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If adventurers are anything, it is insanely prepared—to an extent that borders on unhealthy paranoia sometimes. This only makes it more sadly hilarious when they forget the one thing they need.
Rope: My duergar wizard uses rope trick and she doesn't own any rope. It's become a running gag at this point—everyone has it but the person who needs it. In the Reign of Winter game I'm running, the whole group had come to a treacherous rope bridge when they realized they had no actual rope. One of them suggested taking the bridge itself apart for rope so they could cross the bridge safely. #goodplan #theGMapprovesthisplan
So, what items did you forget to bring? And as a bonus question, what weird items have they kept on hand that came in handy at some point?
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Food: We've tons of goodberries, but no real food. Makes it hard to feed stray/attack dogs.
Excess Soap: We had one door (or might've been a chest) that opened up when it was covered in bubbly soap. However after opening one, we didn't have spare bars to open all the others.
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Literally everything: Except for weapons, armor, and occasionally a mustache grooming kit or bottle of cologne, my party buys nothing we need. We usually just end up buying a wagon and a couple of horses right as we leave town, and just sleep in that.
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Our Weapons: No joke, we managed to escape an enemy camp and slaughter the graurds using their lamp oil and an unguarded torch. We then preceeded to the next town and completely forgot to get our gear from the storage.
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Hammer and Pitons Need something propped open or closed? Would be really handy to have a nonmagical (thus longer lasting) solution.
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A second set of clothes.
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Shovel: Sure, we've got three crowbars for prying open doors, but when we've got a corpse to bury or treasure to dig up? We're using our hands, sticks, and daggers.
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Once had a player spend 2 hours creating a character. Party sets off into the mountains on their 30-day trek to get to where they're going (this was mentioned ahead of time). Said player forgot to buy any rations and died on the trail.
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Once had a player spend 2 hours creating a character. Party sets off into the mountains on their 30-day trek to get to where they're going (this was mentioned ahead of time). Said player forgot to buy any rations and died on the trail.
Wow. Nobody fed him, succeeded on any survival checks, cast Goodbery or thought to turn around when he was looking rather skinny?
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Money"Gang, we need this wand of air walk to use on the fighter. Wait...where's the gold? YOU LEFT IT?!?!?! WE'VE GOT TWO DWARVES WHO DON'T HAVE ENCUMBRANCE!"
Well I must say that in one gamee, we had to climb a wall and we had all the necessary stuff : ropes and grappling hook.
But the problem was more that we were a party full of low strength high dexterity PCs, and noone put a single skill point in Climb skill.
So the result was kind of pathetic ...
The party was able to deal with all the opposition we met, but the only real difficulty of the gme was to climb that wall. We finally did it but there was nothing to be proud ...
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A second set of clothes.
Weirdly enough, the party I was GMing for actually needed this (someone fell in a freezing river), and the new addition to the party actually had a spare change of clothes. It was because the new guy had been in an adventure before this set in a prison, so he'd picked up a prisoner's outfit and just...kept it.
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Even after all these years, my players don't know half of what they can take with them on adventures. Those that own the CRB just read the parts that apply to whichever character they're playing, it seems. In the last game where I was a player, I struck a sunrod and my friend sitting next to me was all, "What the hell is that?"
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I've always just given them the mundane equipment for free, including arrows or other ammunition. If they want something exotic or masterwork, they have to pay for it with the gold they start with (I also give them max starting gold, because I'm just that generous).
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Even after all these years, my players don't know half of what they can take with them on adventures. Those that own the CRB just read the parts that apply to whichever character they're playing, it seems. In the last game where I was a player, I struck a sunrod and my friend sitting next to me was all, "What the hell is that?"
To be fair, the adventuring gear section of the CRB is about 10 pages long and filled with incredibly circumstantial stuff.
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My group has a player that despite being in multiple campaigns, forgets to bring anything, and I mean anything, other than armor and weapons when starting.
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Torches.
Had a party that was so used to using magical lighting, that when they needed actual fire they discovered to their dismay that no one in the party was carrying any torches. They had to go back and loot bodies for wood and cloth (one was actually carrying oil for some reason) to craft a makeshift torch.
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Alcohol: My group has now run into two creatures that is weakened in some way by strong alcohol and we didn't have any, almost leading to two player deaths. I mean, come on. What kind of adventurer doesn't have an extra bottle of booze for the road? Our group now officially considers a bottle of alcohol official adventuring gear.
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Camping gear. New campaign, the party set up camp for the first time, and one character turned out to have no bedroll, no tent, nothing to sleep in or on aside from that we happened to have bought a wagon earlier in the day.
In Pathfinder society, you see characters needing things all the time: ranged weapons, ways to deal with swarms, ways to get around pits or climb stuff.
In Pathfinder society, you see characters needing things all the time: ranged weapons, ways to deal with swarms, ways to get around pits or climb stuff.
How does a non-magic user deal with swarms?
Also what are the rules on attacking a swarm with a weapon? I've had GMs go both ways, in that you only attack a single creature in the swarm, dealing up to a set amount of damage, never being able to destroy the swarm even on a massive dice roll. I've also seen where a swarm is just a "normal" enemy and dealing damage can cut out multiple creatures inside the swarm.
Once had a player spend 2 hours creating a character. Party sets off into the mountains on their 30-day trek to get to where they're going (this was mentioned ahead of time). Said player forgot to buy any rations and died on the trail.Wow. Nobody fed him, succeeded on any survival checks, cast Goodbery or thought to turn around when he was looking rather skinny?
It was 1st edition so apart from thieves there weren't any skills to speak of. Due to the length of the trek and the weight of carrying a ton of rations, the remaining party members only had what they needed/could afford for themselves. We all got a good laugh out of his situation (even he laughed really hard that he had foolishly forgotten to buy rations despite spending over an hour equipping his character). Good times!
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Everyone I know is determined to carry every item in the book with them, so this rarely happens.
Except for the time the party refused to buy clothes.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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In Pathfinder society, you see characters needing things all the time: ranged weapons, ways to deal with swarms, ways to get around pits or climb stuff.How does a non-magic user deal with swarms?
At low levels, alchemist's fire. At levels where 1d6 damage is no longer relevant, you've just got to hope your flying wizard buddy who's not threatened by the swarm in the first place still likes you.
Or if you have the right splatbook, dropping a chunk of your WBL on a swarmbane clasp will let you damage swarms normally with weapons.
Also what are the rules on attacking a swarm with a weapon? I've had GMs go both ways, in that you only attack a single creature in the swarm, dealing up to a set amount of damage, never being able to destroy the swarm even on a massive dice roll. I've also seen where a swarm is just a "normal" enemy and dealing damage can cut out multiple creatures inside the swarm.
That's in the Bestiary. Here's a LINK to the PRD page.
"Swarm Traits: A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernable anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or less causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent.
A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells."
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Alcohol: My group has now run into two creatures that is weakened in some way by strong alcohol and we didn't have any, almost leading to two player deaths. I mean, come on. What kind of adventurer doesn't have an extra bottle of booze for the road? Our group now officially considers a bottle of alcohol official adventuring gear.
Blood pudding? We were an all-dwarf party. We had alcohol. :)
Torches.
Had a party that was so used to using magical lighting, that when they needed actual fire they discovered to their dismay that no one in the party was carrying any torches. They had to go back and loot bodies for wood and cloth (one was actually carrying oil for some reason) to craft a makeshift torch.
Similarly, every party member had dark vision (half orcs, a dwarf, I think an android and maybe some type of tiefling) so when we actually needed to light something on fire it took a few minutes to find something we could do it with.
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Alcohol: My group has now run into two creatures that is weakened in some way by strong alcohol and we didn't have any, almost leading to two player deaths. I mean, come on. What kind of adventurer doesn't have an extra bottle of booze for the road? Our group now officially considers a bottle of alcohol official adventuring gear.Blood pudding? We were an all-dwarf party. We had alcohol. :)
The other was a Mimic placed right at the end of a narrow hallway. When one of the members of the party went and tried to open the chest it latched onto him. None of the other party members could really help him since nobody in the group had reach and so couldn't get close enough to the Mimic to attack. We were once again put in the position of just watching helplessly as one of our teammates got slowly killed round after round until they got free at the last moment.
Not really gear in this case but I just started a group on Way of the Wicked this last Saturday. They had a handout, knew they were in jail, knew they had to escape, and no one out of 6 people picks up disable device. No one asked about it from others even after I told them that they should talk about who was covering what skill rolls.
In Pathfinder society, you see characters needing things all the time: ranged weapons, ways to deal with swarms, ways to get around pits or climb stuff.How does a non-magic user deal with swarms?
Also what are the rules on attacking a swarm with a weapon? I've had GMs go both ways, in that you only attack a single creature in the swarm, dealing up to a set amount of damage, never being able to destroy the swarm even on a massive dice roll. I've also seen where a swarm is just a "normal" enemy and dealing damage can cut out multiple creatures inside the swarm.
I've seen suggestions for using doors, a table, or a tower shield as a martial area weapon. Just yesterday I played a session where we had to fight a wasp swarm. I was a barbarian, so I picked up a ruined cart that was nearby and smashed it into the swarm. It worked great.
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The Magic user: We forgot to pick him up from the warehouse, oh jeez, he's probably stale by now.
How does a non-magic user deal with swarms?
As mentioned, alchemical items are a good bet, and they can take damage if they're large enough. At higher levels, UMD with consumables works too.
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Wesley forgot his grappling hook.
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Yeah, well... last session my druid died one round after the party cleric died. The rest of the party considerred seppuku, cause they were in the middle of the dessert. "How on earth are we going to make it back to civilization without healing???"
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Yeah, well... last session my druid died one round after the party cleric died. The rest of the party considerred seppuku, cause they were in the middle of the dessert. "How on earth are we going to make it back to civilization without healing???"
They'll die of dehydration is my guess, since the two characters that have infinite access to create water are deceased. Best to commit seppuku rather than die from dehydration.
Now, if someone else has Survival at a decent bonus, they have a chance... ;)
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My group tends to over-prepare...it's reached the point where I let 'em burn ten of their starting gold for "I assume you have the bedroll, rations, waterskins, flint and steel and blankets you jerks are otherwise going to spend the ENTIRE SESSION selecting out of the CRB."
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The Magic user: We forgot to pick him up from the warehouse, oh jeez, he's probably stale by now.
"Magic user"?! Wow. I haven't heard anybody say that since about 1983!
Goggles - we got caught in a sandstorm and had -2 on Perception for the rest of the adventure because of the sand in our eyes.
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Someone who could heal the healer.
Once played a game where exactly one member of the party could use Cure Light Wounds or Channel Energy. The Wizard didn't have Infernal Healing, and we hadn't been able to shop for wands yet. So the Cleric goes down after some good rolls on the part of enemy kobolds. The party manages to wipe up the kobolds, but then there's the Cleric, bleeding out on the floor while the party fumbles around with bad Heal checks. The GM eventually throws us a bone and has a potion of Cure Light Wounds stashed in some corner of the cave, but yeah, that happened.
I was in a similar situation once. My PC, the rogue, was the only character conscious. A good UMD roll and a wand of CLW saved the party.
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I didn't play in this particular game, but way back in the early days of 2e a game went horribly awry when the party was trapped and lost in the Underdark. They were starving, with no rations or water (the cleric had been killed). So they killed and ate the wizard.
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Typical wizard stealing the fighter's job...
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I'moh yeah, my first under dark game had the shortsightedness to let the snifferblin apothecary/rouge (I can't remember if it was bard, thief or ninja) when we had a troll in the party
After that character died (dracolisk ate her soul) the party read her alchemy book/recipe collection/diary
Turns out she had been making and using some kind of deep sleep or numbing poison/potion on the troll and a random other party member each night for use in making ingredients for food, that would just be regenerated back through use of troll blood
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I'm packing extra rations on my characters from now on. I will NOT be eaten before the fighter darn it.
My games I GM the players forget: Rations, Rope, Torch (Heck, anything for light or fire), flint and steel, grappling hook...
*ponders*
Now that I stop and think about it, when I play a character I must be the only one that spends more than 2 gold in the gear section buying crap. I even made a handy dandy little sheet to track where I had stuff stowed.
That isn't entirely fair though, this last game 2 other people remembered rope, one other had a grappling hook. I was the only one with an Ioun Torch, Flint and Steel, Candles, Chalk, Blanket, a change of clothes...*trails off*
EDIT: Ever gone back and read something and thought "It must be easy to tell I was a -----?", in my case Boy Scout.
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I was never a boy scout, but I did once have a character who kept a canoe (and paddle), a ladder, snowshoes, and a bunch of other bulky,mundane, and highly situational items in his Portable Hole.
"I can't fit a canoe in my backpack, and sometimes,sometimes you really need to be able to paddle away..."