Catullus64
2020-06-02, 12:58 PM
I’m posting mostly because I want to tell a story boasting about something cool that my PC did in a game. In the interest of appearing to have non-selfish motivations, I invite others to use this thread to share their own stories of badass feats pulled off by their own player characters.
Now that I’m done (badly) disguising my egocentric motives, here’s the story of how my Level 5 PC soloed an encounter meant for the entire party.
Nicola Anvindr, an aging, veteran witch hunter, sharp-eyed and light of foot. (Wood Elf, Rogue (Inquisitive) 4/Cleric (Grave Domain) 1). For the sake of theme, I restrict his Cleric spell preparation to divinations (Detect Magic, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Poison and Disease) to represent his years of training to sniff out corruption and evil. Only exceptions: his domain spells, and Protection from Evil & Good. I’ve played a much younger version of the character in the past, who was higher level and pure Rogue; this build keeps the old one’s expertise in Investigation and Insight, but lacks its expertise in Stealth and Perception, to represent that Nicola is slower and has lost an eye, but retains his keen wits. Character has my favorite all-time feat, Mobile.
Nicola and two of his friends, Larka the Paladin and John the Fighter, lead their band of mercenaries (75 soldiers, all told) to purge an abandoned manor of the undead horde that has infested it. Nicola and two of the halfling skirmishers scout ahead, to where the manor sits in the corner of a large forest clearing. Though an immense crowd of zombies guards the clearing, towered over by a pair of undead ogres, the rear of the house, right up against the forest thicket, is relatively unguarded. Shattered windows and crumbled sections of wall provide easy entrances. Knowing that the leader of these undead must be nearby, Nicola decides to make his move. Telling the halflings to wait, he sneaks into the manor house.
After briefly examining and pocketing some potions on an alchemy table in the room, and using a Potion of Clairvoyance to scout out the next hallway, he sneaks ahead. At one end of the hallway, a single door, behind which snarling and scratching are heard. Nicola assumes (wrongly) that the necromancer imprisons one of his creations there, and that the door will provide a safe barrier. At the other end of the hallway, two doors, one on either side. On the left, the door leads to a room at the corner of the house where the walls have collapsed. Behind the other door, Nicola senses the presence of undead. Cracking the door gently, he sees a figure standing still in the center of a bedroom. He recognizes a lesser vampire spawn. He notes, with relief, that he does not recognize the face; in the old wars, the vampires found no end of amusement in turning members of his order into spawn, and seeing the twisted face of one's own former comrades takes the fun out of smiting. It’s been a long time since he’s fought one of these, and he was younger then. Still, he won’t get a better striking position than this, and he figures the noise of battle will provide good cover. Using Thaumaturgy, he gives the signal for the scouts outside to bring up the rest of the soldiers to attack. He readies his pistols, says a prayer to the Lady of the Book (casting Protection from Evil & Good), and waits.
Once Nicola hears the bugle-call of his allies charging outside, he makes his move. Kicking through the door, he shoots the surprised vampire clean through the chest, with a critical hit sneak attack. Unsurprisingly, he sees the bullet-hole begin to close. Nicola uses his Insightful Fighting feature, studies its reactions and reflexes in readiness for his next attack, whereupon his second pistol misfires. Tossing aside his pistols and drawing his sword, Nicola wrenches open the door to the crumbled room, flooding the vampire’s chamber with sunlight. As the vampire climbs the ceiling to get out of the scorching light, the door at the other end of the hallway bursts open, and four ghouls begin charging Nicola, scrambling one over the other. Nicola retreats into the crumbled chamber, flinging a phial of holy water at the vampire as he runs, which misses and smashes on the floor. The ghouls pursue into the crumbled chamber. Nicola’s Protection spell keeps off the worst of their attacks, and his elven blood guards against their paralyzing touch, but he can’t fight them and the vampire all at once. Nicola scrambles over the pile of rubble and into the thicket, the ghouls in hot pursuit, but Nicola doubles back into the room with the alchemy lab, as the ghouls continue charging into the thicket (thank you, Cunning Action Hide). Now, moving silently up the hallway, he manages to creep up behind the vampire as it shuts the door against the sunlight, stabbing it from behind (another crit), and wrenching the door open again. He then retreats into the bedroom. The vampire shuts the sun-door again, and begins attacking Nicola, missing twice. He shrieks for the ghouls to come back and assist him. Nicola stabs again, dealing miniscule damage through damage resistance and moves to tear open the door at the other end of the bedroom; more sunlight pours through, and the vampire continues burning. What is more, as they charge back into the bedroom, the ghouls open the other doors, so sunlight now enters the room from multiple angles. Desperate, the vampire renews its attack, and finally succeeds in grappling Nicola, and hitting him with a bite attack. Nicola is now bloodied, grappled, with a reduced HP max, and surrounded by ghouls, though his Protection spell still holds. He notices, however (Eye for Detail!) that the vampire wears a pair of golden bracelets, and remembers that vampire counts often give these as badges of office to their lieutenants. With a final frantic stab, he drives his sword into the vampire again, weakening it just enough that, as its next turn begins, it withers and dies in the sunlight. Frantically parrying ghoul claws on all sides, he snatches the bracelets from the vampire’s ashen remains, and commands the ghouls to halt. Charged to obey the bearer of the bracelets, they desist their attack. Nicola then dashes outside, to where Larka and John have been leading a vicious pitched battle against the undead. With a thunderous (Thaumaturgy-boosted) voice, he commands the undead hordes to stop, before joining his comrades in gleefully cutting the remaining, motionless zombies to pieces.
TLDR and Summation:
Through a combination of stealth, positioning with sunlight, superior mobility, a 1st-level spell, and a fairly large dose of luck, my Level 5 character defeated a CR 5 Vampire Spawn, and thereby incapacitated an enormous horde of undead that would have required many mercenary lives to defeat conventionally. My DM confided later that he had intended for the Vampire to be fought only after defeating his zombies and ghouls, by the entire party. It was wonderfully tense: I had to use just about every tool at my disposal (every sub-feature of the Mobile feat, Cunning Action, Sneak Attack, Insightful Fighting, Eye for Detail, Eyes of the Grave, cleric spellcasting, Elven immunity to ghoul paralysis, Elven ability to hide in light foliage), and even then I came very close to certain death. I made several mistakes (chiefly assuming that the ghouls couldn’t get to me from their initial room), but I had just enough luck (two crits, high Concentration saves on my Protection spell) to carry me through it. And aside from a generous interpretation of how many angles sunlight can enter a room through, the DM didn’t pull any punches (many thanks to my great DM, for handling an unexpected encounter like this so well, all the while running an entire battle for the other PCs at the same time.) Sessions like this remind me why I play this game.
Now that I’m done (badly) disguising my egocentric motives, here’s the story of how my Level 5 PC soloed an encounter meant for the entire party.
Nicola Anvindr, an aging, veteran witch hunter, sharp-eyed and light of foot. (Wood Elf, Rogue (Inquisitive) 4/Cleric (Grave Domain) 1). For the sake of theme, I restrict his Cleric spell preparation to divinations (Detect Magic, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Poison and Disease) to represent his years of training to sniff out corruption and evil. Only exceptions: his domain spells, and Protection from Evil & Good. I’ve played a much younger version of the character in the past, who was higher level and pure Rogue; this build keeps the old one’s expertise in Investigation and Insight, but lacks its expertise in Stealth and Perception, to represent that Nicola is slower and has lost an eye, but retains his keen wits. Character has my favorite all-time feat, Mobile.
Nicola and two of his friends, Larka the Paladin and John the Fighter, lead their band of mercenaries (75 soldiers, all told) to purge an abandoned manor of the undead horde that has infested it. Nicola and two of the halfling skirmishers scout ahead, to where the manor sits in the corner of a large forest clearing. Though an immense crowd of zombies guards the clearing, towered over by a pair of undead ogres, the rear of the house, right up against the forest thicket, is relatively unguarded. Shattered windows and crumbled sections of wall provide easy entrances. Knowing that the leader of these undead must be nearby, Nicola decides to make his move. Telling the halflings to wait, he sneaks into the manor house.
After briefly examining and pocketing some potions on an alchemy table in the room, and using a Potion of Clairvoyance to scout out the next hallway, he sneaks ahead. At one end of the hallway, a single door, behind which snarling and scratching are heard. Nicola assumes (wrongly) that the necromancer imprisons one of his creations there, and that the door will provide a safe barrier. At the other end of the hallway, two doors, one on either side. On the left, the door leads to a room at the corner of the house where the walls have collapsed. Behind the other door, Nicola senses the presence of undead. Cracking the door gently, he sees a figure standing still in the center of a bedroom. He recognizes a lesser vampire spawn. He notes, with relief, that he does not recognize the face; in the old wars, the vampires found no end of amusement in turning members of his order into spawn, and seeing the twisted face of one's own former comrades takes the fun out of smiting. It’s been a long time since he’s fought one of these, and he was younger then. Still, he won’t get a better striking position than this, and he figures the noise of battle will provide good cover. Using Thaumaturgy, he gives the signal for the scouts outside to bring up the rest of the soldiers to attack. He readies his pistols, says a prayer to the Lady of the Book (casting Protection from Evil & Good), and waits.
Once Nicola hears the bugle-call of his allies charging outside, he makes his move. Kicking through the door, he shoots the surprised vampire clean through the chest, with a critical hit sneak attack. Unsurprisingly, he sees the bullet-hole begin to close. Nicola uses his Insightful Fighting feature, studies its reactions and reflexes in readiness for his next attack, whereupon his second pistol misfires. Tossing aside his pistols and drawing his sword, Nicola wrenches open the door to the crumbled room, flooding the vampire’s chamber with sunlight. As the vampire climbs the ceiling to get out of the scorching light, the door at the other end of the hallway bursts open, and four ghouls begin charging Nicola, scrambling one over the other. Nicola retreats into the crumbled chamber, flinging a phial of holy water at the vampire as he runs, which misses and smashes on the floor. The ghouls pursue into the crumbled chamber. Nicola’s Protection spell keeps off the worst of their attacks, and his elven blood guards against their paralyzing touch, but he can’t fight them and the vampire all at once. Nicola scrambles over the pile of rubble and into the thicket, the ghouls in hot pursuit, but Nicola doubles back into the room with the alchemy lab, as the ghouls continue charging into the thicket (thank you, Cunning Action Hide). Now, moving silently up the hallway, he manages to creep up behind the vampire as it shuts the door against the sunlight, stabbing it from behind (another crit), and wrenching the door open again. He then retreats into the bedroom. The vampire shuts the sun-door again, and begins attacking Nicola, missing twice. He shrieks for the ghouls to come back and assist him. Nicola stabs again, dealing miniscule damage through damage resistance and moves to tear open the door at the other end of the bedroom; more sunlight pours through, and the vampire continues burning. What is more, as they charge back into the bedroom, the ghouls open the other doors, so sunlight now enters the room from multiple angles. Desperate, the vampire renews its attack, and finally succeeds in grappling Nicola, and hitting him with a bite attack. Nicola is now bloodied, grappled, with a reduced HP max, and surrounded by ghouls, though his Protection spell still holds. He notices, however (Eye for Detail!) that the vampire wears a pair of golden bracelets, and remembers that vampire counts often give these as badges of office to their lieutenants. With a final frantic stab, he drives his sword into the vampire again, weakening it just enough that, as its next turn begins, it withers and dies in the sunlight. Frantically parrying ghoul claws on all sides, he snatches the bracelets from the vampire’s ashen remains, and commands the ghouls to halt. Charged to obey the bearer of the bracelets, they desist their attack. Nicola then dashes outside, to where Larka and John have been leading a vicious pitched battle against the undead. With a thunderous (Thaumaturgy-boosted) voice, he commands the undead hordes to stop, before joining his comrades in gleefully cutting the remaining, motionless zombies to pieces.
TLDR and Summation:
Through a combination of stealth, positioning with sunlight, superior mobility, a 1st-level spell, and a fairly large dose of luck, my Level 5 character defeated a CR 5 Vampire Spawn, and thereby incapacitated an enormous horde of undead that would have required many mercenary lives to defeat conventionally. My DM confided later that he had intended for the Vampire to be fought only after defeating his zombies and ghouls, by the entire party. It was wonderfully tense: I had to use just about every tool at my disposal (every sub-feature of the Mobile feat, Cunning Action, Sneak Attack, Insightful Fighting, Eye for Detail, Eyes of the Grave, cleric spellcasting, Elven immunity to ghoul paralysis, Elven ability to hide in light foliage), and even then I came very close to certain death. I made several mistakes (chiefly assuming that the ghouls couldn’t get to me from their initial room), but I had just enough luck (two crits, high Concentration saves on my Protection spell) to carry me through it. And aside from a generous interpretation of how many angles sunlight can enter a room through, the DM didn’t pull any punches (many thanks to my great DM, for handling an unexpected encounter like this so well, all the while running an entire battle for the other PCs at the same time.) Sessions like this remind me why I play this game.