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MlleRouge
2011-05-04, 05:55 AM
Hm, I don't see anything else like this on the first few pages, so it must be safe. Here goes!

We all love to complain and tell horror stories on forums. Heck, most of us enjoy reading other peoples' complaints/horror stories just as much as posting our own. I personally have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the 'Habits that kill the fun in a session' thread, and I know other people have, too.

Good moments in gaming are like good experiences at restaurants; the good ones are great, but bad ones are more dramatic and often more memorable. But I'm sure that plenty of us here at the Playground have grin-worthy stories to tell, too!

So how about it. Hit me with something that made your day, be it a fortuitous roll, an amazing stunt that actually worked, or an extremely satisfying role play encounter.

I'll start:

My fiance's current 3.5 campaign is nearing an end. We were fighting a sub-boss (presumably the second in charge to the BBEG) last week, and my sorcerer was flying around overhead causing all kinds of havoc. The boss thought it would be nice to encircle him in a blade barrier, presumably stopping his shenanigans.

Now, my sorc was relatively low HP, so it was assumed that I wouldn't want to risk passing through the barrier. Well, I was thinking about doing it anyhow, as the character is rather reckless*...but the party wizard decided to make the decision for me.

*and for various other reasons, the character also didn't want to try casting through it

To make a long story short, the wizard's efforts at dispelling the blade barrier also dispelled my fly spell, sending my poor sorc crashing to the floor. I took a lot of fall damage and was completely without the ability to cast spells for a while. I don't recall the exact duration, but it effectively put me out of the fight. The wizard's player tried to take it back, but he'd already taken his hand off the piece, so to speak.

Note that I'm a blaster and the wizard is batman, an arrangement the other player and I made at the start of the game. However, he had nothing to deal with this particular boss and I had been providing a large amount of the party damage. The only other player, a soulknife, was frantically trying to fend the boss off. Things didn't look good, since he was basically alone. Our fourth player was unfortunately absent.

So my 'brave' sorcerer draws his sword and charges.

I roll a 17 to attack, and then roll max damage. I roll a 19 on my second attack, which also hits. Again, I roll max damage.

And actually got a killing blow.

I felt bad at first, feeling like Id kill-stolen from the soulknife's player...but when I realized he was as amused as I was, I couldn't stop grinning.


Your turn!

Earthwalker
2011-05-04, 06:22 AM
This is from a Shadowrun game I was GM.

It was a book adventure and the main bad guy the players were after was a mock elf that had just had too much cyber and it had turned him into an emotionless killer.

Now this guy was a wacko indeed. His essence score was 0.7.

Now the three cybered PCs in the group had something like

0.3, 0.2 and 0.05 essence for there PCs.

After reading a blurb in the book about this guys lack of essence and how he was now emotionless I was asked how much essense the bad guy had, I gave them an estimate of 0.5. This caused some amusment in the group, like collectivly they had less essesnse them the NPC.

Some time later the Cyber suad of the group were breaking into an apartment. Still with the idea of no emotions in there heads one of them pops the loc, and in a flat monotone displaying no emootion
says "yay"
Again his partner in flat monotone "woot".

which prompted from the 0.05 guy in the same flat monotone "What are you guys so happy about". It was at this stage I fired 7up from my nose and nearly died laugthing.

I know this is a you had to be there story, but it nearly killed me just the flat monotone way they were speaking.

CigarPete
2011-05-04, 08:06 AM
We had just finished fighting a lich and were looking for his phylactery. Had a new character with the group who was a gnome mystic theurge. We are investigating everything in his throne room, and there is nothing that could be the phylactery, so we decide that it must be inside the throne, as it is pinging as magical. We're discussing the best way to get into the center of the throne, as a full power attack hammer blow did basically no damage when the MT pipes up, "I've got a portable ram." He proceeds to pull a piece of cloth out of his pack and unshrinks it to reveal a ram. Sounds good, So a couple of us grab it and start going to town on the throne. Once it's reduced to rubble, we start looking through it, and there is no phylactery. After some discussion, we decide our only real option at this point is to try to speak with dead on the lich himself. We figure he'll likely make his save, but it's worth a try. We cast it and he voluntarily fails his save. First question, how do we find your phylactery - his response, use the throne to teleport there, it is in windowless, doorless room. We're all looking at the DM, and I ask "Why'd you let us destroy the throne?" He responds, "Well, you worked so hard at it..."

Grogmir
2011-05-04, 10:36 AM
The campaign I was running came to an end about a month ago – the last battle was very satisfying. But there were other moments when it raised a smile – here’s a few.

Firstly a little BS on the group and players, 4 ed
HE paladin, a player that normally plays Rawshack(sp?) types, we forced him to play a goody two shoes in this campaign.
H Warlord, Rogue (played by my wife), a sorceress; her bs was tracking down the fragments of a weapon previously used to kill the BBEG (although the player didn’t know that)
A Wilden Spirit Shaman. As a group we meet on Thorsday, and yes we call it thorsday, yes we saw the recent movie – no I have no idea why we all shout Thor so much…

They had been shipwrecked on a island at war. One of the first things they did was steal a secret cache of weapons from under a army guardhouse. They spent hours coming up with elaborate plans, how to split up the guards etc, finally drugging a barrel of ale did the trick. They quickly went down to the basement to find a dwarf sleeping down there (a late joining player). As they were sneaking back out they asked him how he got into the basement “Oh I came in via the secret tunnel”. What? There’s a secret tunnel!?. “Yep says I” Did anyone roll a GI or even go to question the blacksmiths son whom I said was still in town? Actually that wasn’t smiles then.

Racing south they finally get to a big town and go to see the governor, all this was ad lib’d, I invent a couple of groups waiting for their appointments, an old couple and a middle age man, the admin guy says there’s no more appointments left so they turn their attention to the couple. They discover the reason why they are there when the Paladin offers them a very large sum of gold to forgo the appointment, lots of RPing about the smallest slight but the money wins out and they depart – he then turned to the middle aged man, “He takes one look at the departing couple, another at you, then without saying a word he holds out his hand”… I guess you had to be there – but the contrast in ease of convincing got a good smile. Anyway – bam there in. Lots of plot, then they go… shopping!

Right time to divvy up the gold “Paladin, you were carrying the party gold how much have we got”…. “Eh… that was Party gold?... Erm yeah, I just gave it all to that couple”…. Dropped jaws.

Although I must say missing out on their first chance in months to shop didn’t actually make em smile right then and there.

Later on in the same town, the Paladin was continuing something he had been doing. Basically offering to cook for all and sundry whenever there was some ‘downtime’. This was about the fifth time… it was also the third time he critted his ‘baking’ roll. News of these ‘heavnenly pies’ spread like wild fire and before they knew if there Gather information checks were proving fruitless because all the people wanted to talk about was the pies. So the PCs decided to hold a Tavern quiz, with Pies as the Prize! That was a funny q & a!

Later on they were tricked into releasing a Lich by said Governor , who promptly went about raising an undead army. On realisation of this there was a funny discussion. What we going to do? “Run!”
30 minutes later the group are discussion what they are going to do OOC, I ask what they are doing IC, they all shout – RUNNING! Like the order before them – RUN! Became their standard battle cry on seeing the enemy.

Moving on a while, later the undead minions of said lich had infected the slave mines of t’other slightly less evil empire. Offering to help, the proceeded up the mines, a quick battle and they are in the initial area. I begin to descripe the scene, darkless tunnels – no light at all – rails lead down the main shaft into the darkness, a basic store room to the left is full of general mining equip…. I was cut off my players shouting together “Is there a cart?” “Why of course, there’s a f…” again they cut me off – this time with cheers “YES!” I’m confused at this point I’ll admit but I quickly cottoned on when they started humming the Indiana Jones theme tune. I sigh and think, What have I done. I managed to rustle up a pretty decent skill check obstacle course though and the players had great fun squeezed into the carts flying past all the monsters I had generated. The best part is they still think I planned it that way!

Later on, the Rogue got pound by some rocks. I imposed movement penalties until a full rest and heal check, the Paladin steps up “I shall heal your wounds” Rolls a one, Eh yeah, Rogue – you can no longer take move actions “Gawd drat it holy boy! Get away from me”, The spirits of nature shall heal you Rogue…. Rolls a 1!, “Erm nature doesn’t like you it seems”. Okay Rogue, you’re paralysed! That one raised a few smiles!

At a mid point battle, it was a river crossing, with the PCs holding a bridge against an undead horde (and it was a horde using swarm rules) they cleared the 1st wave of the bridge – with the second lot just about to enter it. The last player to go is a (stop start player) is the Dwarf, on his own he decides to charge the approximately 400 undead. Next turn they all focus on him. He’s down, there’s 6d6 more damage to come, it could quite easily been a PC death. I rolled 2 ones and 4 twos. No word of a lie – so close – yet so far. But that Dwarf sure had some balls!

But finally we got to the BBEG, his forces had been pushed back – they were trapped – but still an undead horde, the players readied themselves for the final battle. We are one round into the ‘skill challenge battle before’ when “A large humanoid appears wrapped in light, he looks majestic in his standing, he has a Hammer Symbol on his shield, “WTF is going on!?” “Its. Not…. It is… Its friggin THOR!”…. “I am not Thor, I am Hreidmar thors man servent…. Is the Paladin know as Lucy present!?”…. “Eh yeah I’m here, how… how can I help?” “Well its Thor, we’re having a bit of a party and your pie’s are the talked of the tavern…. You couldn’t nip up and bake us a batch please?” Paladin PC dies from laughter “Sure, okay, I would love to, when do you want me?” “Thor is an impatient god, it’s not good to delay him pies” “I’m kinda in the middle of something here” Hreidmar looks around for the first time “This little skirmish?” Describing the final battle as a Skirmish got a laugh “You’ll be back presently”…. Lucy the Paladin needed a 12 on here baking roll…. And she rolled a 12! Earning the praise of Thor and some kickass powers to boot. A great end to want the Player thought was just him messing around.

Finally, finally we got to the BBEG, the usual slagging match ensues, You’re going home in an undead ambulance etc…. massive battle. Then the Sorceress hits the Lich for the first time. Cue “I know that staff, if I kill anyone on today it will be you” Which made everyone BUT the sorceress smile. Sure enough a turn later and said Sorceress had to make a death saving throw and failed.
The battle continued, finally it looked like the Lich was on its last legs, his minions have been despatched and he’s been taken a lot of damage for a couple of rounds, the Warlord steps up with his axe. He charges (He ALWAYS missed with this power, the whole campaign, charge miss, was his favourite saying) wouldn’t you know it. With my BBEG down to 5 HP – he only goes and Crits!

Yep – Head flies through the air – the Lich decapitated in one cruel blow. The group cheers. “A crit! A crit on a charge! Finally” Shouts the warlord.

Wait says I, the final curse of the Lich, a terrible scream rolls out across the land, you all need to make 3 death saving rolls. We go round the group only having to save one, they all make it easily, until we come to the Sorceress whom already had one ticked off., she passes the first, then fails the second, the group holds it breath…. Rolls…. Rollls… Lands. It’s a failure! And Gyz’Chzl the dragonborn sorceress dies, her soul ripped into a thousand pieces but the final act of the Lich, dying like her mentor before her whom died putting the Lich down for the 1st time.

“I lend across to the Sorceress player and whisper “I told you I would take you with me at least”…. The player looked at me with a grin and a sigh. I was right. Sometimes you cannot fight the forces of DnD and the story it wants to tell.

Wow – okay – that’s a long not very interesting ramble. But it pretty much covers the highlights of the recent campaign. Thanks for reading.

Happy Rollin’

Grog

Douglas
2011-05-04, 02:26 PM
To make a long story short, the wizard's efforts at dispelling the blade barrier also dispelled my fly spell, sending my poor sorc crashing to the floor. I took a lot of fall damage and was completely without the ability to cast spells for a while. I don't recall the exact duration, but it effectively put me out of the fight. The wizard's player tried to take it back, but he'd already taken his hand off the piece, so to speak.
For future reference, there are two rules errors with this: first, Dispel Magic can be specifically targeted against a single spell, so there was no need to even make a roll against your Fly; second, Dispel Magic ends a spell as if its duration had expired, which in the case of Fly means you drop 60' per round for 1d6 rounds, slow enough to take no damage if you reach ground in that time. You only take the hard drop if you're still not on the ground when those 1d6 rounds are up. Fly even specifically notes this interaction with dispelling at the end of its spell description.

Good story, and I'm sure the unlikely success at the end was great fun, but if a situation like this ever comes up again these details might come in handy.

Kol Korran
2011-05-05, 05:19 PM
a few stories, as time allows, in no particular order:

As a DM:
The Harpies' deal
so, the party was sailing down a river towards their destination. the party included a ladies man (who continuously hit on the captain's sister), a rough and burly orc who kept being macho, strong and all, a VERY good looking sorceress/ wizardess (don't ask), and a half giant who lost his memory, and was trying to retrieve it, and acted like the noble paladin at all times... the conscience of the party.

as night descend, the party and the boat people take their guarding shift, when at one the ladies man hears some screeches when a group of harpies lands on the sides of the boat. he calls the alarm, but by the time it take the party to get there, the harpy leader explains that she didn't come to attack, but rather to... deal.

due to some other group, (the villains), many of her flock were dead. and now she needed to... repopulate her flock. in my world harpies choose men from the common races. she would be willing to compensate the party if they'll collaborate.

this led to a most humorous debate, with the party memebers offering each other (except for the wizardess who stood smug) with the orc exclaiming "i'm not sleeping with THAT!" and the ladies man still trying to charm the captain's sister, and not liking the other choice.

finally the half giant sighs, and says "ok, i'll do it!"
to which the other party members looked in surprise "you will?!?".
"yes, i will, now lets get this over with".

the Harpies awked amongst themselves, and approved of "such a big and strong specimen!" and then some of them approached him.
"wait? not just the leader?"
"no, need to repopulate the entire flock"
"um guys, a little help?".
"good chap you are, we have faith in you!"
between the awking no one slept that night.

next meeting, the half giant met his Fiance "hey honey! you're back! did you miss me?!"
party: *coughharpiesboytoycough*

it is still a running gag of this player. "awk! awk!"
----------------------------------

The longest battle ever

same campaign (if it interests you, see the link in my sig) the party is fighting one of the BBEGs (there are two), in a battle that is supposed to take a few rounds, and then have them run away, as he is WAY more than their level.

but the party decides to be persistent. the expend spells, powers, potions, scrolls and more (the ladies man was down to his acid splashes), but the villain suffers some damage as well, but can survive. the battle took more than 20 rounds... people were exhausted, battered, but fought on.

they were fighting on the edge of the bridge, when the half giant psi war, enlarged, suddenly for the first time in the campaign remembers what a size bonus can do for him! "i bull rush him". the villain barely escaped, but drank a potion of fly, and stood beside the half giant, preparing to unleash a slay living spell. but the half giant first- "i grapple him!"

the villain spent abotu 2-3 turns trying to get away, before he freed himself, flew free and...
"hey, don't i get an attack of opportunity?"
one huge crit later the villain's head was falling to the gorge to the party's cheering, including mine.
--------------------------------
when i was a player:
dice redemption for the dwarf
we were playing in the forgotten realms, and one of our players didn't know the setting much, and decided he was didn't believe in the gods (in FR it's common, almost mandatory to believe in a god).
the guy played a dwarf fighter, with lots of constitution, and yet at every serious fort save, he rolled a 1:
- gorgon breathes on you- roll a 1
- massive damage roll from some demon- roll a 1
- get resurrected, meet a basilisk- roll a 1
- another massive damage- roll a 1

and so on. the guy came to believe his dice were cursed. the DM kept nagging him that it's because he didn't choose a god. so the player think this is a good roleplay opportunity, and decide to follow a dwarven god of... something, not important. to show his new faith he decides he needs to craft a holy symbol (he had the craft skill)

problem is: we're in an occupied city, tons of soldiers terrorizing the people, and we were masquerading as merceneries hired by the army. what to do? we come up with a plan- my character (the one with the best social skills) will come and talk the forge soldiers to allow my "squire dwarf blacksmith" (not great i know) to use the forge for several hours.

but his social skills, mainly bluff are nonexistent, with negative charisma. so a correction- my "MUTE squire dwarf blacksmith". how hard could it be to play mute?

so things go well, and he starts working on the holy symbols while there are soldiers about. "how much do i have to roll? mute remember?"
DM: "um lets see... tell you what- just don't..."
"i rolled a 1".
we burst up laughing. the dwarf was caught in religious fervor due to his work, and started singing holy verses have the dwarven god smiting the unjust and the wicked.

much fun ensued :smallsmile:
--------------------------------
there may have been more, but i'm too tired and going to sleep now. perhaps another day.

Pisha
2011-05-05, 06:15 PM
This one comes from my old, old college game.

A little background. Our GM was a generous GM. (Pro-tip: beware of those.) He had custom character creation rules designed to let us make unusually strong characters. He lavished us with gold. He filled his world with benevolent spellcasters willing to do magic, even Raise Dead-type magic, for little more than the cost of the material components. And when we asked why he was being so very nice, he just gave us a kindly smile.

And then proceeded to crush us, body and soul.

So about a year into play, we were slogging our way through this meatgrinder of a town. The bad guy shock troops had mind control-type powers, and had worked out that a) fighters have a low will save, and b) at our level, the fighter had a good chance of taking out at least one or two party members before we put him down. So that was going on.

Three of our party members, the sorceror, the cleric, and the paladin, had died in the last fight. We had, by this point, actually exhausted all sources of resurrection spells within the town proper. Desperate, we turned to the druids in the woods, and that's when we heard about Reincarnation for the first time. It was (especially under 3.0 rules) a dream come true. It was free! No level loss! You might come back as a badger. Such a deal!

The GM had a creative way of handling resurrection. He would roll three times on the chart, then pick a race. (Note I did not say "pick one of the three rolls," or even "pick a race off the chart." Just pick a race.) Because we were dealing with an open gate to Hell, he decided (secretly) that the reincarnation magic was tainted by infernal (abyssal? whatever) energy. So they came back... wrong. The cleric, for instance, was reincarnated as a tiefling, the sorcerer as a half-drow.

For the paladin, he rolled the same result three times: human, same as he was originally. Clearly, the dice had spoken. So he thought for a moment, then pulled the player of the paladin into another room.

Next battle, everything was going fine until the cleric was killed (again). With an evil laugh, the bad guy used necromancy to turn her into a zombie and send her after us. The paladin stepped up, in all his righteousness, and attempted to Turn Undead...

...and the cleric-zombie said, "...Maaaster?"

And we all turned to stare at him...

(The upshot, if anyone cares, is that while his alignment was unaffected, he'd come back with the mark of the Nine Hells burnt onto his chest, and the new ability to channel negative instead of positive energy. But the sight of the undead cleric [played, of course, by the cleric's actual player] following our gruff and holy paladin around like a groaning, lovesick puppy was fantastic.)

MlleRouge
2011-05-05, 07:00 PM
Douglas,

Thanks for the advice, but he actually didn't use 'dispel magic'. I believe it was something called 'dispelling ray', and the DM's ruling was involved in this situation as well :) I didn't explain all the details for the sake of brevity.


Great stories folks! I love the cleric-zombie.

Flame9006
2011-06-02, 10:32 PM
On my first adventure ever we were on a road with bushes nearby which we promptly set on fire

There were Kobald bandits in the bushes:smallbiggrin: