Taking place in a world created by Mercer, the animated series begins in an incredibly bizarre fashion that I really wasn’t prepared for. The Legend of Vox Machina focuses on the antics of Vex, Vax, Grog, Scanlan, Pike, Keyleth and Percy, a band of mercenaries for hire who find themselves quickly wrapped up in matters much larger than they were prepared for. I don’t remember Campaign One reveling in its cruder aspects nearly this much. It’s come a long way since Campaign One, hence the animated series on Amazon Prime, but at its core it’s still a show about playing an RPG – which is inevitably lost when it’s translated into a television series.
Having just finished watching the first half of the first season, I still believe this.įor the uninitiated, Critical Role is a series in which a group of voice actors – comprised of some pretty big names such as Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us), the Video Game BAFTA-winning Laura Bailey (The Last of Us II) and dungeon master Matthew Mercer (Overwatch) - play D&D together and stream it live on Twitch. I may have cooled on Critical Role in recently, but I still have a deep affection for its very first campaign, which serves as the foundation for The Legend of Vox Machina, and didn’t believe that an animated series would be a good fit. On the contrary, it’s because I loved it. This isn’t because I didn’t like Critical Role – the Dungeons & Dragons actual play show it’s based on. His only downfall: low hit points.I didn’t back the Kickstarter campaign for The Legend of Vox Machina, an animated series which makes its debut on Amazon Prime this week. He’s slippery and can move around the battlefield with ease. Vax has 2 vestiges, boots of haste, can fly, and sneak attack + divine smite damage. I personally think the strongest players will be Vax and Fjord. Overall, both teams have a lot going for them, but Mollymauk is definitely a wildcard, considering we’ve never seen him in action before and we don’t know what level up abilities and feats Taliesin will choose! At least Scanlan doesn’t use his sword very much! Pike’s armor makes her tough to bring down. Kabal’s ruin gives Percy that extra damage. Whisper and the Raven queen’s armor make Vax a hard to hit beast with a lot of attacks. Vox Machina also has 5 vestiges amongst them, versus Fjord’s one. Not to mention if he throws in some Kabal’s ruin damage!
Vox machina stats plus#
And if Percy can stay out of range + hit with bad news, he gets 3 attacks and has his action surge, plus grit points. Vax’s sneak attack plus divine smite can really fuck someone up, especially on a crit.
Vax and Percy are both beasts on the battlefield and if they hit, can do a lot of damage. But if he ends up toe to toe with Beau, who can hit a lot and keep him from moving with her sentinel abilities, he might be in trouble What does Vox Machina have going for them? Damage dealers and vestiges! Vax is the only one who can easily use range and melee, plus his speed lets him get around the battlefield with ease. Pike and Scanlan have spells that they can use close range, but in terms of fighting ability, it’s not their strong suit, and if Percy gets cornered it may be game over for him. Vox Machina is primarily ranged attackers. Fjord even can swap back and forth between ranged and melee if he so chooses! Beau and Molly are mostly melee while Jester and Fjord are distant casters. The Mighty Nein also have the versatility of an even spread of melee fighters and casters. Fjord himself has 52 more HP than the VM member with the most HP!
For example I took the standard 6 plus his con 2 and got an average of 124). Most of the M9 have more hit points than most of VM (and Molly is a blood hunter with a d10 hit die so it’s likely he will have a decent amount of HP. Pike I was only able to find level 16 because Ashley was away most of the time and Molly we don’t have character stats on! So if anyone can find Pike’s level 15 stats let me know!) What the Mighty Nein has going for them is hit points and versatility. I went back to old VM episodes to find their level 15 character stats to compare to the mighty nein’s stats! (Pike and Molly are the exceptions.