Creative Uses for Use-impaired Abilities

[Amaril]

Lots of fun can be had in roleplaying games by taking a character ability that's highly situational, limited, or just plain bad, and finding an interesting and creative way to use it that makes it awesome. When have you or your other group members managed to do this? How did it turn out? If we tell these stories, maybe we can help everyone get more out of their characters' powers.

Spoiler: My Story

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I found a fun way to use my wizard's gust of wind spell at my Pathfinder game last night. My group was fighting a bunch of trolls that had attacked our hometown. Having seen that they could regenerate from any injuries we inflicted except for the burns from his fireball spell, my character deduced that they must be vulnerable to fire, and came up with a plan. I told the rest of the group to lure them over to a nearby building the trolls' allies had set on fire earlier, and flew up above to wait. Once they got close enough, I showed my DM the paragraph in the spell description for gust of wind that said "In addition to the effects noted, a gust of wind can do anything that a sudden blast of wind would be expected to do. It can create a stinging spray of sand or dust, fan a large fire, overturn delicate awnings or hangings, heel over a small boat, and blow gases or vapors to the edge of its range." The blast produced by casting the spell over the burning building killed one of the trolls outright and terrified the other into running away. We made short work of the remaining survivors in the next couple of rounds.

[Slipperychicken]

I remember a story on here, that someone's GM let him use waterbending to create a nuclear explosion.

[BWR]

At level 2-3 we used a couple of Burning Hands spells to set off an avalanche that buried the ogre tribe that was following us.

[Braininthejar2]

I have used reduce item on a piece of chicken bone for assassination attempt.

[ellindsey]

One of the players in my Pathfinder game is a cleric with the Trickery domain. She sometimes uses the Copycat ability from the domain (create a mirror image of herself) to check her appearance if she doesn't have access to a mirror.

[VoxRationis]

At level 2-3 we used a couple of Burning Hands spells to set off an avalanche that buried the ogre tribe that was following us.

Speaking of avalanche, I once used a celestial porpoise to escape an avalanche, under the ruling that since snow in an avalanche acts in a fluid-like manner, the environment could support the porpoise, even though it was aquatic.

[The Oni]

In a party full of murderhobos, my Chaotic Good bard used Ventriloquism to impersonate basically the whole City Watch, claiming that we were surrounding the house containing a "master thief." She gave herself up rather than us having to go stab her to death.

[Alex12]

I used low-level at-will self-healing and a dagger to literally give the party artificer the skin off my back so he could make scrolls from it.

[Leviting]

I used low-level at-will self-healing and a dagger to literally give the party artificer the skin off my back so he could make scrolls from it.

ow...
couldn't you just use leaves or something?

[Alex12]

ow...
couldn't you just use leaves or something?

Leaves big enough you could write a scroll on? Besides, we were in a frostfell region, so it's not real likely. Besides, scribing scrolls of Cure Light Wounds on the skin of an undead creature is hilarious.

[Leviting]

Oh, I assumed you were living. Nevermind then, carry on.

[Amaril]

Oh, I assumed you were living. Nevermind then, carry on.

Do sapient undead feel pain? Never really occurred to me, now I'm curious...

[Alex12]

Do sapient undead feel pain? Never really occurred to me, now I'm curious...

Symbol of Pain isn't tagged with anything undead are immune to, and thus works on them. So I'd assume they can feel pain.

[Leviting]

Oh, I was starting to think it was more like the Terminator, sensing the damage, but not afraid to cut its eye out with a knife.

[Lord_Burch]

Symbol of Pain isn't tagged with anything undead are immune to, and thus works on them. So I'd assume they can feel pain.

But Symbol of Pain isn't actually doing physical damage (as in inflicting physical damage, not numbers), right? So even though it works, I wouldn't think and undead could feel wounds, because they don't have the proper nerves alive to do so.

[Alex12]

But Symbol of Pain isn't actually doing physical damage (as in inflicting physical damage, not numbers), right? So even though it works, I wouldn't think and undead could feel wounds, because they don't have the proper nerves alive to do so.

Personally, the way I'm playing the guy is that pain effects work on him by interfering with the necromantic magic flowing through him. Given that he necropolitan'd himself, and the ritual to do that involves essentially getting crucified, I figure he's basically invulnerable to pain from hit point damage through a combination of having been essentially tortured to death of his own free will, and being undead.

But we're getting off-topic.

[Lilapop]

Before we discovered the Bite of the WereX line of spells, our druid ran around throwing Soften Earth and Stone at EVERYTHING. No house was safe from him, even those we were still inside of. Oh, and he dumped Create Water over a small fire elemental once. Best thing though? Our DM went with it and made up some rather elaborate rules for houses falling apart.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Defoliating a section of forest with a fireball? Okay somewhat normal use of that spell.

Lets see, Animate Dead to create a fast, efficient, and DRY means of transportation through a swamp? Would have worked just fine too if the druid and sorceress didn't get very cross with the necromancer, and being a gentleman he wouldn't argue with the girls (well a gentleman and very aware of what those two ladies were capable of...).

Earth Reaver to interrupt a magical ritual, also stopping the bad guy from becoming a lich. The would-be lich had set up a quite powerful force-field around his magical circle etc. but the way the description of Earth Reaver is worded (you point and target a specific section of the ground) the DM ruled that it would bypass the force-field since the description said nothing about any energy actually traveling from caster to target (such as say Fireballs description does) you just point and blow stuff up. So he targeted the floor of the tower (several stories up) that was inside the shield and blew a hole through it, interrupting the ritual, causing fire and rocks to rain everywhere, and let the bad guy take a fall down to the next floor. The battle after was rather short, but interesting (it's always fun when two arcane casters go at each other in enclosed areas and it's personal. Bonus points when both favor destructive spells and necromantic spells. Even more amazing is that we somehow didn't manage to take out any load-bearing walls! :p)

I later used Earth Reaver with one of the Archmage abilities to create a magical battering ram. Against thick, double metal doors. The two cultists standing just inside didn't survive when they got blown of their hinges and halfway across the room...

Rogue with trickery devotion, at one point she used her clone to pretend she had a twin and seduced some guards... and to deliver two rather quick coup-de graces (she just wanted them away from the gate.... it was far to public to start a fight there!)

Same rogue. Did you know that if your tumble is high enough you can just that instead of climb checks? Yhea. Early on in that game my DM jokingly promised me that if I could get my Tumble to a point where I can reliably pass DC 50 checks he'd let me negate damage from being tossed into walls etc. (which was surprisingly common in that game...) in pretty much the same way you can negate falling damage. He doesn't like me playing characters who gets tumble as a class skill anymore (It got way, way higher than that).