Just a fun fact because I can see the naruto merch: the voice actor playing Vax also voiced Gaara in the english dub.

if you watch closely you'll notice Vex's Ranger sense goes off whenever Krieg is looking at her.

As others have stated, the use of 3D animation improves a lot, especially in season 2. No spoilers, but a very nice little detail is that they started using it specifically to show that creatures are vastly more powerful than our mortal protagonists. Not just dragons, but anything ancient and powerful is in rendered in 3D to differentiate then from regular characters.

If you liked the first two episodes, you're golden for the rest of the show. Percy invented guns in this universe -- he's the only person on the planet with a working gun. Tusk Love is an Easter Egg -- it's a softcore porn book they kept passing around during the 2nd campaign, The Mighty Nein (we'll be seeing their adventures in a year or two!). They made out pretty well from the dragon's loot -- you can see them loading armfuls of gold into their Bag of Holding before they realize it's a hoard. "I would like to rage!" is how Travis (Grog's player/actor) would announce his battle rage ability during the original game. I figured they just included it just this one time as fan service, but they've kept it going in this show as Grog's mantra/psyche-up. At the risk of a spoiler, in the 2nd season, they did 2D animation on top of the 3D animation to blend it better; it's less jarring. I'm told the 2D version of the dragon didn't look intimidating.

There's a nifty little play on words in this episode. _Gorge_ is, in modern verbiage, usually understood to be roughly synonymous with _canyon._ So we're lead to believe that "The gorge where the twin rivers meet" is a geographical location. _Gorge,_ however, is also a slightly archaic word for _throat._

And the fact that Krieg is voiced by David Tennant!❤

Yeah, the 3D animation for the dragon was a bugetary decision. Big ass dragons that have a million lines, move quickly and in weird ways and have to talk and emote are not the easiest or cheapest to animate.

They talked about the decision to 3d the dragon they tried it in 2d and said they could not get the dragon to look right. So they went with 3d on the dragon. Fun fact: The dragon { and the general} was voiced by the 10th Doctor, David Tennant.

Now that the intros are out of the way, the story really picks up. The 3d vs 2d thing is purely bc of time and budget reasons, and the blend between the 2 is vastly improved in the second season.

3:02 There are several classes that can use guns, but the one that uses it as a primary weapon is called a Gunslinger. They can use hand cannons (like Percy), short rifles, long rifles, and have a bonus modifier when using crossbows in a pinch. The two DnD 5e classes that can use guns as their projectile weapons, at least in DnD 5e canon, are Rogues (Vax'ildan) and fighters (not shown in VM). Rangers (Vex'ahlia) can also use them in a pinch, but don't have any modifiers for their rolls. Also, in case you were wondering the official classes of each character (VA in brackets): -Grog Strongjaw (Travis Willingham) = Half-Giant, aka Goliath, Barbarian with almost all his points in strength and constitution, so much so that he actually has a -2 modifier on his intelligence throws by the end of Campaign 1. Basically, he's dumb as a brick but, as shown in one of the live shows done at a con in front a crowd, he can deal well over 150 points of damage in one attack -Vax'ildan Vessar (Liam O'Brian) = Half-Elf Rogue specializing in dagger skills, and wielding a pair of daggers that he picked up really early in Campaign 1, before they made it into a live streaming show, that have a recall ability, which is why he can summon them back to his hands -Vex'halia Vessar (Laura Bailey) = Half-Elf Ranger that has studied dragons extensively. Also fairly aloof and flirtatious, but when shit gets real, she is completely badass -Pike Trickfoot (Ashley Johnson) = Gnome War Cleric of the Everlight. Basically, healing and shielding magics as well as proficiency in maces and shields. Also is Grog's best friend and most of the time his conscience as well. -Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowksi de Rolo III, aka Percy (Taliesin Jaffe) - Human Gunslinger that invented the Pepperbox hand cannon and uses it almost exclusively in season 1 -Keyleth of the Air Ashari (Marisha Ray) = Elf Druid taking part in her Aramente, which is a quest not unlike the one undertaken in The Last Airbender, where she needs to master all four elements to become an Archdruid and leader of the Air Plane Ashari. She is also adorably naive at times, but as is demonstrated a few times even by this episode, she is extremely powerful when she needs to be -Scanlan Shorthalt (Sam Riegel) = Gnome Bard and bisexual nymphomaniac. They actually severely reduced his powers in the cartoon, as he is a ridiculously strong support in the actual campaign that pulls Vox Machina's ass out of the fire on more than one occasion. -Trinket (Matt Mercer) = Adorably cute armored bear that was raised by Vex

This show came about when Critical Role started a kick-starter campaign, so their (fan-funded) animations are a mix in quality due to a limited budget. Now that they got Amazon on board, their budget is a tad bit higher. Just wait until you see season two.

In DnD, dragons of different colours have different abilities and breathe different things. Blue dragons breathe lightning.

Vax - Rogue, boy (think Adam); Liam O'Brien Vex - Ranger, girl (think Eve); Laura Bailey Grog - Barbarian; Travis Willingham Percy - Fighter, Gunslinger; Taliesin Jaffe (pronounced Ta-li-sin Ja-fee) Keyleth (pronounced Key-leth) - Druid; Marisha Ray Pike - Cleric; Ashley Johnson Scanlan - Bard; Sam Riegel (pronounced Ree-gul)

5:03 the book is reference is Critical Role Campaign 2

The Dragons are so rare and powerful and other worldly that they did they change in animation to show how powerful and different dragons and maybe other ancient beings/monsters are .

To be fair, where "the two rivers meet" is the throat, and most, if not all creatures will die if stabbed in the throat.

2:53 - *“I'd probably be with a gun, if I was in this universe. I'd be a gun class, whatever you call it.”* Normally, _D&D_ does not have any guns. There are no rules for it, and the official _D&D_ worlds do not contain such weapons. But when these guys were still playing privately at home, they were using the _Pathfinder_ game system, which does have guns and a Gunslinger class. When they started streaming publicly, they converted their game to _D&D_ 5th edition rules, and Matt created a homebrew "Gunslinger" subclass for the Fighter class. As you found out later in the season, in this setting, Percy invented the gun himself (with help from a certain someone). While black powder and cannons do exist already, Percy's "Pepperbox" is the only handgun in existence… so far. Another holdover from their _Pathfinder_ days is Pike's goddess, Sarenrae the Everlight. She's not from the _D&D_ rules, but from _Pathfinder._ For reasons of copyright, the show never uses any official names (or other positively identifiable traits) from _D&D_ or _Pathfinder_ - they did _not_ want to entangle their 100% creator-owned IP with any licensed properties, owned by huge, soulless corporations, and they were very smart to do so. Corporations have the nasty habit of unilaterally revoking licenses or altering terms, whenever they think they can squeeze more money out of someone, by holding their projects hostage. _Wizards of the Coast_ certainly showed their true colours earlier this year, when they attempted to replace the Open Game License with a version that basically said, "All those projects you made, that are _D&D_ related in some way? Yeah, those are _ours_ now, and we can repackage, use, and sell them however we like, without crediting you or paying you a single cent. Oh, and if you make enough money from your work - let's say, purely for the sake of argument, chosen _completely_ at random, exactly as much money as _Critical Role_ makes - then you owe us a massive percentage of it. Of the gross income, obviously, not the net." 11:55 - _"♪Scanlan's Hand!♪"_ Case in point: The _D&D_ spell "Bigby's Hand" that creates a huge purple hand is copyrighted, of course - But "Scanlan's Hand" is a _completely original_ creation that doesn't require anybody's permission. 😉 14:49 - *“Okay. He's strong!” - “Yeah.” - “Ohoho!* In soviet Exandria, Vampire kills _you_ with wooden stake!

I love this show. Comedy and violent action meshed well together. If you like those themes, Harley Quinn Animated Series is just as good, IMHO.

Guns at the time were not offically part of DnD so they came up with a homebrew class for Talesin's character Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the third, or Percy for short =) I think they made it a subclass of fighter/warrior class? with elements of the Artificer because he is the designer and maker of the gun, at this point in the timeline of Matt's world, his guns are the only guns in the world, he is the inventor of them. I love that he went with a pepperbox, its an early multi-barreled gun thats the predecessor of the revolver, the whole barrel spun instead of just the gun chamber. Basically he would roll for attack like normal but also have to roll to see if the gun jammed, if it did he would have to spend a round un-jaming it. and if he rolled bad enough on the jam roll it would actually misfire and he would have to fix it before using it again. Or was it jamming to many times in a row... or both, dont remember but you get the point. He also had grit points he could use for trick shots too, like dazing or adding advantage to the to hit roll, or damage bonus or whatever, but only 1 trick shot per attack

There`s a journey ahead of you. The main arc starts next episode :DD

Glad ya'll are having so much fun with this show. I really enjoyed it. Definitely subscribing

Loved the reaction. So glad more people are watching this! Can't wait for the next one.

You may notice there is no true mage in the party and that may notice that for a party this big not having one seems odd. And that's because originally there was an 8th member, a sorcerer. Unfortunately for him, he was completely written out of the entire thing. Because of his own actions.

importent differecion is that he is not a human shapeshifter he would not turn back to a human its just that mighty dragons of some colors can turn into human shapes like a trickery

16:50 3d animation improves x10 cos having much bigger budget in season 2

Traditionally, Bards were considered a joke class in previous editions of DnD, but in 5e (the current edition) Bards are one of the strongest and most versitile classes in the game. Second only to Clerics, imo. You can have a party made exclusively of Bards and get your Tank, Heals, Rogue-like, and DPS... all with the Bard sub-classes. OP in 5e.

So they had originally planned to only do two short episodes as a treat for critters to show their world in animation. Being voice actors and all and working in animation etc so they had a go fund me or something like that I can't remember and basically were able to put this together then amazon offered up help gsve them the go ahead for 2 or 3 seasons and they've announced animated series with they 2nd campaign they finished (currently on their third rn) I'm sure calamity will get animated eventually as well so there's gonna be a lot of cool back story and content tying all these worlds together and content. Each campaign takes place a certain time after another its set in the same world so vox machina are living legends in the third campaign there is a lot of cool stuff this rabbit whole will bring. Glad yall are back hope maybe one day yall check put their campaigns. Probably on your own just sorry for shitty punctuation haha

Great reaction! Totally understand on why you feel like mixing 2d and 3d is a bad idea, I would generally agree because style consistency is really important for animation. This show only gets better from here of course though (especially the writing, as someone who is very involved with writing in media I would say these first two episodes are probably more streamlined in that aspect to appeal to a wider audience).

So a little DnD knowlegde for you guys blue dragons (as in this episode) breath lighting red one(fire) green (poison) black (acid) and whites (ice)

not really a spoiler but Tusk Love was a nod to campaign 2 its just a running inside joke

mixing 3D into a 2D show might be a little jarring but when you have to hand animate large, complicated characters it's very expensive to have it be 2D. so this was probably a budget thing. 3D modeling is a lot cheaper and it can be replicated much faster than 2D characters.

Hope you two are having an great and awesome day ❤

the 2d and 3d gets a lot better in the 2nd season.

I'm here for it. Hopefully with some time other Critters will find your channel and subscribe.

I’m sure this has been shared on one of the new videos, but I’m just catching up to your viewing. No knowledge of Critical Role is needed to enjoy the show, they just included some Easter Eggs for the fans of their Live Play. Tusk Love and the Troll d*ck are two examples.

Buckle up, next episode is where shit starts to get real

I had someone tell me a good way to remember Vex and Vax, just remember Adam and Eve, Vax is the boy and Vex is the girl... for so Critical Role started because Liam hadn't played dnd for awhile so Matt decided to DM a game for Liam's birthday, Laura and Liam's real birthdays are on the same day so they decided to make their character twins. Sam Regal, Scanlan, had never played before and him and Liam were good friends and he knew Liam had played before. And since the game was supposed to be a one off, Sam asked what's the worst class to play, and Liam said a bard, and Sam asked whats the worst race to play, and Liam said a gnome, so Sam looked up a name on some fantasy name generator and rolled a gnome bard lol.... and thus Scanlan Shorthalt was born.... and the name is so perfect because Scanlan is so scandalous =)

Igual a Kratos!!!

No more naruto?

Have you forgotten about Naruto