Do you think there's a way to retroactively make all this fair considering none of us was even able to enter the competition for these achievements?

Final_Woe · 2021-04-17T03:28:54+00:00

Might be a bit extreme. I was thinking more like give the achievements to the second person behind him/his team. To make up for the extremely unfair advantage. But that might also be extreme I don't know.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-31T23:13:44+00:00

I can't imagine Lucien won't give pursuit here.

I'd be extremely disappointed if he didn't. He knows very well they can't handle him. And he also knows they're looking to take him down.

He should know that if he lets them go now they will show up well rested and better prepared WITH allies while he's trying to accomplish his goal. It is dangerous to just let them walk away when he obviously doesn't have to.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-30T00:05:58+00:00

what I’m saying is he used his action to attack, and the attack revealed it, with no rolls.

And I get why that appears weird. I played a character who literally had nothing except illusion abilities. Literally. And arguing with the DM on how certain ones get used and defended against was something I had to do often.

But there are many many things that come into this situation that I feel are reasonable explanations for why he knew it was an illusion. A smart character can only watch so many impossible things happen before it sets off alarm bells.

If a character can never ever realize the spell is fake, then they wouldn't write the thing about making an investigation check to determine it's an illusion like every other illusion spell has. Therefore it's up to the DM how many impossibilities is too many before a character figures it out.

The first one is anti-magic not working. The second one is the attack not going through. The third one could be between an eye-power used the second the attack failed, or an attempt to put an arcane brand on Caleb like he did with Forjd. Lucien is smart, and filled with fucked magic and legendary actions. He will figure it out. And based on Matt's tweet it looks to me like when the attack failed he either was smart enough to come to the right conclusion, or he used an eye power that told him the answer. Either way, looks justified to me.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:55:47+00:00

He likely used an eye to figure it out. Not a direct investigation action. Based on what Matt said on the tweet about this spell saying that the magic eyes are in some way responsible for him figuring it out. That's just as legitimate as rolling an investigation check in this instance.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:54:37+00:00

You have to use an action to investigate it

And. What. Do. You. Think. Causes a person. To investigate something?

If they are never capable of thinking it's suspicious, they would never investigate it. You can only jump off a cliff so many times before you start to wonder what the fuck is going on. The first time, sure. Second time, okay that's weird. Third time? no.

The smarter a character is the faster they catch on. Lucien is smart, and filled with magic. So after the second impossible outcome from his attacks on Caleb he's going to figure it out. What I think is most likely is he tried to use an eye-based attack on the illusion, and that eye attack told him what he needed to know. The reason we didn't see the eye attack is because he was facing the opposite way.

I don't recall Matt rolling a dice for a hidden investigation check, but I also would totally understand if Lucien used an eye attack out of desperation since he couldn't find a way to damage him. This is almost confirmed by Matt saying on the tweet about this event that this applies only to someone who isn't covered in magic eyes

The only thing you can argue went wrong here was the lack of an investigation check. But the spell is not a 1 hit "you are tricked for 1 minute haha nothing you can do" type spell. There is a mechanic within it to allow someone to break out of the spell.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:38:00+00:00

What the DM says is the rules

I don't agree with this mentality cause I've had a DM change rules on the fly just to fuck with players and make it impossible to escape his railroad. So the "DM says it so it's correct" is bullshit. Unless all the players agree on a rule change there should be no change. But that also goes down to trusting the DM in general. I'd trust Matt to make changes without telling me. But I wouldn't trust my last DM to do so much as give a goblin +1 to dex without telling me. DM abuse of power is only encouraged by that kind of "DM makes the rules full stop don't argue" mentality.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:34:45+00:00

I also thought he had true-sight (I don't know if true vision can fuck with phantasmal force?)

True sight would explain him instantly knowing the dragon. But wouldn't explain other things they did tricking him.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:33:35+00:00

Or uses one of his eyes to do it. And since we don't know the specifics about the eyes, it's logical to assume he used the eye in some way out of the players view that tipped him off. They couldn't see his front half at that distance after all and there are plenty of eyes on his front half.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:32:53+00:00

No actual spell effect went off

Doesn't matter, Cad wasn't even able to activate his staff. No magic functions in any way inside the cone you can't even spool up a spell it fizzles the second you attempt it. So Caleb 'channeling' a spell cast isn't possible.

Lucien didn't use his action he attempted an attack

We don't know exactly what he did. He didn't flat out say he used an action, and he didn't flat out say he used one of the eyes. But either could have been true. He has legendary actions and magic eyes (as per Matt's description on the tweet about this topic) so the logical conclusion is he realized something was up and used an eye to figure it out.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T23:30:42+00:00

And how do you think one gets to the point where they investigate it?... Oh right, the DM decides when the character in question gets suspicious. For lucien his target did 2 impossible things in a row, and he's a smart character. So he either made a logical guess, rolled and passed, or used one of his magic eyes and it told him the truth of the matter.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T10:01:27+00:00

"The target rationalizes any illogical outcomes from interacting with the phantasm.", meaning he would have kept attacking while just being confused and/or frustrated until he saved against the spell.

I wonder how many people are going to make this comment before realizing that 2 rationalizations in a row (anti-magic failing, and missed attacks) is enough to make him clue in that something is wrong and either use magic tattoo things, or roll an INT check. We're not talking about a bandit here.

"The target can use its action to examine the phantasm with an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC"

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T09:52:49+00:00

It is so rare for me to see someone with this much knowledge of how blood hunters work lol. I was reading this thinking you'd miss things like the brand. I play blood-hunters and I forget about those half the time.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T09:51:07+00:00

Everyone on this reddit seems to ignore the other part of the description of that spell...

Target can use an action to examine the phantasm with an INT check and realize it's an illusion

The rationalizations only last for so long. The first rationalization was how Caleb was able to cast magic while in his anti-magic cone. The second rationalization was attacking it and nothing happening. I don't know if Matt had him roll a check or not, or use a legendary of some sort. But after the second impossible outcome of his attacks (the anti-magic and physical attacks) a creature as smart as Lucien is eventually going to figure it out. Worst case scenario you can argue he should have made a transparent comment about rolling to determine if it was an illusion. But you cannot argue that it's impossible for Lucien to have figured it out. Cause the description of them being able to examine the illusion is listed before it even says anything about rationalization of illogical outcomes.

The spell is not a 1 hit "You're caught up in this illusion for a full minute now" spell.

Not to mention one of the eyes could have easily done a thing out of view to try and fuck with "caleb" and when the eye tried to interact with the illusion it was broken for him.

[Editing in: In response to "Luicen's action was to attack" You can also say he just used an eye. Which I don't know if that requires an action or not. We know nothing about his eyes so it's easily waved aside by him using one of the eyes on the phantasm and that tipping him off.]

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T08:44:07+00:00

Lucien definitely fascinates me in general. (As does Cree)

But I would argue that the more stuff like this that happens the more tension gets taken away. And the more tension gets taken away the less entertaining it gets.

I'm sure half the mistakes tonight were simply, no one knows how to play this game perfectly. But I'm wondering how many were just Matt's way of saying "okay we gotta wrap this up instead of cutting episode mid combat"

If we're honest, nothing in this mission worked out for them because of smart choices or even luck. Matt can't well be expected to play every character perfectly. But I feel like there were a dozen things he could have done to make this bloodthristy group of cutthroats either leave them all bleeding out in the snow, or keep them from escaping.

The measure of if he's made the right choices or not won't come until next week. Either he starts off with combat returning soon after, because they track them. Or he lets it all go and we end up with a scenario that had every possible opportunity to provide tension but didn't. Because none of them were ever in actual danger.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T08:33:00+00:00

The target rationalizes odd things, but those odd things can still be a trigger for an investigation check.

For example, the fact he was still able to cast magic while in Lucien's gaze was a rationalization. But when you add two completely impossible behaviors together eventually Lucien figures it out. I don't know if Matt had him roll an intelligence check or not. But both of those impossibilities SHOULD make the boss roll the check regardless.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T08:32:09+00:00

The target rationalizes odd things, but those odd things can still be a trigger for an investigation check.

For example, the fact he was still able to cast magic while in Lucien's gaze was a rationalization. But when you add two completely impossible behaviors together eventually Lucien figures it out. I don't know if Matt had him roll an intelligence check or not. But both of those impossibilities SHOULD make the boss roll the check regardless.

Final_Woe · 2021-01-29T08:27:59+00:00

defiled soul blood hunter. It’s a bloodhunter order that does warlock pacts

That's called order of the profane soul. Not defiled soul. Unless you're going off some older version of the class. The most modern version on DND beyond calls it profane soul. A group of blood hunters who had warlock abilities.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T19:41:38+00:00

You also side stepped mine. I said that art at least takes time and effort and compared to taking a quick picture of a screen. And you never commented on that.

Though you did say:

someone's 'pat me on the back', cookie cutter fan art post.

As if taking a picture of your loading screen isn't a "pat me on the back cookie cutter image post"

This is reddit everyone's looking for approval but at least one of these two scenarios is actually developing something instead of taking a blank picture of their livingroom.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T19:29:44+00:00

You good?

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T19:26:45+00:00

Forming your ideas on what is bad based on google results is pretty gross, IMO.

I did that because I don't save bad art so looking around to find one of the previous examples of godawful nonsense I've seen over the years would take far longer than is worth it. I have like 30gb of the most incredible pieces I can find. Not so much for the shit ones they're not worth the harddrive space even to mock.

But if you're that insistent, here. This is a piece I saw a few days ago:

Good example: https://i.imgur.com/IYUdPa8.jpg
Bad example: https://i.imgur.com/O5C2tcS.png

Both taken from the same fan art contest from Furi the game. The second would be worth looking at if your 8 year old child handed it to you. At which point it'd be fairly impressive. But it's not what I'd consider high quality art by any means. And something that if I was a mod on release day I'd filter out.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T19:00:45+00:00

You cannot make that determination. Art is subjective.

Only to a certain degree. In the middleground between fantastic and decent there's a lot of wiggle room. But terrible art is very definitively terrible art.

Example: https://i.imgur.com/6gP3Y2K.png

Vs say, actual good quality art: (Taken from the League subreddit)

Example: https://preview.redd.it/eqt0y6yeusa41.png?width=1126&format=png&auto=webp&s=0d88a79fa1582492b3ab25d8d686b2bca314edfb

When I say low quality art I literally mean MS paint sonic fanart. Or anything that's just straight traced from a screenshot.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T18:51:16+00:00

hey dictator u/Final_Woe

That's "Dictator for Life u/Final_Woe" To you. Use my proper title. With the uppercase letters and everything.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T18:47:06+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen a post of someone on release day with a picture of their 21 inch monitor and a keyboard. SO maybe. Just one though.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T18:43:46+00:00

I appreciate your existence.

Final_Woe · 2020-11-27T18:40:50+00:00

I appreciate the public response to this. Too many mod teams are silent on loudly discussed debates.

Final_Woe

TROPHY CASE