Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kopana 07-11-07, 04:42 AM	I was playing in a campaign with a friend, level five. I was a necropolitan sorcerer and he some kind of necromancer, not a wizard or sorcerer, I guess it was from some book he had, he got a Skeletal Owlbear as a companion. Anyway, the story starts off with me and him at the city, we'd apparently been drafted to defend it against an invasion. The commander apparently decided we looked foohardy enough to send on a suicide mission, so he called us off privately and gave us our mission. We were to sneak behind enemy lines and take out the giant incredible cannons that were causing a huge problem. We took an underground tunnel, meant to help the king escape in an emergency, we popped out a few hundred feet behind the cannons. They were being manned by Orc's, rather simple yes, but they didn't really expect someone to get behind them. We cleared them off of two of the cannons and manned them, taking out several squads of soldiers running to get us and destroying the other two cannons. We decided to turn the firepower on the biggest threat there was, an incredible dragon, CR26 or so, which was absolutely decimating the army. We both took aim and fired, having figured out he simple controls for the cannon easily enough. The dragon was blown sideways into the wall and turned it's wrath upon us. We thought it would never get to us in time, we were a quarter mile away, so we thought we'd have a round or six before he got to us. We were wrong, the dragon or his rider apparently cast teleport. It was within LoS, we always rule that that's "Very Familiar" on the chart, and so he gets there without trouble. He appeared scant feet from my friend manning his cannon, we won Init and so turned to fire upon it, we each got off one shot, doing 20d8 each before the dragon used his breath weapon and vaporized his cannon, luckily he made his Reflex save and ducked below the control panel, taking half damage knocked him out, and his Owlbear who failed the save was destroyed. On my next round I tried the other lever on the cannon, we had identified three of them but were unsure of the last one, there was On, Off, Fire, and ???. I thought it might be a self-destruct or some such, which just might do enough damage to destroy the dragon. It turned out it was some kind of signal flare. I rolled a 20 and shot the dragon straight in the eyes with it, blinding it. The dragon charged at me and attacked me, but missed every single time. So with the dragon some half a step away, I fired the cannon directly into it's face. I had done the impossible, and at level five I had slain a CR26 dragon. My companion was unconscious and had actually already gone home. The XP was mine, all 2.6Million of it. This would place me at around level 70, me and the DM joked for ages about what it would be like to be level 70, and even had wild imaginings about me fighting the main god that created his universe, named Deranasius. It was a ton of fun. In the end I settled for 10,000XP, as being level 70 wasn't something I was ready for, and my DM was certainly at a loss as to how he would challenge me at that point, when I, as a 70th level Sorcerer could damn near end the universe and destroy the gods with a wave of my hand. I'm going to remember this story years from now. It's definitely the best story I've ever had to tell about D&D. Edit: Oh, the main reason he missed me with all like, eight of his attacks even with blindsense is because there was in fact a sixteen million pound Gargantuan cannon between me and him, I had pivoted it so that it was pointing at him and so the control panel was on the opposite side. So apparently I had cover. ^_^
weasel05 07-11-07, 06:08 AM	To be fair you should have got half the xp each if he lived, I'm sure you could handel geting 1.3 mil XP :)
NoldorForce 07-11-07, 06:18 AM	You'd get at most 8999 XP. There's a rule preventing you from getting more than one level's worth of XP in a single encounter.
Drag0nUL 07-11-07, 07:07 AM	You'd get at most 8999 XP. There's a rule preventing you from getting more than one level's worth of XP in a single encounter. Really? Had no idea. Could you state where it is from? To the OP: Nice story. Though it is not as I would have thought about it as a DM. XP should be awarded by EL (encounter level) and not strictly by the CR of the opponents. Havnig those two cannons made the encounter much easier (they added quite a lot to your party's CR), so it shouldn't be worth that much XP.
ShadowChemosh 07-11-07, 09:50 AM	Really? Had no idea. Could you state where it is from? To the OP: Nice story. Though it is not as I would have thought about it as a DM. XP should be awarded by EL (encounter level) and not strictly by the CR of the opponents. Havnig those two cannons made the encounter much easier (they added quite a lot to your party's CR), so it shouldn't be worth that much XP. The answer to the XP question is listed on pg38-39 of the DMG. Actually you earned alot less than the 8999 XP listed above, because you actually earned 0xp(XP Awards Table clearly shows a ** for a lvl5 party defeating a CR20). defeating encounters 8+ levels above you is usually done using an outside source or pure luck. In this case the addition of some 'Cannon' was used to defeat the encounter and your character learned nothing that is helpful for defeating a dragon.
zelf_gale 07-11-07, 11:01 AM	See ShadowChemosh's post about inappropriate Encounter Levels. I'd give you XP for as a Story Reward for the encounter which sounds like what your DM did. If I had to eyeball it I'd gone much lower than your DM though, maybe as high as 5,000 xp but probably less. I try to keep my story awards around 4 appropriate Encounter levels of xp or less.
Caelic 07-11-07, 11:25 AM	I'm kinda wondering how a level 5 necromancer managed to "take half damage" from 20d8 and survive. :)
Legdiwena 07-11-07, 12:39 PM	Dragon rolled all 1's and he took 10 damage?
Caelic 07-11-07, 12:40 PM	Dragon rolled all 1's and he took 10 damage? Gotta be something like that. Of course, then I'd wonder how a 20-point breath attack "vaporized" a Great Cannon.
criticalstriker 07-11-07, 12:45 PM	Gotta be something like that. Of course, then I'd wonder how a 20-point breath attack "vaporized" a Great Cannon. It didn't so much vaporize it, as it did screw up the turning and pivoting systems. As well as fry the inner working of its turbines.
Caelic 07-11-07, 12:48 PM	It didn't so much vaporize it, as it did screw up the turning and pivoting systems. As well as fry the inner working of its turbines. I could buy that. "Vaporized" was the OP's description, not mine.
criticalstriker 07-11-07, 12:57 PM	I could buy that. "Vaporized" was the OP's description, not mine. I know, she has a tendency to exaggerate things a teensy bit:P Oh, as for the HP thing. The dragon rolled something like 72 damage, and the necromancer had 32. He took half damage, so he took 36. Enough to put him in the negatives.
Callista 07-11-07, 01:22 PM	That must've been a crazy campaign. If i were your DM, and saw your character literally willing to blow himself up to kill this dragon, I'd just give you both the maximum possible XP, per the rules--putting you at your next level. The encounter killed one of you and could easily have killed the other; so it was probably in the top range of CRs for your party, anyway. This encounter falls into the "special" category--one which would normally kill you, but that you can defeat, if you use the right resources. The DM determines the XP for that kind of encounter.
Drag0nUL 07-11-07, 01:41 PM	defeating encounters 8+ levels above you is usually done using an outside source or pure luck. Not really. You underestimate the power of optimization, and the XP table doesn't take that into account either. There is a build on the CO boards called the Chrono-Legionnaire that, at level 20 can easily defeat CR 57 opponent (a hecatoncheires). Also, I have seen this in a game I've played a little while ago a party of 6 14th level characters taking out a balor (CR 20)+2 mariliths (CR 16) with only 1 casualty. We burned a few good thousand GP in consumables just for that battle (mainly spell immunity and mind blank scrolls) but it was doable. And must mention that the DM didn't go easy on us either.
Kopana 07-11-07, 07:28 PM	It was a lot of fun, main thing that matters. Now we have to go hunting for owbears, the dragons breath literally annihilated his Skeletal Owlbear. I also want to go get promoted to Admiral and get sixteen different medals for taking down the entire main force of the enemy army. All that's left is trolls or ogres or whatever, that and about a million little goblinoids which are pretty much just clean-up duty now it seems. And if I trust myself to aim the cannon well enough to take down the Trolls without disentegrating another tower of soldiers (I did that by accident earlier >_>) I could probably take down the rest of the army too.
Callista 07-11-07, 10:53 PM	Wow--those cannons must be some seriously powerful magic items. They can't be mundane, gunpowder-driven cannons, if they do that much damage.
ShadowChemosh 07-11-07, 11:15 PM	Not really. You underestimate the power ............. Also, I have seen this in a game I've played a little while ago a party of 6 14th level characters taking out a balor (CR 20)+2 mariliths (CR 16) with only 1 casualty. We burned a few good thousand GP in consumables just for that battle (mainly spell immunity and mind blank scrolls) but it was doable. And must mention that the DM didn't go easy on us either. The encounter you have listed here is a EL22 and the party is six level 14's. Which means you are NOT greater than 8 levels away and have 2 extra party members that the XP system does not take into account. So this example is showing that at encounters 8 levels higher than you caused a death of a PC and caused you to burn through way more than the 25% of resources that a encounter should use up. I am not seeing how this is a good example to show that the XP table is not correct. It actually seems to prove exactly what the DMG had said about encounters.
Mock26 07-11-07, 11:52 PM	I would like to point out that your DM was a fool. For starters he never should have thrown a CR 26 dragon against the two of you. And, if you had demanded to go up against such a creature then it should have killed you (unless, of course, it was already on death's door). You also have to remember that the DMG states that anyone who participates in an encounter and survives gets an equal share of the XP. This means that people who are knocked unconscious still get an equal share. And, finally, as others also pointed out, there is a cap on how much XP you can get.
058 07-12-07, 12:01 AM	On the other hand, they exploded a Dragon. Well worth a level, regardless of rules.
criticalstriker 07-12-07, 04:41 AM	I would like to point out that your DM was a fool. For starters he never should have thrown a CR 26 dragon against the two of you. And, if you had demanded to go up against such a creature then it should have killed you (unless, of course, it was already on death's door). You also have to remember that the DMG states that anyone who participates in an encounter and survives gets an equal share of the XP. This means that people who are knocked unconscious still get an equal share. And, finally, as others also pointed out, there is a cap on how much XP you can get. First, there isn't a need for name calling, so please refrain from it. Second, I didn't throw the dragon at them. I threw it at an army that was guarding the wall. Third, they did want to fight it. They turned two massive siege engines onto the dragon. First round they each did 20D8. Second round they won initiative against the dragon, fired two more 20D8 shots. Third round, the dragon teleports to them, they both blast it, even with it so close. Fourth round, they both fire off shots again, and the dragon takes it. He then breathes fire into the control room of the necromancer. The necromancer goes down, and the controls are fried. Fifth round, she fires a signal flare meant to illuminate an entire battlefield into the eye of the dragon. 6th round, she fires another shot at the dragon, now extremely angry and in a fury, tries to rip her out of the control room with its claw. But fails. 7th round, she fires one more shot of the cannon into the dragons face, it goes down. Now, in case you notice any inconsistency's, I don't remember that night all that well. I was rather tired.
Zealot_Reborn 07-12-07, 04:54 AM	sounds fair to me. inventive pc's capture the cannons, then go, 'ooh, we can blast the dragon to kingdom come!' So they do. Surviving was an absolute miracle, but very epic. I don't care if the rules state that you can only gain a certain amount of xp or what not, they each deserve SEVERAL levels, or at least massive rewards/first shot at the dragons hoard of gold. Speaking of which.... :D
snakeman830 07-12-07, 10:17 AM	sounds fair to me. inventive pc's capture the cannons, then go, 'ooh, we can blast the dragon to kingdom come!' So they do. Surviving was an absolute miracle, but very epic. I don't care if the rules state that you can only gain a certain amount of xp or what not, they each deserve SEVERAL levels, or at least massive rewards/first shot at the dragons hoard of gold. Speaking of which.... :D Agreed. There are some times when the sheer awesomeness of what the characters do deserves to get rewarded, even beyond the rules. (and how many DM's actually use that exp. table for every encounter anyway? I always ad hoc it.)
Manus 07-12-07, 01:54 PM	My take on this... two level 5 characters did not destroy an enormous red dragon. Two cannons made out of plotdeviceium destroyed a dragon made out of plot deviceium. As one poster pointed out, your characters learned very little from the encounter. They did show a fair amount of heroism, including being willing to blow themselves up. But let's face it... a pair of 0 level commoners could have aimed those guns. In doing so, would those commoners vault to high level? No. They might be so inspired they decide to become adventurers, thus becoming 1st level. I agree with the suggestion that the characters (both of them) receive enough exp to put them midway through next (6th) level.
_Jayne_Cobb_ 07-12-07, 02:43 PM	Really? Had no idea. Could you state where it is from? The DMG.
Caelic 07-12-07, 05:22 PM	Man. Those are some fast-loading cannon.
Kopana 07-12-07, 06:35 PM	They fire shells of energy rather than conventional explosives. The turbines when running at full speed can keep them going for some time. I'm pretty sure though that if we felt like taking out the entire army like that we'd probably be screwed after like the tenth or twentieth shot when they overheat and misfire, pretty much obliterating the cannon, the operator, etc. I'll just go ahead and explain the XP thing btw. By all rights he was dead, he rolled crap on his save. He died. After we were having fun thinking about how much XP I would have gotten and how wonderful that encounter was and fun for all involved, we decided unanimously that it would be okay to let him live, he had actually left a little bit earlier and said that one of us could run him so we didn't have to stop. We decided that it didn't really hurt the game that much to say he had passed and was stable and unconscious. The reason I didn't mention this earlier is because whenever we say something like this the oh-so-lovely trolls of WoTC feel it neccessary to shove their opinions down our throats about why he shouldn't have lived and why it destroys this and that sense of something or other and we'd have to tell them to get bent. One other thing, the controls on the cannon were written in orc, I was lucky I guess that I didn't blow myself up :P I turned it off and on by pulling two random levers and that brought up the targetting screen which was for some reason disabled and it made two smaller levers appear, which by moving one quickly helped me figure out the targetting system. The other lever I pulled fired it, that's why I didn't know what the last one did until right up at the end, there were four levers and I tried three. My friend could read Orcish so he was fine.
Turel 07-12-07, 07:00 PM	Well done DM. Sounds like the stuff movies are made of! Real heroics from those characters. Sounds like they really threw a spanner in the works charging out like that, I have to say you've handled the situation well, all to often gamers forget that its meant to be FUN and a little crazy :) I have to ask what was your DM plan? Im guessing the players werent meant to engage the dragon face to face like that :)
Kopana 07-12-07, 07:42 PM	I was just discussing this with the other player actually. Whether or not we were meant to have those cannons, I'll ask him when he gets on so I know for sure, but I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. This army is filled with Trolls, Goblinoids, a Dragon, etc. If there had been a troll guarding the cannons or some such, then I would have felt entirely satisfied with the notion of just defeating the enemies. But a mere six or so orcs per cannon? No, while he finished off the enemies at one cannon I ran up and figured out the controls on the cannon. Really, for a first session in a campaign, this was pretty damn ok. I really hope this campaign lasts, and another one that's happening, I'm really enjoying it and my character is tons of fun. An apathetic laid-back necropolitan whose been around for more than a thousand years.
Paladin_Hiroshi 07-12-07, 07:53 PM	*salutes the DM* Now that is how you start a campaign with a bang.
criticalstriker 07-12-07, 11:40 PM	Well done DM. Sounds like the stuff movies are made of! Real heroics from those characters. Sounds like they really threw a spanner in the works charging out like that, I have to say you've handled the situation well, all to often gamers forget that its meant to be FUN and a little crazy :) I have to ask what was your DM plan? Im guessing the players werent meant to engage the dragon face to face like that :) My plan? In all honesty, I didn't expect them to commandeer the cannons. I thought that they will basically hit the control panel and be done with it. The dragon was going to get swarmed by a few thousand arrows and towns folk after the siege engines were taken out, forcing it to retreat. The rest of the army would quickly route due to a loss in morale from seeing their dragon running. Man. Those are some fast-loading cannon. They fire once per round. The spinning turbines draw energy from the elemental plane of fire, and mix it with negative energy from the plane of shadows, causing a black flame substance. This substance is then propelled out of the adamantine barrel. *salutes the DM* Now that is how you start a campaign with a bang. At ease, soldier :P
Zealot_Reborn 07-13-07, 02:39 AM	So, did inventive and ultra-lucky players destroy your BBEG for the campaign by killing the CR 26 dragon? 'cause that could either half or double their xp, depending on your mood.
criticalstriker 07-13-07, 04:31 AM	So, did inventive and ultra-lucky players destroy your BBEG for the campaign by killing the CR 26 dragon? 'cause that could either half or double their xp, depending on your mood. Yes, they did :P I was planning on him leading multiple assaults against major cities... that poor rider was melted away after the second shot. But, I don't really mind. I love when my PC's do something unexpected, or new.
Drag0nUL 07-13-07, 08:14 AM	The encounter you have listed here is a EL22 and the party is six level 14's. Which means you are NOT greater than 8 levels away and have 2 extra party members that the XP system does not take into account. So this example is showing that at encounters 8 levels higher than you caused a death of a PC and caused you to burn through way more than the 25% of resources that a encounter should use up. I am not seeing how this is a good example to show that the XP table is not correct. It actually seems to prove exactly what the DMG had said about encounters. First, my post was not meant as an example to show that the XP table is wrong, but rather as a response to an earlier post that said you can't defeat an encounter of a CR higher than party ECL +8, unless by extraordinary luck or great outside help. Second, you are expected to expend 25% of your party's resources on a CR equal to your party ECL, not in any encounter.
_Jayne_Cobb_ 07-13-07, 12:18 PM	I was playing in a campaign with a friend, level five. I was a necropolitan sorcerer So you're chocolate, strawberry and vanilla? Cool!
Lincoln Hills 07-13-07, 07:04 PM	You're on "What's a Player to Do?", not "I Got Away With It!" ;) If your question is, "What should I (as a 5th level character) do with all these experience points?" I'd have to say, "Take an item creation feat at 6th level and spend the next thirty campaign years mass-producing items." No, but seriously. Although my DMG is not in front of me at this time, I have in the past read (in the "Rewards" chapter: I can't get more specific) that a character can only receive enough XP for a given session to advance him/her by one level, and put him/her within 1 XP of achieving the level after that. Excess is lost. It's a rule that was carried over from 2nd Edition. Also, your campaign sounds like a -Final Fantasy- installment. (Take that as both good and bad, I suppose.) ;)
criticalstriker 07-17-07, 10:22 PM	You're on "What's a Player to Do?", not "I Got Away With It!" ;) If your question is, "What should I (as a 5th level character) do with all these experience points?" I'd have to say, "Take an item creation feat at 6th level and spend the next thirty campaign years mass-producing items." No, but seriously. Although my DMG is not in front of me at this time, I have in the past read (in the "Rewards" chapter: I can't get more specific) that a character can only receive enough XP for a given session to advance him/her by one level, and put him/her within 1 XP of achieving the level after that. Excess is lost. It's a rule that was carried over from 2nd Edition. Also, your campaign sounds like a -Final Fantasy- installment. (Take that as both good and bad, I suppose.) ;) You're right, this isn't the "I got away with it" boards. But, last time I checked far more than just things related to what a player should do is posted here. Before you make a comment about this thread, maybe you should review the hundreds of "1001--" threads that are posted here. Or, maybe the threads that would better belong in other boards? Second, the way you have phrased your comment it sounds as if you think the player has done something wrong..? If this is the case, you're sorely mistaken. I like when my players do something weird, out of the box, or just plain inventive. They all know this (or at least should, I have said it a number of times), and have done some strange things in the past. And, finally, a final fantasy installment? I've only played FF7, it was pretty good. But I don't know if it is very much like my game, care to elaborate on what you mean by this?
Paladin_Hiroshi 07-17-07, 10:26 PM	They fire once per round. The spinning turbines draw energy from the elemental plane of fire, and mix it with negative energy from the plane of shadows, causing a black flame substance. This substance is then propelled out of the adamantine barrel. Snip. At ease, soldier :P That is a great idea, I'm stealing it :D if you don't mind.
criticalstriker 07-17-07, 10:32 PM	That is a great idea, I'm stealing it :D if you don't mind. I don't mind at all.
TheAngryFish 07-18-07, 01:30 AM	Fifth level characters using magical turbine driven cannons that shoot powerful blasts of energy that can blow up dragons... so why not be level 70, you've already gotten rid everything else that makes sense.
criticalstriker 07-18-07, 01:43 AM	Fifth level characters using magical turbine driven cannons that shoot powerful blasts of energy that can blow up dragons... so why not be level 70, you've already gotten rid everything else that makes sense. Heh, everything else that makes sense? Bat guano being turned into fireballs. Fighters taking out entire platoons. Dragons, goblins, owlbears, and magical turbine driven cannons are the only thing that doesn't make sense?
Voran 07-18-07, 07:22 AM	Heh. To fiddle with an example for a bit, there's a reason the gunners on the Death Star didn't immediately gain a bazillion xp points when they blew up Alderaan. How much is the CR of an entire planet? If you have some superdevice that can let you wipe out things vastly above your level, they are no longer their listed CR. If you fight...I dunno, 9 Epic Dragons with the main cannons from the SDF-1, their effective CR is nowhere near what they would have been if you'd fought them 'conventionally'. At any rate, you get a chunk of xp, but not enough to gain more than 1 full level. And you get whatever in-game kudos come with being the gunner that fired the final shot.
BaneBlade 07-18-07, 01:41 PM	whats the Armor Class on a CR26 dragon?
Frodo34x 07-18-07, 02:34 PM	At the end of the day, regardless of what they should get in terms of "kill xp", I reckon they still deserve to get full xp allowed, purely for having routed an entire enemy army.
Kopana 07-18-07, 06:16 PM	We weren't going by Armor Class, or maybe he was.. not sure. Either way it's a magical death ray, it's a touch attack obviously. So the AC was like 8. We did a d20+Int mod for an attack roll, really representing luck more than anything, as the cannons are absolutely huge monstrosities and not exactly the most accurate of things. They worked on the premise of a targeting screen and levers for moving it, so it's not nearly the same as firing a crossbow at it or some such.
Ikyotojin 07-18-07, 06:32 PM	Now the survivor needs to see if the other guy is dead or just dying. I fhe can be saved, do so. Then the two of you go BACK to the commander that sent you on the "suicide" mission, look him in the eye and say, "Ok, dragon and cannons. You want to try again?" Then take a substantial reward and leave. Let him know that what you did was save his city and his butt and he owes you... and never EVER go back there till that particular guy is dead! ;)
Kopana 07-19-07, 03:16 AM	We just said he was alive, cuz' since he had to leave and said we should continue, he died on my watch since I was running him. I felt sucky about that and we decided we may as well just say he lived. When we got back to the city the commander was drunk and he pretty much just said "Oh, that's nice. Didn't really think you'd live.", and then he walked off. A week later they announced that some general did it. I got thrown in prison, nearly took a member of the cities ruling council, released a deadly hulking half-lion illithid mutant beast, and then had to flee town through the sewers with my friend. We left, bitter as all hell we decided that if they didn't play nice then we wouldn't either, so we burned down a small village and slaughtered the inhabitants for a fresh supply of zombies for him. He got Death Attacked by an Assassin from the city and died a few hours ago, he was totally cool with it and immediately grabbed a fresh character sheet. I then proceeded to utterly destroy the assassin, who was apparently a higher level than I myself was. Dallas was really surprised, I had passed no less than three Will Saves vs. some sort of extra damage ability and destroyed him in about three rounds. I had just taken a level of Wild Mage, from the XP gained in all the intervening time since the dragon. And I consistently rolled 3-6 on my caster level roll. (Look up Wild Mage for Complete Arcane and you'll know what I'm talking about.)
Zealot_Reborn 07-19-07, 04:42 AM	you unleash a hulking half-lion illithid mutant beast and its the CITY that's not playing nice by kicking you out? Here's what you do. Go find the remnants of that pissant army whose general you killed, get 'em organized, and attack the city. Or turn 'em all into zombies and attack the city. Either way, take that city DOWN.
criticalstriker 07-19-07, 07:53 AM	you unleash a hulking half-lion illithid mutant beast and its the CITY that's not playing nice by kicking you out? Here's what you do. Go find the remnants of that pissant army whose general you killed, get 'em organized, and attack the city. Or turn 'em all into zombies and attack the city. Either way, take that city DOWN. The mutant thing wasn't really hostile towards anyone but its creators. It fled the city as soon as it made it out of the anti-magic/psionic zone of the labs she was in.
Kopana 07-19-07, 08:00 AM	That's officially my characters goal actually. When level "Way friggin' up there" comes around, I'm gonna go back. Dallas is a stickler of consistency and a realistic world and such, so those fifteen bajillion level 6-ish guards that utterly annihilated us last time will crumble before me. We're always talking about how we'll rob a castle or something by finding out what level the guards are and coming back like three higher. Interesting thing is if we actually did that it'd probably work, just like my plan to explore the world for a few years and then turn that city, and for that matter the entire nation (it's the capital) to rubble.
esteigs 07-23-07, 03:43 PM	pwned. have a :cookie:
Anaxander 07-23-07, 04:16 PM	It isn't my kind of campaign, but if you are all enjoying yourself, it can't be that bad :)