Defeating the Abyssal Manmaw at the end of episode five. Special mention goes to Wake freeing Ezra from being Eaten Alive by the beast using it's own body as a water whip. Followed by Ezra hurling a burning oil flask to finish it off.
The party sneaking into a Navy encampment undetected, blowing up the armory and making off with all their bars of gold.
Wake's battle against Nedra in the arena.
To elaborate, Nedra is a nine foot tall tiefling barbarian clad in plate armour. Wake is a five-foot seven unarmoured monk. Thanks to some skilful dodging from Wake (and some exceptionally good rolls from Lani), Wake manages to whittle Nedra down with regular punches while she's berserking out and, in the second half of the match, LIGHTING HERSELF ON FIRE trying to beat him. Though she hits like a truck, by the end both fighters can barely stand when Wake lands the finishing blow. Picture the Mountain and the Viper fight from A Song of Ice and Fire mixed with a Shōnen battle and you pretty much have this fight. Except this time, the Viper wins.
For extra awesomeness, during Wake's first two turns, Lani rolls nat 20s for his attacks, which he interprets as hitting her square in the jaw with a Shoryuken!
The defeat of the Abyssal Treant in episode 10. After doing serious damage to several party members, and living through a few big hits, the boss is sent fleeing by Eloy's Dissonant Whispers spell. Wake stabs it with a metal dagger as it flees. He then throws his second metal dagger at it and also hits. After which, Eloy uses his newly-shown Heat Metal spell on the daggers, causing the Treant to burst into flames and die. Beware the Nice Ones indeed.
The downfall of "Jonny Darksouls", a partially vampirized paladin in Chapter 2. The awesome comes not from the tenacity of the party, but the Epic Fail that causes the villain's downfall: Zito rolls three natural 1s in a row, one of these being on a d100 for severity, resulting in the monstrosity suddenly becoming an Anticlimax Boss as it is dispatched by the simple expedient of Ezra throwing some ball bearings on the floor to trip it up, causing a sequence of events that leads to its humiliating death before getting off a single attack. Fans in the chat later calculated that this roll had a 1 in 40,000 chance of occurring.
Risf getting two 100's on a d100 while he's manning a cannon during the fight with the Wendigo minion attacking the town. The first one managed to blow up a chuck of building and completely barricade one side of the town from the attack, and the other came after he Blessed the cannon and took out the rest of that wave in an explosion of holy light.
Many in the Wendigo fight, including:
Wake using his chi to force his soul out of his deer body and back into his real body which had been taken over by the big bad and then immediately after using his elemental powers to stop the explosive crossbow bolt Ezra had put in the nearby Wendigo earlier
Nedra no-selling attacks from zombie Onslow and kneeing the Wendigo in the head
Eloy managing to get the Wendigo trapped in the Hypnotic Pattern spell
Wake and Ezra covering the hypnotized Wendigo in lantern oil and all of Ezra's extra crossbow bolts and setting him ablaze while laughing manically, doing over 100 points of damage to him and since it was fire damage, they also broke the curse and saved all the townsfolk to boot.
The arena fight between Nedra and Barabus Bonebite. Short, but awesome, even if Nedra (barely) lost.
Wake's speech to her later on when she's still shaken up about losing the fight is so impactful that it actually quiets the rage inside her head, changing her class from Barbarian to Fighter and making it so she'll take Monk levels from now on. Awesome OOC as well because Zito warned Lani repeatedly that her reaction to this speech would have a major impact on her character going forward, and Lani rolled a nat 20.
We learn in the Chapter 6 finale just HOW major: Nedra turns out to be a glabrezu, agents of the Onrush that are meant to infiltrate the organizations of La Cirrinus to hamper their ability to fight against Garlux and Resp's forces, and is in fact, the source of the malicious voices in her head. That Nat 20 on Lani's part quieting the rage in her is outright said to have silenced the glabrezu's influence, so Wake's heart-to-heart may have effectively deprived the Onrush a major piece in their game.
Both sides in the Bard College's Battle of the Bands put on a hell of a show, but Eloy's winning performance merits special mention. It's titled 'Spumoni's Lament', and is an epic backstory for the recently deceased Pistachio. Ben pre-recorded the whole thing, with effects for the stream viewers and everything, and even Zito, with all his hatred for Pistachio, had to admit that it was awesome.
Eloy scaring a ghost to death.
Even though Ben and Lani hated it, it is vaguely hilarious and awesome that Caster was such anathema to the Bodock that a mere slap to the face took off a whooping 18 points of damage from the creature. That's more than two of Redd's previous attacks combined!
After encountering a group of immortal Troglodytes, Ezra (with help from Wake) is able to trick them to try to kill Pabsvadri by convincing them that dragons blood can remove their immortality, finally allowing them the ability to die, so either Pabsvardi holds them long enough for the group to attempt to activate a barrier, that’ll repel both him and the Troglodytes, or if he dies then even if the Oneders can’t activate the barrier, they’ll have free access to his treasures (including a book that Red needs for her to not be executed by her organization.) Meaning no matter the outcome, the Oneders will only benefit from it.
The One-ders put Pabsvardi through a lot of trouble. First, Wake steals from him, then they sic the aforementioned Trogs on him, and finally, he's forced out of his home and made to watch as the One-ders freely loot the rest of his hoard. So naturally, when they reach the surface, he's quite pissed off, and there's the promise of a Boss Fight that could be challenging even with a Navy vessel assisting the Yeldin...until a MASSIVE brass dragon appears and grabs the unfortunate sea dragon by the throat. Lieutenant Gore to the rescue!.
A retroactive moment of awesome related to the above reveal: Wake punched a brass dragon in the face and made it bleed!
The next session starts with Lieutenant Gore using a giant magical bow the admiral on the navy ship conjured up to shoot Pabsvadri into the distance like an arrow. Funny, awesome and humiliating for Pabsvadri.
The fact that the One-ders managed to keep their promise and gain the gratitude and favor of the Collective One is viewed as an in-universe moment of awesome by everyone who meets the crew and learns about it. They have a tendency to under-react when mentioning it, while outside observers tend to shout "WHAT THE F-" in response due to the sheer immensity of their fortune.
The Ashdrakes are all badass Vampire Hunter's who have books written about their glory. When Mite takes to the field, we see why they're so infamous: not only does the man have an AC of 35, but whenever he hits something, he tends to hit like a freight-train and do enough damage to put it through walls.
Eloy finishes off a pair of vampires by using a potion to breath fire on them, completely incinerating them on the spot.
Chapter 3, Part 5: When Ezra wakes up in captivity, sans his equipment and facing down the organ-harvesting frog people, he does not panic. Rather, he gathers as much information as he can, breaks out of his cage using the poison saliva of the frog people to weaken the wooden boards it's made of, locates his equipment and steals back his Grapple Gun, and takes cover to wait for his captors to come back. When the leader of his jailers comes to inspect his cage and finds him gone, he uses his Grapple Gun to hook his enemy and drag it into a pile of crates, which proceed to fall on it and kill it. Then, spotting the crown of skulls it was wearing, he cuts off its head and adds it to the crown, which he puts on his own head, and declares himself King of the Frog People. And it works!
In part 6 of chapter 3, Onslow Green PILEDRIVES a dire tiger.
The second half of part 6 actually contain's several awesome moments: First, the Wonders are able to almost flawlessly instigate a Let's You and Him Fight situation between the two Dire Tigers through the use of Yt-tainted goblin-squid meat and some minor illusions which might well have ended both tigers had Onslow not blown their cover. However, Onslow quickly redeems himself when he successfully grapples the remaining Dire Tiger, which he follows up the next round with the aforementioned Piledriver. And for the icing on the cake, Wake manages to follow that up with a devastatingflurry of blows, finishing off the tiger.
Chapter 3, Part 11:
During a battle with some vampires Eloy gets gravely injured. Wake, seeing this, goes completely berserk and finishes off the vampires almost single-handedly. He kills the last one remaining by dousing it in lantern oil while it's grappling him and LIGHTING THEM BOTH ON FIRE! It's a bit sad in hindsight as this fight is what convinces Wake to leave the crew before his rage completely overtakes himself, but it shows that you do NOT hurt Wake's friends.
Chapter 3, Part 13:
Eloy's second Bard College battle is underway, and it's a rougher fight than in Bulkard. Even better, Wake, after having abruptly left the party at the end of Part 11 and being absent for Part 12, temporarily rejoins the duo, with Dagon sent to gather the rest of the new crew for Yeldin's funeral, so as not to miss Eloy's big battle and to serve as hype man. While Wake does slightly cheat by healing Eloy with a scroll without anyone noticing it, it's enough for Eloy to deal the killing blow to Broadway McSlander, the dean of the College of Satire. Even without that, Eloy does well to make very savage comebacks against McSlander's insults, dealing serious damage on his own. It's also a more proper last hurrah for Wake before he actually leaves the party, as well as leading in to him having his own adventures with at least Nedra and Onslow to be covered in potential one-shots.
In gaining his second badge, Eloy learns a terrifyingly powerful new spell: SEISMIC INSULT. Based on Zito's description, it has the potential to be a Game-Breaker: enemies failing checks results in taking TEN D6 PSYCHIC DAMAGE! AND HE CAN STILL INCREASE ITS LEVEL TO INCREASE THE D6s TO D10s!!! Even if it uses up all of Eloy's Lv. 1 and 2 spell slots, he only needs one of said spell slots left to use, meaning he can use up other spell slots first and save Seismic Insult as a Last Resort. Even better, it's a homebrew spell.
Crosses over with Tear Jerker and slightly Funny Moment, Ezra has the honor of firing the crossbow bolt that will ignite Yeldin's Viking Funeral. Ezra being Ezra, he misses, but some Bardic Inspiration from Eloy and Elemental Attunement from Wake manage to ensure that his bolt hits true. A fitting end for both the Yeldin and the previous crew's journey before they all go off on their own separate adventures.
The battle in the Splendormaw with the water slime and the two headed shark leads to most of the party almost dying. Eloy nearly drowns inside the water slime when he falls unconscious. Fortunately Frida is able to get him out with her Mist Step. This gives Eloy the chance to finally use his Seismic Insult to quite literally blow the creature away and win the battle!
Dagon manages to distract a group of Fomorian slavers long enough for Eloy to hit EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM with a hypnotic pattern. The group manages to deal with all three of them before it wears off, killing one by growing a tree in his stomach and another by using a celestial growth potion to give him a heart attack. Best of all is that they save all the prisoners with no casualties.
In hindsight and a bittersweet way, it's a great last hurrah for the original set of players, as Ben's departure during the Christmas break after that episode necessitated the soft reboot.
In an equally bittersweet way, the team decided to make use of the unfortunate fatal side effect of Dagon trying to power up Jillian mere moments prior in-universe in order to save people, meaning her death wasn't in vain after all.
You wouldn't think AJ would have his moments of awesome, but his return post-Fall completely averts his previous jerkassery and uselessness and he ends up proving instrumental in solving the current crisis Wake and his new party find themselves in. Counting the ways:
Even if done out of pure boredom and realizing that he might have dropped in a situation that puts him in immediate mortal danger, he does volunteer to help out with the murder mystery investigation and is vital in discovering the truth about the Oscuro operation, saving the passengers. This is BEFORE he learns that he is about to get the chance to get another item on his list (a cyclops' eye)
With some minor illusion, he joins Morgan and Wake's own disguises in trying to trick the Onrush boarding party.
Right before the actual fight, he identifies the power of Wake's newly-acquired Kelpie-enchanted gloves, allowing him to later use it in combat. Said power is an underwater-only Kamehame Hadoken with a range of 60 feet.
He casts Haste on Wake, which IMMENSELY helps with overcoming big boss of the fight long before the two are even stricken with the Heroic RRoD side effect of casting and being affected by Haste.
All the while, he's far less snooty and unpleasant compared to last time, again, for no apparent reason.
In the same fight, Valtara, after being healed back up to full following two near-life-threatening injuries due to necrotic damage and gaining a fear of blood in the process, has had enough and takes out the remaining goon, who's menacing Chromagil...by CHARGING STRAIGHT AT HIM AND PILEDRIVING HIM INTO THE FLOORS BELOW!
Right before that, Wake, still under the effects of Haste, charges the second-to-the-last goon overboard and deep into the water and fires the aforementioned Kamehame Hadoken, (which he names the "Hydroken") to send the goon further into the depths...and into the mouth of a colossal gulper eel. Wake quickly swims back up before he can even be chased.
Even better, his max swim speed is already insane. Being under Haste means it doubles to over 200 mph!
In their journey through the underdark with their new samurai ally Devilgrin, the team are ambushed by five hook horrors, Valtara taking the first hit. While the team are initially in bad straights throughout most of the fight, they fairly quickly bounce back. Some notable moments include:
Most of the team manages to tank or dodge a lot of the hits dealt to them. Moreover, a lot of their rolls were pretty high, and that's before Devilgrin's ability that lets them gain critical automatically if they rolled even just 19.
Same as before, Valtara takes a slight beating at first before she utterly decimates the enemy. First, with the horror that got the drop on her, she tanks the first hit but blocks the second. And then, heralded by her horns charging lightning, she fries the horror with LIGHTNINGDRAGON BREATH, which she learned from raising Woe, to near death. In her next turn, she just straight up uppercuts it with her horns. When Devilgrin kills it for her (see below), she unleashes a salvo of Magic Missiles on the horror in front of him, saving him from being throttled and nearly decapitated.
Despite the abuse he takes, Devilgrin himself is no slouch. Aside from the stance that grants the party the above critical bonus skill, he manages to take a big chunk of the horror he's fighting with a blade of wind. In his second attack, he delivers the killing blow on the horror menacing Valtara with distant blades of wind.
Sooner or later, the party was going to encounter demons, proper agents of the Onrush. Sure enough, they do, in the form of a pair of glabrezu that put a curse on Valtara, terrorized the town of Dimswell and possibly many underdark settlements as well, and stole the Daystar.
Morgan, who had been invisible for a while, launches a surprise attack on the demonic pair by shooting a LIGHT-elemental Chromatic Round, giving the others a chance to get first attacks.
After a moment when Wake and Chromagil are confused and incapacitated due to the glabrezus' curses, and an army of minor demons being summoned to outnumber the heroes, it falls to Morgan to bring in the cavalry, shouting the code word of "CRAWDAD" to summon their new army of ghost pirate allies.
Chromagil, even amidst darkness, manages to find Wake in it and cast Primal Fury on him. In his next turn, he goes to town on the remaining glabrezu, racking up five attacks' worth of damage.
By "killing" these demons, the party are able to effectively kill multiple birds with one stone. Not only do they save Valtara, they save the town of Dimswell, and by the next chapter, they'll be saving the Daystar and putting the Realm of Spring on their side.
With the aid of the Jolly Shark ghost pirates, the One-ders and Galdarv (the leader of Dimswell) open up the possibility of the One-ders bringing in every surviving ally they have from all the places they've visited to aid them in the final battle against the Onrush. Naturally, as shown by the chat, the entire idea brings the image of a final showdown not unlike those of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Avengers: Endgame to mind.
By bringing together the three artifacts of the Collective One, the group now has the option to summon the Collective One and have him destroy their enemies like a massive kaijuu. However, this is a last resort since the Collective One would also destroy everything in it's path in addition to the demons, but the image is still amazing.
The idea that Grammy is finally a proper party member, and the secret character for Rite! Her class? Salt Witch. When the idea comes up that this could weaken her compared to her previous portrayal, not only does Zito makes it clear he's not going to reveal her level he agrees to Brian comparing her to Gandalf'slevel of power compared to the rest of the Fellowship.
How the final boss, Resp, is finished off. Wake is laying prone near the edge of the ship with barely any HP left. He jumps up and fires a HYDROKEN with his gauntlets. The second set of Forsaken Chains that Morgan placed on him hold the Balor demon's arms in place while the massive torrent of water blasts his body back, ripping it apart. Resp screams in agony as his body explodes into light.
Best of all is how this fits into the lore. Wake's gauntlet's came from Kelpie, and Morgan's Forsaken Chains were granted to him by Vecor. So this final attack could represent both gods working together to finish off this threat to this world once and for all!
Also, the fact that half of their fighting strength (Grammy, Nedra, Risf, and Valtara, all of whom very hard hitters) were unfortunately taken out of the fight due to failing their wisdom saves to break out of their fear, or in Grammy's case, failing all but the last of her death saving throwsnote as she was literally right next to Resp when he materialized, and thus was deep in the area of effect of his fiery aura along with the first target in sight, and yet Wake, Morgan, Chromagil, and Roy were all able to more than make up for it, all of them playing off Morgan's usual strategy of Forsaken Chains to deal damage, the first time dealing SEVENTY-FOUR points of damage to Resp.
As for the Hydroken, thanks to the disadvantage Resp still had on his rolls, Wake managed to beat his dex saving roll that would have prevented him being knocked back from blast by ONE!!!
The fact that Wake is able to deal the finishing blow in time means Grammy gets to live, as she avoids having to roll for her final death saving throw, meaning the final battle narrowly avoided having any actual deaths.
Other Campaigns
Foolproof: Combined with Heartwarming, at the final session's end, the case is a complete success. Not only did the party successfully uncover the murderer (and cut off a link to an Eldritch Abomination that said murderer made), they prevented any further casualties, even saving a couple of sacrifice victims that they didn't even know about beforehand.
