D&D Shenanigans

[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]

Originally Posted by wx4caster

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, SOME STUFF MY PLAYERS SHOULDN'T READthere 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 (MORE SECRETS, OH I'M SO CLEAVER FOR HIDING IT THIS WAYhe 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]

Originally Posted by EckScizor

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

(See: Fortune's Friend -- Prestige Class -- Complete Scoundrel)

[tacticslion]

Originally Posted by BitVyper

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).

Originally Posted by BitVyper

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...