I want to thank you again Colby for inviting me, it was very appreciated. For the record, I agree regarding Conjure Animals.

Colby: Optimizes Offense
Kelly: Optimizes Defense
Chris: How can I optimize the house rulings?

1:14:05 The death save is when you start your turn. You can continue your turn after being stabilized at 1HP.

When Monty loses it every time Chris uses Conjure Animals is such a delight XD this whole session is HILARIOUS I can’t wait for part 2!!!

I honestly have never really gotten into any live campaigns like critical role or the ones Colby or the DDs do. But I will say if you 4 wanna do a campaign or maybe a monthly one shot  I will watch every episode without fail. Very entertaining.

Even after watching all of drakkenheim, I expected these optimised characters to easily sweep the enemies...i forgot that you can always trust Monty to perfectly almost kill the players in every encounter, regardless of build 😆. He really gave them hell, Awesome stuff

1:14:08 the roll is at the start of the turn so Lin would have been able to take her turn after the death saving throw "Whenever you start your turn with 0 hit points, you must make a special saving throw, ..."

I love to see the face of the treantmonk processing all the rules and possibilits

The biggest takeaway from this session is that even some of the most lauded optimizers in the field are capable of making tactical mistakes. I really appreciated your self critique. Always good to be reminded that no matter how perfect the character is, the player can make or break the build.
Amazing session!

Well done! This was a perfect example of how overdoing AC against a dynamic encounter does not mean invincibility. I had so many debates with people on this, and every bladesinger I have ever created encounters for with 30+ ac just gets dropped, due to overconfidence at close range...and not factoring anything else other than melee attacks.

This was fun to watch...the raptor packs were great! I still think summoning needs to be changed moving forward with future editions, but the macro really helped not slowing down the game play.

I love how Monty just looses it laughing when 16 raptors appear, rather than groaning how horrible the spell is.  Much better response, dms should love it when characters do something cool.

Something my first DM did and what I continue to do in all my games is ask how someone lands the killing blow. If you kill someone the DM asks “how do you do it?” And it SO satisfying. Awesome game guys!

I love the Conjure Animals spell … our DM ALWAYS will punish this with Counterspell if you don’t play wisely (defensively & with awareness)

The Silvery Barbs spell is NOT overpowered as clearly evidenced by the cost of using one’s reaction

Literally my three favorite D&D channels. Thanks for putting this together for all of us to enjoy. I'm a little surprised that we didn't see a twilight cleric though. Anyhow all four of y'all keep putting out the best D&D content even for us old school players, it is appreciated.

watched this already when the dungeon dudes released but i just want to say i'm definitely watching it again here! it was a great one-shot and definitely something that should be done again in the future. it was like the avengers coming together. plus, i'm quite happy you took the catch-22. ;) definitely my fave build you have along with the needler.

the voices were entertaining colby and lots of hilarious 1-liners. congrats again for 30k! oh and my fave scene was you feeling bad about rolling a 20. lol. oh and yeah always smite on crits even if it's a level 1 slot. :D

those were tough challenges that were meant for more party members. i think you need a post-it for giant's might. hehe. indeed those 16 velociraptors wouldn't fly with my DMs at the different tables i play in. i would've gotten 8-16 sea horses and cats. the spell is just OP if the players can choose.

loving all yall together. not sure it would have helped this time but dont forget that adamantine armor makes you immune to crit damage

This reminds me why I've been eyeing the shield master feat on my tank builds. Even though they were reducing the lightning bolt damage to half or a quarter with resistance, it still was whittling them down quite a lot. Evasion is of course better, but not really as easy to get. It's like a partial mix of the monk/rogue tank builds into the more standard ones. The campaign I am currently in has been one where I never get hit by attacks (swords bard 3/hex 1), but get blasted by 2 lightning bolts in between a single turn going from full health to nothing even with successful saves. Warcaster can wait, I'm gonna have to pick up the shield master feat to survive (especially since there is a dragon fight in our not to distant future).

Just for future reference, Wand of Fireballs in 5e has a DC 15

This one-shot already proved something important. Absorb elements and shield are the most important defensive reaction options of DnD 5e and silvery barbs doesn't get close to them. Barbs power is its offensive use though.
I also played a battle Smith artificer with the sentinel feat and it was quite tricky to know when to use the feat instead of holding my reaction for the potential use of shield and absorb elements.

Ah, I've been looking forward to this. Seeing the catch-22 in action is going to be a treat. Hopefully going to be able to set up a similar situation in one of my games soon.