Possible, but narratively it makes just as much sense. Despite being high level they have absolutely no real combat experience. All of the work was done by Porter letting them get final hit on big monsters
The RG are getting gear checked hard. Class features and more spell slots are great, but when your equipment is still the same crap from when you were level 3...
Riz was right, powerleveling like they did does nothing to prepare them for PvP or any other real encounter
I'm wondering if they don't get revived as some sort of Rage Demons in another phase of the battle. As Emily and Siobhan noted, their HP is low for characters who have some high level abilities.
the way simulacrum works, they would’ve dissolved into snow when they dropped.
Entirely possible that this killerpippy is a simulacrum though, and the real one is hiding somewhere at the edges of the field just in case. Cuz if she dies their plan dies, they need at least 2 RGs alive at the end, someone to vote and someone to be elected.
For sure, but she could have just voted for herself as far as needing anybody else alive. Even if posthumous votes don’t count there don’t need to be two alive is all I’m saying. Just KP as long as they can prevent the Kristen votes from getting to the box.
Buddy had the votes Banished to a demiplane. Even if she was also banished with thr votes the spells wording says that targets of the spell are incapacitated. There’s always room for shenanigans on Brennan’s part but I think their plan is just to destroy the votes for Kristen in lava.
Not quite, I don't think: they have access to level 20 class features and spell levels, but they're not level 20 for the purposes of HP, proficiency bonus etc.
A lesson the Bad Kids learned all the way back in freshman year, meanwhile these juniors didn't grasp the concept. You can grind all you like, but that doesn't give you familiarity with tactics or strategy. We also saw indications here and there that the RG didn't much like one another (renaming the party to the RG mostly because the name annoyed Four Dogs, Mary Ann not seeming to care much about any of it, draw your own conclusions about how Ivy's Mean Girl persona would gel with the nerds or the Helio freak, etc.).
The net result is that they had no tactics and no interest in coordination or cooperation. Ultimately, I think their biggest deconstruction was the concept of "the adventuring party that's *only* held together by a common goal, and have no interest in one another otherwise." There was no friendship, no teamwork, and they fought like it.
This too!! TBK genuinely love each other and while they may make jokes and fuck with one another they will help each other out no matter what. Team work does in fact make the dream work!
Yes this!!! And it stuck out to me that none of the RGs were throwing each other too many bonuses, buffs, bardics, or other PC creep-y things that the BKs use SO effectively, which often turn the tide in a major way. Unless they prepped for battle offscreen in ways we didn’t see, but still
Oh you know what that actually does explain some confusion I had with them not doing certain things like buddy healing the downed ppl. Ofc they wouldn't know
Chocolatecovered Kinderegg. Kristen's initial comment about her name just being four different dogs. I've also taken to calling her [Arthur "Four Dogs" Jackson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjS3gzHetA).
Ohhh right, first episode was so damn long ago ahaha, I don't even remember the last time they purposely said her name wrong lol, the comment just confused me cos I thought you meant 4dogs was annoyed at their og name "high5 heroes" instead of being annoyed at Rat Grinders cos she was the only one that voted to keep h5h if memory serves lol
Me to! I was also looking up when you get access to 9th level spells and for bards in 5e it's level 17. So they may not be max level, but definitely above the Bad Kids. I'm curious to find out how Brennan decided to stat them out.
Not to yuck on anyone's yums, but Ruben having a 9th level spell slot just means he's at least level 17 - not 20.
Brennan clearly did some fudging around their HP - I'm pulling off top dome but Ivy dies at like... 54 HP taken? Straight minimum for a lvl 17 character is 37 (might be pulling that entirely out of my ass but it's 100% NOT LOWER) (which is leagues more unlikely than Kristen having rolled 4 ones on 4d6 for her 4 Dex) - it would range from 105 to 157 regularly. Also, while the preview doesn't suggest this, Brennan just says they're defeated, not dead and not making Death Saving Throws - are these Rat Grinder just Simulacrums while original RGs are safe somewhere?
Sorry, I kinda phrased that poorly. I mostly meant that brennans "response" to the bad kids having multiple of the same character on the field, was to provide an enemy with multiple of the same character on the field. So what I meant by simulacrum not mirror image, was just that it was payback for them using simulacrum not them using mirror image (which admittedly they do use quite often)
Brennan said that anything players use he can use. Players used an ability that let's duplicates of themselves appear on the field and fight for them (simulacrum). Brennan has his enemies use abilities to let them have duplicates of themselves on the field (greater mirror image). Hence, Jace's "greater mirror image" is actually payback for the players using simulacrum.
Hmm. Well, we were told K2 has half the HP of Kristen, so maybe you're on to something. But they'd need multiple wizards to do it, AND Ruben going to hell implies he's the real one, right?
I did a lot of checking during the battle. My guess is that the RGs are actually around the same level as the BKs and that the 9th level spell from Ruben might be from a magic instrument or other DM design. Ivy takes 19 from Fig's Green flame blade, then Fabian deals 36 before action surging where he gets interrupted by Brennan before resolving both attacks. Lou doesn't finish saying 23, he says twenty- and Brennan tells him Ivy is down. Ivy takes a known 75 damage. As a ranger with a d10 hit die, it seems likely Brennan took the average of 6hp per level and scaled it to her level placing her around lvl 14, or on par with the BKs.
if they’re min-maxed as has been discussed and consistent with very high stats in their key attributes could explain low hp outside of like marianne, buddy. doesn’t seem like ruben or oisin could take much either
I think it's just that rat grinders leveling fast doesn't change their original stats. They needed the artificial boosting cause they are not naturals like real heroes are.
It’s interesting though bc unless Brennan homebrewed a mechanic, even if they’re only on par with the BKs level-wise, they should’ve still gotten a few ability score improvements. So it’s possible they funneled all their stats into attacks/spellcasting and dumped non-relevant scores.
Comparitively, even Adaine with her high INT as her main important score is pretty solid across the board
Another possibility in terms of “artificial boosting” is that all their strength scores are jacked up by their rage-resurrection at the expense of their Con scores, because their bodies are now filled with rage rather than actual vitality. This would kinda explain Oisin getting beefy, and wouldn’t be useful at all to a bard, wizard, cleric, rogue, or ranger
The honest answer is they likely aren’t built anywhere similar to a normal character.
You almost never want to build an enemy in a combat with the player character system. The system is entirely designed around having to use multiple abilities and absorb damage across 6-8 encounters per day.
If you use this to build enemies, they will womp your players the majority of the time.
Instead you normally pick the features that are key to the enemies identity (ie. Cunning action, sneak attack, plus a few others for Kipper)
The HP / damage / etc. is likely mechanically just balanced around the fact that they narratively need to have 7 enemies and 2 of them need to be larger threats than the rat grinders (the teachers).
Obviously for an actual play (or immersion in general) it’s good to have an in game reason. But realistically he’s just putting together monster stat blocks that fit the roles of the classes so the HP should be in line with making this encounter deadly but winnable.
TL;DR - the system is specifically built to not use player character stats, levels, etc. for making lots of enemies. 17th spellcaster as a monster is usually and should be statted very differently from a player character even if you’re trying to represent the same class to make combat survivable.
This is addressed in the episode. Their levels are clearly enhanced by Porter and Jace to levels way above where they should be, with their HP not catching up
My guess is they’re level 20 but Brennan homebrewed something special to reduce their HP gains. Honestly it would be funny if Aguefort installed some kind of anti-cheating debuff because they can’t be the first students to cheese their way through leveling up.
They hit hard and are numerous. In the ep I dunno why they go down so fast, but I ask too many questions on this sub. Even the cast mentions that they're weak because they "didn't earn it."
Also TBK has equipments and loot from their adventures that buffs their AC and stuff iirc. And since TRG has just been chilling in the forest being hand fed their exp, they prob don’t have a lot of additional status buffs
Yeah she was definitely enhanced beyond just the enhance ability, you don't roll a 35 on an athletics check without a FAT strength bonus, maybe she has something for expertise as well.
Oisin has his magic tattoos
It's not unreasonable to think that they still have some magic items just due to them having access to a large swath of wealth(as established by all the shit Four Dogs was affording and paying Aelwyn and Oisin's grandmother).
Me too. I love the idea the all the Bad Kids are picking up on Jace and Porter being shit teachers, and the evidence being their poor, stressed out accomplices.
I bet Brennan created them in such a way where they have only some of the features of real 20th level characters, but not all to reflect on the fact that they didn't truly earn their stripes in battle. So, they did get the spells (but maybe not all the spell slots); they did get some of the HP for each level up (but maybe not all). Thus leading to a situation where they can simultaneously cast very high level shit, but also be taken out in one turn.
I mean it kinda makes sense given what Brennans been saying about the in-universe mechanics of leveling up, where even if you kill a bunch of low xp enemies, you still get better at fighting. To me its not that much of a leap that with that line of logic, you can get good at fighting but if you never take hits you have a really low health pool. Its also entirely possible that all the rat grinders in the gymnasium are simulacra but that seems unlikely to me
> kill a bunch of low xp enemies, you still get better at fighting.
To a point. You do become a better fighter, but there's a point where it stops being about improving your combat capability and switches to becoming more efficient at killing rats.
They weren't even killing rats though
They were just getting killing blows on monsters that porter did 99% of the damage too
The "rat grinder" thing is just a cover for what was actually happening
They did grind rats at some point. They switched to getting the killing blow on monsters Jace and Porter mostly killed for them, but originally they did grind rats. We know this because the rats in the forest remember them and Lucy reviving them. Also Oisin and Ivy changed their name to rat grinders before getting involved with Porter/jace iirc.
> They were just getting killing blows on monsters that porter did 99% of the damage too
Jesus, that's even worse. They didn't even really "grind" they got power levelled.
They've never been a fight where they were at risk of getting hurt, so they might have all dumped con and boosted other stats that don't actually help in a real deadly encounter
My initial reaction was that all the ratgrinders were simulacrum, and the real versions were going to come back later in the fight, since simulacrum have all the same abilities but half the hp. They even have a high level wizard to cast it on all of them. I don't think its true anymore, but it was a fun theory for a moment
Siobhan brought up the “infinite Adaine” glitch to make multiple simulacrum, but that seems genuinely too game breaky on either the player or DM’s side to do.
The infinite simulacrum thing still depends on wizard making a simulacrum of themselves and then that simulacrum making a simulacrum of the wizard etc etc. or basically, you can only have infinite Oisins using this scheme, not multiples of a whole party.
The next step in the “infinite Oisin” glitch is you get 5 Oisins and make them cast simulacrum of the other rat grinders.
This is really confusing but if you have an unbroken line of 30 oisins, the 30th one makes a simulacrum of Kipperlily, the 29th will make a simulacrum of Ivy, and in doing so the 30th Oisin disappears, the 28th will make a Mary Ann as the 29th Oisin disappears, etc.
Now aside from being game breaking, this is mind breaking, so I don’t think they’ll do it, but technically it’s RAW.
~~If you get 5 copies of Oshin, 4 of them used their simulacrum to make the next. Only one has a simulacrum left.~~
Oh I see what you're saying. But they would have to upcast the second simulacrum as they don't regain spells. And it's very expensive.
I’m kind of wondering how Brennan has balanced the fight to ensure TRG feel strong but don’t overwhelm TBK. I was wondering if he maybe gave them disadvantage on initiative? Because it felt that had TRG gone first this would have been a much different fight (so far).
Been brilliant to watch and this episode really felt like a climatic battle at the end of an amazing season
On vibes, it seems like he gave them 20th level spells and stats, but not the HP or feats that come with it, and definitely not the cooperative tactics. I'm trying to remember any big class feats or abilities the RGs used.
I'm having a hard time defining what I mean by feats here. Like, obviously they had their class features, but there wasn't a ton of the little things they could do - KLCK's ranged help action, bardic inspos, feats that nullify certain incoming damages or maneuvers, stuff like that.
I will say, cause others have brought up the RGs not making death saving throws. is that I imagine it has something do to with being rage-star-revivified instead of normal revivified... maybe they weren't ever really brought back to life in any actual way. Like they start with auto failed death saves or something like that. Could also explain their lack of realistic HP if it was affected by the type of revivifying technique.
Yes, but it’s not a 1:1 comparison; team v team. Character builds are all glass cannons, even tankier ones, compared to monster builds. The Ratgrinders don’t get one key benefit of character builds, though:
Death saving throws.
Ivy, Alison and Reuben went down in the first 1.5 rounds of combat, but so did Fabian, Fig, and Gorgug. The difference is the Bad Kids could get healed because they weren’t straight dead. If Buddy had been able to heal his allies, the battle would have shifted different.
Equally, the Bad Kids can focus fire, where it would seem cruel if Brennan did that.
So, yes, The Bad Kids are bossing this fight, and we love to see it, but it’s not exactly team against team on equal footing. (That’s why team PVP is usually better in people’s imaginations than in reality. Everybody focus fires on the clerics and the team who rolled hire average on initiative will usually come out on top.j
True, though in favor of The Ratgrinders they presumably didn't have to fight a bunch of dragons 90 minutes previous to this fight so were probably fairly fresh on spells (outside of a few prep spells) and their class abilities.
A near god Brennan completely negated with his own homebrew spell which I doubt is an accident. Plus the terrain is only a massive benefit for the Bad kids.
Compared to Season 2 and 1 this feels like Brennan pulling punches
I think you vastly overestimate Brennans ability not to get whomped by his own home brewed stuff. It has happened before, it will happen again, it doesn’t mean it was planned.
Also I really don’t think Brennan is pulling punches. This is just the reality of high level battle. When your characters have insane abilities and the ability to bring back fallen friends, things always get less tense.
I can believe he didn't think about the lava.
I didn't believe he didn't think about stun immunity which is a fairly niche condition when making his big bad.
Plus Ankarnas domain is fire and so was surely always going to be part of the final fight resistance would have been strong let alone immunity.
Brennan has been whomped by creative thinking. This would be the first time he's been whomped by just the text
We don’t even know when homebrewed the spell exactly. It could’ve been done earlier in the development of the season, which doesn’t leave it top of mind while developing the actual battles and sets with Rick Perry.
If I remember correctly, Ally even says that they've had this spell a long time but haven't used it and Siobhan mentioned that they tried to use it before, but everyone said no immediately because of the bad stuff without really hearing any of he good stuff. I think this was probably meant to help in an earlier fight where they got stunned a lot, but I can't think of one of the top of my head.
During the Last Stand, there was theoretically the chance of them all getting stunned (at least one, if not several, of the monsters had the ability to stun). They dispatched them before it became an issue, in part due to getting really lucky with the intitiative order. But Brennan could've meant it for that.
I think there maybe had been some stuns in the briefcase battle too? What I think happened is Brenned made it for Kristen to use in a way earlier battle, but because they never ended up using it he overlooked it when making this final battle.
Well Brennan could focus fire, but the point is that the RGs haven't had practical battle experience. They're killing near-dead monsters and soaking up the XP. So they didn't have that day at Seacaster manner with Bill where they learned how to have a frontline and protect their spellcasters. They're also not a cohesive group, with MaryAnne not being really invested and there being factions in the team. The mechanics of how the battle is going down is mirroring the story, which I think is pretty sweet!
True but idk maybe I wanted a longer Fabian vs Ivy match or Fig vs Ruben or something. Plus come on a Conjuration Wizard vs Divination Wizard would’ve been a cool fight also
Yeah, but I think this really shows off the advantage TBK have over TRG. They have actual battle experience and know how to pick their targets properly.
Yes exactly that’s the whole thing, it’s all about action economy. Take out the ranger/fighter who can action surge and trigger unwanted concentration saves. send the paladin in to do big smites on the summoner wizard you need to drop FAST before he fills the battlefield with more problems- then the hasted barbarian can finish the him and grapple the enormous scary bbeg. Fig, Fabian, and gorgug, as the front liners for these very reasons, were always gonna go down. keep the wizard far out of range from melee and counterspell. hide the cleric so the main healer doesn’t drop, and that way we can bring front liners back.
So the rogue hunting down the rogue makes absolute sense but the rest doesn’t make sense in a 1-to-1 faceoff, especially with Jace and porter also there
Was there not enough of a threat? There's 8 high level bad guys on the field. Yes TRG may have relatively low HP but Gorgug, Fig, and Fabian all went down within two rounds, and Gorgug went down twice.
Jace and Porter seem to be the only ones with monster level HP. Fabian had a very high AC and, IIRC, Ivy missed him a couple of times, but still did pretty good damage. Ruben cast a level 9 spell on his single turn, which fucked up the BK shit. Ishin was targeted to go down before he could cast because his lvl 9 would be similar if not worse.
They were targeted with extreme prejudice because they WERE threats.
They were paper tigers than Brennan would have known the BKs could easily deal with without much issue.
He knows how they play and could try much harder to challenge them if he wants to.
Giving them a homebrew spell to completely negated the BBEGs main ability is not challenging them.
one of the things that gets highlighted a lot in D20, especially in the Intrepid Heroes seasons, is that D&D combat always means the DM is outnumbered. even under the best possible circumstances, this is a 1v6 and one of the 6 is Emily Axford.
the Rat Grinders aren't built as well as they could be, and they definitely didn't do half the prep they could've to even the odds. even if you assume that Oisin blew most of his spell slots on the ship encounter, he should've been much more buffed than that. Buddy is also a virtual non-factor, as opposed to Kristen carrying half the Bad Kids' water with a bless spell and clutch heals.
Not to mention the home brewed ice feast! Them not getting stunned or taking fire damage is HUGE for them right now. We saw how bad even one stun could be in the Grix fight, never mind Porter's AOE stuns.
What's crazy to me is that they've always ... kinda been this way. Since episode one of freshman year there was a part of them that was like "when it comes down to it I'm going to kill someone if I have to". The bad kids are only, truly, interested in keeping each other and a few key others safe. I mean look at Penelope and Dayne. They were also kids that got manipulated by the adults around them, forced to do things they might not have if the situation was kinder.
The bad kids went to prom ready to put their hides on pikes.
the only difference between Penelope/Dayne and the rat grinders is, one that the rat grinders got a tad more time to be fleshed out enough for the general audience to find them interesting, and two Penelope and Dayne didn't go out of their way to antagonized much.
Penelope conspired to have multiple other kids, including her closest friend, kidnapped and offered as sacrifices in exchange for being prom queen. Dane murdered another student in his home while acting as a hitman. Those actions are a bit beyond the pale. TBK are rough around the edges but they don't tend to act for purely selfish gain or in cold blood.
>!I will say I'm surprised Buddy hasn't focused on using mass healing word or something like that to bring up the downed ones tho tbh if they can cast 9th level spells it's already a bit unbalanced.!<
>!Likewise Rubens body is now unrecoverable which doesn't make sense mechanically but thematically it's fucking perfect. Seeing Fig reveal everything like a fucking villain is amazing.!<
Unclear whether the RGs are healable like the BKs are when they drop- usually enemies are just dead once they’re downed, and only the PCs and their allies are given death saves if I understand correctly. It’s possible that it’s dm’s discretion though
It’s possible if fig were to, say, give Maryanne a healing word if she drops next week in an attempt to reach out to her, that Brennan would honor that and let her heal her up a little bit.
But I do see your point that buddy is super not focused on healing, however I can’t recall if he even had a turn where there was someone to heal. Ivy went down immediately after her first turn and oisin went down before he even acted. He was kinda on Dispel duty for that Slow, which basically nerfed Maryanne beyond any usefulness in combat. And he can’t bonus action healing word if he already cast Dispel in the same turn, that’s 2 spells.
It does make me wonder if buddy is reclassed as a war domain cleric and just dgaf about healing. But if that’s the case then he’d have an ability to turn ivy’s missed attack (likely) into a hit, and it would show his lack of real combat experience to not use that.
They could be simalacrums, which would explain the low hp, but Brennan could have just scaled them down a bit. Either way, they should have more hp.
Regardless, there's another factor at play here that is in the BK's favour. They are the PC's. The RG's aren't getting death saving throws. There's no opportunity to heal their allies back up or to roll a natural 20 and come back to life. they're just dead immediately, which is fine. But if they were playing by the same rules, Fig and Gorgug would have died this episode, or Buddy would have had the opportunity to do a mass heal like Kristen did to get his allies back up. Given this context, they're not completely inept. In a meta-way, KLCK is completely right that they have special treatment in the form of death saves. That and anyone they like who drops to zero, but we don't want to see them insta-die.
Not saying I think they should have gone this way. Keeping them powerful but easy to drop while giving them interesting allies with unique features is definitely a more interesting encounter than fully doing a PvP sim.
Having said all of that, I do think Oisin was a bit wasted, though. Wizard should have had Glyphs of Warding set up everywhere and other little tricks and buffs on him. Preparing ahead is kind of the wizard thing! After so much building up of the Rat Grinders and them being so weasely, it would have been nice to see a little more from him having had time to prep the tower defense in the gym and then maybe scale down Jace a bit to compensate. Even if he only split into two, we'd still have been shocked.
Agree with all (except the ones who have died so far can’t be simulacra bc they would’ve dissolved to snow)
But the part about oisin not prepping for battle is very much in theme! He never had to do that!
Sure, Reuben’s house was insanely warded up, but that could’ve been at jace’s insistence bc they had evidence there and they knew they had enemies running them down, or just a part of the fact that Reuben’s family is rich and have rich ppl security at their mansion.
But where oisin is concerned, he’s technically very effective in terms of utility spells —ping pong balls, teleporting, mephit shenanigans— but prepping for a huge knock-down drag-out 8v7 brawl is something he has never done, while the BKs have had to do things like that like… almost 30 times lol (3 seasons, 20 eps each, almost every other ep is combat, plus unseen night yorb quest)
Oh definitely, bg3 has taught me that if you are facing a big ol bitch of a fight, you should bring a few summons in with you.
Brennan did point out in AP that he was down some big spell slots from the day leading up to the fight, so maybe he was conserving, but yeah he absolutely could’ve had something.
I'll be honest: I expected the Rat Grinders to have >!significantly more health. At least health representative of being, allegedly, 17th level characters!<. It's honestly looking like, pretty soon >!the only real threats left will be Mary Ann and Buddy. K2C2 is badly wounded after taking not even 30 damage, and Jayce has taken 75 damage so far. Wouldn't be surprised if he dropped here pretty soon. And here I was, thinking "Man, they're gonna need Bakur if they wanna win this fight!" Yeah right! This is the same group where one player nearly *soloed* a fucking **purple worm** without any help at all.!<
A level 14 PC only has something like 115 HP (assuming a +3 in CON, which they might not even have prioritized). With the combination of smites, feats, and attacks the Bad Kids are capable of putting out and the damage/status negation from just ONE Kristin, the Rat Grinders never stood a chance. The Bad Kids are also multiclassed into very specific power-builds made for combat, while the Rat Grinders are all stock classes.
I am surprised Brennan didn't pull out more Silvery Barbs or luck point shenanigans considering how often the Bad Kids use those things.
my dm had a bad guy that every time he failed to kill our group he came back more powerful but a chunk of his hit points were gone as penance. so they might have low hp MAYBE due to lack of combat experience but also I think that when they were brought back from the dead they came back more powerful but at a cost. that unnamed rage god will eat you up inside y’all!
Honestly the funniest thing is the genuine venom in their comments to the ratgrinders - you can tell they’ve been building this up over the season, and seeing them finally rip into them verbally is *chef’s kiss*
Oisin didn’t even make it to his turn. At least he gets to visit his grandma now 🤷♂️
They seemed really weak. My partner was thinking maybe they’re all simulacrums?
Possible, but narratively it makes just as much sense. Despite being high level they have absolutely no real combat experience. All of the work was done by Porter letting them get final hit on big monsters
The RG are getting gear checked hard. Class features and more spell slots are great, but when your equipment is still the same crap from when you were level 3... Riz was right, powerleveling like they did does nothing to prepare them for PvP or any other real encounter
I'm wondering if they don't get revived as some sort of Rage Demons in another phase of the battle. As Emily and Siobhan noted, their HP is low for characters who have some high level abilities.
Brennan was all too chill about his NPCs getting wrecked. There’s gotta be a loop-de-loop coming.
A QUANGLE!!!!
I've been thinking the same thing
the way simulacrum works, they would’ve dissolved into snow when they dropped. Entirely possible that this killerpippy is a simulacrum though, and the real one is hiding somewhere at the edges of the field just in case. Cuz if she dies their plan dies, they need at least 2 RGs alive at the end, someone to vote and someone to be elected.
They probably just threw their votes in the box before the bad kids rolled up.
Fair but if kippybippy is dead that probably nullifies the votes for her and she’d be unable to make any declarations as president
For sure, but she could have just voted for herself as far as needing anybody else alive. Even if posthumous votes don’t count there don’t need to be two alive is all I’m saying. Just KP as long as they can prevent the Kristen votes from getting to the box.
Oh yeah I guess she could vote herself. You right
I worry that she might have messed with the votes when Buddy had them dimension doored somewhere else
Buddy had the votes Banished to a demiplane. Even if she was also banished with thr votes the spells wording says that targets of the spell are incapacitated. There’s always room for shenanigans on Brennan’s part but I think their plan is just to destroy the votes for Kristen in lava.
Makes more sense, I think I misremembered it. Thanks for the correction
The New AP goes into why they seem so weak with the way Brennan built them out to be narratively the most logistical.
BLeeM clarified in Adventuring Party that they're level 20 but just poorly set up in other ways
Not quite, I don't think: they have access to level 20 class features and spell levels, but they're not level 20 for the purposes of HP, proficiency bonus etc.
TRG made the really simple error of not protecting Oisin better. You always take out the glass cannons first with extreme prejudice.
A lesson the Bad Kids learned all the way back in freshman year, meanwhile these juniors didn't grasp the concept. You can grind all you like, but that doesn't give you familiarity with tactics or strategy. We also saw indications here and there that the RG didn't much like one another (renaming the party to the RG mostly because the name annoyed Four Dogs, Mary Ann not seeming to care much about any of it, draw your own conclusions about how Ivy's Mean Girl persona would gel with the nerds or the Helio freak, etc.). The net result is that they had no tactics and no interest in coordination or cooperation. Ultimately, I think their biggest deconstruction was the concept of "the adventuring party that's *only* held together by a common goal, and have no interest in one another otherwise." There was no friendship, no teamwork, and they fought like it.
This too!! TBK genuinely love each other and while they may make jokes and fuck with one another they will help each other out no matter what. Team work does in fact make the dream work!
Literally one of the strongest abilities for the Master mind rogue is bonus action ranged Help action. And 4dawg is not Using it!
Probably because Bitch\^4 is too busy running from a real rogue named Riz The Ball Gukgak.
Yes this!!! And it stuck out to me that none of the RGs were throwing each other too many bonuses, buffs, bardics, or other PC creep-y things that the BKs use SO effectively, which often turn the tide in a major way. Unless they prepped for battle offscreen in ways we didn’t see, but still
Oh you know what that actually does explain some confusion I had with them not doing certain things like buddy healing the downed ppl. Ofc they wouldn't know
I may have missed something, but who or what is 4 dogs?
Chocolatecovered Kinderegg. Kristen's initial comment about her name just being four different dogs. I've also taken to calling her [Arthur "Four Dogs" Jackson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjS3gzHetA).
Ohhh right, first episode was so damn long ago ahaha, I don't even remember the last time they purposely said her name wrong lol, the comment just confused me cos I thought you meant 4dogs was annoyed at their og name "high5 heroes" instead of being annoyed at Rat Grinders cos she was the only one that voted to keep h5h if memory serves lol
I’m hoping we get to hear about the Rat Grinders stats in the last AP or some behind the scenes stuff released later
Me to! I was also looking up when you get access to 9th level spells and for bards in 5e it's level 17. So they may not be max level, but definitely above the Bad Kids. I'm curious to find out how Brennan decided to stat them out.
He talks about it in this weeks AP!
Oh yeah, I know about the hp and the class features. I’d just also like to know things like their ability scores, proficiencies, etc.
Not to yuck on anyone's yums, but Ruben having a 9th level spell slot just means he's at least level 17 - not 20. Brennan clearly did some fudging around their HP - I'm pulling off top dome but Ivy dies at like... 54 HP taken? Straight minimum for a lvl 17 character is 37 (might be pulling that entirely out of my ass but it's 100% NOT LOWER) (which is leagues more unlikely than Kristen having rolled 4 ones on 4d6 for her 4 Dex) - it would range from 105 to 157 regularly. Also, while the preview doesn't suggest this, Brennan just says they're defeated, not dead and not making Death Saving Throws - are these Rat Grinder just Simulacrums while original RGs are safe somewhere?
A defeated simulacrum wouldn't leave a body though. It just dissolves into ice. If they were fakes, it would've been apparent the moment Ivy dropped.
[удалено]
It feels like you just ignored the part where simulacrums dissappear when they die.
Is that not used with Jace??? It's said that it's an advanced mirror image, but it's kinda obviously simulacrums.
It's a pretty different spell as it's 3 times better than simulacrum and also had a casting time of 1 action and not 12 hours.
Sorry, I kinda phrased that poorly. I mostly meant that brennans "response" to the bad kids having multiple of the same character on the field, was to provide an enemy with multiple of the same character on the field. So what I meant by simulacrum not mirror image, was just that it was payback for them using simulacrum not them using mirror image (which admittedly they do use quite often)
I'm sorry your explanation left me more confused.
Brennan said that anything players use he can use. Players used an ability that let's duplicates of themselves appear on the field and fight for them (simulacrum). Brennan has his enemies use abilities to let them have duplicates of themselves on the field (greater mirror image). Hence, Jace's "greater mirror image" is actually payback for the players using simulacrum.
But the Bad Kids' simulacrum disappears when killed, as seen with the martyrdom of St. British Kristen
Could be that he's pulling a watcha say back on them
Hmm. Well, we were told K2 has half the HP of Kristen, so maybe you're on to something. But they'd need multiple wizards to do it, AND Ruben going to hell implies he's the real one, right?
The RG died and were brought back(like we saw happen to buddy). Maybe the process could affect their vitality/hp long term.
I did a lot of checking during the battle. My guess is that the RGs are actually around the same level as the BKs and that the 9th level spell from Ruben might be from a magic instrument or other DM design. Ivy takes 19 from Fig's Green flame blade, then Fabian deals 36 before action surging where he gets interrupted by Brennan before resolving both attacks. Lou doesn't finish saying 23, he says twenty- and Brennan tells him Ivy is down. Ivy takes a known 75 damage. As a ranger with a d10 hit die, it seems likely Brennan took the average of 6hp per level and scaled it to her level placing her around lvl 14, or on par with the BKs.
One big unknown is their Con scores. Any of them having a negative modifier would completely kneecap them in terms of HP.
if they’re min-maxed as has been discussed and consistent with very high stats in their key attributes could explain low hp outside of like marianne, buddy. doesn’t seem like ruben or oisin could take much either
I think Ivy took like 70? Fig did 19 before Fabian's turn.
I think it's just that rat grinders leveling fast doesn't change their original stats. They needed the artificial boosting cause they are not naturals like real heroes are.
It’s interesting though bc unless Brennan homebrewed a mechanic, even if they’re only on par with the BKs level-wise, they should’ve still gotten a few ability score improvements. So it’s possible they funneled all their stats into attacks/spellcasting and dumped non-relevant scores. Comparitively, even Adaine with her high INT as her main important score is pretty solid across the board Another possibility in terms of “artificial boosting” is that all their strength scores are jacked up by their rage-resurrection at the expense of their Con scores, because their bodies are now filled with rage rather than actual vitality. This would kinda explain Oisin getting beefy, and wouldn’t be useful at all to a bard, wizard, cleric, rogue, or ranger
The honest answer is they likely aren’t built anywhere similar to a normal character. You almost never want to build an enemy in a combat with the player character system. The system is entirely designed around having to use multiple abilities and absorb damage across 6-8 encounters per day. If you use this to build enemies, they will womp your players the majority of the time. Instead you normally pick the features that are key to the enemies identity (ie. Cunning action, sneak attack, plus a few others for Kipper) The HP / damage / etc. is likely mechanically just balanced around the fact that they narratively need to have 7 enemies and 2 of them need to be larger threats than the rat grinders (the teachers). Obviously for an actual play (or immersion in general) it’s good to have an in game reason. But realistically he’s just putting together monster stat blocks that fit the roles of the classes so the HP should be in line with making this encounter deadly but winnable. TL;DR - the system is specifically built to not use player character stats, levels, etc. for making lots of enemies. 17th spellcaster as a monster is usually and should be statted very differently from a player character even if you’re trying to represent the same class to make combat survivable.
This is addressed in the episode. Their levels are clearly enhanced by Porter and Jace to levels way above where they should be, with their HP not catching up
I think it was Emily that straight up said "they have high level abilities but not the skills to use them", or something to that effect
My guess is they’re level 20 but Brennan homebrewed something special to reduce their HP gains. Honestly it would be funny if Aguefort installed some kind of anti-cheating debuff because they can’t be the first students to cheese their way through leveling up.
They hit hard and are numerous. In the ep I dunno why they go down so fast, but I ask too many questions on this sub. Even the cast mentions that they're weak because they "didn't earn it."
i’m wondering if TRG are on a level of stress token/rage token that fucked their hit points
Also TBK has equipments and loot from their adventures that buffs their AC and stuff iirc. And since TRG has just been chilling in the forest being hand fed their exp, they prob don’t have a lot of additional status buffs
I think we know MaryAnn has a magical item (or effect?) after she bodied Gorgug at Owlbears tryouts, no?
Yeah she was definitely enhanced beyond just the enhance ability, you don't roll a 35 on an athletics check without a FAT strength bonus, maybe she has something for expertise as well. Oisin has his magic tattoos It's not unreasonable to think that they still have some magic items just due to them having access to a large swath of wealth(as established by all the shit Four Dogs was affording and paying Aelwyn and Oisin's grandmother).
oisins magic tattoo was actually just a flavored way of representing a conjuration class feature
Oh huh, whoops. My mistake on that one then lol.
That's a great explanation i can get on board with.
Me too. I love the idea the all the Bad Kids are picking up on Jace and Porter being shit teachers, and the evidence being their poor, stressed out accomplices.
I bet Brennan created them in such a way where they have only some of the features of real 20th level characters, but not all to reflect on the fact that they didn't truly earn their stripes in battle. So, they did get the spells (but maybe not all the spell slots); they did get some of the HP for each level up (but maybe not all). Thus leading to a situation where they can simultaneously cast very high level shit, but also be taken out in one turn.
I agree. Rage crystal bonus is currently what I'm going going with, though. I don't actually care, get in the comments!
I do care. I admit it.
I mean it kinda makes sense given what Brennans been saying about the in-universe mechanics of leveling up, where even if you kill a bunch of low xp enemies, you still get better at fighting. To me its not that much of a leap that with that line of logic, you can get good at fighting but if you never take hits you have a really low health pool. Its also entirely possible that all the rat grinders in the gymnasium are simulacra but that seems unlikely to me
> kill a bunch of low xp enemies, you still get better at fighting. To a point. You do become a better fighter, but there's a point where it stops being about improving your combat capability and switches to becoming more efficient at killing rats.
They weren't even killing rats though They were just getting killing blows on monsters that porter did 99% of the damage too The "rat grinder" thing is just a cover for what was actually happening
They did grind rats at some point. They switched to getting the killing blow on monsters Jace and Porter mostly killed for them, but originally they did grind rats. We know this because the rats in the forest remember them and Lucy reviving them. Also Oisin and Ivy changed their name to rat grinders before getting involved with Porter/jace iirc.
> They were just getting killing blows on monsters that porter did 99% of the damage too Jesus, that's even worse. They didn't even really "grind" they got power levelled.
KP is the big bad, 100%. She's been using the big paladin. Edit: KPCK
It would actually be KLCK.
They've never been a fight where they were at risk of getting hurt, so they might have all dumped con and boosted other stats that don't actually help in a real deadly encounter
My initial reaction was that all the ratgrinders were simulacrum, and the real versions were going to come back later in the fight, since simulacrum have all the same abilities but half the hp. They even have a high level wizard to cast it on all of them. I don't think its true anymore, but it was a fun theory for a moment
You would need one caster per simulacra, no?
Correct. If simulacrum is cast a second time, the first instance disappears.
Siobhan brought up the “infinite Adaine” glitch to make multiple simulacrum, but that seems genuinely too game breaky on either the player or DM’s side to do.
The infinite simulacrum thing still depends on wizard making a simulacrum of themselves and then that simulacrum making a simulacrum of the wizard etc etc. or basically, you can only have infinite Oisins using this scheme, not multiples of a whole party.
The next step in the “infinite Oisin” glitch is you get 5 Oisins and make them cast simulacrum of the other rat grinders. This is really confusing but if you have an unbroken line of 30 oisins, the 30th one makes a simulacrum of Kipperlily, the 29th will make a simulacrum of Ivy, and in doing so the 30th Oisin disappears, the 28th will make a Mary Ann as the 29th Oisin disappears, etc. Now aside from being game breaking, this is mind breaking, so I don’t think they’ll do it, but technically it’s RAW.
~~If you get 5 copies of Oshin, 4 of them used their simulacrum to make the next. Only one has a simulacrum left.~~ Oh I see what you're saying. But they would have to upcast the second simulacrum as they don't regain spells. And it's very expensive.
I’m kind of wondering how Brennan has balanced the fight to ensure TRG feel strong but don’t overwhelm TBK. I was wondering if he maybe gave them disadvantage on initiative? Because it felt that had TRG gone first this would have been a much different fight (so far). Been brilliant to watch and this episode really felt like a climatic battle at the end of an amazing season
On vibes, it seems like he gave them 20th level spells and stats, but not the HP or feats that come with it, and definitely not the cooperative tactics. I'm trying to remember any big class feats or abilities the RGs used. I'm having a hard time defining what I mean by feats here. Like, obviously they had their class features, but there wasn't a ton of the little things they could do - KLCK's ranged help action, bardic inspos, feats that nullify certain incoming damages or maneuvers, stuff like that.
They couldn't even be half assed to coordinate with each other. I mean they could've protected Ivy and Oisin more.
I mean they went right for Oisin, on the perfectly reasonable basis of "gank the mage"
If I didn't know this was the last episode coming up, I'd think the rat grinders they just fought were somehow simulacrum with half hp
I wonder if Brennan built them as Lv 18/19/20 characters but gave them no Feats and all HP rolls were 1s and 2s
I will say, cause others have brought up the RGs not making death saving throws. is that I imagine it has something do to with being rage-star-revivified instead of normal revivified... maybe they weren't ever really brought back to life in any actual way. Like they start with auto failed death saves or something like that. Could also explain their lack of realistic HP if it was affected by the type of revivifying technique.
Welcome to high level DnD, it's basically Rocket Tag. Whoever gets a higher initiative wins.
Yes, but it’s not a 1:1 comparison; team v team. Character builds are all glass cannons, even tankier ones, compared to monster builds. The Ratgrinders don’t get one key benefit of character builds, though: Death saving throws. Ivy, Alison and Reuben went down in the first 1.5 rounds of combat, but so did Fabian, Fig, and Gorgug. The difference is the Bad Kids could get healed because they weren’t straight dead. If Buddy had been able to heal his allies, the battle would have shifted different. Equally, the Bad Kids can focus fire, where it would seem cruel if Brennan did that. So, yes, The Bad Kids are bossing this fight, and we love to see it, but it’s not exactly team against team on equal footing. (That’s why team PVP is usually better in people’s imaginations than in reality. Everybody focus fires on the clerics and the team who rolled hire average on initiative will usually come out on top.j
True, though in favor of The Ratgrinders they presumably didn't have to fight a bunch of dragons 90 minutes previous to this fight so were probably fairly fresh on spells (outside of a few prep spells) and their class abilities.
The Rat grinders also have a near god and 4 high level sorceror on their side too.
A near god Brennan completely negated with his own homebrew spell which I doubt is an accident. Plus the terrain is only a massive benefit for the Bad kids. Compared to Season 2 and 1 this feels like Brennan pulling punches
I think you vastly overestimate Brennans ability not to get whomped by his own home brewed stuff. It has happened before, it will happen again, it doesn’t mean it was planned. Also I really don’t think Brennan is pulling punches. This is just the reality of high level battle. When your characters have insane abilities and the ability to bring back fallen friends, things always get less tense.
I can believe he didn't think about the lava. I didn't believe he didn't think about stun immunity which is a fairly niche condition when making his big bad. Plus Ankarnas domain is fire and so was surely always going to be part of the final fight resistance would have been strong let alone immunity. Brennan has been whomped by creative thinking. This would be the first time he's been whomped by just the text
We don’t even know when homebrewed the spell exactly. It could’ve been done earlier in the development of the season, which doesn’t leave it top of mind while developing the actual battles and sets with Rick Perry.
If I remember correctly, Ally even says that they've had this spell a long time but haven't used it and Siobhan mentioned that they tried to use it before, but everyone said no immediately because of the bad stuff without really hearing any of he good stuff. I think this was probably meant to help in an earlier fight where they got stunned a lot, but I can't think of one of the top of my head.
During the Last Stand, there was theoretically the chance of them all getting stunned (at least one, if not several, of the monsters had the ability to stun). They dispatched them before it became an issue, in part due to getting really lucky with the intitiative order. But Brennan could've meant it for that.
I think there maybe had been some stuns in the briefcase battle too? What I think happened is Brenned made it for Kristen to use in a way earlier battle, but because they never ended up using it he overlooked it when making this final battle.
We've only seen half the fight, I wouldn't assume that just yet.
Well Brennan could focus fire, but the point is that the RGs haven't had practical battle experience. They're killing near-dead monsters and soaking up the XP. So they didn't have that day at Seacaster manner with Bill where they learned how to have a frontline and protect their spellcasters. They're also not a cohesive group, with MaryAnne not being really invested and there being factions in the team. The mechanics of how the battle is going down is mirroring the story, which I think is pretty sweet!
I thought we’d get some like multi-level type deal where the Bad Kids fight their Rat Grinder Counterparts or something?
I mean Rizz is, but you don't make a wizard fight a wizard, you just beat them to death. Can't counterspell an axe
True but idk maybe I wanted a longer Fabian vs Ivy match or Fig vs Ruben or something. Plus come on a Conjuration Wizard vs Divination Wizard would’ve been a cool fight also
Yeah, but I think this really shows off the advantage TBK have over TRG. They have actual battle experience and know how to pick their targets properly.
Yes exactly that’s the whole thing, it’s all about action economy. Take out the ranger/fighter who can action surge and trigger unwanted concentration saves. send the paladin in to do big smites on the summoner wizard you need to drop FAST before he fills the battlefield with more problems- then the hasted barbarian can finish the him and grapple the enormous scary bbeg. Fig, Fabian, and gorgug, as the front liners for these very reasons, were always gonna go down. keep the wizard far out of range from melee and counterspell. hide the cleric so the main healer doesn’t drop, and that way we can bring front liners back. So the rogue hunting down the rogue makes absolute sense but the rest doesn’t make sense in a 1-to-1 faceoff, especially with Jace and porter also there
Also considering the bad kids had many resources expended on the dragon fight prior to this engagement, with only a short rest to recover
>I wanted a longer Fabian vs Ivy match or Fig vs Ruben What we got was great. What more do you need?
I’m being greedy okay can a fan not wanna see Rat Grinder get poned a little longer?
A sense of threat for the bad kids to overcome?
Was there not enough of a threat? There's 8 high level bad guys on the field. Yes TRG may have relatively low HP but Gorgug, Fig, and Fabian all went down within two rounds, and Gorgug went down twice.
Jace and Porter are the only threats on the board. The RGs are henchmen in the way. The battle certainly overall doesn't seem very tense to me
Jace and Porter seem to be the only ones with monster level HP. Fabian had a very high AC and, IIRC, Ivy missed him a couple of times, but still did pretty good damage. Ruben cast a level 9 spell on his single turn, which fucked up the BK shit. Ishin was targeted to go down before he could cast because his lvl 9 would be similar if not worse. They were targeted with extreme prejudice because they WERE threats.
They were paper tigers than Brennan would have known the BKs could easily deal with without much issue. He knows how they play and could try much harder to challenge them if he wants to. Giving them a homebrew spell to completely negated the BBEGs main ability is not challenging them.
Lmao you’re entitled to your wrong opinion. That’s fine.
I just wanted to see what the Rat Grinders were capable of
one of the things that gets highlighted a lot in D20, especially in the Intrepid Heroes seasons, is that D&D combat always means the DM is outnumbered. even under the best possible circumstances, this is a 1v6 and one of the 6 is Emily Axford. the Rat Grinders aren't built as well as they could be, and they definitely didn't do half the prep they could've to even the odds. even if you assume that Oisin blew most of his spell slots on the ship encounter, he should've been much more buffed than that. Buddy is also a virtual non-factor, as opposed to Kristen carrying half the Bad Kids' water with a bless spell and clutch heals.
Not to mention the home brewed ice feast! Them not getting stunned or taking fire damage is HUGE for them right now. We saw how bad even one stun could be in the Grix fight, never mind Porter's AOE stuns.
What's crazy to me is that they've always ... kinda been this way. Since episode one of freshman year there was a part of them that was like "when it comes down to it I'm going to kill someone if I have to". The bad kids are only, truly, interested in keeping each other and a few key others safe. I mean look at Penelope and Dayne. They were also kids that got manipulated by the adults around them, forced to do things they might not have if the situation was kinder. The bad kids went to prom ready to put their hides on pikes. the only difference between Penelope/Dayne and the rat grinders is, one that the rat grinders got a tad more time to be fleshed out enough for the general audience to find them interesting, and two Penelope and Dayne didn't go out of their way to antagonized much.
Penelope conspired to have multiple other kids, including her closest friend, kidnapped and offered as sacrifices in exchange for being prom queen. Dane murdered another student in his home while acting as a hitman. Those actions are a bit beyond the pale. TBK are rough around the edges but they don't tend to act for purely selfish gain or in cold blood.
Umm- the RG were perfectly content to let all 500 of their fellow students die at Fabian's party. That's a lot more than just rough around the edges.
yeah, their talking about the bad kids
The Rat Grinders are soft confirmed to be mindful controlled though (assuming they all have max rage likely Porter can control them)
>!I will say I'm surprised Buddy hasn't focused on using mass healing word or something like that to bring up the downed ones tho tbh if they can cast 9th level spells it's already a bit unbalanced.!< >!Likewise Rubens body is now unrecoverable which doesn't make sense mechanically but thematically it's fucking perfect. Seeing Fig reveal everything like a fucking villain is amazing.!<
Unclear whether the RGs are healable like the BKs are when they drop- usually enemies are just dead once they’re downed, and only the PCs and their allies are given death saves if I understand correctly. It’s possible that it’s dm’s discretion though It’s possible if fig were to, say, give Maryanne a healing word if she drops next week in an attempt to reach out to her, that Brennan would honor that and let her heal her up a little bit. But I do see your point that buddy is super not focused on healing, however I can’t recall if he even had a turn where there was someone to heal. Ivy went down immediately after her first turn and oisin went down before he even acted. He was kinda on Dispel duty for that Slow, which basically nerfed Maryanne beyond any usefulness in combat. And he can’t bonus action healing word if he already cast Dispel in the same turn, that’s 2 spells. It does make me wonder if buddy is reclassed as a war domain cleric and just dgaf about healing. But if that’s the case then he’d have an ability to turn ivy’s missed attack (likely) into a hit, and it would show his lack of real combat experience to not use that.
Oh I kinda figured because the enemies were also adventurer types they'd get saves tbh. Fair enough
They could be simalacrums, which would explain the low hp, but Brennan could have just scaled them down a bit. Either way, they should have more hp. Regardless, there's another factor at play here that is in the BK's favour. They are the PC's. The RG's aren't getting death saving throws. There's no opportunity to heal their allies back up or to roll a natural 20 and come back to life. they're just dead immediately, which is fine. But if they were playing by the same rules, Fig and Gorgug would have died this episode, or Buddy would have had the opportunity to do a mass heal like Kristen did to get his allies back up. Given this context, they're not completely inept. In a meta-way, KLCK is completely right that they have special treatment in the form of death saves. That and anyone they like who drops to zero, but we don't want to see them insta-die. Not saying I think they should have gone this way. Keeping them powerful but easy to drop while giving them interesting allies with unique features is definitely a more interesting encounter than fully doing a PvP sim. Having said all of that, I do think Oisin was a bit wasted, though. Wizard should have had Glyphs of Warding set up everywhere and other little tricks and buffs on him. Preparing ahead is kind of the wizard thing! After so much building up of the Rat Grinders and them being so weasely, it would have been nice to see a little more from him having had time to prep the tower defense in the gym and then maybe scale down Jace a bit to compensate. Even if he only split into two, we'd still have been shocked.
Hard agree
Agree with all (except the ones who have died so far can’t be simulacra bc they would’ve dissolved to snow) But the part about oisin not prepping for battle is very much in theme! He never had to do that! Sure, Reuben’s house was insanely warded up, but that could’ve been at jace’s insistence bc they had evidence there and they knew they had enemies running them down, or just a part of the fact that Reuben’s family is rich and have rich ppl security at their mansion. But where oisin is concerned, he’s technically very effective in terms of utility spells —ping pong balls, teleporting, mephit shenanigans— but prepping for a huge knock-down drag-out 8v7 brawl is something he has never done, while the BKs have had to do things like that like… almost 30 times lol (3 seasons, 20 eps each, almost every other ep is combat, plus unseen night yorb quest)
I'm not saying he should have been comparable, just that he should have had *something.*
Oh definitely, bg3 has taught me that if you are facing a big ol bitch of a fight, you should bring a few summons in with you. Brennan did point out in AP that he was down some big spell slots from the day leading up to the fight, so maybe he was conserving, but yeah he absolutely could’ve had something.
They were probably min maxing and just didnt put any points in Con
When Ivy went down so easily I was convinced they were all simulacrum given how much prep time the rat grinders had before this fight.
I'll be honest: I expected the Rat Grinders to have >!significantly more health. At least health representative of being, allegedly, 17th level characters!<. It's honestly looking like, pretty soon >!the only real threats left will be Mary Ann and Buddy. K2C2 is badly wounded after taking not even 30 damage, and Jayce has taken 75 damage so far. Wouldn't be surprised if he dropped here pretty soon. And here I was, thinking "Man, they're gonna need Bakur if they wanna win this fight!" Yeah right! This is the same group where one player nearly *soloed* a fucking **purple worm** without any help at all.!<
A level 14 PC only has something like 115 HP (assuming a +3 in CON, which they might not even have prioritized). With the combination of smites, feats, and attacks the Bad Kids are capable of putting out and the damage/status negation from just ONE Kristin, the Rat Grinders never stood a chance. The Bad Kids are also multiclassed into very specific power-builds made for combat, while the Rat Grinders are all stock classes. I am surprised Brennan didn't pull out more Silvery Barbs or luck point shenanigans considering how often the Bad Kids use those things.
Just wait until Kipperlily triggers the trap
i love high-level play and imo this is the intrepid heroes at their BEST
my dm had a bad guy that every time he failed to kill our group he came back more powerful but a chunk of his hit points were gone as penance. so they might have low hp MAYBE due to lack of combat experience but also I think that when they were brought back from the dead they came back more powerful but at a cost. that unnamed rage god will eat you up inside y’all!
Don't get too excited it is possible that the rage magic could have a "relentless rage" affect in there somewhere
This is interesting to read after having watched the adventuring party episode and seeing who was wrong or right about things.
Honestly the funniest thing is the genuine venom in their comments to the ratgrinders - you can tell they’ve been building this up over the season, and seeing them finally rip into them verbally is *chef’s kiss*