I'm playing in a game where our rogue just managed to defect from Umberlee's service to Milil's, in such a way that she wasn't just gacked right there when it happened. Though it does mean that we can't travel by sea for a while. She's going to be mad about it for a while.
@@gogauze Its Umberlee, awhile might be forever...she's the goddess that gets mad at you for being famous despite it giving her literal power. So turning your back on her...YEAH.
Giving a rival an identical twin can be fun. Especially if the party never see them together. One of the best enemies I’ve ever encountered was revealed late campaign to be a set of twins using arcane communications to ensure that one of them was always near us, ready to strike at any opportunity. 🤠👍
Ok I get being annoyed about the lack of Fjorester but there’s a reason why they didn’t do it. Timelines! Call of the netherdeep happens like a year after campaign 2, and that’s intentional. Matt didn’t want to get too far ahead in the timeline of Exandria because otherwise events that happen in cannon for his campaigns and the events that happen in cannon for the books might contradict which can be a problem.
plus he would have to jump magic and technology in the world ahead by that much, which believe me, as someone who is trying to figure that out, is difficult as hell.
I think that all of the world lore this book provides early on is one of its greatest strengths! I really like being able to give PCs different pieces of information about various locations, NPCs, or organizations, as it makes each player feel useful to the party at different times!
@Davvy Chappy It's impressive how much useful information you cram into these short video's. Other D&D tubers would take 30 minutes to review this book, but you managed to get everything a consumer would need to make an educated purchase in 6 minutes. Thanks.
A part of me is seriously considering running this book, albeit with the suggested 1-3 level adventure from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount to allow it as an easier entry point for any potential new players. I have a lot of Exandria on my mind lately after the Amazon show, and have Explorer's Guide and the Tal'Dorei setting books as well... but at the same time I have to be honest I have not finished a single episode of the actual Critical Role show. The whole live play format just doesn't hook me in it seems. So I am somewhat worried if I ran the game some hardcore Critter would end up at my table and start correcting me for messing up the lore or something like that. BUT, it is appealing to have a well received 5E adventure, in a pretty established world that isn't 1) Curse of Strahd since everyone and their cat is familiar with that adventure now and 2) not set in the freaking Forgotten Realms!
Try this on a persnickety player "Sometimes meteors fall from the sky and hit players.......Probably doesn't in Matt's game but it could happen here a lot, fan boy"
To tack on my thoughts on this as someone who is a big fan of Critical Role, if you ended up with one of those people, throw Matt's own words at them. Matt Mercer himself has gone on record as saying that no DM should be compared to another, as we're all individual people with our own way of telling a story, and the beauty of a lot of Matt's Exandria both as he portrays it, and as other DMs may well choose to, is that it's not some immutable thing. There are elements of history and mythology, sure. But there's an enormous amount of wiggle room for adaptation. So as a fan of Critical Role, and as a DM myself, if you end up with one of those "Hardcore CR Fans", just don't waste your time with them. Your world your rules, exactly as the game in all settings is intended to be played.
personally didn't watch it. did some looking into the new dm and watched a few of her previous games and didnt find her dm style appealing so i skipped ExU.
I couldn't finish ep 1 of EU, and I only ground my way through the last third of campaign 2 because of the sunk cost fallacy.... So you're implying that my choice not to start campaign 3 at all was correct? ;)
Literally 99% of Critters will call this character the spawn of Fjord and Jester until we are introduced to an actual child of Fjord and Jester in a one shot or something.
4:22 well, if they were born of Fjord and Jester, then the book would have to take place about what, 20 years after M9? I feel that the book isn't that far ahead. As Wildemount takes place around ep 26 of M9, if this person was the offspring of Fjord and Jester, then they would be 8 years old due to campaign 3.
As someone who loves CR and is choosing this to run as my first campaign EVER, I am really enjoying it. The world feels fleshed out and solid and the NPCs are TOP NOTCH. I really feel like they have their own personality and I can make them bounce off my players well.
I was looking forward to your review/opinion on the book! I am a huge fan of critical role and I was hoping this adventure would be something I could run for my group as a new(er) dm (I only have experience with one shots so far. I sprinkled them in between the sessions of our current campaign run by someone else).
I actually have this book and I really like it. I think the only change I am going to make while running it is that at the end of the Bazzoxan chapter, instead of giving the players free teleportation circles to Ank'Harel, I am going to make things a little less linear by forcing them to make the continent-and-ocean spanning journey themselves. If they level up during that journey I'll just add some more hit points to whatever monsters they run into afterwards.
this is the way. I'm going to have them sail through the lucidian ocean and have to make some stops for a characters backstory and get some cool encounters on tropical islands. After that they will arrive at marquet :)
i personally rank it neck and neck with rhime of the frost maiden. I love it. Also funny chappy says C3 peaked at the pussy joke. there was like big reveals this week, god i hope he watches it.
I'm gonna delve into some spoilery stuff, so don't read ahead if you want a pretty blind experience. (there's a lot, I love sharing my stories that I've experienced) but, Call of the Netherdeep was the 2nd ever campaign I played with my DM and as this review says, it's great because its linear enough but not so linear where there isn't wiggle room for other stuff. for example, we encountered the rivals and while a bit stand off ish due to different character reasons, we warmed up to them and welcomed them in as friends. then there was a pretty significant turning point, we'd been slowly unraveling the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream as we were going along our adventure with the Jewel of 3 prayers, upon arriving at the 2nd blessing sight in this crystalized pit, our rivals turned up having followed us, tagging along with them was one of the associates of the consortium we stood up after realizing their affiliation. what came next was a battle for the jewel while we did our absolute best to try and snap them out of this and make them realize that doing all this for a pouch of gold makes them no better than mercenaries or bandits. half the rival party agreed, Ayo and her friend Maggie, not so much. up until this point, a PC side plot about our dragon born having a past with a demon finally came full swing and the battle was put on hold so we could try to incap our friend and subdue the demon that had possessed them during the fight, but unfortunately it was too late. one of Ayo's party members was murdered horrifically in such a way their cleric couldn't even help. this one incident caused so many issues but in all the right ways. the rivals disbanded, maggie left and we never saw her again, Ayo broke, she went from being this pretty confident rival ranger to rival myself and she lost her composure, she froze and fled, while Dermot (cleric) and Galsariad (wizard) stayed with us to try and help our dragonborn, understanding it was well out of our control and just wanting to do the right thing despite the dread of losing a friend. while they didn't join us, they were no longer rivals, the party had all but officially disbanded, Dermot and Galsariad just wanting to travel and help people where they could like they originally planned. we got our dragonborn and Irvin (human, I believe he was a rogue, young guy, died too soon) out of the place we were in and we gave Irvin a proper burial before continuing our journey. we occasionally ran into D and G here and there, but we didn't run into Ayo again until we reached Ank'Harel where we came to discover that she had joined with the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream, our party was pissed, we planned to straight up kill her if given the chance, but we had more pressing matters at hands, we had to stop the consortium from getting their hands on more Ruidium. after scoping out the town a little, causing trouble for the Consortium, we found their base of operations which was a tavern. by this point we had cleaned our dragonborn of their possession but they didn't know that and we used it as a bargaining chip to sit down and talk with some form of immunity, we dubbed it "Scary Dog Privilege" because no one is going to mess with someone who has a big scary dragonborn that swallows heads. we made a deal, we help them enter Cael Morrow if they give up their new agent Ayo. they were reluctant at first, but they agreed. told us to come back tomorrow and we can have her. so we gave them what they needed to enter into Cael Morrow and returned the following morning. turns out they'd beaten Ayo within an inch of her life so we could get an easy kill when we arrived but upon seeing her and her offering up a genuine apology (thank you high insight) that she wanted to share before we killed her, we dispatched everyone else and took care of her, she understood the error of her ways, she accepted she wasn't anything close to the hero she wanted to be and for that, we saved her, wanted to give her a fighting chance and a chance to find her friends and correct herself back on the path she seemingly lost herself on. honestly, all of it was pretty great, ended up taking over that Tavern and had my character retire once the deed had been signed over to him after we toppled the consortium. all of that came from just that small decision to include rivals and I genuinely think, apart from actual multiple endings aside, the rivals were one of the best additions for this campaign. I remember it all so fondly.
@@randomsleepyness it was such a great campaign, this campaigned wrapped up about.. I wanna say 5 or so months ago? so the fact I was able to recall it so well just goes to show how great of an addition the rivals were
It's funny to hear Davvy tapped out from the Pussy joke, I had a similar thing with ExU. I was really keen for an Iyengar game but that first episode is so unrelentingly full of jokes about piss and shit and puke from the party that I haven't gone back to continue it.
Honestly the rest of Exu is a bit eh. I think the crew immediately betraying the faceless threw Abria off so compensated by focusing on everyone's individual backstories. Which in itself is not a bad idea but it meant that the bbeg was only personal to one of the players (and they weren't given all that build up). That and it lead to the game' story being a cobbled together list of vaguely related events, rather than the pursuit of a single story.
Davvy, that half-orc water genassi could very well be a _time displaced_ daughter of Jester and Fjord, exandria does have chronomantic magics after all. also maybe she has tiny horns under er hair
It would work. Though the Wildemount guide would probably be more helpful for creating characters for this adventure since that's where the adventure starts.
Seems like this is the better CR inspired book with WotC backing. Easy to run, fun rival system and few other interesting features that could be used in other campaigns. Glad to see a module focus on uncommon lineages instead of typical humans. Be a goblin or an orc or bugbear
i agree with your review of it being a good book to get and dm. I would put it up there with being on par with rhime of the frostmaiden. Also C3 has been good, like that sam joke wasnt a peak by any margin as like the rest of the episodes had like crazy reveals, like this week. its a shame to hear it turned you off cr.
Without running thus adventure, and only scimming trought it my prediction is: It will be one of the actually good dnd adventures. Most official adventures are not good as written, partly because they are written by multiple people who all have good ideas, but they all disconnected and the result ends up to be a badly connected mess, what fails to flesh out the core team, because it has like 8 different idea of what that should be, (yes, I'm looking at you Descend into Avernus).
@@David_Blake91 There is a differance between multiple people working on an adventure, but following one guys idea, and every chapter seemingly being made by totally different teams who had 0 communication.
Awesome content as always, Chappy, stay amazing. Buuuuuuut you tapped out of C3 just from Sam being Sam? Unsure if that was a joke or a serious comment. You do you, man, but C3 has been a treat. Admittedly I am only 60 eps into C1 and haven't started C2 of Crit Role because good grief that is a 4 hour movie for every episode and there are 120ish for each campaign. But if you've got the time and want to enjoy more peak Matt Mercer, C3 is a helluva good time. Ashley Johnson is living her best life as Fearne, would be a shame to miss that.
He said he stopped watching because he knew the show had peaked, as in it couldn't get any better. Pretty sure the actual 'stopped watching' part was a joke.
I actually also thought that the water genasi girl could be daughter of Fjord and Jester, so disappointed sh isn't... you know what, maybe I will make her that way when I plan to run this adventure. :D
Other reviews I've seen say that Netherdeep and Avernus have a similar structure, and I know that you didn't think much of Avernus' method of connecting things. Do you feel a similar problem here?
Hey, one thing I noticed is that you've not made any videos about other systems lately. If you still enjoy that type of content can I suggest Dungeon World? It's a PbtA game that captures the roleplay first mentality 5e was half trying to capture, and the old school feel of 1E, without making every session feel like calculus homework.
4:21 I mean... I could be wrong, but wouldn't she have to be a Tiefling if that was the case, since tieflings breed true? Yes, Jester inherited her skin color and a few other things from her water genasi father, but "so a tiefling and a half-orc had a water genasi daughter because she took after her grandpa I guess" sounds incredibly random.
Absolutely. I only watched C1 because I just couldn’t make the commitment to watch the second campaign, but I love Exandria. In many ways its an ideal 5e setting that feels both fresh yet familiar. Most criticism of CR is actually a criticism of its fans; in some cases valid and in others not.
Before watching the video, I just want to give a quick comment about the first 15 seconds: Matt Mercer writing Netherdeep was more of a red flag to me than anything honestly. He runs games very differently than Wizards of the Coast expects people to, and if he was working with Wizards on this book it suggested that they might clash to try and get a little of both styles, only to end up with all the bad and none of the good.
I think the book turned out great. I bought it because of the rivals and factions, but the story is well written and looks like a lot of fun to play in
if wotc was a bunch of inflexible ego's sure, you might have a legitimate concern. but for the most part they seem pretty chill there and willing to let Matt dictate the direction the book takes. we have examples of what a book writter entirely by Matt (Taldorei reborn) and a book written by him under wotc (wildmount) looks like and honestly there's a lot of crossover. just hope that big daddy Hasbro never gets directly involved because then shit gets ruined.
Then I guess by your deffinition it might be actually a good book, since he wasn't the one who wrote it. He was one of the Lead Devs. but not a writer. Also its not like they havent cooperated on a previous book before, which actually turned out to be one of the best official 5e setting books so far!
"Right until the pussy joke, then I realized it had peaked" lol I am not enjoying C3 as much as C2 either, have skipped several episodes. So I get the feel.
@@moonlight2870 Mercer's letting his (always indecisive) players determine where they go and what they do. Outside of that, I haven't felt it's dragged at all. They're regularly discovering new cool places and fun NPCs. The threads of various threats are tying together. I'm having a great time. Hope you enjoy it.
I miss the "critical recap" that they had with Campaign 2 that was a 5 minute recap of an episode, since especially early campaign the first few episodes have a lot of the cast just figuring stuff out but not a ton happening at once.
Just played this campaign - it's 100% garbage. It's literally just one big fetch quest with a bull-shit end dungeon. This is the worst prewritten campaign I've ever played.
funny how people's opinions on campaigns differ, since I've heard many good things about this one. it's kinda like how I've seen a decent few ppl talking about how much they dislike curse of strahd which surprised me given its high acclaim
After the Kickstarter debacle, I couldn't give two shits about Critical Role, because they obviously don't give a shit about us. But I'll help Davvy with the algorithm. Here you go.
Don't say anything mildly spicy in anyway or davvy is going to take it personally and prolly call you a biggot or infer you are sexist in his next video.
"This pirate girl born of orcs isn't the spawn of Jester and Fjord" well...she is now lol in everyone of my tables.
It's your world make of it what you want!
Big facts
My players don't even know what Critical Role is so when I make this canon it's solely for me
This is my new head cannon
I'm putting the game in 836 PD, one year after Campaign 2, so she really can't be their kid.
As someone currently playing a Triton Cleric of Umberlee, I appreciate this book adding a water level
I'm playing in a game where our rogue just managed to defect from Umberlee's service to Milil's, in such a way that she wasn't just gacked right there when it happened. Though it does mean that we can't travel by sea for a while. She's going to be mad about it for a while.
@@gogauze Its Umberlee, awhile might be forever...she's the goddess that gets mad at you for being famous despite it giving her literal power. So turning your back on her...YEAH.
Giving a rival an identical twin can be fun. Especially if the party never see them together. One of the best enemies I’ve ever encountered was revealed late campaign to be a set of twins using arcane communications to ensure that one of them was always near us, ready to strike at any opportunity. 🤠👍
That is big brains
I had a story hook villain for one player who was thought to have incredibly accessible teleportation powers, but was actually just four dudes.
Ok I get being annoyed about the lack of Fjorester but there’s a reason why they didn’t do it. Timelines! Call of the netherdeep happens like a year after campaign 2, and that’s intentional. Matt didn’t want to get too far ahead in the timeline of Exandria because otherwise events that happen in cannon for his campaigns and the events that happen in cannon for the books might contradict which can be a problem.
plus he would have to jump magic and technology in the world ahead by that much, which believe me, as someone who is trying to figure that out, is difficult as hell.
I think that all of the world lore this book provides early on is one of its greatest strengths! I really like being able to give PCs different pieces of information about various locations, NPCs, or organizations, as it makes each player feel useful to the party at different times!
@Davvy Chappy It's impressive how much useful information you cram into these short video's. Other D&D tubers would take 30 minutes to review this book, but you managed to get everything a consumer would need to make an educated purchase in 6 minutes. Thanks.
The day Davvy give something a 5 out of 10, the universe will fold in on its self
"Everyone's losing their mind about the new adventure"
coincidentally, there's been almost no talk about it on reddit
Because we all know reddit is the only website existing on the internet. 🙄
@@ThorsShadow the dndnext subreddit has over half a million readers, that's signifixlcant
A part of me is seriously considering running this book, albeit with the suggested 1-3 level adventure from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount to allow it as an easier entry point for any potential new players. I have a lot of Exandria on my mind lately after the Amazon show, and have Explorer's Guide and the Tal'Dorei setting books as well... but at the same time I have to be honest I have not finished a single episode of the actual Critical Role show. The whole live play format just doesn't hook me in it seems. So I am somewhat worried if I ran the game some hardcore Critter would end up at my table and start correcting me for messing up the lore or something like that.
BUT, it is appealing to have a well received 5E adventure, in a pretty established world that isn't 1) Curse of Strahd since everyone and their cat is familiar with that adventure now and 2) not set in the freaking Forgotten Realms!
Simple response to that hypothetical critter: "This is MY Exandria, not Matthew Mercer's."
@@tylowstar9765 True
Try this on a persnickety player
"Sometimes meteors fall from the sky and hit players.......Probably doesn't in Matt's game but it could happen here a lot, fan boy"
To tack on my thoughts on this as someone who is a big fan of Critical Role, if you ended up with one of those people, throw Matt's own words at them. Matt Mercer himself has gone on record as saying that no DM should be compared to another, as we're all individual people with our own way of telling a story, and the beauty of a lot of Matt's Exandria both as he portrays it, and as other DMs may well choose to, is that it's not some immutable thing. There are elements of history and mythology, sure. But there's an enormous amount of wiggle room for adaptation. So as a fan of Critical Role, and as a DM myself, if you end up with one of those "Hardcore CR Fans", just don't waste your time with them. Your world your rules, exactly as the game in all settings is intended to be played.
If someone is gonna be like that then theyre a player not worth running for. u give them a warning if they continue u kick them out
"Right up to the pussy joke..."
Implying you made it through the hour and a half of "who pissed on my spear?" in episode 1 of Exandria Unlimited?
Perhaps hoping that since Exandria was just a mini series with half of the cast being guests and a different DM that Season 3 would be different.
personally didn't watch it. did some looking into the new dm and watched a few of her previous games and didnt find her dm style appealing so i skipped ExU.
I couldn't finish ep 1 of EU, and I only ground my way through the last third of campaign 2 because of the sunk cost fallacy....
So you're implying that my choice not to start campaign 3 at all was correct? ;)
4:19 you’ve echoed my thoughts on this matter perfectly Davvy
Literally 99% of Critters will call this character the spawn of Fjord and Jester until we are introduced to an actual child of Fjord and Jester in a one shot or something.
Just make all the rivals twins regardless of how many there are. And then make the party think that there's only one
4:22 well, if they were born of Fjord and Jester, then the book would have to take place about what, 20 years after M9? I feel that the book isn't that far ahead. As Wildemount takes place around ep 26 of M9, if this person was the offspring of Fjord and Jester, then they would be 8 years old due to campaign 3.
As someone who loves CR and is choosing this to run as my first campaign EVER, I am really enjoying it. The world feels fleshed out and solid and the NPCs are TOP NOTCH. I really feel like they have their own personality and I can make them bounce off my players well.
Alright, you’ve intrigued me. Curious to see whether the adventure lives up to the premise.
Ah, the review I've been waiting for. Every review you do on books is so helpful and the perfect amount of time. Thank you!
I was looking forward to your review/opinion on the book! I am a huge fan of critical role and I was hoping this adventure would be something I could run for my group as a new(er) dm (I only have experience with one shots so far. I sprinkled them in between the sessions of our current campaign run by someone else).
" I'm not mad, I just want to put something in your eye"
Touche, good sir. You've won a fan for life
I actually have this book and I really like it. I think the only change I am going to make while running it is that at the end of the Bazzoxan chapter, instead of giving the players free teleportation circles to Ank'Harel, I am going to make things a little less linear by forcing them to make the continent-and-ocean spanning journey themselves. If they level up during that journey I'll just add some more hit points to whatever monsters they run into afterwards.
this is the way. I'm going to have them sail through the lucidian ocean and have to make some stops for a characters backstory and get some cool encounters on tropical islands. After that they will arrive at marquet :)
I think it's a good book.
Dermot is my favorite rival.
i personally rank it neck and neck with rhime of the frost maiden. I love it. Also funny chappy says C3 peaked at the pussy joke. there was like big reveals this week, god i hope he watches it.
I'm gonna delve into some spoilery stuff, so don't read ahead if you want a pretty blind experience. (there's a lot, I love sharing my stories that I've experienced)
but, Call of the Netherdeep was the 2nd ever campaign I played with my DM and as this review says, it's great because its linear enough but not so linear where there isn't wiggle room for other stuff. for example, we encountered the rivals and while a bit stand off ish due to different character reasons, we warmed up to them and welcomed them in as friends. then there was a pretty significant turning point, we'd been slowly unraveling the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream as we were going along our adventure with the Jewel of 3 prayers, upon arriving at the 2nd blessing sight in this crystalized pit, our rivals turned up having followed us, tagging along with them was one of the associates of the consortium we stood up after realizing their affiliation.
what came next was a battle for the jewel while we did our absolute best to try and snap them out of this and make them realize that doing all this for a pouch of gold makes them no better than mercenaries or bandits. half the rival party agreed, Ayo and her friend Maggie, not so much. up until this point, a PC side plot about our dragon born having a past with a demon finally came full swing and the battle was put on hold so we could try to incap our friend and subdue the demon that had possessed them during the fight, but unfortunately it was too late. one of Ayo's party members was murdered horrifically in such a way their cleric couldn't even help. this one incident caused so many issues but in all the right ways. the rivals disbanded, maggie left and we never saw her again, Ayo broke, she went from being this pretty confident rival ranger to rival myself and she lost her composure, she froze and fled, while Dermot (cleric) and Galsariad (wizard) stayed with us to try and help our dragonborn, understanding it was well out of our control and just wanting to do the right thing despite the dread of losing a friend. while they didn't join us, they were no longer rivals, the party had all but officially disbanded, Dermot and Galsariad just wanting to travel and help people where they could like they originally planned. we got our dragonborn and Irvin (human, I believe he was a rogue, young guy, died too soon) out of the place we were in and we gave Irvin a proper burial before continuing our journey.
we occasionally ran into D and G here and there, but we didn't run into Ayo again until we reached Ank'Harel where we came to discover that she had joined with the Consortium of the Vermilion Dream, our party was pissed, we planned to straight up kill her if given the chance, but we had more pressing matters at hands, we had to stop the consortium from getting their hands on more Ruidium. after scoping out the town a little, causing trouble for the Consortium, we found their base of operations which was a tavern. by this point we had cleaned our dragonborn of their possession but they didn't know that and we used it as a bargaining chip to sit down and talk with some form of immunity, we dubbed it "Scary Dog Privilege" because no one is going to mess with someone who has a big scary dragonborn that swallows heads. we made a deal, we help them enter Cael Morrow if they give up their new agent Ayo. they were reluctant at first, but they agreed. told us to come back tomorrow and we can have her. so we gave them what they needed to enter into Cael Morrow and returned the following morning. turns out they'd beaten Ayo within an inch of her life so we could get an easy kill when we arrived but upon seeing her and her offering up a genuine apology (thank you high insight) that she wanted to share before we killed her, we dispatched everyone else and took care of her, she understood the error of her ways, she accepted she wasn't anything close to the hero she wanted to be and for that, we saved her, wanted to give her a fighting chance and a chance to find her friends and correct herself back on the path she seemingly lost herself on.
honestly, all of it was pretty great, ended up taking over that Tavern and had my character retire once the deed had been signed over to him after we toppled the consortium. all of that came from just that small decision to include rivals and I genuinely think, apart from actual multiple endings aside, the rivals were one of the best additions for this campaign. I remember it all so fondly.
That is awesome!
@@randomsleepyness it was such a great campaign, this campaigned wrapped up about.. I wanna say 5 or so months ago? so the fact I was able to recall it so well just goes to show how great of an addition the rivals were
It's funny to hear Davvy tapped out from the Pussy joke, I had a similar thing with ExU. I was really keen for an Iyengar game but that first episode is so unrelentingly full of jokes about piss and shit and puke from the party that I haven't gone back to continue it.
Honestly the rest of Exu is a bit eh. I think the crew immediately betraying the faceless threw Abria off so compensated by focusing on everyone's individual backstories. Which in itself is not a bad idea but it meant that the bbeg was only personal to one of the players (and they weren't given all that build up). That and it lead to the game' story being a cobbled together list of vaguely related events, rather than the pursuit of a single story.
4:28 now I am going to have this in my mind all day
Davvy, that half-orc water genassi could very well be a _time displaced_ daughter of Jester and Fjord, exandria does have chronomantic magics after all. also maybe she has tiny horns under er hair
Wet bros sounds so fun! Hope you enjoy. Thanks for the nice and ez review.
Thank you for pointing out that she looks like Jester and Fjords daughter!!!
I love this module. I got a signed version of it when it first came out.
This is dope, absolutely willing to check this shit out
The name "Rivals Incorporated LLC" got a good chuckle out of me. Can I use that name in my game?
Use it for a game of Acquisitions Incorporated
No, it’s my trademark I will sue you if you use it
You mention the Wildemount book, but wouldn't the Taldorei Reborn book also work even though its not official 5e content?
I don't see why not.
It would work.
Though the Wildemount guide would probably be more helpful for creating characters for this adventure since that's where the adventure starts.
Sandbox cities? Developed and supported NPCs? Sign me up, y'all!
Seems like this is the better CR inspired book with WotC backing. Easy to run, fun rival system and few other interesting features that could be used in other campaigns. Glad to see a module focus on uncommon lineages instead of typical humans. Be a goblin or an orc or bugbear
I’m running this on Saturday. First time I’ve DMed in 2 years
I’ve never been intrested in the critical role books. But with water levels and other stuff this seems gem intresting
Already having EGtW and Tal’dorei Reborn, I will be getting this soon.
i agree with your review of it being a good book to get and dm. I would put it up there with being on par with rhime of the frostmaiden. Also C3 has been good, like that sam joke wasnt a peak by any margin as like the rest of the episodes had like crazy reveals, like this week. its a shame to hear it turned you off cr.
i agree, though I'm not very far in it's really kept the comedy throughout, especially (in my opinion) thanks to fearne
Without running thus adventure, and only scimming trought it my prediction is: It will be one of the actually good dnd adventures. Most official adventures are not good as written, partly because they are written by multiple people who all have good ideas, but they all disconnected and the result ends up to be a badly connected mess, what fails to flesh out the core team, because it has like 8 different idea of what that should be, (yes, I'm looking at you Descend into Avernus).
This book was also written by multiple people.
Like every adventure ever.
@@David_Blake91 There is a differance between multiple people working on an adventure, but following one guys idea, and every chapter seemingly being made by totally different teams who had 0 communication.
Or Rime of the Frostmaiden
Ayo Jabe baited us.
I just joined a Call of the Netherdeep campaign and my character is going to be a Tabaxi Way of the Ascendant Dragon Monk.
Awesome content as always, Chappy, stay amazing. Buuuuuuut you tapped out of C3 just from Sam being Sam? Unsure if that was a joke or a serious comment. You do you, man, but C3 has been a treat. Admittedly I am only 60 eps into C1 and haven't started C2 of Crit Role because good grief that is a 4 hour movie for every episode and there are 120ish for each campaign. But if you've got the time and want to enjoy more peak Matt Mercer, C3 is a helluva good time. Ashley Johnson is living her best life as Fearne, would be a shame to miss that.
He said he stopped watching because he knew the show had peaked, as in it couldn't get any better. Pretty sure the actual 'stopped watching' part was a joke.
I actually also thought that the water genasi girl could be daughter of Fjord and Jester, so disappointed sh isn't... you know what, maybe I will make her that way when I plan to run this adventure. :D
Other reviews I've seen say that Netherdeep and Avernus have a similar structure, and I know that you didn't think much of Avernus' method of connecting things. Do you feel a similar problem here?
Love the quick plug of Leeroy and Leeroy. But we didn't get a number review so this video gets a 4/10 😆
I got mine over the week and plan to sift thru it today
Thank you David Chapel
where are you i miss you
Soooo can I be any type of yuan ti now? Or am I just stuck with ashy scaled legs and a forked tounge?
Hey, one thing I noticed is that you've not made any videos about other systems lately. If you still enjoy that type of content can I suggest Dungeon World? It's a PbtA game that captures the roleplay first mentality 5e was half trying to capture, and the old school feel of 1E, without making every session feel like calculus homework.
4:21 I mean... I could be wrong, but wouldn't she have to be a Tiefling if that was the case, since tieflings breed true? Yes, Jester inherited her skin color and a few other things from her water genasi father, but "so a tiefling and a half-orc had a water genasi daughter because she took after her grandpa I guess" sounds incredibly random.
If you can and want to, would you do a review of Dungeons of Drakkenheim when it comes out in April?
Thanks
Crits fanbase gets it a bad wrap. Book is good for new DMS. But you can make it far more complicated
Absolutely. I only watched C1 because I just couldn’t make the commitment to watch the second campaign, but I love Exandria. In many ways its an ideal 5e setting that feels both fresh yet familiar.
Most criticism of CR is actually a criticism of its fans; in some cases valid and in others not.
Our group has 7 ppl and only 5 rivals it feels odd
Davvy going book-reading fast.
A Leroy and Leroy reference!
If you had to rate it, would it be...
4 out of 10?
4:20 I just want to put something in your eye
The total lack of irony makes this video pretty funny though.
Hmm...guessing yes? (pre-viewing supposition).
He certainly seems gleeful
You can play Critical Roll in DND that's new
Screw Ruidium. Take a pressure capsule from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Lol.
Rated 4/10?
And as always, the final score is 4/10
So what you're saying is: 4/10?
A strong 4 out of 10.
Wonder if any reviews out there that are not fans of critical roll.
I'm sorry. There is a "best" and "worst" ending and yet none of the endings is better than the others? 😁
But I think what we all want to know is: is it still a 4/10 book?
You didn't give it a 4/10??????????
👀👀👀
Who are you? And what did you do to Davvy?
👀👀👀
Since Davvy didn't say it, I will...
4/10
You should give C3 another chance, the pussy joke was weird but these characters grow on you so fast.
cool
So, 4/10, right Davvy?
Haven't started the vid yet, but if you give it anything other than "4 out of 10" i will be extremely disappointed.
I get this video 4 out of 10
Epic sweeping stories isn't a grognard thing though... just dungeon crawling for gold.
so 4/10?
Idk seems like a 4 out of 10 to me
I think the netherdeep is personally fine but as far as pure writing for a adventure it is moderate.
So....4/10?
Where's the 4/10 rating!!!?
Some dude spamming your commenters pretending to be you.
So … 4/10 then?
4/10 Now go back to bed.
Before watching the video, I just want to give a quick comment about the first 15 seconds:
Matt Mercer writing Netherdeep was more of a red flag to me than anything honestly. He runs games very differently than Wizards of the Coast expects people to, and if he was working with Wizards on this book it suggested that they might clash to try and get a little of both styles, only to end up with all the bad and none of the good.
I think the book turned out great. I bought it because of the rivals and factions, but the story is well written and looks like a lot of fun to play in
That’s interesting what would you say are the main differences between Matt’s style vs how wizards expects people to run their games?
@@Skypup2 … ya know… I can’t think of any at the moment… my previous opinion was likely poor judgement on my part.
if wotc was a bunch of inflexible ego's sure, you might have a legitimate concern. but for the most part they seem pretty chill there and willing to let Matt dictate the direction the book takes. we have examples of what a book writter entirely by Matt (Taldorei reborn) and a book written by him under wotc (wildmount) looks like and honestly there's a lot of crossover. just hope that big daddy Hasbro never gets directly involved because then shit gets ruined.
Then I guess by your deffinition it might be actually a good book, since he wasn't the one who wrote it.
He was one of the Lead Devs. but not a writer.
Also its not like they havent cooperated on a previous book before, which actually turned out to be one of the best official 5e setting books so far!
Have not watched the video yet, but I'm guessing 4/10
it was good; 4/10
So, 4/10, eh?
4/10
"Right until the pussy joke, then I realized it had peaked" lol
I am not enjoying C3 as much as C2 either, have skipped several episodes. So I get the feel.
Ashley Johnson is absolutely playing her best character ever in Fearne. I'm having a great time in C3. Hope you do, too.
@@danielpayne1597 oh yeah, the characters are absolutely great. The sessions however feel dragged and disconnected.
@@moonlight2870 Mercer's letting his (always indecisive) players determine where they go and what they do. Outside of that, I haven't felt it's dragged at all. They're regularly discovering new cool places and fun NPCs. The threads of various threats are tying together. I'm having a great time. Hope you enjoy it.
I miss the "critical recap" that they had with Campaign 2 that was a 5 minute recap of an episode, since especially early campaign the first few episodes have a lot of the cast just figuring stuff out but not a ton happening at once.
@@joec9693 They still have that, but it's in a written form on their website instead of a video.
I bounced off season 3 at the exact sane point
Meh 4/10
Sorry Davvy, they have "best, worst and natural" endings, but none of them are considered "better" than others?
Wut?
Furst
I'm 4rth out of 10
Just played this campaign - it's 100% garbage. It's literally just one big fetch quest with a bull-shit end dungeon. This is the worst prewritten campaign I've ever played.
funny how people's opinions on campaigns differ, since I've heard many good things about this one. it's kinda like how I've seen a decent few ppl talking about how much they dislike curse of strahd which surprised me given its high acclaim
@@jackiecozzie4803 funny thing I am playing Curse of Strahd right now. IMO fantastic module.
@@Its_whats_his_face I think it's great too, I just know some people don't which is interesting
@@jackiecozzie4803 to be fair it can get pretty dark depending on the group and DM. Even on its face in the most vanilla format it's Gothic horror
After the Kickstarter debacle, I couldn't give two shits about Critical Role, because they obviously don't give a shit about us. But I'll help Davvy with the algorithm. Here you go.
oh what happened
Don't say anything mildly spicy in anyway or davvy is going to take it personally and prolly call you a biggot or infer you are sexist in his next video.
Short answer...
No
4/10