Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Cuaglar 01-03-06, 04:21 PM	I just wanted to start a board where DM's could post how their players solved certain problems or did certain tasks in surprising, unique,and sometimes humorous ways. For example: In my very, very first adventure, my character and my sisters' were exploring a wizard's tower who was taking overt payments from a nearby town. We were attacked by skeletons who leapt out of nearby coffins and my older sister's drow bard got wiped out. My younger sister's druid stablized her, but we wanted to go on and not go back to town. Solution: We stuffed her in one of the now-vacant coffins, velvet-lined and cosy, and secure enough to leave her there for a long time.
Chairman7w 01-04-06, 12:36 AM	I had a group of players that were all caught in the infamous cement mixer trap in the Old Freeport Trilogy. They were all likely to die as this big cube shaped mixer was shaking and rising with the door opening up at the bottom. I just knew they were gonna tumble down into the grinding gears awaiting them below. But then the party Mage cast Web across the opening. They fell, but were caught by the web. VERY creative!
Cuaglar 01-04-06, 07:22 AM	Quite! Creative spellcasting is likely the bread and meat of this board. One of the people in a play-by-post guild of mine mage-handed the nails out of a scaffold where someone was about to be unjustly hanged, so he just fell amidst the beams. Got a few splinters, but we proved him innocent.
Azezel 01-04-06, 07:34 AM	I find it difficult to beleive that Mage Hand is strong enough to draw nails from wood
lesliweird 01-04-06, 09:39 AM	I've got a fun one. I was doing an abberation themed dungeon crawl a while back and one of the rooms had a mind flayer hiding up at the top of a shelf. It mind blasts the ranger and the sorceror, leaving the cleric and the barbarian frantically looking for it. They finally figure out where it is, and on the barbarian's turn, not knowing what it is, she grabs the thing and pulls it at her face. Of course it does the only sensible thing: let out a blood curdling scream, wrap all four tentacles around her head, and prepare to suck brains. A the same time the ranger and sorceror come to. The ranger fires three arrows at it and manages not to kill it (for reasons unrelated to this story it can't teleport). The cleric buffed up on divination, so there wasn't anything he could do. With one turn left before brain eating the halfling sorceror runs up to the barbarian, yells "Don't resist!" and slaps her with a polymorph that turns her into a gelatinous cube. Whereupon she immediately does acid damage and then ingests the mind flayer. I gotta say, I think it's the coolest save I've ever seen anybody make.
Sapper2219 01-04-06, 09:59 AM	The Party make up at the time...1 Rogue, 1 Rogue/Fighter/Favored Soul, 1 Wizard/StormCaster, 1 Druid and 1 Paladin. Background: The party is assisting the Paladin with a quest to remove the taint from the island chain in which she lives. They have sailed to the HQ of her order and the first day they find the town abandoned....kind of...searching the town they encounter a store and head in (all the while ignoring the sounds of movement and laughter around them) to "purchase" anything useful. A large battle ensuse in which they are trapped in the building and barely escape with their lives. Heading back to the safety of their ship they rest for the night. Now here's where the planning comes into play: The next morning they decide to land their ship on the outskirts of town. The two rogues proceed to scout, avoiding any conflict and dodging around anything that may be a threat. They evade the entire town filled with Zomibies (while not a huge challenge, was designed to keep them busy) to enter the castle in the middle of the day, while the vampire lord was "resting" in his coffin, finding the secret door to his crypt and putting a world of hurt onto him due to several well timed spells, they then drag him upstairs and outside to finish him off completely....boy is an un-prepared vampire during the middle of the day a let down.....
chuff80 01-04-06, 10:33 AM	The party consists of 1 druid, 1 cleric, 1 wizard, 1 bard, and 1 npc ranger. they see a green dragon flying over the forest they're in. Normal party reaction: hide. This party's reaction: Kill It!! The wizard (who has PrC War Wizard 5) hits it with two fireballs (anyone else think 800 ft is too long a range for a fireball at 11th level?) before it gets close enough to do anything. The ranger waits until it's 200 ft away and takes a full attack, doing more damage, and the druid casts protection from acid. The dragon finally gets within range for a breath weapon and it's MAD. It hits the party, but they each take like 10 damage because of the druid's spell. Next round, the wizard hits it with a cone of cold, and it's dead. Three rounds, 12th level party, CR 13 dragon, dead. SOOOO...next session, I'm like okay, here's a good encounter. They find a trapped Glabrezu (CR 13 again) stuck in an underground chamber. There's only one entrance, and it's only wide enough to enter one at a time. The druid wild-shapes into a bird sitting on the wizard's shoulder. He summons 3 or 4 earth elementals, then the wizard proceeds to cast englarge..mass...The 3 or 4 Large earth elementals now take up most of the room in the chamber and the Glabrezu can't get to the party, and they just pelt it with offensive spells until they finish it off. One character got hurt. This party makes me laugh. It's not like every fight goes this way, but....wow.
Freedom 01-04-06, 11:16 AM	I once had a party who suffered a casualty and a lot of damage fighting some gnolls in their lair, so they ran into the woods to regroup. They knew that the gnolls were going to attempt to track them and not let them rest, and they had wolves for this purpose, so the situation looked grim since they could track by smell. The party set to arranging their defenses while the ranger took off into the woods by himself, found a skunk, and strung it up dead along the path they took into the woods. That completely thwarted the wolves' tracking and they were able to run further along and cross a river. It wasn't the most epic turn of events, but it was just the right amount of cleverness they needed right then.
Chairman7w 01-04-06, 12:19 PM	Oh man - that sucks. The party consists of 1 druid, 1 cleric, 1 wizard, 1 bard, and 1 npc ranger. they see a green dragon flying over the forest they're in. Normal party reaction: hide. This party's reaction: Kill It!! The wizard (who has PrC War Wizard 5) hits it with two fireballs (anyone else think 800 ft is too long a range for a fireball at 11th level?) before it gets close enough to do anything. The ranger waits until it's 200 ft away and takes a full attack, doing more damage, and the druid casts protection from acid. The dragon finally gets within range for a breath weapon and it's MAD. It hits the party, but they each take like 10 damage because of the druid's spell. Next round, the wizard hits it with a cone of cold, and it's dead. Three rounds, 12th level party, CR 13 dragon, dead. SOOOO...next session, I'm like okay, here's a good encounter. They find a trapped Glabrezu (CR 13 again) stuck in an underground chamber. There's only one entrance, and it's only wide enough to enter one at a time. The druid wild-shapes into a bird sitting on the wizard's shoulder. He summons 3 or 4 earth elementals, then the wizard proceeds to cast englarge..mass...The 3 or 4 Large earth elementals now take up most of the room in the chamber and the Glabrezu can't get to the party, and they just pelt it with offensive spells until they finish it off. One character got hurt. This party makes me laugh. It's not like every fight goes this way, but....wow.
Cuaglar 01-04-06, 04:11 PM	Now for another of mine: I'm also running a all half-dragon campaign for my two sisters, me a half-bronze/human paladin, my younger sister a half-brass/human sorcerESS, and my older sister a half-silver/elf ranger. We were tracking some illusionist swindlers out of town in their cart, the ranger following them with Move Silently. But she was discouraged by the move-at-half speed deal, so (at the enhtusiastic prompting of my younger sister) she leaps on the back of the cart, and hides herself on the back of the cart. I gave her a -4 penalty on both her Hide and her Move Silently checks for that, but the swindlers both failed their Spot and Listen checks. In aftersight, I might have had an NPC say, "Hey, chaps, you've got yourself a scaly on your cart!" or something, but it just seemed to me that she earned her concealment for that idea.
Onyx_Alpha 01-04-06, 05:13 PM	Best one I have is a party of 8 all between level 1 and 5 taking on a CR 12 ethereal slayer... I had planned it that if they moved past the slayer they would trigger a shadow spider(also CR 12) that would kill and consume the slayer and leave them to pass... All to my surprise when they manage to get the danged slayer down to 10 HP before they trigger the shadow spider! Then they proceed to attack the shadow spider while it is preoccupied with the slayer and 2 turns after the spider kills the slayer they manage to kill the spider! It really frustrated me cause I was trying to get through to them that fighting wasn't the only way to win a battle...
Kimokeo 01-04-06, 09:47 PM	Quite! Creative spellcasting is likely the bread and meat of this board. One of the people in a play-by-post guild of mine mage-handed the nails out of a scaffold where someone was about to be unjustly hanged, so he just fell amidst the beams. Got a few splinters, but we proved him innocent. I agree about mages using magic creatively. Putting 'mounts' in between the monsters and the characters is a pain in the neck. They're usually in the way, allowing the fighters to fight one-on-one or to allow missile weapon fire from everyone while the horses get beaten up. I'm not sure about the mage hand with nails - never tried to see if the strength is sufficient over time to pull a nail out.
bholdr_mage 01-04-06, 09:49 PM	So this campaign, set in Eberron, had my group I was DMing walking from a rural part of Breland into Sharn. (They would've taken the rail, but they kinda got themselves banned from it--but that's another story.) All of a sudden, an airship with a wyvern attacking it, was crash landing....in their direction. The elemental had already been torn free-Everyone in the group scattered to let the dumb beast die-except the mage. "I stand there," he bravely stated. I said, "Ok, you do realize this kind of impact can kill a person don't you?" "I'm counting on it," he calmly replied. He then told me to tell him when the ship-dead on course with him was about 100 ft. away. Then, he revealed his master plan. He cast, from the Miniatures Handbook, Baleful Transposition. (The target is any creature no larger than the large type.) The stupid Wyvern failed of course, and the mage was on the ship that was a round or two away from smacking into the wyvern. The mage then cast "feather fall" and used it on the surviving crew members present, and the ship smacked into the wyvern. Reflex save? It rolled a 1. Definitely the first time and probably the last I will ever see someone use an air ship as a weapon.
Cuaglar 01-05-06, 07:50 AM	Whoa. That was clever of him.
Amatsucanthefirst 01-05-06, 10:40 AM	The most surprising move by my group was against a Ogre Barbarian that they were tracking. He lured them into his cave, blocking their escape by pushing a boulder in front of the exit. He then turned on the party, which consisted of a cleric, wizard, and a thief. I figured the party was doomed, as the greatclub he was wielding would drop at least one of them every other round. To my surprise, the cleric cast sound burst, stunning the ogre. The wizard then cast grease on the dropped greatclub. The rogue the leapt to the attack! The ogre was never able to pick the club back up after repeated attempts, and finally just tried to beat them down with his fists. What is most surprising about this was that the party never used any tactics like this before, usually just looking to cause damage. It was cool and is still talked about even after about 2 years. . . .
YRM 01-05-06, 01:46 PM	We were fighting a black dragon in my friend's campaign, and, in it's cavernous, watery lair, we couldn't get it to stand and fight us... it'd be swimming, flying, and generally hurting us with fly by breath and other attacks. My poor monk was running out of javalins, and even standing in the middle of the beast's treasure horde, running my fingers through the gold while taunting it couldn't make the dragon engage any of us. Finally though, it made the mistake of flying below the heavily armored dwarf, who was standing 20' above the water on a rocky outcropping. The Dwarf risked drowning to jump down and smite the dragon on his way into the slimy water. Waraxe out... CRIT! 45 DAMAGE finishes off the dragon! The axe stuck in the skull of the dragon, pivoting the thrashing body down over top of the plummeting dwarf. I believe that I dove into the water at that point and, while under the effect of Bull's STR, I managed to help pull the dwarven cannonball to shore. Thank goodness for his high constitution.
Chairman7w 01-05-06, 02:03 PM	Wow!!! Now THAT is cool!!!! So this campaign, set in Eberron, had my group I was DMing walking from a rural part of Breland into Sharn. (They would've taken the rail, but they kinda got themselves banned from it--but that's another story.) All of a sudden, an airship with a wyvern attacking it, was crash landing....in their direction. The elemental had already been torn free-Everyone in the group scattered to let the dumb beast die-except the mage. "I stand there," he bravely stated. I said, "Ok, you do realize this kind of impact can kill a person don't you?" "I'm counting on it," he calmly replied. He then told me to tell him when the ship-dead on course with him was about 100 ft. away. Then, he revealed his master plan. He cast, from the Miniatures Handbook, Baleful Transposition. (The target is any creature no larger than the large type.) The stupid Wyvern failed of course, and the mage was on the ship that was a round or two away from smacking into the wyvern. The mage then cast "feather fall" and used it on the surviving crew members present, and the ship smacked into the wyvern. Reflex save? It rolled a 1. Definitely the first time and probably the last I will ever see someone use an air ship as a weapon.
Cuaglar 01-06-06, 07:02 AM	The Dwarf risked drowning to jump down and smite the dragon on his way into the slimy water. Waraxe out... CRIT! 45 DAMAGE finishes off the dragon! The axe stuck in the skull of the dragon, pivoting the thrashing body down over top of the plummeting dwarf. My martial characters always use axes, even my civilized paladins. :P
CalemJones 01-10-06, 12:20 PM	This low-level party i had was suppsed to walk into a room and get pummled by arrows from an arrow slits in the wall the room had double doors so what do they do the rouge spots the arrow slits and the half orc barb takes the doors off the hinges and proceeds to block the arrow slits totally blowing my whole aambush situation. Way to go party.
Jesper 01-10-06, 12:51 PM	Best one I have is a party of 8 all between level 1 and 5 taking on a CR 12 ethereal slayer... I had planned it that if they moved past the slayer they would trigger a shadow spider(also CR 12) that would kill and consume the slayer and leave them to pass... All to my surprise when they manage to get the danged slayer down to 10 HP before they trigger the shadow spider! Then they proceed to attack the shadow spider while it is preoccupied with the slayer and 2 turns after the spider kills the slayer they manage to kill the spider! It really frustrated me cause I was trying to get through to them that fighting wasn't the only way to win a battle... How much exp did the level 1 get for that?
Bruunwald 01-10-06, 12:52 PM	I was running a mystery surrounding a series of murders in a village on a frontier. Basically, a nobleman was controlling a spirit and using it to murder at the behest of a druid working for a cult, who would pay the nobleman in gems sent to him in small iron chests. One of the clues leading back to the nobleman was a child running various errands for him. Unrelated, but just for characterization, I wrote up the nobleman with nasty boils that needed stinky medicine. Somehow, the party got to the metal heap behind the smithy, where the nobleman had been dumping the chests to be melted down. The discovery of the chests was supposed to be a minor clue to be tied in later on. For some reason, the ranger in the party decided to sniff one of the chests. What could I do? It occurred to me right then, that this medicine must have left a stink behind on anything that this guy handled. So I gave the ranger a Knowledge (nature) check to recognize an herb in the scent on the chest, which he passed with flying colors. The party was able to determine that the smell was medicinal. Then went to the Apothecary, who informed them of the child, who led them to the one using the medicine. It ended up being the big break in the case, and they solved it much earlier than expected.
b5201 01-10-06, 01:31 PM	Well they didn't acomplish anything but they suprised me. One player was late because he thought that he had nothing to do and was about 2 hours late. When we finaly got in the dungeon they killed 1 orc and turned on eachother. But luckily the one that wasn't late hade to leave in 5 minutes.
DHP 01-10-06, 02:05 PM	2 characters I was DMing (1 dwarf barbarian and 1 human cleric) had gotten all their things stolen. They had only some ragged clothes. They decided to go on the road and wait for someone rich to come so they could steal his things. They met a noble and robbed him. They asked if they found any clothes in his things and I told them that they found some noble clothes and explained that it was very colorful clothing. When they got to the city they decided that they wanted to rob the richest guy in the town. I told them that there was walls with spikes on topof them all around his big house and there was 2 guards with dogs walking around the house. They came back at night (still in their very colorful noble clothes). Tied a robe to one of the spikes on the wall (guess it was pretty big spikes since you could tie a robe to them..). They climbed the robe and jumped over the wall. They both rolled very good so the guard didn't hear them.The cleric cast silence and they went over to kill one of the guards and his dog in total silence. (the other guard was walking on the other side of the house). After that they broke one of the windows. I had decided that all windows had alarm cast on them but since they had a silence spell up it didn't make any noise. To conceal the broken window the cleric cast obscuring mist at the window. They went into the house and walked to the 3rd floor because there was nothing of interest on the other floors. There was the bedroom of the man and wife who lived there. The barbarian kicked in the door releasing a glyph of warding and walked to a chest in the room who looked like a treasure chest while threatening the owners of the house to not move. He smashed the chest and took what he could have in his sack. After that I told them that they heard alot of shouting from outside the house and the sound of guards rushing towards the house. They had not time to go downstairs so they jumped out the window. Survived the fall and rushed to the robe. The dwarf rolled very high on his climb check but the cleric didn't get over and fell down again. The guards were almost at him so he cast sanctuary so they couldn't touch and climbed the robe. After that they fled the town. I think this qualifies as a lucky escape. We had alot of fun with this because every desicion were very spontaneous and none of them were meant to be either very good at stealing or sneaking.
Black Knight Geno 01-10-06, 04:59 PM	My last gaming session, one of my characters came up with a marvolus (sp?) idea, combing a crossbow, a bucket, a rope, a single immovable rod, and a kender with a alter ego with ingenious effect. The situation was a such, the party had been sent to find a late caravan. Unknown to the party, the caravan had had to leave the nearby town late, and had been ambushed about 3/4 of the way to the town by gnolls. The party consists of a half-gold lizardwomen sorceress, a cat person, a outsider pixie, and a kender, all at ECL of 7. (I sort of let the group have free reign with characters) Anywho, the party finds the caravan with 8 of the 12 gaurds still alive (3 level warriors), the half-silver cleric of pelor, and only 4 of the original 7 wagons still intact. The enemy consisted of 12 level 2 fighter gnolls, 1 gnoll leader with 5 levels of fighter, and a human with 5 levels of fighter and 2 levels of blackguard. The gnolls have what is left of the caravan surrounded, and most of the defenders are really hurting, especially the cleric. The party is approaching from the east-southeast, and their situation is about to be untenable. So the kender suddenly says that he is trying his rope to the bucket in his bag of holding and the other end to the immovable rod. He then gets in the bucket. holding the immovable rod, and has the strongest person, the half-gold toss him. He ends up ativating the rod at about thirty feet up in the air, and the bucket is about five feet below the rod when it finally stops bouncing around. The bucket is just big enough to hold him, and it also provides partial cover from the incoming gnoll arrows. He spends the rest of the battle 25 feet in the air, in a bucket, putting pot shots into the gnolls with his crossbow. Inventive, no?
Black Knight Geno 01-10-06, 05:00 PM	Double post, sorry
metamind 01-10-06, 05:17 PM	When the high leveled PC stoped killing the noob PCs, and actually worked together. I know, I couldn't beleive it either!
Chobemaster 01-10-06, 05:28 PM	My party got me pretty good on this one. Scene is a 30' firepit on an island... down the pit is the dungeon, linked to the plane of fire. I'd not come up with a solution for how to get in, but the fire didn't extend into the dungeon tunnels, just in the main pit-shaft, so I knew they'd figure something out. Did they ever...they convinced a Galeb Duhr on the other side of the island that they'd just helped out to do THEM a favor...w/ the Duhr's help, they dug a channel from the rim of the pit to the beach...ocean pours into my fire dungeon, and the fire creatures either made it to the gate back to the plane of fire...or they didn't. They wiped out the whole dungeon w/ a couple of shovels and some RP. I made them water breathe to raid the place, and the red dragon survived in an air pocket, but still.