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JMobius
2008-07-23, 10:43 AM
You know, those dastardly tricks that you pull out of nowhere that break their rails, ruin their plans, and foil all their attempts to kill you.

Last weekend, I broke out a DMM Maximized Celestial Brilliance cast by a Radiant Servant of Pelor, in a world being assaulted by a zombie plague. That one earned a round of applause from everyone, including the GM, who shortly thereafter hit me with an Eternity of Torment.

I got better though.

Adumbration
2008-07-23, 10:58 AM
Where's the Celestial Brilliance from? (Also, you could just simply add what it exactly means to those of use who can't be bothered checking three books. :smallwink:)

Sounds good, though.

Da King
2008-07-23, 11:02 AM
Lets see..... I have:
1. In a Campaign, we were given a series of weapons which I figured out were made out of some sort of radioactive material. I tried to build a nuke, and the DM ended up rewinding the timeline of the campaign back 2 weeks so we never found the weapons.
2. Helped a fellow PC burn down a forest, while transporting a caravan of explosives through it.
3. Attempted to kill a party member with explosives, and blew up half an inn.
4. Succeeded in killing said party member with explosives, and destroyed an entire cave.
5. Burned down and looted several magic shops.
6. Played a Druid, and incorrectly read many rules.
7. Creatively used stone shape and wood shape far too often.
8. Took over a town and named it "Fresca" after the drink that happened to be sitting on the table.
9. Failed at management of background music.
10. And Finally, destroyed every adventure hook the DM threw at us.

Vexxation
2008-07-23, 11:04 AM
Where's the Celestial Brilliance from? (Also, you could just simply add what it exactly means to those of use who can't be bothered checking three books. :smallwink:)

Sounds good, though.

Book of Exalted Deeds.

120-foot burst (doubled for Radiant Servant). Lasts 1 day per caster level, dealing d6 damage per round to undead in the inner 60 feet (120 feet for Radiant Servants).

Maximized it's dealing 6 damage per round to every undead within 120 feet of the affected object. It'll last at least 13 days (required to cast a level 7 spell, or a level 4 maximized). A round is 6 seconds. A day is 86,400 seconds. 13 days is 1,123,200 seconds. This gives you 187,200 rounds. Each round deals 6 damage to everything undead in 120 feet.

I like it.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-23, 11:06 AM
3. Attempted to kill a party member with explosives, and blew up half an inn.

Half? You're doing it wrong. :smalltongue:

JMobius
2008-07-23, 11:07 AM
It'll last at least 13 days (required to cast a level 7 spell, or a level 4 maximized).

10 days. It was DMM maximized. ;)

Vexxation
2008-07-23, 11:13 AM
10 days. It was DMM maximized. ;)

Ah. I've heard that DMM was cheesy but never investigated how so. In which book might one find such cheese?

arguskos
2008-07-23, 11:14 AM
I've done a few good ones.

1. I helped another player (who was a vampire) utterly annihilate a temple of St. Cuthbert by teleporting us in, having him kick the door in, casting Acid Storm on the whole place (melting everything inside, save the one guy he wanted to turn into another vamp), and teleporting myself away, just in time to get back to the bar for the next round of ales.

2. I took the Firey Burst reserve feat (create fire at will pretty much) in a campaign that turned out to have way too many plant-based monsters and boats.

3. I abused the fact that I knew the spell descriptions better than he did, and made good use of that fact (for example, the fact that Dimension Door doesn't need a target, just a direction+distance, so if I knew exactly how far away the treasure vault was...)

4. I helped a player abuse magnetism, and single-handedly invented an electro-magnet, which we then used in an imitation of Mystery Men (basically, mount an electro-magnet to a vehicle, charge into a heavily defended castle, and turn on the magnet till everyone is incapacitated, then leap out and kill everyone).

I'm sure there are more, but I can't recall any at the moment.

-argus

Also, Divine Metamagic is in Complete Divine if I recall.

Vexxation
2008-07-23, 11:20 AM
Also, Divine Metamagic is in Complete Divine if I recall.

Yup, Complete Divine, and man, is that sexy.
Especially where it doesn't say you have to have a metamagic to choose it.

Though I'm sure that's errata'd out.

JMobius
2008-07-23, 11:20 AM
Ah. I've heard that DMM was cheesy but never investigated how so. In which book might one find such cheese?

Complete Divine.

Some of these are really good. Let's keep them coming. :D

arguskos
2008-07-23, 11:27 AM
Yeah, if I recall, DMM was errata'd to make you pick a metamagic, I think in... Magic of Faerun? Or Player's Guide to Faerun maybe? However, it most assuredly has been so errata'd. Also, taking Persistent Spell is just CHEESE. >_<

Oh, another one: I once helped to start a world-consuming war when my party and I killed off a king, and installed a puppet ruler that we controlled behind the scenes. Also, that puppet was an elder orb beholder that we befriended. Needless to say, this didn't make us any friends among everyone else in the world, esp. when we launched on a holy crusade to purge the globe of heretics (we were a super-righteous party, and thought we'd converted the beholder to goodness... man, were we wrong...).

-argus

Chronicled
2008-07-23, 11:37 AM
As a Beguiler, spamming Detect Thoughts with the "don't think about elephants!" tactic. And the Conceal Spellcasting skill trick (essentially, free Still+Silent on your spell, usable once minute with a Sleight of Hand check).

As a Cleric, making heavy use of Shape Stone to leave statues all over the landscape with "St. Cuthbert is better than your god." inscribed on the bottom.

As a different Beguiler, managing epic Bluff checks at level 6 (yay Glibness!).

And I knew that my DM was ticked at my level 1 Sorcerer's Grease on his skeleton boss's sword when as a replacement, a Brilliant Energy sword appeared in its hand :smallsigh:. And promptly took out our meleers :smallsigh:. (Had that campaign gone on, he probably would have killed me and only allowed a Warmage or Healer as caster options for me. His idea of caster play was like the alleged style of the development team.)

More to come.

Dausuul
2008-07-23, 11:39 AM
I'm not usually too much of a problem player, but there was this one campaign...

First, we met a well-connected fellow with a plot hook. Instead of accepting the plot hook, I killed him. Given the fellow's connections, we then decided it would be wise to skip town, thus invalidating the entire plot.

Later, in another town, we were hired to retrieve some stolen magic items from under a mountain (it was the 3E remake of White Plume Mountain, for anyone interested). I used an area attack in an inadvisable location, and collapsed the mountain. Although some generous rulings on the workings of dimension door allowed us to avoid being crushed to death, the magic items were lost for good, and we decided to skip town again.

Finally, we managed to get a goddess pissed off at us after we inadvertently killed her last paladin. Possibly the DM was anticipating that we would skip town again and we'd have some kind of "escape the goddess's wrath" plot. Instead, I led the party in converting to the worship of that goddess.

The campaign ended shortly after that.

Thrawn183
2008-07-23, 11:41 AM
Can we post ones we plan to do?

Chronicled
2008-07-23, 11:41 AM
Finally, we managed to get a goddess pissed off at us after we inadvertently killed her last paladin. Possibly the DM was anticipating that we would skip town again and we'd have some kind of "escape the goddess's wrath" plot. Instead, I led the party in converting to the worship of that goddess.

That? Awesome.

Conners
2008-07-23, 11:43 AM
Lets see..... I have:
1. In a Campaign, we were given a series of weapons which I figured out were made out of some sort of radioactive material. I tried to build a nuke, and the DM ended up rewinding the timeline of the campaign back 2 weeks so we never found the weapons.
2. Helped a fellow PC burn down a forest, while transporting a caravan of explosives through it.
3. Attempted to kill a party member with explosives, and blew up half an inn.
4. Succeeded in killing said party member with explosives, and destroyed an entire cave.
5. Burned down and looted several magic shops.
6. Played a Druid, and incorrectly read many rules.
7. Creatively used stone shape and wood shape far too often.
8. Took over a town and named it "Fresca" after the drink that happened to be sitting on the table.
9. Failed at management of background music.
10. And Finally, destroyed every adventure hook the DM threw at us. .......... LOL :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbi ggrin: XD XD LOLOLOLOL!!!! Man... I'm tempted to invite you over to some of my campaigns, but I don't think I'm good enough yet to work out how to counter your bizarreness (I see little problem with naming your town after a soda, it's YOUR fre**in' town!).

Totally Guy
2008-07-23, 11:45 AM
I've been thwarted as a DM by my players 3 weeks before the campaign is even going to start.

On Saturday, more like early sunday morning... we finally finished our 3.5 campaign in which I was a player. Anyway the ending of our campaign used nearly exactly the same twist that I was going to use when I took over.

When they get so far into the story I have planned they'll all stop and say, "You ripped that concept off from our last game!" I have a log book that I can use to prove I thought of it independently. Still annoying though. Maybe I'll make adjustments.

Pie Guy
2008-07-23, 12:24 PM
Continually using darkness to knock monsters into lava, whichwas a good thing, as there was only a monk (me), a drow assassin(providing the dark), an almost always absent cleric, and a wu jen, who was consequently tripped into lava by the attack made on me by the assassin. the cleric was not availible for comment.

Naihal
2008-07-23, 12:40 PM
Link to the Things I am not allowed to do while gaming thread, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29508) because it's in the same vein and because it must never be forgotten.

In my current campaign, the DM has thrown my group into some bizzare plane infested with undead. Somehow, it's not connected to the rest of the cosmology, meaning we can't escape with plane shift. Our current goal is to find a way off, and last session we infiltrated the main base of a cult spread across the plane in order to find what they knew about the properties of the plane. We successfully made it into the center of their base and retrieved their records, and were about to leave when the DMPC stopped us.

The DMPC, a nycter paladin, was determined to wait until the cult members came and found us so that he could slaughter them for their "vile worship." Naturally, no one else was interested, so my wizard made the nycter an offer: the rest of the party would leave and hide a short distance away and watch how the nycter's fight went; when he dropped to low health, my wizard would cast regroup to teleport the nycter out. The nycter agreed, and ran off to start his fight while the rest of the party ran off out of the base. The nycter managed to take down a good portion of the cult's forces (and about half an hour of real time while the DM DMed the battle between his own PC and his NPCs) but was still knocked down to near critical health. My wizard cast regroup as planned.

It didn't work.

As the DM had made sure to point out several times previously, the plane we were on was cut off from all others, including the Astral Plane - meaning teleport spells didn't work. The nycter perished at the hands of the cult, and the rest of the party got away without a scratch. I can only imagine how the DM will take revenge on my character.

Quirinus_Obsidian
2008-07-23, 12:41 PM
1: Playing a Large or larger sized character. This will also make your other players hate you. As most corridors and hallways are 8ft. high and 10 ft wide... that means you take up all and then some of the available space. Imagine a character that size in a aquatic environment, like Savage Tide?

2: Playing the same character, over and over and over again, ad nauseum. Sure they may have different feats, some different class abilities, but if all of them have the same personality or behavior, that gets really old.

----------------
Now playing: The Gathering - In Motion #2 (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/the+gathering/track/in+motion+%232)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)

valadil
2008-07-23, 12:43 PM
Oh, where to begin... Let's go with character back story.

Wrote background in spanish. In my defense the character was mexican.

Gave character surname of "DeJesus" just to see if DM would notice.

For my cannibalistic jungle Dwarf barbarian, Bucky duForrest, I downloaded an old SNL sketch script and replaced every instance of "Bill" with "Bucky" and "Brasky" with "duForrest." GM didn't notice. (For you youngins, the sketch was about a bunch of drunk guys talking about the epic feats of their buddy Bill Brasky and was later ripped off by Chuck Norris facts.)

Gave DM a copy of the "Eye of Argon" with Jim Theiss crossed out and another PC's name written in. Made DM read it out loud.

quiet1mi
2008-07-23, 12:53 PM
changeling + beguiler + high cha + imagination = off the rails in 30 seconds flat

Roderick_BR
2008-07-23, 01:41 PM
Funny, most tales here would mean instant death to the PCs in some groups I played... Your DMs are too nice to you, people :smallwink:

EndgamerAzari
2008-07-23, 01:59 PM
2: Playing the same character, over and over and over again, ad nauseum. Sure they may have different feats, some different class abilities, but if all of them have the same personality or behavior, that gets really old.


*face of intense hate*

My 'friend' Johnny has, by my record, played seven MUTE SAMURAI characters.

Gem Flower
2008-07-23, 02:03 PM
Blindness spell.:smallbiggrin: It's low-level and very fun. Biggest climactic battle = Everyone delaying their turns until after mine, I cast Blindness, someone else does a coup de grace. Eventually he stopped letting us use it, though.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-23, 02:04 PM
Blindness spell.:smallbiggrin: It's low-level and very fun. Biggest climactic battle = Everyone delaying their turns until after mine, I cast Blindness, someone else does a coup de grace. Eventually he stopped letting us use it, though.

Being blind doesn't subject you to coup de grace. You have to be helpless. The blind guy can be sneak attacked, though.

MR.PIXIE
2008-07-23, 02:07 PM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

Adumbration
2008-07-23, 02:11 PM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

Well, I do bet it came as a surprise.

Destro_Yersul
2008-07-23, 02:13 PM
My favourite was spamming Backbiter, or whatever it's called, on everything with a weapon. Our DM was fond of using monsters that did absurd amounts of damage, you see. It was even better when I did it to an ogre, who managed to crit and one-shotted himself.

TheCountAlucard
2008-07-23, 03:19 PM
One time, I was in a truly bad solo game; the DM played it like a cutscene, made my first-level bard (with the wealth of a fifth-level bard and a GOLEM servant) a general in the king's army (which was then defeated, no dice rolled, with my bard "knocked out from behind"). I woke up in a dungeon with the princess (nine levels higher than me) on a quest to find the king.

I fell asleep. :smallbiggrin:

spamoo
2008-07-23, 03:33 PM
First of all, I have two annoying habits within the game. Normally, this is coincidence, but I occasionally help them along.
1. I always seem to get at least one Druidic circle unbelievably pissed at me.
2. No tavern that I enter is allowed to survive. My current streak is 10 and only 3 of those were directly my fault.
The above usually involve fire.

Also, in a campaign that is still going on, my DM introduced a recurring vampire nemesis. We could tell that he was a major NPC because whenever he became unconscious, he would become gaseous and float away. After the latest encounter with him, our rogue had died and he was floating away. The rest of us wanted revenge for the PC death (which was due to a max damage spell (can't remember which)) so we attacked the cloud. Needless to say, weapons did nothing. Even fireball didn't work (he somehow had resist fire). Finally, I tried casting one of my last spells, magic missile. It auto-hit and dealt max damage, dropping the vampire below -10 and killing him. The DM told me later that I had killed the main villain of the plot. :smallbiggrin:

Swordguy
2008-07-23, 04:05 PM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

The proper answer to that kind of BS is, "The light cast from your torches is clearly reflected in the wide, staring, sightless eyes of your baby sister as she lies motionless on the floor, a spreading pool of blood seeping into the cracks of the flagstones and staining her blond pigtails a shocking crimson. You step towards the body as the girl's last feeble twitches subside, and notice a note pinned to her shirt written in a childish scrawl, 'Looking for my big brother [PC name here], have you seen him?'"


/Friggin' HATE it when players take pride in screwing up a situation which the GM created so that everybody could have fun, not just the guy who thinks fastest. Seizing the spotlight is good and fun - attention whoring is not.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-07-23, 04:29 PM
The proper answer to that kind of BS is, "The light cast from your torches is clearly reflected in the wide, staring, sightless eyes of your baby sister as she lies motionless on the floor, a spreading pool of blood seeping into the cracks of the flagstones and staining her blond pigtails a shocking crimson. You step towards the body as the girl's last feeble twitches subside, and notice a note pinned to her shirt written in a childish scrawl, 'Looking for my big brother [PC name here], have you seen him?'"I make every PC I play an orphan specifically to eliminate that kind of thing. One kidnapped family member-hostage is one too many. :smallannoyed:

Swordguy
2008-07-23, 04:47 PM
I make every PC I play an orphan specifically to eliminate that kind of thing. One kidnapped family member-hostage is one too many. :smallannoyed:

If you don't do things like this,


I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game

then family members don' get hurt. It's simple - a good GM will not excessively screw over PCs if the PCs don't go out of their way to screw up the hours of work he's put in to making sure everybody* has a good time. Go out of your way to screw up the session? All bets are off. No siblings or family? Fine - the next 18 bad guys lead off with Disjunction. On you.

*everybody includes the GM

Covered In Bees
2008-07-23, 04:50 PM
My DM hates it when I kick sand in his face in the beach and steal his girl.

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-23, 04:56 PM
If you don't do things like this,

then family members don' get hurt. It's simple - a good GM will not excessively screw over PCs if the PCs don't go out of their way to screw up the hours of work he's put in to making sure everybody* has a good time. Go out of your way to screw up the session? All bets are off. No siblings or family? Fine - the next 18 bad guys lead off with Disjunction. On you.

*everybody includes the GM

*Snort.* I once had a PC say, after I dropped one too many hints that they should explore a certain area that the PCs were ignoring: "We begin making plans and preparations to explore and take over the ship when it lands... no, wait. We explore the prepared content."

erikun
2008-07-23, 04:58 PM
Well, let's see here....

The party came across what obviously a succubus/vampire, or something similar. The party offered to escort her out, so my cleric offered to heal her... with his holy symbol.

We were attacked by assassins. After several minutes of trying to get some information, my wizard says, "I cast Charm Person."

Suggesting to my DM that I could run a gestalt Monk/Druid, and pointing out that I could turn into a Huge Earth Elemental with Improved Evasion. My DM didn't let me play that one.

I've considered running a Gnome Sorcerer who multiclasses into Bard just for full ranks in Use Magic Device.

CHASE THE HERO
2008-07-23, 05:20 PM
3 words: +20 bluff checks :smallbiggrin:


at level 2 as well. i love psions....

Helgraf
2008-07-23, 09:45 PM
I make every PC I play an orphan specifically to eliminate that kind of thing. One kidnapped family member-hostage is one too many. :smallannoyed:

Oh, you think being an orphan makes you safe. How very quaint.

:muahhahahahah:

erikun
2008-07-23, 09:47 PM
I rolled up a cleric with a maximum of 1 HP.

I named him "DeadMeat".

Turcano
2008-07-23, 09:59 PM
Ask how grapple checks work.

Ganurath
2008-07-23, 10:29 PM
1. Waterboarding a dwarf with his own armor. I love Create Water.
2. Making the king kneel before you. I love Command.
3. Taking prisoners. I love Use Rope and Daggers.
4. Messing with the party drunk. I love Beguilers.

Curmudgeon
2008-07-23, 10:34 PM
Started by buying the right equipment:
crossbow with splitting and quick loading enhancements
a wand of Greater Magic Weapon at CL 20 (for +5 enhancement)
greater truedeath and greater demolition weapon augment crystals (sneak attack undead and constructs)
masterwork spyglass: 8X magnification for 16,000 gp
Boots of Speed (for Haste 10 rounds/day)
Add the right domains:
Undeath (free Extra Turning feat)
Planning (free Extend Spell feat)

and the right feats:
Persistent Spell
Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)
Precise Shot
Far Shot
Distant Shot [Epic] (unlimited range without penalties)
and apply the persistence to Sniper's Shot (no range limit to add sneak attack damage).

The result: sneak attack at any range with full attacks from the horizon. Unless they've got incredible Spot skills to see you hiding hundreds of feet away, you remain visually undetectable (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm#invisible) and can sneak attack most creatures continually, including undead and constructs. Pretty nifty for a Rogue/Assassin with a 1-level Cleric dip.

The GM quickly abandoned wilderness encounters, and made all new challenges take place in tight dungeons or indoors. :smallsmile:

FMArthur
2008-07-23, 10:36 PM
I'm not allowed to be any kind of spellcaster or any class outside of core and the Complete series. I guess I get a little enthusiastic when it comes to being as useful as possible. Most of the players in my groups make a character in ten minutes; nobody else devotes as much time to planning out characters as I do.


So, out of the things I'm allowed to do, my GM hates it when I create a recurring joke that won't really work with the plot. Like the current tradition of burning down any place we spend the night in. So far: 3 inns, someone else's hut, an empty cottage, my own house, a large forest, and "the city in general" when we had to sleep in an alleyway. For a while we were strictly avoiding staying in places that wouldn't burn, but now we've taken it as a daily challenge to find a way to burn down things that are not ordinarily flammable or are resistant to fire for some reason. We melted a castle and declared it to have "burned down".

Epinephrine
2008-07-23, 10:37 PM
I'm pretty good about things, I actually check with the DM before sessions about plans, so that if he needs to he can make adjustments.

I don't think I've thrown him anything too nasty, though he's nerfed Blinding Spittle (somewhat deservedly) after a recent battle.

Covered In Bees
2008-07-23, 10:42 PM
I don't think I've thrown him anything too nasty, though he's nerfed Blinding Spittle (somewhat deservedly) after a recent battle.

A druid spell? That deserved nerfing?

SURELY NOT. You LIE, sir, and I will not tolerate such utter falsehoods!

Tallis
2008-07-23, 10:53 PM
We were on a quest to retrieve a magic sword for the goddess of the demi-plane we were on. She was a goddess of magic. It was a sword that made the wielder immune to magic. I decided to keep it.

Dausuul
2008-07-23, 11:02 PM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

See, there's a simple way of dealing with that if it happens a lot.

DM: "You turn the corner of the damp hallway and see three--"
Archer: "Does 27 hit?"
DM: "...No. As I was saying, three hundred feet of ancient red dragon curled up asleep in his lair. Your arrow bounces off his scales and wakes him up. Roll initiative."

Sequinox
2008-07-23, 11:09 PM
Things that my players do that drive me insane:

I have two players that do this to me all the time. The first one is, well:

We were playing in an urban pseudo-modern setting where it had been proved that religion didn't exist (something to set apart old cathedrals as creepy places with interesting monsters and such).

One of my players was a devout Christian IRL. He wrote a three page long backstory about how his character had become Catholic and memorized every book he could find about God and prayed five times a day. (Sorry if this is touching on religion, but it is important for what happens next, or at elast accentuates my point)

The gang runs into a squad of Secret Police sent to find the people that were smuggling weapons to the Thieves Guild from a mob boss's place. One of the Secret Police started helping the players in mid combat. It turned out that he was sick of the corrupted practices of the government and wanted to fight back against the force that had scarred him and his memories. Aforementioned super-catholic asked him if they could trust him. He said that he had no way to prove it, but if they gave him time, he would try to do so. The super-catholic goes Oh, Okay, and starts shooting. Kills the plot hook in cold blood.

The other guy brought a Shamu (yes, from waterworld in florida) toy that had just a plastic whale's head on the top and a plastic tube that went down where its body would be. It ended in a trigger. When you pulled the trigger, it opened its mouth.

He made Shamu eat all of the dice and puke them up on the game board. Twice.

Kyace
2008-07-23, 11:24 PM
We were on a quest to retrieve a magic sword for the goddess of the demi-plane we were on. She was a goddess of magic. It was a sword that made the wielder immune to magic. I decided to keep it.
So... how'd the fight with the Goddess' paladins go? And priests? Still, rather silly to ask a player to give up a weapon like that without a proportionate reward.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-07-23, 11:28 PM
The five ugliest words in DnD:
"My character wouldn't do that"

Conners
2008-07-24, 06:34 AM
We were on a quest to retrieve a magic sword for the goddess of the demi-plane we were on. She was a goddess of magic. It was a sword that made the wielder immune to magic. I decided to keep it. That sounds quite reasonable to me.

Heck, I'd make the goddess typically arrogant, wanting the PCs to give her the sword for NOTHING at the end of it (I like to do settings where all the gods and goddesses are either evil, selfish, changeable, or self-absorbed). Should the PCs refuse, I'm sure she'd blast away at them furiously for several hours--to no effect with their special sword. I might even make it that she is greatly weakened from her colossal attempt, and the PCs might be capable of killing her temporarily/permanently!.... I REALLY want to start a campaign, now :smallbiggrin:.


Things that my players do that drive me insane:

I have two players that do this to me all the time. The first one is, well:

We were playing in an urban pseudo-modern setting where it had been proved that religion didn't exist (something to set apart old cathedrals as creepy places with interesting monsters and such).

One of my players was a devout Christian IRL. He wrote a three page long backstory about how his character had become Catholic and memorized every book he could find about God and prayed five times a day. (Sorry if this is touching on religion, but it is important for what happens next, or at elast accentuates my point)

The gang runs into a squad of Secret Police sent to find the people that were smuggling weapons to the Thieves Guild from a mob boss's place. One of the Secret Police started helping the players in mid combat. It turned out that he was sick of the corrupted practices of the government and wanted to fight back against the force that had scarred him and his memories. Aforementioned super-catholic asked him if they could trust him. He said that he had no way to prove it, but if they gave him time, he would try to do so. The super-catholic goes Oh, Okay, and starts shooting. Kills the plot hook in cold blood.

The other guy brought a Shamu (yes, from waterworld in florida) toy that had just a plastic whale's head on the top and a plastic tube that went down where its body would be. It ended in a trigger. When you pulled the trigger, it opened its mouth.

He made Shamu eat all of the dice and puke them up on the game board. Twice. What the heck kind of Christian IS he :smalleek:?

.... LOL XD What's so bad about the second guy :smallbiggrin:? Did the whale actually vomit :smalltongue:?


The five ugliest words in DnD:
"My character wouldn't do that" Either, A) They aren't thinking of their character as a living person, who can change regularly or do things they normally never would just because their friends are doing it (or because of something else). Or B) They're playing a character who is meant to be completely-inflexible, possibly more stupid than A.
If I really had an RP dilemma with my character, I'd either think something up, or ask the DM to work out a reason for my character to do whatever it is, without ruining my character's or the DM's concept.

TheCountAlucard
2008-07-24, 06:55 AM
...But that's assuming that it's over a roleplaying dilemma. More likely, it's just an excuse by the player to not do something sensible.

EDIT: Another pretty bad thing is when a player tries to justify actions "because I'm chaotic!" Or any alignment, for that matter. Just don't do it.

SoD
2008-07-24, 07:24 AM
Well, one of my players: it's his first try at DnD. Within the first minute of game play, he started a forrest fire. By accident.

Burley
2008-07-24, 07:54 AM
1. Didn't go into the cave with the rest of the party. (I was the healer...)
2. Detect Magic at-will. (Warlock)
3. Identify at-will. (Dragonfire Adept)

One of my players right now gave me this as a shopping list:
Rags + Bottles of Rum/Vodka/whatever
Hm...I wonder what this fella is trying to make... DENIED!

I'll get back at them later, when they find out the boot they thought created Acid is only a 5 gallon boot. Teach them to waste good Acid...

hewhosaysfish
2008-07-24, 10:26 AM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?"
"Hit what?"
"... er... one of the things I saw. The one in the middle."
"What things? In ther middle of what? You haven't seen anything yet."
"But I was about to, though."
"You were about to... So you want to fire at them before you've seen them...?"
"...."

Zeta Kai
2008-07-24, 11:48 AM
"Hit what?"
"... er... one of the things I saw. The one in the middle."
"What things? In ther middle of what? You haven't seen anything yet."
"But I was about to, though."
"You were about to... So you want to fire at them before you've seen them...?"
"...."

Yeah, this kind of game-ruining trigger-happy jerkism is the reason I screen my players before a campaign gets in full swing. Of course, it helps to have reserve material that can be thrown in whenever a reckless player sneaks through.

And by "reserve material", I often mean "Inevitables". :smalleek:

JMobius
2008-07-24, 11:57 AM
Yeah, this kind of game-ruining trigger-happy jerkism is the reason I screen my players before a campaign gets in full swing. Of course, it helps to have reserve material that can be thrown in whenever a reckless player sneaks through.

And by "reserve material", I often mean "Inevitables". :smalleek:

The idea of a class of Inevitables who hunt down those who break the cosmic GM's rails amuses me greatly. :P

Lochar
2008-07-24, 12:06 PM
It's not as much as using them to put the game back on rails, as it is "Great, your arrow hits the one in the center dead in the chest, pushing right through the human female's heart. She falls between the other two, the chains her body has on tugging at the two [Insert really big creatures] guarding her are holding. This instantly alerts them and they let go of the chains and attack you.

You notice that the woman was the fair maiden you were being sent to rescue."

Then the GM looks to the player. "Oh, by the way? Welcome to Chaotic Evil alignment."

Epinephrine
2008-07-24, 01:10 PM
...But that's assuming that it's over a roleplaying dilemma. More likely, it's just an excuse by the player to not do something sensible.

EDIT: Another pretty bad thing is when a player tries to justify actions "because I'm chaotic!" Or any alignment, for that matter. Just don't do it.

Well, at the same time, sometimes it really is role playing to do the non-sensible thing. And a player shouldn't be railroaded into doing something that he wouldn't do.

OverWilliam
2008-07-24, 01:26 PM
Then the GM looks to the player. "Oh, by the way? Welcome to Chaotic Evil alignment."
That sounds like an absolutely FANTASTIC idea. Reserving the right to adjust the character's alignment is accordance with their actions, then wreaking havoc with whatever ANYTHING that is alignment based that they have (weapons, spells, class features, magic items, ANYTHING). Then once they've worked through that, cause as much trouble as you can with the story because nobody wants to trust you anymore. Except for the BBEG, who tells them right up front that he's going to kill them once they stop being useful, and then sending them on suicide missions because the BBEG is amused by suffering. Brought it on yourself, dude. :smallwink:

Aevylmar
2008-07-24, 01:51 PM
I wouldn't take it that far immediately. Start by having the PC's actions cause trouble for the party, but not make it impossible to succeed. Say, shooting the four really big, strong ogres that it was supposed to be possible to bypass. You may want to consider shifting the PCs alignment more towards chaotic.

If this doesn't get him to stop shooting at the darkness, then have the archer end up shooting either a faceless but non-evil NPC and killing him (Such as an imprisoned, helpless old man), or a potental ally of the PCs and getting him angry. And shift his alignment to Chaotic Neutral.

If he's still absolutely determined to stay by this maddening practice, pull out all the stops and do as Lochar and OverWilliam suggested, but give him chances to mend his ways first. Remember, we don't want to ruin the game or the character, we just want to teach him a lesson. Now, if he doesn't want to be taught...

ArmorArmadillo
2008-07-24, 02:18 PM
Well, at the same time, sometimes it really is role playing to do the non-sensible thing. And a player shouldn't be railroaded into doing something that he wouldn't do.

I'm not saying he should. I'm just saying that it can really make your dm hate you.

OverWilliam
2008-07-24, 03:28 PM
I wouldn't take it that far immediately. Start by having the PC's actions cause trouble for the party, but not make it impossible to succeed. Say, shooting the four really big, strong ogres that it was supposed to be possible to bypass. You may want to consider shifting the PCs alignment more towards chaotic.

If this doesn't get him to stop shooting at the darkness, then have the archer end up shooting either a faceless but non-evil NPC and killing him (Such as an imprisoned, helpless old man), or a potental ally of the PCs and getting him angry. And shift his alignment to Chaotic Neutral.

If he's still absolutely determined to stay by this maddening practice, pull out all the stops and do as Lochar and OverWilliam suggested, but give him chances to mend his ways first. Remember, we don't want to ruin the game or the character, we just want to teach him a lesson. Now, if he doesn't want to be taught...
Thank you, Aevylmar, that is exactly what I meant. Despite the unintentionally cruel and unusual vibes coming off of that last post, I actually have a very longsuffering DMing style. I try to let people get away with things as much as is reasonable, and I try to keep my 'interference' with the gameworld to a minimum-- if something happens, it should feel natural, not like there's somebody sitting behind the screen making it happen. It's my responsibility to keep the game running smoothly, because that's what people come to me to do. If everybody's happy (including me!) then I'm doing my job right. However, if one person is making trouble for the others and ruining the game for them, either by refusing to roleplay when the group wants to role play, or muchkining the fun out of everything, or being rude and abusive of the other players, or whatever it turns out to be, then I'm not taking care of that person and their situation properly and it's my fault that the game is going south. In order to keep the one troublemaker that pops up in every game in line, I have to keep a well-stocked arsenal full of RL diplomacy, tactics, and patience, but also an in-game arsenal of reasonable, but firm consequences and subtle 'I'm sorry, but that's not going to work' proddings to keep it fun too.

Needless to say, I've already got a few tricks to keep trigger-happy game-crashers within reasonable limits. This one is merely getting in line behind the incrementally more stern reactions that I already have to take care of lesser situations before they get that far. :smallwink:

Lochar
2008-07-24, 03:38 PM
Oh, I don't actually suggest you immediately move to 'Hey, look. You just killed the Princess' type stuff, but then again, I mostly run PBP posts where I can get a full description out before they decide to be idiots.

If they choose to shoot anyways, well, I'm not responsible for what happens.

Kool-Aid
2008-07-24, 03:50 PM
I'm going to have to say my favorite moment was when we had all reached level 5

The party consisted of a half-orc fighter (not the brightest), a dwarven cleric of moradin (tries to help but fails mesirably, but he tries an almost always comes through) an elf rogue (uses a greatbow and also not the greatest combatant), and me a human evoker (the "smart one" as much as that's worth, I'm pretty much the only one who read the books" Not exactly an original party, and the DM likes to stick to the four basic classes.

I casted a few of the spells I prepared as we woke up in the morning after our last encounter, which were protection from arrows and shield. I brought up that we had not yet selected a leader, everyone thought themselves for fit to the position than I (except the cleric).

So I decided to use plan B (plan B is burn them) So I cast fireball so that it hits the everyone (I rolled a 5) bringing the rogue down to 5 health, rogue wins initiative, arrows bounce off, fighter wins inititive and attacks, misses. Another fireball, he's at -5 the cleric is dead, rogue attacks AGAIN not knowing that I know protection from arrows or shield, arrows bounce off, 3 magic missiles for 4 damage+3, he's dead and I finish the fighter off. I ask if they'd like to revote and the next day the leader of the party ressurects his friends. Although that was more lucky rolling than personel skill.:smallbiggrin:

Doresain
2008-07-24, 06:04 PM
at about level six i was playing a cleric of some god of undeath...i had taken corpsecrafter and undead leadership...i had about 30 skeletons armed with falchions...needless to say, my dm wasnt pleased

another time i was playing a human artificer with access to blast rod...the groups airship was overtaken by pirates, so i barricaded myself in the storage room...when the pirate captain, his first mate and a sorcerer bust through the door, i one shot the sorcerer with blast rod, and proceed to annihilate the first mate (who was a warforged) with inflict damage and heat metal...unfortunately i forgot i had a schema of gaseous form and was knocked out by the captain himself...dm didnt like that too much either

ericgrau
2008-07-25, 12:48 AM
Should it bother me that most of these break or twist the rules? Or should it bother me more that I have to deal with such people in other threads and tell them why when I say "No... that doesn't work, just... no."

Iudex Fatarum
2008-07-25, 01:23 AM
There were two occurrences that have made my GM's very angry. First was when I realized that a bard has UMD and that scrolls of Summon Monster VI take a caster level of 13 to pull off without failure. My party consisted of one human, a halfling, a gnome, and a small green dragon. My iron bands of binding on the human (so I can coup de grace him) and the celestial dire lions on the other two (remember small sized creatures getting grappled by large critter with improved grab). Fun times, fun times. especially as they trusted me with the night watch.

Second was my lycanthrope phobic warrior who thought of himself as the personification of justice. stuck in an alley with 12 were-rats. I critted twice in a row, and somehow intimidated the rats to run away as fast as they could. of course I did average 40+ damage each critical. (silvered +1 bane (huminoid (shapechanger)) Weapon focus, weapons specialization scythe) needless to say when I had the barbarian rage and coup de grace me it wasn't pretty (I got infected and there was no cure)

turkishproverb
2008-07-25, 01:33 AM
You know, those dastardly tricks that you pull out of nowhere that break their rails, ruin their plans, and foil all their attempts to kill you.

Last weekend, I broke out a DMM Maximized Celestial Brilliance cast by a Radiant Servant of Pelor, in a world being assaulted by a zombie plague. That one earned a round of applause from everyone, including the GM, who shortly thereafter hit me with an Eternity of Torment.

I got better though.

1: Tricked wizard minion of the Epic level Lich BBEG into disjuncting the Pthykary.
2: Played a Hutt in SWRPG
3: Used said HUtt to wedge an escape hatch blocked so the Stormtroopers couldn't follow the party
4: Successfully bluffed my way into the backroom of a magic shop and set fire to it.
5: When sent on a journey to the east in a campaign, had my Rogue attempt to addict an entire eastern empire to a narcotic powder.
6: Successfully used the "Blur" spell to scare away the people I cast it on.

SolkaTruesilver
2008-07-25, 02:49 AM
I resolved a plannified struggled that was supposed to last about 2-3 sessions in 30 minutes with a lucky bluff and diplomacy check. The DM stopped DMing after that.. :smallfrown:

Myatar_Panwar
2008-07-25, 03:49 AM
This kind of annoyed me, but also made me laugh pretty hard:

I was running a sub-plot where the PC's have to leave this forest corrupted by a mage spirit of some kind. Easy enough, but whenever the PC's started on their way to the other side, they would always find themselves veering slightly to the center of the forest. Essentially the ghost was subtely manipulating them to go to his lair. Simple enough to understand a plot hook when you see one right? Especially since the ghost has already captured one of the party's companions, you would think that they might feel obliged to go in that direction. But you know PC's. The warlock started marking their path with a straight line so that they can notice any differences when they occur and quickly remedy them. Only when I asked how he was doing this, he said with fire. Fire. In a forest. :smalltongue:

With a few lucky roles on a skill challenge, they were able to survive the innevitable forest-fire though.

Child Conscript
2008-07-25, 03:58 AM
Right, I've just started another campaign and One of my Players is ULTRA attention whoring.
Any ideas on how to stop him?

TheCountAlucard
2008-07-25, 04:17 AM
Right, I've just started another campaign and One of my Players is ULTRA attention whoring.
Any ideas on how to stop him?

I dunno if that's quite the objective of this thread. We're discussing things players do to mess up DMs, not how to stop problem players.

Nonetheless, have you tried talking to the player?

Oslecamo
2008-07-25, 04:36 AM
Right, I've just started another campaign and One of my Players is ULTRA attention whoring.
Any ideas on how to stop him?

Give him atention. Make Johnny the epic archmage sudenly teleport near him and throw it a heightened balaefull polymorph, then teleporting out.

The reason? The player's character was clearly so powerfull and awesome that Johnny had heard of him and decided to stop him before he got out of control.

Of course, give him a few hints that something bad is gonna happen to his character if he keeps playing that way.

Child Conscript
2008-07-25, 04:47 AM
I dunno if that's quite the objective of this thread. We're discussing things players do to mess up DMs, not how to stop problem players.

Nonetheless, have you tried talking to the player?

Hence, this would be the best place to start :smallbiggrin:



Of course, give him a few hints that something bad is gonna happen to his character if he keeps playing that way.

I've tried giving him hints and just blunt telling him and I dont want to kick him out just yet.
Any ideas open?

Also, love the Avatar of Alucard.
Starting to think I was the only one who watches Hellsing. :smallsmile:

SuperPanda
2008-07-25, 09:52 AM
I GM far more than I play, well right now I don't do much of either since I recently took a position outside of my home country and don't know anyone who speaks enough English to teach a RPG to, let alone where to buy the dice.

Generally, while I've done things that have made other players have "I hate you" moments, I keep a watch on the DM and don't do that sort of thing to them unless they ask for it.

Which brings me to my story:

It was the first time our groups power-gamer had decided to run a game and he wanted everyone to be, not just legendary, but God-like from the start. We began with 3 18s automatically, roll the other three stats and then roll 1d4+2 and add it to any stat (This was able to boost our stats over 18 as well).

So I started game play as a level 4 Human wizard with a 24 Intelligence... And as someone who would fight if it was needed but always thought of it as the last resort being a very peaceful man. I began play with many conjuration, Abjuration, and enchantment spells in my book... (after that point I found only blasting spells as the DM felt wizards were best played as powerful blasters).

By level 7 I had been enslaved and forced to fight as a Gladiator, escaped to become the leader of a band of heroes who nearly everyone on the plane seemed to want to kill and whom no one trusted, had increased my Intelligence to 28 and had found a Book of Infinite spells (the Artifact) which was opened to Fireball.

Finally remembering that my character began as a pacifist, the DM prepared an encounter where a large number of low HD creatures would attack us at night and we needed to get a uniform to return to the NPCs that were holding one of our friends captive as proof that we were trust worthy. He specified that he didn't want it in any way burnt (all of my damage spells were lightning or fire types... all of them handed down by the DM).

I fireballed each cluster of them instructing our ranger to "Aim for exposed skin" under the basis that our "employer" only specified needing ONE uniform, and I had four additional fireballs per day anyway... so waste not, want not.

Afterward the DM asked me why my character started killing them at my Max range instead of (as I had been trying to do in the past) wait for them to close in and reason with them. My reaction was simple, "It was late, he was tired, and for the last several months everything that moved has tried to kill him... also they had weapons already drawn, the likely hood of them agreeing to have tea with the party was pretty low."


After that the next encounter my character faced was a challenge to a Mage duel by a high magus of a race he had made up himself. I was smarter than the creature, but it had more HP, higher saves, and more (better) spells than I did.

--------------------------


For my players, I generally don't plan to far ahead counting on them to provide me with information. Though I absolutely hate parties of adventurers who bicker like little children over everything.

DM (quest hook, gametime two days ago, real time two minutes ago):Keep traveling east until you find the Keep of [Insert name here] and then defeat the evil of [Insert other name here].
DM: After traveling for a while you come to a clearing in the road. The road you were on bends southerly and dense forest is in front of you, too dense to bring your cart without taking the longer road.

Players begin expressing their oppinions...

Two hours later: Party: We go straight ahead into the denser forest.


Luckily my group got better about that since the early days... though it did mean that if I ever reached the end of my DM notes I just needed to throw a crossroad at them with no indication of where the "right" way to go was (on account that all directions are the "right" way to go in a not railroaded adventure, especially when there is no urgency).

The other headache's I've had from players is the player of mine (Powergamer DM) who wants every character to be the DnD equivilent of Hitman or the player who asks about spells and feats (three levels before he can take them) from two new splat books or sources that I've never heard of every other week.

He's getting better too though... I started demanding everything in print on the basis that sooner or later he'd get lazy or I'd have every splat book ever written without having paid for them (someone else did).

Irreverent Fool
2008-07-25, 10:14 AM
A (3.5) campaign in which I play an eccentric wizard (just reached 5th level) just took the all-too-usual turn to 'time to fight lots of undead'. Looking over what I had thought was a batman-esque spell list made me realize that I had acquired very few spells that would be the least bit effective against the sorts of undead we had begun to encounter.

...until I realized that our rogue had recently acquired a +1 ghost strike weapon (works as ghost touch but also allows sneak attacks and criticals against undead... for a +1 bonus. Gotta love that MiC).

I prepared Grease.

...in all my slots.

In retrospect I could have been even worse and simply prepared Glitterdust, but someone at the table had said undead were immune to blindness and I didn't bother to double-check. Besides, it's more fun for the other players to mercilessly hack apart flat-footed and prone undead than blind ones.

To this day, though, my favorite DM-irritating move was to have my Sorcerer cast 'Command Undead' on a Lich on the first round of combat on a whim.. I managed to roll well enough to bypass the lich's SR and the it rolled a 1 on its save. A few opposed charisma checks later and he'd managed to convince the lich that its phylactery would clearly be much safer in the possession of the band of heroes, as would all his most valuable magical items, ESPECIALLY those it was wearing at the time.


snip

You are morally obligated to get DMPCs killed. Kudos to your DM for playing it out properly though.

This plane you're stuck in sounds suspiciously like Ravenloft. I'd do my best to die in a blaze of glory as soon as possible.


...I woke up in a dungeon with the princess (nine levels higher than me) on a quest to find the king.

This is why you are morally obligated to get DMPCs killed.

Helgraf
2008-07-25, 02:31 PM
A (3.5) campaign in which I play an eccentric wizard (just reached 5th level) just took the all-too-usual turn to 'time to fight lots of undead'. Looking over what I had thought was a batman-esque spell list made me realize that I had acquired very few spells that would be the least bit effective against the sorts of undead we had begun to encounter.

...until I realized that our rogue had recently acquired a +1 ghost strike weapon (works as ghost touch but also allows sneak attacks and criticals against undead... for a +1 bonus. Gotta love that MiC).

You do realize that Ghost Strike requires Ghost Touch as a Prerequisite before you can add it to a weapon, right?

Love that MiC.

nobodylovesyou4
2008-07-25, 03:57 PM
one of my most recent infuriating things was under a dm who doesnt seem to know anything about making epic characters. he tells me to make a 13 level character, so i did, and first session he makes me fight his level 50 lich. 50. first session. fortunately for me, he disallows nothing, so all i had to do was, first round, maximized shivering touch, and hes down for the count. we just cut him up after we paralyzed him (didnt smash his phylactery though, i knew the dm liked this character).

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-25, 04:30 PM
Things that make the GM hate us?

As I recall, a couple of the characters we've made were so broken/annoying that our DM burned the character sheets. It was pretty funny.

arguskos
2008-07-25, 04:37 PM
In a play-by-post on a friends forum recently, I was challenged to make the "most broken, insane character EVER". He said he wanted to test his knowledge of powerful characters against mine. I made Pun-Pun. He made some super-spellcaster. It wasn't really fair.

-argus

AKA_Bait
2008-07-25, 04:46 PM
I think my DM dreads the words "Oh awesome... these do stack" whenever I utter them.

arguskos
2008-07-25, 04:48 PM
I think my DM dreads the words "Oh awesome... these do stack" whenever I utter them.
What DM doesn't? :smallwink:

-argus

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-25, 04:49 PM
What DM doesn't? :smallwink:

-argus

Our current one (not the one that burned character sheets).

arguskos
2008-07-25, 05:00 PM
Does he say the same thing? Or is it just not usually an issue when a player goes "oh, that DOES stack? Ehehehehehehe....."?

-argus

Jade_Tarem
2008-07-25, 05:08 PM
Our DM is our biggest powergamer and most experienced player. He doesn't care about what awesome combo we just worked out, because he knows that he's about to beat us into the ground anyhow. His campaigns are really hard, but still fun.

arguskos
2008-07-25, 05:09 PM
Ah, that would make sense then. :smallbiggrin:

-argus

BurnHavoc
2008-07-25, 05:57 PM
I drove my GM insane by using Devour Magic with my warlock on EVERYTHING. Best way to get through a dungeon's magic traps, and I heal myself =D

Phil Lucky Cat
2008-07-26, 07:12 AM
When going into the obligatory tavern, note : "Hmmm, huge blue horned half-ogre warrior NPC spinning tales near the fireplace with amazing glowing bling... beautiful all-powerful Elf Mage with glowing green glass arm and pegasus steed... surly halfling thief with glowing knives sheathed all over their black-leather suited body... noble Paladin with heart glowing and pounding visibily through their plate mail. I paid subscription for this! I'm going home to play WoW..."

Sh*ts them every time. :smallbiggrin:

Leon
2008-07-26, 08:00 AM
Playing a Hunter/Avenger Druid with maxed & Boosted skills such as Survival and Knowledge Nature, We now have critical fails for skill checks just so its possible that we will encounter something or that don't know what it something is.
That and having a Insanely high AC for a PC who doesnt wear armour - that one bit me eventually, Giants Hit HARD with a High attack bonus

Also the speed of him made some things rather trivial - only thing that is faster is the Arakora Psion

carowsell
2008-07-26, 09:10 AM
Sounds like the mortality rate isn't high enough in any of your groups. Most people would probably be many levels behind the people in the party with much worst magic items with my longtime DM.

But. . . playing both sides of a war or any conflict really and faking completing the tasks assigned to get the rewards. capture such a person, and protect such a person offered by each side. get paid to protect her, then capture her, the rescue her... works well if you can charm the protectee. My DM was piassed. Next session My DM then had us attacked by bounty hunters who noticed that relatively unskilled adventurers had acquired powerful and/or expensive rewards.

Note: don't dual strange NPCs, even if you're an swashbuckling-wilder with items too high a level for you. Well not if you want to live.

My DM also played for keeps, after I was unconscious he skewered me with the keen vampiric rapier I had previously weaseled my way into. I should have noticed something was wrong when my DM was smiling at the beginning of the session.

Hunter Noventa
2008-07-26, 10:47 AM
We once used Brown Mold as a biological weapon to clear some cultists out of a mine before going in.

Moofin Bard
2008-07-26, 02:06 PM
1. Our party avoided the encounter with our main bad guy by laying a hollow tree filled with explosives over his carriage path then blowing him up with said explosives.

2. Our party changed the entire adventure by instead of voting for the mayor of the city we were in, one of us running for mayor and winning. Then we enslaved the entire population.

3. During our evil campaign, our party turned a random Paladin evil. We also created an evil army of goblins. And killed most of our party members more than once. But, me being a Bard, no one cared about killing me.

TheCountAlucard
2008-07-26, 08:34 PM
Then we enslaved the entire population.

This wasn't the evil campaign?

EndlessWrath
2008-07-26, 08:48 PM
So... in a 300 style battle... I took a group and made an assassin group instead of defending. My group consisted of Myself...Really good at pressure point attacking and (the more important ability) Spin really fast and knock people 5 feet back from me, & my buddy, guy who can bend metal and force actions dealing with metal with just a thought...

We found the 5 generals (super powerful high npcs) and decided instead of just attacking them...we should end it quickly. My buddy threw me into the air, and summoned 2 large wires covered in Knives.... I fell into the center of the group of bad guys who were conveniently set in a circle....

Surprise round...
My buddy sent the 2 wires covered in knives and blades spinning around the guys holding them in position as they got cut (effective group grapple i guess to say) I spun really fast... like.... REALLY FAST...

Effect: meat grinder...

We win initiative, my buddy summons 2 more wires and does the same in opposite direction... I spin again in opposite direction.
double meat grinder.
----------
that's just one of the few things we do to him... one of the prettier ones too...although we haven't been able to kill off his favorite NPC yet...

timbuck_hunter
2008-07-26, 09:12 PM
This may have been on another post, but in the Return to the temple of elemental evil there is a wall that continuosly summons a certain kind of monster, can't remember the name, some kind of paralyzing CR 4-5 brain/jellyfish. Everytime you touch it a round later one of the things comes out. We found out the trick and set up barracades so that the things were screwed as soon as they poked their heads out. We killed 35.
The DM was so impressed with our daring that he even gave us XP for it.
The good thing was we were pretty much all specialized in taking out one thing at a time, groups of monsters gave us huge problems...

geez3r
2008-07-26, 09:26 PM
Ring of the Ram, Folding Boat, Immovable Rod.

I got so much mileage out of that thing it's not even funny. Our DM used the random treasure tables to give us our loot, and anything the other players didn't use was given to me, so I had the weirest collection of do-dads ever assembled. What the DM came to realize is that I was really creative in my use of items. This one time we were escorting this McGuffin in construct form on our quest to save the world, and a large group of gnomes wanted to claim him for themselves. I, as the party fighter, disable no less than 5 schemes devised by the gnomes to get him from us. This included 2 electro magnets, a water cage, and a trap that turned gravity sideways.

Another time we got 4 Immovable rods and no one wanted any, so I got all 4. After the shenanigans I pulled during the next boss fight, which was coincidentally fought on a collection of floating rocks, I was down to 1 rod.

Silence
2008-07-26, 10:08 PM
I made a sorcerer take over the world at 12th level.

That's right.

He took over the world. He could do anything. If he wanted anyone dead, he had 18th level warriors at his feet beegging to do so.

Diplomacy + Bluff + Charm = win.

Moofin Bard
2008-07-26, 11:21 PM
This wasn't the evil campaign?

Well...most of us started out being neutral. In the end, I think most of us turned evil. We were lured by greed and power.

Silence
2008-07-27, 12:02 PM
Excellent. Join the horde. Fight the cliche'.

Moofin Bard
2008-07-27, 02:18 PM
I can't help the fact that we had a lot going for us there. Though I was a Monk so naturally I stayed out of it.

Dairun Cates
2008-07-27, 02:27 PM
Fun one my bluff-whore player pulled last night. I respect the creativity here, but it literally gimped the encounter.

This is in M&M 2nd Ed.

So they're facing a really big bad evil guy who's intending to take them as hostages and already took one player out in the beginning round with a sneak attack that took 4 months. The bad guy creates two clones and goes off to attack other party members.

The bluff/diplomacy player hides, disguises himself as the villain, spends a hero point for another standard action, and roll a 19 for a bluff against the two clones that the original is the fake. So, not only did the villain have to recall the clones after one round, but they actually attacked him. So, what was supposed to be 3 guys, was actually 1 guy, and it went noticeably easier from there.

Toil3T
2008-08-10, 09:14 AM
We constantly thwart the plot. Sometimes by accident. He's pretty laid back when it comes to us usurping his plans, but a few events stand out.

Doing the Forge of Fury, we came in through a natural chimney in the back of a dungeon and worked our way forwards. Shooting all the orcs in their backs. Then using alchemist fire reagents from a trap and orcish ale rolling down the stairs to the next level to kill some monsters in the explosion and attract all the others on that level to our location. One long battle afterwards and we were surrounded by monster corpses. Then I identified yellow mould filling a cave with some cool loot as a trap. I set it on fire. Druids rock! :smallbiggrin:

Speaking of rocks, druid rock affecting spells are very useful. In the Red Hand Of Doom, I collapsed the long bridge spanning the gorge. I was on it finishing the spell and it then fell. Our DM was grinning and started rolling falling damage when I informed him that I would use Wildshape to fly back to the edge of the gorge. He was crestfallen. And the hobgoblin army had to go around through the mountains, so it took them 2 months rather than a week to get to the city we were to defend, giving us plenty of time to quell their reinforcements and prepare adequate defenses.

After the siege (which held great loot) we fought a large sized blue dragon. I won initiative and casted baleful polymorph while it was hovering over a very big drop. And the bugger made its will save! Damn dragons, having such high saving throws.

Oh, and having a monkey (as in banana) psion in this party is very useful. But that's a story for another thread.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-10, 10:04 AM
Well, there was the time I was DMing; there was a big religious holiday in the capital of this Theocracy. The party had recently allied with a group of rebels intent on taking down the King (without much evidence that he needed to be taken down, mind you. So far, their interactions with this King have been all very pleasant; he leads a country of Heironeus and is headed to war against the Hextorites next door, etc etc). So, the party decides that instead of allowing the festivities to go on (parade, a reenactment of a martyrdom (which they get it into their heads that it's going to be an unplanned actual martyrdom--nothing like twisting what things you describe in order to lead PCs to false conclusions), they will blow everything up. The Druid (no Natural Spell so as not to be quite as uber) casts a couple of Cloudbursts and stone shapes a statue of the King in the middle of the square, and then readies his Call lightning. The wizard starts spamming Major Images of purple wurms, while the soldiers are fighting those (few of them have better than a 5% chance to make the will save), the druid uses rock-->mud-->rock to entrap half the population near the outside of the square. These are mostly just civvies, mind you--and they're now being trampled to death by all the OTHER commoners who are stampeding away from the forkin' purple wurms. The finish it up by Major Imaging an avatar of Heironeous , who makes a big speech about how the King is a bad person, essentially, and blah blah, and when his speech ends he points to the statue of the King and the Druid releases some Storm-enhanced call-lightning on his statue. All in all, they caused massive casualties and (no surprise) had to flee the city, but the "martyr" wasn't killed at least!

There was the time the DM rolled a chance cube (66%/33% d6) for a random encounter (sort of) at the start of a very-low-magic 1340s Europe campaign. We were level one, and we were a cleric (Catholic) amd a paladin (Teutonic Knight), as we hadn't met the rest of what would be the party yet. Anyway, we were buying horses from this guy, and the chance cube let us discover a pair of people getting it on in a haystack. Turns out to be the man's wife and his stable hand. A quick Knowledge(religion) check (mostly for my sake, since I'm not a big medieval-catholic-law-buff) let us know that the punishment was generally that she needed to be put to death, and he needed to be castrated. We couldn't get her to repent, which was unfortunate. So we killed her--or tried. We were level 1, you see, and rolled minimum damage, and as she was awake (as she needed top be) and struggling, it wasn't a coup-de-gras. so I mostly disemboweled her, and then killed her with the second attack (everyone is throwing up at this time). Then I go castrate the stable guy, which goes fine, and I bind him up with a cure minor wounds to he doesn't bleed out, just passses out. We drag the wife's corpse outside to burn it, leaving a messy trail of intestines and so on all over the place, and burn her--the husband just standing there shellshocked. Our business completed, we thank him for the horse and leave without looking back and trying not to think about it too much. We learned later that he killed himself as we were leaving.

kjones
2008-08-10, 04:11 PM
Tried to shove another character into a pit of lava once... that worked out poorly for everyone involved.

In my defense, she had it coming.

CASTLEMIKE
2008-08-11, 11:28 AM
Finally gaining a Miracle or Wish in a campaign and "Wasting" it on something trivial like a snack.

expirement10K14
2008-08-11, 11:36 AM
Buying a candle of invocation or summoning pazuzu. They have the same effect. DM SMITE!

JMobius
2008-08-11, 11:59 AM
So I got better from that Eternal Torment. Looks like it turns out that those undead I was burning away were keeping back some devils from invading the world.

Time for a DMM Maximized, Purified Celestial Brilliance. :smallbiggrin:

Blackfang108
2008-08-11, 03:43 PM
Well, I was drawing from the Deck of Many Things as a prerequisite for a Dragonlance Campaign.

I lose 5k exp, bringing me down to level 1.
I get a "get out of any bad situation once" card.
I draw the SUN. Level 10, a minor WI (necklace of adaptation) and something else (I forget what).

So my character starts aging. FAST.

I use my get out once card and proceed to do everything in my power to destroy that campaign, up to and including grave-robbing.

It turns out, his laptop had other plans for the campaign.

It died on him after our second session, and ALL of his notes were on there.

Mr Pants
2008-08-11, 05:18 PM
In the games that I have played I have pissed off the GM by:

1. Wielding two effectively colossal mauls and using them to kill 6 guards of an equal level and then destroying 100 cubic feet of concrete in 1 turn.
2. Dropping boulders off an airship.
3. Munchkining my way to a hide and move silently in the +40s at level 5
4. Making a character with both Insomniac and Narcoleptic as flaws.
5. Falling 120 feet onto a fire genie that was supposed to be a difficult encounter.
6. Getting the group tiefling sent to the abyss to fight in the Blood War.
7. Making a character with a 105 flight speed with perfect maneuverability at level 7.
8. Put on some giant welding goggles and asked for the craft dc of an airship.
9. Killing 5 zombies in 1 turn in what was supposed to be a very dangerous game and coming out untouched.
10. Put ranks in Craft (Baby) and ran around empregnating women with my dark whisper gnome seed for some damn invisible babies.
11. Generally whenever I roll some dice and then start laughing my ass off he knows something fantastic happened.

Edit: I thought of some more
12. Building a character with a 38 armor class
13. Rolling a natural 2 to attack and hitting after charging through some tall grass. Hah, he thought he was safe cause I couldn't charge through it. But he was mistaken that I had woodland stride.
14. Flying through the air and dropping alchemists' fire on the cryohydra boss.

Viddaric
2008-08-11, 07:38 PM
those eleven should go in the "things [so and so] can't do while gaming/in an RPG":smallamused:

Mr Pants
2008-08-11, 08:40 PM
those eleven should go in the "things [so and so] can't do while gaming/in an RPG":smallamused:

You can't do them while gaming because they make your GM hate you. I'm surprised they let me do all that. Maybe they secretly like it.

chiasaur11
2008-08-11, 08:59 PM
You can't do them while gaming because they make your GM hate you. I'm surprised they let me do all that. Maybe they secretly like it.

Or they're looking for reasons for their upcoming vengence.

Kompera
2008-08-12, 04:15 AM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:
I've seen several helpful replies to your issue, including the "Ok, you killed your sister/a fair maiden/a helpful NPC" and the "Ok, your arrow hits the dragon/big ogre you could have avoided/some other tough thing the player don't really want to fight".

But how about this instead:

"Settle down. You don't shoot an arrow, and that roll is invalid and counts for nothing. The game has defined rules about who can do what and when in a combat situation. Just because you scream something out first doesn't mean you get to take an action first. So relax, finish listening to the descriptive text, and if I call for an initiative roll then you can decide to shoot an arrow at something."

If you let your players break the rules and it breaks your game then you've really got no cause to complain. You are the GM, the responsibility is all yours. Set the standard, reign the players in, enforce the rules, and this issue will just disappear on it's own.


4. Making a character with both Insomniac and Narcoleptic as flaws.I would have an enormous amount of fun with a player who tried this. :smalltongue:

"Ok, you tried but couldn't get to sleep last night. So you're tired and take <whatever> penalty to all skill and combat rolls until you get a full nights rest."
-later-
"Ok, we've rolled initiative, let's start the combat. Insomniac/Narcolepsy man? Yes, you. Before you take an action in any round you'll need to roll to see if you fall asleep spontaneously."

Renx
2008-08-12, 09:39 AM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

*blink* "Okay, your arrow hits and blood spurts out the black robes. The two other nuns turn and run away screaming. The (12th level) paladin who was behind them draws his blade and shouts 'Honorless cur, you will die for that!'"

BizzaroStormy
2008-08-12, 09:40 AM
What do I do that makes my DM hate me? We'll I have a sneaking suspiscion that my very existance gets under his skin but other than that I think it would be my beating the other players with the Wrathbat.

Mina Kobold
2008-08-12, 01:05 PM
There were two occurrences that have made my GM's very angry. First was when I realized that a bard has UMD and that scrolls of Summon Monster VI take a caster level of 13 to pull off without failure. My party consisted of one human, a halfling, a gnome, and a small green dragon. My iron bands of binding on the human (so I can coup de grace him) and the celestial dire lions on the other two (remember small sized creatures getting grappled by large critter with improved grab). Fun times, fun times. especially as they trusted me with the night watch.

Second was my lycanthrope phobic warrior who thought of himself as the personification of justice. stuck in an alley with 12 were-rats. I critted twice in a row, and somehow intimidated the rats to run away as fast as they could. of course I did average 40+ damage each critical. (silvered +1 bane (huminoid (shapechanger)) Weapon focus, weapons specialization scythe) needless to say when I had the barbarian rage and coup de grace me it wasn't pretty (I got infected and there was no cure)

dude there is a cure... paladin they get immunity against diseases including lycanthropy at 3rd level or so :amused:

Mr Pants
2008-08-12, 01:29 PM
Or they're looking for reasons for their upcoming vengence.

O.o
Oh crap


I would have an enormous amount of fun with a player who tried this.

"Ok, you tried but couldn't get to sleep last night. So you're tired and take <whatever> penalty to all skill and combat rolls until you get a full nights rest."
-later-
"Ok, we've rolled initiative, let's start the combat. Insomniac/Narcolepsy man? Yes, you. Before you take an action in any round you'll need to roll to see if you fall asleep spontaneously."

The way it worked is you have to make a DC 15 Fort save to fall asleep voluntarily, otherwise youre fatigued until you take a nap. Then ever 4 hours you have to make another Dc 15 Fort save or fall asleep involuntarily. Having those flaws was actually really fun, even considering we had crappy fort saves. Plus whenever the party needed me I could pretend to spontaneously fall asleep.

Viddaric
2008-08-19, 12:12 AM
you know, there are three things that always piss off a DM.

1. playing out of charachter
2. making every attempt to derail the plot
3. foiling the DM's well planned trap/plot point/epic battle

shifting from the blaitently obvious: not bothering to heal the DMPC is a pretty good one, because the DM will have to either miraculously let him survive, or be forced to let him die, both of which pisses him off. blaitently killing the DMPC is annother good one, or just letting him get killed, and not aiding him in the least.
cheating will always make the DM super POed, but most people (myself included) will not slink to that level.

mangosta71
2008-08-19, 01:11 AM
My group had played a session without me because I was out of town one weekend. During their exploration of the ruins/caverns we were running around in, they came across a dragon who soundly defeated them and sent them all running. When I came back, we went to play with it again, and I one-shot it with a tornado blast.

kjones
2008-08-19, 10:01 AM
4. Making a character with both Insomniac and Narcoleptic as flaws.


That's flipping brilliant. Your character has spontaneous bouts of having trouble falling asleep.

BigPapaSmurf
2008-08-19, 12:16 PM
Lets see..... I have:
1. In a Campaign, we were given a series of weapons which I figured out were made out of some sort of radioactive material. I tried to build a nuke, and the DM ended up rewinding the timeline of the campaign back 2 weeks so we never found the weapons.


Any good DM would have smacked you for even suggesting that you could build a nuke, thats like saying you discoved light was a particle and then tried to make a TV from scratch, it makes no sense.

First the vast majority of radioactive material is unsuitable for nukes, second the amount of ore you would need to mine is astronomical, third knowledge of radioactivity does not magically give you knowedge of fission/fusion chain reactions. And so on, also looting magic shops is outrageous unless you are a epic level king or something, I would have had a 1,000,000 gp bounty on your head for something like that.



4. I helped a player abuse magnetism, and single-handedly invented an electro-magnet, which we then used in an imitation of Mystery Men (basically, mount an electro-magnet to a vehicle, charge into a heavily defended castle, and turn on the magnet till everyone is incapacitated, then leap out and kill everyone).

Heres another example, how exactly did you use an electromagnet to incapacitate everyone? You do know that they are not dangerous to be around and have a very small sphere of influance, correct? Did they all have plates in their heads?

You DMs out there need to put your foot down and stop the PCs from doing things they really couldnt get away with, like attacking a mages guild or something and you need to be very careful when introducing science concepts, better to stick with natural disasters than inventions which change the world.

SurlySeraph
2008-08-19, 12:59 PM
DM: You enter town. The first building you see is the lord's castle, built of stone. Further off, there are slums, at the center of which -
Player: I look for a brothel!
DM: No brothels in this town.
Player: I start one!

BRC
2008-08-19, 01:02 PM
Step 1: Get a big cart
Step 2: Use Craft: Wood and Craft: Metalsmith to make the cart covered, with a turret on top, metal armor, and a spiked ramming prow on the front.
Step 3: Purchase a scroll of Animate Object, and a scroll of Permanency (Or hire somebody to cast Perm).
It should be noted that this setting had gunpowder, and that one of the characters kept a cannon (Fired rockets) In a Bag of Holding.

We had a tank, which we then named after the first thing we killed with it, and it was good. Later the GM sent us against like fifty soliders who very nicely lined up in neat rows for us to squash!

The New Bruceski
2008-08-19, 02:15 PM
Step 1: Get a big cart
Step 2: Use Craft: Wood and Craft: Metalsmith to make the cart covered, with a turret on top, metal armor, and a spiked ramming prow on the front.
Step 3: Purchase a scroll of Animate Object, and a scroll of Permanency (Or hire somebody to cast Perm).
It should be noted that this setting had gunpowder, and that one of the characters kept a cannon (Fired rockets) In a Bag of Holding.

We had a tank, which we then named after the first thing we killed with it, and it was good. Later the GM sent us against like fifty soliders who very nicely lined up in neat rows for us to squash!

We did rather similar with reinforced shields around the cart and turret-mounted crossbows. Horseshoes of speed, we pimped that ride into a mobile base of operations. The DM threw infinite bandits at us until they got the cart, then we somehow lost them in the desert (there was a desert there?)

hotel_papa
2008-08-19, 05:39 PM
Once played a TWF fighter with three level of human paragon so I could take as many ranks of bluff and various knowledges as I could.

My friend's campaign (some nonsense about us being member of an elite royal military unit) became completly derailed when we assaulted a fortified encampment of various goblinkind. I left the rest of the group in hiding to prepare to fire if things looked unpleasant. Walked to the gate, bluff check / roleplayed as a "mercenary who would work for a pittance because I like the taste of war" who had heard about their warchief's many exploits. I met with the warchief, we compared favored weapons in the midst of "contract negotiations". In the process, I bluffed his +1 shocking morningstar away from him, critted his flat-footed hobboness with it, and intimidated his camp into making ME the new warchief. Only one Bugbear cleric made his level check. Que the archers.

Being a DM-friendly player, I quickly agreed to turn the new goblinoid guerilla force over to the king, and we ended the session early as he hastily prepared more game. That earned Marconis Wolfeson the title "Magnificent Bastard".

By the way, I named my new morningstar "Havok".

HP

chiasaur11
2008-08-19, 05:48 PM
DM: You enter town. The first building you see is the lord's castle, built of stone. Further off, there are slums, at the center of which -
Player: I look for a brothel!
DM: No brothels in this town.
Player: I start one!

DM: Fine. But You'll need to fill out all this paperwork.
Here you go.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-19, 06:14 PM
Heres another example, how exactly did you use an electromagnet to incapacitate everyone? You do know that they are not dangerous to be around and have a very small sphere of influance, correct? Did they all have plates in their heads?

Well, assuming they had some disgustingly strong elecromagnet (I think that's practically a given, but see below), I believe the incapacitation he was referring to was the fact that you can't fight when your armor, shield, helmet, boots, and sword are stuck to a moving vehicle. Now, granted, I don't know how the party was fighting, either. Maybe they had thought ahead and made all their gear out of ironwood and glasteel?


You DMs out there need to put your foot down and stop the PCs from doing things they really couldnt get away with, like attacking a mages guild or something and you need to be very careful when introducing science concepts, better to stick with natural disasters than inventions which change the world.

Now, that's the real point :) But then again, maybe not, at least in this case (not gonna touch the nuke one; you're completely correct on that). the electromagnetic wagon of doom must have been exorbitantly expensive, and doesn't *really* accomplish much more than Grease + Magic Missile (to send people spinning off across the grease). Especially if they were high level and had a wizard in the party? Who are you to say what someone with 25 INT can or cannot figure out? :smalltongue:

LordMalrog
2008-08-20, 01:06 AM
OOH, i'm good at doing these sorta things.
Generally i love making wacky eccentrics. my personal favorite is Traitus. He's a delightfully mad warlock with a backstory you can make a book out of. Despite going on rampages, killing npcs left and right, at the drop of a slushy *actually happened* i can explain his actions perfectly. See you'd think this is no problem, a few guards take him away, no sweat. WRONG! i busted him out the wazoo. One day he decided to take an important NPCs family, put them in a sack and fight off the army of northern elm trees. Safe to say the family did not survive, but they made an excellent flail! he then proceeds to give the surviving member metals, and tell him they died as soldiers.
Another Character of mine, Zog, has the attention span of a wombat. He generally flys his ship to hookerville 9 at the slightest danger in a mission. Hes a funny character whos generally out of his element wherever he is. The fun part is he doesn't know it. He also has the intellegance of... probobly a pig thats been eating alot of fish. Good fun!:smallbiggrin:

mangosta71
2008-08-20, 01:28 AM
Generally i love making wacky eccentrics.

This is something that I do a lot of times that annoys the other people I play with for some reason. They hate my characters because, even though my race/class combo is nothing extraordinary or abnormally powerful or munchkiny, I roleplay a guy that's losing his grip on his sanity, or a bloodthirsty murderer, or a mercenary. Personality quirks are what make characters fun to play.

Saithis Bladewing
2008-08-20, 01:38 AM
Just my rolling.

*Has a knack for rolling numerous criticals in succession.*

Well, okay, that's a lie. I also have a knack for ignoring the dangling plot hooks and wandering off somewhere else. ;)

mangosta71
2008-08-20, 01:51 AM
Ah, yes. Natural 20s in inconvenient places. Like when I was DMing, and the party decided to attack the NPCs that were talking to them (admittedly, the NPCs were there to arrest them). The guy playing the ranger rolled a 1, so I decreed that he'd tripped while jumping down from the wagon and went sprawling, and the weapon flying from his hand warned the NPCs. One of them turned and immediately beheaded the cleric (vorpal scimitar FTW) because she happened to be closest, then they proceeded to rampage through the group. Good times.

BigPapaSmurf
2008-08-20, 07:00 AM
Now, that's the real point :) But then again, maybe not, at least in this case (not gonna touch the nuke one; you're completely correct on that). the electromagnetic wagon of doom must have been exorbitantly expensive, and doesn't *really* accomplish much more than Grease + Magic Missile (to send people spinning off across the grease). Especially if they were high level and had a wizard in the party? Who are you to say what someone with 25 INT can or cannot figure out? :smalltongue:


I have no issues with creative invention, however you can't make leaps from step 1 to step 10,000, no matter how intelligent you are. Newton could not build a rocket which lands on the moon because he discovered orbital mathematics.

Hzurr
2008-08-20, 11:10 AM
I mostly DM now (mainly because most of our group doesn't want too), and we have this one guy who plays with us every so often, and he has the supernatural ability to roll 20s on dramatic cue. If there's ever a time where the party really, really needs that 20 for a boss fight, or a diplomacy check, or for some hair-brained scheme that should never possibly work, this guy can roll a 20. It's uncanny.

burninnapalm
2008-08-20, 07:13 PM
ok... my dm is upset at how well i roll my rolls when i need them.

i am a dwarven cleric.
lvl 9

stats are
17
16
17
18
15
9

my hp. 93

so right there i am a frickin tank that can heal my self in the heat of battle. i chose augment summoning as one of my feat, so i cast down multiple celestial brown bears to help me with flanking. i have a minor artifact for a weapon. it is a +3 weapon that adds +1 to my AC, My Paladin (i also took leadership) has a hammer of thundering (+2 warhammer that does 1d6 of elec damage when it hits, and does another 1d8 points of sonic when i crit with the thing. so i being a warhammer does 3d8+1d6+1d8+7 when he crits.) oh, and did i forget to mention i always have air walk activated whenever i go into combat because i have a ring of feather fall on my person? the ring was given to me because everyone was like "it is worthless" but i was jumping for joy. so i airwalk over the front line, cast my bears and have my bears and my pally attack the front while i go after the mages. btw, i love stoneskin. lol

Tar Palantir
2008-08-20, 08:34 PM
One of my fellow players pulled this off beautifully. He had ten levels of the FR prestige class Runesmith or somesuch, and used his class features to inscribe a rune of CLW with 50 charges per day, maximized, on a rock. For each party member. We walked through a forest fire and came out at max hit points.

quillbreaker
2008-08-20, 09:32 PM
Had made an animal collar for my evil druid which granted "sense gold" and "sense life" once a day (I can't remember exactly how it worked because another player helped me optimize the cost), without telling the DM what it was for.

The next time we were in a small town, I announced to everyone in the town square that the giant dire monster I had just summoned was capable of both detecting and killing any living creature carrying money and set it loose - then I strapped the collar on it and told it to kill any living creature carrying precious metals.

Imagine a couple hundred people tossing away their coin purses and running as fast as they can...

Myatar_Panwar
2008-08-20, 09:34 PM
I mostly DM now (mainly because most of our group doesn't want too), and we have this one guy who plays with us every so often, and he has the supernatural ability to roll 20s on dramatic cue. If there's ever a time where the party really, really needs that 20 for a boss fight, or a diplomacy check, or for some hair-brained scheme that should never possibly work, this guy can roll a 20. It's uncanny.

I have someone like this in my game. It took 9 levels and the tomb of horrors to kill him.

DarknessLord
2008-08-20, 09:50 PM
That's flipping brilliant. Your character has spontaneous bouts of having trouble falling asleep.

Funny, I really did that in a loosely Dogs in the Vineyard based game, my character never got any sleep until it got to the point where I would randomly pass out for like a day, to balance it out.

IM@work
2008-08-20, 10:00 PM
If you have ever played a published campaign there are some pretty obvious cases of NPCs walking around practically screaming "I'M AN NPC AND HAVE BACKSTORY AND INFORMATION FOR YOU!!!" We were playing a published campaign, (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil?) and there were two overly obvious NPCs, (could have been new DM, could have been too obvious writing). Knowing this we decided rather than to go in informed to the dungeon to rather skip the RPing, kill the NPC's and move on to the dungeon.
DM was not happy that we attacked obvious role play opportunities/information/story just because we thought it was too obvious. We also made very sexual comments to the female druid NPC just to see how the DM would react.
He sent about 300 orcs at us to last the entire session.
Not very happy after that.
Next session ran into a wall that summons monsters everytime you touch it. Building barricades and killing 30 monsters 1-2 at a time is not considered fair to the DM it turns out.

Sojourn
2008-08-20, 11:40 PM
Things I've done:
~Playing as a bard. Probably one of the funnest character's I've played as too. The thing is that they're not particularily good at anything, yet not bad at anything either. Suffice to say, his death was the direct result of being denied a reflex check.
~Also, playing as a giant. Stone, to be precise. My dm's fairly cool with it, but I can't shake the feeling that he resents letting my friend and I dual-raid a dungeon that was supposedly too tough for us, resulting in mad cash, resulting in a +1 Adamantine Maul of Terror. We're playing this weekend, hopefully.

Things that my friends have done:

~ Had a friend play as a psychotic halfling rogue/fighter. Oh god.
• He chased bugbears out of a savage-based town, who came back with giant alligators.
• He rolled a 3, a 2, and a 1 on some swim checks, and drowned. Only to be rescued and enslaved by pirates.
• Went nuts to kill a fox, and hunted it at every opportunity
• Gained a somewhat obscure feat entitled "brachiation," granting him the ability to swing through trees like an ape

~ Had a friend play a warforged. A sound idea, but in practice lead to chaos:
• Ripped out people's teeth as 'trophies'
• Nearly killed a possessed PC while lost in the wilderness, only to be saved by Bard-Bravado
• Hoarded anything of value that could be obtained

The list goes on, but I don't want to make this post any longer than it is :smalltongue:

drengnikrafe
2008-08-21, 01:12 AM
I read through this whole thing, wishing I had some story to tell. I get to the very end, and I realize "YES! I do."

My friend is a master of bad ideas. I had to ban him from getting Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Roman Candle. Anyway, in my new campaign, he decides he's going to build a giant drill tank, and search for Candy Land. I tell him if he finishes the drill, which I made a DC 50 Craft, just to dissuade him, that I'll crush it with a giant rock.

I ran an 8th level campaign at the request of a different friend for testing a new magic system at 8th level. This first friend manages to convince everyone to pool their money, and takes all the right feats. With his new +25 Skill Ring in hand, he builds an Adamantine Drill Tank. There was no Candyland... It took him awhile to figure it out, though.

Sojourn
2008-08-21, 10:16 PM
Ah, yes. My brother reminded me of another thing.

In game, I never gave out my bard's name. On paper, it was Quaron. But I forgot to introduce myself when the campaign started. After a while, an NPC cleric in the group noticed that he didn't know my name. He asked the halfling, who didn't know, and asked a few other people until we noticed that no-one has ever tried to call him by name. It was always, "the bard." So it grew into this huge joke, eventually leading to an abysmal bluff check to say my name was "Sage." Unfortunately he is dead now, and there was quite the discussion as to whether you can cast 'raise dead' on somebody who you don't know the name of.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-21, 10:50 PM
best way to break a DM's plotline?


Adamantine Drill Tank!!!

I've gotta get my bard one of those, although it would have to be mighty spectacular to compare to the OmniGorgon5000. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4746350#post4746350)

Kami2awa
2008-08-22, 06:13 AM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

--Lawful Good creatures who would have helped you, had you not just shot one dead.

TallTroll
2008-08-22, 07:00 AM
In a DM-created encounter in our D&D campaign, our low-level (2 - 3) party found a powerful artifact-type item that granted stat changes, based on a d8 chart, results ranging from bad to excellent. We were meant to try it out, and then feel the fear of seeing if we got a boost, or big drops.

Fortunately, we'd found the clues to getting the die-roll bonuses :smallbiggrin:. We burned a scroll with 2 bless spells on it (we had no access to it from the cleric), and nearly all the cash we had on us as sacrifices. We ALL got the top result, plus 2 to EVERY attribute :smalltongue:.

Oh, except where that would take an 18 to a 20. They were capped at 19 (for a +4 bonus). Both our fighters have 19 STR, and the magic-user has 19 INT and 19 CON. He has melee kills, as a 3rd level mage

Devils_Advocate
2008-08-22, 07:29 PM
There was the time the DM rolled a chance cube (66%/33% d6) for a random encounter (sort of) at the start of a very-low-magic 1340s Europe campaign. We were level one, and we were a cleric (Catholic) amd a paladin (Teutonic Knight), as we hadn't met the rest of what would be the party yet. Anyway, we were buying horses from this guy, and the chance cube let us discover a pair of people getting it on in a haystack. Turns out to be the man's wife and his stable hand. A quick Knowledge(religion) check (mostly for my sake, since I'm not a big medieval-catholic-law-buff) let us know that the punishment was generally that she needed to be put to death, and he needed to be castrated. We couldn't get her to repent, which was unfortunate. So we killed her--or tried. We were level 1, you see, and rolled minimum damage, and as she was awake (as she needed top be) and struggling, it wasn't a coup-de-gras. so I mostly disemboweled her, and then killed her with the second attack (everyone is throwing up at this time). Then I go castrate the stable guy, which goes fine, and I bind him up with a cure minor wounds to he doesn't bleed out, just passses out. We drag the wife's corpse outside to burn it, leaving a messy trail of intestines and so on all over the place, and burn her--the husband just standing there shellshocked. Our business completed, we thank him for the horse and leave without looking back and trying not to think about it too much. We learned later that he killed himself as we were leaving.
Wow. I suppose that it's not all that unusual, in some times and places, to inflict needlessly cruel and violent punishments as prescribed by law, but it takes a special sort of person to do this to the clear detriment of the wronged party.

Asmodeus would be proud.

(Arguably, part of what makes this sort of thing disturbing is that these are the sorts of decidedly Lawful Evil acts that can be entirely in keeping with -- even an essential part of -- an overall Lawful Neutral philosophy.)


This is something that I do a lot of times that annoys the other people I play with for some reason. They hate my characters because, even though my race/class combo is nothing extraordinary or abnormally powerful or munchkiny, I roleplay a guy that's losing his grip on his sanity, or a bloodthirsty murderer, or a mercenary. Personality quirks are what make characters fun to play.
I wouldn't describe a delusional psychotic or an amoral sociopath as having "personality quirks". At best, that's like calling an ocean "moist".

Suggestion: Next time, for an extra added challenge, try making an eccentric character that the other players will like.


Unfortunately he is dead now, and there was quite the discussion as to whether you can cast 'raise dead' on somebody who you don't know the name of.
There's no RAW reason you couldn't. You just need to touch the deceased (and have the spell prepared, and spend a minute casting it, and have 5,000 gp worth of diamonds on hand). You could even True Res someone without his name nor his body, so long as you have some way of unambiguously identifying the deceased.

PROTIP: This means that, while giving a lock of hair or similar to a friend won't help with the casting of resurrection (as that spell specifically requires something that was part of your body when you died), it can still make a true resurrection easier. Unless something very weird is going on, "the guy whose hair this was" will refer to you and only you.

snowbard55
2008-08-26, 06:36 PM
off the top of my head? well...

1. I cast Fireball as an elf evoker in a room filled with poorly packaged alchohol, killing myself, the party druid and barbarian, and the NPC we were escorting to the next town over.

2 I landed the entire party in jail for attempted murder.

3 I took the prince hostage and demanded a free casting of Heal.

4 I robbed the Paladin NPC we were then allied with and made her into our recurring nemesis.

5 I went on a boredom driven killing spree in the middle of a king's court, just before we got paid for a big job.

6 Myself and the party bard refused to submit to the will of a Gold Dragon and ended up bringing its wrath upon an entire kingdom.

7 And finally I instigated a war between the humans, the goblinoids, and the elves.

:smalltongue:

Silvarelion
2008-08-27, 01:50 PM
My friend had a tiefling wizard/sorcerer and we were in a fort under attack. The fort caught on fire (not his fault). He looked at the fire and was like "hmm, how much does fire weigh? MAGEHAND!!!!" and proceeded to burn down the rest of the fort and the grasslands around the fort for a days ride... all while taking only 1 damage.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-27, 02:45 PM
(Don't think I've posted this yet, but sorry if I have)

My party was exploring a sunken, ancient mage guild type of place from thousands of years ago. They'd already found the incredibly vast library, and had moved on to the achemist's lab. It's huge room full of dangerous chemicals, some of which are intact, but many of which are lying in puddles on the floor. There are also several (intact) journals and other notekeeping sorts of things, which were intended to give them a ton of information on the experiments, the history of the world, and in particular, on why the whole lab was a dead magic zone. There are also a pair of gelatinous cubes a ways off, working their ways towards the party, who are like level 8 and about 7 people strong. Not an overwhelming encounter by a long shot, even with the dead magic zone. So what does the druid do?

Druid: So lots of the chemicals are all over the ground, right?
DM (Me): yeah...
Druid: Do I know how volatile they are, or can I guess?
DM: You have no idea; their containers are broken or missing and they're from thousands of years ago anyway, and you have no knowledge on the subject. The cubes are staying away from the puddles, though.
Druid: Good enough. Throw my torch into the room, trying to hit as many chemicals as possible.
DM: What.

No one died (but it was good that the NPC rogue had fire resistance or she'd've been toast), but they were all seriously injured by the resulting explosion, and the wizard barely made his fort save vs massive damage. It was a good time.

only1doug
2008-08-27, 02:50 PM
I am the GM... but somthing i hate is when im like " okay you turn the coner of the damp halway and see three--" then im interupted by the archer who says " Does 27 hit?" "umm...*checks* yeah" "SNEAK ATTACK!!" Totaly ruins the game.:smallsigh:

Hmm, sounds like a good place to introduce a Golem or undead or ooze of some kind... anything that's immune to crits...
...if they complain then tell them straight out that interrupting the GM's description has its hazards.

Staven
2008-08-27, 02:55 PM
One of my proudest moments as a player came when our secondary DM was running a Call of Cthulu campaign. He was planning a trek into the basement that the players have just inherited. Problem with that: we were playing rich republicans, and mine happened to be very high up in a military contractor company. Long story short, we went into the basement with matrix style trench-coats, splinter cell NV goggles, auto shotguns, and pipe bombs. We successfully turned the peak of survival horror into Duke Nukem (we even played the theme song in the background). The apex of our basement crawl, if you will, was when we approached a mummy's sarcophagus. Knowing good and well what would happen if we let it sit there, my character activated a pipe bomb, opened the sarcophagus, screamed "SPECIAL DELIVERY: YOUR FACE!", threw in the pipe bomb, and slammed the top of the sarcophagus down on the mummy, then Die-Hard jumped out of the way of the explosion. Fun times. :smallwink:

snowbard55
2008-08-27, 04:32 PM
One of my proudest moments as a player came when our secondary DM was running a Call of Cthulu campaign. He was planning a trek into the basement that the players have just inherited. Problem with that: we were playing rich republicans, and mine happened to be very high up in a military contractor company. Long story short, we went into the basement with matrix style trench-coats, splinter cell NV goggles, auto shotguns, and pipe bombs. We successfully turned the peak of survival horror into Duke Nukem (we even played the theme song in the background). The apex of our basement crawl, if you will, was when we approached a mummy's sarcophagus. Knowing good and well what would happen if we let it sit there, my character activated a pipe bomb, opened the sarcophagus, screamed "SPECIAL DELIVERY: YOUR FACE!", threw in the pipe bomb, and slammed the top of the sarcophagus down on the mummy, then Die-Hard jumped out of the way of the explosion. Fun times. :smallwink:

Thats awesome! Pipebombs + mummies= fun!

I thought of some of my other "Greatest Hits" as we call them:smallbiggrin:

1. I picked a fight with a Lich Wizard way, way higher level than us who was only meant to dispense plot points.

2. I jumped on top of a rampaging dire bear, and lived!

3. I assasinated the queen of the drow and brought forth the wrath of an entire drow army.

4. I sold the NPC Rogue we were supposed to help into slavery for 5,000 GP

5. I broke a crystal ball that we desperatley needed to find our lost allies (This was technically an accident)

6. And I also cast Dominate Person on the Lord of a region and had him issue various ridiculous edicts. That was my favorite:smallwink: