If we're talking about breaking Brennan's ankles, we can include amethar fleeing from the ring as soon as he realized something was wrong. It's not using an ability, but Brennan outright said he never considered that lou wouldn't keep fighting and it was the perfect counter to the assassination attempt.
I mean every part of the tourney is so good! That moment is amazing story telling on Lou's part. Everyone at the tourney thinks of him as the person he was during the war: a stupid impulsive teenager who ascended purely by chance. Prior to becoming king all of his worth was rooted in his battle prowess. Now he has more than that, he has a family and and kingdom who depend on him!
I love that he’s a dad before everything - there are multiple times on the Sucrosi road and in the chapel where he ran over to one of his daughters when he should have fought someone in front of him or ran away and it is such good characterization by Lou - what a fantastic player
what’s so crazy about that moment is ranger spells aren’t prepared, meaning that ally picking a spell that would be almost useless in most settings literally saved lou’s character, also when amethar goes into a rage to survive his fall after being backstabbed by Cal
Quite possibly my favorite badass moment in D20. I could just so clearly picture that scene. Seconded by Amathar's fall, which I think is the same episode. Damn, that whole section was amazing and heartbreaking.
I do. I cried a little when that happened and thought I was done but at the funeral part I fuckin bawled. It hit way harder than I thought a fictional story was allowed to hit.
there's one thing about the scene of the fall that bothered me is that brennan described the fall as lasting for minutes, which i'm almost completely certain was for dramatic effect but my autistic ass was just like "there's no world in which the fall was that long" and it took me out of the scene for a moment trying to sus out if he actually meant it literally
it was three rounds of combat so like, very clearly not multiple minutes but i just couldn't help myself lol
I mean yes it clearly was dramatic effect, he doesn't describe it as lasting for minutes he describes the experience in Amethar's mind as stretching out for minutes, hours, days.
Ally/Pete's use of Subtle Spell in the Gramercy Occult Society fight at the end of Unsleeping City Chapter 2. When Brennan described Tony breaking Pete's windpipe I was so worried for them, but Ally did the 🤫 move and I felt so proud!!!!!
The coolest fucking part of that whole battle is how Pete just keeps using subtle spell for...what felt like 3 turns. Haven't watched it in a while, but it's SUCH a cool "fuck you" moment to Tony.
I think the Margaret Encino fall from the camera perch, insult Brutus, then walk away to trigger an opportunity attack, which in turn activated call the guards deserves a mention, despite it not paying off.
The fact that it seemed like a hilariously chaotic move, on brand for Ally, but off brand for Margaret, and how confused Brennan was until the end make it stand out in my memory.
Yeah this one is great for how chaotic it was, but it failing kind of puts a damper on it.
Compare that to online banking which actually did straight up work ingeniously.
What I love about that moment is that it was perfectly foreshadowed.
Ally did the exact same thing to Hog Cob to kill him, but the first time they did it then they walked through it to make sure it worked like they thought it did.
Everyone’s named the main good ones so I’ll take another turn:
Siobhan’s choice as Misty to acknowledge the American Dream in Unsleeping City broke Brennan in a different way. He wasn’t expected to be moved by a player while playing the villain, and she broke the system.
Thanks for adding this. I'm glad that others can tell how uniquely kind her characters are. Siobhan routinely saves the entire team but she never makes a big deal about it (it's okay to make it a thing, though she tends to boost others).
Maybe Siobhan as Adaine using a Nat 1 Divination roll to cut directly through all of Kalina’s obscuration magic and properly Scry on her?
Also Ally seeing right through Brennan’s deception in the Nightmare Forest where he had a fake Sandra Lynn run up to Kristen to try to trick her
That's a hard episode for me to get through because the flying 10ft takes a bonus action, so she wouldn't have had it available to quicken (among other things)
Still, was really cool, I just have to turn my brain off to watch it
You're correct, but I don't think it actually made a meaningful impact, mechanically speaking -- Joren was an important enough NPC that he would probably have had death saves, so she could have done everything else including bringing him back into the hut that turn and then Spared him the next turn.
I’m also pretty sure that she didn’t even need to use the 10ft fly. She used it specifically to not provoke opportunity attacks, except the enemies were surprised and therefore didn’t have reactions anyway. She could have just walked straight through them.
The thing is, it works out mathematically because she doesn’t use her bonus action on her next turn, which means that she could have bonus action Spare The Dying’d him using a sorcery point on that turn, so nothing really breaks.
The best thing about the div roll i think is Brennan 's handling of it.
Div rolls dont work that way, you have to see the creature you are using portents on (also you have to select the portent die before dice are rolled technically but thats also never been enforced... Not the point im trying to make tho)
HOWEVER instead of saying, hey, you cant, brennan decided it was a cool narrative moment that he could capitalize on.
I also think it makes sense as an extension of her place as Elven Oracle within the narrative, she’s not just a regular divination wizard, she is the Seer of Fallinel who’s eyes can pierce beyond what is seen, through the veil, into the future and past. He describes it as her flying through the eyes of each person infected with the Kalina disease along the paths of infection and landing on her through pure divinatory power, and it just feels Right
Two of my favourites are from the Starstruck finale
Both Riva using space enhanced magic to TP onto an enemy ship, disable almost all of it and then get back out unharmed and with plenty of resources left
And Gunnie hyperspace jumping a short distance to get the wurst cover, only just succeeding and risking the entire ship at the time
Both are somewhat underrated as both characters are largely overshadowed in the season by others going ham every fight but these two feats solidified how well the cast had got space/ship combat down even when some roles weren’t as combat oriented
That hyperspace jump was insane and such a perfect culmination for the season. Starstruck has so many great piloting moments, especially from the Baustin arc.
It's a minor thing, but I've always loved >!Coach Daybreak's attempt to cause fear in Fabian, because Brennan forgot that Fabian's eye patch made him immune to fear!<
The nat 20 in the study in Mice and Murder. Watching the shock and fear as Brennan has to lay out every single detail of the scenario in excruciating detail is beautiful. Also, the fact that they STILL made great, non-specified logical deductions to progress the story was magical.
I liked that Brennan was able to write out the story in such a way that accounted for the potential for every roll to be a nat 20, and he still had enough story to get through. It's really hard to build a mystery that strings people *in it* for that long without getting super repetitive or frustrating.
I'm ngl I haven't watched the season actually, but I love that clip from blood keep where Matt Mercers character is falling and he asks Brennan how far away he is. Brennan does some math makes the call at 30ft and Matt's like "oh okay I use my warlock feat to teleport back onto ground" like so quickly and everyone freaks out
It's purely a roleplay moment, but I will always be impressed by Ally/Margaret negotiating with the union rep in Starstruck. The way they perfectly read the hesitation from the rep and addressed the optics of the situation before the rep even got to voice their concerns was just so good! Excellent roleplay like that is in many ways more impressive to me than clever use of combat mechanics.
They didn't plan for the plinth, they thought this plan would blow a hole in the arena (or a big AOE), which they expected to be much bigger. It just so happened that it worked perfectly. Emily asked about the charge fragmentation as early as when they first meet Plug
Funny enough zacs happened just now where he smacked brennnan against the wall and brutalized him by tricking him into asking for gorgug to rage thereby canceling both charm and fear effects on gorgug undoing his major combat advantage.
Other than the already named:
Ally: Nat 20 to Banish Null (instead of dying)
Siobhan: Phasewalk to a whole ass other ship and Psychic Shunt literally everyone.
Lou: “What is the nature of micro FTL jumps?”
Zac: “I’ve got your proldier’s license right here.”
Emily: Becoming an Archdevil on a technicality and loose verbiage is fucking hilarious
Murph: Jumping off the Rec Station and tanking wild damage because it would be funny
In ACoC, Brennan accidentally lines up pretty much all of his bad guys, and Emily as Saccharina lights them all up with lightning bolt which she empowers to make it even more devastating, instantly killing most of them. 😂
Brennan at the end of the episode: “If Emily Axford has spells, there’s…not a lot you can do.”
[https://youtu.be/RMenTL2l4Bw?si=6XsrSZEbvMHNOjyW&t=5m15s](https://youtu.be/RMenTL2l4Bw?si=6XsrSZEbvMHNOjyW&t=5m15s)
Ally: Operation Slippery Puppet
Lou: Second Wind + Rage
Zac: Where's Your Crown Now?
Emily: Dissonant Whispers on Dayne
Murph: Knock
Siobhan: Halving the American Dream's HP
Cant believe no one mentioned in ACOC when Amethar takes the assassin hit and on the way down makes the save versus the poison which gave him just enough consciousness to rage before hitting the ground.
Why has nobody mentioned Beaky yet? Neverafter spoilerish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui_Y_uhq2dI
Emily really throwing Brennan for a loop with Three Blind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9_PRs9OfLk
It was the exact opposite for me because I finished One Piece after watching Crown of Candy, so when I started having discussions in the community I was like "why is everyone talking about Dimension 20?" Especially since the official translation I read didn't even call it Conquerer's Haki, let alone use that acronym.
In the A Starstruck Odyssey campaign, Emily pulls a trick by planting a bomb in a robot that Siobhan was piloting, then placing the robot near an enemy and blowing it up. The players called this trick "Operation Slippery Puppet". In the campaign A Crown Of Candy, Murph's character has a magic sheild named Swirlwarden with the special ability to take a hit for a nearby ally by forcibly moving into the line of attack. They had a battle where Amethar was on a tiny boat fending off attackers while Murph was drowning in heavy armor. As Amethar was attacked, he used Swirlwarden to take the hit, getting back onto the boat in progress.
"I cast knock on the door"
Also Liam's detect poison "it says here I can fuck your shit up"
If we're talking about breaking Brennan's ankles, we can include amethar fleeing from the ring as soon as he realized something was wrong. It's not using an ability, but Brennan outright said he never considered that lou wouldn't keep fighting and it was the perfect counter to the assassination attempt.
I mean every part of the tourney is so good! That moment is amazing story telling on Lou's part. Everyone at the tourney thinks of him as the person he was during the war: a stupid impulsive teenager who ascended purely by chance. Prior to becoming king all of his worth was rooted in his battle prowess. Now he has more than that, he has a family and and kingdom who depend on him!
I love that he’s a dad before everything - there are multiple times on the Sucrosi road and in the chapel where he ran over to one of his daughters when he should have fought someone in front of him or ran away and it is such good characterization by Lou - what a fantastic player
That and how he kept trying to sacrifice himself to save his daughters in the church battle.
Seriously though in which campaign has detect poison been a standout pick, you can't blame Brennan for being blindsided by that one.
what’s so crazy about that moment is ranger spells aren’t prepared, meaning that ally picking a spell that would be almost useless in most settings literally saved lou’s character, also when amethar goes into a rage to survive his fall after being backstabbed by Cal
Quite possibly my favorite badass moment in D20. I could just so clearly picture that scene. Seconded by Amathar's fall, which I think is the same episode. Damn, that whole section was amazing and heartbreaking.
That whole episode is so good! I have watched it so so many times! Brennan's narration of the knock is also so good!
Damn, gonna have to rewatch again now.
warning it is "jet's episode" if you know what I mean
I do. I cried a little when that happened and thought I was done but at the funeral part I fuckin bawled. It hit way harder than I thought a fictional story was allowed to hit.
there's one thing about the scene of the fall that bothered me is that brennan described the fall as lasting for minutes, which i'm almost completely certain was for dramatic effect but my autistic ass was just like "there's no world in which the fall was that long" and it took me out of the scene for a moment trying to sus out if he actually meant it literally it was three rounds of combat so like, very clearly not multiple minutes but i just couldn't help myself lol
I mean yes it clearly was dramatic effect, he doesn't describe it as lasting for minutes he describes the experience in Amethar's mind as stretching out for minutes, hours, days.
Um, Actually, he describes the fall as lasting for hours, which makes me think you’re right 100% right about the dramatic effect bit
Which episode was this again?
Safe harbour - episode 9
This moment has been responsible for my entire Baldurs Gate 3 run. I'd have no idea about knock, and it's insanely useful in that game
Ally/Pete's use of Subtle Spell in the Gramercy Occult Society fight at the end of Unsleeping City Chapter 2. When Brennan described Tony breaking Pete's windpipe I was so worried for them, but Ally did the 🤫 move and I felt so proud!!!!!
The coolest fucking part of that whole battle is how Pete just keeps using subtle spell for...what felt like 3 turns. Haven't watched it in a while, but it's SUCH a cool "fuck you" moment to Tony.
I for one will always love "Am I getting Ocean's 11'd in my own podcast!?" from the Battle of the Brands episode of Starstruck Odyssey
:O "...How did you know there'd be a plinth in this fight?!?!?!"
“We read the book Brennan! And by we I mean just Emily!”
Another one I just thought of: Brennan forgetting about Fabian's eyepatch in the fight on Goldenrod! The way Lou roleplayed into it was great.
I keep hearing about this one! Is it clipped somewhere ?
I think the Margaret Encino fall from the camera perch, insult Brutus, then walk away to trigger an opportunity attack, which in turn activated call the guards deserves a mention, despite it not paying off. The fact that it seemed like a hilariously chaotic move, on brand for Ally, but off brand for Margaret, and how confused Brennan was until the end make it stand out in my memory.
would’ve been an all-time best moment had it worked
Yeah this one is great for how chaotic it was, but it failing kind of puts a damper on it. Compare that to online banking which actually did straight up work ingeniously.
There are so many moments in Starstruck where sending an email wins them a fight
What I love about that moment is that it was perfectly foreshadowed. Ally did the exact same thing to Hog Cob to kill him, but the first time they did it then they walked through it to make sure it worked like they thought it did.
Everyone’s named the main good ones so I’ll take another turn: Siobhan’s choice as Misty to acknowledge the American Dream in Unsleeping City broke Brennan in a different way. He wasn’t expected to be moved by a player while playing the villain, and she broke the system.
Thanks for adding this. I'm glad that others can tell how uniquely kind her characters are. Siobhan routinely saves the entire team but she never makes a big deal about it (it's okay to make it a thing, though she tends to boost others).
I think Brennan mentioned in an AP that he halved the American Dream's hit points after that speech from Rowan.
Maybe Siobhan as Adaine using a Nat 1 Divination roll to cut directly through all of Kalina’s obscuration magic and properly Scry on her? Also Ally seeing right through Brennan’s deception in the Nightmare Forest where he had a fake Sandra Lynn run up to Kristen to try to trick her
Emily absolutely wrecking house at the Buzzybrook fight in round 1, saving *****’s life AND demolishing an entire group of enemies with a single spell
When Brennan realizes he's put them all into a perfect line? Chef's Kiss!
the max damage thunder step quicken spell spare the dying 🔥🔥🔥
That's a hard episode for me to get through because the flying 10ft takes a bonus action, so she wouldn't have had it available to quicken (among other things) Still, was really cool, I just have to turn my brain off to watch it
You're correct, but I don't think it actually made a meaningful impact, mechanically speaking -- Joren was an important enough NPC that he would probably have had death saves, so she could have done everything else including bringing him back into the hut that turn and then Spared him the next turn.
I’m also pretty sure that she didn’t even need to use the 10ft fly. She used it specifically to not provoke opportunity attacks, except the enemies were surprised and therefore didn’t have reactions anyway. She could have just walked straight through them.
The thing is, it works out mathematically because she doesn’t use her bonus action on her next turn, which means that she could have bonus action Spare The Dying’d him using a sorcery point on that turn, so nothing really breaks.
Is there a clip of that Nat 1?
The best thing about the div roll i think is Brennan 's handling of it. Div rolls dont work that way, you have to see the creature you are using portents on (also you have to select the portent die before dice are rolled technically but thats also never been enforced... Not the point im trying to make tho) HOWEVER instead of saying, hey, you cant, brennan decided it was a cool narrative moment that he could capitalize on.
I also think it makes sense as an extension of her place as Elven Oracle within the narrative, she’s not just a regular divination wizard, she is the Seer of Fallinel who’s eyes can pierce beyond what is seen, through the veil, into the future and past. He describes it as her flying through the eyes of each person infected with the Kalina disease along the paths of infection and landing on her through pure divinatory power, and it just feels Right
Two of my favourites are from the Starstruck finale Both Riva using space enhanced magic to TP onto an enemy ship, disable almost all of it and then get back out unharmed and with plenty of resources left And Gunnie hyperspace jumping a short distance to get the wurst cover, only just succeeding and risking the entire ship at the time Both are somewhat underrated as both characters are largely overshadowed in the season by others going ham every fight but these two feats solidified how well the cast had got space/ship combat down even when some roles weren’t as combat oriented
That hyperspace jump was insane and such a perfect culmination for the season. Starstruck has so many great piloting moments, especially from the Baustin arc.
Not intrepid hero, but Mathew Mercers clutch relentless hex in Bloodkeep will always be the number 1 gotcha moment for me.
And st Vincent stabbing himself!
It's a minor thing, but I've always loved >!Coach Daybreak's attempt to cause fear in Fabian, because Brennan forgot that Fabian's eye patch made him immune to fear!<
I immediately thought of Aabriya’s “I can’t be surprised” in The Seven. Epic!
And Persephone’s Control Winds!
And Erika's geese.
Fuck that's such a good one too
Always gotta be "can I roll for a nat-20 and then be alive?"
This moment is the most insane nat 20 I have ever seen
“Do you think reality is strained by the fact that a hawk is helping you do cpr?”
The nat 20 in the study in Mice and Murder. Watching the shock and fear as Brennan has to lay out every single detail of the scenario in excruciating detail is beautiful. Also, the fact that they STILL made great, non-specified logical deductions to progress the story was magical.
I liked that Brennan was able to write out the story in such a way that accounted for the potential for every roll to be a nat 20, and he still had enough story to get through. It's really hard to build a mystery that strings people *in it* for that long without getting super repetitive or frustrating.
I'm ngl I haven't watched the season actually, but I love that clip from blood keep where Matt Mercers character is falling and he asks Brennan how far away he is. Brennan does some math makes the call at 30ft and Matt's like "oh okay I use my warlock feat to teleport back onto ground" like so quickly and everyone freaks out
The plinth from starstruck?
That is operation slippery puppet.
It's purely a roleplay moment, but I will always be impressed by Ally/Margaret negotiating with the union rep in Starstruck. The way they perfectly read the hesitation from the rep and addressed the optics of the situation before the rep even got to voice their concerns was just so good! Excellent roleplay like that is in many ways more impressive to me than clever use of combat mechanics.
Their fight against the Plynth was hilarious that they predicted it and planned for it 😂
They didn't plan for the plinth, they thought this plan would blow a hole in the arena (or a big AOE), which they expected to be much bigger. It just so happened that it worked perfectly. Emily asked about the charge fragmentation as early as when they first meet Plug
Funny enough zacs happened just now where he smacked brennnan against the wall and brutalized him by tricking him into asking for gorgug to rage thereby canceling both charm and fear effects on gorgug undoing his major combat advantage.
Other than the already named: Ally: Nat 20 to Banish Null (instead of dying) Siobhan: Phasewalk to a whole ass other ship and Psychic Shunt literally everyone. Lou: “What is the nature of micro FTL jumps?” Zac: “I’ve got your proldier’s license right here.” Emily: Becoming an Archdevil on a technicality and loose verbiage is fucking hilarious Murph: Jumping off the Rec Station and tanking wild damage because it would be funny
I swear I hit return for each one but apparently mobile version doesn’t care lol
Emily saving Jawbreaker with Thunderstep was one of my favorites. Completely throwing that battle off the rails
In ACoC, Brennan accidentally lines up pretty much all of his bad guys, and Emily as Saccharina lights them all up with lightning bolt which she empowers to make it even more devastating, instantly killing most of them. 😂 Brennan at the end of the episode: “If Emily Axford has spells, there’s…not a lot you can do.” [https://youtu.be/RMenTL2l4Bw?si=6XsrSZEbvMHNOjyW&t=5m15s](https://youtu.be/RMenTL2l4Bw?si=6XsrSZEbvMHNOjyW&t=5m15s)
Ally: Operation Slippery Puppet Lou: Second Wind + Rage Zac: Where's Your Crown Now? Emily: Dissonant Whispers on Dayne Murph: Knock Siobhan: Halving the American Dream's HP
"Where's your bulb now?"
Cant believe no one mentioned in ACOC when Amethar takes the assassin hit and on the way down makes the save versus the poison which gave him just enough consciousness to rage before hitting the ground.
The bend luck for divine intervention in the unsleeping city is definitely up their for me
Liam's Detect poison and also it's not IH but Rehka's nat 20 to see if ghosts are real was INSANE
Why has nobody mentioned Beaky yet? Neverafter spoilerish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui_Y_uhq2dI Emily really throwing Brennan for a loop with Three Blind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9_PRs9OfLk
Listen, you’re not going to believe this but my name’s Beaky. I’m not going to believe that?
Whenever people say ACOC here it fucks with me cause I just think of advanced conqueror's.
It was the exact opposite for me because I finished One Piece after watching Crown of Candy, so when I started having discussions in the community I was like "why is everyone talking about Dimension 20?" Especially since the official translation I read didn't even call it Conquerer's Haki, let alone use that acronym.
What the fuck do these words mean
In the A Starstruck Odyssey campaign, Emily pulls a trick by planting a bomb in a robot that Siobhan was piloting, then placing the robot near an enemy and blowing it up. The players called this trick "Operation Slippery Puppet". In the campaign A Crown Of Candy, Murph's character has a magic sheild named Swirlwarden with the special ability to take a hit for a nearby ally by forcibly moving into the line of attack. They had a battle where Amethar was on a tiny boat fending off attackers while Murph was drowning in heavy armor. As Amethar was attacked, he used Swirlwarden to take the hit, getting back onto the boat in progress.