RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Ok Quentin that reminds me of an almost story...
Playing an archaeologist one of my 'utility belt' characters. On a ship, we see a storm coming in. "I pull out my scroll of control weather."
The table comes to a complete halt and everyone looks at me. "Kidding, I don't have a scroll of control weather."
Venture officer (who's running the table). "If anyone would, it would be you."
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Got a funny one from today at the convention. I'd played Kahel twice before, so today when I joined Wounded Wisp I earned my 3rd chronicle, thus 3rd XP. Well before now I'd only done a very minor rebuild to switch blast types and pick up a skill needed for my faction card goals. Other then that I left class, race, and everything else the same.
Well, today most people decided to play brand new characters. Only one person from my lodge who was at the table was playing someone Kahel had worked with before. Mind you, I'd decided to do a rebuild while me and the GM were waiting for almost 2 hours to start. Since I was switching from Human to Kitsune (now have that book) I'd let him read the info on them and showed him the pdf's watermark. when the game started I was just finishing up by adding up his skill totals and marking class skills.
Since the GM handwaved my race change as "you've always been a kitsune, you just never felt the need to reveal it before now" i started the session in my shape changed human form. Well at one point we are about to enter a dark cave with faint light coming from somewhere up ahead, so Low Light conditions. Plenty of humans in the group, nobody has a single torch. And nobody can cast Light or Dancing Lights (i'd taken the Swift Shifter alternate racial trait). So in character I sigh and say "Well, I was hoping to keep this a secret for a little longer". I then shift into my kitsune form.
The fighter I'd worked with before goes says something like "Damn Kahel, what happened to you? Did you lose a fight with a rug?"
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Oh! Speaking of The Merchant's Wake reminds me of a story from when I ran it.
So there was a character there who was basically Al Gore. When the party was picking a gift at the beginning, he snuck his book on environmentalism in as one of the choices.
He said, "Oh, what is this? The gift of knowledge, the greatest gift of all."
So, since nobody else really had a strong preference, guess which gift they gave.
Now, as anybody who has played the scenario might remember, the skeletal champion at the end is wielding whichever gift you gave.
So he fought the party with a book.
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Oh! Speaking of The Merchant's Wake reminds me of a story from when I ran it.
** spoiler omitted **
The rest of the party is *down* from the negative channels and then suddenly he panics and looks at the rest of the table. "I'm going to end up a square short if I charge her." There's a stunned moment as we all look at each other, then the player, who goes 'What?' "Dude, you've got a reach weapon. The same one that you haven't been able to use in any other fight. SAVE US!" Sure enough, charges in, crits, confirms, *splat*
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Staven, level 11 air elementalist wizard. Don't anger or bore high level wizards, it doesn't end well. Also, extended life bubble goes on my party - always. This ends up being relevant more than you'd think.
Story #1: Staven is in a certain round mountain. Sometimes, we've successfully negotiated and sometimes we haven't. However, we're now in a cave! And... A fight breaks out (pathfinders). It's apparent the dirty melee-types are getting it done, but it's taking forever. The solution to boredom? Cloud kill on top of the party! (Lower con = less health = faster kills, right?) This actualy works but... Clouds of the killing variety move, and what I thought was a solid wall wasn't (pesky map edge wasn't the end of the world), so down the tunnel it goes! No biggie... then the GM asks me to roll for con damage to an unseen opponent. Oops. Roll con damage 3 or 4 more times and never mind, it's okay after all. The swarm isn't smart enough to move out of the cloudkill -- fumigation occured.
Story #2: same adventure. We've encountered a dragon, who has had enough and decides to fly away. He's below me (air elementalist is so lovely) but in an obscuring mist. Queue cyclone, removing his mist and his ability to remain flying. The bloodrager in the party jumps off a cliff to land on the downed dragon, sword first. No more Mr dragon!
Story #3: different adventure - neither bored nor angry. We've snuck into a certain establishment via the back door. GM: "you hear a hissing sound and a haze fills the air." Staven: "cloud? Obscuring mist? Can a spellcraft check tell me what it is?" Gm: "none of the above. Your party just triggered a poison mist, but since you're all in life bubble... It doesn't matter."
Story #4: yet another adventure. Poor gm has just read what must be a half page of monologue from our opponent in the stage of the tournament we're in -- who isn't the final boss. 1 vs a group of 10/11s should be quite the fight, but staven got bored during the monologue, time's ticking, and staven's going first.... "You bore me. Icy prison, DC 26." Gm fails the save. Staven to the party: "gentlemen, let's (do what had to be done to leave the room); he'll keep." We do. Since the poor fella isnt getting out of the ice (26 strength checks are rough) as we leave, the soft-hearted fighter in the group chips him out so he won't die. See, not all fighters are murder hobos!
Story #5: still another adventure. I've learned that if I make a knowledge check and the GM asks what I want to know, the response is "what's their weakest save?" We face a caster, who suggested that the rogue head to the next room and wait to be eviscerated. The rogue has failed his save, and is happily doing so, which angers staven: that wasn't very nice. Staven's turn. Weakest save? Reflex. "Icy prison. Leave the ice block alone. And could someone go grapple the rogue?" Okay, so icy prison isn't really nice either.
Later on, after another long monologue, the answer was: Fortitude. "Suffocation. Leave the gasping one alone and take out the mooks."
One more game and staven dings 12. My 1st high level caster (I've tended towards fighters and healers); I'm going to miss seeing what high level casters can do.
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Exiel is my highest level PFS character with several stories under his belt. He's now a paladin 2/oracle 1/Sorcerer 8 with a focus on diplomacy.
Some notable mentions:
After defeating a couple of Taldan soldiers who were part of a larger siege on a small town, the party heard sounds of more soldier coming. He carried the bodies of one of them to search for clues as to what they were doing here (mission briefs etc, but also to check for useful equipment). We were stopped as we were trying to enter the town.
GM: The Taldans are attacking again! To arms!
Me: Wait! Stop! We're not Taldans! We're here to help! (Lifts dead Taldan soldier.) Look! Dead Taldan!
Gm: (Pauses) (Pauses) (Pauses) Well that's a whole other kettle of fish then! Come on in!
Was later brought to 1hp shy of permanent death from falling in a cave-in, and there were ghouls waiting down below. GM was rolling to see whether the ghoul would randomly target me instead of one of my conscious allies (1d2)... and to see whether the last ally who had not acted happened to be the one carrying the healing potion we looted earlier(1d4). Both rolls I came up lucky, but that was by FAR the closest Exiel ever came to death...
Different GM.
After successfully getting past a nasty fire-based trap (some random button-pressing was involved), we finally got to the MacGuffin.
Then an Ulfen warrior came knocking looking for treasure.
Because I was a Snow-brother of the Ulfen Snowmask Clan (boon from an earlier scenario), I tried to talk him out of fighting, and succeeded. Ulfen warrior comes closer to shake my hand.
Click. Boom.
What we didn't know was that all our random button-pressing had RE-ACTIVATED the trap, and we had managed to avoid re-triggering it in getting past the trapped area. So the trap was still armed when we all got to the other side! My new Ulfen friend was burned and blinded, and much apologising and free healing had to be quickly given. XD
Party disguised as undead via a MacGuffin's transmutation/necromancy effect. Successfully talked down a group of Pharasman clerics from attacking the party. (Had to take an arrow to the shoulder in the process, but hey, paladin's code et al. Thank-you-max-ranked-diplomacy.)
Ah... The finest moment in sheer dumb luck. Wizard friend got 2 critical enervations on Krune in a row. Myself and another sorcerer both wanted to use pilfering hands to steal Krune's rod, 'cos we suspected it was his most dangerous tool. The other sorc went first and succeeded, so I went for the spear instead (though we didn't know what properties either item had). Krune dimension-doored away. The wizard quickly gave directions for a sweep of the area and then dimension-doored himself, myself and 2 summoned Bralanis to another corner of the chamber, where he thought we might get a decent amount of line-of-sight. As luck would have it again, Krune WAS within line of sight when we appeared, AND within charging distance. Exiel declared a smite evil, charged Krune with his own spear and CRITTED. Wizard followed up with an empowered intensified fireball (not sure if it was also dazing, a metamagic rod and several feats and traits to boost fireballs were involved). We never knew whose attack killed Krune, but we stomped Krune in three or four rounds of relentless attacks.
After the fact, we learned that the spear was actually the more important item to steal because it was Krune's bonded item, and stealing it prevented him from spontaneously casting Summon Monster 9 - and thereby summoning a creature that could remove all those negative levels before stomping us. Crit-stabbing him with it was delicious gravy.
Boneshatter (saved), Siphoin Might (failed save), Adhesive spittle (failed save, dropping him down beside me), smite-full-attack.
Based on his damage roll (he hit me once on a natural 20), I'm pretty sure I reduced him to 10 or 11 STR through my spells before nearly killing him with the full-attack; would have been lower if he failed the save on the boneshatter. After the full-attack, the GM said: "What, you couldn't just do that from the beginning?" XD
Anyway, duel won, enemy army retreated in a panic. The adventure continues. =)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Heh, your icy prison story reminds me.
Playing <redacted> have to fight a witch from Irrisen (not a winter wtich) Our Wizard gets the drop on her, uses icy prison. My winter witch is upset. (she's family after all) and convinces the rest of the party to save her. Party is winter witch (me), slayer, shadowdancer, wizard, sorcerer, bard.
Order of events (all readied actions mind you)
Wizard removes Icy prison (don't remember how)
Bard throws his highest cure X spell, healing damage so...
Ksenia can throw ice tomb, and not kill her.
After that the gnome sorcerer asks why we saved her.
"Because she's family."
"I thought you said you had a good reason!"
Plus there are few things more fun then when the GM forgets you're a seeker level winter witch.
"Ice tomb!"
"Hah, he failed his save but he's immune to cold!"
"No... no he's not."
One a bit more adult so spoilered.
"So about those grey robes..."
"I think we should see you in nothing, first."
MAyim slips out of the white robes, revealing nothing but a pocketed scarf (with a dagger in it) "Do you like it? It was a donation from a supplicant. I wanted to show it to you myself." Snaps it tight between her hands, "And it's so versatile." (rolls good bluff check)
Ends up with him tied to the bed with his own manicles. Feet tied with the scarf. She's on top of him. I tell the GM "Now we're going to re-enact a scene from a movie."
GM shudders, "Which movie?"
"Basic Instinct."
So Mayim slips the dagger out leans down by the head of the blindfolded priest. "Have you heard the words of... Calistra?" *insert Coup de grace here.*
And that's how a bard 2 kills a 7th level Monk/Sorcerer solo...
I'm going to put her on hold until Dirty Tactics is approved, to see if I can get the wasp familiar. :-)
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While running We Be Goblins Too the party has been roflstomping everything so far... except for during the Cheiften Games. Those almost killed them. So they're feeling big, their feeling confident, they open a door. They see an owlbear.
At this point I have to stop the game to explain what the hell an owlbear is. We've got two new to PFS players, one of them this is his first time roleplaying to begin with.
Anyway, I get back to describing the scene to them. They'd forgotten to roll for stealth (not that it would have helped, I'd pre-rolled the owl bear's perception and rolled excessively high). So I describe the creature turning it's head towards the door. I describe how beady it's eyes look to them. How unnerving it is for the head to twist like it does. The owlbear turns around, and takes a single step towards them.
Mogmerch, played by the kid who'd never roleplayed before cries out "Close the door! close the door!"
Afterwords they decide not to mess with the owlbear, or the pigs they'd previously found. So I dutifully crossed off the Owlbear boon from the sheet, check what they didn't find and cross that off, and what not. When I hand out the chronicle sheets the kid looks at the crossed off boon.
"Oh man, I could have gotten an owlbear for a mount? We should have killed it."
Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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This was one I GMed recently, but I think it's funny enough to share:
Players need to enter a town where they're not welcome. Guards at the gate halt them. One player manages to piss off the guard and a fight ensues. They kill two guardsmen and knock the captain unconscious. In a panic they decide to take the captain with them as they flee so she won't raise the alarm when she comes to. So now they've kidnapped one of Irrisen's elite guards, and they're going majorly off-track. They flee to a nearby cave to interrogate the captain and of course she won't talk. A patrol comes by, the captain yells for help, another fight ensues. They kill the patrol, decide to stash the captain in the cave until they return (killing would be evil, but can't set her free, either).
Meanwhile, 90 minutes has passed in realtime and the adventure hasn't even started yet. I did the following:
They decide to try the gate again with a better cover story. When they arrive, a guard shouts at them, "Hey, are you travelling merchants?" Better come inside quickly, there's bandits on the loose. No one's safe, not even our own guards!"
My players had a laugh at that and we continued. I fudged it a little, but they did their best and we really needed to move on. It's a great example how one bad decision leads to the next.
Speaking of which, I did a dumb thing as well. We needed to talk to an NPC, but he fled when combat ensued. He dropped something though, so I left a note for him saying that if he wanted his item back, we'd be at <location>. I honestly just wanted to keep it safe for him, but due to the wording he sent the guards after us. Me playing a paranoid scaredy cat, I spent most of the scenario in hiding because I didn't want to show my face in public. >_>
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Played my Kitsune Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian in a scenario where we were specifically told during the briefing not to break or damage anything in the house we were going into. My Kitsune's reaction to every room in any dungeon she's ever played in is "Oh is it shiny can I touch it I want it what does it do can I have it?!" So during the course of this adventure, she systemically trashed every room in the mansion looking for 'shinies'. Rather than attempting to stop or hinder her (not gonna happen with a 60 ft move speed), the party helpfully pointed out priceless antiquities and fragile items that she'd missed in her cyclone-like sifting of the manor's interior.
Needless to say, there was no second prestige point received for that scenario.
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A little while ago my Shield Champion got to interrupt a villain monologue with a Knockout shield throw from across a large room.
"Ahah! The heroes arrive! I shall proceed to reveal my master pl-" <THOCK>
"You talk too much".
Hey, *I* thought it was funny.
:)
-j
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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Played my Kitsune Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian in a scenario where we were specifically told during the briefing not to break or damage anything in the house we were going into. My Kitsune's reaction to every room in any dungeon she's ever played in is "Oh is it shiny can I touch it I want it what does it do can I have it?!" So during the course of this adventure, she systemically trashed every room in the mansion looking for 'shinies'. Rather than attempting to stop or hinder her (not gonna happen with a 60 ft move speed), the party helpfully pointed out priceless antiquities and fragile items that she'd missed in her cyclone-like sifting of the manor's interior.
Needless to say, there was no second prestige point received for that scenario.
I personally would have a big problem with this. Seems kind of "jerky" and not nice to the other players.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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A little while ago my Shield Champion got to interrupt a villain monologue with a Knockout shield throw from across a large room.
"Ahah! The heroes arrive! I shall proceed to reveal my master pl-" <THOCK>
"You talk too much".
Hey, *I* thought it was funny.
:)
-j
Yeah, played a 3.0 module years ago. had tanglefoot bag at the ready (even then, yes I used them) "I ready a tanglfoot bag if he speaks or casts."
Villian gets out "Hold!" and splat.
Best thing of all? This was the night before the group went and saw Two Towers. We all cheered at the "Don't let him speak." scene.
So I very much approve.
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The dice were hot for my 1st level Nagaji Bloodrager at Rapier con this year. In the adventure, aside for getting a raging critical hit with a glaive for over 50 points of damage, when we were getting chased by a T Rex, he threw a javelin to try slowing it down, Nat 20. Roll to confirm said the GM, Nat 20 comes up again. Cheering as the group was rather close to the creature in the chase. Roll again said the other players just to see if it might have killed it in 3.5 (but not here). Nat 20. Even more cheering but darn, no armor made out of the T Rex.
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This one comes from back when I was game mastering AD&D 2nd edition.
The party's been hired to protect the wedding of a minor noble's daughter. Somebody's been killing his guards after all, and he fears the wedding will be a target. So they're investigating the grounds and getting the lay of the land. When they reach the area where the wedding will be I describe a white structure with open sides. It's about 15 feet tall and ten feet wide and has a dome on the top. They can see benches made of stone inside the structure.
Someone asks "Do I know what it is?" So I ask him to roll a D20. I've already got on hand a list of his skills and his stats for quick reference. And when I check, he's got Knowledge: Architecture, which is an Int -2 skill. Since his Int is 14, he needs to roll a 12 or less. He barely pulls it off, so I tell him "You're not positive, but you think this is a gazebo." He tells the others.
At this point the wizard asks "Is it doing anything?" So I reply with "no, it's a gazebo. It's just sitting there."
The cleric says he's grabbing a stick and poking the gazebo. Then asks "Did it respond?" My reply is "No. it's a gazebo, it just sit's there."
This goes on for about ten minutes real time. By now I'm getting kind of frustrated. Finally the fighter who'd initially identified what the structure is goes "I don't like this, I draw my sword and attack."
My response was along the lines of ".......... Fine, it hisses and reveals it's true form as. At which point you all realize you've been standing inside a giant mimic. Make reflex saves."
Everyone fails their saves, in fact I see SIX natural ones for the saves. They panic so badly they toss their weapons away (this is what the PLAYERS described upon seeing how badly they failed the save), getting eaten by the mimic. Afterwords I ask "Do any of you know what the hell a gazebo is?"
I get a round of "no?", "huh?" and "a type of monster, right?" from everyone. So I convince everyone to follow me six blocks to a local park. I point out the structure in the center of the park. One they've seen hundreds of times. "THAT is a gazebo."
At this point I have six very embarassed players going "Oooooh"
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Seriously, if you don't let them monologue, then they can't tell you how to defeat their evil plan. =>
I swear, we once fought against a psychic BBEG with permanent True Seeing on. We're gearing up for the final fight behind the door, someone casts Invisibility Sphere around us and opens the door. Queue the box text describing how the villain has waited for this very day to take revenge, yada yada, pointing us out as Pathfinders and looking us in the eyes while we're invisible.
Sometimes box text gets really silly.
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Got a few, I suppose...
Imperia - my first, favorite, and highest level character by far - is a Chelaxian Oracle/Diabolist and a dyed-in-the-wool Asmodean, yet her primary role in the group is that of healer and party face, with minors in flame-throwing and (later) some basic anti-outsider spells.
There were a few amusing instances early in her career - getting trampled by a herd of stampeding bison represented by My Little Pony figurines, for example - but the better ones come a bit later... As I tend to be a bit verbose, we'll start with one for now.
So we make our way to Ostergarde at the behest of the Blackros family, who had acquired the long-abandoned manor as a dowry for their newlywed daughter and wanted it thoroughly checked out before any of the family took up residence. We arrive in the midst of a storm, soaked and chilled (except for myself, who had spent time with the Snowmask Clan up north and could simply ignore the cold) and find a ruined coach sitting just outside the stable. After a cursory look around, a pack of howlers ambush us - because we weren't really being stealthy and they were. We have a rough first round, I make a Knowledge (planes) check and ask a couple of pertinent questions ("Are they immune to mind-affecting spells?" and "Do they have a good Will save?"), then dropped a Murderous Command on one. Its turn came around, it immediately tears into one of the other howlers and, vicious feral beasties that they are, the two just keep attacking each other. Party cleans up the others, the howler that I commanded kills its playmate, then gets put down by the melee in short order. So far so good.
We search the stables and find some journals implying that vagrants had stumbled upon the manor, then make our way indoors as well. After a fairly straightforward encounter where I am thoroughly mauled by a gargoyle, we stumble across a little girl hiding in a closet and sobbing. I manage to calm her down and we learn her name is Tilly Anders, that her family had been traveling and decided to take refuge from the weather, only to be chased into the manor by the howlers, and that she had been separated from her parents and sister Tarcey, who were, presumably, somewhere else in the house.
Now, Imperia is an Asmodean, and proudly so, but I play her as a very pleasant sort of Asmodean. Here we have a child in need and I feel it is my duty as an aspiring Hellknight Signifer to ensure she does not come to harm under my watch and reunite her with her family, if I can. So I take her under my wing and promise to take care of her until we find her parents.
We continue exploring, keeping Tilly out of harm's way. We find a library with a number of interesting snippets of information, namely that a number of dangerous prisoners thought to have been killed when their prison burned down had secretly been transported to Ostergarde shortly beforehand: namely, for our purposes, one Vaga Underbough who was serving a life sentence for "murder and indecency to corpses". We furthermore found a collection of books on the fiendish races entitled "The Gates Ajar", which a couple of party members attempted to take only to be rebuffed by unholy fire (failed their saving throw) - at which point, I step up, roll my eyes, blatantly ignore the DC 20 Will save, and stuff them into my pack for a bit of light reading. Eventually we make our way into the basement, and from there into the secret dungeons below. We find a chamber with summoning circles (absent of demon occupants due to a lack of time), as well as more documentation on the clandestine prisoner transfer, implications as to who had ordered it and why.
Finally we reach the final room of the dungeons, a massive pit filled with a large number of corpses that had been dressed and posed in "artistic" scenes of familial merriment. One of the party members asks Tilly to look into the pit and try to find her parents, she goes over next to him, peeks over his shoulder, then pulls a dagger seemingly out of nowhere and attempts to slit his throat. He survives, Tilly whistles and starts floating in mid air, and a pair of yeth hounds come out of hiding in the pit to attack.
I spent the next few rounds trying to keep the party from killing her while I worked my way down a mental checklist - demonic possession, domination-magic, etc. - and trying everything I could think of to narrow down what was going on with this girl I had been deliberately protecting for the entire scenario and what I could do to resolve it without having to breaking my promise of keeping her safe. Eventually, though, her hounds were dead, she was still coming at us, and I was tapped out of ideas and glumly acquiesced to the rest of the party's murderhobo-esque consensus of "just kill her and be done with it". Shortly thereafter, we're standing over the body of the little girl and I start examining her in earnest to try and figure out what had happened to make her turn on us. A few Perception and Heal checks later, as well as a "You're such a d***" to our GM from another who had been looking on, and we discovered the truth: the human girl we had known as Tilly Anders was actually Vaga Underbough, a halfling serial killer with the Childlike feat, from the very beginning and I had fallen for her ruse hook, line, and sinker.
Suffice it to say, I've made sure my Sense Motive score is maxed out ever since.
We found the real Tilly Anders, as well as her sister Tarcey, drugged but alive down in the pit (their parents, alas, not so much), nursed them back to health and took them with us back to civilization. I later had Imperia adopt them, via a couple of follower vanities.
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This one comes from back when I was game mastering AD&D 2nd edition.
Wait, this is you and your players? It's a very old story.
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This one comes from back when I was game mastering AD&D 2nd edition.Wait, this is you and your players? It's a very old story.
Had six friends back then, but none of them ever wanted to GM. Every week I had to spend my spare time working on the next adventure. You know, creating the dungeons/towers/towns, deciding the scripted encounters, stating out everything important, creating a random encounter table, writing out any clues they could find (if they ever bothered to actually investigate), deciding tactics of various badguys...
When you're 10 that's a LOT of book work to be doing every week.
And no, it wasn't. I'd read that story at the library the week before this happened in my group. I'd thought "That can't happen". Then it happened to me. When I later asked them, nobody had even heard of the Dread Gazebo story. They read it afterwords, and felt even more embarrassed.
One of my favorite stories is from when I took my Cartomancer Witch to From Under Ice.
So I turn to my party and say quietly "The cards say our guide is a Winter Witch, we need to treat her NICE."
So when we get captured by Ulfen, and we notice our guide is uncomfortable in their presence, we manage to convince them to let the guide stay with the boat. My witch also notices that the Ulfen have put way more guards on her than on her non-witch companions, and are treating her with suspicion and veiled hostility, all in all treating my witch very badly. The party of course agrees the the Ulfen ultimatum of sneaking them into the city without even negotiating, we know when we are at a disadvantage. They pile into our boat, and we continue on. We keep them as far away from our guide as we can, and quietly disparage them with our guide out of earshot.
When we arrive at the city, my witch promptly walks up to the first person of authority she can find and reports the Ulfen, their numbers, their hiding places and their plans. The shocked guards summon a commander, who gets every detail the party can give on the 'unwashed barbarians.' Because screw those guys for their ultimatums and their rude behavior, my witch is going make nice with the people ruling the country ruled by witches. I mean, they're her type of people, and the cards told her to. Then the party heads inside to find lodgings.
Of course, doing such a service for the city gets us a meeting with the countess. Who welcomes the party and thanks them for their kindness, much to the hateful eyes to the newly collared Ulfen slaves in the room. After we find out our 'guide' is her daughter, she invites us to a meal in her sculpted ice garden, which my witch expresses extreme delight in and compliments the crafter. And then spends a good bit talking spells and hexes and 'witching out' with the countess. The GM asked for a diplomacy check at this point, saying he'd give me a small bonus for the witchitude. And I promptly rolled a nat 20. The countess's attitude improves further and by the end of the day we had told her why we were there, what we were after, and even invited her and her daughter and any guards she wanted to JOIN us on the expedition. She accepted.
So she came, and her guard captain came, and some other guards came, and when we were attacked by a Winter Wolf, the GM instead of starting combat said 'You basically have two entire parties working together, including a high level spell caster and several martials, the wolf barely has time to regret the path that led him to this point in his life before he dies.'
Then we find what we are looking for, or rather, find where what we were looking for WAS, ending up with nothing but an empty cave, a frozen undead that died faster than the winter wolf and an old dwarf beard clasp. Our friends the countess and her entourage, having been along and seeing exactly what we did and did not find, shrugs at the loss and thanks us for the excursion. They start to head home, after agreeing to allow the daughter to come back to Absalom with us an join the Pathfinder Society, since the countess decided we were a fine upstanding organization that was welcome in their land any time.
AFTER the scenario was over our GM told us exactly how much combat had been avoided by talking before fighting, and by befriending the very people who were supposed to be the major end fight of the scenario. Leading to what has become a fun phrase for our lodge:
"Give that Witch a courtesy. Witches love courtesy!"
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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'Sani,
That was an awesome story.
Shades of Ice II
Shades of Ice III
Needless to say, he was not happy being in Katapesh. ;-)
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One of my favorite stories is from when I took my Cartomancer Witch to From Under Ice.
** spoiler omitted **...
Reminds me of when my lodge did From Under Ice.
Anyway, we meet up with our local guide and I started talking to her about the places and things I've read about, and how working for the Dark Archive is an adventure in it's self. She seems interested, but the tales of the others fascinate her more. Eventually we get stopped by a bunch of barbarians who are searching for contraband. Since our cover is that of traders, we stop. There's nothing illegal in our goods after all, just food supplies and stuff other stuff like nails, cloths, and blankets. I opted to stay with the boat and our local guide. Someone has to do so after all.
Mind you, I don't carry any weapons. Sure I have a chain shirt my father gave me before I headed out into the world, but no weapons. Why would I need them when the very winds are at my beck and call? Not sure what happened at the barbarian village, but a large group of those uncouth savages decided to 'escort' us to the city we have to stop at first. They stank and made my nose twitch in irritation. Not to mention I was glad I hadn't brought along any light reading. Those savages probably would have used any tomes I brought for kindling.
During the rest of the trip down river Kahlan whispered to me that someone was framing the city we were heading to for attacking this tribe. And the tribe was probably going to use us as cover to attack the city despite evidence saying this city is innocent. This didn't sit well with me. In fact I could see this going very very badly. This especially was true when the leader of those oafs said the city was weak and defenseless... after seeing the well defended city gates.
Now, I'm not very diplomatic. Nor do most find me very intimidating. But I was not going to get killed because these idiots decide to try attacking an innocent city. As I grew angry the wind began to swirl around me. Very noisy, very noticeable. Over the wind I could hear the gate guards crying out in alarm.
At this point I told the barbarians "No, you will turn around and head back to your village. You will not attack this city. You will not harm myself or my companions. You will go. Now. Or else." (intimidate check to aid the party's face while using Gather Power, GM ruled it's an auto assist)
All this wind, all this power coalesced into a scimitar in my right hand. I brought the blade of solidified air down sharply on a rock, cutting it in half. I guess this spooked the barbarians, because after a few words from a fellow pathfinder they left quietly.
Later after establishing trade between the city and the Pathfinder Society and acomplishing our actual mission I got to talk with our local guide again, the daughter of the city's ruler. This time she listened intently as I was telling her about how exciting working in the Dark Archive is, and how her knowledge could prove quite an invaluable asset. We don't have many winter witches after all. In fact she was so excited by the prospect, she came back with us to join the Dark Archive. (having on my chronicle "recruited Vliyara for Dark Archive is a nice feather in my cap IMO)
Annoyingly, just days after our return my coworkers made me try on an enchanted belt. Nobody could identify what it did, just that it had some sort of transformitive magic. And when I put it on I got robbed of my manhood. That was not amusing. I had to buy a whole new wardrobe then get THOSE modified to account for my tail when I return to my birth form. Although the expression on my supervisor's face when I finally revealed that i am in fact a kitsune and not human like he'd thought, that was hilarious.
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Huh, From Under Ice seems to be a very popular one...!
Due to background, my bard and the guide were doing this whole 'finding the right distance to keep from each other' most of the journey, really big on respecting the personal space and whatnot. Our encounter with the Ulfen went diplomatic, then my bard went blotto during dinner after making the proclamation that they were being crazy.
Next morning came along and said bard was nursing a hangover and suddenly part of an Ulfen raiding party. We get to a ride above the city, and we all pop out the huge Perception and other rolls to realize that it'd be suicide to approach the city in combat.
Hearkening back to the mission briefing, my bard strode right up to the guards with the satchel of 'merchant writs' we'd been given, and then the guards saw the Ulfen war party.
"What are they doing here?"
"Oh, we heard that the region was dangerous, they're our bodyguards."
After getting permission to enter (and for the Ulfen, too, as our 'bodyguards') we then 'ditched' them (with their blessing, because suddenly the idea of engaging in trade in this very prosperous enclave seemed a whole lot better than getting murdered at the gates to it...) my character name-dropped from a previous scenario and got fast-tracked to see the leader of this city.
...who was creating ice sculptures.
My bard is a follower of Shelyn...
The leader stopped and turned to talk to us and my poor bard nearly had a stroke and fell all over himself apologizing for disrupting her art and insisting she get back to it, we could wait until she hit a good stopping point, etc.
That reaction, in addition to having resolved the Ulfen situation, not making waves, etc, was enough to net us pretty much everything we came for, though unfortunately name-dropping the rival of hers meant we didn't get the royal escort treatment.
Our journey to the site was largely uneventful, in part due to our cautions, and we were *almost* through the ice when we got jumped by a wolf. Our guide then took the opportunity to fling my bard through the ice to shatter it, and the rest of the party made pretty short work of the wolf.
After recovering from that, we encountered the dwarf, who was attempting to kill our now-revealed Jadwiga guide. The person applying the most dps during the fight? My lowly bard, with his wand of Cure Light Wounds (Standard PFS issue). The archer couldn't do enough damage to overcome DR, the paladin kept getting trapped outside of melee range, and our pole-arm master was having a rough time hitting the revenant and making it stick, like the archer.
When we encountered the family member seeking to retrieve her 'kidnapped' relative my bard just opened up the Diplomancy(Nat20), and the whole party aided on it. My bard proceeded to go on a huge rant about the freedom of individuals and the fact that'd be against his beliefs to restrain someone's movement like that (he's a member of Liberty's Edge as well as a follower of Shelyn).
GM kind of looked at us, looked at the situation, looked at the modifiers and said "The base roll blew it out of the water, the assists..."
Ended up with a rather ironic tongue-in-cheek title from our guide.. 'Icebreaker of the Jadwiga'...
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My skald's crowning moment of awesome...
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Played the Runecarved Key at Gen Con during a special a couple years back. During one part of the scenario we had to pick a PC to fight a 5 headed hydra while the audiance watched on and cheered. My barbarian/fighter gets picked....the rest of the party buffs me up and I go into the pit. I proceed to one shot with a crit and rolled over 200 in damage. Our table erupts with cheers and high fives only to find out later that we lost points because the overall goal was to please the crowd for as long as possible. Definitely worth the loss of points!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Two Runecarved key stories.
I comment (OOC) "Hmm, two sorcerers a barbarian and an archaeologist. Wait a minute... We have a hitter and I can grift and Mastermind."
Barbarian player gets bored and knocks on the table. GM says the manservant opens the door. "Yes?"
Barbarian player is flat footed. "Um, Matt's the face."'
GM says, "But you're the one who knocked."
I tell the GM I step in beside the barbarian, "Please excuse my manservant, he's mute and not very bright. I am Joseph, currently with the Kosovar Revenue Service. We're here investigaing reports of a pair of tax evaders who have fled to Magnamar."
The Monk/Sorcerer's player goes "Wait a minute." Ruffles though chronicle sheets "I have a ring of a Magnamar tax collector." Back in character, "And I'm with the Magnamar Revenue Service, assisting him."
Commence 10 minutes of wonderfully devious social combat, resulting in the poor guy intimidated, us taking the gold (and donating it to the temple of Iomedae) and not getting penalized for it.
Other highlights included stealing the love letters and leaving a threatening note, in Kafir's (of Kafir and Nefti infamy) handwriting, and positively slaughtering the wererats.
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GMing:
Siege of the Diamond City:
Invisible sneak attacker hits 12th level Cleric in surprise round. "Ouch"
We precede to tick down the initiatives. Everyone goes except the Cleric and his sneak attacker.
The guy running initiative is playing the Cleric.
15? Nope
14? Nope...one more.
Player's face sags..."Really? I go on 13..." He perks up a bit, "What's your initiative modifier?"
"Plus Twelve."
*sigh*
Five sneak attacks later, the flatfooted Cleric is pulp.
Oracle, who had previously stated nobody dies, runs up next round with Breath of Life, rolling near max, nearly 50 h.p. "Woohoo!"
Cleric's turn. "Heal."
Me: "What?"
Cleric: "I'm at 6!"
"Tee hee."
Among the Gods:
Had a fight vs. undead with 3 PCs & a pregen Kyra, 4th.
The archer w/ Per is scouting ahead, sees he's about to be flanked by two baddies so moves ahead to gain distance, to see another baddy around the corner, with his friends cut off.
It goes downhill from there when Kyra is taken out early.
At many points in the fight, with the savagely hungry undead willing to coup de grace if left alone, there would be only one PC standing, each getting a turn or two being the only one able to act, the warriors distracting or killing with lucky rolls and the PC channeler & Kyra trying to balance healing & damaging. Kyra lands a vicious channel, leaving the undead teetering, but even those that miss their save have 1 h.p. left, which about matches what the PCs have.
Two of the players try to sit down, but keep jumping up. One of them states how tense he is, his heart's pounding. I compliment him on being in character, but he replies, "No, I meant ME. I'm terrified." The other jumper nods.
Nearly a TPK, but all hands escape unscathed.
That terrified player took Kyra's pregen printout and enshrined it.
Good times.
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So we all roll initiative and the BBEG is at the top of the order followed by my buddy (the fighter of the group), myself and then the rest of the party.
DM declares he'll be attacking my buddy and begins to make his rolls.
While the DMs making his rolls my buddy leans over and whispers "Ok, lets flank him, after this hit I'm gonna step back and to the left..."
But before he could get another word out the DMs proclaims the BBEGs raging greataxe crit for full damage (to the head for kicks and giggles) dropping the fighter outright in one hit.
to which my buddy begins to swear "NO, NO, I step back and to the left, BACK AND TO THE LEFT!"
To this day no one in our group can die before they plead that they had stepped "back and to the left"
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Running a group through a Seeker arc, and one of the PCs is based off of Santa Claus, down to the outfit, naughty/nice list, & bag of candy.
Well...one of the modules, Rasputin Must Die, takes the party to 20th century Russia, about when & where a Russian version of Santa Claus is developing that's quite similar in appearance to the US version. (According to modest research, that is.)
So "Father Winter", "Grandfather Winter", et al, who was in Russia once known as a snow demon, in PC form lands in Russia alongside the usual motley murderhobos, much to the terror & delight & moreover confusion of the various NPCs.
The PC, Nick, who does not know he resembles some earthly Santa Claus, gets just as baffled, especially by the way children & wounded reach out to him for comfort. At least once I had the bad guys call out a bonus for whoever killed such a famous figure, to make up for the reluctance of others to harm their childhood icon. :)
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Some fun from council of five nations this weekend with Grr, Absoloms most adorable bundle of fluffy death.
Non talking fox signals the experienced rogue next to him by holding a paw up.
Calden Cayden worshiping dwarf fighter "Wait, did we get a primer on those paw signals on the way over?"
Rogue: "I delay for the fox to move into flanking position.
Fox moves into flanking position. Delays.
Rogue ganks. Fox ganks.
Fighter "... i see someone did"
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Dwarven fighter grabs the fox by the tail, twirls him around and fastball specials him in through as second story window to get around a magic lock
Bonus points for the player wearing a wolverine shirt.
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Next adventure, the same dwarf is getting a guard rip roaring drunk Grrr picked up a ring of eloquence in between adventures, so waits until both the dwarf and the guard are completely smashed before talking to them about the pink bow he wears.
<deadpan voice> The . dolly. says. the ribbon. stays. On <deadpan voice>
Got nauseated. Pukes into the fighters boots
"Its ok! Caydenite. That happens so often the boots have spiggots."
Sneaking into a high class e stablishment. Party shows up prince ali aliababwa style demanding to see the person in charge. Someone sneaks into the bosses office, put us on his day planner. Someone else got a 37 to sleight of hand the keyring off of the head of security, then the socialite rogue and the DM had an amazing fopoff of witty banter to see who had the swishiest wrist.
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Venture-Captain, Nebraska—Omaha
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Two of the players try to sit down, but keep jumping up. One of them states how tense he is, his heart's pounding. I compliment him on being in character, but he replies, "No, I meant ME. I'm terrified." The other jumper nods.
...Good times.
I have had many an adventure like this. It is what makes role-playing so much fun.
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Once again, it's always a good time when Mikra Blackiron is around.
Eventually we come to the room that connects to the door on the right-hand side of the entrance hall. As the party member with both decent AC and darkvision, I walk into the room. I am almost instantly downed by the flanking gargoyles. We have a really great healer, no big deal, someone else takes the AOOs and I crawl out of the room before they can hit me again. On my next turn, I am mostly healed, but still on the ground. One gargoyle is left. Anyone who read my previous story knows where this is going.
Still lying on the ground, the skald coughs, and with all the ferocity of a dying dwarf... The gargoyle is demoralized and takes 9 points of fire damage. A shame it passed the reflex save.
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I had a chance to play Serpents Rise over the weekend, which resulted in an amusing story. Be warned, there is a fairly major SPOILER contained within. Do no read this if you haven't played or GMed the scenario.
Well, given where the scenario goes from there, we had an interesting trip into Skyreach. The Brawler character has no social skills and a negative Charisma modifier, so I basically couldn't say anything to anyone. Instead, the other Aspis agents had to role-play things like, "Do you know who this is? This is Aram Zey! Move aside and let us in!" That worked surprisingly well up until the tapestry room, when I was trapped into trying to order the guards to leave, which meant opening my mouth.
After that fight, we activated the tapestry letting in the Aspis agents trapped inside. After the lead agent appeared and one of the more diplomatic members of the party gave a long winded speech and convinced her to participate in the attack, she was about to step back through the tapestry to rally the troops. It was at this point that I quietly raised my hand, waiting for everyone to look at me. When they did, I threw in, "I am NOT Aram Zey." The table broke out laughing, since I'd been pretty quiet last hour, and everyone else had been repeatedly saying I WAS Aram Zey. The GM also added that had I not said anything, there was a good chance the Aspis emerging from the tapestry might have attacked me.
My final plan was foiled, as we were all invisible when we entered the room to fight the real Aram Zey. I was hoping that I could go up to him, study him, then either hit him with an assassins death attack or hit him with my knockout punch, becoming visible at the same time so that the last thing he ever saw was his own face. Sadly, magic made that impossible.
A side note from the same scenario, in the fight in the tapestry room, I disarmed the gunslinger, held on to his musket, used my Martial Flexibility to pick up the Exotic Weapon Proficiency, then tried to shoot him in the face with his own gun. It would have been a better story if I'd hit. Then, out of ammo, the plan was to pick up Caught Off Guard and beat him to death with the musket, but he didn't survive another round.
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So, we head down this endless dungeon and I'm filling in the last 2 levels for a guy who couldn't make the game. Totally made up a reason for being there..yeah Zarta told me we were playing hide and seek, and she's so darn good at this game.. .
Dm smirks at my reasoning. He has a hidden agenda.
So we get to the bottom and the evil guy does his spiel. Then Zarta appears...whoa. Really? Yes she's right there, got captured looting the place with a couple of retainers. She's a prisoner...
Unhand the princess vile fiend.
No, we can talk about this.
Prepare thyself for combat villian, no one captures my princess without prior documented permission.
Um, no we can make a deal, really.
It goes downhill from there. Expected outcome.
"Oh my savior how will I ever repay you?"
Wow Z you roleplay like noone else. Getting captured just for kicks. That's hard core.
My hero..sigh
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Boxed text: Pandemonium breaks out. There's an elephant running amok at a party. Ambrus Valsin draws his sword cane and charges after it
Flutter: No, no bad! DOWN BOY! You'll hurt him.
You're giving commands to the elephant?
Flutter: No, the venture captain! The elephant gets "Sweety, please go back in your pen for a second" *37 wild empathy check*
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Boxed text: Pandemonium breaks out. There's an elephant running amok at a party. Ambrus Valsin draws his sword cane and charges after it
Flutter: No, no bad! DOWN BOY! You'll hurt him.
You're giving commands to the elephant?
Flutter: No, the venture captain! The elephant gets "Sweety, please go back in your pen for a second" *37 wild empathy check*
Thanks... I was reading that as I took a drink of water. So I just had to pry off the keys of my keyboard and dry it off with a paper towel after the spit take.
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Not a PC story, but still awesome:
At our local con last week, we had a slot that failed to fire, so we scrambled together a handful of players and started playing the "what can we play/what can someone run?" game. We kept throwing out options and someone would inevitably say "played it" or "wouldn't make a good impromptu slot."
As a half-joke, our ex-VC says "I can run Bonekeep 2."
A small hush falls over the table. People look at each other and shrug.
And we sit down for what turned out to be the highlight table of the whole con.
Mad props to Mike Lindner for running an awesome table on short notice; and for the whole Sioux City Crew for making it down. (Sorry about the [redacted], Jason).