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Aelf
Acolyte
USA
46 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Jun 2005 : 20:34:48
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I’ve seen a thread for stupid player anecdotes, so how about a collection of brilliant activity?
This occurred at a MobiCon 2005 table:
I was seated next to a 12 or 13 y/o young lady who was playing a 9th level druid. She had a nice collection of miniatures and statistic cards for her various summon spells and was quite happy to explain to me (new to the group and playing a Gish) the capabilities of her spells.
At the start of a tough encounter she advised the melee folks to leave space for a lion on the battlemat. After her spell was complete, she didn’t place a lion miniature but instead put down a transparent plastic dice cube (empty) with a hinged lid (I hope you folks know what I’m referring to) and told the DM “That’s my lion – he will attack the thug next to him.”
The cat’s bite hit so (with Improved Grab) it made a grapple attempt and succeeded. She then opened the plastic cube and placed the Thug mini inside of it.
It was absolutely the neatest thing I had seen at a D&D table. All witnesses broke out in laughter and/or applause.
Warmest regards,
Aelf, a bard of the Realms
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Regards,
Aelf, a bard of the Realms |
Edited by - Aelf on 03 Jun 2005 20:36:31
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Chosen of Moradin
Master of Realmslore
Brazil
1120 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2005 : 21:23:28
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Very good idea, fellow bard.
One of that brilliant character that ever came to my mind is the (ex) Sultan Shawriar Kareen Adzir Arun Al Rashid, o Zakharan fighter (think in a more young and vigorous Morgan Freeman in the Kevin Costner´s Robin Hood movie) played for one of the most clever rpg player that I have see.
In one of that classic adventures "Kill-the-dragon-and-save-the-princess", in the climatic battle against the adult red dragon, the group was divided, and Shawriar, hearing the sounds of battle, run to help his friends. But he go in a diferent tunnel, and appear in an elevation, some good feets more high than the dragon head!!! He stop, think a little, and give me that maneuver:
"I will catch my scimitar with my 2 hands, and jump, trying to struck the neck of the beast. If I suceed, I will balance my body, using all my weight (230 lb.) to swing, forcing the blade of the sword to open a tore in that devious neck!!!"
Desnecessary to say, with all the bad modifiers against him, he suceed, and pratically save the group... alone... again.  |
Dwarf, DM, husband, and proud of this! :P
twitter: @yuripeixoto
Facebook: yuri.peixoto |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36805 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jun 2005 : 22:13:42
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'Twas 2E, and I was playing with an inexperienced DM... In an earlier adventure, my minotaur had found a vial of "very powerful poison".
We're in the jungle somewhere, and we encounter a full-sized T Rex. My character had an idea... While the other guy was keeping the lizard occupied with spells, my character pulls out a piece of string, the vial, and an arrow. He tied the vial to the arrow, and made a called shot to the T Rex's mouth...
I rolled a perfect 20.
Not only was there a lot of damage from the arrow, but the DM decided the poison was powerful enough to kill the T Rex. It never even got close enough to attack.  |
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I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Neo2151
Learned Scribe
USA
113 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jun 2005 : 07:22:30
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Ah, this one has to go to my monk Selu, who was a devoted follower of Illmater. After having my bladesinger die in a campaign, I didn't have any adventure ideas to run with, so I started up a monk just for the heck of it. Being a new character, he was of course he was a couple of levels behind the rest of the group up until about level 10. Well, it was my friend's turn to DM in the DMing circle and he led us down into some caverns where an ambush of yuan-ti undead awaited, sent by a powerful cleric of Myrkul. A few die rolls later and our rogue had been successfully killed by a stalking assassin's death attack, our fighter was about to die, our wizard lay dead several feet away and alas, we had no cleric. Selu at the time was tied up with baddies a little further back in the tunnels so was seperated from the group, but when he arrived, somehow (the dice gods were looking down on me with favor that day  ) Selu managed to completly destroy the entire mob that had dropped the rest of my party, and made it look so horribly easy that they hated me for the next two weeks or so.  |
"Come looking for me, and I will blast you to dust, and then lay waste to all your descendants, ancestors, and the realm you came from, every last tree and stone of it. Why? Well, it's what I usually do."
-Baerendra Riverhand on The Story of Spellfire |
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Lord Donnachie
Acolyte
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - 06 Jun 2005 : 17:58:41
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We were playing a group of dwarves defending our keep against a small army of bugbears and ogres led by a way-too powerful ogre-magi. The assault went on for 2 game sessions and we held we minimal loses. (Of course the bad guys had a shaman that raised any ogre we killed as an even more powerfull ogre zombie)
The start of the third session, we counter attacked, surprising the monsters and the DM. We drove the few monsters back to the enteence to our halls when the dreaded ogre-magi showed up to rally his forces. A ranger in the party took a desperate shot and nail the magi in the trout killing him instantly (we use a crit hit chart. Boy was the DM pissed because he took sooo much time making up this NPC and having him "die" in such an anti-climatic manner. Little did we know that orge-magi have a regeneration power that rivals trolls. The DM was grinning with delight at the facts. The battle progressed and the ogre-mage healed. Right before the OM was set to return to the fight, I decided that the OM's head would help frighten the remaining bugbears proceeded to chop it off (this is what was needed to kill him for real.)
More dumb luck than smarts!
Later on in a following session the remaining bugbears were sent against our keep led by the tribe's shaman. Again, the DM spent hours fleshing him out and was really looking for some payback for killing off his ogre-magi so easily. He was really kicking out butts and had dropped several of the players with his spells. I had the very simple idea to silence him let him fight it out like a cleric. He tried to flee but he had to make his way thu several threatened areas and was killed by the final AOO.
Some times K.I.S.S. is the best plan.
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Don’t gain the world and lose your soul,
Wisdom is better than silver and gold
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Edited by - Lord Donnachie on 06 Jun 2005 18:01:53 |
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Fletcher
Learned Scribe
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 06 Jun 2005 : 18:02:10
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A particularly inventive character decided that illusion spells were awesome, but only worked if someone failed their save. So he decided the best way to make them fail their save was to have the first effect real. He cast an illusion of crackling electricity on his sword, and then used a shocking grasp related spell.
The first person he hit had the wonderful experience of the full shock, and was there after a true believer in the damage of the sword. It turned a mediocre fighter mage into a damage monster (even if more than half of his damage was illusionary after the first swing)
Talk about a pissed off GM. What does a GM do in a situation that doesn't really allow for a save, because the first attack WAS real and damaging? He cries and runs with it. |
Run faster! The Kobolds are catching up! |
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Walls
Acolyte
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30 Posts |
Posted - 02 Dec 2006 : 22:16:06
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| We had a player make an illusion of a wide expanse on a mountainside with us standing on it. Many a villian rushed to their doom. :) |
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Conlon
Learned Scribe
Canada
132 Posts |
Posted - 02 Dec 2006 : 23:16:44
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Although this isn't exactly brilliant, it was still a fun encounter.
I was playing my Wizard 9/Elemental Savant (Frost)9 and our party was attacked by a rather ornery green dragon. The dragon had us at a disadvantage due to terrain and it was making strafing runs, back and forth above us, showering us with its acid breath and spells. My character noted that it was strafing, then wheeling around in a repetitive pattern. After a number of rounds of this, my character cast a wall of force directly in front of the dragon as it was flying overhead. I punched through its SR and the dragon took some heavy damage and became stunned. This provided an opportunity for the fighter-types to close and inflict some serious damage.
On the DM side, this same "frost wizard" of mine was once kidnapped by a rival who paralyzed him, then placed small, metal beads on my character's face. I was wondering what was going on when my DM then allowed me to make a spellcraft check as the rival above me began casting a heat metal spell. Boy, was I ever mad! |
My hopes are ashes, my dreams are dust. All my intentions mean nothing unless they are followed by action. |
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LucianBarasu
Fellaren-Krae Co-ordinator
USA
214 Posts |
Posted - 03 Dec 2006 : 08:42:50
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I DMed a group of angry and mean dwarves, heading into a closed mine that was overtaken by a mature red dragon. THe main part of the dragon's lair was a massive cavern With one end was a shaft 50' wide at a 45 degree slope down into a 400 foot drop into the dragon's horde.
Half the dwarfs snuck past the dragon and were in the process of making MANY dex checks (2nd ed) to climb down to the horde.
THe other half attacked he dragon, but it went bad and ran and climbed down as well. Not having room to fly or manuever very well, the dragon followed them down the slope and then down the shaft at the end into his horde. Skoldir, the Dwarven rogue stayed up top and found two Decanters of Endless Water. He tipped both down with their lids off, spoke the words and ran...
The little bugger grabbed a round bronze shield and stood on it's backside, using the water, and the poop and refuse from the red dragon, he $#iT surfed the 45 degree angle down and dropped like 200 tons of water and various items of weight upong the dragon and other dwarves.
His in character response after he made like 10 dex checks and reached the 400 drop: " Weeee...uh oh.."
Skoldir the $#iT surfer.....
Needless to say that was the funnies thing i've ever seen anyone do of the top of their heads. |
Lucian "The Bringer" Barasu
Fellaren Krae Project Co-Ordinator
"Why do you cry?"
"He is Conan, Cimmerian. He won't cry... So I cry for him."
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dwarvenranger
Senior Scribe
USA
428 Posts |
Posted - 05 Dec 2006 : 14:30:13
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| I remember, perhaps 15 years ago, the party I was part of was going to explore the ruins of a old monastery. Apperantly, the lands the monastery were on were part of a barbarian nomadic horse tribe's lands and they took exception to us being there. As they were riding us down, gobs of undead rose from the cemetary nearby and swept towards our party and the barbarians. The barbarians turned tail and ran, and the party ran towards the ruins, with the exception of the gnome illusionist, who was laughing hillariously at the party and barbarians. Then he dismissed his illusion of the undead. Damn clever that gnome, and ever since I've been a fan of gnome illusionists. |
If I waited till I knew what I was doing, I'd never get anything done.
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Mace Hammerhand
Great Reader
Germany
2296 Posts |
Posted - 07 Dec 2006 : 09:35:53
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Back when we were still playing 2nd edition, the party's wizard managed, on several occasions, to use comparatively minor spells to move things along more quickly than I had anticipated.
When the group started playing he used a minor spell to detect surface thoughts and thus gathered the party without the usual stuff.
On another occasion he used emotion control (fear) on a hill giant about to throw a stone, he timed it in a way that the spell came into action when the rock was right above the head of the giant. |
Mace's not so gentle gamer's journal My rants were harmless compared to this, beware! |
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LucianBarasu
Fellaren-Krae Co-ordinator
USA
214 Posts |
Posted - 13 Dec 2006 : 01:44:53
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We had a player obsessed with Taoism and the bhuddist way to be, So he played a BALD monk who sat behind the party, spouting proverbs and mystic mumbo jumbo That he was making up, angering the party. The party were in a low ceilinged tunnel heading toward a dungeon. Finally ticked off to no end, The rogue slipped behind the monk, spilling Soverign glue onto the monk's head, The fighter turned around and using his gauntlets of ogre strength, Lifted the monk up and stuck his head to the top of the tunnel Ceiling ( remember the superglue© commericials? with the hardhat guy stuck to the I beam?) the party tied two bells onto the monk's feet as he thrashed around, and left him for dead.
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Lucian "The Bringer" Barasu
Fellaren Krae Project Co-Ordinator
"Why do you cry?"
"He is Conan, Cimmerian. He won't cry... So I cry for him."
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Mkhaiwati
Learned Scribe
USA
252 Posts |
Posted - 13 Dec 2006 : 03:06:14
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In a 3E game, we were fighting in a dark cellar, against a rogue with dust of disappearance (like Improved Invisibility), part of the "Doors to Everywhere" adventure in Dungeon. We were having a horrible time coping against this guy, and fighting at the bottom of the stairs. We didn't know what square he was even in.
After a couple of us were nearly taken out by AoO from passing to near this guy, a spell caster, in complete frustration, cast Grease at the top of the stairs. The next guy up, a gnome illusionist, with a big grin, says I cast "Mount" at the top of the stairs. A mule appears, looses footing, and flies down the stairs, fortunately through the square with the baddie. A die-roll later, we discover the mule hit the rogue, and with what damage we had already done, took him out.
The mule also died. Improvised teamwork in action |
"Behold the work of the old... let your heritage not be lost but bequeath it as a memory, treasure and blessing... Gather the lost and the hidden and preserve it for thy children."
"not nale. not-nale. thog help nail not-nale, not nale. and thog knot not-nale while nale nail not-nale. nale, not not-nale, now nail not-nale by leaving not-nale, not nale, in jail." OotS #367 |
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Exploit
Acolyte
Canada
47 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jan 2007 : 17:48:26
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My submissions for brilliant characters are:
1) our party of 3rd level characters used skeletons and summoned formians to carry and throw the yellow mold in Forge of Fury at the CR 10 Roper. Apparently the Roper was supposedly in the module to teach the party that sometimes they should run away. Our party learned the lesson that creatures with a much higher CR than you are a quick way to advance a level!
2) using a magic jar spell and an invisible imp familiar to carry around the gem focus, my 10th level wizard took out the entire Against the Giants G1 module without taking a single hit point of damage by taking over a giant's body attacking his fellows and repeating the process after each possessed body died. Unfortunately, my DM broke down in complete despair that he could not defeat this tactic that we never finished the other two sections of the module.
3) in a massive high-level PvP 1st ed. campaign, my archmage shape-changed into a Monster Manual II water creature (the name eludes me now), that dispelled all airy-water and water breathing effects in a large area of effect, before ambushing a party of approximately 15 other PCs, who were adventuring at the bottom of the ocean at the time. Only 1 PC managed to escape alive dragging a dead companion while the rest drowned ignoble deaths.
4) Same high level PvP campaign, while adventuring in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, convinced a different party that I knew where we could find green slime to burn our way through the ship and that I could teleport us all there if everyone was reduced in size. DM had a house rule, to try to prevent this efficient use of teleport, that any magic items that were reduced had a 5% chance of imploding. Convinced the party to give me their magical items before reducing them and then teleporting away with all their loot while leaving them shaking their tiny fists. I cleaned out about 20 PCs in that one act of treachery.
5) The parties from #3 and #4 finally cornered me in a teleport proof cave and sealed the enterance with a wall of force. Shape-shifted into a time elemental and went back in time to before the wall of force was cast and then invisibly watched from outside the wall of force as the two parties turned on each other and killed each other when they were unable to locate me.
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Edited by - Exploit on 02 Jan 2007 17:52:20 |
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Alisttair
Great Reader
Canada
3054 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jan 2007 : 17:28:45
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Many interesting exploits here so far.
Well here's something I did with a character once. He had a big bag full of vials of acid so in an encounter he used a potion of spider climb and one of invisibility and climbed up to the ceiling and emptied the bag on the group of nasties. All the vials smashed and there was a lot of dice rolling for direct hits and splash damage. Wiped out 3/4 of the group which was then easily dispatched by the rest of the party :) |
Karsite Arcanar (Most Holy Servant of Karsus)
Anauria - Survivor State of Netheril as penned by me:
http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/172023 |
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Daviot
Senior Scribe
USA
372 Posts |
Posted - 06 Jan 2007 : 07:04:58
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In terms of outright cleverness, I hate to blow my own horn, but...
The last FR campaign I was in, our party had just crossed a small side-chasm in the upper Underdark of which the far side only consisted of a one-square ledge twenty feet wide that led to a storeroom (and thus a dead end). After using various methods (rope relays, the ninja ran across the wall, and my Leap-of-the-Heavens equipped battlemage merely jumped) to cross the 20 ft. gap to reach the storeroom ledge, we open the door and peak inside. After rummaging around, two hungry-looking large-sized (as opposed to the normal Huge) black puddings decide our party would be tasty. And thus the DM had offset their speed by stranding us in a relatively small room. What's a party to do?
First, run on to the ledge and close the door, to buy a tad extra time. Second, get the battlemage with a passion for researching obscure spells (yours truly) to cast dark way, forming a partially illusionary black bridge with shiny edges. Party runs across bridge to safety. The ranger tosses several handfuls of dirt on the bridge. The door melts, and the oozes slink towards us. Sensing the dirt and us, they cross onto the bridge. Just for kicks, the Mystran cleric/wizard casts light on a bit of stone rubble sticking out from one of the oozes. Then my wizard dispels the bridge. We watched...and watched...and watched...
Those oozes felt some serious bludgeoning-based falling damage, if and when they ever reached the bottom. Gravity is a harsh, harsh mistress. ~_^ |
One usually has far more to fear from the soft-spoken wizard with a blade and well-worn boots than from the boisterous one in the ivory tower.
My Tabletop Writing CV. |
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Brilliant Players and Characters
