Got any good PFS game stories?

[Samish Lakefinder]

At PaizoCon a couple years ago I sat at a table where an Andoran cleric of Besmara was supporting two Chelaxian Hell Knights. The two Hell Knights got confused at the end of a fight and after attacking the cleric proceeded to try and kill each other. The cleric stepped away and enjoyed watching the show, which unfortunately ended in a draw. The paladin/Hell Knight that hit the cleric approached him after the fight and said "I must apologize for my actions. We Hell Knights spar quite often in training, but to attack an ally without warning, I fear I will need to atone for that." The cleric responded "I am sure your god understands and that no atonement will be needed" and then pointed out our of character that he was three alignment steps away from the paladin and possessed a strong chaotic aura.

[nosig]

I felt the need to bring this thread back. So yeah, this is "Thread Necro!"
.
The boards have been very down the last few days. People ... being less then friendly to each other. Anyone got a good game story to lighten things up?

[Mahtobedis]

How about the one where I inadvertently kill a party member and they then become our fall guy, thus allowing us to win.

So we are adventuring along. I am playing a Dawnflower Dervish Bard with a small dip into MoMS for Crane Style feats.

With me is a fighter, a gunslinger druid, with a dinosaur, a fighter, a cleric, and finally a gnomish wizard. Now I say gnomish wizard because like all gnomish wizards this one is fully chaotic and may be a candidate for jerk wad of the year.

During this adventure my Bard finds herself in a Dervish Dance off without about 7 other dervish dancers who are actually incapable of hurting her. The wizard feeling concerned and a little bit blood thirsty (also not realizing exactly how hard it is to kill my bard) decides the solution is to fireball the entire room. 8 reflex saves later my bard is not scratched (thank you monk levels) and all the other combatants are dead. Time to run from the town guard.

The next step of our adventure takes us to a manor. We bust in with the force of adamantium weapons and t rex to find a swarm of bearded devil and two flying devil things. The wizard takes this opportunity to try out his now toy, magic jar. Upon the Gnome falling over the cleric starts getting ready to breath of life his face. My bard not wanting to see resources wasted (and due to an incredibility stroke of brilliance on my part) says in celestial to the cleric in front of devils (because what reason would devils have to speak the language of their eternal enemy?) he's not dead it's a magic jar. At this point the gnome gets killed by arrows. But I am not done inadvertently screwing the gnome. I then say "don't worry we can breath of life him" because how would devil be able to make the spell craft check to know what a breath of life is? At this point the gnome gets turned into a pin cushion.

So we win that fight when the gnome finally steals the body of one of the flying devils, after having spent most of the fight in the body of the dinosaur, where he was woefully inept at biting. About the same time the city guard finally catches up with us. Rather than face trail the gnome grabs his body and teleports himself out of there leaving the rest of the party to stand trail alone. The party then spent the entire travel blaming every transgression we did on the gnome. Death of people in the riot? The Gnome walled that elephant in with those people. Death of innocent dervish dancers? Fireball from that crazy gnome, the bard had it sorted. Best part is we didn't even have to roll a bluff check.

All of us were able to clear ourselves of the crimes we were accused of except the gnome. Part of being cleared of our crimes was the deputation of the party to extradite the gnome from Absolom to make him stand trail. That will be an interesting story when it happens.

[Netopalis]

Last Sunday, I was signed up to play a 1-7. I had come prepared with my level 1 gunslinger [film noir-esque private detective], who monologues in combat and during character introduction to this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_IImfpAIcI

I say, "In the city at the center of the world, one man gets a worm's eye view of the depths of depravity to which the human race stoops. The name's Quinn. Isaac Quinn. I'm the sorta guy that's clever enough to know the right questions to ask, and smart enough to know when not to ask them."

VL, also playing, says, "I thought you were playing your level 6 cleric, since we're going high tier?"

"I was working on a tough case in Absalom, so I couldn't take another assignment. I told the messenger, 'Not now, kid, I'm busy', and flicked him a silver piece for his trouble, then hit the streets. This jewel heist wasn't going to solve itself."

[Marthian]

I've had this happen twice, the second time being much more hilarious. So how it goes is: I was playing my witch, who casted Stinking Cloud on a group of bad guys. That nauseated a good bunch of them... Then someone glitter dusted them, and finally another character casted Silence on them. Essentially, we battery and assaulted ALL of their senses (Couldn't see, couldn't hear, smelled really bad, tasted really bad, and there was stinky glimmering dust on them.) The second time there was at least 10+ mooks in there, which frightened us, but then it turned into we are just waiting for them to come out into the open.

We had to go into a house to get something, but we had a cat burglar and other ninja-y character with us. Considering the building was three stories tall, we went to the third floor (flying, grappling hooks, climbing) and cleaned the house of enemies from top to bottom. We split one big combat into three separate ones.

We were in a dark cave, and my witch stayed behind the party so she wouldn't get face-stomped. No where close to 30 feet of bad guys, much less seeing them, but most everyone else had darkvision or their light spells countered by Darkness. So to cast a medium ranged spell, she tossed her wayfinder to try and see something... It didn't work out, I still couldn't see anything (I just saw an orb of darkness)

No Response from Deepmar:

We ran into a modified black tentacles trap (instead had hands). I was freaking out because my witch and faerie dragon familiar had poor CMD. Instead, the trap threw us over the edge into a 100 foot hole with spikes at the bottom... Which suddenly wasn't so bad as my Faerie Dragon just started flying after being tossed, and I used my Flight Hex to featherfall down.

Later, someone in the party shoved her into another pit, but same result (I went with it.) It was to make sure it was safe, which it was. I got back at him by putting squirrels in his bed.

[Finlanderboy]

Blackros matrimony:

I wanted to get a blackros daughter to love my character so I bought a philter of love. I could not find any blackroses so I when I saw the first one(Hammeria the matriarch)I tricked her into drinking it alone with my gnome. So she is permanently in love with my gnome.

[MrSin]

Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible:

I once had a GM use candy for any npcs. If we killed them we got the right to eat them(ask nicely). We walked into a room full of captured and bound people... Gosh the comments made. "Delicious Delicious legs" it was like... 15 minutes of listening to everyone talk about eating the poor guys. Everytime this GM used starburst there were few prisoners taken. The need to devour the starburst outweighed their poor fantasy lives!

Echoes of the Overwatch:

So my brother shot a mozaic. He didn't know what a mozaic was, but he shot it. Close relative of the fearsome Gazeebo I guess? We also had me refuse to pay a small fee at a library. I'm a pathfinder! Do you know what I have to do? What I go through! Several sessions later I gave a gaurd 150gp gold bribe(it was like 5 silver for the book) with the same GM. He had a great reaction.
Also that same character really considered just blowing up the tower when he saw the zelda style crack in the wall the DM drew... Its a reflex. I still lament not doing it. Completely worth the obvious suicide.

Feast of Ravenmoor:

Gosh this was a mess. A fun mess, but still a mess. So we figured out the plot before the festival. So we had to figure out what to do. After several ideas including poisoning cultist with coolaid and burning down the town, we went with turning the town on them. So after a truly epic entrance with much prestidigitation and flare and a burning light of saranrae revealing the foes! The guy rolling to turn the crowd rolls a... 1. Stone call really helped to clean up the mess, and make a bigger one really.

Web of Corruption:

So part of the thing was a krenshar. That weird beast that pulls its face back and yells. I colorsprayed him and we decided to use it as evidance and sell it when we were done! so we stuff it in a bag and threw it on the ground(tied up) at a trial. After that when we finally confronted the BBEG, the suggestion on our barbarian to protect her... he took to heart and decided it was okay to kill all of us to do it. Color spray, they both fail, and I immidatedly tie up the guy. He says he's going to break free to save her! So he rages and tries to break the rope for the many turns before we get her as far away as possible.

To Delve the Dungeon Deep:

We had a summoner. The summoners first action was to summon a fiendish pony and send it into the dungeon. His action after was to summon more fiendish ponies, one at a time waiting on the last to die, and send them in. The ponies rampaged through the dungeon and died, or killed everything in their way. The team all went in and split up, but those ponies were always first in line and triggered several of the encounters with us being miles away. One of them managed to take on a group of kobolds until they finally fled the scene.

[Gnoll Bard]

I have a couple from the adventures of my Andoren Halfling Bard, Reed Starling:

Keep of the Huscarl King:

So, we'd finally made our way to the keep, and thangs to some serious storytelling on the part of a certain halfling, we had pretty much the entire Snowmask Tribe with us. Upon arrival, the leader of the Shadow Lodge forces was just emerging from the ruin with the Huscarl King's +2 Flaming Greataxe in hand, gloating about how we were too late and there was no way we could defeat her now.

So Reed cast grease on the axe. I guess she really liked that axe, too, because after fumbling it the first time she wasted a whole lot of actions trying to pick it up again while we and the Kellids went to town on their allies. Being a cleric, she did eventually get the idea to start slinging spells, but by then it was too late, and she never once got to swing the axe.

The Blakros Matrimony:

The party had been working overtime to wow all of the important NPCs at the party and make sure things went smoothly for everyone involved. Things were going pretty well (as far as either of the families knew... I mean, the bride *looked* right, at least) when Alexander Bedard (an Andoren official I'd been told to keep an eye on) stood up and objected to the wedding in progress...

At which point Reed jumped up onto the pew and cast silence on him... and Bedard made his save. I can just imagine the scene:

Reed: SILENCE!

Nothing Happens, everyone stares at the deranged halfling

Reed: I... uh... er, that is to say, come now Mr. Bedard, this is a day for, er, for family, not for digging up past regrets...

Thankfully, Reed proved glib enough to salvage the situation. Once he had some time to think about it, I'm sure he realized that it was probably a good thing that the spell hadn't worked. :P

[_Cobalt_]

Samurai in the desert. Tried to use disguise to mask his horse as a camel to "blend in." A good 10 minutes were devoted to trying to figure out how exactly one would go about doing this IRL. Much laughter was had.

[Lanith]

I just ran a session of In Service to Lore (First Steps Pt 1) and from a series of laughs with a friend, we decided that running the game with sock puppets would be hilariously fun.
I have a large amount of free time, being currently unemployed, so I figured I would make a couple simple sock puppets and just use my normal character voices with them. (Let's be honest, what GM doesn't use voices?) Well after the puppets were ready with a week to spare, I did a quick prep of In Service to Lore and realized I can't describe most of the Venture Captains. That made me decide, plain sock puppets won't be enough.

Ambrus has his signature mustache/mutton-chop thing, mohawk and orange striped shirt.
Guaril has a suitably puppet mustache.
Ollystra has long hanging braids and a helmet.
Auntie Baltwin has a bun on her head with stands of hair poking out.
Amenephous (sp?) has a blue and purple turban.
Sadly, I wasn't able to finish Paracountess Zarta, but I was able to make an imp, with pointy red ears and wings.

I got some funny looks from my players and a few people nearby at the FLGS; but I also saw smiles and laughter, which was all I wanted.

So there you have it, you can never go too far for fun in Pathfinder.

[nosig]

Lanith wrote:

I just ran a session of In Service to Lore (First Steps Pt 1) and from a series of laughs with a friend, we decided that running the game with sock puppets would be hilariously fun.

I have a large amount of free time, being currently unemployed, so I figured I would make a couple simple sock puppets and just use my normal character voices with them. (Let's be honest, what GM doesn't use voices?) Well after the puppets were ready with a week to spare, I did a quick prep of In Service to Lore and realized I can't describe most of the Venture Captains. That made me decide, plain sock puppets won't be enough.

Ambrus has his signature mustache/mutton-chop thing, mohawk and orange striped shirt.
Guaril has a suitably puppet mustache.
Ollystra has long hanging braids and a helmet.
Auntie Baltwin has a bun on her head with stands of hair poking out.
Amenephous (sp?) has a blue and purple turban.
Sadly, I wasn't able to finish Paracountess Zarta, but I was able to make an imp, with pointy red ears and wings.

I got some funny looks from my players and a few people nearby at the FLGS; but I also saw smiles and laughter, which was all I wanted.

So there you have it, you can never go too far for fun in Pathfinder.

wow... I got to make a new PC just to play in this for you! wow...

where are you? I may need to do a road trip... what CONs are you doing near you?

[Chalk Microbe]

I have popsicle stick puppets for every venture captain and npc for every scenario I run. They store nicely in a plastic sleeve.

[RainyDayNinja]

Fortress of the Nail:

After the PCs had fought with the prison guard, Markus Gael was trying to barter for his freedom by promising the information they needed to find Zarta. The PCs didn't want to let him go, but Gael demanded they get him one of the oils of invisibility the guard had stashed, so he can sneak out.

The pregen Reiko instead decided to give him a potion of invisibility from her water skin, using her Vanish trick and a good bluff check to convince him her water could turn him invisible. So he drinks it, thinks he's invisible, and scampers off into the hallway.

The PCs go on through the portal, rescue Zarta, and come back, but hear a commotion going on in the cell block. Bracing for another fight, they finally step out, only to discover a couple of Hellknights dragging Gael back into his cell, while he kicks and screams about how they shouldn't be able to see him!

[Soluzar]

The Cyphermage Dilemma:

The run was me (bladebound dervish magus 4), a two weapon fighter 4, a 2/2 rogue mage, and a level 1 bard (who was not in the final encounter). We were on the last fight, here is what we were up against: a female vishkanya magus 5(or6), 2 thugs about level 3, and a hellhound.

First round- Fighter runs in and gets jumped by the thugs and beaten hard. I was outside putting shield up. My second round action was popping an invis potion after the magus cast invis. I move in.
Second round- Fighter is flanked by the thugs and weakened badly, I come out of invis and one shot one of the thugs with a spellstrike shocking grasp also using my arcane pool to enhance my weapon. Fighter kills the other thug but dies from a trollhound charging out of the back. Magus pops invis and moves in and tried to hit me but missed. Mage comes out and uses grease on the area the magus is in. She slips and falls.
Third round- I get a spellstrike shocking grasp on the magus, magus gets up and I get the AoO on her, she casts invis and retreats, the trollhound misses me, the mage is on the trollhound but not hitting.
Fourth round- I use spell combat to attack the trollhound and put mirror image on myself and get 4 images, mage attacks the trollhound, trollhound hits me but kills a mirror image
Fifth round- magus pops a cure mod portion, mage casts obscuring mist, I hit the trollhound with a spellstrike shocking grasp and it goes down but is regenerating
Sixth round round- magus moves in and uses spell combat to cast frigid touch on me and missed, I miss her as well
Seventh Round- magus hits me with frigid touch but kills a mirror image instead, mage tried to finish the trollhound but fails,
Eighth Round- magus recalls frigid touch and initiates spell combat, I am staggered. I cast grease on her weapon. Mage is still trying to kill the trollhound.
Ninth Round- magus tries to attack me and drops her weapon, I miss her as well, the mage kills the trollhound with an acid spray.
Tenth Round- I attack the magus and hit but miss on my shocking grasp spellstrike (that I used recall to get), she casts invis again
Eleventh Round- my shield expires mage moves outside trying to get me to come out so he can hit her with Gravity Bow (yeah...WTF), the magus withdraws to the back of the room near a hostage,
Twelfth Round- Magus kills a hostage that we were trying to rescue with burning hands, I move in and kill her with a shocking grasp spellstrike.

I ended up burning most of my spells, all of my Arcane Pool. It feels like I basically took down a BBEG in a single combat duel.

[RainyDayNinja]

The time I almost role-played myself to death...

The Cyphermage Dilemma:

Right at the beginning of the scenario, I told the GM that my LG Aasimar cleric of Torag wanted to use Diplomacy to gather information, looking for the band of pirates. So the GM asks me, "What are you asking?"

"Uh... 'Does anyone know where I can find work as a pirate?'"

Well, I rolled well enough that someone did show me where I could find work as a pirate. A street thug led me to the hide-out of some local crime boss (maybe Boss Croat, maybe not), and the rest of my party chose to leave me behind. After being disarmed of my shovel, the crime boss offers me an assassination job (remember, this is my LG cleric), and insinuates that he'll kill me if I don't go through with it.

Eventually, I agree and talk my way out of there, meet up with the rest of the party, and finish the scenario. The next morning, I wake up with a knife to my throat, and one of the crime boss's thugs tells me to finish my job, or face death. I tell him I'll have it done by that afternoon, since our ship out of Riddleport is leaving before that.

So that character tries to keep his distance from Riddleport now...

[Matthew Morris]

A couple 'attacking special effects' moments from my GMing reign.

Fortress of the Nail

Spoiler:

When I drew the Kennels, I wanted to make the players sweat, so I took every Nessian Warhound/Hellcat/Howler mini I could find, and plopped them in the kennels. PArty wasted a good minute burning through wands of charm monster trying to affect one of them.

One player playing iconic Kyra. She's talking to one of the hellknights and says she's uncomfortable. Running with a bit of misremembered lore from the boards (and thinking it makes good propganda, he tells her there's, "No reason a follower of the consort of Asmodaeus should feel unwelcome here." Player goes, "Excuse me?" and almost blows the entire scenario by wanting to stab him. :-)

No Plunder no pay.

Spoiler:

Players want the layout of the flaming ghost ship heading towards them. Not expecting this, I grab all my undead from my 'bag of minis' and space them out on the map I have. Players spend a minute or so before they start fireballing the ship. Fortunately (for me) the two combat ready ghosts have already jumped over...

Quest for Perfection II, stop mangling my junk edition.

Spoiler:

Magus makes the leap to the deck, I take the option of giving her a wakazashi (since it's frakking Tien and I don't need more scimitar wielding magi). She makes her concentration check to cast scortching ray defensively... then I remember that as a ranged attack it provokes, and she has the bard, halfling cavalier and samurai around her. 3 AoOs later...

Bard player trying to inspire everyone. "Our Junk is Defiant class, and we're going to take on the Jem'hedar warship!"
Me: (showing geek cred) "No, your junk is Danube class, and you're taking on a Borg cube."
Bard: We just have to be nimbler and faster.
Me: Ah, the 'it's not the size of the junk, but how you use it' defense!

[WalterGM]

Since we're on the topic of Cyphermage, I've run that scenario quite a few times so forgive me if all these anecdotes run mush together...

Spoiler:

After defeating Boss Croats thugs, the PCs were questioning the motives of new captives (they took them out with non-lethal damage). I had the thugs try and convince them that their gang leader, Croat, was obsessed with getting revenge on Aleija, and had "led them off the noble pirate path." They discussed options, and I ended up having to spitball a ten minute RP encounter where the entire team of Pathfinders went to Boss Croat's hangout. They convinced him to give up this vendetta and petty crimes and get back to being an honest thief and scoundrel. He agreed, but only if they brought Aleija down. After the scenario, they all went back to meet the half-orc crime lord and drank and danced into the night in celebration.

A few times, the PCs have not killed Mumbuckle, but instead used him to get information about Aleija's whereabouts. They have also stolen the Lionfish a handful of times, and used it to intercept the Titan -- resulting in some off the cuff ship boarding combat. Those that were successful in thwarting the pirate captain then found themselves in command of two ships, which has lead to several PCs purchasing the ship vanity and declaring themselves as the new captain of the Lionfish or Titan, with Mumbuckle as their first mate. We even have a chelish "trader" that has started a fleet of ships, and declared himself admiral.

Once, when the PCs were boarding the Titan with the Lionfish, they wanted to know if the ship had any cannons. I figured it wouldn't be a pirate ship without one, so they drug it above deck and made several knowledge {engineering) checks to get it somewhat operational. "Whatever," I thought, "there's no way they'll hit with it in combat." Much to my surprise, combat started with Alejia's trollhound getting instagibbed as a bowling ball sized hole blew exploded through it's side. Natural 20's happen, folks.

The PCs have had a really good time playing with the eye slit in the warehouse. I've had crossbows, bows, and daggers fired through the slit into unsuspecting guards. The best had to be when they knocked, had brief words with the guy and he slammed the eye slit shut. They knocked once more, and he opened it to the barrel of a muzzle as it confirmed a natural 20. Worst day to be a pirate, ever.

Also, we should think about getting this thread merged with this one :P

[Lanith]

nosig wrote:

wow... I got to make a new PC just to play in this for you! wow...

where are you? I may need to do a road trip... what CONs are you doing near you?

Normally I'm in St Louis. As far as Con's this year, I'll only be making it to DragonCon in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend, but as of yet have no plans to run any games. I can talk with some of the powers that be with the gaming group and see if I can get a session or two to run in my free time.

I'm humbled that someone actually WANTS to play at my table.

[nosig]

Thread necro - I need some laughs today. Feeling really down, and I often come to re-read the stories here to cheer me up.

So... let me add an older story.

I run a face character that I discribe as a "Chelaxian Harlot - a Lady of the Evening." the table tent has a PG picture and I discribe her in black leathers, whips on each hip and silver jewelry. If my (adult) son is playing at the table he resites the montra "yah-yah, sticks and stone may brake her bones, but whips and chains excite her." So now that you have that picture I have a funny story.

During a game I had to step away from the table for a minute during a combat (not something I do often but...). My character has few combat skills, and it was a small lose for the team. SO, when I got back to the table the fight is done and the other players state "we needed a set of manicals and figured your PC would have some". To this I replied "Medium size or small? Normal or fur-lined masterwork? I've got 2 sets of small, two of medium, but the fur-lined masterwork ones are kind of special so we shouldn't really use them on just ANYone." For some reason this caused the table to laugh.

Hope it brought a smile to your face too.

Got any funny stories?

[FallofCamelot]

Eric Brittain wrote:

I was running a game on Monday night where a summoner was being strangled by a disembodied hand.

The player of the summoner as asked if his Eidolon could bite the hand that was strangling his PC.

My reply without missing a beat was, "Sure thing. It didn't feed him."

*Ba-Dump-Dump*

He's here all week folks!

[RainyDayNinja]

A couple from last weekend:

The Cyphermage Dilemma:

The rogue had snuck through one of the cannon ports to get below deck, and while he coup-de-graced the sleeping sailors there, the other party members snuck up the side of the boat (except Kyra, who couldn't roll more than a 5 on her Climb check.

As the rogue did her thing below deck, the rest of the party fought two sailors plus Mumbuckle above deck. When Mumbuckle was brought low enough to surrender, he threw down his rapier.

"Please don't kill me!"

BOOM!

The cannon that the rogue had been loading went off, blowing a hole in the bottom of the ship, which immediately began to sink. As everyone above deck wondered what was happening, the rogue popped her head up through the hatch.

"Great news guys! I sank the ship!"

Day of the Demon:

After the first two fights, we all decided to spend the night in the stables to regain our daily stuff. My alchemist was the only one still sleeping when the rest heard someone crying below them. Having jammed the door to stop any intruders, they lowered a rope and climbed down from the window and found the girl. My alchemist stayed put, mumbling something about needing his beauty sleep. After a few minutes of roleplaying with the girl, I asked:

"Is the window broken out, or just open?"
GM: "It's just open."
Me: "I get up and close the window. They're being too loud."

Later he gave the girl a buoyant balloon to try to cheer her up. What a waste.

[FallofCamelot]

Only minor thread necro, less than a month is fine really...

My favourite story took place at Paizocon UK 2011. It was the Sunday and the entire convention was playing Shadow's Last Stand.

Shadow's Last Stand:

I was playing my Taldan fop Viscount Dalian Vrey, Cleric of Shelyn, defender of Taldor and master violist.

We got to the point where we were accusing the Spider of treason in front of the Andoran Parliament and it is fair to say I kind of went for it, I proceeded to lay out the charges in a way only an entitled, over the top Taldan noble could. I was loud, forceful and dramatic and at the end of my non stop 5 minute rant I was on my feet gesticulating wildly, pointing at the GM and yelling "I ACCUSE YOU MADAM! I DEMAND THAT THIS TRAITOR BE REMOVED FROM THIS AUGUST ASSEMBLY AT ONCE!"

There was a pause as I realised every other table had stopped to watch me which was followed by a loud round of applause from all the other tables. Needless to say I passed the Diplomacy check :).

Ever since then Dalian has had something of an attitude. "You want me to go where? I addressed the Andoran Parliament y'know!"

[Stonecunning]

I don't remember the name of the module, but in one game the party opened the door to the room containing the final encounter, leading the one-man final encounter to say "Unexpected guests? You don't have an invitation!" On a whim I said "Actually, I do!" and decided to roll a bluff check for the hell of it. Natural 20, bringing the total over 30, sense motive natural 1.

"What? Uhhh... bring it here I guess?"

So I pull out a piece of paper, walk forward, rage, and drop an axe into him.

Good times.

[The black raven]

Looked like a trophy room.

Smelled like a trap.

See Invisible.

Guess what. I was right :-))

[Fromper]

Ran First Steps part 1 a few weeks ago for a group of experienced RPG players who were new to PFS. They mostly brought their own PCs, except one guy forgot his and played pregen Ezren the wizard.

Spoiler:

In the warehouse on the dock, Ezren rowed the boat directly under the hole, in case the crate fell down. He stayed in the boat, while the rest of the group were up in the warehouse trying to get a rope on to the crate. Somebody flubbed an acrobatics checked, and the crate fell through the hole, down to the boat.

I was going to give Ezren a reflex save to jump out of the way of the falling crate, but he insisted on staying directly under it, to break its fall. So I had to improvise to figure out how much damage it would do. 200 lb crate, 15 foot fall... I eventually went to the Bestiary to look up how much damage a boulder thrown by a giant does, figuring it would be similar to that. I think I went with 3d6. I still gave him a reflex save to position himself to not take the full hit, figuring he could get it down to half damage. He rolled low, and took all of it, which was enough to get him from undamaged to -1 or so.

Luckily, the party cleric was able to heal him with channel energy from the warehouse, because it took them a few rounds to get down to him and lift the crate off him. So he didn't die from that. Instead, he died from a greataxe crit to the face while trying to acrobatics past the raging halfling barbarian later.

The real question is why an experienced gamer who should have known better was playing a pregen wizard in such a physical manner. He had fun, anyhow, and he's come back to our weekly sessions since, so the death didn't scare him away.

And that's why Ezren's name is now Wile Ezren Coyote.

[WalterGM]

Played through the Frostfur Captives for the first time finally. I was playing my barbarian from the Realm of the Mammoth lords, because it felt so appropriate. Picture your standard, brutish half-orc with tusks and simple weapons; got the lesser beast totem rage power. All that jazz.

Anyway...:

We get our goblins and after a while find ourselves in a ravine walking towards two towers. GM asks for perception, and I successfully notice that the snow on the crest of the towers has been recently disturbed. I stop moving, and hold up my arm and make a fist - signaling for the rest of the party to stop. "Hrungara," I whisper. Everyone at the table looks confused. No ones character speaks Hallit, so I am forced to explain further. "The point beyond which mammoths do not go willingly." I gesture at the towers. "Danger lies ahead."

Everyone gets a good chuckle and I feel like a badass for writing down the one documented Hallit word I could find in Paizo products.

But it got better from there.

At the end of the game, we make it to the lodge and the people there come out to greet us. "Come in friends, have a drink, a rest -- put those goblins up in the barn; it'll be fine!" The GM asks us to roll sense motive checks, I get a natural 20. Again, I am the only one that senses something is afoot. I smile at the man who just stepped out and step forward to shake his hand. He accepts, and I introduce myself. "Hrungara, friend." Our wizard remembers what I said earlier, gasps in alarm, and starts casting. Combat then begins as I keep hold of his hand and start growing claws as I rage. "Tell me friend, why do you LIE?!"

Yeah, I'm in love with this character.

[Jiggy]

First Steps 2:

Very intelligent playing the last time I ran this scenario in a private home game.

They got the info from the ghoul that the katana was in the possession of the leader of a tribe of kobolds, and also got a rough map of the site.

They turned right upon first entering through the front door, and encountered the spider room. I described what they saw and asked what they were going to do.

"Why would the tribe leader, alive last the ghoul knew, be in the obvious den of a giant spider? No thanks, we'll head the opposite direction."

The room with the bugs has a door that's stuck.

"Why would the tribe leader live in a room whose door is currently stuck shut? There's no way he's in there. Moving on."

Every area was evaluated through a lens of "Would it be reasonable to believe that a sentient humanoid using this area as his permanent residence is more likely to be here than in some other room I haven't checked yet?"

Funnily enough, thinking like a rational person on a mission to retrieve the katana (rather than the avatar of a gamer with a compulsive habit of checking EVERYTHING) drastically changes the scenario. We were done in 2.5 hours.

[godsDMit]

Race for the Runecarved Key: I am playing a Paladin of Erastil, and the party heads to the inn, I think, to 'talk' to a halfling about leaving town. I decide to stay downstairs and talk with the owner of the inn about the finer points of proper house plant maintenance. The party ends up in a fight with the guy and trying to coerce/threaten him into cooperating.

GM: Do you wanna help them or anything?
Me *rolls Perception*...I got a 2, I dont think I hear anything. So about that ficus...

--------------------------------------------

Daline Affair: I'm GMing (for the 3rd-ish time), party gets to the final fight.

Me: Isaiah, you're up first (He's playing a Taldan character).
Isaiah: I go over and loot the body.
Me: *facepalm*
Isaiah: *rolls Perception* 28! What do I find?
Me: PICK SOMETHING ELSE TO DO!
Isaiah: Why?
Me: Cause that's ____________, and they dont give a stat block for him, so I dont know what he has on him, but mostly cause it's __________!

Edit: Cause I remembered more of the conversation...

Isaiah: Ok...can I make a Heal check on him? *rolls* 20?
Me: He is very clearly dead. He looks like a Pez dispenser.

[godsDMit]

Frostfur Captives:

Our party decides to tie the goblins up with rope so they are all in a line, like prisoners with their hands bound. We get to the fight at the towers, and the goblins are eager to help. I move up to the tower and see them heading my way, while the only goblin left in the tower I am next to is climbing down the ladder.
Me: I open the door.
GM: You see the goblin climbing down the ladder. He gets to the bottom, but that is the end of his turn.
Me: I also tell our goblins to get him.
GM: Ok?
Other players: But they'll get hurt, their disrmed and tied up, etc!
GM: So your goblins run into the room.
.
.
.
.
GM: Seth, your turn.
Me: I close the door.
Other players: Your not even going to help them? What if they get hurt? etc.
Me: There are five of them in there, and only one for them to fight. They'll be fine.

They were fine. :P

[Tim Vincent]

This is more schadenfreude(sp?) than anything...

First Steps 1: Guy shows up to table with a sorcerer. All he does is go on and on about how he has really high DC on his daze save. Like DC 17 or something. Braggeng on and on about how he is going to ruin everything with his Charm Person which has an even high save DC.

GM just looks at him after a few minutes of his bragging and simply asks, What's his CON score? I didn't hear what it was cause I wasn't paying attn.

Long story short he stepped into combat, cast color spray, didn't take down the *redacted* and the *redacted* hit him with a x3 crit and he died.

Luckily this was the end of the session so we only had to hear him complain for very long. about how he had been planning that PC for a really long time and that he used some special boon to get a unique race or something. I thought he was going to cry right there at the table!

[nosig]

Not sure if I should spoiler this... it's for

Race for the Rune Carved Key:

I'm playing a over-the-top Face character... and I check with the rest of the players if it was Ok for me to just "Talk our way out" of the encounters. They say "no fighting is ok" so...

We're given a mission to ambush a shipment just outside of town. We want what's in the wagon, and aren't real concerned with how we get it. So I turn to the other players and say, "let's just walk right up, tell them we're here to pick up the shipment, and walk away with it."

Several players chuckle and say "yeah, sure...". One insists on hanging back in the woods and getting ready for the fight. He's a fighter rogue after all...And here's what we do.

Spells cast:
Aura of the Unremarkable & Glibbness

and we walk plainly down the road from town to the camp site. We have some GREAT RP for 10 mins or so game time... "Great job you guys have done! We'll take it from here. I'll be sure to mention you in my report - how exactly do you spell your name? M-O-O-K-#-4? Great! oh, do you think you guys can hitch the wagon up for me? And my guards and I will be on our way and you can get some well deserved time off."

The Saves for the Aura were DCs 22+, and Bluff rolls (Taking 10) 60+.

The player in the woods responded "60 WHAT?" when I gave the judge my bluff number. So I told him "Well, I could take 20 and get a 70+, but I can only do that once per day...".

Later the same player was shocked when I took 10 on a Perception and got a 12... esp. after I explained that it was a class skill and I had a rank in it. "Yeah, this PC is built for social settings."

[ScrollMasterRob]

Fortress of the Nail.

My halfling rogue FINALLY put his skills in the fine art of forgery to good use. After all was said and done, we simply walked out with everyone we needed.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Starting with my very first Organized Play adventure ever, with my half-mad egomaniac Gnomish Summoner Lucija Lal Rani (who looks rather like this old computer game character here) and her Eidolon Naghamadi, whom I've decided is a lot like one of the sandworms from Beetlejuice in form and a lot like the mythical Serpent of Eden in personality (Lucija's tutor in religion and the planes, as well as her surrogate common sense and sense of self-preservation).

Silent Tide, story 1:

We're all off to a good start in the first battle. The enemy thugs try to fend us off with their crossbows and are failing their attack rolls with alarming reliability. Having been told by the DM they are wearing padded armor, I feel compelled to ask, "This padded armor they're wearing - it doesn't happen to all be made of white plastic, does it?"
Anyway, we win, at least one surrenders, and while the Paladin (strongest guy in the party) is handling rescuing the chained sages from the cliff, Lucija is making herself useful coup-de-graceing unconscious enemy thugs with acid splashes to the face, accompanied by quiet prayers of sacrifice to Lamashtu. Once that's taken care of, I'm called up to dissolve the sages' shackles with the same spell, after which I interrogate one who'd surrendered. I've got a +5 Charisma modifier to start with, and then I make a natural 20 on my Intimidate check - so what you've got is this little scowling Gnome and her terrifying serpentine *thing* at her back staring down this poor Human thug who it turns out doesn't even know anything useful, and as the DM puts it, "he's blubbering like a child". So begins the legend of Lucija and Naghamadi - there's a new b&&&!-queen in town!

Silent Tide, story 2:

We've reached the final tower. They've got a mean guard-dog out front. We have an Eidolon with the Unnatural Aura Evolution - normal animals are terrified of it. So while the Magus is running forward and trying to do something or other with the post anchoring the dog's chain, and most of us are hanging back and exchanging fire with the guards in the towers, my Eidolon slithers forward to engage the vicious hound - who starts running the other way maxing out the range on his chain as Naghamadi chases him in a circle around its fulcrum. While it was never clear what the Magus's original plan was, she manages to take advantage of the situation and make a successful Strength check to uplodge the post, allowing the dog to run off into the distance doing its whole "YIPEYIPEYIPEYIPE" thing.

I made that character then because the party didn't have a healer (outside of a Paladin with one of the traits that let him stabilize at will with a touch), and already had a a Magus and a Wizard, so I elected to make that character I'd been considering before that could nearly fill the role - someone who could protect people by spitting out monsters.

My Eidolon wound up doing the job, too.:

When the final boss and his entourage formed their chorus-line of unitive reaction, it was Naghamadi who stepped up and was reduced to 1 hit point by maximum damage from the boss's flail.

That game was run by what I considered a pretty fun DM who I unfortunately never saw again due to interpersonal conflicts with the event's initial organizer (who happened to be the one playing the aforementioned Magus). My group had some trouble starting out and even collapsed for about a season, but fortunately it was resurrected later. I'll be back with more stories; Lucija and others I've known have certainly got them!

[Draede]

Ran a game a few days ago, where the PCs convinced a bridge guarding half-ogre that his talents for speech would be best applied as a bard. A new player now wants to play him. Oh, and they gave him his first ever name. Reginald Delicious.

[Cold Napalm]

A game I wan yesterday, the halfling party bard was attempting to sneak by hiding under a waitress's dress. He rolls a 12 and gets caught with a scream of pervert from said waitress. He bluffs his way out of it and then attempts again (exact same method)...and rolls a 1 on his stealth...

[Netopalis]

I had a great time at my table recently with the gnomish crane game. It involves a gnome, a tower shield, lots of rope and a pool of water with objects at the bottom.

[FLite]

I got my first chance to try out my gnome prankster riding a giant gecko last week. I established early on that if there was a wall or ceiling available I would be on it instead of the floor. The increasing looks of bemusement each time my character avoided having to make a reflex check because I wasn't on the floor when bad things happened was just hilarious.

[Matthew Morris]

Mind of a meta one from the other day.

We're at a dinner party and one of the NPCs goes off on Irrisen, killing witches, burning witches etc. She gets done and the host turns to my PC for a comment.

Purely OOC: "Thank G_d I'm playing Mayim and not Ksenia." :-)

Of course I'd likely have failed the mission as I could picture Ksenia listening to the rant for a bit and going "Bored now." *slumber*

[nosig]

Thread necro! Just wanted to read some fun things today.

Sometimes the boards can be such a downer.... let's see if this helps.

Comment heard in a game of God's Market Gamble...

"Hay! how about them Greycloaks! What do you think of their starting line up this year? I hear they haven't got a prayer..."

[nosig]

group of new players in First Steps - 3 of the five playing an RPG for the first time, the other was a younger kid (yeah, the "experienced gamer" was maybe not...).

At the warehouse they discover thier ninja has no ranks in Disable Device, and they are concerned about braking down the door. Looking around they find a boat... yada-yada, climb up the hole into the warehouse.

Disturb the inhabitants, and several minutes pass while they first fight then get the McMuffen. Yeah! It's high fives and congrats all around, ... then they discover no one tied the boat off... and it's drifted away.

After braking OUT, they all do the "I'm not guilty fast walk" away from the dock - glancing around to see if anyone saw them.

[Nekoshibou]

My carnavalist and the party bard talked a couple guards for a warehouse into going to the bar with us. leaving the rest of the party to explore the warehouse.

The bard had pretty much convinced the guards my thrush could balance on a barrel and juggle. Everytime they would ask to see this the thrush would play dead ... performance anxiety you know.

I GM'd a table where the clericbarian and the barbarian decided to get one of the players female summoners to wrestle with my daughters gnome bard and charge npc's to watch. The summoner started to say something about how it wouldn't be fair with her being so small when my daughter's gnome jumps on the summoners back and yells "LET'S DO THIS". The parties magus proceeded to cast grease which got him some nasty mom looks.

[nosig]

Last weekend I got one of my PCs into a real problem... I sucked up a little to much attention from the BBE and was 5 or 6 HP into dead. The judge was great and let me see if I could pull a rabbit out of my hat, and sure enoungh I had the following one shot boon on my PC...

Desperate Bargain: Presented with a choice between damnation and domination, you chose the latter and might choose it again. As an immediate action when you are reduced to fewer than 0 hit points, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to 2d10 + your character level that last for 3 rounds. During these 3 rounds, you are confused as per the confusion spell. Each round, you may attempt a DC 18 Will save to remove the condition. At the end of 3 rounds or when you successfully save against the confusion effect, all remaining temporary hit points are lost and you resume dying if your hit point total remains below 0. Once you have used this boon, cross it off the Chronicle sheet.

so... Immediate action to get 17 temporary HP. So I'm still standing - but it's my turn, so I grit my teeth and roll the Will save... (I just realized as I type this that the Boon says "...you may attempt ...a Will save" - I thought I had to do a Will save each round...) anyway. The judge says something like - "I know you can fail a will save. Last game I watched you roll 4 strait natural 1's on a will save...". So I roll the die and there it is... a Nat 20. A successful Will save here would mean "all remaining temporary hit points are lost and you resume dying" or in this case just resume being dead.

So I take my shirt re-roll... to re-roll a natural 20 Will save... and worry that I'll get a 15, as I have 3 judge stars and my re-roll is +3...

Thankfully, the re-roll was a 12, so I failed the Will save and the party healed me to just above Dead.

Anyone else ever needed to make a re-roll to fail a check?

[Disturbed1]

All of these are in reference to Glass River Rescue:

1. I had a 6-person table with a 5-way party split while at the inn.

2.

Spoiler:

Ive run this 5-6 times, and I think Ive successfully convinced all of the parties except maybe one that the Grymble sisters are actually a coven of witches

3.

Spoiler:

Ive made two male players (This is two separate situations. One player per instance of this happening) feel a bit worried at the table when they decided to stay with the sisters to distract them. The sisters ask for help in the kitchen, and then had him stand between two of them while they washed dishes. Both players seemed to think they were either about to be murdered and eaten or molested.

:P

[David Neilson]

One amusing story was playing my halfling paladin. Now he has at this point gone through six mounts, pretty much all of them due to various area effects. So after the latest had just died due to a death affect where they had rolled a one. So the party wizard says he can help by using planar binding to get a suitable mount. He summons a hound archon, and proceeds to ask it if it would act as my mount. He proceeds to fail to bind it. The funny part was really the GM who had been there both running and as a player at a good number of the former mount's unfortunate demises playing the archon as looking at the paladin shaking his head saying "Oh him... no, I think not."

[RainyDayNinja]

nosig wrote:

Anyone else ever needed to make a re-roll to fail a check?

When I played "To Scale the Dragon," we were doing the dogsled chase/fight with the Aspis, and (IIRC) our VC's barbarian had jumped to one of the Aspis sleds to attack them. Something happened that required the Aspis driver to make a Handle Animal check to keep the sled from falling off a cliff, and he rolled poorly. But the VC produced a boon from a chronicle that allowed him to force an Aspis agent to reroll a skill check. It still didn't work, but I never thought I would see someone make an Aspis reroll hoping for a better result.

[TriOmegaZero]

nosig wrote:

Anyone else ever needed to make a re-roll to fail a check?

I had an archer want to reroll his crit just so he didn't kill the poor NPC outright. :)

This past weekend I ran a scenario involving a mock combat on stage. The party proceeded to catch their foes in an aqueous orb, mostly ending the fight.

Then, to add insult to injury and play to the crowd, the gnome pissed into the orb.

[Shaco]

Not really a pathfinder story but close enough and I feel it fits the them of the thread. Played in a game with around 6 Pc's and we where doing the average home brewed adventure.In the middle of a dungeon craw the party somehow got split up and the cleric and fighter some how managed to get into the ducts of this place but the cleric was a man supremely fond of his tower shield and was told by the DM that it would be difficult getting through the ducts with a tower shield. So instead of ditching the tower shield the cleric decided im going to tie it to my leg and drag it. Well the fighter had gone in first as the cleric proceeded to make his adjustments to his shield then the cleric followed. It was slow going for the cleric as he was dragging this big ass shield behind him and the whole time it would be making this scraping noise as it slid across the ducts ever so slowly and it was loud enough so the rest of the party in the dungeon was able to hear the noise (and for that matter anything else in the dungeon. So there were no real surprise actions for the rest of the craw).In response we all just stop in our tracks and look around confused and say "What the hell is that". A little while after this the fighter makes it through the duct and comes out the other side into a dark room as the DM describes the room, he also adds in the description that there seems to be a flicker of light at the back of this long dark room and it seems to be getting closer. The fighter draws his sword and gets ready as a massive skeleton with a ball of flame stuck in its chest approaches.The fighter goes into it and does some dmg but on its turn it reaches into its chest pulls out the flame and throws it at the fighter and then he says his famous last words that bellow down all of the halls of the dungeon "AHH IM COOKIN" this causes us all to stop again and the cleric who was still in the ducts stops as well and just sits there for a few mins before working up the bravery to continue. In short the duct cleric is able to dispatch the skeleton giant with a single swing of its mace and he was able to keep his beloved tower shield. Later on in the campaign we raised the fighter as a juju zombie named crispy. Who could talk but would only say "Ehm Crispy"

[Purple Fluffy CatBunnyGnome]

Hrmm .. my recent story ...

My boyfriend just played his first PFS game and is now enthusiastically pushing me to start a weekly home game if he can find the people and has gone with me to check out a gamestore in the area that hasn't been tapped for PFS yet.

[RainyDayNinja]

Running "The Blakros Matrimony" this weekend, the enlarged Amiri clone crit with her huge bastard sword for 61 damage in the 3-4 subtier. Amazingly, the guy was still standing at -7 with Diehard. On her next turn, she crit AGAIN! That guy was just a smear on the grass at that point.

[Jeremiah Hatcher]

RainyDayNinja wrote:

Running "The Blakros Matrimony" this weekend, the enlarged Amiri clone crit with her huge bastard sword for 61 damage in the 3-4 subtier. Amazingly, the guy was still standing at -7 with Diehard. On her next turn, she crit AGAIN! That guy was just a smear on the grass at that point.

Yes. It was a good day to be had by all. At first I was worried that the Enlarge Person spell would be to slow for use in combat sense it has a 1 round casting time but what happened this weekend has assured me it was a good pick for a first level character buffer spell. Just need to get a quicken spell meta magic rod in the future, but by then I will have other buffs.