"This one time, in bandit camp..." Good times in D&D

[Deca4531]

I was bored so I figured I would start a thread for us to share some of our favorite moments playing D&D.

on one occasion I was in a party composed of two barbarians and a cleric, we were sent on a simple mission to clear some kobolds out of a farm. we find a small band of them hiding in the barn and proceed to start exterminating them, however during the battle a couple managed to escape and somehow found their way into the farmhouse. So me and my muscle bound barbarian charged the front door and was I'm ceremoniously knocked on my ass. We came to find that the entire house was fortified with triple thick walls and a steel door made to look like wood. After a lot of hacking and slashing we break through only to find even more kobolds, only these are very dead and very not staying dead. Only one of the kobolds who escaped was still alive and was cowering in the corner. throughout the fight, for no reason I can think of, I took a move action during each turn 2 further intimidate the living kobold who went from scared, to crying, to wetting himself and eventually passed out from fear.

during this battle I have to re-dead many an undead kobold with my great axe, until the fateful moment when a natural one appeared on my d20 and my great axe was stuck in 2 the thick wooden wall. Not wanting to take the time to dislodge it I pull out my long sword and proceed on my next turn to keep at the slaughter, only to roll yet another natural one. It seems this time that I managed to get the blade of my long sword stuck in the handle of my great axe. this forced me to take a turn to pull the great axe out off the wall, but now I had an odd situation so I asked my DM "if I hold the hilt of my sword and attempt to hit with it, with the great axe still stuck on the blade could I possibly hit with both weapons?" this idea was immeadetly shot down so I worked to separate the weapons and finished off the remaining undead. Now I'm left with one passed out kobold and no rope. I didn't want to kill him, though I don't know why, and lacking any rope I decided to use the intestines of his friends that I just murdered to tie him up.

so we leave the house, my bound and unconscious kobold slung over my shoulder, only to discover the farmer, who now reveals himself to be a necromancer who had lost control of his experiment, waiting for us and ready to kill. A short battle ensues and in the process our cleric gets beaten nearly to death. I attempt a heal check only to roll a natural one yet again "healee man hurt, me fix hurt, me beat hurt till hurt go away!" luckily i managed not to completely kill him and it was at this time that the kobold woke up. And as it turns out this little Kobold, after watching me kill his friends and family and many a death threat from myself, now sees me as his Savior. My DM declares that I have managed to cause Stockholm Syndrome in the poor creature and it is now devoted to me, even better he happens to have a higher intelligence score them both the barbarians combined and saves the cleric from certain death.

EDIT: just before the last battle began I asked my DM if I could use the intestine tied kobold like a flail, bit was told he was too soft and wouldn't do much damage. Oh well, it was sorth a shot.

[JeminiZero]

To Catch a Changeling
This is an Eberron 3.5 game. Names have been omitted to protect privacy:
-Cleric: A Binder / Cleric / Divine Anima Mage, using Dynamic Priest to be Cha focused.
-Changeling: A Changeling Rogue / Swordsage (for those unfamiliar with Eberron, Changelings are a race of shapeshifters who can disguise themselves at will)
-Beguiler: Gnome Beguiler, support caster
-Warblade: Warforged Warblade
-Halfling: A Talenta halfling swift hunter riding a dinosaur.

This game is from the Golden Dragon module, and at the very start, the PCs are gathered onboard an ultra-luxury airship, celebrating its maiden voyage with a party. The Cleric had been hired as a mercenary Guard. The Changeling had pretended to be someone else and snuck aboard. The Beguiler, Warblade and Halfling were proper official party guests. At this point, the characters did not know one another, and were not working together as such.

Most of the PCs were in the reception below deck, except for the Cleric who was stationed to guard the main deck (although the only PC up there, he was not alone, and there were a dozen NPC fellow guards as well). However, the Cleric also had Malphas bound (for those unfamiliar with ToM, this gives you a remote control raven, and you can also look through the raven's eyes making it an excellent scout). So Cleric sends his raven to fly around the ship exterior, looking out for trouble.

Cue trouble: A bunch of hobgoblin and minotaur hijackers crawl up from the cargo hold, sweep through the ship and quickly seize control of the lower decks. Along the way, they grab a bunch of random bystanders as hostages, and hold swords to their throats. As (mis-)fortune would have it, one of the bystander hostages was the Changeling (currently disguised as a half-elf).

The raven spots this, and transmits the situation to the Cleric. The Cleric informs the Guard chief of this, who orders the main deck be evacuated ASAP. By the time the Hijackers reach the deck, it has been cleared of civilians. Basically, the bulk of the guards were on the main deck, while the bulk of the hijackers were below, AND controlling the staircase down. Since there were hostages, the Guards were reluctant to act, so for the moment all they could do was stand-off/stare-down against the hijackers on Deck.

Now, doesn't all of this sound like a golden opportunity for some reckless PC behaviour...

The Changeling decides she doesn't like being held hostage, and tries to kick the Hobgoblin leader holding her (and misses horribly despite her opponent being flat-footed). This starts a fight below decks, and the hijackers start hacking up helpless party guests. The Cleric learns of this via his raven, and informs the Guard captain, who promptly decides minimize losses by storming the ship: Push the hijackers back down, and retake the lower decks, before too many squishy party guests are massacred.

Fortunately, all the other PCs were also below deck, and quickly join the fight. The Beguiler casts haste / slow / other, the Warblade swings into action, while the halfling... mostly kept his head low while wishing he had his dino with him (it was being kept in the cargo hold. No we do not allow dinosaurs to roam free in the buffet area). The hobgoblin leader is frustrated by this turn of events, and shouts an order for his co-conspirator in the engine room: "BLOW UP THE SHIP!".

The Changeling (still disguised as a half-elf) tries to salvage the situation, by doing a perfect imitation of the hobgoblin'a voice, and shouting "DON'T LISTEN! THAT WAS A CHANGELING, TRYING TO TRICK US!" (bluff check). The Cleric, although still fighting on the main deck, sees and hears EVERYTHING through his raven.

As the battle wears on, the Guards manage to retake the stairs and fight their way below deck. There, they meetup with the other PCs, who have been wounded, but the Changeling especially badly so. Upon seeing the other (wounded) PCs, the Cleric does what every helpful priest would for his party: He casts DMM persisted Mass Lesser Vigor on them, and they all heal up gradually.

The horde of Guards/PCs fight on and manage to retake the rest of the ship and stop the place from blowing up (although sadly, the co-conspirator who planted the bomb got away). They do so quickly enough such that there was only ONE civilian death (and several wounded, but they got better). At this point, the Captain of the Guard, orders the "half-elf" (Changeling in disguise) who started the fight to be taken in for questioning.

Of course, the Changeling won't have any of it, so she turns invisible (for 1 round, using a Swordsage maneuver) and runs into one of the rear passenger rooms. There, she changes her clothes, disguises her form into a Dragonborn, and pretends to be knocked out on the floor. When the NPC Guards sweep the ship, they find the Changeling (now disguised as a "Dragonborn"). They bring her up to main deck where everyone else is gathered, and she spins a tale on having been knocked out by a "Half-Elf" matching the description of the one that started the fight (bluff check). The "Half-Elf" culprit in question is, of course, nowhere to be seen, and it seemed that she had escaped...

Or had she?

I would like to note that this game was held online, and everybody could see each others sheets. The Cleric's player claimed he had some means of finding the Changeling, but the other players went through his sheet repeatedly and couldn't find anything (only level 3 spells, so none of the anti-shapechanger stuff yet like Sacred Item). And they were all wondering how he was going to pull it off (especially the Changeling's player :smallamused:).

If you want to try and guess the Cleric's method, this is your chance. Answer in spoiler.
Since his raven saw/heard her shout, the Cleric had in-character reason to suspect the Half-Elf was a Changeling. But lacking any anti-shapechanger spells, there was little he could do to find her, if she switched disguise... unless he could somehow mark her in a manner that would allow later detection, such as throwing out DMM Persisted Mass Lesser Vigor.

Basically, he was using a BUFF spell, to counter shapeshifting disguise. So up on deck, he casts Detect Magic and scans those gathered. He easily finds those he had previously cast Mass Lesser Vigor on, from the faint conjuration aura... and would you know it, this "Dragonborn" was pinging! :smallamused:

[Darkz0r]

To Catch a Changeling
This is an Eberron 3.5 game. Names have been omitted to protect privacy:
-Cleric: A Binder / Cleric / Divine Anima Mage, using Dynamic Priest to be Cha focused.
-Changeling: A Changeling Rogue / Swordsage (for those unfamiliar with Eberron, Changelings are a race of shapeshifters who can disguise themselves at will)
-Beguiler: Gnome Beguiler, support caster
-Warblade: Warforged Warblade
-Halfling: A Talenta halfling swift hunter riding a dinosaur.

This game is from the Golden Dragon module, and at the very start, the PCs are gathered onboard an ultra-luxury airship, celebrating its maiden voyage with a party. The Cleric had been hired as a mercenary Guard. The Changeling had pretended to be someone else and snuck aboard. The Beguiler, Warblade and Halfling were proper official party guests. At this point, the characters did not know one another, and were not working together as such.

Most of the PCs were in the reception below deck, except for the Cleric who was stationed to guard the main deck (although the only PC up there, he was not alone, and there were a dozen NPC fellow guards as well). However, the Cleric also had Malphas bound (for those unfamiliar with ToM, this gives you a remote control raven, and you can also look through the raven's eyes making it an excellent scout). So Cleric sends his raven to fly around the ship exterior, looking out for trouble.

Cue trouble: A bunch of hobgoblin and minotaur hijackers crawl up from the cargo hold, sweep through the ship and quickly seize control of the lower decks. Along the way, they grab a bunch of random bystanders as hostages, and hold swords to their throats. As (mis-)fortune would have it, one of the bystander hostages was the Changeling (currently disguised as a half-elf).

The raven spots this, and transmits the situation to the Cleric. The Cleric informs the Guard chief of this, who orders the main deck be evacuated ASAP. By the time the Hijackers reach the deck, it has been cleared of civilians. Basically, the bulk of the guards were on the main deck, while the bulk of the hijackers were below, AND controlling the staircase down. Since there were hostages, the Guards were reluctant to act, so for the moment all they could do was stand-off/stare-down against the hijackers on Deck.

Now, doesn't all of this sound like a golden opportunity for some reckless PC behaviour...

The Changeling decides she doesn't like being held hostage, and tries to kick the Hobgoblin leader holding her (and misses horribly despite her opponent being flat-footed). This starts a fight below decks, and the hijackers start hacking up helpless party guests. The Cleric learns of this via his raven, and informs the Guard captain, who promptly decides minimize losses by storming the ship: Push the hijackers back down, and retake the lower decks, before too many squishy party guests are massacred.

Fortunately, all the other PCs were also below deck, and quickly join the fight. The Beguiler casts haste / slow / other, the Warblade swings into action, while the halfling... mostly kept his head low while wishing he had his dino with him (it was being kept in the cargo hold. No we do not allow dinosaurs to roam free in the buffet area). The hobgoblin leader is frustrated by this turn of events, and shouts an order for his co-conspirator in the engine room: "BLOW UP THE SHIP!".

The Changeling (still disguised as a half-elf) tries to salvage the situation, by doing a perfect imitation of the hobgoblin'a voice, and shouting "DON'T LISTEN! THAT WAS A CHANGELING, TRYING TO TRICK US!" (bluff check). The Cleric, although still fighting on the main deck, sees and hears EVERYTHING through his raven.

As the battle wears on, the Guards manage to retake the stairs and fight their way below deck. There, they meetup with the other PCs, who have been wounded, but the Changeling especially badly so. Upon seeing the other (wounded) PCs, the Cleric does what every helpful priest would for his party: He casts DMM persisted Mass Lesser Vigor on them, and they all heal up gradually.

The horde of Guards/PCs fight on and manage to retake the rest of the ship and stop the place from blowing up (although sadly, the co-conspirator who planted the bomb got away). They do so quickly enough such that there was only ONE civilian death (and several wounded, but they got better). At this point, the Captain of the Guard, orders the "half-elf" (Changeling in disguise) who started the fight to be taken in for questioning.

Of course, the Changeling won't have any of it, so she turns invisible (for 1 round, using a Swordsage maneuver) and runs into one of the rear passenger rooms. There, she changes her clothes, disguises her form into a Dragonborn, and pretends to be knocked out on the floor. When the NPC Guards sweep the ship, they find the Changeling (now disguised as a "Dragonborn"). They bring her up to main deck where everyone else is gathered, and she spins a tale on having been knocked out by a "Half-Elf" matching the description of the one that started the fight (bluff check). The "Half-Elf" culprit in question is, of course, nowhere to be seen, and it seemed that she had escaped...

Or had she?

I would like to note that this game was held online, and everybody could see each others sheets. The Cleric's player claimed he had some means of finding the Changeling, but the other players went through his sheet repeatedly and couldn't find anything (only level 3 spells, so none of the anti-shapechanger stuff yet like Sacred Item). And they were all wondering how he was going to pull it off (especially the Changeling's player :smallamused:).

If you want to try and guess the Cleric's method, this is your chance. Answer in spoiler.
Since his raven saw/heard her shout, the Cleric had in-character reason to suspect the Half-Elf was a Changeling. But lacking any anti-shapechanger spells, there was little he could do to find her, if she switched disguise... unless he could somehow mark her in a manner that would allow later detection, such as throwing out DMM Persisted Mass Lesser Vigor.

Basically, he was using a BUFF spell, to counter shapeshifting disguise. So up on deck, he casts Detect Magic and scans those gathered. He easily finds those he had previously cast Mass Lesser Vigor on, from the faint conjuration aura... and would you know it, this "Dragonborn" was pinging! :smallamused:

Hahha, nicely done!!!

[Deca4531]

Lol I love it when you can start a game like that where the party is all strangers. That's a smart cleric too, I sure wouldn't have thought of that.

[Deca4531]

I remember on one occasion I was playing with someone who took the race from the dragon compendium where you are two people with one soul. He was playing a ninja class and somehow through skills and feats manage to get his movement speed up to some ridiculous amount.

During a battle he charge down a hallway towards a guard who was standing in front of a door blocking their way to the person they were sent to capture. Out of curiosity we started calculating what his movement speed was at a Sprint, which was what he was doing, and found he was traveling somewhere near 80 miles per hour. The DM ruled that the half of the character (meaning 1 of his 2 bodies) that actually hit him not only did it damage but blew a hole through the guard, instantly killing him. However he also managed to blow a hole right into the door and found himself knocked unconscious hanging half in and half out of the room we were trying to get into. The rest of the party and the other half of himself were busy fighting of other cards and could not render assistance. His unconscious half was literally one round away from having his throat slit by the person we were trying to capture.

4 those who don't know, with this race if 1 of your 2 bodies dies the other 1 dies as well.

[Linkavitch]

Party consisting of a half-orc barbarian with truly ridiculous stats, a human ranger(dual-wielding swords) a half-elf ranger (bow) another half-elf ranger (crossbow) and a gnome druid have a random encounter on the way to a city. We come across a family being attacked by several bad guys of various races and classes, and two unintelligent monsters I don't remember. (I think one was a large lizard and the other was a spider or insect of some sort.) Anyway, being a mostly good-aligned party, we assist them. The ground based villains were easy to beat, but there were several kobolds with crossbows in the trees that were proving difficult. Cue Krudak (the half-orc) decideing to jump up and grab the last one. Rolls a natural 1 on his jump check, instead rams the tree, at which point my DM rolls a bunch of dice and starts laughing hysterically. Turns out that Krudak running into the tree actually knocked it over flinging the last kobold across the clearing, where it died upon impact with a large rock. That's right. Krudak was so strong he managed to do exactly what he wanted on a crit fail.

[Deca4531]

This one comes from a friend.

"if I remember correctly, We were attacked by a Dire Wolf in the middle of the night. I as playing Wizzle the Sorcerer. A Nat 20 with an alchemist fire or Ray of Flame (cant remember). it allowed the fur on the animal to catch fire. We managed to climb the trees surrounding us. Wolves can climb if they roll high enough. With another Nat 20 on the climb check, the wolf was right next to our tank (who rolled a 2 and fell down to the ground). at this point we have a flamming Dire Wolf 30 feet up in a tree. The fire manages to kill the wolf, who obviously, looses his grip and plummets to the ground. Another % roll to see where he lands indicates that he lands right on top of our recently fallen dwarven escort (who still had one HP left until then)."

[Bulpski]

For the start of a new game our illustrious DM decided that he was going to run a low magic (magic use has been outlawed), lvl 8 capped game. To top it all off he decides that our random party is going to be arrested and stuck in jail for suspicion of magic use. The DM starts rolling to see which one of the six of us gains consciousness first.

Our poor half elf ranger wakes first. Dressed in a long, dirty tunic stuck spartan cell stone with mildewy straw bed and a bucket (toilet) with a wire handle. During her first couple hours awake (DM rolled to see if everyone would wake in 15 minute increments) its just her, so she does the only thing she can think of while she waits. She uses her piss bucket.

Once the rest of us wake up our rouge is able to remove the wire handle of his bucket to pick the lock of his cell then works on the cell of our fighter. We taunt the guard with dancing lights, only to discover there were 3 more guards we weren't aware of. The fighter knocks out the first guard with a lucky shot with his bucket then uses the wire handle to tie together the open cell doors of his and the rouge's cells, blocking us in the end of the block. We get the remainder of the cells open with the key and face the guards who have busted the bit of wire and are rushing us. With nothing else to do our ranger throws the contents of her bucket in the faces of the charging guards. Blinds one (ever got piss in your eye?) and we are able to fairly rapidly dispatch them all without too much more fuss.

[Sir Chuckles]

I once had a massive zombie/undead attack scenario. Big whopping fights, tons of randomly generated NPCs fighting in the streets for survival. Clerics of Kord having a field day. Giant evil pillar of necromantic power in the center of the city.

Lawful Evil Drow Rogue/Assassin climbs the pillar where I had placed a magic stone type deal. The goal was to get it, find out that it was crystallized blood, and use that clue to connect it to something else that I don't remember.

Said Drow takes the gem and eats it.
I was so floored that I ended up not coming up with anything good in terms of effects on him.

[TheNakedBatman]

It was my first ever D&D game, 2nd Edition Rescue of Princess Sylvia. Some seriously corny stuff. Played a peg-legged alcoholic wizard with a severe case of cowardice. We had found the evil wizard, I fled. My party was knocked unconscious and bound in spiderwebs. I crept in the back door, behind the evil wizard, and my DM was about to smite me. But instead of backstabbing the wizard, I went to the other side of the room, where the Princess was bound to a chair. I cut her ropes and handed her a butchers knife I had swiped from the kitchens earlier. She attacked the wizard, distracting him long enough for our fighter to awaken and break free of the webs, finishing the wizard off. Proudest moment ever.

[Albions_Angel]

In a world where magic items have not been craftable for 1000 years, where every magic item is lost, our 4th level party stumbles upon this tomb in the hunt for someone trying to take over the world. We have me, a 4th level human duskblade with Guisarme, a buiguiler, a barbarian focusing on unarmed combat, a paladin/cleric combo who was due to hit is stride next level, but had some good turning abilities thanks to a magic sword we found, and due to the lack of healing, a hired cleric for touch of healing, and pay-per-cast spells.

Well here we are, going through this tomb, encountering thing way above our level and running a lot (it became very obvious that we should mark this location and come back later). Come to the final (so we hope) junction and flip a coin. Left takes us the wrong way, to a burial chamber. No BBEG but there is, at the far end, a mummy, roughly level 9. Undead. So thats the barbarian that cant go in for fear of touch attacks making him very dry, and the beguiler that cant go in because, well, he cant do anything. The cleric isnt paid enough for combat. The paladin isnt a damage dealer. But my detect magic (at will, 5 times a day, seriously Duskblade is underrated) found a very, very magic great sword and a circlet with 2 different auras on it. Both on the mummy.

So there I am, stood on the threshold, wanting to get that sword. Party is turning around. Im about to follow, when the guy who is temporarily in control of the cleric (GM gave one of us control until combat when he took control mostly to ensure we didnt use him in combat) as a joke says one line:

"Bull strength for 60 gp."

Wrong.
Thing.
To.
Say.

I give the GM a nod, scratch off 60 gold, and to the shouts of the other players, I "tag in" with the GM, and my Duskblade sprints into the room. 1 move, channel Shocking Grasp, power attack for 4, 2 handed weapon, roll a nat 20 which is a critical on confirmation, roll 3 off max damage. Surprise round over. I take the time to power up (true strike), mummy (as I knew he would) gets up as a move, and 5 foots and draws the sword as a move. Party takes its round getting to me and powering up. Paladins buff goes up but armour slows him down, barbarian draws a bow and misses, beguiler runs and hides. My turn again. Power attack for 4, shocking grasp, roll a SECOND critical, which is, damage is astronomical. The mummy folds. Once the dust settles, there is me, guisarme in one hand, greatsword in the other. It feels fantastic. Well balanced, buzzing with magic, and as the paladin tells me, just about the most evil thing he has ever heard of. The circlet makes me smarter too, which I am happy with (also makes me see in the dark).

Party is livid. DM isnt all that happy. He was expecting me to die, or to run on low health after one round. Not single handedly kill a level 9 without taking any damage. But no one is actually saying anything, and they perk up when we do get to the BBEG and I smack him with the sword and cut right through his DR and drain his con.

That was a good day. Shame that was the last day we played that campaign (for other reasons). I miss my duskblade and his stupid damage output at low levels.

[Afgncaap5]

So, once our party received a very large amount of gold, and I had a handy bag of holding, so being new to D&D as I was and reading through the Arms & Equipment Guide to look for inspiration, I asked the DM if I could "buy chapter two."

I clarified that I wanted one of everything from chapter 2. He said as long as I could afford it, it was fine. So, at the next city, I purchased everything from the second chapter of that book.

A few months later, we reached a logging hut. When we neared it, we suddenly saw movement on the hills and, a quick spyglass check later, discovered that it was a surging collection of what the druid identified as Abyssal Spiders.

Having a bit before they arrived, I opened up my bag of holding and pulled out a beekeeper's outfit.

"Why do you have a beekeeper's outfit?" asked another player.

"Isn't that a dumb question to be asking now?" I said, quoting Dogbert.

The DM looked over the notes on his spiders. They weren't just "Fiendish Spiders", and he hadn't made them using a template that would change their type to Magical Beast, and the beekeeper's outfit's first line states that it "Prevents damage from ordinary
vermin of all kinds". "Ordinary" being up to the DM's interpretation, of course. (Arguably the later lines clarify a bit that it provides an AC bonus, but since that states that it's for "Fine creatures" my DM ruled that that was a different classification of creatures that would overlap, effectively giving a second reasonable use to the suit.)

Ultimately, the DM couldn't find anything about his spiders that marked them as "not normal" apart from the fact that they apparently thrive in the Abyss. While the rest of the party struggled for their lives against the spider swarm, I casually walked into the logging cabin, ignoring them crawling over me, and found a lever that, when activated, made the Spiders stop moving and get to work moving logs. Apparently they were part of the cabin's propulsion system, and had been enchanted. (I suppose this didn't make them "not normal" either, at least in any way that the DM thought applied.)

To this day, most parties in our gaming group have someone who at least considers a bee keeper's outfit. It's not come up again since then, but, well... kinda late to wish you had one once it comes up.

[Afgncaap5]

It was my first ever D&D game, 2nd Edition Rescue of Princess Sylvia. Some seriously corny stuff. Played a peg-legged alcoholic wizard with a severe case of cowardice. We had found the evil wizard, I fled. My party was knocked unconscious and bound in spiderwebs. I crept in the back door, behind the evil wizard, and my DM was about to smite me. But instead of backstabbing the wizard, I went to the other side of the room, where the Princess was bound to a chair. I cut her ropes and handed her a butchers knife I had swiped from the kitchens earlier. She attacked the wizard, distracting him long enough for our fighter to awaken and break free of the webs, finishing the wizard off. Proudest moment ever.

I've just gotta say that this is great. Getting the NPCs to fight is nice enough, but it's always fun to have a variation on a "save the princess" type story, especially one where the princess gets to have a vital role in the process.

[ekarney]

So a bit of background: I'm a sucker for encouraging my players ingenuity and creativity,which usually ends up in me letting them do things that aren't exactly in the rules. I also have this on player who's notorious for using every tiniest resource I give to him to its fullest extent. I'm quite proud of him actually. My other player is straight up maniacal.

Precursor: The two players sided with some Drow and Vrill to take down a Dekanter encampment. One of my players is basically a Cyborg Kobold Artificer, the other is a 6 foot tall Neanderthal with a Sugliin and a rifle dripping in black hallucinogenic gel from a previous session. They took the entire 40-50 force of of ECL 8 Dekanter Goblins down at level 5 by filling their underground encampment with acidic gas and using the gas pressure to power up their explosions. The goblins had 42 health, including their -10 they get when disabled. Between the explosions and acid they dealt a total of 50 damage in the area. the Neanderthal kept the blood and dust on him. They got 20,000xp from that at level 5. They're level 8 now.

Now the next session which is where this story really begins, I just wanted to point out that my players are nuts. So they're coming back into town with the Drow emissaries when the uncover an underground structure, they find out it used to be a safehouse for the local Drow of the area where their leader used to reside. Inside they find the place to be stripped bare, save for a black cloak and rusted dagger. The Neanderthal equips both and finds that nothing strange happens, continues into town. The meet with the head of the town, a dangerous Drow noblewoman who was exiled from Ched Nassad along with her guild of assassins, after Ched Nassad fell, these emissaries were sent to find her and reunite. They encounter said drow noblewoman, known as Melani who politely, yet firmly asks for the cape back. They comply.

They go around town trying to find out what the dagger does they find Melani's second in command, Azeron who's a powerful wizard he tells them that the dagger was originally used in a ritual to forcibly pull Lolth from the demonweb pits in which a hole in reality was torn. He also explains that the dagger has a potent curse in which it always returns to Melani's family and that giving them the dagger was a test to see if they'd return it, or if the dagger would cause them to end up in a ditch. My Neanderthal player who's usually quite collect, and analyzes almost every situation he's in to the point where his last character turned form a narcotics dealer into a merchant prince in less than a month and is now an important NPC, loudly exclaims "I roll to cut reality!" to which I was going to reply with "Yeah sure whatever hahaha". Except he hit. How do I know he hit? He rolled a natural 20. As a combat action. So instead of laughing it off as a joke, said player is now laughing manically so I says to him I says "You know I never do this, but in the meta, right now, I'm giving a choice, you can go ahead with this, and summon Lolth, the chaotic evil greater Deity from the demonweb pits, whilst you're level 8 or we can not do this." He takes a break from cackling like a madman and very seriously looks at the Kobold player and says "I do it, I summon Lolth." One more time I ask him "Are you absolutely sure you want to do this. Once you do there is no going back." He says "Yeah sure alright I do it, I summon Lolth" I even, had two Incantatrix's appear as a Dues Ex, something I'd never do just to give him a final chance, he denies.

Being a reactive DM who wasn't going to have anything Lolth related for at least 10 levels as part of the main plot had no idea what to do at this point and who doesn't really plan things, I was at a total loss for words. So I just straight up told them that Lolth in her half-spider form exits the portal, calmly takes the dagger, murders the Incantatrix's and leaves. I also noted that the woman part of Lolth was Melani. The bit about Melani being Lolth was intended. but summoning her? Nuh-uh.

I spent the next week trying to rethink my plot and how to salvage that.

I know, I know a good DM should have had Lolth kill them right then and there but I was just so shocked.

[TheifofZ]

Bit of backstory to this one:
I was still fairly new to D&D at the time, and it was my first time playing a necromancer, a dread necromancer in this case. 3rd caster I'd ever played. I'd named him Chalky as a nickname that he always used, because of his sickly complexion. (Con was well under 10)
I barely knew about half the cheese in the game back then, so the most impressive choices for power I'd made were Sudden Extend and Corpsecrafter feats.
But the shenanigans I got up to that campaign...
So about halfway through level 10 we were going through a chain of volcanic islands to stop a group of cultists from opening a portal to the 9 hells, and along the way I had single handedly killed a giant crab (Gargantuan Sized) with Bestow Curse to nuke it's wisdom and then Phantasmal Killer, cleared off the walls of a small fortress with a ride-by of Magic Jar while on a zombie Wyvern, and gotten my hands on a young adult Red Dragon corpse that could, due to the sheer strength steroid I was giving my undead, carry around my giant zombie crab.
Those two, I'll fondly remember for years to come... but the highlight of it all was the amusing debacle that later came to be known as sheepbomb.

By that point, the Fighter had been getting on the DM's nerves for awhile because he'd been acting like a pompous jerk out of game, all because he'd gotten some good gear. So we scale a giant cliff and I'd refused to let the party get an easy ride up on my undead, so the others all struggle to get up. Once they do, it turns out that there's a Rust Monster right near the Fighter guy, and initiative goes off. Fighter guy loses his armor, and the bug runs off to eat it's meal. But we're not about to let that EXP go, oh no. We chase after it, and catch up just as it finishes eating the huge mess of rust, and round two begins. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the squishy sorcerer who had been, up to that point, more amusing than actually helpful decides that now is the one time in the entire campaign he's going to be impressive, and polymorphs the Rust Monster into a sheep.
The Gm looks at him, looks at the books, and promptly says "well. The sheep has a giant ball of rust inside it, so it dies pretty much instantly. And because it was the Polymorph spell that killed it, it doesn't revert." So now there's this sad sheep corpse in the middle of the backend of nowhere on a giant cliff, and I'm a necromancer that knows we're about to do some dungeon delving, and I fully expect horrible traps. So I animate it. "2 HD zombie sheep for trap-checking purposes," I say. "It's gonna do crap all if it runs into monsters or cultists" I say. And the goofy sorcerer guy gets this faraway look in his eyes and says "I've got this guys." and then he says "I've got Explosive Runes. I cast that on the side of the zombie sheep, big flashy letters that read 'I prepared Explosive Runes this morning'."
Ironically, the DM hadn't prepared traps in that dungeon. None at all. So we decided we'd cart the zombie sheep around because it was funny, figuring it might come in handy later.
But no matter what devious devices I sent it into, it always survived. Every trap, every giant monster, one amusing fall off a cliff... nothing managed to deal the roughly 35 damage that was needed to destroy the thing, so we ended up carting it around the entire campaign.
At the very end of the campaign, we're desperately defending the room with a giant portal in it, keeping the cultists out so that the ritual they were using would fail, and I send the sheep out of the room to catch a few of them off guard, I'd hoped. None of them read it though, which was completely disappointing.
The zombie sheep with Explosive runes on the side survived everything the campaign threw at the party and made it to the very end without ever detonating, which was both a little sad and downright hilarious.
Honestly, toward the end, I was thinking of it as a lucky charm because of the sheer amount of amazingly unlikely rolls that happened when it was targeted. After the first 10, the GM was even rolling them in the open just so we could watch.

[Vaz]

There can't be a thread. Like this without Old Man Henderson. Oi'm on phone so linking is hard perhaps someone could do the honours?

[TheifofZ]

While I would normally hesitate to agree, as I doubt any of the players who took part in that campaign are here, or that most of them are still sane, in this case... I will link Old Man Henderson's story.

It's a legend from our circles, after all. http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Old_Man_Henderson

[zergling.exe]

How do people find threads from 2013? Darn it Google, stop!

[TheifofZ]

Holy crud, you're right.
I didn't even notice, and I guess the guy who revived it didn't, either.
Quick, everyone out of the thread!

[Inevitability]

*Jumps through a window*

[Sagetim]

So, this one time at bandit camp....

We were in a semi low magic game, the DM for it just hates vancian casting, especially in 3.5 (which is what we were playing). This was the campaign that I finally wore him down into letting me run a psionic character in. But, since none of us could take levels of full casting classes like cleric, wizard, druid, etc the same was true for psionics, so no psion, wilder, ardent, etc. Especially no Erudite. In fact, he was so wary about psionics (because of admitted laziness of not wanting to bother to read any of the rules at all for it) that I couldn't run a psychic warrior either. So Jack the Soulknife was born. I started him out knowing that I wanted to go into Soulbow, and the DM had hinted that it was going to be an undead heavy campaign (but that no one was allowed to start with a specifically undead killing build, so no one started as a paladin for example). So I knew Illumine Soul was going to join into the mix of this build.

Well, cut to a while later, we've gone from level 3 to level 6, and I have my first level of Illumine Soul and just got the feat Up The Walls. I've been using it to screw around mostly, running on walls to attack people all fancy like, and occasionally throwing my mindblade charged with a psychic strike and expending my focus for psionic shot. Because of a houserule, Jack's mindblades are mind axes (the dm later regretted the large form being a great axe and brought it down to a d10 axe, but it was still fun). This happened before that nerf though. We were on a battlefield (for whatever reason) and there were some anchoring point wizards on the other end of some kind of bull**** magical fortress. The rogue in party decided she was going to scout ahead...and then proceeded to take entirely too long because she decided to interpret scout ahead as 'commando assassin mission alone'. Eventually I and everyone else got tired of waiting, so when I spotted the wizard that the thief was sneaking through the fort to get through with the power of...seeing him through a window in a tower...I decided I was going to go murder him the fast way. Using a run action, Jack sprinted his way across the battlefield and up the tower and into the window. This is when combat started, and initiative was rolled. I won, the rogue was shortly behind me (and had just managed to finish lockpicking the door to that room) and the wizard came in last in initiative. My first action was, of course, to throw my mind great axe at him and pop psionic shot. I can't recall if it was a crit, or just really really high damage against a really really squishy target, but the end result was that the rogue managed to open the door in time to see a mind axe go end over end into the wizard and explode him to death. Being a load bearing wizard, the nearby wall fell and the army we were fighting alongside of rushed to meet the enemy forces. The DM had not been expecting that (neither the quickness of the fight, nor anyone being able to back the rogue up...and given how she was betraying the party on numerous occasions, he probably expected her to take a bribe or cut a deal or something).


So, later on in that same campaign (whose premise was that Nerull, the God of Death had wound up in the Festering Pit of Fu Leng and gotten the hell tainted out of him...and thus decided to invade the prime with undead). We came upon a small village full of simple little 2 HD zombies. I mean, they might have been corpse crafted or whatever, but the important parts to us were that the town was fully intact...it just had a bunch of zombies in it. The DM was execting us to take a long time to clear it out...probably long enough for other wandering things to come attack us while we tried to clear the town out or something. And there were an awful lot of zombies, he might have expected us to just give up and move on. But instead we used a rope, a flying carpet that the party's duskblade had invested in, and my character. Jack got tied up nice and secure to the Duskblade (Pherredin) and dangled off the flying carpet while Pherredin cruised slowly around town. During this slow cruise, Jack used psychic meditation and the capstone of the Illumine Soul to burst 10d6 damage (will for half) in a point blank aoe of 30ft. Sure, it took like...an afternoon to clear the city...but we cleared the city in only an afternoon. We funneled refugees there, got a dryad to set it up nice by letting her blanket the place in natural growth, and later on left our protege npcs there (none of us took leadership, but we all wound up acquiring npcs that our characters trained during the course of the campaign into a B Team). Much later in the campaign, we had spent significant time away from the town and came back to find that it was thriving. The defenses and defenders we had set up in the place made it the single safest place in the campaign's equivalent to europe. I imagine there were some safer places in the campaign's version of Rokugan...but, to be fair, that setting has people who specialize in fighting taint.


Edit: Wait, what? Thread Necromancy? Ahhhhh! *starts spamming Illumine Soul bursts*