Let's start out by saying that I don't set out to be a difficult player. I just am someone for whom the 'box' is simply not even a concept. Any problem whatsoever can be approached in myriad different ways, and I'm very fast at adjusting to solve them, usually by coming up with something that makes the DM (even very good ones like the ones I play with) go 'um, I'd never considered this, let me check something'.
Situation the other day was funny. This is a weird hybrid campaign, using a lot of house rules. My character, Xereff, is a variation off of djinn racial class and paladin (cutting some abilities of each to merge them). I'm 7th level, giving me 4 hit die, but a lot of 'specialized abilities', and we were trying to acquire a number of potions of silver dragon control in this dungeon under a time limit. We've got all but one, and that has to be in the vamp lair, accessed by two 2" diameter tunnels, in different areas. we also have several potions of gaseous form. My character is, among other things, telepathic, flies (60' perfect), and can be invisible at will, as well as having darkvision. I also have ranks in move silently (fly silently?) and am pretty good at that...so I often serve as scout (yes, strange place for a paladin, but in this group, it works)
after having another character's familiar 'scout out' the lair, we plug up one of the two holes from the outside, and everyone gathers at the other. I turn invisible, quaff a potion of gaseous form (because I've used my natural one up for the day), while carrying another, then float alone into the lair. I don't need light to see (bonus), and look in both wooden coffins in the room before I accidentally wake one of the sleeping vamps (without becoming visible). I've already figured out that the potion bottle we need has to be in his coffin, so, when he moves to close it and fall back asleep, I telepathically contact him, telling him flat out that there is an enemy in the room with him. The intention is to get him to vacate the coffin so I can get the potion without revealing myself. He starts looking around, but doesn't get further from the coffin, so I make an odd attempt. I grab the coffin, to try to knock him off balance, thus revealing myself (inviaiblity wears off as that is an 'attack')...vamp turns toward me, and I have his coffin more or less in hand, and he'd already been casting a spell to find me. On my turn (before he can do more than look and talk), I quaff my spare potion, turning gasseous with his coffin, and flee out the hole that I know is unplugged (and that my allies are waiting to plug once I'm free).
the vamp I woke gets out before I do (he can move faster, since gaseous form limits my speed), but my allies wait for me to get out before plugging the hole behind me. Battle ensues (one vamp, not two, because of our quick thinking), and the vamp learns the hard way that he can't use dominate well when fighting a party that chiefly contains outsiders and aberrations. He does try to use it, but realizes his mistake quickly. So, yeah, DM's have no idea what to expect from me. And no, lawful alignment doesn't mean that I have to behave in an expected manner, just a 'logical' one, more or less. I just have enough experience to be 'creative' on the fly.
Alassirana (Xereff in Magnus' game).
