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I am usually a DM but I have been a player a few times. One of the times I was a player I made a swashbuckler/fighter with 10 strength. I did things to overcome my self inflicted handicap. One thing I did was I would buy glass bottles of wine and crush them up into a powder after drinking it. Then during combat I would throw crushed glass in my opponents eyes. The first time I did this the DM had no idea how to react. I said that if it was me I would be so freaked out I may try to rub my eyes, rubbing the crushed glass deeper into my eyes. I basically created instant, permanent blindness, I did many things like this. One of the more infamous was a bag of fecal matter shoved into the mouth for instant nauseated.
The funny story I have happened a bit later in the game. I was without my weapons, I had an oil lantern. I get attacked by an assassin, he missed his initial attack and we roll initiative. I go first and I have improved grapple and run forward and grapple him. Next round I maintain control and ask if I can pour the oil from my lamp on him. The DM gives me an very high roll I need to roll to not get oil on my self. I roll a 20, I say I am dumping the oil on his crotch. The next round I maintain control in the grapple and say I am going to set fire to the oil, I have to roll again and get a 20. So in 3 rounds I set my attackers dick on fire. Safe to say I had the table laughing and my DM face palming as his assassin ran away screaming smacking his dick to put it out.
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I ROLEPLAYED convincing a group of Abadar Paladins not to abandon an trade-road building expedition just because the leaders annihilated a 2,000-strong Shoanti tribe through biological warfare (Cackling Sickness is horrible, BTW.)
...Oh, there is more, wait for it...
And even though the Master Necromancer in the leadership group raised all 2,000 as Bloody Skeletons to help in the expedition.
I actually had to make the case, not JUST roll. I leveraged the group of paladins obligation to protect the innocent laborers in the expedition.
Even though what the expedition leadership did was *SO ABHORRENTLY EVIL* the DM set the DC from "impossible" to 33 due to my deft speech and roleplay and had me make a Diplomacy check.
I rolled a natural 20 with a +14 Diplomacy.
What was that wonderful thing you did?
I was very frustrated with my fighter, so I tried to get him killed off through reckless behavior. But I rolled so well (in the open on rolld20) that I failed to kill him off. I confided in the GM about my desires and he was also on board.
For next 5 or so sessions my fighter would just crit his way to victory. One time he used a hero point while great cleaving to help him crit, but he ended up rolling crits on all four of the foes anyways. Party members would sacrifice themselves just to keep him alive.
Eventually the GM and I declared this character the luckiest man alive. After miraculously surviving a boss fight against a dimensional dervish synthesist summoner, I gave up trying to kill him and just had him retrain as an aegis.
Old enemy hired us for an epic Arcology run, so I foolishly vowed if he betrayed us I'd be forced to kill him.
Party got split, and only one PC ends up with this Johnson/CEO and the much beloved GMPC. GMPC has beautiful self sacrificing scene, Johnson comes out in a coma and is whisked away by security detail.
To avoid being slightly embarrassed, PC witness lies, not only hiding that climactic scene from everyone, but also saying GMPC died because Johnson betrayed us.
My char asks if they're sure that's what happened, sighs sadly and says OK, then astrals out. Goes out and abuses to the bleeding edge various abilities, tracks the guy to a warded jet, overpowers the massive wards, ignores all the bodyguards while decapitating coma-Johnson, and explodes the plane on the way out. Brings back the severed head and drops it in the living room before going to his lodge to cry it all out.
Dedication against violence does not equal a lack of talent for it, and paladins looking for a reason to fall, etc..
We eventually figure out that there's an upcoming grand conjunction thingy, where the demiplane itself would coalesce in prep to expand and absorb Faerun. If we can occupy its attention for about 10 rounds while calling on the faerunian gods, they might be able to calvalry in and sucker punch the plane into nigh nonexistence..
Also, my Ulfgrim, Tempurian Battleguard, decides that the most effective weapon vs fear/despair/atrocity is laughter.
He starts stockpiling ways to instant true res and otherwise recover from all manner of deaths, and starts secretly practicing secret stuff in bags of holding and other planar pockets.
When the time came, and the party of heroes stood insignificantly before the massive thing of primal ugly darkness, Ulfgrim kept forward, tearing off his gauntlet to reveal the secret weapon on his hand... A sock puppet! (This was before Banjo ever existed, dammit.)
Much like Tribute by Tenacious D, to this day I cannot recall the hilarity that spewed from our lips (me doing Ulfgrim's brute voice doing the sock puppet's screechy voice). I remember my friends losing it. I remember Ulfgrim dying 1-3 times a round, but the party or my preps instantly bringing him back again. I remember in the last round casting some sort of exalted holy rain spell fluffed to look like laughing sock puppets, while I screamed "sock puppets never die!" I can't remember the jokes and lines I rattled off for the life of me, and I know i've never been that funny before or since, but I get a big goofy grin every time I think about it.
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So a cerebromancer I'd twinked out pretty hard went up with his folk against an ancient lich with an artifact (a powerful magic jewel) for an eye. He was much more powerful than we were.
Due to reasons, I decided to solo the thing - something that was fine with the others, as they were pretty tired by this point, and were convinced that I had "a plan".
Instead, I used bestow curse on the guy until he had a 50% chance of failing everything he tried, could cast nothing but 2nd level spells, and took penalties to all saves, attacks, and so on.
And taunted him. Oh, how I taunted him. I kept hopping around the room taunting him and mocking him and laughing at him, much to his growing fury.
Once he actually hit me! "Oh, man! I'm sooooooooo paralyzed!" (which I was) I explained nonchalantly through telepathy as I dimension hopped out of his reach again. "Arg! Whatever shall I doooooooo~!" at which point I ended the paralysis and slammed him with a pretty solid blow. Solid enough to make him finally retreat to attempt to remove the various curses.
I followed him down, bypassed a few traps, fought him again, this time successfully stealing his shiny gem straight from his eye socket. He totally blinded me, though, which was terrible except for the synesthete power I had going, meaning that, while I was blind, I could still totally see him. Drove him back again, used some swift-action items we'd acquired to stone shape a small box in the ground and a massive stone pestle the exact width of the box, and slam it repeatedly onto the eye artifact, shattering a greater portion of his power. See, I could do that, because I was sixth level and "permanently" blind (by the spell, with a duration of permanency).
Then I chased him into his regeneration chamber.
"OH MAN, THAT WAS AWESOME!" I told him, "DO YOU KNOW WHAT I JUST DID?!"
"... I have some idea." he muttered in cold fury.
"HAH-HAH! SWEET! I love your coward fun-time chamber, by the way! Really swag!" *maximized, empowered etc. sonic blast spell that destroyed him, the magic wall behind him, and most of his coward fun-time chamber*
Meta-rods are so much fun.
We eventually found his phylactery, raised him as a fey creature devoid of his previous memories^, and gave him his "special box" to treasure forever.
^ GM's call, based off of several snap-rulings. It was "meh", but it worked and was kind of funny.
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One of my fonder memories is when the party was attacked by an assassin. He made the mistake of going after the fighter and cavalier first after killing then he came after my fighter/mage/thief (1st Ed) with no gear but her sword and a shield spell vs a fully equipped dual wielding assassin with poison blades she held him at the doorway whittling down his hp till the arriving guards caused him to run for it. Admittedly she was thr only survivor of the party as the dwarven priest had died from a disease sweeping the town earlier that week (game time). She was more pragmatic good on one occasion the cavalier insisted the party stay to help tend an ill old man rather continuing the mission.I said he died and the only one who suspected anything wasn't sure if she was lying or had actually killed him (it was lying since we were in the middle of his home organisations testing ground and I figured they'd be taking care of him).
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Fighting some Aspis agents in a PFS game.
I was playing a level 3 human ranger with humans as his favored enemy, and the summoner's eidolon and the rogue were attacking two of the agents, both human.
I noticed there was an open square where I could flank one of them with the rogue and the other with the eidolon, so I went there and power attacked one with my greatsword.
Hit, rolled damage, dropped him to negatives.
As I also had Cleave, I got a free attack on the second target.
Hit, rolled damage, dropped him to negatives.
So in-character, I wound up cutting two guys down with one swing of my sword.
This one comes from one of my players...during Rise of the Runelords, chapter 1. Encapsulating in spoilers as it deals with the end of the chapter.
The group consists of a rogue, wizard, ranger, and fighter (yes, no healer of any kind). We play with the core rulebook only, except that I've allowed the use of Hero Points to help a bit since they are running with no healer. The fighter was a new character, as that players previous fighter had been killed after getting captured by goblins when the group decided to commit goblin genocide in the area after the festival attack.
The group had managed to make their way to Nualia's room in Thistletop. And the rogue, after opening the door, and seeing Nualia with her hound(s) proceeded to take a few steps forward, kneel, and swear his allegiance to her (not completely out of character mind you...he had been doing some crazy things throughout the campaign and had suffered temporary madness due to coming into contact with waters of lamashtu earlier). Nualia, eager for a new play thing, agreed if he could prove his loyalty by killing his companions...
Chaos ensued. The fighter and ranger fled after the hound used it's bark, and the wizard opted for a retreat as well. As the fight progressed, the ranger broke the hounds effect and returned to the wizards side...the fighter decided that booking it back to town and getting as far away from this insane group of people was his best option. They managed to kill the hound, but Nualia was tearing them to pieces. When she started attacking the wizard, a female elf, the rogue pleaded with Nualia to leave her that he wanted her as his...when she refused, he switched sides again and attacked Nualia.
After spending nearly all of their hero points in the encouner, the wizard went down, dieing, and the ranger was almost gone. The group realized they were dead...except the fighter. As the rogue contemplated what his action would be, I gave him a moment and went to retrieve a drink. When I returned...the group, in particular the rogue, had come up with an idea...
The rogue, "Can I use my last hero point to reset everything back to the point that I was opening the door, as if this were all a vision? Our spent hero points would remain also remain spent."
I thought about it a moment, and not really wanting an almost complete party wipe...I agreed. All in total, I think 8 hero points were spent...and all but one character had 0 left. After telling the rogue a vision of their combat flashes thru his head when he touches the door, the turns to the group...
"The god's spoke to me..."
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Party had 3 mostly melee characters, an archer ranger flying around on a giant bat, and a mostly buffing oracle (me).
The enemy caster promptly casts dominate on the archer then Dimension Doored back into his tower. All 3 melee guys freak out. They have bows but nothing other than standard martial proficiency. Since the archer planned on always flying on the bat, he really concentrated on the archery stuff and did pretty respectable damage for a kobold. They were sure they were going to get pincushioned. They were actually trying to figure out if they scattered could the ranger hunt down each of them before they could get away.
I cast a single spell Reach metamagiced Pilfering Hand. Used a single hero point before the role for an additional +8 on the CMB check. Stole the bow from the archer who is now only armed with a dagger and quiver of arrows.
I just looked at the other players and said "Do you think you guys can handle it now without soiling your pants?"
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Playing in an occasional when-we-have-time mini adventure.
Half-Orc Invulerable Rager 2 / Sorceror (Draconic) 1 (yes, going for Dragon Disciple). We (me and rogue 1 / wiz 2) infiltrated a giant tower full to the brim with undead and used as a generator / control node for thousands of undead roaming the grounds outside the tower. Which is in a gigantic cavern underground.
We find the necromancer conducting a rite in front of "the Machine." The "Machine" is an altar with a big glowing green hole in it that the necro feeds dead bodies into. After a lot of loud grinding and some green glowing, an mindless undead of some sort exits from one of the sides of the altar. The necro is standing in front of the altar, having just fed another corpse into it. Several rows of cultists are off to either side, chanting and watching the necromancer.
We found an .. informant .. of sorts who informed us that the way to destroy the Machine and break the control over the army of undead was to feed a living creature into it.
We entered the room with the Machine and necro, and cultists. We're using minis and a battlemat and I notice that the necro is standing directly in front of the hole in the altar. I'm about 40 feet directly behind him and there are no obstacles.I'm sure you see where this is leading.
I decide I'm going to bull-rush the necro into the Machine. I was going to cast enlarge but the GM informed me that I'd have to squeeze through the aisle and wouldn't be able to charge. Fair enough. I also had a full blood reservoir of physical prowess. I burned all the charges in the reservoir, popped rage, and charged.
I have a tendency to roll poorly when everything is on the line. The GM knows this so queued up his phone to play this as I rolled, anticipating that I'd fail and be chased around the room by the necro and cultists while my ally attmpted to kill from hiding.
Nope. I think I rolled a 7, but with all the buffs, I beat the necro's CMD by 5. Slammed him 10 feet into the Machine hole. Machine makes horrible noise, huge flash of light, then dies, taking the necro with it. I was stunned. We started laughing. The GM reveals that the necro was a lvl 5 cleric of Urgathoa and was supposed to lead a desperate, heroic battle. Heh.
Proceed to pop claws and turn on the cultists, screaming "You're not the only scary thing down here!" Cue GM laughing again while the other player just holds his head in his hands.
Earlier in the game, this same character got tired of trying to track down an evil cleric in an underground complex, so he marched into a large room, drew his axe and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hey! You! My name is Varg Blackscale! I'm here to kick your ass and take your stuff!" Overconfidence is fun when you have a greataxe and rage.
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I was in a low level PFS game with a bunch of strangers at my local comic book shop. The highest level amongst us was 2, I believe. As we were traversing some dungeon, we came across a CR 3 monster. If I recall correctly, the scenario was us trying to cross a short crevasse by jumping across it; the scenario was supposed to work where when you jump it this flying CR 3 monster jumps out and surprise attacks you. It was supposed to be a dangerous foe. A gargoyle, maybe? Or an imp? It's been a few years, I do not remember exactly.
The gunslinger rolled a high enough perception check to see the monster hiding in the crack. He pointed it out to us, and we each took a turn firing our ranged weapon at it (with massive penalties).
Each and every single one of us managed to confirm a critical hit on the first round, complete with the gunslinger firing the last shot for the kill.
It was amazing.
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One my characters, the Prophet Raziel, was a "blind seer" who walked the earth speaking true prophecy. Really he was a charlatan, a conman, and not actually blind (yay contacts!). He was an odd fellow who was ultimately seeking divinity by performing "miracles" and then disappearing, leaving those that saw the miracles to spread word of his divinity until enough people believed it to be true.
Build was he was a 3pp class, a Sublime Transmuter, so one of the cool things I had was Telekinesis at will...
One time in the middle of a rough fight the Prophet turned to the fighter and yelled out, "CHARACTER NAME! DESTINY CALLS TO YOU! DO YOU EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY?!"
The fighter was flabbergasted and tried to ask what it meant, but the prophet insisted there was no time to explain: "ACCEPT YOUR DESTINY, CHARACTER NAME!"
Finally the character yelled out that yes, he accepts his destiny... which was him choosing to not resist "harmful" spell being cast on him. Telekinesis'd him 100 feet into the big bad evil thing; he takes a d6, the creature takes considerably more as per Telekinesis. The fighter then proceeded to go next in the initiative and wreck it.
From that moment on he trusted the "visions" of the prophet completely and the stunt became a common tactic. Every time it was used on him the fighter would scream out his new battle cry: "DESTINY!"
Have to add this for a friend. The GM of the mini-game is playing a brawler in Skull and Shackles.
First combat in the game. We get confronted one morning by a group of four angry shipmates who want to give us a beatdown for reasons. We try to talk when one swings on the brawler. Hits the brawler for 5 non-lethal. Brawler looks at the other pirate, grins menacingly, and says "Yer on!"
Swings on the pirate, crits, does 16 non-lethal to the poor pirate. Pirate had 11 hp. Drops and takes 5 lethal. Two more run, leaving one hapless soul to face our wrath. He chose not to gracefully admit defeat and take his beating. He still got one, though.
We got ambushed by assassins on the upper floor of a residence. They one-round killed our cleric and set the building on fire. My polearm-wielding Bard/Paladin single-handedly held off both assassins while the rest of the party got the cleric's body outside. 5 feet at a time. I took a step back, full attacked, and took my AoO as they approached again all the way out the building before our rogue was able to jump in and flank them and kill them.
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One my characters, the Prophet Raziel, was a "blind seer" who walked the earth speaking true prophecy. Really he was a charlatan, a conman, and not actually blind (yay contacts!). He was an odd fellow who was ultimately seeking divinity by performing "miracles" and then disappearing, leaving those that saw the miracles to spread word of his divinity until enough people believed it to be true.
Build was he was a 3pp class, a Sublime Transmuter, so one of the cool things I had was Telekinesis at will...
One time in the middle of a rough fight the Prophet turned to the fighter and yelled out, "CHARACTER NAME! DESTINY CALLS TO YOU! DO YOU EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY?!"
The fighter was flabbergasted and tried to ask what it meant, but the prophet insisted there was no time to explain: "ACCEPT YOUR DESTINY, CHARACTER NAME!"
Finally the character yelled out that yes, he accepts his destiny... which was him choosing to not resist "harmful" spell being cast on him. Telekinesis'd him 100 feet into the big bad evil thing; he takes a d6, the creature takes considerably more as per Telekinesis. The fighter then proceeded to go next in the initiative and wreck it.
From that moment on he trusted the "visions" of the prophet completely and the stunt became a common tactic. Every time it was used on him the fighter would scream out his new battle cry: "DESTINY!"
Hmmm reminds me of an item I made for one of my game's, the "Dwarf throwing axe" player who found it thought I'd said "Dwarven Throwing Axe" till he tried throwing it at an enemy. Which was when he found out it was made by a small elite group of battle dwarves. It spun them round and round before hurling them at their foe at high speed. After they impaled the foe it cast cure serious wounds and left them in melee range of an opponent who'd just been hit by several hundred pounds of dwarf pointy helmet first. He promptly sold the axe and never used it again.
I was a Level 2 or so Cleric and I bluffed a lone Kobold into thinking I was a super prophet of god by doing the whole "HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS?" and then doing terrible minor feats of magic along with another player aiding me.
I told him to kneel before me so that I could "bless him" with my sword.
Of course, I intended to decapitate him, loot his body, and do normal adventurer things, but I happened to rolled a Nat 1, completely missing the kneeling creature before me. So my DM decree'd that I actually DID bless him.
And that's how I gained a Kobold cohort.
Hmmm reminds me of an item I made for one of my game's, the "Dwarf throwing axe" player who found it thought I'd said "Dwarven Throwing Axe" till he tried throwing it at an enemy. Which was when he found out it was made by a small elite group of battle dwarves. It spun them round and round before hurling them at their foe at high speed. After they impaled the foe it cast cure serious wounds and left them in melee range of an opponent who'd just been hit by several hundred pounds of dwarf pointy helmet first. He promptly sold the axe and never used it again.One my characters, the Prophet Raziel, was a "blind seer" who walked the earth speaking true prophecy. Really he was a charlatan, a conman, and not actually blind (yay contacts!). He was an odd fellow who was ultimately seeking divinity by performing "miracles" and then disappearing, leaving those that saw the miracles to spread word of his divinity until enough people believed it to be true.
Build was he was a 3pp class, a Sublime Transmuter, so one of the cool things I had was Telekinesis at will...
One time in the middle of a rough fight the Prophet turned to the fighter and yelled out, "CHARACTER NAME! DESTINY CALLS TO YOU! DO YOU EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY?!"
The fighter was flabbergasted and tried to ask what it meant, but the prophet insisted there was no time to explain: "ACCEPT YOUR DESTINY, CHARACTER NAME!"
Finally the character yelled out that yes, he accepts his destiny... which was him choosing to not resist "harmful" spell being cast on him. Telekinesis'd him 100 feet into the big bad evil thing; he takes a d6, the creature takes considerably more as per Telekinesis. The fighter then proceeded to go next in the initiative and wreck it.
From that moment on he trusted the "visions" of the prophet completely and the stunt became a common tactic. Every time it was used on him the fighter would scream out his new battle cry: "DESTINY!"
How long have you been playing D&D? I've seen that item around since at least the early 90s.