Our party is ambushed in an alley...again, and my dice have gone cold so I can't hit anything...again...so I decided to mix things up a little.
After two tieflings w/poisoned swords nearly killed my tiefling feylock in the first round (2hp left!) I've gone running for the cleric, taken my second wind and prepared to strike back, when they double team me...again!
I activate my skald's armor, causing tiefling #1 to stick his poison blade into tiefling #2, instead of me. That would have been funny enough, but then I look at tiefling #2, point at #1, and ask, in all seriousness, "Are you gonna take that from him!!?"
The GM says "Make a bluff check." I roll poorly...again...but my bluff skill is so *&^%$#@! high the result is a 25, and the GM decides that's good enough.
So tiefling #2 forgets about me and retaliates against #1 for stabbing him. He hits. Now they're both bloodied. GM: "Well done. Now the enemy tieflings are having a knife-fight in the alley."
I'm laughing my a** off, the rest of the party is like, "What kind of a striker are you, anyway?"
A very under-handed one, apparently. Nothing else I did in that fiasco caused nearly as much damage as my bluff skill.
Our party is ambushed in an alley...again, and my dice have gone cold so I can't hit anything...again...so I decided to mix things up a little.
After two tieflings w/poisoned swords nearly killed my tiefling feylock in the first round (2hp left!) I've gone running for the cleric, taken my second wind and prepared to strike back, when they double team me...again!
I activate my skald's armor, causing tiefling #1 to stick his poison blade into tiefling #2, instead of me. That would have been funny enough, but then I look at tiefling #2, point at #1, and ask, in all seriousness, "Are you gonna take that from him!!?"
The GM says "Make a bluff check." I roll poorly...again...but my bluff skill is so *&^%$#@! high the result is a 25, and the GM decides that's good enough.
So tiefling #2 forgets about me and retaliates against #1 for stabbing him. He hits. Now they're both bloodied. GM: "Well done. Now the enemy tieflings are having a knife-fight in the alley."
I'm laughing my a** off, the rest of the party is like, "What kind of a striker are you, anyway?"
A very under-handed one, apparently. Nothing else I did in that fiasco caused nearly as much damage as my bluff skill.
PtM
That actually makes you a better striker than most warlocks, because you've caused massive damage to two targets at once! And with a free action! :D
This is sort of a meta-game moment but we thought it was pretty funny last night.
So last night I started my first game ever as a DM, and my first time playing 4e. Anyway, so we're doing the general "get the party together" bit in a tavern. Two of the characters have been asked to gather up some people and go check on someone's friend who hasn't been heard from in a few weeks.
So they look around the tavern and I describe the people they see, letting the other two PC's describe what they look like.
Someone jokes that they should instead try to hire one of the generic NPC's in the tavern. "Sorry, you don't get to play in this campaign. Your character just didn't look interesting enough, we'll be hiring this NPC instead!"
Hmmm... I'm not sure I can quite convey the humor here in text but it was a pretty funny concept, leading us to joke about having a game that starts with like 20 players, and continually get's cut down as the "coaches" make cuts. "Sorry, you just didn't pull your weight in that fight. You're cut!"
This is sort of a meta-game moment but we thought it was pretty funny last night.
So last night I started my first game ever as a DM, and my first time playing 4e. Anyway, so we're doing the general "get the party together" bit in a tavern. Two of the characters have been asked to gather up some people and go check on someone's friend who hasn't been heard from in a few weeks.
So they look around the tavern and I describe the people they see, letting the other two PC's describe what they look like.
Someone jokes that they should instead try to hire one of the generic NPC's in the tavern. "Sorry, you don't get to play in this campaign. Your character just didn't look interesting enough, we'll be hiring this NPC instead!"
Hmmm... I'm not sure I can quite convey the humor here in text but it was a pretty funny concept, leading us to joke about having a game that starts with like 20 players, and continually get's cut down as the "coaches" make cuts. "Sorry, you just didn't pull your weight in that fight. You're cut!"
You could then have American Idol style phone in votes coupled with a PC tribal elimination......*goes back to watching tooo much bad TV*
I was playing in a game with a couple of friends up in Rochester, New York. My friend Rob was DMing, and our group consisted of three players in all (Me, an Elf Fighter with aspirations to Bladesinger, Neil a Monk, and Colin a Sorcerer).
In the campaign world, Orcs were the dominant race, and had established a kind of Monastic Theocracy. This was the first session, and we had all come together as we were escaping an abandoned monastery that was being assailed by undead wolves (we had each gone to the monastery for various IC reasons).
We were traveling south along one of the major roads at night. We noticed a group of Orc soldier's on patrol heading towards us. Me, thinking it best to not draw the attention of the authorities, went and hid in some shrubs. I rolled well on my hide check, and remained unnoticed while the Orcs talked to the monk and the sorcerer. I couldn't hear the conversation they were having, but I figured I could use sense motive to see if these Orcs were hostile. I rolled a 1 on my sense motive check, and the DM tells me that yes, the orcs are hostile, and they are about ready to draw arms and strike down my new found friends.
I take a throwing axe and chuck it at the leader, rolling a natural 20, and then scoring max damage on the poor fellow (it ended up being like 18 points of damage [we added strength before multiplying crits in that game]). I drew my longsword as a free action (quick draw) and charged at the orcs.
To the two other players, the way it seemed to go down was like this. A group of soldiers on patrol ride up, and the elf ducks behind some bushes a ways away. As they're talking to the leader of the patrol and being subjected to a somewhat casual interrogation, they see a glint of metal twirling through the air, and cleaving into the Orc's neck. He slumps down dead in his saddle as the elf comes running from the bushes screaming a war cry.
Swift work was made of the remaining soldiers. I was somehow able to convince the other players that -I knew- they were going to kill us. And as a bonus, we got free horses. =)
It was hilarious at the time. After that, the other players always got a little antsy when I tried to sense motive.
So in this 3.5 campaign I played last semester, I ended up playing as a gnome bard named Zippy (perform: stand-up comedy) with an intelligent bag of tricks (aptly named "Tricky") that had mage hand at will, to fly. For a while he ended up being both the party's tank and healer. He also managed to use Tasha's Hideous Laughter (how thematic) to trivialize two encounters that were supposed to be super hard. One was 5 CR higher than us. The other was supposed to be the final boss later on (we killed him... oops).
Anyway, when Zippy died, I continued playing as Tricky, and made up a class for him. It was based off the druid, so he could summon animals and buff them, but instead of wild shape he had "item shape," and transformed into various weapons for combat. I also figured that for magic item purposes, tricky could turn any non-weapon non-armor slot into a specific gem about his drawstring, and for armor he just became made of different stuff (he was a +3 studded leather intelligent bag of tricks at the time). He also had the skill Knowledge: Items, and talked down upon the lesser, semi-intelligent golems we faced.
Anyway, our party was supposed to be retrieving some artifacts to power a plane-shift machine. So we get to this one artifact... Me: "I'll eat it!" DM: "You'll what? It's bigger than you." Me: "No prob. I purchased a 'bag of holding' upgrade..." DM: *sigh*
Then when we reached this huge anvil that we determined was too heavy to fit in my bag of holding-upgraded self... Cleric: "Have the paladin's horse carry it" Powergamey Paladin: Actually, according to my strength score, I can carry more than my horse"
So the Paladin proceeds to carry this 600 lb anvil through some dwarven ruins. When we finally get the portal working, we step through to find a bewildered looking dwarf, who is confused at seeing a ragtag party appearing out of nowhere.
Dwarf: "I've watched this place my whole life. As has my father before me, and his father before him, and his father before him... and nothing has ever happened!" Me: "Hi, I'm a floating bag!"
Now, same group, but MUCH earlier. Beginning of the campaign really. My first character was Alexander Bluecloak, sun of Alfonzo Bluecloak, son of Alfred Bluecloak, son of Ali Bluecloak, son of Alexei Bluecloak, son of Alan Bluecloak, son of Alcazar Bluecloak, son of Albert Bluecloak, son of Aladin Bluecloak, all of whom were paladins that were very well-known for being very mediocre. He also had a family heirloom, which was, appropriately, a blue cloak (+1 cloak of resistance that gave -2 penalties when trying to do something amazing. Called a "cloak of mediocrity") Anyway, the other key characters were a Cleric of some sort, who specialized in summoning undead fire elementals or something. Waaaay powergamey. He was also very evil and frequently explained not only that he was going to kill us all, but with what powers. Then there was a crazy gnome battle sorceress who took "chaotic" aligned to mean "makes decisions via die roll" and also had a rod of wonder (WHY did we ever give that to her???) So one day Alexander gets fed up with this cleric guy threatening his fellow partymates. As everyone's tucking in for the night, I casually say "I guess I'll cast protection from evil just for kicks." Then I sidle up to the cleric and take a swing. He immediate jumps back and summons his elementals... which can't touch me (that's right, powergamey strategy trumped by a lv. 1 spell). I then proceed to kill said cleric. The player decides to make a druid next. He has an abysmal con, and thus few hit points. He decides the character was his old character's twin brother (big mistake). So basically, about 5 minutes after we kill this evil cleric that kept giving us death threats, his identical twin walks out of the woods. Druid: "Hey Guys" Sorceress: "I use the rod of random ****" DM: *rolls* "Fireball. You take... (some number) damage" Druid: "Uh... I think I'm dead."
My character wasn't exactly fond of the druid's animal companion (slight fear of wolves). It was the end of my watch, and I had to wake up the druid for the next watch. Instead of going by the druid and that wolf, I decided to lob a rock to hit the druid. The DM made me roll for it, I rolled a 1, and hit the wolf. You should have seen how fast my character took off from an angry wolf chasing me.
The party is on a diplomatic mission, where they have to speak with the bishop of a theocratically controled coutry, as the party approches the cathedral the Swordmage who is the defacto 'leader' (not Leader, but the leader) turns to the group.
"Alright guys, rememeber we're on a diplomatic mission, so please, don't break anything, and don't set anything on fire." He turns to the chaos sorcerer halfling, "And don't blow up." A pause, "What? I'm just saying, sometimes you blow up."
Which caused the table to erupt in laughter and has now become a repeated statement to the chaos sorc, "Don't blow up, because, you know, sometimes you blow up."
Aesop had it right 2,500 years ago, "By endeavoring to please everyone, he had pleased no one, and lost his ass in the bargain".
Was playing a CE female elf assassin in a "Neutrals & Nasties" campaign. She'd somehow been killed through the actions of another PC, an arrogant cleric of Death and failed her con check to be resurrected. The DM had other plans and had my character meet with Hecate, goddess of magic (the assassin was also a magic user) for an interview. The two came to an agreement that Hecate would bring my assassin back if she agreed to worship the goddess and make sacrifices of magical items. "Anything else?" Asked the DM.
"Yes, I'd like an Arrow of Slaying. Cleric Slaying."
"Okay," responded the DM. "Hecate gives you one."
My bad Con roll notwithstanding, it was very difficult to permenantly kill a character in this campaign. Resurection spells could be easily found at any Local Clerical Institution. And the Cleric of Death claimed that he had a deal with his god that no one could take the cleric's life, and Death would always raise him from the dead. But I had other plans.
The assassin hid in some nearby trees with bow and Arrow of Slaying and watched the camp. Everyone thought the assassin was still dead. Finally, the unsuspecting cleric gave her a clear shot and she took it and hit. The cleric crumpled to the forest floor, dead. All the players stood still in shock. The assassin sashayed out of the trees and knelt by the body, which was loaded to the gills with magic items collected over the years of playing.
"What does she do?" the DM asked what item I was going to loot from the body and stressed I didn't have time to decide as he took the character sheet of the dead cleric and looked it over. "Death will be bringing him back to life, soon."
"What happens to the magic items she sacrifices to Hecate?"
The DM shrugged as he read through the long list of weapons and items. "Poof! They disappear."
"I sacrifice the items on the body."
The DM and the other players' heads whipped around in shock, the player of the cleric working his mouth like a fish.
"All of them?"
"All of them."
The DM handed the sheet back to the player, still doing his wide-eyed fish impersonations. "You wake up naked"
An Orc walks into a bar. The Human and the Elf laugh at the hapless Orc. The dwarf walks under it scowling and doesn't laugh. He doesn't see the humor. It was all over his head
We had one- our ranger is a perpetual daredevil, who rarely bothers to consider the repercussions of his actions. We're dungeon crawling through an enchanted mansion fortress, and he decides that there's magic and adventure to be had down the septic tank access tube.
So he ties himself to a rope, ties the rope to a fixture, grabs the bard, and jumps down the garbage chute.
Ranger: Alright, adventure here we come. Monk: *thoroughly annoyed* I untie the rope. DM: ... what? Ranger: You bastard! Monk: is fun. No wonder you do it all the time> DM: Alright, ranger, you know the term 'splashdown'? In this situation, it's more like a 'poopdown'. I hope you brought barf bags. Ranger: You bastard. Monk: *Cackles*
