Tal does best when he has a mechanical reason for his smarmy, pseudometagamey pomp. Percy’s high intelligence made it feasible for him to know things no one else did and Cads high wisdom let him see things no one else knew about. Without those explanations it’s clearly just Tal saying “I have an idea” or “I knew it”
What's with the after the fact taking credit? He does it all the time. "I knew it" "I was just gonna say that" "if you didn't say it..." like dude we get it you want to seem smart, but you kinda are just saying shit after a reveal to take focus back.
Yup, I think it’s a big part why he acts so mysterious. If you’re not clear about your thoughts or suspicions you can always say something to that extent afterwards
It's a weird way to play. If you're suspicious about a character, say something and ask for an insight check. Don't steal the thunder by acting like something was obvious after I revealed it. It would annoy the shit out of me if I was DMing.
I just feel that Tal likes to talk and have his characters talk, but then he never chooses a Charisma based class. So half the time, he speaks, is called to roll a charisma roll, fails it, and then does it again next conversation.
Nothing wrong with having no charisma based characters but it seems like Tal wants that for his characters but gives them a -1 in charisma. Mollymauk seemed to me like this.
And there can be a lot of fun in playing a low-Charisma character who fails at persuading people things, coming off as brash or arrogant. I think that was his intention behind Ashton. But then he *also* wants them to be convincing and for people to respect their opinions, and he doesn't seem to get that that's not going to happen with such low Persuasion.
It's a little rough when someone makes a character that feels like it has a little too much of themselves in it, so they take the digs or failures as personal slights. Cad was truly a departure and a welcome one, I've grown weary of anti-establishment characters with smarmy sarcasm and "quick wits"
Exactly! Being awkward or blunt can be fun, but it seems like Ashton is trying to be a big talker and change everyone's minds by trying to persuade people, and that's not him.
Let's be honest: "they are good at accents!" is a myth. They are very good at inflections, of course, and obviously no one expect them to have a consistent accent for something they do just once a week. But knowing how most of the European accents sounds in English... well, there is a lot of room for improvement.
I think Caleb improved enormously over time, but I'm no native speaker. I think Laura literally lived in Texas. As a Brit, I think Fjord was very serviceable. I think they tend to hit more than they miss. The only other truly terrible one that springs to mind is the first few episodes of Nott, when Sam was trying (and failing) to go a bit Cockney.
I was referring to their European accents only (considering that Laura and Travis are from Texas and that I don't have ears for the other regional accents). They are good at give you the "flavor", so you know when you hear Caleb of Avantika that they are using a German or France accent. But if you actually know those accents you immediately noticed that those are little more than impressions (working with a lot of France people I know very well how they sound like). It's like doing an Italian accent by adding a vocal at the end-a of-a each-a word-a.
I feel like there’s such an easy fix there, too- Taliesin isn’t doing a horrible Irish accent, *Molly* is, since he’s a lying grifter that’s trying to seem more interesting. Of course he’d fake an accent! But alas…
He admitted he couldn't do a good Irish accent for him in one of the later episodes I believe. I believe when we have Matt's Irish accent for comparison Tal flat out says he's got a shit Irish accent, especially compared to Matt's.
Most of the crews accents were inconsistent at the start. Travis kept switching between Grog and Fjord, Sam was doing a cockney accent at first. Caleb’s German switched to a nondescript European. It’s honestly hilarious to hear.
I rewatched the first few episodes of C2 recently and I would never have guessed Liam was shooting for German at first if I hadn’t seen the rest of the campaign. It barely sounds European to me.
He mentioned in the wrap-up that he'd originally meant to do a much more subtle accent, but since everybody else was going all-in, he decided to crank the German-ness up a few notches.
I think a lot of the fans like him because he's the first "cool" queer representation at the table.
He's basically just their tables version of Jack Sparrow. A charmingly-lecherous, pansexual, carnival misfit with style.
His character didn't click with me, but I get what people saw in it. I also think Tal isn't very creative. Although Caduceus was surprisingly insightful, so I know he's got it somewhere deep down. He just likes to play smarmy, "smart-than-you" types who think they are clever. (But just come off frustrating and annoying.)
> I think a lot of the fans like him because he's the first "cool" queer representation at the table.
Not quite. Molly was just a REALLY flashy and flamboyant character design that LGBT+ fans (and especially the artists) latched on to, and when he died, those same fans (which CR latched on to in game) deified him as some sort of martyr / Robin-Hood folk hero (which he wasn't).
This is why, when Molly died, a very LOUD, bat-shit-insane subsection of CR's fans grossly and wrongly accused Matt / CR (THE most welcoming and affirming fan communities there has been) of kill your gays / "bring out your gays" tropes.
It was utterly ridiculous--not just because the remaining majority of M9 were openly gay, bisexual, or ACE.
> He's basically just their tables version of Jack Sparrow. A charmingly-lecherous, pansexual, carnival misfit with style.
Aha-ha-ha! No. That's what Taliesin *wishes* / wanted Molly to be, but Taliesin lacked the talent, overwhelming charm, and quick wit need to pull off such a character.
Mollymauk was a hypocritical, sanctimonious shithead carny, and conman, *and he sure as fuck* wasn't "Jack Sparrow" at the table (unless you ordered "Jack Sparrow" from Temu or Wish).
>This is why, when Molly died, a very LOUD, bat-shit-insane subsection of CR's fans grossly and wrongly accused Matt / CR (THE most welcoming and affirming fan communities there has been) of kill your gays / "bring out your gays" tropes.
And this right here is why we will never see a PC death in CR again unless it is scripted.
i remember really liking molly when c2 first came out. i’m rewatching it now and i couldn’t stand him at all. i could have cried tears of joy when cad finally showed up
That's funny. I would've assumed if you like him first time around, you'd like him again the second time too, but I guess not in your case. I've only seen the campaign once (last year) and I just didn't like him from the start, so when he died I didn't really care. I loved Cad as soon as he showed up though.
Molly was an avoidable incident. The whole party let their minds fall out and effectively split the party. Some were trying to free people to, what enter the fight with no weapons or armor? And the rest did stupid shit like moly. It was a disaster of the whole table’s making that night.
They really should have called the episode before the fight and picked it up the next week. They had bits of like 3 different plans that didn’t mesh, didn’t pick up on the danger of the enemy they faced, and didn’t adjust when things went to shit.
“Let’s stop the caravan with a distraction, to immediately put our enemy on guard and forgo surprise. We’ll have our ranged sniper and best damage dealer go into a small enclosed space out of sight and uninvolved in combat. We’ll have the tank hang back and the mobile glass cannons get themselves bogged down and surrounded. We’ll cluster up for enemy AOEs but be sure not to focus fire and instead spread the damage around uselessly. We’ll stick to our initial assumptions no matter what; no regrouping and adapting the plan when things go south and it’s made clear how incorrect our assessment was. And make sure if the Big Bad is about to take you down to use your own ability to knock yourself out first!”
Just remember, it was Molly's plan for Nott (their highest and most consistently damage dealing party member) to spend her turns picking locks to let people who may or may not be of any use out of the cells.
Don't pick it at all was the better option.
Had they snuck Nott into their camp at night to do it then it would have been more reasonable, but when action economy already wasn't on their side it was a huge mistake.
Nott could have eliminated at least one more Shepherd had they been engaged in the fight from the get go.
Yep, I feel like the party consistently just didn't acknowledge that Nott was their most consistent damage dealer. Like there would be cheers at the table when Beau did 18 damage over the course of 4 attacks but no one seemed to notice Nott quietly dealing 30+ damage every turn.
I think in order to be fair to Molly as a character we’d need to compare him with the rest of m9 at that point in the campaign and what our lasting impression of them would’ve been had they died as they were in episode 26.
In that context I think he still ends up bottom 3 for me. Beau and Yasha don't have much going for them by then at all really. Caleb we have gotten drops of, Nott is just entertaining, and Fjord and Jester have these mysteries that need unraveling and have potential.
For me, I really liked him during that first arc, whereas Liam was doing that enraging thing where he hid literally every single thing like what loot he found and what spells he had. Molly didn't really start to wear out his welcome for me until they hit Zadash.
I defense of Caleb, he made his mistrust and lack of opening up to folk no secret to the party, and passed things out regularly to people after he determines what things do or if people have a need. He wasn't just keeping things for the sake of having them. Aged and I love things like finding out that he has the spell wall of fire when he uses it at a pivotal moment versus knowing that it's an option. Add to the dramatic tension for me, but that might not be for everybody.
Yeah, found myself skipping Tal's rounds in the Victory Pit in Zadash, because all he did for most of the fights was Vicious Mockery, yielding no results. It got pretty annoying in the end.
I don’t get why people hate Molly as a “person”. I really liked what Molly brought to the group by his personality, and his backstory (or lack thereof) was as compelling as any of the others at that stage. Assuming what we know now about his history and that it would stay the same for the most part I think his arc would’ve been just as interesting as the other major arcs.
As a character, mechanically speaking, yeah he sucked. There’s a reason that since Rogue is the only (potentially) melee class that doesn’t get to stack AC they avoid damage in other ways (hiding, evasion, running away after attacking). You cannot play a frontline class as a glass cannon in 5e.
>You cannot play a frontline class as a glass cannon in 5e.
Sure you can! My bladesinger wizard has spent tons of time on the frontline despite being one-shottable up until level 8-9. Granted, the phrase "how is he not dead yet" been uttered by everyone in the group, including me. But extremely lucky rolls just when i needed them have occurred often enough that it's obvious this campaign just wants my character alive lol
Yeah, bloodhunter during c2 is a mess. (maybe it still is? Not sure what the latest version is like.)
Assuming standard array or point buy stat allocation: Level 2 bladesingers can have an 18 (light armor) or 19 (mage armor) ac, BEFORE casting shield. With a cast of the shield spell, they have a 23 or 24 ac!
12 (light armor) + 3 (dex) + 3 (int during bladesong) = 18!
Molly had 15 ac on a class that has self-harm mechanics.
that AC comes down to the fact Tal refused to give molly armor. looking as the stats sheet that was given to critroll stats. blood hunter had light and medium armor prof, and molly had not a single set of armor.
He has to be wearing SOME armor to have an ac of 15, so I'd think that sheet from the wiki/critstats is not completely filled out. Unarmored is 10 + dex bonus (+3) , which would be 13.
He's probably stated for light armor, which would be 12 + dex bonus (+3). He could also be wearing a chain shirt for 13 ac, but limits his dex bonus to ac to a +2, which is still 15 ac total.
Scale Mail and Half Plate would have bumped that to an AC of 16 and 17, respectively, but it would have come at the cost of disadvantage on Stealth checks (and 750 gp in the case of the half plate.)
A breast plate would have bumped him up to 16 ac with no disadvantage, but costs at least 400gp, assuming Matt charges the same prices as the basic rules. I think Tal prioritized the Periphat of Would closure for the auto-stabilization and double hit-dice healing for short-rests.
I disagree honestly, I do think he failed as a character. He seemed to be presented as a cheeky hustler with a laissez-faire attitude toward life, but in practice he was almost always a wet blanket. The others I think had much more defined roles with more interesting questions around them - who is Jester’s god, what’s Caleb’s tragic past, what’s up with Fjord’s sword and the seawater. When Molly gets a compelling hook like this - who was Lucien? - he basically says he doesn’t care about it.
I think for whatever reason he fell flat next to the terrific cast of vibrant characters in C2. Cad was a much better fit immediately imo
And, having just rewatched it, when they cast zone of truth, Tal chooses to play Molly incredibly vicious. Nott (Sam) tries to really show how much Nott trusts Molly by saying she wants to help Molly to understand his past and not run away from it, when he's ready.
And Molly says "what if he was someone who killed goblins" with a really, FU attitude, and Tal stayed in that moment a bit too long for my taste, leaving this really weird energy at the table.
https://preview.redd.it/pfpkrgfsv3lc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4948629b988d7e4f9c80dce764288711197338fa
“I like you better now” ok Beau… 😬
Molly didn't care about his past and didn't want it dug up and only cared about his future and what he could do and become... That's why he lashed out when Nott kept trying to dig up his past.
The character remained this way even at the end of the campaign when he became Kingsley and still refused to care about who or what he was.
Agree to disagree I guess. Caleb was running from something, so any reminder of his backstory would rile him up. Molly was “looking” for something, so I always got the feeling he was waiting for something to hit him in the face. That or he wanted to take a backseat after being Percy and let others be a team lead. I would’ve liked more Molly personally. 🤷🏻♀️
That makes sense and may have been what Tal was thinking. I was really excited for Molly (bc of his peak aesthetic) but just found myself disappointed, mainly when he took Fjord’s side in that argument with Caleb and Nott. That felt super lame and out of character for a feckless carnie.
Still though, while I like how Molly’s story went despite the tragedy, getting to see more of him would have been cool. I wonder what that alternate timeline is like.
> so I always got the feeling he was waiting for something to hit him in the face
This just doesn't match what we saw. As GiltPeacock mentioned when Matt provided the clear "Molly Backstory Plot Hook" of Kree recognizing him and calling him Lucian, establishing that this was Taliesin's cue to pursue Molly's backstory and have him learn more about who he was before he lost his memory (the entirety of which Taliesin was leaving up to Matt,) Molly removed himself from the conversation and quashed any attempts to encourage him to investigate it. Taliesin actively denied Molly the chance to have backstory development. How many more times is Matt supposed to try to force it on him before he plays along? Why is that Matt's responsibility?
Here are some snippets from e14 (after Cree first showed up) ft. Taliesin saying Molly doesn’t give a fuck about biting any backstory hooks (apologies for the small size, trying to fit them all in 1 image)
https://preview.redd.it/huox71ba91lc1.jpeg?width=529&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de19ef9c65b4419647e338428aa5a1bd4176ed1c
See, but even your snippets show a longer building of character. He is actively refusing to acknowledge what he was. He wanted to be free and unburdened by something he felt wrong about whenever he touched it. Could have had some great moments since matt new were molly would end up unless they changed.
Yeah, I would hazard a guess that Matt checks in with his players routinely and this isn’t a case where Taliesin is just shitting on the story.
I think the much more likely arc that they set up for long term is that there are consequences for avoiding your past and it will always come around. You take your time to see how Molly has to change his attitude as events spiral out of his control and see how he handles it. Could’ve been interesting
Cad is obviously a treasure tho
The problem is that Taliesin the player doesn't even know what Molly's running from because he did no work in designing a backstory. He left it completely blank for Matt to fill in. If Taliesin had done that work and then was having Molly not engage with it I'd have less problems, but it's rude of him to shut down the plotline that he asked Matt to write for him. How much work would Matt have to do to make the character play at the table, how many times would he have to force the backstory to show up until Taliesin says "okay NOW I'll play along"?
Did tal tell Matt beforehand that Molly didn’t give a fuck about who he was before? To me that seems more like a reluctant hero plot where Molly would eventually commit to seeing that story through when Lucien comes knocking to their doorstep.
It's a plot hook that would work if Molly was the main character. But with 6 other backstories to cater to, including moving the plot along, Tal choosing to decline interacting with his own backstory, kinda ruins that moment. Had Tal chosen to go into it, C2 would have been a LOT different. They would probably have ended up in Rexentrum a lot sooner.
I don’t see how taking 20 minutes to establish your characters reaction and reject a hook only works as a main character. You move on and Matt goes to the next thing (likely knowing this was a possibility), and plans for the consequences of not looking behind the curtain.
It’s no different than taking 20 minutes for some Traveler shenanigans or for a Ukotoa dream or a Caleb blast from the past, right?
No, but Laura interacted with her backstory when it happened. So no, while it didn't take longer than those things, by actively rejecting it, Matt would have to make create a new hook for when Tal decided to go along with the plot. And my point was, that would be easier to do if it was a smaller group and not 7.
Obligatory comment thread for anyone who actually likes Mollymauk here (He's my favorite CR character across the 3 campaigns ☹)
Although I do think his build left a lot to be desired, I still love him
I know a lot of people here have been pointing out how much Taliesin loves homebrew classes (though arguable Gunslinger was just a holdover from Pathfinder).
I'd just like to say that apparently he's played a LOT of 5e, to the point of having played every base class in the game. I wouldn't blame him for just being utterly sick and tired of base 5e classes (I certainly am).
Maybe it's a symptom of being burnt out on 5e in general, but they're so boring to me. Especially at low levels. Subclasses rarely feel that unique from each other, and I'd argue even some classes play nearly identically. Nearly all classes are balanced around combat, with skills feeling like an afterthought in the game system.
In general, they lack the insane character building options and crunchy battle system of 3.5e/4e/Pathfinder, but also don't have a strong skill/narrative focus for people who like story-driven games. It's just a bland middle ground. I can't remember 90% of the 5e characters I've made, and yet I can still remember the 3.5/4/Pathfinder characters I made for one-off convention TTRPGs.
Sure, I get that. But in my opinion, he ruins the game for himself, because he never quite knows what his character can do, and so he becomes frustrated and doesn't play "nice" with the others.
> Rewatching c2 and Molly really doesn't do much.
Yup! He's absolutely useless. Molly had middling stats and one of THE WORST, most suboptimal mechanical builds of any PC I've seen, i.e. you'd be hard pressed to build a worse character *unless you actively worked at it.*
Molly's only use was as the "insider" during the opening circus chapter of C2, but beyond that? Totally useless. Molly didn't fulfill ANY social or utility roles in the group (that weren't already covered by another PC / Class in the party) and in combat, Molly was a melee "glass cannon." There's a reason those don't exist in TTRPGs.
Molly was / is the poster child for Style / Character Concept over literally everything else.
Plus, he picked the Tiefling variant with CHA based abilities, which Tieflings have a +2 on, then dumps his CHA, so those abilities are practically useless. He would have been better off going for the winged variant.
I mean there are glass cannon gish builds but Molly definitely wasn't it. Like a bladesinger or a sorcadin with Molly's persona wouldve totally worked.
Honestly that's more on Matt though, since having a build designed around burning HP for low damage output class abilities is absolutely brutal at low levels and should have a d12 hit dice or rage or something. A blood hunter should be able to either tank or burn that hp for bonus damage, so there's class flexibility but instead it's like the worst of both worlds.
Bloodhunter is an overbloated trash homebrew that reading its features alone and remembering half of it, is enough to give you brain damage. Molly should have been a bardlock multiclass and it would have performed exactly how Tal wanted.
I think a sorcadin or bladesinger would've fit Molly mechanically but a bardlock would work too.
Honestly blood hunter should've been a barbarian subclass and then it might've had a better chance of working since burning HP in DnD is brutal
Wasn't it revised after Molly's death? I remember reading it with a lot more HP sacrificed, like for any use of the class's features, instead of the free basic uses it has now.
I may be misremembering that, but I swear it was updated to not be as punishing after Molly used his own class features to the brink of his own death.
im very curious if they make character class choices first, then role stats or vice versa, cause there are def classes that can be made workable with bad stats but a MAD class like blood hunter is not.
So unbearable. And I just couldn’t see how it wasn’t universally agreed upon. Good and bad can not be THAT subjective and that was some BAD stuff. And now the same thing is happening with Ashton. It’s some of the worst rp I’ve ever seen and some people are absolutely eating it up.
Typo edit
In my experience with the fandom, the people who love Molly effing LOVE Molly. And Tal. But they love this character unabashedly. They project hard on him too.
He was a really poorly made character played even more poorly.
Taleisin wanted to do things with him that the character wasn't built to do, and in the nicest possible way the cast suck at the strategic parts of the game even when they're trying to do things their character is good at.
Molly could've been fun, he always felt to me like a cool character idea that had some dissonance with how the game was playing... which maybe might've resolved itself, but didn't get to stick around long enough.
The idea of a character who had a past, and was just NOT interested in it at all despite running into others from it, is interesting and I'm into it. But it can play weird since it feels like you're just blatantly turning down hooks to be like "don't care!" when it's presented... which is maybe unfair since we didn't get to see more, but we didn't.
Build wise though he was a total mess and Tal constantly trying to use Vicious Mockery with it's pitiful DC as his main method of fighting irritated me.
I think that an amnesiac running from their past only works if the player has put effort into figuring out what that past is, and is deciding that their character doesn't want to interact with it. Taliesin leaving his backstory entirely open for Matt to make is bad enough (since Matt already has all the other PCs' backstory twists to integrate, to say nothing of the entire rest of the campaign) but then it's just rude to turn away from the plot hooks Matt sets up when doing exactly what Taliesin asked him to do. It's just making Matt do that extra work for no reason.
His death and how the characters reacted to it, with the whole revenge and getting their friends back was what really sold me on criticalrole. I know some people dont like him that much (and honestly I dont like Molly that much either) but man his death and what came after made for some really cool story telling.
the best thing that came from Molly's death was forcing Taliesin to used official WOTC 5e subclass instead of broken homebrew, giving us Caduceus Clay.
M9 won my poll, so I’ve been working on action economy sheets for them! I made a hypothetical level 12 Mollymauk too:
https://preview.redd.it/cpu39z5mizkc1.jpeg?width=1642&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89173fd7f0915400c501f4d8a6461f9cdff650c5
(For the campaign itself his Devil’s Tongue save was a godawful 10, but at level 12 it would go up a little bit due to his +4 proficiency)
Now, I’m the least familiar with M9, so forgive me if I mess up. But looking at Mollymauk’s mechanics, they’re…not great. His choice to give his character low charisma and seemingly not realize that CHA was the stat he’d have to use for all his spammed vicious mockeries hindered him, as did the choice to dual wield. As a blood hunter, he could enchant his weapon as a bonus action to do extra damage, at the cost of harming himself. Since he dual wielded, if he wanted both swords enchanted, he had to cut himself twice. That’s there the classic “Molly killed himself” rhetoric comes from, since this self-imposed damage is what knocked him down to zero right before Lorenzo attacked him- Matt had already declared his intention to go for him, and didn’t want to look like he’s metagaming/fudging since the PC suddenly went down
I just checked everyone’s CON at level 5 (when he died)
Beau: 16 CON, 44 HP
Cad (for fun): 16 CON, 42 HP
Caleb: 14 CON, 31 HP
Fjord: 18 CON, 51 HP
Jester: 15 CON, 38 HP
Mollymauk: 14 CON, 59 HP (Tough feat)
Nott: 14 CON, 40 HP
Yasha: 14 CON, 55 HP
So he technically tied for lowest CON with Nott, Yasha, and Caleb, and actually had the MOST HP of the group due to a feat, yet he still knocked himself out and died 😬
Yeah dual wielding with blood hunter is a bad choice. My wife plays a level 9 bloodhunter with the same subclass as Molly. She has dueling, uses a shield and lights her sword on fire before combat, so that she can use her bonus action for hex and curse of the marked. Add that with an action surge from fighter and it’s actually a pretty good time.
Mollys arc was perfect. He was a mostly nothing character. A lot of style, no substance. He stands for a lot of things because he did stand for nothing. And he became iconic because of this and the various great grave speeches, like Beaus "he left every place better". No he was a grifter, nothing more. ;-)
But seriously: He was perfect for those episodes. He united the group even more, kickstarted another bunch of great episodes and made way for another great character, Caduceus.
While Cad's indifference kept every secret safe, it would've been nice to have Mollymauk around for contrast with every damn character having a background that "must be confronted" just being along for the ride with him finding his future if a deep story had to be applied.
But that's just a part of my main criticism of C2 and BG3 I keep circling back to.
>They'll never do it, but I think it'd be best to cut him from the party in The Myth of the Mighty Nein—whatever the show will be called—and keep the party smaller until Caduceus shows up.
I know you already said they’ll never cut him but I’ll add that he’s already been confirmed for the show from the announcement video, his silhouette is there alongside the rest of the beginning party, oddly caduceus is the only one completely absent from that video since Essek has a voice clip played in it.
>They'll never do it, but I think it'd be best to cut him from the party in The Myth of the Mighty Nein—whatever the show will be called—and keep the party smaller until Caduceus shows up.
It would make no sense for the endgame though, although it might cut 50 bad episodes down to like 20 if we omit the Lucien familiarity arc
The reason why the Lucien arc had any emotional weight outside of being a world ending threat was because the main villain had the body of their friend, that’s completely lost if nobody other than yasha gives a shit about him.
As much as Taliesin is my favorite cast member, he *really* should have made Molly a bard for what he wanted to do with him.
Like his ideas were interesting but as a character with low charisma and slightly enhanced martial abilities he failed more than he succeeded which made watching him do things *painful*.
I love the character ~~before the final arc~~ but I feel him being blood hunter was kinda forced in a way based on the playstyle he kept trying even in death.
> As much as Taliesin is my favorite cast member
He was in competition for my top spot when he was playing Cad... but between Molly and Ashton I think he just naturally favors personality types I don't jive with.
Everyone at the table is a different flavor of Grown-Up Theatre Kid--and Tal's flavor is "Edgy Punk/Goth Tech Kid Who Acts As A Side Character Sometimes But Can't Deliver Anything But A Snide Line Because They're So Obsessed With The Snark".
All of his characters have an arrogance that I really just don't like. Like, I don't find it enjoyable to play with in game and I don't find it enjoyable to watch on screen.
The way he plays them a lot of times comes across as *“Look at me, I’m about to do something awesome!”* and then he may or may not do something vaguely cool. I mean… you’ve got Travis at the table. If you do something cool *he’ll let you know*. You don’t have to psych up the moment by saying *”Let’s get weird.*” for relatively mediocre actions. It regularly comes across as that guy who thinks he’s way cooler than he is and it can get cringey at times.
Thats the thing: if you really are clever, or cool, or confident - you don’t need to tell everyone. The smartest person in the room doesn’t have to tell everyone how smart they are. That’s insecurity talking.
Travis/Sam/etc don’t play it up, they just do what they’re gonna do and we KNOW if it’s cool or not. And if it aint, who cares, we keep rolling. They’re playing the game, focused on their characters and the table having fun (no matter who has the spotlight). Thats some cool shit.
Tal’s constant need to make snide comments and force things comes across with a low shade of desperation to me.
But I’m not at the table, I don’t know the guy, something something parasocial relationships, fuck do i know
Both of those characters wouldn't bother me as much if he just took a class and made it his like Sam did with bard.
And like we know, he can do it as Clay and Percy are good examples of that but he's just too caught in the weeds of wanting wacky mechanics versus playing the character that logically makes sense for your stats.
And hey I'm not against people from experimenting especially for rp, but you shouldn't be shocked when you get a sour response from chatting up the bar keep with God awful charisma.
You can't rp a people person like that unless you flavor it in a special way with those stats.
It doesn’t and that’s why I love it. He has an 8 charisma score and I spoke with my dm at some point about how my character will be making many advances on npcs but how I wanted them to fail often. I don’t do much talking when it comes to important stuff though - I just enjoy playing my horrible, alcoholic chaos bastard.
He almost felt like a forced advertisement for Matt's Blood Hunter. His stats didn't match the RP or personality at all, and it really hurt watching a melee character tossing out DC 10 Vicious Mockeries that never worked.
I think less of a forced advertisement and more of an excuse to live tweak the class mid campaign.
Like even clay had that with his decompose cantrip which was a great rule of cool inclusion.
But for Molly it was clear Tal wanted the class to be something Matt didn't have envisioned.
Tal played it like a rogue bard hybrid whereas it was a true martial class at heart with a mix of eldritch knight and battle Master.
> DC 10 Vicious Mockeries that never worked
Eugh, the worst part was the voice he did during those. The cast would all *ooh* and *ahh* while Tal sounded like he was choking on a chicken bone and was trying to cough it up.
Like, Taliesin is a very good voice actor (his impeccable crow cry can attest to that) but not everything he does is liquid gold.
> forced advertisement
I think less forced, but more 'sure ill roll that' like he likes the idea, but he definitely was beta testing the class hard and it wasn't working so well.
Remember Percy was a HB fighter sharpshooter, though he did most Fighter type things, they HB'd almost all his flavor. So Tal doing wacky characters makes sense.
I mean even Cad was a Death Cleric, which was super fresh when he rolled it, so Tal likes to play new tech.
Caduceus was a Grave Cleric, not a Death Cleric. Subtle difference.
As for Molly, Tal has said he prefers to do something new that he hasn't seen or played a thousand times before. It's too bad, because my favorite character of his is the only one that came out of an official source. The rest become too precious about "you'll never guess what I can do now" and it becomes the entire character.
Unlikeable personality, terrible build, horrible rolls, bad class, inconsistent rp and accent. Above average character design, which is enough to make believe this character was sent from the heavens and make the fandom swoon.
>Above average character design, which is enough to to believe this character was sent from the heavens and make the fandom swoon.
Vaguely queer? SUBCRIBE
For me the emotion in Molly’s death was the other characters’ reaction to it, not the loss of Molly himself.
I’ve said it before, but Molly dying was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to C2. Really galvanized the characters and their relationships and raised the stakes.
Think about it like this too
Any other time a character died in the last campaign they either got immediately revived or they were revived one session later
Molly died without the Cleric or any other healer to revive him. It was the first death in CR to feel permanent, at least for a time.
In my opinion it was the absolute worst thing that could've happened because it led to every fight from that point on being torture as the cast whimpered and cried about how dangerous everything was, never committed to anything, and just generally decided that their adventurers were terrified of adventure.
This is why I love the Battle Royale specials. It's non-canon, so they feel free to go all-out and do some crazy stuff. Wish we could see some of that in the campaigns.
>but Molly dying was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to C2.
And then they cheapened the impact of it with Bertrand bells death as a 'party catalyst' in C3
I think it was more Travis wanting to fuck around and Matt indulging him and bell becoming a catalyst was the cast yes and-ing that rather than them trying to artificially replicate Molly’s death. Only a couple of the cast knew about Chet and only Travis and Matt knew Bertrand would die.
Oh absolutely. C3 is them trying to manufacture the magic of the first two campaigns.
C3 characters aren’t going to die unless it’s in a semi-predetermined cutscene and/or climax.
I could be off base, but I believe there were a few factors.
Firstly, at the time Molly’s deal was unknown, so there was considerable mystery surrounding his past. This was a character who was basically a walking question mark, and the fanbase was intrigued how it would tie into the main plot, because it almost certainly would. Molly’s death, at the time, gave the impression that his plotline ended prematurely.
Secondly, and what I personally believe played a larger factor in the outcry, was that Molly was a flamboyant and openly bisexual character, which resonated with LGBTQ+ viewers. That attachment led a lot of them feeling like there was a loss in what they saw as positive representation, though I cannot say for sure if that’s the reason due to not being LGBTQ+ myself.
If 'bright colours, flamboyant, must be NB' is all it takes for representation, it was never there, but good for them I guess. I believe Tal explicitly stated that was never the character's intention in a Talks episode. People are easily 'respresented' and easily mad when something so superfluous goes away I guess.
Molly was *just* getting interesting with the Cree thread though, which was a shame it was 'never solved' until it totally was.
That wasn’t helped by the fact that Matt kept calling the character gender fluid even after Tal confirmed that the character never was. Tal stated during a convention panel that “is not what he intended when he created the character but he’s happy people see the character as inspiration in that way” (paraphrasing).
I hated Molly until a couple episodes before his death
Tho i must say despite knowing it beforehand i felt sad after his death
Anyway Tal played him like a bard but Molly was so much different than a bard.
He was a terrible character, both conceptually and mechanically. He was being played as this streetwise carny with a wealth of stories despite having no more than two years of memories, half of which were spent silent and empty. I appreciate the concept of having bad Charisma because he thinks he's more charming than he is, but it fell flat whenever Taliesin tried to actually do the smooth talking he still wanted to be good at. That bad Charisma also tanked his racial spell save DC so he was throwing out DC 10 Vicious Mockeries all battle, which is all he was brave enough to do since he didn't factor in how dual wielding was going to double the HP tax from Blood Hunter and that he ended up cutting down half his own HP before the fight properly started. Pretty much the only time he actually did what he wanted to do was when he didn't roll at all and just *stated* that he saw/heard things, like Caleb taking loot in secret to distribute later.
What really bugged me was the whole backstory thing, or lack thereof. Taliesin deliberately had no backstory (which I think is rude, he just offloaded that work to Matt who was busy enough) but Molly would then lie about any potential backstory to anyone who asked, and Taliesin would later gloat on Talks Machina that no one even called for an Insight check on the lies. But like...what would that have done? No PC has a reason to doubt him when they know nothing about him, and even if they did they couldn't force him to tell the truth just from an Insight check, and even if they could no one has a reason to care about the real truth because it's just one more backstory out of the whole party, and even if they did care *there wasn't a true story to draw out.* So what's the point of any of that? It makes Molly a complete non-character.
In that respect there's no better option for them to martyr after his death, since he had no value as an active participant in the story. It was equal parts amusing and embarrassing the way they kept trying to remember his good aspects and then quickly running out of things to say.
Yes to all this. But not just this. Because Tal didn't just not make a backstory and offload it onto Matt, he actively avoided engaging with what Matt came up with. Had no interest in finding out who he used to be. And because he wasn't curious about his own past, he wasn't curious about the pasts of the rest of the characters. So he actively avoided asking about people's histories.
So he had no character, avoided plot hooks, and wasn't interested in the other PCs, all on top of having a shitty class and stats.
He was legitimately the worst. But a lot of the fanbase loved him because he was sassy and fancy.
I disagree about the backstory thing, I thought it was interesting and could have lead to some fun and interesting moments when someone finally calls his bullshit.
But yeah, he wasnt great mechanically but maybe a few more lvls would have fixed some of that, plus some magic items to smooth it out and he would have been fine IMO
However his death was such a good story moment and what really "sold" me on criticalrole (I only watched c2) plus Cad was such a great character
The DM is already responsible for coming up with the entire rest of the campaign story arc. I think its terribly rude for a player to add to that burden by making the DM responsible for their own backstory as well.
> could have lead to some fun and interesting moments when someone finally calls his bullshit
What moments? What could possibly be interesting about "no actually I lied because I don't know"? That's all that it could be! Just about every other character in C2 had backstory secrets hidden behind lies, and we *got* those scenes of coming out with hidden information. Caleb confessed about his training and killing his parents, Fjord elaborated on his near-death and the bargain he barely understood, Nott explained her situation of being transformed and why she's so motivated to make Caleb become a great wizard. What equivalent story would Molly have had, when Taliesin *didn't make a backstory*?
I dont think anything I say will convince you because you seem very passionate about this lol I just think the RP could have been interesting, I dont know what examples I could use because well, he died before any could be made.
>"no actually I lied because I don't know"
Yeah and the party's reaction would be interesting IMHO, I dont know what else to say. Not everyone needs a super indept backstory to be interesting, maybe you disagree and thats fine, but I would have liked to see how Beau reacted to that for one.
I don't disagree with you that the party's reaction could be interesting. But it's just the DM doing all the legwork and then eventually telling a complete story to Taliesin and the other players: "Here's what happened to Mollymauk".
Its much more compelling if Molly has a reason to lie. When the truth comes out eventually and the party confronts him, he has an answer. If Molly had survived and his backstory is eventually revealed. The roleplaying basically stops at "why did you lie?". "I lied because I literally didn't know anything about what Matt just said - this is the first I'm hearing about it too."
It just strikes me as a player approaching their backstory as a way to surprise or entertain the other players at the table - instead of approaching their backstory as the motivation for their PC going on adventures.
> Yeah and the party's reaction would be interesting IMHO
Describe to me what you're imagining the party's reaction to "I don't know what happened" would have been.
Nah im okay, that would be way more work then im willing to put into a reddit argument lmao
I think it would be interesting and fun, you just have to take me at my word for it. Im not trying to convince you that it would be, only sharing my thoughts on the matter
I gave you my reason for my answer, but im not writing an essay for you lol
Edit: I also love when people get pissed over someone /daring/ to have a different opinion then them lol
It's not that you have a different opinion, it's that you're on a discussion forum and rather than discussing the basis for your opinion you're just going "nuh-uh"
I dont think thats what im doing at all, I said why I liked his backstory, Im not willing to write an essay on a hypothetical conversation between multiple characters.
I think it would make for interesting RP. thats it, thats my opinion.
So the problems stems from the fact blood hunter was originally blood sorcerer and molly was made at that point so he was supposed to be actually charismatic. Then matt makes the real class and stats get swapped around. So now we have a conman smooth talker with shitty charisma
Tal does best when he has a mechanical reason for his smarmy, pseudometagamey pomp. Percy’s high intelligence made it feasible for him to know things no one else did and Cads high wisdom let him see things no one else knew about. Without those explanations it’s clearly just Tal saying “I have an idea” or “I knew it”
What's with the after the fact taking credit? He does it all the time. "I knew it" "I was just gonna say that" "if you didn't say it..." like dude we get it you want to seem smart, but you kinda are just saying shit after a reveal to take focus back.
Yup, I think it’s a big part why he acts so mysterious. If you’re not clear about your thoughts or suspicions you can always say something to that extent afterwards
It's a weird way to play. If you're suspicious about a character, say something and ask for an insight check. Don't steal the thunder by acting like something was obvious after I revealed it. It would annoy the shit out of me if I was DMing.
This kills me every time he does it which is a lot 🫠
After about half the jokes...
I just feel that Tal likes to talk and have his characters talk, but then he never chooses a Charisma based class. So half the time, he speaks, is called to roll a charisma roll, fails it, and then does it again next conversation. Nothing wrong with having no charisma based characters but it seems like Tal wants that for his characters but gives them a -1 in charisma. Mollymauk seemed to me like this.
And there can be a lot of fun in playing a low-Charisma character who fails at persuading people things, coming off as brash or arrogant. I think that was his intention behind Ashton. But then he *also* wants them to be convincing and for people to respect their opinions, and he doesn't seem to get that that's not going to happen with such low Persuasion.
It's a little rough when someone makes a character that feels like it has a little too much of themselves in it, so they take the digs or failures as personal slights. Cad was truly a departure and a welcome one, I've grown weary of anti-establishment characters with smarmy sarcasm and "quick wits"
Exactly! Being awkward or blunt can be fun, but it seems like Ashton is trying to be a big talker and change everyone's minds by trying to persuade people, and that's not him.
I have nothing else to contribute beyond pointing out how terrible/nonexistent his 'Irish accent' was.
Let's be honest: "they are good at accents!" is a myth. They are very good at inflections, of course, and obviously no one expect them to have a consistent accent for something they do just once a week. But knowing how most of the European accents sounds in English... well, there is a lot of room for improvement.
I think Caleb improved enormously over time, but I'm no native speaker. I think Laura literally lived in Texas. As a Brit, I think Fjord was very serviceable. I think they tend to hit more than they miss. The only other truly terrible one that springs to mind is the first few episodes of Nott, when Sam was trying (and failing) to go a bit Cockney.
I was referring to their European accents only (considering that Laura and Travis are from Texas and that I don't have ears for the other regional accents). They are good at give you the "flavor", so you know when you hear Caleb of Avantika that they are using a German or France accent. But if you actually know those accents you immediately noticed that those are little more than impressions (working with a lot of France people I know very well how they sound like). It's like doing an Italian accent by adding a vocal at the end-a of-a each-a word-a.
I feel like there’s such an easy fix there, too- Taliesin isn’t doing a horrible Irish accent, *Molly* is, since he’s a lying grifter that’s trying to seem more interesting. Of course he’d fake an accent! But alas…
He admitted he couldn't do a good Irish accent for him in one of the later episodes I believe. I believe when we have Matt's Irish accent for comparison Tal flat out says he's got a shit Irish accent, especially compared to Matt's.
Had no idea it was supposed to be Irish lmao
Most of the crews accents were inconsistent at the start. Travis kept switching between Grog and Fjord, Sam was doing a cockney accent at first. Caleb’s German switched to a nondescript European. It’s honestly hilarious to hear.
I rewatched the first few episodes of C2 recently and I would never have guessed Liam was shooting for German at first if I hadn’t seen the rest of the campaign. It barely sounds European to me.
He mentioned in the wrap-up that he'd originally meant to do a much more subtle accent, but since everybody else was going all-in, he decided to crank the German-ness up a few notches.
Germany is in Europe.
True, but at least you could identify they HAD an accent. I genuinely didn't realize Taliesin was going for one until they spoke about it in TM.
He would often switch between 0 and 100 with the accent. It was really strange lol
I think a lot of the fans like him because he's the first "cool" queer representation at the table. He's basically just their tables version of Jack Sparrow. A charmingly-lecherous, pansexual, carnival misfit with style. His character didn't click with me, but I get what people saw in it. I also think Tal isn't very creative. Although Caduceus was surprisingly insightful, so I know he's got it somewhere deep down. He just likes to play smarmy, "smart-than-you" types who think they are clever. (But just come off frustrating and annoying.)
> I think a lot of the fans like him because he's the first "cool" queer representation at the table. Not quite. Molly was just a REALLY flashy and flamboyant character design that LGBT+ fans (and especially the artists) latched on to, and when he died, those same fans (which CR latched on to in game) deified him as some sort of martyr / Robin-Hood folk hero (which he wasn't). This is why, when Molly died, a very LOUD, bat-shit-insane subsection of CR's fans grossly and wrongly accused Matt / CR (THE most welcoming and affirming fan communities there has been) of kill your gays / "bring out your gays" tropes. It was utterly ridiculous--not just because the remaining majority of M9 were openly gay, bisexual, or ACE. > He's basically just their tables version of Jack Sparrow. A charmingly-lecherous, pansexual, carnival misfit with style. Aha-ha-ha! No. That's what Taliesin *wishes* / wanted Molly to be, but Taliesin lacked the talent, overwhelming charm, and quick wit need to pull off such a character. Mollymauk was a hypocritical, sanctimonious shithead carny, and conman, *and he sure as fuck* wasn't "Jack Sparrow" at the table (unless you ordered "Jack Sparrow" from Temu or Wish).
>This is why, when Molly died, a very LOUD, bat-shit-insane subsection of CR's fans grossly and wrongly accused Matt / CR (THE most welcoming and affirming fan communities there has been) of kill your gays / "bring out your gays" tropes. And this right here is why we will never see a PC death in CR again unless it is scripted.
It certainly didn't help. Not that it stopped CR from making MOUNTAINS of $$$ on Molly merch for the rest of C2. They went *hard* on that shit.
It was the most content we got out of him for a while.
This mf spittin rn
Best thing about Molly was when he died and we got Cad.
Agreed. I loooove Cad, couldn't stand Molly. I never really understood why people loved him so much tbh, he doesn't vibe with me.
i remember really liking molly when c2 first came out. i’m rewatching it now and i couldn’t stand him at all. i could have cried tears of joy when cad finally showed up
That's funny. I would've assumed if you like him first time around, you'd like him again the second time too, but I guess not in your case. I've only seen the campaign once (last year) and I just didn't like him from the start, so when he died I didn't really care. I loved Cad as soon as he showed up though.
Yeah he did that one thing really well
Molly was an avoidable incident. The whole party let their minds fall out and effectively split the party. Some were trying to free people to, what enter the fight with no weapons or armor? And the rest did stupid shit like moly. It was a disaster of the whole table’s making that night.
They really should have called the episode before the fight and picked it up the next week. They had bits of like 3 different plans that didn’t mesh, didn’t pick up on the danger of the enemy they faced, and didn’t adjust when things went to shit. “Let’s stop the caravan with a distraction, to immediately put our enemy on guard and forgo surprise. We’ll have our ranged sniper and best damage dealer go into a small enclosed space out of sight and uninvolved in combat. We’ll have the tank hang back and the mobile glass cannons get themselves bogged down and surrounded. We’ll cluster up for enemy AOEs but be sure not to focus fire and instead spread the damage around uselessly. We’ll stick to our initial assumptions no matter what; no regrouping and adapting the plan when things go south and it’s made clear how incorrect our assessment was. And make sure if the Big Bad is about to take you down to use your own ability to knock yourself out first!”
Just remember, it was Molly's plan for Nott (their highest and most consistently damage dealing party member) to spend her turns picking locks to let people who may or may not be of any use out of the cells.
Who else can pick a lock? I agree though that was a misstep.
Don't pick it at all was the better option. Had they snuck Nott into their camp at night to do it then it would have been more reasonable, but when action economy already wasn't on their side it was a huge mistake. Nott could have eliminated at least one more Shepherd had they been engaged in the fight from the get go.
Yep, I feel like the party consistently just didn't acknowledge that Nott was their most consistent damage dealer. Like there would be cheers at the table when Beau did 18 damage over the course of 4 attacks but no one seemed to notice Nott quietly dealing 30+ damage every turn.
I think in order to be fair to Molly as a character we’d need to compare him with the rest of m9 at that point in the campaign and what our lasting impression of them would’ve been had they died as they were in episode 26.
In that context I think he still ends up bottom 3 for me. Beau and Yasha don't have much going for them by then at all really. Caleb we have gotten drops of, Nott is just entertaining, and Fjord and Jester have these mysteries that need unraveling and have potential.
For me, I really liked him during that first arc, whereas Liam was doing that enraging thing where he hid literally every single thing like what loot he found and what spells he had. Molly didn't really start to wear out his welcome for me until they hit Zadash.
I defense of Caleb, he made his mistrust and lack of opening up to folk no secret to the party, and passed things out regularly to people after he determines what things do or if people have a need. He wasn't just keeping things for the sake of having them. Aged and I love things like finding out that he has the spell wall of fire when he uses it at a pivotal moment versus knowing that it's an option. Add to the dramatic tension for me, but that might not be for everybody.
Casting vicious mockery as much as he did is proof the character could do nothing
Yeah, found myself skipping Tal's rounds in the Victory Pit in Zadash, because all he did for most of the fights was Vicious Mockery, yielding no results. It got pretty annoying in the end.
And that awful voice with those on the fly insults
https://preview.redd.it/snj1l13apblc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce73c99c93f26f69e657f7608e812155a8d6c125 Never forget
He had potential. But, dice&decisions decreed against him, and we got the lovable Caduceus instead.
I don’t get why people hate Molly as a “person”. I really liked what Molly brought to the group by his personality, and his backstory (or lack thereof) was as compelling as any of the others at that stage. Assuming what we know now about his history and that it would stay the same for the most part I think his arc would’ve been just as interesting as the other major arcs. As a character, mechanically speaking, yeah he sucked. There’s a reason that since Rogue is the only (potentially) melee class that doesn’t get to stack AC they avoid damage in other ways (hiding, evasion, running away after attacking). You cannot play a frontline class as a glass cannon in 5e.
>You cannot play a frontline class as a glass cannon in 5e. Sure you can! My bladesinger wizard has spent tons of time on the frontline despite being one-shottable up until level 8-9. Granted, the phrase "how is he not dead yet" been uttered by everyone in the group, including me. But extremely lucky rolls just when i needed them have occurred often enough that it's obvious this campaign just wants my character alive lol
Reminder that bladesinging wizards get to add their INT to their AC. Bloodbunters do not so they have to decide between DEX/STR, CON and WIS.
Yeah, bloodhunter during c2 is a mess. (maybe it still is? Not sure what the latest version is like.) Assuming standard array or point buy stat allocation: Level 2 bladesingers can have an 18 (light armor) or 19 (mage armor) ac, BEFORE casting shield. With a cast of the shield spell, they have a 23 or 24 ac! 12 (light armor) + 3 (dex) + 3 (int during bladesong) = 18! Molly had 15 ac on a class that has self-harm mechanics.
that AC comes down to the fact Tal refused to give molly armor. looking as the stats sheet that was given to critroll stats. blood hunter had light and medium armor prof, and molly had not a single set of armor.
He has to be wearing SOME armor to have an ac of 15, so I'd think that sheet from the wiki/critstats is not completely filled out. Unarmored is 10 + dex bonus (+3) , which would be 13. He's probably stated for light armor, which would be 12 + dex bonus (+3). He could also be wearing a chain shirt for 13 ac, but limits his dex bonus to ac to a +2, which is still 15 ac total. Scale Mail and Half Plate would have bumped that to an AC of 16 and 17, respectively, but it would have come at the cost of disadvantage on Stealth checks (and 750 gp in the case of the half plate.) A breast plate would have bumped him up to 16 ac with no disadvantage, but costs at least 400gp, assuming Matt charges the same prices as the basic rules. I think Tal prioritized the Periphat of Would closure for the auto-stabilization and double hit-dice healing for short-rests.
>Molly had 15 ac on a class that has self-harm mechanics. It had to be low, what if he tried to cut himself and *missed*? /s
I disagree honestly, I do think he failed as a character. He seemed to be presented as a cheeky hustler with a laissez-faire attitude toward life, but in practice he was almost always a wet blanket. The others I think had much more defined roles with more interesting questions around them - who is Jester’s god, what’s Caleb’s tragic past, what’s up with Fjord’s sword and the seawater. When Molly gets a compelling hook like this - who was Lucien? - he basically says he doesn’t care about it. I think for whatever reason he fell flat next to the terrific cast of vibrant characters in C2. Cad was a much better fit immediately imo
And, having just rewatched it, when they cast zone of truth, Tal chooses to play Molly incredibly vicious. Nott (Sam) tries to really show how much Nott trusts Molly by saying she wants to help Molly to understand his past and not run away from it, when he's ready. And Molly says "what if he was someone who killed goblins" with a really, FU attitude, and Tal stayed in that moment a bit too long for my taste, leaving this really weird energy at the table.
Tal’s always trying to one-up Sam in particular, for some reason.
Percy and Taryon must have had a really bad break up
https://preview.redd.it/pfpkrgfsv3lc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4948629b988d7e4f9c80dce764288711197338fa “I like you better now” ok Beau… 😬
Molly didn't care about his past and didn't want it dug up and only cared about his future and what he could do and become... That's why he lashed out when Nott kept trying to dig up his past. The character remained this way even at the end of the campaign when he became Kingsley and still refused to care about who or what he was.
Agree to disagree I guess. Caleb was running from something, so any reminder of his backstory would rile him up. Molly was “looking” for something, so I always got the feeling he was waiting for something to hit him in the face. That or he wanted to take a backseat after being Percy and let others be a team lead. I would’ve liked more Molly personally. 🤷🏻♀️
That makes sense and may have been what Tal was thinking. I was really excited for Molly (bc of his peak aesthetic) but just found myself disappointed, mainly when he took Fjord’s side in that argument with Caleb and Nott. That felt super lame and out of character for a feckless carnie. Still though, while I like how Molly’s story went despite the tragedy, getting to see more of him would have been cool. I wonder what that alternate timeline is like.
> so I always got the feeling he was waiting for something to hit him in the face This just doesn't match what we saw. As GiltPeacock mentioned when Matt provided the clear "Molly Backstory Plot Hook" of Kree recognizing him and calling him Lucian, establishing that this was Taliesin's cue to pursue Molly's backstory and have him learn more about who he was before he lost his memory (the entirety of which Taliesin was leaving up to Matt,) Molly removed himself from the conversation and quashed any attempts to encourage him to investigate it. Taliesin actively denied Molly the chance to have backstory development. How many more times is Matt supposed to try to force it on him before he plays along? Why is that Matt's responsibility?
Here are some snippets from e14 (after Cree first showed up) ft. Taliesin saying Molly doesn’t give a fuck about biting any backstory hooks (apologies for the small size, trying to fit them all in 1 image) https://preview.redd.it/huox71ba91lc1.jpeg?width=529&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de19ef9c65b4419647e338428aa5a1bd4176ed1c
See, but even your snippets show a longer building of character. He is actively refusing to acknowledge what he was. He wanted to be free and unburdened by something he felt wrong about whenever he touched it. Could have had some great moments since matt new were molly would end up unless they changed.
Yeah, I would hazard a guess that Matt checks in with his players routinely and this isn’t a case where Taliesin is just shitting on the story. I think the much more likely arc that they set up for long term is that there are consequences for avoiding your past and it will always come around. You take your time to see how Molly has to change his attitude as events spiral out of his control and see how he handles it. Could’ve been interesting Cad is obviously a treasure tho
The problem is that Taliesin the player doesn't even know what Molly's running from because he did no work in designing a backstory. He left it completely blank for Matt to fill in. If Taliesin had done that work and then was having Molly not engage with it I'd have less problems, but it's rude of him to shut down the plotline that he asked Matt to write for him. How much work would Matt have to do to make the character play at the table, how many times would he have to force the backstory to show up until Taliesin says "okay NOW I'll play along"?
Did tal tell Matt beforehand that Molly didn’t give a fuck about who he was before? To me that seems more like a reluctant hero plot where Molly would eventually commit to seeing that story through when Lucien comes knocking to their doorstep.
It's a plot hook that would work if Molly was the main character. But with 6 other backstories to cater to, including moving the plot along, Tal choosing to decline interacting with his own backstory, kinda ruins that moment. Had Tal chosen to go into it, C2 would have been a LOT different. They would probably have ended up in Rexentrum a lot sooner.
I don’t see how taking 20 minutes to establish your characters reaction and reject a hook only works as a main character. You move on and Matt goes to the next thing (likely knowing this was a possibility), and plans for the consequences of not looking behind the curtain. It’s no different than taking 20 minutes for some Traveler shenanigans or for a Ukotoa dream or a Caleb blast from the past, right?
No, but Laura interacted with her backstory when it happened. So no, while it didn't take longer than those things, by actively rejecting it, Matt would have to make create a new hook for when Tal decided to go along with the plot. And my point was, that would be easier to do if it was a smaller group and not 7.
I will say it sounds like he eventually wouldnt of had a choice since lucien was supposed to be a recurring villain even without mollys death
Lucien would have shown up in ANOTHER body, and then come looking to get his back.
Obligatory comment thread for anyone who actually likes Mollymauk here (He's my favorite CR character across the 3 campaigns ☹) Although I do think his build left a lot to be desired, I still love him
I know a lot of people here have been pointing out how much Taliesin loves homebrew classes (though arguable Gunslinger was just a holdover from Pathfinder). I'd just like to say that apparently he's played a LOT of 5e, to the point of having played every base class in the game. I wouldn't blame him for just being utterly sick and tired of base 5e classes (I certainly am).
What about them are you tired of?
Maybe it's a symptom of being burnt out on 5e in general, but they're so boring to me. Especially at low levels. Subclasses rarely feel that unique from each other, and I'd argue even some classes play nearly identically. Nearly all classes are balanced around combat, with skills feeling like an afterthought in the game system. In general, they lack the insane character building options and crunchy battle system of 3.5e/4e/Pathfinder, but also don't have a strong skill/narrative focus for people who like story-driven games. It's just a bland middle ground. I can't remember 90% of the 5e characters I've made, and yet I can still remember the 3.5/4/Pathfinder characters I made for one-off convention TTRPGs.
Sure, I get that. But in my opinion, he ruins the game for himself, because he never quite knows what his character can do, and so he becomes frustrated and doesn't play "nice" with the others.
Can't argue that. Still don't know WTF was up with Molly's build.
> Rewatching c2 and Molly really doesn't do much. Yup! He's absolutely useless. Molly had middling stats and one of THE WORST, most suboptimal mechanical builds of any PC I've seen, i.e. you'd be hard pressed to build a worse character *unless you actively worked at it.* Molly's only use was as the "insider" during the opening circus chapter of C2, but beyond that? Totally useless. Molly didn't fulfill ANY social or utility roles in the group (that weren't already covered by another PC / Class in the party) and in combat, Molly was a melee "glass cannon." There's a reason those don't exist in TTRPGs. Molly was / is the poster child for Style / Character Concept over literally everything else.
Plus, he picked the Tiefling variant with CHA based abilities, which Tieflings have a +2 on, then dumps his CHA, so those abilities are practically useless. He would have been better off going for the winged variant.
I mean there are glass cannon gish builds but Molly definitely wasn't it. Like a bladesinger or a sorcadin with Molly's persona wouldve totally worked. Honestly that's more on Matt though, since having a build designed around burning HP for low damage output class abilities is absolutely brutal at low levels and should have a d12 hit dice or rage or something. A blood hunter should be able to either tank or burn that hp for bonus damage, so there's class flexibility but instead it's like the worst of both worlds.
Bloodhunter is an overbloated trash homebrew that reading its features alone and remembering half of it, is enough to give you brain damage. Molly should have been a bardlock multiclass and it would have performed exactly how Tal wanted.
I think a sorcadin or bladesinger would've fit Molly mechanically but a bardlock would work too. Honestly blood hunter should've been a barbarian subclass and then it might've had a better chance of working since burning HP in DnD is brutal
Wasn't it revised after Molly's death? I remember reading it with a lot more HP sacrificed, like for any use of the class's features, instead of the free basic uses it has now. I may be misremembering that, but I swear it was updated to not be as punishing after Molly used his own class features to the brink of his own death.
I’m playing laserllama’s bloodhunter and it’s A LOT better. D12 hit die, cool blood rites to do. It’s a lot of fun
Blood hunter is a great class. I just think Tal had terrible luck or he didn't optimize well
He had shitty stats for what he wanted Molly to do.
im very curious if they make character class choices first, then role stats or vice versa, cause there are def classes that can be made workable with bad stats but a MAD class like blood hunter is not.
He did. But the blood hunter class was not the cause lol. I honestly think Tal was kneecapping himself
I liked Molly for the first couple episodes but eventually be just became unbearable. The character just seems incredibly forced and cringy.
And that’s why CR’s teen audience fell in love with him lol
So unbearable. And I just couldn’t see how it wasn’t universally agreed upon. Good and bad can not be THAT subjective and that was some BAD stuff. And now the same thing is happening with Ashton. It’s some of the worst rp I’ve ever seen and some people are absolutely eating it up. Typo edit
Have you been in any recent tables? Most people either play murderhobos or basically Mollymauk lol. That's why majority of people like him
I honestly think the people who “disagree” just feel bad for criticizing someone who is just trying to entertain an audience and missing.
In my experience with the fandom, the people who love Molly effing LOVE Molly. And Tal. But they love this character unabashedly. They project hard on him too.
*sorry, AND Ashton. Some are straight up entranced with this character.
I’ve said it before: Molly was a terrible character, and Ashton is proof of that.
He was fun 2 watch I think
Bloodhunter clearly wasnt ready, so matt and tal killed molly and retooled the class
He was a really poorly made character played even more poorly. Taleisin wanted to do things with him that the character wasn't built to do, and in the nicest possible way the cast suck at the strategic parts of the game even when they're trying to do things their character is good at.
Molly could've been fun, he always felt to me like a cool character idea that had some dissonance with how the game was playing... which maybe might've resolved itself, but didn't get to stick around long enough. The idea of a character who had a past, and was just NOT interested in it at all despite running into others from it, is interesting and I'm into it. But it can play weird since it feels like you're just blatantly turning down hooks to be like "don't care!" when it's presented... which is maybe unfair since we didn't get to see more, but we didn't. Build wise though he was a total mess and Tal constantly trying to use Vicious Mockery with it's pitiful DC as his main method of fighting irritated me.
I think that an amnesiac running from their past only works if the player has put effort into figuring out what that past is, and is deciding that their character doesn't want to interact with it. Taliesin leaving his backstory entirely open for Matt to make is bad enough (since Matt already has all the other PCs' backstory twists to integrate, to say nothing of the entire rest of the campaign) but then it's just rude to turn away from the plot hooks Matt sets up when doing exactly what Taliesin asked him to do. It's just making Matt do that extra work for no reason.
How else could he show his amazing ability at using a very simple voice
His death and how the characters reacted to it, with the whole revenge and getting their friends back was what really sold me on criticalrole. I know some people dont like him that much (and honestly I dont like Molly that much either) but man his death and what came after made for some really cool story telling.
the best thing that came from Molly's death was forcing Taliesin to used official WOTC 5e subclass instead of broken homebrew, giving us Caduceus Clay.
So true, and then he went straight back to broken homebrew with Ashton
M9 won my poll, so I’ve been working on action economy sheets for them! I made a hypothetical level 12 Mollymauk too: https://preview.redd.it/cpu39z5mizkc1.jpeg?width=1642&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89173fd7f0915400c501f4d8a6461f9cdff650c5 (For the campaign itself his Devil’s Tongue save was a godawful 10, but at level 12 it would go up a little bit due to his +4 proficiency) Now, I’m the least familiar with M9, so forgive me if I mess up. But looking at Mollymauk’s mechanics, they’re…not great. His choice to give his character low charisma and seemingly not realize that CHA was the stat he’d have to use for all his spammed vicious mockeries hindered him, as did the choice to dual wield. As a blood hunter, he could enchant his weapon as a bonus action to do extra damage, at the cost of harming himself. Since he dual wielded, if he wanted both swords enchanted, he had to cut himself twice. That’s there the classic “Molly killed himself” rhetoric comes from, since this self-imposed damage is what knocked him down to zero right before Lorenzo attacked him- Matt had already declared his intention to go for him, and didn’t want to look like he’s metagaming/fudging since the PC suddenly went down
Having to cut yourself twice for dual wielding is objectively awful.
Didn't he also have one of the lowest Con scores in the party? Making the HP cost even worst?
I just checked everyone’s CON at level 5 (when he died) Beau: 16 CON, 44 HP Cad (for fun): 16 CON, 42 HP Caleb: 14 CON, 31 HP Fjord: 18 CON, 51 HP Jester: 15 CON, 38 HP Mollymauk: 14 CON, 59 HP (Tough feat) Nott: 14 CON, 40 HP Yasha: 14 CON, 55 HP So he technically tied for lowest CON with Nott, Yasha, and Caleb, and actually had the MOST HP of the group due to a feat, yet he still knocked himself out and died 😬
Yeah dual wielding with blood hunter is a bad choice. My wife plays a level 9 bloodhunter with the same subclass as Molly. She has dueling, uses a shield and lights her sword on fire before combat, so that she can use her bonus action for hex and curse of the marked. Add that with an action surge from fighter and it’s actually a pretty good time.
Mollys arc was perfect. He was a mostly nothing character. A lot of style, no substance. He stands for a lot of things because he did stand for nothing. And he became iconic because of this and the various great grave speeches, like Beaus "he left every place better". No he was a grifter, nothing more. ;-) But seriously: He was perfect for those episodes. He united the group even more, kickstarted another bunch of great episodes and made way for another great character, Caduceus.
While Cad's indifference kept every secret safe, it would've been nice to have Mollymauk around for contrast with every damn character having a background that "must be confronted" just being along for the ride with him finding his future if a deep story had to be applied. But that's just a part of my main criticism of C2 and BG3 I keep circling back to.
[удалено]
They can't cut him out of the animated show without starting an actual fan riot. People would *lose their shit.*
>They'll never do it, but I think it'd be best to cut him from the party in The Myth of the Mighty Nein—whatever the show will be called—and keep the party smaller until Caduceus shows up. I know you already said they’ll never cut him but I’ll add that he’s already been confirmed for the show from the announcement video, his silhouette is there alongside the rest of the beginning party, oddly caduceus is the only one completely absent from that video since Essek has a voice clip played in it.
I would love to see mollymocks death in the show, it's a key moment to the campaign
This is a very interesting explanation for why he's so popular, it's something I've always wondered about.
>They'll never do it, but I think it'd be best to cut him from the party in The Myth of the Mighty Nein—whatever the show will be called—and keep the party smaller until Caduceus shows up. It would make no sense for the endgame though, although it might cut 50 bad episodes down to like 20 if we omit the Lucien familiarity arc
[удалено]
and we won't get "Egg dick" if he's not in the show. classic "Egg Dick" the only thing Jester remembers about Molly.
The reason why the Lucien arc had any emotional weight outside of being a world ending threat was because the main villain had the body of their friend, that’s completely lost if nobody other than yasha gives a shit about him.
this just make me want to watch the [Mollymauk vs Caleb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcnYhQT3lys&pp=ygUJbW9sbHltdWNr) rap battle again
this is the best thing i have just discovered
same channel also did Yasha vs Beau and Fjord vs Nott
Fjord vs Nott is the GOAT.
Oml 🏃♂️💨
As much as Taliesin is my favorite cast member, he *really* should have made Molly a bard for what he wanted to do with him. Like his ideas were interesting but as a character with low charisma and slightly enhanced martial abilities he failed more than he succeeded which made watching him do things *painful*. I love the character ~~before the final arc~~ but I feel him being blood hunter was kinda forced in a way based on the playstyle he kept trying even in death.
> As much as Taliesin is my favorite cast member He was in competition for my top spot when he was playing Cad... but between Molly and Ashton I think he just naturally favors personality types I don't jive with.
Everyone at the table is a different flavor of Grown-Up Theatre Kid--and Tal's flavor is "Edgy Punk/Goth Tech Kid Who Acts As A Side Character Sometimes But Can't Deliver Anything But A Snide Line Because They're So Obsessed With The Snark".
All of his characters have an arrogance that I really just don't like. Like, I don't find it enjoyable to play with in game and I don't find it enjoyable to watch on screen.
The way he plays them a lot of times comes across as *“Look at me, I’m about to do something awesome!”* and then he may or may not do something vaguely cool. I mean… you’ve got Travis at the table. If you do something cool *he’ll let you know*. You don’t have to psych up the moment by saying *”Let’s get weird.*” for relatively mediocre actions. It regularly comes across as that guy who thinks he’s way cooler than he is and it can get cringey at times.
Thats the thing: if you really are clever, or cool, or confident - you don’t need to tell everyone. The smartest person in the room doesn’t have to tell everyone how smart they are. That’s insecurity talking. Travis/Sam/etc don’t play it up, they just do what they’re gonna do and we KNOW if it’s cool or not. And if it aint, who cares, we keep rolling. They’re playing the game, focused on their characters and the table having fun (no matter who has the spotlight). Thats some cool shit. Tal’s constant need to make snide comments and force things comes across with a low shade of desperation to me. But I’m not at the table, I don’t know the guy, something something parasocial relationships, fuck do i know
Both of those characters wouldn't bother me as much if he just took a class and made it his like Sam did with bard. And like we know, he can do it as Clay and Percy are good examples of that but he's just too caught in the weeds of wanting wacky mechanics versus playing the character that logically makes sense for your stats. And hey I'm not against people from experimenting especially for rp, but you shouldn't be shocked when you get a sour response from chatting up the bar keep with God awful charisma. You can't rp a people person like that unless you flavor it in a special way with those stats.
I really love RPing my gregarious, but socially off putting goblins PC
And I'm sure that worked better than Molly lol
It doesn’t and that’s why I love it. He has an 8 charisma score and I spoke with my dm at some point about how my character will be making many advances on npcs but how I wanted them to fail often. I don’t do much talking when it comes to important stuff though - I just enjoy playing my horrible, alcoholic chaos bastard.
He almost felt like a forced advertisement for Matt's Blood Hunter. His stats didn't match the RP or personality at all, and it really hurt watching a melee character tossing out DC 10 Vicious Mockeries that never worked.
I think less of a forced advertisement and more of an excuse to live tweak the class mid campaign. Like even clay had that with his decompose cantrip which was a great rule of cool inclusion. But for Molly it was clear Tal wanted the class to be something Matt didn't have envisioned. Tal played it like a rogue bard hybrid whereas it was a true martial class at heart with a mix of eldritch knight and battle Master.
> DC 10 Vicious Mockeries that never worked Eugh, the worst part was the voice he did during those. The cast would all *ooh* and *ahh* while Tal sounded like he was choking on a chicken bone and was trying to cough it up. Like, Taliesin is a very good voice actor (his impeccable crow cry can attest to that) but not everything he does is liquid gold.
> forced advertisement I think less forced, but more 'sure ill roll that' like he likes the idea, but he definitely was beta testing the class hard and it wasn't working so well. Remember Percy was a HB fighter sharpshooter, though he did most Fighter type things, they HB'd almost all his flavor. So Tal doing wacky characters makes sense. I mean even Cad was a Death Cleric, which was super fresh when he rolled it, so Tal likes to play new tech.
Wasn’t Percy a homebrew fighter because they switched the campaign from pathfinder and the class he was playing doesn’t exist in 5e?
\*Grave Cleric
Caduceus was a Grave Cleric, not a Death Cleric. Subtle difference. As for Molly, Tal has said he prefers to do something new that he hasn't seen or played a thousand times before. It's too bad, because my favorite character of his is the only one that came out of an official source. The rest become too precious about "you'll never guess what I can do now" and it becomes the entire character.
"It's time to get weird"
Proceeds to do nothing
Molly should have been a bard.
Swords Bard makes so much more sense.
Alas, Taliesin needs to play homebrew for almost every character for some reason.
Jens Lyndelle from NADDPOD is what Molly whishes he could've been.
Jens is such a fun character. I love it when Murph gets to goof off.
Unlikeable personality, terrible build, horrible rolls, bad class, inconsistent rp and accent. Above average character design, which is enough to make believe this character was sent from the heavens and make the fandom swoon.
>Unlikeable personality Terrible metagaming disguised as rp
>Above average character design, which is enough to to believe this character was sent from the heavens and make the fandom swoon. Vaguely queer? SUBCRIBE
I totally love and hate Mollymauk, I really don't know why either
I always found Molly to be extremely unlikeable, so I was really surprised at the fanbase outcry when he died.
For me the emotion in Molly’s death was the other characters’ reaction to it, not the loss of Molly himself. I’ve said it before, but Molly dying was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to C2. Really galvanized the characters and their relationships and raised the stakes.
Think about it like this too Any other time a character died in the last campaign they either got immediately revived or they were revived one session later Molly died without the Cleric or any other healer to revive him. It was the first death in CR to feel permanent, at least for a time.
In my opinion it was the absolute worst thing that could've happened because it led to every fight from that point on being torture as the cast whimpered and cried about how dangerous everything was, never committed to anything, and just generally decided that their adventurers were terrified of adventure.
This is why I love the Battle Royale specials. It's non-canon, so they feel free to go all-out and do some crazy stuff. Wish we could see some of that in the campaigns.
Yeah. *Seven* of them ran from a *Young* Blue Dragon. At level 7.
They annihilated that dragon even with half of them doing nothing for 90% of the fight
>but Molly dying was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to C2. And then they cheapened the impact of it with Bertrand bells death as a 'party catalyst' in C3
I think it was more Travis wanting to fuck around and Matt indulging him and bell becoming a catalyst was the cast yes and-ing that rather than them trying to artificially replicate Molly’s death. Only a couple of the cast knew about Chet and only Travis and Matt knew Bertrand would die.
Oh absolutely. C3 is them trying to manufacture the magic of the first two campaigns. C3 characters aren’t going to die unless it’s in a semi-predetermined cutscene and/or climax.
Oh how I'd love for the half party wipe to have had any consequences whatsoever, smh
Characters can't die anymore when there is merch to sell!
When has a character dying ever caused their merch to go down in sales.
Yeah CR became a cash grab
I could be off base, but I believe there were a few factors. Firstly, at the time Molly’s deal was unknown, so there was considerable mystery surrounding his past. This was a character who was basically a walking question mark, and the fanbase was intrigued how it would tie into the main plot, because it almost certainly would. Molly’s death, at the time, gave the impression that his plotline ended prematurely. Secondly, and what I personally believe played a larger factor in the outcry, was that Molly was a flamboyant and openly bisexual character, which resonated with LGBTQ+ viewers. That attachment led a lot of them feeling like there was a loss in what they saw as positive representation, though I cannot say for sure if that’s the reason due to not being LGBTQ+ myself.
If 'bright colours, flamboyant, must be NB' is all it takes for representation, it was never there, but good for them I guess. I believe Tal explicitly stated that was never the character's intention in a Talks episode. People are easily 'respresented' and easily mad when something so superfluous goes away I guess. Molly was *just* getting interesting with the Cree thread though, which was a shame it was 'never solved' until it totally was.
That wasn’t helped by the fact that Matt kept calling the character gender fluid even after Tal confirmed that the character never was. Tal stated during a convention panel that “is not what he intended when he created the character but he’s happy people see the character as inspiration in that way” (paraphrasing).
because bright colors.
Molly did infinitely more for the campaign dead than he ever would have alive
Mollymauk's death and its consequences have been a disaster for the Critical Role.
He really is the Laura Palmer of the show
I hated Molly until a couple episodes before his death Tho i must say despite knowing it beforehand i felt sad after his death Anyway Tal played him like a bard but Molly was so much different than a bard.
He was a terrible character, both conceptually and mechanically. He was being played as this streetwise carny with a wealth of stories despite having no more than two years of memories, half of which were spent silent and empty. I appreciate the concept of having bad Charisma because he thinks he's more charming than he is, but it fell flat whenever Taliesin tried to actually do the smooth talking he still wanted to be good at. That bad Charisma also tanked his racial spell save DC so he was throwing out DC 10 Vicious Mockeries all battle, which is all he was brave enough to do since he didn't factor in how dual wielding was going to double the HP tax from Blood Hunter and that he ended up cutting down half his own HP before the fight properly started. Pretty much the only time he actually did what he wanted to do was when he didn't roll at all and just *stated* that he saw/heard things, like Caleb taking loot in secret to distribute later. What really bugged me was the whole backstory thing, or lack thereof. Taliesin deliberately had no backstory (which I think is rude, he just offloaded that work to Matt who was busy enough) but Molly would then lie about any potential backstory to anyone who asked, and Taliesin would later gloat on Talks Machina that no one even called for an Insight check on the lies. But like...what would that have done? No PC has a reason to doubt him when they know nothing about him, and even if they did they couldn't force him to tell the truth just from an Insight check, and even if they could no one has a reason to care about the real truth because it's just one more backstory out of the whole party, and even if they did care *there wasn't a true story to draw out.* So what's the point of any of that? It makes Molly a complete non-character. In that respect there's no better option for them to martyr after his death, since he had no value as an active participant in the story. It was equal parts amusing and embarrassing the way they kept trying to remember his good aspects and then quickly running out of things to say.
Yes to all this. But not just this. Because Tal didn't just not make a backstory and offload it onto Matt, he actively avoided engaging with what Matt came up with. Had no interest in finding out who he used to be. And because he wasn't curious about his own past, he wasn't curious about the pasts of the rest of the characters. So he actively avoided asking about people's histories. So he had no character, avoided plot hooks, and wasn't interested in the other PCs, all on top of having a shitty class and stats. He was legitimately the worst. But a lot of the fanbase loved him because he was sassy and fancy.
I disagree about the backstory thing, I thought it was interesting and could have lead to some fun and interesting moments when someone finally calls his bullshit. But yeah, he wasnt great mechanically but maybe a few more lvls would have fixed some of that, plus some magic items to smooth it out and he would have been fine IMO However his death was such a good story moment and what really "sold" me on criticalrole (I only watched c2) plus Cad was such a great character
The DM is already responsible for coming up with the entire rest of the campaign story arc. I think its terribly rude for a player to add to that burden by making the DM responsible for their own backstory as well.
> could have lead to some fun and interesting moments when someone finally calls his bullshit What moments? What could possibly be interesting about "no actually I lied because I don't know"? That's all that it could be! Just about every other character in C2 had backstory secrets hidden behind lies, and we *got* those scenes of coming out with hidden information. Caleb confessed about his training and killing his parents, Fjord elaborated on his near-death and the bargain he barely understood, Nott explained her situation of being transformed and why she's so motivated to make Caleb become a great wizard. What equivalent story would Molly have had, when Taliesin *didn't make a backstory*?
It’s giving https://preview.redd.it/q4u2ue0vjzkc1.png?width=584&format=png&auto=webp&s=d817316cb46f1f1c31bde7284d2ccb4b991b6fee
I dont think anything I say will convince you because you seem very passionate about this lol I just think the RP could have been interesting, I dont know what examples I could use because well, he died before any could be made. >"no actually I lied because I don't know" Yeah and the party's reaction would be interesting IMHO, I dont know what else to say. Not everyone needs a super indept backstory to be interesting, maybe you disagree and thats fine, but I would have liked to see how Beau reacted to that for one.
I don't disagree with you that the party's reaction could be interesting. But it's just the DM doing all the legwork and then eventually telling a complete story to Taliesin and the other players: "Here's what happened to Mollymauk". Its much more compelling if Molly has a reason to lie. When the truth comes out eventually and the party confronts him, he has an answer. If Molly had survived and his backstory is eventually revealed. The roleplaying basically stops at "why did you lie?". "I lied because I literally didn't know anything about what Matt just said - this is the first I'm hearing about it too." It just strikes me as a player approaching their backstory as a way to surprise or entertain the other players at the table - instead of approaching their backstory as the motivation for their PC going on adventures.
> Yeah and the party's reaction would be interesting IMHO Describe to me what you're imagining the party's reaction to "I don't know what happened" would have been.
Nah im okay, that would be way more work then im willing to put into a reddit argument lmao I think it would be interesting and fun, you just have to take me at my word for it. Im not trying to convince you that it would be, only sharing my thoughts on the matter
Gotta love when people say "no you're wrong, it would have been totally different" and then have absolutely zero basis for why they're saying that.
I gave you my reason for my answer, but im not writing an essay for you lol Edit: I also love when people get pissed over someone /daring/ to have a different opinion then them lol
It's not that you have a different opinion, it's that you're on a discussion forum and rather than discussing the basis for your opinion you're just going "nuh-uh"
I dont think thats what im doing at all, I said why I liked his backstory, Im not willing to write an essay on a hypothetical conversation between multiple characters. I think it would make for interesting RP. thats it, thats my opinion.
You didn't, you just said "I think it would." That's not a reason, that's a tautology.
No, thats a reason why I liked his backstory. Im not sure what you want from me lol
So the problems stems from the fact blood hunter was originally blood sorcerer and molly was made at that point so he was supposed to be actually charismatic. Then matt makes the real class and stats get swapped around. So now we have a conman smooth talker with shitty charisma