Cut Content - Critical Role SSS Encounter

[Kvellen]

At some point during development of Seeker, Slayer, Survivor there was to be a "Champion of the Hunt" challenge involving a fight against the members of Vox Machina. The remaining data (character stats, arena encounter listing, and a conversation) and ui suggests it was probably in early stages when it was scrapped.

Though it is no longer accessible via the Pool of Memories without mods, it can still be started through the console ( ` ) with cheat enabled (iroll20s): 

1. To load into the map: 

   LaunchRandomEncounter 7ae85798-f2a8-41ff-a210-ffdbce5f2311

2. To get the conversation to play and the characters to turn hostile: 

   StartConversation b1a8e901-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 85427693-4d26-4f96-9f17-3358fb87d940 0

The conversation consists purely of lines taken from the voice sets added in the Critical Role Pack dlc. Though audio no longer plays as it should, due to the "ExternalVO" line in the .conversationbundle file pointing to old/incorrect filenames. There are also no portraits attached to the characters. Either way I would guess it was only ever meant to serve as a placeholder conversation for the early stages of development.

There is no reward for completing this encounter.

[thelee]

good find!

[xzar_monty]

So how does one find this kind of stuff?

[Kvellen]

A lot of skimming through .gamedatabundle files for modding! 

For the longest time I just thought the Vox Machina character data in SSS files was somekind of buried Easter egg. Like maybe the characters were in the spectators stands. (Very well armed spectators!)

I finally tracked down an encounter with the DebugName of "lax01_arena_duel_vox_machina", I figured maybe it could be unlocked by playing through some combination of SSS fights. Only to find out even if you were to meet the conditions to show it (one of which being a boolean that's always set to "False"), it isn't even on the list of available arena encounters.

[Isewein]

It would certainly be an interesting fight. One thing I always loved about BG were those rival adventuring groups - a very different tactical challenge than monsters. Maybe this could be modded back in and become the "Chosen of Cyric" of PoE. Ah, one can always dream.

[daven]

On 5/13/2024 at 1:05 AM, Isewein said:

It would certainly be an interesting fight. One thing I always loved about BG were those rival adventuring groups - a very different tactical challenge than monsters. Maybe this could be modded back in and become the "Chosen of Cyric" of PoE. Ah, one can always dream.

The maulers of undermountain!

[Kvellen]

Restored VM Arena Fight.zip

I've put together that restores this encounter into a mostly functional state.

• The fight is a level 18 encounter, but can be launched from the Pool of Memories at anytime during Seeker, Slayer, Survivor; provided that the free Critical Role Pack DLC is installed.
• A short conversation will play using audio from the Critical Role Pack voice sets. Though there will be no portraits for the character during the conversation.
• On first completion there is a reward of some currency and a couple of Exceptional quality weapons and armour.
• It should be compatible with the Standalone Seeker, Slayer, Survivor mod should you wish to jump right into it, or my own Early Seeker mod if you'd prefer.

Apart from fixing some minor issues, the only major alteration I've made to the encounter is creating NPC variants of each character's corresponding Player Voice. This was done to remove most of the battle barks such as Low Health, Poisoned, Critical Hits/Misses and like. Otherwise the battle is just a heap of auditory clutter with Vox Machina and PC party shouting barks.
I would recommend installing the Percy and Gilmore Voice Fixes, as the audio file issues present in those voice sets will crop up during the fight. Namely Gilmore asking "How can I help you?" while casting some spells and Percy's overlapping barks during his death and damaged cries.

As for how the encounter plays? I haven't done a lot of testing on it, but I found it a pretty difficult encounter to beat. Though I am pretty rusty at the game, so I'd be interested what more experienced Deadfire players make of it.

I don't have any intentions to make any further alterations to the encounter in the future. But should anyone want to do something with what I've done here they are more than welcome to!