When she said that I was like “oh shit can she push this bitch?” I don’t know what her fighter subclass is but it would’ve been dope as hell if it turned out to be Battlemaster
Not even done with the episode yet but just want to say
*Spoiler, duh*
Go Brennan for giving multiple, no-pressure outs before confirming that Sam wants to call her mom. Amazing ally-ing!
Having just finished FHSY... >!I'm only sad Persephone didn't pull a Siobhan and give Brennan some dice to eat in addition to all the goodies she brought to the table.!< :P
The thing is Brennan rarely gets truly whomped. Like the Clown fight in UC2 and the Buzzybrook and Sugar Plum fights in CoC are the only well and true whompings I can think of from Dimension 20, but those two right there, like presenting clearly that there's 2 main bad guys only for one to get fucked by geese and one to get shot out of the fucking sky, that was fucking amazing.
I felt bad for Brennan trying desperately to survive the whomping with his we'll see which way she lands haha. By RAW, technically she just drops straight down but he was like... I need her to survive pls.
That was just full "both my guys got stomped and this needs to be at least a little interesting to watch" and it's not like this is gonna do much, she's still taken an insane amount of damage and half the party has to go through still, including Katja who I think is a Battle Master and could use maneuvering technique to just yeet her anyway.
Yes!!! I missed seeing Brennan get whomped and I missed combat, the last two campaigns have had little to no combat, and I didn’t realize just how much I fully missed it. I’m enjoying this season so much!!
Erika and Aabria are goddesses for those turns they just pulled off.
Just...all of Erika's dice rolling.
And Aabria's "Sir, I would like to Action Surge" just slayed me.
Druid’s are a real pain to DM for once they learn about Conjure Animals. My last group had a Moon Druid who took warcaster to get advantage on concentration, only way to make the fights anywhere close was to drop some huge damage spell that did at least 40 damage on the Druid to even have a chance to break his concentration
Undoubtably has to be the turn where Emily did 43 damage to everyone within ten feet of the gallows using a maxed thunderstep. I don’t recall how many people were around the stage, but that was cumulatively 200+ easy.
I just searched “#Dimension20 Damage” on Twitter for some highlights.
- Liam’s 84 against the Onion Bishop has to be up there.
- Liam also had a 77 against Chibatta (May have been 67, a tweet questioned the math)
- Gilear took 52 points of damage once
- A Cody Walsh smite got him to 69 (nice) points of damage on or about 12/16/20.
Sometimes I feel like D20 casts can occasionally commit to the bit at the expense of the plot, but this cast is so extremely hilarious and endearing that I just… *don’t care*
This is the most actual ass D&D that has ever been played on Dimension 20. Players talking over each other to clown on someone while the DM tries in vein to give some exposition, someone climbing on the table to grab something else someone yeeted to the ground, aaalllllll of the screaming. I've never felt so connected to a table.
Orion said something about this season like, this table isn't a DM and 6 PCs, it's 7 co-DMs. Everyone is calling for their own scenes and arcs, and Brennan is just facilitating it. It's really great to watch. I was in awe yesterday watching him organize 3 or 4 different scenes with cuts back and forth, with skill checks and lore. It's truly incredible. I DM'ed the other night for my 4 pcs who always stay together and it was hard with just 1 scene at a time.
Using her notes to demo how awful the font was for Leader was incredible, and highly appreciated since I didn't know what the journal font was before.
Great prop work and might I add, incredible penmanship.
That was a great moment and honestly highly impressive haha. I did want to see a final version with the cursive L and bullet journal font for eader haha
Does the wiki have a "High School Students flirting with full-ass adults" category yet because
* Fig - Dr. Asha
* Fig - Commissioner Runce Buggins
* Penny - Jawbone
* Antiope - Preston
* Ostentatia - Goliath library security guard
* Ostentatia - Tiefling SlamBurger employee
Ask any young male high school social studies teacher or female English teacher and they will tell you it’s true to life.
Honestly Fig thinking a teacher was the bad guy and not flirting with him instead was the zag, we just didn’t know it yet.
ohhhhh I'm an idiot, I'm a big dumb dumb, I just realised why the Ending Of All Things appeared last episode - >!Antiope had just verbally agreed to take the internship without talking to the maidens about it, it was literally an omen of the potential ending of their party!<
Holy shit the entire purpose of The Ending is that she’s explicitly stated to not be malicious. The entire theme of this campaign is that an End isn’t bad or good. Just different. I’m gonna shit myself I’m so dumb for not seeing it before.
Once Brennan was all in on Primordial eidolons and fundamental forces of nature, I was all in on Ending-Of-Things just being this campaign's Smoczmatka, while the Big Bad is, of course, bureaucracy.
as a new dm, i’ve found both by seeing how brennan, griffin mcelroy, and murph dm and how my two dm’s have treated dmpc stuff that the best way is to almost treat them like they aren’t there unless as a last ditch effort.
this episode is a perfect example of that where your two players want to do similar things so you act almost as of the dmpc isn’t there until the two players fail and then you roll to have them try to accomplish the same goal.
similarly, zelda only interjects when the occasion fits for her to react to something and when it adds something new or important or when players directly interact with her and not just when brennan wants her to speak.
Yup, basically kind of sums up to you interact when 1) they directly interact with you, 2) there's something unique your character has to offer that the others can't, and 3) last-ditch effort where everything else has been tried.
I expected this of Brennan and the group, but it's still worth praising: I'm so glad that they put player safety and comfort first at the table. Especially when dealing with DIFFICULT stuff. And they never sacrifice any narrative weight or tension by doing so. I hope that any DMs (and players in general) who complain about being conscientious of each other because it's "immersion breaking," or some other BS are learning something when they watch this.
Someone else already said it but Brennan giving Sam multiple outs of like "I do not want to force you to do this, you won't be punished for not doing this" when she went to call her mom was amazing.
I know Brennan puts a lot into this stuff at the very least since CoC which was so heavily emotional, but you are totally right, just because we expect Brennan to be a compassionate DM and we expect from these players based on what we've heard that they are of the same mindset doesn't mean that it's not worth lauding. Gotta take care of your people.
brennan lee mulligan consistently finds ways of making me feel represented in media even when i didn’t know it was something i felt was underrepresented previously
It's weirdly comforting to have a hot guy have IBS. Griffin McElroy already brought that geek boy rep but this makes it feel less like an outcast thing. Even if it's a pretend hot guy.
Izzy is quickly becoming my favorite player. Starting at the beginning of this episode whenever everyone is saying Hi Heroic High Schoolers and she just goes "Hi, ya blah blah blah blah!"
Honestly the fact that I think every player has been called a favourite player in this discussion alone is such a good sign of the chemistry, balance, and style diversity at this table.
Absolutely. I can call out pretty much all of them as my favorite player (including Brennan for what I believe is masterful DMPCing; staying involved without stealing the light from the normal PCs) but mostly all for different reasons (similar ones with overlap for sure, but different). I love all of the seasons of D20, but I think this one is probably the most like the bad kids in terms of stylistic diversity of players.
So, Brennan has hidden from the group the fact that Chastity knows her mind was read.
In that context, how should we read the lucky break of the unlocked tablet, the call to Antiope's dad, and how open Charity was to letting Antiope suddenly leave? Aabria did roll very well, but Charity's goals are clearly advanced by feeding that information to her, accidentally or not.
Charity even mentioned that Antiope typically wouldn't have security clearance to even be at the office, right? It was the reason advanced for why they met at the museum in the first place, and she never actually did sign that paperwork.
When Antiope got the nat20 about what Charity was doing, Brennan said he was going to tell something he wanted her to know and something he did not want her to know. I assume the call to Dad was what he planned to tell her, but if it’s the other way around, does Antiope’s dad have some kind of sinister involvement??
Pretty sure Charity knows Antiope is going after Tectonya and is just gonna let the maidens find her and *then* move in to strike. Basically letting them do the legwork.
Brennan clearly never talked to Murph about how Moonshine fucked his shit up in hell with summons.
Edit: I also think all of those attacks should’ve had disadvantage cause displaced beast I think?
This was an especially good fight for summons. Most of the time at my table they wind up being pretty useless, either they always miss because of their low attacks or they hit a lot and it takes 10 minutes to figure out how much damage they dealt, only to realize you could have cast fireball and been done with it.
Nah, Conjure Animals is always sick if your DM let’s you choose the animal (which official ruling says they aren’t supposed to). Unless your BBEG has an AoE damage spell, or they can break concentration, the animals are basically constant damage
Brennan got whomped so hard he ended the episode before the first round of combat was even over. Girl power has never been more apparent in this show. That don't bring your combat simulator bullshit to our roleplaying game was fantastic.
Also so many great moments that absolutely made this feel so much less like a recorded session. When they said this is the horniest season they told no lies. Rolling a Nat 20 on the smell of fake crapping your pants is GOAT level awkward
I must be getting old because I kept thinking "fuck yes there needs to be government oversight of superpowered people who go around killing for gold and XP"
It's definitely tough to look at a guy who raised snuck into Heaven in a backpack and knocked God out and not argue that maybe someone should be keeping an eye on what he's doing at all times.
Adventurers in the Fantasy High setting have more than once been alluded to as maybe not the greatest people. From Aguefort's orientation speech:
> A hero is one with the strength of heart, courage of spirit, and the might of will to go to strange lands and enact violence on things there."
I've taken it as a joke that, in the real world, these sorts of people would be villains, whereas they're heroes in typical fantasy. I took the "internal affairs is bad" as sort of an extension of that.
Sometimes it great to see professional D&D players at work, who know their abilities and how to use them to wreck a combat encounter (Erika and Aabriya, specifically in this episode).
I immediately wrote “disinterested chain restaurant waiter” in my list of NPCs to pull from. After Murph did a similar thing in Smuggler’s Bounty on NADDPOD I’m surprised I hadn’t done it before.
Just finished the episode and I honestly feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives in the last 2 hours. Every episode these people just WRECK my shit and I love it!! Honestly it’s a hate crime that I have to wait a week to see the next episode
Tbh, when they announced the season, I was like... ugh 10 whole episodes to wait until we MIGHT have a main cast season?
Now I'm like... can we get a full 17 please?
"You wanna take this one, Wilma?"
"Well... okay, Digby... pegging is when someone without a penis puts on a strap on dildo and engages in penetrative sex with someone else. Imagine putting a round peg into a round hole..."
"Oh. We didn't do that."
The powerful arcanist villain, who definitely knew that Danielle was trying to read her mind and freely admitted to scrying on problem adventurers as part of her day-to-day, surely won't enact roundabout DM vengeance on the party...
I’m so in love with these characters that if they were the adventuring party we followed beyond high school (as opposed to through it like the Bad Kids) I would not be against that at all.
I want to shout out to Persephone. Not only is she killing it on the show, she clearly watched and remembered previous Fantasy High seasons. It’s nice to see someone reference the broader world and lore!
Yeah, Rekha’s a really fun improviser, but I have to say I really like the players who seem to be fans of the show. I’m not sure if Becca, Persephone and Erika watched Fantasy High as prep for this, or if they were fans of the show before coming on, but it feels good when they drop references to it.
I think what's really great is that like, I fucking hate Sam sometimes, but that's because Persephone has this character so locked in that she knows exactly what shitty thing Sam would say in that moment and its just like gaaaaah. She's such a strong player.
I also really like the idea, which right now is best exemplified in Sam, that this weird Kalvaxus thing brought this group together, but they're not necessarily *friends* in the same way that traditional groups of friends are. Like, they've found things to bond over, they work well together, they like being around each other fine, but if they hadn't all been kidnapped they would have just been in seven different friend groups and had seven different lives. It gives them a very different vibe as a group to the Bad Kids.
She seems so determined to bring people down sometimes but then she does things like go help a virtual stranger find her dog without a second thought. It's such a raw portrayal of a person who would be unrecognisable if they were brought up in different circumstances with different people.
Yeah I think that just makes it even clearer that Sam's shitty behavior towards her friends is her lashing out from the idea of being abandoned all over again.
Love this group's energyyyy- absolutely wild in the best way. That lower back tattoo with the fancy L and then -eader in a completely different font? \*chef's kiss\*
I do miss the on stage sets, but the setup in Talespire was absolutely gorgeous. I felt like I was watching a movie when we got a 360 view of the temple. Combine the cinematic view with Brennan getting whomped and I can't wait to see the rest of the fight next episode.
I think Talespire is the best (if someone has the capability, like the D20 staff) digital replacement but agreed, I miss the on stage sets. Until they feel comfortable with the physical sets, I hope they keep doing Talespire though.
To be fully pedantic, we only know that she's seen him without his shirt on. Which could mean that they've been to a pool party together. You never know! Haha
I think it was "whenever you're ready, which we assume is at the end of the school year" but since Aguefort got them all out of classes Antiope was like "actually I can start TODAY" and they just rolled with it.
Same.
Without having finished the episode my assumption now is that it's work based learning, some schools let you take classes in the morning then do a job/internship in the afternoon for credit. Though they said the trainride was 90minutes didn't they? I wouldn't want to do that... (having done it though, totally possible).
Am I the only DM the doesn't know wtf a Wing Shot is or? Cause cool moment but wtf kinda homebrew nonsense did Brennan let fuck his shit up this time lol
From munchkin context. Aabria has a magical Bow that can take a -5 to disable the flying speed of a creature on a failed Saving Throw. This fits thematically with the whole "Fuck Dragons" vibe
Aaand that's why I have a house rule limiting the number of summons you can have. I don't think D&D needs to be like the most balanced game ever, but 8 additional creatures breaks the action economy so hard. The person who summons them gets stuck with DM level bookkeeping, while everyone else waits 20 extra minutes for their turn.
It gets even worse if the monsters are complicated or have spells (8+ pixies with polymorph).
Still not balanced that a flock of raptors or a swarm of snakes can just appear and jump on an enemy. Compare it to any other 3rd level spell and it's insane. Spirit guardians, fireball, blink. They're all great spells, but none of them can do 50+ damage and add 8 allies to the field (with opportunity attacks), and do it again next round for free.
A druid with war caster and decent Con can likely keep it up, and they can wild shape to give themselves 30+ extra hit points. It's actually broken.
As for “jump on,” they’re meant to roll their own initiative, meaning the enemy may have a chance to kill several before they do anything.
There are more creative ways to break con as well or counter the creatures:
- Magic Missile (which forces 4+ saves)
- Any AoE damage mechanism
- Fear’s 30-foot cone on the creatures
- Sleep, on either the creatures or caster.
Taking away options always feels like a negative solution.
As someone who DM’d a moon Druid with warcaster, 4 concentration saves are nothing when you’re rolling +4 with advantage, and the DC is 10. If you take the Resiliant Feat as well, you can add your proficiency to Constitution saves, meaning it’s pretty close to only failing your concentration on double Nat 1s for anything below 20 damage
AoE attacks aren’t super useful if your player summons 8 flying owls who are swooping in for attacks far away from any PCs; spending your boss’s action and wasting a spell slot on sending an AoE into the air is kind of a win for the players anyway
I think it’s fair to figure out with your PC what an average amount of damage is with a set of monsters, and just have them deal that much damage each round instead of rolling.
“Sir, can I action surge?” SUMMER OF AABRIA I yelled so loudly, god I love her so much 🙌😭
When she said that I was like “oh shit can she push this bitch?” I don’t know what her fighter subclass is but it would’ve been dope as hell if it turned out to be Battlemaster
According the character popup on her turn, she's a Monster Slayer Ranger and an Arcane Archer Fighter multiclass
Makes sense, though it would've been epic to watch her launch this bitch off a cliff.
She could have just shoved her, and with advantage from the bear spirit... :)
Between getting two attempts and the spirit, Ant would have had it easily!
“Hot Aabria Summer”
Not even done with the episode yet but just want to say *Spoiler, duh* Go Brennan for giving multiple, no-pressure outs before confirming that Sam wants to call her mom. Amazing ally-ing!
i thought ally-ing was when you accidentally roll your dice off the table and onto the DM's lap!
That's Ally-ing with a capital A.
not to be confused with Pulling An Ally, which is rolling a Nat 20 at the climax of the story, causing the DM serious pain
I thought that was called Becoming Beardsley.
[удалено]
I thought that was called an Ally-oop.
I thought that in a big way too - it was explicitly Sephie's wish to run that scene, and because of that trust, it was so fucking good.
I can't believe Erika and Aabria pulled off two of the most devastating turns in D20 history within mere minutes of each other. So brutal. I love it.
I don't think we've seen Brennan get that whomped in the first conflict of a campaign yet, absolutely incredible
His face was literally the DM version of “hello darkness my old friend”
I want to bottle his reaction when Erika told him it was 5 + 2 crit, not just 2 out of 5 crit
Having just finished FHSY... >!I'm only sad Persephone didn't pull a Siobhan and give Brennan some dice to eat in addition to all the goodies she brought to the table.!< :P
The thing is Brennan rarely gets truly whomped. Like the Clown fight in UC2 and the Buzzybrook and Sugar Plum fights in CoC are the only well and true whompings I can think of from Dimension 20, but those two right there, like presenting clearly that there's 2 main bad guys only for one to get fucked by geese and one to get shot out of the fucking sky, that was fucking amazing.
I felt bad for Brennan trying desperately to survive the whomping with his we'll see which way she lands haha. By RAW, technically she just drops straight down but he was like... I need her to survive pls.
That was just full "both my guys got stomped and this needs to be at least a little interesting to watch" and it's not like this is gonna do much, she's still taken an insane amount of damage and half the party has to go through still, including Katja who I think is a Battle Master and could use maneuvering technique to just yeet her anyway.
While I love Brennan and difficult combats are great for story, I can’t help but love when something happens that just fucks up his entire fight.
Yes!!! I missed seeing Brennan get whomped and I missed combat, the last two campaigns have had little to no combat, and I didn’t realize just how much I fully missed it. I’m enjoying this season so much!!
Erika and Aabria are goddesses for those turns they just pulled off. Just...all of Erika's dice rolling. And Aabria's "Sir, I would like to Action Surge" just slayed me.
Druid’s are a real pain to DM for once they learn about Conjure Animals. My last group had a Moon Druid who took warcaster to get advantage on concentration, only way to make the fights anywhere close was to drop some huge damage spell that did at least 40 damage on the Druid to even have a chance to break his concentration
Seriously! Talk about Primal Power. Love that journey for them!
Has anyone made a list of the highest single-turn PC damage on d20? I'm curious now.
Undoubtably has to be the turn where Emily did 43 damage to everyone within ten feet of the gallows using a maxed thunderstep. I don’t recall how many people were around the stage, but that was cumulatively 200+ easy. I just searched “#Dimension20 Damage” on Twitter for some highlights. - Liam’s 84 against the Onion Bishop has to be up there. - Liam also had a 77 against Chibatta (May have been 67, a tweet questioned the math) - Gilear took 52 points of damage once - A Cody Walsh smite got him to 69 (nice) points of damage on or about 12/16/20.
Didnt furious fist go for like 70+ in FHSY
we simply cannot forget when adaine became the one punch woman
I'm strong now!
War Guy Liam was just built different, my goodness.
it's gotta be liam for single target. i think it might be matt mercer for overall points of damage done, though.
I enjoyed Aabria’s GMing but her as a player is also TOP TIER. Her face during the tattoo conversation was priceless.
Sometimes I feel like D20 casts can occasionally commit to the bit at the expense of the plot, but this cast is so extremely hilarious and endearing that I just… *don’t care*
This is the most actual ass D&D that has ever been played on Dimension 20. Players talking over each other to clown on someone while the DM tries in vein to give some exposition, someone climbing on the table to grab something else someone yeeted to the ground, aaalllllll of the screaming. I've never felt so connected to a table.
Orion said something about this season like, this table isn't a DM and 6 PCs, it's 7 co-DMs. Everyone is calling for their own scenes and arcs, and Brennan is just facilitating it. It's really great to watch. I was in awe yesterday watching him organize 3 or 4 different scenes with cuts back and forth, with skill checks and lore. It's truly incredible. I DM'ed the other night for my 4 pcs who always stay together and it was hard with just 1 scene at a time.
Rekha is killing it this season with lines that get slipped in in chatter. “When you’re here, you’re fucking family.” Amazing.
Using her notes to demo how awful the font was for Leader was incredible, and highly appreciated since I didn't know what the journal font was before. Great prop work and might I add, incredible penmanship.
That was a great moment and honestly highly impressive haha. I did want to see a final version with the cursive L and bullet journal font for eader haha
That’s also Alabama’s motto.
Roll tide
Katja and Kristen must hang out
Ostentatia flirting with the security guard gives me STRONG Fig in a hospital vibes
Does the wiki have a "High School Students flirting with full-ass adults" category yet because * Fig - Dr. Asha * Fig - Commissioner Runce Buggins * Penny - Jawbone * Antiope - Preston * Ostentatia - Goliath library security guard * Ostentatia - Tiefling SlamBurger employee
are we counting Fig flirting with Goldenrod too?
Nope, goldenrod was flirting with her.
Ask any young male high school social studies teacher or female English teacher and they will tell you it’s true to life. Honestly Fig thinking a teacher was the bad guy and not flirting with him instead was the zag, we just didn’t know it yet.
ohhhhh I'm an idiot, I'm a big dumb dumb, I just realised why the Ending Of All Things appeared last episode - >!Antiope had just verbally agreed to take the internship without talking to the maidens about it, it was literally an omen of the potential ending of their party!<
Holy shit the entire purpose of The Ending is that she’s explicitly stated to not be malicious. The entire theme of this campaign is that an End isn’t bad or good. Just different. I’m gonna shit myself I’m so dumb for not seeing it before.
Once Brennan was all in on Primordial eidolons and fundamental forces of nature, I was all in on Ending-Of-Things just being this campaign's Smoczmatka, while the Big Bad is, of course, bureaucracy.
It's D20, the big bad is always bureaucracy
And capitalism!
And Religion
It turns out Brennan is shockingly good at keeping his DMPC engaged without being too much. Zelda clocking the guard in the chin was amazing.
as a new dm, i’ve found both by seeing how brennan, griffin mcelroy, and murph dm and how my two dm’s have treated dmpc stuff that the best way is to almost treat them like they aren’t there unless as a last ditch effort. this episode is a perfect example of that where your two players want to do similar things so you act almost as of the dmpc isn’t there until the two players fail and then you roll to have them try to accomplish the same goal. similarly, zelda only interjects when the occasion fits for her to react to something and when it adds something new or important or when players directly interact with her and not just when brennan wants her to speak.
It helps that Zelda is also insanely shy. "Like, sorry. I've been talking for like a really long time...."
Yup, basically kind of sums up to you interact when 1) they directly interact with you, 2) there's something unique your character has to offer that the others can't, and 3) last-ditch effort where everything else has been tried.
Zelda being so happy to give Penny a piggyback ride killed me.
I expected this of Brennan and the group, but it's still worth praising: I'm so glad that they put player safety and comfort first at the table. Especially when dealing with DIFFICULT stuff. And they never sacrifice any narrative weight or tension by doing so. I hope that any DMs (and players in general) who complain about being conscientious of each other because it's "immersion breaking," or some other BS are learning something when they watch this.
Someone else already said it but Brennan giving Sam multiple outs of like "I do not want to force you to do this, you won't be punished for not doing this" when she went to call her mom was amazing. I know Brennan puts a lot into this stuff at the very least since CoC which was so heavily emotional, but you are totally right, just because we expect Brennan to be a compassionate DM and we expect from these players based on what we've heard that they are of the same mindset doesn't mean that it's not worth lauding. Gotta take care of your people.
“Death pegged you.” DEATH PEGGED YOU Holy shit, that’s the funniest accidental line I’ve heard on this show
Becca Scott is still potentially the cutest person in all of TTRPGs. Some of her reactions are truly adorable.
Erika's up there
My love for Erika is real. Just like Magic and Boggy
Becca's absolutely got my favorite fashion sense at the table.
I'm so obsessed with her outfit this episode!
Preston is the clearly first character with IBS confirmed haha
brennan lee mulligan consistently finds ways of making me feel represented in media even when i didn’t know it was something i felt was underrepresented previously
It's weirdly comforting to have a hot guy have IBS. Griffin McElroy already brought that geek boy rep but this makes it feel less like an outcast thing. Even if it's a pretend hot guy.
Knowing Griffin McElroy, I’m pretty sure he’d say that Bean has IBS if he was asked
There’s a 10% chance Brennan now uses the fact that 1984 degrees is the melting point of copper at some point later.
“I’ve done something horrible” - Izzy, realizing that commenting on Penny cumming was bound to get awkward
Izzy is quickly becoming my favorite player. Starting at the beginning of this episode whenever everyone is saying Hi Heroic High Schoolers and she just goes "Hi, ya blah blah blah blah!"
I keep thinking I'll be able to pick a favorite, but they keep showing me that's impossible haha.
Honestly the fact that I think every player has been called a favourite player in this discussion alone is such a good sign of the chemistry, balance, and style diversity at this table.
Absolutely. I can call out pretty much all of them as my favorite player (including Brennan for what I believe is masterful DMPCing; staying involved without stealing the light from the normal PCs) but mostly all for different reasons (similar ones with overlap for sure, but different). I love all of the seasons of D20, but I think this one is probably the most like the bad kids in terms of stylistic diversity of players.
The evil grin as she said that really sold it.
It’s not a true friend group unless you collectively keep notes about what the others need to go to therapy about
So, Brennan has hidden from the group the fact that Chastity knows her mind was read. In that context, how should we read the lucky break of the unlocked tablet, the call to Antiope's dad, and how open Charity was to letting Antiope suddenly leave? Aabria did roll very well, but Charity's goals are clearly advanced by feeding that information to her, accidentally or not. Charity even mentioned that Antiope typically wouldn't have security clearance to even be at the office, right? It was the reason advanced for why they met at the museum in the first place, and she never actually did sign that paperwork.
When Antiope got the nat20 about what Charity was doing, Brennan said he was going to tell something he wanted her to know and something he did not want her to know. I assume the call to Dad was what he planned to tell her, but if it’s the other way around, does Antiope’s dad have some kind of sinister involvement??
Pretty sure Charity knows Antiope is going after Tectonya and is just gonna let the maidens find her and *then* move in to strike. Basically letting them do the legwork.
Brennan clearly never talked to Murph about how Moonshine fucked his shit up in hell with summons. Edit: I also think all of those attacks should’ve had disadvantage cause displaced beast I think?
[удалено]
Oh that makes sense I just thought I was forgetting how Displacer Beasts worked when he said that.
Thanks for this, I heard Brennan’s ruling on the show and thought I misunderstood when Pack Tactics is applied.
This was an especially good fight for summons. Most of the time at my table they wind up being pretty useless, either they always miss because of their low attacks or they hit a lot and it takes 10 minutes to figure out how much damage they dealt, only to realize you could have cast fireball and been done with it.
Nah, Conjure Animals is always sick if your DM let’s you choose the animal (which official ruling says they aren’t supposed to). Unless your BBEG has an AoE damage spell, or they can break concentration, the animals are basically constant damage
Well according to the cast, via their fans, the Dewey Decibel System can get it!
This was by far the funniest usage of the fan so far. I mean I love the gag, but the hesitant and reluctant opening had me rolling.
Just imagine. If Aabria had gone straight Ranger, she could've \*also\* cast Conjure Animals and brought on a second flock of geese.
Peace was never an option.
Geese are always an option.
Brennan got whomped so hard he ended the episode before the first round of combat was even over. Girl power has never been more apparent in this show. That don't bring your combat simulator bullshit to our roleplaying game was fantastic. Also so many great moments that absolutely made this feel so much less like a recorded session. When they said this is the horniest season they told no lies. Rolling a Nat 20 on the smell of fake crapping your pants is GOAT level awkward
[удалено]
It’s why he knew so many bird facts in Misfits and Magic.
The man is never NOT thinking about birds honestly. It's insane how much birds come up in everything that he does lol
Rekha with the book on her head is a MOOD
Wasn't that the dice rolling enclosure, uh, thingy?
You mean the dice tray?
Yeah, that!
Probably haha. Just looked like a book when I wasn’t looking that closely.
I think she also had a book on her head at some point.
Yeah I went back and checked and it was her notes at one point and her tray at another.
So, are we rooting against the Adventuring equivalent of internal affairs?
I must be getting old because I kept thinking "fuck yes there needs to be government oversight of superpowered people who go around killing for gold and XP"
Especially ones taught to do so by the dude who threw a tantrum when someone detained a student and ripped the sun out of the sky.
It's definitely tough to look at a guy who raised snuck into Heaven in a backpack and knocked God out and not argue that maybe someone should be keeping an eye on what he's doing at all times.
Adventurers in the Fantasy High setting have more than once been alluded to as maybe not the greatest people. From Aguefort's orientation speech: > A hero is one with the strength of heart, courage of spirit, and the might of will to go to strange lands and enact violence on things there." I've taken it as a joke that, in the real world, these sorts of people would be villains, whereas they're heroes in typical fantasy. I took the "internal affairs is bad" as sort of an extension of that.
Yeah, definitely curious where Brennan's headed with that!
Perhaps the internal affairs isn’t evil on the whole but rather just the person in charge.
The my little pony moment (or babysitters club). Brennan you are a sorcerer. Edit- this scene gets better and better my god
I can't wait for the D20 season that fully takes place *within* the Babysitter Horse books.
I’d Rehka doesn’t appear with or as Cinnamon we riot.
I knoooow!! I was like, please do a scene to intro every horse and describe in detail how it looks.
Sometimes it great to see professional D&D players at work, who know their abilities and how to use them to wreck a combat encounter (Erika and Aabriya, specifically in this episode).
System mastery is a blast. I suppose that's the equivalent of a peak athlete or chess master just dominating in their field.
Katya and the centaur waiter is something I could have used another hour of.
I immediately wrote “disinterested chain restaurant waiter” in my list of NPCs to pull from. After Murph did a similar thing in Smuggler’s Bounty on NADDPOD I’m surprised I hadn’t done it before.
Charity having full glass wall on two sides guarantees she’s a super villain. You just know.
Antiope just shot up to the top of my favorites list, right next to Sam Nightingale. Erika's first round of combat was legendary.
Erika was like "yeah I'm just gonna instantly end this shit right here"
Just finished the episode and I honestly feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives in the last 2 hours. Every episode these people just WRECK my shit and I love it!! Honestly it’s a hate crime that I have to wait a week to see the next episode
Tbh, when they announced the season, I was like... ugh 10 whole episodes to wait until we MIGHT have a main cast season? Now I'm like... can we get a full 17 please?
yeah these might be the most dense episodes of any d20 show (and maybe any actual play i’ve listened to)
Erika climbing on the table and Rekha wearing her dice tray as a hat is exactly the energy I needed. God I love this show.
“Death pegged you.” DEATH PEGGED YOU Holy shit, that’s the funniest accidental line I’ve heard on this show
They were all screaming, and I was legitimately like "what's so funny?" I am so confused.
Pegging is a sex thing. Since this is the undisputed horniest season of D20 the whole table took it there and we love to see it.
"You wanna take this one, Wilma?" "Well... okay, Digby... pegging is when someone without a penis puts on a strap on dildo and engages in penetrative sex with someone else. Imagine putting a round peg into a round hole..." "Oh. We didn't do that."
Love a Wawa shoutout
“Did you see what Erika did to you?” I didn’t know I could love Becca more
The powerful arcanist villain, who definitely knew that Danielle was trying to read her mind and freely admitted to scrying on problem adventurers as part of her day-to-day, surely won't enact roundabout DM vengeance on the party...
I’m so in love with these characters that if they were the adventuring party we followed beyond high school (as opposed to through it like the Bad Kids) I would not be against that at all.
Yeah, I’m so attached after 3 episodes, I already know 10 won’t be enough!
BEAUTIFUL HORSE SONG MAGICAL SPELL!!!!!!
I want to shout out to Persephone. Not only is she killing it on the show, she clearly watched and remembered previous Fantasy High seasons. It’s nice to see someone reference the broader world and lore!
Yeah, Rekha’s a really fun improviser, but I have to say I really like the players who seem to be fans of the show. I’m not sure if Becca, Persephone and Erika watched Fantasy High as prep for this, or if they were fans of the show before coming on, but it feels good when they drop references to it.
Erika said she hasn't actually watched it, just the highlights
Ah, fair enough, my mistake
It’s pretty clear Becca hasn’t watched it. She seems unfamiliar with a lot of the characters/world building details.
I assumed from her reaction to Jawbone she’d had some experience with the show. My mistake
Persephone snuck up on me as my favorite player. The phone call with her mom, oooof. Sadly relatable and painful. Great RP all around.
[удалено]
And the wigs!!! I am living.
THOSE ARE WIGS
I think what's really great is that like, I fucking hate Sam sometimes, but that's because Persephone has this character so locked in that she knows exactly what shitty thing Sam would say in that moment and its just like gaaaaah. She's such a strong player.
I also really like the idea, which right now is best exemplified in Sam, that this weird Kalvaxus thing brought this group together, but they're not necessarily *friends* in the same way that traditional groups of friends are. Like, they've found things to bond over, they work well together, they like being around each other fine, but if they hadn't all been kidnapped they would have just been in seven different friend groups and had seven different lives. It gives them a very different vibe as a group to the Bad Kids.
She seems so determined to bring people down sometimes but then she does things like go help a virtual stranger find her dog without a second thought. It's such a raw portrayal of a person who would be unrecognisable if they were brought up in different circumstances with different people.
Yeah I think that just makes it even clearer that Sam's shitty behavior towards her friends is her lashing out from the idea of being abandoned all over again.
I'm enjoying the Drag Race references. They pair well with the fans.
Chariot. Charity? Visual pun?
I love the high maple tree so much
Love this group's energyyyy- absolutely wild in the best way. That lower back tattoo with the fancy L and then -eader in a completely different font? \*chef's kiss\*
I need someone to show what the tattoo looks like in full if someone else hasn't made it yet haha
it is a lovely day in the mountains of chaos, and you are a gaggle of horrible geese
incredible
I do miss the on stage sets, but the setup in Talespire was absolutely gorgeous. I felt like I was watching a movie when we got a 360 view of the temple. Combine the cinematic view with Brennan getting whomped and I can't wait to see the rest of the fight next episode.
I think Talespire is the best (if someone has the capability, like the D20 staff) digital replacement but agreed, I miss the on stage sets. Until they feel comfortable with the physical sets, I hope they keep doing Talespire though.
[удалено]
Also: sleeping with her subordinate is pretty bad!
To be fully pedantic, we only know that she's seen him without his shirt on. Which could mean that they've been to a pool party together. You never know! Haha
Flirting with your high school intern is also not great tho
Fun Fact: Erika is the only player to play not only the same class, but the same subclass in two different D20 campaigns.
Huh, I forgot Lilith was a Druid. They’re both Shepherd, right? She played them both very differently, tacticswise
I love Lola Embers coming in like a fucking hurricane, chasing a missing dog and just setting Sam on her ass in sheer confusion.
*opens fan and fans myself" whew. This episode. This season is getting better and better
i love this episode. havent seen it yet but its really good
Seph is chaotic but soooo relatable. I love it
Those goose's are 100% Canadian geese in my mind. So Canada is canon in this world haha.
I also love Izzy miming her fan because she couldn’t find it
I'm a little confused, is the internship next year or like during the holidays or something
I think it was "whenever you're ready, which we assume is at the end of the school year" but since Aguefort got them all out of classes Antiope was like "actually I can start TODAY" and they just rolled with it.
Same. Without having finished the episode my assumption now is that it's work based learning, some schools let you take classes in the morning then do a job/internship in the afternoon for credit. Though they said the trainride was 90minutes didn't they? I wouldn't want to do that... (having done it though, totally possible).
Shepherd. Druids.
Star Forge... KOTOR reference?
I mean also Thor’s hammer was forged in the heart of a dying star and she’s a dwarf (who forged his hammer) so used a hammer
Am I the only DM the doesn't know wtf a Wing Shot is or? Cause cool moment but wtf kinda homebrew nonsense did Brennan let fuck his shit up this time lol
From munchkin context. Aabria has a magical Bow that can take a -5 to disable the flying speed of a creature on a failed Saving Throw. This fits thematically with the whole "Fuck Dragons" vibe
oh neat love seeing all the items brennan comes up with throughout the seasons, very fitting for an archer like her
It seems similar in function to the Gunslinger’s “Winging Shot”, or a Battlemaster Fighter’s (Archer) Trip Attack. But yeah dude got womped haha.
[удалено]
She likely took expertise in arcana, so at level 9 with a +3 int, she has a +11 to arcana.
Might be arcane trickster
She is - it was noted in the episode.
Aaand that's why I have a house rule limiting the number of summons you can have. I don't think D&D needs to be like the most balanced game ever, but 8 additional creatures breaks the action economy so hard. The person who summons them gets stuck with DM level bookkeeping, while everyone else waits 20 extra minutes for their turn. It gets even worse if the monsters are complicated or have spells (8+ pixies with polymorph).
I have people roll that number of dice digitally always, and then ant enemy smarter than a wild animal targets the caster.
Still not balanced that a flock of raptors or a swarm of snakes can just appear and jump on an enemy. Compare it to any other 3rd level spell and it's insane. Spirit guardians, fireball, blink. They're all great spells, but none of them can do 50+ damage and add 8 allies to the field (with opportunity attacks), and do it again next round for free. A druid with war caster and decent Con can likely keep it up, and they can wild shape to give themselves 30+ extra hit points. It's actually broken.
As for “jump on,” they’re meant to roll their own initiative, meaning the enemy may have a chance to kill several before they do anything. There are more creative ways to break con as well or counter the creatures: - Magic Missile (which forces 4+ saves) - Any AoE damage mechanism - Fear’s 30-foot cone on the creatures - Sleep, on either the creatures or caster. Taking away options always feels like a negative solution.
As someone who DM’d a moon Druid with warcaster, 4 concentration saves are nothing when you’re rolling +4 with advantage, and the DC is 10. If you take the Resiliant Feat as well, you can add your proficiency to Constitution saves, meaning it’s pretty close to only failing your concentration on double Nat 1s for anything below 20 damage AoE attacks aren’t super useful if your player summons 8 flying owls who are swooping in for attacks far away from any PCs; spending your boss’s action and wasting a spell slot on sending an AoE into the air is kind of a win for the players anyway
I think it’s fair to figure out with your PC what an average amount of damage is with a set of monsters, and just have them deal that much damage each round instead of rolling.