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So, it's been a while since I last started a thread and I've decided to jump in with a favorite topic and an age old anecdote.
I'd like to hear about how things have gone pear shaped in games you fine folks have run or played in. How a milk run turned into a Charlie Foxtrot. How the best laid plans of mice and GM's oft go astray. Etc, etc, etc..
Those epic moments when the players come out of left field to lay waste to a carefully arranged plan.
I'll be back to share mine in a bit, though I'd love to hear all of yours.
Cheers!
Mikhaila
Don't think I've ever had any epic derailments, but the group I played with in highschool was terrible in that I couldn't expect anything at all from them. The worst time I had with them was one game that I couldn't even get off the ground because none of the characters would adventure together.
None of them had character backgrounds so there wasn't anything to tie them together beforehand. As none of the characters knew each other, I contrived to place them all in the same inn one night as it caught fire. The idea was that the Paladin in the group would naturally try help get people out and would either get the other players to help or that they'd do so on their own; either way I'd have at least an event to tie the characters together.
Sure enough fire starts and the Paladin starts trying to get people out. He asks the other players to help and they instead run out the inn and watch it burn, and afterwards they all travel their separate ways. Again I contrive to have them all pass each other on the same road while traveling (kind of like a desperate "hey, I recognize you, you were in the same inn I was when it caught fire! good times, wanna join my party?")and they all just walk by each other.
I ended the game after that. From then on I switched to a completely sandbox and improv GMing style; it's a lot easier to deal with unexpected player action when you don't expect anything.
Real old game and the DM had set up a difficult combat in an underground temple full of Clerics. He was expecting a huge combat.
Rock to Mud on cave ceiling, Mud to Rock, the end.
Not sure if it was legal but it was funny.
I wouldn't say it was derailed so much as delayed...
The party had been sent on a diplomatic mission to a large city that was built in a canyon. When they arrived, I described the way the city sprawls out beneath them, and is an immense ramp that leads down from the cliff directly into the city center. One of the PCs comments that they should make a flashy entrance. 45 minutes later, I have to point out to them that their planning session is beginning to draw stares, and that they need to actually go ahead and walk down the ramp or people may start calling the guards to investigate them.
I also had a final plot derailed by an NPC once, instead of a PC. That was back in the second actual game I GMed, and it was when I learned that NPCs always roll their dice out of sight. It was a Star Wars game, and a random supporting trooper quadruple-critted on the main villain two rounds into the final showdown, killing him instantly.
From the player side of things, in a mech warrior game, the GM had decided he would kill off one of the NPCs. This was a villian who had been plagueing the party for years in game time, and had caused most of our problems, but just decided she would betray her commanders in the Word of Blake. I had just rolled up a new character though, so I didn't know her. The GM shoots her and deals a critical wound. If she doesn't get medical attention and surgery right away, she will die.
Mech Warrior has 3 skills for healing, and you need all of them to cure a critical wound. Skill checks are 2d10. If you are untrained, you roll 3 or 4 d10 and drop the high rolls, and 10s explode (roll again and add). My character had the first 2 skills needed, but not the most difficult, surgery. I stabalize her using the first 2 skills, and then attempted a DC22 surgery check. I rolled 3 10s and a 9. He sat there dumbfounded as his plot for screwing us over without being able to tap her knowledge failed. We used her to get to the heart of what was going on, and derailed everything.
Great thread BTW.
I think the original idea is attributed to Sun Tzu but I think it was best phrased by Mike Tyson, "Everyone has a plan, until they are punched in the face."
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Ravenloft adventure (2nd ed.), terrible group, a friend of mine as gm, giving uns chance after chance to redeem.
Our mission (probably): unveil the hideousness of an evil church posing as your friendly neighbourhood clerics while abducting the younglings of a town.
We visit the unholy service, evil high priest somehow recognises me as his adversary. I cast hold person on said priest, crowd goes wild, I cast sanctuary and carry priest unmolested through the cellar, into the sewer to escape from view and replan.
My "buddies" follow me. At the sewers exit, near a river and a forest on the edge of town, we hear that the townguard is looking for us in the sewers. Before I can say "let's hide", the rangers shouts "we meet at the Blue Horse" smiling at me saying :"wasn't that smart, now they will look for us at the Blue Horse!" - Exept, as I was pointing out that they now knew exactly, where we were...
Well, turned out my character and the groups wizard were the only ones able to swimm across the river - so we decided that the fighter and the ranger took the now bound high priest and ran for the forest while the wizard an my crossed the river and hid near town, so we could perhaps get news about the doings of the rest of the evil clerics...
Guard lost our track, my compadres reached the woods where they ... FREED THE DAMN CLERIC BECAUSE HE TOLD THE HE WOULD THEN REVEAL WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHILDREN... Ok. surprisingly he didn't, but instead turned on the two dumb nuts - I mean the fighter and the ranger. After a tough fight he dies - as the gm thinks it would be hard forr us to prove our innocence, he describes how the hand of the priest, charged with the unholy energy of his last spell withers the plants of the forest away as it hits the ground and continues to burn in unholy green flames, hoping the two would bring the priest back to town to show the good people there the true face of their trusted church leader.
Instead they gather dry wood to build a pyre to burn the priest.
Wizard, me, and of course the town guard see the smoke from the forest, bell is rung to warn of forest fire...invisible wizard reaches the two pyromaniacs before the townguard, overhears the recapitulating what they had done, decides to return to me remaining invisible, tell me what happened.
Looking for a Way to redeem ourselfs, we sneak back into town and find descriptions of the fighter and the ranger who were supposedly in league with fiends and wanted for crimes against the church. the descriptions mentioned one other man (somehow either the wizard or me weren't seen by the other priests) but no description.
We seriously thought about collecting that reward...
(After finishing this disaster of an adventure through luck and only me caathing the "hidden" hint at the end that should have led to a future campaign, the gm decided to abandon this group...)
Red Hand of Doom: The party is at the point where they are flying on giant owls and they spy the hobgoblin army rolling up on the unsuspecting town with the chapel.
Instead of just helping the town evacuate or some such, the party's paladin decides they have to fight off the entire army. I make several attempts to intimidate the party into fleeing with the refugees, but they only send away the few party members who are of little use in a fight to escort the escapees...
Eventually, the strongest character in the party suffers damage equal to 2× their max HP when they try to solo the red dragon while it is amusedly watching their futile efforts. (The dragon didn't appreciate getting hit in the face by a great axe and responded with a full attack resulting in a few crits.)
I ultimately averted the TPK by allowing the paladin to sacrifice his life so that his friends could go. One such "friend" included the Red Hand spy who had befriended them at the start of the battle and feigned getting KO'd. (Figured General Kharne thought this would be a good way to demoralize the city and get a spy inside.)
Roll with the punches, right?
Good thread!
Cyberpunk game: Players had spent several hours in RL formulating a black ops type plan to liberate a kidnapped corporate executive arriving on a hovercraft (HC) on the roof of a corporate skyscraper. They positioned themselves on the roof, each with specific duties, and were in radio contact at all times. When the HC appeared, the plan initially went off without a hitch, the guard who got off the plane first was sniped, the leader of the group killed the guard watching the executive, and the heavy gunner killed one of the remaining guards in the hovercraft. The players were feeing real good about themselves how their plan had gone off without a hitch, like true professionals. Unfortunately, the heavy gunner forgot to carry out his main instructions of clearing the vehicle and there was one guard left inside. As the rest of the party freed the executive from his booby-trapped manacles, the heavy gunner stood at the entrance to the HC with his back turned. The guard inside came out with a shotgun and rolled a crit in front of everyone with a shotgun, blowing the back of the heavy gunner's head clear off. Then mayhem ensued. The guard used his radio to call for reinforcements. The battle ended with one of the party members mistakenly blowing up the HC, which blew the executive and team leader off the roof, killing them. What was a beautifully detailed extraction derailed and ended in a TPK because the player forgot to clear the vehicle! I still bother him about it sometimes when we speak.
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My current contender for favorite "Man what?" is...
While running the fabulous Nick Logue adventures set in Sharn (Chimes at Midnight, Quoth the Raven, Hell's Heart) the PC completely derailed the ENTIRE adventure in the second module.
Part three, for those who have not played this... (and seriously, why HAVEN'T YOU?) completely depends on this NPC being alive to plot the nefarious and be a pawn for the main BBEG.
I had to wing the entire rest of that session and then regroup to determine the course of the campaign from that point forward.
So now, any time the player and I have a moment of indecision, there's the joking "I shoot him in the face" comment.
As for me being a player in a kinda sorta derail situation, there's our recent foray with "Bastion of Broken Souls".
And then there's my homebrew game, where a level 7 PC singlehandedly derailed a CR 25 encounter.
The PC in question is a Fighter/Astral Deva (using PFRPG fighter and Savage Species Astral Deva) and the CR 25 encounter was an archmage's ghost. The PC charged this archmage's altar to herself (her big master plan before dying was to ascend to divinity... needless to say that she failed) and then slam her magical greatsword into the body on the altar. This severed the ghost's final tether even as she was in the process of time-stop and casting a succession of Summon Monster IX spells to dogpile the party....
Game over man, game over...
I had an Top Secret (original rules) game go pear shaped from the start.
First, one of the spies wanted an ego signature. That was fine, except...
He wanted to leave joints as his ego signature.
We averted disaster there when one of the other players talked him out of that, and he settled for the middle ground of roach clips instead.
I cut him some slack, and ruled customs wouldn't automatically jail him for carrying around a bunch of them.
So, for their mission, the spies were sent to sneak onto an isalnd and bring back a defector.
The sneaking went well, up until our spies saw a guard walking a guard dog. The guard and dog had not detected the spies, but our previously mentioned spy broke cover, ran up to the dog, and kicked it.
In the end, the Administrator disavowed several agents
In my Wheel of Times campaign I planned a part of prophecies of the Dragon which takes place during the fight between Rand and Ba'alzamon. The players were meant to profit from the chaotic situation and rescue several victims of fires and riots.
Mine, however, knew the books too well. They did not want to be involved in the events. So they fled the city and hid on a hilltop nearby in order to watch the chaos from afar...
In my Wheel of Times campaign I planned a part of prophecies of the Dragon which takes place during the fight between Rand and Ba'alzamon. The players were meant to profit from the chaotic situation and rescue several victims of fires and riots.
Mine, however, knew the books too well. They did not want to be involved in the events. So they fled the city and hid on a hilltop nearby in order to watch the chaos from afar...
I've had players like this. Got so bad I almost ended the campaign. I would set up the plot hook for their next adventure, and usually get met with "No way! That sounds too scary! We're staying right here at the inn!"
Adventure after adventure tossed aside, because the players were too chicken to even start them.
/facepalm
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The Party: My character(A Dire Were-Eagle Spirit Shaman/Druid), another PC's brother(a Half-Gold Dragon Ranger/?), and a DMNPC(a godling we were supposed to be taking care of).
Situation: Trapped on a rock in the belly of an evil goddess, with stomach acid in front of us and a "acidic wall" behind us.
What I did: I used stoneshape to make a small cup and asked the godling if she could slow down time for the cup only. She did so. I then dipped the cup into the stomach acid and asked how fast it was melting through the cup. "Not very fast" the DM says. So I then explain that I am tossing the stomach acid on the wall. Our DM actually had to think about this for a few minutes.
We later caused the evil deity to burp and we got out via body of fire, "burrowing" up into the goddess's brain, and returning to our normal size.
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I can't say for certain when we've completely derailed our DM's plan, but I don't have enough time to recount how often we've derailed our own plans...Here's my favorite:
We have one player in our group who just loves a detailed plan--as in a plan that takes hours to form and must receive his approval. As irritating as that can be on occasion, his plans rarely fall completely flat. Except...
We're in the dungeon. The DM describes the floor we are on and draws it on the map. We see we have yet to explore a rectangular area in the center. Each side of the rectangle has a door. That must mean that there are four entrances into that rectangular room, right? It does to our planner, who divides our substantial group of 8 party members into four groups and places one at each door. We all receive our instructions--we will open the door at the same time, then the fighters will charge in, then the rogues blah, blah, blah...
He gives the command word. We open our doors. Into four separate rooms. Behind the first three doors they find only small, empty supply closets. But behind door #4 (opened by a fighter and my wizard, naturally) is a horde of undead, waiting to pour out! Fortunately the DM allowed me to yank the fighter out of the way and close the door.
Needless to say, the planner looked a little sheepish.
Most of the "derailings" I've participated in have largely been due to the DM and other players not used to higher level play.
In one instance, our DM threw some pretty blatant plot hooks out with regard to a nasty hill giant ranger who had been tearing up the countryside. Incidentally, this hill giant was also a major point for a party member's backstory and it was this guy's life-goal to find the giant and cut off his head.
Well, the DM has our party assemble in front of one of the more politically powerful leaders of the city and this NPC expects us to use Gather Information and other skills to find out what we can from from traders who just arrived in town, then ride off on horseback in search of this giant and his men.
My character was a wizard/elemental savant and we had to be between levels 13 and 15. I asked the NPC figure if he had a good description of the giant, to which the one party member explains the brute in great detail. (he may have even produced a piece of leather or tuft of hair from the giant too)
I then walked to the magic shop, where I held some significant clout, borrowed a silver mirror and purchased a scroll.
I returned to the party, scried successfully, cast greater teleport, and after four rounds, we returned to the chamber with the giant's severed head.
The DM was baffled that we had just finished an entire sub-arc/side-quest he expected to last for 3 sessions in a few minutes.
We still joke about the look on the guy's face who wanted us to find the giant. We vanish from sight and 30 seconds later appear with the giant's head. "Done. What else did you need us to do?"
Not the whole plot, but a BBEG fight was ended rather quickly by me. AD&D 2nd edition (this is important), campaign set in Greyhawk.
The campaign was by now quite advanced. At some point a cataclysm happened, which sort of collapsed the planes. Lots of weird and chaotic stuff kept happening all over, and mostly, teleportation did'nt work. Or it would work, it would instead teleport the target to EVERY PLANE at the same time (more precisely a tiny part of the target on each plane).
The particular story arc we were now in involved going into the Underdark, to defeat a powerful Kuo-Tua King who was planning to take advantage of all the chaos to invade the surface world. The quest was to prevent a gigantic tsunami from hitting the shore, and to retrieve a powerful artifact that could stop this mess, if I remember correctly.
Anyways, the group makes it trough the tunnels and into the underground city, and to the Kuo-Tua's emperor room. The Emperor threathens us and stuff, and before the fight even starts, I cast teleport, and touch attack the Emperor. Of course, DM says "Whats the saving throw for that?" To which I replied: Well, you can always house-rule it, but the entry says "None". He played it by the rules, and *POOF*. Good thing he was'nt carrying the thing we were after.
There seriously must have been a rule somewhere we missed that mentioned that any forced teleportation would grant a saving throw, because if not this spell was simply way broken when used offensively...
There seriously must have been a rule somewhere we missed that mentioned that any forced teleportation would grant a saving throw, because if not this spell was simply way broken when used offensively...
I think nobody expects it to be used offensively since the wizard is a required participant in the journey.
...
There seriously must have been a rule somewhere we missed that mentioned that any forced teleportation would grant a saving throw, because if not this spell was simply way broken when used offensively...
Teleport specifically stats "You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures". If the subject isn't willing it automatically fails, no save needed.
As well the caster automatically is teleported no matter if the other creature goes or doesn't.Details from SRD on Teleport:
Teleport
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 5, Travel 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal and touch
Target: You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: None and Will negates (object)
Spell Resistance: No and Yes (object)
This spell instantly transports you to a designated destination, which may be as distant as 100 miles per caster level. Interplanar travel is not possible. You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn’t exceed your maximum load. You may also bring one additional willing Medium or smaller creature (carrying gear or objects up to its maximum load) or its equivalent (see below) per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so forth. All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you. As with all spells where the range is personal and the target is you, you need not make a saving throw, nor is spell resistance applicable to you. Only objects held or in use (attended) by another person receive saving throws and spell resistance.
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There seriously must have been a rule somewhere we missed that mentioned that any forced teleportation would grant a saving throw, because if not this spell was simply way broken when used offensively...Teleport specifically stats "You and touched objects or other touched willing creatures". If the subject isn't willing it automatically fails, no save needed.
As well the caster automatically is teleported no matter if the other creature goes or doesn't.Details from SRD on Teleport:
** spoiler omitted **
Save that he specifically mentioned 2e rules, not SRD.
Save that he specifically mentioned 2e rules, not SRD.
Which would make ME the one who cant read.
All right, 2nd try. As per 2E's Wizard's Spell Compendium (Volume 4, page 921) it states:
Teleport
Alteration, Universal
Level: 5
Range: Touch
Casting Time: 2
Components: V
Duration: Instantaneous
Area of Effect: Special
Saving Throw: None
When this spell is used, the wizard instantly transports himself, along with a certain amount of additional weight that is on or being touched by the spellcaster...
So in the above mention case; no saving throw and instant death for both the enemy and the caster.
Save that he specifically mentioned 2e rules, not SRD.Which would make ME the one who cant read.
All right, 2nd try. As per 2E's Wizard's Spell Compendium (Volume 4, page 921) it states:
** spoiler omitted **So in the above mention case; no saving throw and instant death for both the enemy and the caster.
Haha, that must be the line we all missed. Crazy what cognitive dissonance can do for you...
Then again, was the Spell Compendium a direct copy of the PHB or was it errataed? Because we only used the PHB (french version to boot) and the Tome of Magic at the time. Might have been an omission there, or it's just that none of us could read.
Haha, that must be the line we all missed. Crazy what cognitive dissonance can do for you...Then again, was the Spell Compendium a direct copy of the PHB or was it errataed? Because we only used the PHB (french version to boot) and the Tome of Magic at the time. Might have been an omission there, or it's just that none of us could read.
Just checked. Same language in the Players Handboook. But my copies are in English.
Any ways, just think of it as: your character made the ultimate sacrifice to rid the world of that evil and the gods chose to spare him.
My instance:
Grappling a beholder, and cutting the blasted thing's central Eyelid off, so that it couldn't use it's rays on the party... creative and obscene to me at the time. So, the player does this, with a few grapple checks and attack rolls, the eyelid is sitting on the ground, no longer menacing the players.
Best part of that was the beholder turning around, and blasting the Avariel to stone. To which, one of my players (a druid) shifted into a large bear, and another player (a Ghostwise Halfling) leapt off the cliff face to get the Avariel's now plummeting statue (and still holding the rope). Neither had the overall brute force to do this, but, cinematically, I let it happen (the bear's claws dug into the earth, and by the end he was holding on by his back claws, and the halfling took a hefty amount of damage from trying to hold the statue).
It seemed fair to the Avariel (who was level 8 and then ECL +3 in 3.5), so I allowed it so they could use a Stone to Flesh spell that they found as treasure with a lucky Use Magic Device skill check. Honestly, if the players hadn't leapt after the Avariel, the 50-foot fall woul've shattered the statue. I was glad to see that kind of heroic sacrifice as a DM, so I let them save the statue.
Boy, were they mad and vengeful against THAT beholder. (it was the only encounter that went relatively the Monster's way when I DM'd). I had, honestly, expected them to slaughter the thing quickly (they were ECL 11 at the time, so the Beholder was a moderate challenge, according to the RAW, at CR 12).
/d
Another one I just recalled involved a one-shot campaign we ran a few years ago. I was playing an obnoxious gnome geomancer who had a portable hold and a handy haversack amongst many other possessions.
After getting to the final challenge, we skid to a halt before a throne occupied by an obviously insane mage-type figure who has THREE beholders floating menacingly around the throne.
This challenge is WAY beyond our party's ability to handle, so I start scrambling trying to figure out a way to win this mess.
The DM gave us a surprise round for bursting into the chamber unexpectedly and we were only 15 or 20 feet from the throne. I wound up winning initiative, flying up to the base of the throne and throwing the portable hole on the ground.
The rest of the party hung back and shot at the guy on the throne, and then the first full round of combat started. None of the badguys rolled very high for initiative, so I wound up going first again.
I promptly jumped into my portable hole, backpack made of several stiched together bags of holding coming along for the ride, and laughed as the guy on the throne, and 2 of the 3 beholders would be sucked into the Astral Plane with me.
The DM didn't know what to do, so he said it didn't work. No rift, no Astral plane transporting. Nothing. So there I am, in a portable hole at the foot of a throne surrounded by beholders and BBEG.
So the DM let us rewind back to the surprise round.
We found out the beholders were illusions pretty early on, which is why the DM fiated my Astral Rift away. Felt like a pretty good derailment though!
This isn't probably the most pear-shaped thing, but it's what crossed my mind when I saw this thread.
The party was supposed to infiltrate a Frost Giant Lair and acquire or at least find out information about the location of an artifact that the Frost Giants had stolen.
I mapped out the Frost Giant Lair and the mountainous area around it. I decided the Frost Giant Jarl should have a back door that he used to visit a dragon ally, and could use to escape should the Lair be compromised (not so much by the party, but they were often at war with other giants in the area).
To make a very long story short, the party decided to opt for a very unorthodox route toward the Frost Giant Lair. And though I could have tried to railroad them out of it, I realized it made perfect sense from their particular approach to at least possibly find the back door.
Of course, they did.
This ISN'T the "players shredding the plan" quite yet. I did put in that back door, and I knew there might be consequences.
The stealthy player made insane stealth rolls, and the party was very smart about infiltrating. Again, another long story short, the party basically made their way to the end of the dungeon first, stole the treasure, and left.
The artifact they were looking for wasn't there. There were a number of explanations, but my attempt to provide clues failed, and the party's own conclusion was that the Jarl must still have it (where, I don't know they were thinking). Do they go and grab a Frost Giant and interrogate? Grab the Jarl and interrogate? Try to find out other information?
No, they go back in and attack the Jarl.
First adventure I've ever seen where the party bypasses most of the dungeon, gets the treasure, and then after the fact, return to fight the Boss. :)
But hey, it worked... and the story went on. :)
Also, generally as a rule I find that if I want my players to attack it, they'll try to avoid it or parley with it, and if I want them to parley, they'll kill it. There's been only two exceptions to this rule so far, and those two I designed as equally possible to be enemies or allies.
Not exactly a derailment but I just introduced a bunch of newbs to D&D and have not really bothered with XP because I'm running a 4e conversion of Age of Worms and I want them to level up at specific times.
The result has been that they constantly want to avoid the encounters. So far as they can tell there is no net upside to killing the beetles so you have one player telling another to stop disturbing stuff 'cause every time they do that the DM (thats me) attacks them with something.
Thinking on this - never try and warn the party off from the horrible nasty.
Some years ago I was running a game and the players where descending deep into the ruins of an old city that had sunk into a swamp (conversion and adaptation to my campaign of the Dragonlance Module where the players explore Xak Taseroth).
So they come to a room with no floor just a hole that drops 700' to more ruins far below. There is a door on the other side and warning on the wall that something terrible has been trapped beyond (they are in the ruins of an ancient church).
Players initially take the hint decide to keep exploring and they'll come back if there is no other way forward. Well there is another way forward as this room is plot but not essential by any means. However as the players are about to descend one of the players pipes up that he thinks I'm trying to trick them and that their must be loads of treasure behind the door.
Soon enough the players have come to believe that the warnings are fake and that I have stashed game breaking sums of treasure behind the door.
They concoct an elaborate scheme to cross the rift with ropes and on the other side they meet the horror that had been trapped in ancient days - which proceeds to kill one of the players nearly outright after a failed save or die and then half the party dies falling off their rope bridge while trying to flee.
The odd thing is the players did more or less the same thing in Maure Castle many, many levels later. There is a warning made by Bigby himself on a stone wall not to go past this point as its bad news and the players break through the wall and fall into the trap beyond.
Seems to me anytime you try and warn players off from some local there is no place they want to go more then said local.
I once had a scenario where the players are exploring a ruined temple in the desert. As they come up to exit, a bulette burrows up out of the floor and attacks, its burrowing undermining and collapsing their way into the room and leaving it blocking the door in an area where there is limited space to fight the beast.
First round of combat, the halfling rogue clambers atop a broken column, readying bow and arrow. Landshark starts chomping on a fighter.
Second round, said rogue rolls two natural 20s and confirms a death blow. Combat over as the bulette takes an arrow through its eye and into the brain.
*sigh* So much for the climactic battle scene...
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hehe...it's fun to be a player and pull this stuff, too.
Just started a Mutants and Masterminds game, at PL 5 (basically lvl 5-7 in dnd terms). Basic setup is: go to 3rd world Latveria style place, find out why the sun stopped shining there, and fix it.
Ok, going in with my Healing and Plant Controlling/Object Creating Rasta, we also had a time-travelling nano-bot "Dr. Who" style, capable of quick fixes and cheating on every skill, without ranks.
Highlights included:
Fixing up an old rusted out station wagon in quick-time progress, thus having a stable mode of transport. DM had planned on us hoofing it through "eternal darkness" style wasteland...instead we breezed through like the kids from That 70's Show in the vista cruiser.
Upon finding a church beset by zombies, and blocked from the inside, we climbed through the bell-tower. Not sure what he was expecting, but "poof, here's a 20' ladder" probably wasn't it. We almost gave the poor old priest a heart attack, though...
After fending off bunches of zombies and saving a few citizens in the church, we find out there's no food (go figure, eh?). Not to worry, there's a farmhouse not too far away, and they have seed-stock. We pile in the vista cruiser again, toss the house for the goods we needed (and anything else of value), and manage to rig up a temporary hydroponics grow-setup in about an hour. Getting back to the church, I was able (via the Plant Control powers) to accelerate-grow all kinds of foods.
At the end, we had also fastened 1" thick dense wood plates around the station wagon, along with a plow/cow-catcher setup. We had our own little A-Team Station Wagon!
-t