Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SighGuy 08-16-05, 01:06 PM	Does your DM ever have an annoying game for you, that you'd really rather not go about? Or does he like throwing puzzles at you that he hasn't quite figured out? Post some great ways you've destroyed your DM's plans! :devil: 1. Our main DM had a monster that possessed the bodies of the slain, and came after us. We were in Zenlack's Tower, so there was no backing out, now. Instead of fighting him, me and one other of the party members went around to all of the bodies and chopped off their legs. Have fun with that one, body snatcher. 2. For any DM who is fond of mazes, this'll stop 'em dead in their tracks at least once. Find a wall. Let's say left (you need to keep it the same wall, just for the sake of the joke, and insist on the left wall at all times), just follow it until the end of the maze. If your DM anticipates this after you've thwarted his first maze, he'll probably throw in an island so that you follow the same wall around and get no where. If so, once you've completed the island, grab onto the next wall and just go with it. Eventually, either your DM will no longer give you mazes, or will find something incredibly cheap, like putting a trap every five feet along the left wall. 3. Make your DM pay if he doesn't think out his riddles! A temporary DM of ours gave us this riddle "Many men fear me, but others are freed by me" It was supposed to be something solitude or death or something, I can't even remember. My answer was "prison warden". 4. Your DM have a slippery rogue that always escapes from your bonds when you knock him out and lock him up? Not a problem anymore. Don his brand new half-plate on him, hastily, and why not give him a little more protection with a tower shield strapped to his arm! Enjoy your -18 armor check penalty! You have anything you'd like to share about your happiest "DM-thwarting" moments? Go ahead! We could all use a laugh at the expense of your DM. :)
Salla 08-16-05, 05:16 PM	Hmm. I'm not sure this one qualifies as a 'thwart', per se ... Our party had encountered a sage/seer/somethingorother who had informed of us a prophecy, where only the chosen one :rolleyes: wielding only a certain dagger :rolleyes: would be the one to slay this evil king from another continent (who'd been giving ours grief). Right after we hear this, the party has this exchange: Us: "So, we need to find this dagger." Sage: "Oh, I have it right here." Us: :confused: ... "Okay, now we need to find this Chosen One." Sage: "Oh, that's her." *points at PC* Us: :ahem: ... "Okay, now all we need to do is get to the king." Sage: (Paraphrased) "Here's his itinerary, and a secret passage into his throne room." Us: :uh-huh: ... "Okay, then ... let's go to that port town, maybe we can find a smuggling vessel that can give us passage. Sage: "I've got a mass teleport scroll here, I'll send you." Us: :rant: "So, what do you call an adventure where all the actual adventuring has been removed?" So, we get there through a couple of laughable encounters. The King's Wizard throws a Ray of Enfeeblement at the Chosen One (halfling ranger), hits, and the DM calls for a saving throw. I remind him that Ray of Enfeeblement doesn't allow a saving throw. We start the fight in earnest, with my Barbarian moving in to slug it out. The DM purposefully has the King work past me to wind up next to the halfling ranger. I remind the party halfling that, with a 1 STR, her maximum load is well under her heavy load limit, and she can't do anything more than a 5' step until she loses some gear. The DM, stuck between 'total party kill' and 'lame excuse', decides on lame excuse ... and my next hit inexplicably knocks him down, where he lands on the dagger and dies, specifically using words like 'impale'. The halfling reminds the DM that she never got a chance to draw the dagger before getting wrecked by the Ray. The dagger is still in the sheath. Despite the fact that the King could have easily dispatched the lot of us, including the nigh-helpless halfling (he was invulnerable to everything except That Dagger in the hands of That Halfling), the DM says that he's too afraid of the Chosen One and the Dagger being in the same place to keep fighting, and teleports away. Suffice it to say, the game didn't continue because the DM 'wasn't happy with the way the story was going'.
interpretivechaos 08-16-05, 05:28 PM	I love the plate mail and tower shield on the rogue. 2nd edition. Tomb of Horrors. I was playing a tenth level psionicist. I use ectoplasmic form. A dart comes out, goes through me. I glide through a pit trap. I circle the corridors to see where a secret door exits them. The apparently big riddle with a bunch of pictures, which one is the exit- same thing. I oppened dimensional doors to get everyone to where I was. Ring of Elemental Command Air so I could fly, and plop walls of force down when I wanted to. DM gave up.
Taim Kelrathos 08-16-05, 09:49 PM	I'm not so sure this is thwarting, but... In our Gnome Campaign we were asked by the Dwarven nation to scout out a Thi-Kreen stronghold. We got there, killed five elite warriors, and went back to the Dwarves, telling them (with our Gnomish egotism) that we killed their best warriors. The Dwarves thought that meant they were ready to be conquered and set out. What we didn't mention is that we never saw the Thi-Kreen army. Needless to say the Dwarf army didn't stand a chance. And their crushing defeat earned us the Dwarves' enimity, but it had been a major plot point to befriend them and gain their aid for a future war.
Phrennzy 08-16-05, 10:08 PM	I love the plate mail and tower shield on the rogue. 2nd edition. Tomb of Horrors. I was playing a tenth level psionicist. I use ectoplasmic form. A dart comes out, goes through me. I glide through a pit trap. I circle the corridors to see where a secret door exits them. The apparently big riddle with a bunch of pictures, which one is the exit- same thing. I oppened dimensional doors to get everyone to where I was. Ring of Elemental Command Air so I could fly, and plop walls of force down when I wanted to. DM gave up. The DM missed the part where etheral/out of phase creatures draw the attention of demons specifically bound by Acererak to prevent such ease at bypassing traps.
Gurthoron 08-17-05, 10:59 AM	2. For any DM who is fond of mazes, this'll stop 'em dead in their tracks at least once. Find a wall. Let's say left (you need to keep it the same wall, just for the sake of the joke, and insist on the left wall at all times), just follow it until the end of the maze. If your DM anticipates this after you've thwarted his first maze, he'll probably throw in an island so that you follow the same wall around and get no where. If so, once you've completed the island, grab onto the next wall and just go with it. Eventually, either your DM will no longer give you mazes, or will find something incredibly cheap, like putting a trap every five feet along the left wall. You're lucky. My DM likes magical mazes so you can't just follow one wall. Plus, you can make mazes to prevent this from working (THink the one in Labyrinth) or that would just take too long to complete this way. Time limits are a great way to prevent PCs from doing this. Lets see, a good one . . . We are in an antimagic tower, hunting down a LBEG who was stashed there by a BBEG. The LBEG is pretty much useless here cause hes a mage, but he is guarded by a duelist character specced out not to use magic. 1st round, our bard/duelist walks up, disarms him, sheaths both sword, and just looks at him. NPC promptly surrenders. Walking through a dungeon we peer through a door into the next room. There is a ragewind practically filling the room. We procede to kill it with spells cast through the opening.
Thorak 08-17-05, 12:03 PM	2. For any DM who is fond of mazes, this'll stop 'em dead in their tracks at least once. Find a wall. Let's say left (you need to keep it the same wall, just for the sake of the joke, and insist on the left wall at all times), just follow it until the end of the maze. If your DM anticipates this after you've thwarted his first maze, he'll probably throw in an island so that you follow the same wall around and get no where. If so, once you've completed the island, grab onto the next wall and just go with it. Eventually, either your DM will no longer give you mazes, or will find something incredibly cheap, like putting a trap every five feet along the left wall. That's not thwarting. That's standard maze tactics 101. Thwarting is bringing pen and ink. And having your character map the maze that's made entirely of 10-15' long passages, with orange mist that effectively teleports you. We had to run from one end of the maze to the other, and I got us there in the minimum time. The DM, in this case, though it was cool, because every party he tossed in there before wandered around like chickens with their heads cut off. And yes, it was chock full of "keep going left and you go in circles" type things. 3. Make your DM pay if he doesn't think out his riddles! A temporary DM of ours gave us this riddle "Many men fear me, but others are freed by me" It was supposed to be something solitude or death or something, I can't even remember. My answer was "prison warden". If the answer fits, and the DM doesn't accept it, the riddler better be inanimate and looking for a set password. That's the only situation I wouldn't accept "prison warden" for the above.
Super Guy 08-17-05, 02:05 PM	Sounds like some fun stories :) Thwarting is bringing pen and ink. And having your character map the maze that's made entirely of 10-15' long passages, with orange mist that effectively teleports you. We had to run from one end of the maze to the other, and I got us there in the minimum time. The DM, in this case, though it was cool, because every party he tossed in there before wandered around like chickens with their heads cut off. Nice. And as for the riddle part, this was a bad DM that we had. He had the riddler be a sentient being, not searching for a password, and simply insisted that "it didn't work". :rolleyes:
Thorak 08-17-05, 02:13 PM	And as for the riddle part, this was a bad DM that we had. He had the riddler be a sentient being, not searching for a password, and simply insisted that "it didn't work". :rolleyes: Then either he's being a doof, or the critter doesn't want you to pass and is willing to cheat. In which case, there has to be another way, because your DM wouldn't be cheating, would he? See case #1, being a doof. If anything, giving a smart unexpected response should get respect from the riddler. You broke their riddle. That was their fault, not yours.
Phrennzy 08-17-05, 05:06 PM	A maze for the sake of a maze is so boring it should be thwarted. By the DM. By not using them.
Red_Ninja 08-18-05, 10:19 AM	In a homebrew I ran, the PCs were exploring an abandoned wizard's tower that spiralled up around a huge bottomless pit. Guarding this immense spiral staircase, around the bottomless pit, was a flesh golem, ment to ensure that the PCs couldn't get to the upper levels until they were higher level (and ready to defeat the flesh golem)... So they rushed the golem and knocked him into the bottomless pit :eek: (bummer for me), they then proceeded to lure every rust monster, carrion crawler and mindless undead or construct to the pit, and knock it in (sometimes with considerable effort)- I let the PCs get away with this, cuz they earned it, besides there were still plenty of traps and demonic minions etc. that would make things hard... I was THWARTED- lesson learned...guardians of the bottomless pit are to be flyers from now on!
Fort deadly kick 08-18-05, 10:47 AM	I was THWARTED- lesson learned...guardians of the bottomless pit are to be flyers from now on! SO sigged! My DM ran an undead themed campaighn, he spent ages making a really cool teabag ancient crinckly text with details of the vampire's plans, explaining to us why we should be prepaired for a specific room in the dungeon. We skip the room the text is in, the party sorc crumbled an inert Vamp, then walked into a URN FULL OF VAMPIRE BLOOD, getting possessed in the process by the crumble'd vamp. Good times.