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In a similar vein:
Have an opposing caster use dancing lights (man-shaped light) and ghost sound from a hidden location, then call for everyone to roll initiative.
9 times out of 10 the PCs will unload heavy artillery (fireball, etc.) on the dancing light before trying to figure out what's going on.
They will feel pretty dumb having wasted their best stuff on a harmless zero level spell.

Malaclypse |

1. Actual roleplaying
2. Swim checks
3. Encumbrance
4. Believable illusions
5. Random magic item generation for towns and cities
6. Random encounter tables
7. Red Herring plotlines
8. Acrobatics checks
9. Exhaustion
10. Suggestion & Charm spells
Any more you care to add?
There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.

DrowVampyre |

There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
Plus it's more fun to have convincing enough villains to get them to spend a bunch of time and effort aiding the bad guys before they figure out that maybe they're on the wrong side after all. ^_-

FiddlersGreen |

14. Pit traps with no spikes at the bottom
15. Pit traps with pillows at the bottom
16. Pit traps with pillows covering up the spikes at the bottom : )
17. Pit traps with pillows covering up the spikes at the bottom, with a mechanism that will cause the bottom of the pit to open into an even deeper pit with an illusion of spikes at the bottom...only the illusion covers a sphere of annihilation.

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There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.
You don't have to take away control.

FiddlersGreen |

Malaclypse wrote:Plus it's more fun to have convincing enough villains to get them to spend a bunch of time and effort aiding the bad guys before they figure out that maybe they're on the wrong side after all. ^_-There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
Had an adventure once where the PCs were hired to rescue a village from marauding elves...until they found out that the elves were the good guys and the villagers had been slaughtering the surrounding forest denizens and were led by an evil wizard and druid. Oh and a vrock.
And then they realised that everything they had sold to the village was now being used against them, and the items they'd bought from the village were programmed to turn into cursed items on command. And the BBEG had the command word. =D

Berik |
If it's our group then a 10-20ft pit that needs to be crossed and is placed in front of a low level party tends to do the trick. Several members of the group tend to be rather risk averse, so it usually results in a long time being spent trying to find a totally danger free way to cross! And many arguments about how to apply those methods and who should do what...

Malaclypse |

Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.
You don't have to take away control.
Of course you do. Taking him aside and telling him 'what charms means' to their character is taking away control, too. Obviously. It doesn't mean that the player doesn't get to play his char anymore, but that he has to do certain things without reasonable choices (unless he's metagaming). And that sucks.

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Had an adventure once where the PCs were hired to rescue a village from marauding elves...until they found out that the elves were the good guys and the villagers had been slaughtering the surrounding forest denizens and were led by an evil wizard and druid. Oh and a vrock.And then they realised that everything they had sold to the village was now being used against them, and the items they'd bought from the village were programmed to turn into cursed items on command. And the BBEG had the command word. =D
Yeah, that is a fun adventure. It's gathering dust at the moment, but I should GM it someday.

Brian Bachman |

Themetricsystem wrote:1. Actual roleplaying
2. Swim checks
3. Encumbrance
4. Believable illusions
5. Random magic item generation for towns and cities
6. Random encounter tables
7. Red Herring plotlines
8. Acrobatics checks
9. Exhaustion
10. Suggestion & Charm spells
Any more you care to add?
There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
I can agree that overuse of suggestion and charm against players gets old and unfun quickly, but I can't agree that you should never use them. If you take that tack you should just ban the spells from the game completely or you are giving the players a huge, unbalancing advantage. You're also giving the stereotypical dumb as a rock fighter an undeserved reprieve.

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MisterSlanky wrote:Of course you do. Taking him aside and telling him 'what charms means' to their character is taking away control, too. Obviously. It doesn't mean that the player doesn't get to play his char anymore, but that he has to do certain things without reasonable choices (unless he's metagaming). And that sucks.Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.
You don't have to take away control.
Depends entirely on the player. I see it perhaps working if you talk to that player beforehand and get them involved in the plot from the get-go. During some portion of the game they play as themselves, during another portion they play charmed. For some players who relish the opportunity to have some "control over" the players as the GM does, they get a feeling of what it's like to know something that the players don't. Sure, as GMs we ought to play fair, but who DOESN'T get a little kick out of knowing that you're getting players to walk straight into your trap? ;)
If the player is capable (AND willing) to wear both hats during different parts of the game, then it just might work.

Ramarren |

A nice 20' deep, 10' wide pit with spikes at the bottom....and a well concealed trip wire 2 feet before the lip for those that want a running start for the Jump Check.
On a longer running note, my players have just discovered that the Magistrate's chief wizard who they've been working for is actually the one behind the issue they're trying to solve...and they have no proof that would be convincing to the Magistrate.
They don't read these forums, so I can safely say they're going to be really upset after they dig up proof and present it to the Magistrate, only to find that the wizard is only following her plan.

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If the player is capable (AND willing) to wear both hats during different parts of the game, then it just might work.
As both charmee and charmer, I can say I have yet to see it not work. Players tend to relish in the fact they get to beat on their friends for awhile if you give them the chance. Charming somebody and removing a few of their choices as a player over what they want to do is really no different than giving them any other roleplay situation where the solution may not allow the PCs to use all the resources at their disposal.
Now Dominate? That's a different story altogether, that is taking away choices (especially since a smart dominator will simply leave after turning you).

roguerouge |

There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
As a player, I love them. They're a classic of sword and sorcery fantasy. Plus, they allow me to believe that the antagonists are living breathing enemies with intelligence and subtlety. And they allow me to get my aggression out on other characters at the table with plausible deniability.
What's not to like?

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Suggestion and Charm are perfectly valid tactics for a GM. I use them just as much as I use Fireball or Magic Missile.
PC casters are not going to restrict themselves in their spell choices so neither should NPC casters. I currently play a barbarian in a game and I would have no problem with the GM using a charm or enchantment effect to mess up my day.
An enemy sorcerer with a choice of Charm Person or Magic Missile with a raging mountain of muscle bearing down on him isn't going to go with the spell that he has a strong suspicion will fail. Charm Person will remove a threat, Magic Missile will get him killed. So why would he go with Magic Missile?
If you are removing any spell that stops "player choice" then you might as well take away Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Sleep, Confusion, Cause Fear, Maze, Dominate, Insanity, Power Word: Stun etc. etc. If you do that you are massivly unbalancing the game in favour of those characters with high HP and low Will saves.

stringburka |

MisterSlanky wrote:Of course you do. Taking him aside and telling him 'what charms means' to their character is taking away control, too. Obviously. It doesn't mean that the player doesn't get to play his char anymore, but that he has to do certain things without reasonable choices (unless he's metagaming). And that sucks.Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.
You don't have to take away control.
You don't have to take away control more than you can do via non-magical means easily. If the players are meeting with the evil overlord, the players can't really do anything but lick his ass since the guards will kill them if they don't. If the evil spy bluffs someone into thinking the house will collapse in a minute, they can't really do anything but try to escape.
If someone is affected by a charm, I simply say to the player that "suddenly, you feel as if X is a really close friend to you, like a long lost partner you'd forgotten but now remember."
The player can roleplay that usually. Charm isn't dominate. Charm isn't really more powerful than a few diplomacy checks, except it works faster and can affect hostile people.

Malaclypse |

I can agree that overuse of suggestion and charm against players gets old and unfun quickly, but I can't agree that you should never use them. If you take that tack you should just ban the spells from the game completely or you are giving the players a huge, unbalancing advantage. You're also giving the stereotypical dumb as a rock fighter an undeserved reprieve.
Who cares if the players have an 'unbalancing advantage'. You are the DM, therefore by definition infinitely more powerful :) And it's not like fighter's don't need a bit of DM carebear treatment anyway after the first few levels...
The point is the same as with using daze or similar powers - against monster's or npc's they are fine, since the DM doesn't really care. But against players it sucks, because the player has to wait and can't do anything.
If you want to restrict player options, do it via environment. Have them arrested and thrown in a cell. But if you charm them, they will have to do things that, while the character is subjectively (since charmed) ok with it, the player will resent. It violates the player-character bond, so to say.

Brian Bachman |

A few of my favorites:
-- Incorporate weather into outdoor encounters. Nothing adds urgency like encountering a tough melee critter in a driving snowstorm, with all terrain being difficult or worse and visibility practically nil.
-- Incorporate difficult terrain (e.g. cramped stairwells, mud, narrow catwalks, steam geysers, etc.) that either adds an element of danger directly or limits combat options.
-- Traps inside of traps
-- Unpleasant and annoying NPCs they can't simply kill, like city bureaucrats or foppish, sarcastic courtiers.
-- Nighttime attacks preventing the rest necessary for healing and/or regaining spells.
-- Alien, difficult settings (e.g. underwater, weightless, wild magic zone, antimagic zone, planar, etc.)
-- Recurring villains who always have an escape plan
-- Assassination attempts
-- Anything in Ravenloft
Note that these are not things to use all the time, but they are good to mix in now and again, particularly if the party is really rolling and having it easy. The goal is something so frustrating and difficult to overcome that it forces creativity and good tactics, so that when the "win" finally comes you have players at the table high-fiving and doing fist pumps.
Good thread, by the way. I intend to mine it heavily for good/evil ideas.

PathfinderEspañol |

22. Random generation of the kind of magic weapon or armor found, specially when you houserule that there is an 1% chance of finding an exotic weapon (and then a 4% chance to get a bastard sword) * expect some players to enter into rage when they get a +5 Sap after defeating a Balor.
23. Kings that have their main rooms protected from scrying with lead sheets (like the room with the map that details his world domination plan, or the treasure room)
There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
But means more fun for you (the DM) if you like that kind of things.

Grimshado |

20. Once per campaign, enemies who target the family of the PCs.
Wait... what is this 'Family' of which you speak? I thought all PCs were wildly wh*ring orphaned only children with no love interest that doesn't include a three Silver-Piece up-front fee.
Okay, so that's not really true, but it often seems as though it is

Malaclypse |

Suggestion and Charm are perfectly valid tactics for a GM. I use them just as much as I use Fireball or Magic Missile.
If you are removing any spell that stops "player choice" then you might as well take away Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Sleep, Confusion, Cause Fear, Maze, Dominate, Insanity, Power Word: Stun etc. etc. If you do that you are massivly unbalancing the game in favour of those characters with high HP and low Will saves.
I do not use those powers against players, yes. The DM is powerful enough without them, and having a player wait for a few rounds (=most likely more than a few minutes) with nothing to do is un-fun for him.
There are enough other spells who target will (illusions come to mind) that still let the player act. Even blinding him is much better, since he at least has a chance to do something, and he will hope for good rolls, and therefore increase his emotional investment in the game.

Malaclypse |

Malaclypse wrote:But means more fun for you (the DM) if you like that kind of things.
There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.
I'm a very evil DM, but what do you think. Is it more fun for the DM to charm a player and make him do certain things (lets calls this X), or shape the situation in a way that the player has to consciously make a decision to either do X, or suffer the consequences Y, or maybe come up with a way that avoids both but incurs consequence Z...
It's much more fun for the DM if he punishes the player for a decision the player made instead of a decision the DM made :)

Brian Bachman |

Brian Bachman wrote:I can agree that overuse of suggestion and charm against players gets old and unfun quickly, but I can't agree that you should never use them. If you take that tack you should just ban the spells from the game completely or you are giving the players a huge, unbalancing advantage. You're also giving the stereotypical dumb as a rock fighter an undeserved reprieve.Who cares if the players have an 'unbalancing advantage'. You are the DM, therefore by definition infinitely more powerful :) And it's not like fighter's don't need a bit of DM carebear treatment anyway after the first few levels...
The point is the same as with using daze or similar powers - against monster's or npc's they are fine, since the DM doesn't really care. But against players it sucks, because the player has to wait and can't do anything.
If you want to restrict player options, do it via environment. Have them arrested and thrown in a cell. But if you charm them, they will have to do things that, while the character is subjectively (since charmed) ok with it, the player will resent. It violates the player-character bond, so to say.
Have to disagree. Of course, from other threads, I also disagree with your premise that fighters are far, far behind casters in power at higher levels (I concede to their falling a little behind, but believe that is balanced by being a little more powerful/survivable at early levels). They don't need any kid gloves. By taking away one of their greatest weaknesses, you're allowing them to ignore trying to use resources (buffs or magic items) to shore up that weakness, allowing them instead to just continue reinforcing their strengths to become even more one-dimensional. Again, I don't like to single out the fighter in every encounter for a charm or dominate spell. That does, indeed, grow very old for the player involved. But if you are going to run a character with a Wisdom of 8 in my games and make no effort to counter that weakness, you will spend some portion of your time as the evil sorceress' love slave. Hope you like the way you look in leather.

Malaclypse |

Have to disagree. Of course, from other threads, I also disagree with your premise that fighters are far, far behind casters in power at higher levels (I concede to their falling a little behind, but believe that is balanced by being a little more powerful/survivable at early levels). They don't need any kid gloves. By taking away one of their greatest weaknesses, you're allowing them to ignore trying to use resources (buffs or magic items) to shore up that weakness, allowing them instead to just continue reinforcing their strengths to become even more one-dimensional.Again, I don't like to single out the fighter in every encounter for a charm or dominate spell. That does, indeed, grow very old for the player involved. But if you are going to run a character with a Wisdom of 8 in my games and make no effort to counter that...
This does not make any sense at all. There are many different spells that target will, not only a few enchantments.

VictorCrackus |

I once had a succubus cast Charm on someone we call.
Couch.
In the Gamemastery guide, its really a lump.
But we call it.
Couch.
I cast Charm person on couch.
The reasoning, is Couch. Is terrible. He makes terrible decisions, and often almost accidently TPKs his ALLIES!
So. Charm person for 6 days. At the end of these days. It will be cast again. This will occur, until Couch is a completely dependable person, thanks to the very helpful voice in his head that no one but he knows about.
Then after a few weeks of this. All that dependability, and helpfulness will turn sour at just the wrong moments. For now, I can openly tell him what to do across the table and no one meta games. Because -its helpful-.
And no one having detect enchantment or sense motive helps as well.
Edit: Also. In every one of my campaigns. One friend's characters always have their families kills in the plotline. Its a recurring joke.

PathfinderEspañol |

- Monsters that cast ranged touch spells without Saves. Even if the damage is 1d3 non-lethal it always bugs the players for some reason.
- For high or epic level: Hordes of high level NPC fighters, extremely focused on having a high attack bonus and critical range, equiped with vorpal scimitars.
- Huge antimagic fields.
- Asking a player how many hit points he has got while looking at a random page of the Monster Manual or at some spell description.

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I once designed a dungeon level with 20 random teleporting doors. Watching the players try to make a map of the dungeon was hilarious. The wandering monsters were deadly. There were no diplomacy checks. Monsters invariably charged on sight. Monsters were enraged - and hungry - because they were just as lost as the players.

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FallofCamelot wrote:Suggestion and Charm are perfectly valid tactics for a GM. I use them just as much as I use Fireball or Magic Missile.
If you are removing any spell that stops "player choice" then you might as well take away Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Sleep, Confusion, Cause Fear, Maze, Dominate, Insanity, Power Word: Stun etc. etc. If you do that you are massivly unbalancing the game in favour of those characters with high HP and low Will saves.
I do not use those powers against players, yes. The DM is powerful enough without them, and having a player wait for a few rounds (=most likely more than a few minutes) with nothing to do is un-fun for him.
There are enough other spells who target will (illusions come to mind) that still let the player act. Even blinding him is much better, since he at least has a chance to do something, and he will hope for good rolls, and therefore increase his emotional investment in the game.
Sorry, not wanting to start a flame war here but I just find that really strange. I would estimate a good quarter of the spell list is made up of spells which restrict the player's actions in some way. Under your rules effectively all that an offensive NPC caster has available are illusions (which rarely work in combat), buff spells, summoning spells and direct damage.
As a player I would find that deathly dull. There is not much creativity you can use with this style of combat. OK maybe you could cast some illusions but as soon as your mage or cleric gets True Seeing then that's all she wrote.
At that point it becomes all about the hit points and suddenly Barbarians and Fighters rule.
I like to be challenged as a player. I don't want the GM pulling punches or restricting the NPC's from using spells because of his personal dislike. I want to be put through the wringer and emerge battered and bloody at the other end. I want to earn my victory and I think that would be cheapened if the GM held back.

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Matthew Morris wrote:22. Dice rolls for no reason
Oh, God yes. This. Very little does more to enhance paranoia at the table. Except perhaps:
25. Passing meaningless notes back and forth to a particular player, usually the thief.
Pass a note to your GM sometime which says the following:
"Pick up [insert PC name]'s character sheet, look it over for a second, give it back to him and then say to me "Yes you reckon you probably could""

Malaclypse |

Sorry, not wanting to start a flame war here but I just find that really strange. I would estimate a good quarter of the spell list is made up of spells which restrict the player's actions in some way. Under your rules effectively all that an offensive NPC caster has available are illusions (which rarely work in combat), buff spells, summoning spells and direct damage. As a player I would find that deathly dull. There is not much creativity you can use with this style of combat. OK maybe you could cast some illusions but as soon as your mage or cleric gets True Seeing then that's all she wrote.
At that point it becomes all about the hit points and suddenly Barbarians and Fighters rule.
I like to be challenged as a player. I don't want the GM pulling punches or restricting the NPC's from using spells because of his personal dislike. I want to be put through the wringer and emerge battered and bloody at the other end. I want to earn my victory and I think that would be cheapened if the GM held back.
I never argued against restricting player options. But I think that enchantments that take control of the character away from the player are just bad DMing.
Please read the posts above again. You seem to have misunderstood the point completely.

DragonMunchie |

A running gag of epic purportion to break the manotony.. And eat the players horses.
In 2nd E, this took the form of a Great Wyrm Green Dragon with alot of time on his hands.. So after a botched attempt to kill him and take its horde, he went out of his way to torment them with little pranks and such, and glaringly visible illusions.
Horses, not just for gryphons anymore!

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25. Passing meaningless notes back and forth to a particular player, usually the thief.
Pass a note to your GM sometime which says the following:
"Pick up [insert PC name]'s character sheet, look it over for a second, give it back to him and then say to me "Yes you reckon you probably could""
I rarely actually laugh out loud when reading. This morning you made me shoot milk out my nose eating my breakfast. Good thing I was smart enough to look away from the laptop.
Thank you.

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FallofCamelot][QUOTE="Brian Bachman wrote:
25. Passing meaningless notes back and forth to a particular player, usually the thief.
Pass a note to your GM sometime which says the following:
"Pick up [insert PC name]'s character sheet, look it over for a second, give it back to him and then say to me "Yes you reckon you probably could""
I rarely actually laugh out loud when reading. This morning you made me shoot milk out my nose eating my breakfast. Good thing I was smart enough to look away from the laptop.
Thank you.
You're welcome

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I never argued against restricting player options. But I think that enchantments that take control of the character away from the player are just bad DMing.
Well I think you might be in a minority there.
I have never had any complaints either as a player (when it has happened to me) or as a DM (when I have used these spells). I will continue to use them as I feel it takes away a lot of the interest for me if the NPC's and monsters have a restricted spell list.
Still, if that's what you and your players want to do then all power to you that's your choice. Whatever works for you.
It's all good.

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-Prompting players to make extremely easy (Usually 5) fort/reflex saves for mundane BS they wouldn't even notice unless they failed.
DM "Jesse, go ahead and roll a Fort for me please... what you get?"
Jesse ...*downtrodden panicked look* "Uh.. an 8..."
DM "Ok."*Headturn* "'So you said you want to find the watering hole' jeers the obese halfling."

I_Use_Ref_Discretion |

Not trying to be a stick in the mud but I make no effort to "mess" with my players...
With that said, I'm sure my players might say some of the things I do they view as "messed up" - such as no win scenarios, brutality in the game world, rarely pulling punches, and adherence to story. But since they know this is the tone and tenor of the game, they go into it knowing what to expect.

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I never argued against restricting player options. But I think that enchantments that take control of the character away from the player are just bad DMing.
Mal, just to be clear,
1) your posts do indeed read as if you are opposed to GMs restricting player's option with their characters' activities.2) your tone has escalated so that you are now insulting people who play with a different style than yours.
If you're trying to be insulting, then, hey, it's the internet, go make yourself some enemies. If that's not what you're trying for, then I'd recommend you (a) back up and apologize, and then (b) re-engage with a more polite attitude.
It would be a threadjack to ask, but I'm wondering: was there a particular bad experience you had with enchantment spells, or is this a general opinion you have formed based on your group's play style?
On topic: restricting characters' stuff. "No, you're going to the opera; you can't go armed or armored."

Brian Bachman |

Brian Bachman wrote:Matthew Morris wrote:22. Dice rolls for no reason
Oh, God yes. This. Very little does more to enhance paranoia at the table. Except perhaps:
25. Passing meaningless notes back and forth to a particular player, usually the thief.
Pass a note to your GM sometime which says the following:
"Pick up [insert PC name]'s character sheet, look it over for a second, give it back to him and then say to me "Yes you reckon you probably could""
I like the way you think. How about this recent tactic:
Randomly ask PCs to make Perception rolls when there is nothing there to perceive. Pay close attention when they give their results and pretend to write notes down. To add even more paranoia you can do something like raise an eyebrow, or go "Hmmm" or even wince a little and shake your head.
Another good way to mess with your players is with animate object and animated plants. Players start to get really paranoid when they don't know if the coatrack is going to try and bean them or the potted ficus is going to try to strangle them. Ran a wonderful adventure featuring a mad druid once that had the PCs viciously and preemptively attacking every shrub they encountered by the end.

warren Burgess |

26. Goblin Ninjas They strike Fast and Fade away into the night never staying long enough to take a solid hit from the party but just enough to keep them on their toes. work best if the have levels as shadowblood line sorcerers or have the sorcerers as backup
29. Random Fae that drop bags of magic items at the first site of the PCs the items in the bag are all curse items (works best if PCs are traveling through known fairy woods
30. The Parcel post Imps arrive with random mail for PCs C.O.D loudly announcing their presents by knocking on the nearest (or created) Door and saying in a high pitched voice "Parcel Post Mail for (PC)"

VictorCrackus |

Use a bard villain.
Fill bard's stronghold with bard traps... Things that require singing.
Or have five hallways, with four walls.
The only way through to the otherside, is walking through the fourth wall.
And have the final fight be in a large room. With a wall almost seperating it in the middle. HAlf of the players, mostly melee go to fight two pet monsters. The other half use the wall for cover. Fight ends. And the wall lengthens to trap people on both sides of the wall. Then, above the illusionary ceiling, atop the actual wall. Get a decanter of endless water, and turn it upside down and on.
Also make the wall have little pipes that let the water spill into both rooms.
Make sure the upper room is of course sealed off as well. And.. Give the bard a robe of useful items... With one of the instant window patches.
Hilarity ensues..