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Icewalker
2007-06-03, 02:14 AM
Well, looked through the first three pages and didn't see anything, so I'm guessing that any of these threads have fallen off the map.

Best moments.

I know a guy who runs a massive dnd world, as his job. 1st edition. Lots of high level and high power characters, lot of magic items.

Once we were walking single file out of a dungeon. There were 42 ogres and an ogre chief waiting for us outside.

They won initiative.

We killed them all before they could act.


The mage, who was first out has a cloak that always gives her a surprise round, used a meteor swarm which took down all 42.

A ranger/cleric with ogres as favored enemy was second, and he gets a 'pre-initiative arrow' and one-shotted the ogre chief with it.

Skyserpent
2007-06-03, 02:31 AM
I think ours would be the early dungeon, the party was all level 3 and they ended up in a room with a little black dragon. Even though it was the size of a dog they were still freaking the hell out. Assuming the weakest dragon was at least CR 5 And they spent 20 minutes negotiating with it. and then left peacefully, seeing their target, a magical orb that they needed to get. Later they argued over what to do for a good half-hour. Another hour later as they decided which spells to prepare they snuck in while the dragon was out eating, and when it got back they took a surprise round. The Duskblade had a Shocking-Grasp Channeled Blade of Blood and the mage cast True Strike. The Cleric snatched the orb and the rogue sneak attacked twice. The Dragon was dead by Round 3. Combat took a grand total of 43 seconds. It was fun.

reorith
2007-06-03, 02:32 AM
best moment? the cn fighter couldn't figure out what to do with his cleave attempt after dropping an orc. the adjacent party wizard died within six seconds.

Amiria
2007-06-03, 03:47 AM
Forgotten Realms. Downtime. Two PCs (Ayrin Silvershine, elven fighter/diviner/spellsword/eldritch knight; Marwulf "The Hero" Hornhand, human fighter) had a farm in Shadowdale and bred horses, the others (Derek Astonil, human cleric; Fingwin Galbaglinde, half-elven Bard; Greiner Broadskull, dwarven rogue/ranger) were on a visit. This was the perfect time for an old enemy, a young adult red dragon, to have his revenge.

He flew over the farm and breathed fiery death on the farm buildings. The heros ran into the farmyard. Some began to rescue the horses from the burning stable, others attacked the dragon quite ineffective. The dragon breathed fire on the Greiner, who, with a jump over a fence into a ditch (evasion) remained unscathed. Derek dispelled some of the buffs from the dragon but it still kept out of melee range. Meanwhile the whole farm was burning.

Greiner, Fingwin and Ayrin hit the dragon with some arrows and spells, but not much. It landed on the burning farmhouse and had his little "You are doomed ..." speech. Marwulf attacked it in melee but the dragon dished out far more damage. Ayrin sneaked up from behind out of blindsight around the wall of burning house and climbed up (fire resistance). The dragon killed Marwulf with a fiery breath but the Ayrin jumped on its back and hit it with her glaive. Enraged and wounded, the dragon flew up and the Ayrin fell down into the inferno (ouch).

Now the dragon tried to escape on its way it tried to snatch and kill Derek, who was also not in his best shape from some breath attacks. But the grapple failed (dragon = 1; cleric = 20) and Derek miraculously landed a solid hit with his heavy mace and killed the dragon. The battle was over, the survivers gathered in the yard between the burning buildings. Ayrin wept for her dead and toasted Marwulf. Luckily Derek had still a one-shot Raise Dead gadget and brought him back to life.

At this moment, the fire caused the manure gases of the outhouse to explode. It rocketed skywards and flew through half of Shadowdale only to crash down in Elminster's front garden where it destroyed the patch of his prized and rare wumpkraut. Elminster was very disgruntled and sent the group on a quest to a hidden valley to find some new wumpkraut for him. But that's another story ...

Skjaldbakka
2007-06-03, 04:48 AM
I occasionally run a one-shot entitled 'the Festival of the Unicorn'.

The second time I ran this one-shot, one of the players did a wonderful/horrible thing, that was planned from the start.

So, to set up, we have two halflings and a sorceror/barbarian, that have traveled to this village to attend the yearly festival of the unicorn. There are some contests and other general festival related goodness that the PCs get to do. One of the PCs, chosen at random, begins to see omens. In this particular omen, he is at an art judging panel, and sees all of the paintings change to a an image of the Unicorn, lieing dead on the ground, with three black-feathered arrows deep in its heart.

He goes nuts, and runs to the temple of Elhonna with one of the paintings, and the priestesses are able to see the omen as well, because they are tied to the Unicorn. They tell the PCs that the druid was supposed to arrive in town hours ago to make preperations for the Unicorn's appearance, and that they had sent the ranger out looking for him. The party remembers meeting a suspicious looking man in the tavern at this point, and rush off into the forest looking for him, hoping to stop him from killing the unicorn.

They wander through the forest, and discover that the creatures of the forest have gone berserk. They are attacked by a swarm of berserker squirrels, spawing a wonderful quote "I don't know what's more disturbing, an army of berserker squirrels, or the fact that you have the Stats for an army of berserker squirrels".

They continue searching the forest, and the halfling rogue that had the vision enters a clearing ahead of the party, and sees a the body of the unicorn and the druid lieing dead in the clearing, pierced with black-feathered arrows, and a human figure with a bow in a dark cloak standing over them.

The rogue sneaks up on the human, and stabs him in the kidney. The ranger turns back, looking on the halfling, with tears running down his cheeks, and steps back, pulling a white-fletched arrow from a quiver at his side, and fires at the halfling. The rest of the party rushes in on this scene and puts down the ranger, while the rogue watches on in shock and horror as he realizes he has the death of the wrong man, and the one man who could have best helped them.

One of those times when my rule agaisnt speaking out of turn reaped many roleplaying rewards.

ufo
2007-06-03, 05:24 AM
Skjaldbakka, your player should get a medal for that quote :smallbiggrin: .

Well, I was DM'ing one player, and elven rogue. He had nothing to do, so he took a stroll down the street. He eventually saw some muggers and helped out. As they drew weapon, he was forced to kill two of them, with the last one fleeing into an alley. Two guards helped the PC chase the mugger, but in the alley, the mugger used a secret door (the alley ended blind). The PC and one guard followed him in. There, there were 2 other muggers. They got the best of the city guard. The PC got disarmed, and was forced to throw some stools and chairs at his enemies.

He eventually killed two of them, and the last one he tied to a bookcase. The guard in the alley came in because of the noise. The PC said the famous "Ahh, you're right in time!" line, only to find that the guard was corrupt. The PC succesfully knocked down the guard and tied him with the mugger to the bookcase. More guards came, and seeing the tied guard, they thought that the PC had attacked the guard and an innocent.

The PC was forced to flee into another room, tip a bookcase over and turn it on flames. He went up some stairs and opened a door, to find that he had been in a basement. He hid on some stairs that had a look at the basement door. He heard screams of the guards burning, and a single guard came up the stairs, standing on a rug that was in front of the cellar door.

The PC (on the stairs) poured oil over the rug and guard and shot a fire arrow onto the rug. Guess the rest.

The PC broke up the door and fled to the streets. He snuck out of the city and fled to a port village a days travel away.

A day later, he heard rumours of a maniac that had massacred six city guards and burned down five houses.

And what do we learn from that? Don't start fires in cities!

Storm Bringer
2007-06-03, 06:55 AM
twogreat moments form our first 3rd ed campgain, both involving the party thief:

first moment was a mid-level fight. The Rogue (a Gnome called Smee) had a bad AC (and A chr of 4). we were fighting a evil adventuring party in a tower. seeing the only way to get into a backstab position was over the celing(had sod-all tumble skill, and just couldn't take hits), he put on his trusty slippers of spider climb and started across the celing. Half way across, He litrally bumps into the baddies invisable mage, who was hiding on the roof via a spider climb spell. Que upside-down fight above the rest of the party. after a few close shaves, he is about to deliver the perfect killing blow.....when the baddies spider cilmb runs out, causing him to fall, which did enough damage to kill him.

2nd moment: somewhat higher level now. Smee had been singularly useless as a theif, as his lockpicking/trap disarming was repeatedly behind the DC of the locks/traps (plus, since we were all use to Adnd rules, we were still getting the hang of things like needed shearch and Spot skills, none of us were that good at spotting things). anyway, we come to a long, narrow corridor, which has what looks like a arrow slit at the far end. we send the thief off head to see what see (and to set off traps, since that was the way he usually delt with them). he gets to the end then peeks round the corner.

GM: (evil grin) you see a beholder, looking your way. Make a hide roll.

Smee:(rolls) 45

Gm: what?

Smee: 45. 18 on the roll, 12 ranks in hide, plus 15 for the ring of cameleon power. 45.

gm:(taken aback) right, er.........well, your Not seen.

It turns out the reason he was so bad at traps was cos most of his skill points had gone into hide/move silently/etc. so, unseen by the beholder, he snuck up behind it, and managed to get a critical backstab on it (a few jammy rolls). the party trundles round the corner to see the previously useless gnome standing on top of a beholder preening.

he went on to prove he was better than invisable on several occasions, as NO ONE had a spot/listen anything like good enough. not long after he picked up a nasty little short sword, which gave him some serious backstab potential. he was useless at the start of the campgain, but really blossomed later on.

Swooper
2007-06-03, 08:44 AM
What first comes to mind is an incident back from 2nd Edition. The party consisted only of me, Melanie, a human female transmuter, and Elner, an elven thief (2nd edition rogue) with the Bounty Hunter kit (which meant all weapon proficiencies for free at the cost of some sneakiness iirc). We were propably not much higher than 8th level at that time, I think.

We were facing a BBEG wizard who was somewhere near 20th level, inside a town. I stood pretty much in the middle of the main square, the BBEG was standing at the edge of it and the elf was somewhere offscreen, on his way to help me. The BBEG either won initiative or survived my first action, can't remember. Anyway, he casts a homebrewed spell that works pretty much like Disintigrate, only en masse with a pretty large radius. Centered on me. I fail my saving throw and vanish along with all of the town sqare, leaving only a crater. The elf, now not far away, sees this and furiously charges the BBEG from behind with his flaming longsword twohanded. He not only gets his backstab (=sneak attack) damage, but also crits. This cleaves the BBEG in twain, causing a Contingency spell he had on to trigger another homebrewed spell that rewinded time a few rounds back, saving both him and me. We then fought him again, not killing him but driving him off for now.

That was one awesome session.

Leon
2007-06-03, 11:09 AM
WHFRP

One Shotting a river troll with a torch - 34 points of fire damage

My Woodsman had been out scouting while the rest of the party stripped down and slasped about in a pool, heard the screams of terror as they were suprised bythe troll and came back to see what the fuss was about.

Spent 2 turns getting a torch out then lighting it, moved into combat with the troll and Crit, and kept critting

Icewalker
2007-06-03, 03:54 PM
Got another one, where I was DMing for my brother on a quick fight. He was I think cleric 1-2, Bard 3-4, can't remember exactly. Saw two half-orc muggers beating on some guy in an alley. Rushes in, fight starts.

Simple enough. Except the fight progressed about as follows:
PC: miss
orc: miss
orc: miss
PC: miss
orc: miss
orc: hit! not too much damage
PC: hit! ok damage.
orc: miss
orc: miss
PC: breaks bottle of oil over orcs head, lights on fire.
orc: drops weapon and pats at head screaming
orc: helps first orc
PC: crits, takes down one of em.
orc (with fire now out): crits, takes down PC >.>

I had a town guard arrive around then, but then after a short fight the orc killed him...so more showed up :smallwink:

Yeah. Lighting stuff on fire...



Not so much a moment as just a PC, and effectively every moment in which he acts. This guy who runs dnd for his job. There is one PC, Binethaldroc (Bink) who is...interesting. Basically he has decided it is his goal to become entirely unstoppable, and is making good progress. I think he is something like a 18th level illusionist. Except in the whole time I've known him I've seen him cast one illusion. He plays as a rogue.

He has a 'ring of the master thief' which basically...makes him a rogue. He gets rogue powers/backstab etc.

He has an amulet that makes him invisible.

He has a ring which has four settings: immunity to fire, immunity to cold, immunity to gas weapons, immunity to non-magical missles (arrows, etc).

He has a helm which gives him a aura of disregard, where nobody pays any attention to him for the first three rounds that he is perceived by them.

He gets a 'no-save save'. Whenever a spell or whatever is cast that wouldn't allow a save, he gets one anyways. ("The BBEG destroys the universe." "I get a save!")

Thanks to his no-save save, he got out of a geas spell, and got a reward for an adventure (when nobody else did :smallsigh:) which was 25% magic resistance.

Basically, whenever somebody might attack him: "I'm hiding in shadows, moving silently, invisible, and disregarded".
DM: "****..."

Yeah. He also doesn't play like a normal adventurer, he plays more rationally. Some room full of creepy masks, clearly going to have some nasty trap we have to get through, and he just stops at the stairs and doesn't come in. Several rounds later, some guy touches a mask and they all shoot psionic blasts. Bink is sitting, invisible, on the stairs, just watching.