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View Full Version : Funny stories on unorthodox uses of spells



Scalenex
2007-01-29, 03:49 AM
I got two stories both from 2nd edition. Bonus points if the story involves a very low level spell doing something very powerful. If you want to include spells that are in and of themselves whacky (like my two favorites Waterball and Scalenex's Screaming Chickens of Doom, that probably belongs in it's own thread).

Paladin uses her Ring of the Ram to knock a scroll out of the hand of an evil cleric she was fighting, then her illusionist directed one of the rats he summoned with Monster Summoning I to pick up the scroll and run off with it depriving the cleric of the scroll of his most potent spells for the rest of the battle and leading one of his minions on a hilarious wild goose chase.

Town is being attacked by various subterean monsters from the sewers, the PCs have been trying to kill the monsters we can find. An evil human who we suspect is aligned with dark powers is accusing us of causing the problem in front of a large mob and do to either a Suggestion spell or superior Charisma, he is doing a better job winning them over than us. All of us are first level. My gnome illusionist casts Phantasmal Force (functionally the same spell as Silent Image in 3rd ed) to make it appear like he was expelling poisonous gas when he spoke. This dispersed the mob letting us avoid entangling with innocent people. He also then showed demonic traits and attacked us giving us a legitimate reason to gang beat him to death.

Let's see what you guys have. The potential for funny stories on Grease alone is astronomical.

enderrocksonall
2007-01-29, 04:47 AM
In our current campaign we had a full plate armored favored soul bull rushed into a lake by a giant croc. needless to say this was a situation that had no happy ending and needed a quick save. In the same round, an enemy ranger steps out onto the ledge of a shear cliff about 100' above us, where we were ideally trying to go. the party wizard looks from one to the other and says, "BALEFUL TELEPORT". the enemy ranger fails his save and immediately switches places with the favored soul and is promptly eaten by the aforementioned croc.

Before that, we encountered a half-fiendish minotaur who was literally going to tear us apart. he steps in through the door into the hallway we were crowded into. we notice while he passes through the door he needs to use the squeezing rules which causes a light bulb to go on over our heads.
Our party wizard casts enlarge person on this guy who willingly fails his save and now has to use the squeezing rules to move normally through the hallway itself. not only that, but he became too large to squeeze through either of the doors, so we were able to retreat to a previous room and finish him off with regular bows and arrows.

Thomas
2007-01-29, 05:22 AM
I don't know about teleporting people into water, but using enlarge person on a monstrous humanoid definitely isn't quite within the rules. :smallwink:

SDF
2007-01-29, 05:29 AM
My 1st level party of a rogue, warforged fighter with armor spikes, and a sorcerer(me) is walking down a hall when we have to make will saves. The rogue and I make it but the fighter fails and stands frozen as he blocks the way in front for both of us. A mummy starts to come closer to us as the rogue manages to light it on fire with a lamp, but knocks the warforged on his back. The mummy then runs at us as I presdigitate a banana peel under his foot causing him to trip and impale himself on the warforged's spikes until he burns to death.

Dervag
2007-01-29, 06:04 AM
The best I can come up with is the time that the merchantman our party had chartered was attacked by two pirate ships. My wizard took out the larger of the two ships by casting passwall on it... at the waterline.

But that's practically a standard use of the spell, so I don't know if it counts.

Kesnit
2007-01-29, 08:07 AM
In a 2.0 game, the party was fighting a high-level vampire. The Bard and Ranger were killed, leaving the Paladin (me) and a Wizard. The vampire has cast a ton of Stoneskins on himself, so every time I hit it, it did no damage and just removed 1 Stoneskin.

The Wizard cast Disintergate on the mortar in the celing above the vampire, causing all the rocks to land on him and remove the Stoneskins.

After I forced him back to his coffin, we staked him using a broken broom.

enderrocksonall
2007-01-29, 08:49 AM
I don't know about teleporting people into water, but using enlarge person on a monstrous humanoid definitely isn't quite within the rules. :smallwink:


Actaully the spell specifies that it can be used on any "humanoid creature" so it is quite within the rules, although if you were arguing that as an outsider we couldn't do it I think you'd be right. From what i have heard about the wording of the baleful teleport, the two creatures have to be connected in some way and we argued that the favored soul was touching the shore of the lake. we got the DM to rule it in as long as we dont try anything involving the use of fly and baleful teleport,:smallbiggrin:

Rigeld2
2007-01-29, 09:13 AM
Actaully the spell specifies that it can be used on any "humanoid creature" so it is quite within the rules, although if you were arguing that as an outsider we couldn't do it I think you'd be right. From what i have heard about the wording of the baleful teleport, the two creatures have to be connected in some way and we argued that the favored soul was touching the shore of the lake. we got the DM to rule it in as long as we dont try anything involving the use of fly and baleful teleport,:smallbiggrin:
Humanoid != Monstrous Humanoid. Different types mean that Enlarge Person cant work on Monstrous Humanoids.

enderrocksonall
2007-01-29, 09:15 AM
Humanoid != Monstrous Humanoid. Different types mean that Enlarge Person cant work on Monstrous Humanoids.


yah but that also means any monstrous humanoid with the wizard class could never use this spell on themselves or their friends, so we tend to ignore little things like that

Yuki Akuma
2007-01-29, 09:18 AM
yah but that also means any monstrous humanoid with the wizard class could never use this spell on themselves or their friends, so we tend to ignore little things like that

House rules are all fine and good, but that's still not how the spell works.

A more sensible house rule would be something like "Enlarge Own Type".

Khantalas
2007-01-29, 09:22 AM
My cousin once cast a light spell on an orc surrounded with goblins. Well, it was back in AD&D, where a creature was a viable target for a light spell. So, the goblins start running away from the orc because of the light (at least the DM rules so) and the orc starts trying to run away from himself.

That sounded hilarious.

Oh, and someone I know tried to heal a vampire by casting cure light wounds. Does that count?

enderrocksonall
2007-01-29, 09:35 AM
Back in 3E we used to have fun casting enlarge on gems, selling them quickly and then running as fast as we could

Artanis
2007-01-29, 09:42 AM
In the last campaign I was in (Eberron, level 3ish) was trying to reach a town to warn them of an impending Hobgoblin attack. Along the way, we fought a skirmish against a few goblins in a mountain pass. As we looted the bodies, we realized that, with a rock wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other, it would make an awesome place for an ambush.

Quickly drawing up a plan that resembled something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon - up to and including the funny-looking schematic, since we were playing in OpenRPG - we put caltrops and oil across the path, and set my Warmage right at the edge of Orb of Sound range from a giant boulder. Hobgoblins' advance guard comes through, pauses to sweep away the caltrops, and BOOM, an Orb of Sound blasts the boulder off-balance, sending it down the hill and knocking a half-dozen Hobgoblins off the cliff.

One Rain of Stone on the confused survivors later, we were on our way.

Black Hand
2007-01-29, 09:45 AM
I had a player make good use of the Water Breathing spell when ejected into the airless environment of Wildspace...Besides the elemental protection that he had used to shield himself from heat/cold damage, there was the problem with not breathing. He essentially had cast water breathing on himself and used his waterskins as "Air Bladders" to live long enough to make it to a save spot.

enderrocksonall
2007-01-29, 09:54 AM
I just thought of the hilarity/confusion that could ensue from having a reincarnated cleric cast speak with dead upon his old body

Logic
2007-01-29, 09:59 AM
Back in 3E we used to have fun casting enlarge on gems, selling them quickly and then running as fast as we could
SMITE EVIL!

Yuki Akuma
2007-01-29, 10:02 AM
I just thought of the hilarity/confusion that could ensue from having a reincarnated cleric cast speak with dead upon his old body

Why would it produce confusion? Speak with dead doesn't call back the spirit from the afterlife (no matter what OoTS may tell you). It just uses all the memories stored in the lump of pinkish-grey matter in the corpse's head and lets the corpse speak.

jlousivy
2007-01-30, 12:01 AM
So my party has been warped to the 'modern' world... and one of our party members gets tazerd and taken in a van and is about to be driven away. Me (the party wizard) casts mount right in front of the van... And (sorry cat girls) one of our players is really good at physics.. so.... the van actually ramped and barrrel rolled.... we saved our poor ranger.

Shisumo
2007-01-30, 12:09 AM
A friend of mine likes to tell the story of a con game he played in once. His low-level party had just lost its fighter to a series of freakishly bad dice rolls, and the DM announced that he didn't think the adventure would able to go forward successfully without the meatshield. My friend, playing the wizard and knowing that only moments in-game had passed since the death, asked if the cleric could heal the corpse; since, at the time, healing spells were necromancy, the DM said okay, curious as to where this was going. "You now have a corpse with no apparent cause of death," announced the DM. My friend said, "Okay. I clap my hands together, rub them twice, shout 'clear' - then cast shocking grasp and put both hands on his chest."

The DM stared, then burst out laughing; one successful save later on the part of the fighter, and he was back in the game...

Wehrkind
2007-01-30, 12:26 AM
That is the best use of shocking grasp ever...

My buddie's favorite story was how he ruined a night of playing in 5 minutes with 2 0 level, 1 1st level and 1 second level spell.

Plot: There is a princess locked in a tower, who has some.. thing. You need to get it in, steal it, but don't kill her, and don't get caught. Big elaborate map of castle etc.

Pierce: I cast spider climb, and scurry up the side of the tower.
DM: K.
Pierce: I cast sleep in the room.
Dm: -rolls- ok... the princess falls asleep...
Pierce: I cast Warm hands (whatever the cantrip is for fire) on the metal of the window. I cast Chill touch on the glass. I then make my hand stick to the window, and remove glass.
Dm:.... ugh... uhmmm... I... guess that should work yea...
Pierce: I search for the -thing- and make my escape.
Dm:... Who wants to play Smash Brothers?

Daracaex
2007-01-30, 01:32 AM
I haven't done this, but try casting Suggestion on one of your friends and forbid them from saying any commonly used word. Great at parties!

Also, you can try casting spells at surroundings to get past creatures with SR, like if you remove a pillar from the room so that the roof collapses on the creature, instead of merely blasting with what turns out to be an uneffective fireball.

shaka gl
2007-01-30, 02:59 PM
Dont know if this is possible rules-wise, but the DM let it happen:

PC1: I open the door.
DM: Make a Fort/Will save (dont remember which)
PC1: Ehm... 12
DM: The rest of you see PC1 slowly convert into stone.
PC2: I cast Rock to Mud on him!
DM: O_o

clericwithnogod
2007-01-30, 03:13 PM
One of our casters convinced the DM that the greasy substance from a Grease spell was actual grease and thus flammable. Pratfall pyromania ensued...

Yuki Akuma
2007-01-30, 03:13 PM
Dont know if this is possible rules-wise, but the DM let it happen:

PC1: I open the door.
DM: Make a Fort/Will save (dont remember which)
PC1: Ehm... 12
DM: The rest of you see PC1 slowly convert into stone.
PC2: I cast Rock to Mud on him!
DM: O_o

So... PC2 turned PC1 into a puddle of mud?

How's that helpful?

shaka gl
2007-01-30, 03:21 PM
The title says funny, not helpful... but PC1 was not a good person...

Arceliar
2007-01-30, 05:00 PM
Once my friends and I were playing.. it was a level 13 quest, we had a party of level 10 chars, but figured since we had a few extra guys we might be OK. A party of 5 mercinaries and 7 of some kind of obscure undead wandered in front of us. The party sorc won initiative, followed by the druid. The sorc cast Wall of Fire in the shape of a hemisphere over the undead and merc group, then the druid cast Stone Shape to create a thin stone dome over the wall of fire, essentially creating a pressure cooker.

Moments later, the mercinaries wizard teleported the humans out of the pressure cooker via a dimension door spell.

As the next round began, our sorc Baleful Polymorphed the wizard, evidently the one competent member of their group, into a sheep--which was immediately eaten by the druid's animal companion (a bear). The dwarf fighter charged at the first of the 4 humans, and immediately rolled 2 20's and an 18, cutting the man in half, and cleaving into the next guy. The rogue tumbled past an enemy to flank with the fighter, and succeeded in tripping the enemy. I fired my bow and missed, every shot.

The third round started, and the bear mauled the one uninjured enemy still standing. The fighter got a couple more lucky dice rolls and took out his already-injured target, and the rogue snuck attack a few times until all that was left was the unharmed, tripped level 12 fighter, covered in his allies blood by this point. That was when the sorc's pseudodragon familiar flew over and poisoned him--he rolled a natural 1 on his save and went unconcious, ****ting himself in the process just as the sorc announced to let him live so he could cast Dominate Person.

In a matter of 18 seconds (three rounds) we had taken out 12 enemies, each of CR our level or higher. We turned around to find a small army of shadows and more of that obscure undead I can't remember just standing there. The DM concluded that after such a complete slaughter, we had inspired fear in the undead (as in, they're not really afraid but not stupid enough to get destroyed without reason) and they fled.

The point is, Wall of Fire + Stone Shape = potential for hilarity

SpiderBrigade
2007-01-30, 05:07 PM
The point is, Wall of Fire + Stone Shape = potential for hilarityFirst of all, wall of fire can't be made into a hemisphere, only a sheet of flame, or a ring. Even if you used the ring, arguing that combining this with Stoneshape creates a..."pressure cooker" is slaughtering catgirls.

The rest of the story is a pretty neat description of a battle where you owned up, but I don't see how it has to do with unorthodox spell use. Doesn't sound like the pressure cooker actually did anything, since they Dimension-Doored out...?

Golthur
2007-01-30, 05:26 PM
I had a player make good use of the Water Breathing spell when ejected into the airless environment of Wildspace...Besides the elemental protection that he had used to shield himself from heat/cold damage, there was the problem with not breathing. He essentially had cast water breathing on himself and used his waterskins as "Air Bladders" to live long enough to make it to a save spot.
Very clever. I like it.

Mine involves two casters, back in 1.x. I was playing a mage, and a friend of mine was a cleric. We had both exhausted nearly all of our spells, and the party was on its last legs against a bunch of ogres. The fighter types managed to take down all of them except the last one, but were forced to get the heck out of there.

A quick scan of both of our spell lists revealed absolutely nothing we could use, individually, for offense. So we came up with the idea of simultaneously casting an Otiluke's resilient sphere and a create water. The DM says we could go for it with a Dex check on both of our parts to get the timing right.

Sure enough, we both make the checks, and... glug, glug, ogre in a goldfish bowl. :tongue:

Parlik
2007-01-30, 07:58 PM
This took place back 2nd Edition where stacking was more fun, I played a 8th level wild mage from Tome of Magic, and I decided to cast Nahals' Reckless Dweamor through a window in a castle about 300 feet away.

Now this spell stated that you could try and cast it as any spell in your spellbook, after which you rolled a d100 + your level to see the result, mostly some odd effect took place, however with a high enough roll you got the desired spell.

Now since it said any spells I decided to cast it as itself, mainly to see how the GM would react, he just said ok roll on the table, which I did twice (Since I had cast Hornung's Surge Selector first, which allowed two rolls and then select the best). One of the results was 93 I think, with the added level bonus (8) this became 100+ which reads: Spell takes effect with a 200% increase on damage and area (Basically x3)

Since a random effect had been selected I was allowed to roll one more time to see the effect, I rolled a natural 100 this time, so by now it was x3x3 (=9 back in the old 2nd Edition days). Hence yet another roll was needed to determine the effect; this roll turned out to be a fireball.

So basically I ended up with a 72d6 (8x3x3) fireball with a radius of 270 feet, needless to say there wasn't much castle left afterwards. Also there was a GM threatening to hit me with his guidebook if I ever did it again.

All in all it wasn't that unorthodox, was however quite amusing.

Just Alex
2007-01-30, 08:18 PM
Me: I ready an action to counteract the enemy wizard's spell.
DM: OK, well, the wizard is next and he's casting a spell, go ahead and give me you're spellcraft roll
Me: 29
DM: OK, he's casting a Fireball. You going to use Dispel Magic, or do you have a Fireball prepared?
Me: Neither. When he points to his target, I summon a Celestial hawk right in front of his hand.

Cheashire
2007-01-30, 08:36 PM
Prestidigitation: Some people *coughMyDMcough* seem to forgot that it can change the taste of things. Either that or they only think it can be used to make their food better or someone else's food worse.

We needed to extract some information from an NPC but could get into real trouble if they were able to figure out why we needed that information. So, I aquired a large bottle of strong, high quality wine, walked into the bar, cast Prestidigitation, and change the wine to taste like juice. Since good fruit juice was rare in the setting, the NPC glady kept downing glass not suspecting a thing. His hangover was so bad he couldn't even remember what he'd done the night before.:smallbiggrin:

Tibor
2007-01-30, 09:10 PM
Wearing a neckless of adaptation I teleported a litch into space and tossed him into the darkeness for the rest of his eternal life.

My DM pulled at his hair for about 5 minutes after.

Jack_Simth
2007-01-30, 09:21 PM
Wearing a neckless of adaptation I teleported a litch into space and tossed him into the darkeness for the rest of his eternal life.

My DM pulled at his hair for about 5 minutes after.What, the Lich didn't have Teleport or Fly? No Spell Mastry? Sheesh. Now, successfully Plane Shifting the Terrasque elsewhere works (Will save is "only" +20, SR 32 isn't too bad (although it helps to have Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration, possibly with an approprietly-aligned Robe of the Archmagi). A Cleric with Heighten Spell should have a Wis score of about 30 or so by the time you meet Mr. T, making it DC 29 when Heightened). There's some very interesting places to send people..... and the 3.5 version of Plane Shift doesn't require the caster go along for the ride....

Severus
2007-01-30, 09:38 PM
A very high born noble was having a major feast in a decadent culture that ate all sorts of weird stuff. He was serving extremely fine sushi from the far north which most of the other nobles had never tasted (so he stood to get a lot of status out of the feast).

One of our players who was feuding with the noble used disguise self to slip into kitchen and then used prestidigitation to make all the fish taste like it had gone bad just as it was going out to be served.

The noble was the laughing stock of the season.

Tibor
2007-01-30, 10:08 PM
It's hard to cast teleport or fly in the vacuume of space...unless you have an necklace of adaptation giving you a bubble of air.

Mewtarthio
2007-01-30, 10:10 PM
It's hard to cast teleport or fly in the vacuume of space...unless you have an necklace of adaptation giving you a bubble of air.

Or if you're undead and don't need air.

Tibor
2007-01-30, 10:21 PM
correction...you don't need to breath...you still need air to talk.

In space no one can hear you cast.

Deathcow
2007-01-30, 10:23 PM
So if a lich casts a spell in a vacuum and there's nobody around...:smallbiggrin:

Jack_Simth
2007-01-30, 10:46 PM
So if a lich casts a spell in a vacuum and there's nobody around...:smallbiggrin:
Yeah, he needs Silent Spell.

Any Wizard-Lich needs:

Spell Mastery (Teleport+others)
Silent Spell
Still spell is also handy, but not required.

ShneekeyTheLost
2007-01-30, 11:33 PM
Ahh, I have several good stories to tell about unusual ways of defeating opponents with unusual spells...

I was a Sorc2/Rog2, on my way to being an Arcane Trickster. As such, I had Mage Hand, Grease, and Ghost Sound.

DM: A group of Ogres are gathered around a campfire, guarding the bridge across the deep and swift river with jagged and pointy rocks to make it nearly impossible to swim across.

Me: Hide and Move Silently, I'm going to try to get within about thirty feet of them.

DM: <makes rolls> Sure, no problem. You get within 30 feet of them without being noticed. They seem to be playing a card game and talking.

Me: I make a Listen check to see if I can hear what they are talking about.

DM: Do you know Orcish?

Me: As a matter of fact, I do.

DM: Okay, they're mostly grumbling about being on guard duty.

Me: Cool. I use Silent Image to make the illusion of several high cards fall out of his sleeve

DM: <makes some rolls> Okay, they start arguing among each other about cheating.

Me: I wait until one of them gestures near another one, then I'm going to use mage hand to poke or slap or whatever looks appropriate for the gesture to feel like it hit rather than almost hit.

DM <chuckles> Okay... one of them points really close at the other's nose, you poke with mage hand, and it pokes the nose. The one poked hauls off and takes a swing. It soon degenerates into a free for all brawl.

Me: <laughs wickedly> Okay, I sneak back to the party and let them know.

DM: What, you're not going to take advantage of the fight to kill something?

Me: Mah, I just wanted to see what kind of mischif I can get into

Sornas
2007-01-30, 11:42 PM
In a game I play in up here at the university, our group, while exploring an old generic temple, encountered a group of elves savagely beating a young chromatic dragon.

Our Samurai/Scout (Gestalt), charged in, and quickly knocked a few out of the way, opening a direct path for the wizard to cast grease. The halfling paladin then charged the patch and threw his hands forward, creating what we now all affectionately call the "Halfling slip-n'-slide."

The paladin then rammed into the dragon and quickly used Lay on Hands to revive him, and get his help finishing off the elves.

ExHunterEmerald
2007-01-31, 12:40 AM
My cousin once cast a light spell on an orc surrounded with goblins. Well, it was back in AD&D, where a creature was a viable target for a light spell.

That might technically be gone, but it's still done.
For example, by a "LG" cleric, casting a Light spell on our paladin's ass.

EDIT: Oh, and not a spell, but I discerned a way to use the conductor stone assembly for Eberron's Lightning rail to make a Lightning Railgun. Boom.

Kantolin
2007-01-31, 01:01 AM
A fun wizard of mine transmuted a couple henchmen (of the boss wizard) he didn't like to stone, then rock to mud'd them.

Shrink item'd, mixed them together, and plunked the resulting mixture into a vial.

Added a little oregano, some cumin, then recalled that prestidigitation was a nice way of circumventing the whole taste thing.

Then fed it to the one henchmen I had managed to dominate.

Fun times. I love transmutation spells that change other people's form.

Zeb The Troll
2007-01-31, 01:10 AM
"You now have a corpse with no apparent cause of death," announced the DM. My friend said, "Okay. I clap my hands together, rub them twice, shout 'clear' - then cast shocking grasp and put both hands on his chest."

The DM stared, then burst out laughing; one successful save later on the part of the fighter, and he was back in the game...That's fantastic! I'll bet my GM would let this work just for the sake of creativity too.


One of our casters convinced the DM that the greasy substance from a Grease spell was actual grease and thus flammable. Pratfall pyromania ensued...
Of course I don't have any of my old source books any more, but didn't the spell description in 2E specifically state that the grease is flammable? My groups have always assumed that it is and that when lit it causes 1d6 normal fire damage for one round and gets rid of the grease (it essentially burns away).

faeline
2007-01-31, 01:16 AM
Scenario: Skullport, Undermountain

Opposition: an ogre fighter, a drow cleric, human rogue and gold elf wizard

Mission: to steal a map off the party who are at least 6 levels higher than them.

Parties involved: Wizard/Rogue's name is Rob, and Barbarian's name is ... well I forgot, so let's call him Bar. (We were level 5.)

Rob and Bar signs themselves up as normal miners-for-hire when the opposition sets off into one of the mines in Skullport. In the middle of the night, when everyone is sleeping, Rob casts silence.

Bar walks 20ft away. Leap Attack + Full Power Attack + Armbands of Might = 100+ subdual damage. Ogre = KO.

Repeat for drow, human and gold elf. Rob takes the map and makes a copy (has appropriate skills), and puts the original back to ogre's pocket. Bar chops at the tunnel walls, Rob scatters a few daggers, makes a few false tracks (with survival), and then, uses UMD for cure light wounds wand.

Opposition believed that they were under attack and Rob and Bar saved them.

jlousivy
2007-01-31, 02:02 AM
In an old game.... one of our players was playing a female wizard.... she was abducted and was being molested.... well.... to get the initiative.... she went along with it.... and used 'shocking grasp'... natural 20 (crit), i dunno if the rules allow it, but our dm did

Divides
2007-01-31, 02:29 AM
Well, to be fair, the best I can do involves a (rather non-conventional) campaign I was GMing, but here goes:

So basically the group is composed of a vow of poverty monk named Ronwin, a house-ruled fey warlock (subclass) named Vain, an overweight sorcerer named Chow-Yung-Fat, and a psionicist who simply went by "Z." (Yes, I am allowing cheese... how could you tell?) The group also has a teen-aged adept named Chihoru (don't ask about the names, it's a long story) in it, on account that they DESPERATELY needed a healer (plus she adds some interesting role-play potential).


Probably the best moment involved the party having grouped up with a bunch of drow and a Yu-Lung (young oriental) dragon (named "Tala") to deal with "a bigger threat," and Chow and Chihoru also being possessed by Gucubu's (basically murderous "dream demons" from "Hordes of the Abyss"). Basically, even though the Gucubu's weren't being 100% hostile at the time, the party really didn't like them anyway, and wanted to get rid of them...

So the party members go looking over their spells to see what they can do... first the psion tries time hop on Chihoru to see if it might leave the Gucubu behind. I decide that since it doesn't really makes sense for them to be left behind if, say, the subject was teleported, that time hop takes the Gucubu with them into the future as well.

So then after awhile they note that rope trick (one of the sorcerer's spells) has a maximum capacity of 8 people. So Vain, Ronwin, and Z decide to ask Chihoru, Tala, and one of the drow to join them in the rope trick... and then have Chow follow after everyone else is inside. After a moment of thought I decided that the possessing creatures did count as separate individuals for purposes of filling up the rope trick, but that trying to have two people enter simultaniously when there were already 7 effectively in there simply resulted in denial of entry (just as if there were already 8 in there and another person tried to enter).

So finally they get a wierd idea. Once again, they have Vain, Ronwin, Z, Chihoru, Tala, and the drow all enter the rope trick... but this time they tell Chow to wait a few seconds (and only a few seconds) before entering. Z then casts time hop on herself. Chow then enters, and they all wait for the time hope to expire.

At this point I'm just sitting their with my head in my hands thinking, "Ok, just how mean am I?!?" I ended up ruling that the result was that the rope trick exploding, sending everyone in it flying and asking everyone to make a tumble check or take 1d6 points of falling damage.

The summarizing remark was basically, "Well, you didn't get rid of the Gucubu's, but atleast you managed to defeat your own spell O_o..."


Yeah... I love my PCs :-p.

Just Alex
2007-01-31, 02:29 AM
In an old game.... one of our players was playing a female wizard.... she was abducted and was being molested.... well.... to get the initiative.... she went along with it.... and used 'shocking grasp'... natural 20 (crit), i dunno if the rules allow it, but our dm did


If it requires an attack roll, generally you can crit.

Heck, you can specialize in touch and ranged to spells.

Divides
2007-01-31, 02:49 AM
Prestidigitation: Some people *coughMyDMcough* seem to forgot that it can change the taste of things. Either that or they only think it can be used to make their food better or someone else's food worse.

We needed to extract some information from an NPC but could get into real trouble if they were able to figure out why we needed that information. So, I aquired a large bottle of strong, high quality wine, walked into the bar, cast Prestidigitation, and change the wine to taste like juice. Since good fruit juice was rare in the setting, the NPC glady kept downing glass not suspecting a thing. His hangover was so bad he couldn't even remember what he'd done the night before.:smallbiggrin:

Actually, as I recall, in LG my bard would often do the exact opposite with dwarves and tea. "I ain't drinkin this crap!" "What if I make it taste like beer?" "... Still ain't as good as the real thing, but fine..."

Really, though, prestidigitation is one of the most heavilly overlooked spells ever.

For example, another LG occurence:
DM: "You see a ladder. It's covered in thick slime. Just so you know this is sufficient to provide a small penalty to the climb che-..."
"Prestidigitation, clean!"
"... Ok... then... I... guess... there's... no... penalty..."



It's hard to cast teleport or fly in the vacuume of space...unless you have an necklace of adaptation giving you a bubble of air.

Unless you have silent spell.

Monkeyking
2007-01-31, 03:14 AM
A cleric friend of mine was playing an ass. He would justify not doing things because his god had not instructed him to.

My bard had taken message, a lvl 0 spell I think and cast it as the cleric was praying. Being a bard I used perform to fool the cleic into doing what we wanted him to do.

taking message as a 0 level spell - 1 gp
using a 0 level spell - 1 gp
the look on the players face as he realised what was going to happen from now on - priceless :smallwink:

TheOOB
2007-01-31, 03:21 AM
On more then one occasion I used Major Image to create a glowy rift from which merges the "hand of god" when then proceeds to flip off someone, complete with a choir of angels.

Divides
2007-01-31, 03:24 AM
On more then one occasion I used Major Image to create a glowy rift from which merges the "hand of god" when then proceeds to flip off someone, complete with a choir of angels.

D'OH!

But yeah, let's hear it for imature, IC D&D pranks :-p.

TheOOB
2007-01-31, 03:33 AM
Acually it works wonders for a mass of god fearing citizens.

I also once created an image of a cage around a fellow player, it took him two hours real time to decide the test the bars and find out it was illusionary.

Seffbasilisk
2007-01-31, 03:54 AM
This one's not so much funny as just cruel. I was playing a human wizard and this (some-ungoldly-LA) barbarian has been being a pain all day long. We finally retire for the night, and I get to work. Step 1. Get my eight hours sleep and recover spells. Step 2. Undo the stupid prank he pulled on me. Step 3. Now pay attention here, this is where it gets complicated.

I first cast 'Sleep' on him (LA isn't HD), and while he was in magical slumber (note: My DM read magical slumber as basically a coma) I pried open his eyelids, scattered ruby dust in his eyes (casting 'Continual Flame'), then lightly prodded them (casting 'Darkness') then went into my room. After the Sleep wore off, he was still asleep, and when I felt the time was right, I dismissed the Darkness spell.

All of a sudden he was looking into fire. A continual light that was everywhere he looked and closing his eyes he couldn't escape from. The game broke up shortly after that, so I never did find out how he would have gone about dealing with that.

Golthur
2007-01-31, 10:27 AM
In an old game.... one of our players was playing a female wizard.... she was abducted and was being molested.... well.... to get the initiative.... she went along with it.... and used 'shocking grasp'... natural 20 (crit), i dunno if the rules allow it, but our dm did

Yes, this particular... um... use... of shocking grasp is referred to frequently enough at my table that the spell is now known as zap the package.

iceman
2007-01-31, 04:24 PM
Kind of a long story but I should think it is worth reading and some spells used are from sources that many of you may not know of or agree with, but were all okayed by my DM.
This story starts out with the cleric and I having decided to play a prank on the rogue and the scout because of too much in character and out of character canoodling. Little did we know a secret villainous group out to sabotage our missions and generally stop us was planning an attack for that night, knowing all too well our usual routines. (Rogue and scout heading to bed early, the barbarian either getting drunk or if expecting action also turning in early, either being fine with our enemies, the cleric would be in silent contemplation for his spells, and I, the wizard being the most vulnerable, down stairs usually in the common room chatting with the patrons and enjoying a bottle of wine) On this particular night and time our Barbarian friend was downstairs getting rip roaring drunk. The cleric (having finished his meditations, and I were preparing for our prank. After acquiring a few barnyard animals and having the appropriate spells in place we started to set our plan into action. The cleric started by casting silence on an item and then taking it into the room and setting it by the bed (so their characters couldn't here us. It was near this time the DM thought he could really catch us off guard so he sent his plan into motion. Pretty soon the barbarian came stumbling up the stairs yelling something about being under attack. When I looked down the stair case I saw six men in full plate coming up to get us (two of which were of course more powerful than the others), so I did what any self respecting wizard would do and cast grease on the stairs just in front of the iron clad bad guys. (Funny how full plate sinks those balance checks). The cleric who had been in the silence effect of the room still didn't know what was going on until he came out of the silence effect. Meanwhile I cast 'Quick Sober' on the barbarian to sober her up and the cleric started casting summon undead III to bring in some support. It was around this time that the window down the hall opened up and two more baddies climbed in thinking to catch us off guard. One a rogue assasin type the other another fighter type. I held the barbarian back for a second asked the cleric to hold of the guys from below and that we would meet him downstairs. I then turned to the two down the hallway and cast a sudden quicken Open/Close spell on the window saying "were you two born in a barn learn to close the windows after you, its cold outside." Then I cast Greater Slide to send the fighter type out and through the window to the ground below. This left the barbarian to charge, crit, and drop the rogue. The cleric in the mean time was starting to cast some of his buff spells to prepare for melee while he sent the large troll skeleton down the stairs to create havoc. Meanwhile, I casually walked down the hall and prepared my levitate spell to get down to the ground below. The fighter had since stood up and collected his weapon, that was until the barbarian lept from the window landing upon him and commenced the beat down. Feeling that everything was in hand there, I started going around to the front. A couple rounds later the barb was still whipping the her guy, the clerics skeleton crumbled to dust but not before felling the four weaker guys, the cleric himself was coming down the stairs trying to carefully navigate past the grease, and I showed up at the front door and used my final spell of the night, bottomless pit which I opened up on my side of the door so the two inside couldn't see it very well. I then anounced my presence to those still left. At which point the first one through the door fell into the pit while the second one stopped about 10 feet away. It was at this point the cleric had made it down the stairs and proceeded to bull rush the final badguy into the hole with his friend. All the while the two love birds were upstairs nested in their bed.

In retrospect we were quite lucky that our DM was rolling rather poorly (Initiatives, saves, attack rolls, his own intelligence check (or maybe wisdom?))

Arceliar
2007-01-31, 04:53 PM
In a campaign I was DMing, the party got ahold of a few vials filled with Quintinessence (psionic power...I'm going to call that close enough to a spell.)

Basically the stuff is this goo that takes objects covered in it out of the time stream. If living flesh comes in partial contact in it then it starts doing 1 damage each round after 10 rounds.

This happened to be an evil party, so they decided (as they had no idea what the stuff was) to spike a mug of ale, prestidigitate it to taste like the best ale in the world, and give it to an annoying, untalented bard begging on the street corner.

A couple minutes later, he died.

The point is, candy-flavored quintinessence can make a very potent poison-like object.

I ended up deciding to make the dead bard a minor deity, the "Bard of Minor Inconvenience" (a play on the "Orb of Minor Inconvenience", an item from a previous campaign). Having a deity with a personal agenda against the party makes for the perfect excuse for fumble roll penalties. Every time they rolled a 1 on an attack, the bard did something humorous to slow the party down about 1 round.

nivek1234
2007-01-31, 05:21 PM
We were in campaign where we came upon a fire elemental. The druid won initiative, and decided to cast create water 20 ft. above the fire elemental's body. He was then able to argue that the falling 20 gallons of water should deal some serious damage.

In another campaign, the DM gave my half-orc barbarian the half-dragon template (all of our characters received some kind of template in order to strengthen us for a task the gods gave us). However, he decided that my hit dice being no less than d10 wasn't that great of a deal. So he gave me the spell-like abilities of the blue dragon. Well we are in a castle and have disposed of one of the lieutenants in the castle. On the next floor we discover a room (with its doors closed) that has more soldiers getting ready. The wizard-lich tells me to get them out into the hallway, so I use ventriloquism to "encourage" them to get moving... right into our trap.

nivek1234
2007-01-31, 05:25 PM
We were in a tavern and the DM's character had gotten drunk prior to the group discussing the plans for tomorrow. Deciding that he was going to continue drinking whatever we said, my druid cast purify food and drink on his ale to remove all the alcohol from it. When confronted with it, I told him I had "made it better", after succeeding my bluff check, he was convinced I had made it into "super ale", and we were able to get through the next day's activities without incident.

mikeejimbo
2007-01-31, 09:29 PM
Our wizard once made a captain in an opposing army so frightened that he began cowering. When it came back to the wizard's turn, he made a giant illusion in the sky of the man cowering, to show the rest of the army what would happen.

I also suggested a score. Us 1, Them 0.

Scalenex
2007-02-01, 03:18 AM
We were in campaign where we came upon a fire elemental. The druid won initiative, and decided to cast create water 20 ft. above the fire elemental's body. He was then able to argue that the falling 20 gallons of water should deal some serious damage.



Vaguely reminds me of a game I ran a long time ago. We were curious about the story in the 2nd ed PHB with an adventuring party of all nine alignments working together. So I ran a low-seriousness game for just that (sadly we could only get seven players at a time).

They were in a triangle based dungeon (it was built by a powerful Elementalist wizard who took water as his opposed element so everything had an Earth, Wind, or Fire motiff). Because it was first level, there were a lot of very tiny elementals (which we called fundamentals). Long story short, the LN character tried to pee a fire elemental to death. It wounded it badly but it got to give him a very awkward burn in retaliation.

Maquis
2007-02-01, 06:42 AM
My old party frequntly used dancing lights, mainly to distract or disable enemies. Several small balls of light rapidly orbiting around somethings head is bound to be difficult to work around.

Or team it up with Ventriloquism to make a fake Lantern Archon to feed information to stuborn inquisitors who refuse to listen to your lies. But trusting the holy angel, are eventually lead on a wild goose chase for several months during which time you have moved into their now, temporarily, abandoned castle, and sold it of, block-by-block as souvenirs of the 'Once Great Order *sob*' for a sizable fotune, a small portion of which was used to have ourselves permanently hiden under magic disguises, and transported to another plan.
Unfoutunatly they didn't fall for it a second time when they finally hunted us down to punish us for that.