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View Full Version : Cool things players do in campaigns



AgentPaper
2008-10-13, 02:21 AM
Since we have threads for all the stupid/mean stuff players and DMs have done, I thought we might as well make one for all the cool stuff that's happened. A sister thread of this might be for a cool thing DMs have done in the past. The main purpose of this is to give inspirations and ideas to other players so they can do cool stuff themselves, so keep that in mind. That aside, I'll start off with something one of my players did during my own campaign:

In one part of the campaign, the group was exploring a cave, trying to avoid a dragon that was powered by shrines, with the goal of destroying them so they could challenge the dragon and slay him. Anyways, at one point the party was running from the dragon, who was practically invincible to them, through a series of natural caverns in the cave. The party quickly gets separated due to varying run speeds. I had planned for the cave to end by opening into an extinct volcano tube, which the party would have to leap into the middle of, trusting only to fate (and my not being an ass and killing them all off) to keep them safe.

The first to arrive, an elf ranger, finds himself staring over the edge of a waterfall as the cave suddenly opens into a huge chamber stretching up and down into darkness. Since he was a good round or two ahead of the rest of the party, he decides to be cautious, and throws a lit sunrod out to see how deep the pit is. After 5 seconds (Actual physics!) the light form the rod disappears. Figuring the depths are a better chance than the dragon, he trusts his luck and leaps right in.

The next to arrive is the paladin, who, thinking quickly, pulls out his grappling hook, (which the ranger had, but forgot about) latches it to a nearby crevice, ties the rope (already attached to the hook) around his waist, and jumps. Shortly after comes the party wizard and fighter, both of which are barely keeping ahead of the dragon. With no time to think, each jumps off in turn as they get to the ledge. As they fall, time slows down for each as they pass the paladin, who is hanging 40 or so feet below the ledge, pounding in a piton as quickly as they can. ("Smart-ass BASTARD!" each thinks)

Following right on their heels, the dragon bursts out of the cave, and has no choice but to fly up and out of the cavern. As he does, he knocks the grappling hook out of it's hold, and the paladin (who's name is Krogar) is left holding onto the single piton he managed to beat halfway into the wall. With the piton barely holding, he quickly pulls out another piton and jams it into a dryer part of the wall to try and stay up. He finds purchase just as the first piton fails, and is now hanging on the wall of a pit that goes down who-knows how far. Undaunted, Krogar decides to start climbing up and out of the tube. Reasoning the distance, he figures that he's got about 500 feet to go. Straight up.

Now, at this point, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I had planned for the party to all fall into the water at the bottom, which would slowly rise and bring them to safety. Instead, now I have a single member climbing the entire cave, who has a high enough climb skill to get all the way up by taking ten. I didn't like the idea of the party splitting up, but I also didn't want to railroad the character into falling, so I fudged up a series of endurance tests for him to keep climbing. Every hundred feet, he would have to make an endurance check, which would rise each time he made one. If he fails twice in a row, he looses strength and falls. Hard, but not impossible. Even though I thought it likely he would eventually fall.

After the first 100 feet, he succeeds his check and continues with no problem. After another hundred, though, the trip is starting to take it's toll, but he manages to press on. (He's got a con of 20, by the way, at level 5) After another 200 feet, he almost falls again, but he's rolling pretty well, so he manages to make it to the top. However, just as he's pulling himself out over the rim, he fails his checks and starts to fall. Panicked, he gropes out to grab hold of the walls, and manages to grab onto one of the pitons he'd placed earlier, 20 feet down.

His strength is failing him, but he remembers the grappling hook tied around his waist. Hoping to latch onto the rim, he throws the hook....and misses. Another try, and he fails again. Unfortunately, he is still fatigued, and so I have him make another roll to see if he looses his strength. He loses the first, but succeeds on the second, and manages to keep hold. Trying for the grappling hook again, he throws it two more times, but misses both. Another endurance check, and he fails both, loosing his grip. Just as he's falling, though, he tries one last time for the grappling hook, but now he's even further away and the strength penalty is even higher than before. Still, despite the odds, he rolls a natural 20, and the hook latches onto the edge. Finally able to rest, he hangs there for a few minutes, and then pulls himself up the rope and flops flat on the ground, dead tired.

As this is happening, the rest of the group is sitting on Tenser's floating disk, tied together so as not to fall off. They had discovered that the water was rising, and decided to wait for it to go all the way to the rim, as I had planned the whole party to do. Unknown to Krogar, the three of them had been sitting patiently less than a hundred feet below him for most of the climb, cheering him on and enjoying the show.

The best part? All of that sequence had been rolled for, with no fudging on my part. I really love how the dice make things more interesting sometimes. :smallbiggrin: (Though I hate them sometimes as well, like when they made the encounter with the dragon, who they fought soon after into a cakewalk. He was supposed to be the main fight of the dungeon :smallmad: )

JaxGaret
2008-10-13, 02:23 AM
This one time I blasted this guy real good.

That was pretty neat.

Lycan 01
2008-10-13, 02:40 AM
I defeated a dragon by throwing a dead kobold wrapped in rat fur at it.

...

It was a very screwed up session.




My CoC group has done some interesting things. They include:

-killing a Lich with a critical gunshot wound to the balls
-Palyer A lifting Player B off the ground by shoving a shotgun against his stomach, and then blowing him in half.
-Player B, moments before, machine gunning a handful of (supposedly) extremely hard aliens into paste with a 50 round burst from a Tommy Gun.
-Player B's next character shooting and dropping a Stalagtite on a monster... which was holding Player A. The monster tried to use Player A as a human shield - they both died.
-Two of my players stole the Necronomicon from the Miskatonic U library... and then the Cult of Cthulhu stole it from them.
-All of my players surviving a hail of Tommy Gun fire while standing in an enclosed alley... the only injury was a flesh wound one of them recieved in the arm.
-The only player who took the time to study all the journals I kept mentioning is now an extreme expert in magic.
-One of them tackled Pyramid Head during a Silent Hill campaign I ran. Suicidal, yes. But awesome, none-the-less.

Satyr
2008-10-13, 03:32 AM
The group is sitting in a very experimental airship, taking of to infiltrate a demonic flying fortress. The airship consisits almost completely out of a giant baloon and very light wood and everyone knew that this thing was going to go Hindenburg really quick. Nonetheless, the heroes man their airship and start to raise - until they are attacked by a flying fire demon. In an almost slepstical combat, the characters manage to extinguish the demon, but their craft was already burning, so that they were forced to evacuate it quickly. The Air elementarist summoned a cloud spirit and let herself carried down, the Metamorphosis Mage sheapeshifted into a hawk and flew away and the three fighters... were left behind to die horribly in the crash. Luckily, the group's leader owned a torque which allowed to make a target completely paralysed and involnurable at the same time - with exactly to charges left. So he stepped forward, paralysed both his companions and dropped them over board, so that at least they would survive it. Than he took on a heroic pose and crashed in the fireball of a former airship into the ground. Great heroic sacrifice.

Drascin
2008-10-13, 05:30 AM
In the same campaign...

- A swordsage blew up a green dragon via jumping into its mouth with the magical equivalent of fifteen kilograms of C4 strapped to her back. Only final words? "I guess we should have taken those diamonds". They were cleaning chunks from the walls for weeks.
- Another player freejumped onto an Yrzak's back from a Lyrandar airship, grabbed to it, tore its head off in a single action, jumped again to one of the attacking ships, and proceeded to rip open a hole in the hull with his bare claws and start delivering death to everyone inside. Yay mutant Warblade-Barbarians :smallbiggrin:
- The third player entered a room filled to the brim with Karrnathi guards, walked slowly to the center of the room, "surrendered" and allowed herself to be bound and gagged... and blew up half the building with a mental explosion (being an Energist has its perks).
- Same Energist. Electricity-enhancing staff. The party is attacked by a Watcher in the Water. Do the math :smallbiggrin:. Hell, he turned half the water in the pond into hydrogen and oxygen thanks to electrolysis.
- The swordsage again. The party is facing a colossal eldritch undead Daelkyr abomination that has become a kind of demigod due to being feared as a god of destruction by many tribes (via belief=power). They've already mined its health from a distance, but it's closing in. The warblade jumps to its chest and starts ripping it a new one, but is repelled after doing over 150 damage to it. Then, after another attack of the thing, the swordsage turns, runs up the things's sword arm a la wuxia films, jumps, and in midjump, while she coiled to let go of a brutal punch, activates all of her action points (we have a couple houserules for them), Searing Charge, a boost, and every free-action charge item in her possesion. And, as she reaches the thing's face, shouts "This! Is! For! Alyssa! DRAGON... PUNCH!" and proceeds to falconpunch the godkilling abomination in the face, dropping it.

BobVosh
2008-10-13, 05:47 AM
-Player B's next character shooting and dropping a Stalagtite on a monster... which was holding Player A. The monster tried to use Player A as a human shield - they both died.
That was one of the most awesome stories I've seen on here


-One of them tackled Pyramid Head during a Silent Hill campaign I ran. Suicidal, yes. But awesome, none-the-less.

I still like how pissed off the player was afterwards

Through some werid coinidence at the game store I worked at I ended up in 4 campaigns, almost in a row, with the module Sunless citadel. The one with that Kobold, Meepo. Each time I got the party to kill Meepo and use him for trap detection. NEVER trust a kobold. Espically a helpful one. They are just using it for an excuse to get to level 5.

In one campaign my friend was a gnomish warmage. With an extreme hatred towards one country. At one point or another he was given the equilvent to 2 pounds of hemlock. Purified, and boiled into an oil. 2 pounds of that. 4 levels later in the game we come across a town with a large military group for that country (I want to say it was called Tolamain). Due to the player not really being the brightest of people, and the DM saying it in ounces, he decides to dump all of his hemlock into the well. He wanted to get the army.

Turns out hemlock oil floats on water. And the military had its own seperate well in its encampment. So everytime a citizen would draw water it was mainly hemlock. He poisoned the whole town simply because he didn't know how much poison he had, and he didn't know where the proper well was. Atonement spells soon followed.

Triaxx
2008-10-13, 08:55 AM
This was a very over-powered game, so it's even more cool doing it this way.

While fighting the BBEG, the Wizard ended up going one on one with him, a level 35 Druid/Sorceror. Having exhausted each other's spell lists on Save-or-dies, and failing everything, the BBEG decided to Wildshape and shred the Wizard.

Where you might wonder, is the rest of the party? The Fighter/Knight/Crusader was in one corner, Grappling the local Tarrasque, the Rogue was busily dying from a powerful poison. (Never hug an Umber Hulk.) The Ranger was dead, having been swallowed by the dragon, on purpose, to kill it from the inside. And the cleric was engaged in a battle of wills with the opposing Dragon Shaman.

The Wizard can only do one thing. He runs to the Rangers fallen two handed sword, and picks it up, then casts Quickened Dimension Door. His destination? Two rounds above the BBEG. Cumulative Damage rule, plus the 1d10+5 from the big two handed sword. He lands on the BBEG who somehow failed his two spot checks to notice his shadow growing, and splatters both the BBEG, and himself. Too cool for words. Of course this was followed by the Tarrasque eating the Fighter and the Rogue dying of poison next round, but hey, we won.

Zenos
2008-10-13, 09:30 AM
When playing Dark Heresy, my group of one guardsman going for sniper (me), one tech-priest and one assassin were confronted by a dire avenger early in their career. The assassin's response? Blast the xenos' arm off and take him prisoner. Then they fled from a horde of mercenaries they had pissed off. To add insult to injury the tech-priest (who deviated from the rest of the Mechanicus because of early exposure to the Tau) stole his xeno mesh.
The same Tech-priest managed every logic check he tested, and for some reason when his player roleplayed well he rolled well too.

Blackfang108
2008-10-13, 10:03 AM
I think killing not one, but two vampires with Butterflies probably counts.

To set it up, I'm on a prime plane that is acting like a demiplane that's about to collapse.

so, Magic is screwy. about 20% of the time, something happens to the spell.

We are attempting to procure the coffin Nail of a Vampire over 100 yrs undead.

We are close by the encampment, and I am woken up by the Fighter.

we're surrounded. yay.

SO I try to talk to the Vampire, untill he was ticked off when I told him "no" because one of my friends was a thrall. (His first action was to SHOOT me.)

So, I cast Chain Lightning.

Or, I tried to.

Effect wise, the spell went off perfectly, and one of the other vampires failed his ST as well.

for 30 feet, the area was covered in butterflies. (Monarchs, actually. Viscous little buggers.)

And I Gaseous Formed two of them.

The rest ran.

Starbuck_II
2008-10-13, 10:46 AM
This was a Warcraft RPG (D20) and I was a Gnome tinkerer.

Nucking Futs was his name. He had built a Buzzsaw Mech with some special modifications. And I liked the Explosive rules so I had some of them to throw at enemies.

We were doing good until we fought some high powered demon in a Forest.
There was I think a Elven Arcanist (with some familiar), a Dwarf Fighter, and me.

And lets just say after a long battle I blew up yes.
Then the DM made me count up my explosives (they get a reflex save) to see how many blow up. They all did.

The Dwarf fell on his tower shield with now hada hole in it, but survived.
The arcanist barely lived due to making his save, but his familiair...well... he wasn't as lucky.

Somehow, I'll never understand I survived... with 1 hp (all my other gear did too; just the mech and my explosives blew up).

The Forest? I mean, the Desert... as it was now called didn't do so well.
The explosion was far reaching about as nukes length in boom.

We didn't play too much longer, but I loved that guy. I still have his character sheet.

23minds
2008-10-13, 01:25 PM
We were caught in the middle of a huge enchanted storm. None of the casters were powerful enough to fight the magic which fueled the maelstrom. Both of the masts had broken off. The ship was springing leaks faster than our artificer could fix them. Both of our tanks were half out of their minds in terror. One wouldn't stop screaming, the other had just realized that he was indeed mortal. If any of us untied the ropes that were holding us to the deck, we'd be washed away in seconds. The druids animal companions were ready to kick through the bottom of the boat in panic. We were all going to die.

Suddenly, a light appeared in the distance, then another, and another. They floated quietly towards our boat and surrounded it. They were lantern archons. Behind them, a winged figure appeared and alighted on the front of our ship as the storm seemed to lessen in its presence. It was an angel, and she'd come to see our bard.

She asked him to play her something.

At the table, we were all dead silent as the bard rolled his perform check. Our entire party was counting on this one. Of course, our bard also has the best luck in the world, and by all rights should have been dead a long time ago. If anyone could pull this off it was him.

He pulled his guiter out, and carefully began to play. The music resonated with incredible force, and the angel began to sing in a language that no one knew. All the fear washed away as the music traveled over the entire ship.

When the song was done, the angel thanked him, lifted our ship from the water, and carried us safely to our destination.

It was so friggin COOL.

Of couerse, right before this one of our tanks had sprouted wings, grabbed a lance, and killed a kraken by stabbing it in the eye. We have a lot of epic moments in this party.

Kizor
2008-10-13, 04:22 PM
My experience with real, offline, pen-and-paper RPGs is limited to one three-person session with an improvised system, so I can't relate epic struggles. There were still a few high spots, thanks to an admirable GM and the way the Horror Campaign thread taught me that every character dies, but not every character truly lives.

- My fighter and the mage are ambushed by four bandits. I decide that we need to drop their numbers quickly. Four successive strength checks later, the GM says: "OK, you hit the bowman with the dagger guy, landing them both into a heap. The second bowman reloads and -- no he @#¤£ doesn't, after seeing that he runs."

- You know the way players sometimes pull a cosmetic little trinket, like a staff that balances on its end, out of nowhere and use it to save the day? It's great. So right at the start of this game we'd decided that the mage's fireballs were augmented by a natural power over beer she'd discovered in her college days. We left it in because it made us laugh, but in no time flat she was casting Detect Beer to locate the nearest village and inn. When we have the aforementioned two bandits tied up and are trying to get them to talk, she points her staff at them and casts Intoxicate. Magic check - critical success. Both slip into the warm glow of near-but-not-quite-incoherence and take us for their best buddies.

Prometheus
2008-10-13, 09:14 PM
I tell this story over and over again on these boards but to me I can never tell it enough:
A paladin find herself lost and surrounded by immortal undead who look like they are living (she got teleported to a random plane via prismatic ray). Eventually, they ask her to prove that she is not among the living by plunging her longsword into her chest. After many a bullet sweated, she decides to do it. I have her roll a coup-de-grace against herself and she still has enough lay-on-hands to seal the wound behind it.

Magnor Criol
2008-10-13, 11:03 PM
- The swordsage again. The party is facing a colossal eldritch undead Daelkyr abomination that has become a kind of demigod due to being feared as a god of destruction by many tribes (via belief=power). They've already mined its health from a distance, but it's closing in. The warblade jumps to its chest and starts ripping it a new one, but is repelled after doing over 150 damage to it. Then, after another attack of the thing, the swordsage turns, runs up the things's sword arm a la wuxia films, jumps, and in midjump, while she coiled to let go of a brutal punch, activates all of her action points (we have a couple houserules for them), Searing Charge, a boost, and every free-action charge item in her possesion. And, as she reaches the thing's face, shouts "This! Is! For! Alyssa! DRAGON... PUNCH!" and proceeds to falconpunch the godkilling abomination in the face, dropping it.

That defines 'cinematic'. Awesome.

ocato
2008-10-14, 12:08 AM
Bard Ownage

This is solid win. One time our party had to go find this wizard and get him to join the rebel alliance this group of people planning to overthrow an evil king. The wizard thought we were assassins because the rogue got a little antsy and knifed up his bodyguard for pushing him during our initial meeting. I tried to throw some diplomacy but the DM said it was impossible. My +a billion to the roll mocked me from the character sheet. So we start fighting, and the paladin (our leader) tells the group not to kill anyone, since the goal was to get a sort of Final Fantasy style "Wow, you beat me. Let's be friends. However, I will never be as strong as I was the time you just fought me" maneuver.

So, at the beginning of the fight I draw my longsword and start my bardsong. The DM looks thoughtful for a second and asks me to roll a perform check. I get antsy as hell but roll very well (like, 40-something I think total). The Wizard drops his magical staff and his jaw hits the floor. He looks at everyone in awe, then orders his men to stand down.

"No one who sings that beautifully can be all bad. You have one minute to tell me what you've come to say."

Elm11
2008-10-14, 07:23 AM
We were playing a 4e campaign set in an aztec city. charged with the murder of almost 40 bar patrons, we were frowned upon by almost everyone we met.
A kind landlord in the slums had offered us a free place to stay, but asked us if we could attempt to do something about a serial killer responsible for the deaths of over 60 elves. He told us the most recent attacks were of children, so we headed over to the local school. Upon arriving at the school, we found armed guards ready to protect one of the three elf children (daughter of a mob boss) remaining at the school (12 were murdered, the rest fled). In the main hallway, we heard a muffled noise coming from one of the lockers. Upon opening the locker, a small halfling child bounced out and attempted to flee. The teifling in our party grabbed the child, but he slippe away. Then, my brother who played a cowardly and rediculousy sadistic goblin warlock fired an eldritch blast at the 3hp halfling, forgetting to pull it and rolling a natural 20 (his explanation for this was that the halfling would have warned people of our presence (which is bad how?:smallconfused:)). This of coursed, deep fried the halfling, who we rapidy stuffed back in side the locker :smalleek:. also in this school did we find a department of bio warfare :smallconfused: and a department of indiana jones :smallbiggrin: (c'mon, it's aztec, there has to be one :smalltongue:).

Also while here, the goblin managed to murder a janitor, and enrage the principle (he didn't call the cops out because a natural 20 on a bluff convinced him he was on a TV show "we just killed your student" :smallbiggrin:)

Another awsome thing in this session was the first apparation of the serial killer. The guards walking the mob boss daughter home stepped on a flashbang mine, blinding and stunning them. The goblin and i, who had been following the guards, were not affected, and although the killer managed to kill the daughter, i used an action point (and an at will power (twin shot)) to fire 4 arrows into his back, rolling a critical, two 10s and a 6. this is at level 1 remember. unfortuanetly, it didn't kill him, and the death of the daughter resulted in the death of the school principle via lynch mob. :smallfrown:

By the way, Our DM and my brother are both complete nut cases

only1doug
2008-10-14, 07:54 AM
DnD 3.5

we've been playing for awhile and are getting fairly powerful (about L10-11). We are getting close to a plot climax point, we're chasing the demoness as she is trying to enter the tower and summon her lover (and incidentally destroy the way that magic works within the world), our halfling Sorcerer is riding the Druid (bearform) for movement speed and we are gaining fast.

the BBEG (demoness) takes off and is going to get away, i cast fly on the bear who chases after (sorcerer going for ride).


the Bear grapples the demoness and wins, she opposes grapple and loses.
Bear chooses to will flight (straight down, full speed) demoness opposes grapple and loses.

splashdown: falling damage, Demoness killed, sorcerer and bear barely alive...

Sorcerer: "shouldn't we check my 10 flasks of alchemist's fire to see if they break?"

me: "not if they are in a bag of holding or a handy haversack"

Sorcerer: "umm, that would have been a good idea, lets check"
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;
save fail;

10d6 fire damage.

the corpses are roasted.

GM: "my precious plot! you were supposed to chase her into the tower and fight her their"
Druid: "yeah, didn't fancy doing that, sorry"

Everyone elses Perspective:

The bear goes shooting into the sky with the halfling clinging to its back, you see it grab the demoness then it falls, a huge fireball errupts and when the smoke clears all that remains is a crater.

Heskan da snipa
2008-10-14, 12:12 PM
in the current campaign i am in, we are searching for dragons that are terrorizing villages or something like that.

Anyways, we were goin though a dungeon when we come across 8 zombie minions. my friend and i are both dragonborn (yes this is 4e im talking about). we come to this particular eccounter and my friend gets an idea. he ends up going first and using his breath weapon to kill ALL 8 MINIONS IN ONE BLAST.

needless to say it was the shortest eccounter ever.