Post/Author/DateTime	Post
skio 02-17-07, 07:42 AM	Which is the strangest encounter you ever came across as a PC, or created for your players as a DM? 1. A dwarf sitting in the corner of an inn, sleeping. The PCs later find out he is a drug addict. 2. A lich tired of unlife, asking the PCs to destroy its phylactery so it can rest.
GoriceXII 02-17-07, 09:59 AM	Here's one I actually saw on National Geographic: a leopard attacks an antelope, kills it, and is dragging it up a tree when a crocodile comes up and grabs one of the legs, pulls it away and begins to drag it off to the river. As it is doing so a male lion rushes up and takes the lion's share, literally, leaving the crocodile with just the leg in its mouth.
damixmastermike 02-17-07, 02:25 PM	----If I'm your DM, do not read---- 4. The party is leaving the city of Baydoo**** and passes a strange house with a man sitting in a lawn chair on the front lawn. The bard notes this man is known as the oldest man in town, being over a hundred but he only looks to be in his fifties. He has a fair pot belly, has several bottles of ale strwen around his lawn chair and a wooden dog by his side. He glares at the party as they pass by, but once they are at a third of his panning range, he looks at the dog, shocked as if he just realised it was there. (The dog is accutally a Gnome who got polymorphed into a dog then petrified. This Gnome has been stuck this way for several decades, and at his prime, he was the smartest person in the cosmology (INT 41). The Gnome still manages to say a sentance here and there, hence why the man shockingly looked at him. The man himself is an old war vetren from some war that occured about a century ago. Since then, he's become a drunken slob, resentful to everyone and slightly senial. So when the dog talks to him, he always finds it odd, but brushes it off as seniality.) 5. A book called Why Dwarves Can't Cast Spells 6. A book called Gnomish Naval Tactics 7. Put the PCs in a store. Two large barbian half-orcs come into the store. One uses a giant fork as weapon and the other, a giant spoon. They order one bound of salt and one pound of sugar. Then, the one with the spoon, pokes the storekeep and licks his finger. The giant-fork-wielding orc pinches the storekeep. They both turn to eachother and nod, promptly walking away with the storekeep.
Jerephyn 02-19-07, 08:31 PM	King nephew is kidnapped by a hostile nation for ransom or prisoner exchange. PC's are asked to retrieve the nephew. They track the kidnappers to an enemy camp and sneak in looking for the nephew. The nephew is not there. However, there is a cage with a newt. The PC's figure the nephew has been polymorphed and rescue the newt and head for home. The next day they momorize dispel magic and cast on the newt. Poof! The newt turns into a ten-headed hydra. Roll for initiative!
DaemeonBlack 02-20-07, 02:40 PM	In one game I had an evil wizard performing grafting and magical crossbreeding experiments on the local populace. When the PC's confronted him he was an elven wizard with several monstrous grafts and a grafted meerkat familiar on his shoulder. During the battle the familiar got away but the PC's vanquished the wizard. Over the course of the next few adventures the PC's met a few more bad guys, all with different grafts and a very similar meerkat familiar. The PC's did not pick up on the familiar thing until several encounters later. It turned out the "familiar" was the BBEG, a higher level Wizard/Fleshwarper who had been using silent spells or hiding to cast, no one noticed this for several encounters even though I described the familiar each time and made spot checks for the spellcasting ;) Moral of the story: Don't dismiss the familiars when you fight a wizard.
ZolDarklock 02-21-07, 01:13 AM	dragon asking a pc to crawl inside his mouth to his stomach and remove a lodged sword of wounding, dragon was willing to provide all the neccessary survival items "acid protection scroll, amulet of adaptation, etc., etc..."
Kasai_Saka 02-22-07, 12:00 PM	My DM had us meet Donny Darko in one of his campaigns...creepy...
skio 02-22-07, 01:54 PM	My DM had us meet Donny Darko in one of his campaigns...creepy... I think this must have been the encounter of the year!
damixmastermike 02-23-07, 12:07 PM	King nephew is kidnapped by a hostile nation for ransom or prisoner exchange. PC's are asked to retrieve the nephew. They track the kidnappers to an enemy camp and sneak in looking for the nephew. The nephew is not there. However, there is a cage with a newt. The PC's figure the nephew has been polymorphed and rescue the newt and head for home. The next day they momorize dispel magic and cast on the newt. Poof! The newt turns into a ten-headed hydra. Roll for initiative! That is so good and spiteful.
RurrikLoderr 02-23-07, 12:26 PM	Party is trapped by slavers, and sold to a giant-godess (lloth) couple, who use the player characters as bowling pins! The weirdest part is that the bowling balls were trapped dwarves (also caught by slavers)PC's have no weapons, no equipment....what are they to do? (Evil grin) My players HATED that...
Jayne 02-23-07, 04:05 PM	King nephew is kidnapped by a hostile nation for ransom or prisoner exchange. PC's are asked to retrieve the nephew. They track the kidnappers to an enemy camp and sneak in looking for the nephew. The nephew is not there. However, there is a cage with a newt. The PC's figure the nephew has been polymorphed and rescue the newt and head for home. The next day they momorize dispel magic and cast on the newt. Poof! The newt turns into a ten-headed hydra. Roll for initiative! Apparently it got better...:)
The ShapeLess One 02-23-07, 06:00 PM	As a PC in an adventureing group we came across an ogre.(I forgot his name) He only walked on his hands and his hands, & his boots that were on his feet had many blades or other metal objects sticking out of them. Other than that he was perfectly normal except he never saw him eat. After many years of him with our adventuring pary he decided to make him eat with us. So he said fine, with an angry toned voice. He then sat up right and started eating. He promptly died after the meal.
Swordbreaker 02-23-07, 07:32 PM	During the whole cosmology hopping final battle, they kept using Maelizant's powers to warp to new cosmologies. They ended up away from Maelizant, but in a world where instead of humanoids ruling, there were purple and pink bunnies. While in the City of paladins, the paladins tired of their old riturals to Valceron decided to add a twist. All of the paladins (including one of the PC) beging to do the conga all through out the city. And the guy in the front had a trumpet. During my friend's campaign, we were stranded on an island where we discovered a pirate's cave. The gold-filled urn inside was trapped, and when our barbarian knocked it over, we all ran like hell, until we saw all of these merchants congratgulating us for winning the "Pirate Competition" and for being "Pirates of the Year"
AhzRiael 02-27-07, 03:12 PM	38(?). I ran one where the party came across a house that had several strange things going on. Kings and Queens sitting down to a dinner of their own heads, a kitchen made entirely of ice, a living room with graves instead of furniture, a room where several couples stood in ballroom formation and stepped exactly where the player stepped, etc. The final room they entered was a bedroom, and in the bed was a high level wizard with a Nightmare Orb in his hands asleep. It was a Leomund's Mansion spell and as the Wizard was locked in a perpetual dream/nightmare state his visions were being projected through the house. An even better story is how they got out.
HellflameArcanite 02-27-07, 04:52 PM	How did they get out?
The_Shade_XIV 02-27-07, 07:36 PM	I once threw a tricky illusion trap at my players. It was engineered by a mind flayer (classic...) who was playing on the players' good natures. What appeared to be a halfling at the mercy of a demon was actually a Kyton devil under an illusion. (Hence the demon's willingness to look like it was going to kill its prisoner). Yes...they ran to the rescue. The Kyton broke free and fought the demon, the demon fought the players, and the whole thing ended in all the players except the dwarven fighter paralyzed, and three outta four tentacles stuck to the Dwarf's head. It was close, but he managed to kill the Illithid at the last second. Or did he kill it...?
AhzRiael 02-28-07, 12:27 PM	How did they get out? It was an interesting combination of "Dimension Door", "Portable Hole", and a very invasive pact with a lesser demon. They managed to get out of the house, and almost all of them still had their souls! To be fair the one who lost it was the fighter, and he was gunning for damnation at any rate.
damixmastermike 02-28-07, 11:14 PM	38(?). I ran one where the party came across a house that had several strange things going on. Kings and Queens sitting down to a dinner of their own heads, a kitchen made entirely of ice, a living room with graves instead of furniture, a room where several couples stood in ballroom formation and stepped exactly where the player stepped, etc. The final room they entered was a bedroom, and in the bed was a high level wizard with a Nightmare Orb in his hands asleep. It was a Leomund's Mansion spell and as the Wizard was locked in a perpetual dream/nightmare state his visions were being projected through the house. An even better story is how they got out. I like this aswell, probably going to use it, somewhere.
Jerephyn 03-02-07, 07:47 PM	As a player, I had a DM throw what we thought was a wizard and a fighter at us. The wizard was taking all kinds of damage and dealing more (in melee!?). The fighter didn't get too involved. Turns out the wizard was a dragon polymorphed into human and the fighter was the dragon's familiar. It's kind of humiliating playing a high level fighter and getting your but kicked by a wizard in melee.:eek:
kryus 03-04-07, 09:51 AM	A druid fire giant that lives on an island in the middle of a lava lake deep in a volcano's crater. All around her in the volcano are giant bees and their hives. The bees collect nectar from water lilies (actually magma lilies) to make honey. The druid fire giant seems distracted as she listens and talks to the bees.
Xavon 03-04-07, 10:42 AM	My PCs repeatedly encountered a Gnomish Wizard who had a 'machine' that could identify magic items. Unfortunately, anyone in the room with the machine had to make a Will save or become intoxicated. And the DC of the Will save was based on the power of the item IDed.
Octavian_5 03-05-07, 06:45 AM	One time, when I GMed a game of d20 Modern, in a classic Shadow Chasers campaign, my two (yes, two, 2, dos, duo, etc.) players turned it into a one-shot. It was set at a party, where (DUN DUN DUN!) zombies attacked. Most everyone there was turned into a zombie, and one of my players threw the other one to the zombies to buy himself time...yeah. He got out, though, and was the only one doing actual fighting, when the other one (the one who threw him) committed suicide! Then, the other one was arrested by the police and given a life sentence...yeah.
Anuvrix 03-05-07, 12:29 PM	The players encountered a red dragon, they immediatley attacked it, after 8 rounds of losing, they had the dwarf barbarian use his warhammer to crush 3 of the dragons ankles. it then fell on him. You encounter a chest, inside is an iron bar. if the bar is removed, the only thing the players will ever find in a chest is an iron bar. this continues until the origonal bar is returned to the origional chest.
Adrez Nesnsid 03-15-07, 12:22 PM	2. A lich tired of unlife, asking the PCs to destroy its phylactery so it can rest. Why couldn't he do it himself?
skio 03-15-07, 12:43 PM	Why couldn't he do it himself? Because the phylactery had its own intelligence (don't ask) and wanted to continue living.
MrAdam 03-15-07, 08:14 PM	1) The Crazy Old Raddish Peddaler 2) The Insane Prophet Who was recieving "Psychic Distress Signals" from his Frall(grey aliens who were largely considered a myth during that period of my game)friends, and was building a tower to the moon to rescue them. The Realy funny parts were A) He realy was recieving psychic distress signals B)frall were real and were his friends Q) At the end of the campaign he had finished his tower to the moon and rescued his frall chums. 3)Pirate Jim, A peg-legged, hook-handed, parrot-shouldered, one-eyed, pirate-speaking pirate who somehow manages to find his way into most of my games
Adrez Nesnsid 06-30-07, 09:40 PM	Bump! :bump:
Sisial 07-01-07, 05:45 PM	The players ended up in a cavern so vast it would take weeks to journey from one side to another. It was completely filled with trash (mostly piles of rusted metal as that lasted longer than the other trash materials) from dimensions beyond their own. strange bursts of crackling electricity would eminate from random points on the ceiling and run outward in rings to a circumference of about 150'. Everytime this happened a random object from a random plane would fall from the origin of the electricity on the ceiling. This meant there was a small % every hour or so that players would be hit by a random falling object. There were also some small towns in the cavern which they discovered later and a profitable luxury paddle wheel-boat that crusied up and down the major river in the cavern. Had it's own Jazz band with a female doppelganger as the lead singer. In the same place the players suddenly came to a low area among the piles of junk that was slightly submerged in water (up to their knees at deepest). Out of the dark cavern they were attacked by alligators! They fought alligator after alligator until they were almost overwhelmed at which point they see a strange bobbing light moving toward them out of the darkness. Next thing they know the alligators are leaving and a bog giant is standing there with a lantern asking them what they're doing messing around on his alligator farm.
Zousha_Omenohu 07-02-07, 12:57 AM	A bit of shameless promotion I suppose, but maybe some of you would be interested in taking a look at my 1001 "What the...?" Ideas thread. It has some situations that are very similar to the ones described here. Here's the link: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=853324 Also, I have an encounter of my own, inspired by Neverwinter Nights 2: The PC's encounter a "Leomund's Merchant Elemental", which is basically an earth elemental shaped like an elven wizard who sells excellent potions and assorted magical trinkets.
sabrewolf 07-02-07, 04:38 AM	From my game: - A book called "101 recipes for cooking ethereal creatures, Vol. 1" - A young wizzard whose familiar, called "rusty", was a Rust Monster... and was being harassed by a bully with a mean looking hound. - A "Furry" (Anthropomorph) leader titled "The White Tiger" that was a Panda with black stripes where his fur was white... In fact he was a hybrid and his father and forefathers were all white tigers..
Gleepwurp 07-02-07, 10:40 AM	It seems like a really tired cliche now, but years ago I had my players pass through an unusual portal in a dungeon which led to a network of sewers. They poked around a while, didn't find anything other than sewage, then found a ladder that led up to an iron disc in the ceiling that was clearly some sort of simple 'lid.' The lead character raised it up and peeked out and saw an enormous dragon, with a roaring noise and two wide-set shining eyes and silvery teeth bearing down upon him. He dropped the lid back into place and they heard the dragon roar overhead. They did this a couple more times and finally, when the coast was clear, they snuck out into a strange city, filled with lanterns. Humans dressed in strange clothing were walking around and pointing at them and laughing. Many of the buildings were made of metal and glass. The wierd dragons roared down the streets with people inside them -- the dragons had wheels instead of legs. The players had, of course, been transported to a city on earth at night time Earth in modern times and the 'dragons' were cars --- their 'eyes' were headlights and 'teeth' were the chrome radiator grilles, which, viewed from ground level by a PC peeking out of a manhole who didn't know what a car was, looked like a monster... but the adventure required the players attempt, as nearly as possible, to act only on player character knowledge. They had to track down a villain who had fled to modern times with an artifact --- which they managed to recover --- and had many adventures in the process.
bigsnarf 07-02-07, 11:04 AM	Female dwarf with a beard that falls in love with a male non-dwarf PC with no beard.
sirconnorstack 07-02-07, 01:00 PM	A group of powerful adventurers politely explain that they are only a few hundred XP from the next level and proceed to attack the party.
Adrez Nesnsid 10-03-07, 07:20 PM	:bump:
DLoFunk 10-04-07, 03:52 PM	Back in 2nd Ed. I DMed a game w/ one of the players playing a Wild Mage. He LOVED causing the Wild Surges and cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer almost exclusively. (if ya don't know it, look it up. Greatest spell ever. Tome of Magic) Well, he uses NRD to try and cast Magic Missile. Of course this causes a surge. He rolls, I check the chart and it comes up as "Spell cannot be ended by will of caster"!!! Well now it's my turn to have some fun. I rule that the 5 missiles bounce around the room hitting friend and foe alike for a little while. Now the wierd part. This was all taking place in a Wild magic zone, So...I say what the hell, with all the chaos flying around in missile form, go ahead and roll another surge. It comes up "Spell takes form of free willed elemental"!!!!! The look on the his face when he realized he had just accidentally created a "Magic Missile Elemental" was just priceless!
Adrez Nesnsid 10-04-07, 05:12 PM	Back in 2nd Ed. I DMed a game w/ one of the players playing a Wild Mage. He LOVED causing the Wild Surges and cast Nahal's Reckless Dweomer almost exclusively. (if ya don't know it, look it up. Greatest spell ever. Tome of Magic) And remember folks, that's the SECOND EDITION tome of magic. Know your books :).
Adrez Nesnsid 10-04-07, 05:13 PM	Oh, and yes, it is indeed the best spell ever!
Orloff 10-04-07, 11:17 PM	Let's see.... There was one DM who had us fight off a dragon mother and her new hatchlings in a dungeon room made exclusively of jell-o and gold....
Adrez Nesnsid 10-17-07, 02:10 PM	#Whatever.) Did I mention the homebrew adventure that I tried (and failed :() to run based on the song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Aneutralshadeofblack 10-17-07, 03:08 PM	And remember folks, that's the SECOND EDITION tome of magic. Know your books :). Aw. For a second there, DLoFunk had me thinking that Reckless Dweomer had somehow actually been reprinted for 3.5 in Tome of Magic. Thanks for raining on my parade. Punk. :(
EightImmortals 10-25-07, 09:16 PM	Picture this if you can your walking down the street in a good sized city after dark. Lamps light the street and out of the corner of your eye and green ooze comes sliming out of a drainage grate on the side of the sidewalk. Before you can react the ooze pulls its self together and pull out a top hat a cain and a small cloak. It starts raining and the ooze breaks into song. Oh and you guessed it, it starts sing "Im just Sing in the Rain". Who know a green ooze could look and sound so good!
Xiuhcoatl 10-25-07, 09:25 PM	#Whatever.) Did I mention the homebrew adventure that I tried (and failed :() to run based on the song Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds Every time I think of that, I think of 3001. ... where the Monoliths turn Jupiter into a star, named Lucifer. They make reference to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. The strangest encounter my PCs have had to deal with was a Warforged hick complete with shotgun, overalls, and a piece of straw in his mouth.
kshade 10-26-07, 03:30 PM	The Party entered a hall with a death kobold on the carped. When they examined (looted ;) ) the corpse, the chandelier lowered, swinging and trying to hit them. It was held by two animated chains that acted like snakes.
Mr_Seth 10-26-07, 08:36 PM	*PCs encounter a goblin cult of pain that has supposedly been extinct for several millennia. It soon becomes clear that the deity they worship is still very much dead, and that the goblins are being manipulated by a crafty Shadowmancer who has found a way to harvest their pain for use as a (very volatile) power component. The PCs think they've killed him in his escape after a climactic battle... but what they find in the robes is a lizardfolk... *A beggar repeatedly shows up in every town the PCs are in, asking them the same thing each time: "Have you found my scarf yet?" No one else ever seems to see the beggar, and he keeps coming back once a day... no matter what. *The PCs encounter an intelligent construct bartender. If they ask for "big mugs" of anything, he hefts out tankards the size of small kegs and starts to fill them. *In the middle of nowhere, the PCs find a small monastery, the sign outside reading "Haven of the Repentant". The monastery is full of redeemed, good-aligned devils, demons, and other traditionally evil outsiders... every one of them now a strict pacifist. *Rocks fall... but no one dies. *As the PCs travel through a forest, they hear screams from the underbrush. A single kobold runs across the path - followed by a horde of hundreds of very angry squirrels. A single squirrel stops, glaring at the PCs, and then charges off after his kin. *At a crossroads, someone has plunged a trident into the ground - a literal "fork in the road". It does not seem to be magical, but it's nearly impossible to damage, and even harder to remove. *A badger walks by, carrying a small viper on his back and a mushroom in his mouth.
Zousha_Omenohu 10-26-07, 11:48 PM	*As the PCs travel through a forest, they hear screams from the underbrush. A single kobold runs across the path - followed by a horde of hundreds of very angry squirrels. A single squirrel stops, glaring at the PCs, and then charges off after his kin. Why am I suddenly reminded of Deekin Scalesinger?
Tsochar 10-27-07, 08:00 PM	I have a couple of odd encounters ready to spring on my characters when the time is right. *A pirate ship run by a female human captain. She gets captured and it turns out her pseudodragon 'pet' was the real pirate captain. "Avast ye, scurvy dogs! Ye'll sample me claws!" His weapon of choice is a blade of his own design that clips to his tail and can deliver his poison on a successful strike. *A king that is considered wisest in the land, yet is completely insane. If you have read 'the madness of pelagius' from Oblivion, or watch Monty Python it's sort of like that. In one instance, he strips naked while delivering a speech to his kingdom, and doesn't once mention it. While he undresses, a rebel armed with a poison crossbow is so shocked he just stands there while the guards capture him. In another instance, he knights a general but in the process cuts off his arm. "It's only a scratch!" Turns out the general was a traitor, and without the arm he couldn't draw his sword when the guards found out about him and came to drag him off. In another speech the king simply repeated the word 'ham' (they don't have spam). The people began to want pork more than beef, and that saved the economy when a plague wiped out most of the cattle a year later. In another case, an assassin appears in his room, and he asks who he is. "I am an assassin, sent to end your life." "You're trying to sell me encyclopedias, aren't you? If I let you kill me, how do I know you won't try to sell me any?" The following argument confused the assassin, and awakened the guards, causing his immediate capture. *In The Observatory (manual of the planes), the party encounters a rather eccentric 'human' who demonstrates a complete understanding of just about everything. He claims his people built it centuries before, that it's almost as old as he is, and that it's similar his own ship, with the exception that the inside is smaller than the outside. When they ask his name, he replies in his distinct accent that he hasn't got one, and that people just call him.... (time for you to guess who he's based on, get it right for a cookie. It's pretty easy.)
Mr_Seth 10-29-07, 12:34 AM	*The party is at an outdoor festival, when one of the members is grabbed to participate in one of the games, possibly to win a (rather substantial) prize. The game? Fish Fencing. Yes... it's exactly what you're thinking. With very, very large trout. *Similar set-up: The party has agreed to play a card game with a group of dragons, the pot value inestimable. Remarkably, it's a friendly game, with no one getting eaten for dumb luck, and as all the dragons involved are lawful, no cheating will be going on. The problem? Well, the game is called Draak. And, as one of the dragons puts it, "The first rule of Draak is that I can only tell you this rule." The PC must discover the rules as he goes - and for every incorrect action, he has to pay a penalty... *A mime continually follows the adventurers through a town, pantomiming various actions typical of the party. He's actually asking to join, in his peculiar way.
Lord_of_Vain 10-30-07, 06:48 PM	My PCs were in their hometown, a town of about six houses, where they are seen as near gods. Some guy with a Japanese name I can't even remember comes up to them and asks them to join. They put him through a series of tests and he passed. He was some kid though so they still didn't want him. "Uh, yes, you can join us. But you must find us first." PC puts a cloth around his eyes and starts away. "Oh, and you have to take two steps back for every three steps you take forward." It's been over a year and soon im going to have some young man, decked out in sweet apparel and holding a powerful sword, wearing a cloth around his eyes and walking strangely come to them.
daytonj 10-30-07, 07:23 PM	-A blood coverd orc with tentacles instead of arms riding a hot pink spider that speaks draconic and it spits crosbow bolts!
Mr_Seth 10-30-07, 08:23 PM	One word: TROGDOR!