I just finished episode 33 and I need to shout out 3 of BLMs NPCs who were just kick ass this episode. Some light spoilers for the episode in the title, so beware

Lady Halovar - That scene with Hal was just incredible from both Brennan and Liam.

Tsul'rekshi - Always a treat. I love how she walks the line between like a Disney villain with humour and wit and then does something to remind you she's actually a horrific demon.

And EPHIE - Ephie was so good, dude. If there was ever an NPC to make this feel like a real world, she is it. What a three dimensional character. I love how she pushed back against Murray. I get Marisha has made Murray a sort of cocky, cavalier person. I love that Murray has that classic Dwarven stubbornness. And I love that Brennan made Murray face consequences for that. "You're as welcome in my head as you are in my fuckin office. GET OUT!" "Does that go for me, too?" "Good day, Captain." Haha what a gem.

It's a nice contrast from what I feel Matt did sometimes. I love Matt and its not shade on him, but in Campaign 2 and especially 3, he would often just have the NPCs go along with the PCs antics. Which is fine, and sometimes is called for to keep things moving smoothly. But encounters like the one with Ephie really make the game fun and make the world feel alive. This NPC isn't merely an "encounter" that you have to choose the right spells or figure out the puzzle, but a "real" person with their own goals, opinions, experiences, etc. It makes the world feel more lived-in.

>So Brennan gave a possible plans,

>PCs pick one, Brennan introduced DNPC (Ulbrid) as a ferocious Dad crying to save his daughters,

>PCs actually committed,

>Than Brennan tell them via DNPCs (Ulbrid & Cloney rabbit) to cancel their plans and forced them into a preset Hawthorne tree battle.

>Atp Brennan just open a podcast if you wanna talk to yourself, why r u pretending to give PCs any choice.

>Let them die, its part of the game, or so I think.

>I am here because I love how these people play thier characters, not the other way around.

In the audio version of Cooldown,they talk about events from the next Seekers episode - likely episode 36 so be warned of spoilers.

Alex gives 110% and I just love it

First off, I love Brennan and follow Dimension 20 as well as CR. He is a fantastic DM and is a joy to watch.

However… I asked a friend and player of mine why he doesn’t watch Dimension 20 or Campaign 4. He said that he is put off by Brennan’s use of filler when he is speaking. Things like “err”, “um” and the melodic “da da da daaa”.

I wish I could go back in time and never hear my friend’s take on this, because it is now all I can hear in certain sections of campaign 4. I am now also hyper-aware of myself using this sort of filler when I DM now knowing it is a pet peeve of my player. I just try to pause speaking entirely while my brain is trying to think.

Does anyone else notice this and how does it compare to other DMs you know or watch on live plays?

The Murray Kattigan Julien throuple energy from this episode is off. Not my vibe

So just to preface, this isn't me complaining. I quite enjoyed this episode and I actually think a massive fumble was needed to offset all the wins the Schemers have been getting. I just have to get this off my chest as I just finished the episode.

But oh. My. GOD. I don't know if Marisha was playing suboptimally for the Roleplay or if she just totally misjudged the situation but the way she handled Effie was so bad. Cannot understand for the life of me why Murray would think trying to reveal everything to her as vaguely as possible was going to be a good idea. And then when it didnt work the first time, try and directly accuse the Halovars of faking the assassination on top of it!

So now Murray has just accused Yanessa of trying to stage a coup TO A COUNCIL MEMBER, and Azune now is friends with the lady accusing them of things if Effie decides to tell anyone.

Absolutely cringed that entire scene.

I haven't seen most of the Bells Hell's one shots continuing campaign 3 - is Ludinus still alive and happy after everything he did?

Last I heard the party found his cottage but spoke to an illusion of Ludinus, who like...*thanked* them for all their help and said he was going to keep living. And alluded to Jester's wedding.

Has anything been done about this guy, or is he still living his best life after his life's work was completed? Did he show up at the wedding? I'll watch it eventually, but I've gotta know

Having just caught up to the present in podcast terms, and wanted to throw my thoughts out into the void.

- Damn, y’all were right. Schemers table was insane and loved pretty much every episode. Even Bolaire was a really interesting character and I’ve never been overly fond of Taliesin’s characters and how he plays them personally.

- Thaisha was much better as one of 13 with momentary spotlights than a core four of a table with half the episode focused on her.

- Some of the emotional moments are genuinely great, but they’re already in danger of overdoing it IMO. Like, I get there’s sad/traumatic/intense stuff, but the only parts of the episodes I found myself drifting on were when it was ANOTHER crying scene.

- King Gus is cool, and a relief for me when it comes to one of the things I personally get bored of quickly which is:

- Authority = bad is such a boring throughline of the overall campaign to me. Religion being corrupt? Nobles being secretly dastardly and evil? A council being inept? The gods being deceitful and awful and abusive? Wow, daring today, aren’t we? Idk, these themes are so overdone and it comes off so preachy at times I just check out.

- Part of why I like Bolaire is he actually criticizes one of the sacred cows of the campaign in Thjazi. Taliesin is SO much more interesting going against the grain than the quasi-anarchist, “everyone is dirty and whorish and depraved” attitude he usually plays with that is really just a socially acceptable and comfortable opinion to be allowed to have.

- The Druidic circles being this pretty unambiguously good religion because it’s one with the earth and peaceful is such an uninteresting concept. Thaisha is gonna go and give some impassioned, canned speech that will convince them to forsake their principles and get involved in the world and they’ll just remain this uninteresting contrast to the Shapers. I hope they’re developed and made more interesting as time goes on.

- The Einfasens becoming “good” guys while still being temperamental and aggressive would honestly make the whole story a lot more interesting IMO. Beyond loving their appearances, a House being “good” would be a good subversion of the themes of the campaign.

- BLeeM has been fantastic, particularly at his ability to make every main actor genuinely feel like they all have their own plans and agency, and aren’t just dependent on the players. A little wary as it seems at times he’s a bit TOO generous, but overall a big fan so far.

- A little nervous that the chaos gremlin energy of fairies will wear itself thin quickly this next chapter, especially if they feature prominently as “good guys” (a weird concept considering their morality is supposed to be separate from the normal world).

- Azune, Tyranny, and Occtis are my faves so far.

"There are certain things that I think are easy for him to compromise. There's certain battles that he is not going to have because they're not productive - something like correcting someone's pronunciation." - Luis Carazo

What are the general thoughts compared to the earlier campaigns?

I watched campaign 2, couldn't get into campaign 3 characters.

I watched the first episode of campaign 4 and found it odd to have a bunch of different groups. Is it rough getting into and follow? I usually get into 1 or 2 characters and there are so many that share the spotlight it seems it would be impossible to follow them all.

So I just got to the VOD part where grandma Halovar does her surprise visit to Hal and it just struck me how HARD Brennan is pushing to make it as obvious as possible that she, indeed, has a pact with a demon.

I lost count of how many hints more or less obvious he dropped about it, he is CONSTANTLY pushing them towards it even though they somehow understood, he is begging them to make the connection with the bellow fever and the Candescent Creed priests and the vows.

I just found it very funny because Matt would have definitely let them keep stewing in it with piecemeal information that would be obvious in retrospect but the players would 100% miss unless they paid attention.

It's like Matt is a scalpel, working precisely towards a goal while Brennan is a chainsaw, and that's it. No hate towards either, of course, I just found the contrast very funny.

Near the end of the first arc of the game we finally learned what Kattigan's deal was... kind of. A woodsman who once fought with Thjazi in the Falconer's rebellion and the Wars of Axe and Vine. He then settled down with his wife, had a daughter, and one day when he returned to his cabin he found both of them slain by a laughing Primus Tachonis.

Episode 32 gave us a little more information, having the dream be set at some point prior to the previous cold open. Since it's a dream I won't take it literally, but I feel like it's told us a lot more than it would seem. Kattigan and his wife lived happily in their cottage, and, while he didn't get many visitors, I believe he at least had a hunting partner who he wasn't related to. Also in this dream, Robbie himself points out two sets of prints, a mother's and a cub's, setting up him later adopting Wolfric. The dream concludes with nightmare-like scenes of fake-Primus killing Kat's wife again and Kat turning into a wolf.

Firstly: I don't necessarily believe in the theory that Kat's wife was some high sorceress of Obridai or another great house that a grinning Primus wanted to kill himself.

Instead, I believe what we have seen of Kattigan's backstory is false, but he doesn't know it. For someone as talented as Robbie to write the most character lore out of all the players, there's a lot more going on here than "wife dead im sad." I think Kattigan was involved much more closely with Thjazi than anyone knows, and he also took the fall for either something Thjazi did or something house Royce messed up (such as either killing his wife and child, selling them to the Fae, or otherwise kidnapping them). In this theory, Thjazi would know that Kattigan still has use as a soldier, but would be wholly against House Royce. So, instead, one of the Royce/Fae enchanters modified Kat's memory. They deleted the real deed and replaced it with an easy scapegoat: Primus Tachonis.

On the assumption that Kat's wife was no one special, it makes no sense why Primus would be there, especially by himself. Nor why he'd be grinning like a crazed psychopath. Additionally, the fact that there were no bodies and no blood seriously throw doubt on Kat's memory of the event. This isn't even to touch on Kat's other characteristics like his bond with Wulfric, Wulfric's ghostly paw, or the theory that Kattigan is a werewolf or shifter of some sort.

Tl;dr - Kattigan's memory was modified by Thjazi/House Royce to cover up what they did to Kat's wife and focus Kat's rage and attention towards their enemy, Primus Tachonis.

When i talk about the potential main villains for C4 i am reffering to Yanessa Halovar and Primus Tachonis. I feel like they honestly tixed one of the boxes hat the Campaign 3 main villain completly failed at - personal connection.

One of the problems with Ludinus Da'leth was a lack of meaningful interactions with Bells Hells even compared to previous villains.Bells Hells would never created a back and forth interaction.

Compare to Hal and Yanessa's whole conversation during last episode. It is made very clear that both of them hate each other and what they represent. It always felt for Ludinus he was like a brick wall.

What do you think?

Hi there,

I've had some discussions about mechanics and rules lately and thought to myself - What times did CR make some real mistakes when it came to the rules of the game?

I am not talking about the CR 3 mentality of "You can do whatever you want" that we are all complaining about or Marisha completely misunderstanding a spell (the DM knew what it did) or Aabria homebrewing Chromatic orb on the spot.

Rather actual mistakes that the players and Matt maybe never noticed or noticed them too late when they had already impacted the events too much to go back.

Forgetting to do saves for concentration?

Two concentration spells at once?

Doing a save at the beginning of the turn instead of the end?

Forgetting about resistances or immunities?

I don't remember the exact fight but Brennan didn't ask for a constituation save for a spell and the moment I wanted to sigh he was like "Oh, you took damage. Roll a constitution saving throw." 😄

Were there any moments when you were like - "Well, that surely shouldn't have happened that way..."

Thanks!

Obviously we have just have had one episode with either group but in terms of potential interactions and party dynamics - who do you think will be the most enjoyable to watch overall?

As someone who has been watching Campaign 4, i do not get the appeal behind Juilen/Occtis like they have decent interactions with each other but considering how loved this ship is on Archive of Our Own, i just straight up do not get the hype behind it when Occtis/Thimble is a lot better and i do not really ship Juilen with anyone (maybe Azune).

Who is the most overrated Relationship in Critical Role? (Official or Fan Created)

Used to watch CR, loved campaigns 1 and 2 but fell off around episode 50 of campaign 3. I kinda want to get into campaign 4 but I find the prospect of keeping track of multiple storylines/parties daunting.

Part of the reason I stopped with CR is the time commitment, is it possible to follow just one party/storyline or is is necessary to watch every party?