Explosive people

[lordmarcoos]

This is kind of random, but, well, that seems to be mostly what this board is for. Could you cast, say, reduce person on a gnome with tattoos, and then cast explosive runes on him? I don't know if I'd ever do this, and I know it's not efficient in any way, but i mean, it's hilarious.

Edit: forgot to mention, this is assuming the tattoo was some kind of writing, say, "mother," and a heart and barbed wire or something equally ridiculous.

[daggaz]

You can definitely do this, why not? We do this all the time in my groups for killing Tiamat. She's a sucker for miniature garden gnomes (halflings work equally as well), and always checks the writing to ensure its not a duplicate piece in her rather extensive collection.

Ok just kidding about the tiamat bit, but sure, why not do that? Its within the rules. Remember you dont lose HPs from being reduced tho, so its not like the little guy would detonate unless they are like lvl one. (they dont get any saving throw tho which is cool... hmm you would probably have to make them willing, or asleep, or have a will save for when you actually cast the spell).

But perhaps we should turn this thread into 'what kind of abusive things can do to the little races under the rules.'

Back in 2.0, my friend had a warrior who HATED halflings. One night, he successfully grappled the party rogue (yup, a halfling), and stuffed him into his bag of devouring. And waited...

[lordmarcoos]

In theory, then, all you need is an epic gnome diplomat, to start a strange cult of suicidal tattooed shrunken gnome suicide bombers... the world is MINE!!!

[Quietus]

Let's see... exploding people? Well, exploding runes is nice, but as long as you're going evil, might as well take a look in the Libris Mortis at the selection of spells that start with the word "Necrotic".

In order to cast any of those spells, you need to take a feat called "Mother Cyst", which implants an undead sac of flesh inside of you. Now you can use the Necrotic spells; The most primary of which is Necrotic Cyst. Using this, you can implant an undead sac of flesh inside someone else.

Once that someone else has a cyst in them, the other Necrotic spells manipulate that in some way. The best one in relation to this would be "Necrotic Eruption" - If memory serves, it allows fort and SR. If you pass the SR, awesome - if they PASS their save, they take 15d6 points of damage, half of which is Vile damage. If they FAIL their save, they die, and everyone nearby takes 15d6, half of which is vile - and they are implanted with cysts of their own.

They may or may not get a fort save to resist the cyst effect from the Eruption, I don't know, can't remember off the top of my head.

[lordmarcoos]

thats cool and all, but i consider myself much more of a crazy, ridiculous lunatic kind of evil, than an undeadish, tampering in the dark arts kind of evil. No offense to you plan, just not my thing.

On a side note, I just got a great idea for an encounter with a bat****-crazy old wizard, who challenges people to chess games using dnd minis with "Made in China" or whatever written on the bottom, but explosive. He hates losing, and if you beat him, gets really angry and throws a tantrum, and then reluctantly offers the PC's the chess pieces as a reward, in addition to whatever item/money they had riding on the game.
Maybe make sure the PCs are in a hurry, they head out, and then days later, (better if you really give them some mini's) and when one of the players says he breaks out the chess set, demand that he really set it up. When he looks down at the writing one the bottom, grin menacingly, and tell the rest of the party to make some saving throws.

[Quietus]

Ooohhhh... I do like that idea. Exploding chess peices sound like a lot of fun. I'd be tempted to make it a Wizard's Chess duel, and among the prizes, whether they win or lose, is one of those sets - but make it up to him whether to produce an explosive one or not.