unfortunately, he dodges out of the sphere as it slams into the wall. Percy, you take a death saving throw automatically as the Flaming Sphere rolls over your current unconscious body, pinned against the wall.

TALIESIN: Okay, so I lose a death saving throw? I'm one down?

MATT: Yeah, you do. You're one down.

LIAM: Thanks for dropping earth elemental.

MARISHA: Uh-huh. And I'm going to tuck behind this wall and see if I can hide.

MATT: Well, you can't hide, you used your action.

MARISHA: I'll tuck behind the wall at least.

MATT: Okay, so there you are behind the wall. Ending your turn, Keyleth. Percy, roll another death saving throw.

LIAM: (high-pitched) What about the marbles?

MATT: No, she's already made her roll this turn.

TALIESIN: Under over ten?

MATT: Ten or higher is what you want.

TALIESIN: Nope.

MATT: That's a second death saving throw. You're down two.

TALIESIN: That was like, "I rolled another three."

MATT: Pike, you're up. You see this burst of flame and around the corner, you see a very visible Vax, just out of the corner of your eye, dodge the fire.

ASHLEY: Oh, hi Vax. Oh boy, now I can see him.

MATT: Yeah, this is the one time you will.

LIAM: (hissing)

ASHLEY: Shit, okay. That changes what I was going to do.

LIAM: (Gollum voice) Nasty cleric.

ASHLEY: I am going to cast Flame Strike at him.

MARISHA: All the fire!

ASHLEY: All the fire, all the rage!

MATT: All right, with Flame Strike, suddenly, fire and divine light come bursting up in a column around you up to the ceiling in a horrible spray of flame. I need you to make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: Advantage. Not good. Really bad, 13.

MATT: No. That's 8d6 fire damage and 8d6 radiant-- sorry, 4d6 fire, 4d6 radiant. So yeah, 8d6 points of damage. And Percy incinerates, his body is turned to ash.

ASHLEY: Oh no.

LIAM: Did I say what the armor was? What did I set my armor to?

MATT: You set it to necrotic.

LIAM: Yes. Aw, balls. That could've been so accidentally good!

MATT: I know, but you said necrotic. So you take half damage of whatever this is. (chuckles) Hashtag no mercy for Percy!

(laughter)

ASHLEY: 21.

MATT: 21 points of damage to you.

LIAM: Is the halved version of that.

ASHLEY: No, that's the full. Yeah, I had some bad rolls.

MATT: You take ten points of damage. You can still move if you want, you have not moved yet.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I just used a 5th-level to deal ten points of damage. And I'm going to do Healing Word on myself at 2nd-level.

MATT: 2nd-level? So 2d4 plus five. Nice! So 12 points of healing to you. And you want to move as well?

ASHLEY: I'm going to stand directly behind the pole.

MATT: Over here? There?

ASHLEY: Oh shit, but then she can see me.

MATT: She can.

ASHLEY: Can I stay where I was?

MATT: Where you were? Yeah.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'm just going to stay there.

MATT: Okay, using the light of Sarenrae to hopefully guide you. That ends your turn, Pike. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: She lost line of sight of me? Am I in this little nook still on Percy's ashes? Looks like it.

MATT: Pike's hiding out, there's still a little bit of line of sight on you, just on the edge based on the square you are on. That's where his corpse was on right now, and there's a big flaming sphere that's also lighting up the area. There's no real darkness there. Obscuring yourself is the only way that would aid you.

LIAM: Now it gets interesting. I'm going to take one step this way. Is this still burning?

MATT: Yeah, it's chilling there, burning on this side.

LIAM: I'm going to throw a regular, non-sneak-attack dagger at Pike. Terrible.

MATT: As you pull back, you see Vax pop around the corner, throw a dagger, and it streaks off your shield and you knock it out of the way.

LIAM: This is broken, right, this is gone?

MATT: Yes, you can see through this part of the wall right there.

LIAM: Is this wall here?

MATT: That wall is still there.

LIAM: Okay, so what I want to do is use my movement to tuck in here, press into the wall, go stealth. That's good, that is 28.

MATT: Okay. Go ahead and make a perception check, Pike.

ASHLEY: 19. Shit.

MATT: You have no idea where Vax is. Vax has essentially vanished from view.

ASHLEY: What in the heck?

LIAM: I'll tell you where I'm going. I'm going to run to here.

TALIESIN: Keyleth incinerates the entire cave.

MATT: Finishing that turn, comes to Keyleth.

MARISHA: Fucking fuck. I have no idea where Vax is, do I?

MATT: Nope. You hid to keep out of the view of everything. To be fair, currently Vax has no idea where you are either.

MARISHA: Right. If I peek around this wall, can I see Pike?

MATT: If you peek around right now, you can go and look, if you want to.

MARISHA: Yeah.

MATT: Okay, as you peek around the corner, Pike is currently not visible.

MARISHA: So no one's visible? Whatsoever?

MATT: Nope.

LIAM: Can I ask a quick question? When I put those marbles down, it went (marbles rolling), right? A non-rogue leaping over this, we'd all hear that, right?

MATT: A non-rogue leaping over there? Probably.

LIAM: Unless they tried to make a stealth move.

MATT: Yeah, you make noise when you run anyway, regardless. Only a stealthy character who's already hidden that it would be a thing.

LIAM: Understood.

MARISHA: I still have my Sphere up. I don't know where anyone is. Fucking fuck.

MATT: What do you got, Keyleth?

MARISHA: I don't know what I would do aside from something defensive at this point.

MATT: Do you have any spells that cover an area that are helpful? Like Faerie Fire, anything like that?

MARISHA: I didn't take Faerie Fire today.

MATT: Rough call against a rogue, that would have been clutch. But now you know for the future. Just letting you know.

LIAM: Tremor sense was good, though.

MATT: It was very good.

MARISHA: Let me go ahead-- I do have Sleet Storm that I learned. I think it's just an instant, let me see really quick.

MATT: Sleet Storm's an action.

MARISHA: 20-foot-tall cylinder.

MATT: With a 40-foot radius centered at a point you choose within range.

MARISHA: 40-foot radius, 20-foot tall, 150-foot range.

MATT: Yep. Where do you want to place it?

MARISHA: Last I saw Vax was over here?

MATT: You saw him in this area.

MARISHA: I'm going to do here.

MATT: Centered from where?

MARISHA: Here?

MATT: Centering it from there will only get this section. If you center it further out, you'll hit more of an area, just so you know from a tactical standpoint.

MARISHA: I kind of want to get Pike.

MATT: It's a 40-foot radius, it's going to hit everything.

MARISHA: Well then, sure, let's do-- what's this? (counting)

MATT: Know that the radius is very big on this, so before you put it too close to a wall, you can have more space.

MARISHA: Let's do here-ish.

MATT: Flaming Sphere drops. All right, so the center is where?

MARISHA: (counting) Yeah, it's right here.

MATT: That is the center of your Sleet Storm. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a burst of freezing rain and sleet starts spilling out of the sky, conjured from this temporal portal that pulls from some distant elemental dimension. As it hits the ground, a lot of the lava begins to cool and darken in certain areas. This area begins to cool a little bit. Not entirely, but it's beginning to fight against the cold temperature.

MARISHA: Anything in that area has to make a dexterity saving throw.

MATT: At the start of its turn, yep.

MARISHA: Or make a spell save DC or lose your concentration as well.

MATT: That's true. Is that your action? And do you move anywhere, or do you stay where you are?

MARISHA: Can I tuck back against the wall?

MATT: Yeah, you tuck back against the wall. There you are. So, that brings us to-- no longer Percy, Percy is gone. Sorry buddy, crossing you off there. Pike, your turn begins. This sleet and rain is hitting you from all over the place. I need you to make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: Percy was the fan favorite all day.

TALIESIN: Was it? Well, my money was on either you or me dying first.

LIAM: Mine too.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Eight.

MATT: Eight? You immediately fall prone as the slick ice causes you to fall to the ground, which means it'll take half your movement to stand up. Not a huge deal. However, any spells you are concentrating in, you have to make a successful constitution saving throw. So make a constitution saving throw.

ASHLEY: Ooh, that's a natural one.

MATT: You lose your armor spell again, so you're back down to an AC of 20. Pike, now's your turn.

ASHLEY: Okay, that changes what I was going to do. I will stand up.

MATT: Okay, you have ten more feet to move, so two more squares if you wanted to.

ASHLEY: I am not going to move. I am going to create a Magic Circle around myself. And I am going to...

MATT: Magic Circle is a one-minute casting time. That will take you ten rounds to cast.

ASHLEY: Never mind. Oh, it is one minute!

MATT: Yeah, sorry, girl.

ASHLEY: Sorry, that's why I made a last-minute decision. Okay, you know what? I'm just going to stay there and I'm going to cast Spirit Guardians.

MATT: Spirit Guardians?

ASHLEY: Yeah, around myself.

MATT: At what level?

ASHLEY: Third.

MATT: Which is the basic level.

ASHLEY: Sorry, fourth level.

MATT: All of a sudden, there is another entity that has swirled around you. This spectral image of Sarenrae is now looming over Pike's form, just waiting. Ending Pike's turn, now up to Vax.

ASHLEY: I can't do anything else, right?

MATT: You have your bonus still, if you wanted to do that.

ASHLEY: I'm going to do Shield of Faith again.

MATT: As a bonus action? That's two concentration spells at once, you'll lose Spirit Guardians. Yeah, sorry.

ASHLEY: Okay, okay, okay. I'll do a Healing Word again.

MATT: Okay. So heal seven. That brings us to Vax. What are you doing, buddy?

LIAM: I would like to pop back into existence right here. And throw a dagger--

MATT: Technically she's inside this area there. She's tucked against the wall much like how you were tucked against the wall there.

LIAM: I wouldn't have revealed myself if I had known that.

MATT: You know she's around there, but you'd probably have to traverse--

LIAM: I thought she was five feet that way, which would have changed everything.

MATT: She'd be further spaced out from there.

LIAM: That's everything that I've been working on for the last few minutes.

MATT: Sorry.

LIAM: Instead of that, because this is gone, right?

MATT: Yes.

LIAM: Can I see her from here? All right, I'm going to materialize--

MATT: However, at the start of your turn, I need you to make a dexterity saving throw because of the sleet around you.

LIAM: Sure. I have advantage, 11 or 11. What is with me? 21.

MATT: 21. What's the DC on your spell, Keyleth?

MARISHA: Is it versus my spell DC?

MATT: Yes it is. 19, yeah, so you save. You're fine. No damage, no prone.

LIAM: Through the ice, through the snow.

MATT: This wall's open.

LIAM: I have sharpshooter, so does--?

MATT: Yeah, so she would have no cover on this.

LIAM: 21?

MATT: 21, is that your AC? With that, sneak attack damage against Keyleth.

TALIESIN: Oh god, the pain begins.

LIAM: (counting) 33.

MATT: 33 points of piercing damage against you, Keyleth. As the dagger hits you in the back of the shoulder, you feel a sharp pain. It's weird being on the opposing end of Vax's daggers.

LIAM: I'm going to dance back, use bonus action to hide.

MATT: Make a stealth check.

LIAM: It's a 27.

MATT: Pike, I need you to roll a perception check.

ASHLEY: Pfft, no. Not at all.

LIAM: And then my last action.

MATT: Okay. And with that, I need Vax to make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: It's a 21.

MATT: 21. You manage to pull through the vicinity without any impact. Ending Vax's turn, Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: I still have the Sleet Storm up, right?

MATT: Mm-hmm. Although you do need to roll a concentration for the attack against you, which was thirty-what?

MARISHA: 30, right? Ooh, natural 19.

MATT: 19 would be more than half, you're fine. And you maintain concentration. Half of that would have been 16 or 17.

MARISHA: I just keep it up. Pike still hasn't really moved, right? She's still in her same position.

MATT: Yeah, you don't see her. You haven't seen her for a while.

MARISHA: Okay, I want to peer around this corner and see if I can spot Vax.

MATT: Technically, also, Vax, once again, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw as well.

LIAM: For why? So many things. Not my strong suit. 13.

MATT: 13. (chuckles) You take 3d8 radiant damage.

LIAM: It's a wisdom-based thing?

MATT: Yep, so go ahead and roll 3d8. As the spirit guardian that's been looming over and can see over the wall and that whole vicinity-- as you run past, both of those spells blast at you. One of them you manage to dodge, but the Sarenrae guardian reaches out and slams a giant light blade down into you.

MARISHA: Would I theoretically see that happening through this wall crack?

MATT: No, because you're currently hiding behind the wall.

LIAM: Is it a blade?

MATT: It is a blast of energy, but from a styling standpoint, it's a--

LIAM: So no Uncanny Dodge for that?

MATT: You can Uncanny Dodge-- no, this is not a spell attack against you, it just happens. So, no, Uncanny Dodge would not help you on this.

LIAM: And it's not a dexterity save, so full hit.

ASHLEY: 12. Is it also the Guardian of Faith, or no?

MATT: He already went through that and saved fine. So you take 12 points of radiant damage. At the end of your turn, now it's Keyleth, right?

MARISHA: Yeah, it's my turn. First, I want to peer through the wall and see if I see Vax at all.

MATT: Make a perception check. Natural one!

MARISHA: So, since I don't see Vax--

TALIESIN: Not a lot of 20 in this game, is there?

MATT: Not yet, no.

MARISHA: Has there been a 20?

MATT: You did see some flashes of divine energy in that vicinity, but that's all you see. Yeah. In this general vicinity.

MARISHA: Okay. It's a decision on if I want to-- I'm afraid if I do a Fire Storm and if I mock out to Pike, if that would be considered metagaming if I knew where she is. Do I have an idea of where she is?

MATT: You haven't seen her for a while. It's up to you, you can--

MARISHA: I don't want to be a dick, I don't want to break the game. Let me-- I'll just leave up my Sleet Storm, I guess. I'm going to do a Wall of Stone spell, and I want to block off here. And can I do another column to block off here?

MATT: Yeah, you have plenty of room there. You can do all the way across there if you wanted to.

MARISHA: I want to leave a nice gap here, if I can. Can I do that?

MATT: You can do that if you wanted to.

TALIESIN: Making yourself a private room.

MATT: However, it's a concentration-- no, we made into an instant spell. The concentration made no sense for Wall of Stone for older editions. That being the case, we're looking at-- currently now, stone wall's up here and stone wall's up here.

TALIESIN: He's in the room with you.

MARISHA: Is he in the room with me? I'm going to be really upset if he's in the room with me.

MATT: You have no idea. All right, does that end you turn, Keyleth? Keyleth, does that end your turn? All right. Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: Do I make a perception check?

MARISHA: Oh, and I tuck back against the wall.

MATT: Okay, you tuck against the wall. If you want to go ahead and look around, yeah.

ASHLEY: Is this included in the turn, or will this take away something that I was going to do? Or is this just a perception check?

MATT: You've already made your perception check. I'd say if you really wanted to honestly look for him, I'd let you take an action to do it.

ASHLEY: I would have to roll a 20.

MATT: Yeah, you have no idea where he is right now.

ASHLEY: Okay, you know what? I'm going to, since I saw that the spirit guardian went off--

MATT: Yeah, you saw it go off around that area and strike down over the edge of the wall this way.

ASHLEY: I would like to Insect Plague.

MARISHA: Yes, I've always wanted to do this spell, yes, do it! It's not our style, so we can't do it in the real game.

MATT: (singing) Insect Plague. (normal voice) It is concentration, so this would--

ASHLEY: Get rid of Spirit Guardians?

MATT: Up to you. It is a 20-foot radius. Where do you want to put it?

ASHLEY: I want to put it around that area.

MATT: Which one? Around this area? Okay, so, keeping you outside the radius. Where do you want it to go? This whole area there, the center where it went off? Okay. But keeping you out of the radius, I imagine? So maybe putting you about there would get this whole area there.

ASHLEY: If he's not in there, this is going to blow!

MATT: You drop down Insect Plague, your spirit guardian vanishes as, instead, suddenly, swirling from the cracks in the ground, a cloud of biting scarabs, locusts, and various poisonous insects begin to fill the area. The loud buzzing sound fills the entire area. Vax, I need you to make a constitution saving throw.

TALIESIN: Whoa!

LIAM: You nudged her towards that corner, Mercer, you nudged her towards that corner

MATT: No, she said where it happened. But away from herself. It would have been--

MARISHA: Is that a natural one?

MATT: Natural one. 4d10 piercing damage.

MARISHA: Doesn't he also have some sort of poison from Insect Plague, or something like that?

MATT: No, it's just piercing damage. Things biting and clawing at him.

LIAM: And there's no Uncanny Dodge because it's an area.

MATT: Correct, yeah. Only against directed spell attacks.

LIAM: Four tens?

ASHLEY: How many did I roll?

MATT: Four. What you did do?

ASHLEY: 13.

MATT: 13 points of piercing damage.

MARISHA: Rough. That's a pretty shitty roll, though.

MATT: You see, all of a sudden, all the insects coalesce and start biting in an area. You see the shape of Vax appearing in this corner there, briefly, as the insects are biting. You want to move, still?

ASHLEY: Yes. I'd like to move-- Can I move in between? Between the walls?

MATT: You can move over there if you want to.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll move in there. Not that that's that far away from him, but maybe he didn't see because bugs are biting him.

MATT: So through the pains and anger and the cloud, you can just-- The area is lightly obscured.

ASHLEY: Do I have a bonus action? I'm going to-- Can I cast Shield of Faith on myself again?

MATT: You can, but you'll lose your Insect Plague.

ASHLEY: Never mind. Is that continuous?

MATT: It's concentration, yeah. The insects stay until you leave the area. So let's see here. That's part of that. There. Ending Pike's turn, that brings us to Vax.

LIAM: Will you allow me to go to here and then Jason Bourne behind these, like a boss, and go stealth right there?

MATT: There is no way to see through these walls right now, technically.

LIAM: Oh, I thought there was a gap.

MATT: It's in the design.

LIAM: I'm right here. I'm gonna go stealth.

MATT: However, you do also need to make a dexterity saving throw as you rush into the radius.

MARISHA: Would that affect Pike, too? On her move. Sleet Storm.

MATT: Technically, yeah. Thank you for reminding me.

LIAM: This is the Sleet Storm that I'm dexing?

MATT: This will be the Sleet Storm. You make one as well.

ASHLEY: A dex saving throw?

LIAM: 20.

ASHLEY: Wow. Three.

MATT: Three? You would have not been able to get over there. You would have gotten to there with your full movement. You had to use half of it to get up.

LIAM: Stealth is 27.

ASHLEY: This is so stressful.

MATT: She technically only got that far. So you know.

LIAM: Is that where she was standing at the beginning of my turn? Then I want to do it here instead.

MATT: Okay. Now make another dexterity check. No, a dexterity saving throw, sorry. As you rush into the radius of her Guardian--

LIAM: Didn't she dispel it for the bugs?

MATT: No, she has two up, one of them isn't concentration.

MARISHA: Oh, the Guardian is not concentration?

MATT: It lasts for eight hours.

MARISHA: That's dope. Holy fuck, that's dope.

LIAM: 24.

ASHLEY: Yeah, you're fine.

LIAM: Stealth. And I will-- I haven't taken an action yet. Because that was a bonus.

MARISHA: You've rolled so much, and you haven't done anything.

ASHLEY: Is he going stealth? God dangit.

MATT: It's what he does.

TALIESIN: It's like trying to hit him with a spotlight, and then throw everything you can at him.

MARISHA: It totally is. I should have fucking packed Faerie Fire, that was stupid.

ASHLEY: What is Faerie Fire?

MARISHA: It lights up everything. I took Cure Wounds and Thunderwave and Healing Word instead for my 1st-level spells. It's a really good 1st-level spell.

TALIESIN: It is. It's an anti-rogue spell.

MATT: Got it. Okay. That ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up. You watch as this cloud of insects appears in this corner. You see a coughing Vax run this way to the edge and then disappear behind that wall.

MARISHA: He disappears over here through this wall?

MATT: He disappears through this little channel here, and he doesn't appear to leave it. There's still insects filling this whole space here.

LIAM: Disappeared into the bugs, man.

MARISHA: Into bugs, into bugs, into bugs, bugs, bugs. Totally with you there.

MATT: This is getting real interesting.

MARISHA: Okay, hang on a second. Hang on, hang on. Sorry, I'm double-checking something before I do something stupid.

MATT: Yeah, not too bad.

MARISHA: Okay. I'm going to pop around the corner, and I'm going to do Fire Storm all up where I think there's bitches. So since I saw Vax go this way and a bunch of action and a bunch of insects over here, I'm going to start it here.

MATT: Okay, so we'll say cube, cube, cube.

MARISHA: I'll probably try and get this corner, too. Cube.

MATT and MARISHA: (counting)

MATT: Covering this vicinity here?

MARISHA: Yeah. (counting)

MATT: Okay. So suddenly the ground, already hot, bursts forth in flames surrounding the whole area. What's the saving throw on that?

MARISHA: Dex.

MATT: Pike, I need you to roll a dex saving throw.

MARISHA: Just Pike?

MATT: Yeah, just Pike.

ASHLEY: Six.

MATT: All right, go ahead and roll damage.

MARISHA: That's 7d10.

(laughter)

MARISHA: (yells) Anger!

LIAM: In another life, somewhere, I'm very much in love with you, but not this day.

ASHLEY: 7d10.

MATT: I know someone in the chat's paying attention, and I lost track of that. How many rounds have we gone so far?

MARISHA: Ooh. 24. 34. 43 plus another five. 48 points of fire damage.

ASHLEY: Shit. Okay.

MATT: I should not have asked chat. (laughs)

LIAM: What spells are going on right now? Ice Storm's still happening?

MARISHA: Apparently 13. Critrolestats is the only one we trust.

MATT: Okay, so just so you're aware, the surge of energy that you felt from your boots has faded. You no longer have the haste enchantment.

ASHLEY: Phew. Okay.

LIAM: Has it already been ten rounds already?

MATT: Yeah, it's been 13. You've technically had it for more rounds than you should've, but it's fine.

TALIESIN: The Beyonder is a mysterious creature. The laws of physics do not apply here.

MATT: All right, so is that your turn? What else are you doing?

MARISHA: Hiding again.

MATT: Okay, so you move back into this little area there.

MARISHA: And I'm still maintaining my Ice Storm.

MATT: Are you moving further back this way or staying in that same pocket there?

MARISHA: Just sucking up in that pocket against the wall.

MATT: Okay, we'll say there. All right, cool. That ends Keyleth's turn. Pike, you're up. The flames that erupt around you subside. You're finding yourself singed and burned and angry. I need you to go ahead and roll a constitution check to see if you maintain-- how much damage did you take total from that?

MARISHA: 48.

MATT: 48 damage. Roll a constitution check. You have to beat a 24.

ASHLEY: I have to beat a 24? There's no way. Yeah, there's no way.

MATT: Insect Plague fades away. The insects subside and vanish.

ASHLEY: Okay. Okay! Okay.

MARISHA: We're so frustrating against ourselves.

TALIESIN: This is phenomenal to watch.

ASHLEY: I'm going to cast Cure Wounds on myself.

MATT: Go for it. What level are you doing it?

ASHLEY: Four.

MATT: Level four? Okay. I'm pretty sure this is all your 4th-level spells, right?

ASHLEY: I have one more.

MATT: You have one more?

ASHLEY: Well, I have two. After this one, I'll have one more.

MATT: You have two, but I'm pretty sure Spirit Guardians-- you put that at a higher level, that's right. What was it, guardian--

ASHLEY: Okay.

MATT: No, that's true. Your Guardian of Faith was 4th-level. You couldn't do that at a higher level. So this would be your last 4th-level spell.

ASHLEY: Because I have four because of the ring.

MATT: Oh!

ASHLEY: Keyleth's ring, yeah.

LIAM: Why'd you give her that ring?

MARISHA: Seemed like a good idea at the time. Never give her the ring.

LIAM: Was this some sort of Hunger Games deal?

MATT: So the ring gives you an additional four levels in spells. Okay.

MARISHA: Are you talking about my spell slot ring of holding, my level five spell slot ring holding?

ASHLEY: Yeah. Yes.

MATT: Okay.

MARISHA: Well, it would mean you would have a 4th-level and you could have a level one.

MATT: They have to have already been prepared, is how it would work. We'll say you had your Guardian Spirit as what you had in there, as part of your plan anyway, so that's fine.

MARISHA: I took your cloak, so I technically have your cloak from-- if we're going from the last game.

MATT: We're using the basic gear you would have normally. So technically you would have that ring?

MARISHA: It's normally my ring.

ASHLEY: I don't think that's what it is.

MARISHA: There were two rings. We got a 5th-level that kept, and then there was a lower level--

MATT: There was a 3rd-level one.

MARISHA: There was a 3rd-level that I might have given you.

MATT: Anyway. For the time being, as we're on.

TALIESIN: I'm reading chat, and everyone's like, wow, Taliesin's spaced out. No, I'm just reading chat! I'm just watching it.

MARISHA: No, it's just we actually get to see chat.

TALIESIN: Normally don't get to see chat.

ASHLEY: Now I'll move. Does that last for a long time, or is that a one-time deal, the flame storm?

MATT: It's a one-time thing.

ASHLEY: Okay. So I'm going to tuck back behind that wall.

MATT: Over here? Back around this way or this way?

ASHLEY: Just back towards my Guardian of Faith. Not visible, though. In between.

MATT: Okay. This section. Okay, all right. That ends Pike's turn. Vax, you're up.

MARISHA: Where the fuck are you? Because you're not in my fucking Fire Storm.

LIAM: Hi. Right at Pike.

MARISHA: He wasn't in my-- son of a dick.

LIAM: Oh, that's a natural one. Okay, so--

MATT: Pike, as you run up, all of a sudden you hear a ting! And a blade streaks off the back of your armor. You turn the corner and you see Vax looking there sheepishly.

ASHLEY: Ooh. And so now I see him.

MATT: You do. You're no longer hasted.

LIAM: I know, I know.

MARISHA: I'm not your friend, buddy.

TALIESIN: I'm not your buddy, friend.

MARISHA: I'm not your friend, pal.

LIAM: Is this out of sight here? Is this a solid wall?

MATT: Yeah, that would be a solid wall.

LIAM: Okay. I'm going to roll stealth there. That's a 25, so.

MATT: Go ahead and roll a perception check, just to keep that in mind.

ASHLEY: Is he invisible? No? 19.

MATT: No. You just see him duck on the other side of the wall and vanish.

ASHLEY: Damn it.

LIAM: I want to go--

MATT: Rogues, man.

TALIESIN: They're still doing South Park.

MARISHA: Well, it takes a while for them to catch up.

ASHLEY: How are we health-wise, everybody?

TALIESIN: Keyleth is fine. She may even be pristine.

MARISHA: I'm not pristine. I've taken sneak-attack damage. Which hurt badly.

MATT: Okay, that ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: Keyleth is up. Okay. Keyleth is going to peek around the corner. I can see Pike, right?

MATT: Nope. You can't see anybody.

MARISHA: I can't see Pike through this?

MATT: No, these walls are full walls. These aren't little.

MARISHA: Oh. Solid wall. I can't see anybody.

MATT: Nope. Your guess is as good as anybody's.

MARISHA: Great. Great. I thought I was going to be able to see her.

MATT: Sleet Storm was dropped, guys. It's all good.

MARISHA: Was Sleet Storm dropped?

MATT: Yeah, you took a bunch of damage. No, you didn't. It's still going. I'm so confused by all your spells.

MARISHA: So he still has to make dex checks, right? So does she. And so concentrations, I should remember it, and I did.

MATT: I'm trying to keep all this in my head, ugh.

LIAM: Dex save, 24.

MATT: Okay. Pike, make a dex save.

ASHLEY: Okay. I did move. 16.

MATT: Yeah, even though you probably didn't move that far, so you would have just moved back half your movement, so you're fine. It's fine. Didn't make a huge difference.

MARISHA: Okay.

MATT: It's true, you do confuse me. Love you guys, but you do confuse me.

MARISHA: I can't see anybody through my window, then. Right?

MATT: No. You have locked yourself into a bunker with a very limited viewpoint.

TALIESIN: Metaphor.

MARISHA: I died really quickly last time. I didn't want to--

MATT: So you can either wait it out or start making a guessing game.

MARISHA: But that's the thing, it's the guessing game. I don't have a lot of AOEs at this point. Actually, you know what? I brought Tidal Wave. Where was the last action that I saw? I saw shit go down over here?

MATT: You didn't see anything. You ducked behind that wall.

MARISHA: Okay, so the last thing that I realistically saw was insects and--

MATT: Still insects over here, dashes of light over here, yeah. And you saw Pike over here get flamed.

MARISHA: Okay, let me peek around the corner. Can I do a quick perception check to see if I can spot any movement or--

MATT: Sure, make a perception check.

(laughter)

MATT: It's hard to see through the sleet right now, man. All that sleet is helping you, but it's also-- you can't see shit.

LIAM: Is that an action, like an effort for Pike would waste an action?

MATT: Yeah.

MARISHA: If I can't see anybody, I can't do anything. I don't have line of sight, and I literally burned my AOE spell that I brought for the day.

LIAM: Yeah, you're in a pickle.

(laughter)

MATT: You're such an asshole.

MARISHA: Such a dick. I'm going to cast Cure Wounds, a level two Cure Wounds on myself, because I can't see shit.

MATT: Remember, you can also hold your action in case something--

MARISHA: That's true.

MATT: You can have a spell ready and have it trigger for a spell that can happen once it occurs.

MARISHA: That's true. I never do that because I'm a melee person. Well, let me just cure myself since I already said I was going to do it. So I'm going to roll a 2nd-level Cure Wounds, which is-- and then I'm going to tuck back behind my wall, because that's where I'm happy, in my box. Level two.

MATT: So that's 2d8 plus six for you. 13. You heal 13 hit points. Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I'm going to cast Cure Wounds on myself again at 2nd-level.

MATT: So 2d8 plus five.

ASHLEY: Okay, so 15. And then Shield of Faith as a bonus action, and I'm going to stay for now.

MATT: All right, Shield of Faith is up again, protecting you, standing where you are, not moving anywhere. All right, cool. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: Yeah.

MATT: Oh, at the top of your turn, by the way, because sleet's still moving, dexterity saving throw.

ASHLEY: I didn't move.

MATT: You didn't move, so it wouldn't have made a huge difference anyway, so that's fine.

MARISHA: But concentration spell?

MATT: She cast it at the end of her turn. She already lost concentration because of your last flaming column of fire of doom.

MARISHA: Burn burn burn.

MATT: So dexterity saving throw?

LIAM: Is a 23.

MATT: Yeah, you're fine.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Where the fuck are you?

TALIESIN: It's like Where's Waldo with knives.

MARISHA: It totally is. If Waldo was a serial killer.

TALIESIN: (creepy voice) Where am I?

ASHLEY: I mean, we can't--

TALIESIN: I would think a dark reboot of Where's Waldo would do really well.

MARISHA: That would be phenomenal. Like a Freddy Krueger Where's Waldo.

ASHLEY: If you find him, you die. This is rough.

MATT: All right, that ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up.

ASHLEY: He's right behind me, isn't he?

MARISHA: Again? Already? Okay, I'm going to peek around my corner. Do I see anybody? Another perception check. I'm going to peek through my wall of my hole that I've made.

MATT: This is your action to take your perception, by the way.

MARISHA: It's an action?

MATT: Bonus action, we'll say. 27? What did you roll?

MARISHA: 27 to see where the fuck you are.

LIAM: Perception? I rolled-- well, here's the thing. Let me tell you.

TALIESIN: I imagine a little chessboard--

MATT: Are you looking through this way?

MARISHA: I'm looking through this wall.

MATT: You don't see anything.

MARISHA: Then I prepare a Blight spell, and I hold.

MATT: Until?

MARISHA: Until I see either Pike or Vax appear in my view.

MATT: Okay. Good to know. All right, that brings us to Pike's turn. Pike, what are you doing?

ASHLEY: I'm going to hold my turn until someone attacks me.

MARISHA: Nobody move!

MATT: You can't hold your whole turn. You have an action prepared. What do you want to do with your action?

ASHLEY: If someone attacks me, then I'm going to attack back.

MATT: Okay, so you're going to hold your attack action until somebody attacks you? Okay.

ASHLEY: Come out of hiding, motherfucker!

MARISHA: Come out, come out, wherever you are.

MATT: That brings us to Vax's turn.

ASHLEY: (whistles as if for a dog)

MATT: Okay. It is now Keyleth's turn.

MARISHA: Are you just fucking hiding, motherfucker? Are you just waiting this out? Are you camping right now? Are you being a fucking camper?

LIAM: This is in-tents.

TALIESIN: Wow.

MATT: I'm going to give you damage for that. (laughs) I'm kidding. This is turning into a bad Counterstrike match real fast.

MARISHA: I'm going to do another scan to see if I can find the motherfucker.

MATT: Looking out where?

MARISHA: My same hole! And then probably nothing. 18.

MATT: Nothing.

MARISHA: Okay, someone's got to do something here. Let me see. What do I have in my bag? Papa's got a brand new bag. I am going to--

MATT: You're on deck, Pike.

MARISHA: I still have a Blight spell prepared, right?

MATT: You didn't cast it. It never happened.

MARISHA: So I put it away?

MATT: Yeah. You didn't actually cast it. You were ready that if it happened, you would do it immediately. You could do the same thing, if you wanted to, though it seems like everyone is doing nothing right now, so if this continues, I'm going to have to shake things up.

MARISHA: I'm going to crawl out of the wall here. Crawl over. This is still lava flow, correct?

MATT: It is, but the sleet spell has cooled it, and most of this now is darkened rock again, actually, due to the constant cold rain and snow. It's still hot in there, but there's a shell of rock over it. You're not sure how strong it is.

MARISHA: All right, here's what I want to do, then--

MATT: Also, how does the sleet spell work? You may have walked into your own spell radius.

TALIESIN: That would be-- never mind.

MATT: When a creature enters the spell area. Yeah. If you don't want to do that, you can back up, but otherwise, you'd be walking right into your sleet spell.

MARISHA: I didn't realize it would stretch that far.

MATT: Yeah, it's a 40-foot radius, so it's out to here.

MARISHA: Okay, I'm going to-- sorry, there's a lot going on.

MATT: What are you doing?

MARISHA: I'm trying to figure it out! I don't have a whole lot! I'm going to cast a Tidal Wave. I'm going to leave my sleet spell up, I guess. I will cast a Tidal Wave, which is in this thing, ten feet wide, ten feet tall.

MATT: Yup.

MARISHA: 30-foot long.

MATT: Yup. So you have a ten-foot-wide column you can put anywhere for 30 feet.

MARISHA: Anywhere in a 20-foot radius, so I can see here, correct? I want to do it going this way.

MATT: Starting from where?

MARISHA: Here, where I can see, and going this way.

MATT: Okay. Five, ten, 15, 20, 25, 30 would just hit Pike. All right, so, Pike, as you're waiting and waiting, all of a sudden you see this surge of water come splashing across the way towards you. You turn-- Make a dexterity check. Or a dexterity saving throw, sorry.

LIAM: What's the spell?

MATT: Tidal Wave. It's what she used to destroy the elementals.

MARISHA: Yeah, it's instantaneous so my thing is still up.

ASHLEY: 17?

MARISHA: Fail.

MATT: So you take 4d6 bludgeoning damage and you are knocked prone here.

ASHLEY: 4d6?

MARISHA: 4d8, so that's eight, 16, 17. Wait, 4d8? 17.

MATT: 17 points of bludgeoning damage, and you are knocked prone as the wave crashes over you, dissipating into the stonework around, leaving little puddles that begin to steam and boil upon the impact across the ground, even as the sleet storm is crashing all around you.

MARISHA: That's my turn.

MATT: All righty. You're up, Pike.

MARISHA: And I'm going to tuck back up against my wall.

ASHLEY: Okay, so.

MATT: Okay, at the top of your turn, you need to make a constitution saving throw.

MARISHA: Sleet Storm is still up! Sleet Storm! Sleet Storm!

ASHLEY: 19.

MATT: Yeah, so you maintain your armor.

ASHLEY: Okay. Can I just get up and then go to the middle part of the walls?

MATT: You can move there. That's about as far as you can get with only half your movement left, so.

ASHLEY: Okay. Can I just start swinging and see if I can hit him, if he's in there?

MATT: If you want to. Just make an attack up here? Okay. Roll an attack.

ASHLEY: I mean, he's not in there, but, I mean, 28.

MATT: 28. Whoosh, through the air. Nothing there.

MARISHA: 28 is such a great roll, too.

MATT: All right. Is that all you're going to do on your turn?

ASHLEY: (sighs) Yeah. Yeah.

MATT: All right. Vax, you're up.

LIAM: Okay. I'm telling you what I'm doing right now. It's interesting.

MATT: That will drop stealth.

LIAM: Okay.

ASHLEY: Do it.

MARISHA: (whispering) Show your face.

LIAM: Forget that. Just this.

MATT: Okay.

LIAM: You know what I'm talking about, right?

MATT: Are you holding what you were holding before? Okay. Okay. Got it. All right, cool. That ends Vax's turn. Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: You dickhead. You dick. Okay. I'm going to pop around the corner again. Do I see Pike at all?

MATT: No.

ASHLEY: (whispering) Sorry.

MATT: Nobody's in view right now.

(laughter)

LIAM: Oh, wow. Ah, it's 11:00, it's amazing. This game is so depressing.

ASHLEY: I did not know it was-- I was like, "Oh, yeah, it'll probably be pretty quick."

MARISHA: I just broke the fucking pen. I just did a Travis.

MATT: (laughs) All right, what are you doing, Keyleth?

MARISHA: I'm going to do another-- It sucks when you can't see people. It really fucking sucks. I am going to Call Lightning, I guess.

MATT: Okay. You will lose Sleet Storm. You good with that?

MARISHA: (quietly) No, not really.

MATT: Sleet Storm has been somewhat effectual with Pike, but she's not moving much. Doesn't seem to affect, so it's up to you.

MARISHA: Okay. Okay, I'll drop it.

MATT: It can be useful. You drop it and go Call Lightning. Sleet Storm ceases as suddenly a small cloud begins to form at the top of this chamber. You hear the crackling and rolling thunder as little flashes of electrical energy begin to appear across the ceiling.

MARISHA: I am going to bring it down here.

MATT: There? Okay. With that, (thunder). A blast of lightning hits the floor, smashes into the ground, rocks get thrown. No apparent effect. All right. You going to go back in your corner? All right. Pike, you're up.

ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to cast Death Ward on myself. My last fourth.

MATT: Last fourth spell. Death Ward on Pike. Boom. I'm going to wait-- What else are you doing?

ASHLEY: Okay, so. Ugh, so frustrating because I can't see him. Can I make a Spiritual Weapon to see stealthy people? Like stealth goggles?

MATT: You can make a Spiritual Weapon that can move around and be a danger, but can't really makr it to help you see stuff.

ASHLEY: I know, I was just trying.

MATT: I mean, an extra bonus action attack doesn't hurt if something does show up, so. Up to you. What do you want to do?

ASHLEY: Okay, yeah. I'm going to put a Spiritual Weapon, just hovering, that sweet sword of Sarenrae.

MATT: Okay. What level?

ASHLEY: Second.

MATT: Okay, so a basic Spiritual Weapon appears. I'll go with this yellow one. Where do you want it to go?

ASHLEY: Just right above me.

MATT: Right above you? All right, so that'll be right there. Okay, that end your turn? All right, suddenly--

LIAM: (whispering) Aw, dang it.

MATT: The entirety of the room begins to quake and shift. You hear the cracking as, all of a sudden, every stone wall bursts forth and molten rock begins to spill into the territory. All the walls, now, five feet of lava have filled in. Show me on the map where you last were?

LIAM: Where I last was?

MATT: Yes, show me.

LIAM: Okay.

MATT: Okay. I need you to make a dexterity saving throw. Don't have advantage anymore, because Haste is gone.

LIAM: I know. That is a 30, I think, hold on.

MATT: Yeah, it's plenty. So you dodge out of the way just in time, however, you guys watch as all the walls now, within five feet of them, are now just spilling lava and it's filling into the room. You get the sense that it's going to continue to fill with each passing round.

LIAM: You mean closing in?

MATT: All the walls are slowly closing in until the room fills with lava.

MARISHA: Do we see Vax now?

MATT: No, you do not. It is now Vax's turn.

LIAM: Okay, so, Pike is in the little tunnel?

MATT: From what you can tell. You don't see her.

LIAM: Well, I'm looking from my spot.

MATT: You don't see her.

LIAM: Oh, okay. Right, I don't see her. And I don't see Keyleth. Okay, so what I want to do--

ASHLEY: How's it feel?

LIAM: --is use my action to do that, and use my bonus to-- Just a little.

MATT: Okay. All right. Just a little? To where? Give me specifically. Sorry, guys.

LIAM: So, here.

MATT: All right, so. You hear in the distance this kind of hissing sound. Hand me the sheet real fast? So I--

LIAM: Oh, gosh, yeah.

MATT: As from around the corner, a tiny serpent appears and lashes out at you, Keyleth. Simon, a very familiar friend.

MARISHA: Simon! Oh, hey, bud! Hey, friend, what's up?

MATT: Rears back and strikes at you, being the poisonous snake that it is.

MARISHA: Oh, no, what's the matter, you lost? You lost, Simon? Oh, don't worry, bud, we're going to get out of this okay. Whoa, fuck!

MATT: Go ahead and roll a d20.

LIAM: Aw, that's a five.

MATT: All right. It strikes at you, and you just kinda step back and go, "Aw, Simon."

LIAM: She didn't lose any hit points? Oh, it's an attack roll, got it.

MATT: But there is now a tiny little snake there. All righty. That ends your turn. All right. Keyleth, you're up.

MARISHA: Okay, so the walls are coming in. Do I see a floating weapon?

MATT: No.

MARISHA: No? I don't see the floating Sarenrae weapon or anything?

MATT: Not really, the wall's too high. The walls are about ten feet up.

MARISHA: Okay. I am going to-- Okay, I dropped my Sleet Storm. I am now going to come through and come here. Do I see Vax at all? I'm going to do another perception check.

MATT: Perception check as a bonus action.

MARISHA: Negative. A two. I've been rolling terribly.

TALIESIN: Oh my god, again.

MARISHA: So we're trying, now the lava's caving in-- I'm going to just hold Blight. I'm going to hold my action and see if I see Pike or Vax.

MATT: Okay. Good to know. All right, Pike, you're up.

MARISHA: Blight, or Call Lightning.

MATT: Blight or Call Lightning. Which one are you going to do?

MARISHA: Well, I'm holding my attack action. It depends on how close they are.

MATT: Okay. Usually, you tell what spell you're preparing.

MARISHA: Well, I have Call Lightning up as a concentration spell, and Blight is an instant action. If I see Pike, I will Call Lightning. If I see Vax, I will Blight.

MATT: Okay, good to know.

ASHLEY: All right, I'm going to move forward to the front of this little tunnel here, and I'm going to stay in there. And then I'm going to move my spiritual weapon so it stays with me. Or does it stay with me?

MATT: As a bonus action, you can move it 20 feet and repeat an attack against a creature within five feet.

ASHLEY: And each square is five? Okay, I'll just keep it with me.

MATT: Okay, cool. Top of the round! The lava begins to pool further into the room. You guys notice now as molten rock is now beginning to spill at the ten-foot radius around the walls. Pike, it's starting to get close to closing off the exit of this wall. You see it now beginning to spill into this lava form there.

MARISHA: I have my Wall of Stone up here and here.

MATT: Correct. But it's still spilling out of all the walls on each side.

MARISHA: Sure, right.

MATT: You need to make another dexterity check.

LIAM: Even though I stepped one in?

MATT: You stepped one in, away from it, and then it moved in one more.

LIAM: Okay. Ohh! One.

MATT: One.

TALIESIN: Welcome to the club.

MATT: You take 42 points of fire damage

TALIESIN: Whoa!

MATT: As the lava surges past you, you manage to just step out of the very edge, but a familiar sensation hits you as the severe pain you once held in one foot, you now feel in both. All righty! Vax, it's your turn.

LIAM: Okay. I'm going to materialize. I'll have gone one, two, three, four, five to here. I'm going to throw a dagger--

MATT: The moment you appear, Keyleth, you get your Blight spell.

MARISHA: Hey, baby. Okay.

LIAM: I haven't walked up to you, but if it's ranged--

MATT: No, it's ranged. It's a 30-foot range. As soon as you appear. No, constitution saving throw.

LIAM: Constitution. I am doomed, doomed, doomed. So it's on me right now to roll? Here we go. Ugh, it's a big six. Big six.

MATT: All right, that is 8d8 necrotic damage against you.

LIAM: Oh, I'm gone, I'm out.

MARISHA: Low rolls. Ten, 13--

MATT: You do have necrotic resistance.

LIAM: Yeah, still. Still going to get knocked out.

MARISHA: 28 damage.

MATT: So 14 points of necrotic damage to you.

LIAM: I'm down.

MATT: You're down?

MATT: As you see Vax appear, dagger in hand, rushing toward you, you turn and release the Blight spell. You see the veins of black curl up his body as his skin begins to curl and tear open in certain places and he falls facedown on the edge of this lava pool right there, one hand kind of like (sizzling), fingers beginning to catch flame as it just touches the edge of the lava.

MARISHA: (high-pitched) Sorry! This is like a nightmare I had.

(laughter)

MARISHA: I feel so guilty.

MATT: All right. Keyleth, it's your turn.

MARISHA: Okay. Vax is down?

MATT: Vax is down.

MARISHA: How sadistic do I want to be?

MATT: It's up to you. What do you want to do?

MARISHA: In typical Keyleth fashion, I walk up to Vax, and I say, so sorry, I'm so sorry, and I push him into the lava.

(laughter)

LIAM: So what do I do?

MATT: You don't do anything, as she kicks your unconscious form into the molten rock, and your body slowly burns away.

LIAM: And the Death Ward does nothing against that? Death save, advantage, all of that, nothing?

MATT: This isn't so much about death saving throws as your unconscious body, unable to do anything, is being pushed slowly into molten rock. Vax is no more.

MARISHA: Wait, wait wait. I'll never let go. I'll never let go, Vax!

LIAM: So stupid, Rose! So stupid, Rose!

MATT: You watch as the molten rock takes his arm, as it slowly disappears beneath the lava, Marisha, it turns into a middle finger, and disappears beneath the molten rock.

LIAM: That's totally on me. I wasn't paying attention. I heard you say Blight and I should have stayed put. That was my mistake.

MATT: So that's your action, kicking his body into the lava.

MARISHA: That was gnarly.

MATT: What do you want to do now? You still have a move, and a bonus if you wanted to use it.

MARISHA: I still have a move and a bonus?

TALIESIN: Remember, the walls are caving in.

MARISHA: Yeah, I know.

MATT: I know you wouldn't sink in lava. It's fantasy lava. Every time I look over to chat, there's just someone-- Ugh.

LIAM: Guys, it's a game.

MATT: It's fun. We're having a good time. She pushed him partially into it and he just burst into flames, is what really would have happened, but it's fine.

ASHLEY: Down to the ladies!

MATT: It's all good. The physics in Exandria are different than your normal mortal realm. All right. So. You move over there, and you're done?

MARISHA: I move over there and still have a bonus, right? All right. I am going to Healing Word myself.

MATT: So 1d4 plus six.

MARISHA: Yeah, I'm just going to do first-level here, just to top me off.

MATT: And Pike, you're up after this.

MARISHA: Four!

TALIESIN: Ten points.

MATT: All right. Pike, you're up. Dude, you had a good game.

LIAM: Amazing. So much fun.

TALIESIN: You were metal.

ASHLEY: I'm going to peek out!

MATT: All right. You peek around the corner, and you see Keyleth immediately off across the lava. You also see there is lava lapping at your foot and you can see it moving slowly in your direction.

ASHLEY: So how far can I move?

MATT: Well, first off, the sleet spell you let go for Call Lightning?

ASHLEY: So how far can I move around right here?

MATT: That's five, ten. You can move all the way over here if you want, it's up to you. Or over here.

ASHLEY: And is there lava over here? Okay, I'm going to move right here.

MATT: Okay, you move right there. All right. And you can use your bonus action to move your blade if you want to as well, 20 feet. So you're going to do that?

ASHLEY: Yeah, I'll do that.

MATT: Five, ten. Where do you want to go for the rest of it? Towards Keyleth? 15, 20. It just floats over the lava, so it's fine.

ASHLEY: I am going to cast Harm on Keyleth.

MARISHA: That sounds horrible. I don't even know what that is.

MATT: Oh, you're about to find out is what you're about to find out! Oh, no. Okay!

LIAM: While Matt flips, what I was going to do before I forgot that was stab you in the back, and then just wrench you down into the lava.

MATT: Keyleth, make a constitution saving throw. (giggling) Oh no...

ASHLEY: Hey, no, man. This is a good match-up, though, because--

LIAM: Three.

MATT: All right. You take 14d6 necrotic damage.

TALIESIN: Would you like some extra d6?

MARISHA: 14d6?

LIAM: Take my Sneak Attack dice.

TALIESIN: (counting) There you go. All of that!

MARISHA: All of them. Roll them all at once. Yes!

TALIESIN: Wow. Oh my God.

MATT: Re-roll the cocked one.

ASHLEY: Oh, that changed that one. Oh well.

MATT: That's fine.

ASHLEY: (counting)

LIAM: I want a fistfight at the end of this.

MARISHA: Just go out to the parking lot? Take our shirts off. (rage sound)

LIAM: Ow, you hit me in the ear!

MARISHA: Stop pulling my hair!

ASHLEY: 44.

MATT: 44 points of necrotic damage. By the way, your max health is also reduced by 44.

LIAM: That necrotic stuff hurts, huh?

MATT: What does that bring you to?

MARISHA: 31 points. Right? Or 95 minus 44. I way overcompensated. 51, not 31.

MATT: 51 hit points. All right, so that's your Harm spell!

ASHLEY: Yikes. Okay, and then I'm going to cast-- no, that's all I can do, right? Because I did the bonus action to move the Spiritual Weapon?

MATT: Yep, that's it, you're done. All right, Keyleth. Top of the round. The lava pools in even further, and now three squares away from the wall are currently filled now, so you guys are starting to get pushed into the lava pool in the center. You probably have two very careful rounds before you're both taking lava damage. Yeah, you guys can see each other. It's right down to this lava-filled room, the glow of the molten rock around you under-lighting you both as you're standing in the center around this pool, staring at one another for the final showdown. You hear the laughing of the Beyonder in the distance. (Doofus-esque voice) "Heh, heh, this is great."

ASHLEY: Oh gosh, she's going to kill me. She's going to kill me!

MARISHA: Okay, so first I want to do, just as my action, a Call Lightning right onto Pike.

MATT: All right, Pike, I need you to roll a dexterity saving throw. Your favorite!

ASHLEY: Natural 20.

MATT: Oh, shit. All right.

MARISHA: The first natural 20 of the night!

MATT: So roll 3d10 lightning damage, halved.

ASHLEY: Nice!

MARISHA: 22. Halved, 11.

MATT: 11 points of lightning damage. As the lightning hits you, charging though your body, the War Cleric in you fills up with even more rage.

MARISHA: Now I want to use my bonus action to cast Blight. Or, sorry, no, to cast Grasping Vine.

TALIESIN: Oh, shit!

ASHLEY: I think I'm done. I'm done for, I'm done for!

MARISHA: I fucking love lava, by the way. If I can do it here...

MATT: All right. So a vine whips out 30 feet. (counting) Yeah, she's in range.

ASHLEY: Oh, shit!

MATT: All right, so, Pike, I need you to make a dexterity saving throw.

LIAM: Brutal.

ASHLEY: Yeah, it gets me.

MATT: The vine streaks out, black and charred, almost like the dead forest-type exterior. It whips around you and drags you forward 20 feet into the center of the lava. You take-- (giggling) Oh my God. This is not good for you. All right, so that's 45 points of fire damage.

ASHLEY: 45. Oh, shit.

MATT: As you're now being pulled into this hard but super molten rock shell, your whole body bursts into flames as now the flaming fires of righteousness of Sarenrae are now met by the flaming fires of your flesh actually burning off. What are you at, health-wise?

ASHLEY: I'm at four. I have Death Ward. Not that that's probably even going to do anything.

LIAM: Oh, look, this one's gloating already!

MATT: Keyleth, that's the end of your turn? All right, Pike, you're up! Pike, you can move out of this, because if you stay in there at the end of your turn, you're going to take the damage again.

ASHLEY: (shouting) Fuck! Okay. So. Hmm.

MATT: The vine's still right there, ready to grab you again.

ASHLEY: Okay. Can I take my Spiritual Weapons and cut off the vines?

MATT: The Grasping Vine itself is more of an effect that she can continue, to have more vines grow out of it, so it's not going to do much. You've seen it before, you know how it works.

ASHLEY: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

MATT: The vine can only pull towards it.

MARISHA: That's true. It's not a grapple.

MATT: Yeah. So if you were to move towards the vine, it wouldn't be able to pull you into the lava again, essentially.

ASHLEY: So I need to get out. Yeah, I'm going to get out.

MATT: Which direction?

ASHLEY: Where is the lava now?

MATT: The vine's right there. The lava has now pooled into here. You're only really going to have this space and this space.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I'll just crawl out towards her. I'm done. I'm done! I can't do anything.

LIAM: You've still got high AC.

ASHLEY: Do I still have a spell?

MATT: Yeah! You haven't done anything. All you did was move. As a bonus action, you could move this over to attack her, if you wanted to.

ASHLEY: In addition to doing something else?

MATT: Yeah, as a bonus action. Although it is a concentration spell, and I need you to roll against 44 points of damage. Roll a constitution check.

ASHLEY: Okay. 19.

MATT: Plus your constitution? Oh, with your constitution? Nah. Spiritual Weapon is gone.

ASHLEY: Okay, so, shit. I've got to play this correctly. You're 51?

LIAM: Got anything that can put her in the pool? Your biggest damage, right there.

MARISHA: It's like a pool party wrestling match.

TALIESIN: Sear your shame. Lock in the flavor.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I do have a 3rd-level. Can I throw her ass into the lava?

MATT: If you wanted to try and shove her, there is lava right behind her there.

ASHLEY: Okay, I'm going to try and shove her with my-- No! I'm going to Command her to jump into the pool of lava.

MATT: You can Command one word.

LIAM: Swim.

TALIESIN: Don't help! Don't help.

ASHLEY: Yeah. How do I word this? What's the word? Jump? Ah, fuck.

MATT: You can try. Let me see here. Let me look at this real fast.

LIAM: What does that penguin say? Slide?

MARISHA: Slide! Now slide, now slide. Now dip, baby, dip.

MATT: It has no effect if your command is directly harmful to it, so it wouldn't work.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I'll just shove her back into the lava that's behind her.

LIAM: Hold on, let me take my earrings off.

ASHLEY: I mean, what can I do at this point?

MATT: This is going to be interesting. All right, so you move into here. Well, you can probably do it from here, because technically you're both adjacent at this point. Go ahead and you can make a shove as your attack.

ASHLEY: Yeah, I don't know how to do that. Or I can use my Frostbrand.

MATT: Make a strength (athletics) check.

ASHLEY: Okay. Strength and athletics? Okay, so 16.

MATT: All right, you can roll either an athletics or an acrobatics check, Keyleth.

MARISHA: I'll take athletics for that. 14.

MATT: Pike rushes around the corner with her shield and slams into you. You get pushed back into the lava that has curled out from that side.

MARISHA: Oh, hot. Oh, hot hot hot.

MATT: Let's see. Yeah, okay, so Keyleth takes, as part of this action, 19, 29, 35 points of fire damage from the shove.

MARISHA: I'm alive, I'm alive.

MATT: You're alive? All right. Pike, does that end your turn?

ASHLEY: Yeah, there's nothing else I can do, right?

MATT: You haven't used your bonus action yet, I don't think. You used your action to shove.

ASHLEY: And I can't use a 7th-level, correct? If it's a bonus action? It's a bonus action.

MARISHA: A 7th-level spell? You have a bonus action 7th-level spell? What the fuck?

MATT: What spell is it?

ASHLEY: Divine Word.

MATT: Divine Word. Let me pull this up real fast. Divine Word is a bonus action, yeah. (laughs in surprise) Okay, yeah, you can do this!

ASHLEY: I can?

MATT: You can, yeah. Because you used your action to shove. All right, Keyleth, I need you to make a charisma saving throw.

MARISHA: (sarcastically) Oh, my strongest points!

MATT: (laughs) I know.

MARISHA: Plus three. Nine.

MATT: How many hit points are you at?

MARISHA: 16.

MATT: Ashley, how do you want to do this?

MARISHA: Oh! Shut up!

MATT: So, how Divine Word works: "You utter a Divine Word, imbued with the power that shaped the world at the dawn of Creation." Because clerics. "Choose any number of creatures you can see within range. Each creature that can hear you must make a charisma saving throw. On a failed save, a creature suffers an effect based on its hit points." 50 or lower, they're deafened for a minute. 40 or lower, they're deafened and blinded for ten minutes. 30 or lower, they're blinded, deafened, and stunned for an hour. 20 hit points or lower: killed instantly. Ashley, how do you want to do this?

ASHLEY: All right. I'm going to walk over to her, because she's down, right?

MATT: She's in the lava right now.

MARISHA: I'm in the lava just screaming bloody murder.

ASHLEY: I'm going to just touch her hair, and I'm going to say (tender voice) I'm sorry, but I need to kill you. And smoosh her face into the lava!

(laughter)

MATT: As you slam her head down, radiant, divine energy fills the space around you, and then curls dark as you push your friend face-down into the lava. You hear her screams muffled as the molten rock begins to consume her hair, burning off her head, the divine energy protecting you from the heat. As you pull back suddenly, this smoldering, smoky ruin that was once Keyleth begins to slowly melt away against the tide of lava. The pouring rock halts in place as a voice goes, "And... I have my victor!" Suddenly, the lava right behind you tears open, and you find yourself falling, plummeting into darkness, and the plummeting turns into just falling and falling, then light begins to fill the space beneath you, and you look down as a small platform of marble approaches you. You think you're about to crash into it at full terminal velocity. Instead, your feet gingerly touch, and you come to stand there. The same strange, white-clad, jheri curl-haired gentleman walks up to you and goes, "Well played!" and high-fives you. "I'll send you on back. Your friends are fine!" and then you see the corpses of your three friends rise up out of the marble, still as wrecked as they were from the battle.

ASHLEY: Hi. Sorry!

LIAM: We're really more of a co-mingled milkshake. We'll be together forever!

MATT: It's a little disturbing. He hasn't restored them to their actual form. They all start shambling towards you. He goes, "Oh, sorry about that. Er, this was a dream!" Snaps, and he goes to darkness. Well done! Congratulations!

(cheering)

LIAM: The monstah!

ASHLEY: The monstah! Oh, down to the nitty-gritties!

MATT: Four hit points, the lava pushing in, that was crazy! I didn't realize that was a bonus action!

ASHLEY: I didn't realize it was a bonus action until you were like, you have a bonus action, and I looked down, and I was like, okay, well. Oh, shit.

MARISHA: Had you rolled a few points higher on that lava, she would have been dead. Or had I rolled higher on my Lightning.

ASHLEY: With Death Ward, would that have done anything, or no?

MATT: It would have brought you back to one.

ASHLEY: Okay, so I would have still had that one hit point.

LIAM: Also, when you cast that Blight on me, I had 14 hit points. Whatever number of hit points I had is what you hit me for.

MATT: (laughing) Oh, that sucks. You put necrotic resistance specifically because you were afraid of Blight. Yeah.

LIAM: By the way, she texted me today, going, "But I won't use that on you, I promise."

(laughter)

MARISHA: Oh, I totally did say that, didn't I?

LIAM: Yeah. No, I knew that you were a liar. Liar.

MARISHA: If it makes you feel better, I kind of forgot about it, between now and then.

(laughter)

ASHLEY: Travis just texted me and said, "I am so proud." My buddy!

MATT: Aww.

ASHLEY: Wow. I was not expecting that.

MARISHA: So, wait, I have a question. My armor has spell resistance, which gives me advantage on saving throws?

MATT: Spell resistance gives you advantage on spell saving throws, yes.

MARISHA: But that wouldn't have helped against her thing, just now?

MATT: No, it would've. Yep.

MARISHA: But I didn't have to roll to save.

MATT: It was a charisma saving throw.

MARISHA: Oh my God, it was a charisma saving throw! I would have had advantage!

MATT: Roll again. The outcome's already happened, but.

MARISHA: It's already happened. I rolled an 18!

MATT: What was your charisma bonus?

MARISHA: Plus three, so 21.

MATT: Your charisma saving throw bonus is plus three?

MARISHA: Yeah, because I have the Ring of Protection. I gain a plus two bonus to AC and saving throws.

MATT: Well, this is a valuable lesson in remembering what your spells can do.

MARISHA: What my armor does, yeah. So I would have saved against that?

MATT: Possibly, yeah.

MARISHA: Fucking fuck! A 21. I would have saved.

ASHLEY: You would have saved.

MATT: It was an epic end.

LIAM: But you also accidentally benefited from something we weren't supposed to. At some point.

MARISHA: At some point, yeah, I'm sure.

MATT: It all balances out. It all comes out in the wash. That Divine, man, that's such a cool ability.

MARISHA: Man, that's funny.

LIAM: That was exhilarating!

ASHLEY: Gosh, that was down to the end!

TALIESIN: I've got to think up better ways to kill you.

LIAM: I'm surprised no one went into the lava until the very, very end, too.

TALIESIN: I had plans, but you scared everybody into the corners. The minute you vanished, it just changed everything. The minute anybody had walked in front of that, I had a ten-foot push.

LIAM: I feel like I would have lost momentum right away, if I hadn't gone into stealth.

MARISHA: Had I saved, my next move was going to be a thunder blast, to try and push you into the lava.

ASHLEY: I would have been done-zo.

MARISHA: It came very close!

ASHLEY: Good job!

ALL: Good game.

MATT: But be aware that she still had Death Ward, so even if you did hit her with that--

MARISHA: She would have had to come back. Back up with one hit point, and then would have done it again.

MATT: Done something else, yes. Either way, that was an epic end. Man, cleric victory, both Battle Royales we've had.

MARISHA: Cleric victory! Clerics are badass in general.

MATT: Yeah, everyone out there is like, "Eh, I don't want to play a cleric."

TALIESIN: Clerics. Two rounds, now.

ASHLEY: Because you can heal yourself!

MATT: Yeah. That saved you! Staying off to the side and healing yourself with your bonus actions and stuff, when no one was around?

ASHLEY: Yeah, I was like I'll just build up and then--

MATT: Hey, man, that's what saved you.

LIAM: It got so dirty at the end. So dirty and nasty.

MARISHA: You guys did a lot of damage to my stone form up front, but someone almost brought me down. I was at six hit points and I stayed at six hit points for a long time.

TALIESIN: I know, I was about to-- That was when my gun broke. I was about to get you to drop, and then the gun broke.

MARISHA: Yeah, you were about to drop me. I ended up dropping it myself because at this point it was turning into a Mexican standoff and I couldn't do anything, and I can't cast spells when I'm in an earth elemental form.

MATT: Yeah. Well done, guys.

LIAM: My time was up. Even if the Blight hadn't gotten me, without Haste, I was going to start getting seen more often, and I was low, and you guys had plenty of frigging spells left at that point. I would've been toast.

MARISHA: I was just running out of options.

MATT: You guys were down to the wire, as far as spell options.

MARISHA: I was down to the wire, because I burned 7th-level on Firestorm, 6th-level on Sunbeam, which only did half damage on him once, so that wasn't great. I still had a 5th-level spell left, and one 4th-level. I burned through all my 3rd-levels.

LIAM: One day you guys will get the whole group.

MATT: One day. All of Vox Machina.

MARISHA: And it'll be an eight-hour fight!

ASHLEY: Yeah, that would be the longest fight ever.

MATT: No. You have to understand, you guys had a lot of stand-away characters in this. Throwing Grog in the mix changes everything very quickly. He can move quickly and tear your face off quickly. And having Vex over there, who does a shit-ton of damage from a distance. And Sam of course being Sam. Having all of you guys in one arena, fighting? I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a real crazy fight when it happens.

MARISHA: Sam would be tough to square off against. He'd be another one to get me down to the wire.

MATT: And he's got War Caster, so he gets advantage on his concentration checks, too.

MARISHA: It's tough, too, because a lot of it comes down to order, after a while. It comes down to turn order.

ASHLEY: Shit, I always forget that I have advantages on charisma saving throws. Advantage on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saving throws.

TALIESIN: I know that your strength is artificially increased. Does that artificially increase your skill sets, too? So actually, technically, your athletics should be four.

ASHLEY: Oh, shit, so I probably would have rolled a little higher on some of these.

MATT: It's fine. You still succeeded.

MARISHA: It all balances out.

MATT: Everyone's saying "Happy Birthday, Liam and Laura!"

ALL: Happy Birthday!

MATT: Yeah, they're all wishing you Happy Birthday!

LIAM: Thank you!

MARISHA: If I hear one more "Read Your Spells," people, I am going to murder somebody. No more! No more read your spells or read your sheets. There's a lot to keep track of! This is my binder. Look at all this!

TALIESIN: You don't have other stuff to deal with, either.

MARISHA: Yeah, it's not like I have three full-time jobs.

MATT: Nah, it's all good. Well, guys, thank you so much for watching. I hope you had as much fun as we did on this. We'll be back on the actual set, once it'll be finished, next week, for the continuation of the showdown with Umbrasyl and Vox Machina, in which our buddy here, Liam, and Sam are both currently inside the dragon, with Grog dragging behind, and it looks like we may have a guest player next week as well. Also, next Wednesday, I'll be at Meltdown Comics, streaming with Wizards of the Coast, the official Dungeons & Dragons guys, unveiling their new lineup of D&D stuff, and unveiling a new, cool project that I've been kind of developing with them and a few other guests. Ashley, you saw, was announced as one of them. She's playing as our cleric in the group there. We also have Brian Posehn who was announced, the fantastic comedian/actor/writer. He's going to be there, and we have a few other cool surprise guests that will be announced in the near future. Anyway, that's next Wednesday. Look for the info at the official D&D twitter. Until then, guys, have a wonderful night, rest well, and is it Thursday yet? Goodnight, guys!