Awesome things your DMs have done

[Eonas]

We've got all sorts of nightmare stories about really horrible DMs (which are entertaining in their own right), but I've seen very few tellings of really fantastic DM deeds. Why doesn't everybody tell a story or two about a DM that absolutely rocked? Or, at least, a DM that did something that rocked.

I'll start.

It was my second time playing D&D. I'd made a fighter who was really more of a mundane paladin. Quixotic, honor obsessed (where honor == the amount of stuff you kill), and actually rather annoying.

The DM was being a bit of a socially-inept jerk, frankly. I won't go into detail because this isn't the right thread, but one of his things was railroading us to a quest we reaaally didn't want to participate in. My character (and I) wanted to fight the evil tyrant king, capture bases, take out military outposts, lead a rebellion. Instead, he personally gave my character (specifically, my character, not any of the others - I still wonder why) a demigod baby to protect. :smallfurious: With hindsight, I see big possibilities for character development, but back then our group was all about the badass.

Finally, I decided to quit (real life issues + the game was about as fun as watching paint dry). I walked up to the DM in person and told him I was leaving and wanted my character to die with a bang next session. He basically answered that it would probably have to do with a sidequest, and I expected the worst: a totally anticlimactic, boring character death. Next session, we enter the king's castle to save the demigod baby which the king is going to sacrifice. And, to my surprise, the DM actually lets my character kill the king. The remainder of the session featured my character leading the party out of the castle, the most exciting and edge-of-your-seat scene of the whole game. Finally, we get to the gate and the DM sets up an encounter so that the only way the party can survive is by sacrificing himself.

It was the most surprisingly satisfying conclusion to the most unsatisfying game, ever. My character, normally a self-centered honor-obsessed jerk, gets to die in a completely heroic way, after having done the task given him (save the baby) and done the deed he most wanted to do (kill the king). And I got to play a really fun climactic encounter out of the deal, too.

Anyway, I thought that was awesome. It'd have been a great ending in any circumstances, but in such a horrific campaign, it was made triply so. Almost as if Steven Spielberg got to make the conclusion to Batman and Robin.


So, what's your Awesome DM story?

[The Random NPC]

Wasn't me, but here are the SilverClawShift Campaign Archives (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116836).

[DustyBottoms]

Mine was recent - after over a year, our campaign was drawing to its conclusion, and during a fight with a black dragon that colossally out-powered our party, my fighter/marshal stood in front of the dragon as it came crashing into the ground with great speed (one of the other characters critted a hole in its wing) I rolled a natural 20 on my attack, a 20 on the confirmation, and the DM rolled for what the crit would be behind the screen. My Dwarven ancestor weapon explodes in a fireball of light, killing myself and the dragon.

Soon after, the rest of the party is shifted into the place in between all planes where the universe gets recycled (homebrew universe design, cool stuff) and I find out that my character's consciousness is observing this because he has transcended the mortal plane and has started the path to becoming a demigod. The rest of the players finish the campaign a couple hours later, fixing the universe while my character watches from semi-oout-of-existence.

Needless to say, I'm now trying to make a cleric worshipping my previous character for our new campaign. :smallbiggrin:

[Slipperychicken]

My brother GM'd a Dungeon World one-shot for me last night.


The session started innocently enough, my character (and his hireling) woke up in his tent, felt a draft and a flake of snow hitting him... There were holes in the top of the tent. He crawled out of the tent, to see that he was on top of a snowy mountain, in a blizzard, near a bunch of giant eggs, bones, and other debris.

A giant eagle had picked up his tent in the middle of the night, and carried it all the way to its mountaintop nest without waking up the PC inside.

[Reinkai]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels.

The downside is that for the first 8 or so levels, doing so would attract the attention of shadow creatures, who would proceed to wreck everything around.

By the end I was a level 48 ardent/fighter/I'm not even sure what else, my Desert eagle was inflicting negative levels on it's 12-20 crits, and could turn me into an ancient shadow dragon. Oh, and I believe we killed a sleeping god.

[Eonas]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels.

The downside is that for the first 8 or so levels, doing so would attract the attention of shadow creatures, who would proceed to wreck everything around.

By the end I was a level 48 ardent/fighter/I'm not even sure what else, my Desert eagle was inflicting negative levels on it's 12-20 crits, and could turn me into an ancient shadow dragon. Oh, and I believe we killed a sleeping god.

Wow, how long did this campaign last? I assume it was played with the D&D 3.5 system?

[Reinkai]

Yup, 3.5 and lasted roughly two years. Towards the end we were fighting things that gave so much exp that we would basically get a few levels a session. One of my friends had two short swords as his chosen weapon. He ended up adding more and more swords coming out of his back via chains. He finished the campaign with something like 124 attacks a round. We had to use online dice rollers just to calculate damage.

Most of us didn't have a strong grasp on the system, so we didn't break the world with well optimized characters or overpowered spells. Though a few of us were manifesting epic psionic powers.

[Diarmuid]

The single most enjoyable session of D&D I've ever played was one where the DM had set our group up chasing down some macguffins from a prophecy which led us to track down an artist who was known to have had some of "the fortelling". Well the artist was dead, but we found his last painting.

The DM had drawn it out on some paper and as a group we pored over the thing brainstorming what the symbolism meant and comparing it with the information we'd gathered up to that point.

The drawing itself wasnt terribly impressive, as he wasnt an artist himself but the meaning of the clouds in one area and their number corresponding to a few lins in our prophecy and the mountain range's peaks all pointing at groups of things and using the order they were in to help figure out a code we needed.

All in all, there were something liek 13-14 clues hidden in the painting and all the players had an amazing time brainstorming things and figuring out which things actually had meaning, or which were just red herrings. It was amazing and didnt involve rolling a single die.

I realise that wont sound all that great to some, and I certainly enjoy epic battles myself, but our group had really come together toward this goal and everyone was able to contribute and the sense of accomplishment when we were done was palpable.

[Kaveman26]

In a zone where no summoning spells could reach out from the area we were hired by hound archons to kill an abyssal greater basilisk. Our party wizard balked at this task seeing as how hound archons are immune to petrifaction.

As we set out to fulfill the quest he prepared several shared lightning bolt spells via runesmith. As we approached the basilisk's lair our wizard attempted to summon a hound archon. Our dm allowed him to not summon one from outside the region, but instead from within. So we ended up summoning the guys that sent us on the quest and had them do the job they hired us for.

As icing when we started lightning bolting the basilisk like crazed people our wizard reminded us the hound archons were immune to electricity so they wouldn't mind. Great improvisation for odd situation. And it was hilarious.

[winter92]

My DM has a delightful outlook on flaws. He runs medium-op games mostly, and doesn't love flaws as a way to make impossible builds. If you can do it naturally he'll take it, but he (I think rightly) doesn't like listed flaws.

Instead of banning flaws, he makes his own. You can take one flaw, and he'll offer you one thing. Reject it, you get one more offer. Reject that, and nothing. Suggest something great and he might take it. The best flaw he's ever offered? A severe allergy to external water. Damage per round in the rain, and death in several rounds following immersion.

[Reinkai]

In our Kingmaker campaign we came across a drunken CE giant, one who we were clearly supposed to kill. I ended up greeting him in giant, being super friendly, and then got a nat 20 on my diplomacy check for a total of 44. My DM decided that he was now a friend and a scout for our kingdom. We send a courier down with ale once a month for him.

In our Council of Thieves campaign someone summoned a barbed devil to kill our party. He managed to track us down, and we ended up in a tavern having a very pleasant conversation with him over a cup of tea (completely impromptu). We named him Barbados Slim after the Futurama character.

We have a habit of giving names and back stories to completely inconsequential NPCs.

[Crake]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels.

The downside is that for the first 8 or so levels, doing so would attract the attention of shadow creatures, who would proceed to wreck everything around.

By the end I was a level 48 ardent/fighter/I'm not even sure what else, my Desert eagle was inflicting negative levels on it's 12-20 crits, and could turn me into an ancient shadow dragon. Oh, and I believe we killed a sleeping god.

level 48 in two years? damn, in my current longest running game, we've also been playing for about 2 years, but we're only level 13

[Reinkai]

level 48 in two years? damn, in my current longest running game, we've also been playing for about 2 years, but we're only level 13

College is great, lol. It has since taken us two years just to finish Council of Thieves at 13.

[pwykersotz]

level 48 in two years? damn, in my current longest running game, we've also been playing for about 2 years, but we're only level 13

My group generally hits about level 30 in two years.

[Eonas]

My group generally hits about level 30 in two years.

"Generally"? Does that imply a plural? Sheesh. I hardly have the stamina to take a character to level 6.

[Immabozo]

"Generally"? Does that imply a plural? Sheesh. I hardly have the stamina to take a character to level 6.

One of the groups I play with start at level 5, the DM's reasoning? It's a level before you can take a PrC (or most of them) and you are'nt a fragile twig that will snag if the wind blows too hard

[pwykersotz]

"Generally"? Does that imply a plural? Sheesh. I hardly have the stamina to take a character to level 6.

Yeah. In that group I have a level 33, a level 34, and a smattering of lower level characters. Then I run 4 regular games (at least twice a month) on top of that. I started playing in 2009. I might be an addict...

[Slipperychicken]

One of the groups I play with start at level 5, the DM's reasoning? It's a level before you can take a PrC (or most of them) and you are'nt a fragile twig that will snag if the wind blows too hard

It's a good idea if you want your characters to survive for any length of time, or if you want them curbstomping dozens of mooks right off the bat.

[Immabozo]

It's a good idea if you want your characters to survive for any length of time, or if you want them curbstomping dozens of mooks right off the bat.

Well, the DM that does this likes to TRY to kill one player per session. levels 5 through 8 are more like most people's experience of 1 through 5, except our deaths are slower are more painful.

EDIT: and more frequent

Although the x4 nat 20 crit that rolled max damage and killed my wildshaped druid in one round, hurt a lot, and it was very, very fast

[Trinoya]

Once had a DM personalize an entire race for me so that my character could become a plot device in his campaign. It was extremely extremely awesome while it lasted, if a bit sad in its conclusion. Another player apparently had extreme issues with the character and ultimately requested I not play it anymore... I declined as this player consistently and repeatedly would request of other players to not play their characters.

It did not end well shortly afterwards, ultimately a few demands from the player to know 'everything' about my character, to both me and the DM ensued (both in and out of character) and shortly there after that chapter ended with a near total TPK (me and one other PC survived, I switched sides, the other PC was abandoned by the other two party members, which resulted in her survival ironically).

In spite of that, it remains so awesome that the DM would do that for me that it can't tarnish how great it was. At the end of the day getting to be an actual plot device was pretty awesome, and getting to add something to the lore of the game world as a player beyond simply my actions was pretty cool as well.

Best of all it allowed me to play multiple builds that I otherwise wouldn't touch to keep a party effective, and that was a treat.

[LordBiscuit]

Once had a DM personalize an entire race for me so that my character could become a plot device in his campaign. It was extremely extremely awesome while it lasted, if a bit sad in its conclusion. Another player apparently had extreme issues with the character and ultimately requested I not play it anymore... I declined as this player consistently and repeatedly would request of other players to not play their characters.

It did not end well shortly afterwards, ultimately a few demands from the player to know 'everything' about my character, to both me and the DM ensued (both in and out of character) and shortly there after that chapter ended with a near total TPK (me and one other PC survived, I switched sides, the other PC was abandoned by the other two party members, which resulted in her survival ironically).

In spite of that, it remains so awesome that the DM would do that for me that it can't tarnish how great it was. At the end of the day getting to be an actual plot device was pretty awesome, and getting to add something to the lore of the game world as a player beyond simply my actions was pretty cool as well.

Best of all it allowed me to play multiple builds that I otherwise wouldn't touch to keep a party effective, and that was a treat.

Just curious, but what race were you playing as?

And ehhh, we have rules for players like that too. It's called "get out", or banhammer. XD


I'm trying to rememember, so this might go back some time. But my favourate campiagn moments...

Star Wars D20 system in a Old Republic War styled campiagn, which featured...

A Jedi going through the dark turning
A War Droid left behind from the Hyperdrive Wars that the PC's brought, named Claptrap
A pair of Mysterious PC characters controlled by a close associate of the GM, known simply by their code names J and Eve.
A drunkard, who's first action on joining the party was waving around the Jedi's dismembered arm.

:

There was a PC called J that he would use as a plot device. At one point, when the Mandolorians were invading Tattoine, seeing no quick way of getting out, he promptly shown us to a weapon armory that was exclusive to his company, with the phrase

"Take everything you want, we have pretty much every weapon here and it would be ashame for it to be captured."

"Everything?"

"Everything"

I can't remember who got what exactly, but I ended up two flame throwers, a heavy one that did 5D6 in a gigantic Cone, and a smaller one at 3D6. Needless to say they ended up as claptraps staple weapons from the rest of the campiagn.

When he inevitably followed his masters into the Old Galatric Empire (don't ask, we somehow managed to kill both Revin and Malek) he became the closest thing to Vader famious for his planet wide purgings in flame.


In our old 3.5 campiagn, our DM adopted an approch that "you can do anything you want, as long as your willing to live with the approiate consquences." Like, one time the Barbiarian, prompted into a rage by the party Rogue (who frankly, just wanted to watch people die to the frenzed bezerker.) during a public excution by hanging. In his fury, he charged up the stage, beheaded the criminal and savaged the falling body with a fury of blows. A moment of silence passed as the DM held silence, before he roared into a cheer.

We also had our own airship and priate ship, though again PC dispoancy ruined that campiagn.

[Saambell]

Most of the awesome stuff for me happens because of a rules misreading.

Multiclassing was weird at one point, PrC are a bonous after the first level in it, so a Mystic Thurge gained (as happened for me) 2 wizard levels and a cleric level.

Just recently, he brought up the idea that since an attack was a standard action and a full attack was 2 attacks then that meant they gained a second Standard Action. since my sorcerer had a second attack he had 2 standard actions. Then He cast Haste, which since it gave a bonus attack, guess what.

He did however say he suspected it was wrong, and would look it up after. So I would just call it a thought experiment on just why it does not work like that. It only took place in a filler fight to introduce two new characters, so its not like it was a game ruiner.

All in all I am enjoying playing with him and the group.

[Captnq]

Nothing.

I never get to play, so no DM has ever done anything awesome for me.


FOREVER
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130205014445/thehungergames/images/thumb/5/5c/Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png/473px-Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png
DMing

[Urpriest]

I had to leave a Pathfinder group in the middle of a dungeon, as I was moving away and the dungeon was a huge "if you teleport out you can't get back in" situation. That day, I had begun by using Elemental Swarm, of which only the biggest (a Greater Earth Elemental) was allowed to accompany us into the dungeon.

Later, I ran into someone from the group. He told me that the DM had decided that, when my character left, the elemental stayed behind, deciding not to return when the spell's duration ran out. He ended up gaining levels in Time Thief, along with a PF feat that counteracts the size penalty for hiding. The end result is that my former summoned creature is now the party's MVP, a giant sneaky chunk of rock. Completely un-RAW, totally cool nonetheless.

[Snowbluff]

One of my local groups had an in-game wedding after the paladin completed his quest. It was interrupted by a dragon. One of the groups had to rescue the bride while the guys I was with fought off some ogres and a red dragon.

[Eonas]

I had to leave a Pathfinder group in the middle of a dungeon, as I was moving away and the dungeon was a huge "if you teleport out you can't get back in" situation. That day, I had begun by using Elemental Swarm, of which only the biggest (a Greater Earth Elemental) was allowed to accompany us into the dungeon.

Later, I ran into someone from the group. He told me that the DM had decided that, when my character left, the elemental stayed behind, deciding not to return when the spell's duration ran out. He ended up gaining levels in Time Thief, along with a PF feat that counteracts the size penalty for hiding. The end result is that my former summoned creature is now the party's MVP, a giant sneaky chunk of rock. Completely un-RAW, totally cool nonetheless.

Neato. Was this to counteract the loss of a player by adding a DMPC into the mix?

[PotatoNinja]

I had a level 35 Fighter type that was in game considered to be a paladin of bahamut (not by class, paladins are kinda meh). It was the son of an older character i played and was a Drow/Elf mix (that role play took years in itself to really work out and slowly change her to my views, you ever try to change a female drows outlook on life? she was basically a prisoner in my house because i couldn't as a good character kill her) My DM asked me if i would like to do anything special with that character since i had played it for so long, so we decided to kill him off in a rather strange way.

To keep a long story short, his soul wound up with the soul of a chosen of Tiamat (a blue dragon) inside a soul gem that occupied a new nimblewrite body. A Third personality was created as a coping mechanism for the trauma such a merging caused.

This new personality was Neutral Evil with a twinge of neutral and good. Every so often one of the dormant personalities would try to burst forth and take control of the nimblewrite body. Eventuall that character gained around 20 character levels and retired as an NPC from then on. It was fun to be able to play a character with three people in his head from time to time.

Fun story, i ran this guy as an NPC villian for a group i had been running for two years and they eventually managed to split his personalities back out, accept that the third one survived (some crazy percentile rolls were mathed out that night).

[Legato Endless]

Nothing.

I never get to play, so no DM has ever done anything awesome for me.


FOREVER
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130205014445/thehungergames/images/thumb/5/5c/Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png/473px-Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png
DMing

This post started off incredibly depressing until I opened the tag and it became hilarious.

[Azoth]

One DM had us running in a world where all of our campaigns took place affecting its overall timeline and such. So our previous characters usually either became heros/villains in the next campaign or beings of legend in the world. All cool in its own right.

This led to me having the habit of playing characters who were the descendants of my previous ones, and hunting down the family heirloom (an item familiar) which was always well taken because well we were all prone to dragging the party off on personal side quests.

Our last campaign was about to break the epic threshold. All of us lvl20 and near 21. We were facing down several demons and getting curb stomped pretty badly. Cue a great wyrm gold dragon swooping into the battle. We all instantly thought we were completely screwed beyond belief until it mauled a demon to death like a rotweiler with a crew toy. It turned to face us and spoke of settling a great debt.

Took us all a minute to piece it together, before my character shouted the dragon's name in shock. One of my previous characters had saved a wyrmling gold dragon from trolls in the far distant past. So we get pumped that we got a massive ally for this fight.

Next turn it throws a small obsidian orb at my character. As soon as I catch it, I get told to roll a Will save. One sucess later, the item familiar is bound to me. The beauty for me is that the DM ruled that while you need to equal the level a previous owner to unlock the abilities within the familiar, once you bind it you can start upgrading it from your own level.

This familiar had close to 20 characters worth of invested skill ranks and abilities. So my character got a massive power up to say the least.

The battle started to turn in our favor, and once we built up momentum the demons went down hard. The dragon gave a small remark about the debt being settled, and gave us a lift back to civilization.

[Urpriest]

Neato. Was this to counteract the loss of a player by adding a DMPC into the mix?

Yes, essentially.

[TuggyNE]

One DM had us running in a world where all of our campaigns took place affecting its overall timeline and such. So our previous characters usually either became heros/villains in the next campaign or beings of legend in the world. All cool in its own right.

This led to me having the habit of playing characters who were the descendants of my previous ones, and hunting down the family heirloom (an item familiar) which was always well taken because well we were all prone to dragging the party off on personal side quests.

Our last campaign was about to break the epic threshold. All of us lvl20 and near 21. We were facing down several demons and getting curb stomped pretty badly. Cue a great wyrm gold dragon swooping into the battle. We all instantly thought we were completely screwed beyond belief until it mauled a demon to death like a rotweiler with a crew toy. It turned to face us and spoke of settling a great debt.

Took us all a minute to piece it together, before my character shouted the dragon's name in shock. One of my previous characters had saved a wyrmling gold dragon from trolls in the far distant past. So we get pumped that we got a massive ally for this fight.

This is one of the highlights of the thread. Nicely done!

[Trinoya]

Just curious, but what race were you playing as?

Well it belongs to the DM in question so it's more or less up to him if he wants to share info on it. It's homebrew.





And ehhh, we have rules for players like that too. It's called "get out", or banhammer. XD


The general belief at the time was that the player was going through some hard times (death of a family member) and was just venting. It ended up ultimately being used as an excuse by the player to move out of his residence and back home with his parents... so now I can officially say I know someone who moved out over a D&D game. He hasn't been seen around our games since.


Nothing.

I never get to play, so no DM has ever done anything awesome for me.


FOREVER
http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130205014445/thehungergames/images/thumb/5/5c/Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png/473px-Sad-forever-alone-face-only-l.png
DMing

You gave me a sad. If you're ever in the Maryland area drop me a PM and we'll see if we can't set something up. ^_^

[danzibr]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels. [...]
Stealing this.

The single most enjoyable session of D&D I've ever played was one where the DM had set our group up chasing down some macguffins from a prophecy which led us to track down an artist who was known to have had some of "the fortelling". Well the artist was dead, but we found his last painting.

The DM had drawn it out on some paper and as a group we pored over the thing brainstorming what the symbolism meant and comparing it with the information we'd gathered up to that point.

The drawing itself wasnt terribly impressive, as he wasnt an artist himself but the meaning of the clouds in one area and their number corresponding to a few lins in our prophecy and the mountain range's peaks all pointing at groups of things and using the order they were in to help figure out a code we needed.

All in all, there were something liek 13-14 clues hidden in the painting and all the players had an amazing time brainstorming things and figuring out which things actually had meaning, or which were just red herrings. It was amazing and didnt involve rolling a single die.

I realise that wont sound all that great to some, and I certainly enjoy epic battles myself, but our group had really come together toward this goal and everyone was able to contribute and the sense of accomplishment when we were done was palpable.
This too.

One DM had us running in a world where all of our campaigns took place affecting its overall timeline and such. So our previous characters usually either became heros/villains in the next campaign or beings of legend in the world. All cool in its own right.

This led to me having the habit of playing characters who were the descendants of my previous ones, and hunting down the family heirloom (an item familiar) which was always well taken because well we were all prone to dragging the party off on personal side quests.

Our last campaign was about to break the epic threshold. All of us lvl20 and near 21. We were facing down several demons and getting curb stomped pretty badly. Cue a great wyrm gold dragon swooping into the battle. We all instantly thought we were completely screwed beyond belief until it mauled a demon to death like a rotweiler with a crew toy. It turned to face us and spoke of settling a great debt.

Took us all a minute to piece it together, before my character shouted the dragon's name in shock. One of my previous characters had saved a wyrmling gold dragon from trolls in the far distant past. So we get pumped that we got a massive ally for this fight.[...]
That's an awesome story.

[Reinkai]

Stealing this.

Haha, by all means! It was my first full length D&D campaign and I had a lot of fun.

[TrueJordan]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels.

The downside is that for the first 8 or so levels, doing so would attract the attention of shadow creatures, who would proceed to wreck everything around.

By the end I was a level 48 ardent/fighter/I'm not even sure what else, my Desert eagle was inflicting negative levels on it's 12-20 crits, and could turn me into an ancient shadow dragon. Oh, and I believe we killed a sleeping god.

I'd love to know more details about this. If I ever DM I plan to run a campaign that only uses DnD a bit, but most of the creativity lies with the players to make up their own characters. But how did your DM decide what was considered OP?

[Reinkai]

We began the game as level one experts. We each worked with our DM individually to figure out what our ability scores would be (possibly rounded up a tad) and what class and weapon (modern or medieval) best suited us.

So for example, I was a wizard (later swaped to Ardent for a variety of reasons) with a Desert Eagle. When we started the adventure, we got the ability to summon our weapons via plot at will, though doing so attracted the attention of various extra planar enemies.

As we leveled (I think around 4) we were able to summon without attracting attention. It was a very low magical items campaign (I think out DM was just bad at loot) so every four levels give or take he would allow us to add a special quality to the weapon. Every other four levels it was a major ability (so minor at 4 and 12, major at 8 and 16, etc).

I'm not sure if he was calculating the power of the abilities based on what our WBL should have been or if he was just going off if it seemed reasonable for his ideas on what major vs. minor abilities should be. There was a lot of back and forth about it, as it was entirely up to us what sort of effect we wished to have.

So some minor for me was swapping the damage to a mixture of sonic and lightning, increasing the crit range a few times, reloading as a free action instead of a move. Some majors were inflicting a negative level on crit, turning into a shadow dragon (increased age category as I got more majors).

One of the other players went with two short swords. He added light and dark themes to them, then added two extra swords attached to his back via chains that functioned as extra limbs for purposes of attack. He then just added more and more chains for more attacks/round (and he was a swordsage for extra fun).

[TrueJordan]

I once had an entire campaign where we played ourselves. We were teleported to a strange land where the only things we had on us was what we physically had during the first session. Each of us had a weapon that we could summon at will and upgrade as we gained in levels.

The downside is that for the first 8 or so levels, doing so would attract the attention of shadow creatures, who would proceed to wreck everything around.

By the end I was a level 48 ardent/fighter/I'm not even sure what else, my Desert eagle was inflicting negative levels on it's 12-20 crits, and could turn me into an ancient shadow dragon. Oh, and I believe we killed a sleeping god.

That sounds amazingly fun. But the enemies must've scaled as well, right, in order for it to be a challenge. You should make a topic dealing with your campaign, it's too cool to go unnoticed.