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View Full Version : I can't believe what my players gave up



Vrel
2007-11-12, 02:51 PM
On Friday I set up an encounter that scared my party senseless...So scared in fact that they gave up a base of operations with more luxuries than 5 Star Hotels...

This was a dormant volcano with 2 known entrances. One entrance was already very well fleshed out and they had trapped it like you wouldn’t believe. The other exit was at the end of a mile and a half long driveway that exited so far away from the volcano that no one aside from the party knew about it. It had stations that aided with heal checks, Cyber surgery checks, repair checks, craft mechanical checks, and basically anything else that could be handled by robotics under the right guidance. There was an armory stocked with near limitless ammunition and several Different types of explosives as well as High powered rifles and a few magic items.

Here’s the downside, though. This place used to be owned by a mad scientist (of course he was a mad scientist.. volcano base, cybernetic surgery stations, what else was he going to be) who created lower levels to the complex where he stored failed experiments. This location was sealed off with magnetic doors. They figured they would set up shop and then clear out the lower levels, collecting even more goodies and xp. That was their big mistake.

While setting up and taking inventory, my 9th level players heard banging on the doors. Cameras on, images sent out to everyone. They were staring down a mutated Eye Tyrant and an armored Steel Predator (fiend folio) who had an increased size and less than friendly outlook on its current situation. One of my party members was a mech pilot and Steel Predators have a certain sense of metallic items since, you know, they destroy them fairly easily. What does my party do? They blow up the freaking mountain.

A party member played a steampunk mad bomber… he managed to make an 18d6+18 bomb that had a 200ft radius. They set it to an electronic timer and blew the whole mountain while they ran away in terror. Steel predator managed to get out of the mountain as it came down (god bless their move speed) and wound up taking no damage because the door he was behind absorbed all the damage from the bomb except 2 points, which he got DR against.

Steel predator hunted them down as they drove off in vehicles. Yet another party member had the brilliant idea of running over the monster I had let loose against them. He drove a vehicle resembling the tumbler from a popular movie towards my beastie at 120 miles per hour… the beast moved out of the way and he made a drive check to adjust for the angle difference…. He rolled a 1. He rolls the vehicle, my steel predator escapes…. I have a feeling hes going to be stalking them for some time now. I just find it amazing that rather than fight a couple of CR 13s, they would blow up a mountain…forfeiting so….much….loooooooot!

dwagiebard
2007-11-12, 02:55 PM
I had a player who absolutly refused to pick up a flame tongue long sword.

Yeah, maybe you scared your players too much. :D

Darkantra
2007-11-12, 02:57 PM
That's brilliant, as long as it fit with the regular actions of their characters you really can't do much more than stare blankly at them. Was there any indication that the monsters were going to break out, or were they just zombie banging the doors?

Behold_the_Void
2007-11-12, 03:00 PM
Two CR 13's against a bunch of level 9's? That's... an inappropriately high encounter by the sound of it.

Vrel
2007-11-12, 03:05 PM
7 level 9 characters... one of which was a mech pilot with 350 Hit points. Everyone else was grossly over powered for their level. I figure each one of them at ECL 12-13. The mech pilot being a 13. everyone else was good. The Eye Tyrant left. It was just the steel predator. Eye tyrant wandered off to do his own thing after i realized they were probably going to blow the place up. the steel predator was trying to chew his way through the door, making sunder attempts every round.

It was a balanced encounter since on average, my players have 100+ hitpoints and in a round can deal between all seven of them 200-350 pts of damage. One of them is good for at least 8d10 a round against 2 targets. Like i said, grossly overpowered.

but yea.. it was in character for the mech pilot. There was a tiefling in the group who recognized the monster as a Steel Predator and told the mech pilot that it eats metal. The mech pilot said "#*@W~ that! he's not eating my brand new toy! lets bury this thing!" and proceeded to set high powered explosives... since he is the leader of the group... high powered boom followed.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-11-12, 03:15 PM
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing is scarier to your typical d20 character than an equipment-destroying monster. Characters happy to go toe-to-toe with a Balor will run like little girls from a CR 3 Rust Monster. It's just a kind of paranoia built into the system, especially if your players were accustomed to high-power loot.

The irony here, of course, is that the deleted most of their treasure before even fighting your super-Rust Monster. People are silly like that.

tyckspoon
2007-11-12, 03:16 PM
Huh. You know, your typical mech pilot would have made a quip about 'feeding it metal.. at 300 rounds a second!' and arranged to let it through the door and ambush it as soon as there was a clear shot. I believe you are now fully justified in mercilessly teasing your players about this escapade forever or until the end of the campaign, whichever comes first.

Chronos
2007-11-12, 03:28 PM
So how did an 18d6+18 bomb destroy the base? You said that the door right next to it was able to soak most of the damage... Wasn't the rest of the volcano as durable as that door, or more so?

Vrel
2007-11-12, 03:39 PM
the bomb dealt 18d6+18 damage to every bit of the stone above it for 200ft. the door itself was brought in special. the structure beyond the door survived, as that was all man made. The cave that they were in, however, collapsed. The bomb dealt 77 points of damage. the door had 50 HP and DR 15 (really thick door). The ceiling didnt have nearly that much HP, so the whole place came down, since there were secondary charges set to make sure the place came down on the creature. They meta-gamed a bit... thinking "If this is the first encounter of this 'dungeon crawl', what does he have beyond that...

In response to the Balor comment: Funny story there... the story line they are on currently involves a Possessed City captain trying to summon an Avatar of Hextor. The city captain is in cahoots with a rather nasty balor.

puppyavenger
2007-11-12, 03:53 PM
what setting is this?

Vrel
2007-11-12, 04:18 PM
homebrew world... all universes have collided, making almost everything available to players. there is an element in the world that is used to explain the merger between backwater cultures like D&D world with D20 Future and Star Wars... basically, if i have read the book and i am comfortable with the rules, it can be implimented, with some restrictions. It balances well when we add some of our homebrew rules in. this world is the environment our last 4 games have taken place in (over a course of 2 years) and even more games had been taking place in this world before i showed up. so its pretty well hashed out.

Tyger
2007-11-12, 04:29 PM
homebrew world... all universes have collided, making almost everything available to players. there is an element in the world that is used to explain the merger between backwater cultures like D&D world with D20 Future and Star Wars... basically, if i have read the book and i am comfortable with the rules, it can be implimented, with some restrictions. It balances well when we add some of our homebrew rules in. this world is the environment our last 4 games have taken place in (over a course of 2 years) and even more games had been taking place in this world before i showed up. so its pretty well hashed out.


Off topic, sounds a bit like a decent version of the Rifts world. Love that milleau.

But yeah, to the OP, you never know what your players are going to go. I've had to completely revamp adventures on the fly because they went off in directions that I had never anticipated, often to their own detriment. Damned free will. :smallcool:

AslanCross
2007-11-12, 04:40 PM
At least they had a decent escape plan. One of my groups had a monk who was about to use his Fiery Fists on a large stockpile of black powder just because there was a hobgoblin boss massacring his party. He'd have blown up the entire keep if he did that. <_< I'm kinda glad he's no longer playing with us.

Vrel
2007-11-12, 04:44 PM
how funny, i have a monk in my group who Decided it would be a good idea to tackle a demon (with a fly speed) in an attempt to knock him off of a cliff. He thought it was mean of me when i told him he took massive falling damage and the demon managed to fly away to safety

the monk in my party is the dumbest smart person i have ever gamed with.

bosssmiley
2007-11-13, 01:10 PM
On Friday I set up an encounter that scared my party senseless...So scared in fact that they gave up a base of operations with more luxuries than 5 Star Hotels...

This was a dormant volcano...

That would me be legging it in the opposite direction right there. Two words you never want to see together in D&D: "volcano" (or any associated words, eg: "caldera") and "dormant". Any player with an ounce of meta-knowledge can just tell it's all going to end really, really badly.

CabbageTheif
2007-11-13, 01:39 PM
But yeah, to the OP, you never know what your players are going to go. I've had to completely revamp adventures on the fly because they went off in directions that I had never anticipated, often to their own detriment. Damned free will.

i know. there is always the one seductress villian who gives the 'come hither', or a power-crazed madman who asks 'who will join me?', and instead of an impressive speech about the poor villagers or why doing that to bunnies isnt nice, one party member responds with "ok, sure i'll join you"

incidents like these are what makes the game worth playing :smallbiggrin:

The Professor
2007-11-13, 01:49 PM
i know. there is always the one seductress villian who gives the 'come hither', or a power-crazed madman who asks 'who will join me?', and instead of an impressive speech about the poor villagers or why doing that to bunnies isnt nice, one party member responds with "ok, sure i'll join you"

incidents like these are what makes the game worth playing :smallbiggrin:

I love it when my players do things like that. The best part about that, is that they think it'll be smooth sailing as soon as they off their former comrades... :smallamused:

In my current game, my players were tracking down a succubus who'd messed with them a bit. I'm 90% certain that the Psion would request another euphoric kiss, and when she agrees on the premise that he kills the others, I'd stare blankly at the amount of Power Points he'd put into the Mind Thrust directed at the Rogue.

Vrel
2007-11-13, 03:44 PM
I love it when my players do things like that. The best part about that, is that they think it'll be smooth sailing as soon as they off their former comrades... :smallamused:

In my current game, my players were tracking down a succubus who'd messed with them a bit. I'm 90% certain that the Psion would request another euphoric kiss, and when she agrees on the premise that he kills the others, I'd stare blankly at the amount of Power Points he'd put into the Mind Thrust directed at the Rogue.



Any psion in my party would be thinking of another kind of thrust all-together.