#like braius and yasha too let them fight

[dirtyassvoiceactors]

Dorian gets offended/jealous Orym is talking about working out with Beau, so he tries to show off, Imogen calls him out on poor execution, so he just walks off to help Caduceus (who also quickly kinda roasts him) kkkkkkk

i need next episode to after Dorian and Orym wakeup together, Orym goes workout with Beau and have competitions, so the whole time is just Orym and Beau showing off to Dorian and Yasha, like doing push ups with them in their back or sm, doing upsidedown pullups

[utilitycaster]

So far in campaign 3, 5 of the party have died and been resurrected and 2 have died permanently, with only Imogen, Dorian, and (presumably) Braius not dying ever. In campaign 2, again 5 of the party died and got resurrected over the whole thing with Beau, Yasha, and Kingsley surviving, and Molly permanently dying. BUT, in Vox Machina, everyone except Tary died at least once with the twins dying FOUR TIMES EACH and only Vax permanently dying. What do you think changed after the first campaign? Is it that Matt got “better” at scaling encounters, the players got better at staying alive, a group decision to take resurrection more seriously, or is it a total coincidence?

It’s just something I noticed all of a sudden tonight and I’m not sure if I’m just seeing something where there is nothing or if other people have noticed this too and have thoughts on why it is.

Hi anon,

I started to write up a massive and lengthy analysis this morning and realized it was not very good and that I had to leave for work in 20 minutes. Anyway I think it's mostly the players getting better at staying alive, mostly through party comp:

Vox Machina unexpectedly, for "Ashley got cast on a TV show that filmed in NYC" and "Tiberius's player sucks" reasons found themselves abruptly down not only a healer (most of the time) but an arcane caster, leaving Scanlan and Keyleth doing double and triple duty. Vex did a pretty impressive amount of healing for a ranger, actually, but only had touch heals and limited spell slots for them. Add the fact that Keyleth couldn't heal while in Wildshape until pretty much the endgame and Scanlan was absent for an arc, replaced by Tary, who could heal but was not a full caster, and that explains a lot.

Vox Machina also had two characters with relatively low HP/terrible con saves to go with it (the twins) and only one true, full-time tank (Grog). Vex and Percy were often out of healing range but could get hit by an AOE attack. Also, dragons are particularly lethal for AOE reasons and four of those deaths are Raishan, two from when they tried to get Raishan immediately after the Thordak fight.

Of Vox Machina's deaths, two of Vax's, one of Vex's, Keyleth's, and one of Grog's are all out of combat and primarily due to player choice. They got way better at not doing this (well, Vax's are kind of unavoidable, but we only had one in C2 of this nature with Veth and the Power Word Kill trap, and none in C3).

One VM death (two if you count the wedding one-shot) was a direct assassination vs. one in the Nein and none for Bells Hells.

Now consider:

The Mighty Nein and Bells Hells each have at least two tanks; Bells Hells has three. The Nein have two full clerics (*extremely tired voice* Jester actually is a very good healer, Caduceus is just exceptionally support-focused) even without Fjord and Yasha's healing. Bells Hells had one full time cleric, and now they have a full bard and a bard-paladin.

No one dumps CON anymore. If only I could get them to start dumping WIS again and stop dumping INT, but I digress.

People are getting better at checking for traps and not selling their souls to cursed items.

Otohan Thull's build is in fact, I must admit, pretty good and cool, her lack of any personality traits not withstanding, but her lethal nature is specifically because she exclusively faced a super tapped party in a situation where they couldn't get out of there. She is responsible for all 5 deaths that weren't a Bertrand Bell Clear Setup situation; I think if Bells Hells hadn't been trapped and tapped things might have gone differently, whereas Vox Machina often was like "rests are for SUCKERS" and got their asses beat in avoidable manners.

My other caveat is of course not to count your chickens before they're slaughtered, namely, while none of Vox Machina died in the final Vecna fight unless you count Vax, which I don't, Vecna did kill two of them earlier on, though; Vax permanently (the Raven Queen just let him hang out a bit longer). The Somnovem/Lucien hybrid killed two of the Mighty Nein in the final battle. Ludinus or Predathos could fucking level the party. Otohan could have gone much worse in episode 91 without many changes; that was the first time I've ever heard Matt talk like a TPK was potentially imminent. Some of this is also luck, and some of this with Bells Hells is that *Myst voice* the ending has not yet been written.