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Most of the time, gaming groups see red and just go hacking their way through everything they meet. Fleeing from overly powerful opponents isn't an option, and "parley" isn't in their vocabulary. But from time to time, interesting things do happen to turn the encounter sideways so that it plays out in unforeseen ways.
One of my groups just encountered a sabretooth tiger on the prowl. But rather than attacking it outright, the druid decided they should let her animal companion (a female tiger) take care of the situation. So while the rest of the party stood back to avoid spooking the thing, her tiger animal companion advanced on the sabretooth ... and, well, you and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals ... long story short, in about 3 or 4 months time, there will be a new half-sabretooth addition to the family, assuming we can stop the stupid cat from rushing headlong into every other encounter from now until then.
So what are some unexpected ways your encounters have turned out?
Every time we try to "sooth the savage beast, crocodile dundee syle" the ranger or druid gets chewed on... it's law in our games (bad dice rolls, and just funny)
One time, there was a bard in the group (and we hate bards, but there always seems to be one) and we were adventuring tolkien style ,which means we were all poor, had less than starting wealth...ie we rolled randomly for starting gold and got scratch and pocket lint..
So we had a fighter who had leather armor, wooden shield and a hand axe (w00t) a wizard with a staff (powie) the bard had padded armor, a dagger and some kind of kazoo or some odd thing, and the rogue had a dagger a club and leather armor.
also adventuring 'tolkien' style means that encounter CRs arent necessarily according to your level, in fact just throw that out the window!
The fun of this way of playing is "oh! a short sword! I keep it!"
anyway:
We are traveling along (the bard had chickens, dont ask me why) and hobgoblins are attracted by the scent and sound of the chickens.
so we get in a battle with, i think it was 8 0r 10 of them.
In the middle of the battle the bard shouts "Trolls!" which causes three of the hobgoblins to just flat out run away ( i cant remember the bardic ability or skill he used) and the fighter gets knocked out as so does the rogue, so the bard and the wizard run away. (I was playing the wizard) and the hobgoblins that remained drag the other two and the chickens off.
So, what happens next? We run into TROLLS.
Two of them and an ettin (which I think was a two headed troll)
So two party members are captured by hobgoblins and the other two of us are captured by trolls.
So during a roleplaying session where we are having the wizard cast prestidigitation on the trolls tighty whities (the bard convinced the trolls that we were more useful as slaves than as snacks), the Bard convinces the trolls that the hobgoblins, wrongfully have taken other slaves that should rightfully belong to them.
In sighting the trolls rage, he convinces the trolls to attack and free the other party members who are being set up as tonights dinner.
The Dm lets us role play the combat as if we were the trolls, so he can bust himself managing the hobgoblin "defense" (do hobgoblins have a defense against trolls??)
anyway if was a fun slaughter, and we reunited the party at least and every one was alive (except for the chickens).
The bard decided to try and convince the trolls that hobgoblins made better slaves and that the party members made better "foremen" that didnt work.
The wizards new task became, "washing the cave bear" which regularly got him mauled, chewing up the bards healing spell.
we must have played three session "in the care of the trolls" all the while the bard plying his trade.
At some point he casts an illusion of us running away, which was actually hobgoblins he convinced we would make a 'cover distraction for' so they could make a run for it. He mixes with that some lullaby (so the trolls are already sleepy) and oh I dont remember some performance, then shouts "hey! they are getting away"
The two headed troll/ettin begins arguing with it's self "we have enough slaves let them run" "shad up im troy-in ta sleep ova 'heyere" (one head had a jersey accent dunno why)
and the other two trolls chase after the hobgoblins.
The bard casts an illusion of us (we were disguised as hobgoblins) dutifully working, and I (the wizard) is rumaging the trolls "stash".
I find a scroll of fireball..... hmmmm
The rogue decides to try and "coup de grace" the sleeping ettin (bbbbaaaaaad Idea) but manages to do enough damage to almost finish it off.
Wakes up to see a 'hobgoblin' slicing at him, swats the rogue who goes flying into a pile of bones and stuff and immediately rolls a stealth.
I cast the fire ball at the ettin/troll, dropping it.
Bard drops his illusion spell right when the trolls are comming back from capturing the escaped prisoners and we take off our hobgoblin disguises.
Bard is able to convince the trolls that the hobgoblin witch doctor (picked and blamed random hobgoblin) had caused all of this and killed their two headed friend.
In the midst of the ensuing chaos, we escape and the rouge even managed to hoist some treasure on his way out.
best use of a bard I've ever seen (with the exception of the chickens)
This was one of my campaigns in 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms.
The Party:
Aasimir Paladin
Human Sorceror
Human Cleric
Wood Elf Druid with Wolf Companion
Setting:
Each on a personal quest that happen to all be in the same ruins. On the Paladins quest to retrieve Swift Justice (Holy Swift Bastard Sword).
Encounter 1: Party Level 3 or 4
8 or 10 Large Skeletons in the room of the Sword. The Cleric is out of Turn Undead attempts, and the Paladin was doing reduced damage cause of 1/2 dmg vs skeletons. It was looking pretty bleak when one of the players gets the brilliant idea to use the CLW Potions (CL 4) that they picked up in the last fight as grenades. It worked beautifully, the skeletons died 3 rounds later.
Encounter 2: Party Level 4
Party vs a Salt Mummy (CR 9). For some reason my attack rolls for the mummy were low on this one. Anyway, this monster has a weakness vs any water (treated like Holy Water), and the Cleric had happened to prepare 4 Create Water spells. So the Cleric casts Create Water every round (I ruled doing 2d4 damage each cast), The Sorceror managed to hit with 2 Acid Arrows in the first two rounds, and the Paladin rolled high damage that fight. The thing died in 5 rounds with 96 hp.
It was insane.
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Level 2 party, out to cap a known and dangerous Bandit King.
Human Ranger (me)
Half-orc Fighter
Gnome Cleric of Erastil
Gnome Fey Sorcerer.
We manage to talk our way into the BK's fort, with promises of booze and further treasure. Wearing (badly donned) "Bandit Disguises" and relying on the considerable Intimidate skills of the Fighter, we just barely squeak by.
Inside, we rapidly learn that of the 3 Bandit Lieutenants, one is a fallen Paladin type, disillusioned with his life choices, another is a sadist Rogue, and the third a simpleton Fighter. Talking fast and loose, we convince the Rogue we're the men for the job of eliminating the Paladin, so long as he can keep his idiot buddy and the rest of the group off our backs.
Opening line to the Paladin: "The Rogue sent us in here to kill you."
That sends him off to go deal with the "traitor," and left his boss (The Bandit King, and our true objective) without a guard, dead-drunk, and passed out in the next room.
A heavy pick Coup de Grace sent Mr. BK off to his eternal "reward," and after a brief scuffle, we were able to purge the remaining bandits with the assistance of Paladin-boy.
Nail-bitingly intense, since if we screwed up at any point the entire camp (with 4 much higher-CR "bosses") would have been at our throats.
Serpent Skull Lv9 Party:
Human Paladin/Monk of Irori
Human Magus
Elf Cleric of Desna
Tiefling Arcane Trickster(Diviner/Rogue base)
Last session the party went up to a pirate camp after they had looted our camp while we were out, unarmed and asked to be presented to their leader. We were brought to his hut, where he was waiting on top of a palanquin. Paladin went up and told him that he had one chance to surrender, turn over our stuff, and let all the prisoners go.
Of course, he refused, and sent people to attack, as he was a coward. Arcane Trickster's invisible Faerie Dragon familiar drops our weapons from overhead like R2D2 from Return of the Jedi, and we proceed to make quick work of everything.
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There was a module on the WOTC page for 3.5 called Start At The End. The first thing you encounter is a very young blue dragon. Rather than kill it, my halfling cleric begged the party to keep it, so we all did nonlethal damage and the elven ranger slung the unconscious beast over his shoulders for the rest of the adventure. Kyracolides became our favorite NPC and the personal pet of the halfling cleric. They went on to become pirate lords together and eventually ascended to godhood.
My players recently negotiated with a mimic. They offered him a job where he could guard a temple treasure in exchange for lots of food. They kept their word, too. So the mimic accompanied them out of the dungeon into the city (in the form of a horse) and now lives comfortably in the temple.
In a game where goblins are considered little more than moving targets for the advancement of the players, when my character ran across a horde of goblins that had taken up residence in an abandoned town, she insisted that they attempt to make contact with them. It turned out, that it was a tribe that were attempting to live a quiet peaceful life. My character was really big on diplomacy whenever possible, so she told them they could stay and helped them to fix the buildings in the town. She then went to a friend that had friends on the council and had some paperwork be slipped in saying that the goblin village had the right to be there and act as a sovereign nation just as the other sovereign nations did in that area.
After fighting our way through the low level mooks, we've got the Big Bad and his cadre of bodyguards on the other side of a door. Right before we're spelled up and ready to charge in, my player asks the bodyguards what the big bad is paying them and then offers to double it. There's some muffled conversation, and then a yelp as they kill their boss. End fight, no fuss, no muss.
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In the first game I ever played, we ruined the Big Final Fight with the Bad Guy. He was an evil wizard, and was popping off spells, then running. This went on for a while until he ran into a small room, where the DM anticipated we'd barge in and battle it out. My character had a stroke of genius, and urged the rogue to activate the marble elephant figurine of wondrous power we had found. He pulled the figure out, and said the command word as he lobbed it into the room. Huge animal in a Medium room... led to an evil wizard's body pasted to the wall. Twas quite fun.
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During the begining of the Kingmaker campaign, our party was in the fort and making ready for the bandit visit the next morning. The rogue (me) and the fighter had stationed ourselves up on the wall to drop down and surprise them when they rode in and the cleric was sleeping under the wagon.
So the bandits get there and we let the last one get right underneath of us before the human fighter picks up the halfling rogue and throws him at the last bandit in line. I was holding an improvised weapon (the ladder we used to get onto the wall). I roll a nat. 20 to hit and then confirm with max damage. First kill, death by ladder. Killed him and the horse he rode in on.
Later in the fight, we decide to try and take one of them alive, so the fighter does a subdual swing. Even with the minus four, she crits with her glaive, confirms for max damage again. She does enough subdual damage to turn actual and kills him.
In a 3.5 game, I'm DMing and send a juggernaught after the party (huge construct of death). It is destroying the party because they're all rushing head-long into the fight. Except for one, who goes over to the packs, gets out a box and sneaks back to the baddie. He opens the box to revel the anti-magic pearl they had stolen about 10 sessions ago.
The juggernaught fell apart, but he also torqued half of the party's equipment.
Party of four 16th level characters, one a wizard (smart he, as you will see). Faerun "Spark of Mystra"-like campaign. Well, not "like" but "is".
We are (lightly) running from a huge, red, female dragon. It.. she... IT is rather enthusiastically searching for us in this cave complex we are very excitedly trying to escape from - some misunderstanding about "Tiamat says you shall not pass!" and the death (two round slaughter) of four of her large, dual black/green children, even equipped with riders mind you <insert "YE-AAH!" and a fist-pumping like action>. Not our fault; they started it... <wink> Sticking it to da man!
Encounter, among other creatures/things, a trap set in between an expanse of natural "corridor". How? Well, we ingeniously decide to teleport past the huge (and I mean huge, like one-PC-snack-before-next-size-category type of huge - not even PC dinner but just a snack!) green dragon living in the cave/small stadium just before said corridor (scrying is your friend). We can tell by his rather impressive girth that he will never fit down that corridor.
We learn - to our chagrin - once the passageway is entered, dual walls of force are created, one at each end, and nullifying magic magics become active (we think a shaped antimagic field) as we feel/see/observe our magic items become nonfunctional. We also discover just how incredibly hard the rock here is - even vs adamantine. Oh, crappy. (A rather rude, distasteful, and down right malicious trap that really spotlights the creator's crude and obvious low moral upbringing, if you ask me, the dragonfire adept... [a class solely based on SU abilities and use magic device])
Well, time passes and we finally "get out" - via a "hall pass" from our puke green, binge eating, green dragon jailor. Deals are made, plans set, not quite evil deeds done (ouch), and then, after all that, he forces us to have to kick his ugly as... well, I'm sure you get it. With the help of a called Marut, some psionic fire, and two slow breath weapons from me, our nasty two-weapon fighting rogue/were-panther puts him down. His fault; he started it... No, really, he did. Mostly...
We search, get the goods/horde, and discover how the trap is set/reset. That is good stuff to know. While we are enjoying our new cave, we hear some disturbing ruckus from passages walked prior. Oh, shi... We forgot about Big Red. (Green might have been bigger, maybe, but Big Red Mama is meaner, stronger, faster and much, much more angry. Oh, and did I mention we two-rounded her four, brutally ugly, large children, each equipped with a spellcasting rider? heh heh...)
Seeing that we are kind of tired from putting down the last one-dragon army (read: low on resources, even hit points), we decide the better part of valor is to beat a hasty sprint out of here - but not too hasty. We teleport past the trap - about 30 feet - put up resist energy (fire), mass and wait - well, taunt, taunt, wait, taunt, taunt and wait. Strange, not even that long of a wait. Big Red Mama, or as we like to lovingly call her "glub-glub", shows up screaming pissed, fire-gouting and wet-your-pants-from-the-sight charging us.
Because of her size and speed, she gets off one scary @ss fiery breath at us (but we survive it; thanks resist energy) before she continues her rabid charge... right into a wall of force that was just triggered. Ouch! That's gunna leave a scar.
Glub-glub balefully glares at us and (muffled) screams as she tries to claw her way through the invisible barrier. Some of us make a few rude gestures - just to spur her on; we like her tenacity - while two of us cogitate on this new development (in- and out-of- character). We in-character think, "This is dangerous to leave behind us." and (metagame) out-of-character think, "We are getting partial XP for this encounter and our use of the trap, but glub-glub is nasty mean, so how do we get full XP for this?"
Mr. Wizard nails it.
We see her begin to s l o w l y try to scratch her way through the hard rock of her prison and know we have some time. Wiz boy ingeniously crafts a use of limited wish that makes everyone at the table gasp out loud, both at the inventiveness of it and at its subtle (though stark) effectiveness. Mr. Wizard devises to utilize (two?) limited wish to create a natural fissure in the rock prison's ceiling and divert a natural underground flow of water to said fissure. DM thinks on it and agrees not too much is being asked vs. the spell's level and ability, so allows it. (I told you he was smart, huh?)
SPLASH! We now have a large gash in the ceiling spewing forth tens to hundreds of gallons a second into the sealed corridor. Glub-glub is not happy (we hypothesize she was a cat in another life). She renews her assault on the rock but because she is literally wedged into the passageway (almost more than squeezing) she can't quite bring her full abilities to bear, so even her massive strength and razor sharp claws make slow headway against her prison walls - now watery prison. (I think she took damage just trying to squeeze her bulk through the corridor.)
It takes many minutes to fill, and maybe twice that long for her to succumb to drowning, but glub-glub finally does. We (with hidden excitement) watch her last choking (glub...) death throes through her aquarium walls before we turn, smile at each other and continue our search for an exit.
(Full XP gained. Bonus XP awarded to Mr. Wizard.)
"... and (metagame) out-of-character think, "We are getting partial XP for this encounter and our use of the trap, but glub-glub is nasty mean, so how do we get full XP for this?"
That part was table comedy; I should have commented that.
Glub-glub whooped us the first time we encountered her, even made a couple peeps run from dragon-fear, so many possessed an electrifying itch to squeeze every last iota of enjoyment out of taking her down - both in- and out-of-character. It appears players of high-level characters are far from fond of being made to run and scatter like unheroic, pea-brained barnyard fowl...
This is a good thread.
Oops... Both the green and glub-glub... gargantuan (got to remember that size conversion from draconic to common)... not huge but .
(That's why certain adventurers [players??? Ack!] might have gained the "slightly damp" or "really wet" lower clothing temporary trait when she got a breath off at us before the wall of force trap kicked in. Not me mind you, but maybe certain others...)
Instead of attempting to slay the newly made, blood-sucking demon upon discovering him in an inn, my Human Noble rescued him from what very quickly would have turned into a lynch mob and took him home with her. She gave him a room in the deepest recesses of her manor, near the dungeons where he became her personal assassin/executioner.
...a dagger and some kind of kazoo or some odd thing, and the rogue had a dagger a club and leather armor.
Best use of a bard I've heard in a long time. I think I'm a bit punchy before I've had my coffee this morning, but for what ever reason, reading the line about the kazoo gave me a great long laugh! Thanks for that:)
Party Level 8
We've just had a massively difficult fight, taking on the outer guardian of a (BBEG) Vampire Lord's chamber. But, we persevere, and burst through the door.
In the BBEG's surprise round, the barbarian gets feared, and runs screaming out of the room. With highest initiative, the BBEG dominates the rogue, taking both of our melee fighters (and highest damage output) out of the fight. The sorcerer casts invisibility purge, so at least we can see the vamp, now.
Me: I'm going to draw a scroll and 5-foot step. Then, cast Heal.
GM: Hold on. Where did you get a scroll of Heal?
Me: We looted it off of the evil Cleric under the noble's estate.
GM: That was, like, four months ago!
Me: I know. It's just been in my inventory. I almost used it when....
*Cast Defensively: Success. Touch Attack: Success. Vampire's Will save: Fail*
GM: Ok, this seems like a good place to wrap up, this week.
This started off as a random encounter it was supposed to be a bit of trouble on the way to the main plot.
The party was traipsing along minding our own business on our way to find some plot when we see over head a blue dragon flying past. We all do out Spot/Search/Knowledge checks but the dragon is gone didn’t even stop to look at us. So we decide to set up camp. Camp is my Magic Mansion spell. We go inside eat sleep house the horses.
The next morning we exit the mansion (dismiss the spell) and its raining really hard so we have low visibility. But we are able to make out a hill where there was no hill before. As we are all looking at the hill trying to figure out what the deal with the hill is it breathes lightning at us. The lightning kills our pack animals, my familiar, and all the groups’ animal companions. (Including one players’ brand new pseudo-dragon she used a wish to get and had for one game.) Our Spell Sword is at negative health but not dead, and I am at 1 health.
Round one I throw up a bunch of force barriers. (3.5 spell from the Mini Handbook) They pin the dragon in place and give me and a few other party members full cover. The rest of the team heals and every one not dead gains hit points back. The Dragon begins to dig. It’s the one direction I didn’t block with my spell. I pull out my scroll of Gate and open a gate to the Plane of Air under the dragon, he falls through I dismiss the spell. 2 Rounds I soloed a blue dragon.
>> Intermission <<
I am peeved that the dragon killed my familiar. I make the little guy a tiny casket and demand we loot the dragons’ treasure. I lost a familiar I am going to get something out of this. Besides it’s unguarded now.
Using various scraying abilities we find the dragons cave. Upon investigation we find another blue dragon. It seems Big Blue has a mate. I don’t have another scroll of gate and one blast of the breath weapon could take out ½ the party. We run and hide. While we are bravely hiding one of the other characters sends out an illusion to parlay with the dragon. She tells us that if the party gives up the wizard who defeated her mate she will let the rest go.
I figure I got us in to this so I may as well suck it up and take my lumps like a man. I take off all my gear and give it to the cleric with a drop of blood telling him to rez me when he can. The other mage puts me in a force sphere and we roll me out to the dragon. The dragon swoops down grabs my “hamster ball” and flies off with me. The party watches her take me away and realizes that now the treasure really is unguarded. The run in and seal the cave behind them.
The dragon interrogates me as to the location of her mate. I tell her everything with out pause for breath. She then chucks my poke-mage-ball and turns around. I survive the fall and dispel the sphere. I message a party member that I am not dead. And she uses a magic item to “poof” me back to the group.
The treasure is in a pool of water and the group is debating what to do about potential traps. I cast true seeing and see a magically hidden hole in the top of the cave for the dragon to come in through. I seal it with a force wall. We decide that because three of the party members have telekinesis we will use that to grab as much treasure as we can and load up out bags of holding and portable holes. One player casts Floating Disk.
The Dragon arrives home and though she is trapped behind a force wall she can see us looting her treasure. She starts to dig around the force wall. We are looting and she is screaming while digging. The DM tells us she will have cleared anough stone a lighning up in 4 rounds. Loot, loot, loot. 3 rounds. Loot Loot Loot. 2 rounds LOOT LOOT LOOT. 1 round. LIMITED WISH-TELEPORT!
We are in the woods as far north as I could get us, with a ton of treasure and an anger dragon who we know can scry out there some where. We debate what to do. It is desided that we could leave the material plane. We debate the various elemental planes (not air) be decide to try for Sigil. (or some place similar) The Cleric casts a spell and we are whisked away to Sigil. We find our selves in the middle a slum surrounded by unsavory looking people. And we have a MOUND of treasure on a Magic Disk floating next to us.
So Random Encounter = Planer Hopping.
(for those who care I got my Familiar Rezzed)
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4th ed game. Party is in some kind of dungeon or cave system or something. I think I might have been a cleric.
Anyway, we enter this 'room' which has most of the floor being dug away like its a quarry, with the door up on one of the 'platforms'. There were several of these, all connected with wooden planks as walkways between them. So we hear the goblins working, so we crawl into the room on our stomachs and peak over the edge, just in time to see a goblin coming up the ladder right next to us. We grab him and cover his mouth before he can do anything.
Then, we, the players, proceed to spend the next half hour in real time arguing over what to do next, cause there are alot of bad guys in the room, etc. The DM gets impatient and says one of the other goblins calls out to his buddy "Whats taking so long?" to the one who have captured.
Ive been sitting there, facepalming for about 10 minutes, so finally I tell everyone to hold on, I have an idea.
My character, being the only one who spoke goblin, yells back to the goblin in a very monotone voice, in goblin, "Oh no, there are some humans over here, and they have captured me. Please help. Please help. Come kill them."
Other party members with jaws on floor: What did you say to him? (IC)
Me: Oh, I just him to hold on, and I'd be right there. (IC)
Combat ensues, we win, move on.
I dont think Ive ever been more annoyed during a session.
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I think I'm in the middle of one, right now, right here.
(As in, a PbP Legacy of Fire game further up the page!)
I'll be a little vague in case anyone's planning on playing in this AP.
Big hall, part of an abandoned monastery that's been overrun by little sentient critters. Three are on a gallery up in the rafters, another one swinging on a chandelier in the middle of the hall.
Two players sneak in the door, stop to look around. The critter on the chandelier spots them and starts making obscene gestures and shouting, attracting the attention of his mates in the gallery, who let fly with their bows, peppering the two players.
One turns and casts sleep towards the gallery, just as a third PC - who is a pseudodragon - comes flying in, backwings in front of the gallery and lets rip with a gout of flame...
... and the gallery catches light. Only the chandelier is suspended from a rope tied off to said gallery, flames lick along the rope, panicking the critter on the chandelier, who jumps... and splats himself on the floor.
Great fun viewed from behind of my (virtual) DM screen! :)
I also set the gallery on fire that time. The rest was cake!
Kudos to all the DMs who allow such randomness in their game. You could have easily railroaded the PCs into doing something routine, but u allowed some creativity that made the games more than they were. Keep up the good work!
Is this all that's left: fallen heroes and cast-off memories...
Where are the rest of the stories, peeps?
What an awesome thread. More stories please!
Do you guys prefer non-standard encounters or do you prefer a hack fest?
What an awesome thread. More stories please!
Do you guys prefer non-standard encounters or do you prefer a hack fest?
Your question is a bit of a thread-jack but seeing how no one has been in here for a while...
I like both and I personally feel both are required to build and sustain events in the fantasy world that will feed and nourish all the areas of our role-playing psyches that prompt us to continually return to the gaming table. A Balanced Gaming Diet (TM) requires several servings of each (and several other elements) to keep the players and the campaign healthy.
HackFests (TM) are fun and if built well, allow the characters to utilize their different abilities - especially new ones or those abilities not often called to play or utilized. Let's face it, we often fall into the (or are "forced" by the situation/encounter) "What's my best attack form?" rut instead of the "What would be a cool or novel use for one of my usual abilities - or better yet, one of my seldom used ones?" The second idea often brings a much greater "Ahh!" factor to the table - usually even if unsuccessful.
Take my story above about glub-glub. We were so very unsure of our mage's rather novel approach to ridding us of Big Red Mama and her gargantuan appetite (and claws and teeth and fire and anger and...) but we all thought it was so cool we all agreed and went with it instead of defaulting to our normal approach in such a situation - either running like hell or buffing at the last moment, surrounding the opening and hitting glub-glub exactly as she began her rock-tunnel-corset-ed exit from the trap.
Our solution gained high-fives and grins around - just as I believe would have occurred had we battled and defeated the blisteringly irked gargantuan red in mortal combat. The difference was significant for the players (especially in cranial moral), and in the case of this particular encounter, much more enjoyed.