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That actually sounds like a pretty awesome conclusion of the character's arc, though. Maybe it's just how you told it.
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A few I will share of a a group I used to DM in 3.5. One, in an Eberron campaign, the party was on a ship being attacked by pirates. The warforged character picks up a canon and wants to hip fire it. He has the strength to hold it after all. He fires the cannon and I tell him to make a STR check. He rolls low, so he flies off the side of the ship like a rocket. The player then declines to make a swim check because "I don't need to breathe, so I will just walk along the bottom." So a short time later he rolls up another character. That next character, another warforged, decides he wants to sit in the bosses chair while he is out of the room. Unknown to him the chair is trapped with a baleful polymorph spell. So now he has an Iron turtle.
Another game I ran the party were pirates, working for one of seven pirate lords that ran a large city. What they didn't know was that this "pirate lord" was actually a projection of a Demon Lord, using the pirates to search for a lost relic that he needed. Queue previous player's brother sitting in the bosses chair. The character was momentarily transported to The Abyss and took a large amount of wisdom and charisma damage. He spent the rest of his life having nightmares about what he saw.
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This is the tale of Maulgrum Daimondeath vs The Most High Lizard King. It is a gruesome one. It beings in a wasteland city- the only one for hundreds of miles- called Saint's Crossing. Malgrum is a Cybernetic Hobgoblin Katana-weilding Ninja afflicted with psychosis, who has power to rival that of an anime protagonist. Him and a group of adventurers had wandered off from saints crossing and made a fortress out in the wasteland. They were protected by the Lizard King and his people, who lived in the only jungle area that we knew of. In our party was a human sorcerer named Calixtria who worshiped Calistria. The Lizard King had taken a liking to Calixtria. They fell in love together. One night, after returning from an adventure we went to the bar in Saint's Crossing, and both Calixtria and Maulgrum proceeded to get abhorrently drunk, and they bought a room together at an inn and slept there. Nothing unusual happened, they just went to bed.
But that all changed when they woke up. Maulgrum's psychotic side took over. But he didn't kill Calixtria in her sleep, oh no. He convinced her- though insanely high bluff- that they had 'gotten it on' last night. Seriously. What Maulgrum didn't know, however, was that Mr. Lizard King was scrying on them at that very moment, as he had heard that his love had gone to the room of hobgoblin scum last night. He was convinced that Maulgrum had taken Calixtria from him. Then things got bad.
The Lizard King teleports next to Maulgrum. He claws him twice and bites- critically hitting- for upwards of 300 damage. Maulgrum is instantly slain. But as I was saying, Maulgrum has the power of an anime protagonist. His clone awakens on a far away cliff, smelling the sandy air. He clicks his teleport boots together, appears next to The Lizard King, and stabs him 10 times with his Katanas. the Lizard King's body is reduced to mincemeat. But what Maulgrum didn't know is that the Lizard King had a Clone of his own (yay rhymes) waiting in his throne room.
The Lizard King appears in his throne room, recollecting his own death. He decides that Maulgrum, Saint's Crossing, our fortress and everyone in it are too dangerous to be left alive. He declares war upon the entirety of the wasteland, and marches his lizard army to kill us all. And with that, the horrible mess that was the Saint's Crossing Summer Campaign ended.
Glorious.
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Another one!
In a week-long one-shot adventure I ran, the players first job was to get this dagger from a display case in an auction house. They were mostly new players, like, first session new. There was a lot of clarifying what the d20 was. Anyways. The party consisted of a Cleric named Apple, a Rogue named Quickly, a paladin named Magrese, and a Wizard played by my brother who was named something wizardly like Turmon or Carnin or something. Oh, and a flaky Barbarian who didn't show up to like half the sessions named Mister Hilter.
Their plan was to get into one of the abandoned buildings surrounding the building, throw a grappling hook to the roof of the building, and get in through a skylight up there. But they first wanted to look around the building and see how many guards might see them if they did that. Here's what happened.
Quickly stealthily creeps around the perimeter in the shadows, the two guards in the front not noticing him. He sees two guards standing in front of the backdoor. Then he rolls a 1 on stealth. The guards see him immediately, turn their heads and demand that he get out, as the auction is not starting yet, and he looks suspicious. Quickly responds by drawing and firing his crossbow at one of the men, and rolls ANOTHER nat 1. The bowstring snaps as he cocks it back. The guards run up to him. Thankfully, Apple comes out from behind the corner and bribes them with a ridiculous sum of gold to shut up and let Quickly go. They still got what they wanted, which was knowing how many guards were posted, and when the auction would start. (The Wizard had asked the guards up front while Quickly went and ruined his crossbow).
So the party returned, situated in an abandoned building near the auction house an hour before the auction would start. They threw a grappling hook as planed, the paladin and cleric just barely made it across with how much ACP they had. They moved towards the skylight. The rogue asked 'So, how are we getting in without them noticing us?'. The Paladin laughs and belly-flops into the window in full plate. He gets cut for 3 damage, and then another 10 from the fall, taking out around half his HP from one stupid act. Everyone groans. Quickly throws a rope down and begins climbing down the rope. Just as he does so- the owner of the auction house comes out from his office, and sees the Glass-covered Paladin rifling through his stuff. He does not see the rope, as Quickly hid behind a box and Apple pulled up the rope.
The owner pulls out a heavy crossbow and goes defensive. The paladin offers him a bribe of 500 gold if he'll just be quiet. I quickly check the paladin code and tell him that he is now an ex-paladin. Because bribery. The table goes silent. He looks at me. 'So does that mean I can kill him?' he asks. I said 'if you want to not be neutral anymore.' He whips out his sword and stabs the man in the chest, killing him. The man was NG. He turned into an anti paladin. The entire table laughed their asses off.
That was the first session. He remained an anti-paladin for the rest of the game.
Wait, paladins can't give bribes?
Wait, paladins can't give bribes?
I believe they're called "love offerings" when paladins do it. As in "for your love offering of 300 gp or more, we'll also open the back door to this warehouse absolutely free. Operators are standing by..."
Wait, paladins can't give bribes?
bribing people is an ulawful act, and thus exposes the paladin to fall... incredible that some manage to keep the code up AND succeed in their assignments and rise in levels.
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Wait, paladins can't give bribes?bribing people is an ulawful act, and thus exposes the paladin to fall... incredible that some manage to keep the code up AND succeed in their assignments and rise in levels.
"There's nothing wrong with helping out folks that need a step towards the path of Goodness when they need it. EXPECTING something for helping out said folks is another kettle o' fish entirely.
Can't be expected to account for responsible folks that take their money and go to give it to the local orphanage or put it in the bank or whatnot, can I?
Would I encourage/allow someone to break in during the meantime?
Heck no.
I might even offer to help take up said guard's duty, just to make sure that they don't get penalized as they're trying to take stumbling steps towards being a Good person.
Bribery is when you're paying folks to do a thing that they aren't supposed to be doing. That's bad news all around."
isn't killing kinda unlawful too though
wait dammit I'm doing it again
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Just going to leave this in a spoilers tag because of Rise of the Runelords content.
** spoiler omitted **
We just finished that same fight in our Runelords game.
We just fought Black Maga too. The GM was certain we wouldn't stand a chance. Especially since we didn't head from Ft Ranick back to town, but immediately followed the bad guys to the dam. We had just finished trashing some ogres when Black Maga went over the dam.
My character, being a half giant Psi Warrior looked over the dam and said, "This is going to suck." He then used expansion to become huge in size and jumped off the dam onto Black Maga's back (whichever side that happens to be). I only hit once in the 4 rounds before Black Maga heads down stream doing about 25 points of damage, before DR; and spent most of that time grappled. So not really a significant effect.
Fortunately our alchemist just started tossing bombs over the edge of the dam and toasted the monster in 4 rounds; including 2 crits. Who knew colossal sea monsters had such low touch attacks.
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I do believe that the greatest thing I have ever done as a player was when I killed the BBEG with my Cleric, WHILE BLIND.
So, the BBEG blinded my cleric, no big deal as I was up to third level spells, so I could remove it the next day, but it seemingly put me out of the fight...
Or did it? I had a sudden, and alarming revelation, looked in the rule book to confirm my suspicion, and then proceeded to cast one, zero-level spell, Detect magic. It is not sight-based, but allows the user to identify where magical auras are in a radius, giving me a sort of "dare-devil" vision of magic items, which all of my team members had at least one magic item. The GM allowed my BLIND, not deaf, Cleric to access the magic over three rounds, after which, deducing, (correctly) that the BBEG was in between my two friends, (identified by their magical Items) the "incapacitated" cleric cast one searing light spell, HIT, OVERCAME THE MISS CHANCE, CRITICALED, AND KILLED THE BBEG WHILE BLIND.
This apparently was attempted to be reused by the group later, but the GM banned its further use as a loophole.
Just one problem with that story: You can't crit while blinded. Your target still has cover against you, so no crits or other precision damage (sneak attacks) while blinded.
Sir, I do believe you are mistake. Unless this happened in a different version of the game with different rules. The total concealment rule on sneak attacks is a sneak attack specific rule, not a blanket rule over all precision-like damage.
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Just one problem with that story: You can't crit while blinded. Your target still has cover against you, so no crits or other precision damage (sneak attacks) while blinded.Sir, I do believe you are mistake. Unless this happened in a different version of the game with different rules. The total concealment rule on sneak attacks is a sneak attack specific rule, not a blanket rule over all precision-like damage.
There is also the fact that if the Gm allows it, anything can go. (even if it works only once...)
Actually, the real mistake is that identifying a magic item takes three rounds. ;)
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Actually, the real mistake is that identifying a magic item takes three rounds. ;)
Well, the Goblin Kid did say he took three rounds.
However, Detect Magic only gives the strength and location of each aura at three rounds. Additional spellcraft checks are needed to dentify items. That said, how many times has the cleric cast Detect Magic while friendlies were in range? Since you can get a set of auras for each character, as well as a location, the unfamiliar set is therefore the BBEG. If the BBEG has no magic, the melee brutes are probably surrounding the BBEG, so again, a reasonable chance of locating the BBEG./cevah
Yeah, that's what I was thinking—the three rounds are obviously to pinpoint each aura, but how long does it take to identify? I only ask because he explicitly said he identified which partymembers were which. That said, it was a jokey nitpick. :P
One of my friends did something similar. Has See Invisibility up, is blinded, needs to get an item. Casts invisibility on self, so he can see his pack.
Would this really work? See Invisibility doesn't do anything about not having vision, including that it does not enable you to see through opaque objects (which would definitely apply if you had been blinded by opacity of the eyes), and creatures that can use other senses to find invisible things don't need it anyway.
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Awaken is a spell I seldom see druids cast because of it's costly, takes 24 hours to cast, and the roll for mental stats can either make the animal a genius or a complete dunce. The real payoff though is how glorious the outcome can be in some circumstances.
For starters, the druid in the party is a saurian shaman who spends a majority of his time in dinosaur form and can talk to reptiles as a bonus. The party had a few days to do anything they wanted for preparations before moving on to the next dungeon, so he decides to spend an entire day taming a dire crocodile. He succeeds of course, and in the process he decides to take another day to awaken the crocodile.
He rolls an 18 on the intelligence roll for a total of 19 intelligence.
He is the smartest crocodile to ever exist.
Behold Richard Montague the Third:
Richard Montague III CR 11
Awakened Dire Crocodile
N Gargantuan magical beast (augmented)
Init +4; Senses low-light vision; Perception +25
DEFENSE
AC 21, touch 6, flat-footed 21 (+15 natural, –4 size)
hp 175 (14d10+98)
Fort +16, Ref +9, Will +8
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft., swim 30 ft.; sprint
Melee bite +24 (3d6+13/19–20 plus grab) and tail slap +19 (4d8+6)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Special Attacks death roll (3d6+19 plus trip), swallow whole (3d6+13, AC 16, 13 hp)
STATISTICS
Str 37, Dex 10, Con 25, Int 19, Wis 14, Cha 4
Base Atk +14; CMB +31(+35 grapple); CMD 41 (49 vs. trip)
Feats Improved Critical (bite), Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Run, Skill Focus (Perception, Stealth), Power Attack, Critical Focus
Skills Perception +25, Stealth +0 (+8 in water), Swim +23, Knowledge(nature) +18, Knowledge(nobility) +18, Knowledge(history) +18, Survival +19;
Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth in water
SQ hold breath
Druids man...
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It tis no crock indeed that a certain croc is in fact the most eligible bachelor in Middlemarch, a saurian of wealth and taste, and refinement...
Still can't wear his monocle however.
(I am going to special hell for this)
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*Reincarnates this thread to bring it back to life*
*This thread is now a badger*
I don't think this fits exactly here but I had to post it somewhere.
It happened last session.
I am GMing Hangman's Noose for a veteran player (Dalindra) and two new players. All of them are doing great.
Last session one of the new players couldn't come, and it was just Dalindra playing Samir, a tiefling cleric of Sarenrae and my other player, who was Markus, a skinwalker barbarian. I was using both the witch of the other player and a dhampir alchemist as NPCs. They are all level 1. For those who don't know, Hangman's Noose takes place on a single night and some encounters are really tough.
The dhampir, Dominic, doesn't know he is a dhampir, but he knows that he has a strange condition that makes him be uncomfortable in bright light and heal like he was undead.
So, seeing Dominic was a healer, he told him about his "condition". Specifically:
"Please, don't try to heal me, because you'll harm me. I have a condition that makes me heal like I was undead"
Samir understood.
They went on with the adventure, and Dominic did well staying away from taking damage, as there isn't a single way for him to be healed on the whole module. Until they found a pretty tough undead.
The undead went full attack on Markus and knocked him down with ease. Samir tried to channel energy to heal him, but he only got 1 hp healed. Meanwhile, Dominic stayed away from the mess dropping some bombs.
So what did Samir do? He decided to channel energy to harm undead instead of healing. He gets a 5 on his d6. Suddenly, a cry of agony is heard from behind. Dominic's flesh is burning in positive energy.
Dominic: I told you not to do that!
Samir: I didn't heal you!
Dominic: I think that's obvious!
Technically, it was true. He specifically demanded not to be healed xD
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If the thread is a badger, I guess we need a fairy wizard named Escalla, the Justicar, Private Henry, Enid the Spinx, and to rename the thread "Polk", and get it a clay jug marked with XXX :). Oww, a cart and a slightly stuffy talking sword too!
Oh, and, "No one touches the fairy!"