[Spoilers] Funny Rise of the Runelords Moments

[Dangalos]

I think it'd be neat to have a place to mention all the funny/random things that have happened in the campaign. Whether it is from a terrible/awesome roll, or just something the characters did in combat or roleplayed.

My group is all brand new players, currently level 4 in Thistletop. They make their way down to the bottom level and into the room with the projection of Karzoug. No one speaks Thassilonian so they examine the room looking for a switch. This goes on for quite some time before they realize the messaeg is just repeating.

After a while of frustrated searching one of the players realizes the image seems to be giving a speech to an audience. The player says, "My character begins clapping." He says it as though he had solved a riddle and then begins clapping in real life at the table. The other players look at him for a moment before joining in the applause until they were all clapping loudly.

The image of their characters standing in a dungeon clapping at a spectral image while my friends were actually clapping in real life had me doubled over in laughter.

[downlobot]

We almost got a tpk at level 2 from a goblin trap. I don't know how to use spoiler tags so I won't say where. Suffice to say, it was embarrassing.

[Dangalos]

downlobot wrote:

We almost got a tpk at level 2 from a goblin trap. I don't know how to use spoiler tags so I won't say where. Suffice to say, it was embarrassing.

I don't know hot to use spoilers yet either, haha! But my party has had an unfortunate time running into all of them so far!

[Dangalos]

Traps that is, not spoilers.

[Thymus Vulgaris]

If you want to know how to format your text, just click the "Show" button next to "How to format your text" under the submission box.

Witch, just as she is being targeted by a spell: "Wait, is that a feeblemi—durrrr."

When and where it happened isn't really important, but if anyone must know,

it was in:

Sins of the saviors.

More precisely:

It was in the Runeforge in the chamber of illusion with those 6 identical dudes.

[Tangent101]

Far too many to write down, to be honest. My group regularly has me in stitches. Which isn't a good thing when I've a cold and am trying hard not to cough. ;)

[Rycross]

When my players had cleared out the catacombs of wrath and had found the small hole that led to the intersection of streets beneath Sandpoint they all got terrible rolls on their perception checks and couldn't quite make out the specifics of the conversations going on above them. For some reason they interpreted this to mean that they must therefore be directly beneath the main encampment of the goblin horde and immediately began to make plans with the gunslinger in the group to mass produce black powder and try to collapse the ruins and destroy the encampment from below. Looking at the map of Sandpoint and the cross streets referenced in the catacombs of wrath description it really only would have collapsed both the town hall and the garrison, as well as a fair chunk of residential areas in the center of the town, and seeing as how I really kind of wanted them to be hailed as "the Heroes of Sandpoint" and not "those colossal jerks who blew up the mayor, sheriff, and half the town just before a major invasion" (though the chant of 'Death, death, on the fifth of Neth, the gunpowder treason and plot' really might have been a fun thing to haunt them for the rest of the game) just as they turn away to begin enacting their explosive plan I had the very distinctively voiced Sheriff Hemlock stand above the hole and say (in my best Lance Henrickson impersonation) "Madame Mvishti I just got back into town with reinforcements from Magnimar. Can you tell me precisely why you dragged me into the middle of this intersection?" followed by an elderly woman who sounded suspiciously like Miracle Max's wife from the princess bride saying "I got no idea, kid. All I know really is that when I get a message this clear? I gotta follow through. Now be a good boy and walk me home." To which the barbarian player turns to the rest of the group and says "Wait...so...is Law-man working with goblins now?"

[NobodysHome]

Like Tangent, my players routinely give me one-liners that make me lose it, but so far the gem of the campaign came in Sins of the Saviors:

Major plot point. Sorry, players! Don't read:

So at the beginning of the session, I made it a point to hand the bard's player the Scribbler's notes, saying, "It's been a while since we've played. You should re-read these."
He replied, "Sure," skimmed over the card, and put it down.

So they got to Rimeskull, found the seven stone heads, and had NO IDEA what to do. Even worse, they decided to FLY up into the cave to see whether they could find a key.
- Earth elementals avoided: Check
- Dragon not awakened: Check
- Uber-cautious Silenced party finding dragon still asleep: Check

Arkrhyst woke up flanked by a paladin and a barbarian, and never got off an action.

The worst part? After searching his horde and the entire cave complex and not finding a key, the bard's player, bored, picked up the card, re-read it, and said, "Hey, guys! It's all right here! This is what we're supposed to do!"

So failing to read instructions gave them the drop on a sleeping dragon. *SIGH*. Stupid luck! I even named an award after the PC.

[NobodysHome]

The other one was far earlier, and far more straightforward: The party found Tsuto, saw through his ruse, and he decided to take out the paladin with a Stunning Fist and make his escape.

I rolled a 1. Uh oh. I rolled a second 1. Double uh-oh. (We play with rolling fumbles and crits, so this was already a potential double fumble.) I rolled a 3. Carp!

I drew the first card: Hit yourself. So he smacked himself with his own Stunning Fist, failed his save, and was stunned for a round.

I drew the second card: Move 10' in a random direction, taking AoO's from all enemies you pass. He was in a room, so the only 10' path he had took him out the door THROUGH THE REST OF THE PARTY. So the entire party got a 'frat party initiation' spanking line and whacked the living daylights out of Tsuto.

Then got their actions.

So when I read about Tsuto giving other parties trouble, I can only sigh and wonder at what might have been.

[Capt_Phoenix]

Note: Why do we need spoilers? This is the ROTRL forum. If you are playing, this forum is one giant spoiler. Leave now.

Opening Fight:

Here be Goblins:

The Bard, Capt Jack - split personality between Capt Jack Harness and Sparrow - casts unnatural lust on a Goblin. The target? The Mage. Goblin tries to climb up the Mage to kiss him. Mage is flailing away with his dagger and not even coming close to the Goblin. The rest of the party is afraid to attack the Goblin for fear of hitting the Mage. Finally his (RL) sister says "Muck it (not actual spelling)." and shoots the Goblin off his face just as it plants a wet one on the lips. The Mage remains the only character in any ROTRL campaign I've read about to snog a Goblin.

Bard manages to get knocked unconscious in both the fight in the square and the fight with the commando. He would have died in the first fight if the Mage hadn't knocked him and three Gobs out with a color spray. This was after the snogging. Mage is a good sport.

[Capt_Phoenix]

Damn! There are so many funny moments with my party I could monopolize this thread. There was not one session that didn't have something that left us laughing hysterically.

Shalelu:

The Bard is sure that Shalelu is a Succubus so he arranges an elaborate plan with the Rogue to pick the lock on the cellar door and rescue him when she hears the "panic word". As soon as he verifies that there are no rats, he panics and shouts the word. Then he turns around to see a startled Shalelu half out of her bodice. He then spends the next three rounds trying to work shouting things like "it's alright" and "you can go away now" into the conversation since they never set up an "abort" code. The rogue is meanwhile blowing not only her lockpick rolls, but also her perception rolls and is sure the muffled shouting means he's dying in there. Finally she cuts the lock off with her Warscythe (Named "Groinshot" if anyone cares) and throws open the cellar door just as Capt Jack hears Shalelu's Dad entering the front door. Considering that Shalelu had managed to get his belt undone (she is a very determined girl) he just makes a hasty and ungraceful retreat leaving Shalelu convinced of two things:
He's completely insane.
And he's a eunich.
She doesn't harbor ill will towards him though. She is basically a nice girl underneath it all - the "ethical slut" trope and she knows better than to make fun of the short-bus kids. She did warn the other girls about his "condition", but only to prevent them from having to go through similar embarrassing incidents. Capt Jack (who fancies himself to be like Capt Jack Harkness as far as love-making goes) keeps approaching girls only to find they are very nice to him, speak slowly, and have a pitying sadness in their eyes.

Goblin Commando:

The Mage and the Oracle deal with the Goblin Commando in the house crawlspace with the Mage taking some damage. Upon leaving the house, they see the wife and terrified child standing with two guardsmen. Mage roleplays his 7 Charisma.
Mage,"There was a goblin in the crawlspace. It's dead now." Looks down to start adjusting his bandage.
Woman, "And my husband?"
Mage distractedly, "Oh. Yeah. His head was stuck in the crawlspace hole. He's dead."
Mage looks up at the gasps of shock and belatedly tries to offer some comfort, "I'm sure he was dead before the goblin ate his face..."
Woman faints.

[Poldaran]

Capt_Phoenix wrote:

Note: Why do we need spoilers? This is the ROTRL forum. If you are playing, this forum is one giant spoiler. Leave now.

It can be interesting to see how other people have dealt with things you've also gone through while they're still fresh in your mind. Putting things in spoilers and noting what section they occurred in can allow those of us who do so with GM acceptance to both enjoy what people have gone through while also keeping from learning things that might change how we view the upcoming parts of the game.

The Obits thread is a great example of a thread where it can be awesome to see how others dealt with encounters you have already gone through.

[Story Archer]

Trying to remember all of them... since I ran the campaign, some of the more memorable moments for me included our NPC's.

Ameiko:

Very early on, after our Bard had made the mistake of following Shayliss back to her father's store, was subsequently caught and beaten within an inch of his life, he retreated back to the Rusty Dragon where Ameiko both teased him mercilessly and helped tend to his bruises while the other PC's were with Zantus, investigating the crypt. A few days later when Ameiko's father Lonjiku showed up and caused a stir, he rose to her defense and the fiercely independent Ameiko whirled on him and said 'Don't you have enough Daddy issues just now?'. It was a great line.

Shalelu:

Our Bard is one of our heaviest role-players (natch), so he had a ton of involvement with the NPC's, including an interesting love triangle of sorts. He had gotten romantically involved with Ameiko after her rescue from the Glassworks, a romance that continued throughout the entire campaign. Shalelu and Ameiko were very close, and the elf had agreed to go with the group to Hook Mountain (and eventually beyond) to 'keep an eye on him' for Ameiko. Eventually the two had the opportunity to get romantically involved as well, and when the Bard started to resist due to his relationship with Ameiko, Shalelu laughed and said 'what - you think you're the first man Ameiko and I have shared..?'. It really caught him off-guard, as did what she said afterwards: '...though you just might be the first one we keep'. The look on his face was priceless.

Later on when they encountered Shalelu's adoptive father among the Black Arrows and upon introductions, he cast a stern, suspicious gaze towards the Bard... prompting the Bard's player through up his hands and say 'Does [I]everybody[/] have a *expletive* Dad???'

Skitch:

Much hilarity was had due to the very enthusiastic role-play of our Goblin group member who had the social graces of Stitch (from Lilo and Stitch) and fought like Yoda (circa Ep II)... but two of his most memorable moments were actually in combat. His character build - Brawler with a dip in MoMS - was very tight and it really showed in two memorable moments.

One was during the giant's raid on Sandpoint when the party was split up at various points across town and he stood alone astride the southern-most bridge. Three Stone Giants saw him and laughed, approaching with the intention of sweeping him aside - and he killed one of them in a single round (with the benefit of a spectacular critical hit). The reaction of the other two giants was akin to that of the Knights of Monty Python when confronted by the white rabbit (JEE-ZUS CHRIST!) complete with running away to regroup.

Another was in Jorgenfist when they were being ambushed by that kobold barbarian (who's name escapes me). He followed her into the warrens which were too small for the medium-sized characters and we ran the combat behind closed doors, with the PC's hearing only noises emerging from the hole... until he wandered back out looking none the worse for wear - carrying her head in one hand.

I'll definitely revisit this thread as I'm sure more instances will occur to me.

[Wiggz]

Capt_Phoenix wrote:

Mage looks up at the gasps of shock and belatedly tries to offer some comfort, "I'm sure he was dead before the goblin ate his face..."

GREAT line!

[Oserath]

We had a fun dose of irony in the first book:

Spoiler:

Upon learning that Nualia was consorting with Lamashtu, our paladin bit the bullet and learned Abyssal. When we found Nualia in Thistletop, the paladin demanded, in Abyssal, that she surrender. She just looked at him weird and swung at him, b/c she doesn't even know Abyssal as a Cleric of a demon lord.

[DrDeth]

My Sorc has just remembered he had detect Thoughts. Used it for the first time since he first got it, just happened to be outside a room with our only encounter with Hound of Tindalos. "Blew his mind", you might say.

[the David]

Shayliss took the Varisian rogue in our group down to the basement. Sure enough, he ignored the warning-knock from the Dwarf, so Ven walked in to find them both naked. After failing to bluff his way out, he ran away as fast as he could, but not without picking up his clothes and swiping a bottle of wine.

A few days later the rogue decides to drop by Shayliss. He climbs up to the room of her window and they start to, you know. Meanwhile, the Dwarf decided to warn Ven, as the rogue rejected his offer to keep an eye out for 5 gold. Ven ofcourse tells the Dwarf to go home, as the shop is closed for the night, and he wouldn't sell anything to him anyway. The Dwarf empties his bladder at the door, so Ven comes out and swings at the Dwarf. He misses and the Dwarf grapples Ven telling him that the rogue is porking his daughter. Ven goes upstairs but the rogue hears him and leaps out the window with his pants around his ankles. He lands face down for 1 damage.

Between the 2 of them, they've got the most sin points so far, while the other 2 players (Both girls) only have virtue points...

[Capt_Phoenix]

Thistletop:

The party is climbing around on the roof of the Goblin fort. The Oracle sees the four Goblin Dogs in the courtyard. Due to a slight mis-reading of the module, I thought the rabbit cages were in the courtyard. The Oracle decides to "create a distraction" and shoots the supports out from under the rabbits cages which crash to the ground and shatter. Dozens of rabbits are freed and the Goblin Dogs decide it's Christmas. Rabbits are leaping and running around while Goblin Dogs pounce on them and rip them apart. Have you seen "Night of the Leapus"? Did you know rabbits can scream? There is fur and blood everywhere...
As I describe this scene, all the table talk fades away. The players are all watching me and the Oracle is getting an increasingly horrified expression on her face. As I pause, her brother turns to her and says, "Jesus, Jenny. What have you got against bunnies?"

[Misroi]

What *does* she have against bunnies?:

Bunnies aren't just cute like everybody supposes,
They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses.
And what's with all the carrots?
What do they need such good eyesight for anyway?
Bunnies, bunnies it must be bunnies!

...or maybe midgets...

[Wiggz]

Capt_Phoenix wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

Fear the bunny...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw

[Scaevola77]

My Rise of the Runelords campaign is currently on hiatus, unfortunately, but the campaign manufacture a lot of funny moments.

Sir Swa, the gnomish cavalier, was the target of Shayliss, and while he was not interested in the girl, he was ridiculously dense. He fell for Shayliss's "help me exterminate rats!" routine, and ended up in her room with her blocking the door. He tried to Bull Rush/Overrun past her, but flubbed his CMB check. I chose to play Shayliss as a bit of an aggressor, and had her attempt to grapple the dashing gnome. Nat 20. So, the gnome follows Shayliss to her bedroom, belatedly realizes her intentions and tries to push past her. Then this teenaged girl lifts a fully armored gnome and drags him into her bed like it was nothing.

Sir Swa also challenged Aldern Foxglove to darts one night at the Rusty Dragon. Swa thought it would be an easy win, after all, Aldern was unable to fend off a couple measily goblins. Swa's allies figured that they could make a bit of money betting on the games. Well . . . Aldern never rolled lower than a 15 in the 4 matches they played before Swa gave up. Now the party is convinced Aldern is secretly really powerful.

The Aldern rescue:
Aldern (to the beautiful sorceress): Thanks milady for your aid in my rescue. My deepest thanks to your vassal here for her help as well!
Mia (fighter): I am no one's vassal, pretty boy!
Aldern: Oh, I assumed you were more than a maid.
Mia swings her greatsword at Aldern and misses
Aldern backhands Mia and knocks her unconscious (Mia was at like, 2 HP)
Aldern (to sorceress): My apologies, it is not my place to discipline your servants

After a failed combat against Erylium, during which Sir Swa perished, the group does some research to figure out Erylium's weaknesses. Using the library, the Inquisitor and the Sorceress make many attempts to find information, aided by Brodert Quint, but keep coming up empty. Finally, Mia, the 10 Int fighter, decides to crack open a book. Nat 20, Mia knows all about the standard weaknesses of quasits. After her companions spent a day studying to no avail, Mia walks in, grabs a book at random, and opens it to the quasit page immediately.

[Butch A.]

The one I'm proudest of is an 'out-of-character' moment for one of the NPCs:

Retaking Fort Rannick:

The heroes have defeated the ogres and retaken the fort, and they are searching the despoiled fort for clues and survivors, accompanied by Vale and Jakardros, the surviving Black Arrows.

They come upon the bell tower. Inside the bell, the clapper has been removed and a ranger tied inside, upside down. A metal helm has been tightly strapped to his head (this is all in the book). From their examination, it is apparent that the ranger was killed, not before this, but by repeatedly having his head smashed against the interior of the bell.

The druid asks Vale, "Who was this?"

I reply. "I'm not sure, but his face rings a bell."

I then apologize for the totally inappropriate comment, but there was no way I was going to pass on that setup.

[NobodysHome]

Butch A. wrote:

The one I'm proudest of is an 'out-of-character' moment for one of the NPCs:

** spoiler omitted **

That's even better than my totally-inappropriate comment:

Bard: "Yes, Brodert. We found Thassilonian ruins right under Sandpoint!"
Brodert Quink: "Thassilonian ruins? I'm so excited! Take me! Take me now!"

The players ALL completely lost it. It took me 10-15 seconds to realize what I'd just said. Then I scowled at them for their juvenile minds, and that just made them laugh harder.

I timed them at 3 1/2 minutes to recover enough to proceed...

And yes. We STILL have a running gag of, "I'm so excited! Take me, take me now!" and we're halfway through book 6.

[Andrea1]

Plus all those gags about the toys from the Lust area of the Runedungeon

[NobodysHome]

Yeah, the good old, "It glows brightly and seems to buzz with energy..." quote from the book.

Seriously, I wish the authors had thought about that one.

I can hardly take credit, though. The AP as-written requires that they obtain and use the toy, and the quote is direct. And it's so straightforward I don't feel the need for spoiler tags on this one.

So the authors get the "win" on that one...

[Tangent101]

NH, they probably DID think about it. They seem to have fun with occasional bits in the APs. ;)

[Munkege]

The festival:

So our dwarf cleric of Cayden traveled to Sandpoint to convince the people that his god deserves a spot in their cathedral. He sweet talks the mayor into letting him take the stage. Unfortunately once on stage he isn't as persuasive, and his speech about how Cayden is " All about drinking, who can't get behind that?" is assumed to be a comical act. Some townsfolk are offended thinking a dwarf talking about worshiping getting drunk is racist.

Shayliss:

That same dwarf was the target of Shayliss's affection. The rest of the party left him to go back to the Rusted Dragon with their freshly killed boar. He is to distracted by her beauty to hear her father come down the stairs. Once again words failed him. He went to cast a spell to daze the father, but the father acted first. I crit the roll, and rolled max damage so the cleric was knocked out with a single punch, and woke up outside, half naked to the sheriff scolding him that he needs to keep out of trouble in town.

Glassworks:

This is more of a meta thing. The party had asked Shalelu to come with them. After killing one goblin with her first shot, I ended up rolling horribly for her the next few rounds. Nothing higher than a 5. Then I have one round where one goblin rolls a 20, the next an 18 and the last a 20 when throwing glass at the party.

When the goblins are almost dead I decide Tsuto should try and sneak in. Shalelu had been back near the door while the party was most of the way across to room. I roll perception for the party in secret and roll a 3 a 4 another 3 and a 2 for shalelu.
Tsuto easily sneaks up and stunning fist Shalelu. The barbarian spends 3 turns failing combat maneuver checks to push Tsuto into a furnace. Eventually the barbarian gives up and just starts hitting him with his axe.

[HangarFlying]

Butch A. wrote:

The one I'm proudest of is an 'out-of-character' moment for one of the NPCs:

** spoiler omitted **

I really hope I can remember this line when my group gets to that point.

[Alayern]

My players all agreed that both they and all enemies would be affected by both the Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks. In the first fight one of the enemies crits on one of the PCs, and the Critical Hit card says that the PC lost her hand. Apart from being (understandably) aggravated, both in real life and IC, that character mopped up the rest of the fight by critting on every other enemy she attacked, which was most of them. I don't want to know the statistics behind the improbability that was that fight.

[Dangalos]

These are all great. I'm laughing at my desk at work reading through this thread!

It seems like most of us have had some fun while encountering Shayliss:

The elf sorcerer in my group, Destin, thinks himself quite the charmer and casanova. So when Shayliss approached him he quickly saw through the "rat problem" cover and eagerly made his way to the shop with her.

We decided to roll play how the whole scene went down and when Shayliss threw him to the floor and climbed on top I asked him to roll (FORT if I remember correctly) to see how well he performed:

Nat 1.

It turned out that he quickly "messed his robes", confusing and upsetting Shayliss. This unpleasant turn of events compounded when Vin made his way downstairs into the mess. Having done such a poor job romantically the two would-be lovers were still fully clothed. This allowed Destin to weasel his way out of the situation by making some skin-of-the-teeth bluff and diplomacy saves.

Vin has since harboured a suspicion of Destin, and Shayliss avoids eye contact, both of which make for a very fun reminder of the whole situation as the group spends time in Sandpoint.

[Gendif]

My group, a rather new to PF bunch but solid RPG fans, are about 1/2 through The Skinsaw Murders and about to head to Misgivings. We've got a Gnome Sorcerer, Shoanti Druid and Generic Human Fighter with the additional options to call NPC support when needed.

Here's the funny bit and it's about them piecing together the clues about who the Skinsaw Man is, I never saw their top suspect coming.

See the Gnome is a suspicious sort. He's really getting into the Thassilonian stuff and basically became Quink's apprentice shortly after meeting him. Having a mentor who leaps to conclusions and uses flimsy evidence has not been good for him. After the onset and hints at an undead foe he becomes convinced it's Chopper returned from the grave in some foul manner. I have it explained that Chopper's remains were incinerated, scattered and all his possessions destroyed as i'm hoping to not derail into what I know is a dead end.

Now at was at this point that I accidentally fanned the flames of suspicion. A lot of the local knowledge my players' characters have is from patrons at The Rusty Dragon. They happily tell tales of the terrible murdermaw who eats ships whole and goblins who'll raid towns just for their firewood as it's still burning. Wild exaggerations, ofcourse. Getting them to talk on the Late Unpleasantness is a somber thing but the tall tales still creep in. The popular version of Chopper's Demise is that Hemlock himself storms the house alone and duels the axe-wielding fiend as the house burns.

So, the thought process in my dear gnome player goes like this:
We're investigating an Undead Murderer. Serial Killer. Chopper? Can't be Chopper. Why not? He's dead, Hemlock Killed him. We've found 3 bodies now. The Mill, the con-men and the ghoul farm. Hemlock keeps sending us out looking but we're not making much...
...
...
Hemlock sent us to that farm, coincidence? Hemlock is a kind of poison. Chopper's last victim was the previous sheriff. Hemlock confronts Chopper alone. No real evidence other than a few terrified guards that...
HOLY CRAP WAS HEMLOCK CHOPPER?! ARE WE WORKING FOR A SERIAL KILLER?! WHAT DO WE DO!? BUT WE TRUST HIM! WE'RE DOOMED IF THIS IS TRUE!

The weird thing is, with the world as I have presented almost everything points to Hemlock being a serious contender. The only flaw is he's not undead and has no motive, though i'm sure if he was an evil undead mastermind he'd have solutions to that.

I swear next session is going to be interesting... I think I might need to rush them along to Misgivings, but they've mainly been taking order from Hemlock so far!

[Andrea1]

Sounds like something from National Treasure.

[mathpro18]

My group is currently in Book 3 and just started exploring Hook Mountain. I strayed a little from the book as written and had Barel show up while they were at the choke point fighting their way through the ogres. He was hiding invisibly watching as the party hacked down most of the Ogres and after about 6 rounds he decided it was time to help out his minions who were loosing the fight they were meant to win. He decided to make his prence felt by setting everyone but the ninja ablaze(she was just out of range). The ninja looks at the rest of the smoldering party(30 damage a piece) and says "Well suddenly I feel a lot more comfortable with these 6 ogres...at least they won't set me on fire."

I looked at her and asked "Did you just say youre comfortable being by your self with 8 ogres" she looked back at me, blinked, and said "Yes but in my defence four of them are blind now thanks to the summoners glitterdust."

[Scaevola77]

Gendif reminded me of something that will be quite amusing should my campaign ever re-start.

After Hemlock left the PCs in charge of Sandpoint, Sir Swa (the gnomish cavalier), and Ze (the human Inquisitor of Pharasma/mortician) decided to go out on patrol. I planned to include the Chopper's Isle short adventure, and chose to forshadow some of it, as well as make Das Korvut a more sympathetic character than the "grouchy old man". Thus Sir Swa and Ze stumble upon an angry Korvut chasing off some children.

The children are laughing and pulling childish pranks on him, and he is not amused. Sir Swa calms him down, making the Knowledge (local) check to recall that his son and wife were killed by the Chopper, and he hasn't been the same since. Sir Swa doesn't push too much on this, and chooses not to share this information with the party.

Meanwhile, Ze has chased down the children and is trying to give them a lecture on respecting their elders. He asks why the kids mock Korvut, and eventually learns through them that at night there is often shouts and screaming from Korvut's house (the result of him being haunted by his dead son). Ze makes the bizarre choice to tell the children to stay away from Das Korvut, as he is a worshipper of Zon-Kuthon, and the screams are from people he is torturing.

Needless to say, the young children (8/9 years old) are absolutely terrified, and begin telling everyone they know about this revelation. Ze is completely oblivious to this, and doesn't think that his lecture merits mentioning to the rest of the party. After the Catacombs of Wrath, the party finds that Das Korvut's house has been graffiti'd with anti-Zon-Kuthon writing/symbols. Unfortunately, not only is Ze still remaining silent about the rumor he inadvertently started, but Sir Swa, the only PC who knew Korvut's history and that the rumor was 100% false, died to Erylium. The Skinsaw Murders should be interesting, as Das Korvut will immediately become suspect #1.

[Story Archer]

Scaevola77 wrote:

After Hemlock left the PCs in charge of Sandpoint, Sir Swa (the gnomish cavalier), and Ze (the human Inquisitor of Pharasma/mortician) decided to go out on patrol. I planned to include the Chopper's Isle short adventure, and chose to forshadow some of it, as well as make Das Korvut a more sympathetic character than the "grouchy old man". Thus Sir Swa and Ze stumble upon an angry Korvut chasing off some children.

The 'Chopper's Isle' short adventure? Was this something published? Its the first I've heard of it...

[Tangent101]

I think it's something that's on the forums actually. Dunno exactly where but you could probably do a Forum Search to find it.

[bleeyargh]

@ Story Archer-- here is an easy link to Chopper's Isle. My players enjoyed the plot and built relationships with a few more NPCs while playing through it:

http://www.dorkistan.com/dorkistan/PFRPG/creatures/chopper.htm

[Trace Coburn]

Story Archer wrote:

Scaevola77 wrote:

After Hemlock left the PCs in charge of Sandpoint, Sir Swa (the gnomish cavalier), and Ze (the human Inquisitor of Pharasma/mortician) decided to go out on patrol. I planned to include the Chopper's Isle short adventure, and chose to forshadow some of it, as well as make Das Korvut a more sympathetic character than the "grouchy old man". Thus Sir Swa and Ze stumble upon an angry Korvut chasing off some children.

The 'Chopper's Isle' short adventure? Was this something published? Its the first I've heard of it...

bleeyargh wrote:

@ Story Archer-- here is an easy link to Chopper's Isle. My players enjoyed the plot and built relationships with a few more NPCs while playing through it:

http://www.dorkistan.com/dorkistan/PFRPG/creatures/chopper.htm

It's also available in Wayfinder #7 (a free product), along with a lot of other material that can support a Runelords campaign. ;)

[wxcougar]

So my party decided to investigate Thistletop because the Varisians lost their horse. Amusingly this was their primary objective until they got further in and remembered this was the headquarters of those that launched the attack on Sandpoint. But that's besides the point...

The group consists of a Dwarven shield fighter, an Elven arcane archer, a Vanaras zen archer and a Halfling rogue who uses a bow. They captured Gogmurt and he led them to the bridge and warned them about the weight limit before taking off. So while the group argued who was going to go first, the arcane archer decided to go first and headed off with the zen archer not too far behind him. The plan was that the fighter and rogue would wait until the other two got across, but they were noticed and the goblins and dogs came to play. They took care of one of the goblins leaving a free dog who came onto the bridge with them (so now we have three medium sized creatures). The archers up on the tower saw them and started firing as well. Concern abounded that the goblins would cut the bridge so the fighter ran onto the bridge... Apparently forgetting that a dog had joined the others. This snapped the bridge.

The two archers both kept a hold of the bridge and the dwarf made his save to get back onto the other side. This effectively split the party in two. Our arcane archer managed to use grease very effectively and took out a goblin and goblin dog in the process. This gave the Vanaras a chance to get up onto the edge and up the side of the tower to take care of the others.

Meanwhile, the other two were trying to figure out how to get across. The dwarf had the halfling shoot an arrow into the other side with rope tied to it. She rolled very well and I said that the arrow was now stuck to the wood post. The halfling was able to tight rope easily across the way and make it to the other side. The dwarf then proceeded to tie the rope around himself and jump off the edge to the stunned expression of everyone else. Needless to say, he did not make his save to take less damage by slamming into the cliff and knocked himself unconscious. So the party had to deal with a few dogs (which they managed to keep busy by feeding them) and pull up the unconscious dwarf before the arrow snapped. It was not a situation I had expected to happen, I can say that, but they managed to survive!

[el cuervo]

wxcougar wrote:

So my party decided to investigate Thistletop because the Varisians lost their horse. Amusingly this was their primary objective until they got further in and remembered this was the headquarters of those that launched the attack on Sandpoint. But that's besides the point...

The group consists of a Dwarven shield fighter, an Elven arcane archer, a Vanaras zen archer and a Halfling rogue who uses a bow. They captured Gogmurt and he led them to the bridge and warned them about the weight limit before taking off. So while the group argued who was going to go first, the arcane archer decided to go first and headed off with the zen archer not too far behind him. The plan was that the fighter and rogue would wait until the other two got across, but they were noticed and the goblins and dogs came to play. They took care of one of the goblins leaving a free dog who came onto the bridge with them (so now we have three medium sized creatures). The archers up on the tower saw them and started firing as well. Concern abounded that the goblins would cut the bridge so the fighter ran onto the bridge... Apparently forgetting that a dog had joined the others. This snapped the bridge.

The two archers both kept a hold of the bridge and the dwarf made his save to get back onto the other side. This effectively split the party in two. Our arcane archer managed to use grease very effectively and took out a goblin and goblin dog in the process. This gave the Vanaras a chance to get up onto the edge and up the side of the tower to take care of the others.

Meanwhile, the other two were trying to figure out how to get across. The dwarf had the halfling shoot an arrow into the other side with rope tied to it. She rolled very well and I said that the arrow was now stuck to the wood post. The halfling was able to tight rope easily across the way and make it to the other side. The dwarf then proceeded to tie the rope around himself and jump off the edge to the stunned expression of everyone else. Needless to say, he did not make...

This reminds me of my group's bridge encounter. Despite having a rogue in the party with high perception and disable device, in addition to a witch with knowledge (engineering), my players failed to detect the trap on the bridge. However, they did pick up on the fact that the bridge was rickety and liable to break, so they were cautious. They intended to take it two at a time, but my party cleric (who is probably the least experienced player) paid no attention to the warnings of his other party members and rushed out to the middle while the paladin and witch were a little more than halfway across.

The bridge fell, and both the witch and the cleric failed their saves. The paladin made his save and was far enough across the bridge that he leaped to the fort side safely. Unfortunately for him, there were 8 goblin warriors and 4 goblin dogs waiting for him (they all completely failed their perception checks to notice the goblins playing with the seagull across the bridge).

Aquilis, the paladin, valiantly and single-handedly fought off the goblins and their dogs one by one, while Mal, the rogue, attempted to rescue Thomar and Jarek from the other side of the bridge. Thomar was unconscious (took damage from the fall) and Jarek couldn't swim, kept failing his checks (that one player always rolls poorly...). Mal decided his best course of action was to take the rope he had and tie it to the end of a crossbow bolt and fire it down to them so they could grab on and climb up. Mal fired and hit Thomar square in the chest with the bolt! Jarek eventually grabbed onto the rope and pulled the bolt out of Thomar (ouch! 1d6 piercing), tied the rope around them both, and after Mal tied the rope to the bridge anchors, they were able to climb using the fallen bridge as a sort-of ladder. One last thing - since Jarek was pulling Thomar up and Thomar was unconscious, he barely had the strength and failed his climb checks a few times, each time splashing back down into the water and nearly falling unconscious himself!

Meanwhile, after the rope was tied off, Mal provided long-range supporting fire with his crossbow to Aquilus across the bridge.

Finally, Thomar and Jarek made it back up top just in time to see Aquilis killing off the last of the goblins on the other side. Aquilus used the goblin bridge rigging to restore the bridge and tie it off so it wouldn't collapse again, and Mal fished the wand of CLW out of Thomar's belongings to prevent Thomar from dying.

That was probably the most fun we've had in a session yet and though that one encounter took up a majority the playing time for the session, none of us could stop laughing at the hilarity of it all.

[Tangent101]

After learning that upward of 200 people in Turtleback Ferry had the Sihedron mark upon them due to the Paradise gambling barge, the avowed hedonist said "You guys need to build a theater in this town, there's more to life than drinking, gambling, and whoring... oh dear gods, what I just say? I need to go lie down now..."

[slayer_of_gellcor]

During the Shayliss (ahem) encounter, the player she targeted was all about it. He asked if he needed to make a check to determine his performance. Someone suggested, as was used earlier, a Fortitude save, another cited the 3.0 Book of Erotic Fantasy, where there was a Perform (sexual act) skill. Trying to move things along, I told him to pick a skill and roll it if he wanted to see how well (or poorly) he'd done.

Rather than move things along, the group went skill by skill to find the funniest skill possible, some highlights:

Acrobatics
Climb(?)
Handle Animal
Knowledge (nature)
Knowledge (dungeoneering)
(Cunni)Linguistics
Ride
Sleight of Hand
Use Magic Device

Needless to say any skill check for the rest of the game brought new gails of laughter. Also, one of my players was mocking (politely) my map drawing skills, so I told him (politely) to suck it. He promptly rolled Sleight of Hand. Nat 20.

[Misroi]

En route to the Tickwood to hunt for boars, the party ride past a shepherd who's cleaning up the carcasses of several of his flock. They stop to ask what's happened, and it turns out that something came through last night, killed a few of his sheep and made off with a few more. They offered to investigate and track down whatever killed them.

That's when the gnome rogue decided he wanted to cast speak with animals on the sheep.

If animals could have an Intelligence less than 1, sheep would qualify. They didn't learn much of anything useful, but they did learn that gnomes don't just talk to burrowing creatures any longer - now they can have pointless conversations with all sorts of animals!

[el cuervo]

Misroi wrote:

En route to the Tickwood to hunt for boars, the party ride past a shepherd who's cleaning up the carcasses of several of his flock. They stop to ask what's happened, and it turns out that something came through last night, killed a few of his sheep and made off with a few more. They offered to investigate and track down whatever killed them.

That's when the gnome rogue decided he wanted to cast speak with animals on the sheep.

If animals could have an Intelligence less than 1, sheep would qualify. They didn't learn much of anything useful, but they did learn that gnomes don't just talk to burrowing creatures any longer - now they can have pointless conversations with all sorts of animals!

Hah! Slightly off-topic here, but this reminds me of Neil Gaiman's Stardust, where the witch turns a goat into a man, and he goes around acting like you would expect a goat to act if he were turned into a man. If you haven't seen the movie, it's great. I've heard the book is great, too.

[Movin]

I had a game recently where the party went to thistletop, K.Oed every Named NPC in the place and brought them home to Sandpoint. With that overwhelming victory a party was going to be thrown in the Sandpoint heros honor the following day. Now the important bit was that in all the adventuring no one had been fool hardy enough to try the Hagfish's Challenge.
Enter the party druid and the party Inquisitor who are both in the hagfish at the same time, bored, with coin to burn.
Dru: Hey gents anyone wanna bet a few extra coins to see me drink that filth?
Inq: Locals have seen fools doin' that fer ages, ya would need to wager somethin bigger then norm tae get folks to jus' toss money at ya.
*pauses and thinks*
"Like if I were tae say that I challenge ye to a contest and whoever can manage to down two pints of that Slop wins."
(Doors of the hagfish slam as a few regulars run out)
*sigh*
"Bartender they thought I was serious on that didn't they?"
Bartender: Yup
Dru: Ha looks like this is in the bag for me, I'm a master of the water!
Inquisitor: Water or not I intend ta watch you choke on that slop, I've drank worse brews though I will need to spend me prize on liquor to forget the taste.
*through the door the highly perceptive adventurers hear a growing chant of "TWO PINTS AT THE HAGFISH!" as more people try to enter the wharf bar then can fit*
Dru:... really?
Inq: isa small town, guess they take their amusement where they can.

Turns out that hagfish water just gets worse with a second dose. Neither of them managed to make the save on pint 2. They woke up in a ditch several hours later.
Party that resulted from it was epic though.

[Yahsei]

I use the Pathfinder Flaws PDF for $2 on here for extra bonus feats for flaws. One of my characters got Packrat on his Wayang Cavalier. That means if you fail a will save, you freak out if you lose an object. One of his amazing roleplaying bits was his love for shaving and his razor. My group is top-notch at roleplaying.

I had Aldern steal the razor just for fun when they were sleeping. The character woke up and freaked out. The other PCs went to buy him a new razor, but he didn't believe it was his. One of the PCs found out it was Aldern who stole the razor. They told the Wayang, but he failed his sense motive check against Aldern and believed Aldern wasn't lying. The Wayang believed Aldern over the party. The rogue broke into Aldern's room and switched the new razor with the PCs razor. Aldern never knew the wiser and the PC got his razor back..

Rise of the Razorlords: Shaved Offerings. Best $2 I ever spent.

[NobodysHome]

Some fumble decks are just cursed...

See my post on Tsuto and the "move 10 feet" fumble card above.

Now we're in book 6, and they're fighting a group of lamias. The planetar's created a choke point with Blade Barrier, so the lamias have to either brave the blades or sit around until their buffs wear off and the party comes in and cuts them to pieces. (I always bemoan any PC not carrying ranged weapons. Now I'm going to start bemoaning monsters as well.)

I had the lamias do a group bull rush through the door, taking the damage in order to be able to engage the party. One lamia immediately rolls a 1 and then a 2 against the paladin, and I draw the dreaded, "Move 10 feet" card. All the players hooted and said, "She goes back through the barrier!" and I said, "No, no. It's a *random* direction. I get to roll 1d8."

So I rolled a 1 and she did indeed pass back through the barrier. Then she had to come out again. As the bard pointed out, she'd taken 45d6 of damage before even engaging anyone!

Worst of all, she rolled a 1 on her Reflex save the third time through, and the group rolled massive damage (64 on 15d6), so my poor girl finally managed to join the fight... with only 20 hit points left!

[bulbaquil]

I present to you: the Banny Harker Affair, otherwise known as the convoluted conclusion to the Shayliss Vinder aftermath. It may not seem particularly "funny" while reading it, but it was quite hilarious at the table, full of cross-referencing NPCs with their tendencies and PCs with their backgrounds and were amused by how unexpectedly apropos some of this was.

Player W is playing a male aasimar inquisitor of Calistria, who actually started looking for eligible bachelorettes in Sandpoint before I sprang the Shayliss encounter on the party. Needless to say, he was the Shayliss-bait and easily accepted her invitation, knowing full well what she wanted. He got caught by Ven Vinder and managed to escape provoking only one failed attack of opportunity, fleeing naked into the Hagfish.

Well, he wants to make things right with Ven because he's still attracted to Shayliss, not to mention the party might feel the need to shop at the general store occasionally. Upon him asking around about how to do this, I bring up the Banny/Katrine relationship - Ven might be more inclined to be nicer if he "deals with" the issue.

Plot events interfere in the form of a kidnapped Ameiko, and the Vinder reparations are put on hold while the party delves into the Glassworks and then the Catacombs of Wrath, but when they emerge to the surface, so does the thorny Shayliss issue.

At this point Player M, whose character is a fetchling rogue with the Family Ties campaign trait and a pre-existing backstory relationship to Kaye Tesarani, decides to come up with a scheme to effectively end the romance between Banny and Katrine, involving a trip to the Hagfish for inebriation and getting Banny to become internally conflicted on whether or not Katrine really loves him or only wants him for his money, and then taking an extremely drunk Banny to the Pixie's Kitten, Kaye having been paid off to make sure everyone there referred to the nocturnal establishment as "the inn".

So after seven drinks and seven points of Wisdom damage, on the night of 27 Rova 4707, Banny found himself at the town brothel having very little idea of what was going on, and ended up involving himself with six different women, thinking all of them were Katrine. Meanwhile, W was upstairs in the Rusty Dragon involving himself with Shayliss, who had snuck into his room awaiting their return.

They get done and Shayliss gets dressed, and bumps into M. M tips off Shayliss that something is happenin with Banny at the brothel; she, being jealous of Katrine, goes to investigate and brings Katrine with her as M returns to the Rusty Dragon. Somehow Ven finds out about the event, and Banny gets into a drunken brawl with him; the party wakes up the next morning to find that both Banny Harker and Ven Vinder are now behind bars at the Sandpoint Garrison. Sheriff Hemlock is at this point still out of town, having not yet returned from Magnimar (he wouldn't until the subsequent day), and the deputy in charge is uncomfortable with the idea of running something on the order of a trial without the sheriff there. All involved parties certainly don't want to take this to Magnimar - it's a local issue and should be dealt with locally.

Enter Player A, whose character is a tiefling oracle. Of Asmodeus. Who is a lawyer by trade.

The aim of the party is, of course, to get Ven Vinder to let them shop in the store, and for the normal price rather than double price. A heads down to the garrison and proposes a deal with Ven that she'll defend him in the trial if he removes the bans/restrictions on their shopping. He accepts (and, being lawful neutral, intends on following through with the agreement), provided that W refrain from doing anything at all with Shayliss without his consent.

A spends the rest of the day basically gathering evidence against Banny Harker. But this trial actually does have some political ramifications, because of Ven Vinder's generally well-regarded nature in the community and Banny's relationship with the Scarnettis. A Scarnetti representative actually visits A over dinner and advises her for leniency - but not too much leniency - in the sentencing phase (there's just too many strikes against Banny for him to be found innocent, plus he had been effectively patronizing a brothel and the Scarnettis think he needed "a bit of reminding" that contracting such services is unbecoming of an upstanding citizen).

The whole affair takes us about 2 hours 45 minutes of real time, after the trial is all taken care of, it takes us about 15-20 minutes to calm down enough to progress with the main plot when someone is like "Oh, yeah, what about the whole goblin thing?"

...Now the operative question is whether an echo of this event will arise around, say, Sarenith 4708....

[Tangent101]

That last sentence made me laugh. =^-^=

It'll make things... interesting for the next chapter which involves Harker. Though things could still tragically play straight I suppose....

[bulbaquil]

Tangent101 wrote:

That last sentence made me laugh. =^-^=

It'll make things... interesting for the next chapter which involves Harker. Though things could still tragically play straight I suppose....

Yeah, actually as we went through this the thought of "Okay, now what sort of ramifications does all of this have for Book 2?" kept entering my mind.

If you know what it means to ''get the Brendan card'', don't click:

I'm thinking about basically swapping Harker and Thorn's roles in this. I've stated Harker is a penny-pincher, yes, but I haven't really been portraying him yet as greedy - it could simply be because he's been trying to frugally save money for a future life with Katrine. Very possibly after this, Katrine tries to start a relationship with Ibor Thorn - the mill is still a good spot for trysts, after all. In this case, Banny Harker lives and is the one who discovers Katrine and Ibor's dead bodies in the morning.

This would provide a reasonable motive for Harker to have committed the murder himself. He woke up in the garrison after the drunken night out with a Wisdom score of 5 and no memory of anything that had happened since he stepped into the Hagfish, and might well think Katrine is out to spite him. Since both Harker and Vinder have already been in trouble with the law in my game, that's a lot of tasty red herring.