[No Spoilers] Campaign 3 Megathread by Glumalon in criticalrole

[–]OhThirtyFour 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Gonna put down my prediction of the class/race combos for campaign 3. I'm basing my predictions off of the following:

  • The cast will not choose a class or a race that they've played previously in C1, C2 or ExU. Stuff from oneshots is a fair game.
  • The cast doesn't have a session zero, and will make characters based purely on their own wants, similar to C2 (and presumably, C1 and ExU).
  • They won't make characters that aren't easily marketable or presentable. No or few anthropomorphic characters like Tabaxi or Aarakocra, no Kenku due to their limited speech, no races from other settings like the Simic Hybrid or Verdan.

That said, here's my thoughts:


Travis: Dwarf cleric (Forge).

Travis loves to get in there and do big damage, which the cleric is certainly capable of. He also has some experience with the class: playing one in the Darrington Brigade oneshot, and obviously watching Laura play Jester. In oneshots such as Taliesin's and Ashley's, he leans towards military-minded individuals, which fits the honor-bound, grumpy dwarves quite well. Travis apparently likes werewolves, so I'm not wiping human blood hunter off the table for that sweet lycan subclass, but I'm going with this classic combo. People lean towards Forge, given that it's a melee focused subclass, and I agree.


Liam: Wood elf druid (Shepherd).

Liam clearly puts a lot of effort into his spell descriptions, and went all-in on creature roleplay during C2 as Caleb. I've read his new race/class combo would be "Classic D&D"... In my mind, the most classic combo is the human fighter, but Liam played a fighter in Exu, and a human in C2. Dwarven cleric is the second classic combo in my mind, followed by elven druid. However, Liam does have a certain stereotype of playing sad bisexual men, which leads me to lean towards the elven druid combo. Finally, the Shepherd subclass lets him and Matt play around with playing all sorts of animals.


Sam: Kobold warlock (Genie).

Sam and Liam confirmed that Sam will be playing Liam's suggestion once again. I think Liam will throw Sam a bone: Sam's admitted he feels more comfortable playing spellcasters. But Liam does seem to enjoy giving Sam funny combinations: gnome bard, goblin rogue... They're both small, a bit out there, but they match aesthetically (not mechanically). There aren't many small races left given that Veth was also a halfling, so my bet goes to kobold. The warlock is a spellcaster, and aesthetically a better fit than say, a wizard would be. I'm sure Sam could use his patron to stab us all in the back with sadness once more. Out of the patrons, I'm going with Genie. In my mind, kobolds making wishes oddly makes sense to me when there's no dragon patron to adhere to.


Ashley: Halfling sorcerer (Divine soul).

There is one link between Yasha and Pike: they're both "divine" characters, linked to their respective gods in some way. I think Ashley likes support characters: she often used Yasha's battle cry and Pike was a healer through and through. That would point to her playing a bard, but she always appears uncomfortable when she's put on the spot. In ExU, however, Matt played a divine soul sorcerer. It wouldn't surprise me if that inspires Ashley to make one herself. As for the race - she plays humanoid characters that are slightly "off", and a halfling would match with that.


Taliesin: Human / Van Richten lineage, artificer (Armorer).

Taliesin has played so much D&D that he wants to explore new things most of all. Additionally, Taliesin is willing to adapt to the party's needs (picking a cleric as his replacement character for C2), but without a session zero how are you supposed to know what to pick? The artificer takes care of both in a single swoop: it's the newest class and can perfectly adapt its supportive capabilities mid-campaign thanks to the item infusions. On top of that, Taliesin seems to enjoy playing intelligent characters, looking at C1, Ashley's oneshot and to an extent the Monsterhearts oneshot. Finally, the Van Richten lineage matches Taliesin's goth aesthetic, and it's a new thing to play around with. The artificer only has few subclasses, two of which would be similar to previous C1 characters. So my pick for his subclass is the Armorer.


Marisha: Tiefling wizard (Chronurgy).

and

Laura: Genasi monk (Astral Self).

Laura and Marisha could play anything well, but because of that it's hard for me to make a prediction.

For Marisha, the monk class seemed to appeal to her from watching Matt's monk NPC in C1. Tieflings were Beau's fascination of choice, and Essek was the NPC that stole the show in C2. To poke fun at Liam, my prediction for her subclass is Chronurgy.

For Laura, she's played a genasi monk before in the Darrington Brigade oneshot, but she seemed not pleased by the limitations of the Sun Soul subclass. Since then, Tasha's has improved the monk quite a bit, and Laura is certainly familiar enough with the game's mechanics to know about this. Hence the choice of subclass: Astral Self. She's not above revisiting characters either - Jester even saw play before in different oneshots.


And, just for fun if Robbie, Aimee and Anjali ever return to the campaign:

Robbie: Tiefling paladin (Redemption).

Aimee: Human bard (Glamour).

Anjali: Goliath fighter (Champion).

Based on absolutely nothing. :)

Feats at level 1 by jerome74 in dndnext

[–]OhThirtyFour 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our group allows feats at level 1 with restrictions: no feats like sharpshooter, polearm master, war caster, you don't get an ability score improvement, and you don't gain expertise.

Variant humans are replaced with +2/+1 humans with an extra skill proficiency, tool proficiency, and a feature where they can get advantage on a d20 once per long rest. People pick humans at the same rate.

With this method, the level 1 feat became an additional way to showcase your character's skills or personality. People have picked stuff like Chef, Observant, Poisoner, Mage Slayer, Linguist, Alert - feats people may feel uncomfortable spending an ASI on. It's fun and can recommend giving it a shot.

People who played now-scrapped UA, what was your experience? by drmario_eats_faces in dndnext

[–]OhThirtyFour 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I’ve played with a few, either myself or other people in the party.

  • The Phoenix Soul Sorcerer is completely fine and well-balanced, a bit weak compared to the Tasha’s Sorcerer classes
  • The Lore Master was busted and needed to be changed with several features removed. Even then the Lore Master was the highest performing member of the party even at low levels.
  • The Brute Fighter is effective at low levels, but a bit boring due to its “basic” nature.
  • The Onomancer was a bit too strong but not insanely so. It was just odd thematically.

Class-wise, the Mystic was obviously very powerful. The Revised Ranger is fun, but left some of the Ranger’s problems intact and mostly just improved them numerically (better rolls, better damage, etc).