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View Full Version : It Had to be Wolves: A 4e Tale



Zeteni
2010-11-27, 04:54 PM
I'd considered posting this gaming tale in the general discussion forums. As it's a story from gaming sessions, however, and there is doubtless room to further discuss the game involved, I suppose I'll put it here. At the very least, parts of it are amusing, even if some of the humor is derived from you-had-to-be-there-ness.

Two years ago, near the dawn of 4e's release, my LARPing friends and I shifted our 3.5 game to the new edition and started fresh. The group had 6 PCs and the DM and our party makeup was Human Fighter, Dragonborn Cleric, Human Rogue, Elf Ranger, Eladrin Warlock, and last but not least me, the Human Wizard.

Our first quest to recover an artifact stolen from our characters' mentor (from a cave inhabited by kobolds) had gone well, leveling us up to 2, and it was time to escort him to the city of his birth before he died of old age. This meant, of course, that it was time for that lovely thing known as random encounters and nighttime watch shifts.

And so it was on our third night out that the party rested under the stars. Why we didn't use the tents we had, I don't know. Maybe it was Summer or something. Anyway, it hit the Warlock's shift when the DMs dice rang true for a fight with a pack of wolves. While the Warlock had not succeeded well enough on her perception to catch wind of the beasts from afar, she was not surprised and furthermore, was standing between us and them. What's more, she had won initiative! As soon as the rest of the parties respective turns hit, we would all be up.

For a single turn our Warlock needed to bear the brunt of the wolves' assault. Sure, she'd possibly go down, but that's what healing word and potions are for. She screams at the top of her lungs, "WOLVES! GET UP!" curses the nearest one and blasts it... and then fey steps to the opposite side of the camp using her unconscious party members as a buffer.

To make matters worse, I, the Wizard, was now the closest target. The wolves initiative came and I was summarily surrounded by four of the pack and coup de graced into negative bloodied land. Cheers for auto crits! Cheers for bonus damage vs. prone targets! Cheers for the courageous Warlock!

So yeah... real pleasant fight I got to be a part of right there. After it was over our mentor, being a former powerful adventurer, saw fit to perform raise dead. Naturally I gave the Warlock a little bit of snark but more importantly advised her that should a similar situation occur she should take the initial hit as she was less vulnerable and has a potent cleric she can count on.

As the next evening would soon prove, the Warlock miraculously failed her perception check during this chat.

That's right, the very next evening, the dice set up the EXACT SAME SITUATION. No fooling, the DM rolled to see who's shift would be hit and what direction they'd come from. I may as well cut and paste the last battles summary, because that is how it went.

My Wizard, eaten by wolves right as he's about to wake up, two nights in a row. Fortunately, our mentor still had some strength (and components) with him, and brought me back up once more. However, it had been decided by all that my delicious Wizard had acquired a brand spanking new phobia of wolves and being eaten in his sleep. So potent was this phobia that when we hit Paragon tier many moons later, I picked the Divine Oracle path as I was multiclassed cleric. Not for the boon I get for attacks vs. will (that's just icing on the cake), but so I couldn't be surprised ever again. EVER. OK, so there was more story appropriate reasons than that, but that perk did get me to take a closer look at it.

My gaming group found this whole event to be comedy gold, but truly the player of our party's fighter is a genius. The next gaming session included more travel, and therefor, more night watches. By this point, we had started using our freaking tents, and I slept in the dead center of the rest of the party. And then... came the Warlock's shift. I was expecting another attack by our DM, but no, the Fighter had clearly been multiclassing Rogue when I wasn't looking.

"Hey, you know what this means right?" the player of said Fighter gestured.

"Yeah, I know." I said turning to look at him-

And when I did, there he was holding a mask leftover from a Werewolf LARP right in front of my face, "RAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRARRRRRRRRRRRARRRRR" I was so startled I fell back in my seat, and the whole group busted up in laughter. It was beautiful.

We've had many hilarious things happen in our 4e game since, including the party encountering a man chained to a wall who happened to be a Werewolf and shifted and growled at us when we got near (the party readied actions to attack in case it broke free and got close, I double ran towards the dungeon's exit) but nothing comes close.

I guess if there's a lesson in here, it's that you shouldn't trust someone in cloth armor to have your back while you're sleeping.

CarpeGuitarrem
2010-11-27, 06:19 PM
Hahahahaha that's great.

Dang warlocks.