The natural 20 Travis rolled on the Kevdak fight is just a moment of exceptional catharsis.

“I don’t know how he healed himself.” Barbarians don’t heal themselves, they just ignore the damage.

Maturity is the key to accomplishing a lot in D&D, including romance. Maturity is required for: •Open communication about what everyone wants from the game •Knowing when to step back and give another PC the spotlight •Knowing when to stop telling jokes to engage with the drama of a scene •Accepting the consequences of in game decisions •Recognize that failure is often more interesting than success, so you can embrace the bad things that happen to your character, such as death •Flirting and romance between characters without real life discomfort or awkwardness. •Respecting the other people at the table by not constantly canceling or showing up late. •And so much more

The fight scene really shows how bardic inspiration should work. You give the fight a badass soundtrack that makes your side seem totally awesome and so they kick ass. The Bard basically invokes "rule of cool" for the whole party. I don't think Ashley is married (yet), but her boyfriend (Brian Foster) is well known to critters, as he used to host their after-show talk show, an interview show, did the introduction at live events, etcetera. He stepped back from working with the group apparently because he was uncomfortable with the contractual requirements surrounding NDA's and the like, that they were getting into as they grew. He didn't want to not be able to talk about things. Officially, Grog is in a romantic relationship with ale.

travis said during the first campaign romances was not something he want to do with his character but you can watch him absolutely adore the Percy and vex relationship

The Sword Vestige, Mythcarver, is Scanlan's, it belonged to a famous bard and responds to singing.

Ironically, romance had never been considered at the CR table before UNTIL Liam and Marisha became trailblazers. The others realized that it can be a thing. And they do trust each other.

Scanlan was the primary reason they won the original campaign. He paralyzed kevdack for like 3 rounds i think. Which allowed grog to deal massive damage.

Loved the attention to detail. Travis did use "VM, fuck shit up!" as the signal to attack. Vex did come up with the idea of poke balling Grog and dropping him on kevdak. Travis did roll a nat 20 on that last desperate attack, and they even animated the exact way he described finishing off Kevdak. Just brilliant. and now starts the more obvious Scanlan story that has been playing all along, quietly behind the scenes. oh, in the original game, there was no real romance between Scanlan and Pike. Some light flirtation, but just the same amount to the other players. Scanlan was pretty much the only unconnected character. Grog and Scanlan used to pal around and visit brothels with the ladies of negotiable affection lol.

When Kevdak pulled his own arm off I'm like, "Yeah, that dude should probably be in charge of the herd." 😄

"At dawn, WE PLAN!!!" I love Travis

Love the details, you know that it's Gilmore and Allura shielding Whitestone before they tell you, the shield is magenta with wisps of pale blue, Gilmore and Allura's magic colours. The tiny spark of lightning when Grog crushes the wooden spike, because he doesn't need gauntlets to be a thunderlord. *Chef's kiss * And then the first thing he uses the gauntlets for isn't violence, but breaking Zanror's chains. It's all the tiny little touches. I 100% agree about action sequences! They can be such a nightmare to follow! Often in animation (and live action tv/film tbh) it feels like the everything STOPS for some flashy, impossible to follow action scene that doesn't add anything to the story. But every fight in this series is crucial, and even at the peak of the action you're never left feeling like you don't know what's going on. This fight in particular was one I was looking forward to seeing, and holy shit they delivered. Titmouse animation consistently has brilliant and easy to follow fight sequences. I've admired their work for a long while, as soon as CR announced that was who they were partnering with for this show, a big concern I'd had was lifted. "Character bleed" is definitely a thing playing DnD that you have to be careful of. They all walk that "romance" line so well I think, because they all care for and trust eachother to push those boundaries without stepping over lines (...after episode 28. Lol, you're right.) It helps that they all seem to be just generally open and affectionate with eachother anyway. If you've seen them interacting on Talks Machina or in interviews, they're just cuddly affectionate nerds with their friends, it's so wholesome. The men at that table are all like, whatever the polar opposite of toxic-masculinity is. Listening is a great way to get caught up, but if you get a chance to watch some of he streams as well as listening sometimes, it's worth it. There are constant, non-verbal, in-character exchanges that just add a lot of fun and depth to the background character development. Plus they all have great reactions to stuff. ...this got way too wordy. LOOK I HAVE A LOT OF FEELS ABOUT THIS SHOW.

18:58 I think Grog is unintentionally aromantic. He is perfectly happy with his friends, his fights, and sleeping around when he feels the need. I've never gotten the impression that he feels the need for romantic companionship.

Grog getting stabbed through by the stick actually happened exactly like that in the game

This is the only show that has ever brought me to tears with a fight scene. ❤🧡💛💙💚💜

4:29 Which is very Campaign accurate lol (not for this scene in particular but in general) Pike's low stealth is legendary! Clang Clang Clang!

2:00 Percy was Talesin's 2nd character (but that was from before they started streaming), so no: Matt does not play with plot armor ;)

Pike wore plate-mail. She ALWAYS rolled low on stealth.

What makes the romance more interesting in this group is that half the table are married to each other. Laura (Vex) and Travis (Grog) are married. Matt (GM) and Marisha (Keyleth) are married. Sam and Liam are both married. Ashley is engaged(?) to the guy that hosted their old after-show talk show. But they are all so close and trusting of each other that not only does it work well, but their spouses are actively shipping their characters with other people's characters. One of the best things about watching the campaign is watching their reactions to everything. Travis is one of the biggest Critters there is. NO SPOILERS - I will say that death is always a possibility. Matt has special rules that make death more likely. Normally to resurrect someone, you just need either Revivify (if it's within 1 minute of death), or Resurrection. In either case, you just need the spell components, which is diamonds worth a certain amount. In CR, you have to roll. The difficulty is normally 10. Less than 10, the spell fails and you die. Other characters can assist - up to 3. So for example, Vax helped in the campaign to bring Vex back by persuading the Raven queen to take him instead. He rolled a persuasion (successfully I think), and that lowers the difficulty by 3. If you fail your assistance, it raises the difficulty by 1. That's one problem this show has. In the campaign, you can have a character die every episode, and it will always be tense because you see that whether or not they come back is up to the roll of the dice. But if they did that here, it would get old. Very much the problem comics have, where a character dying just means they're taking a break for a few months until they can get resurrected. So they have to be much more judicious with how they treat death. We've already seen one that was changed, and I expect they will have more that will change from an actual death to a near-death, or something else, in order to keep the tension. But getting back to the original question, yes, there can be permanent deaths, in which case, that player would roll up a new character and keep playing.

Mythcarver is a bardic weapon. The sword sings and responds to the user's voice.

-Circle of the moon druids, like Keyleth, can cast spells while wild shaped. But yeah those vines were from Vex's arrow.- EDIT nope just double checked it's any druid but only at LV 18 and up.

I watched the episode of Grog's fight from the campaign again Wednesday night. The actual fight took 3+ hours in the campaign. They did a great job bringing it to all life, capturing all the great moments.

There is actually a non-spoiler answer to whether they have backup characters. Percy is a backup character (Talisan originally had a Dragonborn Palladin I think, but this was well before the stream)

Good bye, Scanlan; welcome, Dadlan. Absurdly awesome backstory: at the table, before joining Vox Machina, Scanlan was part of a musical troupe led by Dr. Dranzel, who we met last episode and saw here. Sam Riegel made Scanlan to be a terrible character, never thinking it would be a long term thing, so he literally just made Scanlan Shorthalt a ripoff of Marshall Mathers, who was discovered by Dr. Dreams became…Eminem. On a similar line, Travis , scrambling to find a name for Grog’s dad, came up with….Stonejaw. Grog’s dad is canonically Stonejaw Strongjaw. Grog does not have a lover, merely hookups. Travis Willingham was ADAMANT, he would NEVER, EVER roleplay romance at the table. He said it on CAMERA. He’s in D&D for melee combat, and that’s it! Laura Bailey also plays D&D.

Matt and Marisha, Laura and Travis are married to each other. Sam and Liam are married and Ashley is single (we don't talk about it). Talisen's was able to keep his personnal life to himself. **Edited**

The single combat challenge, the call to Vox Machina, the medallion trick and the final blow... "At dawn we plan," "We're all cows..." all straight from the stream. (Kiki's cat form isn't so useful at this level, but the show doesn't have to care!) In its exalted form, a hit from Fenthras can be a bramble shot that potentially restrains the target; but even it's dormant state, it can... well, I guess they're skipping the whole 'kill shot causes a tree to rapidly grow from the corpse' bit. The Kaylie thing... their duet was more of a duel, Scanlan let her win at the last second. And after... without the nudity or bondage, but otherwise... yeeaah.

10:48 In the campaign he broke his legs with that fall and went to 0 hp. They did this So well!

The Grog Pokeball, maybe the episode as a whole, is one of the greatest Crit Role moments of all time!

Grog getting strong again woth the heavy rock music. Chefs kiss.

This show reflects the clarity with which Matt Mercer narrates combat in-game.

Not a spoiler - Critical Role has throughout its run has demonstrated that the cast does have backup characters. I will not say if we get to meet them in this campaign or not.

I am a Critter who has seen every single episode of CR. My new obsession is watching all the “reactors” I can find on KZfaq reacting to TLVM. I have to say, respectfully, you guys are the most attractive. Thank you 😊

Also i just found out the voice of Kaylie is Aisling Franciosi, Lyanna Stark in GoT

The moment in the campaign where Scanlan finds out Kaylie is his daughter is possibly the best dramatic moment of the whole campaign and is very emotional.

IF you are going to learn all the songs, you may want to listen the song during credits on this one. Love you guys, keep it up!

The animation of grog’s heavy breathing/pump up right between raging and attacking is one of my favorite little moments of the show

The entangling arrow Vex nailed Kevdak with is one of the manifestations of her Vestige.

So about the romance thing...Travis (Grog) and Laura (Vex) are married. Travis was the biggest shipper of Percy and Vex lol

honestly. i love your theories on the vestiges. i wont spoil anything but i will remind you that Mythcarver is a bard specific vestige and not a "holy" sword per say. it was given to Scanlan specifically before Umbracyl stole it. you will have to wait till next season (or till when you catch up on them in the original campaign) to find out what the other vestiges are. (they are dope. that's all i'll say)

This isn't a spoiler, but don't watch Episode 27 of the stream if you are having a bad day. You will be having a worse day.

As I'm sure others have mentioned, but the algorithm gods demand something, Sam had not mentioned that he had a daughter in his backstory. This was one of Matt's mad genius moments surprising his players and enriching their game play. It's inspired me to be a better DM and truly serve my players, which, in turn, gets them more invested in the story, which makes for a better story and a more fun game. A virtuous cycle. And, I'm enjoying y'all very much. Thanks.

They've been changing the effects of the Vestiges, so, I honestly don't even know if you need to worry about spoiling what they are for yourself. Like, the Deathwalker's Ward was mostly passive effects like bonus AC and the speed effect was from a pair of boots, but they folded that into the armor. Mythcarver didn't have the scrying effect it does in the show, at all. The Titanstone Knuckles didn't have the lightning effect they seem to have in the show either. So, yeah, they're different enough that I think you could Google their abilities and still be surprised when they make it into the show.

Scanlan and Kaylie's song is stuck in my head all day.

as promised, a pure treat. I CRIED/LAUGHED FOR THE WHOLE DAMN EPISODE MAN! this episode takes my personal for favourite, mostly because 2 of my favourite moments are in it (grogs kill on kevdak and the scanlan is a dad reveal).

Ii like your optimism that Critical role live streams are only three hours. I think the longest is 7 hours. Good luck catching up! I can't imagine trying to start now after all these years. But its totally worth it

Like Rhodey said to Tony Stark, the killbox is where you go to die. "FOR... STRONGJAAAAAAW!!!"

No spoilers, but yes the cast usually has 1 or 2 back-up character ideas to pull from if needed. So, theoretically, if any character were to die and fail to be ressurected the player would show up again at some point with their new character. Has it happened? I guess you'll just have to see for yourselves.

Re: romance in D&D campaigns. Muahahaha, I can't wait until y'all have a chance to experience Campaign 2. **wicked grin**

In the actual game Travis had multiclassed into monk. That's why his change in fighting style. Also everyone died when Travis actually said at dawn we plan everyone lost it.

Grog was at 1 hp secods before Vex put him inside the pokeball, he rolled a nat 20 to kill Kevdak, he dropped to 0 because of falling dmg

New rare Clarus just dropped. Goth!Clarus.

VOX MACHINA: FUCK SHIT UP! Best Battlecry EVER!

Amazing reaction, and I don't know whether you've already done it, but Invincible on Amazon Prime would be quite a good show to watch and react to

At least in third edition D&D there was a druid feat called "Natural Spell"' that allowed you to cast while you were Wildshaped.

Vex's entangling arrow I'm pretty sure is called Bramble Shot, it's an ability of the Fenthras bow.

Excellent episode. Although knowing what was coming I had to skip over a little bit of the Kaylie & Scanlan interaction at the end because it turns out when you already know, the uncomfy is dialled up to 111. I love the line 'Vox Machina, fuck shit up!' but honestly the line I was waiting for all episode was 'At dawn, we plan!'

**edit for potential spoiler warning, but I'm not revealing very much** There are more than 7 vestiges, and not all of them are claimed by Vox Machina. But they might find more than one for each of them. I think some of the Vestiges hinted at in the sphinx episodes are Easter eggs for vestiges found in other campaigns by other parties.

This episode goes so hard, one of my favourite of the whole show. The metal song slaps

Such an amazing fight scene. Next to skinny Grog, Kevdak is like a Dark Souls boss.

The animation in this episode was superb and the lyrics of the song (the full version is in the end credits) felt spot on for a bawdy tavern song worthy of Terry Pratchett's Nanny Ogg.

Love watching the two of you react to this show. Feels like watching my favorite show with a couple of best friends.

19:36 Scanlan: “Am I a joke to you?” 😂

Pro tip for catching up on crit role - I listen on 1.25 mostly (and 1.5 on fights/when I'm feeling it) and its still nice!!! C1 might have more crosstalk, I can't remember, but it helps me somewhat keep up. I think for romance, it helps more that they know each other and have been friends so long. Even actors get those lines twisted pretty frequently XD

This episode is a clear example of why titmouse is one of the best animation studios on the planet. No one does brutal better.

Maybe the person who gets the sword is the one who it was given to in episode 6. Since the sword is called Mythcarver, connected to all myths and Scanlan is a Bard.

At Higher Levels Barbarians can not give into death, each time they go down below 1hp they have to make a con Save with higher difficulty each time to stay up and fight.

No spoilers about whether or not any characters have permanently died on Critical Role, but [mild, vague spoilers]… … … Yes, there have been multiple backup characters over the span of all the campaigns, for varying reasons.

well.... I think it is not that hard to do. as long as you respect each other and realise this is a game. we had a romance (one I was actually in) at our group and there was absolutely no issue what so ever. it just made sense for the characters. it was a perfect storm of chance and opportunity. the characters got retired married and expecting. nothing I, or the other player, ever set our goals out to do. not the end we envisioned they'd have but well.. it just happened. it made it seem so easy

10:12 POETIC JUSTICE!!!

Romance was also very awkward on stream the first time it came up. Hilarious moment when you get there.

Kevdak would've stuck around...but he had to split.

iirc once a Druid hits either level 14 or 18 they can cast spells during wildshape as long as there is no cost component.

Death is always a possibility in these games. I believe most of the cast have several backup characters atleast partly thought out as a concept just in case and I think sometimes they end up using them in a future campaign as their character.

No spoilers but yes Matt likes them to have backup characters now they’re on stream especially mostly as a time saver but personally I think it’s also so he can create natural openings to introduce the new character like how it wouldn’t make sense to meet a druid in a tinkering academy but just outside it is a farming community that uses the machines the tinkerers make so it makes more sense for a druid to be there.

No spoilers, but Percys Vestage is so bad ass, when he gets it and well earned.

Hands down, one of the best moments in season 1, in game and animated

Gnomes live 350 years on average... Scanlan does look young, right..?

At dawn we plan!

Scanlen really went to have some Sweet Home Alabama at the end LOL

Grog has a long standing relationship with his cask of ale. Travis doesn't like romance RP and his wife Laura made it her mission in the next campaign to romance him.

I’m genuinely disappointed we didn’t get a magical anime girl transformation sequence when Grog got his muscles back…. Missed opportunity! Also I could happily watch an entire show of Grog and Pike’s adventures. Kinda goes without saying the voice acting is phenomenal but the sight of a three foot gnome cleric just going ham on everything will never, ever get old.

Cant wait till you get to the kevdak fight in the stream!! it was bloody intense!

At 2:02, yes, and I wouldn't dream of spoiling that for you.

08:54 Amen, sister!

14:54 even more impressive since it pretty much followed the DnD gameplay to a T! 20:28 It took me 6 months, granted, I did nothing but and it was 3 years ago. I do highly recommend the journey though, CR is great.

The Lion King reference by Clarus 😂

For all 3 campaign and the one shots, it's only 1400+ hrs of content to watch.

I think this episode is my favorite of the series so far. truly incredible.

Love this episode. Probably my favorite of the season... maybe even favorite of the series so far.

Grog wants to learn

Healing CAN'T reattach lost "limbs", they do have other spell to regrow a lost limb, but a standard healing spell won't work.

Ashley ALWAYS rolled low on her stealth.. the full plate armour also didn't help of course... Also, could you give any more "not a joke" vibes here? 16:48 I don't think so, lol

Lol I believe in you with catching up! I think I managed to get through Mighty Nein in like half a year - now I just gotta work my way through everything else. It's so much content. Great reaction, glad I'm not the only one who got uncomfortable at the last scene, I was cringing so bad because I already knew who Keiley was from the campaign xD Also it can be a lot of fun to have romantic relationships in DnD, but for sure gotta be between close friends who you trust and communicate well with. I think Travis for a long time didn't really care for romancing in it, just not his main focus when playing

Vax'ildan is the deadliest assassin in the world.

They’ve made changes (a few up to this point) cuz they had to but they’ve absolutely knocked the adaptation part out of the park. I’m really scared they won’t find it as easy for the transition from table to screen for the Mighty Nein.

Oh the backup characters comment is gonna hurt later, so much hurt. Death is a real thing at the Mercer table and he has no issues with it happening. Regarding the romance at the table it was Vax & Keyleth starting it and everything else followed. There are no two married couples at the table with Matt & Marisha who got engaged and married while the game was going on, Travis and Laura are married as well. Sam and Liam are married with kids, almost every kid in the series has been voiced by one of their own kids.

Honestly I’d recommend getting into campaign 2: the Mighty Nein. It’s relatively spoiler free due to it having a different setting. The only downside being that Amazon is also adapting it

Some of them thought up concepts for a back up character, but you'll have to watch yourself to see whether anyone ever used one for the campaign

Must feed the algorithm.

still waiting for the covers of the vox machina songs LOL