Player stunts you totally didn't expect

[Frog Dragon]

So here is a thread for things your players have done which you simply never took into account. Something that might have threatened your entire plotline. Though the stunt in question may be have much less impact than that

I had a player abducted by an MBEG. So the character was knocked out and presented with an escape scenario. I told him he had somethign weird in his shoe, (a coin which had scrying on it) but the search DC was high enough so our cleric couldn't find it.
After he had escaped I reminded him of the thing again (they were in a refugee camp that had been set-up by commoners fleeing a goblin invasion) He then said. "I throw my shoe into the campfire" Well I said "the leather exudes a bad smell and melts into a brown pile. A small glitter is apparent." He pokes it out of the fire with a longsword. (elf nets profiency) I say it's a standard looking copper coin. He just puts it into his pocket despite the warnings of another player who had played 1.Ed before (This was 3.5 though) sayin it probably has spying spells on it. That coin was the link to the plot for the characters as the scryers think they're a threat. Luckily for my plot the coin wasn't chucked in the nearest corner and left there

Have you got any stories of your own?

[Limos]

Why did you tell him to search for it? That just ruins the whole point of having him search. It's almost as bad as rolling an NPC's bluff check in front of the players.

[monty]

Well, this is one that I did, but I imagine was probably unexpected. We were playing a Heavy Gear game, and were supposed to capture this guy. We got to his mansion, and while the rest of the party was fighting guards, I ran upstairs to look for him. Found him, and tried to knock him out with a few blows to the head. He wouldn't go down, so after a couple of rounds I said "screw it" and shot him. With a .44 Magnum. Yeah, he didn't survive that very well. Granted, he fumbled his defense roll and I rolled a 7, so I probably would've killed him with anything, but that still changed the mission a bit.

[d13]

I once had a player with Str 18 and Dex 5 that had to cross through a single rope, as a bridge between two cliffs...

The SoaB just cut the rope in one edge, and climbed up when he reached the "wall" xD

[BRC]

You call THAT unexpected, he held onto a plot coupon. That's hardly unexpected.

Let me tell you a different story.
The Bad Guys were going to free a MBEG from a prison ship, killing everybody else onboard. Rather than just say this happened, I wanted the players to experience it, but getting them onboard the prison ship wasn't an option (Besides, there were supposed to be no survivors).

So instead I cooked up some temporary characters, and had The PC's take control of them. I told the players these temporary characters were not expected to survive. Well, the PC's held off some demons and cultists coming from a conjured evil demon-ship, and one of them (Temp character was a sorcerer) wanted to Fireball the people on the other ship. Everything after this was completally improvised: I said there was a sheild (Like a Dispelling Screen) over the other ship, spells couldn't pass through it. So instead the Sorceror (halfling) had the Enlarge Person'd Half-Orc fighter throw him over to the other ship, made a concentration check to Fireball in midair, landed prone, fireballed again the next round before getting up (Taking out the rest of the cultists on deck) meanwhile the monk made his jump check to leap between the ships and take on the demon who was immune to fire. Buying time for the Sorceror (now at like 2 hp) to run belowdecks, find the place where cultists were doing a ritual to keep the ship together, disrupted the ritual, then made the reflex save to avoid the backlash. The Demon ship fell apart. By which point the prisoner (An insane high-level druid) was free.
Everybody either fell into the water when the demon-ship fell apart, or jumped off when the crazy druid showed up, except the paladin who refused to flee and rushed said druid head-on, dieing horribly.
Earlier, the Rogue had decided to forget about the fighting and grab a lifeboat, so he wen't back and picked up the others. From my no-survival scenario, all the PC's survived, the one who didn't sacrificed himself intentionally.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, it didn't derail the campaign at all, but it was extremely unexpected.

I had my low-level group in a haunted house battling a vampire, and generally getting their butts handed to them - thanks in no part to the Dominated party fighter eating them alive with his greatsword. The warlock and cleric were doing a decent job keeping the vamp's HP suppressed, but they couldn't deal the finishing blow until the rogue manage to get away from the fighter long enough to attack the vampire.

He was playing up the 'klepto rogue' aspect to a degree, though not swiping party member's stuff so much as looting everything not nailed down. Earlier, they had encountered the dining room with a bunch of possessed food that tried to kill them, and he had subsquently looted all the silverware. I had forgotten about this, so imagine my surprise when he announced that he was pulling two silver forks out of his haversack and attacking the vampire from behind. Now imagine everyone's surprised when the improvised attacks not only hit, but (since they bypassed DR) took the vampire to 0 HP.

After, they found his coffin and filled it with a half-gallon of acid.:smallwink:

[Fiery Diamond]

Long story short: I had drawn up about 15 different types of guards (so that there were some 70-odd guards) for this noble's minicastle. The players were going to attempt to get the noble to "pay" in some way for holing himself up instead of helping when the zombies and ghouls started causing trouble. One of the PCs, who had a grudge against the others, was a halfling rogue/assassin (I let him be a CN assassin). The player tells me of his character's plan outside of the session so I know what to expect: bluff his way in, cook up a deal with the noble that involves getting material to craft an ingested knockout poison to use on the other PCs, who are intending to "attack" the noble, carry out his part of the deal, then poison the water supply and hide out until night, free his compatriots and loot the place.

The other players just watched and listened as he carried out the first stages of his plan. He bluffed his way in, was escorted past many many guards, and got an audience with the noble, with the 6.5 ft. monkey grip fight bodyguard standing by. Unintimidated, he attempted to make the deal with the noble, who saw right through it. The conversation ended like this:

Rogue: So how about it?
Noble: How about this instead - I lock you up in my dungeons?
Rogue: *drinks greater invisibility potions (houseruled in)*
Guard: *steps between rogue and noble and rogue and door*
-Cue unexpected-
Rogue's Player: I pull out that tree token I have.
DM: Quaal's Feather Token Tree? That's right, you do have that... oh, no...
Rogue: *throws it in middle of room*
DM: You're on the SECOND STORY!
*Tree grows through the roof, roots break apart the floor, but the floor barely holds*
Rogue: *Throws Thunder-and-Lightning Stone (essentially a flash grenade)*
*All 3 make saves, but heavily armored guard steps back and the floor breaks*
*Rogue and Noble make Reflex saves to jump to the edge of the room where there's a little bit of floor. Tree falls, breaks first floor, tilts, breaking through more of the mansion, and lands in the basement*
*Rogue nonlethal sneak attacks Noble and knocks him out*

The rest was chaos. They never even fought a single guard, either!
That was unexpected.

[Lappy9000]

Hello Gnomish Nation. I'd like to purchase 30,000 gp worth of Alchemist's fire. For what, you ask? Well, what have those elves ever done for any one? Them and their trees will rue the day!

[THAC0]

I wasn't the DM, but...

Two very plot-centric characters randomly decide to planeshift to go ask some other people some questions. Unaware of the fact that NPCs had taken steps that would not allow them to planeshift BACK.

Random adventures ensued, in an attempt to find a way back. Said way is finally found, and the DM uses his fallback "If I roll a 1 on the d30, something goes wrong."

All eyes watched in horror as... a 1 comes up.

Cue the end of the session so that the DM could come up with something new.

[Lupy]

It was Star Wars RPG, SAGA edition.

The players were level 11, a Scout 7/Bounty Hunter 3/Soldier 1 and a Soldier 6/Scout 1/Elite Trooper 3, and with them were a level 11 elite pilot (houseruled in) and level 9 noble/2 Officer, both DMNPCS.

The soldier sort, Arjo, had it in for the Officer (known as Lieutenant because his real name was stupid). They'd been comically going after each other all campaign, but they both secretly respected the other.

The four of them were rescuing Luke Skywalker from a star destroyer alone. They made it to the cell block okay, but then Arjo used a kilogram instead of a gram of explosives ( :smallsigh: ) and killed everyone but the heroes and Skywalker in the cell block. This brought 200 stormies (Storm Troopers) after them, and they ran away with the knocked out Luke. Lieutenant saw they couldn't make it back tot he ship without a distraction and turned and used a minigun like weapon to try and hold them off. Arjo saw this, shoved Luke at the scout (Don), who had a STR of roughly 9 and almost fell, and then made Lieutenant go with the others. Now at this point I expected more explosives, but no, he had to be the hero, of course. He tore out a chunk of the wall (STR 22 and a corellian power suit), and used it as a barricade. He then used his +3 blaster rifle carbine until he ran out of powerpacks and grenades. There were still hundreds of stormies left, so he punched a hole in a water pipe overhead by throwing his rifle like a javelin (NAT 20). The other side of the hall, not blocked by his wall-barricade, was about ankle deep in water when he finished packing his (now removed) helmet with six kg of a houseruled in highly flammable substance. He threw it over the side, and it fireballed, flash boiling the water and killing 400 stormies in a matter of seconds when the boiling water got inside their armor. Unfortunately, the BBEG, an imperial commodore, had just been stated to have entered the rear of the battlefield and been surrounded by guards when the flash boiling happened, and died. :smallannoyed: But the player did decide to rip off a downed stormie's leg armor and use it as a club to fight his way to the ship. The awesomeness made up for the death of the bad guy.

[Krrth]

Well.....I did end up with a TPK due to a character stunt. They were in an abandoned (and damaged) space station when they can across a section sealed with a bulkhead. Rather than go around, they had the bright idea to blow the bulkhead. None of them were wearing so much as an oxygen tank.....

[TSED]

I was DMing a very, very silly ELC25 campaign.


Early in the game, they were informed by a very unusual sage-type character (let's just say not every one wears their underwear on the outside of their clothes) that they needed to go to the temple of the Overdeity. Said Overdeity was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally unhappy with the world because his favourite MacGuffin was stolen. This is why the Apocalypse was growing nigh, unless some one was able to retrieve it for him. (It was easier for him to just destroy the world and rebuild it than bother to track it down and all that.)


The Overdeity's door was closed. They were supposed to chat up the direct servants of the Overdeity inside. Instead, the sorcerer turned the door into cake.

Luckily, I hadn't developed the Overdeity's personality yet, and so decided that he was pleased (except he made it angel food cake instead of chocolate due to allergies).

Unluckily, the campaign never got back together after that bit. I guess he didn't like the cake, decided enough was enough, and blasted the world to bits. :(

[Zergrusheddie]

Here is one:

The party are all about level 19 or so with very powerful gear and the DM thinks of a really, really nasty fight. He takes 2 Tarrasques, increases their strength, gave them Spell Reflection 50% if you did not beat their increases SR, and made them do some kind of nasty AoE damage Aura (to which they were both immune of course).
About 2 rounds into battle, the Wizard steps right up to one of the Super Tarrasques and does some kind of attack. The DM just smiles; this was the resulting 'conversation.'

DM: The Tarrasques looks down and bites you. He is attempting to swallow you whole. Roll reflex or be swallowed.
Jon: Like hell I am! I'm grabbing his tongue and climbing in!
DM: What are you talking about?
Jon: *smiles* You remember Men in Black?
DM: You bastard...
Yep, Jon intentionally got himself eaten so he could Polymorph into a War Troll and Power Attack the Tarrasques miserable gullet AC. He ended up dealing the bulk of the damage to that one.
His logic was that since he had acid immunity from a ring, he would take less damage if he was inside the Tarrasque.

We use a very simple House Rule: If you can completely surprise the DM and come up with something unique, you get away with it once.

[Olo Demonsbane]

I was fighting 6 nightcrawlers, so I climbed down one's stomach, then started shooting lightning bolts out of its mouth.

Fun times.

[Arcane_Snowman]

During one of my first sessions with a new group, we were simple 1st level characters in a Faerun setting where the Wizards of Thay apparently had taken control of the world, and we were a couple of eyes sores, having done something against them (can't remember what anymore).

But anyway, we had gotten into contact with some Gnomes who were offering to take us off-plane, if we would do a bit of reconnaissance in the sewers of below a wizard’s tower to see if we could detect some traps etc. I can’t remember why, but someone decided to try and blow the tower up by pouring oil into the water and igniting it, after a rather long rant of mine describing how it was completely implausible that we would destroy the wizards tower with oil in such a fashion, someone else suggested gunpowder, after further discussion, some successful knowledge checks and a couple of barrels of gunpowder later, we ended up blowing the Wizards Tower sky high.

DM’s response: “You were just supposed to do some reconnaissance…”

[Zergrusheddie]

after further discussion, some successful knowledge checks and a couple of barrels of gunpowder later, we ended up blowing the Wizards Tower sky high.

DM’s response: “You were just supposed to do some reconnaissance…”

"Remember, remember the Fifth of November, the gun powder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

[Totally Guy]

World leaders are gathered round a table on a ship near some tiny islands debating on who's turn it is to have a magic lamp that keeps all their countries powerful.

PCs are
Paladin: Impersonating one of the world leaders in order to see what they're up to. Paladin is wearing no armour.
Warlock: Acting as the secetary to the Paladin.
Ranger: Under the debating table.
2 Others in position outside the room in case of emergency.

In the room are 5 "leaders" and 5 "bodyguard/secetaries". Also a couple of allies that have told the party they'll be observing today in order to plan something for the next meeting.

The of the world leaders 3 of them make a claim for the lamp along with the Paladin.

The Ranger decides to write 2 notes each saying "Concede" then pass them up to both the male bidders. He put then on the tips of his swords and put them to both of their crotches to back up his position.

I thought for a while how you'd react to that... In the end I had the first guy fall backwards off his chair getting stabbed in the process. Then all the bodyguards were on alert. The ranger was spotted.

With a little double bluff the others said they'd secure the room and "inadvertantly" allowed the ranger to escape with only one bodyguard in pursuit.

This plan split the party. One of the lookout PCs decided to abandon the party and sail off in their boat alone.
One of them sided with the ranger and decided they'd replan to retrieve this lamp.
The patient Paladin and Warlock actually believed the World leader's lamp sharing plan was not such a bad idea and so none of them could automatically be considered evil enough to fight.

I'd planned this scene as a 10 minutes scene to show the party what the world looked like as they were planning to explore into unknown waters. But sailing somewhere unknown for more than a session is not good.
I was expecting the players to ask about each of these unknown countries. Then I had a little adventure for each of them to tell the players what they're all about. Alternatively there was the Allies plot for the next meeting plot hook.

So one ranger left on his boat vowing to never adventure with these murderers again.
The other ranger and the party leader pursued the eventual lamp winner into the portal back to her palace. Despite knowing nothing of what they'd be encountering.
The Paladin and the Warlock waited around too long and by the time they had realised what the other two groups had done they didn't know which portal lead to which town. As had been established earlier, that was the ranger's job to find out which he'd done but he'd left.

I asked the group what I should do for the next session as it seemed like the fundamentals of the campaign had fallen apart.

Both Ranger's were leaving for university next week so I didn't have to worry about them. So there was only the party "leader" that was separate to the other party members. He wanted to retire that character anyway. He's roll up a rogue for next time.

So we look as the narative focus on the paladin and warlock.

The places they could go were:
The Everdark South
The Town of Idoloren
The City of Bethel which got the lamp (Opt for random portal and roll 1-2 on a D6)
The Ludo emirates (Opt for random portal and roll 3-4 on a D6)
and the Islands of Imbroglio (Opt for random portal and roll 5-6 on a D6)

The players opted to activate a random portal. They got Bethel so the lamp storyline continued.

That little illogical groin stabbing stunt had massive consequences that I just didn't foresee.

[Zaq]

This didn't derail the campaign per se, but it's probably the most flabbergasted a player has made me.

I was a very inexperienced GM at the time, and I had the players (a level 6ish party if memory serves) up against this huge (not Huge, actually huge. Probably Colossal if you want to be technical, I don't remember.) multilegged bone-construct atrocity, as well as the MBEG. One of the players, the monk, decides to leap ten feet into the air, grab onto the colossus, and start climbing it to get at its head. I stop mid-sentence, and start frantically searching for rules on how to do this. (I'm pretty sure there aren't any.) I don't remember what I ended up doing. I know I screwed it up, because I remember profusely apologizing afterward. I wanted to let him do that (Rule of Cool and all), but... how? What does that mean? Can it still hit him with its slam attack? Does he get any bonuses to hit it? What does that mean? A better GM could have improvised, but this was my second or third session EVER, so that was a little beyond my reach. Didn't exactly derail the plot, but definitely threw me for a loop.

Then of course there was the session today. Long story short, the players had to investigate a magical disturbance in a forest (sort of a national park). Needless to say, the forest ends up ablaze. In trying to put out the flames, one player whips up a 100 mph hurricane-force wind that, while it extinguishes the flames within the 30' radius of Control Air, also starts uprooting the trees and flinging them to and fro. The treant who considered himself the guardian of that forest was, shall we say, less than thrilled about these intruders who set his forest on fire then start ripping his trees out of the ground. We haven't yet resolved how they're dealing with him, but it should be fun.

[Isolder74]

Well I have a player in a Star wars game I am running that I have to constantly remind him that wearing Stormtrooper armor on a Imperial planet where the locals are revolting is a bad idea.

[Piedmon_Sama]

It was the first session of the first campaign I was DMing. The party was all 1st level: a Dwarven Wizard, Human Cleric, Elf Monk and Half-Ogre Fighter. The adventure I had planned was a very basic "invade the labyrinth" scenario, with the PCs trying to fight their way through a Kobold tribe's warren. I had actually drawn up a huge map of the whole complex; I think the clan's forces totaled something like 84 kobold warriors, 12 captains and their war-chief, and some Dire Weasels... obviously more than a bunch of 1st-levels could handle in one go, but there were chambers throughout the complex that locked from the inside. The plan was the PCs would fight their way to each of these safe-rooms, rest up inside each, and then resume the fight.

The only thing? The Kobolds had stationed squads of warriors in the corridors outside the first of these safe-rooms. Their war-chief strode up and baldly announced the Kobolds were in possession of gunpowder, and would blast their way in if the PCs didn't surrender. They rolled a Sense Motive and easily beat his Bluff Check. Then the War-Chief demanded they open the door anyway and.... they did.

I'm honestly not sure what they were thinking. In retrospect, maybe I played the War-Chief too calmly. He didn't panic even when he walked into the middle of the party, which could have killed him, and I think that unintentionally sent the signal to my players that this NPC was too powerful for them. So they put themselves completely under the War-Chief's power and I was left trying to think of a reason for him not to kill them....

I ended up coming up with the idea that the Kobold clan had been attacked by a Goblin tribe from the north, and had the Kobold order the PCs to investigate it (and he took an important item--the Cleric's holy symbol, the Wizard's spellbook, the Fighter's axe, etc. as collateral). This quest ended up defining the plot of the campaign for the next year as the investigation turned into a new quest to save the Goblin village from Hobgoblin invaders, and a two-month (in game-time) journey over a monster-infested lake and a haunted forest. By the time the PCs finally saved the Goblin village, they were 5th level badasses and didn't exactly need their old gear back anymore. :smallcool:

[armouredbear]

three players a druid, a paladin, and a cleric, all maybe 3rd level at this point, being pursued by an unfriendly army through a mine, for which they have a map. unfortunately for them, the map is in kobold. i had drawn out the map by hand with symbols on the rooms that were all totally consistent and actually meant something. so there was one room that had a bigger symbol on it than the other rooms so the pc's almost in unison decide "that must be the magic exit we're looking for!" and head straight towards it. they get there and find a locked and barred and barricaded room. they un-block the door (which is marked with that same symbol), open it and find a basilisk - which is well beyond their cr - and slam the door shut before it sees them. then they hatch their plan (still thinking that this thing they need is in the room).

the paladin, with the best fortitude save and the strongest character, figures he can beat the basilisk's gaze dc. he does. he figures he can grapple the basilisk. he does. he figures that he can take his winter blanket (which he did have written on his character sheet) and wrap it over the basilisk's head. he does. now that the basilisk is blinded and pinned, and the other characters come in safely and crush its head.

the room was totally empty. the sign said "DANGER! BASILISK! DO NOT ENTER!"

[ArchaeologyHat]

Playing WHFRP I had one of the PCs (a dwarf Sergeant) face off against a dark elf noble who possessed an old-one box that granted wishes... kind of. The rest of the party was helping a high-elf lord fight off magically animated skeletons or firing cannons at dark elves out of an airship. The sergeants fight was fairly even and both he and the noble were wounded. The noble rolled a 02 to hit the sergeant, who then declares that he will try to dodge. Now we play it that in order to dodge a hit you need to roll under what the hit roll was.
The dwarf promptly rolls a 01, and with help from the Elf Ghoststrider GM character cuts down the noble in his next round.

In the same campaign the Sergeant (at this point only a Shieldbreaker) and his dwarf miner PC buddy elected to, instead of exploring the plot-coupon ruined building, spend a reasonably large amount of time removing the (admittedly valueable) gems from the high-elf beacon next to it. Never under-estimate the players love of loot.

[Siosilvar]

(let's just say not every one wears their underwear on the outside of their clothes)

I should certainly hope not.

[Knaight]

I'm thinking that dousing tumble-weeds in absinthe then lighting them on fire more or less tops the list right now. Then they dropped a whole bunch of them downhill at enemies, who were trying to climb up a slippery slope in the first place. It didn't change much, but it wasn't an expected combat stunt (well flaming absinthe was, after one character decided to drink flaming absinthe so he could cough fire at people).

[Frog Dragon]

Why did you tell him to search for it? That just ruins the whole point of having him search. It's almost as bad as rolling an NPC's bluff check in front of the players.

I never told him to search for it. I just told him he has some weird **** in his shoe. He searched. I told him he finds nothing. Then he burns his shoe. Though looking back at it a simple Scrying spell would have done the job for plot purposes as well:smallsigh: Well my first campaing DM:ed. At least I have most of the rules worked out and no one has crazy unbalancing combos

[Myou]

I never told him to search for it. I just told him he has some weird **** in his shoe. He searched. I told him he finds nothing. Then he burns his shoe. Though looking back at it a simple Scrying spell would have done the job for plot purposes as well:smallsigh: Well my first campaing DM:ed. At least I have most of the rules worked out and no one has crazy unbalancing combos

Doesn't telling him that make certain that he'll search the shoe?

[Dienekes]

Star Wars d6. We just uncover the bomb that is set to blow up all of Coruscant. We find a huge machine looking bomb shaped thing. We get caught. Someone discovers the group, we get fired upon. The Big Bad shoots the guy who fired on us, saying "Dont attack you'll hit the device!"
Now, the rest of the group figured "hey, this big machine/bomb shaped thing must be the bomb!" Except for 1 player who was the idiot of the group (ironically his character had the highest Intelligence score, go figure), he thought "Oh boy! This big bomb shaped thing must be important to these people!" so he throws a grenade at it. It explodes, everyone dies we have to make new characters and live in a universe without a Coruscant.

[Frog Dragon]

Doesn't telling him that make certain that he'll search the shoe?
I figured that since there was a coin in his shoe It's going to feel. Shoes at medieval time were quite supple (and D&D is mostly medieval fantasy) so the required reworkings on the shoe to hide something in it, will leave a bump, even if the apparent spot of the disruption is displaced by clever working so our low search mod cleric couldn't find it, but could feel it.
So that's why I told him. Feel free to refute my reasoning, it's the logic I rolled in my head at the time

[Mordo]

i've got to say that my greatest moment was in an evil races campain that the Dm had put on for our party, at one point the mission was to assassinate a npc... Bob the mafia boss (original name isn't it) after slaughtering all his gaurds he ran to the panic room which we could break into... coming up with the wackiest idea i could i went down to the kitchen and using my Craft: cake and profession: gourment chief (i had a lot of skill points to spend) i made a poisoned cake witha landmine that i deactivated inside, i then used a disguise check and went up to the panic room and shouted "CAKE DELIVERY" ... one of the players who had just come back from the toilet just looked at me and said "WTF are you doing??? why.... seriously.... what is going on?" we ignored him whilst holding back our laughter, a few really good bluff rolls and Bob opens up the slot just big enough of the cake and closes it.... As we now begin to laugh the dm makes us roll for reflex.... apperently the landmine was so powerful that it blew the steel door of the hinges which then crushed the fighter against the wall and killed him.... the dm swore that it was ment for me but being a Ninja i had a really good reflex save at the time... oh and for those who wanted to know my charactor was a Mindflayer Ninja (truly evil combination)

[Broler]

There was a dragon that was meant to be the final fight for that part. first round the fighter with a vorpal sword kills it.

[Ravens_cry]

There was a dragon that was meant to be the final fight for that part. first round the fighter with a vorpal sword kills it.
Well, a 5% chance to get a natural 20, probably a somewhat greater chance of actually hitting the thing, there in confirming the critical, I say that shouldn't be all that surprising.

[RavKal]

We were scouting out Gnome lands for their new technology for some wizard, attacked a small factory and found a fancy prototype airship. My elf wizard rolled /really/ high on Knowledge Architecture and Engineering, and the Rogue rolled /really/ well on his dex check to pilot, and so we're out in the skies when the DM gives us the 'boss' of the session.

A gnome airship galleon. (Much larger than our piddly little craft)

My wizard thinks for a moment and then tells the rogue to fly UP. And up we went, until we were significantly higher than the galleon, and my wizard jumps over the edge while casting polymorph (first time, last time) and turned into a remorhaz, which conveniently explicitly states that it weighs 10,000 pounds.

The galleon broke. The DM was speechless. The wizard reverted and put on his ring of slowfall. Polymorph was put on the ban list. It was a good day.

[MickJay]

I figured that since there was a coin in his shoe It's going to feel. Shoes at medieval time were quite supple (and D&D is mostly medieval fantasy) so the required reworkings on the shoe to hide something in it, will leave a bump, even if the apparent spot of the disruption is displaced by clever working so our low search mod cleric couldn't find it, but could feel it.
So that's why I told him. Feel free to refute my reasoning, it's the logic I rolled in my head at the time

Why did it have to be a coin in the shoe? I fully understand you wanted to be fair to the player, but why would the bad guy plant his tracking device in a way that would be easy to detect? Any other item would work as well, and even if it was a coin, it could have been placed in a less "detectable" place. I wouldn't complicate things for myself - I would simply roll for the player to see if his character noticed something odd, and left it at that - then he could decide to roll a search check, if his character realised something was out of place.

[ericgrau]

I once had a player with Str 18 and Dex 5 that had to cross through a single rope, as a bridge between two cliffs...

The SoaB just cut the rope in one edge, and climbed up when he reached the "wall" xD

I don't understand why anyone would balance on the rope anyway. I'd just hang from the rope, lift my legs onto the rope and shimmy across. Heck, I can do that IRL and I certainly don't have an 18 strength nor much climbing skill. Much easier than climbing the rope too. I'd think anyone with a half-ounce of martial and/or climbing training would know to do the same; he probably even practiced on similar ropes before.

[MickJay]

I'd blame the circus acts. Rope spread between two points = needs to be crossed by walking it. Of course, the whole point is that the acrobats do it this way because it requires skill :smalltongue:

[slexlollar89]

I have apersonal experience. We were in this massive cavernous room with a smaller yet still massive crystal upon which rested the fate of the world. The BBEG shows up with his big mechanical/zombie dragon squad and starts air-hauling the crystal with big chains. now, the DM planned on him getting away, but I, in my excelent use of foresight, had an adamant hacksaw. I make a series of jumps, climbs, and dshes and manage to climb onto the crystal and begin cutting the four chains. The DM was very worried becasue he didn't know I was able to cut the chains so quickly, and dodge dragon's secondary attacks (highest AC in th party, swordsage, etc).

The party holds the pupputeer BBEG off (they were fighting some kind of construct, he's like a puppetmaster with some spells) and I cut the last chain. the crystal falls back to the ground, and me, an 190 year old hobgoblin rip-off of Mr. Miyagi, leap the 300ft to land, sword first on the BBEG we weren't supposed to beat (he would died if I hit!) I make the jump check, make an amazing tumble so I barely survive at -HP, but I rolled a 1 on the attack roll. basically, he just sidestepped my drop from the sky... so epicall sad.

[Mauril Everleaf]

My first campaign that I had ever played in, which was in mostly 1st edition (with a bit of Baldur's Gate 2e thrown in). My party which consisted of two fighters, essentially an Eldritch Knight, a cleric, a mage and a thief (I was playing all of them). I was exploring some sort of dungeon of undead. Very deep, very scary (at least for the characters). In the process, the cleric died. We carried her body into the one safe room we had found, which also contained some sort of altar. Not wanting to just chuck her body in the corner, the fighter who was carrying her decided to put the body on the altar. The DM was stunned. He made sure that the fighter wanted to do that, and I confirmed it. The DM then said, "Faith's body disappears," and a little apparition appears near the altar. It's Faith's disembodied soul.

Needing a cleric to make it through this dungeon of undead, the group heads back to town, but there are no clerics willing to join up. Then the thief realizes that Faith's ghost is still following us around. The group decides to see if she can get her into a body. We wanted to just find a corpse for her to possess and then try to get her raised. The DM says, "Why not just use a villager?". So she possessed a villager (which the DM determined was not evil, as it was for the purposes of stopping a minor apocalypse). We trudged back to the dungeon and defeat the rest of the undead in it and gather the MacGuffin we needed.

Later, with Faith still possessing the villager, we were captured by a bunch of drow in service to the BBEG. One of the fighters was killed, so Faith decided that it was time to mix things up. I asked if she could un-possess the villager, and the DM agreed. I asked if she was insubstantial (and could go through walls and was mostly invisible), which the DM confirmed. So Faith left the villager and found the nearest drow priestess who, failing a save, was possessed. Faith then marched in to the BBEG's room and started a showdown (1e drow priestesses being very powerful). Just before the BBEG had killed the priestess, Faith un-possessed her too and went for the weakened BBEG. She was able to by-pass his resistances and he (somehow) failed his save too. Faith then committed "suicide" and essentially saved the world. All because of an irrational dwarf put the cleric on a spooky altar.

[Isolder74]

One time during a game I was a self taught Jedi In a campaign in the ANH era of Star Wars when we had to storm a ship hanger where some gangsters had taken our ship they had stolen. Well the plan was for me to use my lightsaber to deflect away the shots of the E-webs the bad guys had while the rest of the group would use their guns to blast the fuel canister in the hanger and use them to take out most of the bad guys.

Well I roll to deflect the shots and as it was roll to see where the random deflections when I deflected their own shots into the fuel canisters so they all went off at once rather the sequentially as we had planned and killed almost all the gangsters. Only the pair of top henchmen in the back got away before we got a sense of what just happened.

[monty]

I once had a player with Str 18 and Dex 5 that had to cross through a single rope, as a bridge between two cliffs...

The SoaB just cut the rope in one edge, and climbed up when he reached the "wall" xD

I'm reminded of that one scene in Princess Bride. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, I won't spoil it for you.

[TaliesinWest]

This happened the same adventure as Isolder74 has already described. After the fantastic fireball entrance we were able to break in to the upper level of the gangsters landing platform. The jedi and I were searching a back room and found a secret vault. Our search rolls revealed to us that this room was full of gold bars and was booby trapped with thermal detonators. Knowing that another character which was an expert at defusing bombs was not far away we foolishly left the room with the vault open and went to find him. When behind us two other characters which were a bounty hunter and a wookie, both of whom we had told as we left the room not to touch anything, entered this room. They saw the open vault and proceeded to enter the vault. they did not search the room but just saw the gold and grabbed it. The moment they picked up one of the bars the detonators fell off the shelf and started beeping loudly. They came running out of the room as we were bringing our bomb expert with us yelling run get out of the building! the result was a frantic jump out a window and off a balcony down to the roof of the next building just before a blast destroyed the entire upper floor of the penthouse. After just escaping death i proceeded to say thank you for making it snow gold dust.

[Hawriel]

Ive played the same character for 15 years now off and on. He is, and has been, a thief, knave, scoundrel, pirate, theives guild master, spy, treasure hunter, con artist, drinking buddy to dwarves, and finaly a king. He is basicly the Erol Flin/Indiana Jones serial film hero.

In the last campian I played him in, whare he became a king, The 'bridge crew' had to travel to the abyse and defeat Orcus. Its an old 1st ed campain adapted to 3rd set in FF. After defeating a major villian in the story the heros came back to the kingdome knowing they have to take on Orcus. With full conviction and a twinkle in his eye my knave king calls a grand holy crusade. I send word to all clerics and paladins in the kingdome to spread the word about my holy cause to defeat a great evil threatoning my kingdome. My DM just looked dumb founded for a second. He loved the idea it just took him by supprise.

Many heeded the call. The army had clerics and paladins of almost every good allined gods and some neutrals. The triad along with Helm had the largest contribution. A trip to sigil for to aquier a way into the right abysial realm, proper equipment for the army and the procerment of a magical transportable fortress and we where on are way.