"This pirate girl born of orcs isn't the spawn of Jester and Fjord" well...she is now lol in everyone of my tables.

As someone currently playing a Triton Cleric of Umberlee, I appreciate this book adding a water level

Giving a rival an identical twin can be fun. Especially if the party never see them together. One of the best enemies I’ve ever encountered was revealed late campaign to be a set of twins using arcane communications to ensure that one of them was always near us, ready to strike at any opportunity. 🤠👍

I think that all of the world lore this book provides early on is one of its greatest strengths! I really like being able to give PCs different pieces of information about various locations, NPCs, or organizations, as it makes each player feel useful to the party at different times!

Ok I get being annoyed about the lack of Fjorester but there’s a reason why they didn’t do it. Timelines! Call of the netherdeep happens like a year after campaign 2, and that’s intentional. Matt didn’t want to get too far ahead in the timeline of Exandria because otherwise events that happen in cannon for his campaigns and the events that happen in cannon for the books might contradict which can be a problem.

@Davvy Chappy It's impressive how much useful information you cram into these short video's. Other D&D tubers would take 30 minutes to review this book, but you managed to get everything a consumer would need to make an educated purchase in 6 minutes. Thanks.

The day Davvy give something a 5 out of 10, the universe will fold in on its self

"Everyone's losing their mind about the new adventure" coincidentally, there's been almost no talk about it on reddit

"Right up to the pussy joke..." Implying you made it through the hour and a half of "who pissed on my spear?" in episode 1 of Exandria Unlimited?

As someone who loves CR and is choosing this to run as my first campaign EVER, I am really enjoying it. The world feels fleshed out and solid and the NPCs are TOP NOTCH. I really feel like they have their own personality and I can make them bounce off my players well.

Ah, the review I've been waiting for. Every review you do on books is so helpful and the perfect amount of time. Thank you!

A part of me is seriously considering running this book, albeit with the suggested 1-3 level adventure from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount to allow it as an easier entry point for any potential new players. I have a lot of Exandria on my mind lately after the Amazon show, and have Explorer's Guide and the Tal'Dorei setting books as well... but at the same time I have to be honest I have not finished a single episode of the actual Critical Role show. The whole live play format just doesn't hook me in it seems. So I am somewhat worried if I ran the game some hardcore Critter would end up at my table and start correcting me for messing up the lore or something like that. BUT, it is appealing to have a well received 5E adventure, in a pretty established world that isn't 1) Curse of Strahd since everyone and their cat is familiar with that adventure now and 2) not set in the freaking Forgotten Realms!

Just make all the rivals twins regardless of how many there are. And then make the party think that there's only one

4:22 well, if they were born of Fjord and Jester, then the book would have to take place about what, 20 years after M9? I feel that the book isn't that far ahead. As Wildemount takes place around ep 26 of M9, if this person was the offspring of Fjord and Jester, then they would be 8 years old due to campaign 3.

I think it's a good book. Dermot is my favorite rival.

I actually have this book and I really like it. I think the only change I am going to make while running it is that at the end of the Bazzoxan chapter, instead of giving the players free teleportation circles to Ank'Harel, I am going to make things a little less linear by forcing them to make the continent-and-ocean spanning journey themselves. If they level up during that journey I'll just add some more hit points to whatever monsters they run into afterwards.

Alright, you’ve intrigued me. Curious to see whether the adventure lives up to the premise.

It's funny to hear Davvy tapped out from the Pussy joke, I had a similar thing with ExU. I was really keen for an Iyengar game but that first episode is so unrelentingly full of jokes about piss and shit and puke from the party that I haven't gone back to continue it.

4:19 you’ve echoed my thoughts on this matter perfectly Davvy

I was looking forward to your review/opinion on the book! I am a huge fan of critical role and I was hoping this adventure would be something I could run for my group as a new(er) dm (I only have experience with one shots so far. I sprinkled them in between the sessions of our current campaign run by someone else).

Davvy, that half-orc water genassi could very well be a _time displaced_ daughter of Jester and Fjord, exandria does have chronomantic magics after all. also maybe she has tiny horns under er hair

Wet bros sounds so fun! Hope you enjoy. Thanks for the nice and ez review.

Sandbox cities? Developed and supported NPCs? Sign me up, y'all!

Seems like this is the better CR inspired book with WotC backing. Easy to run, fun rival system and few other interesting features that could be used in other campaigns. Glad to see a module focus on uncommon lineages instead of typical humans. Be a goblin or an orc or bugbear

Thank you for pointing out that she looks like Jester and Fjords daughter!!!

This is dope, absolutely willing to check this shit out

Awesome content as always, Chappy, stay amazing. Buuuuuuut you tapped out of C3 just from Sam being Sam? Unsure if that was a joke or a serious comment. You do you, man, but C3 has been a treat. Admittedly I am only 60 eps into C1 and haven't started C2 of Crit Role because good grief that is a 4 hour movie for every episode and there are 120ish for each campaign. But if you've got the time and want to enjoy more peak Matt Mercer, C3 is a helluva good time. Ashley Johnson is living her best life as Fearne, would be a shame to miss that.

4:28 now I am going to have this in my mind all day

" I'm not mad, I just want to put something in your eye" Touche, good sir. You've won a fan for life

I’m running this on Saturday. First time I’ve DMed in 2 years

Already having EGtW and Tal’dorei Reborn, I will be getting this soon.

The name "Rivals Incorporated LLC" got a good chuckle out of me. Can I use that name in my game?

I’ve never been intrested in the critical role books. But with water levels and other stuff this seems gem intresting

I got mine over the week and plan to sift thru it today

If you can and want to, would you do a review of Dungeons of Drakkenheim when it comes out in April?

I'm gonna delve into some spoilery stuff, so don't read ahead if you want a pretty blind experience. (there's a lot, I love sharing my stories that I've experienced) but, Call of the Netherdeep was the 2nd ever campaign I played with my DM and as this review says, it's great because its linear enough but not so linear where there isn't wiggle room for other stuff. for example, we encountered the rivals and while a bit stand off ish due to different character reasons, we warmed up to them and welcomed them in as friends. then there was a pretty significant turning point, we'd been slowly unraveling the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream as we were going along our adventure with the Jewel of 3 prayers, upon arriving at the 2nd blessing sight in this crystalized pit, our rivals turned up having followed us, tagging along with them was one of the associates of the consortium we stood up after realizing their affiliation. what came next was a battle for the jewel while we did our absolute best to try and snap them out of this and make them realize that doing all this for a pouch of gold makes them no better than mercenaries or bandits. half the rival party agreed, Ayo and her friend Maggie, not so much. up until this point, a PC side plot about our dragon born having a past with a demon finally came full swing and the battle was put on hold so we could try to incap our friend and subdue the demon that had possessed them during the fight, but unfortunately it was too late. one of Ayo's party members was murdered horrifically in such a way their cleric couldn't even help. this one incident caused so many issues but in all the right ways. the rivals disbanded, maggie left and we never saw her again, Ayo broke, she went from being this pretty confident rival ranger to rival myself and she lost her composure, she froze and fled, while Dermot (cleric) and Galsariad (wizard) stayed with us to try and help our dragonborn, understanding it was well out of our control and just wanting to do the right thing despite the dread of losing a friend. while they didn't join us, they were no longer rivals, the party had all but officially disbanded, Dermot and Galsariad just wanting to travel and help people where they could like they originally planned. we got our dragonborn and Irvin (human, I believe he was a rogue, young guy, died too soon) out of the place we were in and we gave Irvin a proper burial before continuing our journey. we occasionally ran into D and G here and there, but we didn't run into Ayo again until we reached Ank'Harel where we came to discover that she had joined with the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream, our party was pissed, we planned to straight up kill her if given the chance, but we had more pressing matters at hands, we had to stop the consortium from getting their hands on more Ruidium. after scoping out the town a little, causing trouble for the Consortium, we found their base of operations which was a tavern. by this point we had cleaned our dragonborn of their possession but they didn't know that and we used it as a bargaining chip to sit down and talk with some form of immunity, we dubbed it "Scary Dog Privilege" because no one is going to mess with someone who has a big scary dragonborn that swallows heads. we made a deal, we help them enter Cael Morrow if they give up their new agent Ayo. they were reluctant at first, but they agreed. told us to come back tomorrow and we can have her. so we gave them what they needed to enter into Cael Morrow and returned the following morning. turns out they'd beaten Ayo within an inch of her life so we could get an easy kill when we arrived but upon seeing her and her offering up a genuine apology (thank you high insight) that she wanted to share before we killed her, we dispatched everyone else and took care of her, she understood the error of her ways, she accepted she wasn't anything close to the hero she wanted to be and for that, we saved her, wanted to give her a fighting chance and a chance to find her friends and correct herself back on the path she seemingly lost herself on. honestly, all of it was pretty great, ended up taking over that Tavern and had my character retire once the deed had been signed over to him after we toppled the consortium. all of that came from just that small decision to include rivals and I genuinely think, apart from actual multiple endings aside, the rivals were one of the best additions for this campaign. I remember it all so fondly.

You mention the Wildemount book, but wouldn't the Taldorei Reborn book also work even though its not official 5e content?

i agree with your review of it being a good book to get and dm. I would put it up there with being on par with rhime of the frostmaiden. Also C3 has been good, like that sam joke wasnt a peak by any margin as like the rest of the episodes had like crazy reveals, like this week. its a shame to hear it turned you off cr.

Soooo can I be any type of yuan ti now? Or am I just stuck with ashy scaled legs and a forked tounge?

Love the quick plug of Leeroy and Leeroy. But we didn't get a number review so this video gets a 4/10 😆

Thanks

Without running thus adventure, and only scimming trought it my prediction is: It will be one of the actually good dnd adventures. Most official adventures are not good as written, partly because they are written by multiple people who all have good ideas, but they all disconnected and the result ends up to be a badly connected mess, what fails to flesh out the core team, because it has like 8 different idea of what that should be, (yes, I'm looking at you Descend into Avernus).

Thank you David Chapel

Hey, one thing I noticed is that you've not made any videos about other systems lately. If you still enjoy that type of content can I suggest Dungeon World? It's a PbtA game that captures the roleplay first mentality 5e was half trying to capture, and the old school feel of 1E, without making every session feel like calculus homework.

Other reviews I've seen say that Netherdeep and Avernus have a similar structure, and I know that you didn't think much of Avernus' method of connecting things. Do you feel a similar problem here?

I actually also thought that the water genasi girl could be daughter of Fjord and Jester, so disappointed sh isn't... you know what, maybe I will make her that way when I plan to run this adventure. :D

I just joined a Call of the Netherdeep campaign and my character is going to be a Tabaxi Way of the Ascendant Dragon Monk.

Ayo Jabe baited us.

Davvy going book-reading fast.

A Leroy and Leroy reference!

4:20 I just want to put something in your eye

Crits fanbase gets it a bad wrap. Book is good for new DMS. But you can make it far more complicated

where are you i miss you

You can play Critical Roll in DND that's new

If you had to rate it, would it be... 4 out of 10?

cool

Our group has 7 ppl and only 5 rivals it feels odd

4:21 I mean... I could be wrong, but wouldn't she have to be a Tiefling if that was the case, since tieflings breed true? Yes, Jester inherited her skin color and a few other things from her water genasi father, but "so a tiefling and a half-orc had a water genasi daughter because she took after her grandpa I guess" sounds incredibly random.

A strong 4 out of 10.

Hmm...guessing yes? (pre-viewing supposition).

Screw Ruidium. Take a pressure capsule from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Lol.

And as always, the final score is 4/10

The total lack of irony makes this video pretty funny though.

I get this video 4 out of 10

You should give C3 another chance, the pussy joke was weird but these characters grow on you so fast.

Since Davvy didn't say it, I will... 4/10

Rated 4/10?

Wonder if any reviews out there that are not fans of critical roll.

So what you're saying is: 4/10?

You didn't give it a 4/10?????????? 👀👀👀 Who are you? And what did you do to Davvy? 👀👀👀

Haven't started the vid yet, but if you give it anything other than "4 out of 10" i will be extremely disappointed.

Epic sweeping stories isn't a grognard thing though... just dungeon crawling for gold.

But I think what we all want to know is: is it still a 4/10 book?

Idk seems like a 4 out of 10 to me

I'm sorry. There is a "best" and "worst" ending and yet none of the endings is better than the others? 😁

I think the netherdeep is personally fine but as far as pure writing for a adventure it is moderate.

So, 4/10, right Davvy?

so 4/10?

Where's the 4/10 rating!!!?

Have not watched the video yet, but I'm guessing 4/10

it was good; 4/10

4/10 Now go back to bed.

So....4/10?

I bounced off season 3 at the exact sane point

Some dude spamming your commenters pretending to be you.

So … 4/10 then?

Furst

4/10

Meh 4/10

Before watching the video, I just want to give a quick comment about the first 15 seconds: Matt Mercer writing Netherdeep was more of a red flag to me than anything honestly. He runs games very differently than Wizards of the Coast expects people to, and if he was working with Wizards on this book it suggested that they might clash to try and get a little of both styles, only to end up with all the bad and none of the good.

So, 4/10, eh?

Sorry Davvy, they have "best, worst and natural" endings, but none of them are considered "better" than others? Wut?

Just played this campaign - it's 100% garbage. It's literally just one big fetch quest with a bull-shit end dungeon. This is the worst prewritten campaign I've ever played.

Short answer... No

"Right until the pussy joke, then I realized it had peaked" lol I am not enjoying C3 as much as C2 either, have skipped several episodes. So I get the feel.

I have no idea why writers want to build crap underwater. There's a reason it's never done: the look and feel is pretty dumb. Hopefully it doesn't take up much of the story.

After the Kickstarter debacle, I couldn't give two shits about Critical Role, because they obviously don't give a shit about us. But I'll help Davvy with the algorithm. Here you go.

Don't say anything mildly spicy in anyway or davvy is going to take it personally and prolly call you a biggot or infer you are sexist in his next video.

4/10