For example, my party and I were fighting a water elemental. Most of us were on the ground but one of us, Brinn, was in the air. Brinn was doing by far the most damage to the thing, and he was soon knocked unconscious, and he began a 100-foot fall to the lake below. I saw this happening and I used my Siberys Mark of Passage to teleport myself right beneath him, in the hopes that I could get him a healing potion - if he hit that lake, he was dead.
After I arrived right below his falling self I grabbed him as hard as I could, positioning my animated tower shield right below us, hoping that it would break the water enough to cushion our landing. I fumbled for a healing potion at his belt and revived him. He had a plan to arrest our fall, but that round our druid summoned a great eagle, which caught us both and dropped us off at the shore.
Beholders in Flying Saucer Spelljammers are attacking Eberron! The PCs with Fireball spells in little glass spheres are sent on a commando mission to blow them up.
Can they rescue the Princess of Breland kidnapped by these evil invaders and their charmed slaves?
Our group of four low level chars where delivering a shipment of armor to a keep where karrnath was experimenting on their undead soilders. The lord of the keep asks us to spend the night before leaving, and in the middle of the night we find out that he wants to "experiment" on our archivist, to try to make spell slinging skeletons.
This guy is tough, in the first few rounds he boils my blood, so I can only move and am taking tons of damage a round, he burst the eyes out of the archivist, the scout was winded so only doing minimal damage. The bard was the only one at full capacity, and that is never a good thing.
The archivist summons a monster to fight for her, since she can't see, and chooses a Giant Centipede. The DM looked like she just kicked a puppy. It turns out the guy had a phobia of ... BUGS!
It took us two sessions to recover from that fight...
The action: One confirmed crit with a [nonproficient] thrown stick, two dozen vacant-eyed, charging orcs, one adrenalin-fueled "strategic retreat" (read: full speed run) through the Eldeen with said orcs in pursuit.
Good times were had by all. Except the fellow I accidentally brained with the stick. I felt quite bad about that, actually, and it's a good thing he didn't die. Would've been a shame to have my favourite throwin' stick jinxed with an accidental kill.
(As a sidenote, Kagor - the character in question - doesn't really understand how the Talentans normally use the boomerang, other than that it's supposed to come back. He's convinced that if he can throw it and chase after fast enough, it'll have roughly the same effect. He's wrong, but the party artificer just giggles a lot and occasionally hits it with returning just to confuse me. In-character, I've given up on ever using another weapon while not wild shaped, and out-of-character I've deliberately foregone proficiency just because the whole scenario amuses us so much.)
The other members of the party were generally dragging a$$ and not coming up with much of any kind of ideas, so when the warforged juggernaut player decided to make the gather info rolls, and generally deal with the roleplaying, he ended up starting a small bar fight. This in turn led to the ogre mage killing the cohort that the warforged had taken, the OM died from the rest of the party ganging up on it, the PCs being barred from the inn where they were supposed to meet their contact, and the frontline tank warforged deciding to leave on a journey into the Mournland as he was disgusted by the actions of the "fleshies".
My favorite story by far is a bit long, but bear with me.
The setup: same campaign as the Siberys marked character above (who is also a warforged; don't ask). Also in the party was a lycanthrope, and we happened to have a couple knights of the Silver Flame trailing us and suspecting he was lycanthropic. We were also being followed by a gnomish artificer and her shield guardian. This was in the woods on the road from Passage to the Shadow Marches. The story breaks some rules, but it's just too good.
The gnome and her golem catch up with us, and we engage her in battle. She decides to fly away, but we had none of it. We throw a tanglefoot bag at her, hoping she sticks to one of the trees. But it's a special kind of tanglefoot bag and it forms a sphere around her while shee just keeps going. Undaunted, we use our grapples to hook onto the sphere, but she just keeps on going, dragging us behind her.
Eventually we have three lines coming off this orb and three of us are getting dragged through the woods. I position myself so that my line gets snagged on a tree so I can wrap it around the trunk, hoping I can stop the thing. Well, I do that right as we run into the knights.
One of our characters was... eccentric... and we end up getting dragged from awkward diplomacy into a fight. Meanwhile, another of our party has climbed onto the now relatively arrested orb and is riding it, using his sword, now stabbed into the thing, to hold on.
Figuring (incorrectly) that my line is secure, I let go to engage the knights, only to find the orb moving again, and, now that it's top-heavy, turning upside down. Finally, I look at the lycanthrope and see he's badly injured. Realizing that the battle is won, but he could still die, I teleport him back to Passage.
The next day, we got chased by city guards into the rail station office, and I had to use a travel brochure's painting to TP us to Arcanix so we could meet up with the rest of the party, where we found out that the gnome got away.
On the trail of a hot story in a small town in western Thrane (which none are happy about - each of them hating/loathing/creeped out by the Silver Flame), they are unwittingly tapped by a rather benevolent priest to quell a cult of nearby lycanthropes without alerting the Thranish govt. (he knew it would probably lead to another inquisition). After a pitched battle with were-boars, were-wolves, and an advanced were-wolf ghost, they save the day, but the Rogue had taken damage from one of the were-boars - and failed his subsequent save. He kept this hidden from his comrades.
Three days later, the party is relaxing at an inn in Flamekeep - anxious to take the next airship out the following morning, and find themselves under the first full moon since the attack. The Rogue (who RP's well) took his arrogant self into his own room ("I sleep alone...!") while the other three saved coin by sharing a room. Subsequently waking up to the sound of snorting and crashing, they finding their friend's door broken down and a rampaging boar downstairs, goring people. After finding his shredded clothes in the room, they figure it out.
The were-boar manages to escape into the city, where it injures another 20 or so people over the next hour. The party persues it - only for the Shifter to finally grapple and successfully pin, then hog-tie it (no pun intended). The Knight then manages to convince an entire legion of city guards with a nat 20 on a bluff check that the creature is a magebred boar destined for sale at market, who simply got loose (and yes, he lost a knight's challenge for the day for that...). The Ranger flashes his Dragonmark, and they spread some coin about to pay for the damage done, and high tail it out of town that night.
The following week, after a high-level Sov Host priest who owed the party a favor removed the curse from our Rogue friend, the paper reports a story of a were-boar epidemic inflicting - of all places - the city of Flamekeep! The church is humiliated, and Thrane closes all national border for four months to contain the "epidemic." The PC's laugh, write it up, and send a diplomatic package of smoked ham to the Thranish embassy in Sharn.
My Psion / Ranger was below decks of the crashing airship, scrambling to save what people I could while working my way to the deck of the ship. A tense battle with a few Emerald Claw soliders blocking my path had just come to its grand conclusion. My Changleing Rogue companion had popped up from no where and stabbed the men in the back, freeing the way to the top deck. We rushed to the surface to find that our companions had already lept from the ship, feather fall rings and potions in hand. We were stuck, trapped like rats on the proverbial sinking ship. That was when I spotted it, the skiff off the starboard side, the last possible hope for escape. But the skiff was tied to the ship that had crashed into ours, and left us only a sliver of hope as we would have to leap across a 15 foot gap.
I took the lead, feeling my way a moment, then tossing caution to the wind and sprinting for the gap. The world was laid out benieth me like a carpet on a bare floor, and it all dissapeared suddenly as I came crashing down into the open belly of the skiff. Gathering myself, I turned and extended a hand to my companion. Ideas came to mind, like using my powers to summon an Astral construct to help, but alas I had drained all the powers I had. There was nothing I could do to aid the Rogue. I could only hope she had the strength to make the jump on her own. With a gentle urging, the changeling sprinted forward and lept into the air, her gaze intent for the skiff and her hands opening and closing in desperate hope.
It was with the grace of a dying bird that the rogue plumeted past the skiff toward the ground and certain death. Without thinking, I placed the small life craft into a steep dive. The kind of dive that the designers of the skiff never intended it do. The wood and wind screamed together as my eyes teared. The ground raced toward me, and my companion who was just out of reach. Squinting hard, I pushed the craft further, diving underneath the falling rogue and struggling with the controls of the Skiff. With great strain I managed to change the angle just enough to catch the Rogue like one would catch a fish with a net. But the next challenge was stopping before the ground caught the two of us. We both grabbed the controls and roared in struggle as we fought with gravity and won... barely. The skiff came to a rest only a mere 10 feet from our certain doom. Panting, I sat back in the skiff and was promptly greated by the rogue with a very thankful kiss.
And that was the most memorable moment for me in Eberron so far.
It's a shame. These are the threads I find most entertaining and they seem to be the ones that always are skipped.
Yeah, but they tend to give one pause. Upon reading the stories, people say, "My games are never that awesome!" and don't bother to tell their own stories, which happen to be awesome in their own way. Ah well. Start up another thread of this sort in about a month and you'll get some goodies, I'm sure.
The 2nd-level party: A Seren human druid, an axe-wielding Karrnathi human warblade, a Valenar elf warblade (I think? some ToB class), a gnome monk, an orphaned kalashtar wilder, and a changeling beguiler.
The setup: A lightning-rail-top battle with Aurum-hired thugs who were attempting to make off with the train's cargo car, owing to some expensive gnomish books that just happened to be stashed alongside the party's hard-earned vases.
The battle was long and furious, with thugs flying off the train left and right as the PCs stabbed, shot, and sleeped them into submission. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when the Karrnathi warblade ran off on his own to catch up with a half-orc thug... who promptly bull-rushed him off the side of the train.
The Karrn made his Reflex save and, lunging out with his axe, barely managed to latch on to the train with it, gripping the axe tightly while his he flapped in the wind like a Karrnathi war banner. And that half-orc didn't look too pleased with his target's reluctance to fall...
Enter the gnome monk! Darting along the train, she barely managed to catch up in time to distract the half-orc from smashing the Karrn off the side. She beat him into unconsciousness as the warblade continued to make Climb checks to hang on for dear life. The gnome then pulled the poor warblade back onto the top of the train, at which point he promptly began wringing his hands to get the sting of the axe handle out of them. :D
And we all thought that was the worst of it until the Aurum thugs detached the cargo car from the rear of the train and the party decided to jump the gap after them... and the kalashtar failed his Jump check, at which point he was immediately glad that he picked Catfall for his second power. Whew.
The Karrn made his Reflex save and, lunging out with his axe, barely managed to latch on to the train with it, gripping the axe tightly while his he flapped in the wind like a Karrnathi war banner. And that half-orc didn't look too pleased with his target's reluctance to fall...
Reminds me of the time I almost fell off an airship. Also the time I got bullrushed out of the tournament ring by a character 10 levels my junior, thereby breaking that story arc. Oops.
The Party: A Cannith artificer formerly of Sharn (me), a half-orc Barbarian/Fighter from 'around', a human Rogue also originally from Sharn, and a Changeling Hexblade who spends most of his time posing as a female Karrnathi (just as well he's a good RPer).
The Situation: Fighting a Judge (think FFXII) in the depths of a cave system leading to Khyber.
The Problem: Botchies!
Round 1: Judge *****-slaps the Rogue to 1/2 HP. B/F misses. Rogue backstabs and rolls minimum possible damage. Hexblade curses but the Judge saves. I try to active my Wand of Missiles and botch. (For full effect, I yell 'BOLLOCKS!' at the top of my lungs whenever I botch.)
Round 2: Judge *****-slaps the Rogue again to -1 HP. B/F hits and does a reasonable amount of damage. Rogue stabilizes. Hexblade swings and misses. I lob a CMW potion at the Rogue.
Round 3: Judge charges at me but misses (whew!). B/F charges after him and scores an obscenely good hit. Rogue throws a dart and almost hits me. Hexblade charges in and botches, running into a wall. I try to read a Scroll of Invisibility and botch. (BOLLOCKS!)
Round 4: Judge tries to retaliate against the B/F and misses. B/F lands a truly bone-rattling critical. Rogue throws another dart and this time DOES hit me. Hexblade peels himself off the wall but misses the Judge again. I give up on the wands and use my sling. Botch. (BOLLOCKS!!)
Round 5: The Judge, now very low on HP and in very real danger of dying, tries to run away. B/F throws a Tanglebag and misses. Rogue apologizes for his screw-up with a CLW potion (hey, I had a grand total of 11 HP). Hexblade finally does something useful and trips the Judge. I activate my Scroll of Entangle.
We spared the Judge's life in the end, which led to a truly brilliant moment as we were tying him up in preparation to take him to the surface with us.
Rogue keeps failing his Use Rope checks to make a neat little 'harness' for him so I can keep him on a literal leash (I insisted they spare him, so I was in charge of keeping an eye on him). "How did you ever manage to defeat me?"
(Me) "We're lucky like that."
(Judge) "Bollocks."
XD That session was fun.
We were a party of level 6 characters and I playing a dual-wielding longsword slinging TW human fighter. Well anyways we are fighting the Emerald claw and some bosses appear tell us we've been meddling in their affairs for too long yada yada. We'll the weird thing too happen is I rolled 6 natural 20's in a row in like the first 7 rolls lol. And not too mention the fact that half the party was taking heavy damage during the fight and kept botching their concentration checks because of damage so it was a tough and interesting fight. I'm pretty sure all but me and the cleric were left conscious when the fight ended(we had me as fighter, cleric, artificer, rogue, and warlock)
I will have to give a little bit of background. My shifter ranger, Merylistra had been in Sharn with the rest of the group for a long time, so decided to go on an extended wander (She had gotten an open invite to the Kings forest, by way of his riders for returning a certain item to them) and was off on her own for a while. Over the course of time, she had been observing some goings on within their camp, and noticed some wildlife not native to the area.
She explored, and found a portal which led her over to The Gloaming, there she stumbled upon a plot by the Children of Winter involving a negative energy empowered tree which they were going to place in the kings forest, thereby bringing about much death and general purging of life.
To make a long story short, she foiled it, thereby making a stalwart group of enemies.
Fast forward to the grand opening of her club, 'The Kitty's Claw' a much publicized venture on her part. She wanted a place for adventurers to unwind, so she opened one.
So, it was opening night in Middle Menthis. The patio was immaculately groomed (the outside patio) and the dance floor was busy with the crowd enjoying the finest in Modern Brellish music (A group my DM invented called the Last Song, a nod to the last war. Mothers don't like them ;D ). Suddenly, some kind of magical sleep falls over the vast majority in attendence (including some of the PCs). Meryl is standing there in her Clebdecher gown, in the middle of her club slightly bewildered and unarmed.
Some of the druids rush in, wanting to cause general havoc and revenge, so Meryl, being quite irritated at this, shifts (I do love weretouched masters) and tears into the first Druid that approaches her, causing a large mess in the process (Rend for the win). The inquisitive of the group is against doing things messily with so many important people in attendance, but hey, it was her night and they were trying to ruin it.
A roundabout way to get to the mental image of a well-groomed shifter in a black Clebdecher gown all feral and tearing into someone.
Similiar thing happened when I had first started running for this group. I think they all secretly hate each other. Or just the guy who played the mindblade.
'nuff said. :P
They'd been cornered in an alley by a squad of elite blademarks pointing crossbows at them from nearby rooftops. Their response?
"I ignore their arrows and charge up the stairs of their building."
"I charm the nearest one with the officer's patch."
So the barbarian barges up the stairs and proceeds to systematically hurl the hired thugs off the roof while their captain is flirting with the Psion. Naturally, I have the captain make a will save every time there's a wet THUD. He fails NINE OF THEM. On the last one, he makes it.
"Hey, what are you trying to pull on - "
BODY-FUELED MIND THRUST!!!
Head explodes.
Me:
"Make a reflex save to avoid getting cerebrum on your dress.""Made it."
Me: ARG!
So Hojaoscura (Darkblade), the Warforged Juggernaut jumps from the zeppelin and grapples one of them in the air! Harpy cant fly enough and both fall slowly to the ground while the spikes of the armor of Hojaoscura makes her scream of pain. She tries to scape from his adamantine arms and later, when harpy is almost dead, she got rid and the warforged falls from 100'. That hit wasn´t enough to kill the warrior who stands up and take his longbow to finish her.
The party consisted of the following characters:
Oona, a female human fighter, who has fiendish ancestry.
Tuk, a female changling rogue, and an unrepentant trouble-maker
Octavia, a female elf cleric, a devoted scion of Aerenal.
Hodge, a male shifter ranger, dutifully employed by House Medani.
Lumpy, a male-personality Warforged with a defective memory.
Random, a dragonmarked male half-elf, and son of Baron Trelib d’Medani.
Baknar, a female half-orc rogue, who was the niece of the bartender of the party’s favorite base of operations.
During the course of the party’s adventures, Tuk had set herself up with a fairly plush position working for the Boromars in Sharn. Unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse when her Boromar handler decided she needed a test of her loyalty, since she spent an awful lot of time helping out a member of House Medani, with whom the Boromars frequently clashed. Her test? She was to kill Random, her best friend, to send the Medani’s a message and to prove her loyalty, while using a special dagger magically attuned to Medani blood, so as to kill him instantly.
Tuk, of course, decided that she had enough fun with the Boromars, but also realized that she would never be able to just quit the organization. Confessing to Random that she was going to have to kill him to prove herself. Knowing that the only way to save his friend’s life would be to convincingly fake his own death, until they could make sure she had a safe escape from the Boromars, Random conspired with Tuk and Hodge to set up a fake assassination, without letting the rest of the party know about it. This way, the party would react convincingly, and hopefully any Boromar spies watching would believe the assassination to be real. Afterwards, Hodge would take Tuk into custody, where she would “disappear” forever in House Medani’s custody.
All was going as planned for the three, save for the fact that the young, curious, and seemingly stupid Baknar was obsessed with being just like Tuk, and decided to follow her around everywhere…including following her when Tuk went and purchased two bladders of goat’s blood to make the assassination seem complete.
That evening, as the party gathered at their favorite tavern, Tuk put the plan in action. Rushing across the room, she “stabbed” Random (really a sack of goat’s blood), and he fell to the floor, “dead”. The rest of the party was stunned, but did not lash out to capture Tuk! Hodge drew his deadly bow and nocked an arrow, warning Tuk to stand down. Oona and Octavia tried to talk sense into Tuk, trying to figure out why their friend had just slain a member of the party. Lumpy rushed to Random’s side, to determine the extent of the injuries…and then stood up, confused because the fleshy seemed fine! Turning his attention to the group, he too begin to question what was going on.
Seeing that the party, particularly Lumpy, were acting strangely tipped off Baknar that something was wrong about the whole deal…for she was actually a Boromar agent! Snatching up her crossbow, she fired a bolt at Random, who hollered in pain despite his “death”, then drew her sword and lunged towards Tuk! With a critical strike (and the characters being low level), Tuk went down in a single hit…and this is where things got really crazy.
See, Oona had a specific flaw related to her fiendish ancestry. Whenever put in a situation of great stress, she had to make a willpower check to keep from going into an uncontrolled rage, wherein her inner fiend broke loose and caused havoc. Tuk, who had just been felled, was Oona’s only friend from her childhood, the closest thing to a relative she had left in the world. Seeing her fall sent Oona into a rage, and loosing control of herself, she struck out with her great sword, killing Baknar in a single stroke!
Unfortunately, she would continue to rage until she made a successful willpower check, and was only allowed one per round - until then, she would attack anyone in range! While in her rages, Oona had a limited capacity to speak her true mind for the first round (kind of like Bruce Banner breaking through while the Hulk), and so she shouted to her friends to run, to get away. Lumpy, who was bound by a Geas spell to obey Oona, ran from the room, grabbing the nearly dead Random on his way out. Hodge snagged the unconscious body of Tuk, and likewise fled.
Octavia, however, could not allow herself to leave her friend, because she feared that Oona might slay an innocent victim in her rage. Drawing her mace, Octavia attempted to stall Oona until the rage wore off, but Oona, still uncontrolled, lashed out, striking with a critical hit, confirmed, and rolling maximum damage! With the bonuses provided by her rage and strength, the amount of damage done to Octavia totaled well past -10, and in that one stroke, Oona’s best friend besides Tuk was slain.
When she finally came out of her rage, she blacked out…and remembered nothing of her own hand in slaying her friend. The remaining members of the party, fleeing to the House Medani compound in Sharn, had her brought in (along with the body of Octavia), and decided not to tell her about her horrible deed, knowing it would shatter her spirit and fearing it might send her into a rage that may never end. Now the targets of the wrath of the Boromar and caught in a war between the wicked crime lords and House Medani, the party was forced to flee Sharn, but not before delivering the body of their fallen friend to the Aerenal embassy, that she might be taken back to her homeland for interment.
Many more adventures followed, and eventually, the truth of Oona’s unwitting betrayal would be revealed to her…
…but that is another story!
Me - Ameri d'Cannith, Human Artificer and Dragonmarked (Least - Mending and Lesser - Repair Serious)
Ricky - Kurt Tharashk, Half-Orc Barbarian/Fighter and also Dragonmarked (Least - Know Direction)
JA - Raptor, Warforged Fighter/Hexblade (The original Hexblade got squished, nastily, by a Black Dragon. Good times.)
Bill - Newt, Human Rogue
DMPC - Larsa d'Cannith, Human Swashbuckler and Dragonmarked (Least - Make Whole and Lesser - Minor Creation.)
Imagine, if you will, the scene.
A giant airship, large enough to be a city, hovers over Sharn. The entire city looks up and watches in horror as the forces of all the Dragonmarked Houses unite and attempt to destroy the monstrosity, without luck. Aboard our tiny skiff, piloted by a Judge we allied with right back near the beginning of the campaign, we sit and wait for the final confrontation. We know there is a chance that we will fail, and so the Artificer holds in her hands their final contingency plan.
If she dies and is not brought back within a few minutes, or if the seemingly innocuous silver sphere is taken from her for more than a few moments, it will suck everything within a mile into the depths of one of Fernia's most violent volcanos. Ameri has not told her allies about this contingency - she alone has had close contact with their foe, and she knows that he could pry the information from them if given a chance.
Weaving through the battle, our pilot brings us to the decks of the massive airship. Standing amongst the chaos, unharmed by the destruction around him, stands our foe - the insane Vayne d'Cannith. By his side stands his brother and the beloved of Ameri, Larsa, a slave collar preventing his flight.
Newt drops a smokeball, clouding the area and temporarily hiding the two groups from each other. Ameri chugs a Potion of Invisibility and hightails it over to behind the brothers, and uses the key our Judge managed to procure to remove the slave collar and hurl it over the side of the airship with a s**t-stirring grin.
Vayne's response is to blast her with some kind of dark magic (we later found out it was Shadow Magic from ToM), sending her flying right into the nearest wall. She hits with a thud and the first time the rest of the party has ever heard her swear. Newt, being the sneaky SoB that he was, took the opportunity to land a truly crushing Sneak Attack with his shortbow, and it was ON.
Raptor and Kurt, proudly wielding their greatsword and matched longswords respectively, took the fight directly to Vayne, trading blows with the speed of a tornado and the ferocity of a maddened Shifter. Newt moved swiftly, seeking the perfect angles to fire from and making every arrow count one hundred times over. Ameri became the centre of a vortex of magic, striking out with the ferocity of the greatest wizard, while Larsa defended her from Vayne's minions.
The battle seems to drag on for hours, depleting almost every resource available to the party, but finally Raptor lands a decisive blow and drove his blade deep into Vayne's stomach. The party flies back to our skiff, Larsa pausing briefly to say a cold farewell to his brother. Ameri, too, holds back, ordering the others to warn the fleet to fall back. As Larsa boards the airship, she looks down at the dying form of her foe with cold eyes.
"By the power invested in me by the Dragonmarked Houses of Khorvaire, I sentence you to immolation in the fires of Fernia."
She manacles his wrists and ankles, puts the silver sphere inside the fatal wound, and feeds him her last healing potion.
"My brothers warned you not to betray me. You should have listened."
Ameri calmly boards the skiff and the small vessel rockets away at top speed, turning so that it comes to a halt in front of the Dragonmarked Fleet, facing the behemoth airship. Everyone except Ameli gapes at the massive sphere of crimson energy that swallows the ship whole.
*-*-*
That was, without a doubt, the most awesome final battle I have ever had the joy of participating in.
The party:
Naida d'Lyrandar - Foundling member who came to the house from the Children of Winter. Ranger/Heir/Bard/Windwright Captain.
Davhand 'Deathson' d'Vol - Bringing the Mark of Death back, after surviving a massive purge of House Phiarlan. Fighter/Rogue/Master Thrower/Heir of Syberis.
Lans - Reluctant student at a school for Wizards in Zilargo, imbued with the essence of Fernia by a mad scholar. Sorceror/Elemental Savant/Archmage.
Zilog (The Iron Tower) - Taciturn former bodyguard of the King of Breland. Fighter/Warforged Juggernaut.
Ahlarn - Man on a search for the divine after the horrors of the Last War. Fighter 1/Cleric/Contemplative/Divine Oracle
Esk - Lizardfolk Hero (and heretic), bearer of an ancient ancestral bow and tradition. Scout.
First Crazy - Party Level Approximately 12
The party was in Q'barra (Questing for something in Havotrvak for their sponsor, a member of the Chamber). They got various warnings from appropriately scarred and bedraggled NPCs about the dinosaurs in the area. They've been on the trail for a few days, when they see a tiny little compy. Davhand decides to /feed/ it, since it's cute. 'Threep!' It chirps, party is much amused, and it trails along behind them. This continues for a day or so, and then they set up camp. Finally, one of the other party members chucks a rock at the thing, so people can get to sleep. Next morning, over a small rise, there's a tiny little figure. "Threep!"
At this point, chuckling like a madman, I unleashed the encounter, consisting of six swarms of the little buggers, overwhelming the spellcasters with nausea, and almost taking out the party (Mark of Storms saved the day). Party is corked. Next day, as they travel along, there's a tiny rustling in the brush. The party duly makes their spot and listen checks, and a cute little dino pops out. 'Threep!'
By the time the dust cleared, one fireball, a brace of daggers, several arrows and a flamestrike later ... there was no trace of the poor little lizard. I still chuckle, when I remember the party unloading on the poor, isolated little lizard. And at CR 1/3rd, there wasn't even any XP in it for them. Just revenge. :P
Second Crazy - Party Level Approximately 16
The Party is in an Airship fighting against Myrun Blythe, [Gnome, Planar Scholar, and Madman] in his custom Airship, the Shade (with Shadow Conjuration faking the Elementals running his airship). Well, from one of his simalcrums, but I digress. They're involved in an epic sky battle, and after they dispatch their enemy, one final strike sends the airship screaming towards the ground, the elemental unbound from the ring and burning everything in sight. The party frantically hurries to get people to safety, featherfalling and airwalking since the ship they're in doesn't have any functional Life Rings (Curse that devious little gnome!).
So far, so good. I describe the airship plumeting towards the ground below, as they congratulate each other on being prepared. Zilog's player comes back from getting drinks, and there's a moment of stunned silence, as the party realizes that nobody remembered the Warforged. And of course, with the airship hurtling towards the ground, and the party having expended all their per person alotment already ... things are looking grim. Zilog shrugs, and /jumps/ off the plummeting Airship. He took 20d6 damage (minus his damage reduction) and survived just fine. He didn't even have to make a save versus massive damage. He did, however, require a bit of help from the rest of the party to dig himself out his crater. :P
Third Crazy - Party Level 20
The party has worked like madmen to stop the plans of the evil Myrun Blythe, and his army of simalcrum. (Blythe is a shadowcraft mage, using the plane of shadows to make simalcrums of much better than average capability). Blythe has built an eldritch machine that, on the 'Darkest Night' will lock Mabar into the position in the planes occupied by the plane of Shadows, pushing the plane of Shadows into congruence with the material plane. Needless to say, the party thinks this is a bad idea.
There have been hints of the plan, and some early encounters with low level simalcrum of Blythe (that damned gnome) by the party since about level 6, but the simalcrum just keep coming, and they increasingly run into ones which are more 'real' each time. Eventually, after finishing the massacre of House Phiarlan (who have desperately thrown their lot in with the Master of Shadows to try to save their House) the party confronts a full 6 100% real simalcrums of Blythe, and finds the one responsible for their trouble. Myrun Blythe, the original, is a shattered wreck of a gnome (Con 1, Lvl 1).
It seems that, in his search for Real Ultimate Power, he went too far, and created a Simalcrum that was /more/ than 100% real. Since all simalcrums are utterly loyal to the most real (usually, their creator) he lost control of all his other simalcrums, and was used as an XP battery for more Simalcrums and magic items, until the party found and freed him (He died of strain and age almost immediately thereafter). Thus forewarned (and oddly sympathetic towards Blythe, once his fate was revealed) the party prepares for their final challenge, Blythe Prime.
The party reaches Blythe Prime in his Citadel on the Plane of Shadows, where he reveals his plan with a monologue. It seems that, having never /asked/ if he wanted to be created, what he seeks, more than anything, is oblivion. The very wording of the spell that makes all the other simalcrum (now destroyed by the party) his slaves, however, keeps him from ending his own life. As a simalcrum, he cannot do anything to cause the most real version of himself harm. As that version is himself, he's carefully steered the party towards the confrontation, from the slaughter of their Draconic mentor, the Silver Wyrm Xandrimathix, to the hints of his presence, even the mad plan with the Eldritch Machine, all designed to bring the party to this point. He warns the party that he'll be compelled to do his best to kill them all, brags a little on his Epic Spellz, and then we rolled for initiative.
The cleric (dex of like, 8) blows a moment of prescience, and an action point to go first, even before the crazy HoS and the Scout. Everyone turns to look at him, expecting a party buff.
"I cast Miracle. No one in the party will be able to harm him in any way."
After a few moments (For the DM to pick his Jaw up off the floor, and decide what to do next) Blythe suddenly feels the curse go into effect (Big Heap Miracle Effect, no Save, big XP loss to the cleric), and screams in frustration, before leaving in a flash of Darkness, cursing the gods, and threatening them. Party saves the world with a roleplay consideration!
All three of them were crazy, and amusing, but the last is the one that /really/ sticks with me. It was just another indication of what a great group I was running, and the perfect solution to the problem. All in all, I think it was the best Campaign I've ever run, and I'll never forget some of the awesome moments from it.
Anyway, we were plying a game in Karnath that was essentially a rip off of the hunchback of Notre Dame. There were only 3 players (LG Cleric of silver flame 6/church inquisitor 3, NG Changeling Beguiler 6/Recaster 3, and LG Knight 9), but it was not a heavy combat game, mostly just investigating and role-playing stuff. Half of our encounters are out of town. Normally, my attention span is fairly short for that kind of stuff but I was having fun.
One of our guys is playing the cleric and I am playing Romulus (knight of Thrane) and part of the game is we answer to the Frollo character (for us he was an LE Expert 4/Sorcerer 6). He is a cardinal and our superior. We can’t just defy him, and he sends us on most of our side quests. We have numerous run ins with our hunchback (NG Mongrlefolk Rouge 8 with 18 in str, dex, and con) we save him from the emerald claw, he saves us from a thieves guild ambush. Esmeralda is a shifter (CN Bard 6 – dangerously close to a catgirl). Our Phoebus is a knight (LN level 7) like me, named Marcus.
Game ends with everything going to hell in a handbag. Our cleric named Barot is at the alter facing our Frollo, I am facing Marcus one-on-one upstairs because he attacks us when the Changeling and I joined the Hunchback to go break our catgirl out of bondage (a little kinky for my taste).
Our changeling and the hunchback are fighting off the thieves’ guild (again). Eventually, they link up with me after I house Marcus, and we all head downstairs to make a break for it with the girl.
The cardinal is delusional and believes that he is the good guy (really believes) and that everybody is evil. He commands our cleric to cast holy smite. He believes that this will stop everyone from getting away. Barot casts – Cardinal gets blasted and ends up blind for a round. Marcus (who I carried down stairs unconscious) is killed; Esmeralda takes damage and all of the clergy who witnesses the whole debacle, let us leave with our skins in tack. Cardinal was sent to flamekeep for “re-education”. Esmerelda disappears and we end up getting offered positions with the Church. Barot takes the right-hand position to the new Bishop. I end up taking Captain of the watch for the church. Our Recaster goes looking for the girl (what can I say - he likes catgirls).
DM
But the most memorable thing of all was not a battle. It was an auction.
Now there are two things that are really important to know. 1) I like random tables. I'm not sure why, but I really do make and use random tables in my games, just to introduce an element of uncertainty for myself.
2) The campaign in question was ending, slowly but surely. I was tired of it, and as such was willing to go off the rails quite a bit.
The party was in a massive subterranean hall in the Demon Wastes, not far from the Lair of the Keeper. There they found a full legion of hobgoblins, wearing armor dating back to the glory days of the Dhakaani empire. Each of them was petrified, as was any organic matter. Only metal was untouched. They were frozen there, in mid-charge.
The party, being adventurers, decided to loot them. Initially, the thought was all 5000 of them, and it seemed like it might work at first... they cast detect magic and began to pry the magic weapons out of the cold stone fingers of the ancient hobgoblins. The random encounter table kept rolling low, but I knew that their luck would run out and they'd be in trouble (2d4 spectres would have caused them major problems.)
Eventually enough undead swarmed them that they barely survived and they gave up on looting... until they reached the head of the column and saw the massive leader (a hobgoblin seven feet tall, wielding a full blade). There was no one who could use such a weapon. I figured they would be afraid to touch it.
They used an adamantine mace to break up the ground around the petrified commander, and put the entire guy in their portable hole, along with the other weapons they'd gathered, and continued on.
So, when they returned from the Lair of the Keeper to Sharn, they looked at their loot, and decided that they didn't need any of it. They had weapons that they were more likely to use, stuff that, while not as good as some of the rolled items, was good enough.
So they began to contact auctioneers. They began to hire publicity agents. They rented a warehouse to store the stuff, hired Deneith and Medani security and rented a beautiful auction hall. They hired Ghallanda caterers for the event itself.
I had a good time coming up with a system of pricing, and of how high things could go. I made a wealth chart for each of the prospective buyers, seeing how high they could go. Modifiers, based on time for buyers to prepare. Encounters with Dhakaani hobgoblins trying to "reclaim" their heritage before the auction. (Might have worked, if the players didn't have someone sleeping in the warehouse and apartments rented less than a block away for the rest of the party.)
I had no idea how to do an auctioneer's patter, so I sounded more like an old fashioned horserace announcer.
There were 2 members of the Aurum (including Alina Lyrris), an extremely amused dragon (incognito, of course), Morgrave University (with funding from a third aurum member), Wynarn University, representatives of house Cannith, a Lyrandar Viceroy, three hobgoblin interest groups and assorted extremely wealthy people.
All told, the party wound up making more than 750,000 gold (this was after paying the auctioneer, paying all the various other groups and paying taxes).
They had a great time. I had a great time. The party was rich beyond their wildest dreams.
With almost nothing to spend it on, really... the plans that came up included a more luxerious base of opperations, an airship and trying to run a monopoly on chicken farming (so that they could raise the price from 2 cp to 3...)
We couldn't hit the thing on anything less than an 18 (and that was our highest BAB character), and it was hitting us like crazy with double scimitars.
So, I decide to take it down a notch, and disarmed the scimitars. So, its doing less damage to us now, but we still can't hit the thing. Again, I get fed up, and Trip the thing. Its on the ground now. Its surrounded by my WF Meleeficer, a monk, a wolf animal companion, and I think a summoned celestial dire badger. We're all standing over it pummeling it like crazy, and every time it tries to get up, the monk, the wolf, and the WF all take their AoO to keep it down.
The DM's big scary tough fight ended with the thing flat on it's back in a cartoon like cloud of dust with fists and swords coming out of it.
Not a pretty way to die... again...
Allow me to share my game experience (party classes and race does not matter, as it was the situation, please bear with me):
We were a party of 3rd level with a healthy mix of classes. I was playing a wizard at that time.
We were caught in a mini war in the outskirts of a disputed land and at that time as mercenaries, were hired to do some damage against the attacking forces.
Some members of our party were caught and brought back to the enemy base of operations for interrogations. I was not caught but managed to pull off a disguise and alter self combo to sneak into the base of operations.
It was then I noticed that they were churning out alchemy's fire large quantities to rain down on the bordering towns. Setting fire to the alchemy's fire factory, I ran like hell and prayed to find my party. The fire caused the entire warehouse + factory to blow up like a mini nuclear explosion and every enemy units to run and try to save the other warehouses.
All of us escaped on foot only to find ourselves being chased by ALL the remaining enemies from the base (numbering into hundreds against our 6 party members).
As it was the plains and it was drought season, using a few burning hands + stolen alchemy's fire + good judgement of the winds, we set fire to the plains killing off most of the enemies chasing us. It was hilarious at that time as were were counting off the XP that we were to get (6 members of level 3 vs 600 level 3 fighters!!!)
Running towards our friendly borders, we spotted OUR ALLIES and at the same time spotted a legion of enemy knights (or looked like) moving in towards us from the back. The allies were just a few rounds away on horseback while the enemy on horseback were further a little. To our surprise, the allies did not budge from where they were and we were slaughtered right in front of our own allies by the enemy on horseback from behind!
DM said it was justice for ruining his plans! But nevertheless we had tons of laughter and sworn never to let him DM ever again!
Oh, and [nerd voice]I totally cast resurrection on this thread! Lolz![/nerd voice]
.
The party reaches Blythe Prime in his Citadel on the Plane of Shadows, where he reveals his plan with a monologue. It seems that, having never /asked/ if he wanted to be created, what he seeks, more than anything, is oblivion. The very wording of the spell that makes all the other simalcrum (now destroyed by the party) his slaves, however, keeps him from ending his own life. As a simalcrum, he cannot do anything to cause the most real version of himself harm. As that version is himself, he's carefully steered the party towards the confrontation, from the slaughter of their Draconic mentor, the Silver Wyrm Xandrimathix, to the hints of his presence, even the mad plan with the Eldritch Machine, all designed to bring the party to this point. He warns the party that he'll be compelled to do his best to kill them all, brags a little on his Epic Spellz, and then we rolled for initiative.
I know this plot. I don't remember from where, but I swear I remember it.
Show
When the party reached the end and were confronted by Kereptis' right hand efreet, things went a bit different than I expect. Anyone who's read the adventure knows that if the PCs are winning, the Efreet escapes and reports back to Kereptis on the events and such. No problem right? Ha!
I set up the minis, and prepare to start the initiative. Now, the wizard had spotted the fact that the "Kereptis" was not what he seemed so got a surprise round. One multi-feated empowered natural 20 lightning bolt, and an utterly failed resistance roll later, the Efreet was on his back with a hole through his chest. Shock #1. Shock #2 came after they had searched the efreet for anything valuable and were about the leave. Before they walked out, the Wizard asked rather nonchalantly, "Can any parts of an efreet be valuable for like spell components or potions or such? I think I will roll Arcana to check." Natural 20 again. Great roll, and great question so I ruled that some organs and skin could potentially be valuable. One coroner moment later and what I thought was going to be a reacurring villian was now just a leftover prop for CSI.
In retrospect was great though, since I brought him back as an undead servant to Kereptis, and a real ticked off one at that. ;)
I set up the minis, and prepare to start the initiative. Now, the wizard had spotted the fact that the "Kereptis" was not what he seemed so got a surprise round. One multi-feated empowered natural 20 lightning bolt, and an utterly failed resistance roll later, the Efreet was on his back with a hole through his chest. Shock #1. Shock #2 came after they had searched the efreet for anything valuable and were about the leave. Before they walked out, the Wizard asked rather nonchalantly, "Can any parts of an efreet be valuable for like spell components or potions or such? I think I will roll Arcana to check." Natural 20 again. Great roll, and great question so I ruled that some organs and skin could potentially be valuable. One coroner moment later and what I thought was going to be a reacurring villian was now just a leftover prop for CSI.
In retrospect was great though, since I brought him back as an undead servant to Kereptis, and a real ticked off one at that. ;)
After 4 rounds (1 round till they hit the ground) all crew was savely abourd skiffs or falling on life saver rings, with only the warforged samurai still on the boat. On the last round the warforged ranger reaches the samurai and catches him on his skiff effectively saving him from falling damage and enraged fire elemental that ensued after the crash.
Was amazing thing ^_^. This is how they became known as heroes throughout the lands. They got lots of ad hoc exp for saving EVERYONE, except emerald claw.
Since my players didn't have any ideas on how they were going to be a group or what their backgrounds were, the campaign started with the group waking up on operating/experiment tables in some dark extradimensional space with no memory of who they were or how they got there.
After stumbling out of the extradimensional space into a research lab of some unknown cult, they come face to face with some elite rogues who were apparently contracted to break into the lab and steal some MacGuffin of great importance. The rogues were outfitted with lots of spiffy magical gear, including portable holes (which taught me an important lesson--don't give enemies something you don't want your PCs to have, because they will find a way to get it).
Portable holes and extradimensional spaces don't mix, especially against a chaotic backdrop of cultists, rogues, and bewildered 1st level characters all fighting each other. Once the party realized that the place was coming down around them (no explosions, but a dead spot in the local manifest zone was created--and as pretty as those flying buttresses are, they don't work in Sharn if they ain't magic), they had to fight their way through the aforementioned cultists and rogues on their way out, as everyone was trying to escape at the same time.
Of course, it didn't help that there were layers of illusion magic on the stairwells and passageways leading out of the tower. Of course, I wasn't going to kill my players on the first session of our adventure, but that still didn't take away from the adrenaline rush of barely escaping a collapsing tower with their lives.