As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
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Episode 36: Oh Captain, Who's Captain?
- Continuing on the crazy from the previous episode, what does the Mighty Nein hear as gossip when they briefly return to Nicodranas to get a crew for their new ship? That the Zallezo think it was the actual crew of the ship leaving. They hadn't realized there was an actual fight or anything and the only member who apparently was fully seen was Jester's illusionary double. Who killed herself.
- Marisha rolls a Natural Twenty for "disseminating whispers" (ie spreading rumours) about the incident at the docks. It's very likely the Mighty Nein will be able to return to Nicodranas!
- The Harpy fight is a Curb-Stomp Battle on the Mighty Nein's favour despite the Harpies rolling a natural twenty on their initiative roll. Zero damage is taken by the Mighty Nein, thanks in part to Cad casting Calm Emotions to cut through the charm song of one of the Harpies. The only ones who take any damage are some of the crew and there are no fatalities as the group focuses a good chunk of their efforts on rescuing the few crew members caught.
- When the ship hits a reef and springs a leak below the waterline, Caleb starts the ritual to cast Leomund's Tiny Hut. Panic? Lifeboat? No. He puts the Hut on the hull breach, stopping the leak and giving the ship's carpenter and other workers room to work on a better fix.
Episode 37: Dangerous Liaisons
- In a wonderful contrast to Episode 35, a talk-based situation with Captain Avantika goes south when she sees through Fjord's disguise. However, Fjord and Beau quickly request a parley, thus letting the Nein talk their way into her good graces and gain a lot of information about Fjord's patron, now known to be the ouroboros-like leviathan Uk'otoa, with a connection to The Cloaked Serpent.
Episode 38: Welcome to the Jungle
- Caduceus just gets a feeling and casts Eyes of the Grave, revealing anything undead around him - oh, he gets the sense that Jamedi Cosko is undead? That's an interesting character reveal from nowhere, since we know from Campaign 1 that undead and evil aren't always the same thing, and Taliesin's nearly-random suspicion discovered it.
Episode 39: Temple of the False Serpent
- The groups first fight is against three snake priests, one of which is killed before even getting its first turn thanks to Yasha and Beau absolutely tearing right into them.
- During the descent into the temple's lower floors, Fjord, Caleb and Yasha all roll Natural 20s on their Stealth Checks!
- Caleb and Caduceus completely turn the tide in the Hydra fight by casting Slow and Bane, respectively. Forcing the Hydra to only attack once dropped its threat considerably, while Nerfing its saves let that happen in the first place.
- Notably, Bane gave the Hydra a -2 to hit on one of its attacks. A Natural 1 minus 3...
- The beginning of the Hydra fight had Nott and Jester deal 51 combined damage to the abomination before it even registered the Nein's presence.
- Travis was stacking up his modifiers as well, with Hex and Hexblade's Curse adding d6+3 damage to each of his Eldritch Blasts.
- The abomination's death came directly before its turn, where a single attack on Beau could have killed her.
- Speaking of the abomination, its attempt at shooting a poisonous arrow at Beau is stopped cold by Deflect Missiles reducing the initial damage to 0, thus preventing her from taking the additional poison damage.
- Avantika shows her skills by fighting alongside the heroes, and does surprisingly well. It wouldn't be a stretch to say if she wasn't there the group would have been in serious danger.
- Yasha and Beau easily stole the show this episode as the MVPs.
- Yasha dealt high amounts of damage in both the first and last combat encounters (made better with Caduceus' Path to the Grave making her strikes more devastating), and she ended up getting the killing blow on the Hydra as well as the second "How Do You Wanna Do This?" during an episode that Ashley wasn't even present for!
- Beau's contributions in keeping most of the Hydra's attacks focused on her spared most of the group from suffering repeated blows. Even if it did result in her nearly dying, if she hadn't made herself a prominent target there could've truly been another party member death or two.
Episode 40: Dubious Pursuits
- Nobody dies during the tense escape from the temple and subsequent sprint back to the Squall Eater. Clever teamwork and looking out for each other meant that the nine Nein (for once being nine) all greatly succeeded in their attempts to outrun their pursuers.
- The Nein and co. are ejected from the temple due to the built up water pressure and are falling. Caleb casts feather fall on some of the party, and Beau shouts to cast it at Caduceus since he's unconscious and will die if he hits the ground, but can't since he already cast and chose the targets. As the party is panicking, Nott casts her own feather fall on everyone else so they float safely down.
- Notably, Nott's Mage Hand trip of the lizardman and Yasha's fireman's carry of Caleb were both high rolls that barely succeeded their skill checks.
- At the very end, the Squall Eater firing its cannons for extra covering fire was a bonus help - there's a reason the Nein chose to work with Captain Avantika, and it has been a mutual benefit.
- Avantika's insight check on Fjord beats his 23 Deception.
- At the end of the episode, Fjord allows himself to submit to Avantika's advances.note Matt confirms on Talks Machina that he didn't see this coming at all, and that it radically changed the power dynamic between the two.
Episode 41: A Pirate's Life For Me
- In an attempt to make up for the accidental slaughter that got them all into this mess, the Nein manage to pull off a successful pirate raid without killing anyone, hiding a looted magic item from Avantika to boot!
- Even better, the person who successfully initiates the parlay? Caduceus Clay, whose high wisdom score gave him a 22 in his intimidation check.
Episode 42: A Hole in a Plan
- Caduceus rolls a 22 on Perception... with disadvantage.Taliesin: I love this, this is the best character ever!
- Caleb tries to decode Avantika's personal cipher... and rolls a Natural 20 Intelligence check. Matt still asks for his total roll, which given that he bumped his Int up to 20 for his last level up, is 25. This turns out to be exactly what he needed. Yes, Matt set the DC so high that rolling a Nat 20 and having maxed-out Intelligence was the only way to pass, and Caleb did!
- The crew of the Squall Eater (including the Mighty Nein) is called before Captain Avantika to answer for the burglary of her cabin the previous night. The party is guilty and hasn't yet managed to ditch or hide the evidence, and Avantika hints rather heavily that she's onto them. When she has Vera cast Locate Object to confirm her suspicions, Caleb responds by casting a spell of his own: Wall of Fire. Battle Amongst the Flames, here we come.
Episode 43: In Hot Water
- The battle on the docks is perhaps the most exciting section of the campaign thus far; and at the end, Liam proclaims it two of the best hours of the game they've ever played, in all the hundreds they've been through. It's full of some incredible moments, such as those listed below.
- As expected, Avantika tries to extinguish Caleb's Wall of Fire with her Control Water, but Caleb goes for Counterspell. Despite disadvantage from his exhaustion, he rolls high enough to dispel it (Liam is shaking with anxious glee when he manages it). Matt then asks for a Perception Check to see if he can spot Avantika through the flames, and he still makes it! Matt notes that Caleb just rendered 2 hours of internet research on the interactions between Control Water and Wall of Fire moot.
- Beau shows some Character Development when she confronts the guards. She is desperate to get past them, but actually allows herself to pause and not push by. Marisha is clearly struggling with Beau's conflicting priorities of "get to the Plank King" and "Don't tick off the guards and make things worse", and the Beau we first met wouldn't have hesitated to shove or punch past them.Beau: I...wait.
- Nott escapes a Guard's Nat 20 grapple attempt with her own Natural 20.
- Fjord pulls out Summon Greater Demon for the first time, to everyone's shock and amazement. The demon creates huge problems for Avantika's crew... though the fact that he just pulled a demon out of the ether slightly undermines Fjord's attempt to convince Darktow's guards that Avantika is the dangerous one.
- For all the chaos in the battle, the Nein never attacked a guard or did anything worse to them than escape a grapple.
- Fjord rolls a natural 20 on his attempt to persuade the Plank King to allow the party to force the truth out of Avantika; letting Beau get in with Extract Truth (for some added catharsis, Beau clobbers Avantika mid-sentence); sealing the villainous pirate's fate, and getting the party out of Darktow without a single allied casualty.
- The Plank King himself gets a villainous example by how he deals with Avantika caught in a lie. Namely by lifting her several feet off the ground by her neck, and then BREAKING it. One handed. Rank Scales with Asskicking indeed.
- Jester and Caduceus, being Clerics, make clever use of the Control Water spell and shorten a ten day boat trip to seven.
Episode 44: The Diver's Grave
- The brand new animated show intro debuts! It is EPIC and contains nods to everyone's backstory as well as showing all of them using their skills and powers to great effect. It's so good that they play it twice! Special props to Laura and Ashley singing the theme, with Sam and Travis on backing vocals. Highlights Include:
- Maximilian's Earthen Cat Paw by Caleb that completely shut down the Gelatinous Cube.
- Fjord vs Merrow, using both the Falchion and Eldritch Blast, culminating in a Blink.
- Nott the Brave living up to her name, running up a hill giant's arm and firing a crossbow bolt into the back of its skull.
- Jester finishing off said Hill giant with her Spiritual Weapon lollipop then following it up by summoning her Spirit Guardians in the form of unicorns.
- Beau and Yasha tagteaming, Beau with her quarter staff and Yasha with, presumably, the Magician's Judge, which decapitates one giant hydra head and stabs into the next one.
- Caduceus using some sort of combination of presumably Turn Undead and Decompose to immediately turn the surrounding zombies into decomposing corpses with different fungi and plants growing on them.
- Matt Mercer himself being depicted as the mysterious cloaked man he's known to be in different artwork, and opening a spellbook which flash several images of different side characters, and guest characters.
- And though he doesn't appear in person, Mollymauk's loss is felt through the imagery of his grave, with a raven perched upon it and flying off.
- For once, Nott's drunkenness comes in extremely useful, as her immunity to fear lets her shrug off two failed saves versus fear.
Episode 45: The Stowaway
- Crossed with Tear Jerker and Heartwarming, Caleb is able to summon the willpower to resist a magical library when he knows his friends might all need him.
- The blue dragon sets the overall one-hit damage record for this campaign with 55 damage to the fire elemental using its lightning breath.
- Jester accidentally solves the puzzle by casting Hellish Rebuke.
- Nott shooting the dragon from nearly point-blank. With an explosive bolt.
- Nott intentionally takes an attack of opportunity from the dragon, with only 19 HP, to burn its reaction so Jester can escape. She survives with 1 HP.
- Twiggy proves herself as a Badass Adorable by getting the HDYWTDT on the Blue Dragon! With her Natural 20, she sets the current one-hit damage record for a player this campaign with 51 damage on that final blow.
Episode 46: A Storm of Memories
- It's Yasha's turn to survive a battle with 1 HP, after her duel with the lightning and falling to the deck.
- Bane proves to be Matt's bane, as that 1d4 causes multiple attacks to miss. Taliesin reiterates his love for Bless and Bane to close the episode.
- The first sea spawn is outright obliterated in the surprise round, as Caduceus, Caleb, Nott, and Fjord combine their attacks (Jester's is saved against with a Natural 20).
- Nott uses one of her turns to defeat two injured sea spawn, and the second one didn't even have Sneak Attack.
Episode 47: The Second Seal
- Beau finds herself caught in the pincers of two chuul flanking her, unable to break free easily, constantly at a disadvantage when attacking, very low on hit points (and blood) and on the verge of being torn in half ala Bishop from Aliens. So what does she do? She gets desperate and manages to successfully stun one, and once she is released by the other, she is able to stun that one too!
- Jester using Control Water when a geyser forms after the seal is broken. She manages to alleviate anyone from doing strength saves possibly saving them a few dice worth of bludgeoning damage from the geyser and the rocks.
- After unlocking the second seal, Fjord manages to overcome temptation for the time being and puts off further pursuits of a vision of Vandran, instead choosing to return to the mainland with the others.
- Caduceus taking out the enemy ship in one round with Control Water, creating a tidal wave that capsizes the ship.
- It's worth bringing up this had only a 30% chance of success, and only 30 because Matt ruled that the rocks and such around the ship made the chances of capsizing higher than usual for the spell. This means on a 1d100 Talesin had to roll a 30 or less. What did Taliesin roll? A 15.
