PDA

View Full Version : Clever Things to do



Jzadek
2012-03-31, 08:36 PM
Let's face it, the best/worst thing about players is their tendency to construct insane schemes from the most meagre of resources. We've all seen, or done, or thought of mad plans involving the rules of the D&D world; the type of thing that gets the DM has no choice but to veto. Exploits with spells, or with monsters, that kind of thing. So, people of GitP - what have you come up with or witnessed?

I think my favourite has to be what has been immortalised as "The Trollpocalypse" among my group. Seldom have I enjoyed DMing as much as that. My players were tasked with hunting down some monsters for a rather sadistic king (they didn't know at the time) who wanted a troll captured, alive. Giving them that was a mistake. They went out and neutralised the troll, very nearly losing the rogue in the process, and brought it back to the king, who decided to keep them imprisoned in the palace due to the intervention of his advisor, the changeling villain of a previous adventure. They could try to fight, but at level four they know this would be suicide, as the king has an army of guards in his palace, a number of highish level NPCs, and is himself a fabled adventurer. Anyway, upon hearing this, the rogue tells me that he's cutting the fingers and toes off the troll. I'm wary, but I allow it. So, he takes these twenty members, and he cuts them into two, taking the total to 40. Does it again, eighty. One hundred and 60. One more time, and that number is a total of three hundred and twenty. So, he takes these bits of troll and scatters the around the palace, taking particular care to leave forty in the kings room. Then, they go to their rooms, barricade the doors, and wait the night out.

Yeah.

Morithias
2012-03-31, 08:55 PM
Probably one of the favorite things one of my players like to do is "Summon cube of water around a villain followed by some kind of shark".

It's amazing how often I give my villains ranks in swim just to avoid this trick.

Alkapwn21
2012-03-31, 10:38 PM
Once, the arrogant and egotistical wizard of our party mocked and taunted a Vrock into fighting. Bad idea, for after an exhausting battle, we are low on resources and spells. We figure, "hey, that's prolly the last enemy in the cave, let's go see if there's any loot in the back and get the hell outta here."

We were wrong. As we descend further into the cave, we find the Vrock's buddy... anothe Vrock, only this one has a small mob of smaller demons with him. The battle begins, for there is no way we could outrun it, and we are simply getting our asses handed to us (though we managed to do a "300" style tactic where we funneled them into a tighter passage of the cave.) Our druid's player peeps over her rulebook, and turns to the cleric's player. "I'm casting create water here on the ground. You turn it to holy water." The cleric does so. We are all rather confused at this point, and the rest of us continue to hack and slash the oncoming demons.

Next turn, the druid casts animate water, and turns the holy water into a holy water elemental. The DM, not wanting us to wipe, allows it. The water elemental spends it's turns walking through each of our spaces, 'coating' our weapons in holy water, allowing us to do more damage, and, in the end, slay the demons with minimal health remaining.

Crazy? Sure.
Bending the rules a bit? Perhaps.
Making an epic win moment for our party? Hell yes!

MesiDoomstalker
2012-04-01, 12:58 AM
Let's face it, the best/worst thing about players is their tendency to construct insane schemes from the most meagre of resources. We've all seen, or done, or thought of mad plans involving the rules of the D&D world; the type of thing that gets the DM has no choice but to veto. Exploits with spells, or with monsters, that kind of thing. So, people of GitP - what have you come up with or witnessed?

I think my favourite has to be what has been immortalised as "The Trollpocalypse" among my group. Seldom have I enjoyed DMing as much as that. My players were tasked with hunting down some monsters for a rather sadistic king (they didn't know at the time) who wanted a troll captured, alive. Giving them that was a mistake. They went out and neutralised the troll, very nearly losing the rogue in the process, and brought it back to the king, who decided to keep them imprisoned in the palace due to the intervention of his advisor, the changeling villain of a previous adventure. They could try to fight, but at level four they know this would be suicide, as the king has an army of guards in his palace, a number of highish level NPCs, and is himself a fabled adventurer. Anyway, upon hearing this, the rogue tells me that he's cutting the fingers and toes off the troll. I'm wary, but I allow it. So, he takes these twenty members, and he cuts them into two, taking the total to 40. Does it again, eighty. One hundred and 60. One more time, and that number is a total of three hundred and twenty. So, he takes these bits of troll and scatters the around the palace, taking particular care to leave forty in the kings room. Then, they go to their rooms, barricade the doors, and wait the night out.

Yeah.

If I'm not mistaken, only the largest piece of troll Regenerates. IE, the original troll who was temporarily digitless. Those troll digites would be for realz dead and wouldn't regenerate. Even if a toe was all thats left, cutting it in half would just mean an extra half of a toe needed to be regenerated, not 2 entirely different trolls.

Though I admit it was a clever idea, assuming a permissive DM. (Note to self, try to preserve troll toe for future use as delayed troll sneak attack.)

Doorhandle
2012-04-01, 04:37 AM
Though I admit it was a clever idea, assuming a permissive DM. (Note to self, try to preserve troll toe for future use as delayed troll sneak attack.)

Leave it in the barstard's pillow.

I suggest calling it the orc honeymoon.

Silma
2012-04-01, 09:22 AM
Leave it in the barstard's pillow.

I suggest calling it the orc honeymoon.

You're not referring to... THE DUNGEON BASTARD are you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i5Yw4ZoDO0&feature=context&context=G22f21a7RVAAAAAAAABA

:smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

Calinar
2012-04-01, 01:51 PM
I am a rather new DM and as of yet no one has done anything too crazy, but I've been in campaigns with giant adamantine war airships using portals to launch infinitely accelerated giant adamantine rods and crewed by 100 mindless warforged workers and other insanities. Another one I can think of is when someone randomly awakened a potted cactus to ask it if their drinks were poisoned because he forgot to prepare detect poison. He took it with him to make in to a cohort later on and named it Jim.

nedz
2012-04-01, 02:29 PM
This is what my players did, its from 2E but the trick might still be do-able.

Henchman (Cohort) gets killed.
Henchman gets reincarnated as a Dryad.
Dryads are really cool: they get a tree which they can teleport in and out of and basically live in.
Dryad adventurers have a problem: they cannot go more than a mile or so away from their Tree, and their tree cannot move.

Solution:
Polymorph the Tree into a Shambling Mound.
Now they have an APC which can move, looks innocious, is immune to lots of damage types. They can all travel safely inside the tree, the cleric can even heal the tree from the inside. Only the Dryad can get them in and out, but thats only an occasional problem. Oh and its quite good in a fight.

Halberd
2012-04-01, 04:29 PM
A player I know discovered a loophole in the 4E Rogue's powers; that they only said you had to be wielding a light blade, not necessarily using it. So, he walked around wielding a dagger in one hand and a waraxe in the other; using the waraxe for all of his attacks. Needless to say, d12 weapon dice with a rogue was rather broken, so the DM ended up vetoing it.

Morithias
2012-04-01, 04:47 PM
A player I know discovered a loophole in the 4E Rogue's powers; that they only said you had to be wielding a light blade, not necessarily using it. So, he walked around wielding a dagger in one hand and a waraxe in the other; using the waraxe for all of his attacks. Needless to say, d12 weapon dice with a rogue was rather broken, so the DM ended up vetoing it.

Tell that player he wins a free internet, cause that is BRILLIANT.

*claps*

Doorhandle
2012-04-01, 04:59 PM
And the best thing is that he could settle for the 1d10 damage rapier as it's still a light blade.:smallbiggrin:

Halberd
2012-04-01, 08:27 PM
Tell that player he wins a free internet, cause that is BRILLIANT.

*claps*

I told him (he happens to be my brother) and he was flattered, if a bit confused by what "winning a free Internet" meant. I also believe he got a bonus to attack rolls from Rogue Weapon Talent, though I'm not sure.
Also Doorhandle, I'm pretty sure rapier does D8s. (that was what he settled with though)

Vknight
2012-04-01, 09:48 PM
Tell that player he wins a free internet, cause that is BRILLIANT.

*claps*

Except it says you got to be using it for the attack.... still awesome but rules wise incorrect

Halberd
2012-04-01, 10:09 PM
Except it says you got to be using it for the attack.... still awesome but rules wise incorrect

Um, no. The power requirement for practically every melee rogue power says:
"You must be wielding a light blade."
Nothing whatsoever about actually attacking with it.

MesiDoomstalker
2012-04-01, 10:13 PM
Um, no. The power requirement for practically every melee rogue power says:
"You must be wielding a light blade."
Nothing whatsoever about actually attacking with it.

And this line of thinking is why my 4e group has ruled that anything that says "wielding" and specifies an action that can (and expected) to be taken by the wielded item must be used by such an item. No Rogue's getting a +1 to attack rolls AND a weapon die upgrade simply because he's holding a shuriken in one hand, a dagger in another and a scythe in his other 2 hands (He was a Thr-Keen) or using any of his powers through the scythe.

Malimar
2012-04-01, 11:18 PM
The party's ranger once instructed his wolf to pee on a fire elemental. (I allowed it as a touch attack for 1 damage.)

Greyfeld85
2012-04-02, 02:48 AM
The party's ranger once instructed his wolf to pee on a fire elemental. (I allowed it as a touch attack for 1 damage.)

1d4 water damage and loses a minor action to cry in shame xD

Malimar
2012-04-02, 04:29 AM
1d4 water damage and loses a minor action to cry in shame xD

And crying in shame just does more water damage! :smallbiggrin:

Doorhandle
2012-04-02, 06:05 AM
You're not referring to... THE DUNGEON BASTARD are you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i5Yw4ZoDO0&feature=context&context=G22f21a7RVAAAAAAAABA

:smalltongue::smalltongue::smalltongue:

Nope.

*SNUBB'ED!*

DigoDragon
2012-04-02, 07:13 AM
"Orc on a Rope" - The party was clearing out a cavern of skilled orcs and early on the Cleric of Corellon non-accidently beheaded one of the orcs with a longsword. So now the druid is poking the dead orc head trying to think of a plan on how to take on the 12 orcs down in the far room (all with plenty of levels in barbarian to mince the party) when he and the cleric came up with the sickest/slickest idea ever.

They tie the orc head to the end of a rope. The party sorcerer casts Invisibility on the rogue and then Globe of Invisibility on the rest of the party. The party hold onto one end of the rope and the rogue carries the head to the far room, placing the head down and knocking on the door. The orcs open the door and see their friend's head on a rope, slowly tugging away from them.
A couple failed Int checks later, the orcs all band together and march down the hall to follow the orc head. It gets around the corner and...

Invisible party ambush.

I let the party have their moment, but that trick only ever worked once. :smallsmile:

Mono Vertigo
2012-04-02, 07:54 AM
The party's ranger once instructed his wolf to pee on a fire elemental. (I allowed it as a touch attack for 1 damage.)

Jarate! Team Fortress 2's Sniper's secret weapon is a jar of pee, fancily called Jarate.

SilverLeaf167
2012-04-02, 08:54 AM
The party's ranger once instructed his wolf to pee on a fire elemental. (I allowed it as a touch attack for 1 damage.)
The elemental should have dropped collectable loot when slain. :smallbiggrin:
Extra points if you get the reference to one of the best PS2/Wii games ever made.

Silma
2012-04-02, 09:36 AM
Nope.

*SNUBB'ED!*

I know, I just needed an excuse to post the video...
:smalltongue:
It is so awesomely stupid, that everyone needs to know about it.:smallbiggrin:

Dr Bwaa
2012-04-02, 10:05 AM
I and others in my main gaming group pulled so many shenanigans with Control Water that we eventually ended up banning the spell outright, just because it's so hard to adjudicate.

Once we were on a ship and were attacked by some kind of monstrous squid that was really chewing through the party and all the guards on the boat, so my Cleric (who was basically the only one with any HP left) got up close to a tentacle and cast Water Walk on the thing. It failed its will save, floated to the surface, and then we just had to survive until it suffocated.

I haven't used it yet, but I do have an Abjurer who carries a Book of (Maximized & Empowered thanks to Incantatrix levels) Explosive Runes. They're all written at CL15+ and she has Arcane Mastery, so if push comes to shove and other options are exhausted, she can throw the book at an enemy and then swift Dispel Magic it (abjurant champion), taking 10 on the CL check so it will fail to dispel any of them and they'll all go off for 600*6*1.5=5400 Force damage. She refers to it either as the Book of Last Resort or the Tome of Overkill. She also keeps it in a separate Bag of Holding from all her other stuff, because the last thing anyone wants is for some enterprising young wizard to hit it with a Dispel by accident.

A cleric in my party once rebuked a Shadow that was attacking us & kept it under control for several days. We used it & super primitive sign language to scout huge swaths of the dungeon we were going through, which working in our favor about half the time (the other half were time like when it went and found a Naga. Said Naga noticed the Shadow spying on it and as a result had time to buff itself like crazy and turn invisible before the party actually arrived; it nearly wiped us.