I wanted to share an interesting event that transpired during my recent travels. As this story involves some questionable rule-tweaking I assume this is the appropriate forum.
My party and I were travelling through a dungeon when we came upon a collapsed tunnel impeding us from venturing further.
Instinctually, we all decided to attempt clearing our path (our DM had us make strength checks to move the rocks).
Now it was fairly obvious the DM didn't want us to go this way as we consistently failed, albeit we were having our fair share of bad rolls.
The rogue and I (a cleric) were having none of this. (OOC we both disagreed with being railroaded). As a joke we came up with an elaborate plan to thwart our DM and accomplish our goal of getting past this obstacle.
Earlier in the campaign the rogue had received "eternal chalk" as a random loot drop from him critting while searching a corpse that otherwise had nothing (our DM generally awards persistence if we roll well, keep this in mind). I had also received a new ritual, Knock.
After some discussion amongst ourselves, the rogue came up with the bright idea to draw a door upon the face of the rubble. After doing so he INSISTED that I cast Knock upon his "door" ala Beetlejuice. (If you don't know the reference this scheme won't be nearly as clever/funny.)
We explained our master plan to our DM and after reading the description of the ritual (mechanics, not fluff) and a little convincing he begrudgingly allowed us to try. We assumed from his demeanor he would set the DC impossibly high but we decided to give it a shot. After all was said and done, it was time for me to roll my Arcana check.
Natural 20. The look on my DM's face was priceless as we both jumped from the table and rejoiced. He reasoned that we then created a one-way portal to the other side and allowed us to pass through.
All in all our party (and even the DM) got a good laugh out of the whole scenario. Of course we were told to refrain from repeating this task as it was obviously a major bending of the rules.
So, does anyone else have any funny stories of ridiculous things they never should have been able to pull off?
Now, before I share a story, let me say something based on my experience behind the DM screen.
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If your DM did not want you going there it was most likely because there was nothing there and you've just forced him to throw away all the planning and preparation he made for you and the group and have to make stuff up on the stop. I wouldn't call what you did "creative problem solving" as there wasn't a problem to solve until the players created one out of nothing.
Now, that could be bad enough on its own, but let me tell you the worst: you probably changed nothing anyways. If this DM has any understanding on how to run a game, he'll just take the encounters and everything else he prepared and move them in your direction. Essentially, you'll be facing all the same things he had prepared no matter which way you went. Thus, all you really accomplished was just wasting time with a bunch of rocks. I don't know if that's the case, but that's what any smart DM would do if he didn't feel like improvising the rest of the day.
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Now, onto my own story.
We were in a bar, in a fairly magical city. We had to "float" up two stories to get to the bar. Well, we met some suspicious characters, they turned out to be enemies to our current employers, so the fighter was soon to be on. Well, I decided that simply using our attack powers was a little too boring this time around. Instead, I grappled the drow and threw her out the bar. I went down too but used the drow to soften the fall. Well, that made half the battle all too easy and I didn't destroy anything in the bar (can't say the same for my two companions though).
I'm going to defend myself but in no way wish to convey a defensive attitude as I can honestly understand how you would draw such conclusions from my post.
I did clearly state my reasoning as to why I posted this here, as well as the fact it was my first post. That being said I will assume you were simply correcting me. 
In hindsight I realize now I made it out to seem as though we were trying to sleight our DM. Not exactly the case. We're actually running a campaign (Scepter Tower), so he really didn't have to do any preparation.
In all honesty, you were completely correct with the part about not actually changing anything. In fact we actually had to circle back around the way we would have came because we had missed a quest item.
All in all our goal was to avoid the baddies in the room our alternative path would have lead us down (not meta-gaming, our rogue peeked through a keyhole and saw several baddies in said room). The funniest part being when we came out the other side and got into the ensuing encounter the baddies I mentioned previously joined in the battle to aid their allies.
There definitely wasn't any hard feelings between the three of us (the rogue/myself and the DM) and the rest of our party found it quite entertaining, especially after failing strength checks to pick up rocks.
Now on to your story.
That was pretty clever thinking! However 2 stories is on average 20 ft. and would only register as a painful fall for a character lvl. 1-5 as stated in the DMG pg. 44. I only state this because I assumed the Drow had been killed from the fall.
However, it could be argued the damage would be doubled from your landing on top of him.
Nonetheless I'm definitely going to keep that in mind if I see any windows in the tower we're currently climbing.
No clue why you put this thread in the Hombrew forum. It would have been just fine in General or in What's a Player to do.
Now, before I share a story, let me say something based on my experience behind the DM screen.
---
If your DM did not want you going there it was most likely because there was nothing there and you've just forced him to throw away all the planning and preparation he made for you and the group and have to make stuff up on the stop. I wouldn't call what you did "creative problem solving" as there wasn't a problem to solve until the players created one out of nothing.
Now, that could be bad enough on its own, but let me tell you the worst: you probably changed nothing anyways. If this DM has any understanding on how to run a game, he'll just take the encounters and everything else he prepared and move them in your direction. Essentially, you'll be facing all the same things he had prepared no matter which way you went. Thus, all you really accomplished was just wasting time with a bunch of rocks. I don't know if that's the case, but that's what any smart DM would do if he didn't feel like improvising the rest of the day.
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Now, onto my own story.
We were in a bar, in a fairly magical city. We had to "float" up two stories to get to the bar. Well, we met some suspicious characters, they turned out to be enemies to our current employers, so the fighter was soon to be on. Well, I decided that simply using our attack powers was a little too boring this time around. Instead, I grappled the drow and threw her out the bar. I went down too but used the drow to soften the fall. Well, that made half the battle all too easy and I didn't destroy anything in the bar (can't say the same for my two companions though).
I don't know about your DM but if I was DM'ing and I had taken the time to describe a fallen rock area covering an entrance you can be sure it's a hook. If for nothing else just a time sink should the players characters decide to investigate and have fun with. If i didn't have any plans for it now, it would still leave an open ended hook for later. So they weaseled their way in to the cave to find nothing, after they gain a few levels I'd probably drop a hint that there was a creature looking for them wondering why they disturbed the tomb of his great aunt or something.
The fallen rocks were unimportant at first, but the characters made it important. A good DM never lets a potential cause for fun go to waste. So I disagree on your conclusion that these characters should have simply moved on because the DM made it difficult for them to achieve their goal.
And yeah, we were only level 4 and the NPCs could have arguably been level 2. The fall was enough at least to leave the drow useless enough to be tied up, healed, and then taken to the authorities.
And I can see both sides of this now. If the players take interested in something unplanned, it's something that could be used. I remember using something like that in a campaign of my own where by player 'inaction' I through the story into a direction I wasn't planning. Essentially, I was expecting them to destroy the machine that held open an interdimentional portal to a very dark, undead world. They didn't destroy it and thus a necromancer walked in from the other side and started spreading plague of undeath all around.
It's good to know it was all in good fun. It was just that by your writing style and word choice, it seemed you were antagonizing the DM.
For your enlightenment:
Railroading is dreaded term around here. Many people have different thoughts and opinions of it, but there's always a negative conotation attached to it somehow. It can be seen negatively by both the players and DMs, whether its been accepted, rejected, embraced, or contemplated. Harsh debates and flamewars have sprung around that term, both sides having much to say both for and against. I cringe everytime I see the word "railroad" in here, not because I'm for or against it myself, but because it always seems to spark up arguments where you don't want them.
Anyways, welcome to the forums jugg. Enjoy your stay.
