// PC GAMER — GAMING
Critical Role's latest D&D episode was so stressful, I discovered a new noise my mouth can make
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Last week, I said that I wasn't entirely sure who would make it out of Critical Role's next episode. Well, the next episode has happened, and let me tell you—I was absolutely, concretely right in that assumption. Spoilers for Critical Role episode 37, if you've not watched it yet.
The episode opened with the attempted assassination of one Wicander Halovar. Two hours later, they had successfully completed the first round. This isn't because anyone at the table is bad at playing D&D, it's because there were a ton of moving parts:
A Hold Person spell, two assassins with three attacks each, a Command spell from Wic's father to force him to accept his fate, guards who weren't in on the scheme rushing in to protect him, his mother desperately trying to stop it all from happening, his little brother being held back, Tyranny sprinting down the streets of Dol-Makjar to get to the theatre, everyone else barrelling through the stands: Utter chaos.
It's an incredibly difficult thing to do, stacking the deck so thoroughly against one player. On the one hand, you want to do justice to the world everyone's playing in—Wicander messed it up with his wannabe religious dictator grandma, so she decided to have him bumped off. But on the other hand, Wic simply getting instagibbed wouldn't make for a good game.
Even still, the deck was toppling high. Hold Person grants auto-crits to melee attacks and requires a Wisdom saving throw, and Wic has a whopping zero for an ability modifier. What's more, the person casting it clung tight onto concentration, and was vanishing into the crowd. And god, was it close. On his final death save, a bardic inspiration that was a mere one short on the die spelled the end for Wicander Halovar.
Here's where some consternation from the more diehard rules lawyers of the fanbase comes in—particularly those who want the game to be more brutal: Brennan, seeing this unfold, decided to give Sam Riegel a devil's bargain. Make one last save with disadvantage, or release Tyranny from her bondage to his evil family.
If he made the save—which is a roughly 30% chance at disadvantage, since he needed both dice to be a 10 or higher—he'd be able to hold onto his life. If he didn't make that save? He'd die anyway, and Tyranny would be doomed. Or he could go quietly into that good night and release Tyranny for his sacrifice. For some, this scans as going easy, to which I say: Phooey. A few things!
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Anyway, In a moment that will live forever in my memory, Riegel took a moment to look at his dice tray while his panicking, stress-ulcer suffering table flurried around him to look for a way to help, and dropped two dice into the tray. A 12 and a 13: A success.