Fake War Stories

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)

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)

One of my groups of players and their long-time characters (3-4 years) found themselves investigating strangeness in a region that they determined was caused by a spell caster. Wizard weather, crop failures, animals changed in form, all sorts of oddness.

In true murder hobo form, they climbed up to said spell caster’s mountain fortress and broke in through the cellar, confronting sladdi minions and weird monsters that were the result of various experiments. As they progressed through the place, they saw that he was:

1) obviously of much higher level/more powerful than the group, and;

2) not so much evil but rather a chaotic neutral mad scientist type.

Eventually they confronted the wizard in the grand hall of his fortress and found that he was willing to discuss the situation with them, asking them why they felt the need to break in, kill his pets, ruin his experiments, etc. The party spokesman started telling him how his experiments were having negative effects on the countryside, hurting the local farmers, etc.

There is a bit of heat in the discussion, with the wizard getting somewhat defensive and arguing about how his experiments are important and so on.

While this is going on, the guy playing the combat wizard looks at the party’s fighter tank, who simply shrugs.

The wizard then looks at me and says, “Fuck it. Fireball.”

What followed was a one-sided total party kill, as said high-level wizard and his minions responded to the unprovoked attack by tromping the group into goo.

Many adventures have passed with that group of players since then, but the phrase “Fuck it. Fireball” has never been surpassed in its infamy.

(Contributed by moonbiter via Metafilter)

I think my only intriguing story was in World Tree (very strange but interesting furry RPG).

Improvisational magic is a crude, childish, style of magic with a hilariously complicated system of rolling. The game was big enough I had also been dubbed co-GM in charge of magic. Unfortunately, power leads to corruption, and I nudged the GM to use some suggested optional rules in the book that gave me a lot more flexibility.

Improv magic has one thing going for it: crude, simple spells at sometimes stunning levels of power. Being specialized in it, I could really up the ante.

So at some point a massive fight breaks out between about a dozen PCs and two dozen enemies. I try flexing my magical muscle by summoning FLAMING BEES!

Cause you know, the only thing to make this battle better would be bees!

I roll to see how much power I can eke out of the spell and score stupidly well. Then I roll for success and score even more stupidly well. I do the math, and I giggle and hand the GM the stats for Fire Bees.

They’re powered at 120 or so. 30 is the normal range.

For more fun, it was a quadratic spell such that higher power equals more powerful as well as more bees. The GM looks st the dozen or two FLAMING BEES OF DOOM (tm) I have and rolls for attack.

The bees instakill the enemy. Victory is declared as the enemy is routed by my one spell or chased off by giant flaming bees.

I gained a lot of followers that day :)

(Submitted by AngelWuff via MetaFilter)

I had rolled up a mage who specialized in fire. Not just magic, but also performing with it, throwing it, spitting it, smashing vials of it…I spent a lot of gold getting gnomes to engineer oil/spark delivery systems to augment my fairly low level character with great aspirations. I had starry eyes thinking about that day when I would have fireball.

But mostly, I threw oil on things and was a vicious arsonist.

This lead to a lot of charred aftermath with singed party members looking at me angrily. I had a huge backstory that my parents died in a fire and I resolved that I would never let fire control my destiny!

I was chasing some bad guy through the city toward some shrine. It was pouring rain. I was standing on the top of this building when bad guy casts lightning or I get struck by lightning or something. I don’t remember.

I fall: more huge damage. I fail to get up then slip in the mud: take more damage and almost die as he gets away. I quaff a potion to almost full health and manage to catch up to him as he’s finishing some ritual to summon a water elemental.

I throw a fire bomb to keep it from leaving the building to get out in the rain. The party shows up and can’t enter because the threshold is a wall of flames. My character sees a gem in the middle and fumbles his intelligence roll. “I have a dagger that does fire damage, If I dive in, I can stab this thing to death!”

DM: “What’s your swim?”

Me: “2! I am prepared!”

DM: “No you aren’t. You’re encumbered. 50 feet of rope. A bandolier with oil vials. A backpack full of I can’t even remember what. You dive in and see the gem whirling around and around just out of reach. You have one round before you start to drown, what do you do? “

Me: “Try to stab the gem!”

DM: “You are carried more and more rapidly in circles. You are now dizzy, and drowning. Take damage.”

The party circles around to another entrance and starts to engage the elemental.

There’s a few rounds of various attacks.

The rogue takes out his crossbow, fails to see me inside and fires at the gem. 

DM: “One out of six chance he hits you as you swirl past… You are now, dizzy, drowning and have a crossbow bolt sticking out of your… shoulder.”

Me: “Swim for… the surface.”

The Paladin closes on the elemental and sees me inside and makes a valiant effort to pull me out but misses.

DM: “You reach the surface just as you become unconscious. Fifty percent chance you get dumped out. One in six that you get dumped onto your own oil fire. I’ll let YOU call it and roll it.”

Me: “Five. I’m in the fire. Oh god… I’m in the fire.”

DM: “You are unconscious in the fire. Anyone in the party know why this is an especially bad thing? No? Make a spot? No? Okay then…”

The party fights the elemental while I toast in my own fire. There’s a small series of explosions as all my special vials begin to heat up. One explosion sends my dagger flying and it sticks in the wall just as the elemental is defeated. 

The rogue grabs my dagger and says, “We should go to the inn and see if there’s another mage for hire.”

Paladin : “How about a bard?”

(Submitted by varionic. Sorry for the skipped day yesterday everyone! Real-world work called!)

I ran a long-term D&D campaign a while ago (3 years, 30 levels… no cleric), which led to a climactic fight through the Abyss to a face-off with the demon lord Yeenoghu.  They finally tracked him to his throne room, where he brandished his three-headed flail, a weapon that they had heard horrific stories of in regards to its ability to really, really hurt.  He reared his head back, howled a howl of defiance at the adventurers, and promptly lost initiative to the party’s sorceress.

Sorceress: “Casting a spell.  I wish his flail was up his ass.”

DM: “You, er… you what?”

Sorceress: “I wish his flail was up his ass.  Right up there.”

Spell resistance?  Sorceress rolls a natural 20 and breaks it.  Saving throw?  None.

So my big, bad demon lord spent his first turn forcefully removing his own dread weapon from his bunghole, damaging himself grievously in the process, while the party dogpiled him.

Our party was tracking down the MacGuffin Staff of Great Power or whatever which lead us into a crypt full of reanimated undead. It was a pretty large cavern and at the end, past a horde of skeletons, wights, and whatnot, was a mummy holding the Staff.

Of course the DM was expecting a great battle and some level draining.

But what use is magic if not for fucking with the DM?

So I told the group my plan (out of the DM’s earshot). The whole party just waited while the undead mob advanced toward us, the mummy holding fast at the far end of the crypt.

My mage started by casting grease so that it went all the way to the wall that was right behind the mummy.

Then he cast web on his own hand.

Then he had his team slide him, feet first on his back, past the undead and toward the mummy. While sliding, he grabbed the staff with his webbed hand and, with feet against the back wall, cast jump.

He went flying off the back wall sliding back through the undead and toward his party. We worked out his speed. It was fast.

Then he cantripped the grease puddle on fire on his way out.

With the horde of undead on fire, the mummy ablaze in the back and unable to get out in time, the team walked out of the crypt with the MacGuffin in hand while the DM scrambled for a reason why what just happend wouldn’t work. But all the rolls worked out.

Moral of the story: DMs should never let the players call the shots.