The most insane solutions your pcs have ever done?

[Torpin]

So every once in a while PCs come up with absolutely insane/creative solutions for problems, what are some of your prime examples of your players making you scratch your head, and how did you rule. I'll start
Had a player cast wall of force inside the belly of a dragon

[noce]

In order to start a popular revolt and make the government collapse we just needed an excuse, the situation was already unstable enough.

Our knowman knew liver to be the organ to be checked for animal health.
So, our sorcerer started flying while invisible from farm to farm. In each farm, he casted necrotic cyst on cows to create cysts in their livers.
For days he depleted his spell slots casting only fly, invisibility and necrotic cyst.
When butchers started killing encysted cows, they had to throw away meat of encysted cows and farmers were not payed for those cows.

The revolt started that day.

[DeTess]

We had to kill an Evil necromancer king at the top of his Evil castle in the middle of his Neutral city. After just walking in through the front door failed spectacularly (and resulted in about 25% of the city burning down) we ended up building a house in the burned down area, and using that as a base to dig a tunnel to the king's castle.

Two weeks, and plenty of shenanigans involving tax-collectors and what-not later we had an entrance into the castle. Once we breached into the basement our cleric checked for undead, and was told that all the undead where above us. So we closed the tunnel again, completely undermined the castles foundations and watched form the newly build patio of our house as the entire thing came crashing down.

The king turned himself into a dragon before he got buried under the rubble, and was understandably a bit pissed off at us, so he came flying in our direction. Our druid then proceeded to cast spider-climb on herself, turn into a little bird, fly up to the king-dragon, climb on his back and turn into a bloody Rhinoceros. This resulted in Dragon and Rhino crashing through 6 buildings on their way to the ground, killing the king.

[noce]

Once my druid used two casts of circle dance to triangulate the position of a lost ally.

[Elkad]

Diverted a river right into the front door of the dungeon.
Guarded the location.
And then when creatures started scurrying out the back door, the PCs ambushed them all.

[daremetoidareyo]

PCS are hired to defend a town. The town was in the path of a beholder named grandmother sage that had an army of beholderzons, augmented humanoid shaped cycloptic Beholder kin w/ eyeballs on their chest (rays charm person 3/day) that send the women and children away and ravage and kill the remaining men folk. You know, like praying mantises do.

The beholder was making a March to the Sea where it's crashed spaceship was and the beholderzons reproduced after ravaging The Villages to create an army.

The PCS had three days to prepare, so they disguised all of the women as men and all of the men as women in the town. Men who were less than fighting capable where disguise as women and evacuated North to warn the next town. They then ambushed the beholder while they beholderzons discovered that the men they were charming and planning on using and then eating were actually women. The men disguised as women who were sent away who were fighting capable then mounted a counter-charge into the town to mop up the frustrated and confused beholderzons suffering from a lack of leadership due to the slain beholder.

I totally did not expect that level of chicanery. It was hilarious so I just let it roll.

I expected like, a Siege.

[Aniikinis]

Used Enlarge item on a bag of holding strapped to a weighted ballista bolt with shrink item cast on it. They fired it almost straight up with a longbow and a homebrew spell tacked onto it that increased the velocity of objects for a small time frame with the endpoint centered on a portable hole enchanted with enlarge item over the centermost point of the dungeon they were supposed to go into. After a good amount of rolling and a small break to collect my thoughts, I explained to them that they punched a hole through the dungeon leaving only a few rooms even remotely okay and even less intact.

The two main rooms that were intact were:

Barracks: The main lodging quarters for the bugbears who'd set up shop in the dungeon with their armoury connected and intact. They'd upturned a bed facing the (now removed) wall with the door and were terrified.
Treasure Room: A good half of the room was gone but over 80% of the treasure was still there.


It was tough seeing that dungeon be destroyed so utterly, but I was so happy they thought outside of the box.

[Ken Murikumo]

Not me but my buddy: It was my first real game. We started epic (yup, this is how i got my feet wet) and came up to some fortress. The structure was dotted with tiny holes, each with a specialized archer ready to loose arrows though holes to put us down. My buddy, the eccentric party mage (eccentric IRL and he played a mage) used a very metamagiced, very loosely interpreted create food spell to pop muffins into every hole. After the archer were thwarted he diplomacied us into the structure to talk with the leader.

We still refer to it as "The Muffinning"

[16bearswutIdo]

They burned a ghost ship down while they were still on it, in the middle of the ocean. Ended up spending hours swimming back to shore, almost drowning several times.

the ghost ship came back the next night because its a ghost ship

[Malphegor]

“This wooden door is locked.”

<there are other doors we have not tried>

“I’MA GONNA BURN THIS DOOR DOWN!”

<4 hours later>

“Okay it should be weak enough to kick open once I stop the fire”

I mean this is me doing this, but ever since we’ve considered fire to be the universal lockpick for wooden doors.

[Efrate]

Jumping out a clocktower to grapple and pin a gargoyles wings whilst midaia, ride it down into a crater on main street, pc and gargoyle both survive the fall then use the crater as a bare knuckle punch up ring.

[Clistenes]

Diverted a river right into the front door of the dungeon.
Guarded the location.
And then when creatures started scurrying out the back door, the PCs ambushed them all.

I wonder how many player have tried to flood a dungeon that way. Or to close the exits, fill the main entrance with massive amounts of firewood and smoke all the monsters inside. Or just to dig a mine shaft on top of the dungeon in order to avoid all the traps. Or to use the ancient Roman "Ruina Montium" technique in order to collapse whole dungeons.

Or what the hell, all the above combined: Flood the dungeon, smoke the upper levels, open shafts to clean and loot the remains. And once you are done, use Ruina Montium to make sure you haven't left anything behind...

[liquidformat]

I wonder how many player have tried to flood a dungeon that way. Or to close the exits, fill the main entrance with massive amounts of firewood and smoke all the monsters inside. Or just to dig a mine shaft on top of the dungeon in order to avoid all the traps. Or to use the ancient Roman "Ruina Montium" technique in order to collapse whole dungeons.

Or what the hell, all the above combined: Flood the dungeon, smoke the upper levels, open shafts to clean and loot the remains. And once you are done, use Ruina Montium to make sure you haven't left anything behind...

My group flooded a river to kill an army does that count?

In a different game our big dumb meat shield in city thieves themed game tried to hide by putting a lamp shade over his head and standing in a corner... Not sure if that is actually solving the problem but still one of my favorite moments...

[BWR]

Not so much and insane solution as a sane solution to the GM's insane expectations: Started one game with "you're all prisoners". Had to figure a jailbreak. The GM had planned a super elaborate routine we were expected to go through to steal uniforms, steal work passes, bluff our way through checkpoints etc. Basically, it was a long string of one-check-fail points, and knowing the GM he would have had to fudge a ton to make it work once we failed even one point.
But since he had foolishly allowed us access to a hidden underground cave and our spellbooks/holy symbols, we just summoned animals with a burrow speed and tunneled our way out.

We once met a giant gnomish steammech which bounced around on enormous spring-powered legs. It was frustrating because it would land on us for a ton of damage, be mostly immune to our attacks, then jump away after a round or two of charging up. So my character tied myself to it to make sure he could follow it and avoid being landed on. The guys did some of the math on this and, being a bit blind to the whole issue of IRL realism vs. game world realism, determined his spine snapped like a rotten twig and left him flopping about like a ragdoll.

In true Star Wars fashion: "Let's patch our med droid with these ruined HK parts and dress up as a Sith lord with retinue and Wookie slave to infiltrate this Sith base where a really powerful Sith lord is holed up. What can possibly go wrong?"
It worked. Mostly.


Rewritten for brevity:
Player: "I like this guy. I want him to become a paladin."
GM: "The big murderous ogre who is only helping you because he wants revenge on the cultists, and will go back to murder and cannibalism the moment your back is turned?"
Player: "Yup."
GM "Uh, OK. If you you do something special, like taking Leadership with him as your cohort I suppose..."
Player: "Done."
Grund ogre barbarian/paladin ended up being one of the most beloved NPCs in the game.


Upon encountering a rust monster, the dwarf in heavy metal armor with a big family heirloom shield that he values as much as his life panics.
Does he run away? No.
Does he hide behind the scrawny sorcerer? No.
Does he charge in hopes of killing it quickly? No.
Does he let the other warrior in first? No.
Does he close the door? No.
Does he block the door with his shield and start loading his heavy crossbow? Yes.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by noce
Once my druid used two casts of circle dance to triangulate the position of a lost ally.

Yup, I’ve done this to find the location of a “hidden” bad guy. Blew the DM’s mind a little, but he agreed it was legit.


Originally Posted by Efrate
Jumping out a clocktower to grapple and pin a gargoyles wings whilst midaia, ride it down into a crater on main street, pc and gargoyle both survive the fall then use the crater as a bare knuckle punch up ring.

This sounds a lot like Runelords. :smalltongue:

In our fight on the clock tower, our half-orc madman leaped on the creature’s back, stabbed it fiercely all the way down, and survived the fall due to orc ferocity. This is only the briefest description; the full experience at the table was utterly ******* epic.

[Calthropstu]

Invisibility.

Wall of force.

Cloudkill.

Wall of force.

Bbeg did not have teleport.

[danielxcutter]

Invisibility.

Wall of force.

Cloudkill.

Wall of force.

Bbeg did not have teleport.

...What was that BBEG?

[Calthropstu]

...What was that BBEG?

Fire yai.

It was i human form hiding in plain sight. It was in a library alone. The party detected some serious evil mojo (damn paladin)

So they decided to send the mage i with true seeing active, and if it was a monster to kill it.

The wizard rolled really high on knowledge planes, knew it didn't have true seeing, knew it wadn't immune to poison and only 2 exits existed.

So he filled the room with cloudkill and blocked it off with wall of force.

[danielxcutter]

Fire yai.

It was i human form hiding in plain sight. It was in a library alone. The party detected some serious evil mojo (damn paladin)

So they decided to send the mage i with true seeing active, and if it was a monster to kill it.

The wizard rolled really high on knowledge planes, knew it didn't have true seeing, knew it wadn't immune to poison and only 2 exits existed.

So he filled the room with cloudkill and blocked it off with wall of force.

Huh, don't think I've heard of those. Neat solution, though.

[Quertus]

You haven't flooded a dungeon until you've done it with lava.


...What was that BBEG?

Dead.

[thorr-kan]

2ED.

My Al-Qadim players have two signature moves:
1. When assaulting a Flamedeath Fellowship (EEEVIL! assassins) or a Brotherhood of True Flame (EEEVIL! wizards) stronghold, the firbolg performs a dynamic entry and uses the door to assist in sweeping rooms.
2. When meeting a dao (earth genie), the priest starts evangelizing. It started as a gag against a powerful guardian, it WORKED, so they've run with it. It continues to be successful, and well, it's spreading...

Myself, back in college, running a kender priest of healing in I9:
We'd (I'd) stymied an ambush by attackers equipped with delayed blast fireball grenades. I puzzled out how they worked, went "Oh, shiny!" and collected them. When we encountered resistance, I'd us my hoopak to chuck one into the next room. A lot of fratricide occurred, my kender was intrigued, and the party knew a good thing when they saw it. Fire really does solve all your problems.

[Efrate]

Wasn't runelords palanan. Speaker of dreams, 3.0.

[Telonius]

Here's one we pulled on our DM. The team was meeting inside of a very suspicious tower, whose owners had sealed off the top layer and barricaded the windows. They had invited us inside to talk, but we really wanted to see what was up there. So, in the middle of the visit, my Warlock/Cleric mentions that she needs to get some air, and nods to the Sorcerer. Once outside, I Baleful Utterance the blocked window, shattering it. One round later, the Sorcerer's Hawk familiar (who hadn't joined us inside, and who the owners hadn't seen) flies into the upper room. One of our hosts comes out and looks at me, demanding to know what happened.

I look horrified and point up: "Good lord, a huge bird just flew into your window! It's probably still up there."


Story number 2: running shackled city, there was a room with several canopic jars that would release a "Wail of the Banshee" spell if opened. We strapped them to the Hippogriff and used them for aerial bombardment.

[Selion]

In d&d 3.5, i was a dwarf eldritch knight and another player a dwarf warrior. We were thunder twins, so we could pinpoint at any moment the direction of the other character.

There was a Wall of force in a subterranean tunnel, my master ruled that dimension door couldn't overcome the wall of force (wrong).
So, i went back in the surface and pinpointed my twin brother, who was still in the tunnel, to place myself exactly over my brother. Then i used shape stone to dig a tiny hole in the ground. I tied a long string to a gold piece and lowered it trough the hole, until my brother took it. This way I knew exactly how much distance there were between the surface and the room behind the wall of force , i gathered the group and transported everyone in the room with dimension door.

[Seneschul]

My group did a 4 person family bond as our excuse to have multiple conflicting alignments.
All of us where orphans, raised by an elven adventurer.
I was chaotic evil, my adoptive brother neutral evil, our sister was chaotic good, and our cousin was true neutral.

It was rough, lots of fun, but we managed to take a town, and legitimize ourselves.

The king wanted to meet all of his lords, so threw a massive feast.

We make gifts, go to the king's lands, and participate in some betting.

There's duels - I hit you, then you hit me kind of duels. One hit each.

When our brother goes to fight, he is given horrible odds.
Our brother had obscene strength, and was a trip specialist.

Now, a subplot this entire time was us evil guys trying to corrupt our sister, and her trying to redeem us.
The DM was complicit, and it was awesome how he behind-the-scenes goaded all of us.
She went so far as to put the mercy enchantment on his shield so he couldn't kill people with it. (We nearly died because of this, because undead suck.)

My chaotic evil guy went and bet our entire town. (Rolled good on knowledge:Local, rolled great on diplomacy to place the bet, and the odds where really against my bro)
DM was distracted stepping through the trip attempt and the bonuses being applied.
Glared at my bet, but still allowed it. I RP'd getting the bet notarized, entering the deed.
And then ... the chaotic goody too-shoes cleric we'd been trying to corrupt asked if she could too.

Naturally the trip specialist beat the match.
And the DM then realized he'd allowed us to wreck WBL by betting our town twice at 10 to 1 odds.

He then told us we'd only get a fraction right now, and we'd ruined the broker, and we (rolls table) now had mineral rights for 2 mithril mines.

Our town is a port town.

We then tippy'd up, made a few infinite metal traps, and began waging economic warfare.

With the entire plane united under our economic might, we then began space exploration.

The DM and we the players have handwaved, agreed "That didn't happen" and rolled up new characters.
The trip specialist build that had been used has been permabanned.

But that ending, the evil neut being our city's grand marshal, my chaotic evil becoming an initiate of the seven fold veil, our goody tooshoes becoming a bit of a diplomancer so she could effectively guide our bloodthirsty evilness into constructive ways... was awesome.

And def. not what the DM intended.

[Quertus]

In d&d 3.5, i was a dwarf eldritch knight and another player a dwarf warrior. We were thunder twins, so we could pinpoint at any moment the direction of the other character.

There was a Wall of force in a subterranean tunnel, my master ruled that dimension door couldn't overcome the wall of force (wrong).
So, i went back in the surface and pinpointed my twin brother, who was still in the tunnel, to place myself exactly over my brother. Then i used shape stone to dig a tiny hole in the ground. I tied a long string to a gold piece and lowered it trough the hole, until my brother took it. This way I knew exactly how much distance there were between the surface and the room behind the wall of force , i gathered the group and transported everyone in the room with dimension door.

Why didn't you just Stone Shape the stone above / below / beside the Wall of Force, to give yourself (unneeded) Line of Effect to the Dimension Door destination of the room behind the Wall of Force? :smallconfused:

[danielxcutter]

Why didn't you just Stone Shape the stone above / below / beside the Wall of Force, to give yourself (unneeded) Line of Effect to the Dimension Door destination of the room behind the Wall of Force? :smallconfused:

Probably the DM vetoed that too, I'd guess, considering that they blocked D-Door from 'porting the party to the other side in the first place despite the rules not working like that.

[Selion]

Why didn't you just Stone Shape the stone above / below / beside the Wall of Force, to give yourself (unneeded) Line of Effect to the Dimension Door destination of the room behind the Wall of Force? :smallconfused:

There was not DM Fiat, he just didn't remember correctly the rule. I think i was not high level enough to morph a big chunk of stone, possibly the force wall extended a little in the stone.

[King of Nowhere]

does sneaking up into a heavily guarded mansion disguised by plumbers count? Nobody in the party had any rank in disguise, and they only had mild boosts to bluff, but I let it work because it was crazy and funny enough.

another time the party was assaulted by ghosts, and a player decided to enact a building site. His reasoning? ghosts are very old, and old people are notorious for sitting for hours watching building sites. So that should distract them. Again, it was crazy enough (also, the quest was already on the silly side) that I let it slip.

assaulted by infernal hounds (the pandemonium chihuahuas, linked in my signature under the silly monsters thread)? summon some infernal dog food. this time i didn't let it work, because other players liked fighting, and pandemonium chihuahuas need no food anyway.

have to pass through an area where you are basically hit by a sunburst every round (no teleportation or other shortcut available)? get a lot of sun lotion. knowing that player, I put this obstacle specifically for him to come up with something like that.