Fake War Stories

Accidentally awesome

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 09:48:57 -0700

I was playing as a Half-Elf Ranger a long time ago, and got really lucky whilst rolling the character. Stats up to here, lemme tell you.

Despite this, I had absolutely terrible luck rolling during combat. How bad? Our party trusted the currently spell-less wizard to hold a critical hallway over me. It was bad.

Anyhow, despite my ineptitude, we managed to bust through this evil temple, defeat the crazed mummy at the end, and recover the enchanted, legendary bastard sword that was hanging on the wall. (Well, a +1 bastard sword, but it was so far the first magic weapon in the campaign.) Being the only one in the party who really USED swords of that type, it went to me.

And with it, my luck changed too.

Rolling twenties came as naturally to me as breathing. During one fight, I killed four goblins before the rest of the party had even rounded the corner. The difference was night and day.

My character had always been a bit aloof, but now grew positively stuck up. I was a whirling death machine! I was a god!

Arguments ensued. The provenance of my skill came under question. Until finally, it came out: “Without that sword, you’d be just as useless as you’ve ALWAYS been!”

In a fit of pique, I threw the sword away. It landed in the bottom of a river, and everyone stared at me. In particular the DM. “You’re… You’re sure you’re just going to leave that there? It’s a MAGIC SWORD.”

But I was determined. What good was being impressive in combat when your fellow party members saw you as nothing more than effectively a scarecrow that allowed a fancy magical sword to swing about and be awesome?

So we left the sword and carried on. As it turns out, my rolls didn’t switch back to being as terrible as before, and I proved to continue to be a competent fighter for the rest of the campaign.

But the DM took me aside a few months later, and let me know just exactly what I’d thrown away. Turns out that the sword I had was actually a legendary artifact that grew as it killed, gaining XP along with me, and growing in bonuses, up to +5, inflicting fiery damage, and granting magical abilities.

Still more importantly, it would grow in intelligence as well, eventually to the point where it WOULD have taken me over entirely, and I WOULD have been nothing but a scarecrow allowing the sword to enact its will.

He had an entire plot set up for this, whole cities full of NPCs to betray and win back the trust of, and had planned on taking me aside a few weeks into the transformation to let me know how the changes were altering my character, and had confidence that a) I could have pulled it off without the other players noticing until it was too late and b) it was going to be awesome.

And yet instead of the accusations and redemption happening over a few month’s time, it happened in an afternoon. The first afternoon. Probably forty-five minutes after first acquiring the sword.

I still imagine that sword down there some times, at the bottom of that river… Just conscious enough to realize how close it had come to being released, but not powerful enough to really do anything about it…

(submitted by Imperfect via MeFi)

Death Alley Race!

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:47:52 -0700

A few weeks ago I was part of a fantasy based LARP event. My first day there someone gave me a bunch of advice and a tour.

The first bit of advice was “follow zombie apocalypse rules: never go anywhere alone or too dark to see.”

There were some other bits but I cant really remember them :P

When the tour came about they pointed down one of the roads that lead to some hidden section of woods and told me that that was called “Death Alley”.

For good reason apparently.

The first day went by and we encountered some bad things. Like bad to the point where I couldn’t even hurt them or they took too long to kill. The next morning I decided I wanted to go exploring. So i grabbed one of the other (more heavily armed and armored) noobs and we decided to take a walk down Death Alley, not even considering the consequences.

We reach the end of Death Alley (still alive) and we find this really cool building! We go exploring for a bit and leave. I step out of the doorway and go to say something to the other noob and the conforsation goes something like this:

Me: ::notices about 8 baddies:: We have a slight problem. Run.

Noob: What’s the problem? ::looks around::

Me: ::Runs::

Noob: ::notices the baddies and also runs::

We ran all the way down Death Alley, rallied the town, and survived the encounter. But that was only my first race of the event! The second one took place later that day before the feast.

Shortly after the first race we ate lunch and got some quests assigned to us. One of which is to find a mysterious blink plant. I went out with about 3 different search parties and searched the entire camp. The final search party—a wild elf ranger, a wild elf swordsman, and I—found a portal that we supposedly had to close.

The ranger got curious and shot an arrow into it. After a trip to LC and back we found out that a really bad baddie came out of the portal.

The swordsman and myself ran and drew the baddie away from the ranger and toward Death Alley. It casually walked while following us. Upon reaching Death Alley it burst into a full run. We valued our lives so we did the same.

I made it all the way down Death Alley alive (again) and I decided that that was my LAST time running through that place.

(submitted by super-contributor mrevand6!)

Whatcha gonna do...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 09:06:53 -0700

Whatcha gonna do when Hulkamania runs wild on you!

Tales from the Zoo: Sacred Line

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 09:52:00 -0700

(This was submitted by a group of gaming fans of our site who go by The Zoo. Thanks guys!)

Continuing from where mrevand6 left off from the giant demon turnip, the soulknife ran ahead and was promptly swallowed, ne’er to return. My cleric of JUSTICE AND VALOUR watched in mute horror as his comrade was devoured by this foul creature, and recompense for his life was demanded.

I drew my blade and said “Now we shall slay this fiend and avenge the life of our comrade!”.

My fellow cleric stated, “We need to run.”

The local bandito said “Naw.”

And the warlock simply looked on.

This turned into a 5 minute break, where we reconnoitered outside to plan/argue, as we were wont to.

Now, as you faithful readers may know, our DM was not the best one our group had played with. He railroaded like a fiend, refused to do his bookwork, and had a very rigid idea of how D&D was “supposed” to be like. To wit, my cleric had turned into a plot device, and I endured it with grace and serenity borne of patience (until he broke my master’s sword, but that is a rage story not fit for here).

Outside, I repeated my demand that we do battle in the name of our fallen friend and scrub this blight from the land! The other cleric, a weak, weedy fellow of perhaps questionable faith, again repeated that we could not win, we were exhausted from many battles up to this point, including a very bad run-in with 2 shambling mounds (we will never look down on plant monsters ever again), and I challenged his courage and made a discouraging remark about his testicles or lack thereoff (or something of the sort).

The bandito said it wasn’t his problem (it’s never his problem until shambling mounds show up ::grumble::) and the warlock continued to look.

I repeated that we will fight this beast or I will stand alone to fell it.

What I did not say was that due to my armor and the presentation I saw before, of the soulknife, the single fastest thing I had ever seen getting snapped up mid-run by this burrowing monster, I could not under any means functionally outrun it, and I could not fly. I literally had no choice but to stand and fight, or die fleeing.

The cleric finally relented, saying he had some ideas left, and with him, the bandito grudgingly agreed. With the majority rules, the warlock followed suit. I bounded back into the house, sat at the table, looked over my charater sheet, took stock of my spells, and waited.

What I didn’t know was that the rest of the group was still plotting outside…

Everyone comes back in, and sits down. The first thing the cleric does is cast the spell needed to give you wings on himself, then offers to hit me with it. I defer to giving it to the bandito, as he had some decent ranged ability (that never worked [OHHH NOOO~]), and the warlock again takes to the air.

I then sorta realized just how buggered I was.

Well, hell. I hit myself with some buffs, hulk the hell up, summoned 5 celestial badgers (love these guys, 1d4+1 baby), spread them out in a circle, and had them rage, stamping their feet to draw in the turnip.

It burrowed down, and the DM rolled a d6 to determine who got nommed. A badger got hit (thankfully), the group made some cursory attempts to pelt it from the air, while I activated my plan. I walked over to it, and grappled the damn thing, with all the badgers assisting. I proceed to then pin the creature, my grapple check sky high with the buff bonuses, keep it down for its round, release my part of the grapple, quick draw my longsword with both hands, and full bore power attack it.

Rolled to hit, rolled damage.

“30 damage,” I say, “is it dead?”.

“No”, replies the DM.

Rolled again, hit again, 36 damage, still alive. Quick Strike bracers, go. Attack again, hit again. “40 damage, is it dead?”.

“Yes, it’s dead…”.

“Good”.

I de-summon the badgers and sheath my sword as my comrades float down from the skies. I cut open the beast with my knife, hoping to recover my comrade’s remains for burial, and am told there is nothing inside, not even his metal/magic gear.

Taking this situation in silent stride, I quietly build a small shrine and pray for his soul to find salvation before looking towards a small hut that contained a gnawed upon corpse, the corpse’s journal detailing the creation of the monstrous plant we had slain and a few small baubles.

We burned the creature’s body, burned the ashes, then I called down divine fire to burn them once more just in case.

With the situation solved, we returned to the tree people, told them the creature that was killing their folk was dealt with, received their word they would leave the human settlements be, then got on our damn ship and left that accursed island behind.

This was about the time I came to realize that 3.5 D&D clerics are sorta busted.

Live to Fight

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:55:29 -0700

Last weekend I attended Ghengis Con in Denver. During a game one of the other participants told me of his experience at a previous convention. He’d signed up as Gamemaster for a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl and drew the morning slot. Only one person showed up at the time of the game, but they decided to play anyway.

Talking to the player, the GM learned that the gentleman was unfamiliar with the game. In fact he’d never roleplayed before and had no idea what the hobby was about. He and his wife lived in one of the small mountain towns of the Rockies, and every few months they’d drive into Denver to see what was happening. He’d discovered the game convention while his wife was at a doll show and, thinking it sounded fun, decided to drop in.

The GM handed the player a character sheet for a stalwart Ranger, gave him a brief overview of play, and they were off. When the player ran into his first monster, the Gamemaster helpfully pointed out the Ranger’s skill in archery and swordplay.

“So what do you want to do?” the GM asked.

The player studied his character sheet. “It says I can do bird calls,” he noted.

“That’s right,” the GM replied, somewhat puzzled.

“OK. I do a bird call to distract the monster, and then sneak past him.”

The fellow rolled the dice and successfully evaded the monster. In fact, over the course of the game, the player cleverly avoided every monster in the dungeon, with nary an arrow fired or sword unsheathed.

(found on defective yeti)

Crushed

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 09:58:19 -0700

I was twelve and had just started a campaign with a couple of guys playing 2nd Edition AD&D. The group was looking for new blood. I found out that if a player had to move or something and wasn’t able to play with the group anymore, the DM was in the habit of killing them off in spectacular, save-the-whole-party-with-your-sacrifice kinda ways.

“You shall not pass” kinda ways.

Fast forward a few months, and I have to move to another province and need to quit. I do and I lose touch with the players.

A few years later I’m back in Montreal and I come across my old gaming buddy. We get talking and I remember the game and excitedly ask how my character died.

“Oh, your mage? A wall fell on him.”

(submitted by haplesslad)

Mountain Man MADNESS!

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:01:24 -0700

I’m a long time supporter of a small and relatively unknown LARP called RISING. It’s a zombie survival larp, and the weekend events are always full of great stories I will cherish for the rest of my life. The story I’m about to tell is about something I did that was, as one of my fellow players called it, “legendarily failtacular”.

One quick lesson in RISING rules to explain the story. In this post-apocalyptic setting, one of the few medicines that can be used is steroids, and game physics dictates that someone dosed with them—for one swing—deals 5 times the damage. On the next swing, 4 times the damage and so on untill it wears off.

Example: if you can only do 1 damage in melee normally, if a doctor hits you with steroids, your next attack will be 5 damage, then 4, then 3, then 2, untill you’re back to 1 damage. This little syringe, I always noticed, was widely ignored as not that useful. But i found a sneaky way of using it, as this story will show.

I was a Marksman at this particular event (ranged attack specialist, firearms, etc. NOT a beefy melee fighter), and I tagged along with another group as I came alone that year. The wonderful DM liked to incorporate meal times into the game as to not break ambiance. So our first morning in the event, our groups got word that our food drop landed in the mountains nearby, an area we knew was “mountain man” territory.

Feeling remarkably hungry after a night of killing zombies I decided to follow along on the quest to get our food. A short hike brought us to a clearing where a mountain man on a 4 wheeler with our food crate strapped to the back was getting ready to ride off to his group.

A short bit of diplomatic back and forth got the mountain man to agree to let us have the crate provided we offered him something of equal value. An argument broke out in the group as to what all we could do without so we could have breakfast. Feeling a bit clever, I stopped the argument (this is all out of earshot of the mountain man, who was also one of the GMs), “Guys, stop! There’s no reason we have to lose a damn thing to this guy. We outnumber him and no one else is around! If we kill him quietly we can have the food AND his gear. At the low cost of FREE!”

This becomes the winning idea and then the conversation becomes how to do this dastardly deed without making alot of noise.

And then I had another epiphany.

“Hey doc, do you have a steroid? Good. Hit me with it.”

Then I drop my guns and pull my only melee weapon, a knife about the size of a bowie, “Hey dude, I have this knife. It’s a hunting knife, really sharp, good for skinning game, etc. Would that be a good trade?”

I don’t know what the guy was thinking, but he made it too easy.

“Well, I don’t know…bring it here and let me have it.”

So I held it out and when I got close enough I got a good grip and “let him have it”.

In 5 quick stabs I did 15 damage in a game where the average human has 1 hit point and the average zombie has 5 or 10.

Point is I don’t know how many points a “mountain man” had… but I know I’d done enough.

The GM looks at me just baffled, “are you SERIOUS?!?”

I grinned, very proud of myself, “Yup. Gotta love steroids. So I’m looting you.”

The GM quickly gets his head back in the game and says words that may as well have just been “you fucked up.” He smiled and said, “you hear a ticking noise.”

The mountain man, in fear of this exact scenario, booby trapped his 4 wheeler to EXPLODE in the event of his death. A little fact that I think should have been mentioned EARLIER… but I digress.

I turn, cuss, and run while the timer counts down. The 4 wheeler blows up taking our breakfast with it. Not only was I the bane of the breakfast table (until the GM showed pity and gave us food anyway), but I then became public enemy number 1 in the new plot where the mountain men declared war on our camp…

"Bite me." "DIE."

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:24:04 -0700

Another time we were playing AD&D (2nd edition) and the characters were summoned before the infamous Lord of the North (whom the PCs had heard a lot about but had never met, he was a serious badass in our world’s meta-geopolitical game).

So as the Lord of the North is basically acknowledging that the PCs could be somewhat useful to him, our ranger decides to get lippy with him:

Ranger: “Screw off you over-important prick, we will not work for you.”

Lord: “YOU WILL BOW TO ME AND SHOW YOUR RESPECT, MORTAL.”

Ranger: “Bite me.”

Lord: “DIE” ::casts Power Word: Kill::

Ranger: ::fails save, dies::

Rest of the group: “What the fuck were you thinking, Ranger?!”

Ranger: “Well, I didn’t think he was going to kill me! And besides I might have made my save…”

(submitted by Vindaloo via MeFi)

One shot, ten kills

Wed, 30 May 2012 15:39:32 -0700

Once we were playing Shadowrun and the GM was running a store bought adventure. Around the half way point of the game, the runners have to travel from one city to the next. Along the way we hear a shot — one the van’s tires has been blown out by a bullet!

The Rigger makes the skill check and stays on the road (reinforced tires, so we didn’t have a flat per say). So we look out of the van (not stopping) and see we are being followed by a glider and the shots are coming from there.

At the same time a large motorcycle gang, waving chains and shotguns, is seen further down the road and gaining on us due to our reduced speed.

We roll for initiative.

Our sniper goes first, leans out the window, and fires one shot at the glider, hitting the pilot in the head, killing him instantly, and sending the glider crashing to the ground.

Next up, me as the mage. I cast a Force Wall across the span of the highway and roll well enough to place the wall close to the bikers.

GM rolls.

Every single biker (all 9 of them) fails their roll and crashes straight into the wall at 95 mph.

Encounter ends. High fives all around!

GM picks up the adventure book again, pauses, then bursts out laughing as he reads us aloud the Adventure Notes on said encounter (paraphrasing):

“This encounter is designed to wear out the runners and use up a lot of their ammo, so that when they arrive back in town they are low on supplies and health and thus more susceptible to negotiate.”

Total supplies used in that fight: 1 bullet.

Susceptibility to negotiations: zero.

(submitted by Vindaloo via MeFi)

Who invited the hill giant?

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:57:17 -0700

(This is a follow-up to the Wandering Plot Hook story)

The players had arranged to help a rich and somewhat crooked merchant family (the Buoanottis) takeover a black onyx mine that had been occupied by a company of hobgoblins. The deal was that the adventurers were interested in loot and riches but not necessarily operations, whereas the Buoanottis were interested in riches and operations but not in getting them or their people killed.

So, the PCs agreed to escort a small mining crew with a supplementary squad of ~~redshirts~~ mercenaries back to the cove, attack the mine, clear out the hobgoblins, ???, and PROFIT!

What ensued was a fairly typical bug hunt\dungeon crawl, and, in the end, the PCs discovered a cache of correspondence between the hobgoblin chieftain\death priest and his superiors.

Turns out that this was also just a prospecting party sent out to test the vein for potential on behalf of an evil monster empire run by a rakshasa with a more than passing interest in necromancy. Since black onyx is a vital spell component in animate dead spells, it is needless to say that the rakshasa emperor was very interested in sending out a full-fledged war party to help secure the mine.

The PCs did the math between when the letters were sent, how far the known borders of the rakshasa empire were, and how long it might take a goblinoid war party to march through the terrain, and figured that they only had about a week.

Cue preparation and logistics montage as the party sets up pit traps and avalanche zones and digs some trenches and fortifications all A-Team style. The goblins show up a day early and the PCs scramble to man their defenses with their mercenary allies. Drums can be heard and everyone gets tense.

Traps go off, attackers impale themselves on stakes planted in front of the trenches, and generally it seems like a plan is coming together.

Then, a boulder flies out of the darkness and hurtles over the fortifications. Drums change their beat ever so slightly, and another boulder comes out and slams into the ramshackle wall, splintering it. Drum tempo changes again and a third boulder flies and shatters the wall.

Then the hill giant shows up, roaring and hefting a new boulder to hurl at someone.

The party is, like, 4th level and a hill giant, by itself, is a 7th level encounter. Backed up by 20 wounded and murderous hobgoblins, it’s TPK territory. So the party retreats and sets off their avalanche failsafe to buy themselves some time.

Over the next couple of sessions as the PCs fight a series of running battles with the hobgoblins, they piece together a couple of things. The giant itself appears to be a juvenile and not a full adult, and it dotes on the hobgoblin drummer (2nd lvl bard, btw) who also appears to be acting as a forward observer (essentially using his drumbeats to guide the giant’s rock hurling).

So, fast forward to the last stand where the PCs have been cutoff from their beach exit and have withdrawn to the mouth of their mine and the remains of the hobgoblins show up with their hill giant artillery. The players figure out fairly quickly that they need to take down the bard and so concentrate all of their efforts on him. The person who kills the bard?

The party wizard.

One hit from the hill giant’s pinky would’ve turned him into paste.

The hill giant loses his shit and starts chasing the wizard around. The wizard has spent most of his firepower on the battle already and is exhausted (we use a spell point system where you can cast more spells in a day but a lot of casting in an encounter will make you fatigued and exhausted).

So he uses a scroll of Expeditious Retreat to essentially kite the giant, interposing squads of goblins between the giant and him and letting the giant trample them on its way to killing him, while the rest of the party does their best to use ranged weapons to whittle away at the mountain of HP that is a hill giant with 8 HD.

The remaining mercenaries try their best to just survive.

The wizard also realizes that once he runs out of goblins to sucker, the giant can very likely charge and kill him.

Eventually, after five rounds of this hilarity, the hill giant finally goes down and the player running the wizard just collapses in his chair, exhausted and weakly high fiving everyone, like he just spent that last hour running around himself and not just moving a piece of plastic across a table.

(submitted by spokenword)

3 Pins

Fri, 25 May 2012 13:50:36 -0700

I’m running a Pathfinder game with my kids and some friends.

Malgus the Barbarian Sorcerer and the rest of the gang (two Rangers, a Fighter, and a Cleric) have to go into a mausoleum to seek a book. Currently the gang is in the mausoleum looking at a chest and a sarcophagus.

Malgus: “I’m going to check the chest for traps.”

Me: “Um… ok. Roll.”

Malgus: ::roll 8:: “So…”

Me: “Cool bro. Chest looks great to you.”

Malgus: “I look at the lock. What’s it look like?”

Me: “It has a key hole, but underneath it there are three pins.”

Malgus: “Ok, I pull one.”

Ian (fighter standing next to him): “That’s a bad idea Noah..”

Malgus (Noah): “No, I checked for traps. There aren’t any.”

Adam (Cleric): “What are you doing over there…?”

Malgus: “I’m pulling the pin.”

Me: “Which one?”

Malgus: “Third one.”

Me: “Ok. Uh….roll 2d4.”

::5::

“Roll a d20. You want under your constitution.”

::17 = fail::

“Ian, you’re next to him, roll a 1d4”

::1::

“Okay, so you both get blasted back and quickly blinded. When the blast clears you have this tingy taste on your tongue and weird iron smell in your nose, but other than that you feel fine.”

Malgus: “Cool.”

“I pull the other two.”

The Tyranny of Pants

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:52:29 -0700

One of my very first campaigns took place in a small town— a humble location with little more than an inn, blacksmith, and church. One day, upon returning to town after a small skirmish, one of our fighters was taken to the local church for curing and healing.

After making the appropriately large donation and waiting for the services to be performed we “split the party” and wandered around the church halls admiring the paintings, stained glass, and other works of art. Once our fighter was back to himself we took him to the inn and spent the rest of the evening drinking and telling stories.

The next morning before heading out our halfling (thief), who decided to use the outhouse before leaving, began to inquire about how to value some items while I waited for him just outside the door.

It became apparent that the items he was asking about were of religious origin and, right before I was able to put two and two together, a substantial group of armored riders from the church crested the hill.

“What have you done!” I yelled and, before he could answer, I instructed him to run.

He flung open the door and told the DM that he was running down the hill towards the creak, heading under the bridge. The ever-creative DM told him that was fine but, because he took action in such haste, and he was hung over from drinking, and was reasonably in fear of his life, that he forgot to pull up his pants and therefore began to tumble out of the outhouse and was rolling down the hill.

It was chaos from there on out and I don’t recall much of the rest other than we were all in tears and our sides hurting from laughter the rest of the evening.

The thief (Noose) was from then on known as Noose Tumblefoot.

God damn it Leeroy.

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:10:01 -0700

God damn it Leeroy.

You Just Can't Plan These Things...

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:33:44 -0700

Our group, the Heroes of Vindale, had just rid the countryside of—not one—but several goblin tribes. With our hearts bolstered by our success, we set forth in our crusade against evil. When we discovered that a large tribe of Orcs had a slave-powered mining operation in the hills we decided to bring the fight to them.

The setup was elaborate: terrain depicting the hillside, decorated with tents, buildings, and towers.

And lots of Orcs.

Our party was set up on an overlook to size up the situation and form a plan of attack. Being the party’s magic-user, I was to lob fireballs from the overlook. I would be accompanied by Narn the Blade, a thief armed with a Wand of Lightning. Meanwhile the warriors would rush in from another direction to put the Orcs to the sword.

A viable plan. Save for Narn’s wand.

As experienced gamers we all knew that the wand’s command phrase:

“Wand of wonder, wand of light, smite my enemies within my sight.”

…means the wand is not what it appeared to be.

Of course our characters didn’t know that, so when it spit out a Lightning Bolt the first time it was used, our characters assumed it was a Wand of Lightning.

We prepared for battle, and Narn the Blade took up his position and recited the words.

The DM rolled the dice and…

Narn the Blade was surprised by the sudden appearance of the huge grey ass-end of an elephant right before it tumbled off the cliff. The fall only injured the beast, sending it into a rampage throughout the compound. It destroyed many tents, several more permanent structures, and drew the attention of the three ballistae crew that did their utmost to bring the damned thing down.

That distraction did far more damage than a couple of fireballs could ever have managed.

(Submitted by mikebrendan)

Turnip Terror!

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:03:50 -0700

If you guys read my previous story—Magic Items save the day!—you heard something about an evil turnip killing me.

This is what happened.

So I was out the week before (or not paying attention) and we were on a small boat on the way to some desert where the final stereotypical Lich wizard was waiting for us. We decided to be good little trains and follow the railroad to the front door of the boss.

Upon leaving the boat our party followed a trail to a large 60 ft diameter clearing in the trees. Directly in the center of this clearing was a giant turnip/parsnip. It didn’t seem very active so I decided to slowly advance towards it.

(Editors note: this is why knowing about the deadly Gazebo is so important! Never underestimate your inanimate foes!)

After moving in a good 10 ft the turnip burrowed underground! My character had reached pretty much his max speed at this point and decided to take evasive maneuvers. He ran around the outside of the circle and reached the direct opposite side.

Upon reaching the other side of the circle the ground under my character’s feet erupted and I got swallowed by the turnip.

The next few minutes go as follows:

Me: “I get swallowed by the turnip?”

DM: “Yep.”

Me: ::Thinks back to previous situations:: “Ok I’ll use my cape next round and escape!”

DM: “Hold on there. You take swallowing damage first!”

Me: “Doesn’t that take effect next round?”

DM: “No.” (Yes, but I don’t like you foiling my plots)

Me: “Whatever.” (Has about 40 HP and 15 CON)

DM: “You take 37 damage and 4 Constitution drain.”

Me: ::math, math, math:: ”Ok. I’m still alive!”

DM: Great!

Me: “Wait………” ::math, math:: ”Nope. I’m Dead. Constitution drain killed me. -11.”

So my character was digested and sat in this turnip’s stomach waiting to be rescued by the party. Which again will be another story. (Yay series of stories?)

After the other characters killed said turnip and cut him open to rescue my body… (Did I say body? I meant magic items…) They discovered that all the virtually indestructible magic items I had on my person had been destroyed by the turnip’s stomach acid.

So remember kiddies: if you piss the DM off, don’t be surprised when a giant turnip eats you and steals your magic items.

(Submitted by mrevand6, submitter of Magic item saves the day!)

The gnomish James Bond

Mon, 07 May 2012 11:07:00 -0700

Early in my first experience with D&D, our party was looking for a particular mine where orcs were doing some bad things.

I don’t know, who cares.

Anyway we came across two of the guards but kept our distance to stay noticed. We decided our best chance of finding the place was to listen in on their conversation. Unfortunately, all our Orcish speaking characters were too big and armored and terrible at espionage-related tasks to pull this off.

We debated a while until I had an idea: I asked our DM if I—a gnome bard (shut up)—could sneak over to them, listen extremely carefully, and come back and repeat the sounds I’d heard to the rest of the party for them to translate.

He glared a DM-glare at me and said simply: “I’m thinking of a number.”

I took the die in my hand and calmly rolled a natural 20 of pure destiny.

(submitted by brennathings)

Aw Hek

Fri, 04 May 2012 11:16:00 -0700

We had a party (D&D 3.5 campaign) that was working directly for the king of the country. The two main party members, as far as the kingdom story line was concerned were:

Lord Hek, Captain of the Guards (lvl 12 fighter), and;
Mobius, High Inquisitor (lvl 11 Diviner, with no offensive spells, to this day one of my favourite D&D characters)

Anyway, the PCs were following up on a series of murders and the trail led them to one of the large noble houses. After breaking into the house the party found its way to the 3rd floor and were faced with a massacre: body parts and blood of the house guards were everywhere. We were stunned.

With this evidence we were sure that the lord of the house was the guilty party. Then, out of an adjacent room came streaming a bunch of royal guards along with the lady of the house (who had an evil snarl on her lips).

She shouted out: “Guards! These men have come to my house and killed my men as you can plainly see. In the name of House Raven, arrest them at once!”

Just as Mobius starts to speak to try and Diplomacy his way out of the predicament, Lord Hek yelled: “Off with ‘er head!” and picks up the die.

Rolls a natural 20… With his Vorpal Blade.

With the mage still at a loss for words and Lady Raven’s head falling from her severed neck, Lord Hek declares:

“I am Lord Captain Hek, and this is Mobius, the High Inquisitor! By order of His Majesty the King we have tracked and found the instigator of the serial killings, Lady Raven who is now dead at our hands. You will secure these premises and await further orders while we report back to His Majesty.”

…pause, gaping maws all around…

Lord Hek: “IS THAT CLEAR?”

All the guards, in unison: “YES SIR!”

And that is how Lord Captain Hek saved the entire party from a long series of adventures focused on imprisonment, false accusations, and fall from grace.

All hail Hek!

(Submitted by Vindaloo on MetaFilter)

Don't mess with the weather

Wed, 02 May 2012 21:01:38 -0700

A number of years back my regular D&D friends and I teamed up with a classmate we hadn’t played with before. He had arrogantly said something about kicking our asses with the kingdom he’d developed, so naturally, challenge accepted. One of our friends agreed to be the impartial DM.

I was playing a super-powerful anti-paladin at the time, and, in a reconnaissance foray, he was promptly killed when we discovered the entire kingdom was protected by an anti-magic shield.

My buddies strategized and attacked using a high-level druid and his acolytes. First the druids summoned a hurricane, which made short work of the kingdom’s anti-magic shield using tornados and non-magical lightning strikes.

After weakening his kingdom’s defenses, the DM revealed to us the kingdom’s power source for the shield was tapping the soul energy of prisoners – and this was long before the Matrix movies.

The moral of the story, I suppose, is don’t challenge a druid without a clear understanding of their capabilities.

IMAGINE THAT

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:13:47 -0700

We were playing an Exalted game where I was brought in at the last minute even though I didn’t know anything about the game or universe and nobody around was particularly good at explaining it.

But I was an Eclipse caste Solar which meant that my special ability was to create unbreakable vows with a handshake.

And also apparently that my charisma was through the roof.

I didn’t really see how this was going to have any use in whatever the hell we were doing, so when we met at the required tavern at the start I just wandered off over to the bar and started hitting on one of the women there.

After a while of this derail, the conversation sort of went like this:

GM: “Her boyfriend emerges from the men’s room and comes over, seeming very protective and possessive of her.”

ME: “Oh, hey, man! How’s it going?”

GM (as boyfriend): “ummm…”

ME: “I was just talking to your special ladyfriend here. She had great things to say about you.”

GM (as boyfriend): “um… okay. Good to know.”

ME: “Damn glad to meet you both. I don’t want to be in your hair, so I’ll let y’all be, but never let go of this one, okay? Lever let anything happen to her.”

GM (as boyfriend): “Okay. Will do.”

ME: “Promise me.”

GM (as boyfriend): “I promise…”

ME: “Shake on it?”

GM: “… are you really going to do this?”

ME: “Of course!”

GM: “The random man at the bar shakes your hand, setting on a flare of Solar presence which lights up the entire town as if it were mid-day. The formerly happy couple immediately feels the weight of an unbreakable promise fall upon them, while the entire bar, and really whole town, loses their collective shit at knowing that Solars are around.”

ME: “Oh. Do people not like Solars or something?”

GM: “NO! IMAGINE THAT!”

(via Navelgzer on Metafilter with permission)

Combat uses for a water bottle

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:36:16 -0700

I had a character in D&D 3.5 named Marek. It wasn’t intentional at the time, but he was largely designed around completely fucking with the DM’s plans.

Basically he was a psion who specialised in creating things. He also had a bag of holding filled with lots of random magic items, and a special magic item with the ability to create a large supply of mundane items (it was limited to something like 10gp worth a day, but other than that I was able to pull 10’ poles and climbing gear out of it to my heart’s content).

One of his most valuable skills, between his psionic powers and his decanter of endless water, was the ability to produce hot baths on demand whilst out in the field.

It was that decanter of endless water that first tipped off the DM that Marek might be a bit of a problem. We were doing a dungeon crawl (Marek’s first I believe) when we came across a problem: a closed room with a single point of entrance—a thing which we really needed in it—and two giant fire breathing plants.

The plants looked pretty scary. I mean, sure Marek could throw lightning bolts if he had to, but he’d rather not. He was more into creatively overcoming problems in bizarre ways beyond boring applications of extreme force (I know, I know, what was he doing in a D&D game?).

So I had the following conversation:

“So, these are plants, right?”

“Yep.”

“And they’re rooted in place as far as I can see? Not mobile?”

“Definitely potted.”

“Ok then…”

At this point Marek proceeds to build a nice little brick wall across the entrance to the room with a slot for his decanter of endless water. He puts the decanter in there on full flow (not geyser mode - we didn’t have the keywords for it yet). Then the party sat back and waited.

At some point later we removed the wall, flood the dungeon slightly, and trot merrily past the now very drowned plants to our goal.

(Submitted by drmaciver)