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Awesome Players, Awesome Characters, and the Awesome Things They Do
Armored Gorilla
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Since the other thread is dedicated to bad players and is a bit off track, here's one for the cool ones. Or, hey, post about awesome things the characters have done. Blow your own horn too. I'll start off with some self-proclaimed awesome and bring some more fun from people who aren't me later.
Fun With Dragons and Saving Throws
Our campaigns always edged towards epic, manic and just plain wild. The standing rule to any potentially crazy choice was "DO IT". Our characters were somewhat overpowered, so they always ended up not fighting just one dragon, but several. All of these were years ago, so I'm fuzzy on exact details of WHY we were doing things. Ultimately, I'm fairly sure it didn't matter.
Airship Fight
All of our characters were on an airship that was suddenly beset upon by two dragons. We always played with a bunch of mixed levels ... some were level 6, others 12, and a few 18 or 20th level characters. The high level characters all grouped up and flew off the ship (yes, they all had flying abilities at this point) to deal with the larger dragon, leaving the lower level characters to protect the ship from the onslaught of the younger one. After several fly-bys, my character finally grew sick of having to hold his action to attack when it rode by.
Bear in mind, this was (to my current horror) a Drizz't Clone who wielded two katanas and wore a cloak not unlike Spawn's (chains and all). My DM was crazy enough to give me what he called an elemental sword. Once per day, it could do an ability based on each of the elements. Air, fire, water, earth. My drow (God DAMN it) leaped from the airship and clung to the back of the dragon. He started making swipes along his back, trying to get rid of me and flies above the airship. Knowing he can't possibly kill the dragon by himself, he makes a last ditch effort.
Self: "Alright, I'm going to try stabbing the sword into the dragon's back."
Dave: "Make the roll."
Self succeeds!
Self: "Stone to Flesh!"
Dave: O_o
Self: :rotate:
Dave rolls for the save and gets ... a 2.
Dave: :shock: "You did it. I don't know how, but you did it. The dragon's scales slowly begins to petrify around your sword."
Self:
Dave: "You suddenly realize you are on top of a slowly petrifying dragon. It struggles but is finally no longer able to flap its wings. The heavy weight of the stone dragon now plummets and crashes through the airship, splintering it into pieces. Everyone on the ship falls into the ocean below. The rest of you fighting the other dragon see the ship explode into pieces and Riensynn on top of a giant dragon statue, surfing it down, as he suddenly disappears into the ocean."
Everyone:
Self:
Dave: "Do you know how to swim?"
Self: "No!"
Edit: Aware it's kind of jerky to create an "awesome characters" thread and post yourself first, but it was the shortest story I could think of at the time.
Fun With Dragons and Saving Throws
Our campaigns always edged towards epic, manic and just plain wild. The standing rule to any potentially crazy choice was "DO IT". Our characters were somewhat overpowered, so they always ended up not fighting just one dragon, but several. All of these were years ago, so I'm fuzzy on exact details of WHY we were doing things. Ultimately, I'm fairly sure it didn't matter.
Airship Fight
All of our characters were on an airship that was suddenly beset upon by two dragons. We always played with a bunch of mixed levels ... some were level 6, others 12, and a few 18 or 20th level characters. The high level characters all grouped up and flew off the ship (yes, they all had flying abilities at this point) to deal with the larger dragon, leaving the lower level characters to protect the ship from the onslaught of the younger one. After several fly-bys, my character finally grew sick of having to hold his action to attack when it rode by.
Bear in mind, this was (to my current horror) a Drizz't Clone who wielded two katanas and wore a cloak not unlike Spawn's (chains and all). My DM was crazy enough to give me what he called an elemental sword. Once per day, it could do an ability based on each of the elements. Air, fire, water, earth. My drow (God DAMN it) leaped from the airship and clung to the back of the dragon. He started making swipes along his back, trying to get rid of me and flies above the airship. Knowing he can't possibly kill the dragon by himself, he makes a last ditch effort.
Self: "Alright, I'm going to try stabbing the sword into the dragon's back."
Dave: "Make the roll."
Self succeeds!
Self: "Stone to Flesh!"
Dave: O_o
Self: :rotate:
Dave rolls for the save and gets ... a 2.
Dave: :shock: "You did it. I don't know how, but you did it. The dragon's scales slowly begins to petrify around your sword."
Self:
Dave: "You suddenly realize you are on top of a slowly petrifying dragon. It struggles but is finally no longer able to flap its wings. The heavy weight of the stone dragon now plummets and crashes through the airship, splintering it into pieces. Everyone on the ship falls into the ocean below. The rest of you fighting the other dragon see the ship explode into pieces and Riensynn on top of a giant dragon statue, surfing it down, as he suddenly disappears into the ocean."
Everyone:
Self:
Dave: "Do you know how to swim?"
Self: "No!"
Edit: Aware it's kind of jerky to create an "awesome characters" thread and post yourself first, but it was the shortest story I could think of at the time.
"I'm a mad god. The Mad God, actually. It's a family title. Gets passed down from me to myself every few thousand years."
Armored Gorilla on
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So, what do we do? Like any bold adventuring party when they face defeat: They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and sleep and prepare spells. Bright and early the next morning, Mr. Golempants was visited by a now-deathwarded and fully prepared execution squad. I (party druid) turned into a cave ankylosaur, and between that, wild armor, barkskin and miscellaneous buffs, had an AC that was just about unhittable. We're talking 40 or so, at level 10. I went up to our buddy and started giving him hugs of Rusting Grasp to drop his AC, and after two our melee fighters were ripping him to shreds.
Probably our best revenge story, and being a dinosaur giving out rusty hugs was just too much fun.
This one time, I knocked a guy's head off with a baseball bat!
Konk Demonguts, Half-orc Barbarian from the Demon Wastes who has wandered into the world seeking battle and glory.
Petronius Camli, Shifter Monk whose intense training and meditation acts as a counter-balance to his feral nature.
Melchior d'Cannith, Human Artificer and prodigal son of House Cannith, shirking his duties to House and family for a life of adventure.
In the first adventure, the PC's find themselves in a tavern in Thrane, near the border with Breland. Total strangers, they meet through complete happenstance to whet each of their thirsts before continuing on their respective journey to wherever the hell they thought they were going.
The tavern is run by two ladies: an older woman, with a tired, ill-tempered face and grey hair cinched back into a bun, and her younger daughter, a gorgeous maiden with flowing red hair who flirts quite forwardly with the PC's.
In walks a Sergeant in the army of Thrane along with two of his lackeys. He gives a glare at the PC's and then starts copping a feel on the redheaded girl, spouting very coarsely the things he wants to do to her. Petronius stands for a moment, like he wants to do something about it.
The Sergeant turns to him and says, "SIT, boy! Before I put you down!" His lackeys put hands on hilts, and the Shifter monk backs down. The redhead tries to pull her arm away from the grasp of the Sergeant, who proceeds to backhand her and begins dragging her by her hair to the bedrooms upstairs, with her sobbing but not fighting back, and the mother still not doing anything or saying a word. Hell, she looks more annoyed than anything else.
The Sergeant gets her to one of the rooms and slams the door behind him, the sounds of his manhandling of the girl clearly audible to the PC's downstairs. At this point, they have had it. The artificer and monk leap towards the two lackeys, while Konk dashes up the stairs and batters down the door to the bedroom. He sees the girl on the bed, her skirt hiked up and her blouse torn, and the Sergeant has just dropped his pants, towering over the bed ready to commit the deed. Konk pulls out his greataxe and, before the Sergeant can even reach for the sword sheathed in his belt hanging over the nearby chair, the barbarian cuts the man into bloody gibbets.
That's when the shit hits the fan.
Unbeknownst to the PC's, the Sergeant and his two men were sent ahead of a patrolling column of Thrane soldiers to secure a room for their Captain (the Sergeant deciding to engage in some "recreational activities" while he was there). When the fight breaks out, one of the town citizens rushes to the soldiers' encampment outside the town to get help.
After the PC's dispatch the three baddies, and before they can plan their quick getaway, they see dozens of light cavalry rush around the inn, surrounding it on all sides. Clearly outmatched and outnumbered, the PC's are forced to surrender, and the Captain, not willing to hear their side of the story (what with three of his soldiers lying dead in the inn), sentences them and the redheaded girl (who the Captain reveals is a changeling) to death by hanging, to be carried out at sunrise.
So the PC's find themselves in the local jail behind bars, awaiting their execution. In walks this really nice constable, who brings them a wonderful home cooked meal of ham, sweet potatoes, and blackberry pie. As he waits for the PC's to finish, he relates the story of a horse thief who, no matter how many times they caught him, would always escape in the night before they could hang him. No one ever could figure out how we was getting free of the jail. When asked what eventually happened to him, the constable tells the party that the last time they caught him, they put him in leg irons, and while he did still manage to escape the jail, he couldn't run fast enough to get away, and they hung him in the morning. The constable then gathered the plates and spoons and whatnot and wished the party sweet dreams.
So, once alone in the cell, the party searches frantically for a way out, but their search is for naught. The bars are too strong for Konk to bend, the lock too complex for Melchior to pick, and the masonry much too sound to even give the hope of finding a loose stone. Stumped, frustrated, and grim with the knowledge of their upcoming deaths, Petronius gives up and lies down on the one bed in the cell, staring at the ceiling in dejected acceptance of his fate. That's when he sees some scribblings written in sandstone chalk:
Upon closer inspection of the doors, they find that the hinge bolt on the cells is the old drop-in type, and so they simply lift the door off its hinges and walk out of the cell, setting the door back in place to conceal the trick. They run down to the redhead/changeling's cell and free her as well. She tells them her name is Summer, and that she has a friend in town that might be able to help.
The party then finds out Summer's story: that her father (whom she has never met) was a wandering bard who wooed her mother then left the next morning, never to be seen again. Of course, the innkeeper discovered that the bard had left a little present, and nine months later Summer was born. To the horror of the innkeeper, however, it wasn't a human child presented by the midwife, but a changeling. This led to the rest of the town ostracizing the innkeeper, who, in her bitterness, placed all the blame for her situation on Summer, using her as menial labor, and, when she became old enough, forcing Summer to whore herself out to visitors to the inn as a means of making some extra coin.
Fortunately for Summer, there was one man in the town who secretly took her under his wing, loving her like a father and also teaching her the skills to protect herself should the need arise (essentially training her as a rogue). So the party sneaks through town in the dead of night to this man's home. The man, fully aware of the dire situation and thankful for the intervention of the PC's, has made arrangements with a friend of his at the Lightning Rail station to smuggle them on board and take them away from the town to a place where the soldiers could not pursue: Sharn.
Summer, however, says she needs to return to her home and gather her belongings before they can leave. Once again sneaking into the night, they go to Summer's mother's house near the inn, picking the lock on the front door. Unfortunately, the mother was expecting Summer's return and proceeds to berate the girl for "all the trouble she's caused, even though I brought you into this world! You should be grateful... etc." The monk sucker-punches the woman in the face, and she promptly collapses to the floor. Summer gets her things and takes all the money the mother was hoarding from pimping her daughter out, and the party heads to the Rail station.
At this point, the sun is soon to rise, and the alarm is raised in response to their escape. Frantically evading patrols, the party manages to hide themselves from the soldiers long enough to rendezvous with the friend and board the train for unknown adventure!
"Summer, changeling rogue, has joined the party!"
I'll tell part two later.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
I think I took like five points of limit right there.
Not the most intellegent thing I've ever done, but hell if it didn't set the stage for the entire campaign.
It was a SF theme, vaguely reminiscent of something like Red Dwarf or Paranoia as it dealt with near-future mining corporations and... um... paranoia. Difference was the GM took his setting really seriously. He repeatedly explained his intent to write a book/story based off the campaign events.
So the group (who all came to in the ship's brig, incidentally) have fought and lied their way to the flight deck of this half-deserted, heavily automated ship, orbiting the planetwide headquarters- "Capitol"- for this mining conglomerate. This flagship was being prepped for warfare, ready to bomb the hell out of a rival guild's homeworld.
We had a space pirate, a space ninja, a space cowboy, a space mechanic and a space... uh... diplomat. I mean they didn't self-identify as such, but we were a walking sci-fi trope.
The bridge turns out to be devoid of interesting enemies and is instead home to some elderly technicians with an AI unit that, from the GM's descriptions, must have looked something like Robbie the Robot. My character, having opened the door to this area, is abruptly told that the surrounding technology is far beyond his means- the controls are all locked down and so the AI is unresponsive.
"No problem," announces space diplomat, "I'm going to talk to the technicians."
And he launches into a monologue of such passion, such dramatic fervour, that I, uh, can't remember any of it. He begs the technicians to turn their back on their goal and jettison the flagship's nuclear smart bombs into space, to reject the demands of the Capitol board/government to lay waste to a world that's so much like their own. Combined with his stats, his plea for the lives and homes of innocent people on a distant planet leads the men to ignore their orders and unlock the AI's control panel, flushing out the bomb bays.
"Excellent," says space diplomat. "Okay, AI- you can hear me and follow commands?"
The GM confirms that, yes, now the AI can hear us.
"Right. I want you to prep for hyperspace and take us home. Oh, and before we go, activate those smart bombs and have them hit Capitol."
In our latest campaign our team of adventurers was looking for a special relic. At this point we hadn't found out what it was yet, and it was the goal of a competition in the local village. The group consisted of Me(Paladin), Nick(Rogue/Fighter), Matt(Wizard), and Cliff(Ranger). I had gone to the local church and found out that an evil group had left town in search of the relic. Our goal was to intercept them and get the relic.
What we didn't know at the time, was that we were going to a manor where the former owner was certifiably crazy. Like, cutting up his servants to make flesh golems crazy. Anyways, we made it through the first 5 levels of the manor proper, and found an elevator to go down to the basement. One particular room in the basement caught our eye.
It was about a 35x35 room, with the door in one of the corners. Each other corner had these pillars topped with a translucent crystal pyramid occupying them. In the middle of the room was a huge chest. Of course, our rogue goes straight for the chest. As soon as he gets more than 10 feet into the room, all the pyramids shoot a magic missile at him. So we go about seeing if there is a special path we have to take to get to the chest. Nope, as soon as we get 10 feet into the room in any direction we are hit by these missiles.
Its around this time that our rogue gets a bright idea. He takes out one of his pitons, and ties it to a rope. He then swings the rope over his head, and tries to hook the piton to one of pyramid. Through an amazing use rope check, he succeeds. He, then proceeds to pull the entire structure over, and drags it out of the room to the adjacent hallway. This was then done for the rest of the pyramids.
Interesting side note, my Paladin tried to help pull one over. He rolled a natural 20 strength check. Awesome! He then failed a balance check miserably with a 5. Needless to say he fell right into the path of some magic missiles. :P
The party wizard took off all his essentials, said a suitably epic good bye, and turned himself to stone to save the rest of the party.
That sort of roleplaying really impressed me, and I'm hoping to see some great moments in a game I'm going to run with my friends.
One of our players, David, had his character go out in a suitably heroic fashion. He was fighting a pack of werewolves solo (I don't remember how this happened) and he was down to only a few hit points left. He rolled his last attack in what he presumed was his last round to try and stab the leader of the pack straight through the heart.
He rolled a natural 20 and the blade pierced swiftly into the beast's chest, killing it in an instant.
The next round, the rest of the pack ravaged him to pieces, but they no longer had a leader to rally around and dispersed to the wind.
We're in Ravenloft doing the whole Ravenlofty thing. Anyway, one of the subquests we are on is to retrieve some artefact from a coven of witches. We approach the circle of witches and we begin our plotting. Sure, we could have probably just gone in there and slaughtered everyone, but where's the fun in that?
We craft a brilliant plan to deal with these witches in a slightly more ingenious, but just as bloody, manner. As we spied upon the witches, we figure out that they are engaged in some sort of summoning ritual, hoping to summon a demon named Chernobog. Crunk, our wizard extraordinaire, casts Polymorph on my character and turns me into a Beholder. He then casts invisibility on me and I float on over to the centre of the circle and drop the invisibility. My character, in his Beholder form, screams out, "Behold! I am the avatar of Chernobog! You have brought me forth, now bow before me so that you may gain Chernobog's favour!" These weren't particularly intelligent witches, so most of them think they succeeded and start doing as I say. The lead witch, however, is a bit more intelligent and sees through my highly transparent ruse. She shouts out that I am spewing falsehoods.
Well, shit, the cover is blown... or is it? I respond, "That witch blasphemes against Chernobog! Destroy her so that her faithlessness does not sully your coven!" I succeed on my bluff check and the witches promptly attack the lead witch, quickly dispatching her. They ask me what they should do next. I respond with, "FEAST ON HER FLESH!" They do so.
After they cannibalise the only decently intelligent member of their coven, they ask me what they should do next. I tell them to gather close to me so that I may bestow the blessing of Chernobog upon them. They all gather close, very close. I then cast a Sudden Maximised Fire Burst, blowing them away.
That's a terrific story and ingenious way to dispatch the witches, but THIS is the best.
Also my pet owl generally seems to be way more useful than me. Thing rolls twenties like crazy.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
this was well into the fight and the warlord and the cleric in the party had both spent every type of healing power they had
and the cleric failed his heal check by rolling a 12 to stabilize me
hooray i am so awesome
---
"What is it going to take to put one of these things down?" says Sparklelad with a sneer. He looks down at the Moon Lord. "Care to try that trick of yours again?" he asks as he heads for the plummeting monster, picking up speed.
"I am ready, my luminous lad."
Sparklelad smirks. "Then get ready. I intend to go fast." With a sudden, unexpected explosion of sound, the Moon Lord finds himself being conveyed at astounding speed towards the magical monster. The Moon Lord holds his arms out in front of him, balling his fists as he and Sparklelad streak through the air. "FULL MOON STRIKE!" the Moon Lord yells as they collide.
A shockwave of force erupts from the collision of the Moon Lord and the Ur-Baugr. Windows on the buildings surrounding the battle all shatter, and as they do, Dr. A intones the final words. "BEGONE," he says, his voice echoing. The creatures disappear in a flash, leaving a smoky, burnt smell in the air, and five exhausted heroes.
This fits Ravenloft so much.
How much taint did that earn you, by the way?
I was the DM for that particular group. We didn’t use corruption rules in that campaign. Besides, the corruption would have been counterbalanced by the Rainbow Brigade’s levels in Being Epic.
Here’s another story from that group. A quick rundown of the party:
Eugen: Wand-Slinging Wizard played by Premier Kakos
Crunk Cruise: As described above
Halden: Human Fighter, typical 2H Sword power attack build.
Sam: Changeling Rogue. The ironic moral compass of the group.
Simon the Barbarian: The new guy at the time of this story.
Chuck: DMPC Adventurer Intern 1/Cleric 1
The party just reunited after being split up in a Kraken related shipwreck on a tropical island (southern Lhazaar Principalities for you Eberron fans out there). They met at a lake shore, near the sunken ruins of some ancient civilization or another that was ripe for looting. After a brief chat on the shore they hear a crashing in the nearby jungle. Soon, a Tyrannosaurus Rex burst through the foliage and charges at the party.
Simon:”Oh SHIT! Spread out!”
Rest of party:”What? Nah.”
Halden:”Form up! We meet him head on! HOLD THE LINE!”
Simon is taken aback by the tactics of his new group, but complies. The party proceeds to line up their minis in a battle rank, with Crunk floating above on his “Flying Carpet.” The T-Rex crashes into the party and a melee ensues. After a round or two, the T-Rex manages to land a bite attack on Halden, getting a free grapple and preparing to Swallow Whole next round. Halden’s turn comes around...
Halden’s Player: Alright, I swing. Power Attack for 4
Me: You’re grappled, you can’t use your sword. Only Light and natural weapons.
Halden: I don’t carry anything smaller than my six feet of Flaming Steel +2…can I punch him?
Me: Sure but it’s non-lethal.
Halden: Meh. I’ll punch him. Power attack for everything.
3.5 Rules reminder: If you have more non-lethal damage than current HP, you go unconscious.
Oh yes. He hits and punches the T-Rex out cold.
Halden: “So who wants Dino burgers tonight?”
Warrior | Mage
Now give yourself a bit more credit, INNS!
You knocked a Guy's head off with a called shot, in a completely dark room, with a baseball bat.
And, if I remember correctly, the "guy" was a Fomori and you were a vampire.
But I could be remembering another time you slaughtered a random npc with your sheer awesomeness....
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
That is so awful, it's awesome.
The pc's had a pretty rough time last encounter, with one seriously wounded (to the point where the players had to chip in all their gelt to pay for his new limbs). Their inquistor saw this as a prime oppertunity to resolve a problem that had arisen. A sector of the hive had gone into lockdown, and the only way into the sector was with an authorised beacon. Now he didn't want to send anything that would panic the large residential areas around there with no reason so, the inquistor arranged for a a hospital transfer as cover to get the pcs in. The plan was to use the beacon on the ambulance to get in, assess why the sector locked down, and report back.
Unfortunatly the villian from the second downloadedable adventure (not shattered hope, the hive bound one) had been busy with her parasite and had decided to trade control with contagion, turning the sector populace into flesh eating zombies. Fighting from the back of the ambulance the priest declares that he is using ferric pull on the doors. He slams them shut with magnetic powers taking the top off of some zombies. A quick frag and a running battle later and the players find them selves atop a Hab block, with the stair collapsed and the building rapidly filling with undead, the players realize that the who didn't fit In the ambulance (being unable to attend the session) had all the climbing gear. The tech promptly asked
"habs are metal right?"
"yeah"
"well then I detach sheets from the roof and using my servo arm and welding gear I build a bridge"
Not only a good idea, but it also saved my ass as gm seeing as I had forgotten one guy had all the geaman typing posts on an iPhone is a pain in the ass.
I was playing a monk, I don't recall what my friends were. In any case, they were trapped in a pit with a slowly descending ceiling that would eventually crush them. In the room above was a stone golem that none of us were really capable of doing much damage to.
Somehow, I had been teleported back to town. Knowing my friends were facing imminent doom, I used the only money I had to buy the fastest horse I could find, rode it until it collapsed, then made three consecutive endurance checks to run on foot the rest of the way back to the temple.
I then charged the golem, grappled it, and threw it into the pit. The golem fell through the ceiling, stopping the mechanism and making a hole for the rest of the party to climb out through. By the time they were out of the pit, the golem had gotten up, but was too heavy to climb out. It was now trapped, and my party was free.
Unfortunately I was killed on the way back to town by a roving band of goblins or orcs or something that got a ridiculous string of crits.
We were a mixed lot team, with my character at the time being a Coalition States trained sniper, who also happened to be a Zapper (class of master psychic). The CS are intolerant of all non-humans, and as such my character had trouble fitting in with the various supernatural creatures and magic users within the group, but hey, when you're essentially shanghai'd into a team that's thousands of miles from home, you do the best you can.
By the end, they were grudgingly working together, and came to the final battle of the campaign; an assault on the final 'hive'. We'd been given grenades that emmitted a toxin that was terribly effective at killing the creatures, but had to be administered to them pretty directly, so at times it was of questionable use against opponents that were deadliest in melee range, and often best dealt with using heavy firepower at a distance.
Our team hit the target zone and was immediately thrown into the fight of our lives. The battle was long and gruelling. People were starting to run out of magic, ammo and armour, and there were still throngs of foes against us.
Taking a page from Ender's Game, I decided to try something daring, and collected every grenade and explosive we had on hand and hitched a ride with one of the other team members to the absolute center of the hive/conflict.
Upon arrival, I proceeded to set every one of them to go off at the same time as a giant cluster of munitions. While this weapon wasn't supposed to harm native flora and fauna, we'd never set off this many at once in the same place before, so my team mate and I hunkered down on the spot and I tossed up every forcefield I could generate immediately around us.
Thus becomming one of the few characters in the history of our campaigns to single handedly commit genocide during the course of regular gameplay.
This is my entry for a character optimization tournament we were going to have in my work gaming club last year. Put together with some help from folks on these boards.
Buster, The Useless Wizard (Formerly Buster, The Human Commoner)
Str 8
Dex 12 (4 points)
Con 14 (6 points)
Int 12 (4 points)
wis 8
Cha 18 (16 points)
HD 1d4+2; hp 6;
AC 11, touch 11, flat-footed 10
1st level feat: Mercantile Background (+300 gp; Buy/Sell Item at 75% 1/month)
Human Bonus Feat: Least Mark of Handling (Speak with Animals 1/day)
Weapon: Quarterstaff (free) -1 melee (1d6-1)
Skills:
Handle Animal 2 ranks (+6 Bonus)
The Rest Don't Matter
Possessions: Tower Shield (30 gp), Guard Dogs (See below)
The Setup:
A wizard's spellbook is considered to contain all 0-level spells and 3+int modifer 1st level spells. In this case, Buster would have all 0-level spells and 4 1st level spells.
Per the rules, you can sell a spellbook for half the cost of scribing said spellbook, or 50 gp per page (75 gp per page with mercantile background, 0 and 1-level spells take up 1 page each). The cost of a guard dog is 25 gp. Therefore, for each spell a wizard knows at first level, he stands to gain 3 guard dogs. In the case of PHB-only spells (19 0-level spells), after Buster has purchased 12 Guard Dogs with his 300 gp from mercantile background, he will stand to gain 69 additional guard dogs for a total of 81 Guard Dogs in total after he sells his spellbook.
When adding in supplements to this equation, Buster gets 3 more guard dogs for every 0-level spell available to a wizard I can find. Currently I have found:
4 in the Book of Vile Darkness
9 in Spell Compedium
1 in Complete Arcane
1 in Magic of Faerun that isn't covered elsewhere
So 15 non-core 0-level spells, for 45 additional guard dogs, bringing the grand total so far up to 126.
After adding in wizard starting gold instead of commoner no money, Buster will also purchase a tower shield to provide total cover. He will weild it clumsily, incuring the ACP on attack rolls (which he won't be making) and a ASF of 50% (he won't be casting spells), but be effectively out of sight while the guard dogs attack.
Non Combat 1st Round: Equip Tower Shield for Total Cover. Activate Least Mark of Handling.
Combat 1st Round: Tell Guard Dogs to eat opponent.
Remainder of Combat: Hilarity ensues.
Our main DM is known for being very tricky and devious. Lots of traps, undead, and cursed items. On this particular day the group was traveling deeper and deeper into a dungeon. The boss of the dungeon was a lich, if I remember correctly. A couple sessions back we had picked up a Potion of Regeneration as well, which fits into this story later.
But I digress. The lich was disposed of quite easily, and now comes the time to search the area. Inside a tomb we find some very nice looking items. One of these were boots that increased sneaking. In this campaign I am playing a rogue, so these look very nice to me. We dish up the items and I put on my nice new boots.
DM: "You put on the boots correct?"
Me: "Uhhh, yes..."
DM: "You start dancing."
Me: "Do I stop dancing?"
DM: inbetween laughter "No!"
DM: "You have found the Boots of Auto-Irresistible Dance"
Around this time I needed to start making Fort saves and balance checks to see if I passed out or fell over from dancing. The party argued for a bit, and a decision was made. The easiest way to solve this problem was to cut off my rogue's legs! Long story short, they had to make strength throws to hold me down and cut off my legs. Luckily we had the Potion of Regeneration to regrow my legs.
Those boots are still dancing somewhere inside that dungeon.
Oh man. You can't make me laugh out loud like that at work
+4 to Jump checks
Ignore difficult terrain
A single green sock with a metal key on the heel.
Yep. I've got Kuribo's Shoe.
====================================================
Roland's mind was troubled, his heart so weighted that it hurt to breathe.
"How, Lord? I do not see the way."
Asking Tempus this question caused pain in his throat. His eyes welled.
Roland did not often need to look to his god for guidance. It was always just there. Of course, the chivalry and the randomness of war that Tempus cultured made things easy: weapon in hand, worthy opponent, a fair fight in the light of Tempus' view and a prayer for his favor. That was all he'd ever needed.
"But here... here...."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The "here" was indeed the problem.
My gaming group found itself in an odd situation. We were playing FR in a home-brew campaign our DM had hosed up. During the circumstances of the mid-game, around level 14 or so, the group found itself time shifted back to just before the fall of Myth Drannor. They had been dropped off in an area several miles from the city and through flavor-text and other things found out that they were nearby a literal army of nasties that were moving to help lay siege to the city. Army. Thousands.
Now, it wasn't all high level stuff. Recon yielded that it ran the gambit of Kobolds all the way up to what our mage thought was a couple of demons. Problem was, there was a ton of it, and all we had was our party. Priest of Lathander, an Evoker, Fighter, Thief, Wild Mage, Ranger, and Roland, Priest of Tempus (god of war).
Roland was the group tactician, as one familiar with the FR gods might expect. And per Tempus doctrine he was a fair fight kinda guy. He didn't sneak around. He didn't attack the innocent. There is no displacement to others what should be layed upon the true enemy. Roland was a toe-up, go time kinda guy.
So Rollie had the crew do scouting, checking out guard patterns, armory potentials, anything they could find out. All of it came back bad news. The mage's divinitations of the encampment showed the army to be heavily armed. The ranger's analysis of movements and drills yielded that everyone, right down to the puds, were well-trained. "Unnaturally so", was the words he used.
All of the information they could gather without being found said "Go away". I was throwing every kind of in-character analysis at this I could, trying to find the crack in obstacle, trying to find the "in". It just wasn't there. Except for one thing.
The thief had found their water supply, a small underground spring that surfaced right in the middle of camp. He'd managed to locate a tributary that fed it from mountain snow runoff on a ridge above the camp. He had with him poisons that could slowly render the army ill, dying painfully.
At the moment, this was the only option, and it was indeed the one the rest of the party was planning for. They'd managed to even convince the ranger (the dude that played our ranger was a little...um... screwy). The priest of Lathander didn't like it, but according to our flavor text, it was imperative that we stop this group.Lathander had sent him a vision, showing what this particular army went on to do after felling Myth Drannor, and commanding him to see to it those events never unfold. We found out much later that the Morninglord was actually the power that time-shifted us back.
Poison was our only option. Cut the numbers down through illness and slow death, do what we can with the rest.
This didn't sit well with Roland at all. Not one bit. Roland doesn't poison. Roland doesn't sneak around. Roland brings war and the glory of Tempus' will.
But Roland had no answer for this army before him. Roland had no army to meet them.
Anyway, I put a lot of RP into this, but it's not like the DM made it hard on me. What they wanted to do was totally against his character, but he had nothing he could argue with. They could not take this army in a straight up fight. It was a freakin ARMY. Every question I put to the DM in every way possible said we were screwed if we tried to take them toe to toe. We wouldn't even make it to the front lines if they saw us coming. We spent a healthy part of a gaming session on this, trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do.
DM called it a night and said we could take it up again next week.
Middle of the week, I got bored and emailed roughly the following to him
~~~~~~~~~~~~
As he knealt, praying on the wooded ridge above the army encampment, Roland found himself in an unbearable situation. His faith demanded he fight them. His knowledge of what lay in this army's destiny should he not stop them demanded it. He knew that even if the rogue's poison made it to the water supply in the camp, it wouldn't cull the numbers by much. It's the tactic of cowards, and they'd recognize it immediately. All it would do is alert the army to their presence, raise their defenses even more and put the group on the run.
"I need an army, but I have none. I must fight a war that I cannot win. Would your eyes look upon me fondly, Lord, if I present my soul to you after such folly? With the odds so stacked against, this is not war. This is suicide. And even in such actions, I will do nothing to insure the final victory requested from the Morninglord. I am lost... I need an army."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was some other crap in there, but that's the gist of it.
So the next session rolls around, DM plops down and sets the scene.
Night time on the ridge; group's asleep. It's my watch and I'm in the middle of camp, knelt, hilt of my bastard sword in both hands, head bowed, praying.
I'm not exactly being quiet, though I am whispering to myself. Entire group makes their checks and can hear me as I wake them. DM proceeds to read the email speech to the group as what my character is currently saying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the party wakens, they hear the calm, desparate petition to Tempus from Roland. They can see that he's crying, though he obviously doesn't know it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DM has some folks make some various checks, where the Ranger notices that it's unbelievably quiet where they are, the mages suddenly detech magic all around them without even having to cast detect magic, the priest of lathander's skin is itching odd mojo (him, "Is it evil?", DM "No... it's just POWERFUL... think of it this way... you feel like your god's influence just waned slightly because something more... deliberate... just showed up. It's like an eclipse of locality..."), and the rogue is in paranoid fits because the DM hands him a note saying "You're being watched... and they really don't care that you know it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The group's attention is immediately drawn to Roland, who's sword has begun to emit an insanely low frequency and has begun to glow. Roland himself still seems unaware, as though he's frozen in time.
Suddenly, a ghostly form appears before Roland, kneeling in the same form, facing him directly. As it focuses itself, it's easily apparent that it's an elven warrior, in light plate. It says nothing. It does nothing. Roland's sword continues to hum...
Slowly at first, then faster and faster, more ghostly forms begin appearing, circling Roland, the group, and the small camp. All elves, all kneeling in the same form as Roland, all facing him. It becomes apparent that it's a mixture of various archetypes of military personas. Light armor, heavy armor, swords, bows, daggers, hammers, maces.
None of them move. None of them say a word. This goes on for several minutes until the group has been surrounded by 500 apparitions.
The hum stops, Roland's eyes jolt open to find them staring into the... oddly warm... and stern glare of a ghost.
Calmly, smoothly, it speaks.
"Well met, favored of Tempus. I would introduce myself, but the name I carried in life holds no value within the host of Corellon, and presents no advantage to you now. All you need know is that your voice, your faith, your plea carried to the heavens."
Roland, in quiet astonishment, "But I do not call to Corellon! I present niether you nor the power that brought you here disrespect, but I do not understand... I am not an elf..."
"Indeed...", the ghost replied with a smile.
"Roland, you speak only to your Lord, but in these times of ill acts and manipulations, do you not think your Lord to speak to others? Tempus is not the only power in the heavens who's dominion is that of war."
Roland nodded, as the ghost continued.
"You need an army. We, though limited in number, can stand in that need. We require no weapons, no armor, no augmentations, blessings or other. We come prepared as we can be."
The priest of Lathander stood in total shock of what he was seeing around him. He felt no evil, felt no ill other than he was surrounded by what appeared to be undead...ELVES. At the end of the discussion between the plated elf and Roland, the elf turned to the priest and said, "Grebeir Merendias. For you I have a message that I am told, and I indeed hope, will but your countenance at ease. Please take note and pay careful attention..."
The elven ghost looked right at our priest of Lathander... and purposefully winked with a huge grin on his face. He then immediately turned back to looking like a normal stodgy elf and the scene moved on (the wink thing was an inside joke between Lathander and our priest, as our DM's Lathander had made Grebeir do some... odd... things...).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANYWHOO... that was that. Roland prayed, gods were listening and lo... we get 500 undead elven warriors, archers, the works. Many bizzare things about this. 1) Elves don't like undead, let alone allow themselves to be undead. 2) We noticed that pauldrons, other locations on the ghosts' armor had holy symbols of both Corellon AND Tempus. 3) Gold elves don't wink. The most truly odd thing came when the priest of Lathander asked (thinking about point 1 above), "Where... did you come from?" The lead elf looked right at him and said matter of factly, "We fell at the battle of Myth Drannor." So we just got an undead army of elves that are the ghosts of... elves that haven't died yet.
So the session goes on and we work out that Roland, undead elves in tow, is going in the front door of the army camp and heading right for what they think is the leader's tent. The hope is that if we can take out the top of the leader structure, that final plans would die with them, leaving the rest of the army in some level of disarray and unable to do what they ultimately were destined to. The rest of the party had buffed up and scattered themselves in tactical positions to cause havoc and confusion, hopefully to distract a lot of puds while Rollie and posse go for the leader tents.
Everything was pretty much going to plan. The distraction spells, actions go off, focusing chaos and actions in other parts of the camp, while at the same time Roland walks up to the front door to say hi.
He's noticing they can see him approaching but they aren't coming to meet him, they aren't firing arrows, nothing. What he doesn't know is that the baddies can't see the elves... yet...
He gets to the gate, elves go visable and start beating the tar out of stuff, mainly keeping crap off of Roland so he can be good to go when he gets to the leader tents. The fight moves that way, and of course alert begins getting sent in that direction. Just as the strike team gets to the tents, out walks 3 hugemongo freakin orcs, fully armed and armored. Roland thinks out loud, "These... are mine...", and he hears the elven leader just behind him say, "As it should be."
Boss battle ensues. Roland is kicking ass and taking names, but he's also taking some hits. By the time he's put down two of them, he's taken a serious beating. From other parts of the camp, the rest of the group has made it through the chaos and now slaughter by the eleven undead, to the tent site. As they approach, they see Roland put the 3rd orc down. He looks like hell. Utter hell.
The group begins to move towards him. As they do so, 3 entities appear right next to Roland. Demons. One of them is all monstrous and all naturale, the other two are humanoid, armored and as the DM put it "thier whole existence says BADASS". The one in the middle begins to cast a spell. Roland pulls a not-on-my-watch, and takes a swing at the caster. The demon next to him parries, puts Roland off balance, and the third one cuts... him... down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's at this point the DM looks at me and says, "Man, I thought you were going to run. One sec..." and starts shuffling through a notebook. He finds a piece of notebook paper and hands it to me. It has character stats all over it. I ask him what it is and he replies, "That is you."
STR 0 (it had a severely modified fighter thac0 table penciled in)
CON 0 (it had... 500 hps penciled in)
DEX 0 (it had AC -10 penciled in
WIS 0 (it had penciled in: no saves necessary)
INT 0 (it had penciled in: no saves necessary)
CHA 0 (it had penciled in: To the pure, the good, you are the most beaufiful entity they've ever seen. To the malicious, the evil, you are a blight upon existence.)
Below it, some more notes said that I was quadruple hasted, had top initiative every round (if I wanted it), could not be flanked, and about every other melee happy thing you could think of.
I look at the DM and was like... "What the hell, dude?"
"Your armor."
"What?"
"I never thought you'd actually pick it up, let alone USE it, and eventually set it off."
"What are you talking about?"
The DM stands up and describes to the party that they watch Roland get cut the hell down. Bigtime. Chunky salsa. The parry left a solid prone hit and there was just no saving me. They watch what's left of me fall to the ground, and the demons' attentions turn to them. Just as the demons walk over my character's corpse, my character gets back up behind them, only he now looks like a wight, a ghost, an apparition. Not human, but humanoid, and moving like all hell came with him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Quick backstory about the armor. We pulled off a mission for some royalty in Cormyr a long, long time ago. Like back in the level 5 days. As a reward, said royalty gave us the pick of two items from the private royal armory. DM said it was a royal armory, so mostly costumy stuff, but some of it was not bad. I was level 5, priest of Tempus and was pretty much one of the two heavies in the group. I needed simple things: armor, weapon. I grabbed a decent bastard sword and the only plate they had: this nasty, beat to shit, dented up bronze plate. All over the entire surface of every piece of it, in every language we could identify, was the phrase "For the cause.". The royalty said it had been in the family for hundreds of years, but he had no clue where it came from. It didn't register magical. It didn't register holy or unholy. ID'ing it yielded no information on it at all. It was, as the DM put it, shitty bronze plate (and I took an inherent AC penalty because of it). The warrior in the party refused to wear it.
Anyway, I'd just never gotten around to replacing it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I get back up as some super melee ghost.
Right about this time, some more not-quite-as-big baddies show up and occupy the party. The demons turn back around, pretty damn curious why some priest they just gutted got back up.
While the party is doing the normal party thing, I've turned into a freaking lawn mower, and am slowly beating these three demons down. Thing is, they're working me pretty good too. They pick up real quick that spells aren't working on me, even when they can get them off. When they try to back out to cast on the rest of the party, I stay right on top of them to see to it they don't. I can move fast enough to keep them all in melee. So the fight continues, and I put one down... put two down... and a ways in to trying to put down the big monstrous one... I run out of hps.
DM shakes his head, "Wow, I just didn't expect this...ok, we're doing the whole thing..." and hands me another sheet of paper.
He describes to the party that they see Roland 2.0 get cut down, and as the killing blow strikes me, time begins to slow. They can feel something pulling them towards me, and they can see the same thing happening to all of the baddies around, only the baddies are being pulled more violently, where the party members just feel a tug they can resist. The pull becomes stronger, the baddies being pulled towards me more quickly, but everything else around moving more slowly. After a couple rounds of this, the DM says that a deep, commanding voice bellows from my corpse,
"FOR THE CAUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
BOOM. Huge explosion. Like 20 D20 explosion. Not fire. Not electricity. Not anything recognizable. The mage would be told later outright by the DM "You have no idea WHAT the hell that was." Everything within the blast site was either killed or so rocked that the party could easily clean it up. It was described as looking like a nuclear bomb just went off.
The party was completely uninjured. As the dust cleared, they looked to see the elven ghosts kneeling around what was left of Roland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The area full eerily quiet. Nothing stirred in the camp. There was no sign left of any resistance. The cloudy skies above you part violently as a pair of horses tear through them. One steed white, one black. Standing upon their backs an armored, helmed figure descends upon you. Tempus. As the horses land, you notice their immense size, easily 50 feet at the shoulder. Tempus jumps from their backs with a thunder as he lands. The elves part their ranks, bow to the figure... and vanish. he walks over to where Roland lies, scoops his hand down through the earth below him, and pulls from the scene a glowing form of Roland, restored, sleeping. He then returns to the backs of the horses, and they take flight, back through the clouds above you.
All that's left at the site is a bastard sword stuck in the ground, and a really beat to hell set of bronze plate that doesn't ID magical, doesn't ID holy or unholy, and has a really shitty AC penalty because of it's condition. It's covered with etchings in all known tongues, all of which say,
"For the cause."
Holy flaming fuck. That is the most badass way to go out that I have ever seen or heard of. Highest kudos to you and your DM for setting that action up.
I wish it was longer! If anyone DIDN'T read the post above this one, scroll up immediately.
"Go up, thou bald head." -2 Kings 2:23
That was the best campaign all around I'd ever been in. It was also my last due to various reasons. Our DM really pulled out all the stops and had his A-game for it. He was also actively encouraging more RP from the group, dangling bonus XP in front of them for doing it.
He admitted to me much later that he was hoping on hope that someone would RP a solution out of that situation. The poison was an "out" for us, but as we deduced, it wasn't going to do much and even if he deus ex machina'd us out of the situation, we were going to take some pretty heavy losses and probably fail outright (which would impact the later game adversely).
He had no plan of what to do until I sent my email. He said he got some dice out, read my email, penciled in some modifiers to some rolls he would make to see 1) if Tempus was listening (easy check), 2) Thought the prayer was worth his intervention (harder check), 3) Thought the prayer was worth him breaking his normal behavior and actively showing favor in a battle (even harder check) 4) Was the prayer good enough to involve anyone else on the deal? (hard hard check).
1 was no biggie, 2 he said I made handily, and 3 I crit'd, which apparently was the only way I could even invoke 4, which I also crit'd.
I'd basically called Tempus' attention to what these guys were going to do in the future, which he deemed as completely unfair, inappropriate and cowardly, even if it was going to be done to elves, creatures outside his pantheon's care. He called up Corellon, told him the deal and the gears turned.
He also admitted that he had totally forgotten about that plate until I got cut down. He'd forgotten because he didn't expect anyone to actually use it. It was that shitty under normal circumstance. His noticing that I hadn't upgraded it was much like me noticing that I needed to. Just never worried about it. Loot had flowed into the party, and it went other ways. I was a heavy, sure, but ultimately I was a priest. I was geared appropriately and functioned fine.
Ultimately, it's a cool item. It's not magical on it's own. It needs the wearer. It needs the wearer to be actively working towards a goal, and it needs the wearer to be defeated, in combat, in the persuit of that goal. It's very specific. If I'd died in a random encounter or something silly, nothing at all would've happened. I literally had to do what I did, in the way I did it, and have that shit on.
The party did cool shit after that event. They packed up the armor and my bastard sword and took it with them. When they got back to present time, they delivered them both to the chapel Roland began in and told them the story. The priests there were amazed, overwhelmingly enthusiastic, lauding praise and cheers upon them. When they asked why, the priests explained to them that they had just delivered legendary artifacts of faith. Physical items related to one of the greatest events in the history of Tempus' faith. The whole church knew exactly who they were. It never occurred to them, but they'd become historical figures, at least in the church of Tempus (most other entities thought the story was an old wives tale, and there was no 12th army of demons headed towards Myth Drannor).
What they'd given the church were artifact weapon and armor. Items actually touched by the hand of Tempus himself. It was eventually forwarded to the most guarded armory in the church, and eventually the party was so well regarded by that church that they had a safe house at any time, acolytes to accompany them when needed, access to historical and research documents, etc...
Pretty spiffy.
Oh, and DM asked permission to "take" my character. I said sure, why not, and he hosed up a whole post-mortem for him, where he's now a herald of Tempus, sits at the right hand and avatars for him as needed.
Whee!
The next time you see that DM, tell him a recounting of the story he developed made a grown man cry in jealous awe.
The day before, my party was involved in an Imperial tournament. I ended up in some sort of obstacle race against a wussy little Crane guy. There was a wall that we had to go over, at that point he was ahead of me. So I simply lowered my shoulder and simply knocked the wall over, part of which fell on Mr. Crane. I was able to win. The Emperor was displeased until I explained that I didn't break any rules because I had gone over the wall.
At one point we came upon a shrine to the patron kami of the Crab clan whose name I forget right now. Hida, |I think? Anyway, a 15 foot tall oni was attacking it and had taken down most of the monks that were there. Needless to say I wasn't going to let that stand, so I rushed into combat...temporarily forgetting that my weapon was nothing but a non-magical tetsubo. My GM decided to be dramatic, so Hida blessed me. My weapon crackling with divine lightning, I smote the oni...who then proceeded to backhand me, sending me flying through the air to land on the rubble of the shrine. The damage was fatal, but we decided that I at least was able to get back up (the back of my head was completely caved in at this point), stagger over the now-dead oni, and spit on his corpse before dying.
IOS Game Center ID: Isotope-X