Fake War Stories

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)

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)

I was playing in a campaign where the GM was very new to the system and was running a 2e campaign in a 4e setting with 3.5e rules.

As you can see its a recipe for disaster, but moving on from that.

Our DM decided to give each individual player 200k in gold. Fatal mistake. Everyone went out and bought stat tomes, major magic items that supplemented their powers, etc.

I went out and bought about 20 minor magic items and still had enough gold to buy an armada of ships, arm them with golden cannons, and take over the world. DM doesn’t like this. (He kills my character and takes my magic items with a giant evil turnip later. But that’s a different story.)

We were sent to investigate a tomb in some necro town where the graveyard was 3/4 of the city. We entered the tomb and generally found nothing. We were on our way out when we noticed something strange.

“Guys, where’d the front door go?”

Fireball explodes 10 feet away from us. We all turn around and look at the wizard standing on the other side of the room. We lose sight of him as smoke fills the room in a thick cloud.

INITIATIVE! I go first because of high dex and a nat 20.

Me: “I use my cape of mounteback.”

DM: “You can only use it on yourself.”

Me: “Actually…”

Effect of a 9th lv caster casting dimension door

(Dimension door: you can transport a number of creatures with you equal to 1/3 your CL)

Me: “I touch the other 3 members of my party and teleport them 500 ft towards town.”

The DM was mad that I’d foiled his plot so he decided to get the town mad at us, arrest us, then let us go because there was no real reason to hold us captive.

You know its a good day when your magic item saves the entire party.

(Submitted by mrevand6)