D&D Movie/TV D&D: Honor Among Thieves Open Discussion [Full Spoilers]

[Dioltach]

I thought Simon's development was a charisma thing. He's a sorcerer who has difficulty casting spells? Must have a low CHA. That's reflected in his poor self-esteem. Once he learns to tap into his abilities, his casting and his self-esteem both improve. He becomes more confident, less self-pitying, and Doric responds to that.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Plot-adjacent question:

Is anyone else wondering if Simon’s “token-based casting” might be something they’re planning to playtest as a way of making sorcerers more distinct from wizards in the next PHB?

I ask because, with the changes to magic in 5e, the two classes just aren’t as distinct as they were back when the Sorcerer was introduced. And it would fit with some of the modifications we’ve seen to the Bard and other classes.

I was curious what you meant by Token based casting so I looked that up. Turns out Simon multiclass alittle bit in Cleric, Kelmovour specfically, he apprenticed to a cleric, which is how he got that magic token that allowed him to speak with the dead.

 

[Maxperson]

Monsters:
Sophia - evil wizard - was decent, except her accuracy with Meteor Storm is terrible.

And she's a Cheater McCheaterface. Meteor Swarm and Time Stop in the same 5e fight. with only 1 slot!

I don't think you can escape from a Gelatinous Cube by shrinking, but it worked. The cube was stationary, though.

After the movie I overheard some 13-14 year old kids arguing about that scene.

Kid#1: "Gelatinous Cubes have a move of 5 and that one stayed still."
Kid#2: "Yeah. They don't move very fast. They rely on prey walking into them."
Kid#1: "Yeah. They eat the dumb adventurers, which doesn't happy very often. That's why most of them starve to death."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I thought the cast was uniformly excellent, but there was zero chemistry between Simon and Doric and it was painful watching them try to convince anyone otherwise. It would have been a relief for her to just say at the end, "I don't like boys" and let us all move on.

I think the dialogue was the weakest part of the film. We didn't need nearly as much exposition and the script writers were so eager to name-check Forgotten Realms IP that a fair number of lines got stilted and weird as a result.

But it was a deeply appealing cast and, other than a janky potato at the end, the effects were excellent.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Memo to WotC - Are you really sure you want to take away tiny wildshapes from Druids till Tier III? Doric's escape is even more fun when it's a Tier I Druid doing it

There were a lot of high level spells in this film. I don't think anyone is Tier 1 other than maybe Edgin, who is either a rogue with a lute or a straight-up commoner.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Your local Regal Cinema might have the small posters this weekend, and also perhaps some themed popcorn buckets and plastic cups, but . . . they are the standard art-on-a-plastic-cup/bucket, which is okay, but weak compared to the d20 shaped bucket and full-on tankard AMC is dropping.

Harkin's had the map and the poster, no other swag.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The emotional scenes would have worked better if they were integrated better. Unfortunately, whilst they were well-constructed and effective, they didn't blend well with the rest of the movie. Also the dragonfly/damselfly thing just being symbolic and not paying off to anything was a bit strange.

I think a scene got cut, either in the script stage or in editing. We'll see when it's released on DVD/digital.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I got the impression Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) has a fetish for halflings. Besides her last halfling lover (a surprise cameo by Bradley Cooper) there was a shot of her looking at another halfling man near the end of the movie.

Yeah, I was surprised that no one made a joke about her having a type.

And, for that matter, so does her ex-husband, who got the most Holga-looking woman he could find. (Definitely a step down from the real deal, though.)

Speaking of cameos I heard some of the Critical Role cast were supposed to cameo but I didn't see them. Did anyone spot them?

It's not true, per Matt Mercer.

Rege-Jean Page said if this was a serious fantasy film his character probably would have been the protagonist but in this action comedy/heist he was just a side character. It's almost as though Xenk was dropped into the wrong film which he thought was hysterical. The creators said his character was supposed to represent the D&D player who takes the game too seriously and done a ton of character optimization.

Honestly, he made paladins look cool, in their wonderfully uncool way. After 20 years of WotC trying to take the stick out of paladins' collective butts, it was nice to see the film run with the classic style.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, and we had the deeply cringeworthy "you guys are the real heroes for coming to a movie theater" bit before the opening. So dumb.

Get people to go to theaters by making films like Avatar 2 and Top Gun 2 that are best seen that way, not by praising our heroism.

 

[BRayne]

Yeah, I was surprised that no one made a joke about her having a type.

I think Edgin says that he's not her type when they were assumed to be married earlier.