[Spoilers] Funny Rise of the Runelords Moments

[mousmous]

My players had backstories that, very coincidentally, all pointed them towards Hook Mountain at the same time.

The alchemist was tracking down his former mentor, who joined the Black Arrows, but left a clone to incubate under Turandurok (among other clues) that the alchemist completely overlooked.

The ranger was looking for a father he'd never met, who I said was Kaven Windstrike (and renamed him Brenthain to match the backstory). He heard the name while they were in Magnimar.

So, the way the adventure went:
Rumors of no Black Arrow news for weeks in Magnimar
Ranger hears the name Brent, but doesn't make the connection at first
Party gets their hands on the letter to Xanesha
Party decides to head back to Sandpoint for reasons like "I own the sanitorum now. Need to check in and se if Habe's burned the place down." before heading up to Fort Rannick.
Since they're in Sandpoint, Shalelu asks them to help her find her estranged father, another Black Arrow
Alchemist finds clone of his mentor, and presses Ilsoari for info, learning that his mentor is ALSO a black arrow now
Based on the previous they figure that Brent = Brenthain

They didn't even need to talk to Magnimar's Lord Mayor to know where they had to go next...

They dubbed it Plot Hook Mountain

[FadetoBlack]

Our best two moments came back to back from our summoner who sometimes struggles with RP.

I just knew there would be trouble when Shayliss targeted him. He was all too happy when he realized there were no rats in the basement and summoned his eidolon (giant slime worm) to join in the festivities.

Fortunately he heard Ven coming down the stairs and when he walks in, stands over the bed, waves his arms, dismisses the eidolon and goes, "whew, glad we took care of that! Let me know if you have any more problems!" I made him roll a bluff check and he dropped a nat 20 on the table. It was amazing.

He then goes to the hagfish to celebrate and rolls a nat 1 on the challenge. Hero to zero in about 5 minutes .

[Sah]

I can't remember her name but the kobold barbarian should have been nothing to my party, but the players just rolled so terribly that I'm leveling her up to be a new fight.

Nobody passed the perception check to find her (which is amazing because some of them have +20 or more to perception) everybody rolled low with a couple 1s when she went last in initiative, the alchemist accidentally tangle Bombed the party, then she got to go.

Natural 20,20 to confirm, almost takes the magus out in one hit. Next time alchemist goes he rolls triple 1s (we use the triple 20 is an insta kill and triple 1s is instant death rule) and blows himself up, splash damage hits the party.

They finally start hitting her, and she runs down small tunnels, but nobody pursues.

A few rooms later, paladin notices a necklace on the ground, magus remembers identifying that the kobold had a necklace of fireballs, and that's when the paladin gets hit by one of the fireballs. She rolls the save since she is holding the necklace, and rolls a 1 causing the rest to explode, paladin dies.

No other monster in the game has successfully killed 2 members of the party, and the single kobold managed to, and almost got a 3rd and 4th.

[Brf]

So my group of 2nd level newbies made it to the end of the Caverns of Wrath. Erylium is hiding up on a ledge, out of melee range, doing 1-2 damage with dagger -- her summons both dead and slumbers all saved-on. None of the players has ranged attacks other than the ranger, who has a normal longbow. The sorcerer's last magic missile has done an ineffective 4-points of magic (healed long ago by Erylium's fast-heal-2. The unchained monk is occasionally getting in a Shuriken for 0-1 after +4 for strength -5dr.

The ranger, whose 1d8-damage arrows are piercing dr only occasionally, gets frustrated and throws down her bow, and whips out the pearl-handled piece-of-art Ranseur they had pried from the statue of Alaznist and takes a poke at the quasit.

20 confirmed. 18 strength. Power attack.
6d4+27. 43 - 5dr is enough to drop her in one hit after all those wasted rounds.

[Liam_Adersin]

Kral, my bec-de-corbin wielding Dwarven Barbarian had a few funny moments (before Nualia the b**** killed the entire party)

Swallowtail Festival: We had some games going and he did a weightlifting challenge (of course without raging), rolled something between 17 and 20 and was honored with the title "The mighty". As he and the party were cheering about that, someone noted: "Well at least until the next challenge in fall". So he was now the famous

"Kral the Mighty until fall"

Boar Hunt:
Hunting Boar with Aldern was a mess! Nobody hit the boar and it took one char to negative hitpoints and also nearly downed Kral. Kral himself was constantly missing. When his third or fourth swing did nothing but trenching the forest soil, the party awarded him with his second title:

"Kral the raging Farmer"

There were some more, but I don't remember, since it was more than a year ago.

Well it's more sad than funny, but after Kral died, I started Thorgrosch a 4th level "Mystic Theurge". Being only 4th level he was a Cleric 3 / Empyrial Sorcerer 1. He was LG to the eyballs and achieving exactly nothing in combats, but I loved to play him. After finishing Book 2 he was now CLE 3 / SOR 4 / MT 0 - a seventh level PC with 2nd level spells - YAY! And this was the point where I had to move 250 miles because of a new job and leave the party. 4 levels of painful uselessness without ever reaching one level of my prestige class...

Now I'm GMing a group of 6 players, actually playing Jacobs Tower (3PP and great) and looking forward to start RotRL in 2 or 3 month.

(Please excuse my language - no native speaker!)

[togamonkey]

I have a Goblin character in the campaign I'm running. He was introduced during the goblin raid on Sandpoint. One of the first things he did was jump up on a table, aiming purposely at a goblin, and fired the arrow. His intent was to show the guards that he was helping them, rather than an enemy combatant.

Instead, he rolled a critical failure, and ended up hitting one of his soon-to-be party members in the back. So all the guard saw was a goblin deliberately aiming, and shooting one of the people in the crowd.

He got off lucky by getting captured.

[Misroi]

My party just got to the Pinnacle of Avarice and had earned enough XP to make it to 16th level, and I have a house rule that says PCs need to rest and reflect on their deeds to gain that level. Basically, if you're in the middle of clearing a dungeon, you need to take an evening before the bonuses you get for the new level take effect. So, naturally, after killing a bunch of wardens of wind and a warden of runes, they decide that they want to rest and gain that sweet last level of the campaign.

They don't decide to retreat, though. Instead, the party wizard decided to cast magnificent mansion, and rest in the magical opulence it provides.

Let me reiterate that. The party wizard, who is only 15th level, decided to create an extradimensional space inside the tower of a powerful evil wizard from ten millennia ago, and figured that nothing would happen.

Yeah, that didn't slide with me either. Khalib came along, saw the door (he has see invisibility on, so there was no problem finding the location of the door), summoned several monsters (I chose an elder fire elemental and about three bearded devils), and cast greater dispel magic to evict the party, who was sound asleep and unarmored at that time. I had planned to just spam the greater dispel magic until I hit the number Khalib needed to evict the party, but I only needed the once, as it turned out.

So the party wakes up, prone, mostly unarmored, and without any real buffs. Meanwhile they're surrounded by three CR 5 devils, a CR 11 elemental, and Khalib, a 16th level transmuter. He still lost, but the party was properly pissed, and they beat a hasty retreat before heading back to Sandpoint to rest and recover.

The moral of the story? Don't taunt the evil wizard that has forgotten more magic than you in his own home.

[DomonKashu]

Where do I start, I guess party comp, I have a four player party of an elf Wizard(divination), human Alchemist(Grenadier), half-elf Druid(fire domain), and a dwarf Druid(earth domain).

Festival and Fire

:

In the very first session the fire druid was grappled by two goblins who then tried to carry him off. The party wasn't grouped up well during the fight and the only one who saw this was the alchemist who offered, "I could throw a bomb at them, if you think that's okay"

Shayliss

:

The dwarf has the best charisma of the party and was the first to go to the Vinder's store. He bought Shayliss's story about the rats, followed her down into the cellar and when he figured out wha she really wanted yelled at her stormed up the stairs, slammed his money on the counter for the goods he had come for then with Vin entering the shop while he was leaving told him "you need to talk to your little WHORE of a daughter."
Fast forward to the skinsaw man. The party went to tell her about the death of her sister. The wizard with his abysmal charisma got bored with the others beating around the bush about the issue and just blurted out "You're sister's dead". She blames the dwarf in her grief since he got her in trouble. She runs up to him and starts flailing against him. He responds by one shot gut punching her. Now he has a restraining order against him.

[Mr. Grogg]

My players had already cleared out most of Thistletop including the villain of the first book (staying vague to avoid spoilers in this intro). All they had left to do in book one was figure out how to open the special doorway downstairs and clear out what was behind it.

They had been complaining about a general lack of offensive magic treasure, when I allowed them to buy a Wand of Magic Missiles. Their VERY first encounter with their new wand was that door....

And Here's What Happened:

They found the coin slots. I described them as being pretty big for coin slots because I wasn't sure how they pictured the coins in the game and didn't want to make them quarter-sized and make it impossible to figure out. So, to make sure they could take any reasonably-imagined coin, they were two inch by half inch rectangles.

They put a couple things other than coins in the slot, and I had those things whisked away to the treasury but they didn't open the door.

"Hey! Maybe it needs a magical sacrifice! I drop my Wand of Magic Missiles in!"

Uh, okay!

I'd already established everything vanishes, so okey dokey! One less wand!

About five seconds later, they figured it out. There was much head banging.

[Narsham]

Here's one related to that special doorway:

My group just hit the gap between Sins of the Saviors and Spires of Xin-Shalast and was discussing approaches to the city.

When they encountered the doorway under Thistletop, they deduced that the coins must be magically transported into a vault. So one of the players suggested using Polymorph Any Object to turn themselves into gold coins and then have someone insert them into the coin slots! Then, when the spell expires, they escape the vault and are in Xin-Shalast.

Fortunately, the idea was shot down.

[Mr. Grogg]

Narsham wrote:

Fortunately, the idea was shot down.

That was actually quite a brilliant plan, in it's own incredibly fool-hardy way. Just out of curiosity, how would you have ruled it?

[Narsham]

Mr. Grogg wrote:

Narsham wrote:

Fortunately, the idea was shot down.

That was actually quite a brilliant plan, in it's own incredibly fool-hardy way. Just out of curiosity, how would you have ruled it?

I had already decided way back in the first adventure that the coins went to a secondary vault Karzoug maintained on a demi-plane, so they'd have ended up there. Given that I could force them to go to the dwarf cabin via a side-quest one of the characters got himself into by dealing with Mammy Graul's witch patron in order to get a hold of some of her spells, after they'd killed Mammy off, I probably would have allowed them to get to Xin-Shalast by breaking out of the vault.

[Venarha]

I know once of the other players is planning on posting a larger session report, but I thought I'd share two things that have happened recently in Chapter 2.

Foxglove Townhouse:

So we enter the townhouse and meet the Faceless Stalkers. One of our party uses the Stalker's Mask to mimic Aldren Foxglove. He still has the appearance when we come across the deeds and paperwork, and a plan is hatched. When all is said and done, a priest in our party had officiated the wedding of "Aldren Foxglove" and another member of our party (a Chillaxian heiress). Some paperwork and coin and she's now Lady Korva Larrison Foxglove (and our party now owns a Townhouse and a Manor).

Skinsaw Cult:

We cornered, and un-charmed (rather accidentally) Justice Ironbriar who immediately surrendered and offered information in return for a chance to escape. After some deft diplomacy, we were able to make an arrangement to team up WITH the Skinsaw Cult to attack the Shadow Cult and submit evidence of Xenisha's deeds to the Council, pegging her as the mastermind, clearing the Justice, who in return promised to clear our names (as we'd stirred up some trouble in Sandpoint and were currently wanted). Yes, we're going to ally WITH the Skinsaw Cult.

[Mr. Grogg]

I ran The Thing In the Attic Saturday, and it had a very unexpected ending.

They could tell Habe was hiding something, but weren't sure what it was. Habe had his orderlies bring Grayst downstairs in order to avoid disturbing the other patients. After the meeting, they camped out on the bluff above the hospital, hoping to see activity giving a hint to what was going on. When they saw nothing all night, they returned in the morning.

They insisted on going upstairs to see Grayst again, but Habe insisted that he would be brought down again. The PCs decided this was just too suspicious and surprised me by immediately attacking Habe at the door, using non-lethal damage. Habe ran, screaming, to Zaircarlu's door and began pounding and screaming, "Help! There's crazy people attacking us! And not the ones that live here! Help!"

In the meantime, the orderlies scattered, afraid to face the heavily armed and totally unreasonable intruders.

Then they managed to Charm Habe, despite the penalty for Charming somebody who you're attacking. So he became friendly and escorted some of the party upstairs while some stayed downstairs. And one stayed on the 2nd floor while two went to the third. So the party was split three ways.

Zaicarlu, in the meantime, had his zombies exit through the exterior cellar door and attack the ground floor from outside, going in through the doors. But the party's Warpriest killed all four zombies in a single round with channelling. Zaicarlu decided that he wasn't a match for somebody who took down all his toys so quickly, and used his potion of Gaseous Form to escape before anybody even saw him.

At the time, I assumed Zaicarlu would become a future villain. But then things took a turn for the unexpected.

After killing Pidget and Grayst and putting Habe (who had been knocked unconscious in the fight with Grayst) into a bed, they searched the place and found Zaicarlu's journal entry about trying to find a way to trace ghoul lineage.

They decided that Zaicarlu was obviously a researcher doing important work that could be useful. He's actually one of the good guys, they decided.

And then Habe woke up, pissed.

Knowing he was caught in the obviously illegal act of aiding a necromancer and all the stuff that goes with it, he offered them a deal: "If you don't report me for the oh-so-heinous-and-horrible crime of doing my best to help my patients heal, or at least be comfortable for as long as possible, and then after they die through no fault of my own, donating the bodies they aren't using anymore to a scientist doing (admittedly illegal) important work on trying to find ways preserve life and save even those who seem beyond saving; then I won't report you for attacking my hospital without provocation, terrorizing my employees, and killing some of my patients. I know people won't look kindly on my relationship with a person they won't approve of, but it seems you've got more to lose here."

They said, "That sounds fair. But when Zaicarlu returns, please let him know we'd like to discuss his work with him and maybe help him if we can."

So Habe is back in business and has blackmail material over the party, Zaicarlu gets to continue his work, and the party is working towards allying with a necromancer.

I find that hilarious.

[The Usual Suspect]

O_o

I presume Habe will begin finding ways to insulate himself from any accusations while gaining more leverage over the PCs. And of course Zaicarlu will begin slowly working to corrupt the PCs. Possibly even infecting some of them with ghoul fever.

[Mr. Grogg]

Last night the same group I described above continued on to The Misgivings.

I thought my head was going to explode under the effort of keeping a poker face when one of the players blurted out:

"Wait! Aldern's father didn't actually die here! He faked it and now he's studying in the basement of that sanitarium! Zaicarlu is Aldern's dad!"

And everybody looked at her with surprise and sudden comprehension as they all clearly decided she'd figured it out and was totally right.

[tonyz]

If the players come up with something really amazing, then run with it even if it was totally not your original idea ;)

[The Usual Suspect]

O_o

Run with it. Run like the wind!

[Misroi]

DM Rule #53: "If a player states a theory that's way cooler than what you originally thought of, run with it and pretend that they were right all along."

[Tangent101]

That is how I ran my Best Campaign Ever which even included the (at that point Big Bad) realizing Destiny meant he was going to achieve Godhood and then be struck down moments afterward. Realizing he was already immortal and very very powerful, he said "eff it" shows up before the PCs, gives them the artifacts for Godhood and instructions on how to destroy them, and then says "I quit, I'm going on vacation. Bye!"

The group was dumbfounded and then after 30 seconds I heard one plaintive voice ask "can he do that?"

(The campaign continued as they had to destroy the abolith and other stuff came up thanks to those artifacts. But I still love that one tiny little voice...)

[Kren420]

To start this post I just need everyone to be aware that the guy who normally plays the Druid Stonefist had family matters, so he sent his brother to play his character.

The party had just cleared the Deathweb cave just below Jorgenfist, and decided to first head into the lower cave before the tight tunnels. The wizard flew with a rope to the lower cave and managed to secure it before the wyverns came after him. He flew back to the Deathweb cave where the fight continued. Unfortuately during this fight Stonefist took a tumble and started to fall the 200 feet. Realizing that taking 20D6 your first time out is never fun I reminded him of his wildshape feature, and I would let him use it but he has to think quick because he only has 5....4....3...

To which our Dwarven Cleric Gomoksun starting screaming "Pick a shape! Pick a shape! Pick a shape!" To which our panicked new player says "Uhh... Circle!!" That was followed by stunned silence and probably the best laugh we have had since we started.

[Poldaran]

Kren420 wrote:

To which our Dwarven Cleric Gomoksun starting screaming "Pick a shape! Pick a shape! Pick a shape!" To which our panicked new player says "Uhh... Circle!!" That was followed by stunned silence and probably the best laugh we have had since we started.

Oh god, I'm dying.

I have to remember that one.

[Kren420]

Poldaran wrote:

Kren420 wrote:

To which our Dwarven Cleric Gomoksun starting screaming "Pick a shape! Pick a shape! Pick a shape!" To which our panicked new player says "Uhh... Circle!!" That was followed by stunned silence and probably the best laugh we have had since we started.

Oh god, I'm dying.

I have to remember that one.

The best part was the confidence in his decision. He was SURE that circle was the shape he wanted while falling 200 feet.

[Java Man]

After defeating the mutant goblin in the catacombs of wrath one player went on a rant about the perils of inbreeding and sleeping with your sister while living in a shack in the woods. I nearly lost it imafining bis reaction to the Grauls.

[Bellona]

Java Man wrote:

After defeating the mutant goblin in the catacombs of wrath one player went on a rant about the perils of inbreeding and sleeping with your sister while living in a shack in the woods. I nearly lost it imafining bis reaction to the Grauls.

Please report back when that player's character meets the Grauls! :)

[Narsham]

The party barbarian horrified most of the group when he started wearing the zebra-skin rug from the Foxglove townhouse (see the map) as a loincloth, so nobody complained when he elected to take the lacy pink Gloves of Swimming and Climbing from the dam in the next adventure. He proceeded to wear them for the remainder of the campaign, talking to them occasionally and acquiring an odd tea sipping habit.

So naturally, when they triumphed in the final battle, I decided that they would become intelligent gloves, with the spirit of Lucretia stuffed in them. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled, but she can't out-ego the barbarian now.

[Hythlodeus]

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?
well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

[Bellona]

What an ... ignominious way to gain some negative levels (or whatever did happen)!

(At least with a succubus there are supposed to be some positive aspects to the experience.)

[Graelsis]

Hythlodeus wrote:

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?

well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

Please, i'm begging you, i need to know what happened after that.

[Hythlodeus]

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?

well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

Please, i'm begging you, i need to know what happened after that.

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2016/05/20160527-hot-dog-sausage-recipes- roundup-09.jpg

[Graelsis]

Hythlodeus wrote:

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?

well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

Please, i'm begging you, i need to know what happened after that.

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2016/05/20160527-hot-dog-sausage-recipes- roundup-09.jpg

Cant see it!!

[Adjoint]

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?

well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

Please, i'm begging you, i need to know what happened after that.

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2016/05/20160527-hot-dog-sausage-recipes- roundup-09.jpg

Cant see it!!

Yeah, the embeded link doesn't work, but copy the link that is written, delete the space before the word "roundup" and you will be able to see it.

[The Raven Black]

In Magnimar during the Skinsaw Murders

Spoiler:

Sir Felix (Spell-less Ranger) and my fellow Binyon Longfoot (Rogue/Fighter) sneakily made our way into the mill while the rest of the party waited close by to back us up when the ruckus would start. We started killing a few cultists when Ironbriar appeared. Seeing the short work we made of his thugs, he rushed into a room and locked the door to cast his buffs.

Sir Felix did the only reasonable thing.

He hold the handle of the door and kept it shut (STR 18) for a very long time until we were sure all the buffs had run their duration.

THEN WE KILLED THE DAMN JUDGE

Sleeping in Magnimar in the Foxglove house

Spoiler:

Sir Felix decided to go and sleep in a real bed and went upstairs in the chamber, while the rest of the party huddled together on the dining room's floor.

To punish his audacity, the GM unleashed upon Sir Felix the most terrible Catsassin (3pp monster) who kept him sleeping why coup de gracing him round after round. When Sir Felix finally woke up, all he could see was a cute purring cat. He shot it at once. The GM started complaining that I was metagaming. I reminded him that Sir Felix knew he had just saved against magic and could feel the wounds made during his sleep. And that cat was the only potential culprit nearby.

Still the GM asked how Sir Felix could have the heart to shoot at such a cute innocent furry creature. I then turned to the others and asked them "When Sir Felix (whom I had based on infamous bully Biff Tannen) sees a cute kitten mewling in the street, what does he do ?". The unanimous chorus came back "He kicks it savagely". I turned to the GM and said "See ?". He conceded

AND I KILLED THE DAMN CAT

In (river's) bed with Black Magga

Spoiler:

Sir Felix was on the roof of the church with two kids, hiding from Black Magga behind the remains of some tower. He was in its reach and could not shoot at it without risking an AoO.

Sir Felix then turned to the kids and told them : "Kids, this is no place for you. This monster will kill us all. You must flee at once." The idea was that their fleeing would provoke an AoO from Black Magga, freeing Sir Felix to shoot at it with no risk of one (hoping it did not have Combat Reflexes). Alas, Sir Felix fumbled his Intimidate and the kids did not move an inch.

DAMN BRATS

Black Magga's aftermath

Spoiler:

We got our derriere handed to us by Black Magga in the most ignoble way (though no casualties despite some very close calls) and it added insults to injury by telling us we were quite unworthy of its attention and teleporting away.

We nursed our physical wounds, but the ones to our pride were still stinging. We then went down the road to walk back through the forest to Fort Rannick. That was the inauspicious moment a young green dragon calling itself the Lord of the Forest chose to try and get some tribute from us. We looked at each other incredulously

AND WE EXTERMINATED THE DAMN DRAGON IN LESS THAN 3 ROUNDS

That felt incredibly good

[Graelsis]

Adjoint wrote:

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

Graelsis wrote:

Hythlodeus wrote:

everyone knows that one village idiot who decides to do his business against a high-voltage fence, right?

well, it turns out, the wizard of my party decided to do exactly that, urinating into the portal to the negative energy plane in the gluttony wing of the runeforge.

Please, i'm begging you, i need to know what happened after that.

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2016/05/20160527-hot-dog-sausage-recipes- roundup-09.jpg

Cant see it!!

Yeah, the embeded link doesn't work, but copy the link that is written, delete the space before the word "roundup" and you will be able to see it.

I laughed so hard i farted. Thanks man!

[Delthos]

My current group is running through Burnt Offerings. We just got about half way through. Our current funny moment is:

Shaylis troubles:

The party has a Varisian Bard who fancies himself a ladies man. He made it point to tell me this while he was building the character. I could feel the hook being set for this encounter there.

So he fairly willingly went with her to take care of the "rats". The rest of the party, a Rogue, Wizard, and Paladin decided to follow along at a safe distance as they got a bad feeling about the situation.

The Bard and Shaylis go down into the basement and a short time later, Ven comes out of a side room with a customer saying he had to go down to the basement to get some of his special stock. The other guys were already in the store at this point, so the Wizard quickly tries to get Ven's attention as he had and idea of what was going on in the basement and tries to keep him from going down there. He tries really hard to convince him to help him first.

Ven, says to just hold on a bit as he has to finish helping the other customer. It is at this point that the Rogue sees an opportunity for some thievery and starts looking at two coils of rope.

The wizard follows Ven a short moment after he heads to the basement. A bit later they all hear Ven's enraged voice. Ven sees the Wizard come down and thinks that the group had planned the whole encounter to take advantage of Shaylis and each take a turn with her. Seeing how the Wizard tried so hard to keep him from going into the basement.

The Paladin not knowing what is exactly going on in the basement, moves to the basement door to see what's going on. The Rogue seeing that the customer and Paladin are thoroughly distracted by the troubles, uses slight of hands to put one of the ropes under his coat. He then moves to the stairs and drops the other rope. The Paladin doesn't see this.

Ven and the Bard and Wizard have it out in the basement. Ven rolls crappy and is completely ineffectual in the fist fight. The Wizard grapples Ven and is able to keep him grappled for three rounds until Ven calms down enough to kick them all out and ban them from the store. He comes up to find the Paladin and the Rogue blocking the door.

This just reinforces Ven's idea that it was all planned out for them all to take advantage of Shaylis.

After leaving, the Paladin realizing that they need to fix the problem asked Father Zantus to help getting things fixed. Father Zantus agrees to help and goes to help the next day. Unfortunately Ven found the second rope on the floor and after putting it back realizes that one is missing. He has no desire to fix things and is waiting for the Sheriff to return from Magnimar, so he can have the entire party arrested for thievery. He has no proof, but is highly suspicious, as the customer said the Rogue was looking at the ropes. The party hasn't found out he suspects one of them stole the rope yet. They are currently dealing with the Catacombs of Wrath. The sheriff is due back in a day or two.

So Ven thinks the "Heroes of Sandpoint" planned to all take turns with Shaylis, tried to keep him from getting into the basement to find out, and then steal from him, and of all things a rope! To top it off one of them is a Paladin. Other than the Rogue, nobody knows the Rogue stole the rope. So they are all gonna be in for a surprise when they find out what happened.

I'm looking forward to see where things go. Oh yeah, the Sheriff is the Rogue's "uncle" because of the Favored Son/Daughter trait! I'm really not sure how they plan to fix the problem at this point, but its gonna be fun letting them try. I foresee Father Zantus using a zone of truth to help out the situation, if the player's ask for more help. The Rogue may have to spend some time in a cell!

[Poldaran]

Delthos wrote:

My current group is running through Burnt Offerings. We just got about half way through. Our current funny moment is:

** spoiler omitted **...

Shayliss is the gift that keeps on giving lulz.

[The Shifty Mongoose]

The Graul house turns into Darkest Dungeon meets The Three Stooges:

The Grauls all know something's up, but the only one who's doing anything is (now a gravewalker witch) Mammy, walking around in a possessed fast zombie.

Meanwhile, the PCs make a circuit around the house, and decide to make a Silent Image of the fighter with accompanying Ghost Sound as some kind of makeshift Mirror Image, I guess. Half the group walks into the kitchen, one gets grossed out, and they turn back around. The other half decide to split the party, which ends up accidentally saving the rest by leaving them out of the porch trap. At least this reminded them to start looking for traps again.

They go back through the kitchen, grossing out the rest of them, open the door seeing Lucky dancing at Maulgro, who's crying at Lucky, then quietly close the door again.

The bard ends his turn in front of a door and says he's going to check for traps on his next turn. Then the fighter goes, leans over to open the door, and the trap hits the bard. Who then complains at the fighter the entire rest of the time. The bard's illusionary fighter got stuck in the wall when his concentration broke.

The Arcane Trickster found another door scythe and figured out how to disable them, but then everyone went into Mammy's room. She cursed the fighter, blinded the bard, and when her D-Door failed, she had to float her way into the front hall. There, the Trickster found and warned everyone about the couch trap, but the bard sent his charmed seeing-eye dog after Mammy and over the trap, which the dog survived. In the meantime, Hucker was resetting the door scythes.

After killing Mammy and looking a Cure Blindness potion from her, they went back through the house. "Don't worry, I disabled this trap," the Trickster said as the reset door scythe hit him.

Oh, and during the fight with Mammy, they managed to set the house on fire. "Just leave it there," they said. "The house looks better that way."

[Java Man]

When discovering the opening to the stairs leading to the caverns under Foxglove Manor, with the emphasis on the reek of rancid meat, my group dubbed it the 'Meathole.'

[Fumarole]

When my players found their way to the Foxglove townhouse in Magnimar they decided to go in straight away. They had the key so they let themselves in. They were greeted in the foyer by the faceless stalkers, one appearing as Lyrie Akenja (who escaped from Thistletop) and the other as Aldern Foxglove. However the PCs, having killed the Skinsaw Man, planned on taking over his townhouse and using it as a base of operations for their activities in Magnimar. They were not anticipating anyone being in the townhouse, so before entering, the elven nightblade in the party (played by my most mischievous player) used the hat of disguise found in The Misgivings to disguise himself before entering, to avoid alarming the local nobility. Who did he disguise himself as? Well, as Aldern Foxglove, of course.

Luckily had I had two minis of Foxglove from the case we ordered before starting the adventure path. I was disappointed when I first opened the case, as I didn't foresee the use of having two of this particular mini. When I plopped it down in front of them, half the party was astounded, thinking Foxglove somehow escaped their wrath, while the other half couldn't stop laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

I guess the moral of the story is make full use of the resources you have, you never know what it might lead to.

There is a photo of the encounter here.

[Misroi]

I'm 99% certain the devs included that hat for just this situation. The players in my party were considering doing just that before they decided against it. I'm still kinda sad about that.

[Java Man]

My players are planning to use the hat to lay a trap for the agents ofXanesha mentioned in the letter, the ones who will contact Aldren at the townhouse if he needs brushing up on the ritual.

[Ninja in the Rye]

Funny for no one but me as the GM, but I was prepping to run the Boar Hunt (with a few "random" encounters added in), and reverse engineered Aldern Foxglove's stats to see how he'd handle himself if he happened to be targeted or made an attack.

Realizing that the guy who was cowering behind a barrel from a group of goblins and had to be saved by a party of 1st level adventurers at the start of Burnt Offerings was, in fact, a 7 HD character with 31 HP, +7 to hit with light and ranged weapons, and an unarmored AC of 14 is amusing.

[Graelsis]

The paladin of my campaing started the game kidnapped in twistletop.
One of the characters sneaked into the dungeon, helped by Gogmurt, who wanted Nualia to dissapear.

He found the Paladin naked, and tied like a pig, with 3 female goblins trying their best to make him "stay hardy hardy".
The infiltrated PC take down the 3 female goblins, and untied the paladin.

The paladin says: "lets explore this dungeon". So, the naked paladin and the ranger (the infiltrated one), went for a little walk into twistletop's first floor.

They found the flying dogs, the dogs barked, and the ranger flee like a bunny all the way up to the barracs, he roll a natural 20 in acrobatics, and just jump and run away while 3 gobs look at him stupefied.

The Paladin fight the dogs, naked. The paladin starts to lose and, soooo naked, he ran his way up to the top. Now there are more gobs trying to figure out what the hell was that guy running away screaming like a seagull. They saw the naked paladin trying to climb the walls and rolling a natural 1. "IUUUGHHH" they said, (you can figure what happened with that natural 1) and rise the alarm.
The paladin roll again, and he managed to climb this time. He pass the bridge followed by a rain of arrows, while he scream "¡WAIT FOR ME YOU SON OF A BUNYIP!"

3 months have passed, and we are still laughing. XDDD

[Java Man]

Bellona wrote:

Java Man wrote:

After defeating the mutant goblin in the catacombs of wrath one player went on a rant about the perils of inbreeding and sleeping with your sister while living in a shack in the woods. I nearly lost it imafining bis reaction to the Grauls.

Please report back when that player's character meets the Grauls! :)

Tonight we will be beginning book 3, so the requested report should be on your desk soon.

[Bellona]

This is more of an amusing mental picture than anything else, particularly if you've ever blown eggs prior to painting them. Now imagine that you're a dragon ...

Wall of text:

One of my two RotR groups is fond of using Stone Shape spells to make hidden camping spots while adventuring, particularly if in a dungeon or in wilderness areas with cliff faces and the like. This method hasn't always worked out for them (like the time that a will-o'-wisp found them), but it's still a thing that they do.

In this particular case they were at Rimeskull. There was a bit of scouting because the RotR AE Player's Guide had spoiled the players about the presence of Arkhryst (cue GM annoyance; the guide even gave his real name instead of the Shoanti name). I have recently acquired Ultimate Wilderness, and that resulted in some random heavy fog shrouding the lake and halfway up the stairway. This made the party very suspicious.

Their ethereal scout with the fog-cutter lenses looked around, but decided that actually going into the mouth of Xin alone would be too risky. There was some investigation of the staircase and the stone heads. Several spells were used in the mid afternoon, and eventually the party managed to snag all seven keys ethereally. Then the party decided to make camp as they weren't sure of their next step, they had already used some high-level spells in getting to Rimeskull and others to get the keys, and they had no idea if the dragon (not seen for over 200 years according to what they knew) was still around/alive.

Their campsite was formed by means of several Stone Shape spells. They chose a wide crevice in the cliff face of Rimeskull, roughly 200 feet laterally away from the mouth of Xin. First, a wide ledge was made, next a two-inch stone shell covering most of it like a bubble, complete with several spy slits and a very crude door. And they settled down for dinner and eventually sleep.

I had already decided that the keys would have a built-in timer so that if they were not used before sunset, they would then go back to their ethereal locations while the respective stone heads lit up and chimed as described in the book. (This was originally meant to keep any one faction from hogging the keys.)

So the party was treated to an unexpected son-et-lumiere (sound and light) performance just as the sun went down. And Arkhryst woke up. Being the suspicious and careful type that he is, he brought up a blizzard outside the cave mouth before going out to investigate as true night fell. He scouted the area, and found this intriguing stone bubble on the side of his mountain - something obviously artificial (flat bottom, door, etc.) which hadn't been there previously.

The party only noticed the blizzard blowing up, but didn't think more of it. Until there were scrabbling sounds from the roof of their stone shelter. Initiative!

The dragon won the initiative, but had to use his actions to claw an opening through the top of the stone shell while using his Ice Walking ability to cling to the cliff face. The druid slammed down a tree Feather Token, ready to use Transport Via Plants to get the hell out of Dodge next turn, another party member opened the door, a third member raced across the shelter's floor and flung himself out of the open door (he has the Flight hex), and the barbarian got into position to be "tree-ported" the next turn.

Next came the dragon's breath weapon, straight into the stone shell. (I was astounded by the large number of 1s, but they were balanced out by the other numbers rolled so the dice actually returned an average amount of damage.)

The party managed to co-ordinate their actions after that, so that they were all tree-ported to just outside of Sandpoint. Freezing (literally in the case of those who got a breath weapon to the face), in shock, and shivering from left-over dragon fear, they stumbled into the Rusty Dragon. Ameiko kindly served up hot rum toddies to them all.

Arkhryst was left with a tree in a stone shell. The tree didn't last long due to his frustration, but at least he got some dragon-sized toothpicks out of it. :)

[Bellona]

@ Java Man: Still looking forward to that report! :)

[Java Man]

As usual my guys went at things bassackwards, and hit Ranneck before the Grauls, which they just finished. The gnomish wizard who previously ranted about inbreeding with the goblin again pulled some prophetic powers, something about "if they keep this up they'll have tentacles", and then they found the tendriculous in the basement...

The best moment was rhe paladin and human wizard leading the way through the kitchen. After I described what the paladin was walking into the player asks, in jest, "do I need to make a fort save?" The table was silent for a moment when I said "yes actually." At this point the wizard (conjurer who was enjoying his newly acquired dimensional step power) announces he will not be entering the kitchen, he'll just port over to a clear spot on the other side when rhe others tell him it's safe.

[Bellona]

:D

Ah, that tendriculous ... that's when (in one group) we found out that the druid - who was functioning mostly as a scout - did not have very good Knowledge (Nature). She tried to walk past the pile of muck/plant matter, and got a nasty surprise. :)

(Since she was size Small, she even got Swallowed Whole.)

[blahpers]

Ninja in the Rye wrote:

Funny for no one but me as the GM, but I was prepping to run the Boar Hunt (with a few "random" encounters added in), and reverse engineered Aldern Foxglove's stats to see how he'd handle himself if he happened to be targeted or made an attack.

Realizing that the guy who was cowering behind a barrel from a group of goblins and had to be saved by a party of 1st level adventurers at the start of Burnt Offerings was, in fact, a 7 HD character with 31 HP, +7 to hit with light and ranged weapons, and an unarmored AC of 14 is amusing.

Yyyyyeah, that kinda struck me as odd. I treated it as the PCs arrived before he decided he had to fight, so he decided to let them handle it. He's quite the coward, after all.

[tokyo_rose]

Me and my group are all first time PF players and so we decided to start with RotRL, naturally!

We have one player in particular who is playing a Barbarian and isn't very strong at roleplaying, which has resulted in a lot of VERY wacky rp moments.

As his character hook, he said that him and his wife were traveling to Sandpoint to see the cathedral since they had gotten married there. Basically, I had her captured by Nualia, impregnated with a monster, and then they found her dead in the catacombs in a birthing pool I added to the map. Before this all happened, the player had been pretty quiet, going along with everyone else's plans and ideas. After this point, his character really "came to life."

1) he storms into the Fatman's Feedbag and smashes two random Sczarni in face, getting the group kicked out of the bar for life and raising the hackles of the town's criminal element.
2) he chooses to go down to the saw mill in the evening and starts hacking at logs in the river, only to get yelled at by Banny Harker who demands payment for the damage of property. His response is "Sheriff isn't in town" and continues to smash the log to bits.
3) Decides to go to the Two Knights brewery and rob it, only to find out that Gaven is there. He instead buys a barrel of booze and forces the man to give him a discount because he's a "hero of Sandpoint". He then took the barrel around at the "thanks for taking care of thistletop" party, got wasted, and drew a likeness of his wife on the barrel, calling it barrel wife the rest of the session.

Every time he looks at my map of sandpoint/businesses I get nervous about which NPC he is going to terrorize next, haha. Onto book two...