Making an Unforgettable Scene – Age of Umbra Episode 2 (Patreon)

(Note: This is not an official recap, just my personal opinion on the events and design elements discussed)

I’m going to talk about a big scene from episode 2 of Critical Role’s current Daggerheart miniseries Age of Umbra (using the campaign frame of the same name from the core rulebook). Spoilers ahead!

The battle in the middle of ep. 2 of Age of Umbra absolutely sells the speed and dynamism of Daggerheart’s combat with a boss-level Solo adversary more than capable of taking on a full party of PCs.

As I see it, there were a few design elements and choices that were essential in making the battle with Velk really shine.

The first, possibly biggest factor is a 1-2 punch of features that make Velk a one-Katari Fear engine: Momentum and Relentless (2). Momentum means that Velk generated a Fear each time he succeeded on an attack, and Relentless (2) let him be spotlighted twice during a GM turn. This combination meant that as long as Velk succeeded on at least one of his attacks, he could keep acting twice in any GM turn generated by a failure or roll with Fear at a net 0 Fear cost (The GM gets one move from the failure or result with Fear and attacks twice, spending a Fear and recuperating that Fear if either of the attacks succeeds). Due to some strong dice rolls, there were several GM turns where Velk succeeded on both attacks, generating 2 Fear while costing only 1 to spotlight the second time. This allowed GM Matt Mercer to pay for Fear Features and/or interrupt the players more frequently to keep up the pressure.

Momentum and Relentless is a very dangerous combination -- especially if there are other adversaries present and you can end up with the Momentum/Relentless adversary effectively acting for free while also allowing other adversaries to take the spotlight. But for a boss-level Solo in a high-stakes miniseries, this combination was just the right amount of scary.

Now, let’s consider Velk’s other features:

Velk could use Spinning Blade to attack any target within Very Close, often targeting two or three PCs per attack. This made every Spinning Blade strike a threat to multiple PCs, leading to damage and spent resources for more than one character at a time.

Velk’s big attack was Leaping Strike, a Fear feature which allowed him to move up to a Far distance and make an attack that dealt extra damage (a bonus d12). This ensured that Velk could apply pressure almost anywhere in the battle, even a character trying to get out of the fray (Snyx). Matt worked the physical space into the description of these attacks, including having Velk leap up, grab the broken ceiling, and hurl a piece of stone at a character to supplement an attack (a fictional basis for that bonus damage).

Between Spinning Blade and Leaping Strike, there was no truly safe place for the PCs to be in the fight. If they were bunched up, they’d get hit with the Spinning Blade AoE. If they pulled back or moved out on their own, Velk could pressure them with Leaping Strike.

Least used but incredibly frightening and crucial to establishing the possibility space of the battle was Throw, which cost a Stress but let him make an attack and then both deal damage and force a Strength Reaction Roll or throw a PC up to a Far distance. This would be rough in a normal arena fight, separating the PCs and forcing them to spend time rejoining the fight or being isolated and set up for a Leaping Strike. But since the monastery had partially collapsed and there was a sheer cliff face on one side of the arena, Velk had the potential to throw a PC off the side to their almost-certain death.

Opening the fight with a Throw also drew the player’s attention to the fact that there was a cliff and that a knockback-based victory was an option. This became the party’s focus at the end of the battle and eventually led to Velk tumbling down the mountainside and out of sight.

He is dead, right?

Probably. But I didn’t see Matt hold up a card that said “FOE VANQUISHED”, so there’s no guarantee. :P

Another element that I found fascinating was the attempts to topple the flaming braziers. Matt set the difficulty at 20 (rather hard for 1st level PCs), but even with that, the players redoubled their efforts after one failure, pursuing that approach in the fight even as Velk continued wreaking havoc. I have no special knowledge here, but I wonder if there was originally no mechanical element to the braziers. I think it’s possible that Matt’s decision to reduce Velk’s difficulty when the PCs finally succeeded in toppling a brazier was improvised to honor all the time and effort the players put into it.

And for the purposes of this essay, it almost doesn’t matter whether the brazier’s impact on Velk’s difficulty was decided ahead of time or in the moment. That story beat (“Oh, these braziers were a part of his ascension, if we knock them over, it should do something, right?”) is a good example of how a GM could improvise if the players do something unexpected that seems like it could have an impact within the fiction and therefore on the mechanics.

If your prep says the braziers are irrelevant once the ascension is complete, but the players see them as important and make efforts to bring them into the story while acting in good faith, it’s worth considering a pivot to validate their idea. Ask yourself whether it makes for a more interesting story to honor their efforts and improvise a mechanical impact for the change in the fiction or if it’s better to try to redirect the PC’s actions so that they’re not disappointed by an incorrect guess leading to several wasted actions. Especially in a game where every roll can generate a GM move.

From a deadly engine of fear generation to powerful movement attacks and a key moment of validating the player’s ingenuity, the disparate elements of this tense, fast-paced fight against Velk the Forsaken forced not one but two death moves and made for an unforgettable scene.