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View Full Version : Gamer Tales Lrn2 Earthquake



stormtemplar
2015-02-27, 12:29 AM
I haven't done one of these before, as I usually just lurk, but this was too much fun not to share.


Our story begins when I join my party after returning from lunch, bringing my Gnome Wizard out of the "Ethereal Vortex" that mysteriously trapped my until my return to the table. I find my party engaging in something that is surprisingly not completely made of shenanigans: They're doing a pretty standard dungeon crawl to recover some treasure in return for a cut. Granted, they're doing this in the middle of an abandoned city for a dragon they randomly met while searching for a tome of arcane lore, but that's besides the point. So I join in, and we wander around for a while, having some fights and such, about as basic of a D&D experience as your could possibly expect. Nothing worth mentioning happens until we stumble into a room containing a small floating orange orb surrounded by the corpses of another adventuring party.

Now I, at this point, am rightfully worried about this thing, so I take a few steps back while our party paladin sends in his pet cat to investigate. (We go through quite a few cats. I'm not sure where he gets them.) The cat bats at the thing and nothing happens. Next, I pass the Paladin my ten foot pole, which he decides to use his wand of enlarge to make into a twenty foot pole and he pokes the orb, no effect. Next the party Rogue decides to go up and touch the thing, failing a CHA save and taking some minor damage. Then, our party sorcerer steps up to the plate and she passes the save, and the DM says something that drops our jaws "You feel as though you could make a wish and it would come true." Keep in mind, our party is 12th level. Wish is WAY above our paygrade.

But there's a small problem: The player playing the sorcerer sucks at committing to decisions. I mean, he makes Charlie Brown look confident and decisive. So we stand there for a solid ten minutes, trying to get him to pick something...anything! He could gain power, he could get the mcguffin we're here to find, plus the other two parts of it as well, anything he wants. So he thinks and he thinks and he thinks, and FINALLY he makes a decision: "I want to learn the spell earthquake."

I plant palm firmly on face as this plays out exactly as expected. He attempts to cast the spell he has now learned, and is told that he isn't powerful enough to cast it, as Earthquake is an 8th level spell, and he gets 0 of those per day. So nothing happens, and we all bemoan the wasted wish, but move on with our lives. He doesn't. His character starts moping as we finish the dungeon and travel to a nearby tower that is our final objective. Heartbroken, our sorcerer refuses to join us, and simply sits dejected outside while our party advances. After being attacked by some powerful ghosts the sorcerer uses fly to escape them and rise into the sky to more effectively be a dejected bum.

Meanwhile, our party decides to actually ADVENTURE and we rise to the top of the tower, have a battle with a powerful vampire that manages to take two of the five of us down before we finish it. We recover the mcguffin, leave the tower, rejoin our whiny sorcerer and travel onward after much mockery and complaining on our parts about the fact that we had to fight a major boss without one of our casters. We then get in a fight with some Hags and the sorcerer spends the entire fight, every turn hh comes up attempting to cast earthquake and failing. After the fight, I get so sick of it that I use a major illusion to make it look like it worked, but this is done openly so it isn't like the player is actually fooled. It wasn't really a serious thing anyway.

After a little more drama we finally reach our destination, the coast where the ship we hired will pick us up. Our grief stricken sorcerer refuses to sleep for the second day in a row, and the rest of us get some long rests, more than a little irritated at this point. He's skipped out on two combats and he's been trying to cast Earthquake without stop the whole walk. Then, the next day, after we've all woken, it seems the DM has decided to be somewhat merciful. Our of nowhere, a demon appears, offering to trade him power to cast the spell in return for something. Again, the sorcerer begins to TRY to make a decision and for a few minutes he agonizes. Initially, the price is his immortal soul and he almost goes for it, but that's far too decisive for him and he keeps thinking. He's about to try to do it in exchange for 10k gold, but then the grin on the DM's face scares him off. (Yes that's OOC knowledge, we're not the the most serious group) Eventually, after much deliberation he manages to come to a decision: He'll spend 7,500 GP

The demon thinks for a long moment, then nods its head. They are agreed, and the deal is set. 7,500 GP in exchange for the power to cast earthquake.

Then I speak up "I cancel the major image"

And the table explodes into laughter.

Inevitability
2015-02-27, 11:10 AM
I could make a long post about the DM's style, or your decisions. Instead, I'll just say one thing.


This was hilarious. :smallbiggrin: