Introducing Iconic Monsters - Vox Machina Ep 2 | Critical Role Demystified

[@tawesssoabbox]

It was also a nice little "reality check" for Travis, Grog usually can power through most foes. It also began a nice tradition of Grog vs Mind control like effects...

[@lluc_riberax1038]

I didnt know the intellect devour had the ability to pilot a creature that has been knocked out. Makes them a bigger threat if they arent prepared for them.

[@dennisl9176]

Dwarven Keyleth was definitely one of the moments that got me all in on crit role

[@PyrotechNick77]

And also made an appearance in campaign 2

[@redrevelry]

I've had a soft spot for intellect devourers ever since my friend played one in a (now finished) campaign! basically his original character (due to circumstances) got into a one-on-one fight with one, and the DM felt bad so he let him play it lmao. He then fooled me and most people in the party for 10 whole sessions until his character got knocked unconscious and his brain popped out. Amazing stuff, I miss that campaign so much

[@bevans4712]

that sounds like a fun campaign

[@psyberian]

For GMs. I changed mine slightly. They can magically teleport into someone's brain, replacing it. I made it mostly physical. It crawls into the mouth eating and replacing the brain. When escaping a dead body the legs show up as the top of the head peels open and the brain dog or brog (my players term for them) crawls out and scampers off like a insect. They are fast creatures at 40' per turn.

[@whirl-nerd]

I did the same thing! I actually didn’t realize it was intended to be a magical teleportation at the time I planned it, ha ha. It was mostly meant as a last surprise twist for my players. As part of a one-shot, the party’s backstory was that they’d been adventurers years before, but their paladin suddenly turned on them in the underdark and killed one of their own. In the last combat of the session, after they defeated their former friend, his head popped open and an intellect devoured started scampering away. Now knowing why the paladin betrayed them, they were able to kill it and avenge both him and their other fallen friend. It was a lot of fun!

[@SupergeekMike]

I did the same in the one game where I used them - it’s just so much fun to watch a brain crawl out of someone’s head. I had it climb out of his mouth lol

[@captain_rewind]

In the immortal words of Percy: "Never attack the bedding if you don't know the threadcount."

[@Rums10]

Loving this series so far, looking forward to the next episode

[@SupergeekMike]

Thank you!

[@OccidentalAvian]

I want to call attention to Matt's use of the umber hulks because as you said, it's his first time using them in 5e, but it's also the party's second encounter with one. They fought one in the Crystalfen Caverns beneath Emon, and from the way it's built up in the Story of Vox Machina recap video, it was a difficult fight for them. So Matt throwing two of them at the party was a way to up the ante, and also show the party how much stronger they are now.

[@yumega]

It's really cool how deep you can get into monsters' lore. I started playing in around 2007, shortly after I graduated high school, and my style was heavily influenced by the first DM I ever played with. He was amazing, but he tended to use classic monsters reskinned for his own world. It is something that I very frequently do, and I enjoy using parts of the lore to supplement what I write. But there are times when I wish I had been more exposed to the original monster lore. :)

[@gissellemorales2677]

thank you for making these !!! just getting into critical role (just made it to ep. 28) and i’m loving these in depth analyses of the first season

[@Zakiel97]

intellect devourers are a lot of fun, in the game I run one character died in the fight against an intellect devourer and some darkstalkers due to friendly fire, the devourer was on it's last legs so it ursurped the fallen hero's body. So this basically ended the combat encounter and started a social one, as the question became are you gonna let this thing destroy any chance of reviving your companion by destroying it's new host or are you going to parley in hopes of still having that chance. It was a pretty tense situation.

[@dustinmiron4298]

Reppin Dagger Dagger Dagger, NOICE!

[@Keovar]

Grog had an INT of 6, so later when he was polymorphed into a giant bird, it went *up* to 8. I imagine Grog having a _Flowers for Algernon_ moment as he finally understands some of what he's been missing, and knows it's going to fade away. Then again, Grog may not care enough for that to matter... but for me, the idea of knowing you're going to lose parts of yourself to a condition like dementia is pretty terrifying. I tried playing with a group for a few sessions, and upon learning that you could discover what an item does by attuning to it, tried so with Gauntlets of Ogre Power. The DM decided to make them cursed as Gauntkets of Ogre Intellect as well. If the group had any idea what safety tools were, they certainly weren't using them, and expected me to 'roleplay' that I was now cognitively impaired. Of course I was not cool with that, so I left. Maybe it was just meant as hazing (though the owner of the Discord group was a jerk in other ways), but I didn't yet understand that most of the group really wanted to be playing FATE and tended to look down on D&D players.

[@SupergeekMike]

Oof yeah that does not sound like a group that is handling things in the most respectful way, probably good you parted ways early :)

[@Keovar]

@@SupergeekMike - On a better note, this video inspired me to add the skeletal ethereal platypus to my game. Thought eaters aren't in 5e yet, so I looked up versions of the creature from prior editions and translated. These days, almost every character has a few spells, so eating the magic right out of their heads worked pretty well as horror.

[@danielmcgillis270]

I love running smart monsters. I can use tricks and strategies to confuse confound and mislead.

[@TheDeadGunslinger]

Ugh, speaking of this episode, I had a friend who hadn't played much D&D, and had been introduced to it because of CR. so decided to start/DM a FRESH campaign, all of us players were level 1.. and of course he had just watched THIS episode, and thought Intellect devourers were the coolest things ever, so threw 4 of them at us at once.. they're CR3, we were 5 level 1s.. needless to say, we all ended up dead, or as their new vessels.

[@calibcarmichael6356]

The fact you have to watch Tiberius again, I feel bad for you man but I'm enjoying the series so far

[@gingerwithglasses]

My phone auto skipped the next video in the series before I could like and comment on the last one. Like many I was inspired by cr to start playing dnd and dming but really identifying the issues really makes me wish I could do a better job as a dm. Great videos!

[@deansheets]

Beautiful work

[@SupergeekMike]

Thanks!

[@scottmyers1831]

I'm watching this while lying in bed, pitch black; The sound clip at 2:10 made my soul leave my body...

[@Keovar]

0:40 - "Gunter glieben glauchen globen." is what Rick Allen of Def Leppard says at the beginning of _Rock of Ages_. He was just using it to set the timing, instead of the usual 'one, two, three, four'. The band didn't mean anything by them, but they’re real German words. 'Günter' is a name, 'Glieben' means 'Loved', 'Glauten' means 'Believed', and 'Globen' are 'Globes'. The Offspring sampled the words for the beginning of _Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)_. Then Al Yankovic parodied the words along with the rest of the Offspring song in _Pretty Fly (For a Rabbi)_, saying "Vern zol fun dir a blintshik". The Yiddish curse would normally continue with "un di kats zol dikh khapn". All together, it means 'may you turn into a blintz and be snatched by a cat.'

[@capwithoutacountry]

I've been calling the intellect devourer a "brainther" since I listened to that episode

[@NotMe6044]

Dwarven Keyleth is right up there with Human Reylah from Dragon Prince

[@MorningDusk7734]

I always feel like Intellect Devourers need a redesign into something more cohesive. I know they're supposed to look like that, but it looks like a child took the limbs off of one toy and sewed them onto a brain plushie. I would expect an Intellect Devourer to perhaps have tentacle legs, like a jellyfish sort of, or maybe have some stitching and some mismatched legs, showing how they were cobbled together. It looks too well put together for something that disjointed.

[@SupergeekMike]

That sounds a bit like a flumph… and that would be absolutely diabolical to introduce flumphs to the party, make them love flumphs, and then imply that some of the limbs/structure of an intellect devourer used to belong to a flumph… 😈

[@futurelink1359]

Love it!

[@cujoson1150]

Hey, lovely stuff! Just out of curiosity, because I know this is a new channel/new series, but are you planning on covering like, every Vox Machina episode? Or just certain episodes where there's something to learn? Love the vids!

[@SupergeekMike]

That's the plan! If there's an episode where there's not much to learn (or where I would just be repeating myself), I might condense them or release them on an off-week, but I suspect it'll be a while before I get to that point :)

[@MaskofFayt]

This reminds me that I played a game recently where it became very apparent the DM had no idea how to balance encounters and didn't understand what challenge rating was. At level 2 with a party of 3 we fought 4 intellect devourers. We also didn't have a single int score higher than 12 between us. Unsurprisingly, one of us died and the two of us got out by the skin of our teeth. I said nothing and simply didn't play with them again, because I felt they wouldn't be open to feedback or learning opportunities based on their general demeanour and alleged years of experience as a DM. Intellect Devourers are scary enough, but at level 2 the only thing we had to fight them with was protection from good and evil. Would you be willing to cover a video on challenge ratings and encounter balancing?

[@zabeerfarid7687]

Hey I do think it’s cool you’re talking about Critical Role in this way but are you analyzing episode by episode? Won’t it be more productive to analyze certain episodes or even just random ones. I’ll watch the videos either way this is a great series.

[@SupergeekMike]

I do plan to go through each episode, in part because they serve as nice recaps for people who want a simpler way to enjoy early CR, and because I do think there’s a lot to learn! Plus, I’m a completionist lol

[@DocEonChannel]

Interesting that you've watched so much CR you mispronounce "duergar" the same way Matt does. ;)

[@SupergeekMike]

The way I pronounce it definitely gave the first pass of automatic subtitles some trouble lol

[@DocEonChannel]

@@MemphiStig Yeah but Matt (and Mike) says "doo-re-gar". Switching the e and the r. Which makes no sense at all. ;) I mean, I recognized from the start that Gygax got the name by simply mangling the old norse "dvergr" a bit, so it should be "dver-gar" - or I guess if you're american "dwer-gar" would be acceptable. :)

[@trag5492]

Sweeney!