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View Full Version : Crazy and inventive uses of the enviornment.



Meynolds
2006-12-31, 11:43 PM
Have any stories to tell?

Just tonight I was playing a game with Druid_lord and two other friends and some interesting events occurred. We're playing the WotC "Matters of Vengeance" campaign and one of my friends threw the party wizard... and hit! The wizard came out swinging and killed the shade.:smallbiggrin:

Later on he used a mercenary body.

By the way, what is the critical range of a body?
And would strength or dex determine attack bonus?

JaronK
2006-12-31, 11:46 PM
Ranged: Dex. Crit: 20/X2. Improvised weapons, yo.

I'm a big fan of stealing the environment. If your GM puts up some ludicrously expensive thing (like giant adamantium doors in your way or super complex unpickable locks) just shrink item it and carry it away... it'll sell for a ton!

JaronK

Indoril
2006-12-31, 11:47 PM
I would say a thrown body would count, in terms of crit range anyways, as a 'natural' weapon. Meaning it's critical is 20/X2.

If the body is swung it's a melee attack. If it's heaved, it's a ranged attack.

As for crazy inventive uses of the environment, I had placed in a ruin of an ancient palace a door to the old throne room that was made of iron. This door was encrusted with throusands of precious gems and stones; diamonds, rubies, opals, emeralds, jade, you name it. The worth of the gems was well over 50gp each (one of the PC's noticed this with a moderate appraise check, he was trying to determine the relative wealth of the old kingdom. It basically worked out to the door being worth roughly 500,000 gp in gems).
Our asanine druid was scanning through her spell list at the time. The other PC's were busying themselves about the room, disarming traps and uncovering secrets and I think they killed an Iron Golem. After about 5 minutes of silence she comes out with "AHA! I know what I'm going to do!" She askes all the PCs to stand a goodly distance away from her, goes to the door, and casts transmute metal to wood. The iron door encrusted with 500,000gp worth of gems was now made of wood. She set the door ablaze, collected the gems from the ashes and put them in her Portable Hole. Rather contented with herself, she left the other PC's in the dungeon and went back to town, and bought more powerful gear than any 15th level druid should ever, ever have.

Beleriphon
2006-12-31, 11:49 PM
Dwarf. Booze. Tower. Kobolds. Mattresses. Mix well. Result: falling, flaming mattresses. I think that covers the concept well enough.

Little_Rudo
2007-01-01, 03:09 AM
In one PBP game I'm in, our characters were holed up in an inn as the town was attacked by bugbears. All the doors and windows on the bottom floor were barricaded, and the front porch was weakened by a wagon that had crashed into it earlier. As several bugbears approached the front door and tried to bash it down, a swashbuckler and two archers (all PCs) were watching upstairs. One realized how bad of shape the porch was in, and they dropped an armoire through the window, onto the porch ceiling... it did enough damage that the whole roof of the porch collapsed, killing all of the bugbears below it.

Hey, when you're level one characters and outnumbered more than two to one, you need to do whatever you can to make it!

pita
2007-01-01, 05:32 AM
A friend of mine used a wizard (killed a goblin and reduced the wizard to -8), As a changeling I did an action movie stunt by bursting through a door, and having a shard hit a goblin between the eyes.
Ahh, the joys of getting a critical hit out of a closet.

Dervag
2007-01-01, 09:01 AM
I'm a big fan of stealing the environment. If your GM puts up some ludicrously expensive thing (like giant adamantium doors in your way or super complex unpickable locks) just shrink item it and carry it away... it'll sell for a ton!Ah, yes, the standard PC approach to the 100 lb. diamond.


After about 5 minutes of silence she comes out with "AHA! I know what I'm going to do!" She askes all the PCs to stand a goodly distance away from her, goes to the door, and casts transmute metal to wood. The iron door encrusted with 500,000gp worth of gems was now made of wood. She set the door ablaze, collected the gems from the ashes and put them in her Portable Hole. Rather contented with herself, she left the other PC's in the dungeon and went back to town, and bought more powerful gear than any 15th level druid should ever, ever have.That shouldn't have worked very well. Fire actually damages a lot of gemstones; she'd lose a large fraction of the value of the door in the process.


...it did enough damage that the whole roof of the porch collapsed, killing all of the bugbears below it.

Hey, when you're level one characters and outnumbered more than two to one, you need to do whatever you can to make it!And if it involves dropping a house or portion thereof on your enemies, all the better.:smallbiggrin:

Ali
2007-01-01, 09:12 AM
In the next session we arrange, the players in my game will finish an intense battle with their arch nemesis and his hired mercenaries on a large but rickety bridge above lava. There is probably going to be a lot of bull-rushing and grappling!

Important battles should always be set in an interesting environment, I say.

blackout
2007-01-01, 09:45 AM
Naturally. Makes the battles seem a bit more important. :) One time, my group entered a village that the surrounding towns haven't recieved word from for the last couple of months. Turns out that it was completely overrun with a Necromancer and his zombie/skeleton minions. We barricaded ourselves in the town's inn, and when the zombies broke through that, we fell back to the second floor, barricaded that. This kept on until we reached the fifth floor, and then we all started throwing stuff like beds and other things out the window, to keep the zombies on the outside from getting inside intact.
Not much of a story, but it works. Luckily, we got out of this ok...more or less.

Thrawn183
2007-01-01, 11:21 AM
I used dispel magic to crash an entire floating fortress/prison. It was kind of like destroying all of the environment at once. Though we got to come back later...

blackout
2007-01-01, 12:09 PM
Dude, you destroyed an entire fortress with Dispel Magic? Awesome! >:)

Spasticteapot
2007-01-01, 03:52 PM
Casting Grease on both sides of the keystone in a large arc...and then Mage Hand.

"So, how much damage does a 200 lb. stone block falling from ten feet do?

Ali
2007-01-01, 05:56 PM
Heh heh, nice zombie battle there, blackout.

"Luckily, we got out of this ok...more or less."

How did you manage it? Did it involve another crazy and inventive use of the enviornment? *Grins.*

bosssmiley
2007-01-01, 06:05 PM
I'm a big fan of stealing the environment.

My kind of player!


Casting Grease on both sides of the keystone in a large arc...and then Mage Hand.

"So, how much damage does a 200 lb. stone block falling from ten feet do?

*GM slap!*
Mage hand has a 5lb weight limit. You should have used telekinesis, one of the mage's fondling hand spells or a burly friend to shift the block. Crazy kids! :smalltongue:

Then again I can't talk. To swashbuckler/pulp players the entire gaming environment is nothing but improvised weapons. Some recent GM calls:

"What's the DC to dodge a speeding wagonload of burning kegs?"
"Can I lunge and slip the line holding up the boom as a single action?"
"How much damage would dropping a large table on someone from 3 storeys up cause? And if I set it on fire first?"
"Will bottling the guy in the head with a lamp cause a Concentration check? And if I set the oil on fire first?"
"What's the Str check DC to slam the gate on his head?"
"Caltrops don't counter-act grease do they?"
"While he's bragging about how he has us exactly where he wants us I'll bullrush him into his own brute squad."
"But why is spamming defenestrating sphere tasteless?"
"Why do you think the monk in "Monkey" was called trip attacker?"
"I have the Throw Ally feat you know..."
and worst of all:
"DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!" :smalleek:

blackout
2007-01-01, 06:12 PM
Heh heh, nice zombie battle there, blackout.
"Luckily, we got out of this ok...more or less."
How did you manage it? Did it involve another crazy and inventive use of the enviornment? *Grins.*


Well, the party wizard had some serious fire-power at his disposal. He kept refusing to use his magic early on, despite the reprisal(and begging)from the rest of the party. He kept on hanging back, and sending his familiar into the fight despite the fact that we could've won earlier with more assistance from him. The fight progressed with us firing ranged weapons out of the windows of the inn, trying to pick off the zombies one-by-one before they broke through the barricade, and whenever they broke through, we fell back to the next floor. We kept this up until we got to the fifth floor, at which point we proceeded with the 'throw stuff out the window and hope it helps in the long run' tactic. Finally, our wizard decides to hit the zombies with everything he has when several of us are, quite literally, back up against a wall, and brings down the entire damn zombie horde, and accidentally causes some serious damage to the party cleric. We commenced with the usual thwappage penalty(ie, everyone hit the player that played the wizard once on the back of the head) for holding back the big guns for so long. Then we left the inn, in the hopes of getting to a better hideout. On the way to the smithy(an ideal choice, as it probably had some decent hardware in it, and maybe even something to sell.) the necromancer that lead the undead army showed up, and...well, yeah. With everyone in the condition that they were, we ran. We ran. We ran like freakin crazy, left the village, and then proceeded to camp in the woods. Needless to say, everyone was very mad at the end of this little escapade. No loot, minimal XP(zombies really ain't worth much.). So, yeah. Not the best results from a contract that was meant to simply be "go here and find out what happened."

Closet_Skeleton
2007-01-01, 06:17 PM
A party in my d20 modern game managed to take down an two enemy Blackhawk helecopters. Since you have to deal twice it's hp in damage to completely destroy a vehicle I decided that being reduced to 0 hp probably meant it would crash so I rolled a Warhammer scatter die.

The first helecopter crashed into some oil drilling equipment, taking out half the floating industrial facility and sending the cyborgs that didn't immediately die into the water. Their cybernetics made them too heavy to swim.

Ali
2007-01-01, 06:24 PM
Heh heh.

Wizards tend to be overly reluctant to use their spells I suppose, because they know when their spells run out it is usually over. What they forget is, they have the rest of the party to look out for 'em.

Nice tale though, blackout.

blackout
2007-01-01, 06:38 PM
Nice tale though, blackout.
Lemme know if ya wanna know more, I got plenty. :)

Spasticteapot
2007-01-01, 07:43 PM
*GM slap!*
Mage hand has a 5lb weight limit. You should have used telekinesis, one of the mage's fondling hand spells or a burly friend to shift the block. Crazy kids! :smalltongue:

1. This was in 2e.

2. I'm prettty sure we just had a tall PC push the block originally.

The_Werebear
2007-01-01, 08:16 PM
When I was DMing, I had a group of bandits shooting at the party from across a gully the had filled with spikes. The party druid summoned a fire elemental on their side of the ravine and had it throw them into their own pit.

My party was facing a kobold sorcerer in his study filled with knicknacks and curios. They killed him in the end by shoving a display case full of random junk over on him.

The same party used a rod of wonder to turn a second of stone ethereal, then shove someone in it until it came back

Stormcrow
2007-01-01, 09:11 PM
My party had orders to chase off a small half-elven community so they convinced the mayor to have a parade and even payed out of their own pockets to build some floats to be paraded through the market square. Looked great for tourism so the mayor was keen.

Long story short. Powder Kegs, Mixed with Caltrops, Exploding Floats, Mass Death, Town Gone.

blackout
2007-01-01, 10:50 PM
Long story short. Powder Kegs, Mixed with Caltrops, Exploding Floats, Mass Death, Town Gone.
...Lemme guess, serious points in the evil department?

Stormcrow
2007-01-01, 11:43 PM
Ah huh, they ARE pirates though so it was a matter of time.

Deathcow
2007-01-02, 12:05 AM
My party had orders to chase off a small half-elven community so they convinced the mayor to have a parade and even payed out of their own pockets to build some floats to be paraded through the market square. Looked great for tourism so the mayor was keen.

Long story short. Powder Kegs, Mixed with Caltrops, Exploding Floats, Mass Death, Town Gone.

Nice. The opening scene of Swordfish is playing in my head from reading that.

Also, I have a fighter/monk gestalt character in a piratey-type game who's favorite tactic is bullrushing people off the sides of boats.

Simius
2007-01-02, 08:02 AM
I'll try to describe a little scene I once set up as a DM a long time ago.

I ran a campaign for an evil party and one of them, a hexblade, wanted to take levels in the Warrior of Darkness PrC from the BoVD. To do so, he first needed to collect a number of rare books on dark magic.

After arriving in a certain big city, he went to library but found nothing. To gain access to the section with rare and magical books, he had to do a little side-quest for the librarian, a very powerful but naïve wizard. (yes, it's cliché, I know)

They had to get some special kind of holy water from a forgotten temple, which took them ages to get. When they finally brought the bottle with the water to the librarian, he told them he had laid his hands on a Book of Vile Darkness (minor artifact described in the DMG) and he needed the holy water in a ritual to destroy it. As an additional reward, the hexblade was allowed to attend the ritual. So we had this situation:

1 wizard's tower room with:
1 magically protected Book of Vile Darkness
+ 100 openly exposed magical items and potions including:

-beads of force (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#beadofForce)
-potions of fly
-a lot of other nasty things I can't remember1 hole in the ceiling to let the moonlight through
1 evil Hexblade trying to steal the artifact
1 naïve level 20 wizard
1 iron golem guarding the exit

Well, you can imagine the result. The character escaped with the Book using a potion of fly and some other things to distract the wizard. He took his PrC level, but sadly the party had to flee the city from law enforcement.

blackout
2007-01-02, 11:25 AM
but sadly the party had to flee the city from law enforcement.
Dude, STORY OF MY PARTY'S LIVES. We're humanoids, y'see. Ogres, Kobolds, that sorta thing. So, naturally we get run out of town alot more often than other parties might. We cause trouble, occasionally, but otherwise, we just step inside the city limits, and we start getting attacked by the town guards. The towns that are a bit more tolerant though...well, usually, if we get run out, it's a little something like THIS.
Kobold Wizard: Hey, guys, I'm gonna go blow up the local smithy.
Minotaur Barbarian/Fighter: If you do, I swear to god, I will hurt you.
Kobold Wizard: Ok, seeya later.

I swear, my party's wizard NEVER DOES HIS JOB and ALWAYS CAUSES TROUBLE.

Ali
2007-01-02, 12:01 PM
HAHAHA!

Humanoids are decent. Much better then drow... sadly I cannot seem to get hold of any information on Ibixians...

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:05 PM
Still, it's a party of eight easily excitable humanoid mercenaries, from various races and walks of life. Barrel full of fun.

Ali
2007-01-02, 12:07 PM
Heh... I predict that one day that kobold will find himself impaled on the minotaur's right horn.

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:09 PM
Well, the Minotaur happens to be me, so your little prediction might come true soon. >:)

Ali
2007-01-02, 12:12 PM
What alignment is your minotaur? And the kobold? I'm guessing the kobold is chaotic evil or something...

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:14 PM
Kobold's Chaotic Neutral. My Minotaur's Chaotic Good.

Ali
2007-01-02, 12:18 PM
And did the kobold ever end up blowing up the local smithy, despite your warning?

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:21 PM
Nah. He got dragged back by the town guard before he could do anything.
Guard: Does this belong to you?*holds up Kobold*
Kobold: *waves*
Me: Yes, it does, thank you officer.*takes Kobold*
*commence thwappage*

Ali
2007-01-02, 12:27 PM
HA! What a humorous pair.

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:36 PM
You should see the rest of my party. We're all wackjobs. We got a goblin ranger, a goblin rogue, a Kobold wizard(with whom you are familiar), a Minotaur barbarian/fighter(me), an orc fighter, a hill-giant SORCERER(of all things, it had to be SORCERER.), a hobgoblin cleric, and a kobold druid. Odd, no?

blackout
2007-01-02, 12:46 PM
The hobgoblin used to be an ogre barbarian, the kobold druid used to be a troll paladin(freaky, eh?), and the Goblin rogue used to be a sorcerer. They got killed though.

Ali
2007-01-02, 01:00 PM
By the gods!

Very peculiar. Especially the giant... wow. Sorcerer.

And a troll paladin? No wonder he died... heh, I can just imagine that.

Troll paladin: Here, it is safe now.
Innocent: Thanks for saving us, sir! You have certainly proved trolls can be good. I would be happy t- *Gets eaten by the troll.*
Troll paladin: No gold is neccesary sir, you have payed me with your flesh. *Belch.*

Artanis
2007-01-02, 01:02 PM
In one DnD campaign, the party ended up burning down three buildings in four sessions, including a police station. I felt kinda sorry for the DM.

More recently, in the Exalted campaign I'm in, the Circle was in a floating city and we had to get out to get to our Manta. Only problem was that there was a huge traffic jam keeping us from getting to the bridges to the mainland. After a few minutes of thinking, I realized that if the city was floating, then it had to have a bottom...and my character had Spider-Foot Style. The ST had not expected me to simply walk under the traffic to go get the Manta and pick up the others.

blackout
2007-01-02, 01:13 PM
By the gods!

Very peculiar. Especially the giant... wow. Sorcerer.

And a troll paladin? No wonder he died... heh, I can just imagine that.

Troll paladin: Here, it is safe now.
Innocent: Thanks for saving us, sir! You have certainly proved trolls can be good. I would be happy t- *Gets eaten by the troll.*
Troll paladin: No gold is neccesary sir, you have payed me with your flesh. *Belch.*
Well, he was a vegetarian, so situations like that were usually avoided. People screamed when they saw him anyways, but they got used to him...usually. Other times, we got run out of town because he always ate the gardens of the townspeople. He got killed by a pair of Red Dragon Wyrmlings back when we were all level 3. Alas, we will miss you, good Sir Braak...Oh, what's that you say? You are coming back? A kobold druid you say? Oh, the DM is being kind and letting you level up to level 3 to keep up with the party, and you get to keep your gold? Ok, then. No harm no foul. :smallsmile:

blackout
2007-01-02, 01:15 PM
In one DnD campaign, the party ended up burning down three buildings in four sessions, including a police station. I felt kinda sorry for the DM.

More recently, in the Exalted campaign I'm in, the Circle was in a floating city and we had to get out to get to our Manta. Only problem was that there was a huge traffic jam keeping us from getting to the bridges to the mainland. After a few minutes of thinking, I realized that if the city was floating, then it had to have a bottom...and my character had Spider-Foot Style. The ST had not expected me to simply walk under the traffic to go get the Manta and pick up the others.
Quick questions from a Forgotten Realms-only guy.
What's a Manta? What's Exalted? :)

Ali
2007-01-02, 01:27 PM
Poor Sir Braak.

All he wanted to do was help out in return for someone's garden.

blackout
2007-01-02, 01:30 PM
Ah, well. He was a paladin. Paladins like dying for the greater good. Still, our Kobold wizard is rediculously mischievous. He's not evil, and he doesn't like killing people, but he likes explosions, and fireworks. He's sort of a pyromaniac. I'd like Braak back so he could keep him in line.

Diggorian
2007-01-02, 02:34 PM
The first D&D adventure I ran had a battle take place in an ancient mile high elven tower a mile and a quarter underground. The structure was a hollow cylinder 60ft wide with logs 15ft long coming perpendicularly out of the walls, forming a spiraling staircase to the top. A mile high column of magically cool blue fire pulsed up the center lighting the whole thing.

Half way up the PC's stepped on an ancient glyph trap. They spotted a blood red light from beneath coming up the fire column. After 3 rounds of tension, it reached their level bursting like an enlarged fireball spell and released a flame elemental onto the now burning wooden steps ... half a mile up.

Ali
2007-01-02, 02:44 PM
Very cool setting, there.

CrazedGoblin
2007-01-02, 02:54 PM
Well, he was a vegetarian, so situations like that were usually avoided. People screamed when they saw him anyways, but they got used to him...usually. Other times, we got run out of town because he always ate the gardens of the townspeople. He got killed by a pair of Red Dragon Wyrmlings back when we were all level 3. Alas, we will miss you, good Sir Braak...Oh, what's that you say? You are coming back? A kobold druid you say? Oh, the DM is being kind and letting you level up to level 3 to keep up with the party, and you get to keep your gold? Ok, then. No harm no foul. :smallsmile:

Vegetarian troll paladin!!!! LOL!!!

Artanis
2007-01-02, 03:00 PM
Quick questions from a Forgotten Realms-only guy.
What's a Manta? What's Exalted? :)
Exalted is an RPG made by White Wolf, and a Manta is an artifact airship in it.

Diggorian
2007-01-02, 04:14 PM
Very cool setting, there.

Thanks. Dont recall how, but they beat it with no casualties, but bad burns. :smallamused:

Skyserpent
2007-01-03, 05:02 AM
How did this one go?

Okay... we were in a badguy evil demon cult base on an island port.
We snuck in relatively unnoticed. I was a Greatsword Wielding Monk/Paladin and my buddy was an Fighter who focused on Archery.

We went in and ended up at the door to their armory after beating the crap out of a couple of guys. We manage to hear a few voices inside, at least four badguys. So I decide to have some fun. First thing I do is I check how the door opens. Out, okay odd but that works. I prop two stolen swords on the opposite sides, jammed into the walls. Now the Door is pretty much stuck. Then we knock. They try and open and realize they're stuck. Great. They start slamming against the door to bust it open. All together. then I decide... you know what? They're all focused and jamming at regular intervals as per-usual for trying to bust down a door so I Jam my Greatsword through the door. Wound one or two, I didn't know. I then pulled out the braces now that they had stopped slamming the door. And I instructed my buddy to jimmy out the hinges... And I proceeded to jam the swords into the door and use them as handles on my brand new battering ram, and run forward slamming the two guys down and the door falls over in front of me. I'm then charged by the remaining two guys. One of 'em steps onto the fallen door to attack me and the other gets shot in the head by the archer. I decide to jump off of the old tool and kick it in, thus tripping our fellow as I announce the next step of our plan. "Run!"
We book it around a corner and grab a chapel bench (Did I mention it was a cult?) And used that as a more effective battering ram against the other guy in the narrow hallway. He goes down.

Next door. I knock, no answer. I open, guy with a sword stabs me in the shoulder. I ask the DM if he's wearing a Locked Gauntlet (I like disarming) He says yes. I then proceed to close the door. Catching his arm and propping my foot up to keep him from getting free. I then proceed to chop at his arm with my sword. I finish him off not a round later and then we go inside to find a sleeping Worg. I close the door again and decide not to disturb it. We then move out into the main central hall as they prepare a sermon or something. We, as normal adventurers proceed to light things on fire. After realizing we could not reasonably take on 50 guys at level 4 we book it back the way we came. I swing open the Worg door and throw two daggers and a cultist robe at 'em. Whilst my buddy starts some smokesticks. The Worg takes the bait and takes the scent of the cultists as it's attackers and it runs out to maul them. We ran all the way back to the harbor and found haven on our ship.

We would later return to find the Worg dead, alongside a few dozen cultists and we would mop up the remainder in the next session. All in all, a Jackie Chan worthy effort if I do say so myself.

ClericofPhwarrr
2007-01-03, 06:31 PM
We would later return to find the Worg dead, alongside a few dozen cultists and we would mop up the remainder in the next session. All in all, a Jackie Chan worthy effort if I do say so myself.

Very nice. I love the "Why fight harder, when you can fight smarter?" method.

Ravyn
2007-01-03, 07:17 PM
Let's see...

There was one time a couple of my players decided to use the environment to their advantage... the first hit on the BBEG was performed with a nearby pillar, and he was finished off with shards of his own door. Another one had a rather memorable incident involving throwing a drugged, soggy waffle... Then there was the time one of them toppled a pile of empty crates onto himself.

...and in a different game, beat up a demon we probably shouldn't've had a chance against with its own scythes.

I'm actually usually the one who comes up with crazy ways to use the environment; I had a character once who beat up a weak demon with plant-based material--and then tried to top it by chasing off an incoming army with utensils. Unarmed? What's unarmed?