Realistic Responses: What are you proud of?

[Jasque Salens]

Hi:

Not sure if this should go here or in a different thread - please somebody let me know.

I would like to hear about times when you are particularly proud of how you had your character act, but not in terms of, "I killed 300 orcs with one blow!" or, "She died heroically to save her group," necessarily. Rather, I want to know about times when your character was true to their motivations.

I'll start off.

I had a character in a modern game who was good at divining, and even affecting, the future, but who used his abilities carefully, rather than willy-nilly changing the timeline. A shadowy monster caught our group off guard, and when it came around to the turn of my character, I stunned the entire group by saying, "I throw my gun at him!"
You see, my character panicked - he was not a fighter, although he did wonderfully as backup, despite no longer having one of his foci, which had just been flung into the darkness beyond the demon without even hitting the monster.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Recently, one of my Paladin characters tore up a bunch of Lightning Rail bandits with strictly nonlethal damage. Sure, he could have ended the fight quicker and taken less damage if he'd just slashed through them, but they had done nothing but nonlethal damage to the crew and were acting quite thief-honorably, so I decided to return the favor. It's so nice when villains are polite I felt I should reward them.

EDIT: Maybe this isn't realistic, but I felt it was at least Paladiny.

[Craig1f]

So, this super-powerful archmage that we're allied with ends communication. We can't figure out why, so we go and investigate.

Long story short, we find her in her bedroom, infected by some kinda black ooze thing that has been killing people and turning them into undead abominations. As far as we know, this stuff kills you if it touches you (none of us have touched it yet, but this wizard was very powerful, as was many other NPCs it has killed).

So, she dies, and the ooze blob pseudo-pod thing starts to take over her body. It stands up, and we flee. I decide that "instead of double-moving, I'll single move and take a shot at it with my bow. I have boots of striding on, I'm fast!

I take a shot that does no damage, turn and take my single move. It throws a blob of ooze at me, hitting me in the back.

Now, I'm wearing my +1 Resistance Lion-skin Cloak, which I RP'd was given to me by the Lion Tribe (yes, I have lion totem cheese. sue me). I'm level 6, this is a low-magic game, a 1000gp is a lot of money. I say "well, if it hit me on the back, then it's on my cloak. I rip it off and flee." As I run, the blob apparently covered the cloak (it was dead flesh after all, being lion-skin).

Too bad. I liked that cloak too!

[The_Werebear]

"I stand up, toss my helmet to the ground. I spike the greatsword in the turf and grab the axe. Then, I begin a slow, stalking limp towards town"

It was a zombie apocalypse campaign. During the finale, we were being chased out of town by a horde of zombies. My nobleman and another player's ex innkeeper (Me an aristocrat in half plate with a magic greatsword, and him a warrior with a longsword, but very weak armor) decided to make a stand to try and halt the horde. We fully know that we are going to be ripped to shreds. When we do this, several other players halt, about face, and stand with us, including the town's weaver (deadly with a crossbow, but a commoner) a wanderer (expert with UMD and a few wands), the town wizard who was out of spells (NPC) and my character's wife, who took up a position beside me with my greataxe (an aristocrat who was built to be a rogue, not a warrior)

We stand at a terrible cost. The Wanderer burns himself nearly to death using a holy symbol to replicate Turn Undeads and then goes down to zombie bites. The crossbowwoman and wizard get caught up to and can't survive close combat. The Noblewoman succumbs to constitution loss from zombie bites. The innkeeper and I fall into negative HP with only two zombies left from attrition. It is only through their spirit's intervention that we manage to take down the final few zombies; they risked losing paradise to give us one final boost so we can stand up and take the zombies down. So, the horde is dead, but so are everyone who decided to stand other than the two who were originally going to sacrifice themselves.

The town healer and his bodyguard run back to treat us, but my character refuses, despite the fact his leg has nearly been torn off. He is berserk from his wife's death with rage and grief. He has to stop to behead his wife's corpse so that she doesn't rise as a zombie as well, which doesn't help his state of mind. He takes up the greataxe that she died with, throws his armor to the ground, and begins to stalk into town (at 1 HP, mind you, and with a Con Draining disease) with the intent to kill as many zombies as he can before he goes to join her. I was going to be content with him dieing from that, but through a truly great series of arguments from the Healer's bodyguard (and a very high diplomacy check to even get through to him), he stops his suicidal charge and agrees to go back and try to protect the survivor's in his wife's name.

Amazing game. I love that DM.

[Kalirren]

My character, a cleric, followed a god who was slain during the course of the campaign. This guy was an orphan who had been taken in by that church at the age of 4, and had been devoted to the church ever since then. He simply couldn't give up the idea that the center of his devotion and the framework around which he defined his life was gone.

He went without any powers or spells for one week of combat, or one full session OOC, before he wizened up and accepted the aid of a new god whose portfolio closely matched that of his dead patron.

[valadil]

I have a gnome illusionist who started at level 1 around the time 3.0 came out. The game never really ended, but when the GM went to college he sucked more people into that particular campaign. I think the world has seen over twenty different players and is affectionately referred to as Ubermassive.

Anyway, my gnome (who by now is level 24) was one of the last two original characters left in the game. The other was a human bard. A couple years ago they decided that adventuring had grown tiresome and that they would instead prepare and run the greatest performance in history. Think some combination of the circus, standup comedy, and blue man group, with epic magic. We improvised a 90 minute show and had a grand ole time doing it.

[Jibar]

At one point I was playing a campaign with three of my friends who were playing a barkeep/moonlight rogue, deep human aristocrat and thus powerful sorcerer and a red orc psychic warrior while I was playing a travelling bard.
After a quite... robust starting adventure involving a cross-dressing priestess, angry mobs and the very quick adaptation of a humble cart into a deadly machine of war, we found ourselves actually leaving that humble village and off on the road.
For my character this was all quite a new experience, never having been an adventurer unlike my companions. After watching the red orc cut a man's head in half he was rather ill and quite shaken, so much that he only had a passing involvement in the escape from the mob.
The real kicker when, several ways out, we had our first encounter with monsters. Never having seen anything of their kind before, only ever moving between towns by merchant routes and thus usually protected by mercenaries, he became quite panicked and I rolled a Will save for myself. When my DM asked what I was doing I told him and he congratulated me on such a good understanding of my character.
Always been quite proud of that. I passed the Will save though and provided musical accompianment to the group to help them kill the Ogre Mages.

[TheThan]

My duskblade and the party rogue nearly committed a blood sacrifice.

We were trying to get into a secret door the rogue had found. It had an inscription on it that suggested there was a to opening it.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out, all we had to do was pour water into a holy symbol imbedded in the ground.
What’s funny is that me and the rogue’s player pointed at each other from across the table and yelled out “BLOOD SACRIFICE”.

We have a paladin in the group that was a no-show that week, so we decided to test our idea out with water. Which worked. So nobody got sacrificed that session.

[Craig1f]

Another one.

NPC to our Wizard: "Why don't you just leave this alone?"
DM to Wizard: "Make a will save, as it's clear he just cast a spell. You pass."
Wizard: "Get him Tordac! I cast Protection from Evil onmyself"
Me: "I grapple the NPC"
DM: "Whatever you were going to do to the NPC, you feel compelled to do to the Wizard, as you hear a voice in your head that says 'Stop the Wizard from casting any spells."

So, I'm dominated (thinking I was just charmed, and not knowing how it worked. I didn't realize then when you're dominated, you have a glazed, robotic look, and just act single-minded). I vigilantly start chasing this wizard around, taunting him with "Come on Elberon. Simon's really a nice guy if you get to know him. Come here and I can show you!"

He gets away using invisibility and grease. I was hoping for a PK. The DM later explained that with Domination, you just act like a robot desperately trying to perform your command. So, in reality, I probably wouldn't have taunted him or tried to convince him that Simon was a good guy.

[Doomsy]

My NG fighter watched the party's skilll-monky elf converse with what clearly looked like a good outsider, but she did not know the language. And kept asking him to translate. Which he did not. Then he yelled it was going to attack, which it did.
She killed it NASTY and claimed its sword - a sentient one that was lawfully good aligned but liked her.

She immediately deckedthe elf afterwards and in no uncertain terms told him that next time something like that happened, she would let it kill him.

Fun times. I miss that character.

[RukiTanuki]

I had some interesting moments in my original 3rd Edition playgroup. There was even a paladin frequently sent out on adventure by an order who didn't really care much for him. (This was eight years ago, mind you, and their disdain was mostly centered on his boisterous personality, clumsiness, and love of beer... which led to much of the clumsiness.)

There was also the time I handed the intelligent, gnome-minded Lawgiver dagger to the sticky-fingered rogue for safeguarding (the rogue, mind you... that dagger had, shall we say, flamboyant ways of bringing attention to an owner that disagreed with its sensibilities).

A lot of the back-and-forth, however, went between my elf ranger (Himo) and the human fighter of the group (Krishena). At one point in a dungeon crawl, Himo was reduced to 0 hp after walking into a trap. No one detected danger (the trap involved animated chains that remained still until someone entered the circle in the center of the room), but Himo made the first move deliberately, to protect the others. He was almost as fast as the rogue and almost as tough as the fighter; more importantly, he preferred saving the other party members from ill fates, and knew the party was in the least danger if he was the downed person. Himo was very pragmatic; he represented my tendency to (as a friend put it) "say things extremely blunt, but I'll be damned if it's not well thought out."

After getting Himo patched up, this led to a frequently-held conversation between Krishena and Himo about who should enter rooms first. Krishena knew she was the toughest in the group, and was worried Himo was charging in just to protect the damsel. Himo, in turn, countered that he was the only person with a trifecta: likely to spot the trap, likely to avoid it if tripped, and likely to survive the damage if he failed (the rogue failed the last test). He was protecting the girl, but the fact that she was female wasn't part of the equation.

The squabbling continued as the rogue picked the lock to the next room. The second it clicked, Himo and Krishena, trying to prove a point to the other, charged into the room at the same time.

The DM turns to us and asked, "What are you wearing?"

Krishena (in her metal scale armor) immediately flies up and crashes into the (apparently) magnetic ceiling. Himo (wearing leather) remains put, though his left arm is yanked upward due to the dagger tied to his wrist, and his longsword flies out of its holster and clatters on the ceiling.

After freeing his hand and checking if Krishena is okay, Himo directs the paladin to strip his armor, then scouts the room until he finds a lever (with what he hopes is an obvious purpose). He has the paladin stand under Krishena, then pulls the lever. Krishena falls, the paladin has his arms held out to catch her... and whiffs. Krishena clatters to the floor (at single-digit HP).

Himo runs over, helps her up, dusts her off, and says, "I'm taking the next door."

"Like hell," she replies.

---

I guess Himo was pretty protective. When Krishena died (senselessly from a random giant ant encounter), Himo had to be restrained to keep from diving after the ants, relenting only after being reassured they'd dropped the body. His wolf, Tabun, died similarly; a witch was fleeing the party, and Tabun was able to outrun her and trip her repeatedly, for the party to catch up. Using the last trick she had, the witch pulled out an enervate, and rolled maximum, draining four levels from the four-HD Tabun. Rounding the corner and seeing his fallen companion, Himo redoubled his efforts, reaching outdoors first to see the witch attempting to ride away on one of the party's horses. Unfortunately, she'd selected Krishena's horse, which Himo had been training personally for months. One Epona-style horse call later, a very terrified witch on horseback locked eyes with a very infuriated elf. The rest was left undescribed.

Krishena got raised (though her trip back came with terrifying visions of an omen to come), and Tabun was raised and awakened by a neighboring druid. This led to Tabun the Cohort, whose first words were "So, you're the dumb bastard that got me killed."

But, not being exactly proud of those continuing adventures, that's a tale for another time. :)

[Bosaxon]

I solo'd a purple worm with one spell.

First round: I win initiative. Mindfrost for some damage and 1 intelligence point damage. Worm falls unconcious due to 0 intelligence. Party stands dumbfounded.

Second Round: Coup de Grace for 53 points of damage. It didn't make the fort save. *cue final fantasy victory music*

I then proceed to to tunnel through it looking for a path through the mountain.

DM was :smallfurious:MAD:smallfurious: based upon the next encounter, a Truly Horrid Umber Hulk, in which this character bit the dust.