I did have to check for a pulse because dressing up the paladin as vampire so my character would stake my character's love interest threw the heart alive would totally be something inspector would do.
Oh... wow... that would have been AWESOME. XD
Surely there must be a spell that makes a creature appear dead, suppresses the pulse? :P An amulet of Undead Anatomy?
This story is only made as epic as it was with you playing along, though. Most players I know would have just ragequit at this kind of stuff. :P
I'm running Way of the Wicked and I'd love that some of my players would turn into liches, vampires or grave knights, but I don't think it's going to happen. One of them is a hedonistic antipaladin who enjoys life too much (played by the same player who was accidentally forced by me to play an antipaladin when he wanted to play a paladin xD), another one is a rogue archer who has all his feats compromised in making his build work, another one is a new player who is playing a druid and I don't think he is tempted by unlife (who knows?) and the last one... doesn't come too much.
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This happened during my Wrath of the Righteous game.
One of my players was a Female Android Paladin of Ragathiel named Arken. As the campaign progressed Arken and Arueshalae formed a romance and became deeply in love. [Even going so far as to pick up the Emotion feat for an android so she could feel love.]
Around the time the group entered into Nocticula's realm, the Midnight Isles, Arken forced Arueshalae to leave her side; fearing for her safety and her redemption in such a realm. This caused a spat between the lover's and Arueshalae fled in tears.
Arken had Aravashnial, an elven riftwarden ally, to attempt to divine her whereabouts. He located her within Noctiucla's realm upon the isle of Alinythia.
Now Alinythia was under the rule of Shamira, the Ardent Dream and Arken knew from speaking with Arueshalae that this is where she used to reside.
Arken fearing for her love ventured into the Midnight Isles to find her. (At this point the group had come to an uneasy alliance with Nocticula and could move about with some degree of protection.)
Minagho was a powerful lilitu demon that the player's had encountered and they had disrupted her plans and made her look foolish. In particular Arken had gone out of her way in attempting to slay the demon. Minagho barley escaped the players and followed them into the Midnight Isles.
Minagho found Arueshalae and captured the succubus, trapping her in a hideout and assuming her form, before contacting Arken through messengers; telling her that they should meet alone to speak of their relationship.
Arken didn't hesitate and left without telling her companions. She met with "Arueshalae", Minagho in disguise, and they conversed about what had happened. Eventually, Minagho after a small amount of bluffing and faking love while in the guise of Arueshalae, asked a simple question of Arken.
"What do you wish my love?" Arken answered "I wish to be with you Arueshalae. I love you."
Minagho a powerful Lilitu demon granted her Wish.
Lilitu have "Profane Wishcraft" as a ability. The wish was granted and the Arueshalae appeared in front of Arken, comatose and bound.
I informed Arken to make a Will save against the profane wishcraft effect and she failed, turning Arken Chaotic Evil and making her fall; losing her paladin abilities.
Minagho revealed her true form and laughed at the fallen Arken.
[My player at the time was flabbergasted and hadn't even considered Minagho coming for her. She wasn't mad about and thought it was a crazy twist of the knife.]
Arken attempted to cut her down tears in her eyes but without her Smite and powers it was ineffectual. Minagho then hit Arken with a Dominate Monster, which she failed as well. And forced her to collect her love and return to her hideout where they would begin the process of her training in attempt to make Arken an Anti-Paladin of Baphomet.
Eventually her companions found her through divination magic when she had been missing and they stormed into Minagho's lair. Arken still dominated ended up killing one of her friends before the demon and her allies were slain.
It caused a lot of tension in the group and left a strain on Arken and Arueshalae.
Who thinks we should rename this thread «Another thread about paladins falling»?
I think we take some delight on making paladins fall.
I'm running Way of the Wicked and I'd love that some of my players would turn into liches, vampires or grave knights, but I don't think it's going to happen. One of them is a hedonistic antipaladin who enjoys life too much (played by the same player who was accidentally forced by me to play an antipaladin when he wanted to play a paladin xD), another one is a rogue archer who has all his feats compromised in making his build work, another one is a new player who is playing a druid and I don't think he is tempted by unlife (who knows?) and the last one... doesn't come too much.useing the feats arnt the only way to become a vampire in way of the wicked
It states that you can become it by any way, but you have to trade your preexistent feats for the ones that make you a lich/vampire/grave knight.
If you change your mind come to my games. I'll probably make you fall in the first session without even trying to do it. I seem to have that tendency.
You can play a paladin-like fighter, a LG cleric and you'll be safe, but play a paladin and I'll mess up and make you fall.
It happened twice.
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I did have to check for a pulse because dressing up the paladin as vampire so my character would stake my character's love interest threw the heart alive would totally be something inspector would do.Oh... wow... that would have been AWESOME. XD
Surely there must be a spell that makes a creature appear dead, suppresses the pulse? :P An amulet of Undead Anatomy?
This story is only made as epic as it was with you playing along, though. Most players I know would have just ragequit at this kind of stuff. :P
Well Inspectre is a hell of a DM, and he's pretty clear from the get go that it's going to be a rough ride, and if you're not into it you probably shouldn't play. For example while this is the most brutal thing he has done in this campaign let me give you a short list of things he has done to the party as whole:
My character's soul is sold to Hell due to a contract he signed to get into the Hellknight (This of course was written on the back in invisible ink)
Made one character fall in love with the main villain and has been torturing him for it for ever now.
Killed off the family of a NPC that the group really liked for no reason and had the villain scribe "Come Get Me" into the NPC's back with a razor.
Killed off PC's whole gang of street thugs with Vampires (He likes vampires. I guess.)
Kill off my PC's best friend and then framed him for the murder.
this is not a complete list the games been going on like this for 4 years. We are all a bunch of nut jobs and have only lost one player.
Reasons To Never Play A Paladin #6715, 6716, and 6717 in a probably infinite series. >:(
Mine wasn't that bad. :)
Arken only fell because of Profane Wishcraft and she had plenty of ways to try to avoid that fate. Just missed the Sense Motive and the player was focused on saving her relationship.
She ended up being de-powered for 1 session of game play before Atonement happened; since she didn't wilingly do anything.
It wasn't a forced situation and while i tried to get her to fall that was only because that's how lilitu demons work.
It was also the only time she fell in 20 levels and 10 mythic tiers of game.
Reasons To Never Play A Paladin #6715, 6716, and 6717 in a probably infinite series. >:(
Mine wasn't that bad. :)
Arken only fell because of Profane Wishcraft and she had plenty of ways to try to avoid that fate. Just missed the Sense Motive and the player was focused on saving her relationship.
She ended up being de-powered for 1 session of game play before Atonement happened; since she didn't wilingly do anything.
It wasn't a forced situation and while i tried to get her to fall that was only because that's how lilitu demons work.
It was also the only time she fell in 20 levels and 10 mythic tiers of game.
Actually, I like it. It's nothing definitive or crippling and it adds a lot of flavor for future roleplaying.
The lilitu in question was weakened with several negative levels, iirc. Don't have the stats on hand but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a little less than that. Plus this is in the AP with mythic rules. That Sense Motive check might have actually been possible. Not probable, mind you, and it was still a dick move, but that *is* the nature of the topic.
To be honest, I wish some of this stuff would happen in my games. Games I've been in have been entirely too mundane. I don't mind horrible things happening to my characters, at best it's RP fuel, at worst I get to try out a new character.
Definitely has to be something that the whole group buys into though.
I'm realizing I have been very nice as a DM. The most brutal thing I've done is throw in a Displacer Beast as a "random wilderness encounter" against a party of 4 Lvl 3 PCs. One of which was a Ranger with magical beast as a favored enemy. No problem right? The party proceeded to produce the greatest streak of either "1s" or "50% miss chance" rolls I have ever seen, and the encounter ended in a TPK.
We learned never to underestimate displacer beasts again.
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I'm pretty certain any good lawyer could get you a Stay of Damnation on that account.
My character's soul is sold to Hell due to a contract he signed to get into the Hellknight (This of course was written on the back in invisible ink)
Actually that option was brought up in game as the invisible ink was a non-starter with Hell. But My PC's soul has been sold to demi-plane that's rebelling from hell. So if my PC brought it up to Hell they would probably not enforce the contract. However I decided to go the redemption route VIA becoming a paladin of Serenrea. Which should be happening soon. Might need to find a good lawyer for my fellow HellKnights who have all been slaughtered and turned into devils
Made one character fall in love with the main villain and has been torturing him for it for ever now.
That would be my character, Rholand J'skar. A Nature Oracle that's the main Support/Healer/Face of the group and had been healing poor folk in the slums. Events in the story unfolded in such a way that Rholand ended up as the Royal Healer to the big bad, and he helped fill a hole left by her late husband by being supportive and a good listener.
It ended with him being possessed by an ancient demonic force and steadily driven to the brink of madness (he's better now) and was framed for murder by the court Wizard. After the framing, that same Wizard tied Rholand in rope, stabbed him in the heart with a blood cursed dagger, and kicked up off the high wall of the castle into the river behind it. He was saved, if only just, but had to deal with the creeping madness caused by the demonic force, as well as 3 very strong demons that had also been sent after him as a result of the curse. A metallic slime that was basically the T-1000, a giant bat-like demon, and a demon knight that feasted on the souls of the righteous.
But he's all better now! ...Kinda.
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Made one character fall in love with the main villain and has been torturing him for it for ever now.That would be my character, Rholand J'skar. A Nature Oracle that's the main Support/Healer/Face of the group and had been healing poor folk in the slums. Events in the story unfolded in such a way that Rholand ended up as the Royal Healer to the big bad, and he helped fill a hole left by her late husband by being supportive and a good listener.
It ended with him being possessed by an ancient demonic force and steadily driven to the brink of madness (he's better now) and was framed for murder by the court Wizard. After the framing, that same Wizard tied Rholand in rope, stabbed him in the heart with a blood cursed dagger, and kicked up off the high wall of the castle into the river behind it. He was saved, if only just, but had to deal with the creeping madness caused by the demonic force, as well as 3 very strong demons that had also been sent after him as a result of the curse. A metallic slime that was basically the T-1000, a giant bat-like demon, and a demon knight that feasted on the souls of the righteous.
But he's all better now! ...Kinda.
Yeah this is was the most Brutal thing Inspectre did until the vampadin.
I'm pretty sure pipedreamsam has a pocket notebook filled with mine.
My character's soul is sold to Hell due to a contract he signed to get into the Hellknight (This of course was written on the back in invisible ink)Made one character fall in love with the main villain and has been torturing him for it for ever now.
Killed off the family of a NPC that the group really liked for no reason and had the villain scribe "Come Get Me" into the NPC's back with a razor.
Killed off PC's whole gang of street thugs with Vampires (He likes vampires. I guess.)
Kill off my PC's best friend and then framed him for the murder.
this is not a complete list the games been going on like this for 4 years. We are all a bunch of nut jobs and have only lost one player.
Point(s) of order!
The family murderer carved "You're next" into the NPC's back, as she was coming for you all and wanted you to know it. And it wasn't an idle threat - the following session she ambushed the party's ninja, tied him up, and repeatedly drowned him in the river until he narrowly escaped when a friendly NPC who had been stalking the ninja cut him loose underwater. (It's hard to say whether that was the most brutal thing I did to that particular character or if it was the part where he learned his character was an orphan - as per his backstory - because his dad killed his mom to cover up the fact that he was a rakshasa.)
The evil vizier stabbed Rholand in the lung, not the heart, so he would slowly suffocate to death - if he had stabbed Rholand in the heart he'd just be dead. :p He also murdered the guards standing watch over him to make it look like he escaped, fought his way out, and then just disappeared. The Mezlan, Nightwing, Sepid Div were sent only after he realized that Rholand had survived.
The NPC paladin did not fall, she merely lost access to her powers due to becoming a vampire and losing her LG alignment - so that shouldn't count! I have nothing to do with this turning into yet another "the paladin must fall!" thread - I mean, some of my best friends are paladins!
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Although . . . that does remind me of another paladin from an older game I ran, although it was a freeform play-by-post game rather than tabletop Pathfinder. It had holy knights who called themselves paladins, although their divine powers were more taught than bestowed by a god. Any way, the character was a former general of the main good church of the campaign world, had died a hero, and got sent back to earth by his goddess to go and cleanse her church of corruption. That didn't work out well for him, and he got captured and sent to prison by the evil conspiracy growing within the church.
The game started with him escaping from this prison, and along the way he ran into a fallen angel that he made friends with. He spent the whole first part of the game building this fallen angel up, telling her that her sins could be forgiven, that he would speak to his goddess on her behalf, and that she could find redemption.
Well, as soon as he got out of the prison, he plane shifted himself back to Heaven to talk to his goddess and get her advice on what to do next. And he brought up the fallen angel, telling the goddess that said angel deserved to be lifted back up and given a position of authority. BIG MISTAKE! The goddess flipped out on him, gave him a sword, and told him in no uncertain terms that he was to go back and use it to skewer the fallen angel through the heart.
The hilarity of this story ensued when he got back to earth. Because HE ACTUALLY DID IT! He went up to the angel, told her she would never be forgiven, and so sorry, but she had to die now. And then stabbed her through the heart without hesitation.
The player went on to regret that out-of-character after I brought the fallen angel back in another character's story, who happened to be stuck in hell at the time. She was completely broken from the sudden merciless attack by the paladin, who had spent so much time convincing her to hope for mercy.
What the paladin hadn't known at the time was that there was a lot of bad blood history between this particular angel and his goddess, sort of like a strict mother/rebellious teenage daughter dynamic on steroids. And so he had really hit a sore spot for the goddess by just bringing her up first thing and arguing that she should be given a high position (when she had already had a high position before throwing it all away and betraying several other angels, leading to her fall in the first place). The goddess was also a b@+%%, as I was going for a Greek "if you piss me off I'm going to smite you until you like it" sort of god. The paladin got the last word though, as he told her off and basically to "grow up" later in the campaign when she started to go on another rant. And the fallen angel fell in love with the other PC she met in Hell, so it all worked out in the end? Sort of?
. . . I guess what I'm getting at is, there's a reason why I use "The Rat Bastard DM" as my chat handle. ^^
For those that want more context on these stories though, you are welcome to read through the campaign journal and general DM blathering thread I'm writing. It can be found HERE. Warning: The game is a modified Curse of the Crimson Throne game, and while all of the stories here are pretty specific to our game alone, there are a *LOT* of spoilers about that AP (and about a couple of other APs where I make off-hand remarks about how I would modify them, although most of those are marked and put in spoiler tags) in that linked thread. So, if you're playing in a CotCT game, you will want to stay out! Of course, if you're a DM, feel free to stop by and get some new ideas on how to make your players regret they ever heard of Pathfinder, let alone your game, bwahahahaha!
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I have nothing to do with this turning into yet another "the paladin must fall!" thread - I mean, some of my best friends are paladins!
I like paladins too, I'd actually love to play one (even though I am afraid my GM takes revenge on me!). I don't even try to make them fall, I made some judgement mistakes... twice. And now my players won't let me forget it. I'll always be the one who makes paladins fall.
Back to that story, we were GMing a story arc where alternate realities were colliding, so we created alternatw versions of the PCs to see how they developed. In this reality, the paladin's sister never fell, so he never left his home.
So he was there when a god-demon attacked his hometown, where his goddess lived. The god-demon had his soul linked to a child because of a failed binding ritual, and it was the kid (who the demon carried with him) who was spurring the demon to attack.
The devastation was terrible. Many people were dying and the paladin couldn't protect them. There was nothing he could do.
Only trying to kill the child.
He failed in his attempt, as the demon protected him well, but this caught the demon's attention. He was delighted seeing a holy paladin trying to kill a kid. As a chaotic creature he lost a bit of interest on destroying the town (he wasn't forced to do it, he just took it from the kid's mind and it looked like a good idea) and started to be more interested on corrupting the paladin.
Having caught his attention, the paladin pleaded to the demon that he left and released the child.
The demon aggreed, having found a new entertainment. «I'll do. But only if you come with me»
Knowing that it was the only thing he could do to save the day he aggreed. And the demon took him to his realm.
He never forced him into servitude, he just released him in his realm, deprivated of his paladin powers, and delighted on seeing how he had to sacrifice more and more of his principles to stay alive.
It was even worse when he fell in love with a demon worshipper he met there, as he had to do even more sacrifices to protect her.
Once he asked the demon to let both of them go: «You can leave whenever you want, I asked you to come with me, but I never commanded you to stay. But I can't let her go»
So he refused to leave without her.
She wasn't exactly an evil person, but she was power hungry. One day she performed a ritual to steal some demonic powers which left her more dead than alive. The paladin pleaded to his goddess to return back to him so he could heal her, but she didn't answer. With his love dying on his hands he swore loyalty to the demon if he saved her life. The demon aggreed again and so was a new antipaladin created.
This version of him is a broken man, who hates everything he has become and the world who has forgotten him. He hates his demonic master but he is also grateful to him because he is the only one who answered his prayers in a time of need.
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Uhm... The player of this character has reminded me that this version of him was not a paladin but a cleric. Me and my bad memory.
So I've oficially only made one paladin fall.
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I'm pretty sure pipedreamsam has a pocket notebook filled with mine.
Suffer slowly.
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not sure if its the MOST brutal. but one of my favorite was put symbol of death on a closed door at the end of a hallway and 5 feet in front of it hung a curtain. no matter what someone is gonna have to make that save, if I'm lucky everyone will.
I wasn't lucky, it was the one time that particular group didn't run in headlong and actually planned and prepared for stuff ahead of time.
But they still talk about that particular trap now years later. as one of the simplest most engenius and cruel things they have seen.
(and I have been running some of them for 20 years)
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Making the group fall into a hive of rust monsters is a fav of mine.
All male PCs help guard a caravan in a very cold and snowy mountain region, and they get attacked/captured by the Polar Valkyries, a tribe of polar bear riding Amazons. The PCs were held captive, used as studs over and over, forced to serve the women, etc., until they eventually escaped with bow-legs.
Another time a bunch of PCs were captured and taken to the Underdark, where they were introduced to the matriarchal society of the drow. They were stripped, whipped, questioned, beaten nearly to death, and healed, over and over. They learned how brutal the drow matriarchy can be and now have a healthy fear of them.
Making the group fall into a hive of rust monsters is a fav of mine.
I might have to try that in my 5E campaign. I don't think they have any magic armor or weapons yet, so there is no emotional baggage. I can be mean, but not cruel. ;-)
A have a few stories, one as GM and one as a player.
Story the First: The Multiverse
The middle school I went to a while ago had a Pathfinder club, with games set in a somewhat homebrewed universe, including the multiverse being functionally endless, with infinite amounts of realms and planes. Two stood out in my GMing career. First was Oozehaven, where every creature, item, and landscape was made of ooze. One mission involved securing a portal that opened into an enemy kingdom. In that adventure, two characters were feuding a bit, and one of them was an ooze whisperer druid. In an utter lapse of judgment, I allowed them to PvP within Oozehaven. Oh man, was that a bad idea. The druid began to whisper to the "earth" and the "trees." He summoned up a veritable tidal wave of ooze, safely relocating most of the party, and holding the giant wave of ooze over the other player. And then the ooze fell, dealing massive amounts of damage and causing him to suffocate. The second realm was the Bananaverse. The party wizard, who at that time was 18th level, teleported the party there, as it was the only realm with a structures (giant floating bananas) large enough to provide the kingdom they served with building material. I had the entire party roll to see if they had bananaphobia, and sure enough, he had it. He collapsed to the ground in terror, paralyzed with fear at the sight of countless bananas.
Story the Second: The War
I was playing in a Kingmaker game where each player had a section of the kingdom as essentially a city-state aside from the capitol which was jointly governed. My character was,a crazy strix alchemist/arcane bomber wizard, who almost all of the party was quite fond of, aside from the dwarf paladin. Seeing that tensions would arise, I managed to not only secure alliances with three other cities, I got the kingdom to agree that my settlement would house all the nation's arcane casters. After my character helped victims of a plague with slightly unholy methods and recruited an immortal worg lord to my city, the paladin got fed up and declared war. Most of the kingdom was against him, and my large army of wizards decimated the dwarven miners and fighters the paladin had fielded.
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It's wasn't Pathfinder/D&D, but while infiltrating a fort me and a friend came across a barracks where a butt ton of hobgoblins were sleeping. I was pretty stealthy, so I managed to carefully carry in a bunch of hay bales, stacking them around the beds and blocking the exits save for one space that I could fit through. Then I hucked a bunch of oil around and dove out in time for my friend to breathe fire into the room (my friend was playing a dragon). Then we shut and staked the doors and waited while the whole room burned to death.
In d20 Modern, we played a group of three priests that battled "shadow creatures." I played a genius Dedicated Hero surgeon that dual wielded uzis (I had incredible stats, like 15 16 16 16 17 17, but focused on mental stats for some reason... Legitimately rolled stats, but it might have been 5d6 drop the lowest 2 or 4d6 re-roll 1s and drop the lowest.), one guy played a sword wielding Strong/Fast Hero, and the other guy was a divine magic-user Advanced Class based off a Charismatic Hero chassis, I think. All priests working for a secret part of the Vatican.
Anyways, there was an evil version of us, and they captured us, tied us up, and put us in their private jet. Somehow we got semi-untied (no longer tied to our seats, but still handcuffed) and we got into a fight with our nemeses. The big Strong Villain was the pilot, so she just flew the plane, for the most part, but the rest of us fought in a 1 square by 6 or 7 square space. 3 unarmed heroes v. 2 villains with guns. It was a giant mess of AoOs and depressurized shenanigans. We managed to escape the plane, but 2 of us had to share a parachute. I think the plane crashed into some mountains, but the villains escaped too.
It was just the most crammed fight I had ever been in. And we were 5th or 7th level or something, so we were pretty durable for the d20 Modern universe. We kept disarming the NPCs, shooting them, then they would disarm us and shoot us, and all the while, the disarmers would be provoking AoOs from pistol whips and unarmed strikes and possibly combat knives.
YO.
It wasn't Pathfinder, but an old pc game based on D&D where you could design your campaign.
My brother was playing a campaign I had created, and at some point he was adventuring in a dungeon that I had designed as a maze. A mean maze, with traps, hidden teleporters, respawning monsters, flaming floor that inflicted damage at every step, and illusionary walls.
And while he played, I stood behind him and laughed.
The best part was when he got to a corridor that branched in two ways going forward. The right one was quite long, and after some more traps and monsters it ended with a teleporter back to the entrance; the other was shorter, and closed.
My brother travelled both multiple times, getting more and more mad at me, eventually trying every single wall for a hidden passage, but couldn't find any. I kept telling him that there was, indeed, an exit.
In the end, I had to tell him how to progress: where the corridor branched there was an illusory wall straight forward, with a third passage between the other two. Mean, I told you...
Being a pack of low-level, evil murderhobos in a town with a 12th level paladin as its rightful lord (+friends) is not a good thing. Walking into the local temple, announcing yourself as a cleric of Cyric, and butchering the local priest of Lathander in front of his flock is worse.
After the very quick TPK, I had them all reroll new characters.
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i meant it to be a thread where people could tell what cool stuff they have done with their personal characters.Who thinks we should rename this thread «Another thread about paladins falling»?
I think we take some delight on making paladins fall.
Cool or brutal?
Silly me, the original story of the animated bramble wire maze reminded me of brutal challenges that I as a GM had done to the PCs in my party, and thus, I misinterpreted your question.
The nastiest thing I have done to one of my player characters was in a Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game. The party was fighting a villain over a powerful wish-granting artifact called Isawa's Last Wish. A rival villain opened a portal to Hell (European Hell, not a Japanese afterlife) beneath the conflict. So our party was trapped in Hell, horses and all. My wife and I were playing a married couple, complete with adopted two-year-old daughter in a backpack carrier.
We got ahold of the Last Wish and the villain fled elsewhere in Hell. Unfortunately, the Last Wish was not designed for PCs. It had a bad habit of exploding with several Megatons of force in reaction to the doubts of its bearer. So we gave it to the two-year-old to hold. It was a dangerous gamble, but it amused the GM, so it worked.
Then the villain returned with allies (oops, that villain had connections in Hell) and kidnapped the two-year-old, because that villain could not risk touching Isawa's Last Wish herself. We followed her to the top room of a tower, where she opened a portal into the Celestial Court (Japanese heaven), a safe place to tap the power of Isawa's Last Wish. The portal began to collapse after she passed through with the Last Wish but without the child. The rest of the party followed, except that my wife's character refused to leave without her horse (she was of Unicorn Clan, who are devoted to their horses). So husband, wife, and daughter turned back and ended up trapped in Hell.
Loyalty is more important than life itself in Legend of the Five Rings.
The villain was defeated in the Celestial Court, the denizens there sent the party home without Isawa's Last Wish, and the campaign ended. Two years later, my wife restarted the campaign with herself as GM. The family had lived in Hell for 9 years, tending the sickened and aged Rokugan imperial royalty who had been exiled to Hell by the rival villain years before. When the emperor died, the Celestial Court came for his soul, and freed the family. In the revived campaign I played the 11-year-old daughter of my previous character, a girl who had been raised in Hell itself and trained by bored, dying royalty.
Disclaimer: my party fancies themselves sooo badass they can take high lvl enemies at low level. To be fair, they have done so often enough in the past that thiz additude was justified:
Until one session...
The party was fighting some rallying forces of Tar-Baphon, intent on blah blah blah evil things blah blah blah undeath. In a previous game they failed to stop a necromancer from completing a ritual and calling up a dracoli... I mean Ravener. The necromancer had an old black dragon mount who was gifted grafts and the like as a reward for the aid. The player's rescue mission was inturrupted by the dragon, but they all managed to hide before the dragon arrived. 8 Players were lvl8
Dragon was CR17.
I emphasised the awesome power and the dread of the dragon, the fear as the helpless captives the players were forced to leqve behind squirmed in their chains, and its unusual grafts.
But there is always one player, isn't there? One player had the Repose domain ability to stagger with a poke, no save. So he crept next to the dragon and poked it. The rest of the party lept into action and closed in melee, thinking they had an easy high lvl kill, except the kobold rouge who held back. They had the dragon surrounded and it had 1 action.
So it breathed a pool of acid around it.
The players havn't faced dragons since 3.5, and so were flabberghasted when the dragon killed everyone who had just surrounded it, resulting in a TPK -1
If they remained hiding, the dragon would have missed them entirely too.
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I manipulated my Players to enact an in-game party-purge without their (As Players and PCs) knowledge.
Backdrop: 3.5E Eberron. High-Power launch due to initial Player wanting to be a Red Dragon. The Wyrmling in Hero Lab was ECL11; the seed became 11. Player, hereafter referred to as Red Dragon brought in two friends who were also PF Vets into my 3.5E campaign. One was a Rogue because I was not familiar with PF Ninja and 3.5E Ninja didn't fit the mood. Other was a Cleric again because I was not familiar with PF Alchemist and I asked both to choose classes I was familiar with.
Played at Fort Riley's MWR (Rec Center) in public setting within a conference room with projector. People could see us play because I mapped everything in PowerPoint on the screen. Other off-duty Soldiers came in who were curious and I happily started rolling them up. Used WBL to bring everyone up and I researched my CR11 & up roster of opponents.
Initial Players were MurderHobos I came to discover as the Cleric came to the forefront in personality and action. Newcomer Players were naive Adventurers. The Perfect Storm, and they stuck to their own groups -the Veteran Team Dragon, and the newcomer Shark Team Six (one of the newcomers first actions was to resort to being towed by sharks befriended by the Druid when their boat sank during an insertion into Thrane).
Newcomers resented Team Dragon overshadowing them and controlling narrative as I coached them to proficiency. I started rolling extra sessions with them in the rec center to teach them mechanics, particularly spellcasting and how at higher levels, casters did not rely on dice rolls to succeed.
Team Dragon wanted to heist the Dragomarked bank guild. I said O-Kay and since we run really long all day sessions (From 10AM-10PM) on weekends, I began to manage separate encounters. Cool experience; one group could observe/comment on the other's progress and we could run operations simultaneously, majority of them supportive. Team Dragon cased the joint, did dry runs up to the vault on infiltration, and hid out till Shark Team Six would do the actual story mission nearby, which would provide the cover they wanted for the heist.
The heist went bad. Dragonmarks can't be counterfeited. In a world rife with Magic... Dwarven bankers had contingencies for Plane Shifting robberies. PCs came away with XP, but no loot they could salvage, save the corpse of their hostage and his equipment. They were mad, and went off to eat somewhere to cool off.
During this time, I shifted focus to Shark Team Six, who were simultaneously doing their own encounter against their political targets in Breland -their shenanigans provided the physical distraction away from the banking guild. Failed, but happy everyone got back alive.
Healer NPC (part of a cadre that would support high-level PCs as they waged a destabilization campaign throughout Khorvaire to disrupt the status quo and force reconciliation - discreetly backed by the remnants on the former capital island) touched them up and we decided to train on enemies that had really good DR/SR and SLAs. Constructs and Devils/Demons. I found a trite reason to tie this in to the plot as an infernal incursion. Whatever, Good VS. Evil was enough for them to be motivated.
Bard was hitting his stride, Druid was coming into his own balancing melee and casting, and the Barbarian was grooving into how aggressive he could be. Ranger was improving on being the firefighter of the group who could skirmish or serve as the final line before the Bard and the Wizard, who was beginning to discover the wonders of Save-or-Suck after the glow of Evocation wore off.
Good fight; half the PCs were downed by the time the last devil fell. The Druid was the only one left with double digit HP whilst the Bard was CLW/CMW wanding the Ranger & Wizard.
Druid was really immersed as a PC. Throughout the campaign his character was more and more shaken, so by the time he hit L12, he was outright paranoid being so far from his home woods.
Team Dragon arrived and settled in; the group had to reunite to proceed to the next sector of Breland that needed rabble-rousing. I continued them as having flown carried by Red Dragon to meet Shark Team Six at the arranged rendezvous... which was at the time an active battlefield that Shark Team Six was busy fighting for their lives in.
*Beat*
This is where I realized I could shake the game up.
Druid was on overwatch, and I narrated the entrance of dark wings approaching from the distance.
I am known for hammering PCs with waves to burn out daily abilities and really give them max value of loot/EXP out of encounters -and I wanted them to hit L20 someday. This group of newcomers learned spellcasting/per day abilities in reverse. They learned to love their caltrops, flour, pitons, rope, and 10' poles as much as the enhancement bonuses on their gear.
Someone on Shark Team Six did not understand that I was narrating Team MurderHobo to them. I like flow in my games, so everything, every success, every failure, some mundane details, are story.
Druid Player asked me for their altitude. He grunted when I gave him an arbitrary figure- above three hundred feet (Team Dragon had climbed to avoid wand-fire and never announced a descent -I assumed this was their cruising height) and said he was readying a spell, rummaging through his remaining prepared slots, asking me to tell him when the straight-line distance between them cross some figure near two-twenty feet. Team Dragon were discussing amongst themselves about a second run at the financial institution, like raiding the nearest banking guild's villa and carving out those Dragonmarks out if they had to.
The Cleric was specced for Negative Energy and was very good at it; they were all banged up from the heist -even the Wyrmling Red Dragon took hits as the getaway flyer. Ocean's Three they were. Tell us when we get there, they told me, and I said yes, so they began descending.
Druid didn't hear over the Ranger exclaiming "Not these jackasses again!"
I could have stepped in then. Clarified the situation.
But no, I fell into the abyss instead as the DM and let the madness roll.
"I target the demon-thing with Earthbind," called out the Druid.
"Demons?" the Red Dragon commented. "You've had them fighting Demons? Without us?"
I looked down at my screen and signed away my soul then as a DM.
I referenced the Red Dragon's sheet and told the Druid that the demon had SR. He made the roll.
I asked the Red Dragon to make a Fortitude Save, stating a spell targeting him had just overcome his SR. He failed, and asked, where the demon was so he could get in on the action.
"Oh my God," the Wizard muttered, understanding what was happening and staring me down to intervene.
I failed my conscience roll.
"The Druid has stripped your ability to fly with Earthbind," I informed the Red Dragon.
"Why is he attacking us?" the Cleric asked flustered.
The Rogue was as confused as the Bard and the Ranger. The Druid was stunned, realizing he might have just targeted a friendly. The Barbarian just walked in from the bathroom and into a fog of tension that filled the conference room.
Earthbind feather falls a target. The Druid wanted an anti-air option to bring flying enemies down to ground and I suggested it to him. From his shock, I knew that didn't get that part -another failure on my part.
And neither did Team Dragon.
It was on my tongue... the feather fall part.
"I'm taking you with me!" the Red Dragon declared, called a charge attack as he "fell". "Eighteen!"
Ironically, he asked me if he needed a fly check instead. Poker-faced, I replied, "you beat his AC," evading the complicit misunderstanding.
The Rogue asked the Cleric to do something, not me. The Cleric measured his slots perfectly for the heist, prepping exactly the needed Teleport and Plane Shift spells.
I muttered a prayer to some Dark God. I only heard laughter inside my head in reply.
I couldn't punish my unwitting Druid for my sins. So his animal companion, Nicki the Anaconda under my control, did so instead and pushed him away before the declared impact. As the Druid protested, I coldly told him, "roll 20D6 for falling damage." I called around the table for the players to start pooling dice.
Pandemonium. All in my hands to retcon and fiat away. Nah!
I paused the game then, and with it, closed the lid on coffin; four of them to be precise.
I had to separate them from the stunned Druid Player.
"We're going to re-roll!" the Rogue Player told me. "You want a counter-campaign, you're going to get it now." he promised. The Red Dragon had this hurt look on his face. The First Player in this campaign, and I let this happen to him. By a Noob. The Cleric walked him off in disgust. The Rogue followed.
The Druid told them he was sorry as they were leaving. I knew he meant it. "Take it back," he asked me.
The Wizard told me that Earthbind couldn't do that. "I know." I told him. "But even if I told them and made it better, they'd come back just to kill the Druid."
"Why did you let this happen?!" the Wizard accused.
"Because it needed to be done, and by your hands," I told the remaining Players.
I handed the Barbarian twenty bucks to get us some pizza and beer from the bar outside the conference room. "Now," I announced, "we can get back to adventuring."
*beat*
That campaign concluded that night, and I rolled them fresh characters at 2nd level and restarted them as another team in the story, handling lower-level affairs in Sharn while their original PCs went on to do grander things in the backdrop of Khorvaire.
Team Dragon vanished. They weren't missed.
Level 1
Game 1
Encounter 1
Spider Swarm!
and I suppose they didn't have alchemist fire or area spells like burning hands...
and I suppose they didn't have alchemist fire or area spells like burning hands...
I 'advised' (read wrote his spell list for him) the wizard to take burning hands
Lets see, the campaign ended early but let me pull out some of the best memories from it...
1: A player was often absent and had a penchant for going off alone, even at low levels. The previous session, the character had separated from the party to go looking for treasure. This session the player did not show up. So I took control, doing what he would do in any given situation.
The dungeon had been designed for the 6 of them, and so the character ran into a trap way above his individual capabilities. During that time he was ambushed by a rather nasty set of enemies including a Faceless Stalker (CR 4 from Bestiary 2). I forget the other parts of the encounter but the other creatures also had grab, the creatures nabbed him, grabbed him, pinned him, and tied him up. At which point they interrogated him, and the faceless stalker became him, put on his affects, and fed his body to his minions. So there was no body for his allies to find.
No one makes their perception checks to notice the Faceless stalker has now replaced their ally, so I give it class levels. I tell the player they found some unique magical treasure to account for the bonuses they now had.
They do not ever realize the difference, and the campaign ended before I could start working on replacing other player's characters with Stalkers.
2: Ever trap characters in a dream world that they do not know is a dream for nearly 3 real-time months, slowly driving them insane with horrors and non-euclidean geometry/physics, and ending with them waking up without any of the "loot" or allies they have gathered?
I've not been forgiven for that one yet. Right now I am running a VtM campaign so I am excited to see what comes from my newest campaign.
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2: Ever trap characters in a dream world that they do not know is a dream for nearly 3 real-time months, slowly driving them insane with horrors and non-euclidean geometry/physics, and ending with them waking up without any of the "loot" or allies they have gathered?
I've got a player on my group who each time he GMs something it ends not being real for some reason. He did it so many times that we have all lost interest in his stories xD
The worst thing I ever did was show that one of the NPCs they were fighting had a very expensive, and amazingly useful to most the group, magic item. And then she ran away. And teleported. My group hates when someone gets away. Also when someone betrays them, which has happened a lot in this campaign. What ya gonna do, pirates are gonna pirate.
I've got a player on my group who each time he GMs something it ends not being real for some reason. He did it so many times that we have all lost interest in his stories xD
They did get a prophesy out of the mix, and they were going to eventually go save the world or w/e. They decided they wanted a change of scenery so that campaign got tucked away. A pity, I rather liked that one.
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Here's one I just thought of.
Kingmaker. The PCs are invading the Troll king's lair. They meet a troll with barbarian levels. This was from the Monster Codex, so it had Raging Regeneration. What this feat does is that when a troll is raging, acid and fire do not shout down its regeneration, only reduce the amount of hit points it gets back. I swapped out two of the other feats for Endurance and Diehard. I carefully read the rules.
It could not go down. It saved against the shaman's Deep Slumber. The party knocked it to around -500 hit points and it was still clawing at them. Staggered, but still fighting. It finally ran out of rage juice and died. Another time they beat the troll to around -600 hp, cast Wall of Stone, and walked away. It could not get enough healing magic to survive. This was done mostly out of boredom.
Other players wince when I tell them about Raging Regeneration and Diehard.
Another time, Reign of Winter, the flying fire sorcerer thought he was hot stuff when he surrounded the fire vulnerable svathurim with a Wall of Flames. The monster ran through the air (it could do that) and grappled the sorcerer. the player's face had a look of shock. The svathurim dragged him to the cursed pit. Then it got funny.
The sorcerer failed the save versus aging and made the save vs. madness. The opposite happened to the monster. It got confused and bonked itself in the head with its lance. The sorcerer filled the pit with fire. He had to save the day because the player who played the healer did not show up that day and the barbarian was almost dead and the swashbuckler got perforated almost to death by a shard slag. Six people showed up so increased the number of monsters. This is standard procedure for me.
We played a WoD Werewolf campaign set in Vegas. We were tasked with removing the evil radiation spirits from Yucca Mountain. Our trickster got corrupted and secretly became a Black Spiral Dancer. I was the main tank. The secondary tank was the skald-type werewolf. The trickster got the skald to spend all her gnosis on some skill checks, then got her to make a save vs. corruption, so she totally failed since she was gnosis-less.
So the corrupted skald and corrupted trickster went off, did some scheming, and came back to the group to help us plan our own scheme.
So we show up, break into the truck we want to rob, and the evil NPCs unload on us with Ur-depleted automatic weapons fire! We flee, shocked by the betrayal! Like, totally shocked! Our minds, blown!
My guy went Crinos, stepped sideways in a car going 90 mph, which totally shredded it from the Ether, and almost beat the corrupted skald. But I ran out of Rage and kicked it.
It was one of my favorite character deaths. :-)
The corrupted got cured, but my character stayed dead.
I then made up a replacement character. A skald-type that was a wolf that could turn into a human that was raised by fake Sigmund and Roy. So I had very skewed view of what being a human was like. Mostly too many sequins were worn.
That makes me think of another thing I did to a player in a Werewolf game.
His character, the trickster, was still very unexperienced and hadn't learned to sense the corruption.
So I brought to the game a young pregnant Black Fury with a terrible story on how she was rejected by her tribe and forced to live by her own. All lies. She had been corrupted and gone BSD, but hated the other corrupted Werewolves so much that had decided to go by her own.
So she started to corrupt the trickster slowly. In many months of playing, nobody knew she was corrupted and when she was finally discovered he protected her and they ran away together.
Finally he went into full corruption and turned into a BSD.
But it all had a happy ending (sort of). After a long story of fall and,redemption, he was redeemed not without many efforts and sacrifices. And he managed to redeem her too, thanks to the close bonds they had developed.
Now they are regarded as half pariahs half heroes, as they have so much first hand information about the enemy but their people cannot forget that they were corrupted once and many fear that they can still be.
Yes, another character that I made fall. Not a paladin, though.
Most brutal things my PCs have gone through?
I play L5R and Call of Cthulhu.
If you can think of it, and it's bad, it's happened to my PCs...