Fucking Awesome DnD Moments/Campaigns

[TDK]

I'm running a DnD campaign that started off as a silly one-off thing, but has gotten to mid levels (They're at ten currently.) and has actually gotten pretty awesome.

The group is a human fighter, a human rogue/fighter/order of the bow initiate (he's an awesome archer), and a Warforged Artificer. There's also, introduced somewhat late, an NPC shaman, and an NPC red dragon wyrmling. They were all neutral at the start.

This group made a lot of enemies early on, from misunderstandings, and just things getting blown out of proportion. The enemy list included an entire goblin tribe, a northern human clan (Norse), the Druidic order (and Treants), The Holy Order (Clerics and Paladins), and a few smaller things like some specific groups of pirates.

The artificer, who is just fantastically over the top as a character, had a tower shield on which he eventually started carving the names of their enemies, crossing them off as they got rid of them.

Currently crossed off is One-Eyed Jim, The Beast, Greenskins (the goblins), McLeouds (the norsemen), and a couple others. Because of the druids and the McLeouds worshipping Thor, he also put Thor and Nature on his shield. He said he's going to retire the shield and hang it on the wall when he crosses them all off.

At one point, they went through a red dragon nest, and the artificer decides to take one of the eggs. At first, he just wants to pawn it or use it for spell components, but it actually grows on him and he decides to keep it. At some point, the mother of it gets killed, so farther down the road, it hatches and recognizes him as its mother. After a couple months, it was sentient, though it refused to learn common as it didn't want to debase itself. The artificer spoke draconic, though.

(We had a nature vs nurture debate that ended with nurture, so its not necessarily an evil creature, though it'd be easier to turn it to evil then it would be to turn a human of the same alignment.)

The dragon actually becomes a useful party member. After a few more months, its up to full Wyrmling status, giving it a CR of like, 6. Next time they levelled, it took a class level. Sorcerer. At this point they were at level 8, so it was only one behind them.



I really had to give them credit, as the party actually kind of outsmarted me as DM or did things I didn't plan on that had no reason not to work , so they fucked up my plans, but it was awesome and hilarious, so I had to allow it. This happened several times.


At one point, they decide to settle in a city and start an adventuring business. I give them the prices they find for the building and they say, you know what, screw that. They pool their money and the artificer makes a lyre of building, they hire a Bard.

They go on a small-ish adventure to help finance this, which ends up becoming bigger. Long story short, everyone gets a random magical effect at one point and the artificer, being a warforged, gets supercharged with magical energy. He uses this to manifest the materials to create their keep, as well as reverse the magical effects on everyone.

He doesn't have enough to reverse the changes to the shaman, however (he became a woman), so the shaman leaves to find someone to reverse it. He tells them he'll be back, asks if they want to come, etc, then leaves. So, they construct the keep, and with an excess of materials, end up building a larger wall around it and stuff inside.


Long story short...They end up creating a town better than the neighboring one, though smaller, and the corrupt mayor of that town gets ousted and they merge the two towns.

The city they have created is like a military state, they have mandatory military service for one member of each family for a certain amount of time.


So they built themselves an army. XD


At this point the artificer has made several homunculi, small creatures with varying purposes. This gives him an idea. One of the homunculi types is Dedicated Wright, a small creature with a hammer that can work on magical items in his place, working at the same pace and junk, as long as he spends an hour imbuing it with the spells and experience to create the items.

He makes like twenty of them, costing him a pretty penny, but no experience. Artificers have a Craft Reserve at each level, experience points just for making magic items. They can also drain magic items of half the experience used to create them.


He's stealing from the town, tax reserves, etc, to do this, but he starts up a venture in secret. He creates an elixir which would seem to be pretty awesome, but as it turns out is extremely addictive (on purpose). He makes a deal with an Arcane (magical planeshifting traders) and over the proceeding months, this spreads to half the multiverse, and he's making pretty obscene amounts of money.

He uses the money to construct a magical forge which lowers the necessary caster level for creating magical items and stuff.

With that and his artificer bonus, he can use manuals of golem creation. He buys them as he goes, a deal worked out with the Arcane, and starts making iron golems in a secret laboratory away from the town. They notice him acting funny and being extremely reclusive, but don't look too much into it.

The fighter and archer are training the military and going on occasional quests, etc, but mostly in the proceeding months, they work on the town.


At a certain point, they both (though not the artificer) start hearing voices in their dreams, telling them all they love is coming to an end and they're too weak to stop it. Tempts them with powers, expounds upon their weaknesses, etc, power behind the words.

It tells the archer (who is obsessed with being the perfect archer) about how he missed this one guy he missed before and let him get away, which led to bad stuff, and offers him unerring accuracy, etc. He fails the save and wakes up feeling more dexterous. His arrows also do more damage now.

The fighter, who always wanted to rule, and is loving his job as general, is told the soldiers question his ability to lead because of a point where dozens of them died in a faulty battle maneuver. Says they guard them while they sleep, etc, does he really want them to turn on him. Offers for men to bow to his will and power. He wakes up and they obey him better and without a second thought, and he feels stronger.

Several will saves later, the fighter is turning toward evil and accepting it, willingly toward the end, and the archer resists. The shaman comes back, a man again, tells them how the holy order helped him (he wasn't with them when they made enemies of the Order.). The archer and shaman run off to the Order, to a building they went to before. They go to kill the archer because of his slight demonic appearance due to the taint, but the shaman talks them down and they give him a crystal with magic circle against evil on it. With that, he fights it off easily and goes back to the town, the order promising to send paladins to deal with the whole demonic thing.

The archer comes back and shakes hands with the fighter in greeting, the crystal up his sleeve. The fighter makes his save and doesn't recoil as the crystal touches him.

At this point, though, the fighter is pretty far gone. He has horns growing out of his head and a demonic fear aura, as well as red eyes and wings. He can suppress all but the eyes, but they aren't that noticeable.


The archer notices something funny is going on and starts following the figher, without his knowledge. The fighter notices, though he doesn't show it. Calls together the soldiers in secret, where the archer can't follow, and tells them that the archer has turned, is going for the downfall of them all, is going to try and kill him. They're outraged and want his blood, ask the fighter what they should do. They make a plan, they're going to burst into the archer's room while he sleeps and gut him.

The archer can't hear it, but he is aware there's whispering going on in there.


He's been talking to the clerics in the temple about this, and they've had the dreams but shook them off rather easily, and they've felt foreboding in the town, etc. The shaman is in the temple at this point, helping out. The archer alerts him to the figher's activities and runs for the woods. No one sees him. The soldiers burst into the archer's room to kill him, don't find him, the fighter puts everyone on alert, makes search parties, and tells them to find the shaman. They try to detain the shaman, but he guts two the soldiers and flees. The fighter takes to the sky with his demonic wings and heads him off just outside the town walls, the soldiers surrounding him. He gets nearly killed before turning invisible and running away. The fighter orders everyone back in and shuts the gate, the shaman hitting him with a lightning bolt just before they close.

The archer saw this skirmish from the woods, and sneaks back into the keep through the back, hiding in the fighter's room and waiting. They're scouring the town for him and keeping on alert, they do it all through the night. The shaman sneaks into the fighter's room at one point to lay a trap, but the archer tells him no, don't, just bring me food and water and I can take care of it.

So the soldiers start scouring the keep itself as well. Several of them burst into the fighter's room, with the fighter. The archer remains hidden until he can get a shot at the fighter, at which point he jumps out and hits him with two sneak attack arrows. His bow is like +2, along with a fire and lightning enchantment, and he gets greater damage at close range because of an order of the bow ability. So each arrow is like 4d6+2d8+6.

He doesn't roll great, but the fighter takes about 53 points of damage. In two attacks, though, so no massive damage.

At this point the artificer comes out to see what all the ruckus is. He sees the fighter wounded, and soldiers going into the room, though he can't see the archer. So he comes over and heals the fighter, unaware.

At this point, the artificer has gotten half the realms addicted to a substance for his own gain, as well as created an army of iron golems, so his alignment changed to evil a while ago, as did the fighter's with the whole demonic thing. But the artificer has no reason to hurt the archer.

The red dragon wyrmling (the artificer named him Custer. As in Custer's Revenge. XD) contacts the artificer magically and tells him paladins are coming, a lot of them. The fighter watching, and no one aware of the army he built, he tells Custer "Mobilize the army."

Custer turned evil along with the artificer, by the way. He was already somewhat inclined toward it, being a red dragon, but the evil him and the artificer are is more of an "I don't care if people die" evil, not Roar I kill you all die die Evil.

At this point, the shaman, with two paladins, comes running in. The paladins charge the artificer (whom, by the way, is completely decked out with magic items and has absurd AC because of his warforged feat selection and magic items.) and his iron defender (robot attack dog homunculus, basically). They get into a melee, the shaman running past to attack the fighter and the soldiers.

The soldiers surround the archer and start wailing on him. He shoots several of them (order of the bow feat, no attack of opportunity for ranged attacks in a threatened square) before the fighter comes in a hits him twice, knocking into single digits, then gores him with his horns, killing him. First player character that's died for me. XD During this melee, the shaman shot several lightning bolts into the room, killing a couple soldiers, but the fighter kept him back before he could save the archer.

The soldiers come out and surround the shaman and the paladins, the fighter and artificer also helping, though the artificer isn't trying to kill the shaman.

The paladins and shaman end up dead. They hear ruckus outside and all run down to see fourty iron golems battling a crapload of paladins and clerics. The golems are winning. Hard.

The order is finished off (well, this group, anyway) and Custer (and his new half-construct limb), as is his triumphant habit, raises his head to the sky and breathes a massive gout of flames skyward as the golems fall back into line and salute the artificer standing up on the balcony. A small portion of the city is wrecked, two characters turned evil, the other died, and there's a large army controlled by the now evil characters.


The demonic possession thing was a one and a half page thing I wrote for the archer and fighter to do before we began the quest I wrote, as the artificer's player hadn't gotten here yet. It ended up in an epic confrontation between the characters, and a massive battle between an army of golems and the holy order.


I love this game.


...Wow, that was a lot more than I meant to write.


Share your own awesome moments, or if the whole campaign was awesome, share that too!

[Rokrin]

Reading that whole thing was actually the most enjoyment I've had the entire time I've been in quarantine. I wish my players had been that creative.

I'll have to think of some epic moments...I wish someone around here was willing to DM other than me, or even more people were willing to play at all. I miss being a player.

I once had a player, in desparation to kill a dragon, take a goblin (this goblin was named Percy and was, in fact, the player's mount), shove a magical explosive alchemical potion down the goblin's throat, throw the goblin at the dragon, who promptly consumed the goblin and had the potion explode halfway down it's throat.

He single-handedly killed the dragon, which was sad because he was the Gnome Alchemist and the other two party members were a Dwarven Fighter and a Dwarven Cleric.

[Corel]

The campaign revolved around a legendary sword which the main antagonist had been trying to get his hands on for decades to cast a ritual to make not very nice things happen. The thing about this sword is that it was deliberately made to appear not magical in anyway, shape or form (So that it could not be detected or tracked). After much adventuring we find that it was being held in a fortress/town specifically made to protect the sword.

We found out that the antagonist had been tracking us to lead him to this sword, so we set up a trap of sorts.

Here is how the battle went; big bad guy enters the room with the sword on the pedastal and us between it. After much fighting, two of our party members had been slain and the rest of us had been either stunned or crippled in some way. After much gloating of his victory, he triumphantly picks up the sword and starts the ritual which requires the weapon. When nothing appears to happen he then notices a note was kept underneath the sword.

It read: "LOOK IN THE NEXT HALLWAY, LOVE THE ADVENTURERS x x x"

I don't think he read all of the note, for it detonated from Explosive Runes. He storms into the hallway and to his horror realises that the walls and ceilings were covered in exact replicas of the sword he was holding. We had a while before he probably appeared so we had the settlement create as many replicas of the sword as we could before he showed up and put them in the hall.

It turned out we had entrusted the fate of the sword to one of the party members; who was one of the first to be killed. It was in a trader's cart of unknown destination somewhere across the country by the time the guy showed up to claim it.

Sure, the antagonist came back and slaughtered the rest of the party in a fit of rage, but it was worth it.

[The Argent Lord]

The campaign I'm in right now is pretty epic. It's a serious campaign, but we tend to have about one crazy awesome moment per session. My favorite, though, had to be our only aerial battle to date.

The party was riding in an enclosure on the top of a Colossal-sized roc. Three wizards on hippogriffs are chasing us, with wands slotted into their belts. The party rogue/fighter leans out a window and fires an arrow at the center wizard. He proceeds to roll a natural twenty, and another on the confirmation. We decided to test out the "exponential critical" rule I planned to use in my game, and had him roll again. Another 20, and then an 18, which confirmed the whole thing.

The arrow strikes the belt, sending the wands flying, then deflects into the hippogriff. The wands go off in midair, killing both of the other wizards. Then the rogue calls out the activation for the feather token in the fletchings of the arrow. The hippogriff is split in two by a suddenly-appearing boat, which falls to the ground holding a very surprised wizard.

We're all high-fiving each other when the boat suddenly rises into view behind us, dragon wings sprouting from the sides, and the wizard perched on the bow like Washington crossing the Delaware. He pulls out another wand, at which point my caster picks him off with a lightning bolt. We capture the flying boat, light it on fire, and send it flying into the military garrison that we're fleeing, ensuring our escape.

[Meister]

Half an hour ago it transpired that apparently an unknown person modified our entire party's memory to a similarly unknown extent two in-game years ago, i.e. at the start of the campaign. That tends to change the tone of a session.

[Tev]

Right now I run a Divine campaign with 2 paladins/2 clerics/1 avenger/1 invoker, all followers of Bahamut. While exploring the in a deep jungle, they came across a pair of Mayan looking ziggurats from an ancient lizardfolk empire. Anyway, they bust up the encounter outside and then set to work grave-robbing like most PC's are apt to do.

They break into one of the ziggurats and are exploring a large room full of burial pits when the dead lizardmen come alive to attack the intruders. Best part was that I based them lizardfolk undead off of two lizard-folk stick-ball sports teams. So there was one team of four brutish blackscale zombies with clubs that knocked the players five feet back each time they connected and had a reach of two squares and a smaller faster team of poisonscale minions that used their tails to knock the players prone and poisoned them. So essentially I had four big athletic zombies playing "whack the PC" as they surrounded the party and were battling players from one brute to the next while the smaller ones were scampering about tripping up players left and right.

All in all much fun was had as we likened the game to a weird Lizard-Mayan-Stick-Rugby fight.

[Seil]

I did one a few years ago, while still in high school. My group and I came across a group of vampires, who promptly attacked us. They were about 20 levels higher, so we knew we were screwed. We survived up to the last vampire, who was standing over the tank, about to impale him. I looked at the DM:

"He's distracted, right?"
"Yes?"
"I'm behind him, right?"
"Uh-huh."
"I hit him in the back of the head with a rock."
"...Roll for damage."
*19*
"Okay, the vampire is unconcious. What do you want to do?"
"I open his breastplate and stab him a bunch in the chest."
"..."

Another time, the DM was playing with a different group, and a bard, who'd been annoying everyone throughout the session, became a combatant in the arena. The DM chose to set him off against a player quite a bit higher than him, also a bard. The opposing bard is quickly ensnared by a song, but he begins to play the song of shattering.

"But he's ensnared, right?"
"Right."
"I go right up to him and kick him in the nuts."
"...Roll for damage."

[Sir Pinkleton]

The group I'm in just started a week ago, but we've already done quite a bit. the tone of the compaign was supposed to be much darker, and it is I guess, but we don't really let that stop us from having fun. In the beginning, after all our time spent finding out our equipment and skills and such, all of our equipment was taken away, as we were captured by someone as slaves (highly illegal in the time period). Basically, another slave on our boat was a montigue (I don't know how they spelled it), so rich spain family (I knew that because bardic knowledge for the win). She dies by stabbing, and a cook is beaten to death in front of all of us, because out druid broke out of his chains, didn't get in trouble when the (probably neutral) cook comes in with food, and then tells the guards later that the cook didn't do anything about it.

Later, in a jail cell (we figured we've landed somewhere in Babylonia/equivalent), we're greeted by a tiger who has, pirates of the carribean style, the jail cell keys in his mouth. Later, Jordan, the only son out of many daughters to the richest weapons dealer who's captured us (again, only I figured this out because: bard), greets us. A girl of the group, an assassin, accosts him. Or he accosts her. Either way, lots of accosting is flying around, and she... leaves to his chambers. Suffice to say, she figures out it's not actually a dude (not that any of us picked that up). We're told we're going on an adventure the next day, and that was last week.

This week, because people left and other things, the druid is replaced by some chick (who I just barely recognized. Bard ftw again) who used to be three people, but is now one. as far as I can tell, the person in control randomly takes over in "high-stress situations" (I think one's serious, one's silly/stupid, and the last one's angry). Anyway, we all get our equipment back, and we go to our first "dungeon." It appears to be a vacation house on the cliffs next to the sea. we decide to go in through the front door instead of the back. 3 people get in before the one with full plate armor falls to the hard ground, alerting 4 guards in an adjacent room (hidden door). the full plate guy gets into a corner next to a door in preparation... but then the guards come in through the door to the other side of him. To keep it short, one guard immediately rolls a 1, and impales a longsword through his foot before getting pushed over (basically dead as he did nothing except die later). The full plate guy who was in the corner almost dies, I cast tasha's hideous laughter, incapacitating one guard, and the other two guards are just beaten up. (Oh, and I read some diaries of the guards in their room. Funny stuff like crude torture drawings of someone the guard didn't like, and another one's black book).
We move out that room, blah blah, and set off a trap in a glass case, as well as an alarm. Everyone but the barbarian runs away, though I try to buff, and the barbarian almost dies; she should've though. Near the end of the fight she rolled a critical failure on an attack, then a 97% afterwards (for those of you at home, a higher % after a critical failure is baaad). Instead of just killing her, The DM says she ends up wailing one guard through a wall, into another guard on the other side of the wall and into the full-plate guy as well, bringing him 1 health point away from death. A lot of people are wounded at this point.

One guard enters the room I hid in, with a rogue, me, and another rogue, all but one of us hiding (the other ran away through a hidden passage. Damn chaotic evil!) I paralyse him again with Tasha's hideous laughter, and we almost kill him. (and he's the last guard basically. The real last one rus away because a] he's all alone and b] a barbarian just threw someone through a wall). I ask the rogue that's supposed to go before me to hold his attack. Why? The guard is on the ground, his feet facing towards me. I yell, "May Fharlanghn* help you find your way to hell!" and then threw a critical! Right in the balls. I got out from my hiding space under the bed with some wicked 'waaaaang' on my air lute.
Then the barbarian touches a trapped door, blows up, and we leave with the magical sword that we came for; and this is all only day two!

*God of roads. The saying then being, "may my god show you the way to hell!"

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[EVILNess]

Originally Posted by Meister

Half an hour ago it transpired that apparently an unknown person modified our entire party's memory to a similarly unknown extent two in-game years ago, i.e. at the start of the campaign. That tends to change the tone of a session.

So he rewrote your memory two years ago, or he rewrote your remembrance of two years ago?

[Meister]

She did it two years ago.* At least that's how I understood it. Best we could figure out is that this person took away our memory of her; we tried to figure out who we'd ever come across who would do that, but realized pretty soon why that obviously wouldn't work.

Question is now: what's so important about a meeting between a bunch of low-level no-names and an apparently near-epic mage that said mage would delete our memory of the event? (And also, as we found out, continue to regularly scry on us for the entire time until today?)

And here we were thinking the time we found out our Scout's father was a) several hundred years old and b) an exiled member of a circle of elite fighters, the rest of which are apparently hunting us, was an incredible twist.

*Not a deliberate Watchmen reference, I swear.