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Lither
2011-03-13, 08:03 PM
Write down here all the PC plans that are unecessarily complex, utterly random, or just generally strange.

To start off;

I had a Chaotic Evil PC sorcerer who learnt the Polymorph Any Object spell. He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.

Despite how funny it seems, I had to rule out that he couldn't do that.

He was that kind of PC.

Morph Bark
2011-03-13, 08:04 PM
As a player, I've had tons, but sadly the DM was pretty rigid on following the adventure module, so he never allowed any crazy plans to work, most of the time not even to start of. :smallfrown:

Barbin
2011-03-13, 08:10 PM
" I impale the Dire Bear into the Gelatnous cube. That'll kill it." On that same day *Friend who shall not be named* was not allowed to play a druid anymore.

R.I.P Dire Bear

Urpriest
2011-03-13, 08:12 PM
There was this one time the GM set up a perfect situation for my character...but I decided on a wackier plan and got killed.

Our souls were inhabiting toys (don't ask). I was an action figure of a crash test dummy that could come apart and magnetically reassemble. The BBEG had me in his claws and was about to rip me in half. The GM obviously intended for me to pretend to be hurt, then sneak off and get a surprise attack. Instead, I tried to convince the BBEG to become a science experiment under our protection instead of getting killed by the military after he defeated us. That worked beautifully, especially with all the circumstance penalties to the ridiculous argument.

Zeofar
2011-03-13, 08:15 PM
I had a Chaotic Evil PC sorcerer who learnt the Polymorph Any Object spell. He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.

Despite how funny it seems, I had to rule out that he couldn't do that.


Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about nuclear reactions, so would you care to elaborate on what would have happened if "he could do that"?

ClockShock
2011-03-13, 08:23 PM
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about nuclear reactions, so would you care to elaborate on what would have happened if "he could do that"?

The sorcerer's face implodes under the massive strain of uncontrollable metagaming. Pure hilarity.

Alleran
2011-03-13, 08:24 PM
Crazy PC plans? I've got one in particular that threw me for a loop.

A few years ago, I was running a game involving a long-running plot by a lich. He was obsessed with ascending to godhood and becoming a deity, and believed that if he could get one single, monstrous sacrifice to empower him with as much energy as possible, he would be able to become a god.

To this end, he had (after becoming a lich) insinuated himself into the structure of a city as an elf (explaining the long-lived issue) who worked hard to build up the city, expanding it outwards and supervising construction. This allowed him to, over a period of about seven centuries, turn the city into a focal point for a massive ritual he had planned. He would trigger a massive, epic-level consumptive field effect, draining everybody of their power and channeling it into him, which he believed could springboard him into divine rank.

The PCs had to stop him. Now, I had laid out what I thought was a wonderfully complex story arc, in which they would have to work out a means of countering the ritual so it didn't go off (the exact method would have, instead of drawing power in to the lich once the spell was cast, have torn it out of him and spread it over a wide area, destroying him atom by atom once they'd destroyed his phylactery). This was not what they decided to do. They got his phylactery, oh yes. They stuck his soul back into his lich body.

And then they got an airship and crashed it into the central chamber he was using to interrupt the casting, forcing a Concentration check that he failed before being crushed by several tons of airship moving at ramming speed.
Needless to say, I wasn't expecting it.

Privateer
2011-03-13, 08:26 PM
I'm with Zeofar. Nothing would have happened from splitting "a few" atoms. U235 naturally decays at a slow rate, so atoms in it naturally split all the time. Him adding a couple of more wouldn't have done a thing, except heat up the lump of U a bit more than it already is naturally heating up. Now, if he was using Prestidigitation to pressure together enough U235 to kick off a chain reaction, that might work(assuming Prestidigitation is capable of such feats), and would be REALLY hilarious, but not for the players. Because...

Prestidigitation
Range: 10ft

:smallbiggrin:

Lither
2011-03-13, 08:28 PM
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about nuclear reactions, so would you care to elaborate on what would have happened if "he could do that"?

Most likely thing would be that he would die from radiation sickness before he could pass a Concentration check. :smalltongue:

Uranium-235 doesn't need the collision of atoms to start a nuclear reaction. All it needs is for a neutron to strike an atom and cause it to split. The neutrons from the atoms which were split by the Prestidigitation spell will strike other ones and likely cause those to fission. In essence, that would create a nuclear chain reaction.

At least, that's what he said and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235) seems to agree when I tried to verify it.

dsmiles
2011-03-13, 08:33 PM
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something about nuclear reactions, so would you care to elaborate on what would have happened if "he could do that"?Well, splitting molecules causes a release of energy. Splitting electrons off of atoms causes more energy to be released. Splitting the nucleus of an atom causes MEGA ENERGY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs) to be released. Now, (in theory, at least) under controlled circumstances involving steam turbines and conductors, you could produce power with the energy released by a nuclear reaction, but if left uncontrolled, such as in a nuclear warhead...boom.
http://www.coldwar.org/bcmt/images/images_lg/boom.jpgThat's fission. Splitting atoms.

Alternatively, I could just be talking out of my posterior, so here's the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission).

Privateer
2011-03-13, 08:37 PM
Uranium-235 doesn't need the collision of atoms to start a nuclear reaction. All it needs is for a neutron to strike an atom and cause it to split. The neutrons from the atoms which were split by the Prestidigitation spell will strike other ones and likely cause those to fission. In essence, that would create a nuclear chain reaction.

At least, that's what he said and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-235) seems to agree when I tried to verify it.

Yes, neutrons from split atoms hitting other atoms is how chain reaction works. This does not mean, however, that splitting a few atoms automatically starts a chain reaction. It doesn't. Because atoms of U235 split by themselves all the time naturally, like I said. What you need for a chain reaction is enough U235 pressurized together sufficiently so that:

a)There is enough atoms around for the released neutron to strike one of them instead of harmlessly flying out of the lump as radiation.
and
b)The fissile material does not immediately blow apart once the reaction starts.

To achieve b the nuclear bombs use a set of carefully time convential explosive charges that press the fissile material together when they explode, setting off the nuclear chain reaction. It is this effect you'd have to replicate with prestidigitation if you want an A-bomb.

Yukitsu
2011-03-13, 09:04 PM
OK, so a spell jammer campaign, one where I said "all according to plan!" at the end.

Le cast that were involved:

"Sparky" O'Kami Sama. A lesser lightning diety (as in a nature spirit minor) This is me. I own the ship the "Jidaisakugo" or the Anachronism in English, which is a Japanese temple ship.
Masked Mangler: A nameless mad-man who came from a gladiatorial background. Acts without thinking. Partially owns the Kraken, a small war ship.
Gorgon: Had a name, but we just call him "Gorgon". The other character that followed me to retirement.
NPC Admiral Sigraffie: An NPC who tries to keep us and the various NPCs together, but is willing to contribute basically nothing, while taking in large shares from us. Owns the Pondskipper, a longship.

This one is long, so I'm breaking it into parts.

Phase 1:


We know about a wide variety of these really rich dwarves along this belt of asteroids that had recently had their defense/trade fleet wiped out, but their production facilities were untouched. Now, these guys have bases designed to refine obdurium. The group in general wants to make stealing this stuff our big heist, but we're not sure how. One group has this theory that going to this one mining planet could get them the money, while I observe through intel and deduction that they're on the wrong planet, and we need to attack a refinery.

So anyway, I'm going about my plan, which is to track the specific location on their main refinery so we can determine where to hit. Specifically, I needed to know when they had a delivery of ore, so we could hit them on the way to the capitol with the finished product, since I knew they were under gunned in terms of their fleet convoys making transit the best time to hit them. If you've read some other posts by me, this is where I was using a block of sugar, a small file, some lead, and a freindly ant.

However, the spanners in the works (the masked mangler) end up stealing all the rocks. *facepalm*. So at this point in time, I had to put my xanatos speed chess knowledge to good work.

Phase 2


Now my original plan can't work, since those blasted dwarves have increased their security, which means my initial plan won't likely work, so we're instead going to plan B, which is considerably less finesse.

So we started off by ramming a dwarven refining asteroid colony with a full velocity helm set to interplanetary speeds, while it was full of rocks that were belted down. With the DM's specific helm types, it was clipping along at about .9 AU, which is rather fast.

We split our party into two groups while the fallout was going on. The main group landed near the main site of impact, and were clearing out their surviving warriors (which were absurdly tough for obvious reasons.) Myself and the earth gliding gorgon ish thingy went around a side route while they were causing chaos.

Phase 3:

The actual attack was going pretty well, with the first group mopping up a good deal of resistance, and earning themselves some very valuable magical gear. However, while they are off doing that, myself and the gorgon are moving quietly and quickly through the halls, and determine where the main treasure holds are. Filling up our bags and causing a big fuss, we order our ships to a dock around the opposite side (since the place is organized into 5 identical sections) and scurry over to the opposite side to meet up with our ships.

While my partner is busy hauling treasure, I was going through the damaged refinery rooms looking for a dead smith with a very nice hammer. Finding him, I steal the corpse.

Phase 4:

This point looked pretty normal. We consolodated ourselves to a single position, defending our low level crew while they haul the treasure to the ships. My ship, the Anachronism is the largest and fastest, and the crew is mine, so the majority of the stuff is being loaded into my boat. I order the most valuable pieces of equipment onto the Kraken, the smaller, more militant boat. I take a break to get some NPC healing, and write a note, tacking it to the cieling of the Kraken.

At this point in time, we decide it's a good time to leave, so we fall back to our ships and cast off. DM determines we have 2 mill in gear to divide between ourselves, the NPCs and the NPC admiral. We all jump off to a designated meeting point, and arrange to get there as fast as we all can.

Phase 5:

So my ship is the fastest in the fleet, getting me to the designated meeting place in two days instead of 3. I unload everyone off the ship, promising to pay for whatever drinks the group wants, so the NPCs, and the PCs on the ship, then haul the NPC crew back on and cast off, leaving them with a bucket full of master craft swords, and a few +1 swords.

By now, the crew of the kraken have noticed my letter on the cieling of the ship, which reads:

It was lots of fun
However, I am leaving
Do not follow me.

Which is to say, it was a well printed resignation haiku.

They can't do anything about this, since our range of communication is well below the lead I have at this point in time, so I manage a clean escape.

As a side note, the gear that was left on the kraken? Each piece was seperate from the 2 mill, and worth well over the share the players would have recieved. Since it was gained in combat, they got to keep those from the main shares for themselves, so I didn't feel bad about doing this.

Phase 6:

So now, I basically go into temporary hiding, but in the moment, I get the smith's corpse spoken with, learning the secret method of refining obdurium from this otherwise useless ore. Once I learn it, I try it out and discover that the formula is accurate.

With this information, I contact the dwarves with the recipe written down and the words saying "If any ill befalls me, the secret to your creation process, as well as your 10 largest mining operations will be immediately revealed to the strongest 3 naval powers within 20 AU."

I then basically blackmailed them into giving me 25,000 GP worth of products, and another 25,000 in obdurium every month, which they have been thusfar willing to pay.

TL:DR, I got away scott free with 2 mill, a salary of 50K from the guys I robbed, and got to screw over the NPC Admiral that I didn't like.

sambo.
2011-03-13, 09:59 PM
He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.

Despite how funny it seems, I had to rule out that he couldn't do that.


the PAO is fine, but i'd rule that a 0-Level cantrip spell is insufficiently powerful enough to split atoms.

besides, wouldn't it be better to PAO the lump of dirt into Plutonium rather than U235?

i'd also have said PC come down with a seriously nasty dose of Radiation poisoning/sickness.

Rowsen
2011-03-13, 10:09 PM
I had a Chaotic Evil PC sorcerer who learnt the Polymorph Any Object spell. He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.


Since when is splitting atoms a 'minor trick'?

Zeofar
2011-03-13, 11:05 PM
Yes, neutrons from split atoms hitting other atoms is how chain reaction works. This does not mean, however, that splitting a few atoms automatically starts a chain reaction. It doesn't. Because atoms of U235 split by themselves all the time naturally, like I said. What you need for a chain reaction is enough U235 pressurized together sufficiently so that:

a)There is enough atoms around for the released neutron to strike one of them instead of harmlessly flying out of the lump as radiation.
and
b)The fissile material does not immediately blow apart once the reaction starts.

To achieve b the nuclear bombs use a set of carefully time convential explosive charges that press the fissile material together when they explode, setting off the nuclear chain reaction. It is this effect you'd have to replicate with prestidigitation if you want an A-bomb.

More or less, this is what I was going to say. To sum it up: "Just" splitting a few atoms to start a nuclear reaction is the atomic equivalent of trying to light a damp leather wick with two small, round rocks. Fission (Either by directly splitting an atom or as a result of neutron bombardment) isn't the real feat in this case - the feat is making it actually do something useful. If Prestidigitation could effect the circumstances necessary to reliably start a working nuclear chain reaction, it'd outclass many spells in equivalent energy generated.

Sorry if this was a bit of a break from the point of the thread, but it was at least the second time I saw this premise on this board alone (See: Pankratosword (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149724)) and I was starting to wonder if my understanding of chemistry was broken or outdated.

Silus
2011-03-13, 11:20 PM
Well, as a lvl 2 Human Bard, I managed to turn an entire garrison of Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Ogres and Bugbears against each other by convincing half of them to form a worker's union to get better benefits from their new Overlord that was showing up for inspection.

And this last session, playing as a Sorcerer/Warlock Gestalt (Gestalt campaign involving Slivers), myself and the Cleric sorta (unintentionally) pitted a blinded Troll against a garrison of Orcs. The Cleric blinded the guy then ran out on us, leaving myself and the War-Jinja to fend for ourselves the Troll. So he runs into the garrison by accident, disguised as an Orc. He convinces all but one of the Orcs that the Troll is attacking intruders and needs help (Intruders being the rest of the party). Meanwhile, I drop a Ghost Sound spell by the door leading to the garrison, taunting the blinded Troll. He falls for it, and they wipe each other out.

Cartigan
2011-03-13, 11:33 PM
"So [the enlarged Barbarian standing at the top of a flight of stairs inside of a several story clocktower] flying tackles the flying Lamia..."

Xuincherguixe
2011-03-14, 12:41 AM
Man, practically every one of my PCs has a crazy plan.

My exalted character(Full Moon Lunar) showed up to the probably evil god, and pretends that he's going to help. I get some strong hints that it's getting manipulated. I strongly suspect it's an Abyssal, but I'm not sure my character would know Abyssal can do that sort of thing. I wanted to infiltrate the rebel army, tell them to pretend to obey the guy, and wait things out so none of them have to die.


My vampire (A mostly sane Malkavian) warns another not to mind link with him, because he gets some pretty hardcore hallucinations. Does anyways and snaps. Not sure that counts.

Later pieces together some evidence, and figures that one NPC is in league with the antagonist, and try to bluff him into revealing himself. Implies he was dominated, but hey, you know vampires could have been a lie. Was a bit of combination effort, but we get the next destination, which is London.

On the way over, we get attacked by pirates. I try and use my powers to make the captain feel remorse and surrender to us, as another character uses another power to do the same. I botch and give him a newfound religious conviction, and he proceeds to slash the other guy up something fierce. One of the mages sends a wave and knocks us into the ocean.

Where there are were sharks. (I'm told they'll go away if they meet with resistance). My next crazy plan will be to try and befriend them so they take us back to the boat. Or maybe over to England just to cross the channel in style.


Waaay back, my Shadowrun character was facing some kind of epic slide of doom. Complete with all manner of death traps. So he smashes his way through a couple floors instead.


In another game, I was a wizard. Dug through a floating island and came across a metal floor. Decided to rapidly heat and cool it to make it brittle. Turns out that just knocked a building out and I fell off the island. Got rescued by a robot though so it all turned out okay.


My current D&D game is going much better. Saving a lot of peoples lives who are scripted to die. Which is always nice.

Lither
2011-03-14, 12:55 AM
More or less, this is what I was going to say. To sum it up: "Just" splitting a few atoms to start a nuclear reaction is the atomic equivalent of trying to light a damp leather wick with two small, round rocks. Fission (Either by directly splitting an atom or as a result of neutron bombardment) isn't the real feat in this case - the feat is making it actually do something useful. If Prestidigitation could effect the circumstances necessary to reliably start a working nuclear chain reaction, it'd outclass many spells in equivalent energy generated.

Sorry if this was a bit of a break from the point of the thread, but it was at least the second time I saw this premise on this board alone (See: Pankratosword (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149724)) and I was starting to wonder if my understanding of chemistry was broken or outdated.

Don't bring your science into D&D. We're fine with elementals which aren't actually elements and creatures with wings far too small to allow flight that are capable of flying. :smalltongue:

Ahem. Yes, let's keep this thread on track.

NichG
2011-03-14, 02:13 AM
Here are a couple:

Paradox Bomb:

I had a character who was a bit of a mad scientist mage type. Among other things, he tried to invent a paradox bomb using Contigency, Foresight, Magic Mouth, and a verbally-activated light spell (there's some spell that can light up/not light up based on verbal cues, I just don't remember which). The idea was that the thing would use Foresight to tell whether or not there was immediate impending light from the spell (mapped into a danger signal through part of the item creation process), and then have that trigger the magic mouth to either say or not say the activation phrase for the light. The result would be an oscillator that vibrates through time.

He then, after pointed hints from the DM, decided to not make the thing after all. Later we found that another copy of the events of the campaign had actually occurred before in a parallel universe, but that that universe had been destroyed when the paradox bomb was activated, leading to an invisible restart.


The Polymorph Experiment:

Same character, later in the campaign, had lost his spellcasting due to plot and was bargaining with a lord of elemental fire to obtain a new power source for his spells. The deal was that he had to unseal a volcano on the plane of Steam that had been magically bound up. The DM, based on previous experience, decided to make it impossible so that it'd at least take a little effort, and made the volcano and the seal several times larger than Earth.

A few weeks of game pass, and Peren (the character) has an idea. He buys a scroll of Energy Transformation Field and a scroll of Polymorph Any Object and goes to the seal on Steam. There, a large mithril ring is acting as the conduit for a whopping big sealing spell. He places the ETF on the ring, and ties it to produce Polymorph Any Object castings with the spell energy it obtains, and points the spell at himself because, well, might as well see if a billion instantaneously occuring polymorph spells do anything interesting.

So, he returns from the adventure with his casting back, but with a brand new body (permanently).


The Infinity Engine:

Based off of the success of the previous experiment, the same character drafts plans for a device that utilizes a clever array of overlapping Energy Transformation Fields, Planar Binding spells, and summoned celestials to create an exponentially growing spell-based computational engine (since overlapping ETFs have a 50/50 chance of one or the other eating the spell, you can create random numbers, and you can do nonlinear components by having one ETF fire level 2 spells into an ETF that needs 3 spell levels to cast, and so on).

The attempt is aborted at the last moment by deities who foresaw the upcoming creation of a device that would consume all of the magical energy of the planescape in finite time.

Vangor
2011-03-14, 02:31 AM
On the opposite end of the spectrum from crazy pc plans to overcome your challenges, does anyone else have a mean habit of letting the pcs leap to absurd conclusions and try any number of random things to open passages or seemingly solve puzzles? Spent nearly two hours recently as my pcs ran back and forth after being sealed within a crypt, trying to locate a way to open these massive sealed metal doors or some means to escape. When the party was out of ideas, exasperated, things began to happen.

I enjoy giving them the opportunity to think of a creative solution to their interpretation of the story, and usually I react to this. When they have nothing, though, I watch them writhe about confused and throwing anything against the wall, literally. The party placed an everburning brazier and the head of an unconscious cultist in the path of intangible claws carving a nightmarish script into stone before trying to tempt the claws to the metal doors with the cultist's blood and such. Was hilarious to me.

Privateer
2011-03-14, 02:53 AM
This doesn't really measure up to other stories, but I'll throw it in as well.

The PCs are in front of a hut where a kidnapping took place, led there by the mayor of the town, who hired them to investigate it.

DC5 muddy tracks lead from the hut into nearby forest. The pcs easily make the check and spot them, as I expected. However, instead of following the tracks to the dungeon I prepared like I expected they would, the party spends the next twenty minutes or so passionately interrogating the mayor about his whereabouts on the night of the disappearance, etc CSI-style.

Ajadea
2011-03-14, 03:56 AM
On the opposite end of the spectrum from crazy pc plans to overcome your challenges, does anyone else have a mean habit of letting the pcs leap to absurd conclusions and try any number of random things to open passages or seemingly solve puzzles?

*Raises hand* [Jallorn, please step away from the spoilers]

Pit covered by illusory wall with a slime-filled trough on one side. Solution: jump over the trough, down the pit. Time to solve (encountering the pit to bypassing the pit): 12 days (PbP).

And the halfling factotum played by Jallorn teleported away about three in-game minutes before the others jumped.

Watching your players flail around a slimy pit is highly entertaining.

manyslayer
2011-03-14, 08:09 AM
Spelljammer campaign I was running. The PCs were trying to liberate some slaves from the ruler of the city they were at. Big festival with gladiatorial games was imminent.

PC plan was to lay an ambush for the bad guys main ship (an octopus ship), take it over, and crash it into the bad guys citadel to provide a distraction so they could land at the arena and load up on slaves to get out of there. The ship's main pilot (PC sorcerer) and the captain (very swashbucklery fighter/wizard) were going to pilot the bad guys ship down. Had a small shuttle-like craft were going to jump into and take off from the octopus at the last minute (with the captain riding on the roof so would be free to leap to where she was needed on getting over the the arena).

Due to some actions in their prep and info gathering, the PCs get captured before getting back off planet. Now, they still have some NPC allies that were going to help with the plan (one, an ex-paladin captain of a squid ship and the other they refer to as Captain Nutjob, not nearly as competent but apparently very lucky) so they at least think there is a chance something will occur. But while they are captured, the bad guys torture/interrogate them to find what they were going to do. The pilot simply tells them. The bad guys don't believe him (since the plan is so crazy) and continue to torture him.

MurphysLoophole
2011-03-14, 09:04 AM
My PC's were traveling as a caravan trying to lure some bandits out and capture one. One PC was driving a wagon, two were acting as guards, and one, and Uldra, was hiding in a box. When they came across a snowdrift blocking the road with an NPC sitting atop it, who tells them they need to pay the toll, they say that they're taking a load of dead halflings home for burial. To prove it.... they whip out the Uldra and claim it's a halfling corpse that got really cold.:smalleek: I had to stop the game for a moment while I collected myself.

GodGoblin
2011-03-14, 09:24 AM
The one that sticks out most in my mind is when I was a PC in the group.

The campaign was based in a City and we were tasked by the LBG (Legitimate Business Gnomes) who are a fantasy version of the mafia to assasinate a member of government to place Mr. Goodcat (The head of the LBG) in power.

The task was to simply kill him in his tower, we were mainly rogue types so sneaking in and stabbing/poisoning him was what the DM prepared for. Instead we gathered as much Gnomish Boomdust as possible (Gunpowder) and hired a Gnomish workforce while our charismatic PC convinced the man to expand his cellar.

Once that was sorted we all started work digging into his foundations, placing around 20 barrels of Boomdust around the vital point and when at a safe distance we set it off killing the mark. His family, workforce and guards died too but hell thats just collateral.

I believe we invented a scrap launcher/bazooka with those guys too... :smallcool:

Obrysii
2011-03-14, 09:39 AM
Ok - my players are crazy. One is highly analytical. One is impulsive but in a controlled fashion. The others kind of go for the ride.

With that preface, this was in my Dragons-as-PCs campaign. The group, an Adamantine Dragon, Shadow Dragon, Two-headed Yellow Dragon, Copper Dragon, and a Chaos Dragon.

They had been working for a mafia boss for some time, and finally the time had come they no longer wanted to work for the evil man. He'd been doing some bad things - killing police, rigging elections, and forcing protection money.

They'd had enough of it. After being sent on a very dangerous mission that nearly resulted in a TPK, and then being yelled at for killing the creature that nearly killed them, they came up with a plan.

The shadow dragon purchased a scroll of flooding - I can't remember the correct name, it creates a lake-full of water. The adamantine slung the stone head of the enemy they killed beneath him, with the intent to crash it down as a siege weapon on the mafia boss. The shadow dragon was going to then cast that spell, flooding the area while the others engaged the boss.

All together a very crazy plan, all subverted when it was realized the enemy was a Warblade 1/Wizard 5/Jade Pheonix Mage 10/Wizard 3. He Imprisoned the Adamantine dragon, and then had his companions suppress the yellow dragon's breath weapon. He then cast Banishment on the shadow dragon after an underwater fight. He took enough damage that, after fishing himself out of the water, used the capstone ability and returned with full health. He engaged the other three in a city-top duel throughout the city.

It ended with the yellow dragon locked in a Force Cage, and the other two slowly wearing him down with maneuverability, speed, and the fact he was running low on spells.

Hatchet91
2011-03-14, 10:07 AM
Ok, I dont know how crazy this is but i found it amusing.

I was a lowish lvl bard (this campaign was almost 3 years ago)
In our group we had a Friend dubbed as "fail" Rogue. this rogue had managed to fail everything including deciding to check how deep quick sand was and nearly drowned the whole group trying to save him.

Well when resting between dungeons we where in a city and the fail rogue took it upon himself to earn money by mugging people. the only problem was he managed to find a dwarf fighter about 3 levels above him and proceded to attempt a mugging. by attempt i mean got his but kicked and thrown in jail.

the rest of our group decided to let him rot in jail. i took it upon my self to break him out.

What did i do ? i convinced the monk in the group who for some reason was in charge of our groups finances, that i needed money to pay "child support" and and used a disguise self spell to change my appearence to that of a bar maid and brought the guards Drinks as thanks for breaking up a bar fight at a local pub, thier where was two guards on duty one was asleep and the other failed his sense motive check and drank the poisin laced beer, and i proceeded to slice the throat of the sleeping guard and break my friend out of jail.

the worst thing was when asked how he got out of jail, we just said that we hired a lawyer who got the case thrown out.... this all happenned within 24 hours of his arrest.

Apophis775
2011-03-14, 03:28 PM
If i remember, weren't you the one who convinced him to see how deep the quick-sand was?

nedz
2011-03-14, 04:30 PM
...
I had a Chaotic Evil PC sorcerer who learnt the Polymorph Any Object spell. He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.
...

Prestidigitation, Pas !

Given that a War Axe can solve any kind of problem, all he needed to do was give it a huge wollap and roll a Critical :smallbiggrin:

TheCountAlucard
2011-03-17, 09:10 PM
I have two such "Crazy PC Plans" immediately in mind... but it would probably be too much hassle to re-post them. Instead, just read through my old V:tM campaign journal, 'kay? :smalltongue:

DontEatRawHagis
2011-03-17, 09:23 PM
All Spycraft.

Crazy Plan #1:

Pretend to be bringing a shipment of bunnies to a government research lab. The Rabbits were ninja rabbits in an allies employ. Sadly the person with the most kills was the head rabbit...and I'm not making this up, Commander Bun Bun(A player's personal Lt. and second in command).

Crazy Plan #2:

Sending a Wheelman(glorified driver) and Soldier to extract a scientist from a danger zone bar, while the Faceman(ie. Bluff and Diplomacy magee) stands guarding the door...Yeah and they were all dressed up as police officers in a den of murderers and thieves. The escape plan, me(hacker) and the infiltrator using the basement's supply of kegs to set fire to the building. There were no survivors...well except us and our target.

JohnnyPsycho
2011-03-18, 12:12 AM
This happened years ago while playing in a campaign from the now defunct 7th Sea game.

I was playing a Vodacce (basically that world's version of Italian) swashbuckler/swordsman, with a talent for playing the violin and a strange habit of wearing masquerade-style masks. My group had helped to fend off an assassination attempt on a local Eisen (German) noble by a group of thugs lead by a really tough swordsman (who would end up being the recurring villain of the story). We ended up being charged with protecting the noble and trying to uncover the identities of the group responsible. Doing a little investigating, we found out about their hideout and that they were hiring on more help to raid the noble's home.

Wanting to somehow get ourselves insinuated among the bad guys, but uncertain how, we tried to come up with a plan when I came to a sudden realization: during the initial attack by the evil swordsman, only the other two PCs in the group ever had any direct contact with him. During that whole introductory fight, my character had been elsewhere fighting lesser mooks. I convinced the GM that "evil sword-guy" never saw me at that first battle, and thus wouldn't recognize me as an enemy. I ended up going undercover and joining up with the group of baddies while my comrades went back to help set up defenses for the noble.

Later that night, when all the thugs began storming the noble's house, I ended up stealing a grappling-pistol off of a baddie, sneaking off to the back of the house, and climbing up the grappled rope to the nobleman's bedroom (since I knew where it was, having already been there before). I ended up reaching the nobleman before the attackers could fight their way to him, so I took one of his spare robes and a hat, shoved him into a closet, and once the baddies broke down the nobleman's door, ran out to the balcony and jumped off. Thankfully, it was only the second floor and I ended up landing on a hapless mook, but other than the improvised exit everything worked as I hoped: the confused baddies thought the nobleman had jumped off his balcony to escape them, leaving the real nobleman safely hiding in his closet while they ran back downstairs through the house to try and catch up to me.

By that time the other two guys the my party joined me, and we proceeded to fight off the rest of the thugs, capturing "evil sword guy's" second-in-command, and disarming "evil sword guy" himself, forcing him to retreat. And thanks to my "Indy Ploy", I ended up with "evil sword-guy's" sword as a souvenir.

Hatchet91
2011-03-23, 01:01 PM
If i remember, weren't you the one who convinced him to see how deep the quick-sand was?

perhaps, i just suggested he see how deep it was, i was expecting maybe a rope with a rock, but i couldnt have expected the results.

TheCountAlucard
2011-03-23, 03:35 PM
Had another crazy plan last week, in our Exalted game:

Namely, since we don't want to risk our butts spying on a nation having a civil war (revealing themselves might get both factions to turn against us), we decided instead to make a bunch of people, teach them sorcery so they can communicate with us, make them loyal to us, and seed them on the nation at war, so that they will regularly message us to provide details.

Not at all convoluted, now is that? :smallbiggrin:

Another_Poet
2011-03-23, 10:06 PM
GM: "In front of you is a golf ball, and about 2' away is a hole. You have a golf club. What do you do?"

Us: "Is there a town in this world that would have helium for sale?"

Yukitsu
2011-03-23, 10:09 PM
GM: "In front of you is a golf ball, and about 2' away is a hole. You have a golf club. What do you do?"

Wait, wait, wait. I read Tolkien, I know the answer to this... We go fight goblins!

Provengreil
2011-03-25, 02:23 AM
I've got two.

the first one happened with a person who was a really bad DM. i won't go into why, it would just be rude. one of his DM acts though was to cange any item that said "X uses per day" into "infinite uses per day." this would have had massive consequences, but he didn't change it until after we made our characters. either way, te following situation is the same.

So i'm the party rogue in a party of 4. i've taken note of the fact that we had a sorceror, a half iron golem monk, and a favored soul, and decided to go all out for skills, dumping everything into them to have the flexibility the rest of the party didn't have. well, during combat the party got split up, and i wound up in a tree with a pile of trolls underneath me and no fire or acid weapons(i'd taken ice and electricity as fire/acid were each covered by at least 2 of the others). i took a moment, looked at my items very carefully, and realized i had a survival pouch. i pulled out a campfire, then on each turn i pulled out a tent, lit it on fire, and threw it at the trolls. that's right: i fought off a bunch of trolls with burning tents.

tl;dr: burning tent javelins.

With me as DM. I have this one player who always wants to be evil and always wants to use some stuff from the book of vile darkness. I'm beginning to hate that book, but that's not the subject. one time he was playing a cleric who had taken proficiency in scythes. at one point i threw dire rats at them, and instead of killing one he grappled it. making fort saves when necessary and failing no checks(it was just a rat, but my party has a history with grapples; fighter once got pinned by a goblin) he managed to attach it to the end of his scythe so that when he attacked, it would bite his enemy. I wasn't sure how to handle this when it happened, but as it turned out there were no encounters before the rat died of ill treatment. he dropped the rat, snuck into a random house at night and killed its occupants, raised one of them as a skeleton, cut off everything below the ribcage, and attached that to his scythe instead. now he had a scythe with 2 claw attacks. i had to let it happen because he wanted it so much. didn't help him though. He soon decided to attack a necromancer group while one of his party members was out of action and the other wasn't ready for combat. they wiped.

tl;dr: a weapon with a natural full attack on top of weapon damage via attached undead.

LrdoftheRngs
2011-04-07, 02:10 PM
In one game I ran, the party of four was hired by a town to investigate a series of undead attacks. The attacks were coming from a tomb where a Necromancer was trying to raise an undead army to destroy a town. In the classic Villain monologue, he gave them a choice: join him or die. Amazingly, they actually joined him. They marched back to the town, but the villagers were prepared. Numerous guards and the 10th level mayor were defending the Town. Now this has four parts.

Part 1:
The rogue decides to scale the town gate while being stealthy to get to the Mayor. He gets natural twenties on all three. When he gets up to the Mayor, he whispers in the Mayor's ear "We are going to help you and betray the Necromancer." Then, he jumps off of the wall and stabs the Necromancer in the back. 33 for jump. He hits, and knocks a quarter of the Necromancer's hp off.

Part 2:
The Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc fighter is charged by a town guard. He Grapples the guard, lights him on fire with a torch, and throws him at the Mayor. That guard had EXTREMELY bad luck; the next four attacks were Natural ones, and we have a house rule that if you get a natural one on an attack, you hurt yourself. So this guard accidentally stabs himself to death.

Part 3:
In the middle of the battle, our cleric casts Summon Monster IV, and gets a Giant Celestial Eagle. So the Rogue gets the idea into his head to ride it. The Necromancer casts a damage spell on him as he is getting on the Eagle that brings him to 3 hp. The cleric commands the Eagle to go 150 feet in the air, and the rogue jumps off of the Eagle. He positions himself so that he is a falling missile, and manages to crit the Necromancer. The Necromancer's head exploded from the damage, and his undead minions bit the dust, but the falling damage puts the rogue at -27 hp.

Part 4:
With the Necromancer dead, the cleric decides to double double double cross the mayor. He commands his eagle to dive-bomb the Mayor, who has 10 hp thanks to the Necromancer and a few Wraiths, while shouting at his eagle "NO! DON'T DO IT!" and secretly urging it on telepathically. He is supposed to be Neutral Good. Major alignment drift...

Lesingnon
2011-04-07, 11:31 PM
Crazy PC plans? I've got one in particular that threw me for a loop.

A few years ago, I was running a game involving a long-running plot by a lich. He was obsessed with ascending to godhood and becoming a deity, and believed that if he could get one single, monstrous sacrifice to empower him with as much energy as possible, he would be able to become a god.

To this end, he had (after becoming a lich) insinuated himself into the structure of a city as an elf (explaining the long-lived issue) who worked hard to build up the city, expanding it outwards and supervising construction. This allowed him to, over a period of about seven centuries, turn the city into a focal point for a massive ritual he had planned. He would trigger a massive, epic-level consumptive field effect, draining everybody of their power and channeling it into him, which he believed could springboard him into divine rank.

The PCs had to stop him. Now, I had laid out what I thought was a wonderfully complex story arc, in which they would have to work out a means of countering the ritual so it didn't go off (the exact method would have, instead of drawing power in to the lich once the spell was cast, have torn it out of him and spread it over a wide area, destroying him atom by atom once they'd destroyed his phylactery). This was not what they decided to do. They got his phylactery, oh yes. They stuck his soul back into his lich body.

And then they got an airship and crashed it into the central chamber he was using to interrupt the casting, forcing a Concentration check that he failed before being crushed by several tons of airship moving at ramming speed.
Needless to say, I wasn't expecting it.

Hmm...what does it say about me that my gut reaction would just be to screw up the precisely planned pattern of the city by lighting it on fire?

Provengreil
2011-04-08, 11:07 AM
Hmm...what does it say about me that my gut reaction would just be to screw up the precisely planned pattern of the city by lighting it on fire?

that you should change your avatar to a halfling ranger.

Lord Vukodlak
2011-04-08, 11:10 AM
Write down here all the PC plans that are unecessarily complex, utterly random, or just generally strange.

To start off;

I had a Chaotic Evil PC sorcerer who learnt the Polymorph Any Object spell. He decided one day that the easiest way to kill the campaign's BBEG would be to cast Polymorph Any Object on a lump of earth to turn it into uranium-235 and cast Prestidigitation to split a few atoms.

Despite how funny it seems, I had to rule out that he couldn't do that.

He was that kind of PC.

No no no, you let him do that, "kill" the BBEG and the entire party then reveal they were only fighting a Simulacrum.

Yukitsu
2011-04-09, 02:57 AM
Well, I just ran a simple plan that started with "I cast dominate on myself" that went off fairly well, considering phase 1 was to get myself arrested, phase 2 was to hold a ball, and phase 3 was to blow up something entirely irrelevant to the plan, all while framing an enemy as a spy.

Kaww
2011-04-11, 04:35 AM
Hmm...what does it say about me that my gut reaction would just be to screw up the precisely planned pattern of the city by lighting it on fire?

Similar thoughts here... My solution was smashy-smashy vs. key buildings.

Eldan
2011-04-11, 04:52 AM
PCs: "So, we walk into the house of the beholder mafia boss and his heavily armed gang, talk politely to him for a bit while getting surrounded by his guards, then throw a nauseating smoke bomb at him and run away!"

They were level 2. And still somehow got out alive.

Cartigan
2011-04-11, 08:04 AM
Are PC plans ever not crazy?

Our plan: Let's go infiltrate this secret base, but let's look for a back door. Can't find one, but there are fishing vessels going out to a middle of a lake for no reason and not catching fish. Let's all cast waterbreathing on ourselves then go wait at the bottom of the lake for a few hours to see if another one comes. Oh, they are dropping crates in the water that are going through a secret underwater crate entrance! Let's pick through all the crap on the seafloor and hide in crates - underwater for a few more hours - so we can be let in to the secrete underwater crate entrance and jump out and surprise attack everyone (while yelling "Surprise Attack!")

Niezck
2011-04-11, 04:01 PM
PCs: "So, we walk into the house of the beholder mafia boss and his heavily armed gang, talk politely to him for a bit while getting surrounded by his guards, then throw a nauseating smoke bomb at him and run away!"

They were level 2. And still somehow got out alive.

Hey, we talked politely to the guards too, and made them not chase us! :smalltongue:

Volthawk
2011-04-11, 04:03 PM
PCs: "So, we walk into the house of the beholder mafia boss and his heavily armed gang, talk politely to him for a bit while getting surrounded by his guards, then throw a nauseating smoke bomb at him and run away!"

They were level 2. And still somehow got out alive.

Not just survived, we took out one of his guards too. And picked him up and took his unconscious body with us. Then stole his uniform and left him in an inn for a day or two before remembering him.

Gaius Marius
2011-04-11, 04:17 PM
So, we had this Superhero game, but the main goal wasn't necessary to beat the bad guys, but more about looking good on TV and bringing more viewers/selling derivative products/finding lucrative sponsors.

So, our mission is to defend a commune in L.A. that will soon be under attack by a band of evil evictors. (We later learned that our boss was using this commune's basement as a sweatshop).

Thing is, we want to arrive as the HEROES, right in the nick of time. So we smuggle cameras in to be able to film the bad guys going in, killing the defenceless communers, for us to come and save everybody like Big Damn Heroes.

Problem we face: "Why would we be delayed?". Oh well, we manage to let a few Guantalamo Bay residents get free, and we force them to do a "terrorist attack" on San Francisco's biggest football match. So, with 4 Guan prisonners and a team of 6 hired mercenaries to keep them in check, we give them a HUUUUGE bomb, asking them to make some noise with machineguns in the crowd, and eventually disperce.

Without them knowing, we stuffed explosive in all of the mercenaries' bulletproof vests. So.. when the "terrorists" attacked, we told them to get lost into the crowd so they can escape safely.. and we remotely detonated them. "Suicide bombers! OH NOOOOOOO!!"

(We did our best to avoid any unneeded injuries)

And then, we remotely detonated the Big Bomb, and my partner, capable to creating crystalline force fields, managed to funnel the explosion into a very impressive firework, saving everybody. (Yes, we had planned what the explosion would look like, just to look good on camera)

Be aware, this is all filmed. We have 100% access to the Editing room :smallbiggrin:

The explosion damage an airplane, which is gonna crash. But me and my partner manage to make it land safely. And then, our boss calls us to tell us that the POOR COMMUNERS are under attack! Quickly! Let's save them!

(And then, my whoring side really came out).

My character is "The American Knight", which is almost like The Iron Patriot (I didn't knew Iron Patriot existed when I came up with the concept). So I gotta defend The Eagleland American Way... And what better way to do so by providing firearms to the communers so they can defend themselves?

We signed a sponsorship contract with a weapon manufacturer, so they can provide us with large quantity of military-grade "self-defense" firearms. We distributed them all to the communers.. yhea, they pretty much accidently killed themselves. But that can be cut out during the post-filming editing.

After the gunfight, the Big Villains come in, and it's US vs Them, we kick their ass, and win the day.

'cause of the mess we made in the news, we had about 50 millions people watching this show. It was our 1st episode!! :smallcool: Our sponsorship contract netted us 5 millions dollars.

I am sooo happy this whole thing is just make-belief.. otherwise, I'll have trouble sleeping at night...