I was running a fighter/rogue through The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. A new player had brought in a full-plate clad paladin. Scouting had revealed a guard post ahead. We decided it would be better to use guile to pass the guards rather than violence. We had stolen temple robes to affect our disguises.
The paladin refused to wear the robes, refused to actively participate in the subterfuge, but at least agreed to keep his mouth shut.
We decided to try to pass off the paladin as a prisoner under our escort. The guards were skeptical.
"If he's a prisoner, why's he still in his armor?"
I replied, "He's a wizard. We put him in the full plate to mess up his spellcasting."
After the laughter at the table subsided, I nailed the Bluff check. Unfortunately, the paladin's player decided he just had to smite evil, ruining the effort.
How about you? What's the best in-game bluff you pulled off? Saw pulled off?
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
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I was running a fighter/rogue through The Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. A new player had brought in a full-plate clad paladin. Scouting had revealed a guard post ahead. We decided it would be better to use guile to pass the guards rather than violence. We had stolen temple robes to affect our disguises.
The paladin refused to wear the robes, refused to actively participate in the subterfuge, but at least agreed to keep his mouth shut.
We decided to try to pass off the paladin as a prisoner under our escort. The guards were skeptical.
"If he's a prisoner, why's he still in his armor?"
I replied, "He's a wizard. We put him in the full plate to mess up his spellcasting."
After the laughter at the table subsided, I nailed the Bluff check. Unfortunately, the paladin's player decided he just had to smite evil, ruining the effort.
How about you? What's the best in-game bluff you pulled off? Saw pulled off?
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
I can't compete with that...
yet.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Same adventure, ironically (though it might be more intimidate than bluff).
I was playing a fey'ri (think jr succubus/elf) and had alter self'd into a drow, bluffing the guards out for a fireball centered on me. (fire resistance + evasion + masochism = 'torch me baby! I can take it.'
They're reluctant to bring the leader out. I look down and then glare across the table at the DM. "I need new boots. Now, unless you want to provide the skin yourself for them, you will get your leader out here, NOW!"
No bluff check required ;-) (but I rolled high anyway)
I was playing a Cleric / Wizard in this game. We ran into a group of orcs while we were clearing out a dungeon. They had two spellcasters with them.
One of the casters hit my character with a Hold Person, made the check to recognize the spell he was casting, made the save, made the check to sucker the caster into thinking the c/w was held. He sauntered past me and promptly got a Staff of Thunder and Lightning to the back of his metal helmet. Orc fricasse!
I don't have a bluff story, but I have bragging rights for a great seduction story.
I had a bard (The Crimson Masque!)who ignored all of his spellcasting and fighting abilities in order to dump as much into Seduction as possible (this wasn't D&D--it was a game a friend had invented--I think I had a 400% chance to seduce anything with a pulse).
We got into a fight with a bunch of frost giants who roundly kicked our butts. We woke up in their prison wondering why we were all still alive. The frost giant priestesses came down and explained to us that we were being kept alive so that frost giant whelps could fight us one-on-one for their rite of passage. "Priestesses?" said I. "Yeah," the DM said, "They're a matriarchal society." "Oh really?" I rolled the dice and got an ought-one (his version of a natural 20).
"I seduce the priestess!" I probably didn't say.
But, later, I had to fight a frost giant one-on-one and he smashed me into pulp. I thought I was a goner...until the coy priestess surreptiously healed me and hid me in her bedroom. The Crimson Masque was reduced to a NPC for a couple of sessions, (as the DM put it I was now "an item on her character sheet"!) but later that year he arrived just in the nick of time to stop our town from getting demolished by an army of undead--with a dozen frost giants in tow!
Fighting a Mind Flayer. Our Kender Wildmage/arcane trickster drank a potion of protection from evil before it got to us. The earth elemental fighter and githzerai psiwarrior get held and dominated (3 man party). He dominates the kender, who intentionally fails his save. He can't get ordered though, because of the potion. He bluffs the Mindflayer into thinking he is dominated, gets close, and sneak attacks him with a scorching ray to kill him.
How about you? What's the best in-game bluff you pulled off? Saw pulled off?
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
This was way back in 2e days, when I was (finally) finishing the GDQ series. The party (mostly elves) had gone down into the Drow city and had managed to successfully disguise themselves as a minor drow house seeking to establish themselves in this city. They were (briefly) the center of much intrigue, including rumors that they were actually sent by Lolth herself to check on the progress of the invasion of the surface (if you know the module, you know the plot I speak of).
The party decided not to linger too long, for fear of their disguises being ruined, and used a slave revolt (inspired by their "orcish" fighter/bard) to cover an assault on Lolth's Thane.
Here's where the great bluff comes in.
The party leader was a magic-user/psionicist with the hella-broken power of Solipsism (I forget the actual name of the power, it's been years), which allowed her to "ignore" one broad aspect of reality, like metal or divine magic. If she rolled a critical success on her activation, she could specify what part of reality she wanted to ignore (like only one particular god's magic, or only weapons made of steel, or something like that). That part of reality just didn't exist for her.
So anyway, there they are, in a huge fight with guards, lesser priestess, and some demons. The main hallway leading to the inner thane is filled with blade barriers and glyphs of warding, and is totally visible to the high priestesses waiting to unload death spells, inflict curses, and generally screw the party up good. So here comes the elven mage/psion, calmly walking down the hallway, IGNORING every spell, curse, hex, and baneful spell they hurl at her, because she criticalled her roll and is ignoring ONLY magic granted by Lolth.
She gets to the inner thane, looks at the assembled (stunned and confused) priestesses, and just says in very formal drow, "I'm very disappointed in all of you."
I had to roll so many morale checks it wasn't even funny.
Except that it was.
Around 2003 or 4, I ran a 3e session for a bard and a human sorcerer. They had to infiltrate the queen-in-exile's castle which had been taken over by an evil army of primarily hobgoblins. They had to get to a secret cache of stuff the queen had hidden in her bedchamber and kill the naga that had nested there. The PCs had a contact within the castle staff, who baked their weapons into large loaves of bread. They took the role of slaves and made their way into the castle. The bard had taken a philter of glibness before going in, which gave him something like 30 bluff, added to his skill bonus, which I think was about +18 or so.
Carrying the bread in a basket with other loaves through the dining hall, which had about a hundred armed hobgoblins living it up in style, they tried to get through the room without attracting undue attention. Unfortunately, a large bugbear stopped them and noticed the large loaf of bread containing the bard's rapier. "Now HERE's a loaf of bread for a WARRIOR! Give me that one, slave!"
Player rolls his bluff, getting a total around 65 or so.
"I can't give you that one, it's got a sword baked into it. Take this one instead."
"HAW HAW! I like this slave, he has SPIRIT!" The bugbear took the alternate loaf of bread and swatted the slave on the back, sending him on his way to kill the naga.
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in 2006 I was playing a human Gambler (Mongoose: OGL Steampunk) in my friend's 3.5e Spelljammer Campaign.
The ship got boarded by space pirates (naturally) and I was getting my ass handed to me (not a very combat oriented character).
I had some very nice weapons. Firearms that did a decent chunk of damage, but malfunctioned with a malfunction table on rolls 1-3. Downside was they took 3 actions to load.
The DM Sees I'm taking damage. In round one I took out two enemies, but I was dropped to 50% health, and I wasn't the one they were focusing on. Damn d4 or d6 hd.
I make a startling loud death noise and then tell the DM I feign my death just as I get hit for a big chunk of damage.
His eyes go wide. "You do what?"
"I collapse to the ground, *dead*"
"... Okay? Roll bluff."
I pass my bluff. The enemy buys it, and goes to fight the rest of the party.
I use stealth, slink behind some crates and barrels on the ship to get cover, and while hidden, I reload both my firearms, and drink a potion of cure serious wounds. Then I stand up, behind the barrels, and shoot the pirate leader for 2d8 damage per firearm. He dies.
The pirates morale breaks, and they go to retreat, while we have fun throwing them overboard. We steal their ship.
Darkholme's great stunt reminds me of a bluff I saw pulled in a Cthulhu game way back in the 80's. I had joined the campaign late, and the rest of the investigators were seasoned fighters of the bizarre and unworldly. In particular, the doctor around whom we rallied had a disturbingly high knowledge of the Cthulhu mythos, but was relatively stable.
We discovered that a coven of Nyarlathotep worshipers were going to use the Egyptian obelisk in Central Park as the focal point in a horrific ritual that would bring their dread god to the mortal realm. Needless to say, this would be bad. So we packed ourselves into the cars, loaded up our tommy-guns, and made ready to do battle.
When we got there, it went pretty much as expected. We ran afoul of minor cultists, alerted the main baddies as we dealt with the minions, and then the real fight started. The doctor drew the most attention as he chanted what sounded like a counter-summoning designed to stop the ritual. The high priestess launched a chaos-bolt at him, and he drops to the ground.
Next round comes around, and the GM asks us all what we're doing. The doctor says, "I play dead." The GM decides, on the priestess' turn, to hit him with another chaos-bolt. His body twitches as he gets hit again.
Next round, same thing. 'Play dead' followed by kicking the doctor's body with a chaos-bolt. This goes on for several rounds.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, being ignored by the high priestess, dispatch enough of the cultists to ruin the ceremony, and Nyarlathotep's wrath comes down on the priestess' head, killing her (I think; we may have just shot her).
After the fight is over, we go to check on the doctor, only to find that the magic that had hit him had basically liquified his internal organs. He had somewhere in the -50 to-60 range of hit points.
He had been bluffing the DM the entire time on his being alive at all.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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<snip>
After the fight is over, we go to check on the doctor, only to find that the magic that had hit him had basically liquified his internal organs. He had somewhere in the -50 to-60 range of hit points.He had been bluffing the DM the entire time on his being alive at all.
You win.
In 3.5 we had a DM who was notorious for having the monsters/enemies react to information they shouldn't have. For instance, if a player cast a spell they couldn't see in, he'd invariably have them move the shortest route out of it, even though they shouldn't know where the edges were. If we discussed a plan to rush through a door and attack a group we'd just spied out positions on, he'd have shifted them to counter our plan when we entered. We had to resort to trying to plan things so he wouldn't hear, which itself was annoying.
So, we're fighting a group which we are about evenly matched with, and he introduces reinforcements for them, which will outflank us. Knowing his habit of having foes react to knowledge they shouldn't have, I had my wizard cast an illusion, but I announced, "I'm gesturing and bringing up a wall of fire right along this line."
True to form, the DM had the new group react to the wall by not getting within 20' of it, where they would take damage (and would have realized there was no heat, if he'd suspected himself). Instead they stayed exactly 25' feet away and were unable to move on our flank. They had to fall in behind the group we were already fighting, giving us a narrow front to hold.
A visitor sitting near me, whispered, "Very good bluff. You didn't bluff the guards, you bluffed the DM."
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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In 3.5 we had a DM who was notorious for having the monsters/enemies react to information they shouldn't have. For instance, if a player cast a spell they couldn't see in, he'd invariably have them move the shortest route out of it, even though they shouldn't know where the edges were. If we discussed a plan to rush through a door and attack a group we'd just spied out positions on, he'd have shifted them to counter our plan when we entered. We had to resort to trying to plan things so he wouldn't hear, which itself was annoying.
<snip fun story>
A visitor sitting near me, whispered, "Very good bluff. You didn't bluff the guards, you bluffed the DM."
Related but not a bluff.
... natural 20.
Of course it hurt the dragon and really really made him mad (HP heal, but lost hit dice are forever). He straffes them with the breath weapon, then flies off to regroup.
I make a startling loud death noise and then tell the DM I feign my death just as I get hit for a big chunk of damage.
His eyes go wide. "You do what?"
"I collapse to the ground, *dead*"
"... Okay? Roll bluff."
I did a similar thing in WHFRP. We were down in some sewers/caves fighting skavens (ninja skavens, at that) when another one comes round the corner with a big arm cannon grafted to his arm. Those familiar with Warhammer might know that those things shoot lightning bolts. Dangerous lightning bolts!
The skaven aims the weapon at me and shoots, and it just had to roll 10 on its attack roll. The lightning bolt hit me right square in the face, inflicting, I think, 10 or 12 wounds. Subtract about 4 for toughness and armor and I still take 8-10 wounds (I had 11 or 12 wounds at that time). Another one and I'm pretty much dead, so I turn to the DM and say that I roll perform to pretend that the bolt killed me. I roll and succeed.
However, I didn't have any cover to sneak to, and potions do not have immediate effect (it didn't for us at least) so I continue playing dead while stealthily drinking a potion.
Don't remember if I rejoined the fight though.
This was with a new group, level 1 characters. They were in a city they did not know and had just acquired a job of breaking into a wizard's tower. The door was locked and they did not have any thieves tools yet.
The rogue tried the following:
He made a wax imprint of the lock and then went to the nearest (legal) locksmith.
"Can you make a key of this wax imprint?"
"Yes, I can, but what do you need it for?" (Looking suspiciously at the rogue.)
"I have lost my keys again!" (Bluff check, pretending to be very embassassed.)
Playing dead seems the most popular bluff by far, and I whole-heartedly agree with the concept. In fact, I tend to make that my perform. The only time it ever back-fired was when the groups healer saw me go down, freaked out, and wasted his last healing spell on me. But we still ended up winning, barely.
After the fight is over, we go to check on the doctor, only to find that the magic that had hit him had basically liquified his internal organs. He had somewhere in the -50 to-60 range of hit points.He had been bluffing the DM the entire time on his being alive at all.
Congrats on winning the thread LOL!!
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RE: Bluff the GM
A few decades back, my younger pulled a great bluff on the GM. Somewhere in the middle of a high level combat vs. some kind of demon, my brother says "I use my wish to...(kill it harm it, something like that)."
After the game was over, my brother confessed "I didn't have a wish, and I was dead like two rounds before that."
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I was playing a LE Halfling Shugenja. We were tasked by a local lord to get rid of a goblin tribe who had been causing problems from a nearby dungeon.
After quietly killing the door guards with a combination of sleep and coup-de-grace, my halfling used "Disguise Self" to mimic one of the door guards' appearance. I proceeded to stroll through the goblin dungeon to the boss room. I mussed up my hair, smeared a little blood on my face, activated a smoke stick, kicked in the door and yelled (in Goblish no less):
"RRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNN! DEYZ BROUGHTSED AN ARMY! DEY'S GONNA BURNS US ALL! FFFFFFFFFFFFFLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Between my awesome charisma, skill focus bluff (scorpion clan hehe), circumstance bonuses. Those stupid gobbos didn't stand a chance. The Goblin Leader was in a panic. I told him I'd protect him.
The panicked goblins rushed past me, and were slaughtered as they reached the exit of the dungeon. I put the leader to sleep and coup-de-graced him the second the room was empty of guards.
3 spells, 1 bluff check and 0 HP loss = Frawress victory.
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My party, a 6th level illusionist (me), a Cleric, a Ranger, and a Master of Masks, were traveling through the forest towards our destination when the Ranger heard noise in the distance and deduced that we were being followed. The cleric, in his noisy plate armor, left the group and waited about a minute's run away so that the rest of us could stage an ambush. We were sorely outnumbered, and when the fight started, it didn't look good for us, so my illusionist, still outside of the combat that the master of masks and ranger were involved in, cast a Message to tell the cleric to "play along" and then cast major image, gesturing toward our enemies in an attempt to bluff the use of a combat spell.
a combat round later, the king's guards show up, with our cleric in tow. The forest we were in was forbidden to all other than the king and his guards, so we would all be under arrest. The captain demanded we all drop our weapons. Our pursuers, outnumbered by the law, did. The captain then ordered his "lieutenant" the cleric to collect all of the weapons and tie up the prisoners. The cleric dutifully complied. As soon as everyone was tied up, I stopped concentrating on the illusion, and all of the king's men except the cleric vanished. He cut our ropes and we all laughed at our pursuers.
This one happened last week in my Savage Tide campaign.
One of the characters is playing an evil aventi, and met with some knights of the pearl from her homeland, who were convinced she was good.
One of the knights of the pearl did not trust one of her companions, so he did a detect evil. (Incidentally, this other character was neutral).
Then he noticed the aventi character he knew had turned evil. Of course he was shocked, and he said: "I think you are under some sort of evil influence." (The aventi had (false) information that this PC might be charmed or under compulsion.)
The aventi PC, who has very high social skills, made a bluff check. Not only did she roll enormously high, but she answered the knight as follows:
"I am infiltrating with the enemy and this is part of my disguise!"
The knights accepted this answer, a bit hesitantly...
During Hook Mountain Massacre, my group came across a bridge. Our friend who plays a half-elf rogue went ahead to scout it out & happened to meet the rather large, nasty troll who guarded it. When the two met, what resulted was one of the best bluffs I've ever seen:
The troll demanded the rogue give him all his gold.
Our friend decides he's going to try and bluff the troll that he didn't have any gold on him. Our GM said, "Are you sure?"
And our friend proceeds to roll a natural 20.
The look on our GM's face was priceless =D
Our party rogue had found a trap and was trying to disable it, unfortunately his tools kept breaking, he was at this for some time before he realized his initial check had been a fumble and their was no trap he had been pushing his tools into a crack in the floor. Bluffed the party into thinking he had disarmed a really difficult one, same rogue later went on to try and pick lock an unlocked door, bluffed their way out of it again.
Favourite failed bluff was against a minotaur. Try'd to convince it we were on it's side so we could get a relic it had, we say we are priests of the good god (thought it was the temple guard), turned out it was the big boss for the baddies also after said relic, my cleric then went on to bluff that since the other cleric in the party worshipped madness and chaos we were observing the holy rite of backwards day. If only i had rolled better.
I also have to mention that same rogue again. The player had shown up part way through the game session and we were explaining what had happened so far to her. We were in a castle trying to find the evil brother of our npc rogue so he could take his rightful place on the throne.
We had forgotten to mention that not everyone in the castle was hostile. Aforementioned rogue was in the middle of unlocking a door for us when a large fat man opened it mid attempt. The rogue was a bit surprised and proceeded to stab the man in the leg (gnome rogue so yeah) with a poison needle they had picked up from a trap. The unfortunate merchant died but we were able to bluff his 2 dimwitted assistants that he had been poisoned by the magical merchandise he was selling to the lord of the castle.
The merchant stabbing happened shortly after we had run into a very helpful accountant so the players who had been there on time were in hysterics.
this happened last month.
my group is playing rise of the runelords. at the time, there was a barbarian, ranger, bard, and sorcerer.
the night before, the bard and barbarian ran afoul of goblins when they smashed their way into the glassworks, running for the beach leaving a bloody trail to mix with their crushed ego.
the sorcerer decides, after hearing about the failed excursion from the bard, and the half elf who f'ed them up bad, that the party needs magical healing. so he goes to the local apothecary, which is run by a half elf. since he never saw the half elf in the factory, he automatically assumes that this is the half elf they are looking for. so he starts to harrass and belittle this guy, insulting him, and just treating him like sh&^.
the owner, getting this, says nothing except to defend himself, and is able to prove an alibi (thank god for the town having a brothel).
the sorcerer quickly apologizes and then turns around and starts asking if the store has certain potions in stock. the store does, but at a 55% mark up over the book price.
being a quick thinker, the sorcerer is able to convince the owner to let him become his potions apprentice in exchange for these potions now. the apothecary agrees, and draws up a contract that states that "the owner of the establishment shall dictate on a day to day basis how much monetary value the sorcerer has provided for the alloted time period". the sorcerer agrees.
so, in celebration of this new found helper, the 'cary says "ill be right back. i have a potion on the kettle that will help you out." he goes back, and a few minutes later comes back with 4 vials of a yellowish brown potion with a waxed stopper.
the big con is revealed when, in the heat of battle, the sorcerer tries out the new potion, previously identified (fasley) as a potion of heroism. he quickly downs the potion, only to spend the rest of combat throwing up all over the floor. the potion was later properly identified to be nothing more than lukewarm urine and some solid waste...
...never piss off the guy who makes the potions....
We were in a 2e game and I was playing an elven ranger. In that GM's game, elves were short and my character was about 4'10". We got into a fight with a group of ogres. Our GM had a deadly crit chart and I critted one of the ogres, eviscerating it. There was another ogre about to attack me so I told the GM that I was slowly going walk towards the ogre as threatening as a short elf can look, with gore of his fellow ogre dripping off his sword. I took a step, the ogre backed up a step. I took another step, the ogre backed up again. The third time he failed his morale check and ran. I was only 3rd lvl and would of died if either ogre hit me.