Awesome / Critical Role: One-Shots

Occasionally the usual Critical Role episode can't happen - maybe Matt is unwell, or some of the players are at a con, or perhaps they all just went to Burning Man. On these ocassions the usual episode may be replaced with a one-shot special episode. Sometimes these are set in the usual Critical Role setting of Tal'Dorei, sometimes they are something completely different. Whatever they are, they're always awesome.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Critical Rejects, part 2

• Matt's excellent improv in the face of the session's gimmick got a well-deserved round of applause when it was all said and done.
• Ulfgar not only gets the only natural 20 of his team in both parts, he also gets the finishing blow against the abomination with his newly learned Chromatic Orb.
• "Money" Sam is facing a Pit Fiend, an enemy far beyond his (and the whole party's) reach, that's following him due to a bad draw from the Deck of Many Things. Without blinking, he decides to give it one last shot and draw another card. His draw grants him a wish, which he promptly uses to make the Pit Fiend harmless, resuscitate one of his comrades and the one they came to save, and get thousands of gold coins. Admittedly, he was very lucky, but it still was quite a moment.
• Marisha totally blindsides Orion at the end of the episode upon revealing that her character Edna was the old woman that Tiberius brutally killed during the battle with the Broker.

Battle Royale I

• Pre-battle, a tale from real life during the Q&A: Taliesin once nearly missed his flight because he tried to get a model of the Pepperbox, gifted by a fan at a convention, through airport security. Then, when more TSA agents show up, one of them turned out to be a Critter. Taliesin was promptly let onto the plane, model and all.
  TSA Agent: Of course it's Percy.
• Grog tanking through everything the others have to throw at him.
• Kashaw winning the Battle Royale, getting the killing blow on Grog in melee combat, no less.

The Goblins: A Pathfinder One-Shot

• The goblins manage to systematically slaughter the iconic Pathfinder characters, in increasingly horrific ways.
  • In particular, after seeing the others slaughtered, Ezren realises he's on the receiving end of a how do you want to do this:
  Matt: For the first time in his existence, becoming a religious man...
  • Before that, we have Taliesin pulling off a rare double HDYWTDT, decapitating the cleric and impaling the bard in a single round. Mind you, the weapon he used to do these things? A quarterstaff.
  Taliesin: Wood should not cleave!

Battle Royale II

• Vax deserves a solid round of applause for managing to last as long as he did. Despite his typically low rogue hitpoints, he manages to outlast Percy of all people.
  • His constant daggers from the shadows coupled with all of the benefits he gets as a rogue, allows him to deal quite a bit of damage, before Keyleth and Pike eliminate him by turning the match into a game of whack-a-mole.
• Pike in her Evil persona. Since Pike no longer has to worry about canon in-game repercussions for using the nastier side of her divine magic, she essentially has a free pass to use every Dangerous Forbidden Technique at her disposal on the rest of the party.
  • Finishing off Keyleth by successfully shoving her into a stream of lava and pushing her face down into it was a chilling and brutal but still epic finish to the battle. Especially since Pike only had a few hit points left and would likely have died on the following round.

Liam's Quest

• Liam takes on the intimidating task of filling in for Matt as DM while Matt is absent for the week, and he kills it. He manages to craft an awesome fourth-wall-shattering apocalyptic one-shot that blends bizarre humour and very imaginative Cthulhu-esque horror. Some of his descriptions, particularly the one of Liam himself getting torn in half, are vivid enough to rival Mercer's, and the players (and the audience!) clearly have a blast.
• Taliesin slapping Conan O'Brien to death with Chill Touch.
• The Cameo from Matt and Marisha, who are a 20th level bard and 20th level monk, respectively. Marisha in particular destroys a tower in one strike.
• Thanks to some really excellent rolls, Sam proves to be a great shot with a bow.
• Liam asked each of the players what class they see themselves as in order to make their character sheets. Sam chooses Ranger, Laura chooses Rogue, Travis is a Fighter, and as for Taliesin? Warlock.

Deadlands One-Shot

• Travis manages to play everybody in the party for fools by playing up an Upper-Class Twit, using two different accents that switch between each other when he's sufficiently pissed off in-character, making it very difficult to tell what exactly is up with him until the moment he stabs Charlie Utter in the chest.
  • On that, Liam gets what's going on when he hears the one-second change in accent and puts it together with the intentionally inaccurate information regarding England to realize Travis is Obfuscating Stupidity, but doesn't tell anyone at all.

Liam's Quest: Full Circle

• Even in the face of imminent death at the hands of a demogorgon, Matt stands his ground.
  Matt: When it all comes down to it, you're just a figment of some fat guy's imagination!
  • Not to mention, with the roll of 10 on a D10 he actually shrugged off the Demogorgon's attack. He actually flipped off the Demogorgon and lived for about two seconds until he got stomped flat, but still.
  Liam: You have played too much fucking D&D, man!
• Liam's Speak-and-Spell impression. Somehow, he manages to convey palpable emotions through a computerized voice that had everyone (except Matt) cracking up, and hold it for about 20 minutes or so.
• Baby Taliesin still being able to wield the powers of darkness. He is a Haunted Kid.
• Teenaged Ashley Johnson being so metal she takes a bite out of a dead cat creature to intimidate the rest.

Battle Royale III (Level 17)

• The winner: Taryon Darrington, who spent the entire battle making himself unfindable and untouchable, only swooping into the fray at the end. It's capped off with a simple, yet epic Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
  Taryon: Doty, take this down: I win.
  • Also worth noting is that his first action after joining the melee is firing off a Prismatic Spray at Keyleth, hammering her for 10d6 poison damage and leaving the entire table speechless. Then he does it again the round afterwards.
• Keyleth making good use of a Flaming Sphere throughout the battle to take out Doty and Trinket as well as repeatedly harass Grog and Vex.
• Keyleth busts out the Shapechange spell as her trump card, turning herself into an adult black dragon.
• Grog, full stop. He's the primary target for everyone right from the beginning of the fight, and the reason for the focus-fire becomes very clear very quickly.
  • It takes one turn near Percy and a lucky crit to make the gunslinger run away and leave him at death's door.
  • When trapped in Vex's necklace, his response is to punch his way out, breaking the necklace from the inside and resulting in the highest amount of damage dealt by a player in one round - 280 damage, or to put it another way, 17% of the damage dealt in the entire royale.
  • He survives a brutal attack from black dragon Keyleth with one HP left. Standing atop a tower, staring his foe down, what does he do? Draw five cards from the Deck of Many Things, miraculously avoiding disaster from all of them. True, he loses everything in the Bag of Holding and Wilhand turns against him (Ruin and Rogue), but he regains HP and increases his constitution, obtains a magical greatsword, and summons an ally to fight alongside him (Star, Key, Knight), and since none of the events in the Battle Royales are canon, it means Grog got away with using the deck!
  • He then stops Keyleth's rampage, breaking her concentration and then resisting her attempted Planeshift when she's humanoid again. He proceeds to 'softball' her into the acid pit and dissolve her, leaving him the last one standing vs. Taryon, who survived by hiding for most of the fight.
  • The final battle is Grog versus Taryon, which seems one sided against Grog who's super low on HP and low on abilities, while Taryon is still relatively fine. Sam is still terrified to fight him, and decides to have Taryon fight Grog with a flaming greatsword. Taryon lands the first hit, dealing 20 points of damage to Grog, which Grog survives! Grog then retaliates with 25 points of damage, but he takes fire damage from Tary's shield of flame, and fails his constitution saving throw. That's right. Grog doesn't die by being overpowered, he dies from a basic flame shield. If not for that, Grog would have certainly killed Taryon.
  • In total, Grog dealt a whopping 767 damage over the course of the royale (almost half of the total damage dealt). He also took 375 damage before finally going down. Only Keyleth remotely comes close to matching him in either stat, and she had to turn into a dragon to do it.

One-Shot: Bar Room Blitz!

• Mary Elizabeth McGlynn guest stars in her third episode (not counting the battle royale), and once again she is the one who kills the episode's boss.

Thursday by Night (Part 1)

• Taliesin spent at least a month learning the layout of the G&S and related offices, got permission to include various staff as NPCs with the understanding that he would be killing them off, did very good impressions of said staff (his Ivan van Norman impression was especially spot on), and homebrewed a more simplified/barebones version of Vampire: The Masquerade for his friends because none of them had any real experience with the system. This is on top of hosting The Wednesday Club, appearances on Talks Machina, taking over Gather Your Party, voice acting, and preparing to officiate Matt and Marisha's wedding. There's a reason a petition was jokingly made requesting he go home and get some sleep.

Thursday by Night (Part 2)

• Despite the party draining people, using powers recklessly (including against older vampires), and simply being reckless idiots, There was not, we repeat, not a TPK. Of the 6 that woke up, Laura and Travis survived to become part of the LA Camarilla.

Trinket's Honey Heist

• While the one-shot's canonity is...suspect, it shows that Tova survived and was able to escape the City of Dis.
• The bears get away with the heist scot-free, and Trinket stays behind with Vex none the wiser of his escapade—even blaming Grog for the explosion at the end.

Battle Royale IV (Level 20)

• Keyleth, after falling every time in the previous battles, finally becomes the victor even after succumbing to a Feeblemind from Scanlan. In fact, apart from Scanlan who had died by Percy's hand, she actually wipes out all the other combatants: Grog via Plane Shift, Vax via incineration as a fire elemental, and Percy by crushing him between rocks and the encroaching force field.
• Percy gets a mention as well for coming in second. With three spells to his name and a focus on ranged physical damage, Percy is normally not much of a challenge to take down, as proven in the previous Battle Royales where he faltered fast. This time, he dealt 106 damage to Scanlan in a single bullet, sending the bard into a cycle of bonus action Healing Words he never really left, cannily exploited the terrain and his Silence spell to his advantage, and played to his strength of being aggressive from a distance while not making himself as critical a target as Grog or Keyleth.

Honey Heist 2: Electric Beargaloo

• Due to how stats work in Honey Heist, you have to be careful not to have all of your points go into Bear (you become feral) or Criminal (you go power-mad and betray the group). Right as Trinket manages to snatch the Balootonium from the Big Bad as Peddy dispatches the villain...he goes full Criminal and the other bears have to stop him as he runs off.
  • The multi-bear bike gets destroyed, so when Cookie yells for Peddy to help him catch up (because Peddy is The Driver) Peddy declares Cookie should get on his back. Cue a Sun Bear riding a Panda after a Grizzly.
  • Meanwhile, Liam Las Vegas remembers the way to move points back from Criminal back to Bear—eating honey. He grabs as much of the group's honey stash as he can while following the others after the madly-cackling Trinket.
  • The group rolls to catch up, and makes it—and Liam starts shoveling honey into Trinket's mouth with his bare claws, having wrapped his legs around Trinket's neck to secure himself, Cookie boxes Trinket in the nuts to distract him so Waffle can get the dangerous Balootonium away (and Liam as Cookie gets an automatic success form Marisha because he's rolled so well all night, Taliesin and Brian meanwhile roll and make it). And Peddy just stands there and smiles as Marisha declares Trinket has been successfully "honey-waterboarded" making Matt (who thus far had been acting out everything being done to him) crack up at the idea of being honey-boarded.

The Night Before Critmas

• This entire one-shot was the culmination of two years spent planning by Liam.
• After realizing that he's able to use his Extra Attack and Action Surge skills, Matt — and the rest of the players — lament that no one plays a fighter in the main campaign.
  • Similarly, Taliesin was supposed to play a surly, privileged teenage slacker character, but comes across as scarily hyper-competent in battle and infiltration situations - not to mention his sheer glee about finding the cursed sword and the very sharp lockpick/shiv he made (for real) from his candy-cane while the others weren't looking. (And he also turns out to be a far better free-climber than Marisha's dice-cursed "olympic-level" athlete and professional lumberjack/tree-surgeon.) He ended up regretting never playing a rogue before after discovering how fun it can be. (He managed to get three high-damage sneak attacks in just one fight, leading him to exclaim that the rogue class is broken because it's so overpowered. No, dear, that's just you.)
• Liam breaks out two battle maps, one being the outside of Santa's workshop and the other being the Worm King's tower, the latter of which is three levels high. Three rotating levels high.
• While trying to rescue Santa, Matt's character Klaus gets swallowed by a gelatinous cube. Not wanting to just sit there and take it, Matt decides to attack the cube from the inside, kicking and slashing and biting "like a wolverine," all while slowly being dissolved alive.
• The Hollow King makes a grand entrance smashing through a wall. His intent is to rescue Santa from the Worm King, feeling he (the Hollow King) is responsible for this. The elves sync up almost perfectly with him in the fight despite their initial fear and trepidation.
• Travis's character Chutney pulls off a wonderful attempted betrayal on Santa, leaving everyone speechless.
  Chutney: He asked me to make a Voltron out of wood. Nobody wanted it. He asked me to make a Game Boy. I can't do circuits! He asked me to make those little Troll dolls. Their hair wouldn't move. (as Travis) And I take my wooden chisel...AND I STAB HIM IN THE CHEST!
  • He does a spectacular amount of damage because it counts as a sneak attack (his first in the entire game), but he just about fails to actually kill Santa and gets whisked away by the Hollow King.
  • His stand off with Klaus immediately after deserves mention as well, considering he's an old man and Klaus is an elite guard.
  Klaus: You know what these gloves are for, right?
  Chutney I do.
• The Hollow King himself. That is all.

The Search for Grog

• Scanlan manages to successfully cast Wish to find Grog's soul, and manages to pass the 33% check to see if he can never cast Wish again with a 38. Keep in mind that Scanlan has not used Wish before, something that manages to impress Allura heavily.
• Allura absolutely roasting Bertrand who asks for recompensation for helping Vox Machina by explaining the word "to volunteer" to him. (In universe, it apparently stems from an elven verb meaning "to give all", meaning even his life, should it come to that.)
• As soon as the group arrives in Pandemonium, Keyleth immediately shows why she won the final Battle Royale. While she fails a Constitution check to blindly scry for Grog's soul, she responds by using a Gust of Wind spell to counteract the intense winds, creating a small pocket they can use to travel and allow for other spells to be used. Then when the group runs into a pack of Howlers, she casts Chain Lightning and manages to do heavy damage to three of the four Prowlers. If not for her, the group likely would not have been unable to progress forward at all.
• In the final fight, Percy beats Arkhan's record for most damage in a single attack!^note  Arkhan's record was 135, Percy beats it at 156 with a Bad News critical infused with all 10d6 of Cabal's Ruin plus 50% additional damage on its next turn.
• Everything about Grog's return. Trinket brings his body close to the gem containing his soul, and it shatters, releasing the Goliath into the fray. As this happens, Travis takes off his shirt to reveal the original "Enjoy Grog" shirt beneath it, and the audience goes wild.
  Grog: I don't know what's been going on, but this amazing movie's been playing, and it's about time you all got here. Vox Machina... FUCK! SHIT! UP!! And I would like to RAGE!
  • And then Travis gets two natural 20 rolls in a row, giving him the HDYWTDT! His second Critical Hit, at 89 damage, is the most damaging individual hit Grog has ever gotten. The second time, Matt unleashes a Rapid-Fire "No!" and has to get up and look at the dice for himself, with the rest of the cast in similar disbelief. Matt even gets the camera guy to take a shot of the second nat 20, simply because he can't believe how lucky that was.
    Travis/Grog: Reckless… NATURAL 20! (the crowd goes wild)
    Matt: No! No! No! (goes over to look at the dice) That's fucking ridiculous. Look at that shit. Get some footage of that shit. (the cameraman zooms in to show the nat 20 on the die)

Tails of Equestria Oneshot

• While teaching Lord Laz' how to joust, Ashley manages to get an Exploding Hoof all the way from a D6 up to a D12! (To explain, rolling the highest number on a die lets you roll the next die up. This means her D6 was 6, letting her roll a D8 which was an 8, then a 10 on her D10.)
• Countess Pi (Special Guest Julie Nathanson) gets the idea to lull Laz to sleep by reciting the value of pi. She's off by just one digit out of 44.

The Search for Bob

• Pike is defying Ashley's normal rolling by making great stealth and initiative checks.
• The dice conspired to just barely save Lieve'tal, as Grog's Natural 20 Intimidation brought the threshold for reviving her down to a 4 when Matt rolled a 5. Grog yelled her back to life.
• Keyleth is battered all over by the dust titan, and the dice again conspired to spare her. First she's brought to 1 Hit Point after being healed a little and taking slugs of 60+ damage, then Scanlan turns a 25 to hit into a 13 with a maximum-strength Cutting Words.
• Pike's automatic-success Divine Intervention brings an avatar of Sarenrae to the field, who uses her divine power to restrain the Dust Titan. The Dust Titan is immune to being restrained, but Matt ruled that the power of a goddess would be able to literally do the impossible.
  • After the fact, Matt suggests that since the plane of Pandemonium is on the other side of the Divine Gate from the Material Plane, it might not have been an avatar of Sarenrae after all, but Sarenrae herself.
• Lieve'tel also succeeded in her 18% chance for a Divine Intervention, allowing the Raven Queen to show them the incoming Dust Titan.
• Keyleth busts out Foresight for the second time, blessing Percy with awesomeness to sprint down the tower in safety and keep dice advantage through the episode - this time, it truly pulled its weight.
• After all of that, which spell let Vox Machina return home faster? The humble Locate Object, cast by Vex'ahlia to show her where Keyleth's tuning fork was stashed, paired with a massive Investigation check that gained 12 from Bardic Inspiration.

Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace

• The ending of the oneshot. After losing half the party in rapid succession, Alexandra, Hanako and Bentley rush into Mr. Merriweather's room with the Shadow People and a horde of insane feral cats about to burst through the doors. Merriweather attempts a ritual to return the Shadows to the casket, and Alexandra makes a Power roll to help... and rolls a double 0 on a D100, a critical success. Taliesin reveals as soon as the game ends that this was the one thing that would have stopped both a Total Party Kill and the Village of the Hungry People being set loose on the world. To repeat: they avoided a TPK by 1/100 odds!

Dalen's Closet One-Shot (Vex and Percy's wedding)

• Laura Bailey plays Trinket directly in the fight against Sylas's vampire minions after Vex is abducted. He gets two crits against one of the vampires, tearing it to shreds.
• Percy and Vex are completely defiant in the face of their impending execution. Vex even headbutts Sylas as he's dragging them to the cliff's edge.
  Percy: Honestly, Sylas, is this your plan? Is this what you're planning to do with us, just toss us off a cliff?
  Sylas: Poetic.
  Percy: I used to fear you. Know that when I die, you will bore me.
• While Vex's attempt to pick the lock on her chains with the arrow pin Percy was wearing fails, she does later use it for a Conjure Barrage spell.
• Grog holding his own against five vampires until the rest of Vox Machina arrives.
• Keyleth showing what a druid is capable of at level 20: she turns in no less than three different elementals in the span of a minute to save Vex and Percy and to fight against the vampires.
• Vex didn't have any weapons on her due to the attack happening unexpectedly during the ceremony, so Pike cast Spiritual Weapon to create a replica of Fenthras from holy energy for her to wield. Matt deemed it such a creative use of the spell that he allowed it despite it not technically being rules-as-written.
• The end of Sylas Briarwood. Vex unleashes the Blessing of the Dawnfather and a Spiritual Weapon Fenthras to deal the finishing blow to her husband's vampiric tormentor.
  Vex: SYLAS! Delilah Briarwood was a bitch. *casts the light of Pelor 120 feet around her*

Undeadwood

• During the final battle against the Necromancer, Brian gets to tell Matt something that he's wanted to say for a very long time.
  Brian: How the fuck do you wanna do this?
• The final gun duel between Aloysius and Clayton is chilling and tragic, but it is also a Moment of Awesome for Khary Payton. He fully committed with the setup he had been given (Aloysius temporarily lost his emotional connections to all but his oldest memories thanks to a failed spell roll and then discovered that Clayton was the bounty he'd been sent to collect) and ran all the way with it. Matt, who played Clayton, was quick to give him props, as were the rest of the players (some of whom were actually crying).
  Khary: That's a fuckin' Western!
• The series was also a crowning moment of awesome for Brian and his friend Ivan Van Norman. Undeadwood was their brainchild. Brian had never done anything like this before, but he pulled it off beautifully. The players had a blast, even in spite of the ending (or in part because of it because of how narratively perfect it was), and the viewers immediately clamoured for a second season.

The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade

• Farriden is pitted against The Owlbear for her initiation, and delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle on him thanks to some good rolls and usage of monk abilities: she only takes two hits from thrown knives, which Matt points out she could have deflected had she remembered to use Deflect Missiles.
  Taliesin: Monks, man.
• The moment that it is revealed The Owlbear is a Rogue/Barbarian multiclass, both Sam & Laura comment on how mean that combination is.
• Liam's character, Buddy the ogre, hits for 13 damage, on a 1d4.
  • Buddy also has an ungodly amount of hit points, as Matt discovers during the final battle as Buddy takes hit after hit after hit after hit... Liam had, up until that point, mostly been playing Glass Cannon characters, and he is relishing the moment.
    Liam: It's like I'm Grog!
• Quackthullu as a monster is pretty much designed to grapple, with its many tentacles for multi-attack. To Matt's amused frustration, everyone keeps rolling high enough on the strength saves to avoid being grappled, even characters weak in strength like Mac. During the whole fight, it only manages to get Taryon in its one successful grapple.
• Tary gets the HDYWTDT on Quackthullu. The resulting deathblow is fittingly both hilarious and awesome.
  Tary: "Doty, draw this. And Hazel, record it." And I call out "I! AM! TARYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

DOOM: Eternal

• The arrival of The Doomslayer is given all the grandeur it deserves.
• Laura turns her Hulk Speak Running Gag into a legit Pre Ass Kicking One Liner:
  Dr Hayden: Tell me your name... so that I know who you are when you die.
  Mancubus: MANCUBUS!!
• Samuel Hayden gets one as an antagonist, for having invented a device whose effect is to impose the equivalent of long-term forced-disadvantage on a party of powerful demons. Matt also gets one for inventing the idea and also giving the players a fair chance at preventing it.
• Despite enduring a TPK, and having disadvantage on every single roll for the second half of the session, the demons actually manage to succeed in their mission; destroying the Argent Hammer tech, the military base, Dr. Samuel Hayden's body (though it appears he can Body Surf) and sealing the Doomslayer within the ruins of the base.
• Darin De Paul, voice of Hayden, declares the one-shot canon.
  Anjali: You mean a demon called Phyllis could be canon?

Diablo

• Mordred managed to provoke almost all of the undead creatures to focus their attacks on him while letting out his Pre Ass Kicking One Liner.
  Mordred: COME, Lost Ones!

Vox Machina vs Mighty Nein Battle Royale

• Just the fact that we finally get to see the return of Vox Machina after several years & have them square off against the Nein in what was likely a dream fight for many fans is awesome in its own right.
  • The return of Vax at his most roguish and playful is particularly fun, since unlike the other members of Vox Machina who got to fight in other one shots, Vax hasn't actually been in action since the end of Campaign 1. Many fans more familiar with Liam as Caleb Widogast were impressed by Vax.
  • At the end of the bout, Matt teases a future match between the team members who weren't present for this one.
• After dying at level 5 and Kingsley killing off any hope of ever seeing the real deal canonically in action again, we finally get a glimpse at how effective a level 15 Mollymauk would have been.
• It would be hard to argue that the MVPs of the night were anyone besides Beau and Vax.
  • With his insane gear, mobility, and burst damage, Vax was an utter terror to deal with, divebombing the Nein repeatedly and putting his paladin skills to use to keep his party in the fight. Managing to steal & hide the special crystal that swapped out Percy and Molly also gave Vox Machina a big numbers advantage for most of the fight.
  • Beau put the entire arsenal of a high level Monk to use in the fight, becoming a massive problem for the veterans of Vox Machina. Whether it was using Deflect Missiles to chain bullet catches against Percy, tying down players with a combination of Sentinel and Stunning Strikes, or just her sheer damage, Vox Machina had no answers for the Expositor, allowing her to net two of her party's three kills of the night.
    • It in no way helped that because of her high damage output and ability to stun, VM opted to try and leave Beau alone and go for Fjord and Jester instead.
  • A case could be made for Percy since, as can be seen on Crit Role Stats, Percy ended dealing the most damage out of anyone on Vox Machina whilst taking the least amount of damage, and his strategy of getting up high and basically providing sniper support would have worked wonders if Vox Machina had more of their heavy hitters like Grog or Keyleth instead of two support classes and a rogue. Hell, despite this being a death match he wasn't even killed since was just replaced with Molly after the rest of his team were defeated.
• After the battle, Sam seems to be the only one to realise just how utterly dominant the Mighty Nein were in this fight. Even with Vox Machina having a numbers advantage for most of the fight Percy, who took the least damage of Vox Machina, ends up taking 14 points more damage than Beau, Jester, and Molly took combined! In addition, Fjord ends up dealing over 360 points of damage throughout the fight, over 150 more than Vox Machina's highest from Percy, and the only reason that Percy is even second in damage dealt is because Vax managed to keep Molly out of the fight, as Molly still ended up dealing more damage than Scanlan and Pike combined. And this isn't even getting into the kills, as Vox Machina's only kill is Vax killing an Imp. The only reason that Vox Machina didn't get completely team wiped is because Percy didn't die, he was just swapped for Molly after everyone else died. Despite the best efforts of Matt and the other players to make it out that it was a close fight it was spectacuarly one-sided for the Nein.
  • Part of this might have to do with team composition. While Vox Machina had a man advantage throughout most of the fight, their team still consisted of a two support classes, a rogue who didn't even have 100 hp, and a character who worked best from a distance. Even without Molly, the Nein had very formiddable Fjord, the deceptively powerful Jester, and Beau, whose brokeness is so well documented that some fans have complained about it! While the Vox Machina put up a good fight, there was really only one possible outcome.

The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey

• The fact that this was Ashley Johnson's first (and probably only) time behind a DM screen. Despite clearly appearing anxious and nervous throughout the episode, Ashley manages to paint an incredible picture with her DM'ing and tell a great story that was a love letter to all the great movies she grew up with.
• Special mention has to go to the episode's set design, which is very reminiscent of the Nostromo.
• When Forrest's true nature is revealed, they immediately drop all deception and in expert fashion saves the ARK by making it separate from the crew and then one shot's the alien they were fighting with a carefully planned explosion, using the oxygen tank he never needed.
• Ashley's voice as Mother strikes a precise, delicate point on the Uncanny Valley that's reassuring but not quite human.

Dignity: An Adventure with Stephen Colbert

• Stephen Colbert returns to the table with Critical Role to do a benefit for Red Nose Day charities, already awesome in itself. But Colbert went the extra mile. Not only did he cosplay as his character (a human fighter named Lucky Jack), but he brought some props with him. Colbert, a lifelong Lord of the Rings fan, brought props of Andúril and Sting — the swords used by Aragorn and Frodo, respectively — from the film series. Not just replicas of them, either; the actual props used by the actors in the movie. As soon as Marisha touches Sting and holds it in her hands, she gets a huge child-like smile across her face, and everyone else at the table is clearly in awe of what they're seeing.

The Mighty Nein Reunited (Part 2)

• Caleb uses his 9th level spell slot to Shapechange into a blue dragon, he then uses it to turn into a dragon turtle so that he can get Fjord far underwater to re-seal Uko'toa.
• Jester invokes Duplicity and sends out four duplicates of herself throughout the battlefield. At first, it's played for laughs, but on her next turn, she uses the network of duplicates to cast Mass Heal, healing the entire party almost completely. The entire cast is floored.
  • The fact she was able to even get to that point is impressive in and of itself. Invoke Duplicity needs concentration and she kept passing the checks, even after Fjord got possessed and stabbed her.
  • Looking at how much everyone needed, it saved at least Beau and Kingsley considering how much damage Uk'toa did on their next attack
• Yasha using Sentinel to stop Uko'toa from fleeing, using the aid of the Stormlord to hold onto his tail and stop him from moving away.
• During the battle, Beau ends up swallowed by Uk'otoa. It seems as if there's nothing she can do... until she reveals that she still has the Cape of the Mountebank and subsequently uses its single charge of Dimension Door to teleport out of the literal belly of the beast!
• The Mighty Nein manages to successfully defeat and reseal Uk'otoa with Zehir's help, who wants to punish his traitorous spawn.
• On a similar note to the above example, these eight words from Matt:
  Matt: Mighty Nein, how do you wanna do this?
  • Yasha grapples with Uk'otoa, aided by the strength of the Stormlord to hold Uk'otoa in place as she directs Fjord to strike the final blow.
  • As a blue dragon, Caleb breathes lightning over the Star Razor before flying into the air and turning into a massive dragon turtle that crashes into Uk'otoa's head from the sky.
  • Kingsley flares his Brand of Castigation as he carves off a section of Uk'otoa's hide so that he can have some leather for later.
  • Jester very daintily touches Uk'otoa on the tail, and the flesh begins to blacken and rot with necrotic damage as Jester casts Inflict Wounds on him.
  • Beau vaults onto Uk'otoa's body and plunges her hand into one of his many eyeballs, grasping the optic nerve and doubling down on the vulnerability to lightning damage she inflicted upon him with her Debilitating Barrage.
  • Veth uses the ship's rigging to swing from her spot on the crow's nest, into one of the portals created by Fjord's Arcane Gate spell, then throws her fluffernutter at Uk'otoa's head just as she emerges from the other portal.
  • Fjord unleashes four Eldritch Blasts into the back of Uk'otoa's head and swoops in with the lightning-charged Star Razor.
  Fjord: (to Uk'otoa) These were never your oceans, pretender. They belong to her. Daddy's calling! (swings with the Star Razor...just as the fluffernutter is thrown into his path, which then explodes as Fjord strikes Uk'otoa, throwing his ass high into the air)

The Mighty Nein Reunion: Echoes of the Solstice

• The first live show in quite a while, this time held in London with 12,500 Critters in attendance! You can't blame Matt from being blown over the second he walks on stage. Everyone then joins in singing one hell of an opening karaoke.
• Sam Riegel mimicking the Freddie Mercury call-and-response is almost spot on.
• How about Luc? The son of Veth who snuck into the group was able to not only spy Trent in the trees, he was able to spy the orb they needed to finish the fight.
  • Another subtle one: his character level is at eight. The same level that the Bell's Hells were when the Apogee Solstice went down which is why Caleb and Beau had to reassemble the Mighty Nein in the first place for this one-shot event.
• Trent opens the fight with a Meteor Swarm, instantly knocking out Caleb and severely wounding everyone else. When it comes around to Caduceus's turn, he decides that none of that is going to do and casts Mass Heal, instantly bringing everyone back up to full health and giving the Nein the upper hand again, which they maintain for the rest of the fight.
• Yasha doing around 160 DAMAGE during the kaiju battle in a single turn! That is the third highest amount of damage a single character dealt to a single target in one round, and the number one and two slots are filled by Percy.
• Caleb, fresh from unconsciousness, sees the massive kaiju marching into Blumenthal and decides to respond by Shape Changing into Gelidon, the Nightmare in Ivory, flying over to where the beast is lumbering towards the innocent townsfolk, and absolutely laying waste.
  Dragon!Caleb: I'LL GRIND YOUR BONES TO MAKE MY BREAD!
  • Caleb-2, Polymorphed into a T-Rex, runs up behind the two beasts with Luc still on his back. Luc, from his position on the back of the T-Rex, decides to cast Enlarge on it, making it about the size of Gelidon.
    Luc: If this is a Kaiju battle... Let's make it one!
• When Beau tries to rip the artifact from Omentis, Matt requests Marisha do a Strength check. With no bonus to the roll, she gets the one number that would get her the HDYWTDT.
  Marisha: (to Travis) Witness me.
  Travis: SAY IT!
  Marisha: NATURAL 20!
• After the kaiju battle, Fjord has a question, and Travis shows his growth as a D&D player (crosses over with Funny because of the utterly dumbfounded look on Matt's face, and Heartwarming for obvious reasons):
  Fjord: Jester?
  Jester: Yeah?
  Fjord: Will you marry me? (The audience goes wild, and the rest of the cast are stunned.)
  Matt: (laughing) You motherfucker.
  Jester: Oh Admiral Tusktooth, yes I will.

Critical Role's Sick Day LIVE

• Half the cast came down with illnesses, leaving the Critical Role team to scramble and put together a stream with a day's notice. The result? Taliesin, Travis and Sam playing Baldur's Gate III live on a Thursday night, joined by special guest Robbie Daymond!