#otohan specifically did kill four of them

[utilitycaster]

Hey :) So, since you said we could ask nicely (you don't have to answer if you'd rather not, I understand completely if that's the case) I was just curious if your feelings about the encounter with Otohan changed at all now with the new ep and if so how and why, or on the other hand if there is another way of achieving this bit of story progression you'd have preferred over the fight for it. I'm still....a bit torn on it all, especially on the intentions behind how the encounter was designed, so I'd really appreciate another perspective.

No, absolutely ok to ask! I'm going to write something longer this evening about my feelings on the whole (in short: good episode overall! Some opportunity to do a bit of unpacking, a smidgeon of resolution re: Treshi, and some interesting lore for Chetney, FCG, and Ashton! does not really help my ongoing issues with the campaign but did not introduce new ones so much as continue to expose the existing ones and, if Laudna stays dead, might even put us on a path to fixing some others...but I fully respect people who have decided to not keep up.) But with regards to the encounter:

I would like to introduce you to the text replacer extension I downloaded yesterday and which I will not be changing:

Now: I absolutely respect the appearance of a powerful enemy who nearly kills the party and disappears, I even understand making them extremely powerful, since I know this was an intention for Lorenzo but the Nein were able to kill him more quickly than Matt intended. Otohan's mechanics are ridiculous, but like...just as I agree with Brennan's choice to have a curb-stomp battle when Patia and Laerryn came upon a comparatively low-level character...so do I agree that yeah, if Otohan is super-powerful, then sure, she can be super powerful and near TPK the party. I still can't entirely make a fair call on Matt's intent (were they supposed to go into this encounter? was he trying to warn them against it? was he leaving it fully up to chance, which isn't bad at all but is a weird pivot given the plotting of the rest of the campaign so far) so I'll hold off on that, but it's a relatively small misstep in a vacuum; it's the surrounding issues of the campaign that have me side-eyeing it harder than perhaps I would otherwise.

I think the core of my problems with the actual encounter are:

Otohan is boring as fuck. She has no personality other than megalomania and zeal. Like we know what she's doing, but we don't know why and I, at least, do not care. When I say she talks like a Marvel Villain I mean it. And if your plot is "vast conspiracy", you really need to make the person at the top compelling.

The structure and Otohan's behavior were extremely inconsistent. She started by knocking people out but not taking death saves...then taking death saves midway through. She did not make it clear what she wanted from Imogen until like four rounds in, after she'd killed Orym. Imogen did not start experiencing that storm until round 5. Like, I want to be crystal clear: if Otohan's opening move was to outright kill Ashton, and she just took death saves the whole time? I'd be cool with it. If Imogen had been getting the vague storm feeling from the start and had the opportunity to give in earlier? I'd be cool with it. I like character permadeath in my stories. I do not mind a near TPK. But this felt like it was very clumsily engineered into a highly specific scenario.

I alluded to this in my tags, and I can't find the tweet in question now, but someone tweeted something to the effect of "me, realizing this is Matt showing Imogen her powers like he showed Yasha" and Matt liked said tweet and for real, if I hadn't seen that? I think I would have been about 500% more normal about the last episode although tbh this episode hammers home that yeah, that was at least part of the point, and uh, fuck that. Because here's the thing: it's fine, I guess, if you have a bonus homebrew ability for a character they are unaware of that they can activate in extreme circumstances. But there were no hints thereof, and one of the following seems to be true:

it's stress related, which means either it's kind of vague mechanically (usually not great; see my complaints about the Trusted Ally mechanic for FCG's subclass), or it's explicitly "one or more of your party members is dead" or similar (ok by me, actually!)

HOWEVER, if you decide to showcase this ability you homebrewed for one person - without warning or prior hints - by killing other party members (particularly in the poorly signaled way as above)? For real, fuck that. I find myself in the awkward position of, for various reasons, wanting Laudna's death to stand...but also, if my character were killed off as a means to show another character how to use their cool new powers, it does not matter how much I trust the DM; we would be having pretty serious words because this is fundamentally, in my opinion, a profound misstep. There's "not everyone gets the same number of presents" and then there's this.

I think, to be honest, it's fine to have this ability around, and to show it during combat... but particularly because it's just a bonus ability? just wait until an opportune time through natural gameplay. If it doesn't come up for four levels? It doesn't come up. It's also...not terribly hard to arrange for a lethal combat that is more gracefully done, or even to have played Otohan in a less erratic and boring way, and I'm not sure why specifically Matt did so (nor do I think such speculation will be terribly productive.)

Edit: Forgot to put this here amidst all the criticism but: having Otohan leave at the top of this episode was the right call, credit where credit is due.

#answered #widogasts-web-of-dunamancy #critical role spoilers #cr discourse