For Example:
The Artificer in our group had gotten himself surrounded, by 4 hobgoblins, and due to the tactics of the hobgoblin leader, he couldn't shift if he had more than 2 enemies adjacent to him. My stormheart warden (in Mountain Thunder Form), walked around him and the group (drawing a couple Opportunity Attacks that missed), to the back side, then marked the few that I didn't have marked yet in the group. This was followed by just a second wind, even though I was down by only 2 hit points. Stormheart allowed me to then slide basically the entire group off of him, and so they were surrounding me. So this seeming waste of a second wind and a standard action allowed me to save our little artificer.
(As extra, at the end of the battle, I was only 2 hit points above bloodied (the amount I healed), and hadn't needed any additional healing through the whole thing, despite tanking the leader a brute, and a few soldiers all at the same time through the majority of the battle. So even though the rest of the party was barely standing (due to large numbers of minions/archers/lurkers, this was basically a double encounter), my DM never once got me even to bloodied.
)My action? I moved around the party and used misdirecting mark on the drake to get it marked by the warden. I then blew an action point in order to use cutting word on it, bringing it closer to the ground. Afterwards, I moved up allowing both the kobold dragonshield and drake to get OAs on me. The warden used his mark interrupt ability and crit, killing the dragonshield before it could hit me. He would have missed, but since I moved into melee we were flanking as well. The drake hit me hard, bloodying me, but he was in range of our avenger. The avenger used Sequestering strike on the drake, teleporting both of them up to the ledge where the boss stood. He crit his attack, oathed the boss, and killed him with another crit.
Maybe not as awesome as you using your second wind to save your artificer, but I still felt pretty cool since I optimized my parties ability to hurt things
Then our Mystic Theurge yells out four words that have become legendary.
"PURIFY FOOD AND DRINK!"
After the laughter subsides, our DM reads up on the spell, does some math, and decides that yes, Purify Food and Drink can transform a portion of the water, including the salt (and most importantly, the ink) into pure, distilled water. It only lasts an instant, before the tainted water fills up the gap again, but for that instant, our fighter has a clear line of sight to the squid. He fires off his delayed turn and goes full attack.
Squid dies.
We cheer.
Near the end of the combat the bad guys were getting desperate. The evil cleric casted a spell against the fighter. He had to make a will save. Uh oh. The player rolled and announced the result. He failed. I reminded everyone that Bless adds +1 to the will save against fear effects. The evil cleric happened to have casted Cause Fear. The fighter got his +1. He made the save. Fighter killed evil cleric on his next turn.
In the casual pickup games I've played for the past several years, buffing seems to be a lost art. With all the buffing that is absolutely required to survive in games like WoW, you'd think that buffs would be more used than ever, but that has not been my experience.
Recently I was in a game with some experienced players and we spied an upcoming encounter. The party was concerned that it would be a rout, but my character whipped out some wands and potions and in a few moments the party was buffed up pretty well. The encounter turned out to be a relatively easy win. Ever since then our cleric and wizard have been buffing us.
I think druids have perhaps the best buffs in the game, and most druids would scoff at wasting their spells on buffing the tank or the artillery. Man, you throw a "bite of the wererat" on a rogue or bow-wielding ranger and you've just materially increased the effectiveness of your party. That's one freaking awesome buff. Buffing is a major reason I try to talk every 3.5 party into buying the spellcasters a "rod of metamagic: lesser extend". Awesome effectiveness boost...
One crit later the party was worshipping the rock I threw. Take that Snig the Axe!!
Being immobilized and without a ranged weapon my character picked up a rock and threw it at the BBEG.
One crit later the party was worshipping the rock I threw. Take that Snig the Axe!!
I believe you could have thrown your melee weapon and got the same effect. Both are just improvised range attacks. Nice that you got to keep your weapon though.
That's some crit though. If this is 4e a simple rock thrown with a crit shouldn't be able to do more than max dice damage for an improvised range weapon plus whatever bonuses you get for strength or dexterity, which you'd have gotten without critting.
Am I missing something? Does critting with a rock do more than I think it does?
Being immobilized and without a ranged weapon my character picked up a rock and threw it at the BBEG.
One crit later the party was worshipping the rock I threw. Take that Snig the Axe!!
I got you beat in a 2E game
. I was playing a cleric. The party was captured by merrow, water-based ogres. Everything was taken from us. We had no weapons. I couldn't cast spells. As we made our escape the other characters were able to make improvised weapons, but I still had nothing. We were spotted by some merrow who attacked us.It was my turn. What was I supposed to do? I couldn't cast a spell because I had no spell components or holy symbol. I had no weapon, no armor. I did the only thing I could do, I punched a merrow. I rolled a Natural 20. House Rule at the time had you roll another d20 to reflect the seriousness of the hit. I rolled another Natural 20. The DM had me roll again. I rolled a 5. DM ruled I knocked out the merrow with the one punch. From that point on, that character would never, ever fear any combat no matter what the circumstances. My cleric reached level 17 before he was retired, the first time I ever had a character get to that level. He showed no fear when together with a paladin they faced a balor. I just kept thinking back to that punch against the merrow to settle my nerves. I got the satisfying killing blow on the balor.
So I got pissed off and picked up a rock and threw it.
Crit. I win. He only had a few HP left.
I was wondering if anyone has ever done something, that usually would seem like a complete waste of their power, but ended up being a really effective maneuver.
That's called team-work.
The party (lvl. 3 Hexblade played by me, cleric, artificer and ranger played by the unlucky guy) is going through an old tower that had become the base of some wererat thieves.
The ranger, being the only one with stealth, insisted on going first to scout. After eating some sort of enervation trap (1 negative level), a spiked pit and an ambush by 2 wererat rogues, he decides to let me go first. The irony is that the next encouter was designed to ambush the last char to enter the room. After surpsise round and the first round of combat he's been knocked into negatives (again) and being dragged upt he wall by a choker, out of our reach.
What we've come up with t rescue him was pretty crazy (I'm still surprised it worked): My hexblade takes out an arrow, the artificer burns an Action Point to make one of his infusion a standard action and makes it spell storing, the cleric casts Cure Moderate wounds in it and I shoot. I rolled low enough not to kill him with the arrow, but then the cleric rolled high enough on the CMW to get him back up.
I dunno about Eberron and have never played a artificer, but that sounds pretty cool to me. When I was reading it I figured you were going to use some spell to sunder the choker.
In regards to healing arrows, it's all a question of availability. In a campaign I was in, I decided to make it a goal for my Scout to get healing arrows to be effective against undead, because nothing makes you feel worthless then being level 13-14 and unable to do any damage for, in my case, an entire month. I managed to procure 10 blunt arrows imbued with the heal spell thanks to a wish. It didn't really break the campaign since, due to the limited amount, I used them sparingly.
In regards to your undead problem: In Magic Item Compedium there is a Weapon enhancement Crystal (Crystal of True Death I think) that IIRC lets you Sneak Attack Undead. Think it works with Scout bonus damage too( don't have the book on hand to ckeck)
Heh, DragOnUL, my DM is constantly threatening to put some magic healing arrows in his 3.5 campaigns. He never does, but he talks about it all the time. I think he loves the idea but doesn't want to unbalance the campaign by having two effective healers.Heh, DragOnUL, my DM is constantly threatening to put some magic healing arrows in his 3.5 campaigns. He never does, but he talks about it all the time. I think he loves the idea but doesn't want to unbalance the campaign by having two effective healers.
On this issue, our DM actually put a Healing Whip in a campaign once as a sick trick. It was used as a torturing tool by a Demon Prince.
Basicly, you would frist hit dealing 1d4 damage, then the whip would cast Close Wounds, healing 1d4 damage. Not very useful as a healing item, but you could whip a prisoner endlessly with it and it wouldn't die from the wounds.
On this issue, our DM actually put a Healing Whip in a campaign once as a sick trick. It was used as a torturing tool by a Demon Prince.
Basicly, you would frist hit dealing 1d4 damage, then the whip would cast Close Wounds, healing 1d4 damage. Not very useful as a healing item, but you could whip a prisoner endlessly with it and it wouldn't die from the wounds.
Pretty sure whips deal non-lethal damage, so the healing would heal actual damage while the whip would just eventually knock the victim unconscious. Odd, but that's how the rules work I think.
On this issue, our DM actually put a Healing Whip in a campaign once as a sick trick. It was used as a torturing tool by a Demon Prince.
Basicly, you would frist hit dealing 1d4 damage, then the whip would cast Close Wounds, healing 1d4 damage. Not very useful as a healing item, but you could whip a prisoner endlessly with it and it wouldn't die from the wounds.
Pretty sure whips deal non-lethal damage, so the healing would heal actual damage while the whip would just eventually knock the victim unconscious. Odd, but that's how the rules work I think.
In 4e you could always say that your last hit was non-lethal, knocking the target unconscious only to revive him immediately afterwards with the health recovery part.
Regarding the topic, I just whacked the enemy that tried to run away, with an opportunity attack, as a 15 STR 16 INT Wizard with a staff [I'm kinda regretting that build, but whatever :p ], and actually crit, killing the poor sod.
[ I'm still wondering if I could fit in Melee Training (INT) though... but then again I'd need to use Mage Hand to stow stuff before whacking with my staff... hmm.... ]
Pretty sure whips deal non-lethal damage, so the healing would heal actual damage while the whip would just eventually knock the victim unconscious. Odd, but that's how the rules work I think.
Actually, healing spells heal nonlethal damage equal to the lethal damage they heal, at the same time. So you'd whip him for 1d4 nonlethal, then heal for 1d4 lethal and nonlethal. Of course, this means you can stab the guy a few times before you go back to whipping him, and you're set.
Pretty sure whips deal non-lethal damage, so the healing would heal actual damage while the whip would just eventually knock the victim unconscious. Odd, but that's how the rules work I think.
Actually, healing spells heal nonlethal damage equal to the lethal damage they heal, at the same time. So you'd whip him for 1d4 nonlethal, then heal for 1d4 lethal and nonlethal. Of course, this means you can stab the guy a few times before you go back to whipping him, and you're set.
rofl!