Ever catch the whole table off-guard?

[NerdHut]

I've been reading a lot of interesting stories from the world of table-top. There's a lot of stories of players messing with DMs, DMs with players, and other funny hijinx. But I was wondering if anybody had some good character-defining moments that throw the whole table off. Just something funny, impressive, shocking, or even frightening that perfectly summed up your character's theme.

I have two such stories:

The first one comes from my very first session of D&D. I joined a campaign already in progress as a Dwarven Fighter (very original, I know). An honor-obsessed, racist, alcohol-driven dwarf. As you know, dwarves and sea-travel are generally not paired together much, but the first thing we did was board a ship. After setting sail it turned out that our captain knew one among out party. Our Gnoll Swashbuckler had disgraced him on his old ship and thrown him overboard. Wanting revenge, the captain demanded an honorable duel - to the death. My dwarf decideed to chug a bottle of whatever booze they had on the ship and when he got bored of watching the fight, threw the bottle at the gnoll. Nat 20. Cue chaos on the deck, more fighting, no one is steering the ship, captain tries to fight me, caster blinds him, more fighting. Did I mention no one was steering? Because the ship had hit a maelstrom, and was funneling downward, people were falling off the ship, and we had a near-TPK. We made it out okay, but we had gone through a portal and ended up on the other side of the continent. All that from one thrown bottle!

The second was less epic, but more sudden. We were in a high-powered campaign with questionable alignments, and I was playing a Stonechild woman named Galena. She was incredibly stern and unforgiving. Through her feats of strength and good connections, she had became the Second-in-Command of the town's guard. On an expedition, our party's artificer noticed a guard sleeping on duty in one of our outposts, which of course is a great way to piss off your commanding officer. Turned out that guard was due to return to town that evening. And my Stonechild was waiting. As he approached the gates, Galena grabbed the man and dragged him to the courtyard at the guardhouse, calling the whole garrison outside. She asked for a whip and removed the offending guard's armor, the knelt him down, and for his lack of discipline sentenced him to 10 lashes from the whip. Because of Galena's HUGE strength score, the guard was unconscious after just 3 strikes, but he still got the full ten. The whole table looked at me, not knowing what to say for a moment, but eventually we moved on. Needless to say, my character took a big leap strait to Lawful Evil that session. But that worked well later in the campaign.

Anybody else have defining moments worth sharing?

[Geddy2112]

There was the time my halfling cleric almost fell when he turned from good hearted southern minister to Judge Dredd in the span of 5 minutes.

He worked for a theocracy, and while the hands of god in heaven seemed useless, the power of the theocracy was real, and measurable.After yet another setback where divine goodness, praying, healing the sick, protecting the meek, and purging the profane resulted in jack squat, he was done with being good. We had saved a town from control of a vampire, cured a deadly plague, and removed a blight from the fields. But not a dang thing changed in the grand scheme-all of the faith and good works meant nothing, as the town went right back into another set of misfortunes by their own choosing.

He tried again to save the town, but this time, nothing good he could do worked, or mattered. The party left the town, the cleric was in tears. He swore against his god for being weak, and that the mortal theocracy he served is the only way.

The next town over, he found a sinner, and brought him to seclusion for an impromptu confession and evangelism. He did the standard witnessing, asked the convert to kneel and close his eyes, then cast silence and anoited him with holy water. At this point, the table is snickering thinking that this is going into a X rated scene. Until the cleric put his gun to the back of his head and blew his brains out. Then burned the body and walked off. The rest of the table was silent and the DM had to step out for 10 minutes, due to the shock.

[Buufreak]

Last week, as a joke, and with a fair bit of abuse in respects to the aid another action, I had 50 goblins pile on top of each other, wrap up in a make shift trench coat, and make a commutive disguise check to be a giant. The party was both dumbfounded and amused.

[Theobod]

Ooooh time to stick my 2cp in here ;)
Playing Lawrence Talford of House Talbert, a young second son of a second rate noble off adventuring for the first time with no experience of the manners and tropes involved in adventuring (OC I have been DnDing for nearly ten years now so this was a fun disconnect). So I, our ranger and our barbarian were in a corridor when we were accosted from behind by a band of goblins and quickly formed a defensive line on my order, one goblin then moved to the front and cast a cone that caught all of us, I panicked and reverted to Gallant Hero mode and charged the enemy spellcaster, disregarding the plan, breaking lines and getting myself beaten into unconsciousness in one manouver, the party barely saved my life. It's then they realised I had never adventured before, my fighting experience consisted of classic forms only and I had no understanding of small unit tactics, instead believing the noble virtues of Gallantry, Ettiquet and Dueling to be all he needed to survive.

In his defence he is a fast learner, he just makes every mistake in the book precisely once. Somehow he is still alive!

Another example of the same character, we had found a town infested with undead which our ranger was (through drawn straws) volunteered to lead away from a church full of survivors which we began to lead away, the gaggle of civilians consisted of some old people and a couple children and one, a little girl, was lagging behind, looking sick and injured...

Without so much as a thought I scooped her up into my arms: Gallant Hero mode activate! Feeling such a manly man my ego was soon shot to pieces as she sank her teeth into my kneck seconds later and I was making saves vs disease! I spent the next round screaming like a child begging the barbarian to get it off me while flailing around and soiling my britches.

[NerdHut]

I spent the next round screaming like a child begging the barbarian to get it off me while flailing around and soiling my britches.

Is it bad that I really did laugh out loud at this?

[Nibbens]

There was the time my halfling cleric almost fell when he turned from good hearted southern minister to Judge Dredd in the span of 5 minutes.

~Snip~

This story gets me every time I read it. lol.

I have a tale, although I was the DM. The moment wasn't so much a character defining moment, but a table shaping one.

The Scene: the introductory D&D game with 7 people who've never played d&d before and no idea what to expect.

The scenario: Goblins working for a bugbear who crowned herself the "goblin mother" raided a town and the PCs save it. yayyy...

I threw in some roleplay hi-jinx for everyone. The mayor's daughter who was saved by a PC from an overturned and burning wagon falls madly in love with the PC and starts writing love-letters. One of the PCs gets hired on with a glass-maker who mines quartz for components. (yes, i stole a bit of the setting from RotRL. Don't hate. lol)

However, a gnome family with 6 children let the PCs stay at their home that night because the inn is full because of a festival at a nearby village. Lots of roleplay, including the youngest gnomeling being put to bed by the "group mom" and being forced to read her a story.

All this was a clever ploy to arouse those pesky emotions, however. As the PCs left to go do some other minor task at a well, the goblin mother sends another raid because the PCs had killed her "favorite son" and some of the goblins that escaped saw this, and reported it back.

A little goblin snooping that night figured out where the PCs were staying, and after distracting them with the thing at the well, it was time for the goblin mother to "take from them as they had taken from her."

A second raid burned the gnome's home, murdered most of the family, and escaped with the youngest. Of course the PCs follow.

A dungeon later, the PCs come to a throne room - with the bugbear holding the gnome child and raising a hammer above the girls unconscious body.

Pcs spring into action predictably. But no one got the flag waving hints/letters/forshadowing/direct telling them that she's was going to splatter that little gnome across the cave floor. She was going to murder the child in front of the PCs - just to make her point. So, no one confronted the mother directly - they just went to the other minions first counting on "oh, this is just a game where only happy and fun things happen."

My PCs learned much that day about D&D. That they have to make the good things happen, they're not just going to fall in place on their own.

Just a side note; I'm still playing with these same guys after several years. The table has shrunk and grown according to time schedules, but not because of that first game, thankfully. (which i was seriously worried about for awhile)

[NerdHut]

All this was a clever ploy to arouse those pesky emotions, however. As the PCs left to go do some other minor task at a well, the goblin mother sends another raid because the PCs had killed her "favorite son" and some of the goblins that escaped saw this, and reported it back.

That's an incredible set-up. I should probably work something like that into my campaign. I love plot hooks that don't revolve around money.

[Chronikoce]

I had a character that was reckless, not very bright, but immensely motivated to help the party and be the hero.

This was perfectly encapsulated and shocked the entire table when we were racing down a large spiral staircase with an open center (think of a large pit with stairs winding down the edge of the cylinder).

The bad guys were ahead of us and my character was having none of that! So he takes his trusty dinosaur catching rope (disclaimer: he had caught no dinosaurs with it, he just really wanted to), hands one end to the nearest party member and says "here, hold this" before leaping off the edge of the stairs.

You see, in his mind his fall would be arrested and he would swing into the wall a level down onto the stairs and thereby be ahead of the bad guys.

The trouble was as follows
1: he handed the rope to the party caster
2: there was nothing to brace against or tie the rope off on
3: the rope was too long

Result, pulled the poor caster right off the edge with him. Fortunately for me the DM didn't want us to die so said that before getting yanked off the edge the caster had managed to change my trajectory and I caught the stairs about 4 floors down. I took a bunch of damage and then I stopped the sorcerer from falling and swung them onto the stairs. They suffered far more from the falling damage than I did.

It's a shame that campaign ended, he really wanted to catch a dinosaur... With his zero ranks of handle animal. He wasn't wise after all.


Second character was in an eberron campaign. I was playing a lawful evil knight and the party members were high ranking officials in the Bree army trying to prepare to defend against a massive invasion from Thrane.

To set the stage a little. Thrane was actually going after Cyre and "just wanted to pass through" but their track record was against them and we suspected as soon as they were done with Cyre they would be coming for us. So we decided that we would use our royally appointed power to ally with Cyre (whom we were still technically hostile to, I think we had a cease fire at the time).

So here comes the embassy from Cyre and as they are walking towards us one of the soldiers nearby spits on the ground at his feet. My character walks up to him and asks him what that was for, to which he gets the reply along the lines of 'enemies of Bree need to be killed, not invited over to chat'. So my character smiles and says, "I'm glad you're so interest in killing the enemies of Bree. I expect you to report to the Frontline first thing tomorrow morning, dismissed" before walking back to the emissary to apologize for the rude behavior. It doesn't sound that impressive in writing but that campaign was mostly about character interaction, roleplay, and strategy for large scale conflict and this moment really cemented my characters persona. He effectively handed this soldier (who was an officer) a death sentence in front of his men, did so with a smile, and walked away like it was nothing.

[Afgncaap5]

I can't even remember what it was, but a player said something recently. I borrowed a trick from Chris Perkins and had a hallway protected by a magical barrier that could only be passed by people who revealed a great secret, but the significance/importance/relevance of the secret had to become greater with each person who went through. Most people just came up with some quick joke for a secret, though they got more serious with each player since the gate needed them to be more meaningful. The last player who stepped through, though, said something that just made the rest of the party get quiet, I think it was about his character's wife dying at the hands of a bandit that he couldn't stop.

[Droopy McCool]

We were all new to D&D. Party was Cleric (me), Ranger, Barbarian, Rogue, and Druid. Level 2 I think.

We all knew the Rogue wanted to get every piece of money he possibly could, but up until this we didn't know what he would do for it. In a small elf town, a Sorcerer had enlisted our help in showing his true power to the townsfolk (they thought he was a joke, turns out he was planning on taking over the town). He summoned some beasts, don't remember what, and as we fought them away from the people, he dismissed them, claiming only he had the power to do so. In his house later, the rogue and barbarian killed him and the rogue disguised himself as the Sorc. The rest of us didn't know IC, but were cracking up OOC.

He went out "Schekeling", and found a stand in the market with a woman closing up her shop. He noticed a small chest under her table, and sneaked up behind her. We were all laughing the whole time at how ridiculous he was, no way he could grab the chest without her noticing. He comes up behind her and whispers in her ear "Nothing personal." and ran her through with his sword and covered her mouth to prevent a scream. None of us said a word as he dropped her and grabbed the chest.

McCool

[Afgncaap5]

He went out "Schekeling", and found a stand in the market with a woman closing up her shop. He noticed a small chest under her table, and sneaked up behind her. We were all laughing the whole time at how ridiculous he was, no way he could grab the chest without her noticing. He comes up behind her and whispers in her ear "Nothing personal." and ran her through with his sword and covered her mouth to prevent a scream. None of us said a word as he dropped her and grabbed the chest.

Geeze... some definite character decisions being made there.

[DarthSpader]

This happened in a recent game.

Our group is standard makeup, mostly murder hobos. One of them is an asimar fighter who is against the traditional grain and a smidge ... Not good. Anyway, we are camping for the night and we have a watch up. First watch hears something, turns out to be some bandits stealing our stuff. Everyone gets woke up - and the asimar stumbles out of his tent - he asks how long it's been.
Dm: about 2 hours.
Asimar: well I don't have endurance so I wouldn't sleep in armor. Guess I'm just in my sleeping clothes.
Dm: that would be correct
A: ok so I'm naked from the waist down - I grab my weapon and I charge the bandit

At this point the image of a half naked asimar attacking a bandit with naught but a sword.. And the question came up: does he have 2 weapon fighting.... And would it count as improvised or natural weapon?

Whole table devolved into unstoppable "giggles" at that point, for close to 10 minutes.

[Dravda]

Had a sorceress (war mage, actually, don't judge me!) with whom I set out to break stereotypes. I was sick of the "sexy sorceress" archetype, so I swung wildly in the other direction. This lady was tall, broad-shouldered, and commanding. She had an oversized, hooked nose and a square jaw. She was covered in scars, courtesy of her time in the military, and wore her hair in cornrows to keep it from being grabbed. She smoke, drank, and spat. She was awful. The group loved her. Her name was Taria Cook, and there was no better friend, no worse enemy. She quickly became famous for her pugilistic diplomacy, shooting first and rarely bothering to ask questions. Her catchphrase was to bellow "BOMB THEM!" right before firing a deadly spell into a crowd of enemies.

This character had traveled with the group for many levels, fiercely loyal to our leader, stinking up the airship with her body odor, blowing things up with frightening zeal, and getting spit stains on everything.

One day, we were on the run from the authorities in their own capital city, and Taria confessed, suddenly much less cocky than usual, that she had a place for everyone to lie low. Taking winding city streets and back alleys with practiced ease, she took them to a hole-in-the-wall tavern. As the group was wondering where she was leading them, she greeted the owner.

"Hello, Daddy."

Everyone gaped: they were all half-convinced she'd just congealed from a puddle of tobacco spit, and she'd led them to her family.

[Bobby Baratheon]

Not quite a role playing moment, but my unseelie fey eldritch theurge (named Giradin Halfsoul) and the rest of the party was fighting an ettin king. The ettin king had tripped my character, so on my round I used flee the scene to teleport directly above and behind him, while he beat up on the major image left behind. He starting celebrating his victory, then I blasted him with everything I had (an empowered, spell enhancer-ed, Reserves of Strength Dalamar's Lightning Lance). It ended up taking him from around half health to -197 health, which remains the record at our table for lowest health (IIRC it was something like 260 damage or so). Of course, Giradin did pass out and fall to the ground, but that was just part of the awesomeness. It was fun to see everyone's jaws drop at his raw destructive potential. It was totally in character, too - he tended to hold back his full strength, but enjoyed destruction (card-carrying member of the Doomguard). It was his personal crowning moment of awesome to annihilate the cocky ettin king with a massive burst of electric energy. He had a definite cruel streak as well, and absolutely enjoyed tricking the ettin into thinking he had won, then turning him to ash.

[Quertus]

Not sure if this quite qualifies

I usually run rather cowardly characters. Or, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say that the meat grinder that was earlier editions of D&D tended to, through Darwinian methods, terminate the adventuring career of any but my most cautious of characters. Thus, my long term characters were almost exclusively clever, cautious cowards.

My signature character was "fighting" a dark naga, but really more trying to convince it to leave its current BBEG master, and come work for us.

... I don't remember exactly what happened next, but some other minion of the BBEG came upon this scene, and decided to AoE kill us all.

My character leapt on top on the injured naga to attempt to protect it from the blast (which may have worked really well due to regeneration or other protective magic).

When the table recovered from the shock of seeing one of my long term adventurers act so rashly, the DM ruled that the naga was moved by my heroic act, and, realizing that it was better off with us than with the BBEG, it effectively became my signature character's cohort.



There was the time my halfling cleric almost fell when he turned from good hearted southern minister to Judge Dredd in the span of 5 minutes.

The next town over, he found a sinner, and brought him to seclusion for an impromptu confession and evangelism. He did the standard witnessing, asked the convert to kneel and close his eyes, then cast silence and anoited him with holy water. At this point, the table is snickering thinking that this is going into a X rated scene. Until the cleric put his gun to the back of his head and blew his brains out. Then burned the body and walked off. The rest of the table was silent and the DM had to step out for 10 minutes, due to the shock.


At least I'm not the only one. I had to pause for a minute to collect my thoughts after one of my players unexpectedly and seemingly randomly murdered a member of his faith. At least your character had a presumedly discernable reason for his actions.


So here comes the embassy from Cyre and as they are walking towards us one of the soldiers nearby spits on the ground at his feet. My character walks up to him and asks him what that was for, to which he gets the reply along the lines of 'enemies of Bree need to be killed, not invited over to chat'. So my character smiles and says, "I'm glad you're so interest in killing the enemies of Bree. I expect you to report to the Frontline first thing tomorrow morning, dismissed" before walking back to the emissary to apologize for the rude behavior. It doesn't sound that impressive in writing but that campaign was mostly about character interaction, roleplay, and strategy for large scale conflict and this moment really cemented my characters persona. He effectively handed this soldier (who was an officer) a death sentence in front of his men, did so with a smile, and walked away like it was nothing.

Although it's almost entirely different, your story of sending an npc to the front lines reminded me of the feel of asking a beloved npc to take on a suicide mission.

[Ethelesin]

I spent an entire campaign as a changeling factotum/chameleon once, pretending to be a different character every, single, session. It drove the rest of the party nuts both IC and OOC.

Eventually after we finished off the BBEG, i dropped the curtain, the look on their faces was priceless and something i will treasure forever.

[Theobod]

Last night at our table my cbaracter, a minor nobleman travelling with a barbarian and a ranger, was grabbed by a big tentacles crab beast and dragged under the water, and was bleeding out, the party was roped together for safety (had already saved our lives twice) and the barbarian raged, pulled and ripped me free of the creatures clutches, severing my leg in the process (the beast withdrew to feast on its prize) and dragged me out after the ranger stabilised me. That night I, a one legged Swordsman, still comatose, and our sleeping ranger were left alone as the barbarian slipped off to a crossroads and enacted a summoning ritual she had gained some sessions earlier (long and equally evil story :D ) calling up a Devil with whom she had had dealings with before, rather than barter services or broker a deal for me to regain my leg she instead told the devil that she had an injured, helpless comrade who's life she had saved and now owned who was a minor nobleman and, due to his injury was no use to her anymore, she was willing to trade for a suitable replacement to come her way soon xD

We were in shock and I was laughing so wonderfully hard (and had given complete OC consent for the retirement of this now no longer useful character), this isn't the first time she had killed party members who became liabilities and it probably won't be the last.
So the devil accepted, telling her that a replacement will was up in the northeastern shore at noon tomorrow. And so my body was gone the next morning when Gunter the ranger woke and found Dragora the barbarian asleep and no sign of me xD he thought that as I had contracted Zombie from the nasty bite I got some weeks back that I must have died in the night and wandered off! He then blamed Dragora for falling asleep on watch and after a fruitless search Dragora suggested that they reconnoitre the areas surrounding the dungeon where I died... Maybe starting with the northeast?

So there we have it, Dragora the Dwelf, demonolater and serial killer. Her alignment shifted to chaotic evil that day and we never knew IC how ruthless she was. Poor Gunter still doesn't

All in all we all had fun there and she simultaneously ditched dead weight AND provided the best hook yet for immediate replacement character insert :)

[NerdHut]

So there we have it, Dragora the Dwelf, demonolater and serial killer.

That's fantastic! That sounds like something my group might pull off. Even our good characters tend to end up a little on the sketchy side. I guess that happens when your loyalties lie with whoever is providing the gold.

[Barbarian Horde]

I was playing a straight barbarian one session. Our team had managed to actually not kill the boss NPC. The group had been on a quest to get rid of the ring leader of an underground organization in town. When we brought him back to quest giver he was furious that we didn't kill the man. Our party came out with the conclusion that maybe you could torture the man for information about his dealings and more.They relayed that to the lord. The NPC seemed okay with the idea. Then lord considered it for a moment then said "I wanted him dead though" thats when my character was with his 6int replied "are you sure" then the lord's reply "yes I had wanted him dead..." I flicked a note over to the dm as he was talking that said full round action Coup de Grace on the unconscious man."

After that I found the whole party looking at me like wtf. I just rolled with it roleplaying my lovable oaf and was like "He said he wanted him dead" "I even asked" notated that he had a smug expression that looked like a kid that did something good.

I mean I had people metagaming hard trying to stop my surprise round action.

[RedMage125]

So, we were running some pre-published Forgotten Realms adventure, and here I am playing a Sun Elf Wizard/Incantatrix. This encounter occurred at around level 14-15 ish.

We enter this tomb complex, killing lots of denizens, and then we find a type of undead we have never seen before. This thing had an AC of 32 or something (touch AC was the same, had like a +20 deflection bonus to AC). It had Spell Resistance such that I had a slightly less than 50% chance to overcome it. It was incorporeal. And its touch...did Intelligence DRAIN.

So as I am looking over my spell selection, I have very few Force spells prepared. Those that do, either require a touch attack (not likely to make that 32 touch AC), or allow Spell Resistance. This includes my wand selection. All non-SR spells I have prepared either won't work on undead, or will have to deal with that 50% miss chance from in-corporeality. Eventually, this thing decides I would make a nice target and corners me in the room. Thankfully, it missed me with its attack (my armor/defenses were largely force/deflection/DEX based, and undead have a low BAB).

So my turn comes up. I see a nice spell with only verbal components (no AoO). I tell the DM "I cast Dimension Door". He nods and asks "where you going? Other side of the room?". At which point I shake me head and say "Nope. Max Range. I am leaving the DUNGEON." He laughed for a moment and then was like "You're serious?". I told him, "Yes. I have no spells that have any hope of affecting this thing. I can't hit its Touch AC, I can barely beat its SR, it's incorporeal, and of all of us here, I have the MOST to lose from getting hit by it. So, yeah...400 feet plus 40 feet per caster level...I'll just port to the entrance of the dungeon and start walking back".

I arrived back in the room about a round after the rest of the party destroyed the thing. The other players were a bit miffed at first that I ditched them, but they all understood my reasoning and forgave me for leaving. From then on, though, among those players, ditching combat was referred to as "pulling a [my first name]".

Good Times.

[Azoth]

I have a few but the most recent was last year in a Pathfinder game. I was playing a Warder with a small Cleric dip. Heavy shield focused, and general nice guy/party face. He had two major moments during the campaign that shocked the party to its core.

1) We were on a mostly finished boat that we haphazardly built on an island we were all washed up on after our home city was magically nuked by an enemy army. There are about 50 or so survivors on the boat, when three greater water elementals board the ship and an elder water elemental is trying to pull the ship down into the depths.

Up until now my character was pretty pacifistic. He abused Authoritative Vestments to standard action diplomacy check enemies away from hostile and peacefully end fights. If he couldn't manage that, he would use his Merciful shield to just knock enemies out.

This fight he went off the rails and in one round puddled an elemental while shouting for civilians to get below deck, and for the rest of the party to take out the Elder Elemental while he handled the Greater Elementals solo.

The entire table stared awestruck for a good minute before calling him suicidal and then agreeing it was the best shot to save the most people.

2) We end up in a Dwarven stronghold that houses members of my characters organization (Emperial Guardians). Apparently the entire stronghold had been mind controlled for several years into pillaging a nearby town, and thinking they were still fighting a war that ended over a decade ago. They thought the village was an enemy outpost.

After a while we realize what is going on. It takes some work, but we manage to locate and destroy the source of control over the Dwarves. This causes them to suddenly be flooded with the real memories of the past several years.

All of the Emperial Guardians realize that they have broken their oaths and lost their favor, as well as access to the Silver Crane martial discipline. My character gives a long winded, rousing speech to uplift their spirits and give them the courage to attone for their transgressions.

All but one rallies to my character's side. This man's heart is too heavy to call us brothers, and he can't meet our eyes. The party is giving him looks of pity and understanding, but my character is having none of it. He asks the Dwarf if he would rather just die by a true guardian's blade to preserve what little is left of his honor. The Dwarf agrees.

The entire party is going crazy IC and OOC trying to stop my character from killing the Dwarf. Nothing is working, and eventually he snaps at them about how they are disgracing the man by trying to obstruct his dying wish. They reluctantly step aside as the drawf begins to pray for forgiveness on his knees.

My character draws his sword, enters a stance that makes him appear as a Celestial, and delivers a high level Martial Strike that heals a large amount of damage to an "ally" as it damages the target while speaking a prayer that the dwarf find peace.

As it all resolves in a blinding flash of white light, they see the dwarf is still alive, but with a scar that rings his neck, where my blade should have taken his head off. My character sheathed his sword and told the dwarf, "It is a death sentence to impersonate one of my brothers, remove our sigil and leave my sight, so that you may live the normal life you hold so dear."

[DarkSonic1337]

I cast teleport through time and accidentally duplicated an artifact.

[Morbalus]

One of my favorites from a game a ran last year as a going away game for a long time player (he went to university the git):

The set up was that the players (a fighter) brother was being held in an abandoned Manor house and a evil cleric and his hired goons (think London gangster types) were going to sacrifice him at midnight.....you know because that’s the kind of thing evil clerics do.

They approached the house and got to the main door, some beautiful roleplaying and a few bluff roles later and they got passed the first group without having to cast a spell. The group tires most of the time to talk its way out of things and that’s the game I tend to run.

They got the main hall and found it packed full of goons, 4 to one odds at least. The party face (a sorcerer) continued their lie hoping to just diplome their way to the sacrifice room by pretending to know the head goon
The sorcerer says to the room in general that they know the head goon and they have been summoned to the sacrifice chamber immediately. One goon steps up and says:

"I know "head goon", known him for years. But I don’t know you. So who the **** are you"
The player looks for a moment, slowly lifts his hand and points at me and then says:

"disintegrate"

The goon botches his save and is now just dust in the wind.
I didn’t know he took the spell, had never used it before and the whole group just stared for a moment.

[Aleolus]

This isn't my story, and it isn't evdn for 3.5, but I have to share it anyways because of its epicness. A friend. of mine wrote up a character for AD&D (I think 2nd ed, it had Magic Resistance that was a flat %, and Magic Missile created one missile per CL) who was a human Wizard with an 18 Int by the name of Robert DuPaul. Played Robert all the way from level 1 to level 20 (the cap for a Human Wizard). He and his party members are hunting Asmodeus across the Material Plane to try and kill him, thereby banishing him from the plane for however many years it was, when Robert had the idea "Hey, if we go to Hell and kill him there, he's dead-dead, and will never come back." So, they went to Hell to find and kill him there. As they are making their way through the nine layers, they come to the Iron City, where a certain five-headed draconic goddess resides. And guess who they encountered! It was a long abd arduous fight, and at one point one of the party was swallowed by her. Robert, who had done nothing until this point due to her having 90% MR, cast a spell to swap places with the party member who had been swallowed. He, with full HP, then begins to traverse down her gullet until he feels a very distinctive bu-dumph. He then casts Disintigrate on her heart. Doesn't do enough damage to kill her, but does take her out of the fight long enough for them to escape. As the party is fleeing Tiamat, Asmodeus shows up (who has 99%MR). Robert basically puts his hands up and says "I'm out," since there is no way he'll be able to do much about that. The party manages to escape, and accuse Robert of being a traitor, since he did nothing to help. So they split up. The rest of the party ends up dead, and Robert ends up in a face-to-face with Asmodeus, having cut a bloody swath through the devils of hell through exceptionally carefull planning and clever spell-use. The battle takes place in a cavern with a 100- foot ceiling. Robert casts a spell on the ground at Asmodeus' feet that creates a tower that is 10 feet tall per CL (20, or 200. The DM gives him one Dex check to get off the tower before he gets splat on the ceiling, which he fails. That edition didn't have rules to calculate damage for that, so the DM ruled he was dead.

Meanwhile, the rest of the players had rolled up new characters, who met up with Robert, and they all joined together with a singular purpose: Get out of Hell. On their way to do this, they encounter Tiamat again, only this time Robert fights with everything he has. It gets to the point where everyone else is dead, its Roberts turn, and he has one spell left. Magic Missile. He decides that if he is going to die, he will die knowing he threw everything he had at the fight, so he casts it. The DM rolls her MR, and gets 100%. As I said, Magic Missile in that edition was 1 missile per CL, so 20 missiles. Tiamat only had 15 hp left.

[ATHATH]

I was playing a straight barbarian one session. Our team had managed to actually not kill the boss NPC. The group had been on a quest to get rid of the ring leader of an underground organization in town. When we brought him back to quest giver he was furious that we didn't kill the man. Our party came out with the conclusion that maybe you could torture the man for information about his dealings and more.They relayed that to the lord. The NPC seemed okay with the idea. Then lord considered it for a moment then said "I wanted him dead though" thats when my character was with his 6int replied "are you sure" then the lord's reply "yes I had wanted him dead..." I flicked a note over to the dm as he was talking that said full round action Coup de Grace on the unconscious man."

After that I found the whole party looking at me like wtf. I just rolled with it roleplaying my lovable oaf and was like "He said he wanted him dead" "I even asked" notated that he had a smug expression that looked like a kid that did something good.

I mean I had people metagaming hard trying to stop my surprise round action.
That's not low INT, that's low WIS.

[Feldar]

A few years back I was running a campaign in which the world had a second sun, but it was dying out. The largest church in the world put a group together to try and find a way to revive the dying sun, in order to prevent the death of entire nations that existed on this continent. The church was of the god of Harmony and Benevolence, which had a long track record of feeding the hungry, curing disease, etc, and the church was powerful enough to raise up and bring down rulers if it so desired. The ostensible leader of the party was a paladin of Harmony who also happened to be Princess of one of the kingdoms.

In truth, the second sun was the prison for the real god of Harmony, who had been betrayed and trapped by the god of Deceit and Trickery. While the church did feed the hungry and cure disease, what was not known to most of its members was that it also sent out hooded men to cause the disease and famine that it then sent out missionaries to alleviate.

Then they found the cultists. The cultists battled them only long enough to escape successfully, causing the party great consternation. Finally the paladin challenged the cultists' leader to a duel, which he handily won but refused to kill the paladin. The cultists healed the paladin's wounds, greeted the party peacably, and told the party the truth. The party, in disbelief, questioned the story, but the cultist leader simply told them that they were free to continue fighting against him if they wished.

I never even had to tell the paladin that she was no longer a paladin.

Feldar

[Bobby M]

Our party, my Factotum named Jack included, were traveling through a swamp to put an end to a lizardfolk warlord. After a particularly nasty ambush, we took a lone lizardfolk prisoner to interrogate about further defenses. Jack Faltrade's, my capable yet naive character, was seen mostly as comic relief for the party. Having been raised fron childhood at a military academy, he had lots of knowledge and training but little understanding of how the world worked outside of academia. So when he took the initiative on the interrogation, the party didn't pay much attention, as they expected a gather information check and little more. They talked amongst themselves. Jack asked his first question, "what defenses are ahead of us?". The lizardfolk spat defiantly and swore we could do our worse, that he'd never talk. Jack asked a hireling for a lamp from the wagon. The party continued to talk amongst themselves, the lizardfolk continued to curse at jack. Jack calmly poured the lamp oil over the lizardfolk. The party continued talking, the lizardfolk continued swearing. Jack lit the lizardfolk on fire. The table went dead silent for about 5 seconds. The party started talking over each other as the poor lizardfolk screamed out the remaining defenses. The DM had to walk away from the table he was laughing so hard. After dousing and mercy killing the third degree burned lizardfolk, Jack answered his confused party's queries with "What did you think they taught me at school for all those years?". We managed to avoid the rest of the traps and ambushes.

[Elkad]

[QUOTE=RedMage125;20749445
So my turn comes up. I see a nice spell with only verbal components (no AoO). I tell the DM "I cast Dimension Door". He nods and asks "where you going? Other side of the room?". At which point I shake me head and say "Nope. Max Range. I am leaving the DUNGEON." [/QUOTE]

That's a pretty standard action for me. Though usually it's just "max range, straight up". If I've got Featherfall/flight, great. If not, at least I've got a round+ of falling to figure out what to do next. I've used it from dungeons, in outdoor fights, and I've even done the hasty math to try to get to a specific location. Trying to work out Pythagoras to a specific room in your head

In one notable campaign, I'd done that a couple times in an outdoor fight, and reports of the fight had gotten back to BBEG. Who managed to setup a situation (got me grappled) where I'd be tempted to do it again, I did, and an invisible flyer was waiting for me.

[Quertus]

That's a pretty standard action for me. Though usually it's just "max range, straight up". If I've got Featherfall/flight, great. If not, at least I've got a round+ of falling to figure out what to do next. I've used it from dungeons, in outdoor fights, and I've even done the hasty math to try to get to a specific location. Trying to work out Pythagoras to a specific room in your head

In one notable campaign, I'd done that a couple times in an outdoor fight, and reports of the fight had gotten back to BBEG. Who managed to setup a situation (got me grappled) where I'd be tempted to do it again, I did, and an invisible flyer was waiting for me.

Now, was it an invisible flier with a continent anti magic field, triggered when it grapples something? If so, that would be masterful on the BBEG's part.

[Techwarrior]

My character in the most recent full campaign I played in, Eadric Wyre, had three of these moments. Eadric was a Bard, having started off his adventuring career as a learned man of the merchant class looking to get a noble title who had played with nobles as a child, and later learning gypsy magic.

The party is beset on all sides by orc bandits, and the fighter tells everyone to form up and protect the squishier members of the party. She meant for me and the archer to be in the center, but my character drew a sword and manned the frontline with her and the barbarian.

The entire party stood in shock for a moment. My character to this point has been a backline character, using my gypsy magic and Inspire Courage to great effect while I took potshots with a bow. The druid and I had been played traffic cop so well that I never needed to draw a weapon. The fighter didn't even realize I owned a melee weapon other than a silver dagger.
Our characters have been summoned by a demon to assassinate another demon. My character strides into the throne room of this devil's castle and calmly introduces myself to the gathered demons. They are all afraid of us, as we've basically been being treated as demons would be in our world. I begin introducing our party, and weave in a Fascinate effect to my introduction and following tale of our exploits. Then I ask the DM if I can make a Suggestion to the biggest, scariest demon that isn't the one we're after. He allows it.

My suggestion was "Take what should be rightfully yours."

We then got to sit back as what should have been an incredibly difficult encounter pitting us against powerful demons was made a massacre on their side as my bard talked then into killing each other.

The entire table was stunned by how simply I handled that. Me? I'm just glad I got to actually use Fascinate and Suggestion :smallbiggrin:
I had been having difficulty deciding on my last third level spell known, until I came across Phantom Steed. My character had spent the final few sessions taunting everyone else in the party about having to walk still. My character, on the other hand, didn't walk for the majority of the session. He had developed quite a habit of using his magic as much for his own comforts as he did for actually useful things, so no-one thought twice about it.

The campaign had come to the final confrontation with the Big Bad (Werebat). The villain gives his villainous speech, letting us know how every move we'd made had played right into his hands, leading him to everything he needed to complete his 'final transformation.' The last thing he needed was to bathe in the fires of a nearby volcano. He had his minions come after us, and we were outmatched from the jump. I opened up with a Haste spell, and began giving one of the best speeches I've given in character (Eadric's perform was Oratory) as the rest of the round as played out. It was about honor, and how they had gotten this far, overcoming every obstacle in our path together, and how much he has enjoyed every moment adventuring alongside each and every one of them.

As it got back to my initiative, the fighter turned to me and asked, "What's gotten into you? We'll figure out how to stop him somehow right after we take care of this mess."

Eadric jumped on his steed, drew his sword as the house reared back, and replied simply. "No. I'm going to take care of him now," cue Inspire Courage.

The fighter, "You'll never catch him, even with your stupid ghost horse."

OOC from the DM, "She's got a point dude. He's got two rounds headstart on you, and you've seen him move faster than any creature you've seen."

I respond calmly and casually, "That's fine, I'm at a 230 foot move rate, and am willing to run. I make 30 second miles."

We do our spells known on index cards, so I just slide across the card for Phantom Steed as I declare loudly, "Make haste Shadowfax!"

Jaws. Drop. My character has instantly gone from the comic relief, bedding wenches, charismatic rascal to the hero that saved the day. All from a spell that I took as a joke, so that my character didn't have to suffer the indignity of walking.

[ATHATH]

@TechWarrior: Was your character's name at all inspired by the Tales of Wyre campaign log?

[dascarletm]

Let me tell you about the sentient drow skeleton named Mort, and how he became our closest friend.

We started a campaign with myself, two of my nephews, and two of my friends (one being the DM). Nothing out of the ordinary, your typical campaign. We had started our own adventuring guild, and had taken a job to stop some undead stuff happening in this forest to the north. We set off, and found ourselves in a cave hunting down the source of the problem. We were fighting your regular run-of-the-mill level appropriate undead stuff, when in one of the fights something... happened.

We were fighting some goblins teamed up with skeletons, when a mini-boss like creature started to display true skill. Suddenly it was just us and one skeleton left, and through partially luck, and partially good DM tactics, my nephews just could not kill this guy. He was kiting them in the tight labyrinth of passageways managing to get shot after shot of his bow off, almost killing him. He would chase him, but due to the superior speed round after round had passed with the skeleton running out of range and hitting this guy. That is when I decided to end the encounter.

It's my turn up, and I teleport right up to the skeleton. He braces waiting for the mighty blow of my Greathammer. Instead I do not strike him, I simply ask him, "What are your running from skeleton?"
The skeleton tilted its head.
"What are you truly running from?"
The skeleton digs his claws into my sides.
I say with a grunt, "You don' need to run any more skeleton, you... you, are home."
The skeleton stops (bear in mind my nephew is still trying to catch up and kill this skeleton thoroughly enraged/frustrated from the encounter).
My friend while in the throes of laughter, "Skeleton, stop. You don't need to run. We are your home! Skeleton please!"
I say again, clutching my side, "Skeleton, you are with your family now. Why are you running from your family? Come with us, and you will forever have a place in our guild. You will need not run anymore."

For the rest of the campaign that skeleton was our homie.

[Krobar]

I had a sorcerer once upon a time, that drew a card off the Deck of Many Things. His alignment shifted from CG to LE. Nobody saw the card because I hid it so only I could see it. I simply smiled and said "I've...I've seen the light. It's all clear to me now."

We were on an island, and somehow while we were there (I forget how now) I also picked up a severe phobia of water. That was fine because I specialized in fire spells anyway.

I was adamant about not getting on the boat to leave the island, so they drugged me. When I woke up I was back on the mainland. Think BA from the old A-Team TV show. I considered that a major betrayal. Plus the DM handed me a note that said "remember you're evil now..." i said "I know."

So that night, like usual, I cast a Leomund's Secure Shelter, and made sure to wizard lock the windows and doors, like I always did. In the middle of the night I got up for watch, and walked out the door. I told the DM "I go to the roof, take out my wand of fireballs, and start lobbing fireballs down the chimney until it's empty."

Everybody was stunned.

And dead.

[Efrate]

A few stick out to me.

Galbarath the Mighty

Galbarath the Mighty was an evoker bar none, mercifully absent from Suul when the destruction overcame it. Do to some time shenanigans, a god, an artifcat, and his ridiculous pride, he survived much later and was around at the time of the death of Mordenkanin. While exploring castle greyhawk, we encounter an althoon mind flayer and his cronies. Kaedic, my dwarven defender, had a bad history with mind flayers. Never seemed to work out for him. He had avoided having his brain eaten, but that was about it. Knowing this, he charges this abomination as soon as he sees it. Kaedic's luck was not to be. His mind stayed intact, but he found himself grabbed by a bunch of tentacles (6 if memory serves). Galbaranth, who had just joined the motely crew, saw that his dwarven wall of things not getting to the squishy me was in trouble. It had been a long day of adventuring, and resources were nearly gone. Knowing he had but a moment to act he mentally consulted his spell book, and one thing came to mind. Explosive runes; As an ultimate magus, with just enough gas left to make it really good. So, while squid face is occupied he waltzes up, marks a bunch of runes on my desperately squirming face, and BOOM. No more mind flayer. Just a dwarf with a burnt beard and chunked oiut heavily. From that day forth, though nearly nothing EVER physically hit Kaedic after that, and when they did his DR stacking more or less negated it from hurting his 300ish HP, Galbarath decided THAT dwarf is sturdy, and used me as a rangefinder and epicenter for all the ultimate magus enhanced metamagic booms forever. Kaedic always lived, but he took more damage from Galbarath than he did from Gods. Eos actually. But still. And Galbarath's constant respond "Oh you'll be fine. You're sturdy."

Helman
Helman was a tiny little halfing rogue. He had some issues with a certain jeweled comb of a certain noblewoman somehow dissappearing, and had to get out of town so he joined a group of adventurers bound for places unknown. Things go reasonably, well, until the owlbear shows up. This particular owlbear was extra surly, even for owlbears,and decided to take it out on a bunch of medium sized PCs. One by one they fell, until only the ranger barely hanging onto her life stood up to it. Helman after a string of unfortunate events had managed to do absolutely nothing the entire encounter. With 3 other pcs on the ground and bleeding, he tried one last time to make a difference, and jumped behind the owlbear with a shout of "I'm helping!" in his high pitched voice. A Crit and sneak later and there was one dead owlbear. That became one of his signature phrase used all the time.
Fast forward a few levels, our two weapon ranger decides she wants to not get up close and personal, after repeated owlbears and trolls, and decides to start using her bow. Into melee. All the time. Naturally, many people got a not so pleasing sensation of a sharp thingamabob jabbing into their backs quite frequently. Helman second line used often (but mostly on ranged attacks) came here, in that same squeaky voice "Are you sure you know what you're doing? You're not really helping..."
Everyone loved Helman. Stupid cleric of hextor ended that.

[nedz]

I had a sorcerer once upon a time, that drew a card off the Deck of Many Things. His alignment shifted from CG to LE. Nobody saw the card because I hid it so only I could see it. I simply smiled and said "I've...I've seen the light. It's all clear to me now."

We were on an island, and somehow while we were there (I forget how now) I also picked up a severe phobia of water. That was fine because I specialized in fire spells anyway.

I was adamant about not getting on the boat to leave the island, so they drugged me. When I woke up I was back on the mainland. Think BA from the old A-Team TV show. I considered that a major betrayal. Plus the DM handed me a note that said "remember you're evil now..." i said "I know."

So that night, like usual, I cast a Leomund's Secure Shelter, and made sure to wizard lock the windows and doors, like I always did. In the middle of the night I got up for watch, and walked out the door. I told the DM "I go to the roof, take out my wand of fireballs, and start lobbing fireballs down the chimney until it's empty."

Everybody was stunned.

And dead.

TL;DR: Deck of Many Things ends a campaign ?

[ATHATH]

I had a sorcerer once upon a time, that drew a card off the Deck of Many Things. His alignment shifted from CG to LE. Nobody saw the card because I hid it so only I could see it. I simply smiled and said "I've...I've seen the light. It's all clear to me now."

We were on an island, and somehow while we were there (I forget how now) I also picked up a severe phobia of water. That was fine because I specialized in fire spells anyway.

I was adamant about not getting on the boat to leave the island, so they drugged me. When I woke up I was back on the mainland. Think BA from the old A-Team TV show. I considered that a major betrayal. Plus the DM handed me a note that said "remember you're evil now..." i said "I know."

So that night, like usual, I cast a Leomund's Secure Shelter, and made sure to wizard lock the windows and doors, like I always did. In the middle of the night I got up for watch, and walked out the door. I told the DM "I go to the roof, take out my wand of fireballs, and start lobbing fireballs down the chimney until it's empty."

Everybody was stunned.

And dead.
That's not LE, that's StupidE. It was blatantly obvious that the party drugged you to help you escape the island. You should have thanked them, not killed them.

[Krobar]

TL;DR: Deck of Many Things ends a campaign ?

Yes.


That's not LE, that's StupidE. It was blatantly obvious that the party drugged you to help you escape the island. You should have thanked them, not killed them.

I might have, but for the note I was handed. I decided at that moment I would view it as a serious betrayal of trust, that there were other ways the party could have accomplished the same goal (and there were, they just thought it would be funny to drug me instead), and that was that.

[atemu1234]

I mostly (only) DM, so it's rare that I don't, but a couple of my favorite moments when PCs caught me off guard (in succession)

1. Party finds kobold hatchery after killing the guards.
2. CN PC decides the best course of action is to crush all of the eggs, killing about a dozen kobold infants.
3. NG PC decides to argue point.
4. TN PC decides to do nothing.
5. LN PC decides to listen to CN PC when CN PC tells him to restrain NG.
6. LN PC eventually stops while CN is still smashing eggs.
7. NG decides to do nothing (for some reason).
8. I end that session by dropping everyone one alignment towards evil.

[TheCrowing1432]

I was playing a chaotic neutral tibbit warlock who was raised outside of normal society and raised in the harsh wilds where it was survival of the fittest. As such her view of the world was to use whatever one has at ones disposal in order to succeed.

When she had hit level 6, I had choosen The Dead Walk as her first medium invocation. In the party was a Goliath Paladin.

This goliath paladin was very gung ho about resorting to violence a very "Smite first ask questions later" type of paladin, his threats never overstepped his bounds of being a paladin so he never fell for what he did.

My tibbit of course began using her power to raise the dead around them to help the party and had in fact used this power several times to in fact save several members of the party from death. In character she and the paladin would argue endlessly.

Eventually it reached the point where we had fought a group of bandits and Lily (my warlocks name) was going to raise them to add to the ranks of her now depleted army (It was a tough bandit fight) The paladin drew his weapon and threatened her life if she continued.

My response was this



*Lily stares at the sword point, a simmering anger within her. Her eyes glow gold and an aura of magic surrounds her.* Who Are you to command me as such? This coloring in my fair and this power mark me as a descendent of the Cat Lord, the first and greatest of us. His blood flows through by veins imbibing me with power. Power I shall use as I see fit, and one such as you will not tell me how and when to use it. You stand there with your gleaming armor and holy symbol and fancy yourself on the side of justice and goodness. You think your god gives you the authority or the power to command others. In truth you are no better then them *She gestures to the corpses of the bandits* You claim you are for goodness and rightiousness, and yet you threaten me at swordpoint and im not the only one, ive seen you threaten several others. You are a hypocrite and your god is a charliten. You claim to believe in honor and mercy, but your honor is ****. So go on, Paladin. Strike me down because I am doing something you dont like. But know this, the moment you strike me, your city is doomed. I never explained why I was down here so far from my home. Our kind is stuggling in the darkness, the scavenging areas are becoming more and more dried up, forcing us to send out parties further and further away, often they dont return. Talk of war has come to our camps, of over running the Lightwalkers with the Dark ones. Some of us desire peace, and that is why I have come, to find a peaceful solution and perhaps ally my kind with yours. But if you strike me down, all talks of peace vanish and my kind is more then likely to side with the dark ones, furthermore, my siblings will find you and declare a blood feud. So, go on She walks towards Welf, strupping her gloves, bracers and dagger off and dropping them to the ground strike down an unarmed girl who is doing something you dont like. And Ill see you in Hell, Paladin.


Some of the stuff in the above speech is campaign context sensitive, but you get the gist of it. The session before this one had ended with the paladin threatening my character and the next one I began it by saying this.

The entire table was stunned into silence.

[DirePorkChop]

I once played a Blackguard of Bane masquerading as a Paladin of Torm by the name of Jonathan Meek. I had the Knuckle Bone of a High priest of Bane I had killed Placed into my "Holy Symbol" of Torm, I made a pact with the DM that I would kill portions of the party off, and replace them with their evil counterparts over the course of the game. Long story short, over the course of six months OoG, and almost two years in game, I killed everyone and eventually the party shifted its general alignment to NE. We still managed to save the world for our own reasons, but there were very questionable things that happened along the way. We waited until right before the BBEG of the Campaign to gank the Cleric of Azuth. Waiting until he was completely out of spells and heightened Baleful Transpositioning him and Burning him alive in a pool of acid twenty feet below the ground. Every execution was carefully planned out and elaborate, and took months of in game preparations. I loved the traps and machinations of that character.:smallbiggrin: