Ok so I am running a post-apocalyptic campaign with my characters. once they entered a temple full of Mummies and Bearded Devils (They are Lvl. 5 but have high stats) the rogue ran ahead to try to make a deal with the head devil. Well, I decided right away that there was no chance of this. I gave him several false hopes and took them all away, culminating with him being bull-rushed into a pit to hell, falling for an hour, and landing with a giant spike through his back.
You ever see that movie "Nothing but trouble" staring Dan Ankroid and Chevy Chase? In Dan plays this weird judge and if he found you guilty or didn't like you very much he would sentence you to death. Once he did you would be standing on a conveyor belt that shot you through a trap door to your left you would fall down into a roller coaster which would throw you onto another belt which then pulled you into this meat grinder thing, striped you of all flesh and shot your bones out the end hitting a bull's eye target.
Just thought a roller coaster to hell might be a good hell path as well.
The cruel part is how I have the tunnels of the ant nest. Some tunnels slope down and some slope up. The one's that slope down have a lot of loose gravel on them so if they don't make their acrobatics check they fall prone and slip and slide down to the bottom giving whatever at the bottom not only a OOA but also a +4 bonus to attack because they are prone.
I like this. of course, the party would probably have to crouch while fighting even if they stood up. tunnels are nasty, especially if light sources aren't well taken care of.
One TPK in my group was the result of targeted dispel magic from drow taking out all but one of the party's permanent darkvision spells deep, deep underground. they had those spells on for so long, they stopped carrying light sources or prepping light spells. ouch. the archer was the first to go.
my my, sometimes you get quite some results when you just ride the random events
no kidding, this is why I think it is a shame that random encounter tables are so tame these days. I can't remember the last time the party ran from a random encounter in my group. I like your rules about random effects with item destruction, are they your invention?
The cruel part is how I have the tunnels of the ant nest. Some tunnels slope down and some slope up. The one's that slope down have a lot of loose gravel on them so if they don't make their acrobatics check they fall prone and slip and slide down to the bottom giving whatever at the bottom not only a OOA but also a +4 bonus to attack because they are prone.I like this. of course, the party would probably have to crouch while fighting even if they stood up. tunnels are nasty, especially if light sources aren't well taken care of.
One TPK in my group was the result of targeted dispel magic from drow taking out all but one of the party's permanent darkvision spells deep, deep underground. they had those spells on for so long, they stopped carrying light sources or prepping light spells. ouch. the archer was the first to go.
my my, sometimes you get quite some results when you just ride the random eventsno kidding, this is why I think it is a shame that random encounter tables are so tame these days. I can't remember the last time the party ran from a random encounter in my group. I like your rules about random effects with item destruction, are they your invention?
An old GM of mine once told me of his old GM and related how he use to have random stuff happen just to kill the party. For instant trees, trees in his game were known to and often randomly explode into 5d6 fireballs.
Personally I would be afraid to go into a forest.
The only one I feel a little bad about (and that the player constantly reminds me of) is when she was playing a female noble wizard. The group were chasing down an agent of good (and former mentor of one of the party) who had gone rogue or mad (at this point they weren't sure). This agent had recruited a small gang of the city's ne'er-do-wells and they ambushed the party at various locations. The party new the names and backgrounds of these vicious crooks so they should have been forewarned.
One of the thugs was a disgraced monk who had been cast out of his order for being vicious and cruel. He liked to exert his own physical superiority over everyone (particularly the weak and defenseless). It just so happened that he leapt off a staircase and landed right next to this player's noble wizard. She didn't have a weapon in her hand, and wizards don't wear armor so this thug went to town on the defenseless noblewoman and in two rounds she was dead. That took everyone a little by surprise as I think they'd thought that the werewolf ambushing them from another direction was the real threat.
oops
The only one I feel a little bad about (and that the player constantly reminds me of) is when she was playing a female noble wizard.
SNIP...
She didn't have a weapon in her hand, and wizards don't wear armor so this thug went to town on the defenseless noblewoman and in two rounds she was dead.
No need to feel bad, wizards should never be defenseless. she just hadn't anticipated being attacked physically, which actually seems pretty predictable. maybe if she dropped in 1 round, or it happened in an anti-magic field, or when she was out of spells it would be unfair. seems more like a painful lesson to me. although maybe she was really low level?
BTW would love for Allen Stewart or Turin the Mad to drop by this thread. They could fill it for pages.
Hello, Tessius - and yes, more than a few posts could be made from GM cruelties both fair and foul. :)
Allow me to tell you a little parable ...
Long ago in the waning days of 1e, a player bellied up to the table with an entire party of player characters. These characters were named after professional wrestlers of the time (for the most part), declared as being nigh invincible ... and high-level.
Lo and behold the insufficiently-praised module H2 "The Mines of Bloodstone" lurked in my possession. With a bit of preparatory research, the GM Screen was raised, gauntlets thrown.
Our Heroes of Hubris carve their way in easily enough, reaching the room with two caged succubi after going through the stone eater's tunnel, still only somewhat warm to the touch from the latter's passage.
After talking smack and casting assorted 1e buff spells, the two succubi proceeded to summon two balor demons. Said balor demons then proceeded to psionic blast or psychic crush - I do not recall specifically which - the entire lot, rendering them all in various states of confusion.
As I recall:
- One of the two burly Fighters ran gibbering the wrong way down the stone eater's tunnel, burning to death.
- The second Fighter stood their drooling, rendered permanently idiotic.
- The cleric whipped out his Staff of Striking and, expending full charges with each swing upon a basically helpless target, proceeded to brain said Fighter #2 with that staff, draining the last charge as the killing blow was dealt.
- The wizard was, I think, outright slain by brain hemorrhage from the two psionic blasts. If not, he was slain in short order by the other creatures present.
- There were one or two more characters perhaps - all of them died horribly and thoroughly.
These characters were named after professional wrestlers of the time (for the most part)
LOL, awesome.
this brings tears of joy to my old eye.
taste twin balors, iron sheik!
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I've got a particularly cruel plot twist coming up for a couple of half-elves in our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.
It did cross my mind though. One of the half-elves is Shoanti, and she has been taking the discovery of defiled Shoanti corpses in recent sessions pretty hard. She and the rest of the party, including the other half-elf(this one is Varisian), know about the Cinderlander at this point and have an absolute hate on for him.
They also learned that the Cinderlander has been doing this sort of thing for a long time. They know he must be fairly old at least. Then the elven cleric pointed out that the Cinderlander might be an elf.
Then the half-elves realize that their backstories had them never knowing only their human mothers, not their elven fathers.
I almost ran with it. Damn it was tempting.
I was quite the opposite of a cruel GM. I had my moments of course, there was one situation where I declared a PC's fumble hit another PC effectively offing a character that annoyed me as a GM and the rest of the players. There was another instance where I had been dead set on killing one character simply because I had been in a bad mood and he had annoyed me severely. He survived but everyone was looking at me like I had turned into a werewolf. Beyond those incidences I was a fairly tame DM, growing up with a 'good guys should win' mentality and more or less letting my PC's waltz through most campaigns.
This changed not long after high school. At one point a player had gotten sick of me being a nice DM, hell the entire group wanted me to stop fudging dice rolls and let PC's die when their number came up. It started slow, one PC forgot to take a 5 foot step when fighting a troll ad quaffed a potion thus provoking an attack of opportunity and getting himself killed. Another game had a TPK when the PC's assaulted a family of trolls in their lair, they fought valiantly but as individuals against a foe that were organized and experienced against adventurers.
The most memorable TPK was in a Forgotten Realms game. It started slow, with one character's arrogance and ended badly. A small town was being assaulted by a small undead army, this included ghouls, ghasts and spell-stitched variations as well as your standard skeletons and zombies. The PC's were 7th or 8th level and most were effectively min-maxed via FR supplements.
One player was a rogue of a race of fiend blooded winged elves. He had a high AC and was good in melee as well as ranged. He was taking on a group of I think 12 ghouls who simply couldn't hit him without rolling a nat 20. He was doing well taking them down one a round and got a little cocky and decided to fly above them. This permitted an attack of opportunity which he wasn't too concerned about: until that nat 20 was rolled.
Okay, no problem, he'd have to roll a nat 1 to fail his fortitude save... a roll of the die:
1.
I laughed evilly as I put my knack for being a descriptive narrator as I described the other pc's watching as a lone ghoul reached up and raked it's filthy claws along his calf whereupon the elf froze in mid flight and tumbled into the pack of ghouls to be devoured and only able to scream.
The battle went down hill from there with the horde of undead eventually overwhelming the PC's and picking them off one by one. The only player to survive did so only because she didn't show up.
I'm rarely giggling with glee at a TPK but I was downright cackling that evening. Though I suppose it doesn't count as an evil GM thing seeing as the PC's utterly enjoyed it.
I'm not a DM (boo! hiss!) but I am subject to a rather cruel one. A few years back we did an ancient Greek campaign (inspired by Homer and the great New Argonauts book). The climax of nearly a year's worth of the highest order of epic gaming saw the PC's enter a large circular room, the entrance being magically sealed behind us.
In the centre of the room, a groove in the floor in the shape of a man. Our various favoured Gods commmunicated to us, only one could lie in the groove, and the one that did would ascend, and would be granted their desires by the Gods.
As we start discussing who should be the one to ascend, the walls begin glow, and the room starts heating up. It wasn't long before one of us cracked, and charged the others. Only 2 of us emerged from the bloodbath that followed. I managed to convince the other survivor that I should be the one to ascend, and that I would use my wish to resurrect the others once I did.
So, having just slaughtered 3 of my friends, I put down my weapons and lie prostrate in the groove, as the room temperature begins to rise to unbearable levels. Clearly it would take some time for my ascension to be complete, perhaps too long.
At this juncture, my DM turns to the other player, and starts bombarding him with images from his past, his daughter, his estranged wife, asking how his character can give that all up, and in a fit of rage, he leaps and spears me through the chest, rendering me dying.
He then takes my place, and ascends as I bleed out on the floor. Once face to face with the Gods, he chooses NOT to resurrect his friends, and takes god-like power for himself.
The most frustrating this about this entire scenario, is that at the start of the campaign, this PC was given an amulet, with 2 mysterious blue orbs set within. It was never explicitly stated what they did, but the PC worked out that they were free resurrects should his character die. He still had one left at the end, and so would have survived the ordeal anyway.
Of course, my DM knew this.
...
my my, sometimes you get quite some results when you just ride the random eventsno kidding, this is why I think it is a shame that random encounter tables are so tame these days. I can't remember the last time the party ran from a random encounter in my group. I like your rules about random effects with item destruction, are they your invention?
Well, It was a on-the-fly invention with Staff of Wonder table at hand for inspiration. We're fond of items like the deck of many things. Once my party pooled their all gold aat second or third level to be allowed one draw each at local temple.
I have in mind an evil trap that I want to pull against my PCs in near future.
The most evil part for me is the complexity and relatively low CR.
S smallish room with locked door on one end and smoothly going door on another end is filled with menacing buzz of a hornet nest (adjust the number of wasp swarms included to hit the desired CR) perched in one of the upper corners. The entrance doors have some loose masonry just above them (knowledge dungeoneering or architecture will clearly tell the PCs that some minor debris will fall it this gets disturbed) The PCs can relatively safely move through the room with a moderate stealth DC without disturbing the nest. The locked door also contain a simple arrow trap, or rather with a trigger for it, firing mechanism served as a convenient anchor for the hornet nest. Yes, you know where this is heading. So, if the PCs manage to disarm the trap, they should be safe, no? Well, now comes the evil part. If the PCs open the locked door the sudden draft slams the entrance door rather nosily, which both whips the hornets to murderous frenzy and conveniently stucks the exit with some loose debris. So mudane it hurts and yet so nasty :)
PCs will love me for that.
I'm not a DM (boo! hiss!) but I am subject to a rather cruel one. A few years back we did an ancient Greek campaign (inspired by Homer and the great New Argonauts book). The climax of nearly a year's worth of the highest order of epic gaming saw the PC's enter a large circular room, the entrance being magically sealed behind us.
In the centre of the room, a groove in the floor in the shape of a man. Our various favoured Gods commmunicated to us, only one could lie in the groove, and the one that did would ascend, and would be granted their desires by the Gods.
As we start discussing who should be the one to ascend, the walls begin glow, and the room starts heating up. It wasn't long before one of us cracked, and charged the others. Only 2 of us emerged from the bloodbath that followed. I managed to convince the other survivor that I should be the one to ascend, and that I would use my wish to resurrect the others once I did.
So, having just slaughtered 3 of my friends, I put down my weapons and lie prostrate in the groove, as the room temperature begins to rise to unbearable levels. Clearly it would take some time for my ascension to be complete, perhaps too long.
At this juncture, my DM turns to the other player, and starts bombarding him with images from his past, his daughter, his estranged wife, asking how his character can give that all up, and in a fit of rage, he leaps and spears me through the chest, rendering me dying.
He then takes my place, and ascends as I bleed out on the floor. Once face to face with the Gods, he chooses NOT to resurrect his friends, and takes god-like power for himself.
The most frustrating this about this entire scenario, is that at the start of the campaign, this PC was given an amulet, with 2 mysterious blue orbs set within. It was never explicitly stated what they did, but the PC worked out that they were free resurrects should his character die. He still had one left at the end, and so would have survived the ordeal anyway.
Of course, my DM knew...
Wow... just... wow.
I've got a particularly cruel plot twist coming up for a couple of half-elves in our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.
** spoiler omitted **
Absolutely run with it!
These characters were named after professional wrestlers of the time (for the most part)LOL, awesome.
this brings tears of joy to my old eye.
taste twin balors, iron sheik!
^^ There was a rather good 3.5 OGL product back in the "mound of poo" days that covered what equated to Professional Wrasslin' as a combat style / core class / prestige class, complete with finishing move.
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Absolutely run with it!I've got a particularly cruel plot twist coming up for a couple of half-elves in our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.
** spoiler omitted **
But man....it would be one hell of a reveal if they hadn't thought of it already!
I'm probably going to have the Cinderlander revealed as responsible for taking the Shoanti half-elf's father's eye and for possibly having killed the Varisian half-elf's father. It's still real foggy at the moment.
Still...grrr...someone needs to use that twist if I'm not going to!
@#$% IT! HE'S HER UNCLE! DRAMA TRAIN A COMIN'!
So all I have to add to this conversation is a quote from one of my favorite GMs:
"The goal of a GM is not to kill the players. The goal is to get the players to kill eachother, and get the last one to commit suicide."
He pulled this off once, not sure on the details of how.
Have my first GM session coming up in a week, this is something to strive for :P
I'm not a DM (boo! hiss!) but I am subject to a rather cruel one. A few years back we did an ancient Greek campaign (inspired by Homer and the great New Argonauts book). The climax of nearly a year's worth of the highest order of epic gaming saw the PC's enter a large circular room, the entrance being magically sealed behind us...
Pah, that could have been worse; Your GM could have set it up with 4 grooves, and told you that one of the party must give their life for the others to continue. Then once all the party members were in a groove, have the 5th one spirited away to godhood for being noble enough to let his party members take the places (unless of course you murdered him beforehand where he would just be dead) and then have the rest of you incinerated by the hot room.
Running a campaign in a world where the sun hasn't risen in the last couple weeks. Party is fighter, pally, cleric, and fighter-cleric. But no one can cast raise dead yet. Paladin dies-I forget why. I happen to have a few random encounters in a folder, one of which is a lizardfolk druid. Supposed to be a combat encounter, but I run him as a loony hermit, and allow the PC's to negotiate a reincarnation out of him.
Now, we roll randomly for the new race-and get Kobold. The players, after the initial shock and laughs wear off, point out that they are not in a position where they can buy magical equipment-so I'm screwing the pally out of most of his gear by virtue of size class. I offer orc, they start b!~*!ing about how much being...basically, anything but a PC race...screws with his character.
So I come up with a solution. The lizardfolk had taken the character's remains into his tent to cast the spell, then come out with him. I tell him he feels fine, looks down at himself, sees human skin, sees the lizardfolk was kind enough to supply him with clothes-nice clothes too, the lines complimented his bust line well.
It took a full 10 seconds for it to dawn on them.
In a fit of...something...the paladin multiclassed into sorcerer and has been on shaky terms with his god ever since.
Not sure if that is cruel, but it is classic GM funny.
A few weeks back, my group and I picked up where we had left earlier. In the former adventure, the group (Sorcerer, Monk, Fighter/Duelist, Minotaur Paladin) had encountered a giant slug guardian beast behind a large, black, adamantine portal. This portal was covered in the usual imagery: eyes, tentacles, cranial depictions and stuff. Also, the portal was set in a perfectly symmetrical corridor that seemed to have been ... disintegrated into the rock formations of the local Underdark and had to be opened by a Use Magic Device check by the sorcerer.
Now, the group knew that they were following a duo of tentacle-folk (you know what I mean) carrying a human snack with them, so they proceeded to pass the portal and explore the cave system behind. Thus passes an hour or so of simple boredom. Nothing happens, they just follow the ever winding corridor deeper into the earth.
Suddenly, a lone squid-thingy pops up right in front of the group, seemingly oblivious to their presence, and the players begin charging him. Their opponent is quite surprised and chooses to flee rather than fight the group that already cost it much of its life points.
So the party continues walking down the corridor.
After another hour or so, they encounter another of the aberrations, this time leading a group of slaves with it. Each of the player character's races is represented and the slavemaster tells them telepathically "Take these and leave in peace - or join them forever.".
Of course, the group decides on killing the monster and doing away with the slaves (one way or another), since they don't have much time left. After all, the enemy waiting for them must surely be aware of their coming by now.
So, they wiped out the group of slaves with a single fireball after the mind beast has fled and continue their journey.
After a few minutes, they spot a blue-ish glow ahead of them from around a corner in the corridor. Investigating, they find the corridor to be the entrance NOT to the small outpost they had imagined it to be, but a full-blown CITY full of aberrant creatures, mind slaves and the city's masters, the thought flayer creatures, striding and flying, levitating and teleporting to and fro simply EVERYWHERE.
I'm not known for my cruelty. Well, at least not for killing players for sport. If a player had it coming, I play according to the rules and logic. IF he might be resurrected, then be it so. If not, he can roll up a new character.
Now, this time I didn't pull punches. The whole party got spotted, surrounded by a high-level illithingy mage and his squad of four trained bodyguards, and made short work of. The last thing one of the players saw was her and her comrades floating in some kind of nourishment tank, where they would be taken out from to serve as light snacks...
The group told me what they thought of that, of course.
And I told them what I thought of their decision to explore a corridor and a door that was obviously NOT a simple outpost.
Afterwards, I reminded them of the date this happened.
It was the first of April.
Next evening, they decided against entering the corridor again when their Sorcerer woke up from a 'bad but very realistic dream'.
^^
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** spoiler omitted **Absolutely run with it!I've got a particularly cruel plot twist coming up for a couple of half-elves in our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign.
** spoiler omitted **
UPDATE
Needless to say, the entire party has a major hate on for the Cinderlander. Flameford's going to be a hoot.
So I rarely run dragons. Suffice to say I think that a monster that old should be capable of being truly impressive to behold, fight, and revel in having beaten. I will tell you of two stories where I was particularly cruel with these beasties, and perhaps they can help to make your encounters with the once titular creatures of our game more difficult.
The first was my game where I ran a black dragon. Now, the PCs had to go into its swamp to lure it out, since its orc minions had stolen a good deal of gold from the town's treasury, and they were offered 10% of the gold they returned that belonged to the town. In addition, this dragon was on rather bad terms with the people since it commonly ate livestock, people, buildings, suffice to say it was a proper nuisance.
The party was four, a ranger, a fighter, a wizard and a rouge. They stalked through the swamp, waiting to find the dragon. Eventually the ranger started taunting it. Unfortunately for him, it heard him. It popped out, sprayed half of them down with its breath, and took off over the treeline. Thanks to some potions the wizard didn't die, but they did tell the ranger to shut up after that.
They easily tracked it back to its cave. It was a network of subterranean caverns, and had a great deal of swamp plants and algae strewn about. In another of these was the dragon. A second time, he burst out, bit the rouge rather badly and flew off. The wizard tried to use a combat spell of some kind and didn't beat his SR. He dove into the water and led them into a group of lizardmen in the next cavern. They tore through the guys, but still were in sorry shape. A sane, less ticked off group would have just left. But no. These guys were out for blood now. The ranger wanted his wings for a cloak, and the fighter wanted a dragon skull shield. The rouge wanted money for healing, but I digress.
About this time I realized the dragon had spells. He quickly went invisible near the entrance to his horde and made an illusion near the pile of himself with silent image, and used his ghost sound to have it talk. They enter in, and the image taunts with a "Come and get me". Initiative is rolled and I see that they're dead by the time the fighter goes first. The guy charges and I have him make a will save. He fails, naturally, and I say it was for the fear aura (Which he had made every other time with mediocre rolls). I say he passed. He gleefully misses the "dragon" and turn passes to the ranger, who fires his bow. He makes his will save a bit too late as the dragon's turn comes around. He full attacks the wizard, dropping him in two hits and starts in on the ranger. He outright tells the rouge to go stop the fighter or he'll kill him as well. The rouge doesn't listen for one turn, and misses ineffectually. The fighter charges up and gets crit, and survives, hitting the dragon once. The ranger five foots back and full defends. The Dragon kills the ranger in two swings and says he'll pay the rogue if he kills the fighter AND let the rogue live. The rogue agrees on his turn, and the dragon hits the fighter instead. The rogue does move to flank with the fighter, who is flipping out on the rogue. The rogue explains that he'll just KO the fighter, and use the money he gets from the dragon to revive them all. The fighter after much (rightful) deliberation, agrees.
The rogue hits him, uses sneak attack for some reason, and knocks the fighter down to -2. The rogue says how easy that was and asks the dragon how much he's getting paid. The dragon grins and says "The payment is DEATH!" and breathes on the rogue. He fails his save and is downed the following round by the dragon as it gleefully flies towards him with its claws outstretched.
He calls bull, I point to the alignment of the black dragon. CE.
The next is much more recent. Suffice to say I had already stopped playing D&D, but it was my first year at college and that was all anyone seemed to play. I ran a group of 11 players of 11th level, most of the time 8-9. It was hell. Even worse, the CR system was literally so clunky that I had to play everything by ear. Fortunately a lot of the players were vets so I didn't have to worry too much.
The party had a couple spellcasters, a couple barbarians, a ranger, a rouge, a warlock and one or two other guys. I remember the group being understaffed for this fight.
Now, this was post Draconomicon. I decided on a Young Adult red dragon fight inside an active volcano. This guy had a lot of treasure (For the ton of party members) and he had found a simple ritual to make his magic items immune to fire, provided he had the immunity. This particular dragon's father was a Great Wyrm, and his son "Inherited" the vast horde of treasure he possessed. On top of that, he was very in touch with his inner white dragon, as in he could change his breath to cold due to an admittedly dickish feat. Finally he had a 14th level NPC to keep the fight interesting.
Fight starts, most of the PCs have Portection from Energy (Fire) up. The drgaon dives under the lava. The NPC is ready to warm them up a bit. One wizard (The one who had cast Pro fire) casts Feeblemind on him. I know now it doesn't affect his combat ability, but that's not what he told me. An NPC I had spend an hour on dropped his sword and got bull rushed into lava. I was considering making this fight a bit less harsh than I had planned before. No. An hour of my life gone in five minutes. They had to pay. Today, I silently swore, the gnashing of teeth would be heard, and character sheets would be reduced to inked paper containing meaningless lines. Today, these guys were going to die.
The barbarians fly over to his horde and start messing with it. They taunt him, but he can't hear it due to being in lava. They dump some of his horde over the side into the lava (Why I still cannot fathom) to try and lure him out. He bursts out of the lava two turns later, alright, with Protection from Cold, Scintilating Scales, A Magic Fang, and Mirror Image.
Oh. Baby.
He breathes on the large group. The save was ridiculously high. The rogue barely made it and everyone else took it. The wizard talked about how his protection from fire was a good investment. I describe the dragon's maw opening to roar forth a blast of... cold. He is flabbergasted and takes 66 damage. He looks at his character sheet and looks back up at me. The following ensues:
Player: "Did you just say 66 damage?"
Me: "Yep."
Player: "God. Dammit. That brings me to -10."
I couldn't help but crack a grin. It served him right for killing my cool NPC. I'd killed him right back.
Player: "You killed me."
One other thing made this all the better. Earlier that day, he'd mentioned that today was his birthday.
Me: "Happy Birthday."
Laughter ensued. He commented that with that same degree of damage, his first every character had died from full hp, same as this.
Next, the rogue lept on the back of the dragon. I let him, since the dragon was fairly big and he had tumble, with a balance roll. He swung at it ineffectually and jumped off.
The ranger had taken to the sides of the volcano with his slippers of spider climbing and shot at the dragon, nailing it a few times. Once, he crit. His grin was changed to shock as the dragon flew towards him, biting him, snatching him and wingovering down into the lava. After a buttload of damage, the dragon came back out of the lava and flung the ranger towards the wall. He clung to it and decided that after having just taken most of his health in damage from lava, the best course of action? Continue to fire at the angry dragon.
One more bite, snatch and wingover later, the dragon flung the ranger's body toward the wall again, only this time it didn't stick, instead falling down into the lava. That's one character that wasn't getting resurrected.
This whole time, the party was wondering when this silver dragon NPC would get to the fight and save them. Two things prevented this. One, the dragon's stats were, well, nonexistant save for the typical ones, and I might as well have chopped off his legs and given him wheels compared to the monster the rest of the group was fighting. Secondly, there was a literal army outside made of fire giants, human mercenaries, and Dragonkin. Basically a lot of good reasons why he'd be busy.
I next slew the party member I can't remember, and the barbarians with some good positioning whittled the dragon down. He dives down into the lava and they stay there, waiting for him to come back up. Using some refurbished teleporting item and a cheap magic item from the Draconomicon, he teleported back into his horde room. Basically he stepped on this platform and cast heal on himself from it. The barbarians raged (Possibly in real life as well) and were promptly swallowed whole and then gripped in the dragon's maw.
At this point, I looked around and saw the sheer slaughter I had inflicted. Three of them were dead, and I had just extinguished all hope. In three turns, TPK.
By this time I was over it. I had a BBEG planned (Whose sheet I misplaced when the time came) and I was willing to be nice. I let the barbarian in the dragon's tummy hack his way out despite having a poorly sized weapon. I let the dragon drop the other barbarian when he did so (I think I would also cry out in pain if my darn stomach had just been ripped open) and the two made short work of him.
In my mind though, I was being much more of a jerk. For the BBEG made the dragon look like a chump. Unfortunately, I never got to use him.
But oh hell yes one of the NPCs grabbed those teleporting trousers on the dragon. No way even at 11th level were they getting those.
I'd have to say I'm a much crueler player than gm, especially since I tend to play CN. But i played chars that were "ends justify the means" and "as long as it benefits me...". But I've always warned my players that if the Mob is intelligent enough its gonna act like it.
altho I'd have to say the are a few times I've enjoyed as a GM...and gotta say immovable rod and portable hole are the 2 best items in the game.
the Immovable rod- anklet.l10ish druid jumps into a river during a huge encounter between their party+local army vs horde. while in the water one of the villians of the piece manages to get the anklet on him. several turns later another player had to fish him out(1 turn before he would've drowned). Best was when the druid got asked why he didnt just wildshape out of it tho, "didnt want to waste a wildshape use"
or
a cursed mace that slowly turned a cleric/pally of pelor into a lich... altho it was using the "good" lich template. he'd (or his fellow clerics) didnt think it was that amusing at the time.
Or
the fake door on a tower, that took 4hrs of gaming for the party to figure out.
or
the Party (l10 cleric, rogue, mage, fighter) ended up fighting fighting monk8/sorc4 and a l8 werewolf monk... i figured it should be relatively even, except when you take into account you can "hold the charge" on spells like shocking grasp, and chill touch.
BTW would love for Allen Stewart or Turin the Mad to drop by this thread. They could fill it for pages.Hello, Tessius - and yes, more than a few posts could be made from GM cruelties both fair and foul. :)
Allow me to tell you a little parable ...
Long ago in the waning days of 1e, a player bellied up to the table with an entire party of player characters. These characters were named after professional wrestlers of the time (for the most part), declared as being nigh invincible ... and high-level.
Lo and behold the insufficiently-praised module H2 "The Mines of Bloodstone" lurked in my possession. With a bit of preparatory research, the GM Screen was raised, gauntlets thrown.
Our Heroes of Hubris carve their way in easily enough, reaching the room with two caged succubi after going through the stone eater's tunnel, still only somewhat warm to the touch from the latter's passage.
After talking smack and casting assorted 1e buff spells, the two succubi proceeded to summon two balor demons. Said balor demons then proceeded to psionic blast or psychic crush - I do not recall specifically which - the entire lot, rendering them all in various states of confusion.
As I recall:
- One of the two burly Fighters ran gibbering the wrong way down the stone eater's tunnel, burning to death.
- The second Fighter stood their drooling, rendered permanently idiotic.
- The cleric whipped out his Staff of Striking and, expending full charges with each swing upon a basically helpless target, proceeded to brain said Fighter #2 with that staff, draining the last charge as the killing blow was dealt.
- The wizard was, I think, outright slain by brain hemorrhage from the two psionic blasts. If not, he was slain in short order by the other creatures present.
- There were one or two more characters perhaps - all of them died horribly and thoroughly.
Turin, good to see that your memory of that wonderful day (which I was present for also) still remains intact. That was one wonderful dose of humble pie administered. And long overdue. I still laugh about that encounter when I think about it...
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And while I'm at it, a recent (2014) player character whoopin' of note was in the Hidden Shrine of the Tamoachan. I allowed one player character a "free Resurrection" on the spot. Said player was very happy about that. Within five minutes I greased his same character again when he was running to try to catch up with the other characters who had left him behind when he bought the farm the first time :)
Another memorable GM'ing feat of cruelty was in 2010, where I had the main villain equipped with a Necklace of Adaptation (which makes you immune to gas poisons), and then doused the group of EIGHT 13th level characters with Dust of Sneezing and Choking (which is categorized as a gas poison). The PC's saving throws were easily made, but even if you succeed on the save, according to the rules, you are still stunned (and unable to act) for between 10 and 20 rounds. By the time the stunning wore off, ALL EIGHT characters had been sliced and diced by the main villain in a bloodbath of a TPK.
Turin the Mad's other crowning achievement encounter of 1st edition was when he greased 7 out of 8 characters (one of my two characters was the lone survivor) with a Wu Jen Lich and a bunch of Oni, in that ill-fated encounter for Heward's Bogus Mystic Organ...
An old GM of mine once told me of his old GM and related how he use to have random stuff happen just to kill the party. For instant trees, trees in his game were known to and often randomly explode into 5d6 fireballs.
Personally I would be afraid to go into a forest.
Wonderful. I should have done this years ago...
I was in a local comic shop and a group of people were complaining that their GM was going to be gone for a couple months. I said that I would run them through a few campaigns as I was fleshing out my home brew world. Their GM was okay with it, so their group of 7 lvl 6 charaters went to investigate a box canyon near a trading route where people disapeared
No one attacked any of the caravans that went by or camped in the vicinity, but anyone who explored the box canyon never returned giving the appearance of being either cursed or haunted.
With a desire to collect on hordes of treasure they marched right in. There was a rockfall doing 2 things. Injuring a character and blocking the exit. Still undeterred they continued down to the path. They stopped at the canyon entrance and looked for any evidence of monsters. Nothing was evident until an arrow crit hit the mage, falling forward he fell into a tiger trap laced with sticks and a variety of weapons. He managed to land on a vorpal sword removing his own head.
The team saw some movement and gave chase, 3 more players were killed and the tanks pulled a classic Montey Python run away move. They had to climb ovwr the rockfall while taking damage from arrows, rocks, and other things. Their AC was their saving grace and they left their buddies bodies behind. I got to go through their stuff and add it to the loot.
I made am arrangement with their regular GM that if they died I got to go through their stuff. When he returned they would remain alive for regular play as I was just their babysitter. That is until he found out they were killed by kobolds, the dead PC's remained dead.
That was my evil pc kill campaign.
Nice 5 year necro. Anyway...
I made am arrangement with their regular GM that if they died I got to go through their stuff. When he returned they would remain alive for regular play as I was just their babysitter. That is until he found out they were killed by kobolds, the dead PC's remained dead.
That was my evil pc kill campaign.
A crit arrow somehow bullrushing someone into a pit trap that apparently included a vorpal weapon used by DM fiat? Disregarding the questionable vorpality of the trap, a vorpal weapon was just there? Really? At the bare minimum that was a 72,000 gold item. To put that into perspective that is more than a level 10 character's wealth by level. That sounds more like an exercise in bullshit than anything else.