Why my players hate me : DM Bragging Zone

[CyberThread]

today my players hate me, because they summoned an elder earth elemental on the roof of an old evil temple, and the entire temple collapsed while they were fighting the BBEG causing the BBEG to die to his area of worship suddenly being destroyed, and the paladin pissed off because the wizard killed a bunch of innocent folks.

Friends to not let friends summon 30 tons suddenly on a building.

[Krobar]

My players are afraid to open any bags they find, after they found a bag of holding that, when opened, spewed forth several Greater Shadows.

The lich they defeated had them in there for "safe keeping."

[ArqArturo]

3.0-3.5 has awful treasure rating.

The last time I DM'ed in 3.5, as they fought against a few ghouls (well, lots of ghouls, really), I rolled the treasure tables, and this is what happened:

*Dice rolls* Well, you guys did find something in the treasure chest, about *Dice rolls* ten thousand copper pieces.

Let me tell you this, Complete Warrior hurts.

[Tvtyrant]

I tricked the party into releasing a ghost possessed assassin onto the world, and then had her convince the party to release the big bad who they had incapacitated into her possession. This week they will get to deal with a ghost possessed big bad, and I am really looking forward to it.

[Darth Stabber]

The party knows they are being hunted by goblin swordsage mercenary (with whom they are actually friendly, but a job's a job, and he's a consummate professional). Eventually they are ambushed in a small valley by the goblin, his hulking hurler ogre, and 4 specially trained goblin chain trippers. Each round the ogre throws 1 tripper (who has a readied action to trip on landing), and the swordsage (who has a readied action to use a maneuver). The goblin's armor spikes are enchanted with the throwing and returning properties, returning him the ogre after his attack. So the trippers keep the party flat on their faces while the ogre throws the murder yo-yo. Probably would have led to a tpk, were it not for the party's swordsage using a shadow hand teleport to get to the ogre, and a setting sun throw to put him down on the bottom of a hill.

[Threadnaught]

Oh boy, I gave both my players' characters a pair of Wish Stones, each. Little magic items that don't actually radiate any magic at all, but are capable of granting them a free use of the Spell, Wish. No matter their level.
They've used one for a Ring that allows the Druid to communicate with Animals, without having to prepare that Spell they're always forgetting to prepare.
Three remaining between them. Okay, so how could I possibly challenge them?

My players are having to fight four 17th level Clerics (they're fighting the first now) to prevent a god from awakening. My players are 11th level.

They're in a war zone, under the sea. At crushing depths they can only survive thanks to an armour suit that prevents the Druid's Tier 3 Class Ability. Magic (yes, ALL Magic) is more powerful here, which explains how they were able to hold off several hundred mundane warriors and a god who does little more than dribble bull****.

They're being hunted by a mildly nerfed Aspect of Atropus. No Negative Energy Aura or Call Meteor Shower... Everything else is active. Except Atropus' terrain features.

They're going to learn that some town they like is experiencing the effects of a Fimbulwinter. And if they don't take care of the source, things are going to come from the Frostfell and break stuff.

They're going to meet a Storm Singer. I'll be representing Control Winds with a sax loop of Careless Whisper, Winter's Ballad with the Go Compare song and Storm of Vengeance with Rick Astley.

And they'll have a choice, they can either follow the plot and get to see what happens, or they can blow up the universe and cause a time paradox which will force them out of the story and into another setting.

If they follow the story, they will end up in a desert encountering some badly made homebrew Saiyans (no flight for the Saiyans), Atropus will finally force them into a fight, I'll abuse the Fiend Folio and they will grow to hate the desert.

Then they'll head north, where they'll learn to hate the northern wastes, they'll encounter a Xixecal at the end, but not before I let them know that the Demons have won in their fight against the Devils and Druids.

Then they'll try to stop their good pal Gideon from performing it's duty. This is where all of their friends are going to show exactly how far they're willing to go to stop Gideon. One of the nicer ones will have an Epic Spell called Genocide. Think about that.

If they win, they get to fight in another war. And I'll learn which of them watched Power Rangers at a younger age. They'll also have to decide who their allegiances lie with.


Time Paradox would put them in every world to exist before their own world, simultaneously. Imagine a terrain feature, it exists.
Not that I'd tell them this. If they want to find out, they'll have to either ruin the other ending, or come to this thread on their own, neither seem willing to come here. :smallamused:


They're not even optimized either, it's still a surprise when my Wizard player prepares Fly.


Beat that. :smallcool:

[RogueDM]

Misadventures in loot rolling: our party rogue decided to snipe a passing peasant walking the high road at night. I rolled for loot for a low CR encounter... to figure out what her sack of goods may be carrying. Rolled 10 platinum in her purse and a suit of plate armor. I let it go because it was funny... but from then on pre-determined loot.

Edit: Plate armor was in a large sack, not her purse.

Why my players hate me, however... probably a toss up between cursed magic items and traps. Some of my favorite traps included a number of moving blocks set off by a pressure plate. It dropped, pushed, or otherwise funneled most of the party members down different paths. This was done because half of the party was just letting the barbarian and rogue do all of the work... put an end to that!

Second favorite trap was segment of illusory floor covering a fifty foot deep pit, twenty feet of which was filled with water, and hidden in that water was a skeletal ogre. An easy Jump check could by-pass it, if you're aware of the illusion, or else its into the water where the ogre tries to drown you. Water is murky providing the baddie additional concealment. Resulted in a helpful NPC fatality and a lot of scrambling PCs.

... I love making them panic.

[JaronK]

My players still talk about how amazing my last campaign was, even though it was two years ago. They all started as Commoner 6s and were effectively NPCs trying to clean up after the messes PCs caused.

Okay, I guess I have different reasons for bragging than most.

JaronK

[Kuulvheysoon]

Alright, so the party is in an ice-themed dungeon. Frostfell monsters, Cold hazards, the works. Then they get to the "boss room". A 7-headed cryohydra and an Gloaming Sorceror. So they charge in, the DMM: Persist cleric leading the way, with the Swift Hunter following close in, along with the Duskblade.

Then they hit the floor. Which is a Shadow Evocation'd Wall of Ice. And walking on it definitely counts as interaction. The Cleric and Duskblade then fell down into the 60ft pit. While the poor Swift Hunter, who failed the save, was against the cryohydra and sorcerer.

My players? Not happy.

[CyberThread]

JaronK, you basically came into a place that was a support group for alcoholics and literately bragged " I am immune to the poison, so I just drink to be social "

[JaronK]

JaronK, you basically came into a place that was a support group for alcoholics and literately bragged " I am immune to the poison, so I just drink to be social "

Possibly, except it's a DM bragging zone, and I don't brag about pissing off players. I think it's... weird. Making your players challenged is good, but making them hate you? Less so.

But if it makes you feel any better, in that game I made them slaughter a demon possessed baby and then run away from an angry town, and then teach a Minotaur to woo a nice lady Minotaur. It was... a weird game.

JaronK

[SleepyShadow]

1) I run Tomb of Horrors.

2) Cthulhu is an allowed deity in my games.

3) Sky pirates.

4) The Drow Collection Agency periodically rounds up "renegade and rebel sympathizers" and often apologize to people for these captured drow giving the dark elves a "bad name".

5) The Adventurer's Mart is run by an elf with a southern drawl.

6) The players have become conditioned to fear the following names: Kobold Darius, Bandit Jesus, and Big Unit.

[Spuddles]

Oh boy, I gave both my players' characters a pair of Wish Stones, each. Little magic items that don't actually radiate any magic at all, but are capable of granting them a free use of the Spell, Wish. No matter their level.
They've used one for a Ring that allows the Druid to communicate with Animals, without having to prepare that Spell they're always forgetting to prepare.
Three remaining between them. Okay, so how could I possibly challenge them?

My players are having to fight four 17th level Clerics (they're fighting the first now) to prevent a god from awakening. My players are 11th level.

They're in a war zone, under the sea. At crushing depths they can only survive thanks to an armour suit that prevents the Druid's Tier 3 Class Ability. Magic (yes, ALL Magic) is more powerful here, which explains how they were able to hold off several hundred mundane warriors and a god who does little more than dribble bull****.

They're being hunted by a mildly nerfed Aspect of Atropus. No Negative Energy Aura or Call Meteor Shower... Everything else is active. Except Atropus' terrain features.

They're going to learn that some town they like is experiencing the effects of a Fimbulwinter. And if they don't take care of the source, things are going to come from the Frostfell and break stuff.

They're going to meet a Storm Singer. I'll be representing Control Winds with a sax loop of Careless Whisper, Winter's Ballad with the Go Compare song and Storm of Vengeance with Rick Astley.

And they'll have a choice, they can either follow the plot and get to see what happens, or they can blow up the universe and cause a time paradox which will force them out of the story and into another setting.

If they follow the story, they will end up in a desert encountering some badly made homebrew Saiyans (no flight for the Saiyans), Atropus will finally force them into a fight, I'll abuse the Fiend Folio and they will grow to hate the desert.

Then they'll head north, where they'll learn to hate the northern wastes, they'll encounter a Xixecal at the end, but not before I let them know that the Demons have won in their fight against the Devils and Druids.

Then they'll try to stop their good pal Gideon from performing it's duty. This is where all of their friends are going to show exactly how far they're willing to go to stop Gideon. One of the nicer ones will have an Epic Spell called Genocide. Think about that.

If they win, they get to fight in another war. And I'll learn which of them watched Power Rangers at a younger age. They'll also have to decide who their allegiances lie with.


Time Paradox would put them in every world to exist before their own world, simultaneously. Imagine a terrain feature, it exists.
Not that I'd tell them this. If they want to find out, they'll have to either ruin the other ending, or come to this thread on their own, neither seem willing to come here. :smallamused:


They're not even optimized either, it's still a surprise when my Wizard player prepares Fly.


Beat that. :smallcool:

The hate seems to run both ways.

[Threadnaught]

Okay, I guess I have different reasons for bragging than most.

For some reason, my players enjoy seeing their characters put up against overwhelming odds. I think they'd like to try one of the earlier editions, or even the Tomb of Horrors.

They don't realise how much they like the overwhelming odds until they overcome them mind, but they choose to go against them unprepared. :smallamused:


The hate seems to run both ways.

Well, I ordered both players to create Tier 1 characters and warned them that they'd eventually face gods. Who they may either be able to curbstomp, be forced to fight in a climactic duel, or have to run away from really fast.
I admit, I enjoy it when they're panicking, but I try to make everything as fair as possible on them.

[ArqArturo]

3) Sky pirates.

I am Sold.

[Kuulvheysoon]

3) Sky pirates.

Elemental skyship, Halruaan or otherwise?

[Averis Vol]

Currently my group of 5 5th level PC's went into a forest called the ghost woods in search of an army of orcs that have been harassing the local countryside. (This should tell you already that they aren't the brightest light bulbs, but they're good sports.) So they get four days in when they come upon a city built into a filled fissure in the land. They spend about, 4 hours coming up with a plan to get their attention because they think its a city full of orcs (they did no previous scouting to learn to the contrary) but when it got close to sun down, the work activity stopped, and everything was silent for about five minutes. When noise starts back up again, its an entire cities worth of voices chanting. So the party red shirts (The Swordsage and a Npc ranger/binder they convinced to join them) went to the lip to check it out, and saw that the city was funneling down an obsidian stairway in the middle of town.

So, instead of waiting til they walked down to investigate, my party thought it would be a good idea to have aforementioned red shirts hide in a tree, while the rest of the party stuck daylight onto a dagger and basically alerted the whole city to their location. So about, 10 minutes go by and two men come out of the forest. One a human decked out in black and crimson full with a large cold iron greatsword on his back, while the other was a smaller half elf with a simple pair of black and crimson robes.

Suffice to say, they were not orcs, they were in fact, Lycanthropes that had been pushing the orcs out of their territory and forcing them into human lands to pillage and find places to stay.

They spent the rest of the game trying to break out of their shackles after the other 8 were-folk came out of the forest with weapons drawn, demanding the PC's lay down their arms or get really, really hurt. The psion thankfully had a chain of good ideas that got them free, and now they want revenge, and their whole plan hinges on a chaotic evil blackblood cultist coming to their aid against a werewolf lord and his six generals.

Now they think they have to fight them, and they give me a look like I'm a bloodthirsty monster vying for a tpk.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Alright, so the party is in an ice-themed dungeon. Frostfell monsters, Cold hazards, the works. Then they get to the "boss room". A 7-headed cryohydra and an Gloaming Sorceror. So they charge in, the DMM: Persist cleric leading the way, with the Swift Hunter following close in, along with the Duskblade.

Then they hit the floor. Which is a Shadow Evocation'd Wall of Ice. And walking on it definitely counts as interaction. The Cleric and Duskblade then fell down into the 60ft pit. While the poor Swift Hunter, who failed the save, was against the cryohydra and sorcerer.

My players? Not happy.

That's pretty awesome actually. I wouldn't have been upset at a DM for this because it's really creative and sounds like a fun and dynamic encounter. What level were they btw?

[Kuulvheysoon]

That's pretty awesome actually. I wouldn't have been upset at a DM for this because it's really creative and sounds like a fun and dynamic encounter. What level were they btw?
They were all ECL 7 (this was the final encounter in the dungeon).

They weren't happy at first (after the falling damage), until the Cleric got off a lucky dispel magic and dispelled the "floor". Of course, the sorcerer got to stay up there.

Really, they enjoyed the encounter, but thought that the pit was "unnecessarily deep". That, and the floor blocked vision, so they had no idea what was happening to the swift hunter.

[Careless]

I let the dragonmarked Half-Orc Barbarian be named Big Pimpin'. He's currently personally responsible for the party surviving at least half their encounters (though they have only had like 4 combat encounters, and like 6 overall).

And he plays the character pretty seriously, in-game. Out of the game, its completely absurd, but in-game...

[Twilightwyrm]

Assasins with Sassone Leaf Poison. Against a party that lacks easy access to restoration, and without renewable sources of healing.

[Alabenson]

One of my favorite moments of DMing came after my players requested that I incorporate some puzzles into the game. I then threw together a scenario where the PCs had to sneak into a wizard's guild through a set of chambers designed to "test" potential applicants. The last chamber consisted of a large, imposing iron door apparently barred shut, with several levers nearby. Each time a lever was pulled, some of the bars would retract, while others would lock into place. The "solution" was that the door was actually designed so that the bars did nothing at all; all the players had to do was simply push the door open.
Cue ten minutes of frantically pulling levers before one of the players realizes what I'm doing, at which point I'm laughing my evil behind off.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Two of my players, a (viking-themed) Bard and a Monk (with perfect physical stats and all penalties in mental) wake up at the beginning of one session and find themselves naked in a field outside of town. Since they ended the last session getting soused with their new friends among the Elven community (read: bloodthirsty mob bosses), the whole proceedings had a Hangover feel.

They grab some clothes and remember that a troupe of actors partied with them and stole their clothes! So the Bard and the Monk go looking for them.

They find the actors wearing their clothes and armor during a performance. The Bard garrotes lassos the actor playing the Monk's top-half (he's very tall), and started strangling him while he kicked the other one half to death. He played it off as part of the show, but the crowd wasn't buying it and got ready to kill him in a spectacular explosion of mob violence.

The actor wearing the Bard's magic armor, meanwhile, beats feet. He's not stupid, and the players were becoming infamous for being the biggest b!!!!rds in town, as well as being legally classified as Collateral Damage Generators. The Monk gives chase, using his absurdly high jumping and grappling checks to try to pounce on the guy and apprehend him. And he keeps rolling 1's. Every single time. The Monk chases this poor guy down alleyways, across rooftops and eventually through the gathering crowds in the arena district.

And it's here that the Monk decided to try a new tact (dude was literally fuming by this point). He grabbed a nearby bucket of elephant **** and hurled it as hard as 20 strength will allow. The bucket sails through the air, and crashes directly into a gladiator wearing one of those basket-weave masks. And it goes everywhere. Now there's an actor ducking into a crowd, being chased by some sort of vengeful-jumping-hulk, being chased by a suite of very upset professional murderers.

The actor ducks into a crowd and hides. The Monk starts breaking heads as he dives into the crowd, tossing people around like he's wading through water. And finally, there he is!!! The Monk makes a good jump and grapple check, landing right on top of the hapless actor, and grabs him with both hands.

:smallfurious: Monk: I RIP HIM IN HALF!!!
:smallcool: Me (by reflex): Done!

Actor gets ripped in half, armor gets sundered and destroyed, Bard actually went, "Noooooooooooooo!"

And to draw our tale to a close, the Bard talked the crowd down, and then he (still mostly naked) met up with the Monk (entirely naked, as was his way) who was still carrying around the shredded, bloody armor, and together they defeated a small cadre of poo-covered gladiators. And then the players needed a lie-down. The fact that not a damn thing mentioned had been planned out still makes my players fear my improvisation sessions.

[CaladanMoonblad]

1) Cursed items occur fairly often in my games (one in every 3 or 4 hordes)

2) The Old Ones sleep in prisons crafted by the New Gods, but the current set of Gods are the New New Gods. There are signs of the prisons falling apart for apocalypse by Cthulu and Family. Fun times!

3) Books terrify my players. One player has cat ears and red eyes from two different tomes. Another book could only be opened in candlelight, and for 7 sessions a player kept trying the book in every instance possible without being able to open the book. When they asked a sorceress for help, she had a candle for reading in the room. It was a real let down, since it was a +2 (Geography) tome. I love Donjon's Random d20 Generators (http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/random/#magic_tome)!

4) Even I don't know what the weather is like in my game; I always consult Donjon's Random Weather Generator (http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/weather/).

5) Orcs and Goblins vary wildly. Some will be 1st level Warriors, others will be 6th level Rangers. I try to keep my PCs on their toes, and increase the level of orcs and gobboes in a barbarous area.

6) No Splat Books. My games are Core only, with a few case-by-case items from the Magic Item Compendium. I also disallow any spell to be bought above 5th level... the clerics are happy, but not so much the wizards.

7) My games end at approximately 13th-15th level. They're legends. My stories don't take anyone to godhood. My games also start at 1st level.

[lsfreak]

Travel Devotion/Pouncing Swift Ambushers with higher movespeed than the party could charge and high enough Hide checks that it wouldn't have mattered anyways. Hell, high enough Hide checks that thanks to HiPS, the party had a decent chance of not even seeing who was attacking them. Just charge in, full attack with sneak attack/skirmish dice, Travel Devotion away and out of range. I ended up looking at what I'd made, grinning madly... and toning it down a bit.

The world I'm about to start playing in with some new players is full of borderline-Lovecraftian Fair Folk. Give it time, I'm sure they'll hate me for one reason or another.

[S_Grey]

The last game I ran culminated with the allegedly BBEG, who had been killing and selling dragons and all of dragon kind for an untold amount of time, actually being the one who was preventing the dragons from bringing about the apocalypse. Of course they only figure this out after they've killed him.

He was basically Hitler and the dragons were the Jews, if the Jews were actually trying to destroy the world.


That and time travel. My players hate time travel.

[Thurbane]

By having a low(ish) level henchy of Strahd use an item of Wail of the Banshee against the party, instead of having it just lying around as treasure in the cypts as the module says (EtCR).

The party had been making serious inroads into Strahd's stronghold, so why wouldn't a genius-level immortal wizard make use of items instead of just leaving them lying around? :smallbiggrin:

[Jesterface]

I'm not so much one for screwing players over with stats. The closest I've come is in the oriental setting game I'm running at the moment, when faced with a Tainted Minion marksman, whose DR and Fast Healing meant the fight was brought to a standstill as he couldn't get away from the PCs and they couldn't drop him (cue him fleeing via a teleport trinket once they managed to disarm him of his rifle).

In the same game; I have managed to unsettle the players with the kinds of things I've pitted them against. Even before the game, I wrote each of them individual entries into the story, such as the river spiritfolk having a horrid dire eel swimming through his river and the vanara tattooed monk being attacked by an entire rice paddy of zombified farmers, just to set the tone of 'something is very very wrong'. The first village they encounter has been sacked, some of the villagers have become Tainted Ravers (totally insane, bordering on feral) and attacked and started cannibalising each other, while the children (yeah, I went there) were acting like a ravenous swarm. The next village was being attacked by elite undead who had stuck all the bodies onto the large tree in the village centre (á la 300). Then they faced a Voidmind Green Hag who was posing as a creature called a Kuchisake Onna (slit-faced woman) who prompted one of my players to have nightmares. This was followed, much later on, by another razed village, where oni (ogres lead by an ogre mage) had killed all the villagers, decapitated some of the bodies, severed their limbs and neutered them; then 'sealed' the bodies to ward off benevolent spirits... The rest they put into a giant grinder (with impossible/improbable mechanics) to turn into a slurry to ship back to the tainted waste the oni inhabit.

The worrying thing? The players keep coming back for more...

[Balor01]

After perhaps five sessions of COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT(where they OWNED everything I threw at them, including CR+4 monsters and groups), I gave my PCs three in-game days of boredom and nothing to do. Party is on the edge of In-party killing because two thirds of a PCs seemingly have problem with free time on their hands and go full retard when this happens. Also, most constructive, most optimized player is on a verge of a mental breakdown and/or going full TPK, him excluded.

The saying, "you are your own worst enemy" could not be more true at this point.

[SleepyShadow]

Elemental skyship, Halruaan or otherwise?

Dwarf engineered zepline with the living quarters attached to the bottom and a gun platform hanging below that. Breaching the balloon often proved dangerous as the one doing the breaching was usually in range of the blast radius.

[Perseus]

After perhaps five sessions of COMBAT COMBAT COMBAT(where they OWNED everything I threw at them, including CR+4 monsters and groups), I gave my PCs three in-game days of boredom and nothing to do. Party is on the edge of In-party killing because two thirds of a PCs seemingly have problem with free time on their hands and go full retard when this happens. Also, most constructive, most optimized player is on a verge of a mental breakdown and/or going full TPK, him excluded.

The saying, "you are your own worst enemy" could not be more true at this point.

Wait you made them sit at a session when you knew nothing would happen... Wtf?

If they had nothing to do then why even have the session at all? It sounds like you didn't even have some roleplaying lined up... Just downtime.

That is not something to brag about.

[gondrizzle]

My players seem to like me quite a lot, but there are a few events I will never live down.

1) I killed a 2nd level Sorcerer because the player wasn't paying attention and walked him off the edge of a 200-foot cliff. I doublechecked when the player said "east!"

2) If you are a 3rd-level Good Crusader, you should maybe think twice about grabbing the greatsword that radiates "blindingly powerful and DARK" magic from the plinth that is surrounded by warnings and corpses. It might just be a CE minor artifact with an Ego score that will win 399 times out of 400. On the plus side, the campaign got a new villain.

3) Hobgoblins are specified in the book as being essentially goblins with a warrior culture, so don't complain when they use heavily optimised tactics and end up making you flee for your lives.

4) If you are taking place in a heroic last stand against the evil empire, and don't avail yourself of any of the outs I give you, your bodies will NOT be retrievable. Last Stands are notable for being Last.

[RFLS]

Well...mine mostly hate me for my tendency to throw really cruel monsters at them. I'm currently running a PbP that's got ten players. Naturally, I designed an encounter with 10 level 6 players in mind, and, naturally, the party split. Two of them headed right for the encounter, which was three advanced Vaaths from BoVD. The Vaaths were underwater at the end of a mineshaft, and, well...it didn't go well for the players.

[darkelf]

the party needed to hire a ship, and came upon the Pequod at dock. the captain, a man named Ahab, offered them free passage in exchange for their helping him hunt down and kill his nemesis, Moby ****. okay, funny, right?

it turned out that Moby **** was a wight whale. twenty hit dice of level-draining leviathan of the deep.

[ArqArturo]

Ok, maybe this is not something for the 'this is why my players hate me' folder, but it's something my players have turned into a running gag, a mistake I once did in my early days as a DM:

Four (or five) words: Vorpal Warhammer of Returning.

[Threadnaught]

Wait, there's more shenanigans from when my players were lower level.

At level 2, I threw a Lemure against them. I'd given them a warning about Fiends earlier and they Wizard had mostly Ice and Fire Spells prepared. Druid didn't really try anything special either. They had to run as it was kicking their asses.

They've encountered a Kobold named Tucker. They're scared of him, even though he's friendly toward them.

They find a Human Skeleton Warrior with a +1 Great Axe. Druid is almost killed. Druid was level 2, Wizard was level 3. They said the encounter was too hard.

They later fought a few hundred homunculus which were swarming them in the same narrow under ground ruins. Wizard basically killed them all by setting a flaming sphere at a choke point that was their only exit.

A later encounter against just a couple of them allowed the players to see how killing one, causes the death of the other.

Five minutes after that, they're captured by a bunch of Liches and dragged in front of an Ancient Red Dragon. Whose Homunculus they just killed.

They were one attack away from stopping a Lich from becoming a threat, but the Wizard decided to buff himself instead. The Lich teleported.

Later they began hunting this Lich and came across an Adult Black Dragon giving tours in exchange for a contribution to it's hoard. They gave it most of their cash and it left them right outside the Lich's (then) current lair.

The Lich was Enervating a bunch of Commoners it had tied up, Druid thought it would be a good idea to release them all, despite hearing a scream from outside after the first one left.

The Lich also had Protection from Energy, Fire. Cast on itself to protect itself from their most damaging attacks and had Blur to protect itself from their physical attacks. That 20% miss chance really helps.

The Lich had resorted to beating them both with it's fists while laughing at them. After they destroyed it's body, the magical amulet that was on it's neck mocked them by implying it's phylactery was elsewhere.

They were absolutely pissed. They wanted to destroy this guy once and for all. They'd already seen and fought against him twice, no more. They wanted to get rid of him before I could fully enjoy the adventures I had planned for him. They found him in an underwater network of narrow tunnels and attempted to shake the amulet off him. "I just regenerated a finger, guess which one." Then they smashed the phylactery earning enough exp to level up to compensate for the potential exp they may have missed out on.

They met a 15th level Druid on the back of his Dire Tortoise AC in the middle of a field of large boulders. Wizard realises that's no boulder... Lightning Strike, then roll initiative. :smallamused:

NPC Druid fought in melee with a magical quarterstaff and rolled badly. Dire Tortoise was the real threat to my players. Eventually their enemy threw down his weapon and begun fighting with his fists, Wizard picked up the quarterstaff and has his own companion that levels with him.

They found a Drylich trapped in a pyramid and it demanded they give it water and declared they would free it. It attacked and they fought. After enough bad rolls, a natural 1 tangled the Drylich in it's own whip. The players left it alone after it demanded water and declared they'd free it for the 15th time. They were trying to reason with it before and during the fight. :smallamused:

They levelled up after that fight too, do to them not allowing the Drylich to become a recurring villain. I have mixed feelings when they break my planned adventures early.

They found a mostly abandoned military installation populated by a Demilich, a Barbed Devil and a few experiments that were locked away for the thousand or so years since it had been abandoned. Demilich let them in and asked them for help, Devil told them it planned on killing them and they let it go anyway and the experiments...

They went down a floor and found a Crawling Apocalypse, a dozen Dustblights and a Magic Laser Cannon/Giant Wand. Wizard decided to try using the Giant Wand on the abomination of an Octopus and was confused as to why I decided to roll percentage dice and changed the damage each time he fired. Penny dropped.

After realising the Giant Wand was unstable and could explode at any moment, Wizard fires again and the percentage dice roll explosion. It kills the Crawling Apocalypse and deals damage to Wizard, who jumps on the transformed Druid's back and they both jump down the nearby stairwell as the explosion causes rocks to fall all around them. That was an interesting session. :smallbiggrin:

They open a big door to see, the Aspect of Atropus all chained up and hear the voice of the Barbed Devil they met earlier. Barbed Devil releases Atropus on the players and it is programmed to kill them. They fly out of the stairwell as fast as possible leaving Atropus to dig it's way out.

Immediately after they leave, they notice a large rocky hill with a fortress at the top. The fortress appears to be mostly made up of the same substance of the hill, which starts moving. They're taken to the ruins of a large city and begin to explore a drainage system, which seems to be lined with blood. Blood which eats flesh. Flesh eating blood. They don't hang around here too long.

They end up running into a Chekryan nest while trying to find a part of the tunnels without any of the scary blood. After a short fight against one, they encounter some Asherati who they can't understand. The Asherati plant a few things around the nest and usher the players out, before throwing their torch into the trail of powder they made.

They're invited to follow the Asherati by going into some mountains and finding their way down to them, but encounter a Tarrasque. Which they flee from.

After teleporting to that town the like, they decide it's a good idea to head under the sea with their newly made Sahuagin buddy who takes them down to his city on the ocean floor. Druid's effectiveness in this place is a little lower due to an inability to use Wild Shape effectively.

They encounter the Kraken at the Grand Temple (of the Kraken) and it runs away from them. They decide they want a rest after this 15 minute work day and head back to the city, when over they radio system, they hear about the Kraken attacking a group of friendly Sahuagin at the Magma Temple and the Aspect of Atropus attacking both friendly and hostile Sahuagin at the Earth Temple. :smallamused:

They reach the Magma Temple and fight the Kraken again, the Kraken continues to lose against them, so it retreats to the Magma Temple and rests on top of it and over the next two rounds, activates the Temple's Power. A storm of Magma rushes from the sea bed all the way up to the surface of the water.

Players kill the Kraken before he can do it again, but he's already killed the Druid's temporary Animal Companion, a Huge Cockney Shark called Herbert. Also the Temple is activating again, without the Kraken manipulating it, the players and all Sahuagin avoid the blast, while the Kraken's body is incinerated.

The players then decide to go after the Aspect of Atropus, but then decide to run when they realize they don't stand a chance. :smallbiggrin:

And the first Cleric who they're currently fighting has spent most of the fight just holding them back until they waste all their Spells. Retreating at one point to heal. The other Clerics will be more prepared because their Holy Symbols are connected.

I have given them links to the Druid and Wizard handbooks to provide them with tips on how to get more out of their class. The Wizard player is slowly getting used to the class and learning which Spells they like to cast more.

The Druid player took to the optimization tips much better and demands to be able to build an invincible god... Without any thought as to how the other player would feel. And he constantly forgets which Spells he has prepared, is high enough level to cast, or are even on the Druid Spell List. He whines every time he takes damage or is attacked and the only time he ever decided to make use of Entangle, he reminded me to roll for it for everything it affected, every time a creature took an action, which unsurprisingly caused me to lose track of turn order and annoyed me.

There's a reason I call him "that ******* Druid" here.

[Noth]

My players were in an underground dungeon, and they were walking up a sloped floor, and every few feet there were acid traps that shot out acid if you came close to them.

After about 40 minutes of them dodging acid, getting burned, and figuring out clever ways to get around the acid, they got to the top. And a giant boulder drops down, Indiana jones style, and starts to roll at them.

They were running through the acid traps like they were kids with a sprinkler on a hot summer day.

[gondrizzle]

My players were in an underground dungeon, and they were walking up a sloped floor, and every few feet there were acid traps that shot out acid if you came close to them.

After about 40 minutes of them dodging acid, getting burned, and figuring out clever ways to get around the acid, they got to the top. And a giant boulder drops down, Indiana jones style, and starts to roll at them.

They were running through the acid traps like they were kids with a sprinkler on a hot summer day.

If they were walking up a slope dodging all of those, there should have been a pool of acid at the bottom by the time they got down there. Just for extra fun.

[Jeff the Green]

My players just completed the first encounter I made from whole cloth, and managed not to TPK!

Their characters are climbing Lysaga Hill in Barovia to find a holy symbol they believe will ward off the vampire count, and have the ill-fortune to be doing so the night of the new moon, when the witches gather for their perverse rites in a crumbling fortress atop the hill.

On the way up, they encounter the witches' watchdogs, four babaus and a witch (binder 8, Arete and Leraje bound) flying above. They go in to attack them, and the paladin is swept off his mount by a tree. Yep, the three trees on the side of the hill have come alive, and worse, music plays that fascinates them (as the bard ability, but only actually being threatened by an enemy snaps you out of it). They figure out fairly quickly that it's a haunting presence from Libris Mortis but decide to focus on killing the present danger. One of the babaus is throwing fire shurikens, but goes squish when the time mage teleports one of the trees on top of him. The witch falls after only getting two shots off thanks to the time mage teleporting her into the paladin's mount's fangs.

The babaus begin to fall too, but then the two remaining trees trample the party, and the time mage decides to start the ritual to get them unanimated. The presence manages to fascinate the swift hunter (with a +2 Will save) and suggest to her that the ritual will actually empower the presence. Mercifully the paladin's mount is able to trip her before she can stop him.

Finally the ritual is completed and the presence materializes, mercifully de-animating the trees. Less mercifully it (no revealed to be a spectral lyrist) appears adjacent to the time mage and, were it not for the time mage's ability to replace the presence's attack roll with a 1 he'd rolled previously, would have done 5 points of Charisma drain. To a character with 9 Charisma. With no ability to reverse it. :smallamused:

Thanks to my party's rather overpowered melee ability, the presence falls in one round, and the final babau the round after that.

So it was a success, I'd say. Very real danger, and (importantly) it forced the party to use up some vital resources before they go fight the rest of the witches (which will be an EL 14 encounter for six ECL 8 characters and an ECL 5 NPC). They were definitely scared by the danger.

I probably screwed up with the babaus, though. Only one character could reliably get through their DR and energy resistance, and that is the character that already is doing most of the damage and leaving the swift hunter in the dust a bit.

No, they don't hate me. But this is the bragging zone. :smalltongue:

[Trinoya]

"You go down 30 feet in the terrible darkness... unable to see, even with darkvision. Your vision is reduced to 5ft."

"You come upon a door."

"You see a fifteen foot, by fifteen foot, by fifteen foot room, with a door on each wall."


"You see a fifteen foot, by fifteen foot, by fifteen foot room, with a door on each wall."



"You see a fifteen foot, by fifteen foot, by fifteen foot room, with a door on each wall."




"You see a fifteen foot, by fifteen foot, by fifteen foot room, with a door on each wall."



"You see a hall way."

Players: FINALLY


"you walk forward about 30ft."

"you encounter a door."

"you open it up to reveal a fifteen by fifte-"

Players: DAMNIT!



The dungeon had doors that teleported players around, the teleporters would alter which door they sent you to. Sometimes they sent you to the 15ft rooms... sometimes the doors in the 15ft rooms sent you to other 15ft rooms..

And, if you were very lucky and navigated this terrible, horrible maze...

You'd get to one of a series of three doors.

That always opened up to a 15ft by 15ft, by 15ft room.

Players actually would turn around at the exit rather than risk 'the rooms!' again. :smallcool:

[Threadnaught]

The dungeon had doors that teleported players around, the teleporters would alter which door they sent you to. Sometimes they sent you to the 15ft rooms... sometimes the doors in the 15ft rooms sent you to other 15ft rooms..

And, if you were very lucky and navigated this terrible, horrible maze...

You'd get to one of a series of three doors.

That always opened up to a 15ft by 15ft, by 15ft room.

Players actually would turn around at the exit rather than risk 'the rooms!' again. :smallcool:

Can I steal this? I think my players'll enjoy trying to figure this one out. :smallamused:

[blelliot]

Four words: cave populated by kobolds:smallbiggrin:
The players were pulling their hair out by the end.then the endboss was a white dragon that used obscuring mist and project image to make them think he was in the mist, while he was actually ice walking on the frozen mountainside. They used a few of their big bangs on the illusion. Then for the piece de resistance, the two monks jumped on the dragons back. I responded with: the dragon flies up his full speed, straight up. " the next turn, the dragon did a rolling move and the monks couldn't hold on.

[Metahuman1]

The party knows they are being hunted by goblin swordsage mercenary (with whom they are actually friendly, but a job's a job, and he's a consummate professional). Eventually they are ambushed in a small valley by the goblin, his hulking hurler ogre, and 4 specially trained goblin chain trippers. Each round the ogre throws 1 tripper (who has a readied action to trip on landing), and the swordsage (who has a readied action to use a maneuver). The goblin's armor spikes are enchanted with the throwing and returning properties, returning him the ogre after his attack. So the trippers keep the party flat on their faces while the ogre throws the murder yo-yo. Probably would have led to a tpk, were it not for the party's swordsage using a shadow hand teleport to get to the ogre, and a setting sun throw to put him down on the bottom of a hill.

Could a hulking hurler who also had 4 lvls of bloodstorm blade and the throw anything, really throw anything and exotic weapons proficency: improvised weapon feats/abilits replicated this on anything that isn't wearing those armor spikes I wonder?

If so, I have a new build idea.

[Winds of Nagual]

I pitted my PCs (lvl 7) against 15 lvl 1 monks and 2 lvl 5 monks in a locked monastery. The catch - if a monk is killed, in d4 rounds is rises fully healed (stunning fists regained). Minimum damage pretty much killed a monk and standing caused a AoO that would drop him again. And they needed 20s to hit a PC. After 5 rounds, the gore created a large patch of difficult terrain. Soon the sheer number of attacks taken had their toll on everyone. Only way out was to get to retreat to a room that could be barricaded until dawn (when the monks would return to normal). To avoid a TPK, the PCs burned 9 stored up hero points.

Great encounter. DMing - a love hate sort of thing. :smallbiggrin:

[Deophaun]

Great encounter. DMing - a love hate sort of thing. :smallbiggrin:
Apparently "non-lethal" is not a term in your players' vocabulary. :smallamused:

[Averis Vol]

Apparently "non-lethal" is not a term in your players' vocabulary. :smallamused:

He did say they were PC's :smalltongue:

[GoodPilgrim]

Wait you made them sit at a session when you knew nothing would happen... Wtf?

If they had nothing to do then why even have the session at all? It sounds like you didn't even have some roleplaying lined up... Just downtime.

That is not something to brag about.

Actually, I think it was quite brilliant. If the players can easily beat everything, what about nothing? The roleplaying here would be even harder for the DM, because it imposes a great deal more improv. The players then set up what occurs, and the DM has to stay on his toes.

I don't really have anything to brag about as far as making my players hate me, except that in one level-15 campaign I deliberately set it up so that the three characters could eventually turn on each other, in that each has secrets the others know nothing about, resulting in ulterior motives, behind-the-curtain dealings, and terribly unique perspectives character-to-character. For example, the sorcadin character is a polymorphed nightmare creature, made so to infiltrate a paladin order to make converts, but inexplicably became more human on the material plane, so that he has two distinct personalities. Thus, the human side is desperate not to allow the nightmare side from taking control, avoiding combat with everything except the uttermost evil. The ex-pirate, however, is eager for battle, so when the illusion-based arcane magic of the sorcadin prevented them from entering direct combat, he got antsy and impatient with his companion.

[Trinoya]

Can I steal this? I think my players'll enjoy trying to figure this one out. :smallamused:

Go for it and have a blast! :smallwink:

[Azoth]

I only have a single word as to why my players hate me as a DM...Grimtooth

[Nettlekid]

See, I don't brag when I do things my players hate, I brag when I do things my players love. And I'm always really amused when I have quite a good plan, and my players tear it to pieces (with positive results for them.)

Something that I had a lot of fun with was when I had a group of Githyanki bandits ambush my party on Limbo. The battle went pretty easily at the start, with the enemy Ranger missing many shots and the enemy Fighter tumbling into a fiery pit. The real puzzle was an enemy Sorcerer, seemingly standing on the fire in the pit, blocking Scorching Rays but being hit by an arrow. As our Duskblade leaped at him, she was knocked by a powerful force and thrown to the side. The party was incredibly confused, until someone downed a potion of See Invisibility to deal with the Rogue and saw the invisible Red Dragon that the Sorcerer was standing on. It was a great reveal.

A good example of messing up my plans is when I had my group in the middle of a confrontation between a few rows of Formians and three Inevitables. They rightly decided that the Inevitables were a bigger threat, and did a very small amount of damage to each. Then the Rogue remembered that he had a Dragonsblood Elixir (from the above Red Dragon), downed it, and Breath Weaponed all three Inevitables. None made their Reflex saves, and all melted into a pool of sludge. I was disappointed that my minibosses were so easily thwomped, but everyone was psyched (since they were scared of those robots), and so it was good all around.

One case where I don't know who was trolling whom was in a one-shot pirate campaign, where they were told a story about a cursed doubloon leading to a lost treasure. Since it was a one-shot, I hadn't put much thought into this intro part, and the squid-headed ex-pirate (named Billy Boneless, but the group immediately dubbed him Squidbeard) literally tossed the doubloon in front of them. Had they picked it up, they would have seen telltale signs. But they decided it couldn't be THE doubloon, so instead they began planning how to question the city police as to where the pirate captain had been executed, and spoke with the town's mayor who had amassed a huge wealth (and the doubloon would likely have been collected among it). Needless to say, it was an exciting adventure in improvisation for me, since I had to make up everything regarding the mayor on the spot.

[Raendyn]

This thing has happened two times believe it or not.

Players messed with Klauth from FR. I didnt rly planned it, just mentioned him once. Then (since it was a sandboxed capaign rather tahn railraoded) they actively tried to find him and mess with his cult and bussiness completely ignoring the major plot, thus pissing me off. Klauth eventually appeared in human form many sessions later and they seemed so excited to fight the legendary Klauth, I did tell them that he is CR25 in the books and that they are lvl 13.... they continued. I had planned for him to ignore them in combat, do his bussiness and then talk to them and leave.

The humanoid in the fark cape was just walking around them and talking about his plan while they attacked repeatedly.(I told them that if anyone ever rolls a nat 20 then point it out or else dont bother me with they spells/attack)
BUT! A 20-20-20 appeared... !!!(yeah I was using this...) I told them that the caped man lies headless on the floor...
As I said this happened twice rly. but the 1st time they ALL died except the wizard that had no more spells (except one teleport)and he just attacked with the dagger he was holding, I rewarded him with a 2 lvls worth of XP, because you need Ballz to decide to follow the party in their deaths rather than saving your Ass. Ofc I claimed that this guys wasnt rly Klauth cause he is bussy dealing with gods rather than lowly bugs
They look at me and they start laughing and hug each other as if they won a gold medal... I stand up go to the bedroom and I announce that I will make a play of the Cinematic that happens there, they yell and scream in joy untill after 5-6 seconds of watching me play the cinematic IRL.

Used a deep voice and started clapping slowly and loudly, while getting arround the corner wearing a cape(in the cinematic the 2nd caped man came out of the wall, as if he had ised meld into stone). Then said "you are good, I am impressed!" they ask " who's that guy?" I just replied that his eyes seems like that of a serpent's, then a nonlethal substituted Wings of flurry took em all down. they woke up naked in a foreign Plane with 5 flasks in front of them, and a note.

"Drink this and you will live, obeying me.."
They hated me so much.... Then after drinking this (they all did) they suddenly were awaken as chosens of Tiamat with tons of bonuses (and +5 lvls)and a persisted mind control that would make then unable to ever attack or harm a chromatic dragon dirrectly or indirrectly ever again.

Suddenly they loved me again.:smallcool: