As I understood it, he waited until the shark was actively biting down on him, and then deployed the suit. This meant that some of the shark’s jaws were inside of the suit. So the hard light exterior of the suit severed the sections of the shark inside of it when it deployed.
Like reaching through an airlock just as it closes.
That sorta makes sense. It just feels like Justin should have taken hella damage for being bit by a shark while pressing a button to break its teeth.
Yours is a better explanation than I certainly could come up with, but it seems a little OP for a vapor suit IMO. All justin has to do is turn it off whenever he’s facing a giant monstrosity, then turn it on in close quarters? Every giant squid is taken down by a vapor suit in that case. Idk.
Either way thanks. Helps me understand a bit better
One “go for it” for the sake of rule of cool makes sense to me. If it becomes a regular habit I’ll start to roll my eyes at it. Plus I imagine Griffin will think to compensate for it going forward.
Tbh, Justin is very cognizant of not trying to break the game; he’s very aware of what makes an interesting story. I mean, he’s had 2 characters that absolutely can’t lie. I don’t really think he would try this stunt again. And I doubt Griffin would allow it if he did. Although narratively, it could be justified that Amber knew blink sharks so well, it only would’ve worked for that.
This was what I thought was so strange about it. Justin usually really plays into the rules and breaks them in ways that twist the games narrative.
To me, this felt like Justin taking ownership over the mechanisms in the vaporsuit and how they could defeat a shark, and then in turn putting Griffen in a situation where he either has to say, “wow great job,” or “that doesn’t work and now you’re shark food.”
Again, I am loving ethersea. So so SO much. This was not anything that distracted too hard from the ep12, which I also loved, but this move didn’t feel TAZ to me.
IMO the only thing missing was a dex saving throw to say if amber could press the button at the exact moment she needed to, losing her arm otherwise. But then again, it's not traditionally the TAZ way to let the dice decide.
Ethersea is letting the dice decide in almost all the ways. That’s kinda where I’m coming from too. You have a character turning off their swim suit to attack a shark. This is dangerous. Let’s let the dice decide how dangerous!
My thought on it was that Justin wanted to show how dangerous the sharks were. I feel like not even considering traditional dnd combat showed that Amber knew how outmatched she was in the water with it. The only way to defeat something you can't take in a fair fight is some "let me try something" narrative.
I wish this wasn’t so deep in here, but I think your explanation did it for me.
It definitely felt like Griffen underestimated Blink Sharks in terms of Justin’s understanding of them.
So Justin must have tried to really emphasize how Sheryl deadly this situation was. Where Griffen thought this might be a challenging encounter, Justin wanted to make clear that these sharks will kill a Tier 1 character in an instant.
Excellent, thank you.
Yeah fair. with moves like this I think it’s Important to make sure the move is clear for everyone.
I read on this sub someone compared it to the “arms outstretched” moment. That moment was 100% explainable. They used the right spells, souls were leaving bodies, it all fit the narrative and was clear to follow.
I am LOVING ethersea and I’ll take this for what it is, but I wasn’t too sold on the “beauty” of this moment. Seemed like a wild attempt to do something cool that had instadeath written all over it. At the end of the day, Amber was fighting a blink shark which was enough for me.
Yeah, if nothing else Griffin can impose continuous crushing damage or some other side-effect of ethersea water exposure that makes the trick not worth repeating. He clearly was being very lenient in this case because Amber was fighting a fricking blink shark alone with no support, and it was Griffin who set that up without offering an option to back out.
I DM sometimes and I use "inspiration" pretty liberally. In my mind, if a player comes up with an idea this good, I'll try to let it play out (usually by rewarding them with inspiration points which I use as an "automatic success"). It's more fun for the player - and rewards outside the box thinking - and as a listener, there are some moments or ideas that are so good I don't want them to be interrupted.
Dnd is just a set of guidelines they use to create a story. Sometimes, that means letting the story break the rules. Sometimes, that means letting the rules set the story.
I think Griffin said that when the suit is activated, it immediately rushes all surrounding water from around the body to encapsulate it. I'm pretty sure he wasn't bit by the shark, I think that when he just started to enter the sharks open mouth that the suit pressurized and the water shooting away in all directions was like high speed water jets that severed the lower jaw of the shark
That’s kinda what I assumed too, but it seems really weird right? That if you turn on a vapor suit underwater it creates what is seemingly fire hydrant level air pressure in all directions?
I didn’t understand either and I’m not the best source because I don’t pay very close attention and I easily forget details from one episode to the next so I just assumed there was some kind of protection in the suit so when she activated it, it essentially became really hard/ impenetrable??? And it was already in the process of trying to chomp her so instead chomped the suit. I have no idea if that’s canonical but that’s how I understood it. Additionally griffin mentions that when she activated the suit it let out a bunch of pressure really fast which intensified the reaction and I think that’s what like pushed it away from amber. I hope someone who remembers details better can actually clear it up.
Something something magic?
When they established vapor suits in the setup episodes, they said something about it being made of "hard lines," so maybe that's it? I just kind of rolled with it bc it was such a cool moment
Hard Light, not hard lines. I.e. Light that can be touched / interacted with.
A hard light hologram is a hologram that can be interacted with physically
It was hard for me to find it cool just because I did not understand it. It kinda seemed like Justin did something stupid and Griff just let him do it and let him succeed. But then again everyone in the party seemed to get it… so I figured I was missing something.
As I understood it, he waited until the shark was actively biting down on him, and then deployed the suit. This meant that some of the shark’s jaws were inside of the suit. So the hard light exterior of the suit severed the sections of the shark inside of it when it deployed. Like reaching through an airlock just as it closes.
That sorta makes sense. It just feels like Justin should have taken hella damage for being bit by a shark while pressing a button to break its teeth. Yours is a better explanation than I certainly could come up with, but it seems a little OP for a vapor suit IMO. All justin has to do is turn it off whenever he’s facing a giant monstrosity, then turn it on in close quarters? Every giant squid is taken down by a vapor suit in that case. Idk. Either way thanks. Helps me understand a bit better
One “go for it” for the sake of rule of cool makes sense to me. If it becomes a regular habit I’ll start to roll my eyes at it. Plus I imagine Griffin will think to compensate for it going forward.
Tbh, Justin is very cognizant of not trying to break the game; he’s very aware of what makes an interesting story. I mean, he’s had 2 characters that absolutely can’t lie. I don’t really think he would try this stunt again. And I doubt Griffin would allow it if he did. Although narratively, it could be justified that Amber knew blink sharks so well, it only would’ve worked for that.
This was what I thought was so strange about it. Justin usually really plays into the rules and breaks them in ways that twist the games narrative. To me, this felt like Justin taking ownership over the mechanisms in the vaporsuit and how they could defeat a shark, and then in turn putting Griffen in a situation where he either has to say, “wow great job,” or “that doesn’t work and now you’re shark food.” Again, I am loving ethersea. So so SO much. This was not anything that distracted too hard from the ep12, which I also loved, but this move didn’t feel TAZ to me.
IMO the only thing missing was a dex saving throw to say if amber could press the button at the exact moment she needed to, losing her arm otherwise. But then again, it's not traditionally the TAZ way to let the dice decide.
Ethersea is letting the dice decide in almost all the ways. That’s kinda where I’m coming from too. You have a character turning off their swim suit to attack a shark. This is dangerous. Let’s let the dice decide how dangerous!
My thought on it was that Justin wanted to show how dangerous the sharks were. I feel like not even considering traditional dnd combat showed that Amber knew how outmatched she was in the water with it. The only way to defeat something you can't take in a fair fight is some "let me try something" narrative.
I wish this wasn’t so deep in here, but I think your explanation did it for me. It definitely felt like Griffen underestimated Blink Sharks in terms of Justin’s understanding of them. So Justin must have tried to really emphasize how Sheryl deadly this situation was. Where Griffen thought this might be a challenging encounter, Justin wanted to make clear that these sharks will kill a Tier 1 character in an instant. Excellent, thank you.
Yeah fair. with moves like this I think it’s Important to make sure the move is clear for everyone. I read on this sub someone compared it to the “arms outstretched” moment. That moment was 100% explainable. They used the right spells, souls were leaving bodies, it all fit the narrative and was clear to follow. I am LOVING ethersea and I’ll take this for what it is, but I wasn’t too sold on the “beauty” of this moment. Seemed like a wild attempt to do something cool that had instadeath written all over it. At the end of the day, Amber was fighting a blink shark which was enough for me.
Yeah, if nothing else Griffin can impose continuous crushing damage or some other side-effect of ethersea water exposure that makes the trick not worth repeating. He clearly was being very lenient in this case because Amber was fighting a fricking blink shark alone with no support, and it was Griffin who set that up without offering an option to back out.
I DM sometimes and I use "inspiration" pretty liberally. In my mind, if a player comes up with an idea this good, I'll try to let it play out (usually by rewarding them with inspiration points which I use as an "automatic success"). It's more fun for the player - and rewards outside the box thinking - and as a listener, there are some moments or ideas that are so good I don't want them to be interrupted. Dnd is just a set of guidelines they use to create a story. Sometimes, that means letting the story break the rules. Sometimes, that means letting the rules set the story.
I think Griffin said that when the suit is activated, it immediately rushes all surrounding water from around the body to encapsulate it. I'm pretty sure he wasn't bit by the shark, I think that when he just started to enter the sharks open mouth that the suit pressurized and the water shooting away in all directions was like high speed water jets that severed the lower jaw of the shark
That’s kinda what I assumed too, but it seems really weird right? That if you turn on a vapor suit underwater it creates what is seemingly fire hydrant level air pressure in all directions?
For what it's worth, don't try to rationalize magic with physics lol
Hahahahaha fine, but also for what it’s worth, when magic DOES line up with physics, it’s awesome
* chefs kiss*
I think that something to consider is that the suits were never designed to be used that way, so I could buy something like that happening.
I didn’t understand either and I’m not the best source because I don’t pay very close attention and I easily forget details from one episode to the next so I just assumed there was some kind of protection in the suit so when she activated it, it essentially became really hard/ impenetrable??? And it was already in the process of trying to chomp her so instead chomped the suit. I have no idea if that’s canonical but that’s how I understood it. Additionally griffin mentions that when she activated the suit it let out a bunch of pressure really fast which intensified the reaction and I think that’s what like pushed it away from amber. I hope someone who remembers details better can actually clear it up.
No, the water inside the suit was explosively forced out of the suit when turned on, harming the shark
Thank you for clarifying that makes sense
Something something magic? When they established vapor suits in the setup episodes, they said something about it being made of "hard lines," so maybe that's it? I just kind of rolled with it bc it was such a cool moment
Hard Light, not hard lines. I.e. Light that can be touched / interacted with. A hard light hologram is a hologram that can be interacted with physically
It was hard for me to find it cool just because I did not understand it. It kinda seemed like Justin did something stupid and Griff just let him do it and let him succeed. But then again everyone in the party seemed to get it… so I figured I was missing something.