D&D Shenanigans

[walkertexasdruid]

I am sure that many of you out there have had interesting things happen while D&Ding, some good, and some bad. Well recently I started playing a Kender named Ash, who seems to have the uncanny ability to make good things happen when bad things are supposed to happen, namely when you roll a natural failure 1.

In one instance, he tried to sneak attack using a sling stone from his hoopak, rolled a one and managed to kill a squirrel in a nearby tree. He got experience points for that critter. In another he rolled a one in a similar circumstance and th stone bounced off the sword of a teammate in mele combat with an orc and he killed that orc, all the while aiming for something thirty feet in the other direction.

There are many other things I could mention, but I would like to hear from you. What unusual or funny things have happened while playing D&D, or any other RPG?

[EVILNess]

Oh my goodness, I'll only get into it if there is a consensus allowing a giant wall of text.

[Ravashak]

Personally, I prefer to have paragraphs instead of a single block of text xP

[Amake]

The most interesting thing that's happened to me from playing any board games was reading the big old list of things whatshisface aren't allowed to do, you know what I'm talking about. Vorpal forklifts and feeding the Tarrasque its own weight in iron and stuff.

Yes, this happened to me because someone else was playing D&D and I read about it. My life is that exciting.

[EVILNess]

First, some background information on the world and character as I have discussed my shenanigans before, also they were great threads full of many awesome stories...

From D&D Gold/XP Equivalency (is now general D&D playstyles thread) (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showthread.php?t=35165)
1st Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=945424&postcount=78)
2nd Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=945432&postcount=81)
3rd Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=945479&postcount=88)
4th Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=945667&postcount=97)

From Fucking Awesome DnD Moments/Campaigns (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showthread.php?t=35422)
1st Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=953114&postcount=31)
2nd Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=953770&postcount=51)
3rd Post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=955068&postcount=83)
4th post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=957041&postcount=95)
5th post (http://forum.nuklearpower.com/showpost.php?p=958346&postcount=108)

There was also a post I could not find where I broke the party that killed me mentally and they they declared fealty to me and started to assist me in my quest to destroy those pesky pillars. It was awesome.

Since I last posted we have destroyed all but one of the pillars holding reality together, the loss of the additional pillars has had some interesting effects. When we got down to one pillar things started to slightly bleed together from one dimension to another, and we spent a few sessions defeating encroaching beings invading our cities.

We discovered that the energy put off by the pillars was fatal to them, so being the resident expert on the pillars I and the other magically inclined PCs devised a kind of man made crystal that put off the same energy. We fashioned some weapons out of it and gave it to the army to fight the small fry while we defeated the bigger threat.

I also fashioned some mini Pillars so that these outsiders couldn't come into my lands and to stabilize the bleed over effect so that I didn't wake up in a fiery hell dimension one day. The rest of the world however, is in ruins. Strange eldritch beasts, faceless horrors, and more wander the world now. Hundreds of thousands of people find themselves magically mutated, many more dead, and the people are looking to me to get them out of this.

It's kind of odd, I haven't changed... my party is still kinda responsible for destroying the world and here is everyone looking at us to lead them to a promising tomorrow. The survivors call my party Gods in the Flesh and Those Who Lead. A whole religion has sprung up around us and our quest to destroy the last pillar.

Suckers.

[Viridis]

Not D&D, but a wondrous oven gave me a robot puppy once. I love our GM.

[Vauron]

Wouldn't the crystals act like pillars and keep you from getting that power you have been striving for? Or do they intentionally lack that feature?

[McTahr]

My rogues tend to make people regret playing with me.
I was playing a pirate (rogue/bard/fighter, bard for sea chanty + glibness) and since it was the first game, the DM was being especially generous in "party-meshing" circumstances. I spent the first session doing everything possible, caught or not, to rob the entire party, aside from the barbarian, if only 'cause she was the only person there who'd hit me in real life. :sweatdrop Wound up, I ditched them with an inn bill, hoofed it to the market, disguised myself as the medieval equivalent of a bag lady, and still somehow managed to get caught, only to pull off some sleight of hand and cheat them again.

The entire campaign was spent making sure I got "boat funds" to take care of our "boat" that we basically stole, that didn't actually need maintenance, along with making sure to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. I had about four times as much gold as any character, roughly 50% of the entire party's wealth. (4-5 regular players)

Aside from that the character was completely combat ineffective and spent his time doing flips and sea chantys and other bitchin' feats, like swinging off chandeliers, riding flaming bedrolls into seas of zombies, and generally just the coolest thing I could imagine someone with +20 tumble/balance/etc. doing.

Oh, and he had three fake names, each one being an identity to another, so that it worked out to layers of lies, etc.

[Eltargrim]

I'm running a Spelljammer campaign right now. Gives me licence to pull all sorts of sci-fi shenanigans.

The first one, though, is just my players being resourceful. First session they were to escort a dying girl and her father to another sphere (read: planetary system) to find a religious artifact that could heal her. She was supposed to die on the trip, but the cleric whipped out a delay disease spell. All the healers had tried so far was to cure the disease, but slowing it down, even for a day, was enough.

The sphere they were travelling to was supposed to be on the verge of war. Having nothing planned beyond the father, named Gaeta, making a bargain with devils for the girl's life, the war got jump-started, and the ship entered an active war zone >_>

Dodging a few errant projectiles (Newton's first, bitches), they attempted to approach the planet, got intercepted, and were boarded. The crew (PCs) promptly surrendered. Gaeta went below deck to make the pact, and was inhabited by an infernal spirit. He was supposed to be the harbinger of fiendish cooperation that would later lead to the end of the Blood War, but the combined forces took him out D:

So, being the bastard that I am, instead corrupted his pact; the daughter is now a warlock with a resting spirit inside of her. In about a year, she'll head to another sphere, which is where the Blood War has spilt out onto the Material Plane (It hasn't spread further due to the way interplanar travel works between spheres, ie it doesn't). Apocalypse time :D

This is all unbeknown to my players. They got their reward from the daughter (who isn't aware of her corruption), and went off to get a new contact. They got a job from a merchant named Niska. Contrary to the name, he's not a gangster; in fact, he's an agent of the local order of paladins, known as the Order of the Teutonic Light. Given that two-thirds of the party is heavily evil, he sent them into a trap.

It was my intent that the party attempt to retrieve a "package" from an incoming ship. This "package" was a silver dragon egg, and the ship it was on was full of psions and paladins. The idea was that they would fail, and run away; maybe even a PC would die. This group's been pretty cocky in the past, and I want my world to be harsh. What happened was...a bit different. Nobody died, but the paladins did capture one of the non-evil characters, and got a gooood look at the rest of the party (One was essentially a sapient gorilla with 4 arms. Very distinctive).

The paladins placed a Quest on the captured PC, to hunt down the rest of his party and report their position. Instead he decided on revenge. Went into Niska's shop, and started shooting off Energy Rays of fire. I had previously mentioned the "No Smoking" signs, flammable warnings, and the Helm of Brilliance in the store -_- Explosions happened. Significant explosions.

Did I mention that his shop was on an orbital platform?

In any event, Niska was able to escape, but the PC was hit by a Prismatic Ray, and was shifted to another plane. Now he's in my NPC stable.

The rest of the party was hunted for a bit by lantern and hound archons, given the description of the party. Most of them could disguise themselves, but the ape? No chance.

One PC, on a mission of his own, decided to eliminate this risk of detection. He (swordsage) and the warforged artificer decided to decapitate the ape while he slept. The player of the ape was not amused >_>

In short, a third of the party died, and I didn't kill any of them. My players are...interesting.

Wall of text D:

[Sir Pinkleton]

I'm currently in a Dark Heresy game. Warhammer 40k stuff, if you're not familiar.

So, our first session we're sent to a planet. We were on route to the inquisitor training camp somewhere, but this planet was on the way there, and they needed immediate help (apparently space travel takes a long time).
So, it's basically like Hoth in appearance. It's a mining planet, as well. Apparently, one of the miner's found something one the way down, and then Grim Dark stuff happened. The foreman guy there sent in a contingency of soldiers, and they didn't return. The only guy they've brought back from the mine is insane, and constantly talks about "slithering" things all over his body (also, he was in a straight jacket and tied to a pole in a tent). We get some grenades, and head on down. takes a few hours, and apparently most of the party can't jump across a gap without possibly killing themselves. I guess I should explain the party:


Psyker: 65 year old woman. very creepy, white porcelain skin, wears all black. Psykers channel the powers of hell to do stuff (basically, she's our "magic user"). She can do things like heal once every 6 hours (any time in between and we make a "toughness test" to see if we get hurt instead), she can float, reverse gravity for herself, inflict pain to make our opponents more useless, and these are her minor powers. She's planning on getting another power later on that will allow her to either make the target entirely forget something major (a sibling, for example) or just destroy their mind outright. Also, if she rolls a 9 (DH is a base 10 system) something bad happens. anything from "You now don't know what the color green is like" to "the psyker is now a host for a daemon. Run away or die."
TechPriest: Covered in bionics, if he isn't already then he's planning on becoming more machine than man. he's good with anything that involves technology. nothing much else to say.
Assassin: Shoots things from far away, and is good at being sneaky.
Arbitrator: Lawman. fights for justice, no matter how miniscule or dangerous. Kind of like Judge Dredd.
Guardsman: Me! Basically, an infantry soldier. I start off with some pretty decent armor that covers my entire body, and I have a pretty good lasgun too (laser rifle, is what lasgun really refers to).


Anyway. I jump across that pit, the psyker floats, everyone gets hurt, we see the usefulness of having a psyker around (healing normally, without a psyker, can take days or weeks to heal. A psyker can heal us up to 5 HP. I start with 13 HP, one of the highest of the group. Take note)

We go in, and immediately see some Grim Dark, mutated people. we kill them all fairly easy. at one point, I open a door and it opens to a small room. Inside, fellow guardsmen are disemboweled, their intestines on the wall. Insanity and corruption plays a vital role in DH, in the form of points. I reach a point where I now have a fear of my allies dying. This is important later.

We reach the final, small chamber, where we had seen a pink glowy aura previously. turns out it's whats causing corruption. instantly, it sends out a wave, which corrupts two of our people (the psyker gains hardened skin, aka one more armor point all over. Assassin gets numbed senses). It also expels a demon, who is confused. We all go first.

Instantly, the psyker inflicts pain. So now the daemon is confused and writhing in pain. The arbitrator tries to get in close, because he has a shotgun. can't make a shot this round, though. then, I try to throw a grenade behind the demon (there's a little alcove thing) but I miss. The grenade sends the psyker against the wall, bringing her to -1. She's still conscious though. Then, other people move in; they also can't do anything this round. Then, our surprise round ends, and we start again.

I don't remember much, but the arbitrator moves up and shoots it pointblank. The daemon proceeds to sever his right foot, and render him unconscious. Other people shoot, and I hit it in its head for massive damage, killing it. unfortunately, there's such a thing as killing too hard. his head exploded, and the daemon went up in flames! he ran around for a round, and everyone nearby (aka everyone) had to make an agility roll to avoid him, or get set on fire. The arbitrator hilarious catches fire while unconscious, as does the assassin. The psyker tries to put out the arbitrator and fails, so he dies. the tech priest and I try to put out the assassin, and barely save him. however, just after that, I notice the arbitrator is dead.

Combat is over, but I'm flipping shit, and run the hell away. I exit the small mining area where the Grim Dark stuff happened, which involved going through a heavy metal door, and closing it, then going into the fetal position. The psyker, at -1 health, also goes ape shit. Apparently she has a character related problem, and shoots the already nearly dead assassin (though it takes three shots; she's not good for shooting). She did this partly because she forgot about the full healthed techpriest. But we didn't want to retcon it (apparently she was laughing maniacally while she shot him). The Techpriest walks over and hits her on the head, knocking her out. He tires her up, puts her in a dark corner, and leaves. Seeing me outside the entrance, apparently he was afraid I'd go crazy like the guy outside in the tent, so he did this thing that Techpriests do: he has a voicebox, and can make a loud feedback screech. In game, this means -10 to all of our rolls (it's a d100 system, in case I forgot to mention it earlier). Techpriest then walks for the entrance. hours pass, and I eventually get out of my freaking out stage. At the exact same time, the Psyker wakes up. As she's untying herself, I walk back in, and call out for my comarades. She calls for help, and after she's untied, she explains to me how "the techpriest went crazy, and shot the arbitrator! We must catch up to him and kill him, before he reaches the entrance and speaks lies to the Commisar!" (The guy who briefed us about the situation, topside). I agree. We run.

The techpriest has only been walking now. Unfortunately, the player is bad about meta-gaming, so he tries to impede our progress, and later, waits at the tunnel with his gun trained at the darkness. Because, yunno, there might be more daemons. We catch up, the Psyker tries to kill him, I ask him what the heck is going on as he's running, and he's able to bring up the point that, were he the murderer, why did he kill the arbitrator, and not the psyker? I've been running for hours now, so I slow down to rest, deciding that we should have the commisar sort it out. The psyker is understandably worried, but concedes.

The techpriest gets out first, and is pulled to interrogation. The psyker and me follow, also pulled in for questioning. The psyker is able to convince the commisar that she's speaking the truth, which is quite the feat. The DM is unsure of how to have the game go now, and I offer to have nothing be done. we're the inquisition, so technically the commisar doesn't have any say over us anyway.

So after all of that, 2 team members are dead, I don't trust the psyker or the tech priest, the psyker knows the truth and will be constantly trying to get the techpriest dead to tie up loose ends, and the techpriest knows the truth, but doesn't have my support, since he screeched me when I was busy being scared shitless.

So yeah. Wall of text. Nice story, though.

[EVILNess]

Wouldn't the crystals act like pillars and keep you from getting that power you have been striving for? Or do they intentionally lack that feature?

To an extent maybe, but their area of affect is rather small and I'd rather have to destroy something I have direct access to than wake up in a lava pit from an elemental plane of fire.

[Meister]

Had a pretty cool end-of-campaign battle yesterday, us against an ancient god manifesting in mortal form in preparation for his return. My character setup, equipment, and the dice all worked out completely in my favour.

[D&D 3.5, level 15 Duskblade. Equipment includes an armor that multiplies any lightning damage I take by 1.5, but also a sword that lets me absorb lightning damage as healed HP. We explicitly ruled that the multiplication comes in before the absorption. Effectively, any time lightning hits me for 20 damage, I heal 30 instead.]

First round I waltz in and critically hit with a maximized Vampiric Touch. 84 damage right there, 84 temp HP for me. Off to a good start right away.

The fun started once he broke out a Hellball. Epic spell, massive damage made up from various energy types in equal measure. His first one does 90 damage.

Everyone: :gonk:
Me: Oh what a terrible shame all my temporary hit points are gone. I AM NOT IMPRESSED, GOD.

... Hang on, part of Hellball damage is lightning, right?
DM: :stressed:

1/3 fire, 1/3 cold, 1/3 lightning, in the end it turns out I take only 1/6 damage of every Hellball he churns out. This had a certain effect on the rest of the battle and got almost unfair once I cast Protection from Energy on myself to negate the fire and cold damage.

DM: Okay everyone, Reflex saves!
Me: Yeah I made mine but if this is another Hellball I stand there and take it. I could use some healing anyway.

[EVILNess]

That was totally your DM's fault.

If I were DMing your Vampiric Touch wouldn't have worked, and his attacks would not have had an element.

[Nikose Tyris]

For those of you familiar with Forgotten Realms, there is an adventure line starting with "Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave".

THIS POST WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS, guys. I don't think it's truly 'spoiler-text' worthy, since it details OUR adventure- but if another DM picks up this book, it'd be pretty ruined for you.

Anyway!



Cormyr begins with a strange temple to Mystra. Our group- a Hellbred Paladin, Human Monk, Wild Elf Ranger, and Human Shadowcaster - Are in town on request of an Itinerant Cleric of Mystra, who supposedly was attacked at the temple. We get to town, sort through shit, find out that it's Sharrans posing as Mystrans and screwing with the system, kidnapping people.

We follow the trail to a keep in the Vast Swamp, and find a portal to the plane of shadow. We fought our way through to a Monastery where we found a LG Knight, tied up to the ceiling, guarded by a Gloom Golem. (They grabbed the Knight and ran like cowards.)

The Knight joins the party.

They work through the shadow plane and approach the lair of the mastermind- who turns out to be a dragon! It launches surprise attacks at the party occasionally, just swooping in, taking a few shots and flying off.

The group finds Tapestries of Shadowy Flight- Essentially, Carpets of Flying that power off for 24 hours if exposed to bright light. Darkness Dragon popped a daylight spell and made most of the group plummet to the earth.

Eventually reaching the dragon itself, he laughs at them and their attempts to assail him.

Favourite line from the fight:

Dragon: "Who here is the brave champion of the group?!"

Fitz (Hellbred Paladin): "I-"

Rachel (Knight): (Cutting off the Paladin) "I AM!" And streaks forward with her spear.

Dragon: Boop!" *beam of darkness from crystal shard around dragon's neck* "Undead."

Rachel (Knight): "...FUCK!"

DM: "You are now lawful evil."

Rachel: "...FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK."

Fitz (Paladin): "...Well, you're going to be killed by me later."

Rachel: "Let's kill HIM first, then we'll work out our differences."

Cut to 26 round fight with the dragon, with many near-deaths, and a final victory. Dragon is down. Dragon gets skinned.

Characters are about to start fighting their way out.



There have been 4 times the Hellbred rightfully SHOULD have died. I should have killed him many times. But he just looks SO SAD every time I'm about to finish him, I end up throwing the attack elsewhere, or making up some bullshit to make the big enemy attack miss. I know I shouldn't but the hellbred is the only character in the group that doesn't make me FRIGHTFULLY ANGRY.

[Meister]

This happened a while ago but it was pretty exciting. D&D 3.5, party setup: swashbuckler (me), cleric, assassin, scout, bard, halfling wizard, occasionally a druid.

We'd come across a city where a magical disease that turned victims into undead and that had devastated the lands centuries ago was still going strong. The city itself was deserted (save for the zombies), some of us actually caught the disease (my swashbuckler was rendered immune by a well-timed natural 20 on a Fortitude check, not that I want to brag, you understand), but worst of all, our wizard suffered a teleport mishap and he and the druid ended up in the local wizard tower. We made our way in and discovered that this tower had once been a large wizard academy, quite possibly the largest and most advanced in the land (certainly the most advanced we'd ever seen). It was impossibly tall, but of course wizards can hold a tower up with magic! Several floors up, we found the library, stuffed to the brim with by now incredibly rare and valuable books.

The tower was as deserted as the rest of the city, but we actually met someone there, a young wizard who had set up camp here two months ago to research the disease and had made quite a bit of progress. After a bit of chat, we explored a bit more.

The first thing that went wrong is when we discovered a secret passage to a sealed room with a banshee in it. After the assassin had already triggered a trap on the way that I took the full force of, she closed the door behind me after I went in with the banshee. That was character death #1.

After they revived me we continued on. We were by now looking for the tower's control room to shut off a magical alarm system we'd triggered coming in, and we found it, but it was full of animated suits of armour programmed to defend the room. Character death #2 occurred when the wizard cast a maximized fireball into the control room and disrupted the focus point of all the magic energy in the tower. The cleric dropped, we revived her (Wish item, for those keeping track).

It was then that we heard creaking and felt vibrations and it occurred to us that "all the magic energy in the tower" would logically include that magic energy that was put here to keep the tower from falling over. In light of this, we decided to abandon our plan of exploration and adapt a new strategy of running to the nearest window and jumping the fuck out of it.

We ran. First to the library, to grab the young wizard. Then another two floors down to the window. We saw the tip of the tower go past, made some hasty preparations for jumping out of a window 400m high, and went for it. Most of us had magical flight; I myself opted for an improptu combination of a Rope of Climbing and two Immovable Rods, which I had bought for precisely such an occasion and which held up me, the bard and the wizard we'd met very well. The only one who wasn't protected was our wizard. He plummeted right into the debris of the tower's tip, which had by now become a zone of completely wild magic.

Character death #3 right there. A Disintegrate area effect is not to be trifled with.

So we made our way down and were greeted by a curious sight. In a bed of flowers, there was an elf, alive but unconscious, and wearing, or much rather not wearing, what had once been our halfling's robes. Apparently, when a wizard academy gets destroyed, Reincarnation is on the list of random magic effects. And the only thing heard was the voice of a swashbuckler.

"Tell me he didn't survive it! Please! Give me at least that!"

tl;dr: walked into wizard academy, found immeasurably valuable equipment and library, blew it the fuck up

[katiuska]

Years ago, one of my friends played a monk that liked to riverdance on the bodies of the newly fallen; his career came to an abrupt and hilarious end when he tried this on the body of a troll.

Later on, a conversation about hobbit riverdancing led to a conversation about hobbit ballet, and I suddenly got the idea to make a halfling ballerina. Named Tony Danza.

EDIT: There was another time someone decided to solve a problem by repeatedly summoning a low level bird demon and plucking out its eyes, but it was so long ago that I can't remember what he was even trying to accomplish.

[krogothwolf]

This was a comedy of errors. It really was. It all happened in one session. We are a 5 man strong adventuring troop. A Wizard, A cleric, 2 fighters and a thief.

At the start of the session was we had gotten ambushed by Giants( we all failed out spot and listen checks a total of 6 times) and we were fighting pretty well. We had our wizard fall fighting the last giant and hits -2 HP. Our cleric was up next after me and was standing next to the fallen guy. I came in charging at the Gaint and....critically failed.....and failed so bad I threw my sword 20 feet in past the giant....and skewered the fallen wizard with my sword. The rest of the party finished off the giant. Guy rolls up a new character fairly quickly and we get to the point were we are suppose to meet him and the bottom of a cliff. We couldn't find a way down so were were going to climb down using a rope. The rope snaps and he falls to his death while holding a device that should it break it'll cause a massive explosion. In the fall...it breaks...causing a massive explosion. The explosion takes out the entrance to the dwarf hold we were suppose to go through. That's all right...there is another way in. We search and find our way in. Our thief goes in first and usually checks for traps before entering such things, he forgets to. Triggers a trap and gets killed by falling rock. Just me and the cleric left. Not to bad, we can make it easily enough all we have to do is make it to the dwarf hold and we'd be able to rest in piece. We head off down the tunnel and come across a battle site. Cleric decides we should investigate, we find some goblins and we fight them. Cleric trys to smack a goblin with the torch. Critically fails, torch gets thrown across the room. We our now fighting blind, in a tunnel, with holes around the area. We killed most of the goblins and then the cleric 5 foot steps away from one to heal...only to fall down a hole to his death, with the map. Alright, so now it's just me. I light a new torch and head off. I get lost. I find a whole smack load of orcs. I didn't survive the encounter.

Game Over :(

[Aerozord]

We were playing an Alchemic Exalted game, our mission was to rescue a captured oricalcum class and stop whatever plans the apostate has. After an extensive plan they hit the climax with the apostate, whom I think was a collosus judging by his size.

Anyways everyone else was inside the factory organ, while I was keeping an eye on things with my mobile eye drone. I was the one that infiltrated the place so I didn't have any combat charms to fight with. Forcing me to stay back on our flying skiff to handle extraction. Turns out their plans were to escapte the machine god we lived in by punching a hole in him, which would probably kill everyone still inside. So he blasts a hole in the roof and starts flying away.

I think, we cant let him get away with those plans. So I rev up the skiff and fly over there at top speed. I time it so just as he gets out BAM rams right into him. A split second before "FOR THE COLONY" I jump off and grab the plans just as he loosens his grip. Problem was I was a good 100ft in the air, and to be honest a few good rolls are the only reason I got this far. He shoots me and my determination to hold onto those plans is all that keep them in hand as my nearly dead body falls. Luckily my team has my back and catches me and we all escape.

Not bad for a starting character

[DarkDrgon]

the newest in my trend of Nintendo-themed games features pokemon.

In a world, where immeasurably strong creatures follow fleshy bags of meat, 2 cultures war for dominance!

The party is mostly non-gamers, so its starting off fairly simple. start in Johto, stiop team rocket. once they hit level 2..... Invaders from across the sea come, bringing more actual D&D into the game.

[wx4caster]

ok, so i havent played much d&d since 2nd addition, and i was nearly always the DM (i was the only one who would take the time to prepare shit... so yeah)

anyway i was running a party of 4 through a home made side quest to level them a notch or two so that i could run them through a forgotten realms campaign withouth them being too squishy. i was being fairly generous, knowing they would be a little under manned and under leveld for the biggun, and i happened to make an awful oopsie!

i let the halfling have a ring of wishes, with 6 wishes stored (man he had the luckiest rolls, and if i remember right it was more and i said no... anyhoo) this guy was always a pain in the royal ass to have in a campaign as he always had to fight the system, and for him to have this ring was even worse. in the first hour of getting the ring (and it came with directions, loooonger story there) he managed to conjur more gold than the party could carry (i am ashamed to tell you how much) summoned a frick load of nasties which nearly killed the entire party (oh how i should have killed his ass, but i get mine in the end) and turn the entire party against his characters to the point that they are plotting his death in secret.

so they get him to chill out with the ring ( or be skinned alive and dipped in salt) and the manage to the lake with the city they are trying to reach (shich is floating above the center and unreachable by general means... he he he)

they set up camp, and begin to plan and dig through what they have to find a way in. (now mind you i have been trying everything short of simply taking this ring to get it to become "lost") and the most wonderful thing happens.

Halfling: "ok, i wish myself into the city"
Me: "you wish yourself in? just you?"
Him: "yeah i wanna see if theres a ferry or something, if not ill just come back."
me: "you feel a strange sensation as your material being suddenly shifts from here to there. initially there is a blurred look to everything, and it crisps to give way to many people standing in awe at you. You notice it seems a bit chilly.... and perhaps breezy.... in the crowded market place."
him: "you mean its windy? liek how so?"
me: "no i mean its breezy because you only wished yourself and every single article of clothing and every single belonging you have is still back at the beach... including your ring."

he was so mad he got up, got his stuff, left the session, and didnt come back for over a week. needlessly to say the rest of us were mildly amused...

[Igbutton]

My group is currently playing the World's Largest Dungeon.

The party was(key word) composed of a Warblade(me), Dragon Shaman, Rogue, Sorcerer/Rogue/Favored Soul, Cleric, Barbarian.

Most of the party was inflicted with curses of some kind that would go into effect when we gotten any kind of stressful situation. I would attack the closest party member, the shaman and the S/R/FS would flee, the Barb would begin vomiting, the rogue would cower in fear, and the cleric would twitch.

So we got bored of waiting around waiting for the curses to wear off and decided to start playing with the magical deck of cards(Deck of Many Things) we had found. Up until now the deck hadn't done much mostly just made stuff appear and disappear so we we under the impression that is was relatively safe. I take five cards cause the game we were playing gave us that many. I get a crapload of pearls(ever so useful for the identify spell), some bracers of armor, my intelligence drops by 4 points, and I may draw again.

The second draw is wear the fun starts, I have decided to draw 3. The first card turns everything I own(including the bracers and pearls I just got) into dust. The second is immediately gain 10,000 exp(yay, I level up that moment), and the 3rd card is the 3.5 equivalent of the death card. I summon a dread wraith that is here to kill me and only me.

Even with my new levels I'm no match for a dread wraith, not that it matters anyway since I attack the closest party member which just so happens to be rogue who cowers in fear of everything. So while I'm attacking her the barbarian is puking his guts out and trying to protect her(way to go good alignment) the shaman and the S/R/FS are running away in opposite directions and the cleric is following the shaman.

Funny thing about wraiths is that whenever they kill a humanoid the victim rises as a wraith. So the dread wraith kills me and tries to leave the dungeon(it can't, whenever something is summoned here it's stuck), I rise as a wraith and kill the barbarian and then turn on the rogue, the barbarian rises as a wraith and helps me finish her off. The S/R/FS flees right into a trap that drops him to negative hit points and he bleeds out before anyone can find him. The cleric and the shaman make it out okay.

The aftermath is that I have now put a CR 12 monster in a part of the dungeon that is made for a level 3 party. Furthermore since there are many humanoids around this part of the dungeon a wraith population explosion is now ongoing.

And that's how I killed off over half the party. But since we start our new characters at halfway to the level our old ones died at. I essentially got 1 and 1/2 levels for nearly causing a TPK.

[Meister]

you only wished yourself and every single article of clothing and every single belonging you have is still back at the beach... including your ring
Haha, that's a classic. Not usually a big fan of the whole "twist the Wish" thing but once a player gets six of them he's got to know he has it coming.

In that us-against-the-god fight I described earlier I had a Luck Blade, with one wish stored, that we'd kept around for an emergency, and when I started running out of spell slots and uses of class abilities per day, I wished "to be refreshed the way I would be after having a good, uninterrupted night's sleep." Worked exactly like intended. We all agreed afterwards that this was a good use for the spell - unique, powerful, but nothing gamebreaking, and appropriately dramatic.

No, the gamebreaking part came in when we were granted another Wish afterwards and I wished for the ability to use every arcane spell instead of just the limited Duskblade list. Makes the character completely overpowered (in fact to this day we have no idea how to do that mechanically) but it was the last session of the campaign anyway and it fit the character very well.

[Aerozord]

well this was a game of Decent, which is really more of a RPG board game hybrid, not even sure I spelled it right but we stumbled upon a nasty combo that we called "orbit"

My character had an effect called telekensis which lets me pay one fatigue to more someone one square. It was also a free action so I could move them as much as I was willing to pay. I also had +1 fatigue and got one back every action if I recall.

Another player, her character had an aura that damaged any enemy that enters an adjecent square. Both these powers are nifty and balanced, but then we learned it damaged you even if you moved from one to another, long as you moved to one of the squares around her you were damaged.

So I just started picking enemies up and having them revolve around her like a magical cheese grater until they died. Combined with fatigue potions we could kill anything short of a dragon this way without needing to make a single actual attack

Suprising thing is this was pure luck since powers are given out randomly. Probably couldn't do it again

[BitVyper]

Next time on D&D: My barbarian is marrying a half-frost giant who he defeated in ritual combat (before dropping two seconds later when his rage ran out). He has to go out and stop whatever is messing with the psychic gifts of her people first, but hey, it wouldn't be an epic romance if there weren't some kind of task.

[tacticslion]

Story One:
So recently I've been playing a 4th Ed Lawful Good "Platinum Tongue" (a hybrid class created by the GM [effectively a half cleric/warlock], specifically worshipping Bahamut the Platinum Dragon, the idea being kind of like a prophet without any actual prophecies for others...) and the party all met at the town of Undercloud, soon heading up a local mountain - we had each recieved visions from our (respective) deities that something bad was going on there (we'd started at 1st level). At first it seems a typical 'beat-'em-up' 4E campaign.

We head up the mountain - named Cloudskill Peak - and soon can't see anything. I mean anything. Fortunately we were riding creatures that could make their way through the pertenaturally thick fog. We fought off a jump spider in the fog, managed to make our way to the top and instantly got clobbered/caught by Umberhulks (level 11 or higher creatures) just waiting for pissant adventurers like us.

We wake up in a jail cell (get our fourth party member) and trick the orc guard into coming close enough to steal his keys and kick the crap out of him... but we take him alive. We kill one imp and take another alive. We begin a strike-and-fade campaign, taking three more orcs, two dragonborn, and two rage drakes, all alive. Umberhulks burst through, led by a powerful dragonborn and start to take everyone back. We bring the Dragonborn unconscious too, causing them to retreat only with the drakes and dragonborn.

Now by this point we've been blindsided with the Umberhulks' undefeatable power twice, but we've totally hammered the fact into this (until now) hidden organization that you don't want to mess with us. Unbeknownst to us, it looks like we beat the Umberhulks and their boss, too. So the queen (an evil unique character) decides to parlay. My character decides 'sweet, I got an idea' and everyone listens to him. Come to find out, this queen worships Gruumsh, Lolth, and Tiamat (calling them the 'dark trinity') while we worship Moradin (the dwarven wizard), Sehanine (half-elf paladin) and Bahamut (human platinum tongue) - hers were the eternal enemies of ours. The queen had built a very minor 'queendom' out of dragonborn, drow, and orcs (she was mixed of those three races herself) under the mountain - and racial tensions were high because the three racial leaders (one for each, each secretly a consort of the queen) didn't like eachother. In defeating the dragonborn, I'd unwittingly caused an even greater rift in the organization - the dragons were saved, but the orcs were left behind.

My guy's back story was that he used to (before being imbued with power by his god during a dream) infiltrate gangs in his old city, then bring them down from the inside, ultimately blowing the wistle to authorities that weren't on-the-take. So: I do the same here!

We talk to the queen and I (by bluffing/using very precise language) convince her that I had a vision of glory, power, and wealth that I had to follow here (she believes it was her) and ultimately I become her fourth consort. Enter the LONGEST PART OF THE CAMPAIGN where my character basically convinces the queen of stuff, the rest of the party basically hangs around waiting, and I become friends with the other consorts and convince each of them to hate eachother forever, but I'm their friend. This gives me power over the umberhulks, the authority to command resources for my party, and enables me to ensure that our enemies are looking the other way when we want them to be.

We manage to secretly rescue a bunch of kidnapped people although only part make it out and the majority were recaptured, it was blamed on one of the trusted drow - we have a shapeshifter. Those who escaped came back in with a raiding part (well informed by my group where things were and how they were guarded), killed a lot of guards, took the remaining prisoners and escaped cleanly. The orcs (the most numerous group) were already down by half their force as the other half was out raiding with their leader. So then my group made their strike. Because I was friends with each of the leaders, I was able to set up individual 'meetings' where we lured a particular leader to talk with us, took them down, then used our shapeshifter (the fourth member) to pretend to be the other leader, making the meetings look legit. We took the queen and the drow leader alive, used a ritual to alter their minds, and replaced the orc chieftan with the orc guard from our cell - who I, via perfect 20's made my 'blood brother' and loyal friend forever (also my willing dupe, as he's smart enough to know I'm smarter - I make the policy, he commands, and it's done). Oh, and the death of the dragonborn leader was successfully blamed on the orc leader, who'd "gone berzerk" (totally true!) and "assaulted the queen" (our shapeshifter in that form at the time).

To review: My lawful good follower of Bahamut lied his way into a position of prominance in an evil organization, seduced the ruler, betrayed all of his new 'friends' (killing two of them, with a third killed on false pretenses) and installed a puppet governor instead, granting me virtually limitless power over a bloodthirsty mob.

My party: just watched and thwacked bad guys every once in a while on my say-so.

Also, my character is currently wracked with guilt for how he treated everyone and is thinking of raising three homocidal maniacs who hate him forever from the dead (technically only two are homicidal maniacs, the third is just criminally negligant and selfish). Also, technically he never lied, exactly (well, he did once, but that was on accident and was minor) - he simply told the truth in such a way that everyone heard what they wanted to hear. So, you know.

Story Two:
I was recently reviewing a one-shot 4E campaign I DM'd. I'd taken two basic pre-published adventure-sites: one in the back of the DMG, and another in the Draconomicon, stripped them of the most powerful creatures (each ended by fighting a dragon I removed), and blended them together to create a large and dangerous first level adventure set in a home-brew world (a 4E variant of the one being developed by Rich Burlew, incidentally). The first-level party was made of a gnome bard, a deva invoker, a shifter rogue, and a protoss (made-by-me race similar to a shade-genasi) sword mage - the last basically a 5th level NPC to take blows for the rest of the party (she didn't do much else) to help them live (and it almost worked!).

So my players were ready to assault a crumbling castle inhabited by kobolds and (they thought) a young dragon. Unbeknownst to the players or the NPC, there wasn't really one there, it was a trick by another very young dragon to get an assault against the kobolds to prevent them from creating a dragon from one of their own (dragons in my version of this world are mostly created by rare and dangerous ritual), presumably leading to the death of the adventurers as well (he actually thought there'd be only one - the NPC he'd been manipulating without her knowledge). So instead of taking the castle head on, they decided 'it's a dragon, let's make this sneaky so we live' and proceeded to find ways underground, to fight the gelatinous cubes there (they set themselves up really well), and then proceeded to infiltrate the place in one day. The Shifter (the gnome and deva weren't always present as they couldn't stay for the whole thing) took a page from Solid Snake's book and began to stealth around and occasionally rapier lone kobolds off the castle walls into the pit below, cause the hommunculi guardians to kill eachother, and generally assassinate three quarters of the fortress silently.

When the final confrontation came, the players managed to take down every bad guy, and the shifter was nearly dropped (1 hit point remaining) and was facing a boar that was also nearly dropped (also 1 hit point remaining). He killed it, but it made a on-death-final-stabby-attack and nearly killed him. The players, out of healing potions (he was out of healing surges) had no idea what to do, so they threw him into the boiling ritual dragon-making potion, completed the ritual (the gnome had unwittingly acquired the necessary components through random silliness earlier), prevented him from dying, and gained a dragon wyrmling in the party! ... who (because he's half purple-dragon) can't live in the sun very long and thus must travel by the NPC at all times, unless they find a way to fix it.

I have a ton of 3.X stories, but I think I'll stop here for now.

[Ecks]

Last time I played DnD I had a DM who liked to do spontaneously whimsical effects at the worst possible times (as he was the one who designed the campaigns we were playing at the time, he pretty much did whatever he wanted while loosely basing the game off DnD Third Edition).

Once, during our first combat of the campaign, I was playing a Sorcerer, and had cast Magic Missile at our target, who had sprung up out of a grave and was attacking our cleric (I forget exactly what the thing was, but it was capable of spell casting). Instead of taking the 20 I rolled and giving the bastard a critical hit, the DM decided to shake things up and "split the Magic Missile into two, with halved power from the original." Because the DM was "in control" of the monster, which was apparently now a boss, he made the appropriate save rolls and neither Magic Missile hit. Instead, they both lit a tree behind the monster on fire, which spawned several fire sprites that started setting our equipment on fire. Our Barbarian hates fire. Cue Barbarian swinging his axe around in a rage, killing our cleric and one of our other spellcasters before finally aiming a strike at the monster. This guy just liked to fuck with us. So just to be an over the top asshole, he invents a spell to cause TPK, and manages to roll a 20.

I stopped playing with that guy.

[tacticslion]

I stopped playing with that guy.

I heartily approve.

Also: magic missile is not a fire spell, so no flames. Also, if you crit and he splits it, he shouldn't halve the power - magic missile improves by adding missiles as it grows. Further: flame sprites don't arise from trees. In other words: he's being a jerk and isn't even using the rules to be a jerk. Even Wild Magic isn't that viscious.

[BitVyper]

Instead of taking the 20 I rolled and giving the bastard a critical hit

Magic missiles don't roll to hit. Neither do they crit or allow saving throws. They just hit. That's the entire point to having Magic Missile.

Edit: One time our party was losing a fight, so our wizard pulled out this thing he had that he could drain energy from to boost his spells (including going beyond their limitations) and just pumped every single level left on the thing into magic missile because next to nothing was hitting or hurting our opponent. The scene went like this - first the sun was blotted out by magic missiles, but they weren't moving, just kind of wavering in the sky. They all turned around and pointed at the wizard who'd cast the spell, and he had to make a will save to keep them under control. He rolled a twenty, the missiles turned back toward his target, then all fused into one giant green ball of death and wiped it off the face of the planet.

[Hanuman]

I am sure that many of you out there have had interesting things happen while D&Ding, some good, and some bad. Well recently I started playing a Kender named Ash, who seems to have the uncanny ability to make good things happen when bad things are supposed to happen, namely when you roll a natural failure 1.
(See: Fortune's Friend -- Prestige Class -- Complete Scoundrel)

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/compscoundrel_gallery/102041.jpg

[tacticslion]

Magic missiles don't roll to hit. Neither do they crit or allow saving throws. They just hit. That's the entire point to having Magic Missile.

He's right, I'd forgotten (in 4E it's an attack roll). It does, I believe, require overcoming spell-resistance, though (a level-check done by the mage casting it).

Edit: One time our party used some serious house rules and it was awesome.

Sounds like a ton of fun! Normally, however, I believe that magic missile only goes up to a maximum of five, right (though you specify it can exceed its normal limits)? Actually...

*goes and reads rules*

... yes, it normally maxes at five, and does need to overcome spell resistance. That said, if I was DM, I'd totally have allowed it the once, probably with a 'never again' caveat because 'the magic-drainer-thingy burned itself out of/on magic missile' or something similar, and possibly just exclusively that spell. Awesome story.

Also, Lev: you ninja'd me! And got the picture online, which is more than I would have done. I'm lazy that way. Those guys are TONS of fun, however.

Finally: did I ever tell you guys about the one time I played an ex-lycanthropic half frost giant half drow ranger who somehow repeatedly ended up on the bad side of shoes? This was a 3.5 DnD. First: no, he had nothing like a spectral/astral/whatever companion/figurine (he didn't have any companion, yet), and no he didn't focus on scimitars (although he ended up with a large double-bladed scimitar he couldn't wield for a little while). In fact he was a mystic ranger (Unearthed Arcana) specializing in throwing combat style (Dragon Magazine) who ended up throwing in with two tieflings (one originally an enemy), two half-elves, and an aasimar.

Anyhoo, the aasimar (a bard) had gotten kidnapped by a bunch of half-orcs. He helped track them down, and then entered (more or less accidentally) into a one-on-one duel with the stupidly tough half-orc chieftan, ultimately using his halbred to deal a double crit (x4 max damage! we were using double-crit house rules) that managed to decapitate the guy. So he intimidated the rest of them into giving up and took over the half-orc tribe long enough to free the aasimar, diplomacy them into not hating him forever (very difficult after the intimidate) and let them know how to contact him if they ever wanted to integrate them into civilization, ultimately relinquishing control after setting up a semi-democratic form of government. He took the leadership feat around that time, so I'm kind of waiting to see if that ever paid off. I don't know that I'll ever find out, as the last time we played that campaign it was over three years ago. Yep, still waiting...

[Hanuman]

Those guys are TONS of fun
It's even better when you hang out with them IRL, which seems like it doesn't work, but it totally does.

You know when things just kind of all line up and work out for someone situation-wise? Some call that luck, but since luck doesn't exist it has to be coincidence... but on some level you subconsciously calculate at least a few variables... so is it possible to psychically "manifest" your fate? The answer is: Sorta.
If you have high enough int/wis/cha and assorted skills including Knowledge [Local] and any other ones that apply, its possible.
Think about it, you subconsciously use your perception (wis) to pick up on things, which fits them together (int) and then your sphere of influence (cha) to manipulate your social surroundings. It must be possible to improve this skill.
Flow vs. Conceptualizing, Vague vs. Determining, Subconscious vs. Conscious

[tacticslion]

If you have high enough int/wis/cha

Well, fooey, that counts me out. Three for three! ... Also, it explains SO MUCH in my life.

[synkr0nized]

@tacticslion Ha. Infiltration of organizations is funny. Does that happen often in games? I am pretty sure the party I joined in the below description had done a little bit of that [heck, we may have even done it during the part I was present for, I don't recall; I DO know there is a tale of going in this one place, more or less killing everyone, and being mistaken for them later].


I don't play tabletop, but I have been in a couple of games. It doesn't really interest me, though in fairness I do have a lot of fun sitting around with friends and cracking jokes. So, that and a couple other factors led me to participate in this game one semester in college. It was in Planescape, the one with the city that's at the center or whatnot of the planes with the Lady of Pain running it.

I came in late with a friend of mine, but all the players and the guy running it were also good friends. The latter helped us come up with characters -- my friend was some kind of large bug that spoke broken English, and I was a half-air elemental with about seventy miles of arrogance and an obsession with stabbing most people I met. I was also able to serve as translator for the bug.

That may be needless background. I don't know how common these kinds of things are, but here are some fond memories I have of the game:

-- in a "boss fight" of sorts, deciding it wasn't getting us anywhere as a decent number of the party had taken damage, I charged the guy and took him out the window, fought him a turn or two on the way down, and then floated myself while he splatted.

-- My character generally hating everyone who wasn't him (part of how we set him up and also to give me an excuse to be quiet in-character), so when people did stupid things it was often just assumed that those moments would be when I actually talked in character.

-- A halfling... tiefling? party member got in some kind of racism/millenia-of-hate fight with an NPC when we were walking around this one place that made me think of something like Mos Eisley; instead of helping him, I started taking bets (made a whole lot on that, and impressed a lich somehow by doing so; we later ripped one of the bug guy's arms off, his protests aside, to give to this same lich as part of a deal)

-- fought and defeated an enemy toward the end of the thing that was literally a tornado that wielded at least 4 blades

-- the same tiefling from above had wild surges, and the player had a 100-sided die (haha wtf) that he used for this. Needless to say, half the time or more when this happened there were pretty amusing results.

I don't remember all of it in much detail and am biased to what I did myself, but I did have some fun. When I think about that game, it almost makes me want to do that again. Of course the other good part was all of the out-of-character conversation and nonsense.

These kinds of things might be common occurrences in games, so sorry if this is a pretty boring addition to the thread.

[tacticslion]

@synkr0nized: I've also yet to fight a gazebo.

@tacticslion Ha. Infiltration of organizations is funny. Does that happen often in games?

Honestly, I've no idea, but oddly I've just realized that most of the last SEVEN GAMES I'VE PLAYED IN I'VE (usually led) TAKEN PART IN THE INFILTRATION OF AN ORGANIZATION. THE HECK?

No seriously:
- my paladin half-elf talked his way into joining an organization trying to waken a stoned (ha) avatar of Hextor;
- my Ranger (the half-giant/drow) talked his way (or rather let someone else talk their way) into being the (false) "ally" of a tiefling who wanted to kill a bunch of people (later she became a party member);
- my red wizard infiltrated a corrupt red wizard tharch's place to replace him (corrupt meaning against Thay itself);
- my sorcerer talked his way into becoming chief advisor for a lizardfolk tribe (hypnotism is your friend; it was run by a black dragon, I'm still waiting to see what happens the first time they meet);
- my wife's shapeshifting telepath telepath has in turns (with a different identity each time) a) taken over a ruthless band of racist half-elves, b) taken over some slave-trading pirates d) made herself into a prominant member of two (very different enemy) houses in the city e) made herself an important member in an enclave of racist elves and f) taken over more than one tribe of orcs and ogres.

Including the 4E campaigns (one of which I described above), that's almost a quarter of my gaming experience - more. I'm pretty sure that's not normal. Honestly, before you asked, I was thinking maybe it wasn't that common, but there you go.

I DO know there is a tale of going in this one place, more or less killing everyone, and being mistaken for them later.

I kind of figured most gaming groups would get to this kind of thing eventually, but apparently we do this more than most? I have also realized it might be even more often, but my wife and I generally roll up characters with mad persuasive skills (and/or magical/psionic compulsion skills) and usually go to town with those - effectively we convert our enemies without having to "infiltrate" as such. Being confused for the very people you slaughtered, though? Nice touch.

though in fairness I do have a lot of fun sitting around with friends and cracking jokes.

Really that's one of the selling points compared to MMORPGS or other distant 'relationships' - you get to sit around and enjoy people's company (though too much of that can drive a DM to supreme aggrivation, let me tell you from personal experience... not that it caused me to repeatedly kill off most of my players or anything... more than twelve times in that game*.

That may be needless background. I don't know how common these kinds of things are

Actually you're right on target. That kind of background info on the characters is good because it sets the stage for us to know what's going on, and presents things clearly to us. Welcome to the thread!


-- in a "boss fight" of sorts, deciding it wasn't getting us anywhere as a decent number of the party had taken damage, I charged the guy and took him out the window, fought him a turn or two on the way down, and then floated myself while he splatted.
Ariel battles (and defenstration) are some of the best. One of my players' characters one time teleported an enemy the party had talked to (temporary) non-hostility to the upper edge of a ten-mile high no-teleport zone, proceeded to have a magical duel with her as they plummited, and counterspelled the freak out of her every attempt to get out of there alive, ultimately using flesh-to-stone on her and gust of wind the round before she hit the ground. It was awesome.


-- My character generally hating everyone who wasn't him (part of how we set him up and also to give me an excuse to be quiet in-character), so when people did stupid things it was often just assumed that those moments would be when I actually talked in character.

I had a player once, who hated everyone who wasn't him. Does that count as similar?


-- A halfling... tiefling? party member got in some kind of racism/millenia-of-hate fight with an NPC when we were walking around this one place that made me think of something like Mos Eisley; instead of helping him, I started taking bets (made a whole lot on that, and impressed a lich somehow by doing so; we later ripped one of the bug guy's arms off, his protests aside, to give to this same lich as part of a deal)

Yeah, there's basically a "halfling-tiefling" race, though I forget what they're called (in the Fiend Folio, I beleive). Basically - hey look, it's an evil halfling race, why not, we've got it for all the others (Dwarves [duergar AND durzagon], elves and half~ [fey'ri, drow {and draegoliths} and half-drow], humans [tieflings], half-orcs [simply full blood], and half-fiends for everything else)!
Also: liches can be fun. One character in a game I was in actually bound a lich to their service forever. Of course, that was annulled shortly thereafter when the lich was raised from the dead, but there you go.


-- fought and defeated an enemy toward the end of the thing that was literally a tornado that wielded at least 4 blades

Awesome! I might've seen a similar monster in the MM2 (3rd Edition), but I'm not sure**.


-- the same tiefling from above had wild surges, and the player had a 100-sided die (haha wtf) that he used for this. Needless to say, half the time or more when this happened there were pretty amusing results.

I'm afraid I'm not sure what "wild surges" are in your campaign. In mine they're a Wilder class feature that makes such a character limitedly more powerful. Oh! I'm presuming it's something either like a rod of wonder (very random and whimsical crap happens when you push this button) or a wild magic zone (very random and bizzare crap happens when you cast a spell). Yes? That sounds fun. Also: d100? Seriously? Wut. Sounds fun, if aggrevating.

I don't remember all of it in much detail and am biased to what I did myself, but I did have some fun. When I think about that game, it almost makes me want to do that again. Of course the other good part was all of the out-of-character conversation and nonsense.

We encourage this sort of behaviour around these parts. And we're all biased to what we did ourselves. You're cool.

These kinds of things might be common occurrences in games, so sorry if this is a pretty boring addition to the thread.

Regardless of how "common" such occurences are or aren't, each one is still unique and thus interesting - and yours are certainly both unique and interesting! I, for one, have never traded my bug-ally's arm to a lich (or any of the other things you mentioned)!

ADDENDUM: I spent the last two and a half hours, plus most of an all-nighter on the computer working on a finals project (this post was worked on around the project this morning). So, when I was about to submit reply, imagine my horror when the power went out, crashing the computer. I was ready to SCREAM. I prayed, ate some breakfast, calmed down, and turned the computer back on and: it was saved. ALL of it. Even the stuff on websites that can't be saved (my school website). Even this post. So, yeah. Just thought I'd fyi.

EDIT:
*this campaign was (more than) kind of crazy: I had a 120 year old human sorcerer with a yak familiar, a svirfneblin psion (telepath), a half-giant barbarian, a human swashbuckler, and a very fat human shadow-weave wizard (with a fire genasi phobia and an orgy fetish who was a fanatic of Mystra). Plus there was the guy who showed up as a) a dwarven cleric, b) a human Red Wizard, and c) a human druid, before letting me 'borrow' the Worlds Largest Dungeon and completely dissappearing from the earth. Then there was the guy who was an egomaniac and kept trying to get a TPK when he wasn't the center of attention. This party died more times and effectively were BEST FRIENDS FOREVER with the local druids (in spite of my best efforts to the contrary) so they kept paying for re-incarnations or raise dead spells. More or less a typical session would go:
Me: Hey, everyone, I'm glad you're here, so this is what happened last time we actually played...
Player 1: Oh, hey, did you see that show last night...
Me: Guys, we can talk about that later.
Player 2: Yeah, and what about this movie...
Me: Uh, guys? Can we focus? Hello? Can anyone hear me?
Player 3: Uh-huh, oh such and such gossip...
Me: Guys, I'd like to actually play our game this time!
Player 4: well in my opinion, she suffers from...
{THREE HOURS OF TALKING LATER},
Player 1: Well, I've gotta get back to work. It was fun talking to you guys! Geez, DM, you kind of suck! We never actually play anything in this game.
Me: Three hellfire dragons with max HD spring forth from the Gate that has take THREE FREAKIN' HOURS TO FINISH!
Them: But wait, that doesn't make any sense! We wouldn't just stand there and let them!
Me: Tough! You've been less than 50 yards away for FOUR gaming sessions! None of you have listened to me this entire time. Your entire point of being here, need I remind you, was to stop the cultist who - less than 50 yards away - have been opening this gate this entire time. You sat around and let them. Now deal with it.
They would and would usually proceed to bravely run away, while a few of them die (the living grabbing ashes as they run), blame the problem on someone else in the universe, do a few hit-and-run and get just enough XP to gain the levels they lost plus one.

**Correction: I was thinking of a "RageWind" - a kind of undead made up of a funnel cloud shrapnel/sharp pointy weapons - mixed with a Shrapnyl - a type of Raggamoffyn which is a kind of spontaneous magical "construct" also made of sharp and pointy weapons. Both are in the 3rd Edition MM2. It could have been a multi-limbed invisible stalker, or more likley an ad-hoc rule for a djinn in whirl-wind form, an air elemental, or the DM could have made it up completely. Still, it sounds like a cool idea!

[Krylo]

I'm afraid I'm not sure what "wild surges" are in your campaign. In mine they're a Wilder class feature that makes such a character limitedly more powerful. Oh! I'm presuming it's something either like a rod of wonder (very random and whimsical crap happens when you push this button) or a wild magic zone (very random and bizzare crap happens when you cast a spell). Yes? That sounds fun. Also: d100? Seriously? Wut.

Actual Wild Surge Rules (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Wild_Magic_%28DnD_Variant_Rule%29).

You're only using half the wild magic rules if wild surges are just power boosts, and a D100 is a necessary component.

[tacticslion]

Actual Wild Surge Rules (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Wild_Magic_%28DnD_Variant_Rule%29).

You're only using half the wild magic rules if wild surges are just power boosts, and a D100 is a necessary component.

I understand what you're saying, but "Wild Surge" is a class feature in 3.5 Expanded Psionics that is fundamentally different from the Wild Surge you've presented here. It is simply "more power now, also I'll be dazed and lose power points when I'm through with this" - similar to how a barbarian rages for physical strength and is fatigued afterwords. This is the one I'm used to for that term. In the FRCS, I think (though I could be wrong, I don't have it on me right now) it refers to them constantly as Wild Magic Surges, so I just shorten it to "Wild Magic" rather than "Wild Surge", which, to me, represents a different mechanic. Also, the EXP is rather clear - it provides the full rules for a "wild surge" created by a Wilder within the book, and it has nothing to do with the "Wild Magic Surges" (or even the similarly themed "Wild Psionic Surges"). But thanks for the explanation... which is different than even the one in Faerun. Huh.

[Krylo]

I've seen a few different wild magic tables that I like better than that one.

edit: Table 2: Wild Surge Results(H3)

d100
Roll Results
01 Wall of force appears in front of caster
02 Caster smells like a skunk for spell duration
03 Caster shoots forth eight nonpoisonous snakes from fingertips; snakes do not attack
04 Caster’s clothes itch (+2 penalty to initiative)
05 Caster glows as per a light spell
06 Spell effect has 60(FM) radius centered on caster
07 Next phrase spoken by caster becomes true, lasting for 1 turn
08 Caster’s hair grows on foot in length
09 Caster pivots 180 degrees
10 Caster’s face is blackened by a small explosion
11 Caster develops allergy to his magical items; cannot control sneezing until all magical items are removed (allergy lasts 1d6 turns)
12 Caster’s head enlarges for 1d3 turns
13 Caster reduces (reversed enlarge) for 1d3 turns
14 Caster falls madly in love with target until a remove curse is cast
15 Spell cannot be canceled at will by the caster
16 Caster polymorphs randomly

17 Colorful bubbles come out of caster’s mouth instead of words (words are released when bubbles pop); spells with verbal components cannot be cast for 1 turn
18 Reversed tongues affects all within 60 feet of caster
19 Wall of fire encircles the caster
20 Caster’s feet enlarge, reducing movement to half and adding +4 penalty to initiative rolls for 1d3 turns
21 Caster suffers same spell effect as target
22 Caster levitates 20 feet for 1d4 turns
23 Cause fear within a 60(FM) radius centered on the caster; all in radius except caster must make saving throw
24 Caster speaks in a squeaky voice for 1d6 days
25 Caster gains X-ray vision for 1d6 rounds
26 Caster ages 10 years
27 Silence, 15(FM) radius centers on caster 10(FM) (TS) 10(FM) pit appears immediately in front of the caster, 5 feet deep per level of the caster
29 Reverse gravity beneath caster’s feet for 1 round
30 Colored streamers pour from caster’s fingertips
31 Spell effect rebounds on caster
32 Caster becomes invisible
33 Color spray from caster’s fingertips
34 Stream of butterflies pours from caster’s mouth
35 Caster leaves monster-shaped footprints instead of his own until a dispel magic is cast
36 3–30 gems shoot from the caster’s fingertips; each is worth 1d6 (TS) 10 gp
37 Music fills the air
38 Create food and water
39 All normal fires within 60 feet of caster are extinguished
40 One magical item within 30 feet of caster (randomly chosen) is permanently drained
41 One normal item within 30 feet of caster (randomly chosen) becomes permanently magical
42 All magical weapons within 30 feet of caster are increased by +2 for 1 turn
43 Smoke trickles from the ears of all creatures within 60 feet of the caster for 1 turn
44 Dancing lights
45 All creatures within 30 feet of the caster begin to hiccup (+1 to casting times, –1 to THAC0)
46 All normal doors, secret doors, portcullises, etc. (including those locked or barred) within 60 feet of the caster swing open
47 Caster and target exchange places
48 Spell affects random target within 60 feet of caster
49 Spell fails but is not wiped from caster’s mind
50 Monster summoning II
51 Sudden change in weather (temperature rise, snow, rain, etc.) lasting 1d6 turns
52 Deafening bang affects everyone within 60 feet; those who can hear must save vs. Spell or be stunned 1d3 rounds
53 Caster and target exchange voices until a remove curse is cast
54 Gate opens to a randomly chosen Outer Plane; 50% chance for extraplanar creature to appear
55 Spell functions, but shrieks like a shrieker
56 Spell effectiveness (range, duration, area of effect, damage, etc.) decreases by 50%
57 Spell reversed, if reverse is possible
58 Spell takes physical form as free-willed elemental and cannot be controlled by caster; elemental remains for the duration of the spell and its touch causes the spell effect (THAC0 equal to caster’s)
59 All weapons within 60 feet of the caster glow for 1d4 round
60 Spell functions; any applicable saving throw is not allowed
61 Spell appears to fail when cast, but occurs 1–4 rounds later
62 All magical items within 60 feet of caster glow for 2d8 days
63 Caster and target switch personalities for 2d10 rounds
66 Slow spell centered on target
65 Target deluded
66 Lightning bolt shoots toward target
67 Target enlarged
68 Darkness centered on target
69 Plant growth centered on target
70 1,000 lbs. of nonliving matter within 10 feet of target vanishes
71 Fireball centers on target
72 Target turns to stone
73 Spell is cast; material components and memory of spell are retained
74 Every within 10 feet of caster receives the benefit of a heal
75 Target becomes dizzy for 2d4 rounds (–4 AC and THAC0, cannot cast spells)
76 Wall of fire encircles target
77 Target levitates 20 feet for 1d3 turns
78 Target suffers blindness
79 Target is charmed as per charm monster
80 Target forgets
81 Target’s feet enlarge, reducing movement to half normal and adding +4 penalty to all initiative rolls for 1d3 turns
82 Rust monster appears in front of target
83 Target polymorphs randomly
84 Target falls madly in love with caster until a remove curse is cast
85 Target changes sex
86 Small, black raincloud forms over target
87 Stinking cloud centers on target
88 Heavy object (boulder, anvil, safe, etc.) appears over target and falls for 2d20 points of damage
89 Target begins sneezing and is unable to cast spells for 1d6 rounds
90 Spell effect has 60(FM) radius centered on target (all within suffer the effect)
91 Target’s clothes itch (+2 penalty to initiative for 1d10 rounds)
92 Target’s race randomly changes until canceled by a dispel magic
93 Target turns ethereal of 2d4 rounds
94 Target hastened
95 All cloth on target crumbles to dust
96 Target sprouts leaves (no damage caused, can be pruned without harm)
97 Target sprouts new useless appendage (wings, arm, ear, etc.) which remains until dispel magic is cast
98 Target changes color (canceled by dispel magic)
99 Spell has minimum duration of 1 turn (e.g.: a fireball creates a ball of flame that remains for 1 turn, a lightning bolt bounces and continues, possibly rebounding, for 1 turn, etc.)
100 Spell effectiveness (range, duration, area of effect, damage, etc.) increase 200%


Also, psionics are dumb.

[tacticslion]

I've seen a few different wild magic tables that I like better than that one.

edit: Table 2: Wild Surge Results(H3)

d100
Roll Results
01 Wall of force appears in front of caster
02 Caster smells like a skunk for spell duration
03 Caster shoots forth eight nonpoisonous snakes from fingertips; snakes do not attack
04 Caster?s clothes itch (+2 penalty to initiative)
05 Caster glows as per a light spell
06 Spell effect has 60(FM) radius centered on caster
07 Next phrase spoken by caster becomes true, lasting for 1 turn
08 Caster?s hair grows on foot in length
09 Caster pivots 180 degrees
10 Caster?s face is blackened by a small explosion
11 Caster develops allergy to his magical items; cannot control sneezing until all magical items are removed (allergy lasts 1d6 turns)
12 Caster?s head enlarges for 1d3 turns
13 Caster reduces (reversed enlarge) for 1d3 turns
14 Caster falls madly in love with target until a remove curse is cast
15 Spell cannot be canceled at will by the caster
16 Caster polymorphs randomly

17 Colorful bubbles come out of caster?s mouth instead of words (words are released when bubbles pop); spells with verbal components cannot be cast for 1 turn
18 Reversed tongues affects all within 60 feet of caster
19 Wall of fire encircles the caster
20 Caster?s feet enlarge, reducing movement to half and adding +4 penalty to initiative rolls for 1d3 turns
21 Caster suffers same spell effect as target
22 Caster levitates 20 feet for 1d4 turns
23 Cause fear within a 60(FM) radius centered on the caster; all in radius except caster must make saving throw
24 Caster speaks in a squeaky voice for 1d6 days
25 Caster gains X-ray vision for 1d6 rounds
26 Caster ages 10 years
27 Silence, 15(FM) radius centers on caster 10(FM) (TS) 10(FM) pit appears immediately in front of the caster, 5 feet deep per level of the caster
29 Reverse gravity beneath caster?s feet for 1 round
30 Colored streamers pour from caster?s fingertips
31 Spell effect rebounds on caster
32 Caster becomes invisible
33 Color spray from caster?s fingertips
34 Stream of butterflies pours from caster?s mouth
35 Caster leaves monster-shaped footprints instead of his own until a dispel magic is cast
36 3?30 gems shoot from the caster?s fingertips; each is worth 1d6 (TS) 10 gp
37 Music fills the air
38 Create food and water
39 All normal fires within 60 feet of caster are extinguished
40 One magical item within 30 feet of caster (randomly chosen) is permanently drained
41 One normal item within 30 feet of caster (randomly chosen) becomes permanently magical
42 All magical weapons within 30 feet of caster are increased by +2 for 1 turn
43 Smoke trickles from the ears of all creatures within 60 feet of the caster for 1 turn
44 Dancing lights
45 All creatures within 30 feet of the caster begin to hiccup (+1 to casting times, ?1 to THAC0)
46 All normal doors, secret doors, portcullises, etc. (including those locked or barred) within 60 feet of the caster swing open
47 Caster and target exchange places
48 Spell affects random target within 60 feet of caster
49 Spell fails but is not wiped from caster?s mind
50 Monster summoning II
51 Sudden change in weather (temperature rise, snow, rain, etc.) lasting 1d6 turns
52 Deafening bang affects everyone within 60 feet; those who can hear must save vs. Spell or be stunned 1d3 rounds
53 Caster and target exchange voices until a remove curse is cast
54 Gate opens to a randomly chosen Outer Plane; 50% chance for extraplanar creature to appear
55 Spell functions, but shrieks like a shrieker
56 Spell effectiveness (range, duration, area of effect, damage, etc.) decreases by 50%
57 Spell reversed, if reverse is possible
58 Spell takes physical form as free-willed elemental and cannot be controlled by caster; elemental remains for the duration of the spell and its touch causes the spell effect (THAC0 equal to caster?s)
59 All weapons within 60 feet of the caster glow for 1d4 round
60 Spell functions; any applicable saving throw is not allowed
61 Spell appears to fail when cast, but occurs 1?4 rounds later
62 All magical items within 60 feet of caster glow for 2d8 days
63 Caster and target switch personalities for 2d10 rounds
66 Slow spell centered on target
65 Target deluded
66 Lightning bolt shoots toward target
67 Target enlarged
68 Darkness centered on target
69 Plant growth centered on target
70 1,000 lbs. of nonliving matter within 10 feet of target vanishes
71 Fireball centers on target
72 Target turns to stone
73 Spell is cast; material components and memory of spell are retained
74 Every within 10 feet of caster receives the benefit of a heal
75 Target becomes dizzy for 2d4 rounds (?4 AC and THAC0, cannot cast spells)
76 Wall of fire encircles target
77 Target levitates 20 feet for 1d3 turns
78 Target suffers blindness
79 Target is charmed as per charm monster
80 Target forgets
81 Target?s feet enlarge, reducing movement to half normal and adding +4 penalty to all initiative rolls for 1d3 turns
82 Rust monster appears in front of target
83 Target polymorphs randomly
84 Target falls madly in love with caster until a remove curse is cast
85 Target changes sex
86 Small, black raincloud forms over target
87 Stinking cloud centers on target
88 Heavy object (boulder, anvil, safe, etc.) appears over target and falls for 2d20 points of damage
89 Target begins sneezing and is unable to cast spells for 1d6 rounds
90 Spell effect has 60(FM) radius centered on target (all within suffer the effect)
91 Target?s clothes itch (+2 penalty to initiative for 1d10 rounds)
92 Target?s race randomly changes until canceled by a dispel magic
93 Target turns ethereal of 2d4 rounds
94 Target hastened
95 All cloth on target crumbles to dust
96 Target sprouts leaves (no damage caused, can be pruned without harm)
97 Target sprouts new useless appendage (wings, arm, ear, etc.) which remains until dispel magic is cast
98 Target changes color (canceled by dispel magic)
99 Spell has minimum duration of 1 turn (e.g.: a fireball creates a ball of flame that remains for 1 turn, a lightning bolt bounces and continues, possibly rebounding, for 1 turn, etc.)
100 Spell effectiveness (range, duration, area of effect, damage, etc.) increase 200%

Agreed, that one is better. I generally find that the more odd things are the better they turn out for "Wild Magic" effects. Generally, when I construct my tables, however, I try to reduce it to specific traits (like cone of ~, roll for "~") or such things, though really there's only so much of that you can do. The one you provided is complex and nice.
Also, psionics are dumb.

Oh yeah, well your face is dumb!

[Eltargrim]

Just wrote up a big long post to have my iPod eat it D:

Suffice to say that we have the Wonderbow! A crossbow known to reload itself, shoot twice, shoot after a 1-round delay, shoot around corners, shoot lightning bolts, rays of disintegration, rays of petrification, and last but not least, Huge sharks.

I don't dare to guess what will be shot next. We've yet to see a repeat.

[krogothwolf]

Psionic users always seem to be useless or die in the games I've been involved in with them.

That Wild Table is freakin sweet though!

[tacticslion]

Psionic users always seem to be useless or die in the games I've been involved in with them.

That Wild Table is freakin sweet though!

Ok, see, here's the thing. I generally hear that 'psionics is over-powered', 'psionics is underpowered', 'psionics is broken', etc.

This ISN'T TRUE. It's magic that's broken, but psionics - specifically 3.5 psionics, because its the latest thing - is constantly compared to a system of magic that works but is unbalanced, depending at your spectrum of play. Compare the 'martial' (that is non-magical) classes to the magical classes and the psionic classes. The system pretty much runs on the following curves:
Magic - weak front-game, powerful (virtually necessary) late-game
Martial - powerful (virtually necessary) front-game, weak late-game
Psionics - versatile (but not overwhelming) front and late games

Exceptions: bards (good throughout, weaker end), monks (stronger middle), and rogues (just wow)

Part of the problem is that pre-3.5 psionics kind of sucked, I admit. In 3.0 it was both over powered and under powered, sometimes simultaneously, as it was heavily situational (you suck, ya freakin' mindless pieces of crap! ... not that I'm bitter). In earlier editions (2nd and before) it seems that psionics (if they existed in a given setting) were kind of like having a template: you gain special abilities and brain-blasting power that remains constant regardless of your level. This simply isn't true anymore with 3.5 psionics. Really, unless your psionicists do stupid things, they should be about as safe as a wizard, bard, or rogue - which means they need to be moderately protected by the meat shield and they should do fine. Anyhoo, I'll get to work on my series more, but that's the gist for now.

Also: that wild magic table is, indeed, freakin' sweet.

*I've been working of a series of articles called "In defense of..." and so, yeah. This one wasn't planned until later.

Edit: it's also highly worth saying, that, the most awesome Wild Magic table I've seen aside, krylo's and krogoth's moms both go to college! Ooh! Burn! (also, I'm not really trying to start a "chillaxed flame war" here, per se, but I like that line and have been wanting to use it for a while! So, yeah, I'm walkin' into this knowin' that I've got worse rebuttles comin'.)

EDIT TWO: Double Posts are for Losers and Chumps... like me!
Sorry. I'd forgotten which place I'd posted in last and my message is the only one on the other page... I just kind of checked the bottom, it wasn't mine, and posted. My bad. ANYway, here's what I was writing:
Avoidance Behavior
Now to respond to things I wanted to, but forgot to.

...but once a player gets six of them he's got to know he has it coming.

I think it depends entirely upon how much restraint the player uses. Really (by the rules) Wishes aren't the broken spell: Miracles are.

My two wishes of awesome.

I love your first wish. Creative and tasteful. Your second probably should never have been granted in a 3.X era, but, hey, I'd roll with it too at that point (a game was finished and would never be referenced again). Also, I want your sword. Mechanically, duskblades effectively get one spell of up to the highest spell they can cast per class level. They max out at fifth spell level - not just their list, but that's the highest level you could normally access. So that leaves us with some basic options (each presumes stacking from the previous unless noted).

LITERAL AND LIMITED
Rules: either the new spells follow their own rules or duskblade rules; but using one of these options, probably the duskblade rules
~ Literal and mean: you can now learn from other classes instead of just yours.
~ Literal and minimalist: you can retrain your current ones to equal or lower levels from other arcane lists
~ Literal and benevolent: you can now replace your currently learned spells with any from any arcane spell list of your highest spell level or lower.
~ Literal and highly generous: you can now replace/learn any arcane spell of any class so you don't exceed the limit of your known spells (15 plus your intelligence modifier, I believe at 15th level)

GAME BENDING
Rules: either the new spells follow their own rules or duskblade rules; but using one of these options, probably their own class' rules
~ Bending and basic: Each time you gain a duskblade spell you can choose another arcane spell of the same level or lower from any list - you can use one or the other in a given day/encounter/round
~ Bending and highly generous: you gain one additional spell from a non-duskblade spell list for each duskblade spell you have of an equal level.
~ Bending and extreme: you gain a number of spells from any arcane spell list equal to the maximum number of spells you can gain.

BROKEN
Rules: it's broken.
~ Rather Broken: You gain all spells from all spell lists and follow their own rules.
~ Totally Broken: You gain all spells from all spell lists and they all follow duskblade spell rules.

So yeah, I'd guess that's about your options (though I might have missed something). I know you didn't ask, but I thought I'd do it for fun and to let you think about it and see how it might work? Anyhoo...

Next time on D&D: epic romance. I like big buuu... I mean women. I like big women.

You are going to update us on this at some point, yes? I'd be immensly curious to hear how it goes. The same with you EVILness! Keep us updated!

D100 is a necessary component.

Also: my understanding is that a d% is necessary (effectively two d10s), but I thought sync was talking about an actual d100 - a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.

[Krylo]

Ok, see, here's the thing. I generally hear that 'psionics is over-powered', 'psionics is underpowered', 'psionics is broken', etc.To be fair I never said that (though Krogo kinda did). I just said they were dumb.

Which was mostly hyperbolic/joking, but I do kind of feel like having psionics in a game with magic and clerics receiving power from the gods is just kind of silly, as I'm not sure there's any psionic powers that couldn't be easily folded into mage classes or cleric classes without having to add a whole new source of power.

But then that's why I don't particularly like D&D in the first place. It's a convoluted mess.

Also: my understanding is that a d% is necessary (effectively two d10s), but I thought sync was talking about an actual d100 - a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.
They make them. (http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/dice100sided.jpg)

[BitVyper]

You are going to update us on this at some point, yes? I'd be immensly curious to hear how it goes.

Everyone's kids had birthday parties this week, so we didn't game. I will most DEFINITELY update you when it happens though.

The funny thing is, I've only been with this group for two sessions, and besides that romance, I've already broken a siege by fueling some kind of techno-magic tank with my barbarian rage, and masterminded a shadow coup. The really funny thing is that I only joined their D&D game so I could get to know them for the Mutants and Masterminds game we're going to be playing, where I will be running a tokusatsu-style hero named Action Mask.

a 100-sided dice would be completely crazy. Thus my reaction.

A d100 is basically a golfball inside a slightly larger see-through plastic ball (at least the ones I've seen are). I find them cumbersome and annoying, but they are around. I think of them more as a display piece.

Edit: I see Krylo posted a picture.

Sounds like a ton of fun! Normally, however, I believe that magic missile only goes up to a maximum of five, right (though you specify it can exceed its normal limits)? Actually...

*goes and reads rules*

... yes, it normally maxes at five, and does need to overcome spell resistance. That said, if I was DM, I'd totally have allowed it the once, probably with a 'never again' caveat because 'the magic-drainer-thingy burned itself out of/on magic missile' or something similar, and possibly just exclusively that spell. Awesome story.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. We won a pair of the gems in a contest with a dragon. Not only did it drain all of that one's charges, but it left the wizard a bit loopy for a few days afterward.

Our games (with my other group) largely use the rules as guidelines. We venture outside them pretty much any time someone gets a cool idea. Of course, plenty of horrible horrible things happen to us as well. Like the time my "really cool idea" accidentally got us imprisoned and sequestered in a living vault for five hundred years and we emerged in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

[synkr0nized]

They make them. (http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/dice100sided.jpg)

Yup, that's about how I remember it (in black).

[EVILNess]

So, the word my character lives in has pretty much warped to the point where it can best be described as high fantasy Mad Max.

Currently, my party has been captured by one of the planar warlords (There are eight major ones in total, of which I am considered one) and is being forced to run a gauntlet of trials and deathtraps for the amusement of the the warlord and his upper level minions.

All the other warlords hate me, which kind of sucks, however they haven't killed me yet. (Not from lack of trying I assure you.)

[tacticslion]

they haven't killed me yet

A completely different group of adventurers (whom you later broke mentally and spiritually) who have no connection to these generals that I know of totally did you liar (I just can't prove it anymore because the links to your old posts are gone: the perfect crime!)! :) Nonetheless... fascinating.

ALRIGHTY! Now to the ultimate disco-ball hoop-jump threadjack! By which I mean I'm transferring a discussion from another thread (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=35072&page=22) into this one. Specifically an argument about DnD. Sure, this is threadjacking as well, but it's more topical as there is no coherent singular discussion running through this board, so I figure it's less so. Also this is more specifically DnD, while the other wasn't.

The short form of the argument is: there are (roughly) five of us each of which, I've now noted, are making different arguments while dancing around the real (or rather 'original') issue. I submit my own fault so far - just as much as others, I am guilty of attacking minor points, or bringing up extraneous elements in order to 'support' my primary arguments, while creating an escalating effect of making multiple arguments from a singular one.

The participants, and their arguments, as I understand them:
~ Odjin's Arguments: Hold Portal is stupid; mages are the bomb and will always win (I admit, I could be wrong on this, I'm just interpreting)
~SmartyMcBarrelPants' Arguments: Hold Portal is totally a valid spell, because I saved the world with it once; mages are wusses (even though it seems he played one in order to cast hold portal).
~ krylo's Argument(s): Hold Portal is a sucky way to end an epic battle; mages are much more powerful than Smarty gives them credit for; psionics are stupid; more or less trading rules minutae with me.
~ My Argument(s): Hold Portal is a viable spell; don't judge Smarty's GM, as we don't know the full situation; mages can be shut down in a myriad of ways; numerous other nearly off-topic minor arguments; more or less trading rules minutae with krylo.
~ BitVyper: Mordenkainen's Disjunction is an epic spell; any GM that lets me play by RAW (this means "Rules As Written") is either stupid or playing a high-powered campaign
This sound right to everyone? Let me know if I misinterpreted anything. So, then, I now cut to the heart of the matter, by quoting BitVyper:
Also if you cast hold portal to stop Xykon, he'd just rip the door off its hinges. We've already seen him smack V around with a section of stone wall.

A vanilla wizard whose magic has been disabled and who is alone may be screwed, but a lich? Liches have abilities that can't be countered by antimagic fields. They also have DR that you ain't bypassing once you walk into said field and your godslaying sword loses all its power and starts doing 1d8+5.

...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand here we have the heart of the problem. Comparing (as I myself have) the Wizard In Question (the one Smarty defeated by a judicious use of Hold Portal who seemingly had the power to destroy reality) with a particular build and/or template. So, here's my suggestion. SmartyMcBarrelPants: I'm calling you out! Here, on this thread, I'm daring you to get topical! Tell us your zany story so we can have the facts behind it and judge you like the all-wise and highly and malevolently judgemental quasi-deities (after a very round-about fashion) we are! The ultimate point of this? To see and determine for ourselves if his use of Hold Portal - in a given circumstance - was valid or not.

As to the rest: SWAP TAGS (so most of you don't have to read it)!

Odjin: I'd recommend you read my long-winded entirely pompous and arrogant overly-full-of-myself series of rants to krylo, 'cause really, I don't want to write most of that stuff again. Short version: there's a million ways a mage has to overcome Hold Portal; there's a million reasons why a particular mage (even the reality-destroying kind) can't; until Smarty responds, we can't say for sure whether it's a valid circumstance, and even then there are play-styles to be considered.

Isn't the kind of disjunction being discussed already an epic spell?

No, although it's a very high level. It's a "ninth level" spell which, in 3.X rules is as high as you can get without being epic, generally requiring a caster level of seventeen or higher in a given class to acquire. The epic disjunction you're talking about (in the Epic Level Handbook) requires a) you have the Epic Spellcaster feat and b) you have a number of "Spell Seeds" each of which require time and research. It gets complicated from there.

If you become a god by twelfth level, your GM either isn't being pushy enough, or he's just running a very high power campaign (which there's nothing wrong with). Oh, I'd usually agree. My point in mentioning this ability at all, however, is the myriad of "a wizard with the power to destroy reality should be unbeatable (by hold portal)" arguments. RAW (Rules As Written) only take you so far. Adjucation is a GM's job and sometimes GMs prefer to go one way or another. If we go strictly RAW, however, I'm a deity (or in a few cases, "deity" in all but the most limited and direct of game terms) by twelth. It all hinges on the highly broken power of sixth level spells, you see.

Range is close, so not so much.
Granted. You'd have to be a really high level to do what I was suggesting. Alternatively, you could just have a Greater Rod of Metamagic (Enlarge), but for the most part, yeah, you're right.

Doesn't. Just kind of annoying that because of this Smarty has the idea that mages are 'pussies' and pointless antagonists. I didn't get "pointless" from his posts, but I can see it from your perspective too: he was flippant about the power of mages, which could make them seem "pointless".

(emphasis added)
Emphasis mine.
To clarify, mine wasn't supposed to be mocking, but pointing what you may have missed, highlighting the most relevant (to my thinking) section of the quote. I understand yours was meant to use my own argument against me, however you seem to be presuming that just because a second level spell won, in the end, it can't have been an "epic showdown/battle". Whether that specific instance was or was not, we should (hopefully) know before too long, as Smarty has now been called out.

Nope, but if you're GM I'd like it if fighting the campaign's big bad didn't amount to casting hold portal on a door.
Now this is the real thing I disagree with - it can be very epic. Here are two (off the top of my head) examples:
~ The only thing holding back apocalyptic death is a simple Hold Portal spell, and you and your allies are trying to find a way to escape/eliminate the potential end-of-the-world/etc as the timer ticks on its way to doom unleashed. Or...
~ You've barely survived the onslaught of a give uber mage; you've used almost all of your resources and most of your hit points; he's got far, far too many personal contengencies and remaining hit points to attack him directly; you are forced to call retreat, but you have one, last trick up your collective sleeve - Hold Portal.
Nonetheless, that is a specific example. Our disagreement seems to be more general, based off of what you said here:
A GM has access to the character sheets, they shouldn't have to do it arbitrarily. They shouldn't even have to use OOC knowledge unless this is the first time the mage has ever met the party.

They should be able to make the mage capable of bypassing any player abilities that would result in turning what should be an 'epic battle' into "I cast disjunction, lawl I win."

The latter isn't fun.
I wasn't saying it was. My point in bringing up Disjunction was: there are a million things a mage could do or have up his sleeve to counter Hold Portal in specific and low-level magic in general. There are also a million reasons why a given mage could be shut down before. Any arguments that "a good mage would have done this" are invalid until we know the full situation. We've all been guilty of jumping to conclusions, so that's why I've called Smarty out.

Now, I see your point (in fact, our points partially overlap here), but I think in this case you're missing the possibilities, by only seeing the basics of the Hold Portal spell. "Epic" events don't always need "Epic Magic". We've been using the word "epic" a great deal, however I don't think we're using it in quite the same way. My view of "epic" goes significantly beyond the rule-book definition. "Epic", connotatively to me, can happen at any point in the game play experience - as first level characters or sixteenth or fifty-third, it doesn't matter. What is required varies by the specific circumstance, but a moment when a rush of "that was cool" happens amongst a group, to me that's what an "Epic Moment" is about. And, in various circumstances, winning by the skin of your teeth with your lowest spells against an obviously more powerful-than-you foe can quite easily be "epic". Even sometimes winning "easily" can be "epic" to a group - I've run a game where some of my players worked really hard to set things up so that when the time came, it wasn't so much a battle as a highly one-sided slaughter... and it was pretty cool as the Baddies slowly realized they had been outmaneuvered and overwhelmed by the characters, despite the fact that those characters could never match them in a straight-up fight. Regardless of your own feelings on the matter, obviously this works for Smarty's group - and Smarty as a player - as he's remembered it as "that moment when I did this cool thing". Thus the reason I've jumped to his defense - in general terms his possition is unassailable, although in specific terms it is possible his GM might have been really bad at it - we simply don't know yet.

To be fair I never said that (though Krogo kinda did). I just said they were dumb.

Which was mostly hyperbolic/joking, but I do kind of feel like having psionics in a game with magic and clerics receiving power from the gods is just kind of silly, as I'm not sure there's any psionic powers that couldn't be easily folded into mage classes or cleric classes without having to add a whole new source of power.

But then that's why I don't particularly like D&D in the first place. It's a convoluted mess.

As for psionics: I'll get to its utility in a magical world later (especially 3.5 where it really takes off on its own... until Complete Psionic when they decide "psionics should be more like magic" again), but you've got a valid point - if it doesn't fit with your view of a 'fantasy' trope, it is by no means necesary. As for DnD being convoluted: it's true; I still like it though. :)

And now,

Everyone's kids had birthday parties this week, so we didn't game. I will most DEFINITELY update you when it happens though.

The funny thing is, I've only been with this group for two sessions, and besides that romance, I've already broken a siege by fueling some kind of techno-magic tank with my barbarian rage, and masterminded a shadow coup. The really funny thing is that I only joined their D&D game so I could get to know them for the Mutants and Masterminds game we're going to be playing, where I will be running a tokusatsu-style hero named Action Mask.

Nice.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. We won a pair of the gems in a contest with a dragon. Not only did it drain all of that one's charges, but it left the wizard a bit loopy for a few days afterward.

Our games (with my other group) largely use the rules as guidelines. We venture outside them pretty much any time someone gets a cool idea. Of course, plenty of horrible horrible things happen to us as well. Like the time my "really cool idea" accidentally got us imprisoned and sequestered in a living vault for five hundred years and we emerged in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. So, pretty much how I run my 4th Ed games, then?

They make them. (http://www.planet.eon.net/~boxcars/dice100sided.jpg)

Wow. Just... wow. See? It's crazy!

[EVILNess]

Hey, I got better.

I got fail safes* you see.

*(Some of which I keep the bodies of minions who failed me)

[Krylo]

I agree with most everything you said, Tactics.

It's not that he saved reality with hold portal, but the later post of "Mages are pussies" with a list of things that supposedly stop them in their tracks, and his over all flippancy over mages beyond the one specific instance.

If it would have been:

Smarty: Hold portal stopped a reality destroying mage in my game
Odjn: That's stupid.
Smarty: Nah, it was pretty cool.

I wouldn't have entered the conversation.

Instead it was:

Smarty: I stopped a reality destroying mage with disjunction.
Odjn: That's stupid.
Smarty: Nah, mages are a weak class with multiple extremely simple counters.

Ergo, my entrance into the conversation that, no... they aren't. Also my assumption that his GM doesn't know how to build their spell lists at high levels, and that the hold portal thing wasn't a skin of your teeth escape, but rather a flippant end to the mage's plans because mages suck.

And on D100s--Depending on the surge list/D100 table, I'd rather use an actual D100 than two D10s.

The reason?

Prime numbers between 10 and 100. There are 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 meaning that by using two D10s you're actually only getting a D79.

That's just me being anal, though, and would only be something I actually cared about in a custom table where prime numbers are used for effects.

[Julford Hajime]

And on D100s--Depending on the surge list/D100 table, I'd rather use an actual D100 than two D10s.

The reason?

Prime numbers between 10 and 100. There are 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97 meaning that by using two D10s you're actually only getting a D79.

That's just me being anal, though, and would only be something I actually cared about in a custom table where prime numbers are used for effects.

What?

...Like no really, what?

Using two d10s is the same as a d100. One of the die is the tens place, and the other die is the singles place. For example, if a green (tens) die rolls a five and a red (singles) die rolls a seven, you've rolled a fifty-seven. A roll of 0/0 is equivalent to 100 if the scale is 1-100 instead of 0-99.

I don't know where primes factor into this.

[Krylo]

What?

...Like no really, what?

Using two d10s is the same as a d100. One of the die is the tens place, and the other die is the singles place. For example, if a green (tens) die rolls a five and a red (singles) die rolls a seven, you've rolled a fifty-seven. A roll of 0/0 is equivalent to 100 if the scale is 1-100 instead of 0-99.

I don't know where primes factor into this.

Ignore that, I'm not sure what I was thinking exactly.

[EVILNess]

I must point out that I am disappointed that none of you said anything about the prospect of a high fantasy Mad Max.

[Geminex]

Ignore that, I'm not sure what I was thinking exactly.
You were thinking that the results of both dice got multiplied, it seems. And, in fact, that wouldn't even be a D79, because if you went with multiplication, certain numbers would be far more likely than others. I'm guessing that's why nobody multiplies.

...

Yeah, I got nothin'. Carry on.

[Yumil]

You were thinking that the results of both dice got multiplied, it seems. And, in fact, that wouldn't even be a D79, because if you went with multiplication, certain numbers would be far more likely than others. I'm guessing that's why nobody multiplies.

...

Yeah, I got nothin'. Carry on.
Besides thinking of one as the tens digit and the other as the ones is easier, specially if you suck at math(why youd be playing pen and paper with insufficient math skills is beyond me).

[tacticslion]

Because it doesn't function in the title box: :dance:
I used-ed too many lots of words! :D

:aaa: D00d! Juu uz3d t0w m4ny w0rds and br0ked my h34d! :mad:

:ohdear: Sorry, Krylo, my bad! :( By the way, I've been spelling your name with a lower-case "k", because I thought that's how you did, however the quote box clearly uses capital "K" when it quotes you. You got a preference? I mean, I clearly see when I highlight your name that it's spelled with an upper case... so, I don't know where I got the lower-cased thing. :raise: In a void of response from you, I'll start with the upper case.

Hey, I got better.

I got fail safes* you see.

*(Some of which I keep the bodies of minions who failed me)

They killed you, they didn't turn you into a newt! :rolleyes: ... not that Baleful Polymorph could keep you down long, regardless. :cool: Also... keep the bodies of your minions who failed you as a "fail safe"? :eek: I am horrified, yet I dare not look away!

I must point out that I am disappointed that none of you said anything about the prospect of a high fantasy Mad Max.

Yeah, I would have, but I figured I'd dominated the thread long enough. So I waited 'til others spoke so I could dominate the thread then! :3:

(why youd be playing 4th Edition is beyond me).
Kidding! I play 4th Edition too. However it seems to generally have come into existance specifically to cut down on math in PnP. ;)

*This meme is probably just for this post. I had to get it out of my system. ^_^

[krogothwolf]

I just had some awesome fun!

I have a Dwarf Cleric eh, with a warhammer +3 that's blessed, by my god no less! Anyways, we were fighting Devils so, Before hand I had Bull Strenghted Massed me and our 2 tanks. Follwed by righteous might then divine fury. Waded in and SMASH! The demon was gone in one round of combat! I shredded the thing, then cleaved into the next one.(Going for a Divine Hammerer) The other Devil, which took massive damage from a criticalx3 cleave retreated leaving the controlling mage alone. The DM couldn't believe how quickly the 2 devils fell. It was Glorious!!!

[tacticslion]

It was Glorious!!!

NICE! I especially love the critical x3 - that's an awesome, especially when added to your other very cleverly placed bonuses (enhancement, size, and divine all stack instead of overlap)! Why'd you already have MB'sSTR running, though? Smashin' through other enemies I'm guessin'? That said, Divine Fury is that feat in Complete Divine that allows you to channel Turn Undead into *IMMA SMASH YOUSE!* right? Kind of like a Smite-On-Demand? Is that a standard or swift action? ...I can't find my Complete D. to check! What kind of devils were they? More details! The nerdy heart that beats within my chest loves them so!

[krogothwolf]

Sorry, my bad! I meant Divine Power. So I have 20 str thanks to a blessing I recieved from my god for preforming and awesome quest(got +2str and +2 wis!So I have 24 Wisdom to boot) Then got +8 size bonus to strenght and the +6 enhancement bonus to str from Divine Power. I WAS MONSTOROUS!!! I had 34 str. So a +12! along with +3 for my weapon, which added 2d6 against devils and with my size I was rolling 4d6! To hit. I Broke his encounter. I hadn't used either of those spells before so he figured it'd be a tough encounter and all, 2 high level demons and a high level mage verses are tired party from wading through a few tough minions of his. Plus in turn 6 he was supposed to have 2 mages teleport in.

Anyways, being lvl 16 I got the 4th Attack thanks to my Attack Bonus becoming 16! It was wonderful. I rolled a crit on my first attack, and did 18x2+15=51 damage, then 2 regular hits at 31 and 29, then a second crit with my last one which I rolled all 6's! for 24x2+15 for 63 damage! I murdered the bastard!(the other guys had done about 40-50 damage after DR to it before I wadded in to the frey). Then I smacked the second one for 22x3+15! So 81 damage! IT WAS GLORIOUS! So he had to bring in the reinforcement mages in earlier! The first one teleported in beside me and I got an attack of opportunity on it and I killed him in that hit and then chased him down and slaughtered him my next go. All the mages started blasting at me at that point but it was okay, they used fire and I had my shield that had me only take half damage from fire, plus I kept saving, so I was talking half of that! Everyone was laughing as the mages tried invisibility then I'd purge the area. God It was great.

[tacticslion]

Rock!

Sounds awesome and tons of fun! Also: did I have a wierd dream, or did you write somewhere about your GM creating feats and stuff?

My bad

Que? I think you did fine, I don't see anything wrong here.

In my own (4E) game, so far I've:
planted a Dream Seed (a kind of semi-permanent "trust me" charm-like effect that's really difficult to pull off) on the queen of the evil organization (a unique multi-racial woman), her only other living consort (a super-smart drow aracnomancer; my character's the "other" other living consort), and a small imp originally summoned by the queen. The drow mage woke up first and I've convinced her that a) it was the fault of a "Genus Loci" (a rare primal earth-spirit that absorbs and responds to the emotions/worship of those living in an area) and b) to help me convince the queen, orcs, dragonborn, and the rest to completely switch religions.

The Genus Loci Story (according to my character):
There's a Genus Loci - a kind of rare and powerful primal spirit - that inhabits the mountain. It feeds off of and empowers certain emotions and beliefs - those that are held and expressed strongly enough for long enough repeatedly within its presence. Eventually it takes on the properties of that worship/belief and expresses itself through those who are within it - a kind of emotional possession and mental influence, so it doesn't completely dictate the actions of the subject, but dictates the kind of actions and their ultimate goal. Simultaneously, it can be "bargained" with by a subject (that subject generally thinking they are bargaining with themself) who successfully either recognizes the sway held over it or simply that something is wrong; such "bargaining" basically consists of "if we wait to do X, or add him/her to our 'collective spirit' we can do/accomplish X better". After the possession is over (through whatever means) the subject pretty much falls unconscious for a while. In our specific case, the Genus Loci was supposedly the result of the worship of Gruumsh, Lolth, and Tiamat - destruction, treachery, and desire (as taught by the Queen in her version of the "Dark Trinity"). My character supposedly "tricked" the Genus Loci once he was possessed into slowly possessing everyone else, until he could convince it that the best host for its full essence was the orc chieftain (one of the consorts). The Genus Loci then fully bonded with the orc-chieftain (while retaining only the most minor elements within its other hosts) who went insane and tried to kill everyone (and succeeded at killing the last consort), only to be killed in return. Then my character used his (until then carefully hidden) healing power - granted by Bahamut - to heal the minds of those fallen under its sway (who soon started falling unconscious), including the drow, who now believes this hook, line, and sinker. As a bonus, she's convinced that it also messes with your memories, so if some people say slightly contradictory things, that's why. What really happened can be found here (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1034071&postcount=25), or if you don't feel like searching:
To review: My lawful good follower of Bahamut lied his way into a position of prominance in an evil organization, seduced the ruler, betrayed all of his new 'friends' (killing two of them, with a third killed on false pretenses) and installed a puppet governor instead, granting me virtually limitless power over a bloodthirsty mob.

My party: just watched and thwacked bad guys every once in a while on my say-so.

Also, technically he never lied, exactly (well, he did once, but that was on accident and was minor) - he simply told the truth in such a way that everyone heard what they wanted to hear.

The New Religion: We've got the Religious character in our group - a half-elf paladin of Sehanine - creating this whole "gleaming Trinity" schtick comprised of Bahamut (dragon/born) [me], Kord (part/orc) [none in our party, but see below], and Eilistraee/Sehanine (the half-elf). Eilistraee is going to be seen as an aspect of Sehanine. The Paladin is all about this because Sehanine is a goddess of trickery (and nowhere that any of us know about is Sehanine really Eilistraee) and illusion (meaning it totally makes sense that a gorgeous femal elf could convincingly appear as a gorgeous female drow) and both deities are of the moon and rather... shall we say, risque night-time activities (Eil's is nude dancing while Seh's is finding a lover, but still, risque). Further: both are totally anti-Lolth! Moradin, the last of the three deities that sent us on this mission (Bahamut [me], Sehanine [the half-elf], and Moradin [the dwarf wizard]) seems to get the shaft, however Kord and Bahamut are both "best buds forever", as my character would put it, with Moradin, and thus he recieves a place of honor and veneration. Also (regardless of the "truth" which is malleable with deities's "true forms" anyway) Kord is totally a (half-)orc who's all about the (half-)orc people. We'll just leave out the "(half-)" part when we're selling it. The drow aracnomancer has effectively bought it all, hook, line, and sinker.

Finally: Smarty! Get in here and get to yappin'! I've only been waiting, like, forever!

[krogothwolf]

No, you did, but then I remembered that was a different campaign then the one we played the last few times and corrected myself. He did make a Divine Fury feat that gives 1d6 to str to 1 character/level. He made my Barbarian a Dragon Roar feat that allows him to preform a Dragon Breath attack 1 per day per 2 levels, it's kinda fun to use. He's made a few other ones that I can't remember off the top of my head.

[BitVyper]

Okay, no D&D this week again (gah), but here's an old WH40K story. The Legend of the Archer:

It all started when two of my friends were having a game of WH40K. Space Marines vs Tyranids. Space Marines were in trouble. I was bored, and I'd found a vanilla WH archer sitting around - just one of the ordinary guys. As the Tyranids were closing on a group of Marines, I suddenly stuck him on top of a hill and shouted "NOT WHILE I'M AROUND." So began his legend.

The archer has singlehandedly killed a Carnifex. Some orks believe that he is Gork.... or Mork. Some believe him to be a mortal avatar of the Emperor himself. No one really knows anything about him though. He appears on battlefields seemingly out of nowhere, does his work, and vanishes. You never know which side he'll help, just that you don't want to be on the other one. He can singlehandedly darken the sky with an endless supply of arrows. He can outfight orks in close combat; in fact he once garroted a warboss with one of his spare bowstrings. He doesn't have a ship of any kind - instead he fires an arrow which opens a small hole directly to the Warp and cuts a path directly to his destination. Daemons know well enough to leave him alone, and when they see the blazing white glow of his arrow, they run home to their Daemon houses and shut the doors tight.

Ever wonder why Old One Eye only has one eye? Whatever you may have heard about a weakness to plasma weapons and such is a pile of horseshit. The Archer happened to its eye. No one knows why he let it live. Some speculate that he did it just to show the Hive Mind that he could kill anything it made, anytime he wanted.

[TDK]

Okay, no D&D this week again (gah), but here's an old WH40K story. The Legend of the Archer:

It all started when two of my friends were having a game of WH40K. Space Marines vs Tyranids. Space Marines were in trouble. I was bored, and I'd found a vanilla WH archer sitting around - just one of the ordinary guys. As the Tyranids were closing on a group of Marines, I suddenly stuck him on top of a hill and shouted "NOT WHILE I'M AROUND." So began his legend.

The archer has singlehandedly killed a Carnifex. Some orks believe that he is Gork.... or Mork. Some believe him to be a mortal avatar of the Emperor himself. No one really knows anything about him though. He appears on battlefields seemingly out of nowhere, does his work, and vanishes. You never know which side he'll help, just that you don't want to be on the other one. He can singlehandedly darken the sky with an endless supply of arrows. He can outfight orks in close combat; in fact he once garroted a warboss with one of his spare bowstrings. He doesn't have a ship of any kind - instead he fires an arrow which opens a small hole directly to the Warp and cuts a path directly to his destination. Daemons know well enough to leave him alone, and when they see the blazing white glow of his arrow, they run home to their Daemon houses and shut the doors tight.

Ever wonder why Old One Eye only has one eye? Whatever you may have heard about a weakness to plasma weapons and such is a pile of horseshit. The Archer happened to its eye. No one knows why he let it live. Some speculate that he did it just to show the Hive Mind that he could kill anything it made, anytime he wanted.

I've never played Warhammer or 40k, but I've always wanted to.

But that's just fucking epic. XD

[Rejected Again]

Last night I killed an entire village of goblins with my Wizard. First I made them leave the village by setting it on fire, then I caused them chase me towards a cliff. Before this had started I used Hallucinatory Terrain to make it appear as if the cliff was 20 feet farther out than it really was. My DM stole my wands of Expeditious Retreat and Wind Walk.

[BitVyper]

Last night I killed an entire village of goblins with my Wizard. First I made them leave the village by setting it on fire, then I caused them chase me towards a cliff. Before this had started I used Hallucinatory Terrain to make it appear as if the cliff was 20 feet farther out than it really was. My DM no longer allows me to play illusionists with a wand of wind walk...

Ah, the Sparrowhawk ploy. That's okay - things like darkness and fog work just as well. I wouldn't disallow that kind of character anyway - that's how they're supposed to operate. Just means you're good at playing one. Their weakness is that they get in trouble when they aren't smarter than everyone else, or at least a couple steps ahead of the game.

Awesome work, anyway.

[EVILNess]

Hrmm, the world exploded in my campaign. This could be a setback.

[BitVyper]

Hrmm, the world exploded in my campaign. This could be a setback.

Make Whole!

[krogothwolf]

Well, my dwarf cleric nearly died today. It was an entertaining fight. We wrere battling Vampires and a Lich. We had killed the Lich and most oft he Vampires, but we were sorely screwed. We lost one member to death and our sorcerer was knocked out. My cleric fell at -9. Soon to be dead. We had 1 member left alive and kicking, though barely. I rolled and stabalized on the first turn. The DM let me move about if I wanted to. Landing beside our sorcerer I did bestow on him a heal minor to stabalize him and bring him to 0. He lived and was able to cast spells! And thus did he rise from the grave and bring fire upon the Vampire, burning him to a crisp! It was great!

[Ryong]

I started playing 4th ed. today. Human Warden.

My team fought sahagins. A small one watched as we slew all others. We're expecting it to either come back at us later for revenge or grow up and rule the sahagins and tell its children about the day where a Minotaur Barbarian killed most of its family in less than a minute, with a human warden, a human psion and an eladrin wizard killed the rest.

For the record, the minotaur rolled nothing lower than 17 for the four turns the fight lasted ( one of the sahagins was a bit further away with a bow ).

[tacticslion]

Hrmm, the world exploded in my campaign. This could be a setback.

Make Whole!

No, no, no, no, no. You're both thinking too small. Really, this is the best thing that could happen - you no longer have to worry about inconveniencing everyone on the planet! EVILNess, simply do the infamous infinite black-pudding claw-split trick and create a new world's worth of mass out of yoursel(f/ves). Then (after linking all of your minds together - which you should have anyway - mass spam Polymorph Any Object on your now Over-Mind Gestalt Earth-god(like) State until you create a new planet out of you, that you are not only in tune with but actually are the incarnate form of. Just one of the many benifits is that you will quite literally get billions of listen, spot, knowledge, etc checks every time you make one! Further, you can clone/create one (or more) additional you's than Polymorph Any Object them until they become viable males and/or females of various races, ethnicities and kinds as you desire with which you, you, you, and/or you could repopulate said new world. Also, I highly recommend setting up an infinite contengency loop with Reincarnate on yourself linked with an appropriate spell of your choice to return you to your original race/form, if you care (you'll have billions upon billions of extra XP to use, it's yours, after all!). Go hog-wild! You are all of existance now. ... unless you have now ceased to exist too. In which case, good job, chump.

Clerics ever prove their awesome by being the best friend of everyone on the team.

NICE! Watch out for that lich, though. "He'll be back...!"

My team fought sahagins. A small one watched as we slew all others. We're expecting it to either come back at us later for revenge or grow up and rule the sahagins and tell its children about the day where a Minotaur Barbarian killed most of its family in less than a minute, with a human warden, a human psion and an eladrin wizard killed the rest.

Wait, wait, wait. You saw a poor, megere child Sahuagin alone after slaughtering its whole family before its eyes and you didn't capture it and turn it into a party member? What kind of wacky-bizarre hijink-filled game are you guys playing, anyway? GM's expect that kind of thing!*

Also: wardens are (to my knowledge) the toughest single player-class available (Paladins being impressive because they have more healing surges!). And that minotaur had nice rolls.

*No, and it is therefore awesome.

[BitVyper]

Yeah, you could rebuild the world in your own image, but we both know you'll just break it again. With my method you can break it as much as you want any time you want, and never be inconvenienced with tedious recreation. You can be back to ogling bar wenches within minutes.

[tacticslion]

Yeah, you could rebuild the world in your own image, but we both know you'll just break it again. With my method you can break it as much as you want any time you want, and never be inconvenienced with tedious recreation. You can be back to ogling bar wenches within minutes.

But... my method involves overly complex and illogical holes in the 3.X system!

[krogothwolf]

Personally, I would suggest EvilNESS should just bring is campaign of world destruction the the planes and conquer them, or destroy em trying!

[tacticslion]

Personally, I would suggest EvilNESS should just bring is campaign of world destruction the the planes and conquer them, or destroy em trying!

This... actually makes some sense. I got it!

First: do the world-recreation trick from yourself that I just taught you*. Then, translocate (gate, teleportation, whatever it doesn't matter) said world into the positive energy plane. Wait, it gets better. Then, use the energy-charge wells (places within the plane that, instead of giving you negative levels, give you temporary positive ones instead) that you will find simply from having an entire planet-sized mass of listen/search/spot checks, as well as having a 99% likelyhood of (simply wandering into it from your new advanced size) and use that to charge up your spell-casting skills (spreading the excess HD around, as needed) until you've got enough power to create a nigh-infinite loop-circle to gain additional caster levels, until you can epic-spell (with a DC of 0 due to "mitigating" elements, for no research time) such that you a) actually merge your planet-consciousness with the positive energy plane, and b) create a plane-wide Manifest Zone of the positive energy plane (which is now you) in Limbo (or similar plane). Use that to permanently merge the two planes (meaning you now controll all of the positive energy plane and limbo, as they are merely extensions of yourself). Perform a similar feats with (in order) Mechanus, Acheron, Ysgard, Celestia, the Outlands, and the Ethereal Plane. You are now the will of the fundamental expressions of law and order, life and creation, and everything else will be naught before you. Also, by this point, you should probably be running low on energy (or the DM will be hating you so much something else with more starting hit dice than you started with starts doing similar with the other planes) so, I'd stop there, consolidate my victory, and proceed to dump Hell into the Abyss and make it look to each party like the otherone did it, and then dump both into Carceri (which you can make it appear that their fighting caused it), claim the Astral Sea as your own, and eliminate any upstart peon planes that begin to get uppity, while manifesting/creating yourself as a planet (you now have infinite life/creation powers) and, once you're done, take the easy way out and just have infinite Contengency (mending) spells! Also, for more adventures, send your incarnate avatar into the new Hell/Abyss/Carceri/bad place you've made and win DnD!

*EVILness, PM me if you don't know the fine details and want them. It's the only fully RAW thing here! (Energy Charges exist, but I'm not certain the exist as I've written them - I think they give generic bonuses, like negative levels give generic penalties.

EDIT: my character just made a natural 20 on his "find a pleasant furrow filled with moss" check!

ADDENDUM:
So, the queen woke up at our last playing session (via a power granted me through ritual, once fully affected by said power - a difficult thing to get done - she's unconscious until she fails a save she makes once a day, making her think of me a utterly trustworthy regardless of anything else that's happened). I persuaded the drow aracnomancer to tell the queen about the events that occurred. Since the drow wasn't lying (she actually believes it happened) all I had to do was shrug (a lower bluff DC than detailing the unbelievable) and the queen had her two most trusted servants telling her "what really happened", and she bought it. After a day or so of preparation, via my new uber-influence, I convinced the queen to crown the (new) orc-chieftan's consort the new "queen" and surrender her own title: the former queen "ascended" to empress in this ceremony, but is thus taking a "back seat" role in affairs (less work/theoretically more authority = let her be lazier, she loved it).

After convincing her, my group then led in the creation of a road through the mountain directly into the town formerly threatened by the group I'm now virtually in charge of (the new queen is utterly loyal to the new chief who, in turn, is utterly loyal to me). My group and I convinced the town of Undercloud that we're not an invasion force (thanks especially to the half-elf paladin of Sehanine and an NPC priestess), but are heroes instead; that the mountain is more or less safe now; and that they can call off the invasion we didn't know they were planning until our arrival, which it seems they more or less have... at least Undercloud (the town we're in) will no longer invade the caverns, however we're uncertain of Peakside (the town on the other side of the mountain). So, while we've technically won everything we set out to do originally, it may be in vain, unless we go through the mountain and road to Peakside and get there in time to prevent the invasion. Incidentally, I've recruited a few fellow adventurers we rescued into setting up the first ever football teams and leagues, with the first ever stadium hopefully being carved out by the umberhulks we have under our control soon.

Oh, and while neither Undercloud nor Peakside have the actual resources for invasion, what has apparently happened is the distant baron of a land that I know next to nothing about, was contacted with the information I secretly (and semi-anonymously) smuggled out to Undercloud, who used his power to re-enforce and connect both towns with eachother for a coordinated invasion. On our side, we've got a poor farmer family who was kidnapped by the former orc chieftain, but who saw him beheaded, the cruel drow executed, the new chief raised, the new queen announced, and were treated as well as we could under the mountain for several days before we could head out. So, we're probably going to need to go talk to him too, before this whole thing is done. I only hope that his "weakness" I faked (fey-blooded females) when I wrote my report to worm my way into the evil organization the first time is real, 'cause we've got four and a half readily-available ones to convince him (the queen has drow blood, the aracnomancer, a kind drow warrior we've more or less recruited, and one half-elf and one doppleganger pretending to be a half-elf in our party (I have the only character besides her that knows she's not a half-elf, even in our party) <don't read this if you're not me and playing in our game>).

So, our current (half-realized) goals:
~ to change the evil organization into a good organization
~ to create a working, viable, and safe trade-route through the mountain that benefits all three communities (the town of Peakside, the town of Undercloud, and the Cloudskill Caverns)
~ to create a restaurant (in progress), a bjorker league (two teams minimum, in conceptual stages), and (orcs as miners and caravan guards, spider-silk garments, dragon(born)-cooked and spiced food, magic item creation and other ritual utility)
~ to make a lasting peace with Undercloud, Peakside, and Cloudskill Caverns
~ to successfully intigrate orcs, drow, and dragonborn with surface race's civilization (to a limited extent, at least; still in earliest of stages).

tl;dr version: we tricked the queen into giving up most of her authority to someone easily controlled by me, and are now in the process of bringing peace and trade negotiations to three different "towns".

NOTE: I will edit this post into my previous one soon (probably simply deleting the title and this note)! I.E. when someone else posts in this thread with their own game stuff!

[Lady Fire Dove]

Random fond memories of PCs I've played:

-my 3.5 human cleric/bard Maya painting amazing heroic perfect-20 murals of our own adventuring party around a town we saved to forever commemorate our awesomeness :D

- my 3.5 elf cleric/ranger Lia convincing the stoic silent-type rogue/monk that life was pretty pointless without love ^_^

- human 3.5 low-level rogue/bard Geneva facing a crazily escalating situation of an uber-badguy revealed ahead of schedule, summoning a giant Nightwalker, and all heck breaking loose :aaa:

-my 3.5 human fighter/bard Sharat and party accidently luring an angry dragon to attack the nice shopkeeper who gave us a place to stay (okay, this didn't actually happen but my character seriously feared it would when we found out from the shopkeeper that the cave we just stole a bunch of awesome stuff from belonged to a powerful and active dragon.) :3:

-my 3.5 human swashbuckler Crystal finally ascending to divinity, after a massive PR campaign promoting herself to the general public (including the creation of hand-drawn "The Adventures of Crystal the Swashbuckler" comics :dance:, copied by amanuensis, and dropped from a flying city), only to discover that divinity wasn't all it was cracked up to be :rolleyes:

- my 4.0 eladrin wizard Meriele finding the perfect butler to run her newly acquired household and setting up a den of kobolds underneath her family's ancestral home :)

- my 3.5 (sort-of) human warlock Soliloquy realizing that reality wasn't. :eek:

- my 3.5 shapeshifter telepath Rina/Ruby/SaucySara/Hammer/Betty/Talia/Ethel/Lhana/Okahumpka infiltrating just about every rival organization inside and outside the city :dance:

- my 4.0 gnome bard Nissi buying 'dragon bait' (ketchup packets) from some shady halflings in a bar, and actually having it come in supremely useful :D

So... how about you? Any fun, fond character memories?

[krogothwolf]

Well, my 2nd edition Dwarf Warrior was great. He slaughtered so many enemies and he pissed of every single NPC of importance he met. A Dwarf Death Knight when we were level 7, a Great Green Dragon at level 10. Everything single person. He was gruff and blunt and it ticked everyone off.

A 2nd edition Elf Ranger. Best part was what happened during a fight. Got Charmed and ordered to fight my companion with an Axe that when it hits it has a chance to incinerate the thing it hits. He hit me with the flat end of the Axe, but it still had a chance to incinerate. I saved by 1!

My current 3.5 Dwarf cleric who burns things! And wields immense power when fighting hand to hand. He's the only character not to die in the campaign so far. It so rocks! Last saturday's session wasn't as amazing though because it was mostly in the city. I did get myself a Peridot of Wisdom +4 So I now have 26 Wisdom. Wises Dwarf ever! And my full plate +2 for even more close combat fun!

[tacticslion]

- my 3.5 (sort-of) human warlock Soliloquy realizing that reality wasn't. :eek:

Hey, now, reality totally was! ... it just didn't work exactly the way you thought it did. Also, you were really an epic-level permanent shadow illusion (along with a bunch of people). And, need I remind you, you eventually gained absolute control over that illusion (for the next two hundred years or so until they become real people).

- my 3.5 shapeshifter telepath Rina/Ruby/SaucySara/Hammer/Betty/Talia/Ethel/Lhana/Okahumpka infiltrating just about every rival organization inside and outside the city :dance: Yes. Yes, you did. Also you've managed to work your way into every single available possition of power. You've also managed to work your way into several not-(previously)available positions of power and create a few of your own! I have to admit, though, the whole rescue the orc thing? Awesome. I still don't know how, exactly, you managed to reveal your secret identity - repeatedly - and still keep it a secret. Telepaths (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byu1LpPsYvE).

So... how about you? Any fun, fond character memories?

One of mine, you may recall, was when my half (frost) giant-half drow ranger managed to ubercrit the half-drow mage he tricked into letting his guard down for a moment. Oh, yeah, that mage that was supposed to be a recurring villian, wasn't he? Ah, yes, that was fun. Also, that time when my character managed to defeat and hypnotize the leader of the lizard men into making his tribe our loyal allies! Good times, that.

Note: I also love the ones you've mentioned as well - heh, those were fun.

[Lady Fire Dove]

One of mine, you may recall, was when my half (frost) giant-half drow ranger managed to ubercrit the half-drow mage he tricked into letting his guard down for a moment. Oh, yeah, that mage that was supposed to be a recurring villian, wasn't he? Ah, yes, that was fun.


Heh. Actually that half-drow mage was supposed to be a recurring ally.

Oops.

:D

[tacticslion]

Heh. Actually that half-drow mage was supposed to be a recurring ally.

Oops.

:D

Whelp. I just got TOLD.

EDIT: well how was I supposed to know that? He was my character's wife's former lover! Also, he was hurling tons fireballs at a helpless elf village! And we totally didn't have any time for alignment debates and whether or not the drow were a misunderstood, repressed people! And... and... yeah, there's no saving that one. But I'm trying to get him raised from the dead!

[Lady Fire Dove]

Well, my 2nd edition Dwarf Warrior was great. He slaughtered so many enemies . . .
A 2nd edition Elf Ranger. Best part was what happened during a fight. . .
My current 3.5 Dwarf cleric who burns things! And wields immense power when fighting hand to hand. . . Last saturday's session wasn't as amazing though because it was mostly in the city. . . .my full plate +2 for even more close combat fun!

It's interesting how most of your fond memories involve combat, Krogo, whereas mine don't ... and it's funny how you like the city parts of a campaign less ... those are my favorite parts! I comletely thrive on the character interaction. ^_^

Out of curiosity for anyone else reading this, in addition to wanting to hear more fun character memories, I'd love to know:

Who tends to prefer the combat adventures and who tends to prefer the character-driven ones?

[tacticslion]

Who tends to prefer the combat adventures and who tends to prefer the character-driven ones?

Yes. I'm sorry, was there a choice involved here? Though, really, I think I lean a bit toward the character interaction and clever plots initiated to minimalize the difficulty of combat.

[Lady Fire Dove]

Also, he was hurling tons fireballs at a helpless elf village!

If by "helpless elf village" you mean "strategic military outpost," and by "tons" you mean "one." :cool:

[krogothwolf]

It's interesting how most of your fond memories involve combat, Krogo, whereas mine don't ... and it's funny how you like the city parts of a campaign less ... those are my favorite parts! I comletely thrive on the character interaction. ^_^

Out of curiosity for anyone else reading this, in addition to wanting to hear more fun character memories, I'd love to know:

Who tends to prefer the combat adventures and who tends to prefer the character-driven ones?

I enjoy the city ones, but the stories really aren't as awesome to tell as combat ones. I mean, I could tell you how I haggled the merchant down on price of the full plate, or how while escaping from a group of assassin's I cast light on a stone then threw it away and spooked the common folk. But it's no where near as exciting to spin the tale of how the Mighty Dwarf Cleric did expand his mass and lay waste into the hell spawned enemies of they party with his mighty warhammer that was forged by the gods and smite them with mighty swings that would have uproated a tree. Really, when it comes to story telling combat is far more exciting to go into detail. My Cleric does have a reputation in the City of burning things that has the common folk avoid him at all costs, it's quite funny to see them part before him as he strolls down the street, clanking in his new armour with a feverish gleen in his eyes!

[Terex4]

I'll be honest I like the character moments more than I do the combat moments. This is primarily driven by three facts.

1) My dice hate me
2) My DM's dice hate me
3) I get in bigger trouble due to the inability of NPCs to see that I really am a great guy.

My last long term character was a 2nd edition fighter/thief with both versions of the swashbuckler kit. He was a ladies man and after our first night of play (in which I enjoyed the pleasures a barmaid had to offer inside a barn) the cattle sex jokes wouldn't cease (unfortunately the others in my group have a hard time separating character knowledge from player knowledge especially if they can accuse me of raping a cow).

We then went to our ship to meet with the captain. We toasted our maiden voyage and I was assigned to pull anchor. The paladin was kind enough to assist me, so while he got in front to help hoist the anchor up, my character kicked back and enjoyed the rest of his wine while making the occasional arm motion to simulate anchor pulling in case the paladin saw his shadow or turned around slightly.

I was in another game in which a friend of mine and I decided to play twin sisters. I was a priestess while she played a witch (2nd ed mage kit). We had to play out a brief prologue where she broke into a house and I followed to pull her back out. We were discovered when we broke into a fight in the middle of the living room (we were 10 years old). The owner of the house (another player) was found by the town guard holding my friend up by her shirt with a broken bottle to her throat (he drew a picture it was great).

We did the normal shenanigans twins do like pulling a switch and (years later from the prologue) attempting to seduce the captain of the guard into releasing our friend (the guy whose house we broke into) from jail.

Our DM is a black guy who is racist against black people so as a joke we wrote a character into our backgrounds that he would have to play as a NPC. We made her as stereotypical southern black nanny as we could and rolled with laughter when he did an amazing job playing her.

My next character is going to be starting at level 10 which leaves me a hard choice. Take advantage of a level I don't usually get to play due to games ending prematurely and pick a mage, or roll the charlatan bard kit for lulz.

Edit: The cow I was accused of raping was in fact a reference to a literal cow, not the size of the barmaid.

[tacticslion]

I comletely thrive on the character interaction. ^_^ OH MY WORD, does she ever.

Me: Oh, hey, I'mma GM, just hanging out and populating my world with semi-realistic moderately interesting characters. ^_^
Her: Ooh, that one's neat, what's her name? :)
Me: Oh, uh, "Jill", sure why not? :)
Her: Neat! I'll recruit her! :3:
Me:... not without a really good diplomac- :raise:
Her: ~natural 20~! :D
Me: :eek: ... well you have to act it- :raise:
Her: *great conversation due to skill at improv* ;)
Me: ... roll me another diplomac- :mad:
Her: natural 20, again! Just to confirm, ooh, it's another one! :D
Me:... fine. She's now part of the party. :(
Her: Cool! Oh, who's he? :3:
Me: :(

I mean, she recruits, like, everyone. I've had to start statting out every NPC I create in full detail, just in case she happens to come across them and decide on a whim that they're the one she wants in the party! I'll admit this can be kind of fun, however. Also, she knows (now) that I'm a notoriously cruel GM to my NPCs. They drop like flies... who are then reanimated into zombie-flies! Also they are probably wounded, maimed, and/or hideously scarred along the way. ... sometimes they get better...

I'll be honest I like the character moments more than I do the combat moments. This is primarily driven by three facts.

1) My dice hate me
2) My DM's dice hate me
3) I get in bigger trouble due to the inability of NPCs to see that I really am a great guy. Get new dice? I dunno, man, that's pretty hard. Although, I might suggest taking "10" as often as possible (it's a 3.X thing).

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Fully the best DnD session was na 8 hour session, entirely playing out the victory celebrations at a restaurant after defeating one of the main baddies. Totally sweet.

[Corel]

Reading this thread makes me sad that I'm unable to currently play the Dungeons and Dragons.

I hope you're all happy.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I managed to play, mostly online, and I think I'm in hte same time zone as yous. It's not the fault of Monsieur Greenwich.

[krogothwolf]

My GM has trouble making NPC's that can handle the parties pace. Really does so any NPC we manage to drag along, dies either 1 or 2 encounters in.

One great session way back when in this current campaign was we were hired as Escorts for a caravan with 4 wagons. Everything was going great till we got ambushed by Minotaurs. 1 Caravan driver shat his pants at first sight and fled, into the mace of one of them. The 2nd one died quickly when he tried to attack one. We handled the others in the front fairly easily. Then 3 charged the rear protected by our rogue, me and the last driver. Well, rogue dodged one charging minotaur only to be critically gored on the second's horn and killed out right from full health to -12 in one hit. The 3rd came at me and died, and the 1st chased down the driver and trampled him to death before getting slaughtered. Now came the really fun part. WE had to DRIVE the Caravan's! Oh Ho Ho Ho! What merry fun we had! So we rolled pretty crappy at the outset, nothing horrible, but still pretty crappy and we were making HORRIBLE TIME. Anyways, things went bad to worse from there. We started rolling really bad, 1's all over the place. We crashed into each other, hit trees, ran into a stream and got stuck and had to pull it out. My wagon got tipped over, buddies horses wandered off with the wagon and we spent an hour searching for him and the wagon. We turned a 3 day journey into 7 days. It's was nightmare!

I've never played DnD Online, everytime a group gets started here it dies :( It makes me sad :(

[Corel]

I managed to play, mostly online, and I think I'm in hte same time zone as yous. It's not the fault of Monsieur Greenwich.

Oh, I'm still out in Comrade China's time zone. Probably would still be in a similar predicament either way.

Goes for both online and in person, each one has got it's advantages and disadvantages and stuff. I think as I got older I enjoyed playing it in person more.

I remember trying to describe table top board gaming to someone in Chinese a while back. They were incredibly confused by the concept (Which is the similar reaction in other countries, but still).

Has the swearing to god I'll be pistol whipping the next person who says shenanigans quoting been done yet? Or have I not read close enough?

[Professor Smarmiarty]

My GM has trouble making NPC's that can handle the parties pace. Really does so any NPC we manage to drag along, dies either 1 or 2 encounters in.

Isn't that point of NPC's? They're like mobile trap detecting kits!

[krogothwolf]

Isn't that point of NPC's? They're like mobile trap detecting kits!

You see, I did that with beggers in the street once, promising to pay them 1 g if they went in to a building. Wanted to find the traps. The DM got mad at me after about 10 beggers got killed this way and had my rogue get ambushed, win the fight then everyone would run screaming from him because he was a murderous bastard.

[tacticslion]

I'm like to torment NPCs in-character
Sheesh. At least mine isn't in-character evil, but rather the result of enemy actions. Usually its the "my" characters (when the GM is called upon to round out a party for some reason) that recieve the heaviest tolls. The NPC populous only takes tolls when broad sweeps or specific instances occur. It's not like I send them into death traps just to take them from the "good guys".

[krogothwolf]

Sheesh. At least mine isn't in-character evil, but rather the result of enemy actions. Usually its the "my" characters (when the GM is called upon to round out a party for some reason) that recieve the heaviest tolls. The NPC populous only takes tolls when broad sweeps or specific instances occur. It's not like I send them into death traps just to take them from the "good guys".

Hm....I always though NPC's were the PC's whipping boys once you got powerful enough. The best NPC death is the one that got killed by a bear we had to hunt down at level 1 when we used him as bait for the trap, sure we told him we'd save him before the bear could kill him, but that was before we all failed our spot and listen checks while hiding to ambush for said bear. We did hear his screams after bear bit him though!

[Melfice]

Has the swearing to god I'll be pistol whipping the next person who says shenanigans quoting been done yet? Or have I not read close enough?

I wanted to, but I figured both:
1) Everybody took it for granted this joke was make in the privacy of their mind.
2) This would have been my only contribution to the whole thread.

Which makes this post exactly that which I wanted to avoid, but... well.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Sheesh. At least mine isn't in-character evil, but rather the result of enemy actions. Usually its the "my" characters (when the GM is called upon to round out a party for some reason) that recieve the heaviest tolls. The NPC populous only takes tolls when broad sweeps or specific instances occur. It's not like I send them into death traps just to take them from the "good guys".

I kid- most of my time when playing character is trying to stop my other players doing shit like this.
As DM I used to spring NPC adventuring parties on my players- as in they'd come across them also exploring the dungeon and players are so jumpy in dungeons they'll just murder anything in site, even if its the local towns protection

[tacticslion]

I kid- most of my time when playing character is trying to stop my other players doing shit like this.
As DM I used to spring NPC adventuring parties on my players- as in they'd come across them also exploring the dungeon and players are so jumpy in dungeons they'll just murder anything in site, even if its the local towns protection

See, this wouldn't happen with most of the people I play with (except for, like, two guys - one who was jumpy, the other who hated people). Generally if I tried to get them to do something, my groups (I've had a couple in the different places I've lived in) would inevitably talk to them. Even if the other group was too jumpy, they'd talk and calm them down. Except, of course, for that one time I actually expected them to do that, lovingly crafted some characters I expected them to meet and have a semi-professional relationship with, and they proceeded to flub their diplomacy rolls, aided by the spiteful guy flipping out and killing one of them. That led to all of their deaths. So much for that lycanthropic (were-tiger) Yaun-Ti 6th level Rogue with the leadership feat and his posse of individually crafted adventure-followers (including a Zombie Wyvern). It turned out sort of ok, however, when it directly led to one of my players who'd died, been reincarnated as an elf, and carrying around his old body (gently reposed) using the Wyvern and Yaun-Ti parts with his own body to create a flesh golem that could fly. His character's name was Cervan, and he named his Flesh Golem "Little Cervan Jr." Whenever it went berzerk, he (following the rules) would speak to it in a firm, yet soothing voice, calming it back down. "Now, little Cervan, you stop that right now... yes, calm down... no... no... I said no... that's right, now put him down..." etc. Fun times.

[krogothwolf]

I kid- most of my time when playing character is trying to stop my other players doing shit like this.
As DM I used to spring NPC adventuring parties on my players- as in they'd come across them also exploring the dungeon and players are so jumpy in dungeons they'll just murder anything in site, even if its the local towns protection

It's not murder if the other person has a weapon, it's self Defense,

We learned to be less jumpy after killing the King's Champion and Son in a dungeon they were investigating as well as us. That taught us a lesson of not killing everything that moves. Stupid Kid died in 1 hit though, shouldn't have been in the dungeon. Granted it was x3 critical for 70 damage, but still!

[Terex4]

I got new dice, the old ones decided to "show them the ropes".

I even got a dice set for my wife when she decided to try it out, her dice hate me too. Needless to say when I visit Nevada I don't play craps.

[tacticslion]

Reading this thread makes me sad that I'm unable to currently play the Dungeons and Dragons.

I hope you're all happy.

Why, yes, yes I am! :D I'm so happy! :D I'm just soooooo... oh, you mean that you hope I'm happy that you're sad? No... just sad now. :(

Ooh, ooh, I got an idea to hold you over! This (http://nerdyshow.com/?page_id=452)! (Disclaimer: if no one ever treats you "normally" again, because they caught you listening to it, it's not my fault!)

It's not murder if the other person has a weapon, it's self Defense, Eh... I don't think that one's gonna hold up, there, buddy.

We learned to be less jumpy after killing the King's Champion and Son in a dungeon they were investigating as well as us. That taught us a lesson of not killing everything that moves. Stupid Kid died in 1 hit though, shouldn't have been in the dungeon. Granted it was x3 critical for 70 damage, but still! 70... damage... wow.

I got new dice, the old ones decided to "show them the ropes".

I even got a dice set for my wife when she decided to try it out, her dice hate me too. Needless to say when I visit Nevada I don't play craps. That... that's probably for the best.

Also, your story (the cow-sex-mockery-thing) reminds me of this Outlier player I had in my party once. He played (initially) a 120 year old human sorcerer who was rhuematic and had bad eyesight... and was completely senile (He liked exactly one person in the party - the swashbuckler - who was, ironically, the only person who didn't have spell resistance when he kept trying and failing to fireball the rest of the party. He would then try to make up to her for it by prestidigitating flowers and chocolate, which, of course would vanish with an hour, if she tried to eat any, or if she moved any of them slightly faster than really, really slowly... but I digress). He also had a familiar: a yak (she gave him no familiar benefits). At some point late in the game, he used a series of polymorph any object spells to permanently tranform his (now highly intelligent) yak into a human female (and yes, the jokes were flying)... whom he played out as dancing madly through the forest (naked) in order to distract some angry elves long enough for the party to sneak through the area. It ended with the woman falling to her knees from exhaustion, raising her fists triumphantly in the air, and shouting proudly (before she collapsed) "I AM A COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!!" The most amusing part was him playing the last part out in the middle of the Barnes and Noble cafe we were gameing in at the time, and the stares he recieved from the other patrons. :3:

[Rejected Again]

So, Saturday at my tabletop session we were playing my epic level campaign(as in I was the DM) and I toss a leveled up adamantine at the party. The new player( first time ever playing DnD) casts Metal to wood. I congratulate her on a smart move, since that removed a good chunk of DR. On her next turn she proceeded to cast Creeping Doom, activating a feat she had ( I forgot the name) she changed it into a swarm of fucking termites. The bitch.

Edit: To those who can't play offline, try http://www.dndonlinegames.com/ Its a forum for DnD games. Good times and good people. You get some total morons, but for the most part, its a good community of gamers.

[Specterbane]

Heh, I do have a fun story actually.

My first time DMing an adventure I have the party get ship wrecked at the end of the first night and have to find their way out of a ship grave yard infested with lizardmen (we'd just finished an undead adventure, that's why it wasn't full of Sodden Ghouls). As the party gets to the end it was getting late and they decide to take an extended rest before the last two fights, a normal encounter and a boss back to back.

So at the start of the next meet I go ahead and put together a quick little encounter for them to get a little worn down on. During this encounter the wizard uses a fire attack and sets one of the lizardmen on fire in the first round. This lizardman NEVER SAVES, so he was effectively ablaze until his death. After rooting through the lizardmen to try and find somethings of value they eventually open the door the beach where the next two encounters will take place.

Seeing the cooking fire's going the party decides to scout ahead with a spy glass they have and sees a reasonably sized group of lizardmen all around. Now I was thinking that the party would have either stealth or brute force to use at this problem, instead they used guile. They chopped off the head of the burning lizardman and had the wizard mage hand it over to group huddled around the cooking fire. With the dragonborn telling him what to say in draconic, the wizard speaks a haunting warning of the hell that is to come their way. So, laughing my ass off the whole while, I have the party make a few roles and check the highest fortitude stat of the encounter group. The party had rolled well enough to scare the piss out of the pre-boss encounter to have them running scared to their dragon, whom the party promptly beat up and left the grave-yard to find their way to the port they were going towards. It was a pretty fun night actually.

[Wigmund]

Isn't that point of NPC's? They're like mobile trap detecting kits!

I've always wanted to play as a Telepath/Thrallherd (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/D20:Thrallherd_%28Prestige_Class%29) just so I can do this with an endless wave of fodder followers.

[krogothwolf]

You know what was entertainingly funny. We needed a force to help us attack something, there was a sizable barbarian horde nearby and our friend decided to, um, impress them with a display of magic and launched a giant fireball in the air. It didn't impress them, at all. It scared the shit out of them. They ran away so he chased after them. He got them all slaughtered cause they ran into a rival barbarian horde and where to exhausted from running to fight back. Not only that, he attracted a Greater Red Dragon who would of killed us if we didn't surrender each our best magical weapon. He had to surrender two cause he attracted it. It was hilarious.

[tacticslion]

I've always wanted to play as a Telepath/Thrallherd (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/D20:Thrallherd_%28Prestige_Class%29) just so I can do this with an endless wave of fodder followers.

Really, if you want to be a "leader", a thrallherd is the way to go. You are guaranteed loyalty, it holds none of the restrictions (as written) for thralls' and believers' class levels that Leadership does, and your score never drops. Plus you get two thralls instead of only one cohort. The only cost is that you can't have the Leadership feat. It's the perfect deal... until you get into epic levels. If you get into epic levels, then, well, it's the other way around. The epic Thrallherd is eternally stuck with a couple of sixth level believers and a seventeenth and sixteenth level thrall. The epic leader? not (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Epic_Leadership) so (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Legendary_Commander) much. One could argue that the Thrallherd would continue to grow as well, as per the epic rules for classes beyond their "cap" level, however it's given a specific cap "25 or higher", indicating that anything higher than a score of 25 nets you only the benefits of a score of 25, which, in epic rules, means it doesn't advance, by Rules As Written. A good GM should be able to spot you that, though, making most of this meandering diatribe pointless. Yay, I'm a pointless rant! :dance:

... I toss a leveled up adamantine at the party. The new player( first time ever playing DnD) casts Metal to wood. I congratulate her on a smart move, since that removed a good chunk of DR. Er, R-A? While you may have allowed it since it's her first time (a tactic I whole-heartedly approve of), I just thought you should know for the future: Adamantines have total, complete, 100% magic immunity. They have the ability of all Golems "magic immunity", which usually has some work around, but an adamantine's reads "Magic Immunity (Ex): An adamantine golem is immune to all magical and supernatural effects." I, personally, hate them (and that rule), but that's technically what's written there. In reality, however, it doesn't matter. An epic druid has access to the Shapechange spell. One Rust Monster later (their ability is Ex, not Su), and you've still lost an adamantine golem within a round or two. Basically, with epic druids, the rule is "don't do metal stuff" (among other rules). Fun story, though!

Specterbane's story reminds me of this one time my wife's character led a party in a "flaming ettercap on a stick" dance. ... huh, I guess that looks even weirder in print on the internet...

[Professor Smarmiarty]

There was also the time our pacifist halfling cleric disarmed a collosal demon wielding a collosal two handed scythe that she could barely carry despite have a check that was 64 points at a disadvantage (we use rules that if you roll a 20 you get to roll against and add the new results).

Also one time we played a campaign as level 1 commoners- that was pretty awesome until we got murdered by a kobold.

[tacticslion]

There was also the time our pacifist halfling cleric disarmed a collosal demon...

That reminds me! There was this one campaign I ran that the party had worked really hard to get this dragon on their team. I mean, going on a ten-(in-game) year-long quests, large amounts of wealth, and stuff like that to get her to permanently join them (they were doing other stuff in the mean time, but that was a major part of their quest). So finally, they get her: she breathes a cone of electrically charged acid, is size huge, and has all the powers of an advanced druid and sorceress. A massive, powerful monster with an entire army of wicked things comes at the heroes, and it's only in the middle of this battle that they realize that she worships (and was a druid of) Eldath... deity of peace and patron of pacifists. Further, she'd taken a vow to do no harm to any creature, save far-realm inhabitants. You'd think after ten years (and at least triple that number play sessions) that they'd have caught on...

ANYway. So their absolutely crushing despair was eventually mitigated by the fact that a) the opposing force heavily used pseudo-natural creatures and golems and b) she had a massive, surprisingly large (to them) number of non-violent submission spells at her disposal from both sorcery and druid lists. The other party sorcerer, as often the case, was surprised to learn there were ways to overcome a problem that didn't involve evocation. She used a ton of non-violent subduing spells, then launched herself into a viscious, unbelievibly violent frenzy against the unnatural abominations - the only creatures/things that weren't protected by her vows. They still had a huge amount of work to do, but it was a great moment.

Also one time we played a campaign as level 1 commoners- that was pretty awesome until we got murdered by a kobold. Actually, I've been slowly building a campaign for the last few years that effectively replaces PC classes with NPC classes. And in another campaign, I'm really looking forward to eventually playing my commoner that's infected with lycanthrope! :dance:
So, what happened? How did the campaign play out?

[Wigmund]

Really, if you want to be a "leader", a thrallherd is the way to go. You are guaranteed loyalty, it holds none of the restrictions (as written) for thralls' and believers' class levels that Leadership does, and your score never drops. Plus you get two thralls instead of only one cohort. The only cost is that you can't have the Leadership feat. It's the perfect deal... until you get into epic levels. If you get into epic levels, then, well, it's the other way around. The epic Thrallherd is eternally stuck with a couple of sixth level believers and a seventeenth and sixteenth level thrall. The epic leader? not (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Epic_Leadership) so (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Legendary_Commander) much. One could argue that the Thrallherd would continue to grow as well, as per the epic rules for classes beyond their "cap" level, however it's given a specific cap "25 or higher", indicating that anything higher than a score of 25 nets you only the benefits of a score of 25, which, in epic rules, means it doesn't advance, by Rules As Written. A good GM should be able to spot you that, though, making most of this meandering diatribe pointless.

As a Thrallherd I don't want to be a 'leader', I want to have an never-ending supply train of bodies that I can use to fill moats. If I wanted to have followers and care about them, I go for the Leadership feat...the Thrallherd is built to jam traps and feed Swallow Whole monsters. Team up with a Necromancer and there's an endless supply for their undead army.

[tacticslion]

As a Thrallherd I don't want to be a 'leader', I want to have an never-ending supply train of bodies that I can use to fill moats. If I wanted to have followers and care about them, I go for the Leadership feat...the Thrallherd is built to jam traps and feed Swallow Whole monsters. Team up with a Necromancer and there's an endless supply for their undead army.

I understand that. But at epic levels, with the Leadership feat and subsequent enhancements, you can have enough mage wrights and adepts that you can summon anything you want to do the exact same thing. Also, any given necromancer can only hold so much. Trust me, I totally see the benefit - no matter how many you lose, you get more. That's incredible. But once you get ten times the number of followers, all of which are spell casters (minor or not) you suddenly have real power on your hands. Plus at epic leadership, you (eventually) start getting up to - at least ten - twentieth level followers. Conjuring suddenly becomes quite impressive, especially Mage Wrights. Even with only Adepts, you still have tons of power on your side at that point. By that point, it doesn't matter if you care about your followers or not. Simply have them win DnD for you. Of course, it's no where nearly as powerful as the Thrallherd Chain Trick (tm) (made by me), but that's the point at which the GM throws you out of his/her house and hates you, both forever.

[EVILNess]

The power that the pillars contained was absorbed by several different beings when the world exploded, so I spent my last several weekends slaying demigod class beings in an attempt to harness enough power to remake the world into not being blown up.

Except I then jumped into the vortex of power and was granted omniscience and the ability to alter reality as I saw fit (It was either that or have my soul destroyed, that was a hell of a will save.) I then granted my companion's desire's, paid all my debts to the world, got my debts owed, and then remade the world and replaced the pillar system.

I then faded out to places unknown ending the saga of a character I have been playing for four years.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I understand that. But at epic levels, with the Leadership feat and subsequent enhancements, you can have enough mage wrights and adepts that you can summon anything you want to do the exact same thing. Also, any given necromancer can only hold so much. Trust me, I totally see the benefit - no matter how many you lose, you get more. That's incredible. But once you get ten times the number of followers, all of which are spell casters (minor or not) you suddenly have real power on your hands. Plus at epic leadership, you (eventually) start getting up to - at least ten - twentieth level followers. Conjuring suddenly becomes quite impressive, especially Mage Wrights. Even with only Adepts, you still have tons of power on your side at that point. By that point, it doesn't matter if you care about your followers or not. Simply have them win DnD for you. Of course, it's no where nearly as powerful as the Thrallherd Chain Trick (tm) (made by me), but that's the point at which the GM throws you out of his/her house and hates you, both forever.

If you're epic level 20th level characters can't do shit. My character who was level 35 and had one level of every character class and one level of a lot of prestige classes and had old age penalties (ie. the worst built character ever) managed to take down a tarrasque in 1 round on 3 seperate occasions. He murdered 4 old white dragons in 1 round.
20th level characters are like little flies.

[Melfice]

The power that the pillars contained was absorbed by several different beings when the world exploded, so I spent my last several weekends slaying demigod class beings in an attempt to harness enough power to remake the world into not being blown up.

Except I then jumped into the vortex of power and was granted omniscience and the ability to alter reality as I saw fit (It was either that or have my soul destroyed, that was a hell of a will save.) I then granted my companion's desire's, paid all my debts to the world, got my debts owed, and then remade the world and replaced the pillar system.

I then faded out to places unknown ending the saga of a character I have been playing for four years.

... this seems a somewhat anti-climatic ending.
I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole bit is amazing, but the way you bring it. I expected at least 2 big books, or something.
Still, nice work.

[tacticslion]

If you're epic level 20th level characters can't do shit. My character who was level 35 and had one level of every character class and one level of a lot of prestige classes and had old age penalties (ie. the worst built character ever) managed to take down a tarrasque in 1 round on 3 seperate occasions. He murdered 4 old white dragons in 1 round.
20th level characters are like little flies.

Yeah, in theory... until you realize that ten magewrights working in concert can mass-gate epic/advanced solars, pit fiends, efreet, and others to do your bidding and grant you nearly-infinite wishes, create nearly infinite wealth, and similar such things. Especially if you (with your epic authority) artificially boost their caster level. You will literally have the ability to have most of heaven and hell under your command with the appropriate conjurer-enabled choices. I mean, heck, even if the GM rules that a thrallherd only gets NPC classes, the leadership feat specifies that you can take penalties and get PC classes. Do that, build them up, get your stuff on, and win DnD. Epic characters are amazing, but they can only do so much by themselves (without epic magic, see below). All that said, with leadership you'd still have your epic-level cohort.

As to your "epics can do anything": to a point. Especially because at epic levels (unless house rules are in play, as in my games) things end very, very quickly. Save-or-die (with an emphasis on die) happens at epics all the time.

Murder a tarrasque? Okay. Even thrice is doable (although it's not exactly murdering a tarrasque unless you gated him out of the world and wished him dead forever, and even then...). Old Age penalties aren't all that bad, especially for casters as they get the old-age bonuses to go with them. Prestige classes (depending on your choices) could up your magical power, even if you only took one level of them - and you'd have to have specialized in some skills just to gain access to the prestige classes. Once you've upped your magic, you could simply take "epic spellcaster" and *bam*, you've won DnD. Taking one level in every class grants you something extraordinary: saves, and incredible ones. By the time you're epic, you've got better-than-perfect saves and you've got a ton of exploitable stuff from 24 prestige classes. Uber-multiclass isn't great, but it's not as bad as people think.

I do admit I'm making presumptions:
~ 1 you took one of the elven core classes, leaving you 24 prestige class levels
~ 2 about half of those are were magic-based granting you a +12 to caster level(s), granting you access to game-breaking 6th level spells (meaning you don't really have to worry about number three, but it's there anyway)
~ 3 you took epic magic, the most overwhelmingly, mind-blowingly annoying theoretically uber-powered things while simultaneously being an utterly annoying and under-powered thing ever, bent entirely upon the DM's whim

Finally, taking out 4 old white dragons in a round is only possible under unusual circumstances including 1) powerful weaponry and 4 attacks in a round [not possible with RAW multi-class, as you indicated above], 2) fortuitious (for you) spell-rolls/choices with them in a poorly clumped group and/or quicken spell (automatic metamagic [quicken spell] would be useful, but unecessary)and the epic feat that allows you to use more than one quickened spell in a round.

... this seems a somewhat anti-climatic ending.
I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole bit is amazing, but the way you bring it. I expected at least 2 big books, or something.
Still, nice work.

I really don't know what else he could have said, other than detailing what his friends' desires were. I still say he should have remade the world out of himself, like I recommended*, but I suppose this works too!

*That's in this post (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1038260&postcount=68) for all you tactics lion fans!

[krogothwolf]

Okay this was unbelievably bizarre!

Our Session on Saturday was a trap house. Traps almost everywhere and you could really only go in one straight path.

My character is a Dwarf Cleric wearing FULL FUCKING PLATE MAIL! So, I was worried about having to do Reflex saves. Everything was going decently well, we hadn't been hit to hard lately so we're trudging along.

First section we get through fairly easy, then the thief forgets to tell us the section is trapped, I walk through and manage to avoid setting off both traps with high reflex rolls.

We get to 40 foot long hallway, 5 foot corner, one 5 foot square, 10 foot trap with buzzsaws, 5 foots square, 10 foot trap with crashing down ceiling with spikes 5 foot corner.

Anyways, the thief's checked the 10 foot buzz saw trap and then motioned two of us forward. I went first, clunking along in this massive armour, then a Half Orc trudged behind me. And instead of checking the next step, the thief signaled the second dwarf to join us, I got pushed forward into the instant death trap of doom. That was it, high reflex save needed a 20 to pass. I rolled....20! The damn dwarf in full plate does cartwheels down the hallway to avoid the trap. Booyaa! Healed that bastard.

Then! The Dwarf and Half Orc BOTH run through the trap before it can reset to join me. AND PUSH ME FORWARD AGAIN! Zap, only a lightning trap, high reflex roll for half damage, booyaa.

Had to head forward to heal one of the thieves for setting of a trap, then they encounter a wall with words on it, they read the words, BOOM. I reflex high to take half. Then, they go forward and set off a Lightning trap because they rolled crappy, I reflex for half!

(At this point my rolls are 18,19,20,19,19,18. Insane!)

We get to a swinging trap thing thats 10 foot across. The theives tumble across and can't figure out a way to disable it so they sit there for a bit thinking, then one explores further and the other just stands there, So I book it across. Reflex save! 19! BOOYA! It only clips me for minor damage. My dwarf is a nimble little shit today!

Now we have to go down a ladder through a trap door. The other dwarf and the Half orc go down and get attacked. And decide to hug the ladder instead of moving forward. I say screw this! I climb down the ladder, then JUMP over both! Dex check! 19! BOOYAA! The Full Plate Dwarf jumps and lands no problem.

Joy is had by all! Then I started attacking, could hit but was rolling 1's and 3's on my d8 damage roll.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Yeah, in theory... until you realize that ten magewrights working in concert can mass-gate epic/advanced solars, pit fiends, efreet, and others to do your bidding and grant you nearly-infinite wishes, create nearly infinite wealth, and similar such things. Especially if you (with your epic authority) artificially boost their caster level. You will literally have the ability to have most of heaven and hell under your command with the appropriate conjurer-enabled choices. I mean, heck, even if the GM rules that a thrallherd only gets NPC classes, the leadership feat specifies that you can take penalties and get PC classes. Do that, build them up, get your stuff on, and win DnD. Epic characters are amazing, but they can only do so much by themselves (without epic magic, see below). All that said, with leadership you'd still have your epic-level cohort.
All this is still pretty pathetic compared to the average epic. OH NO NOT A SOLAR>>!>!>!>!> WHATEVER SHALL I DO!!!>!>!!>!>


Murder a tarrasque? Okay. Even thrice is doable (although it's not exactly murdering a tarrasque unless you gated him out of the world and wished him dead forever, and even then...).
In one round!

Old Age penalties aren't all that bad, especially for casters as they get the old-age bonuses to go with them.
His caster level was level 1 in all classes. It not much help having a high int when you are shooting gods with 1D4+1 damage.

Prestige classes (depending on your choices) could up your magical power, even if you only took one level of them - and you'd have to have specialized in some skills just to gain access to the prestige classes. Once you've upped your magic, you could simply take "epic spellcaster" and *bam*, you've won DnD. Taking one level in every class grants you something extraordinary: saves, and incredible ones. By the time you're epic, you've got better-than-perfect saves and you've got a ton of exploitable stuff from 24 prestige classes. Uber-multiclass isn't great, but it's not as bad as people think.
Only if you're some kind of ridiculous twink. The entire point of this character is that the epic level rules are stupid and even characters who are built in completely stupid ways can murder half the cosmos.

I do admit I'm making presumptions:
~ 1 you took one of the elven core classes, leaving you 24 prestige class levels
Nope, all human. Elves look dumb.

~ 2 about half of those are were magic-based granting you a +12 to caster level(s), granting you access to game-breaking 6th level spells (meaning you don't really have to worry about number three, but it's there anyway)
~ 3 you took epic magic, the most overwhelmingly, mind-blowingly annoying theoretically uber-powered things while simultaneously being an utterly annoying and under-powered thing ever, bent entirely upon the DM's whim

I think I had like two magic prestige classes and they were purposefully stupid ones.

Finally, taking out 4 old white dragons in a round is only possible under unusual circumstances including 1) powerful weaponry and 4 attacks in a round [not possible with RAW multi-class, as you indicated above], 2) fortuitious (for you) spell-rolls/choices with them in a poorly clumped group and/or quicken spell (automatic metamagic [quicken spell] would be useful, but unecessary)and the epic feat that allows you to use more than one quickened spell in a round.
Whirlwind attack is awesome when combined with the stupid epic level fight feats.
You are missing the point- I actively set out to make a stupidly underpowered epic level character, I didn't use magic and he would still murder an army of 20th level wizards.

At one point I started dual-wielding cabers and I still managed to take out a whole fuck load of pitfiends.

[EVILNess]

... this seems a somewhat anti-climatic ending.
I mean, don't get me wrong, the whole bit is amazing, but the way you bring it. I expected at least 2 big books, or something.
Still, nice work.

I'm sorry?

I mean I didn't want to throw out a wall of text so late at night. Also I thought my ending was elegant in its simplicity.

[Melfice]

I'm sorry?

I mean I didn't want to throw out a wall of text so late at night. Also I thought my ending was elegant in its simplicity.

Oh, I suppose so.
I mean, compared to your other walls, this was a bit of a step down. Though I can understand the "late at night" thing, and stuff.
Never mind me!

[Rejected Again]

Yeah, I was running a magic heavy party. (Wizard(Evoker) Druid, Cleric(Boccob), Rogue, and Fighter.) I traded the Immunity out for a shit ton of DR and SR figuring that would balance it out.

[tacticslion]

All this is still pretty pathetic compared to the average epic. OH NO NOT A SOLAR>>!>!>!>!> WHATEVER SHALL I DO!!!>!>!!>!> Not "a" Solar: several! They are far more powerful than pit fiends.

In one round!
Plus...
Whirlwind attack is awesome when combined with the stupid epic level fight feats.

Okay, so you're playing 3.0, and using the massively broken whirlwind-cleave feat? 'Cause that stuff can be done at non-epic levels.

Only if you're some kind of ridiculous twink.Why yes I am, thank you!

You are missing the point- I actively set out to make a stupidly underpowered epic level character, I didn't use magic and he would still murder an army of 20th level wizards.

The entire point of this character is that the epic level rules are stupid and even characters who are built in completely stupid ways can murder half the cosmos. No, I totally get your point. The problem is that it doesn't make any sense at all, really. I've run epic campaigns. They can't murder everyone in the cosmos without twinks. Which, again, if you're using epic fight feats combined with whirlwind to perform murder-tarrasque in one round (which you mentioned the four white dragons in one round, not the tarrasque) is what you're doing. If twinks are simply abusing the RAW rules, that's what you did because it's not supposed to work that way (I recognize, however, that "it's not supposed to, but does" is your contention).

Nope, all human. Elves look dumb. Wait, what? Oh, I see what you did, there! ("hint: it's a mispelled eleven")

Please, post repsonsibly. Don't drink and post. Have a designated poster.[/PSA]

At one point I started dual-wielding cabers and I still managed to take out a whole fuck load of pitfiends.

lolwut. Cabers? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caber) Especially if you were experiencing age penalties you shouldn't have been able to do that with even darkwood cabers, because of the weight. Also, unless they were "good aligned" cabers, you couldn't have "taken them out" (at least not permenantly), as they'd simply get better. It's like hitting a troll with anything that's not fire, acid, or desintigration. Besides, if they were all having sex on a piece of heavy machinery and/or on the back of a delivery truck*, they were probably more vulnerable than normal.

Also, for fun (and argumentation sake), let's break down your character, shall we?
Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard, and twenty four different prestige classes. Let's presume, for the sake of arguement, that you gain bonus feats from some of the the epic level prestige classes and you carefully take other classes to maximize your epic feats.

Level 35 grants a normal human thirteen feats, plus bonus feats. Monk, ranger, and wizard give you specific non-epic bonus feats: improved unarmed strike, stunning fist (and/or improved grapple in 3.5), track, and scribe scroll. Of the twelve, the non-epic feats you'd gain eight - six from every third level, one for first level, and one for being human. That'd leave five more epic feats, six if you saved your fighter level for epic. You may or may not have bonus feats from prestige classes.

For epic prestiges you can only meet the requirements for the argent retriever, divine emissary (costs an epic feat), epic infiltrator (costs an epic feat), legendary dreadnaught, perfect wight (costs an epic feat), and union sentinal (the others rely on spell levels/specific spells or class features you can't access with only one level in each class, I'm ignoring skills for now). Your twink is one of over-combatness-greatness (even with the age/strength penalties). None of the epic classes give you feats, and, although they do grant you benefits, I'm not going to count their prereqs against your number of feats, unless you counter me.

Now let's look at the epic combat feats that make you more effective in physical combat, (ignoring save-improving feats for now) that are remotely viable for any character who's alignment is all over the map, but is human. I've put potential problems, based off of what you've told me of your character's history/state, in parentheses: armor skin, bane of enemies (five or more favored enemies), death of enemies (bane of enemies), blinding speed (DEX 25), combat archery, damage reduction (CON 21), distant shot (DEX 25), epic endurance (CON 25), epic prowess, epic speed (DEX 21), epic toughness, epic weapon focus, epic weapon specialization, exceptional deflection (DEX 21, deflect arrows), fast healing (CON 25), improved combat reflexes (DEX 21), improved whirlwind attack (DEX 23), infinite deflection (DEX 25), infinite deflection (DEX 25), instant reload, legendary wrestler (STR and DEX 21), overwhelming critical (STR 23), devastating critical (STR 25), penetrate damage reduction, perfect two weapon fighting (DEX 25), reflect arrows (DEX 25), self concealment (improved evasion), storm of throws (DEX 23), superior initiative, swarm of arrows (DEX 23), two weapon rend, uncanny accuracy (DEX 21).

Class-related things: bonus domain (9th level divine spells), chaotic rage (rage 5/day, chaotic alignment), great smiting, holy strike (any good alignment), improved death attack (sneak attack +5d6), improved elemental wild shape (ability to wild shape into elemental), improved favored enemy (five or more favored enemies), improved sneak attack (sneak attack +8d6), improved stunning fist (DEX and WIS 19), keen strike (STR 23, ki strike +3), vorpal strike (STR 25, ki strike +3), greater rage (STR and CON 21, greater rage), ruinous rage (STR 25, rage 5/day), shattering strike (ki strike +3), sneak attack of opportunity (+8d6 sneak attack), terrifying rage (rage 5/day), thundering rage (STR 25, rage 5/day).

So, for the sake of our limited knowledge, let's elminate all potential "problem" feats and see where that leaves you: armor skin, combat archery, epic prowess, epic toughness, epic weapon focus, epic weapon specialization, instant reload, penetrate damage reduction, superior initiative, two weapon rend, and (for class-related) great smiting.

These allow you to have a higher AC (ignored by touch attacks), fire a bow at close range without penalty, have +1 to hit with your attacks (per epic prowess feat), have an extra 20 hit points (per epic toughness feat), have a +2 on a specific weapon's attacks, and +4 on damage, reload/fire your specefied kind crossbow more than once per round (maximum four), ignore damage reduction (and only DR) as if your weapon was +2 (per pen. DR feat) higher, get a +8 to initiatives, do an extra one weapon plus 1.5 STR bonus per round, add two damage to a given smite attack you perform instead of just one.

The only real possibilities here are weapon specialization (the +4) and two-weapon rend (which isn't actually an epic feat), and those heavily rely upon a great strength modifiers to add to their damage. Nothing there stacks with the whirlwind feat to make it more broken that it already was in 3.0, and to kill a tarrasque in one round with the 3.0 whirlwind feat could be done at pre-epic levels anyway. I totally admit, however, that you're easily able to get all the feats I could viably see working in your example within the six (or even five) limit I postulated above.

Admitted problems with my argumentation include the fact that I don't know what precise classes you took on your way to 35th level. I also don't know what current class abilities you had available or what your final ability scores were, so I can't say for sure which feats you had. If you have high enough strength, dexterity, and constitution scores with full age penalties (that's -6 to each of them) to take those feats, however, I'd not be to worried about those age penalties. As in at all.

Outside of that, the only way I know of for this stuff to work is a) abuse of supplement rules, and/or b) GM ruling (which isn't RAW). In general, however, your assertion that any epic can murder anything (at least in juxtaposition to non-epics) doesn't seem true, but rather using twinkery from plethoras of prestige classes, unusual non-epic feat combinations, and specific abilities. Anything beyond that is overly-specific and reliant upon certain situations to viably make that claim in all situations. Epic rules are broken, but just not in the way you indicated, and not at the level you indicated. Sixth level spells are far more broken than epic level stuff.

All that said, I think it's an amusing story - it's cool that you were able to do that!

Yeah, I was running a magic heavy party. (Wizard(Evoker) Druid, Cleric(Boccob), Rogue, and Fighter.) I traded the Immunity out for a shit ton of DR and SR figuring that would balance it out.

Actually, your design decision makes good sense, then. It's just funny how those little things aren't easy to foresee! I did something similar once, in an epic campaign where I allowed a leader to train his people (choose a feat or two/classes for them - they were all svirfneblins). The guy took an obscure racial feat, and got all of his followers to do so as well - the ability to summon a small earth elemental controlled by the summoner, and, if several worked together, they'd summon one that was one size category larger. It was all well and good, until he had his sixth followers taking leadership and the summon earth elemental feat. Then he used his casters to temporarily increase their HD (and thus grant temporary feats). Then he led them all in summoning one earth elemental. At the same time. With literally hundreds upon hundreds of participants (thanks to the chaining leadership). I gaped when I realized what he did. Then, I threw my hands up, allowed it, and they summoned and controlled the Plains of Purple Dust (and used it only to transport themselves across Faerun and into the astral plane, where they eventually lost it, when they collectively used the whole thing as a specialized spell component to make a new god that they couldn't control). Fun times, though.

*I pun, I pun.

[Terex4]

So we're getting ready to start a new second edition campaign and I'm trying to make a really unique character. We're starting off at 10th level and I'm playing a bard with the jongleur kit. I was going to go with picking up the pebbles to boulders spell until I realized it wasn't an original concept (my DM had done and it and told me about it a long time ago) so now I'm trying to think of other things this character can do to really stand out.

I'm required to take proficiency in gambling as part of the game's theme and I'm curious if I can take that in a combat oriented direction somehow.

I'm thinking about doing everything I can to start with a ring of fire resistance and use torch juggling and fire breathing as combat abilities. Juggling balls coated in Oil of Impact sound fun too.

[tacticslion]

So we're getting ready to start a new second edition campaign and I'm trying to make a really unique character. Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that's a hopeless case. I'm almost certain everything's been done before (twice) by now. Heck, Pun-Pun exists in three races at this point. :)

That said...
We're starting off at 10th level and I'm playing a bard with the jongleur kit. I was going to go with picking up the pebbles to boulders spell until I realized it wasn't an original concept (my DM had done and it and told me about it a long time ago) so now I'm trying to think of other things this character can do to really stand out.

I'm required to take proficiency in gambling as part of the game's theme and I'm curious if I can take that in a combat oriented direction somehow.

I'm thinking about doing everything I can to start with a ring of fire resistance and use torch juggling and fire breathing as combat abilities. Juggling balls coated in Oil of Impact sound fun too.

Sounds cool. Now I just wish I knew anything about AD&D (other than the video game versions of it tend to be boring with a few potential exceptions (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=38193)) so I could help you!

On the topic of my own games... so I've got a *cough*LadyFireDove*cough* who "collects" people in our games, right? Well recently they were under assault from a whole ton of Yuan (like Yuan-Ti, but with more elf!), which she defeated. Another character (because the player in question wanted to "collect" a new friend!) managed to down one of them to unconscious, beat the Yuan into submission, and, after the Yuan was recaptured (it quickly turned into a serpent to escape it's bonds when it woke), placed a series of studs in the body (most notably the tongue and mouth), attached to ribbons, strings, and rope, basically making it hurt like all get-out if it transforms, and leaving plenty of 'bridles' to make sure it's easily recaptured.

My afore-mentioned people-collector has subsequently swayed (by generous use of diplomacy, charisma, and other such checks) the Yuan to be an ally. Eventually she considered removing the various studs. The Yuan, however, has turned out to think it's a nifty new "fashion statement" and refuses to have her tongue-stud removed. 'Hhoah, 'owe 'h'ee 'awks 'ike 'ihch 'awe 'ah 'eyem (translation: "so now she talks like this all the time"). No one can understand a thing the Yuan says unless they're reading her mind. Good times.

[Ecks]

So how many people still play 3E? I've got a friend who's preparing a campaign (with its own mythology, based on selections from the Draconomicon) and we're preparing to get it underway pretty soon. I rolled a pretty decent Elf Duskblade (I have a hard time picking between meatshields and squishy wizards, so I opted for something a little more like FFXIII's Ravager), and the DM is pushing the storytelling aspect (he's a big fan of Final Fantasy-style stories) which is something I'm stoked for. Only problem is we had two people quit the group, and we only have three left, counting the DM (who is playing a majority of the other party members, some of whom aren't PCs). We're still gonna play, but there's no guarantee we'll keep interest long enough to finish.

I'm a little reluctant to touch 4E, so we're gonna stick with 3E.

[tacticslion]

So how many people still play 3E? I've got a friend who's preparing a campaign (with its own mythology, based on selections from the Draconomicon) and we're preparing to get it underway pretty soon. I rolled a pretty decent Elf Duskblade (I have a hard time picking between meatshields and squishy wizards, so I opted for something a little more like FFXIII's Ravager), and the DM is pushing the storytelling aspect (he's a big fan of Final Fantasy-style stories) which is something I'm stoked for. Only problem is we had two people quit the group, and we only have three left, counting the DM (who is playing a majority of the other party members, some of whom aren't PCs). We're still gonna play, but there's no guarantee we'll keep interest long enough to finish.

I'm a little reluctant to touch 4E, so we're gonna stick with 3E.

Whelp. First, I'd suggest this go here (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=37482), in the general DnD thread, but to answer the question, I play both often, but heavily prefer 3rd. 4th is fantastic at what it does: dungeon crawl, combat, level grind, combat, streamline, and combat. 3rd is more versatile as a system. 4th you can tack anything on you want, any system at all, and it'll generally work fine, so long as it's not combat. 3rd just kind of handles it in-house. 4th has some great concepts for skill challenges, while having a less-involved skill system (static bonus [trained/not] and half your level regardless of class to all skills). I could go on.

The short version: 4th simplifies and streamlines and makes things go faster. It also kills versamilitude and a sense of cohesive reality (ex: monsters behave one way, NPCs another, player characters another). 3rd complicates and slows things down a bit. It also adds versamilitude (everything in the world runs on the same rules) and integrates everything into its own rules (sometimes admittedly clunkily).

So really it comes down to a matter of choice.

As far as DM running characters, I've had to do that a time or two in my campaigns. My advice to him, is to not get too attached. You too. Especially if he plays like me. I generally get it to the point where my actual players (no matter how many or few) can more or less survive on their own, and then proceed to decimate the (n)PCs that are under my governing. In classy, story-building ways, and often not how I expected, but mercilessly killing them nonetheless until only the players are left. I do this regardless of the edition. And sometimes I kill my players on accident. They (usually) get better! ... sorry guys.

[Meister]

I agree completely even though I absolutely prefer 4E, and for the exact reasons you listed too. :)

But I don't think I can ever go back to 3E now, unless it's an exceptionally good game. No matter what I come up with in 3E these days I never feel like I have enough options. In addition it feels incredibly easy to screw up a character's progression in that system, while in 4E you can just completely wing it from level 1 to 30 and have a perfectly playable character all the time. That said Duskblades are awesome and we had no problems at all playing a whole campaign with only three characters including one. Granted they pretty much do one thing but they're very good at it (hope you don't like utility spells a lot though).

e: also, posts moved.

[DarkDrgon]

no one in any of my groups ever likes to play as a rogue, so If im running an adventure that must have traps I normally send the same NPC with them. Hes a member of the thieves guild that the party is on good terms with, and has orders to do nothing but open doors, disarm traps, and save his own skin

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Rogues can be replaced with a rock, a knife and a 10 ft pole.

[Meister]

Or by someone taking Skill Training (Thievery). In my party the Warlock's the go-to guy for traps. :dance:

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Eh we don't play 4th ed- in 3rd ed you can get all the skills still, particularly with a bard/the right feats but only if you are a pussy suck up the traps and the enemy will run away. Stab anything you can't bluff out of.

[Meister]

Stab anything you can't bluff out of.
Sure sounds like our 4E game.

Come to think of it I haven't actually used traps in any noticable capacity yet. Mostly because I have no idea how to build them but it can't be that hard, probably about time to introduce some.

[Magic_Marker]

I had a friend who always ran his adventures the same way. First the players would get to know eachother and have some fun reactions. It was nice, you are always almost lulled into the idea that this adventure is going to be different.

Then GMPC shows up. GMPC can do know wrong, is 7 levels higher than you and needs you help for *some reason* even though you are discouraged from ever leaving the railed off adventure. Really these stories shouldn't be on a table top at all and belong more in Bleach FanFiction. That's not an exaggeration, one of his sessions was ACTUAL BLEACH FAN FICTION.

Me and my friend were playing a 4E version of this and had enough of it. About the time GMPC shows up my Dragonborn and his Eladrin start making racist comments about humans, calling the beer at the local tavern *catpiss,* and generally behaving like a racist motorcycle gang of 2 in west Baltimore. GMPC is disapproving of us, being a Paladin of great honor and all and refrains from talking to us. The Barman eventually has enough of us and tries to get in a fight.

Unfortunate for him, I hit him over the head with a mace. My ally torched the place and we booked it, the Paladin right behind us.

We figured with a running start we would be able to get away but Pally's got a bow and good aim. He begins directing guards to our position. Things get heated and we ask the DM to leave the room for a moment as we formulate a plan. After the plan was made we started the session again, running from the law for the crime of killing a barman and setting his bar on fire. The solution, MOAR FIRE!

We ran until we were on the outskirts of town, pursuit following us at maybe 10 feet away. Up ahead was an orphanage and my friend had burning hands up and ready. After setting the building on fire the Paladin give us a look of rage and hatred. I look him in the eye for a moment then shout. "WELL? ARE YOU GOING TO JUST LET THOSE POOR KIDS DIE!?" Reluctantly he ran to save the kids giving us the time we needed to escape.

[Ryong]

My party found a bunch of demons, who we identified as the children of a demoness we've been hunting for a while. They were doing a ritual, involving sacrifices. We weren't able to stop them, so...

We were sent to the astral plane on a donut-shaped room.

We arrived on a giant cube made of weapons from different time periods. We jumped to another cube as it flew by us. We found some thieves who tried to rob us. We tried to test how gravity worked in this cube thing by pushing one of them off the edge.

He landed head-first on the other side of the cube, taking at least half of his HP in damage.

[stefan]

most of my RP experiences are with Star Wars saga edition. most of the fights end with the remaining one or two enemies fleeing in terror from how insane my group is.

for instance, in our last adventure, our merry band of mercenaries were being led into an ambush. What was supposed to happen was, our contact would come along with our money for our last job, and give us our next. this hilariously obvious thug comes along, claiming that the real contact couldn't make it and that he was going to lead us to a rendezvous, and tries to lead us into an ambush. We agree to come along just for the hell of it. Eventually, the situation is: Thug ringleader has led us into a parking garage, we've got HIM hostage, six mooks have us surrounded, and three more are coming down the elevator.

the situation ended after our resident force user tore a dude in half with his mind, three more guys got crushed under flipped speeders, and the three mooks in the elevator were dispatched when my guy stuck a detpack to the ringleader and kicked him into the elevator before touching it off, killing all four of them so spectacularly that we had to roll reflex to avoid being coated in gore. (The force user failed that roll)

The remaining two mooks threw their guns down and tried to flee, which resulted in them being chased by a blood-glazed dark jedi who kept shouting that he still wanted to play.

[walkertexasdruid]

Wow, I had kind of forgotten about this thread. There are a lot of interesting shenanigans here. I have played as a half orc ranger named Thokk. He is my attempt at being an evil character, but I am usually too nice when I play as him. He inevitably becomes a villain that thinks he is a hero (he is not that bright either). He had a succubus as a girlfriend, and that got him into a lot of trouble (some of it not suitable for younger readers). He has been randomly homicidal and radomly heroic in the same session. My former DM thought that his alignment should have been "Confused" even though is actually Neutral/Evil. Still anyone foolish enough to attack him did not last very long, as they would ussually end up with many arrows sprouting out of them, and that is before he would remember that he has spells and an animal companion. Thokk is a good PC to play if you want to be a likeable but disruptive force in an adventuring party. :dance:

[tacticslion]

Whelp. I just started a new campaign, as a player. Having used my nefarious hijinks, I managed a player character with ten (10) in each of my physical ability scores, but thirty-eight (38) in each of my mental ability scores, a slew of innate abilities that don't cost me anything to use, and no, as in zero (0) level adjustment. I'm a mage, but I start with 11 hit points, also due to rules-wrangling. I love magic so very, very much. And it. Loves. Me.

Oh, and in a related news, I constantly read anyone's mind within a 100 foot radius (unless they succeed a will DC of 28 per round), I have a constant +4 to my AC so long as I'm conscious, I only sleep 2 hours per day, I am conscious for those two hours, and have telekinetic abilities at will (which I can set on fire, also at will). I can also do an illithid-like stun-blast freely once per round. I can heal and restore myself and my companions (spell-likes) and start with a bunch of ranks in a large number of skills (though most of these are crafts, professions, and performs, there are some knowledge skills social skills, and a few other 'adventurous' ones).

The entire point of this campaign is to help one of the players will become king/queen of their own country.

So. Who wants to bet I'm assassinated on our first day out? ^_^
(if not by a frustrated GM, than by my own party?)

[TDK]

Ridiculousness

Um.

What?

[tacticslion]

Um.

What?

Cheese. Lots and lots of cheese. Rules-allowable cheese, but cheese nonetheless. Effectively, it uses a number of loopholes in the wordings of a number of templates combined with loopholes in several magical effects (and one psionic effect) that creates a first level character without level adjustment and +20 to all mental ability scores (and starts them at 18, thus the 38), plus some great spell-likes. I've actually voluntarily lost some of my at-will spell-likes just because it was so stupidly powerful (like charm and suggestion). All of which is available at first level, it's just highly unlikely that any Game Master would ever allow it. Ever. I strongly suspect I'm being set up for a slaughter, but, hey, it's cool.

Heck, I could've just gone all the way and gotten 45's, but I figure 38's more than good enough for a 54 year old young adult mortal, despite the neat symmetry of 45/54. That and I don't hate my GM, I swear.

The trade-offs are that a) my character can't really go into any kind of personal combat without getting killed, and b) can't really hurt the bad-guys much, without basically putting himself in the front lines. He can annoy the crap out of 'em, sure, but can't hurt 'em. With my physical ability scores, and the fact that I'm a first level character (despite my mental scores, spell-likes, and DC's), I can't really access anything game breaking before anyone else could, i.e. twelfth level. That's when magic just becomes silly-broken, because you've got access to sixth level spells. With this I've got good hit points per level, and acceptable saves, but real benefits are my DC's and spells per day. Basically when I do a spell, it's done (so long as it doesn't require an attack roll on my part).

Also, I've voluntarily made most of my stuff utility things. I'm a better bard than the bardiest of all bardly bards ever to bard a barding.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm not a bard. I'm a wizard. I'm just better at being a bard than a bard.

[Nikose Tyris]

Following evidence from the townsfolk, they explored the hill that seemed to be eminating a magic deficiency.
The Paladin, Wizard, Shadowcaster and Cleric go and find a door, which they get into via kicking in- or rather fail to get in with kicking in because the door is made of solid stone and locked.
Cleric knocks and ACCIDENTALLY pulls off the secret knock to get in.

Talk past the Dark Behir (advanced hitdice), kill some spellwarped gargoyles, accidentally go into secret tunnels that puts them BEHIND the illusionary walls (wrong side) so they pull off that secret automatically, stumble down stairs and find a secret temple to Shar, (Evil goddess of night) and catch three drow Traders going in for business.

They jump the drow, and the Imaskari wizard (Being our wizard) intimidates the FUCK out of them, surprisingly pulls power from the earth node that we happened to be on and murders two of them, grants mercy to their leader and made him lead them into the Temple to Shar- giving us surprise rounds on the gatehouse.
We get into the inner rooms and begin to stumble against Yugoloths (Neutral Evil Fiends). Team survives and slaughters anything that isn't an outsider.

None of us are really specced for fighting them except the paladin, so for the most part the group hangs back and casts support for him.
We fought through two special noteriety point murders in that place too. That was actually totally awesome.
They going to jump Esvele, the leader of the Sharran Clergy for the area, then move on to kill every other important warleader in the occupying army's group.

However, the group is still not figuring out how to take out the NE fiends. I'm trying to find the easiest way to tell them, "Guys, guys, dismissal, seriously."

[TDK]

Okay then.


Anyway, I've been teaching my friend how to play DnD, and we've been playing one-on-ones to show him the ropes and whatnot. The first character he created was Todd, the bard, who he later abandoned when he realized bards suck.

So he rolled up a rogue and I accompanied him in his adventure as the bard, rearranging Todd's feats to make him a decent melee fighter. =P Later on when randomly joking around, we came to the conclusion that Todd was actually a powerful evil wizard named Toddisticus who had been smote by the gods (because he was getting too powerful) and turned into a weakling bard, his mind having been wiped.

But when, in the course of our adventure, we were brought before Pelor himself, the shock of his holy countenance weakened the block on Todd's mind, and now Todd is pissed and on a quest to regain his lost power and take revenge on the gods. Todd disguised this as a 'spiritual awakening' and tells his companion that he is going to devote his life to the church, but actually he's questing to regain his equipment, his absurdly powerful familiar (Toddisticus was about level 40), and his spellbook, and journey into the depths of hell to make a deal with Asmodeus personally so he can take the artifact his power was drained into and exact his revenge.


And just recently we've decided to play an evil campaign (partly to show my friend that they are often rather pointless and lack variety because there are less motivations for evil characters, etc and you can pretty much solve all your problems through violence without any problems.)

So I am playing Toddisticus before all of that. Starting at level 1.

Its gonna be fun.

I somehow managed to roll 3 18s for his stats (going into dex, int, and cha) and he's a gray elf (+2 dex, -2 con, -2 str, +2 int) so I've got int 20 and dex 20 and cha 18. My level progression is going to go as follows:

Warmage 1, Wizard 1, Elf Paragon 1-3, then Ultimate Magus 1-10 (Not sure where I'm going after that. Maybe archmage or something.). I'll end up with ridiculous amounts of spells per day, most of which are combat oriented as I'm going focused specialist evoker for my wizard levels, and Ultimate Magus gives +1 to a prepared AND spontaneous casting class almost every level, among other awesome benefits. I think I worked out that at level 15 I'll have the spellcasting power of a level 12 warmage AND a level 12 wizard.

Elf paragon gives +1 to wizard level at levels 2 and 3, and at level 3 gives +2 int, so my int will be 22 at 5th level, giving me even more bonus spells and insane DCs for wizard spells. And my int modifier gets added to any damage I deal with warmage spells.


This is going to be a fun campaign.

[tacticslion]

Okay, then.
PM me for some of the details, if you want 'em, but it's complicated and annoying as all get out. Also any GM that lets you do this either loves you very, very much, or hates you and plans to make you very, very miserable. I'm banking on the former, but suspecting the misery may come into play. Also, you may have to sell your soul.

I played a bard. He turned out to be a warmage/wizard/ultimate magus with terrific stats. This'll be a fun campaign!

It sounds awesome. I'm really glad to see someone using the elf paragon the way it was meant to be (ab)used. One thing, if you're interested in higher caster levels, is the Practiced Spellcaster feat, from Complete Arcane. It grants you a +4 to your caster level, with a maximum caster level equal to your HD. You'd have to take it twice (to affect both classes), but it might well be worth it. It doesn't affect spells per day or spells known - only caster level (durations, range, spell resistance, etc).

Another thing, if you liked the bard-flavor, but hate the bard, there's always the beguiler from the PH2. An intelligence-based caster similar to war mage in areas, with spontaneous casting and a mostly prescribed spell-list of illusion and enchantment spells (and the advanced learning special for those two schools). It doesn't seem like much, save that they get six skills (instead of 2), that they can wear armor while they cast and phantasmal killer is, in fact, an illusion spell. While this doesn't go with your I AM DOOM INCARNATE theme, the silent and still spell feats they get for free combined with phantasmal killer makes an incredible assassin, especially with your DC's. Though this particular guy probably doesn't want to do it, as he's a nuker, the beguiler goes tremendously with a shadow adept.

Finally, if you like extra power, you could go with a master specialist, or if you like cheese and don't have transmutation as a prohibited school, once you finish your ultimate magus, you might enjoy the master transmogrifist, from the complete arcane (when chosen wisely, your special forms will allow you to literally replace the planet with yoursel[f/ves], especially if you permanently mentally link each of you, creating an entire planet-sized body made up of billions of you's all of which are constantly sharing insights, skill checks, etc; if you want to rule the world, there's no better way than by being the world, right?). Another option, though it slows down his casting progression (while making him immortal, which is fun/the point) is the green star adept, though you've got to work with your GM to make sure you can complete the class before starting it. Once you finish it, simply dominate a druid, use him to make an infinitely regenerating contingency reincarnation, and enjoy growing old, dying just before you do, and gaining age bonuses without the penalties*. Arch mage is great, but you're giving up some of your very nice excess spells per day for it's stuff, unless you solely take it for the bonus feats. Lore Master might be nice for a level or three if you want Epic Spellcasting feat early (when you gain any bonus feat, it doesn't have to be one you can currently qualify for).

Unless you go for something with specific class goals like the GS Adept or the Master Transmogrifist**, I'd recommend only going to level twenty before hitting the ultimate magus really hard again, allowing both caster levels to hit epic heights.

Two other things. One: get a thought bottle. Buy it or (even better) build it yourself (so it can't be cursed); it's something that all mages, especially epic ones, need like nobody's business. Found in the Complete Arcane, it is the reason for a GM to never let any magic items ever be in any campaign ever. It requires the spells Demand and Modify Memory, a caster level of 13, and the Craft Wondrous Item feat, and costs 20,000 g, and is worth every penny plus far, far more. Build them by the dozens and hide them in planes only you can access. You can store your current XP total by paying the low, low cost of 500 XP. XP Costs will never frighten you again. Two: if you can, keep conjuration and abjuration. The spell you're looking for at sixth level (especially with your charisma) is planar binding, while abjuration is for magic circle against evil. I want to say one word to you, just one word: simulcra**.

However, the group is still not figuring out how to take out the NE fiends. I'm trying to find the easiest way to tell them, "Guys, guys, dismissal, seriously." Nice game, and hilariously good luck! I wouldn't rely on that kind of luck to persist, however. Also, I'd say the easiest way to tell them that is to go, "Guys, guys, dismissal, seriously."

*Technically, you shouldn't have any age penalties when you reincarnate anyway, as you're placed into a young adult body, but the GS Adept is there to make sure the GM doesn't pull something nasty. With the GS Adept, your new body/race is actually grown from the Green Starmetal, which means you start and stay immortal in that form. Reincarnation is actually nothing but a boon to you, since it doesn't affect your mental ability scores, only physical ones, and only a kobold gets similar physical problems to you. And, as pun-pun proved, kobolds may be the most powerful creatures in the game.
**PM me if you'd like the details. I assure you they are all awful and dreadfully cheese, so much so that I took them down after writing it all out. Simply knowing that I know them/thought them out could cause people to hate me. Well, hate me more, anyway. Also you could PM me to request details on, what I like to call, the god-crown. All cheese-casters should gain this eventually.

EDIT: Okay, NOW you can PM me. I just noticed my box was full and I fixed it.

[TDK]

I've had the concept of "Smite neutral" stuck in my head for a while. So I finally decided to write out a class based on it.

http://sansrandom.com/blog/main/2010/07/the-paladin-of-choice.html


Also, fyi, pulled a random magical item off a corpse as my warmage/wizard/elf paragon/ultimate magus and it happens to be a tome of clear thought +3...XD By level 5 I'm gonna have 26 int.

[walkertexasdruid]

Some examples of Thokk logic:

Hmm, ok so we are going somewhere that we do not know where it is and we do not know how long it will take. I know, one month's rations for each of us!

We just found a magical book, and my deity just told me to use my head. I know, I will hit my head with the book!

This is what Thokk's party members have to deal with during every session.:rolleyes:

[EVILNess]

I started a new character in the same campaign setting as my old one. My DM as I explained before is very popular and he has been running the same setting for almost 10 years now. He basically runs all of his groups and when everyone gets to the end of what he calls a "story telling cycle" he does a time skip and everyone rolls new characters. This is the sixth cycle and the 4th one I have participated in.

It sounds weird but he does it so smoothly and fairly no one has complained. He also has this system where he gives you boons for having characters participate in the previous cycle.

My reward for my previous character was a 25% "You had a character ascend to omnipotence" xp penalty. :( Although I am decently sure it was just for one play session as a joke as I am the only player he has had to ever get that powerful. (He is a hard-ass DM who tries to reign in PC power, in a fair way. Munchkins need not apply)

New character is a BARD wish me luck.

[TDK]

So lately I've been playing a character in a solo campaign, with a friend DMing whom I taught to play DnD fairly recently. This is just practice because he's been asked to DM a game and he hasn't DMed before.

I've had this idea for a character based around summoning swarms for a while, so I made Joe, a gnome warlock with the Summon Swarm invocation. He has ranks in Profession (Beekeeper) and only ever summons swarms of bees. Later he branched into Druid, getting a giant bee animal companion.

Part of the point in this campaign was to show him just how far off track games often get from what the DM has planned.

I won't go into what he had planned, but so far this is what happened:

My character's motivation was to get an investment as a starter fund so he could start a honey business (he made some awesome honey. I later realized, given that I could summon bees at will, I could have them collect pollen and make honey, basically making honey through sheer force of will). The king was offering 5 gp each for goblin scalps (goblins had been killing livestock), so I headed out to collect some. I killed an injured one I found (stung it to death with bees) when Chyme, god of petty creatures, appears. (This is a creation of the DM's, he's actually a pretty interesting NPC. He's a demigod.)

He scolds me for brutally killing the 'innocent' goblin and casts a geas on me that will turn me into a rabbit if I don't go on a quest for him. The quest is to go stop some gnomes from tunneling under the forest and collapsing it.

I go up to the gnome tunnel and murder the guards*, immediately turning into a rabbit. Chyme shows up and yells at me and says I can live out my days as a rabbit.

*"Have you ever considered beekeeping?" "How do I do that?" "Here, hold this hive..."

With a newfound craving for carrots, I wonder into the farm of an old wizard who had grown weary of adventuring and took up agriculture. He was about to throw me out of his garden when he recognized a spark of intelligence in my bunny eyes and proceeded to break the spell on me. But in regaining my former size, I stumbled and accidentally broke his crystal ball.

He got real mad and sent me on a quest to get a new one, threatening that he would be scrying on me, etc.

Up to this point, this was according to the DM's plan. It was at this point everything tht happened afterward completely departed from his plans. As I told him, it was good improv experience.

At this point I went to the nearest town and found a jewelry shop (where I sold some honey to the owner), where I bought a crystal door knob. I had the bottom part cut off and sanded down, leaving me with a small ball of crystal. I took it back to the wizard, but that just made him mad. =P

So I went back to the town and asked the local mage (sold him some honey too) where I might acquire a crystal ball. He says some local goblins stole a crystal ball from him. So I head off to the goblin village. The guards raise their spears as I approach, but I show them I'm not armed and offer them honey. They fucking LOVE it and start fighting over the jar, so I walk in and talk to the chief, who speaks common. Basically I trade them all the honey I have (ten jars or so) for the crystal ball. All of the goblins are completely addicted to the honey at this point.

This was actually one of few parts where I was actually SUPPOSED to engage in combat in this campaign, and I solved it peacefully.

So I took the crystal ball back to the wizard and squared everything with him. From there I went back to the starting town, where I went to town hall looking for a loan. The accountant I talked to didn't like honey, but I demonstrated how much everyone loved it and got my loan. I set up a shop in the town, and went and gathered some bee hives and set up a deal with the goblins I talked to before. They would handle the beekeeping and I would pay them in honey.

Given how good the honey was, this quickly became a successful business. It was at this point that I heard about hives of giant bees in some valley to the north.

I had recently gained my first druid level, and my giant bee animal companion, so I took to the skies on Mike the Bee and flew to where the giant bee hive supposedly was. There was an illusion over the valley, but I saw through it and found the place. There were hives of ridiculous size and tons of flowers. I went into one of the hives, using wild empathy to make sure the bees didn't think I was a threat.

The bees all seemed very frightened, and as I got deeper, I found some dwarves. Long story short, the dwarves were subjugating the bees to use the honey to make mead. I freed the captive soldier bees and took back the hives with my new army of giant bees (and a few swarms of summoned bees, and maybe an eldritch blast or two).

It was at the beginning of this rebellion that I made the best reference ever.

Joe, you see, was raised by bees (silly backstory for a silly campaign). So when all the bees divebombed and killed all the dwarf guards but one, Joe floated slowly down on Mike. He looked the last dwarf straight in the eye and said. "LET. MY. PEOPLE. GO!"

(Yes, in this story, Joe is Moses but for Bees.)

I integrated this hive, with its preposterous amounts of honey, into my store. I now basically had an unlimited amount of honey. I acquired a bag of holding, using that to ferry huge amounts of honey back and forth.

When I got back to the small hives in the goblin village, though, I found it in ruins. The goblins were so entranced with the honey they neglected to defend their village. And the honey attracted bears, who killed the goblins. The hives themselves had collapsed into the earth because of the unchecked digging of the gnomes. But it appeared that once the hives fell into the tunnel, they had killed all of the gnomes, to my satisfaction. At this point Chyme appeared again, blaming me for all this.

I used my gnome spell like ability to speak with burrowing animals to ask a nearby mole where he had seen gnomes digging. I used this information to track down all the other gnome groups in the area. I was GOING to murder them but Chyme wouldn't leave me alone so I settled it peacefully.

After all of that, I moved my small hives (the small hives produced finer honey, so I sold that at an elevated price as the Top Shelf honey, whereas the less refined giant bee honey I sold as the normal, bottom shelf honey. The former was 10 gp a jar, the latter 3.)

I had a few more adventures starting honey shops in other cities, and a few more encounters with gnomes (Joe is really starting to hate gnomes), but that's basically where we stopped. For now.


During all of this, I did not once enter melee combat. Or even direct combat, really. I only actually killed anyone with bees, either summoned swarms or giant ones.

My new goal for this character is to ascend to godhood.

Joe, God of BEES.

This is partly because I want to kick Chyme's ass.

[Viridis]

(Yes, in this story, Joe is Moses but for Bees.)
[..]
Joe, God of BEES.I love this and wish to hear more.

[Terisse]

Oi. Last campaign we got into was the beginning of epic level. To begin with, I was a Fire Gnome Evoker 23 (CL 25 with fire spells) . Barring that, we had each a half silver dragon cleric 24 and a fighter 23 (two different players, brother and sister in the campaign) and a Kenku Ranger 14/Shadowdancer 10, and just for backups a Changeling Rogue 13/Fatemaker 10. This is just background information.

We ended up taking some time off to go and visit the Plains of Ida in Ysgard, one of my personal favorite places to be, ever. Namely the fact that it's like a constant ren faire with at least 1 of every 3 days being an epic mass battlefield, with a guaranteed True Resurrection at sunrise each day. Needless to say, it's a gathering place of "We're gonna die!".

Sometime into the battle on the first day, I had a stupid, but funny idea. I set myself up with Levitate, got onto a large catapult and told them to lauch me, preparing my Rod of Burning Might (Fireball, Twin Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Meteor Swarm, used at CL 23). In my other hand, simply a wand of fireball.

I spent a full minute flying across the battlefield and launching fireballs with my left hand and meteor swarms with my right. The phalanx of Dwarves took it the hardest being so close together. Unfortunately, a pyro evoker is of little use against the githyanki and the effing red dragons they work with... We barely got out alive, leaving the fatemaker to drag what was left off the field after bluffing them down with Ego Manifestation.

And that was just the first day.

[Odjn]

Oi. Last campaign we got into was the beginning of epic level. To begin with, I was a Fire Gnome Evoker 23 (CL 25 with fire spells) . Barring that, we had each a half silver dragon cleric 24 and a fighter 23 (two different players, brother and sister in the campaign) and a Kenku Ranger 14/Shadowdancer 10, and just for backups a Changeling Rogue 13/Fatemaker 10. This is just background information.

We ended up taking some time off to go and visit the Plains of Ida in Ysgard, one of my personal favorite places to be, ever. Namely the fact that it's like a constant ren faire with at least 1 of every 3 days being an epic mass battlefield, with a guaranteed True Resurrection at sunrise each day. Needless to say, it's a gathering place of "We're gonna die!".

Sometime into the battle on the first day, I had a stupid, but funny idea. I set myself up with Levitate, got onto a large catapult and told them to lauch me, preparing my Rod of Burning Might (Fireball, Twin Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Meteor Swarm, used at CL 23). In my other hand, simply a wand of fireball.

I spent a full minute flying across the battlefield and launching fireballs with my left hand and meteor swarms with my right. The phalanx of Dwarves took it the hardest being so close together. Unfortunately, a pyro evoker is of little use against the githyanki and the effing red dragons they work with... We barely got out alive, leaving the fatemaker to drag what was left off the field after bluffing them down with Ego Manifestation.

And that was just the first day.


EYE PAIN

[RobinStarwing]

So lately I've been playing a character in a solo campaign, with a friend DMing whom I taught to play DnD fairly recently. This is just practice because he's been asked to DM a game and he hasn't DMed before.

I've had this idea for a character based around summoning swarms for a while, so I made Joe, a gnome warlock with the Summon Swarm invocation. He has ranks in Profession (Beekeeper) and only ever summons swarms of bees. Later he branched into Druid, getting a giant bee animal companion.

Part of the point in this campaign was to show him just how far off track games often get from what the DM has planned.

I won't go into what he had planned, but so far this is what happened:

My character's motivation was to get an investment as a starter fund so he could start a honey business (he made some awesome honey. I later realized, given that I could summon bees at will, I could have them collect pollen and make honey, basically making honey through sheer force of will). The king was offering 5 gp each for goblin scalps (goblins had been killing livestock), so I headed out to collect some. I killed an injured one I found (stung it to death with bees) when Chyme, god of petty creatures, appears. (This is a creation of the DM's, he's actually a pretty interesting NPC. He's a demigod.)

He scolds me for brutally killing the 'innocent' goblin and casts a geas on me that will turn me into a rabbit if I don't go on a quest for him. The quest is to go stop some gnomes from tunneling under the forest and collapsing it.

I go up to the gnome tunnel and murder the guards*, immediately turning into a rabbit. Chyme shows up and yells at me and says I can live out my days as a rabbit.

*"Have you ever considered beekeeping?" "How do I do that?" "Here, hold this hive..."

With a newfound craving for carrots, I wonder into the farm of an old wizard who had grown weary of adventuring and took up agriculture. He was about to throw me out of his garden when he recognized a spark of intelligence in my bunny eyes and proceeded to break the spell on me. But in regaining my former size, I stumbled and accidentally broke his crystal ball.

He got real mad and sent me on a quest to get a new one, threatening that he would be scrying on me, etc.

Up to this point, this was according to the DM's plan. It was at this point everything tht happened afterward completely departed from his plans. As I told him, it was good improv experience.

At this point I went to the nearest town and found a jewelry shop (where I sold some honey to the owner), where I bought a crystal door knob. I had the bottom part cut off and sanded down, leaving me with a small ball of crystal. I took it back to the wizard, but that just made him mad. =P

So I went back to the town and asked the local mage (sold him some honey too) where I might acquire a crystal ball. He says some local goblins stole a crystal ball from him. So I head off to the goblin village. The guards raise their spears as I approach, but I show them I'm not armed and offer them honey. They fucking LOVE it and start fighting over the jar, so I walk in and talk to the chief, who speaks common. Basically I trade them all the honey I have (ten jars or so) for the crystal ball. All of the goblins are completely addicted to the honey at this point.

This was actually one of few parts where I was actually SUPPOSED to engage in combat in this campaign, and I solved it peacefully.

So I took the crystal ball back to the wizard and squared everything with him. From there I went back to the starting town, where I went to town hall looking for a loan. The accountant I talked to didn't like honey, but I demonstrated how much everyone loved it and got my loan. I set up a shop in the town, and went and gathered some bee hives and set up a deal with the goblins I talked to before. They would handle the beekeeping and I would pay them in honey.

Given how good the honey was, this quickly became a successful business. It was at this point that I heard about hives of giant bees in some valley to the north.

I had recently gained my first druid level, and my giant bee animal companion, so I took to the skies on Mike the Bee and flew to where the giant bee hive supposedly was. There was an illusion over the valley, but I saw through it and found the place. There were hives of ridiculous size and tons of flowers. I went into one of the hives, using wild empathy to make sure the bees didn't think I was a threat.

The bees all seemed very frightened, and as I got deeper, I found some dwarves. Long story short, the dwarves were subjugating the bees to use the honey to make mead. I freed the captive soldier bees and took back the hives with my new army of giant bees (and a few swarms of summoned bees, and maybe an eldritch blast or two).

It was at the beginning of this rebellion that I made the best reference ever.

Joe, you see, was raised by bees (silly backstory for a silly campaign). So when all the bees divebombed and killed all the dwarf guards but one, Joe floated slowly down on Mike. He looked the last dwarf straight in the eye and said. "LET. MY. PEOPLE. GO!"

(Yes, in this story, Joe is Moses but for Bees.)

I integrated this hive, with its preposterous amounts of honey, into my store. I now basically had an unlimited amount of honey. I acquired a bag of holding, using that to ferry huge amounts of honey back and forth.

When I got back to the small hives in the goblin village, though, I found it in ruins. The goblins were so entranced with the honey they neglected to defend their village. And the honey attracted bears, who killed the goblins. The hives themselves had collapsed into the earth because of the unchecked digging of the gnomes. But it appeared that once the hives fell into the tunnel, they had killed all of the gnomes, to my satisfaction. At this point Chyme appeared again, blaming me for all this.

I used my gnome spell like ability to speak with burrowing animals to ask a nearby mole where he had seen gnomes digging. I used this information to track down all the other gnome groups in the area. I was GOING to murder them but Chyme wouldn't leave me alone so I settled it peacefully.

After all of that, I moved my small hives (the small hives produced finer honey, so I sold that at an elevated price as the Top Shelf honey, whereas the less refined giant bee honey I sold as the normal, bottom shelf honey. The former was 10 gp a jar, the latter 3.)

I had a few more adventures starting honey shops in other cities, and a few more encounters with gnomes (Joe is really starting to hate gnomes), but that's basically where we stopped. For now.


During all of this, I did not once enter melee combat. Or even direct combat, really. I only actually killed anyone with bees, either summoned swarms or giant ones.

My new goal for this character is to ascend to godhood.

Joe, God of BEES.

This is partly because I want to kick Chyme's ass.




This whole thing is just something straight out of Slayers...*facepalms and Dragon Slaves*

[Pip Boy]

Recently played in a D&D campaign in which I played a monk. I used a lot of grappling attacks with this monk, taking advantage of my many powerful unarmed attacks on a grappled opponent (3.5 rules). At some point, we angered some druid in the forest because we killed so many of the poor forest animals, so he cast a curse on me that would cause me to permanently become the next animal I killed and live out the rest of my days as one of them. I immediately sought and killed a grizzly bear.

Not going to throw down all the numbers, but a grappling monk turned into a grizzly bear (getting all those size mod bonuses, str bonuses, and even Improved Grapple) was kind of a scary concept. Nearly every enemy we fought was pinned to the ground and viciously mauled by an intelligent ninja bear.

Eventually the rest of the party got frustrated that they couldn't understand me and got me a collar that let me communicate with other players within range, making me a telepathic ninja bear. Hilarity ensued.

[walkertexasdruid]

Recently played in a D&D campaign in which I played a monk. I used a lot of grappling attacks with this monk, taking advantage of my many powerful unarmed attacks on a grappled opponent (3.5 rules). At some point, we angered some druid in the forest because we killed so many of the poor forest animals, so he cast a curse on me that would cause me to permanently become the next animal I killed and live out the rest of my days as one of them. I immediately sought and killed a grizzly bear.

Not going to throw down all the numbers, but a grappling monk turned into a grizzly bear (getting all those size mod bonuses, str bonuses, and even Improved Grapple) was kind of a scary concept. Nearly every enemy we fought was pinned to the ground and viciously mauled by an intelligent ninja bear.

Eventually the rest of the party got frustrated that they couldn't understand me and got me a collar that let me communicate with other players within range, making me a telepathic ninja bear. Hilarity ensued.

That is sooooooooo cool!

[tacticslion]

So I have this mage, with all 10's in his physical attributes. I have (of course) pulled weird and terrible rules to make him awkwardly awesome, so he ended up a bit of a better tracker than the ranger.

We were hunting a deadly boar. Since my guy had scent, could track well, and was so fast it's kind of silly (he's got a land speed of 45 - that's 5 less than a horse) I convinced the rest of the crew to hole up while I hunted the boar down (we were on a clock and didn't know if we could afford to wait for him to wander back on his own). I tracked that thing for two hours (game-time, not real time), until I finally smelled him. That, of course, meant it could smell me.

Now, we'd heard it was bad and deadly, but we didn't know what that meant, exactly. I figured it could smell me, but, I could still use a mind-blast like effect to hamper it somewhat. It made it's save. The save DC was 26. A boar - not a dire boar, not an awakened boar, not a were-boar, just an advanced friggin' boar - made a will DC of 26. I rolled initiative. It won. My character was a second level mage - granted a second level mage with lots of excess powers, seemingly nearly limitless spells per day, and other special features, but in hit points, merely a second level mage with a constitution of 10. It was prevented from running or charging me only because it couldn't see me, but came right up next to me. It was bigger than I was. I fled, trusting my excessive speed to save me. It had the same speed I did. And a better constitution. And thus proceeds The Chase.

And the constitution checks.

The GM ruled that since we were both taking two move actions per round over forested terrain, we'd have to make constitution checks as if we were running. The entire party knew I was dead. I knew I was dead. I couldn't survive an attack from this thing, and couldn't outrun it, and couldn't stop long enough to hit it with anything, otherwise I'd provoke attacks of opportunity...

So I rolled my first constitution check. It was a 20. The boar rolled... a 2. I rolled my second check. It was also a 20. The boar: 3. I rolled my third: 20. Boar: 2. And so on it went, until I outran the boar (barely) all the way to the trap my allies had stationed themselves at. I had tracked this thing for two hours, and my character rolled twenties all the way back to the forest clearing. Every check was a twenty. I tried three different dice.

I ran into the clearing shouting "booooaaaar! biiiiiiiiig!", with one round space between me and the boar, and dared to use a standard action to fly. The boar jumped with a natural twenty and attacked me with a natural one. It slammed into the tree I was headed towards (incidentally knocking that one down), and proceeded to make every will save I foisted upon it. We eventually brought it down, but we all agreed that I was destined to survive that fight. One of the frailest mages I've ever dared play, managed to survive an attack by the biggest, meanest boar I've ever fought. Without ever once succeeding with one of his spells.

It was hilarious.

EDIT:incidentally, he's only been hit three times in this campaign. Once was by a mite with a dart (1 damage). The second time was by some thorn trees he was scraping by (2 damage). The third time was by the bandit boss we just fought, with an arrow for 10 damage, meaning I almost died. He missed his first shot, and my character wasn't (by technicality) human, and it was the last round of a special thing that didn't let me be affected as if flat-footed, even when I was. Had any of those things been different, I'd be dead!

Also...
a grizzly bear

This is brilliant. A grizzly is second best animal to become in DnD stat wise, only being eclipsed by the polar bear, and, if I remember correctly, that might be only because the latter gets hide bonuses in the snow. Really, it's got tremendous strength and constitution, fair dexterity, excellent natural hit dice, natural armor, attacks, and specials: it's the lycanthrope (edit: or, in this case, Polymorph-like effect) of choice! (especially for paladins, monks, and samurai, as it nets an auto-LG alignment!)

[TDK]

Oh, one more thing about Joe, god of bees. We did the most basic possible stat rolling method. 4d6 drop the lowest for each stat, rolling them in order. First thing I roll is str, second thing I roll is dex, etc, I don't get to rearrange them.

My highest was a 12. My stats were 9, 9, 14, 8, 10, 10, including the modifiers for my being a gnome.

And I STILL owned.

Fuck yeah Bees.

[Nikose Tyris]

My group has been up to nefarious hijinks again.

Previously the paladin had 'captured' (read as: kidnapped) an enemy soldier, where we dragged him to our lair to question him. The paladin in question has touch of golden ice, and promptly iced the guy to 0 Dex.

Upon getting him there, the Half-Elf Cleric played 'good cop' while the Drow Warmage and the Imaskari Wizard played 'bad cop.' At one point, the wizard force-fed sand into the thirsty soldier's mouth.

we eventually set him up so that it would appear we expected him to die, only to make a narrow escape and flee back to his army- missing a foot, and with faked information we'd dropped to him 'accidentally'. "Let me kill him, or I swear I won't have House Dhuurniv turn on the Banites!" being one of them.

Then they went to rally the support of the local circle of druids, and the fey of the woodlands. Ended up having to defeat an Advanced Winter Wolf of Legend, with 280 HP.

The Paladin expected to tank it, since they recognized it just as 'A very big winter wolf.'

2 Rounds later the paladin was pinned to the ground and nearly dead, when the drow dropped a darkness sphere on the fight, then a dancing lights to distract other wolves nearby observing the dominance struggle, while the wizard and shadowcaster threw scorching rays into the melee, weakening the winter wolf.

Then the Paladin remembered he was a grey guard, and let loose a Lay on Hands to deal 50 damage to the wolf, killing it.

He then went over and strictly lectured us regarding cheating, while declaring a moon dog the leader of the pack of wolves.

The Moonshadow Pack.

A veritable army of wolves, 150 count strong. Containing 4 legendary wolves, and a large assortment of Dire Wolves.

This fight is beginning to get interesting.

[TDK]

So Joe's original shop has just collapsed into a hole in the ground. All the honey and gold is gone. I at first suspected those godforsaken gnomes, but the tunnel is just slightly too big.

Dwarves.

I come out the other end of the tunnel after being hassled a bit by Chyme and find a dwarf camp. I wait an hour or so until sundown for them to all pass out, then I tie all the tent flaps closed and fill each tent with bees one at a time until everything inside is dead. I leave one dwarf alive to interrogate. Practically buzzing with rage, Joe asks the dwarf why. After a bit of prodding, it seems one dwarf escaped my slaughter at the giant bee hive. He went back to a nearby dwarf colony and they, lacking the military force to even attempt to take back the bee hive, went after me instead, as I'd obviously become quite the reknowned figure in the honey world.

With their love of mead, the dwarves were of course quite familiar with the honey trade. So they came after me. Destroyed my shop.

This didn't end well for them. I questioned the dwarf as to the location of the dwarf hive (Joe has a tendency to refer to large groups of any creature as a hives), but he wasn't talking, so I murdered him with bees.

So now I have to hunt down a dwarf colony, because apparently my DM wants me to commit genocide through bees. Shouldn't be too difficult to find.

There will be BLOOD.


My DM questioned my murder of the dwarves in relation to my alignment (Chaotic Neutral). I replied with, as appropriate, something regarding bees.

"Well, bees are nice. Pretty. Buzz. Make honey. Just like Joe. But if you disturb their hive, you're going to get stung to death.

...Just like Joe."

While Joe has integrated quite a bit into common society, he still retains a moderately bee-like morality in regards to stinging people to death. Sometimes its necessary for the good of the hive or to protect the honey or what have you.

He doesn't have a ton of moral compulsions against killing to protect his hive home, or for what he believes is right, but he is unlike most adventurers in that murder isn't always his first choice. Its only when he or something he believes in (the giant bee hive, for instance) is attacked that he goes into slaughter-people-with-bees mode.

He is also a bit short tempered, but I like to think he has control over that as appropriate in most situations.

Also, I found a very interesting class (inspiration for this character) on dndwiki, which is normally an awful site, but there's a few gems in the mounds of overpowered shit. This class, in particular, the Lurker in the Swarm, was only slightly overpowered and silly. So I fixed it and detracted some of the silly. You can see it here: http://sansrandom.com/blog/main/2010/08/lurker-in-the-swarm.html

There's also a link to the original class there.

At the DM's approval, I'm taking levels in it. I can do so next level. >:3

[TitoTheHappy]

Back when my group was playing 3.5 we were exploring some underground ruins and we got in an encounter with a group of beasts (its been about 3 years so I can't remember which exactly they were) and we happened to be adjacent to a incredibly large hole, long story short the fight was going very poorly for my party and the monk decided to grapple with one of the creatures and then dragged it and himself off the edge of the cliff.

Somehow he was able to break the grapple, brace himself against the sides of the pit, stop his fall and climb back up. By the time he made it to the top the tides of the battle had changed yet he decided he was invincible and decided to attempt this again.

This time he was unable to break the grapple in time. KA-Splat. Our DM was kind enough to allow us to climb down and find enough of his body to resurrect.

[tacticslion]

I find this one of the most humorous things in this thread:
* Bee Removal - Florida Honey Bees, Yellowjackets, Hornets Entomologists on staff 800-343-5317
AllFloridaBeeRemoval.com
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ultimatepest.com
* Live Bee Removal Florida Cheaper, humane, save the bees! Central Florida Ph 352 617 3673
www.ecobeeremoval. Joe now has three new enemies, and they've advertised themselves to him!

This class, in particular, the Lurker in the Swarm, was only slightly overpowered and silly. So I fixed it and detracted some of the silly. You can see it here: http://sansrandom.com/blog/main/2010/08/lurker-in-the-swarm.html

There's also a link to the original class there.

At the DM's approval, I'm taking levels in it. I can do so next level. >:3 As far as the class goes, I like it! It's a neat, well-developed concept, and it fits character theme excellently.

Two thoughts on balance, however (which you might want to consider either for your campaign, or, if not, for general consumption). First, as written, neither Healing Honey nor Royal Jelly abilities have a limit, or commensurate cost - at all. It's basically getting free healing potions and restoration potions, at will (granted only one each per hour, but still). While it's admittedly a stupid cost, you might want to make either a bit more 'expensive' (some ideas include an extra-cheap potion, as in a 75% discount on normal potion creation costs; putting a maximum of 1/week per 2 class levels plus 1/week per highest single relevant ability modifier, such as Constitution - probably the best bet for you -, Wisdom, or Charisma; requiring a craft (honey) check to pay for it - this could be used in conjunction with the extra-cheap potion ability above -; or even something as simple as "using up" <insert given summon ability here> for a day), simply to prevent unmanageable money-growth that can come from that stuff. Second, the original class required one spell to gain access to that you do not. Replacing it with another spell or class ability (such as animal companion <giant bee>, or similar) might help balance the ease of getting into the class.

Or perhaps you and the GM like the mad-cap pace, which is cool too!

On that note, however...
My stats were STR 9, DEX 9, CON 14, INT 8, WIS 10, CHA 10 How do you cast druid spells other than orisons? Warlocks don't require a high ability score to use their stuff, but druids do (spells, anyway).

One other thing, if you'd like, I had some ideas on how you could become even more bee-like or take steps toward truly being a god of bees: From the book "Complete Adventurer": the prestige classes "Animal Lord" (adapted so it's now the "Bee Lord"), and "Beast Master" (it gives you extra animal companions! giant bees ahoy!). From the book "Underdark": the prestige class Vermin Keeper (renamed to Bee Keeper, allows you to use your Wildshape from your druid to turn into a Giant Bee or a swarm, and summon more swarms and giant bees). From the book "Epic Level Handbook": the epic spell "Gathering of Maggots" (found under the monster entry "Worm who Walks") could be altered to become a "Gathering of the Hive Mind" and Joe could literally become a hive mind/swarm (a "Swarm who Walks" or something - and he flies, due to his template interacting with his class). Even if you're not interested in becoming a literal swarm with no physical features, you could still use the ELH to learn about, possibly summon and control a) a Devastation Bee [a variant of the Devastation Vermin], b) a Ruin Swarm [you want this], and c) a Vermiurge [effectively a demigod of vermin/swarms - drain his power dry, baby, or make him your own!]. Anyhoo, there's some ideas if you want them. Feel free to completely ignore them if you don't. If you need details, I could PM them at you, should you like.

Tricked the enemy into hating themselves.This is a perfectly valid tactic which I wholeheartedly support.

We have an army of dogs and dog-likes.I love your game.

This fight is beginning to get interesting.Yes!

[Freefall]

The most memorable DnD moment I had was when I played Molly a half-doppelgänger assassin/mage. The party we played where called the ace hearts.

The the team was made of a Half-orc paladin with a sunblade and identity crisis, an Amazon(warrior/priest)/mage with fashion problems(warpaint don't go well with pointy hat and robe). And of course our ranger, with a +2/+4 magical, sentient, indestructible magebane longsword, who could talk(and scream)cast light, strength, and were afraid of the dark(us and it being in a country ruled by mages, it haven't seen much use), and me. The party had a pair of Gauntlets of ogre power str 18/00 that Molly where using in this fight.

So what happened was this:
Our party was travelling was home to the capital after a job of evils butt well kicked, when it had gotten dark, and we were planning on making camp we got ambushed by a Gargan priest(Evil evil) and 10 skeleton warriors(just to avoid confusion, this is ADnD, and skeleton warriors are tough). Still no sweat, this is a pretty hardcore team, and usually, we could haste all and keep the caster locked down with MM, especially priests.
Except first round goes something like this, Amazon casts haste, Rangerbob charges skeletons, along with palle, and I try for MM but rolls very poorly on ini. The priest however rolls good and Gates a Pit fiend buddy his to join the fun.
round 2 goes to the lines of Amazon charging pitboy(remember this is ADnD and devils are pushovers, more or less) me and Rangerbob charges the skeletons, Viggo missing in spite of getting +4, and palle duking it out with evil prist.
round 3-4 is to the lines of Amazon wasting a wall of force forgetting pit fiends can teleport at will, me dealing very little damage on very many attacks with my daggers, and Rangerbob missing a lot and spraining his foot, and Palle doing what he does best.
The next 2-3 rounds it goes Really bad, I drop my dagger a few times, on some 1's, but Rangerbob manages to drop his sword twice, hit me, and in an unprecedented case of bad luck, throws his sword away, of the road, over a cliff and down the dark mountain, the sword screaming all the way. at this point everyone has taken heavy damage, and is chugging PoEH.

We win narrowly some rounds later thanks to our Palle, who finishes of the priest, and the pit fiend not wanting to taste sunblade poofs away.

Our DM told us that he did not intend the encounter to be that hard, and have to this day always calculated with the Ranger Factor.

Of course there where also that time this team pissed of that red dragon with the lame wing, because we freed/stole his involuntary girlfriend/Maid/thief/gold-digger(actually my character was nearly raped by pretending to be her), and gave him dating advice. The battle abruptly ended when a wishing ring was used to dispel his fly and apparently also his bag of holding with his hoard in. it's incredible how reluctant a dragon can be to roast you when it has to burn it's hoard to slags as well.:D

P.S. The thief and the dragon later married and became PCs

[tacticslion]

That reminds me of this one time in a game I was playing in which several of the players who really had trouble staying on track for the game. One - against my advice - challenged a pretty important recurring NPC to a duel for some forgotten reason.

They were relatively evenly matched in terms of level, skill, and stats, so they rolled initiative. They both rolled 1's. The PC had a higher modifier by 1 point (higher DEX by 1 point), so he goes first. He rolls a on his attack. The NPC decides to attack as well, and rolls a 1. The entire table stared at both dice clearly showing 1's. In morbid curiosity, the combatants continued to fight one another, generally doing more damage to themselves and their equipment than to each other. It wasn't all ones or anything, but it was really rather spectacularly bad. Several critical fails later, and many rolls of 5 and under, they were just attempting things for the sheer improbability that this one would fail so badly too. Eventually, they started using magic items and spell scrolls at one another, to take advantage of their mutual low rolls. Of course, they immediately began to roll well, negating most of the damage from the magical effects. Before they both killed themselves and used up all their magic, they called it quits, and the GM was able to turn this into a story point (with a temporary NPC) in a quest to rid the characters of a curse levied against them by a powerful mage - who, it turned out was only trying to save their lives, and thus prevent a catastrophe he'd foreseen that would be caused by their deaths, etc. and thus we got back on the main story. Spooked the players into behaving, and the game went swimmingly from then on.

[TDK]

On that note, however...
How do you cast druid spells other than orisons? Warlocks don't require a high ability score to use their stuff, but druids do (spells, anyway).

I couldn't, at first. I have since raised my wis to 11 so now I can cast first level ones. I also got my hands on a periapt of wisdom so I can cast level three spells next level.

Those classes you recommended should prove interesting. :3

[tacticslion]

I couldn't, at first. I have since raised my wis to 11 so now I can cast first level ones. I also got my hands on a periapt of wisdom so I can cast level three spells next level. Ah, cool.

Those classes you recommended should prove interesting. :3 I'm a helper!

NEW POST!

So, my ubermench Lawful Good Kalashtar mage just effectively gave the bird* to a chaotic evil deity of hatred, extortion, spite, and hags and stuff like that. I see no possible negative consequences of this. ALSO, the random shard of her sacred crystal (shattered by his TEH SONIK MAJIKZ) hitting his pregnant wife means nothing, I'm sure.

*He destroyed her burgeoning cult to the last woman, followed by shattering her sacred crystal on her own alter after telling her to stay out of their country forever. It's worth noting that this particular set of hilly areas used to be (as in hundreds of years ago) the site of a foul monastery dedicated to her. She caused all her monks to go mad, kill themselves, then come back as zombies that hung out murdering people who got to close. I also happened to cleanse the hills of those zombies a few months back. Nope. No possible negative consequences.