Proud moments that your party didn't care about.

[Arc_knight25]

Hey guys, just wanted to see if anyone has a good story about when you saved the day or did something great and the party didn't really care.

Let me start.

So we are in a tower and as we kill the boss in the tower, the tower begins to shake and after about 15 seconds the tower just vanishes and us, plus everything else not native to the tower is suspened in the air and begins to fall.

So unfortunately we went pretty linear and went right for the boss. We still had 2 other smaller towers to the left and right of the main tower that still had captives in it from the town we are liberating a second time in this campaign.

So of course they are falling as well. In 1 tower we see that a good friend gnoll bartender is falling and from the other tower is 2 ladies.

So our DM gives us 2 rounds before we hit the ground. My character dim doors over to the ladies and casts feather fall to save them. While the rest of the party really makes no effort into saving anyone else that maybe falling.

I was rather proud of myself for saving the girls, was sorry I couldn't save the gnoll. For each person saved was worth liberation points, which we want more of for plot reasons I'm sure.

I look forward to reading about other people's unsung exploits.

[ChaoticDitz]

Well, it's not that they didn't notice as much as they just didn't care.

"Unless we manage to shut off his power source he's going to casterhax us to death. Good campaign, guys."

"I (the Psion) will hold him off!"

"Kay have fun."

They then took a detour. The worth of my sacrifice astounds even me. Sigh. And then they got all whiny when I died and said I was useless when they pulled off a last second reversal.

Some people have no appreciation.

[DigoDragon]

In an Oriental-styled campaign, our party fought against the right-hand man of the BBEG and captured him. It was a very difficult fight for us. Well the party was terrible at interrogation, so they just let him go.

*facepalm*

While the others went off to faffle in town, my character managed to track this goon down and kill him before he could report back to his boss. The PCs found out and didn't care about it. I argued that this goon knew what our next destination was and would have set up an ambush if I didn't track him down.

Not only do they write it off, but later when the BBEG was asking around who murdered his favorite goon, two party members willingly ratted me out. :smalltongue:

[Defiled Cross]

Companions became involved in an inebriated altercation at the local tavern.

Being the strongest of the group, both of arm and liver, I thrashed the thugs in a display of comraderie.

As the last man hit the soiled wooden floor with a dull thud, I expectedly turned to the welcoming embrace and thanks of my friends..

..only to find that one of them was passed out at a table, one was involved in a spirited drinking game, and the last had seemingly left the establishment altogether.

Adventurers, psh!

:smallmad:

[ChaoticDitz]

In an Oriental-styled campaign, our party fought against the right-hand man of the BBEG and captured him. It was a very difficult fight for us. Well the party was terrible at interrogation, so they just let him go.

*facepalm*

While the others went off to faffle in town, my character managed to track this goon down and kill him before he could report back to his boss. The PCs found out and didn't care about it. I argued that this goon knew what our next destination was and would have set up an ambush if I didn't track him down.

Not only do they write it off, but later when the BBEG was asking around who murdered his favorite goon, two party members willingly ratted me out. :smalltongue:

I'm guessing all the PCs involved in this were Neutral on the G/E axis?

[Segev]

This was, admittedly, more an OOC problem brought in-game, since the player involved was looking for any excuse to off my PC because he didn't like me, but...

Similar to DigoDragon's story, the party had beaten to the point of surrender one of the long-running BBEGs of the campaign: a half-dragon priestess of Tiamat who was several levels above us. The party had to accept her surrender and not kill her because the samurai in the party insisted it was dishonorable to refuse or to kill a surrendered foe.

They let her heal and then realized that, while they might be able to beat her down again right now if she broke her surrender, they couldn't stop her from breaking it at less opportune moments and getting the jump on us, possibly killing the party while some were still sleeping. So obviously, we couldn't keep her prisoner. (Nobody trusted her to keep her word and not try to murder us if given the chance.)

Since the Samurai insisted it would be dishonorable to kill her, the most we could safely do was extract a promise that she would stop all her evil plans that were aimed at us and our home (an Adventurer's Academy and surrounding township). She promised. My wizard didn't believe her, and so soaked some of her blood off the wall (we REALLY had beaten her down hard) into a handkerchief, which he then stored in a specimen vial.

We go do another adventure quest, then come home to find she's ravaged the place with an army, murdering many people we knew and cared about. My character decided that this threat had to be ended.

He used the blood he'd gathered to make a Simulacrum of her, and interrogated it for information about what her goals were. He then lied to the simulacrum and told it that he didn't appreciate the stupidity of his party (okay, that part was true) and wanted to change sides to a more pro-active, winning one (that was the lie). He gave the Simulacrum a sealed document that supposedly detailed some of the party's plans, as well as a contract stipulating what he wanted in return for coming to work for this villain.

He ordered the simulacrum to keep the documents sealed, as they were for the original's eyes only, and sent her as his emissary to seek out the original (figuring the simulacrum would know her own haunts and hideouts) and offer the bargain.

Two Wish spells created and enhanced a diamond to be worth 50,000 gp. He had actually put one of the documents in the packet as holding a triggering word for a Trap the Soul spell; as soon as the BBEG accepted them, it would trigger with no save.

Some divination magics informed him when the deed was done, and he personally kept the gem on him after that. Only after some time did the party figure out something had happened, and by hook and crook and divine curse from an angry Tiamat, Max finally told them what he'd done.

The Samurai declared that casting Simulacrum was "blood magic" and executed my wizard on the spot, using up multiple magic items to bypass all of my contingencies and defenses and to one-hit-kill him. He then shattered the gem, because it was "evil" to imprison this BBEG.

Go figure.



My next character in that campaign was built to be literally unkillable. The samurai's player quit the game once he realized that.

[OzymandiasX]

I played in a campaign where the only motivation the DM ever offered to the characters was wealth, items, and other 'stuff.' Most of the missions offered us were moral grey areas and we eventually lost the illusion that we were 'the good guys.'

We defeated the main baddie (he escaped) and foiled his world-domination plan. We got mega-cash rewards from the king and several other NPCs.

We knew where the main baddie was fleeing to and the DM planned for us to follow him there and confront him and his lair. But it was in a vast, arctic wasteland and nobody would be offering a reward.

So our characters bought an island and retired, letting the baddie win the second half of the campaign because it didn't affect us.

[Felvion]

Once in my first long held campaign i the rogue of the party. The story was kind of detective-like and we were out of leads. Last we had found was a female name "Natasha". We seached all over but cound't find a thing about her until a guy told us there is the "castle of knowledge" a place of wise monks/clerics with libraries etc.
The party had to buy their entrance to the castle. Each had to pay 500 gp in books that don't come easily on lvl 3. Note that we all had to go in cause there wouldd also be some sort of challenge to prove we were worth to meet the "great old wise lord of the castle".
We reached up to that point and the test in the castle dungeons leveled the whole party up bringing us to lvl4.
As we made to the guy my wizard and cleric were arguing who should be the honored one to stand before the wise man and ask him the only one question we were entitled. There my rogue comes up with that idea "why ask about this woman that is just a lead in our case and not ask him about the case in whole?". My daring rogue steps forward and ignoring the rest of the party spits the question out. Everyone freezes cause the dm has made it clear that we are entitled only one question and it should be considered worthy to be answered by the old man.
The party starts raging to me, telling me i destroyed everything. They even state that since i had only 12 cha i shouldn't even dare to talk to this guy (!) and should have left it to others.
While i'm trying to defend myself i realise the DM is staring me speechless. After a while he stops the fight, asks for a 5 min break cause he was't prepared for such an action....
When he returnes he gives us a fully detailed 10 minute answer in behalf of the old man and awards everyone a WHOLE LEVEL! He said that in his campains all characters advance simultaneusly depending on story progresson and since he revealed us a whole chapter of the story we were worth it.
I almost pissed myself in pride that moment. No one spoke a word about our previous fight. We got al too excited about the level and the info. I didn't gloat just turned and high fived everyone in the party. I was glad i entered that castle 2rogue/1fighter and left with 2 extra wizard levels.
Of course no player gave me any credit for this but as we were leaving the castle a young monk approached me and gave me a spellbook containing all lvl1 and some lvl2 wizard's spells, a gift from the old man!
This character was my first that went from 1 to lvl13 and even thogh he was so badly optimised that was practically useless in battle (2fighter/5rogue/3wizard/3shadowdancer) he is still my favorite cause he changed the story flow with such actions and was really fun to play. After a while the whole party finally loved my character and when i died in lvl7 they didn't mind all paying a share for true ressusrection.

[maniacalmojo]

This last week i was playing a rogue that pretends to be a mage with vigorous use of use magic device. The party had fallen into a sand trap and it was me and one other member with the familiars of the magic users. The party members were kept in an underground city filled with cr7 monsters (our group is level 5) I had a scroll of shadow walk that i used to get into the city. I found the group fairly easily in a cavern filled with cages all holding other prisoners. I sneaked around and dropped some weapons in the cages of the prisoners and unlocked their cages. I nabbed the groups stuff in a bag of holding i had and set a horse drawn cart on fire. as the prisoners and flaming cart were distracting the monsters i used a scroll of greater teleport i found to teleport the group in a random direction away from the city.

The group was unconscious this entire time.

[Crake]

He used the blood he'd gathered to make a Simulacrum of her, and interrogated it for information about what her goals were. He then lied to the simulacrum and told it that he didn't appreciate the stupidity of his party (okay, that part was true) and wanted to change sides to a more pro-active, winning one (that was the lie). He gave the Simulacrum a sealed document that supposedly detailed some of the party's plans, as well as a contract stipulating what he wanted in return for coming to work for this villain.

Since when do you need to lie or interrogate to your simulacrum? Last I remember the are under your absolute command? I'm a bit dubious as to the simulacrum having the memories of the original as well, otherwise you'd never need to interrogate anyone ever, just take some of their blood and make a simulacrum of them, and get it to tell you everything.

[pwykersotz]

Since when do you need to lie or interrogate to your simulacrum? Last I remember the are under your absolute command? I'm a bit dubious as to the simulacrum having the memories of the original as well, otherwise you'd never need to interrogate anyone ever, just take some of their blood and make a simulacrum of them, and get it to tell you everything.

I could see a DM interpreting that they have all the knowledge they had when you took the blood...but yeah, that's a powerful interpretation.

[Venger]

Since when do you need to lie or interrogate to your simulacrum? Last I remember the are under your absolute command? I'm a bit dubious as to the simulacrum having the memories of the original as well, otherwise you'd never need to interrogate anyone ever, just take some of their blood and make a simulacrum of them, and get it to tell you everything.

simulacra are explicitly under your absolute control. there is no mention of whether it has the original's memories or not. however, due to it being a 7th, and costing a lot of xp/gp for schmuck NPCs, I don't think the city guard is going to bother doing this for every criminal, and even PCs aren't going to bother every time they want to know something.

[Deophaun]

Since when do you need to lie or interrogate to your simulacrum?
Interrogating is too much. However, for his purpose, lying was a smart move. It means the simulacrum believed the he was in earnest. Any form of divination/Sense Motive on the mark's part would show that the simulacrum was being truthful when it made the offer.

[MesiDoomstalker]

We had just fought through a dungeon, finally found the big chest of treasure. In a giant empty room. Obvious trap is obvious. I insist the Rogue search for traps which he only reluctantly did so. Found a slew of traps that would have likely been deadly if we triggered them all by running straight towards the shmuck bait.

Rogue disables the traps, eventually. We get to the chest and its locked, and can't be picked. Some kind of internal mechanism that thieves tools can't reach (IE: DM didn't want us to just roll through the lock like we did the traps). The chest is surrounded by tiles with different images on them (there was no rhyme or reason to them). Clunking sounds when stepping on different tiles.

I immediately start puzzling through the tiles. Everyone is yelling out different solutions, getting now where. Finally get them to try my idea. Works perfectly. Huge treasure pile. Guess who got shorted on the loot? :smallannoyed:

[TrollCapAmerica]

I began playing AD&D with my friends in the early 90s when I was about 12.We made D&D an integral part of our lives and I am still playing to this day with several of my friends.Needless to say I love D&D

Our games were pretty disjointed until we finally found a set of characters we liked and stuck with while I slowly developed into a proper DM.I began wielding together some pretty impressive storylines for a 15 year old and my games never failed to impress all my buddies even if their primary concerns were things like "What gives me moar pluses?" and "Make sure everyone knows im a bad ass"

The years went by we played different generations of old characters and all in all had a great time.Eventually [circa 2004] I wanted to bring not only my campaign to a close but 2nd ed as a whole and switch to 3.5.I couldnt just let the most beloved part of our childhood just sort of end either I wanted it to go out with a massive BANG

The last game involves the PCs unknowingly triggering Ragnarok.Its an Apocalypse triggered by an increasing set of villainous alliances all made by evils that have survived encounters with the myriad PCs we have played over the years and they strike just when the highest level retired PC wizard ios casting a McGuffin spell [A beefed up 2nd Planer Genesis that actually represents the creation of my new 3rd edition world] that will leave him completely vulnerable while casting it.All the PCs were there and alot of retired ones came out to protect old uncle Ajax as he does something crazy with magic again.They were such a Justice League style array they thought nothing in the universe could threaten them.Of course they are wrong.If the spell works a new universe will be created and the beings creating it may just be elevated to divine level and all their enemies cant let them do that.

I bring out references to EVERYTHING major we have done over a decade and all our teenage years all in ball of death and fury.Some of it is arc-welded together but it all made sense how this anti-PC alliance has been formed and they are basically making a final desperate strike to end them before its too late.Its glorious there are Giants there are demons Ancient wizards they thought dead since 1996 theres the Queen of Chaos theres FRIGGAN ROBOTS from the Tail of the Comet.They fight valiantly but the main force is the giants which pour through a Gate in seemingly endless numbers lead by the ever hated [and recently freed] Loki along with Surtur and Ymir.I make it clear that the giants seem endless and they may well be overwhelmed as the rainbow bridge appears and Heimdalls horn sounds.The crux of the story is that the PCs spell wouldnt have worked unless a certain amount of divine energy was released from the deaths of an entire pantheon of Gods to fuel a new world and Ragnarok turns out to be a heroic sacrifice and a big Xanatos Gambit by the All Father Odin himself

and the players reactions?

They really couldnt remember most of the enemies I sent after them

They figured they could win Ragnarok because they were bad ass

The general reaction to my Magnum Opus "eh not bad dude.I wanna stab something to show how bad ass I am now"

Needless to say I hate D&D

[Felvion]

TrollCapAmerica i was reading your post. I got the feeling somewhere in the middle of it there was almost a tear man!
Nice world-changing idea btw.

[TrollCapAmerica]

TrollCapAmerica i was reading your post. I got the feeling somewhere in the middle of it there was almost a tear man!
Nice world-changing idea btw.

Thank you.That actually means a lot to me man seriously :smallbiggrin:

[Arc_knight25]

TrollCapAmerica that is amazing. How could your players not see the amount of work you but into that? I for one would be very appreciative of all that you did. It's a shame it really is.

I still remember pretty much every character I have played, and I can recall where they are and if they are still alive to see another session.

But truly great stories by everyone please keep them coming. Love hearing stories from other players and DM's.

[Alent]

That would be the time my group took my suggestion to play an all stealth and precision damage thievery campaign in pathfinder with the usual back compatibility option. The entire campaign was one long string of thankless events.

Spoiler for length.

When we met that week, everyone had opposing ideas for what they wanted, ranging from "Zombie Apocalypse" to "Ravnica!" We ended up going with my suggestion (all thievery campaign) mixed with the MtG guy's Ravnica suggestion: The DM had a homebrewed campaign setting in his stable of settings where there was basically a devastated world with only a single city, an epic planar metropolis ruled by a 1984 style oppressive bureaucracy of Wizard Guilds who spied on and tracked everybody.

So we were immigrants into the city, and everyone had their own idea on what awesome sneak attack damage was. We had an assassin, a straight rogue, a rogue/fighter build, another rogue build I can't even remember right now, and my Unseen Seer build. We ended up starting out around level 8 or 9 or so because the lore ended up making the mansions hard to rob otherwise. Golem security. :smallsigh:

Everybody's concepts for their character varied from the usual bland backstoryless grizzled killer assassin/thief stereotypes until you got to my Unseen Seer, who was a gypsy fortuneteller with madam cleo overtones who actually had one of those tent-stalls you see at circuses, profession(fortuneteller) and frequently mixed Bard's weakish divination with profession checks to make random people feel better about themselves and make some money on the side. If they were worried about some job, I'd use the actual Harrowing spell from PF to give them a circumstance bonus and send them on their way. I had also taken the 3.5 feat that gave me passive arcane sight, and would occasionally have people come in who were watched by scrying sensors I could easily see in the small space, and would mix hints in to the NPCs as part of the fortune reading, such as using the cryptic fortuneteller voice to say "This is a time to do everything right by the world" and such. It was a really fun character. Everyone on the player side of the table evidently hated it.

After our first successful heist, it became apparent that we needed a front, some kind of legitimate business that was more profitable than the trouble of keeping known criminals around, since at least some of the more oppressive members of this Orwellian hell's wizard guild that knew what we were doing. The only "counterforce" was the usual "rats nest" extraplanar bar and grille franchise, run as a front operation to an extraplanar mafia run by beholder-mages. (They're in all our campaigns, it's a running joke.)

This started an argument just as bad as the "What campaign do we play next" argument- possibly worse. We ended up running several more jobs out of an NPC's front while we were all deadlocked in indecision on it. One guy wanted to make Walmart and sell poisons out of the pharmacy, one guy wanted to make a bar and report adventurers getting quests to the Orwellian overlords. I didn't know what we should do, I just knew whatever it was it had to be indispensable to the wizards or else it was more trouble than it was worth.

That gets us to an interesting quirk. A few of the people we broke into were actively engaging in planar travel, which was actually illegal by city law. The Wizards insisted on being able to scry on anybody whenever they wanted, down to giving everyone an individual scrying plate that gave ridiculous circumstance penalties to your save against scrying, and you would get death by hanging if found without it- meted out by the local paladin of tyranny order.

Despite this, the city was building exterior walls and reinforcements for the purposes of building more city tiers using various extraplanar materials. The exact materials had some sort of unspecified use to the wizard's guild, but building was going slow due to the excessive delays in securing the exemptions required to send workers to mine the materials, which is why many of the local nobles were smuggling it on the side from their mansions. (They were largely exempt from the PoT's MO of search without process, and the wizards were turning a blind eye due to need.)

Around this time, we got a contract from the beholders below to go steal something from "the elves." I had been scrying on our marks before we hit them, but this time I was explicitly told that we would be meeting with someone who could tell us about the targets in advance. Wanting to get the bonus for my own scrying efforts, I went along with it. When we walked into this guy's house and we walked past his masterwork silver mirror, I made an appraise check and the DM just flat out told me "This is what your character would think it is, you don't even have to roll." and I commented in character "Huh, you have your scrying mirror on display?"

My group promptly accused me of metagaming. The fact that we had been looking through one just like it before every single theft was completely lost on them. :smallfrown: That wasn't quite as bad as the thought that I would know this in character as a divination specialist... well.. the thought was completely and totally alien to them. :smallsigh:

Once they finished blaming me of messing up the game, we were told all we needed to know about the elves in the "last forest", which was a few days' travel away from the city. We got there and everything starts setting off my nostalgia flags. As a player, I know this elven town and I can't figure out why. We go through just enough formalities to get in peacefully and learn that the city is ruled by a gifted young oracle. More nostalgia goes off, can't place it. Nobody else thinks anything of it, just wants to get the job done.

Part way into it, we learn why the local thieves' guild didn't want to steal it themselves: The elves have a partnership with an ancient dragon who was helping them to create some kind of dragonborn template creature from RotD. Stranger still, I recognized the Dragon's name OOC and again, couldn't remember why. We went past the sleeping dragon and I just couldn't figure it out. Elves and dragons made no sense. Elves making half-dragon abominations made no sense. I assumed the Dragon wasn't real, and attempted to disbelieve him. Made the save and discovered he was a shadow illusion/conjuration. We carefully left the room and resumed trying to find the artifact we were there to steal.

We pulled off the heist out from under the noses of the local guards and dragons alike and made it back, mostly with clever illusions and trickery on my part hiding us from the colossal translucent vapor dragon flying around over our heads. Everyone acted like it was their individual stealth scores that kept them safe and that somehow the dragon had seen through the illusion and saw nothing.

We made it back to the city and my subconscious had figured out what was going on with the nostalgia, but I was still clueless. Regardless, my subconscious was throwing massive numbers of ideas out. When we got back, I immediately began negotiating with various members of the wizard's guild and got a business license for our front, which the group hadn't agreed upon yet, but everyone wanted what the idea could get them: I started the Extraplanar Travel Safety Agency.

It took some sweet talking, but I basically gave the wizards everything they ever wanted: A massive public travel hub based around magic items that created gate spell effects they could use to track anyone and everyone who entered or exited the city. Most importantly, it gave us a way to leave the city and planeshift without the local PoT order hunting us down and executing us, although we may still have been subject to that fate if the scryers caught us jaywalking.

We ran a job while waiting on that to construct, once just the gate part of it was ready, I filed all the paperwork to let us make use of it for our most daring heist ever, which was actually a two parter: we stole part of Mechanus for the gnomes. That was only half of it, the other half of it was that we needed to secure a favor from Garl Glittergold for someone else. We traveled to his wierd horseshoe shaped plane with precious gems as soil, and the patron trickster god of the gnomes was quite amused at our heist, granted the favor and we each got a card of wish and some "pavement" as a bonus right before that session ended.

The session immediately after, I had to let them know that my classes that semester were going to be on D&D night... but I didn't get them told before the entire group declared they were bored, rebuilt their characters as in your face uberchargers and TWF fighters and such and we went on a romp through the plane of heroes.

I was pretty much up a manure river and didn't know it yet. This place was straight out of one of the planar handbooks and the DM was speed-reading it to figure out what he needed to do. About halfway through he goes "oh..." and looks up at me and warns me not to use divination magic around the greek heroes. Something about them not liking oracles. The guy who suggested the plane of heroes did this "yesss! Mwahahaha" routine to the sky and someone else did a "sucks to be you".

... in hindsight, it wasn't until writing this up that I realized that they picked the plane of heroes specifically just to get that character killed. :smallsigh: They really hated that character. :smallfrown:

By this time, I had figured out OOC where we were: in the back story of one of our longest running campaign settings. I had inadvertently recreated the situation in the ancient legend our characters would hear from the same (excessively elderly) elven seer in the same forest in about a thousand years.

Did I get any thanks? No. I got killed by a party member. :smallannoyed: During our romp through the plane of heroes we found an easy 1st grader's pattern matching puzzle that was part of a wall. When I went to solve it, one player insisted on going before me. He tried to "solve" it by hitting it with a headbutt while we told him how stupid he was acting. The first two headbutt attempts came up natural 1's, but the third hit for a whopping 2 nonlethal damage. This woke up the wall construct who promptly unleashed a 18d6 breath weapon in my 10d8+0 face, taking me exactly to -10 and dead. :smallmad: Then they burned my card of wish to rez me, but only because the DM wouldn't let them loot it. :smallfurious:

After the session ended, the DM basically said he was ending the campaign on that note and asked if we knew what the campaign was. When I voiced my suspicions that it was our setting's backstory, he confirmed it and said that we had perfectly created the back story for the campaign setting thanks to our front organization... and promptly all the other players accused the DM of covering for my "metagaming", because this was "just some random plotless combat campaign before [ I ] messed it up." :smallannoyed:

It was so disappointing with how they just ignored and wrote off all of it. :smallfrown: Maybe this wasn't the best thread for this, I hadn't actually thought through how terribly the guys were behaving that campaign.

[Meth In a Mine]

Alright, I was playing a wrestler (unarmed fighter + reaping mauler). We got thrown in a jail for breaking a no-weapon in the king's castle law. Our first escape attempt failed and because we killed someone trying, we were condemned to death. The bound and gagged sorcerer is about to be beheaded in the king's throne room, when I slipped out of my bonds, and went all "Hiyah! Neck-snap!"
And it worked. With the executioner dead, I had little trouble scaring off a few3rd to 5th level aristocrat NPCs. But did I get thanked for saving the sorcerer's life. Nope.

[Theomniadept]

Best ending to AD&DI don't think I could ever DM if that happened. Players just...forgetting ALL their adventures???


Party of Murderhobos I've always despised DMs that let that garbage happen. I mean really? What kind of degenerate human being has a problem with someone playing a utility caster???

[Talakeal]

This was, admittedly, more an OOC problem brought in-game, since the player involved was looking for any excuse to off my PC because he didn't like me, but...

Similar to DigoDragon's story, the party had beaten to the point of surrender one of the long-running BBEGs of the campaign: a half-dragon priestess of Tiamat who was several levels above us. The party had to accept her surrender and not kill her because the samurai in the party insisted it was dishonorable to refuse or to kill a surrendered foe.

They let her heal and then realized that, while they might be able to beat her down again right now if she broke her surrender, they couldn't stop her from breaking it at less opportune moments and getting the jump on us, possibly killing the party while some were still sleeping. So obviously, we couldn't keep her prisoner. (Nobody trusted her to keep her word and not try to murder us if given the chance.)

Since the Samurai insisted it would be dishonorable to kill her, the most we could safely do was extract a promise that she would stop all her evil plans that were aimed at us and our home (an Adventurer's Academy and surrounding township). She promised. My wizard didn't believe her, and so soaked some of her blood off the wall (we REALLY had beaten her down hard) into a handkerchief, which he then stored in a specimen vial.

We go do another adventure quest, then come home to find she's ravaged the place with an army, murdering many people we knew and cared about. My character decided that this threat had to be ended.

He used the blood he'd gathered to make a Simulacrum of her, and interrogated it for information about what her goals were. He then lied to the simulacrum and told it that he didn't appreciate the stupidity of his party (okay, that part was true) and wanted to change sides to a more pro-active, winning one (that was the lie). He gave the Simulacrum a sealed document that supposedly detailed some of the party's plans, as well as a contract stipulating what he wanted in return for coming to work for this villain.

He ordered the simulacrum to keep the documents sealed, as they were for the original's eyes only, and sent her as his emissary to seek out the original (figuring the simulacrum would know her own haunts and hideouts) and offer the bargain.

Two Wish spells created and enhanced a diamond to be worth 50,000 gp. He had actually put one of the documents in the packet as holding a triggering word for a Trap the Soul spell; as soon as the BBEG accepted them, it would trigger with no save.

Some divination magics informed him when the deed was done, and he personally kept the gem on him after that. Only after some time did the party figure out something had happened, and by hook and crook and divine curse from an angry Tiamat, Max finally told them what he'd done.

The Samurai declared that casting Simulacrum was "blood magic" and executed my wizard on the spot, using up multiple magic items to bypass all of my contingencies and defenses and to one-hit-kill him. He then shattered the gem, because it was "evil" to imprison this BBEG.

Go figure.



My next character in that campaign was built to be literally unkillable. The samurai's player quit the game once he realized that.

see, a tier six one shotting a buffed tier one. Clearly this proves that the tier system is bunk and that class imbalance doesn't exit.

[jjcrpntr]

I haven't been playing that long but this happened just last Saturday.

Our party was in a Yuan Ti temple and we were significantly out numbered (party is only level 9) we were up against i 12-13 Yuan Ti of varied size/strength. The barbarian fails a save and suddenly becomes mortified of snakes making him unable to get into melee combat so the rest of the party is a bard, a wizard and my Cleric. One of the larger Yuan Ti charges at me and triggers an AaO with my glaive. I threaten and confirm critical and roll damn near max damage and 1 shot him. The battle took forever but The wizard emptied his spells and I ended up slowly slaughtering all the Yuan Ti as they just couldn't touch me (good AC + bad rolls from DM). That plus the fact that I rolled like 7 natural 20's in that fight and confirmed all but 1 just made me feel like a total bad ass.

[LarwisTheElf]

The first campaign I DMed was built around a Far Realm Cult that had slowly been taking over a large town in order to use everyone there as a sacrifice to open a portal and allow BBEG to enter Faerun. I had a careful plan to slowly unravel the conspiracy to them, but the best laid plans of mice and men went south in a hurry. All the characters were evil, and didn't care about anything but themselves.
The first adventure is a simple "people have been going missing, please help us find them" from the local mayor. Secretly said mayor was part of the cult and was using this to try and get rid of a local red wizard enclave. Originally they blew off the quest as a whole, until they were told they would receive a nice reward (and it took several attempts at that to get them to go along in the end).
Eventually they find that the last person to see the most recent lost person was a bum, who asked for something to "jog his memory." My players' reaction: kill him. Before finding out the info that only he had. Yep. Then the necromancer decides to "mount" the bum's head on his scythe, and parade it around town. Needless to say, they were arrested, which made them mad (seriously, how in the world did they think that that would go over well?). After being rescued by the mayor, who "conveniently" found a lead for them, they then went to the local enclave, and preceded to kill everyone, even the guards that went with them, simply for xp.
And that was all in the first session.
All the rest of the sessions went like that, until the group broke up because two of the players (brothers) moved away, and we couldn't find anyone to replace them.
That is why I will never willingly DM an evil campaign again. Ever.

[BrokenChord]

Hm... I sold my soul to a devil to gain the power to save my friends.

Oh, wait, you meant in-game? My bad.

I would have to say mine was probably in a 3.0 game, when the party I was with (I was a Bard/Blood Magus/Virtuoso with some homebrew feats to make that combo mesh better) was fighting against the first Psionic abominations created by the evil Water deity who was serving as main antagonist of the game. We were battling on a ship... Level 8 at the time, if I recall. With rather incompetent attempts at help from the party Wizard, I was basically passing out the buffs, doing the tactical work, and at times even doing the fighting against these guys. The Cleric and Rogue did their jobs fine, but considering that their jobs were either to keep the ship from capsizing or to protect and heal the sailors, it didn't really help. Eventually, through tricky tactics and sheer dice luck, I managed to get the wizard in working order and we killed the abominations by the breadth of a hair.

Sure, they're impressed by my tactical skill, and they start to congratulate me. But then someone passes a Spot check and sees an approaching water serpent with humanoid facial features (I'm figuring a backported Water Naga at this point). It would pretty likely kill us, so the rest of the party decided they needed to distract it. I guessed they meant some food, or a sailor if they felt particularly cruel.

"Darn, I think we're out of options and I don't want to have to do this, but I don't think we have any methods left for fighting this thing. Broken, do you have any spells left?"

"Completely run dry, sorry. I don't have anything that will help us fight it or escape."

"That's not really why I asked. I attempt to bullrush Xanne [my character] into the water."

Needless to say, that didn't end well for anyone involved. Obvious distraction was obvious, Naga-thing capsized ship, I was hilariously the only survivor as my musical skills entertained it enough that it agreed to carry me to shore. I then watched it murder my "friends".

Not so sad a story in the end, I guess.

[Arc_knight25]

These are some pretty sad stories guys, sorry to open up any old wounds.

But know that all the stories I have read, please feel appreciated now. For I wish that your parties and players could see how proud you are of your characters and worlds created.

Please keep them coming if you have a story to share.

[Segev]

Interrogating is too much. However, for his purpose, lying was a smart move. It means the simulacrum believed the he was in earnest. Any form of divination/Sense Motive on the mark's part would show that the simulacrum was being truthful when it made the offer.

To be fair, the only useful information I needed the Simulacrum to have that I did not was "where she has her hideouts" so it could find the villain.

And yes, that is why I deceived the Simulacrum: I wanted the Simulacrum to not have to roll Bluff against its original's Sense Motive.

[Segev]

see, a tier six one shotting a buffed tier one. Clearly this proves that the tier system is bunk and that class imbalance doesn't exit.

Heh. Exactly!

More seriously, I admit my wizard was not the most optimized in the world (and the samurai was as optimized as the player could make it).

[Zytil]

Boat Bull-Rush story

This reminds me of a very similar situation that occurred at my table, except the wizard(me) had one spell left (Shocking grasp) the monster was a water elemental, and i got to find out how well the party fighter and his full plate conducted electricity.

Take from that what you will.

[lytokk]

3.5 Eberron game. We started playing in it as soon as the setting came out, and the DM was hung up on the "prophecy". Since no material existed as of yet for him to figure out what ti really was, he made it up on his own. Now a little bit of backstory.

The Cast

Roberc Swordswing (Me): Halfling paladin/cavalier of Dol Arrah from the Talenta Plains (seriously, how could you not want to be a dinosaur riding halfling)
Daagoth: Shifter monk who eventually used a wish to be a chaotic monk
Psion: forget his name but he also had a level or 2 in rogue, was a changeling I think
Wizard: Dragonmarked Valenaar Elf
Him: Warforged Fighter, large sized, played by the wizard during the last 3rd of the campaign, since the DM had some plans for the wizard
Tho'Kari: Aasimar Bard from Faerun who had been sucked through a portal in FR during my first game which ended anticlimactically (was the DM's PC during the middle 3rd of the game when I ran a bit)


The first 3rd

We all met up in a tavern when some justicar busted in and started trying to arrest a lady. We didn't like that, and with a simple whistle, my mount busted through the door, tackled the justicar and pinned him. The woman gives us a quest blah blah turns out she was the bad guy all along trying to open a portal to the lower planes. Portal opens, we close it, my guy gets possessed by a succubus (didn't know until later)
Next little bit, I lead the party leading the survivors from a crashed airship out of the mournlands. We get attacked by a pair of beholders (DM intending on killing one of us) I get the bright idea (small sized creature vs floating abominations) to just slide under the eyeball and just stab upward til they're dead. DM deathglares, party mad that they didn't get to do anything.
After many misadventures, me and the elf are at each others throats, but being the paladin, I refuse to take the first swing, and the elf is too aloof to even care. End up underground in I think Sharn, fighting some guards protecting another portal to the lower planes. DM gets a double crit against me, and I lose my shield arm. Massive HP loss, but made the fort save to stay alive. Group wants to turn back, yet I say press on. Get to the portal, this is when we find out that the succubus posessed me (we had been thinking it was some sort of angel). With 1 arm and ride by attacks, I take out a stone golem, mind flayer, and the succubus while the rest of the party couldn't make a save to literally save their lives.
This would end the first third of the game. In the end, I got a construct arm made for me by house cannith, based around an arm I think in the BoED.


the second 3rd (my game)

DM wants to take a break, I say sure, I DM for a bit, and allow him to use the character from my game, since they did go through a portal and all. The assumption was he would play his bard the same way he did in my game. Now, there's still a lot of bitterness around this, but suffice to say he didn't. Party goes to xendrik, and he tells me the one thing he needs for his game is to set up some circle magic from FR that the Cyclopeans did that caused the dragons (gods) to step in and destroy them. So I did. I wasn't a great DM back then by any means, and I have gotten much better since. But that has nothing to do with the story.


The Last Part

So, the party makes it back to Khorvaire, which is where my guy has been the entire time. The Valenaar elves have once again started attacking the Talenta Plains, and my guy, has been leading the armies of the plains against them. Along the way, Roberc picked up a very, very magical tangat, which story went, was forged by goblins and apparently was made out of the claw of dol arrah. During the way, Roberc lost his faith, and his paladinness, but not the mount. Since I had the mount since level 1, and was a cavalier, the DM didn't feel right taking that away from me. (house rule since my character was focused on mounted combat from level 1) Eventually I get it back since I was the last through another portal as we rescued some hags against I believe a balor and his hellspawn minions.
Thokari figures out the prophecy (DM'sPC after all) and figures out how to do it. A weapon that has to be destroyed while being wielded could start the whole chabang. Except he didn't tell us. He just picked up the sword and after doing literally hundreds of damage to this guy round after round, and us being almost dead, it finally dawns on me that the weapon is killing us, not him. This is the first time I ever sundered a weapon. Its never been a trick in my mind. Anyway, destroy the sword, save the party, start the prophecy.
All of the armies of khorvaire now at a castle in the middle of the Mournlands. the Gods (except Dol arrah) are poised to stop the prophecy no matter what. 1 night to prepare, I see my goddess and rush up to talk to her, only to be told that she doesn't have time now. DM then says to find whatever we need, lots of ancient magic are in this temple. I grab up a scroll of Phoenix Fire. I can't remember how I actually cast it, but I think it had something to do with my wisdom score and paladin status, since its a cleric spell, not paladin, but I can't remember how I did it off the top of my head.
Morning comes, and the party is stationed on the walls. Dragons come. Not playing like smart dragons until the last one, which was the head god of the Pantheon. Can't remember his name anymore unfortunately. The DM actually played him as a smart dragon, strafing the walls whittling us down. Jump on Chopperface (my raptor) cast winged mount, and take to the skies. Ride-by after ride-by attack. Me, almost dead, him, no clue. I decide, screw it, I'm goin out with a bang. Take my mount straight up in the air, flying until the dragon is behind me. and thats when I let go, grab the scroll, and fall, fully intending to blow the God up from the inside (it worked against a t-rex, fighting from the inside, not the blowy up part) Contacted by my god, don't use that yet. Grab my tangat which had been falling next to me, and just get ready to attack. DM hoping, praying that I'm going to die. With a mighty roar, my paladin yells, for the last time, "SMITE... EVILLL!!!!!" Roll, nat 20... confirm roll, 19, threat, double crit, chop off limb, and I get another attack. Roll, nat 20, 18 to confirm and double crit again. Behead. I chopped off a gods arm then balanced on that falling appendage to decapitate. DM ruled that the god got 1 final attack against me, a bite with the falling head. Now I'm trapped in its jaws. Falling, to my death, still thousands of feet in the air. Dol Arrah swoops in and grabs the head. At this point, every dragon turns and attacks her, saying she is the traitor, for wanting to fulfil the prophecy. As they're all attacking her, she says to Roberc, NOW. Pheonix Fire the whole Pantheon. I'm the detonator, she's the C4. One last burst of divine energy granted by the only goddess on our side is enough to wipe out the remainder of the gods. Truly epic moment. At this moment the DM informs me that due to the nature of the spell, I wouldn't be coming back to life. This was 15 minutes int the last session of the game. a 5 hour session. I have no backup character, so I sit there, until everything else happens.
In the end, the wizard, mentioned above, gets to ascend to godhood, as a representative of his dragonmarked house. Since there were still fights to be had, all I was able to do was play as my clawfoot mount who tackled a balor off a castle wall as they both fell to their deaths, mostly the balors since Chopperface was clawing the crap out of him, due to my celestial mount feat. Would have survived too if not for the explosion when the balor died.
Epilogue, Daagoth forms a monastery, the psion retires and just basks in the glory, wizard is a god, an Thokari, the DMPC gets a statue due to his sacrifice. Roberc gets NOTHING!!! His reward for all of his fighting, for dying the the glorious way a paladin of the goddess of self-sacrifice should, is for his immortal soul to forever wage war on the plane of war. Daagoth attempts to build a memorial to Roberc, enshrining the only things he had that survived the explosion, a small sized construct arm and the tangat, but the dm simply glosses over that fact only to describe the DMPC's statue.


tl;dr it wasn't 1 action of amazement I did to save the party, it was many, up to and including my death. the campaign went on for over 3 years. I was never more emotionally invested in any of my characters than this one. And the reward for probably my best character ever was for him to keep fighting, forever... Its no wonder why I didn't play for a few years after.

[shylocke]

I was playing a halforc monk and my friend was a dwarf monk( foster brothers at the monastery). The party was dealing with a orc invasion and we were about to fight the warlord at lvl 12. Fights starts and the orcs split up and attack the party leaving a clear path straight to the warlord. We both bull rushed and he fell off a cliff. The rest of the orcs ran. Party and DM were pissed that our two characters ended the boss fight on the first round of the encounter. Moral: DONT PUT THE ARMY COMMANDER 5' FROM A BLOODY CLIFF!

[shylocke]

We didn't even bother to climb down and loot him. Even though he was lvl 15

[Spore]

That one moment where I maneuvred a plane into the side of an half fiend red dragon to distract her from eating our main quest giver dragon and his lord. Where my halfling knight lost half his HP for a measly 3-5 damage and no one cared. The cleric called me insane and the quest giver removed himself from our allegiances about two weeks after...

Don't give me that look. I play a mundane hero in a magepunk world. I practically have a death wish.