To be completely honest, c2e73 is probably my absolute favourite episode of all time just because of the mechanical storytelling. Fjord is powerless. All he has is a whip and a dagger, and he’s proficient in those weapons but he doesn’t have modifiers to make them particularly effective. He’s built to be a hexblade warlock; he’s got max charisma and high constitution, but he doesn’t even get a plus one to his strength or dex.
But a giant fucking worm attacks his friends—snapping Jester up with its jaws, burrowing underground with an unconscious Beau between its teeth, swallowing Caduceus into its searing gullet—and Fjord charges directly at the danger, with nothing but sheer determination and a couple of weapons that he’s only kind of okay at using.
And it fucking works, Fjord deals max damage with the dagger as he flanks the worm to save Jester. Fjord climbs directly into the mouth of a worm to pull Caduceus free and is strong enough to grab hold of him. Fjord succeeds on multiple strength checks to keep the worm from getting away, which is pretty much the only reason that a Beau didn’t die in that battle. Fjord beats a contested strength check—a stat which has no modifiers in, again—against a giant fucking worm with a +7 to strength by rolling a natural fucking 19. It’s the definition of miraculous. It shouldn’t work at all.
But it works. Without magic, without tricks, without gimmicks. Fjord is powerless. He’s just a half-orc with second-hand weapons loaned to him by his friends; with a scar still fresh on his skin from where he plunged his own sword into his chest; with the same ever present fear that he’s useless without his powers, that he’s a liability, that he’s going to drag the party down and doom them all.
And so Fjord does what he’s always done. He digs his heels in, tightens his grip, and makes sure to keep his friends alive.
romaincrisis
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