u/Gorb_upthere

It’s that time of the bi-week, and soon Griffin is gonna drag me kicking and screaming into his horrible haunted house. Last episode was incredibly bad, and I don’t have any hope this one will be much better

• The episode opens with Justin suggesting they change Royale’s subtitle to Sinner Takes All. An opening bit where they riff on the title? Daring today, aren’t we?
• Griffin reveals that the sun is rising, meaning the last four rounds of combat lasted multiple hours, which is a slight increase from the few seconds it would have actually taken.
• Travis asks Griffin if he got any new abilities after sacrificing his grandparents.
• Griffin, I swear to god if you give Travis superpowers for failing a roll.
• Travis rolls an Arcana check of 12 and finds he does not have superpowers, but he does realize he no longer feels his connection to the Ravenwood ancestral ghosts and (supposedly) his once guaranteed afterlife as a ghost. So Rictus just sacrificed his entire family, his immortality, and his son's immortality. That is actually a pretty decent sacrifice to get out of a guaranteed death, or it would be if any of that was actually important to Ricktus’ character.
• Griffin gives Ricktus his action back again, and Travis asks if he can cast two spells, but Griffin doesn’t allow it.
• Rick runs up to Pranklin and uses Thunder Step to teleport him away from the zombies.
• Ok, I think Griffin has just completely dropped turn order despite the fact that we are still in combat because Rick is STILL TAKING ACTIONS.
• Rick casts wither and bloom to heal the plague doctor and hurt the zombies, then he uses the antidote on Pranklin.

Lor time

• Griffin completely forgot he gave Justin a superior healing potion.
• Justin attempts to attack the zombie horse and rolls a one. He gets incredibly upset over this and attempts to argue that there is no narrative reason why he’d fail an attack after a full heal. Then, after Griffin doesn’t undo the failure, Justin states he thinks he has a second attack, Griffin knows he doesn’t and stops him.
• The zombies attack, and conveniently, they can no longer use multi-attack and only deal 4 damage.
• Justin hits his next melee attack, so we miss out on more whining.
• Justin also casts lightning lure, despite already using his action, and kills the horde.

Hell time

• Hell meets up with Rick and Lor.
• Doober and Lor get into an argument over whether Hellgrammit is cool.

Ad time

• Nice to see this episode has been just as bad as the last. It has been shocking how bad Griffin's dinging has gotten over the course of this campaign. In the second trial, Griffin was just making “basic” mistakes like not rolling NPC saves or reinventing saving throws, but now he's actually playing Calvinball.

Ad over

• The room on the second floor they have all met up in has a ladder leading to the roof, doors to a few guest rooms and a prismatic flame.
• Hell and Lor do a persuasion contest to see who gets to go with Doober; they tie, so all three travel together to the master suite.
• Rick and Pranklin enter the Jr. Suite.
• The plague doctor and Skorpo take the remaining rooms.

Hell and lor time

• They find a blue flame, and Lor absorbs it with absorb elements and takes the damage. Then a zombie attacks him.

Rick time

• He finds a green flame in his room.
• A zombie gentleman bursts through the wall, so Rick and Pranklin run away to the purple room.
• As soon as Rick enters the purple room, he rolls a perception check and realizes the purple room's flame is trapped, and he puts it out with a ray of frost.

Back to hell and lor

• Hellgrammit casts a scorching ray on the zombie, but he only uses one ray for some reason.
• Then a zombie attacks hell, and he also gets infected.
• Lor uses a lightning lure and kills the zombie.
• Another zombie enters the room through a secret entrance, and this one is Randolf, Doober’s original guardian.
• Hell pulls Doober into Lemond's tiny hut.
• Justin tries to cast shield, but Griffin reminds him it’s a reaction, so he doesn’t have to use his action. This is unlike last time, when he cast a shield using a mysterious third action.
• Lor attempts to read Ion with Randolph but fails, so he casts Fireball and instantly kills Randolph.
• And the episode ends with Doober asking Lorovith if he killed Randolph the first time he died.

These last two episodes have been the worst episodes of this campaign by far, and that is entirely Griffin's fault. I genuinely can’t call the game they've been playing this episode. Dungeons and Dragons turn order doesn’t matter, monster stats change, NPCs do not do anything unless asked, spells can do whatever you say they can do, status effects vanish between scenes, and you can just keep taking actions if you feel like it. There isn’t much I can say about the players. Travis didn’t do much, Clint did some cool actions and started most of the roleplay, and Justin doesn’t really care, but unlike previous episodes, it wasn’t entertaining. Also, how the hell hasn't the sun risen at this point? Is Griffin seriously going to drag out this trial until this "puzzle" is over?

I don’t have too much to say going into this episode. This is gonna be a combat episode, and knowing Griffin, this is gonna be bad. I don't have any classes, so I won't be writing this on the bus without Wi-Fi, meaning I won't have to check the rules later, but I slept in, so I'm probably not gonna finish this sooner anyway. Oh well, onto the episode. 

• The episode opens with the MaxFun drive ad. Just checking the MaxFun website, they are currently at 7920/16000 with two days left, so it's not looking too hot. Also, the first line of the maxfun drive info page is a 4/20 joke, so I can see why it's failing.

• The episode opens with Justin talking about how he will be sad when this campaign ends, and he can no longer play Lorovith, which leads to Griffin talking about how he can never predict what any of their characters are going to do. which is funny, because no they aren't: lor's only character trait was "enjoys killing people" until he recently added "wants to be a dad", Ricktus' only trait is "family issues" and ocasonaly acts like a spoiled brat (which is likely unintentional), Hellgrammite is the most "unpredictable", but that just because he has some depth as he is incredibly nice with his friends and acts incredibly nice with those who aren't, but is willing to betray them.

• Griffin, it also might help make your players more predictable if you dont have pre-planned scenes that you constantly force on your players if they dont do it right.

• Quick recap: they are in a big house being attacked by zombies, and one is hiding on the ceiling of the library, and the others are being chased by a horde, and I have no idea how close they are to each other.

• An entire zombie horde jumps through a window and starts trying to get to Burgerman, who just killed the spider.

• Lor casts shield on himself despite not being attacked and attempts to body slam the INFECTIOUS zombie horde. He gets an 18 and hits for 11 damage with some extra damage from falling damage, then he uses his bonus action to activate large form.

• The zombies attack twice, and one hits because even with shield lor's AC is 14, he takes 22 damage, and 9 necrotic for a failed con save totaling 31 damage. lor has got to be at like single digit health.

• Burgerman casts grease.

Rick and Hell time

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• Hell runs to Lor, which he can apparently do in one action, but chooses to stop in the kitchen.
• Rick casts Timestop, and Griffin gives him two options to cast it since he doesn't have lvl 9 spells. He can: spend 9 slots of any level to cast it, or one level 3 slot with a wisdom save to resist "side effects". rick choses to attempt the lvl 3 version.
• Ricktus fails the save and creates a small time stop bubble around himself, where he is also frozen, but Pranklin resists the time stop and pulls Rick out, preventing any consequences.
• Griffin gives Rick another action because he failed an obviously risky action and avoided all direct consequences except wasting his action. Ricktus uses Thunder Step to teleport Skorpo away from the horde because he decided to run up to stop them or somthing during the time stop.

lor time

• Lor gets away from the horde with spider climb and somehow doesn't take opportunity attacks. He then sprints over to the red symbol.
• Justin has had a running bit this episode that he is convinced the symbol is gonna give him a cape, and when he touches it, Griffin bestows upon him an invisible, intangible, and weightless cape, which is a decent ending to a fine bit. Also, the barriers blocking off the second floor vanish.
• Lor's turn is still going, so he looks in a desk and finds a potion of superior healing and uses it to fully heal the damage he took, and it gives him a quarter cape because they can't let this bit die.
• and just before the break, lor hears piano noises from the drawing room, meaning doober is in danger

ad time

• It's the usual maxfun drive ad, except Griffin highlights the fact that at the time of recording, they are behind the expected amount of donors and are desperate.
• Justin does the “you're actually supposed to be paying us” speech they always do and i always wondered if this approach actually helps them? Every other podcast i listen too treats their patreon as something extra to help support them instead of a weird delayed payment thing and most of them are doing quite well. while i may not be a master advertiser implying you're main audience are thieves for not paying for a free product cannot be more effective than asking for money.

Hellgrammit and Rick time

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• Hell runs into the drawing room and casts infestation on the one zombie in there, drives it away and rescues Doober.
• Rick casts Raise Dead on one of the (actually) dead zombies in the dining room and has it distract the living zombies. and runs out of the room
• Now that we're on the second round, I can tell that Griffin is not giving the NPCs turns. Skorpo and Pranklin have just been standing around not doing anything, and Burgerman moved during Lor's turn.
• Rick and co enter the north hallway and find Hasty Jane murdering the plague doctor. She attempts to exsplain herself and runs away.
• Pranklin goes to reinforce the door as Rick and Skorpo carry the plague doctor upstairs, but the zombies break through the door and begin attacking Pranklin, and  apparently, Rick's turn is still going, so he casts timestop and once again fails the save, trapping himself in a time bubble.
• A voice (who is later revealed to be death) starts roasting Ricktus, saying "these powers are beyond your control, and yet you try to make them your own, because that's the only thing your family knows how to do," which is weird since members of Ricktus' family are born with necromancy magic, so death isn't really "beyond their control".
• We also get some of Rick's thoughts and learn he sees raising the dead as a bastardization of his concept of necromancy, as it violates the respect the dead deserve. Travis, YOU JUST CAST RAISE THE DEAD .
• Death reads his mind and immediately has a change of heart and offers to help Rick if he gives up his great-great-great-grandfather's ghost, who had been helping him throughout the conclave. Rick agrees without any hesitation.
• But before we see what happens next, the episode ends.

This is the worst dming of any dnd game I have ever seen: extra actions are being given out as apology gifts, NPCs can take their turn whenever they want, players can move as far as they want, and all consequences are immediately undone despite Griffin constantly insisting those actions are incredibly risky. I don’t think you can railroad more obviously than this he isn’t following turn order or action amounts. The characters didn’t have any particularly interesting moments except for Rick’s “talk” with death, where he unintentionally revealed he is a hypocrite and killed his great-great-great-grandfather to save Pranklin, which wasn’t a good moment.