Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Journeyman Samwise 08-25-05, 11:32 PM	So, our group has this "thing" with airships. With every airship in our game, there is a large, red button that tends to turn it into a giant flaming BOMB. The group's Rogue, after discovering a cargo ship filled with bits of the Alhazadra meteorite (Green Regent class, turns people into Constructs) decides to pirate it, and ram it into the Eternal Shrine, basically, the Vatican City of the world. By now, I have established that the religion prevalent in the world is evil, corrupt, and controlling. I have also house-ruled that Alahazadra meteorite is radioactive. They fly the ship up into the stratosphere, then pull it into a straight dive. Before he jumps out, he hits the prerequisite Big Red Button, and as he slowly floats downward, watches in horror as the ships' giant AIRBAGS deploy, and bounce harmlessly off the building.
Unca_Laguna 08-25-05, 11:46 PM	I told my players about a concept I was thinking up which I call "points of destiny". these refer to points in time (not numeric points) when I roll a d4 and something happens to one of the characters. later in my champaign, this will lead to some seriously earth-shattering stuff. but I make sure all of the ideas for these events can be applied to any PC. however, after I told my players about this idea and told them that there would be a point of destiny in that day's mission, everyone got exited. this was the first point of destiny I was doing and I wanted to start small. when I told our fighter he was getting the point of destiny, he was riding on dreams of stat bonuses and uber-items (he's also our powergamer). DM:all right, you've all been captured by enemies Fighter:yeah yeah, I know, what do I get? huh? huh? DM:you're taken away by the enemy leader and torchered! you're covered in scars now! :D Fighter: 0.o but, but, that would be cool if I wasn't a FEMALE ELF! DM:....fine. your face was spared. Fighter: YOU SUCK!
TheChilliGod 08-26-05, 12:11 AM	Little do people know I make every session into a chapter for an ongoing story. Here's a few nice little paragraphs I think are quite appropriate here. The main thieves guild assembly hall was abuzz. It was time for the fortnightly meeting of rogues from all around Tyle. Devis now sat at the leading chair in the middle of the room, with the cool, calculating halfling, called Lillian, Head of Intelligence, to his right. And to his left was a new chair, containing the previous leader of the guild. Harold had been generously given the new title of Head of Acquisition, and was now in charge of all robberies and of the thievery vault, which all the stolen goods were stored until needed by any guild member. Harold didn't complain; this job was what he had really been doing all the time as leader, so it made little difference. However, the encounter with Asrahaan's scythe left him a little bit more jumpy. And he just received justice to soil his pants and hide behind his own chair as Asrahaan, the necromancer that forcefully took over this guild with Devis, once again burst through the door. Asrahaan's voice thundered, and almost took on a second voice with it as he passed the rows of chairs to the front of the assembly hall. "THIEVES OF THIS GUILD, IT WOULD INDEED SHOCK YOU TO KNOW THAT I, ASRAHAAN, SECOND-IN-COMMAND HERE, HAVE AMONG US ONE WHO HAS FAILED TO SHOW RESPECT FOR HER SUPERIORS. THIS INDIVIDUAL MOCKED ME AND SENT ME TO THE FLOOR, STEALING MY OWN POSSESSIONS IN THE PROCESS. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! HOWEVER, IT ALSO SHOWED ME A NEW OUTLOOK ON LIFE. MY TEACHINGS HAVE BEEN CORRUPT. I RENOUNCE THE GUARDIAN OF DEATH AND ACCEPT THE TEACHINGS OF... um..." At about that point, he failed a Knowledge (Religion) check to know who Orcus was. Mua-ha!
DraconsNighthawk 08-26-05, 12:23 AM	I had planned for this ambush by two demons to attack and steal some relics that the PC's have just gotten. It was all coming to play when the two fiends teleport in front of them for a surprise round, sadily both of them rolled a nat 1 on grapple checks, and the two PCs both got three twentys in a roll. Jerks.
Paradisio 08-26-05, 12:33 AM	Greenbound summoning pretty much ruined every climatic encounter in my campaign. Anything without 30 strength or higher = useless.
Adain 08-26-05, 12:55 AM	I'll make it brief: Extraplanar Evil Outsider + Assay Resistance (Complete Arcane: swift +10 to penetrate spell resistance) + Greater Spell Penetration + Holy Word = 1 round combat. We ended up doing a spontaneous mini-dungeon because we had free time. That combat was supposed to take like 20-30 minutes at least. Best part, for irony's sake: two people of our party of level 15 characters died in this spontaneous mini-dungeon by rolling a 1 on a saving throw against a death effect.
Aegeri 08-26-05, 04:25 AM	The worst thing that ever happened as far as anticlimaxes go was my players entire party being eliminated before facing the last great evil. The encounter wasn't even supposed to be very challenging, but a combination of bad rolling and the monsters getting overly good rolling saw them all die hideous deaths. Which was really quite a shame for all involved, because the final 'fight' was something I had worked on for a considerable period of time. None the less, that was one campaign that ended with the bad guys giving the forces of good a trouncing and a half.
Warchicken 08-26-05, 08:57 AM	Last game my party were in a giant Mithral Tower filled with Liches who were being controlled by a vampiric Red Dragon (several of them from juvenile to young adult) (I know it was pretty weird for us to, but it was what the DM had decided to do). The only problem with throwing lots of undead at us is that my party includes 2 clerics (1 of the Sovereign Host and 1 of the Silver Flame (barb/cleric)), my paladin (of the Sovereign Host), and an Astral Deva. Big mistake. We were all lvl 12 when we went in the encounter. Every vampire in the place ran away from the cleric and the few vampiric dragons of the juvenile ability just died painfully. We get to the last room where we're supposed to deal with the Young Adult Vampiric Red Dragon and he died in 4 rounds. Mainly thanks to Divine Sacrifice and whole bunch of smites (thanks to the CW feat Extra Smiting). Of course the cleric had buffed himself up to a 36 STR and was doing as much damage as I was doing. The look on the DM's face when the first two hits to the Dragon were 71 and 34 :D We killed the Vampire so quickly that the DM decided to restart the combat just so the Dragon could actually do something "cool" against us. Our combined EL was around 13 and the Dragon was at least a CR 16. It's truly amazing what the powers of good can do to the undead.
Solik 08-26-05, 10:11 AM	A level 1 party was up against a Red Dragon Wyrmling (CR 3, I believe). Second round, the ninja advances, throws a shuriken with drow poison, makes a critical hit, and I roll a 4 on my save. Dragon's out. Same party, now level 4, is fighting some Thayans in a corrupt enclave. The battle's been going on for 2 hours, and the bosses emerge (an actual Red Wizard, not an apprentice, and a Blood Orc with an orcish double-axe). A single entangle makes the mages totally useless (they had low concentration), and the paladin gets a critical hit on the blood orc in the second round. With a halberd. Same party, now level 7, faces off against the Speaker in Dreams (mind flayer, pre-fab adventure). Second round, mage runs downstairs and fires a Stinking Cloud up to the balcony, hitting all the monsters and none of the party. All the useful enemies fail their saves. Party mops the floor with them all. I've yet to have a good boss fight.
Gurthoron 08-26-05, 10:12 AM	Immensely powerful lich spellcaster: "I shall now begin opening the portal to the prison realm of the (beings that take over Solar's minds and bodies). Be ready, for the forces of good will surely notice and try to stop us. This task may take several hours, so they will have time to bring their forces against us. Rogue/gatecrasher: "Or you could move aside and I could do it in a few rounds." Lich: "Uh, this is an ancient portal sealed by the very gods themselves." Rogue/Gatecrasher OOC: +20 to the DC, I need to roll a . . . 3. "That won't even make it interesting." Lich: "Ah, but can your powers close it again?" Rogue/Gatecrasher: "Yes, yes they can. And make it look like it was never opened. And make it impossible for anyone other than me or another 'crasher to open it." Lich: "But, your not even a spellcaster. How the hell can you open portals like that?" Gatecrasher: "What part of Gatecrasher do you not understand?" Big planned battle with numerous enemies ended up to be a far easier encounter due to the wave of solar-possessing critters that should not have been able to escape so fast. The DM was just stunned. For WC3 players, its the equivalent of that one mission were you were summoning Archimonde. And instead of it taking 30 minutes he comes in after about 3 seconds and trashes the punks attacking you.
AramilWindwalker 08-26-05, 10:16 AM	the most anticlimactic thing was the 9 foot tall chain slinging 6 armed snake demon whose head was severed by a vorpal weapon weilded by the sorceror, in the first round...
Tuneless Bard 08-26-05, 10:41 AM	The grand master Shaman presided over the firey pits of hell were he was conduction a short ritual to summon a powerful smoke demon... ...one uber hide / move silently check combined with natural 20 on a bull rush attempt equals one teed off grand master falling into the pits of hell... or how about... Demon: Dies standing before a large door, presumably the gate to hell which he never got to open. Paladin: Opens the door to kick the asses of the demons inside hell DM: Scores and scores of demons rush out. Game over, everyone in the entire world is dead.
Steeltwo 08-26-05, 02:35 PM	had the PC's meet the evil king of the entire country. Now the whole plan was for him to meet up with the PC's, capture them and use them as pawns to take over another continient(which the PC's were high govenors of). well the king asks them to do something. One PC with a custom double barreled gun(i made him go thru hell to get it from a gnome) senses a natural 20 on a motive TWO TIMES IN A ROW and understands what is going to happen with the capture part. Quickdraws the gun, takes three arrows of death and passes them all(his lowest natural roll was 18, the other two were 19's). the king had run behind his thrown and all that could be seen was the top of his head. So i gave him an ac of 30 I think. The dude had +8 to hit. ANOTHER natural 20. Max damage and you get the idea of pudding all over the wall. It TOTALLY killed my two days of preparation. the worst part was that they escaped the castle. And I was having arcane archers throwing everything I could at them. God damn those were smart characters and perfectly balanced to work together.
Zeteg 08-26-05, 02:44 PM	Two of my gods had been brought back for a few days, where they fought, and killed everything in their path. When my players were teleported back to the scene, there were dozens of death great wyrm dragons. Anyway, they were all revived by an NPC (semi godly NPC). We ran out of time, and I hadn't thought of a way to reward my players for going through with the encounters. So I remembered the Monster Manual said that older dragons usually have treasure embedded in their hide. So, I figured a couple dozen great wyrms must have adequte treasure, and being blasted a lot, must have dropped some! So, I rewarded my players with the treasure the dragons dropped after flying away :|
SwollenOstrich 08-26-05, 06:32 PM	Exhaulted Paladin (soon to be saint), warlock, and cleric, all level 7 are playing in an epic STYLE campaign. All the characters are way over the recommended loot amounts (my paladin had a unique intelligent holy avenger, the only weapon that could kill our enemy.) Our kingdom is raided by darklords, and we are the last surviving members of our military order. We are given a quest to retireve this special holy avenger, so that we might stand a chance in driving back the forces of evil from our doorstep. After several adventures, we finally aquire the weapon and sail back to our homeland. We arrive on the night before the siege of our capitol ends and the allout assult begins. The sword issues instructions for me to bring it to the highest peak in the castle on the morning of the assult, where I can see the entire battlefield. This is where it gets really lame, and the DM screwed the plot pooch. After lots of flavor text and cool dramatic effect, the sword basically casts a beefed up timestop, and teleports my party and the big bad dreadlord to the castle battlements. The dreadlord looks shocked, as you might expect after being teleported to a party of PCs ready to whup ass, and my paladin uses the confusion to his advantage to declare a charge at the dreadlord. DM decides that its time to roll init, and the dreadlord wins. Since we are standing between him and the quickest escape (a leap off of the battlements), he decides to run right past all three of us, taking attacks of oppertunity from all three. After the third AOO, he is slain by myself and falls off the battlements dead. Time resumes normal pace and the enemy hoards, seeing their supposedly INVINCIBLE leader killed, flee in panic. End of campaign. You can imagine my horror, after having such a cool beginning and dramatic pre-ending. My jaw was hanging to the floor, and I ended up walking out there and then. In the words of Comic Book Guy from the simpsons: Wost...Climax...EVER!!!
Kaligrad 08-26-05, 09:05 PM	Oy, don't get me started. My players have made a habit of finishing their battles in 2 rounds or less, boss or no. I keep throwing overpowered creatures at them, only to have them beaten down immediately. Allow me to give you an example: once, when the players were "vacationing" in Ravenloft, I threw a nightwalker at them, basically the general of the evil Dreadlord's undead armies. The cleric's response was to use the Heal spell he had memorized. He hits. The nightwalker rolls a 3 on his saving throw. The nightwalker loses 140 hp. The barbarian chops his freaking head off.
CryoSilver 08-26-05, 09:27 PM	There's a huge battle between the good PCs and evil PCs. It lasts two hours real time: the survivors: an evil cleric and a drow wizard, me (the air gensai rogue) and a dying half orc monk named Pikachu. The evil PCs essentially won (they got the artifact, and true to my TN alignment, I ran).. However, I hid outside the dungeon (it was collapsing). The cleric and wizard run out. I shoot the cleric with a Ray of Frost (from a wand). 1d3+5d6 damage. Coincidetally, this was the first attack I'd made the whole session. Cleric dies, and I run away using a scroll of Dimension Door. Needless to say, the player was pretty ****** at me.
VonStrakovich 08-27-05, 01:07 PM	At the end of a year long dragonlance campaign in sylvanesti forest, our characters lead and army into the minotaur capital (former elf city i forget the name but it was big). This massive battle took us from 6pm til like 2am to do. We had two or three groups of pcs from several storylines with cohorts so lots of us. At the very end of everything, the DM has his favorite npc (he uses as a pc when i dm) fight the last lord of the minotaurs in a duel and end the battle while we sit and watch. I was so let down i wanted to cry. When I got home in large letters written permanent marker i wrote to never, ever let an npc, much less one I have used a personal character of my own, finish the final battle of a lengthy campaign.
DTB 08-27-05, 01:37 PM	I'll make it brief: Extraplanar Evil Outsider + Assay Resistance (Complete Arcane: swift +10 to penetrate spell resistance) + Greater Spell Penetration + Holy Word = 1 round combat. We ended up doing a spontaneous mini-dungeon because we had free time. That combat was supposed to take like 20-30 minutes at least. Best part, for irony's sake: two people of our party of level 15 characters died in this spontaneous mini-dungeon by rolling a 1 on a saving throw against a death effect. ? to adain if two people died that were 15th levl from a saving throw against death effect is a natural 1 on saving throws treated as a natural one in combat my friend says its not I think it should be same goes for skill and ability checks this is BS if the phb says it can go but attacks cant.
BeyondFated 08-27-05, 02:04 PM	? to adain if two people died that were 15th levl from a saving throw against death effect is a natural 1 on saving throws treated as a natural one in combat my friend says its not I think it should be same goes for skill and ability checks this is BS if the phb says it can go but attacks cant. I usually don't comment on bad spelling and grammer, but...wow. I had to read that four or five times to figure out what you were saying. Anyway... While I wasn't DM, these stories are to good not to share: At level 2, we fight a Juevenile Red Dragon. We manage to sneak up while it's sleeping. So the back away to a safe distance, and the wizards buffs the crap out of everybody. After we get Enlarged and Protect from Fire on everyone, we charge. The Paladin Smote, the Monk Flurried, the Rogue flanked and sneak attacked, and the Wizard cast his last Magic Missle. The Dragon died in three rounds. :D Later when were about Lvl 10, we decide to go hunt a black dragon. At this point the group had undergone some changes. We replaced the paladin and Wizard with a Warlock and a Ranger/DeepwoodSniper. Anyway, we eventually find the black dragon. Thanks to the rogue's lucky spot check, there we aren't surprised by the dragon. It ends up everyone goes before the dragon. The Archer, Rouge, and Warlock all crit. The Dragon died on the first round. That was great. :D
GuardianAngel 08-27-05, 03:02 PM	sorry about that I dont write or read that much
TheChilliGod 08-27-05, 03:53 PM	? to adain if two people died that were 15th levl from a saving throw against death effect is a natural 1 on saving throws treated as a natural one in combat my friend says its not I think it should be same goes for skill and ability checks this is BS if the phb says it can go but attacks cant. I think this is a question... Hold on, let me try and de-frag it. Is a natural 1 on saving throws treated as a natural 1 in combat, ie a critical failure? My friend says it isn't but I think that the same thing should go for skill/ability checks. Oh, okay. Rules say the critical failure rules apply for saves and attack rolls (even in magic, I believe) but not for ability and skill checks. Some DM's, however, house-rule critical passes and failures for ability and skill checks.
Muddball 08-27-05, 08:42 PM	From my childhood i have allways loved the king of the thunderlizards, the big head honcho, the mighty tyrannosaurus. The party is in the jungle, and they hear a low rumbling. its a herd (30) of elephents, trampling everything in there path. the party is mounted, with two of them rideing in the wagon (it was the easyest way to transport the undead dragon they had raised without attracting suspecion) and wheels and whips there horses away. Indiana jones style, with the trumpting and close on the heels, they finaly make it with only light damage from a couple of tusk thrusts on the backsides. then comes the moment of terrior, the reason for the frantic running of the elephents.... ENTER THE T-REX. fighter charges, crits with a greatsword, does 54 damage and the dino rolls a 1 for his fort save vs death by massave damage.
ShadowDragon8685 08-27-05, 08:53 PM	Charging leap + slash his juggular will do that. :)
Vacerious 08-27-05, 09:00 PM	? to adain if two people died that were 15th levl from a saving throw against death effect is a natural 1 on saving throws treated as a natural one in combat my friend says its not I think it should be same goes for skill and ability checks this is BS if the phb says it can go but attacks cant. lol, that was t3h l33t3st post 3var!!!!on3!!2
A Bigmouth Bard 08-27-05, 09:54 PM	lol, that was t3h l33t3st post 3var!!!!on3!!2 Do you have to post in gibberish? Anyway...I made a campaign for my friends to run through (still on 3rd mission; don't ask). They had just defeated a lvl 6 evil troglodite cleric with a undead raising gem. The mayor of the city told the PCs they could get two rewards if they went through a dungeon with traps they could only avoid if they solved the riddles. They get into the dungeon and go throught the left passage. For the rest of the encounter I will narrate... DM/Me: You enter a room with three doors. There is a tablet in front of you that says: "One door will make you fry, one door will make you die. But only one of the doors will let you pass by." What do you do? Cleric: (thinks for a second) I tie a rope around the doornoob of the right door, step back and pull it open! Me: :eek: The door flies open and a stream of fire comes out... After getting past the doors... Me: You enter a room with two hallways. The table in this room says: "One hall will slice. One hall will dice. But which of the halls is actually nice?" What do you do? Cleric: I take the rope and throw it into the left hall. Me: :eek: :weep: Blades shoot out of the walls, they look deadly... Next.. Me: There is a large, deep chasm with a stone bridge across it. The tablet on the floor says...(I forget this one :( ) Cleric: (thinks it over and then tells a plan to the Fighter) I tie the rope to the Fighter and he walks across. Me: :weep: :weep: He falls down the chasm only to be stopped by the rope, inches from the sharp rocks below... Last one... Me: there is a stone statue of a dragon in front of you near a pit of lava. The tablet says: "Believe in the floor as you believe in the dragon."(taken from Indiana Jones) Cleric: I tie the rope to the Fighter again and he walks across. Me: Make a Will save (Fighter rolls something high). :eek: He seems to walk on thin air. You both walk across. Oh yeah I forgot about this... :( Me: There are two pendistals in this room. On one there is a stone glowing purple and on the other there is a stone glowing green. In between there is a large, vent type floor. The holes seem big enough to fall through. Cleric: I take my rope, hook on a grappling hook, and try to hook it onto the other side. Me: :weep: :eek: :weep: (lots of flinching and screaming in my mind) Make a grapple check. You can pretty much guess what happened... :weep:
Crystal Monk 08-27-05, 11:20 PM	You can pretty much guess what happened... :weep: as a DM, I can see why you were so upset. but man, your players really had their heads screwed on right for that dungeon. good on you for not getting upset and taking it out on them, I've heard of some DMs who would outright kill the party for "messing up their game" for doing things like that. you get a cookie! :cookie: as for another anticlimactic moment, here's one from my old game... the party had been tasked with stopping a sorcerer from performing a ritual. the sorc thought it would increase his power, but he'd gotten something wrong, so it would actually create a dead magic zone right outside a major city. my plan was that the ritual would take ten rounds to complete, and that the sorc's guards would hold off the PCs for at least half that - I was trying to build some tension. it didn't work. the cleric casting Hold Person on the guards and three out of four of them failing their saving throws didn't help... but what really killed it was the wizard using Mage Hand to take the ritual components off of the shrine and scatter them. the fighter dispatched the remaining guard and the cleric and rogue took out the sorc in two rounds. ack.
insomnambulist 08-28-05, 02:12 AM	This was more anticlimactic for me than the players... I was fairly new to DMing and a few weeks into the adventure, the group finally finds their quarry- It is the only chronical of an ancient war between two kingdoms of elves and humans, who are now living in a wary peace. The book was thought to have been lost many centuries ago, but a human noble uncovered where it may be, and sent the adventurers to retrieve it so that he could make a gift of this relic to his king. It had been stolen by clerics who wished to "re-write" history in the interest of peace, as they thought that the contents of the book might inflame either side to restart the war. They enter a chamber where they are greeted by the ghost of an elven cleric who is guarding the book. (Sort of like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) Ghost: "Young heros, you seek the the knowledge contained in this book, and that is commendable. But listen unto me about the dangers of..." Rogue: "Yoink!" He rips the book out of the corpse's hands, dodges an Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, and is out the door by the next round. Ghost/Me: ".... Oh." :weep: I had written 5 pages of backstory on this cleric, the contents of the book, how it got to be there, etc. I could have had the ghost chase them down, but that would have been lame. They later handled it well enough to avoid starting a war, which they would have deserved for undermining Grampa's story.
Tek 08-28-05, 02:33 AM	I was running a SW game, and after many sessions, the players were ready to face the main boss of the whole game, the end session. She draws her lightsaber, the Jedi PC wins init before everyone else, charges up, crits, does something like 29 WP to her 14 WP, she dies instantly, campaign ends.
sourface 08-28-05, 04:49 AM	This was one of my first adventures, and propably one of my worst ones as well. The setup is that there had been a plot to kill the mayor-to-be and let an evil crimelord take his place. So, the players narrowly fails to rescue the mayor and hunt the assassins. The assassins take hostages (one of them being the BBEG posing as an assistant) to slow the party down. They didn't. So the assassins execute the hostages (except the BBEG) and flee into the cellars of some big public house. The PCs kill most of the evil guys, leaving only one. He runs into the last room of the cellars, with the lone hostage. The PCs charge in and slaughter him. The BBEG hides behind the door and sets a big explosive charge. The intention here had been to make her confess and have a last fight and then activate the charge, so the PCs would have to defuse it. *Blip* someone shut off my brain. I suddenly realize the BBEG would have to lock the door to make her plan effective, but what would she do with the key? (Due to my temporal lack of brain activity, I skipped the fact that she could smash it, and decided she had to flee, forgetting that the hall outside was now filled with town guards.) She was captured (still pretending to be a hostage), and the PCs defused the bomb. This was followed by one and a half hour interrogations. BOOORING.
Ty-No-Mite 08-28-05, 05:00 AM	So, I'm running this game right now with two players and we're using the variant Gestalt rules from Unearthed Arcana. One player is a Psion/Fighter and the other is a Soulknife/Psychic Warrior and they are both way more powerful than I had realized at this particular point in the campaign. So, the situation. The PCs are at the mansion of an ally NPC noble and it comes under attack by droves of gnolls and ogres (mercenaries hired by a not-so-subtle rival noble). Now, the way I had this planned was they were going to have to choose one of two battles: Defend the gatehouse so that more baddies can't get into the walled compound -or- defend the forge which has been lit on fire and is guarded by the Noble NPCs sister (and some red-shirt guards). It was supposed to be this big choice where they had to decide which plan was better and I was all excited, so what do they do? PCS: "You take the gatehouse, I'll take the forge!" ME: :eek: Now, I'm expecting these huge battles where they'll be just about killed because the encounters are designed for -both- of them. Two rounds later, my (insanely under-estimated) PCs stand victorious...to this day, they remind me of that one quote :weep:
MortalPlague 08-28-05, 05:55 AM	My current campaign has had its share of anticlimax. The first was, interestingly enough, with a mini BBEG of a sidequest. The characters had been hired by a merchant to kill an ogre named Dando who had smashed up his wagon and stolen his goods. So the characters embarked on a perilous journey to Dando's cave (with several difficult encounters along the way) and they find the cave. As the DM, I had mapped out the cave with several nasty surprises. There were some shriekers, a crocodile, and a bunch of traps that Dando had placed, being the wiley old ogre he was. But the characters were clever, and set off the shriekers to draw him out, and then hid outside the cave, waiting to ambush him. Fine, I thought, he'll still give them a run for their money. He was a standard ogre with advanced constitution, giving him many more hit points than usual. The party won the initiative, and after a couple of missed attacks, the gnome cleric steps up with his crossbow. He fires, he hits. He'd dipped the bolt in carrion crawler brain juice (DC 13). Dando rolls a 2 on his save, and becomes paralyzed. This was all before he got to make a single attack. Much later on, the party was tracking a barbarian warlord of a nobleman gone mad. They found him in a blight in the forest, in the middle of a crater, pocked with pools filled with magma. Bull rush, anybody? Long story short, the party wins initiative, and they fire arrows dipped with carrion crawler brain juice. One hits, he saves, then a second hits, and my barbarian warlord fails his save on a 2. Even my players were disappointed with that one. We'd decided to hold a session outside of our normal sessions just for the encounter, and I'd been building towards it for a while. But... bam. Down he goes. Paralysis is frustrating sometimes. We're on a short hiatus at the moment, since three of my players are in Europe (and I'm headed there myself in a couple of days), but when they return they will be locating and confronting the final villain for the campaign, Lascarr, the Bringer of Calm (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=466277), a newly made lich with a cleverly hidden phylactery. I'm made him several CRs higher than the party, and I'll be giving him some nasty minions and guards. I'm just hoping that this one won't be an anticlimax... ...at least Liches are immune to poison... :D
A Bigmouth Bard 08-28-05, 06:01 PM	Now, the way I had this planned was they were going to have to choose one of two battles: Defend the gatehouse so that more baddies can't get into the walled compound -or- defend the forge which has been lit on fire and is guarded by the Noble NPCs sister (and some red-shirt guards). It was supposed to be this big choice where they had to decide which plan was better and I was all excited, so what do they do? That's exactly how I had planned the dungeon I posted above to go. The tablet in the first room said to split up but what do they do? They both go left. :weep: And look what happened. :weep:
Ty-No-Mite 08-29-05, 07:36 AM	That's exactly how I had planned the dungeon I posted above to go. The tablet in the first room said to split up but what do they do? They both go left. :weep: And look what happened. :weep: Ahh, you share in my pain. Curse those PCs and their free-will! Next time, I'll just tell them what they're doing...and they still won't listen.
hollow_ghost 08-29-05, 09:06 PM	I'm a new DM so I don't have so many bad experiences but here goes. My party of three goes in the Sunless Citadel (pre-made adventure of the same name I used for my first DMing). They find a task to get a white dragon wyrmling back from the goblins for the kobolds. They find a bugbear, I think they were level 2. They knock him out, tie him up, heal him and make him talk. There wasn't anything prepared for that so I improvised based on what other NPCs would've said tough the bugbear isn't cooperative. He bangs his head and knocks himself out, gets healed, thrashes around, etc. :zzz: When they finally get some information, they kill him. Further, at level 9 with 3 players joining. In a mage tower where they are warped from rooms to rooms for the pleasure of the head honcho. 2 Monstrous Scorpions, Gargantuan + 10th lvl human druid + 7th level half-fiend cleric. The party's EL is equal to the opposing EL. Roll initiative, the sorcerer goes first, throws a Sudden Maximized Fireball Energy substituted for sonic damage. Fail, fail, fail, get is SV. Didn't think about fireballs at the time, won't ever do that mistake again. The NPC druid reverts from wild shape to regain some HP. A PC cleric throws a flame strike on the NPC spellcasters and kills them while the other PC cleric calls lightning (Faerūn domain) on a scorpion. The PC swashbuckler and the greater invisibled ninja/rogue charges on the same. Anyway, bla-bla-bla, the battle lasts 4 turns, with 2 PCs badly hurt. I expected this battle to last at least ten. After, they meet the head honcho. He gets poisonned at the table. His lef hand finishes him off. All out war in the tower between normal magic users and shadow magic users for a place in the spotlights. The party hears nothing, kills the mage offering a civilized mage-duel to end the ''senseless feud'' and threatens another for a Dimension Door out of the tower. *WTF WTF WTF* says my head.
MortalPlague 08-30-05, 02:21 AM	Anyway, bla-bla-bla, the battle lasts 4 turns, with 2 PCs badly hurt. I expected this battle to last at least ten. That one actually sounded like a good battle. In my books, any combat that the PCs win by the skin of their necks is an exciting battle... I was optimistically hoping for about four rounds with both the battles I described above.
A Bigmouth Bard 08-30-05, 07:52 AM	Anyway, bla-bla-bla, the battle lasts 4 turns, with 2 PCs badly hurt. I expected this battle to last at least ten. Yeah, at least your PCs got hurt. Mine didn't even get a scratch. :weep:
souvuelle 09-20-05, 08:31 AM	So I had a mini BBEG. A vampire cleric (one of a coven full) that was sending undead against the nearby town's walls. The PC's had to get through the undead to reach the mountains. They fight their way through the undead zombies and skeletons without too much trouble. Then, the Vampire comes. Full vampire, 4 cleric levels. He drains the sleeping bard, gets temporary hit points, then all of a sudden gets slashed with a smite attack from a sunblade, suddenly my vampire has 3 hit points. he withdraws from the battle, heals himself with an inflict moderate wounds, and takes a 3 shot rapid shot in the chest by the archer, dropping him. It lasted one round
not Yoda 09-20-05, 08:52 AM	BBEG flunks save vs. polymorph other in round 1, after only managing to kill the red shirt. No one else gets so much as a scratch.
cynical 09-20-05, 10:38 AM	Coup de grace The BBeG in his bed while asleep long before the party even knew it was the bbeg.
A Bigmouth Bard 09-20-05, 04:46 PM	Coup de grace The BBeG in his bed while asleep long before the party even knew it was the bbeg. Kind of ironic, eh?
Muddball 09-20-05, 05:57 PM	....He'd dipped the bolt in carrion crawler brain juice (DC 13).... as another DM who allows posion in his game, i compleatly feel your pain. it dosen't matter how high that fortude save is, or that he can only fail on a 3 or less, they WILL fail.
Muddball 09-20-05, 05:58 PM	Two rounds later, my (insanely under-estimated) PCs stand victorious...to this day, they remind me of that one quote :weep: mabey i'm silly, but which quote?
mythSSK 09-26-05, 08:03 PM	mabey i'm silly, but which quote? I assume he meant: "You take the gatehouse, I'll take the forge!".
janusthinker 09-27-05, 12:16 AM	I usually don't comment on bad spelling and grammer, but...wow. Oh, the irony. My contribution: In my group, most of the people rotate DMing, and we basically collaborate in building the world as we go, building off of each others' additions. One player, a solid hack-n-slasher who had not yet DMed, put together a plan for his first session. Essentially, it involved the characters rushing to find a vaguely described mysterious artifact before evildoers could. Upon vanquishing all foes, we would find it, inspect it, and discover...it's a soccer ball. The peasants and sages of the medieval-themed world would, of course, be in awe of these black-and-white pentagons layered about a sphere, you see. Good thing I managed to talk him out of that one when he ran it by me...
TheAscendant 09-27-05, 12:57 AM	The worst ending ever. We had been playing the same characters, in Gurps unfortunately, for almost 3 years. The game had started in a medieval fantasy setting and ended in an ultra-tech, cyberpunk kind of setting. We are chasing this one bad guy the whole time and continually trying to undo his machinations to destroy/take over the world. Its epic shizzl. We finally track him down, cornered, and he is forced to fight. The battle lasts almost 2 hours with our melee guys fighting and dying a couple of times to his summoned hordes...there are all sorts of sacrificing/martyr styled dying going on and things are getting towards the end...we can all feel it coming. It's finally down to 3 of us: my paladin/gunslinger/cyborg character who had been in the campaign the whole time and fought him to draws a half dozen times, our wizard/artificier/scientist, and our cowardly thief/monk/cyber adept character. Yeah, you can see it coming. He kills the wizard, knocks me back, and the monk foot sweeps him. The foot sweep is enough to put him down. A foot sweep. We all sat there for like 5 minutes almost crying while the cowardly monk player cheered and carried on like he was Bruce Freakin Lee. To this day, we all still use the term "foot sweep" like fragstealer...our 3 year campaign came down to a fragwhoring.
A Bigmouth Bard 09-28-05, 04:29 PM	:OMG! ...ouch. :OMG!