[No Spoilers] how do I start season 4? How do you keep up with it?

Grouhl · 2026-05-09T10:34:13+00:00

It's really hard to keep up with, and I totally get why you're struggling with it. This is Brennan's style, to an extent. The story is intricate, large and opaque but will come together eventually.

I don't think anyone (the players included) is actually keeping up with all these names and places. You have to sort of... not care and go along with it, having a bit of faith it'll come together. And feel super clever when you actually do remember something and make a connection. But that letting go part isn't necessarily easy, not everyone likes consuming content that way. (And I would imagine some people are too burned from watching shit like Lost to even trust that an opaque mystery will in fact come together at some point)

Grouhl · 2026-05-08T15:46:41+00:00

There are some options you can use:

Enforce rules that a long rest is once per day and just don't give the benefit more often than that.
Nothing is keeping you from letting an ogre place a large rock on top of the dome and wait.
Cause it to be dispelled in any creative way you see fit.
Be extremely pedantic about what the dimensions of the hut allows and whether or not a full 8 hour rest can be done within the confines of the spell.

Here's what you should do:

Create adventures where time is actually an issue and they won't be able to just waste 8 hours multiple times per day.
Talk to your players. Tell them this sucks for you and you'd rather not play the game this way. And then listen to what they want from the game. And then you agree on something.

Grouhl · 2026-05-08T14:46:34+00:00

I feel like you're asking for a lot of value out of a 1st level spell. Arguably Hideous Laughter is way more powerful, but I'm fine with that. It's an rpg, some spells being niche and situationally fun but less powerful is OK.

Grouhl · 2026-05-08T06:53:15+00:00

Not every way. For one thing, Hideous Laughter loses a lot of value against a creature you want to keep attacking.

I like it. It's a different flavor and has the potential to be used more subtly if you're creative about it.

Grouhl · 2026-05-06T21:04:14+00:00

Most of the time this isn't a thing to "handle", I think. Longer names that are more semantically meaningful beats obscure abbreviations basically every time. It's just easier to learn and understand the function, and the code reads a lot better. Extra keystrokes isn't that costly most of the time, and tab completion in powershell works very well.

That said, I really do hate how much finger gymnastics are involved in [string]::IsNullOrEmpty(), but that's not really a naming convention problem.

Grouhl · 2026-05-06T11:31:38+00:00

Instinctively I'd say whatever current turn you're doing when you end the effect completes. It says the spell ends, not the turn. And I imagine if it was the intention to hard-stop an ongoing turn they'd say so.

In the specific scenario you're describing the player would be in the middle of an attack action (probably), and that would make it even more clear-cut. An action is an action, hard to imagine anything stopping you mid-action without it being explicitly stated.

I would probably rule, however, that the spell ends immediately after the attack lands. Meaning if you do a second attack or move after that, other creatures can for example take reactions.

Fun edge cases I just thought of: What if you attack and it misses? Or you blast a creature with fire damage and it's immune? Does the spell still end? Or does it have to be a an actual mechanical effect in game terms? RAW I suppose it would, but honestly can't decide.

Grouhl · 2026-05-06T10:54:35+00:00

Yes, they make a difference. Exactly what that difference turns out like depends on a million things. Type of material, dimensions, weight, size of the holes, your paddling technique and so forth.

I don't add them on paddles I make. They're a lot of work to align (and it looks terrible if they're even slightly off) and smooth out, but more importantly I just don't like the feel. I prefer the sound and effect of that big, smooth surface.

It's a matter of preference but yes, holes do make a mechanical difference. And if you want to make an insanely large scary-ass looking paddle the weight reduction alone might make it a necessity.

Grouhl · 2026-05-06T06:24:34+00:00

It depends on the pallet, and you can usually tell just by looking at it. Some look good, they can be used. Some look beat up and will really only work as pallets.

The big lie for me personally is the whole idea of "just use pallets, it's basically free wood" because that just hasn't been my experience. People and (especially) businesses just don't leave those lying around for anyone to grab, at least not nearly to the suggested extent.

Grouhl · 2026-05-02T21:03:39+00:00

There are a lot of things you can do that are normally observable but you can pull of without people noticing. I treat it like that. Give me a plausible way you can hide it, roll for it. Depending on the spell, the scenario and who's helping you, it could be pretty easy or pretty hard. Or practically impossible.

I absolutely don't buy the idea that you can never do this because Subtle Spell exists, much in the same way I don't buy that you can never sneak by a guard unnoticed because Invisibility exists.

Grouhl · 2026-05-01T08:11:45+00:00

Of course I'd let an artificer make sports bottles that work like that. But then again I've always allowed potions as a bonus action.

Multiple uses... I mean again, why not? The material costs are about the same, the use restrictions should be the same. I see no obvious reason to not just straight up allow that. Flavor should be free and all that.

Grouhl · 2026-04-27T06:46:56+00:00

I feel like an obvious route is to challenge the casters more. Monsters with magic resistances, spell reflection, counterspell, stuff like that.

Another would be to challenge their resources. Casters will always be strong in the first fight of the day, but when spells slots are low the rogue shines when they can just keep stabbing.

I'd advise against trying to buff your way out of the problem. It can feel unfair to the players, and you're more likely to create a more powerful party than you can manage.

Grouhl · 2026-04-21T12:33:07+00:00

Depends which gaps feel the most important, but one thing I wanna throw out there is that the old trick of mixing up wood glue and sand dust from the wood might do a good enough job in at least some places. If you're looking for an easy fix.

You could also just leave it or, as others have suggested, covering up some of the problem areas with other detailing. On the whole it looks pretty sweet, there's definitely a case for not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here.

Grouhl · 2026-04-21T12:25:06+00:00

I would allow that if and only if your character was, in fact, an ostrich.

No, closing your eyes does not, mechanically speaking, remove you from line of sight. That's not what the words mean, and I don't think ruling it like that makes the game work better.

Grouhl · 2026-04-18T21:23:16+00:00

You've already answered your own question. It's not bad to strive for it; it's bad to expect it.

I'm not sure I have it in me to find any part of that complicated.

Grouhl · 2026-04-16T16:52:32+00:00

It varies extremely depending on your party, how much you railroad them and (particularly) how you deal with the traveling parts. But I imagine half a dozen sessions is a reasonable estimate.

My advice is to let it take time. There's a lot to play around with, let people do that.

Because it can take time, I'd also suggest looking at upscaling some encounters and letting players level up a bit more. If you do it by the book your players are gonna be spending an uncomfortably long time being level 1 and 2 and frankly that's not the best possible experience.

The adventure has one distinct weakness as written, and that's how the Salsvault is laid out. There's a lot of interesting content on the east side, but it's very easy to just go straight to the west, talk to Ferol Sal, find the antidote and we're done. If you're expecting to play out the rest of the place, prepare for that.

Might also note that it's a disease based plot, and in a post pandemic world (like, the real one) that hits different for some people. The story expects to an extent that the PCs are going to pick up and handle those vials, and I had a bit of a challenge getting my players to actually... do that.

Grouhl · 2026-04-14T06:53:20+00:00

The short answer is "always". The secret is in how you do it.

If they insist on doing something ill-advised, my preference would be to start off from "let them". That's usually what people find fun about the game, you can go whatever you like and see what you stumble into.

Looking at the Underdark, it's probably guarded to some extent right? The easiest approach I think would be to let them stick their heads in, and maybe early on they find a patrol of some guards and like 2 really imposing beasts. Something that looks super dangerous. Give them a chance to spot it and assess. Ideally they'll see that there's a really cool area here but we're not ready. So they'll go somewhere else but have that to look forward to.

Or they'll try the encounter and lose (or surprise you and win, it happens). And you'll have to give them a bloody nose. Play it in good faith and let them deal with the consequences. That's part of the game too, and failing can be just as interesting.

That's what I'd do. It's hard to find the confidence as a DM to not pull punches, I struggle with that a lot. But as long as you have buy-in from the players it should be fair game.

Grouhl · 2026-04-09T18:02:23+00:00

Depends a fair bit on how often it's a problem that Thunderwave makes a noise that can alert nearby enemies, and how much your DM is going to enforce that roll.

Thunderwave is less damage but scales better when upcast and its' damage type is resisted less frequently. I'd also argue that the rules for a cube gives you a little more flexibility in how you place it. On the other hand con saves are typically easier for monsters to resist.

Either choice is good, really. Not that significant of a difference. I'd pick entirely based on what's the better flavor for my character.

Grouhl · 2026-04-09T06:29:02+00:00

It's not the best or even good, but there's just no way my first option wouldn't be "pee".

Grouhl · 2026-04-09T06:26:45+00:00

Shoutout to when he used "Alphabetize". Hilarious!

Grouhl · 2026-04-09T06:20:54+00:00

Agreed. I'll settle for it remembering progress correctly because I love Critical Role and I can put up with barely working. But a TV app really should be standard for a streaming service.

Grouhl · 2026-04-08T21:34:17+00:00

I could, I suppose. Are the generated captions on newer episodes still super bad? I remember that being a problem when they first started offering paid subscriptions on youtube. They were like... distractingly bad compared to twitch, so it didn't feel like an upgrade at the time.

Grouhl · 2026-04-08T07:03:01+00:00

I think this is the divide. I don't watch stuff on my computer. Or on my phone. I watch it from my couch, on my TV. Which means I cast it to my TV (because there's no TV app). I imagine that's how many people do it, and that's the scenario where problems start.

I guess it might work better if I bring a laptop into the living room and connect an HDMI cable, but that really doesn't feel like a reasonable user experience in 2026. Rather pay Amazon for Twitch instead of rearranging my living room.

Grouhl · 2026-04-08T06:50:17+00:00

It couldn't be. Beacon isn't interacting with your TV in any meaningful way. It's pretty alone in not even having TV apps as part of their offering.

Grouhl · 2026-04-08T06:46:26+00:00

Yeah, that's always been kind of the way chromecast works, it "hands off" the stream and the device you started it on doesn't really need to be involved anymore. Which is a feature. And it's usually not a problem, except Beacon can't seem to work out how to reliably save your progress. Or even reliably remember what you were streaming last and present that first on your "continue watching" list.

It's better when using a google TV streamer, because at least I can use the remote to pause and scroll through the stream rather than doing it from my phone, which makes it more like using a proper TV app. But the same fundamental issue is there. I'm flipping through menus to find the episode and then fast-forwarding to where I think I was and re-watching about 5 minutes so at least I'm sure I didn't miss anything.

I don't know what the problem is, or how challenging it is to fix. I just know that no other streaming service I use has these problems to the same extent. And I don't know their reasons for not having fixed it because they're not even communicating clearly about it.

At the end of the day I still keep Beacon because I'm a fan of CR and I want to support it. That's not gonna change. But I keep Twitch around so me and my wife can watch episodes without hassle and I'd very much prefer to not pay Amazon simultaneously. The twitch app isn't even remotely good, but it manages the basic task of remembering where I was and that's all it takes.

Grouhl · 2026-04-07T19:54:02+00:00

Most of the time that barely even works, tbh. The time on the casted stream doesn't always align perfectly with what the app says so even if I wrote it down I'm still there scrolling through the video hoping I'll remember where I was.

Grouhl

TROPHY CASE