Surprising the GM


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Spastic Puma wrote:


Before they even get inside, the party becomes annoyed by the front-lawn traps/illusions and decides that THEY SHOULD JUST BURN THE WHOLE PLACE DOWN TO GET HIM TO COME OUT. A few alchemist's fires and some torches later, the DM's awesome dungeon was circumvented, and I believe he left the room in disgust.

While we have vowed never to "burn down a mansion" again, it gets brought up every now and again. I personally make my dungeons fireproof when I run that group as well, just in case."

After my party did pretty much the same thing to me once back in the day, I have a solution that's worked pretty well so far. When the PCs say they want to burn down the encounter area, I flat-out tell them that all the treasure will be destroyed (including any MacGuffin they're after), all of the clues for the next part of the adventure will be lost, and that any innocent prisoners held in there will be killed. Also, arson is an evil act, and if any innocents do indeed die in the fire, it will have the same alignment repercussions as cold-blooded murder. Still want to throw that barrel of alchemist's fire?

Lantern Lodge

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Ok the best Beat the Odds story I have ever heard was the following. My friend made a character (elf rogue). He and the party are in a tower and have just gone to town on a Major Big bad, with a young red dragon circling the tower, more as ambiance than anything if I recall.

The whole party is either dead or has their Str reduced to 1 so they are all on the floor. The elf loots the room taking all manor of magical potions with him, and decides to forgo the dangers of the tower by climbing down the side.

This brings the dragon into play now. He is almost dead no weapons left and carrying a bag of potions and his friend.

The Dragon comes in and I believe my friend won initiative. He does the only thing he can, he lobs the bag of potions at it.

DM rolls for Random Magical Effect: Summon Monster VII Spell.

Random Roll for Which creature gets summoned: Giant Squid.

Result: Awesomeness.


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The party was fleeing from a very dangerous guard captain, across a narrow rope bridge. Said guard captain had boots of springing and striding, was inevitably going to catch up with them before they reached the portal to safety.

The bard suddenly remembered that he was wearing an old-school Cloak of Useful Items. With a patch keyed to donkey.

I had to adjudicate what throwing a donkey at someone would do.

They got away.


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The PCs were in an abandoned mine with ore car tracks running through the mineshaft. We didn't know that goblins had claimed the area. The ore car tracks were inclined down, toward us, and this mine tunnel was particularly straight. Suddenly, from up ahead, we hear an ominous horn blow, and see a single bright light approach us from up the track. We also hear a rhythmic clatter of wheels on metal. Despite this being D&D, a train was approaching us at high speed!

We rolled for initiative, and the GM said that the train appeared to fill the corridor. The player of the cleric asked if the train had a cow-catcher in front. The GM said no, but we could see that it was festooned with spikes and rusty blades, and that at least a dozen goblins were riding it. We had one round, and it would run us over on its initiative on round 2.

So the cleric announces, "I'm casting a spell." The GM asked what spell, and the reply was summon monster V. So the cleric starts casting, and it takes effect on her initiative on Round 2. The GM asked what she summoned. Rolling a d4, the player says, "5 celestial bison. Immediately in front of the train." The GM said, "Huh?" and the player, who happened to be a railroad buff, said, "Before the invention of the cow-catcher, the leading cause of train derailments was striking cattle at high speed. The goblin train should derail before it gets to us."

So, our party summons a herd of buffalo to derail a train in a D&D game!

The Exchange

well that was a literal derail, but I think I'd have ruled that celestial bison splatters over the party as well as the train itself. Still quite fun


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Zerombr wrote:
well that was a literal derail, but I think I'd have ruled that celestial bison splatters over the party as well as the train itself. Still quite fun

Next time we suplex it then. Forget ingenuity, we'll just be stupid.

Dark Archive

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MrSin wrote:
Zerombr wrote:
well that was a literal derail, but I think I'd have ruled that celestial bison splatters over the party as well as the train itself. Still quite fun
Next time we suplex it then. Forget ingenuity, we'll just be stupid.

SABIN would agree with you.


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DragoDorn wrote:
MrSin wrote:
Zerombr wrote:
well that was a literal derail, but I think I'd have ruled that celestial bison splatters over the party as well as the train itself. Still quite fun
Next time we suplex it then. Forget ingenuity, we'll just be stupid.
SABIN would agree with you.

The best part about stupid plans is how often they work.


I do not know what it means to "dot," but since it seems to have something to do with keeping an eye on the thread, I shall"dot" it.


1st ed game, evil cleric lost powers as he had pissed his god off. Next room in dungeon DM describes a nice room with table and all manner of food and drink and a nice pretty woman sat at the head of the table.

I jump on to the table run up to her and slit her throat as an offering to my god to get my powers back.

DM...You,......THAT WAS THE QUEST GIVER! NOW WHAT AM I GOING TO DO??

cue lots of laughter and shaking of fists....

These kinds of things happen all the time in our group its excepted and we all joke about it so there are no hard feelings.

The DM might have been able to prevent it but I think I caught him by surprise and he had no idea what to do.


.


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vgmaster831 wrote:
I do not know what it means to "dot," but since it seems to have something to do with keeping an eye on the thread, I shall"dot" it.

Dotting means posting a very small comment in a thread.

When you've posted in a thread, it creates a small dot next to the thread, letting you know the thread that you've posted in is updating, and making it slightly more noticeable.
That's what "dotting" means.

Also, one of the earlier 3.5 games, a one-on-one, where I was teaching my wife the system (shortly after we were married).

I have a custom battle arena which is basically a meat-grinder/epic series of fights the purpose of which was to level her up, though disguised as "Proving your worth, by coming out whole on the other side, granting you tremendous power."

There were three characters involved (two NPCs and her character). They get a certain amount of free healing based on how well they do in the battle. They'd used fairly good tactics, and the random monster spawning system had been somewhat kind to them (though the most bizarre and hilariously sad one was summoning a CR 12 Roper 80 feet away in a 200 ft wide ring - it never really got to them before it died).

In the middle of one battle, they were facing some huge, powerful enemy (I don't recall what) that got summoned (by random roll). The player fired an arrow, pulled out a metamagic rod and declared that she quickened a spell. When asked which, she said, summon monster 6! As this was the first time she'd ever summoned something, I wasn't really prepared for the awesomeness of her summoning a celestial triceratops!

I blinked stupidly, and asked, "You summon, what?"

She confirmed what it was, and told the thing to charge/smite the evil critter! It did, it crit'd, and whatever the battle was going to be like, it ended. With a charging, smiting, celestial triceratops.

That was totally wicked.


I'm having a chuckle at the concept of "celestial triceratops."

This game has definitely passed me by. :-)


Jaelithe wrote:

I'm having a chuckle at the concept of "celestial triceratops."

This game has definitely passed me by. :-)

Heh, it really surprised me, too. And I really thought I knew the spell list! Boy, was I wrong!


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Many many years ago, while running a game in my game world, I think it was AD&D or 2nd Ed, I don't recall exactly. The PCs were fairly moderate level, but at the time, the personification of Chaos was working at breaking the seal on its prison, and free itself into the world. It has numerous extremely powerful monsters under its thrall, including a number of ancient red dragons.

The PCs are on an airship, minding their own business, when they see about six of these beasts coming toward them. Now, they didn't know, but the dragons were actually only there as transport for the air cavalry on their backs. Each dragon have like 6 fighters of mid-level with feather fall rings, and they were going to swoop down and jump off the backs onto the ship.

Instead, the dwarf and fighter PCs strap themselves together, and jump off the ship, with the fighter using an item that gave him flight, and took the fight to the dragons!

The wizard used a scroll he had gotten his hands on, prismatic spray. One dragon was stuck by two rays, failed its saves and was turned insane AND to stone (it fell to the ground and actually survived as there was a judicious use of feather fall to stop its impact form destroying it).

The drawf was a rager (so i think it was 2nd ed) and he and the fighter tore one of the dragons up.

And none of the paratroopers managed to touch the ship.

Three dragons survived, and fled.

Never expect players to do something!


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Jaelithe wrote:

As DM, I'd override the use of the obscure rule if I deemed it cheese. If instead I thought it brilliant thinking out of the box I'd delightedly watch as my best laid plans squeaked and ran away/blew up.

Back on topic.

Way back, in the mid-80's, my DM had planned an excruciating series of episodes in which my paladin, who'd been bitten by a wolf, would do terrible things as a were-creature—things he didn't remember upon returning to human form—thereby losing his powers through no real fault of his own.

He began describing my first transformation.

"You observe with horror as your fingernails lengthen into claws and ..."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't. You're narrating my loss of humanity and change into a werewolf, right?"

"Well, you've ruined the mood, but ... yeah."

"Paladins, as you know, are immune to disease. Lycanthropy is a disease. Therefore, my paladin is immune. Nice try, though."

"I'm going to interpret it as a curse."

"In other words, a magical disease. Still immune."

The other two players were also split, one agreeing with the DM and the other with me. Little did we know that we'd stumbled on a serious bone of contention within the game, one that would divide participants for decades.

As I recall, that game session ended abruptly, as he wouldn't back down and I refused to play a compromised paladin simply because he didn't like the character class and had searched high and low for something with which to be childishly punitive.

(Interestingly enough, I believe Paizo's paladins are expressly immune to lycanthropy.)

It is a disease. Paladin laughs it off.


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Well, the biggest surprise I ever made, was after my character died in one of my earlier days with my current group. And after quick thinking, the GM did epically return the surprise to everyone.

It was Forgotten Realms. The party had taken part of faerie feast and either enjoyed or suffered effects similar to deck of many thing. When they waked up with little memories, the party's sorcerer had gained randomly rolled loyal guard, which was a CE female drow fighter with strength 18.

The paladin of Tyr would have liked to kill her, but after talk with others, she was allowed to join. I ended up to playing her. The paladin was always keeping eye on her and told constantly how his god was the mightiest.

Then happened that Lolth lost both her powers and contact with her followers. Drows fighting with each one were coming out every hole and our group went to examine what that was about. My character died in fight with spider abomination and for resurrection, GM asked which deity will she have faith as Lolth can't take anyone in. I said Tyr.

You should have seen the face of my gm.

In shortly, the soul of my CE character appeared in front of very surprised court of Tyr with strong determination to serve only the strongest of all gods. After his talk with his advisors, Tyr made judgement that resume of my character was insufficient. Before the other characters had a change to find their scrolls, she was then sent back to her reawakened and healed body with mark of Tyr (trainee) glowing on her forehead.

She was also followed by angel, which then announced the judgement of Tyr to whole group. She should never lie, disguise or hide that mark or bring shame to Tyr as it would permanently end her life. Also, the paladin was tasked to educate her and keeping his lessons strait, as the whole mess was his fault.

Her aligment did change directly to LE as she did take the change of her live seriously and was cabable to follow orders, but it took long of time her to understand what is good.


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Another good surprise was also in Forgotten realms. In that campaign we were changing GM between adventures. When one of GM got tired of his outsider character, who was earlier cursed with wrong gender, so he decided to use magic duel between wizards to remade him. The opponent had purposely made Wand of Mutation, which did cast reincarnate to living target. After fight, my rogue did succeeded to steal the wand.

Much later in adventure of same GM, the party went to mildly xenophobic human city. I don't remember what we wanted from there, but there was impossible to do anything as everything was locked down. The leader of city was old woman dying to her age and everyone of the city was planning to rise to next one. Though so long as she was alive, nobody tried to rise up as she was too liked. So we should have work from bottom and taking sides while waiting her death. But we players were tired of searching nonexistant clues what to do or we just didn't figure it out, so I decided instead to ask audience as I had a cure for her.

It was allowed, perhaps they were curious or thought that it could be best that someone else will dirty their hands. The leader was skeptical but ready to try anything which may prevent the civil war. So I went and took my wand.

GM: "What wand?"
Me: "The one which cast reincarnate to living person."
GM happily: "So she dies, you will be charged with murder and nobody believes someone coming to city telling being her."
Me: "The one which not kill but mutates. Like your character."
GM: "Oh s@*~, that! Well, it wont change the problem of her being too old."
Me: "It does. The target will return as young of her new race."
GM reads the book: "Whaat!"

In before eyes of everyone and trusted members of council, she does turn from old dying human woman to young elf maid. After looking herself from mirror she decided to take slight chance in the city politics and fortified her reign for some centuries. I don't know how much work of GM or how long adventure we jumped over but we did get rewarded with the thing we wanted.


Excellent bunnyboy! I really like it. Even for a xenophobe, going from a near dead woman to a young elven woman isn't a bad result. So bouncy.

Time to change the policies my council!
*The council look a bit flustered, and more turned on and embarrassed than angry*


SoulDragon298 wrote:

You're up against impossible odds. The GM thinks he has you. But then you or another player does something or uses some obscure rule to bypass the problem,frustrating the GM.

So do you have any funny or awesome moments where you surprised the Gm?

I play an Incarnate(Lawful)/Totemist Half-Golem. This happens to our DM on a weekly basis.

DM: The fiend casts ____ spell at you!

ME: I have SR 19.

DM: Oh, okay. *rolls die* Nevermind.

-----------------

DM: Suddenly, you are attacked by a Troll!

ME: Troll eh? *Knowledge check* Okay, so we need corrosive damage. I use my Rapid Meldshape for the day to shape Corrosive Spittle, unshape Incarnum Weapon.

DM: *whispers* razzin' frazzin' son of a....

Lantern Lodge

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A couple of things come to mind for this thread, but having read the other entries I think this one fits best.

The party has just succeeded at a sort of sting operation that led them to arrest/kidnap/rescue (complicated child psycology: Yay for stockholme syndrome!) a pair of doppleganger children who had been causing trouble on their parents behalf. Four of the members of the party are in the Gunslinger's inn room discussing what to do while the fifth is downstairs having a drink and keeping a watch.

A group of city watch, along with a captain, walk in to the tavern, talk to the proprieter for a moment then start heading up stairs. The Halfling Rogue sees where this is going, throws his tankard at the captain and bolts out the front door. The captain starts to chase him while sending the rest of the watch upstairs.

So the lot of us in the room hear a big scuffle downstairs then the sound of heavy boots through the hallway and a rough knock on the door "Open up in there!" The two doppleganger kids (who were currently playing fort under the bed) drag the covers down to conceal themselves and stay real quiet, at this point the GM gets distracted for a few seconds.

Ratfolk Witch (me): Alright, I'm going to hide too *roll* 27 I slip in behind the storage chest and roll up tight so I can't be seen from the door.
Kitsune Bard: I'm going to use my ability to go invisible.
Gunslinger: Ok, I open the door a crack and peek out, "Hello can I help you"
Watchman: "Don't give me any of that! All four of you are coming with us, we have some serious questions for you and the captain is already after your friend from downstairs!"
Gunslinger: "All four of us? What do you mean?"
Watchman: "Don't give me that, I can clearly see you all in there...
Gunslinger - interrupting out of character: "Umm... No actually you can't, everyone hid when they heard the knock on the door."
GM: What?...
Gunslinger ooc: Yeah, the Rat rolled stealth-
Me: I got a 27.
Kitsune Bard: And I used my invisibility ability.
GM: You know that only lasts for like 20 seconds right?
Kitsune Bard: Oh crap... Then I run over and jump out the window!
GM: We're on the third floor!
Kitsune: Yeah but I hang from the ledge *passes climbing check*
GM: Gahhh fine then *turns to Elven Ranger* What about you?
Elven Ranger: Me? Well I've been standing behind the door since we came in here, remember?
GM: Gahhh! Fine then!
Watchmen:*pushes open the door* "I can see you all in... huh?" Sees an empty little tavern room, slightly scruffy, like the gunslinger himself.
Gunslinger: "It's just me and my two sons in here, come on out boys." Dopplegangers peek out from under the bed looking half south-African half Chinese (definite resemblance to both the Gunslinger and the Kitsune) "I brought them to the city hoping to find them a good apprenticeship."
Watchman:... You are Irori from Alkenstar aren't you?
Gunslinger: Yes that's me.
Watchman:... Oh dear Abadar, let me guess Irori is like... John or Chris where you come from isn't it?
Gunslinger: Yes, more or less.
Watchman: Right, well then um... you wouldn't happen to know of any other Irori's in town at the moment would you?
Gunslinger: No I don't think so.
Watchman: Right, well then... sorry to have disturbed you sir, good luck finding that apprenticeship. *flushed and looking quite embaressed the Watchman and his three associates start to leave.
Gunslinger: Thank you.. *closes the door and waits as the footseps recede*

Kitsune: Um guys?... Can somebody help me up?....


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Since I am normally the GM im going to change the OP's question to "How often are you surprised by your players?"

Every. Single. Session.

While it is a little annoying it is not a bad thing. Out of the box thinking should be encouraged. Infact I would be willing to wager that most GMs have the same experiance like the saying goes "The best planned adventure never survives contact with the players,"....or something like that lol.

I also think every GM gets rules lawyered (or does the lawyering) every so often. Generally if the rule makes sence to me I will apologize to the player and roll with it. But if I think its silly I'll toss it out. So far I havent had a player complain any more than a grumble when the ruling is made.


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"Surprising the GM?" heck, it surprises me that anyone is willing to play with me, at all.


I posted an example from about two years ago in the "Wait-- you do WHAT??" thread.

(It involves a ship, pirates, and a cape of the mountebank.)


I enjoy being surprised, and what the players choose to do encourages me to lift my game and adapt as need be.

When they bumble into my traps, I am not that surprised though.


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Back in the days of 2nd edition, a player was playing a Wild Mage. Which is basically a wizard that does totally random things occassionally drawn from a "wild surge" table.
We were playing the campaign "Night Below", and there is a point early on where a high level necromancer and his cronies ambushes the party on a river, with virtually no possibility of escape. It's written as expected that he will capture the party without breaking a sweat.

The wild mage uses her last spell to cast a wild surge on the necromancer.
She rolls on the wild surge table. Result comes up "Swap bodies with your opponent for 1d4 rounds".
Player asks what equipment the necromancer has in its pockets, while the rest of the party pin down the big bad, now in the wild mage's totally unarmed and ineffectual body.
I reply: a spellbook, a key, and a dagger.
With three rounds left, the wild mage then announces:
"I throw the key at the party, I throw the spellbook in the river, and use the dagger to cut off my spellcasting hand".


I always wanted to play a wild mage.

Dark Archive

Phneri wrote:

High end game where our 20th level characters are attempting to hold off the tides of evil to allow the last mortal survivors to escape. Everyone else builds their crazy geared-up paladin/sorceror/etc.

I make a rogue. Who's taken a vow to never take a life.

As we're beginning our defense the great wyrm red dragon approaches, scoffing from a distance at the mortals who prepare for battle. I dimension door on top of his head (cloak of the mountebank) and begin explaining how badly things may go if he decides to attack us.

Of course things go as expected. I managed to distract the dragon by standing (with an acrobatics check in the low 50s and in full defense) on his head while the paladin gets into a flanking position on his flying steed.

Then I full attack him.

My rogue won't take a life, but he will defend himself. With his two +5 merciful light clubs. And the sap master feats. As I was dual-wielding and hit five of 6 times, I wound up rolling 115d6 + 100 nonlethal damage. Plus strength and enchantments.

And 10 points of strength damage.

As the rest of the party blinked at me I maneuvered the (now very unconscious) red dragon into the recovery position and left instructions with my hirelings to place him with the other refugees.

The DM then wound up considering the quite humbled dragon's potential shift in his life's outlook, and he became a recurring NPC.

A full attack on a surprise round? How did you pull that of?

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

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DM Under The Bridge wrote:
Jaelithe wrote:

As DM, I'd override the use of the obscure rule if I deemed it cheese. If instead I thought it brilliant thinking out of the box I'd delightedly watch as my best laid plans squeaked and ran away/blew up.

Back on topic.

Way back, in the mid-80's, my DM had planned an excruciating series of episodes in which my paladin, who'd been bitten by a wolf, would do terrible things as a were-creature—things he didn't remember upon returning to human form—thereby losing his powers through no real fault of his own.

He began describing my first transformation.

"You observe with horror as your fingernails lengthen into claws and ..."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't. You're narrating my loss of humanity and change into a werewolf, right?"

"Well, you've ruined the mood, but ... yeah."

"Paladins, as you know, are immune to disease. Lycanthropy is a disease. Therefore, my paladin is immune. Nice try, though."

"I'm going to interpret it as a curse."

"In other words, a magical disease. Still immune."

The other two players were also split, one agreeing with the DM and the other with me. Little did we know that we'd stumbled on a serious bone of contention within the game, one that would divide participants for decades.

As I recall, that game session ended abruptly, as he wouldn't back down and I refused to play a compromised paladin simply because he didn't like the character class and had searched high and low for something with which to be childishly punitive.

(Interestingly enough, I believe Paizo's paladins are expressly immune to lycanthropy.)

It is a disease. Paladin laughs it off.

Actually, in Pathfinder it is listed as curse, not a disease. Paladins are immune to magical diseases like mummy rot, but lycanthropy isn't listed under diseases, it's listed under curses.

A Pathfinder paladin could however cure himself of the affliction if he had the remove curse mercy, I believe.

Sorry for the derail.

As a GM, I had planned several pathways to a certain area, but all of course required overcoming certain hazards or being detected in some way. They were in a cave where a stream was flowing down from a hole in the wall. That's when the cleric announced she was casting wind walk and they used it to fly through the hole, avoiding most encounters. They did have to get a long way around to where they were going, but I had actually designed the geography, without realizing, that that was a valid way to get where they were going. I rolled with it, though--I'd forgotten the cleric had that spell and figured it was a clever use of the spell.


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DM Under The Bridge wrote:
I always wanted to play a wild mage.

As have I.

... I'm just never chaotic enough.

DeathQuaker wrote:
As a GM, I had planned several pathways to a certain area, but all of course required overcoming certain hazards or being detected in some way. They were in a cave where a stream was flowing down from a hole in the wall. That's when the cleric announced she was casting wind walk and they used it to fly through the hole, avoiding most encounters. They did have to get a long way around to where they were going, but I had actually designed the geography, without realizing, that that was a valid way to get where they were going. I rolled with it, though--I'd forgotten the cleric had that spell and figured it was a clever use of the spell.

You know, this reminds me. In the first game my wife ever played (I ran it, shortly after we were married), she was playing a gestalt bard-cleric.

I'd had this whole plot about these two different uber-villains, and had worked out multiple "endings" that were, I though, loos enough to cover all variables while simultaneously explaining the mechanics behind what was going on thoroughly enough to create an immersive experience.

One uber-villain had prepared about thirty contingency escape plans, which was really excessive, I thought, but I was kind of obsessed with it, was having fun, and had some time on my hand while she was flipping through books to prepare stuff.

(He exceeded the NPC wealth charts to pull this off, but he was epic at 25th level, we didn't have that book - I only knew some of the rules from it -, and I utilized mechanics that let him break the wealth anyway, so I gave him a pass.)

Anyway, she had systematically destroyed my endings to the point where three of them were outright impossible, and the fourth was a little dubious; elements still functioned, so I re-wrote those elements into a few even more "hands-off" endings.

And then, somehow, she intuited. She was working with one ex-bad guy and, as a result of their conversation, quickly wrote down about seven different possibilities about the villain, the vague clues she'd gotten before only now starting to make sense.

She then vocally worked through how six of the seven were false, using the extremely vague clues (accurately) that I'd dropped, and used those to realize where the villain was, and used wind walk to go excessively quickly down a very long series of tunnels (and thus encounters) with only a single one-level-lower ally to face a villain five levels higher than she was.

They proceeded to wreck his day. They wrecked is day nine times, (their dice were incredible), chasing him through every contingency plan I'd set up (they'd prepared a lot of divination spells that granted correct information), while destroying several more, and causing a few to default.

The guy eventually got away due to one of his last two or three contingency set-ups, but, man it was a close thing.

They then had to face the preponderance of the local cult of Vecna and all attendant/bribed/etc monsters and other things that they'd literally blown past, as they had no other avenue of escape (the allies they'd left behind were working through some of them on their own). They survived. Only a few hit points left on either of 'em, no spells left, and no consumables, but they survived.

Technically, my plans were not destroyed by all this. But it was close. Since then, I've become a firm believer in "no such thing as excessive contingency plans" because dang it. :)

Dark Archive

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The GM was rather upset that I continued to contribute to a fight after being paralysed. Because manifesting Psionics are purly mental actions, I could still do so while being unable to move.

As a GM, I got very agitated when I moved a large size creature next to a small sized gunslinger pc mounted on a wolf. The point was to keep the gunslinger inside the large creatures reach even if the gunslinger five foot stepped. Ranged attacks provoke so I wanted to make sure he could not just get a sho off easily. After five foot stepping. Another player then tells the gunslinger to fast dismount(effectively 5' of free movement), then 5' step for a total of 10' of movement free of AoO. I guess even just the dismount on the opposite side if the large creature would mean the wolf would give cover a AoOs cannot be executed against someone with cover but still, this really irked me. Of course the large sizse creature was already very hurt so he could not simply take one shot and then try to wreck the gunslinger on his turn, the one extra shot killed the opponent. As to why he dis nit just run away if so low on ho in the first place. He tried to run away and the pc kept chasing him and shooting, so finally, the opponent felt he had no choice other than move up and try to finish it. Please, if someone knows ant rule that prevents this type of 10' moveing without AoO, please let me know.


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I was playing in a Star Wars SAGA Edition game once upon a time, back in 2011 I think. It was the very first adventure in what happened to be a long campaign. We were playing some mercs who had been sent to rescue this Jedi from a Sith compound (Legacy Era, by the way). Two things happened that really surprised our GM...

The first occoured when when we discovered that Jedi we had been sent to rescue had escaped on her own. We found her in a courtyard battling her Sith captor. We entered the area just in time to see her skewered by a Sith lightsabre. Apparent mission over, complete failure. Bummer, right? Well, I check my medic character's inventory and discover he has a med kit that, if administered to a dead character within one round of death (as a full round action), will revive them.

So I have our droid with jump servos (able to make huge jumps, little damage) grab my character and leap down to the fallen Jedi. I administer first aid as a full round action, barely beat the DC of the Heal check, and blamo!, healed Jedi. This Jedi went from "NPC slaughtered to demonstrate the power of the enemy" to "extremely useful NPC resource" with one DC 20 heal check.

Later on in that same adventure on our way out of the facility we came across an armory loaded with weapons. Weapons and three thermal detonators (10d6 damage DC 20 reflex save for half grenades with an insane splash radius). A few rooms and encounters later we meet up with the BBEG of the adventure, the Warden of the prison.

We open a blast door to see the Warden set up on a Blaster Turret in a wide room, flanked by some mmoks for support. The Warden and his crew have higher ground and that nasty Turret, so my character is sweating bullets.

As we open the door and roll initiative. My medic goes first.

Warden "What do we have here?" he says as he pivots the turret.

The Medic replies "A Thermal Detonator!" Medic throws the Thermal Detonator (standard action) and slams the blast door shut as (a move action). The last thing we hear is the Warden say "Oh sh--!"

The blast door absorbs the explosion and we open the door to find a ruined Turret, a large crater, and pieces of mook everywhere.


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Was playing in a game a few years back that centered on recovering a lost ally from a previous campaign. Apparently in the original campaign she was a paladin who got killed and later reincarnated in Ravenloft, but came back as an erinyes and then got sucked into hell.

Party jumped through hoop after hoop to get her back, and along the way we found out that the "agent of your deity" that the cleric had been Commune-ing with for information has been lying to us the whole time.

So, we teleport to Celestia or Nirvana or whichever plane it was, and the guy decides he has to stop us from actually talking to Sarenrae and being able to straighten things out. Dude's a Solar, roughly 8 CR above the party, and he has friends along. We try to talk him out of whatever he's up to, no luck. We're all wracking our brains trying to come up with some way around this guy without him killing us all (and we're all paladins and clerics, so we don't really want to kill him if we can help it).

And then, I notice the 1st level sorcerer bloodline power on my character sheet, that I had never used and didn't expect to... Corrupting Touch, which makes the target radiate an aura of evil as if they were an evil outsider. I tagged him with it, and the GM allowed that to let Smite Evil and such work on him. It was a short fight after that.


Raymond Lambert wrote:

The GM was rather upset that I continued to contribute to a fight after being paralysed. Because manifesting Psionics are purly mental actions, I could still do so while being unable to move.

As a GM, I got very agitated when I moved a large size creature next to a small sized gunslinger pc mounted on a wolf. The point was to keep the gunslinger inside the large creatures reach even if the gunslinger five foot stepped. Ranged attacks provoke so I wanted to make sure he could not just get a sho off easily. After five foot stepping. Another player then tells the gunslinger to fast dismount(effectively 5' of free movement), then 5' step for a total of 10' of movement free of AoO. I guess even just the dismount on the opposite side if the large creature would mean the wolf would give cover a AoOs cannot be executed against someone with cover but still, this really irked me. Of course the large sizse creature was already very hurt so he could not simply take one shot and then try to wreck the gunslinger on his turn, the one extra shot killed the opponent. As to why he dis nit just run away if so low on ho in the first place. He tried to run away and the pc kept chasing him and shooting, so finally, the opponent felt he had no choice other than move up and try to finish it. Please, if someone knows ant rule that prevents this type of 10' moveing without AoO, please let me know.

Well, it is a house rule but we don't allow someone to five foot step through threatened squares or away without provoking an attack of opportunity. We found it quite ridiculous to just walk through longspears or away without receiving a parting swipe when you are engaged. Especially when if you do any other sort of move short of a tumble, you will take the AOO. So you can just rule five foots aren't all that if you wish.


It's RAW that a GM decides how many free actions you get in a round. The fast dismount + 5' step is clearly a move to me.


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Why wouldn't the fast dismount itself draw an AoO?


Distant Scholar wrote:
Why wouldn't the fast dismount itself draw an AoO?

Mounting/Dismounting is a move action that does not provoke an AoO (PRD, Combat section, table of actions, move actions ). The only change that fast dismount makes to the action under the Ride skill is that it becomes a free action so no AoO for the action is preserved.

Buri wrote:
It's RAW that a GM decides how many free actions you get in a round. The fast dismount + 5' step is clearly a move to me.

5-Foot Step is not a free action, nor a move action. It is listed as a "No Action" and therefor regardless of the number of free actions the GM lets the player take during their turn, so long as the player's character has adhered to the normal 5-Foot Step rules, they will always be able to take one.

However, "...you can't take a 5-foot step in the same round that you move any distance." So if the PC dismounted into a square they did not start in then they have moved a distance and would not be able to take a 5-Foot Step after that.

In the end though, the mount would still have provided cover for exiting the square the PC dismounted into (assuming the mount was between the 10-foot reach opponent and the PC). So a dismount (fast or not) and a normal move would have saved the PC from an AoO.


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new one guys!

So we're going through pfs campaign with no one with access to healing spells, but a gunslinger and ninja who both have umd. Gunslinger rolls all nat 1's on his attempts to use the wands after our party gets hit pretty hard. Doesn't get a single charge off.

Ninja declares he has to leave and tells the gunslinger to roll for him for his umd. gunslinger gets 2 shots off then all nat 1's.

Now my barbarian had not rolled above a 4 all game so far and we're level 1. He wasn't hitting anything. We realized however I had forgotten one of my skill points (they had me make a new character in about 5 minutes off rote memory before the game lol). So I put my last point in umd and quickly take the wands and try, expecting to fail.

14, 16,15,16,16,18

I spent the entire rest of that session using the wands with umd as the party healer as a barbarian.


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Distant Scholar wrote:
Why wouldn't the fast dismount itself draw an AoO?

Yes, it is a bit funny isn't it?

If you are hopping down for a mount, you should probably cop a sword/spear/axe or claw in the as*.


DeathQuaker wrote:

Actually, in Pathfinder it is listed as curse, not a disease. Paladins are immune to magical diseases like mummy rot, but lycanthropy isn't listed under diseases, it's listed under curses.

A Pathfinder paladin could however cure himself of the affliction if he had the remove curse mercy, I believe.

You know, the fascinating thing is that the Paladin couldn't. He has to use remove disease (or the heal spell) and be CL 12 or higher.

Sorry for the quasi-necro/muddying the waters...

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