Just a quick disclaimer: My group plays an edition the DM (my father) fondly calls 2.5 edition, it's heavily modified and there are enough house rules to warrant an entirely new manual. Seriously, he built an entire magic system from the ground up just because he could.
Without further ado...
My ranger isn't per say "a badass", he's pretty average in stats and skills. To make up for this fact he has a plethora of nifty magical items; The Boots of Fharlanghn, +3 Studded leather armor, a +3 shield. But the centerpiece of his magical arsenal is definitely his weapon, The Blackrazor. For those of you unfamiliar with this legendary item let me describe it for you. It is a +3 longsword with a blade that resembles a clear night sky, it's also got a pretty gnarly hilt and pommel, but wait till you see its stats.
+3, Int17 ego16, alignment CN Powers: - speech & telepathy - detects living creatures 60'r - haste 1/day for 10 rounds - 100% magic resistance to charm and fear - that's old-style MR based on caster level. When you kill someone, your effective level for combat purposes increased by their hit dice, and you add their base hit points to yours. These bonuses last for a number of turns equal to the number of levels received times ten. Ego increases by 1 point every three days it doesn't kill someone until it can force the wielder to do so.
To balance all that craziness my DM added a particularly nasty caveat. Every time the sword deals a killing blow the wielder has to roll a percentile based saving throw. If they roll lower than the cumulative amount of levels they've absorbed in that encounter the sword takes them over completely and they go into a frenzied state, attacking anything and everything in sight including allies and innocents. This lasts until the effects of the sword wear off. The sword also makes its wielder favor it over any other weapon so no side chicks. Now that I've got all the background information out of the way I can get to the story.
Our party was hip-deep in the Ravenloft campaign. We were making our way up the mountain to Castle Ravenloft when we were beset by dire wolves. Cool beans! My character, Carter, gets a bonus against all wolves and were-creatures due to his preferred enemy. We dispatch about three of the six wolves and Carter deals the killing blow to the fourth. You'll never guess what happens next. I fumble the percentile check. That's right! And guess who gets a second attack that round: two points for Carter! It may be the DM in my blood, but I just love killing PCs. With the bonuses gained from the Blackrazor's soul draining effect I essentially became a bossfight. The first party member I attacked was one of the thieves, she went under with one unfortunate swing. The rest of the party was too busy fighting the remaining wolves to notice so when I came over and started attacking the dire wolves, (this decision was based off of a random die roll to decide who I was attacking) they thought nothing of it. I killed and absorbed its health making mine effectively 120+. Then I took a swing at the other ranger in the group, Berethor. I missed, but he was rather worse for wear so he decided to get creative with how he attacked me. After deftly moving behind me he grabbed me from under the arms and used his cloak of flight to lift me into the air. We got about forty feet up into the air when I had an idea. A terrible terrible idea.
Using my stolen health as a buffer I plunged the Blackrazor through my chest and into Berethor's, basically making a ranger-kabob. That knocked him out and we both plummeted. While this was happening one of the mages in the group was trying frantically to use an item called the Prison of Zagig on me. When a mage can see a person and says their true name the subject is shrunk down and imprisoned in the small golden birdcage. Sadly for them, however, they fumbled the required check to use the item and ended up trapped in it themselves. Berethor and I hit the ground, he was unconscious from the fall and pretty damn close to death. I, on the other hand, was sitting happily at what my usual max health would be.The remaining party members turned on me and began attacking while the other mage in the group stepped back and tripped over the Prison of Zagig. They freed the other mage and together trapped me in the prison where I ended up spending the rest of the campaign. There was one problem that kept them from releasing me; those who enter the prison of Zagig are kept in a suspended state. They don't need food, water, or sleep. They can't take damage or regain health. All effects remain as they were.
It was by pure luck that no one actually died. I can't wait to transfer This character to 5e, just need to find a group.
Many Decades ago we had a DM who had running all over the Realms fighting this and that. This was all still 1 edition Advanced D&D. Our party consisted of a Cleric Named Cameran Kalfear. Somehow we managed to find/acquire one of those extremely powerful magic items known as a Helm of Brilliance. This helm had about 96 different gems that when used could cast everything from light to fireballs etc. I don’t remember the exact stats for this thing but it was a little over the top.
We ran into a Death Knight, which thought it was in his best interest to cast his own fireball. We laughed at this because with the amount of fire resistance and hit points this should have been an easy fight for our equally powerful adventuring band of 10 level characters.
So the fireball hits us and we all start rolling our saving throws. Each one of passed these with ease…. That is, all but our cleric who rolled a 1. Saving roll fail equals rolling for a saving throw for your items. One after the other he begins to roll saving rolls for his items. Everything was good till he got to the helm and again another 1 was rolled. We all sat there staring at the 20 sided dice on the table. Our DM began to panic a bit and said due to the gods blah blah the cleric could re-roll and the second number would be the fate of our group. Haha.. What are the odds… I mean really.. WHAM! Another 1!!!
And the story ends with the helm blew up killing them all. We spent the rest of the night calculating the damage of every gem going off and the sheer magical energy expended when it was destroyed. I really miss my gnome........
Ah good times!
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JT "You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
I was DM for a 3.5 Campaign. We were down a few of our party members, with our Vampire Ranger, Human Rogue, and Human Psychic Warrior left. Therefore it was a session where they were traveling to take care of a side task or two.
They were traveling by horseback and reached the edge of a null-magic plains that was a blasted wasteland. Due to the inhospitable aura of the land their horses refused to progress, so they tied them to a sturdy bush on the edge of the null-magic region and advanced on foot.
After walking for several hours they noticed that there was a rippling of the earth behind them. The rogue tried to hide himself, but rolled a 1 and so took his cape off and tried to hide by flapping it to create an annoying dust cloud that did not hide them. When a massive Brown Dragon burrowed up and threatened to eat them all they were not happy. Luckily for our party they were quite chatty, and tried to negotiate that if they could provide other food then the dragon would let them live. The Psychic Warrior had a magic item that would generate a large amount of food, which the dragon liked the sound of.
Then the Psychic Warrior mentioned the food would be quite bland. People meat isn't bland so that argument failed them. Next the Ranger noticed a chunk of meat in the dragon's mouth. Turned out that it had found their horses just outside the null-magic field, so the Ranger said no hard feelings about the Dragon eating their horses and they'll just go on their way. This almost worked since Brown Dragons prefer the taste of horse, until the Rogue said that the Dragon should thank them for bringing it their horses.
At this point a fight broke out. In the end the Brown Dragon was dead, both the Psychic Warrior and Rogue were unconscious, and the Ranger was furious. Much resting then ensued, and the Rogue and Psychic Warrior were told not to negotiate in the future.
I'm running LMoP for a group new to 5e players including 2 D&D virgins.
They are in a cave and the cleric decided to cast disguise self to change into a gerblin and scout ahead.
I describe the room me enters and mention there are three gerblins, two of them look up as you enter. The middle gerblin is picking at his ear.
DM: Do you speak gerblin? (I already knew the answer)
Cleric: Umm. No.
DM: The gerblin on the left yells something at you in gerblinese.
Cleric: I point to my ears and shake my head. Like I can't hear them.
DM: The gerblin on the left repeats his gerblinish and starts walking towards you. He doesn't look happy you are making him walk across the room. The right gerblin elbows and ear picker to bring you to his attention.
Cleric: I continue to act like I can't hear them. (Acting out the pointing to ears and shaking head) Does anyone else speak gerblin?
DM: Did anyone else go with you?
Cleric: Didn't you guys follow me?
Fighter: #smile# I saw you change and walk down the hall.
This resulted in the cleric getting captured in a very comical fashion. As soon as he was tackled he remembered gerblins speak common. A round too late.
In our game, characters don't recognise the Great Old One Warlock's telepathy ability as someone talking to them unless he goes out of his way to make it clear. So he can just sort of send ominous whispers into other people's mind and they don't know it's not their own thoughts, though they don't always obey the suggestions (in the same way you'd ignore the voice in the back of your head telling you to push someone off a high ledge when they're standing in front of it).
But the Warlock has a two year old son he only just discovered, and the son has hijacked his Death Dog, which doesn't like the Warlock anymore but loves his son, who loves it in turn. Considering the Warlock is a Neutral Evil Drow, it's led to some questionable parenting...
----
"I don't want to go to the Underdark with you, you big meanie!" Said the child.
Hi! I'm Max the Dog! Said the Warlock. I've learnt how to talk! You should definitely come with us to the Underdark!
----
The boy cuddled the polymorphed druid, in bunny form.
"Talk with Beasts," the Warlock murmured to himself. He's replacing you, Max.
The dog looked around, confused.
He's found a better pet, now. Cuter. Safer. You were better off with your old master. He never left you.
So this story is from the first session I ever dm'd with a group of amateurs. I decided to start things off with the the story of how the party was formed asking the players "so how did yu guys meet?". Three of the players decided that they were all aquainted with each other and had been traveling for the past 2 years. The 4th however decided that they had yet to meet yet, this was the rogue. Instead this player decided that she was going to attempt to pickpocket the weakest looking char which she succeeded in doing. A fun chase seen later the 3 players have the rogue pinned to the ground with a sword at her throat and boot digging into her sternum. Still the rogue refuses to apologize or give back the gold, instead offering only insults.
So im literally a minute away from my players killing one of thier future party members and we havnt even started the mission I had planned!
I did what any quick thinking dm would do, the screen goes black after one of the players saying "so what do we do with her". Then the next scene is the group on the road traveling together a month later with that scene to be revisited in a fun flashback later.
ever since my players continue to throw stuff at me I have no way of preparing for!
So, I now find myself in a 5th edition campaign where money is no longer a problem. As kind of joke my monk began selling Ale imbued with fairy dust and tiefling blood that has the blessing of a goddess. I'm essentially earning 4 or 5 gold everytime a shot of the stuff is sold. It is being sold in seven bars(for now). This also counts as converting people to follow the goddess. I own 45% of the stock, the Necromancer owns 40%, and the Rogue owns 15%. We are also funding two Orphanages(thieves guilds), and an Embassy for the town of Gnil Feit. Which I created on accident while speaking with cloud giants. We are also likely to take ownership of another enterprise, including gambling and what not. We will see. I'm a Monk. I'm not supposed to have money. In one session I spent over 40,000 gold pieces and am left with just over 10,000 gold pieces... I'm playing D&D Civ 5.
So, I now find myself in a 5th edition campaign where money is no longer a problem. As kind of joke my monk began selling Ale imbued with fairy dust and tiefling blood that has the blessing of a goddess. I'm essentially earning 4 or 5 gold everytime a shot of the stuff is sold. It is being sold in seven bars(for now). This also counts as converting people to follow the goddess. I own 45% of the stock, the Necromancer owns 40%, and the Rogue owns 15%. We are also funding two Orphanages(thieves guilds), and an Embassy for the town of Gnil Feit. Which I created on accident while speaking with cloud giants. We are also likely to take ownership of another enterprise, including gambling and what not. We will see. I'm a Monk. I'm not supposed to have money. In one session I spent over 40,000 gold pieces and am left with just over 10,000 gold pieces... I'm playing D&D Civ 5.
I love when the main campaign falls on the wayside in order to follow random adventures. What is the quest you've been sidetracked from in order to set up such a massive enterprise?
Storm Kings Thunder module. We had just returned from the Maelstrom with a wooden coin with a golden goose on it(our next business enterprise). Instead of searching for the source of the coin right off the bat we began our business. Which kind of helped, because when it came time to find a way onto the gambling ship they came to us and invited us to come on the ship.
One time comes to mind... my playing days were ending, sadly. It was my 1st year in college, so approximately 20 years ago, and my roommate and I were an adventuring duo - both Drows since he was into Drizzt at the time. Anyway...
Our DM may have been a bit too lenient with treasure, magical items, so I ended up with these swords: Primary Hand, Sword of Dancing... Off-hand, +4 Defender... +3 Frostbrand in scabbard. I was proficient in Dual-wielding so, good combo. When the situation warranted, I'd swap the Dancing with the Frostbite. However... we found ourselves in a bad conflict.
We were not winning against this one enemy... may have been multiple enemies... very early on, like 2 rounds and we were hurting! Barely alive, the 4th round came and went, my sword started dancing - which was usually times used to heal or do some other action, but we both suddenly had a moment of clarity... he focused on healing me - he was a wizard or cleric - and I drew my Frostbrand.
Now, it was 3 big blades fighting for us! I took that battle and didn't just tip the scales, I shoved them over. Overpowered the enemy(ies) easily.
Probably not unknown by others, but we'd never thought of it. We put away that character, though... considered him a tad cheater.
My favorite has to be when I was playing a low intelligence paladin (as most are due to MAD). He had a tendency to not say things right. Not do the right things. Heart was in the right place but logic wasn't all there. Attacked by a Slaad? No, its a salad, sire. Killer salads.
He has hit walls. That were warded. And it hit back.
He has charged into rooms. Without thinking. And gotten downed in the first couple rounds.
However it all was worth it when they were fighting a creature that looked like it misty stepped away. Feeling like 'Im still swinging at this mist' was in character, he did. Disadvantage to swing blind. He hit, as the creature was trying to trick the group. He bleed. The group followed the trail. Worth it.
It wasn't 'and the world was saved that day' but little things like that? They make the best stories for me.
This was a story that got told to me by my dm but when he was in school his dm had a group he had taken over dm'ing for, join in a dungeon raid but the gear they had made it crazy. One guy (the main atacker) had a ring that made him fire proof, so he took a barrel of oil and just befor combat doused himself lit it on fire and just grappled each foe till it died
This happened about a couple years ago, when my friends and I were getting started in D&D. We decided to try 4e (Easy to begin with, quite videogame-ish...), but we didn't quite understand many of the rules, leading to great misunderstandings.
One of these happened when we were testing witch's curse, and we didn't know that it could not be stacked. So, we go into a mission to kill "something" in the forest, and eventually find a bear that attacks us. It wasn't balanced at all, and we were trying to run away from it because we couldn't kill it. But, however, during the last few turns, both warlocks in the group had managed to curse it a hell load of times, so after (unsuccessfully) trying to escape, my elf ranger (Sid was his name) turns around and uses a twin strike againts it. I have to say that that little f***er was hard to hit, so after failing the first attack roll, I managed to hit it, making all of the accumulated curse dice to damage it, and getting us an overkill of about 100 HP.
This other one time was the end of Sid. He had a wolf called Néstor that was a brother to him. Well, at one point of the adventure, Sid went following another character who happened to split up, and because it was our first game, the DM hadn't given us a lot of money, and we even struggled to EAT at level 3. So, as you can imagine, travelling was very expensive, and Sid decided to serve as a guard for a few merchants who wanted to travel to the same place... Heck, I even paid them. After a few dice rolls to see if I happened to encounter any danger, I finally get unlucky and a group of bandits attacks us. Being me the only guard, I had to fight them alone with Néstor, and we eventually died... Although we put up a good fight, I gotta say.
My character was an evil bard. He came into town and the first thing he does is finds a lost child and sends her off into the highly dangerous desert alone. Then he finds her parent who is minding a vegetable cart and tells him that his daughter just ran off into the desert alone. The parent takes off after her, leaving the cart. He then attempts to steal the vegetable cart, but with nothing to carry it, settles for the best vegetables on the cart (10 rations). He then proceeds to the meeting place with the party and finds a bar owner annoyed about a couple acting lovey-dovey in the corner. He casts charm person on the guy and has the guy break up with his girlfriend. The tavern owner is happy that they've left and gives the guy a job playing for the night. He plays and makes money after meeting with the others to discuss the adventure they're going on the next day. That night he winds up getting attacked in the inn by some elves that he had shady dealings with before and winds up losing a nipple in a knife fight and running naked through the streets screaming for help. He winds up sleeping naked under the abandoned vegetable cart (the parent and child never returned).
I love this character and he's saved the party's asses so many times so far this campaign. He recently had his soul almost stolen by demons and didn't under the stipulation that he has to provide the souls of others to replace his own. Right now he needs to take 4 souls to prevent his own from being taken. There are four other party members...
A long time ago, in a campaign far, far, away (1979-ish)...
The party's thief was caught trying to pick-pocket. He was arrested & brought before the town's bailiff. Just as his trial began, a couple of the other party members set fire to one of the temples in town and burst into the trial screaming: "A Red Dragon is attacking! The Church is on fire!". They were followed, immediately, by a towns person crying out: "Hey, they just set the Temple on fire!". In the ensuing havoc and chaos, the party managed to escape. They were followed - but, that's another story.
Although none of those players are still active in my campaign, they all still remember it and we still have great laughs over it.
To this day, the ruins of Trent have never been rebuilt, and the legend of the "dragon attack" grows larger and more fantastic with every telling (BTW: these ruins still exist in my campaign world - which has seen play through D&D 0, 1e, 2e, 3e (and 3.5e), 4e :-( and 5e :- ).
Playing AD&D as teenagers nearly 30 years ago.. My character, a fighter, had this magic sword that was a relic from an ancient king. Legend was that it could cleave dragon fire, that dragons' fiery breath could not harm whoever wielded the weapon. On the road, our party was attacked by a dragon seeking revenge for the death of his son. My character steps up, "I got this, guys!" He holds the sword up as the dragon appears to breathe fire, and gets roasted. He hadn't owned the sword long, and assumed he did something wrong. Meanwhile, I'm looking at our spell caster for some explanation. He's flummoxed. So he gets blasted again, and falls, a smoking corpse.
And that is the story of how I learned that dragons can cast spells. This one had stalked us after we'd killed his son, knew I had this sword. He set up an illusion of himself breathing fire when he was really casting fireball. And our party mage NEARLY guessed that was what was going on after the first blast struck true. He felt terrible that my character bit the dust. But it turned out all right in the end. My fighter's soul was trapped in the sword with the soul of the ancient king, and the party went on a quest to resurrect him. (Which was successful, except that both souls ended up inhabiting his body. Even more hijinks ensued! So many good times in that campaign, my first "serious" campaign!)
Well, I am DMing a campaign with my brothers, and they were in a cave deep underground dungeon, and found a room with an ettin inside. They decided to close the door, where one of the PC's, and artificer, got his mechanical rhino, and cast invisibility on it. The ettin, who heard the sounds of the rhino being expanded (It had a function that contracts it so he can hold it in his bag of holding), and came out, thinking it was... wind. The rhino charged at it, pinning it against the wall, and it was easily destroyed.
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Just a quick disclaimer: My group plays an edition the DM (my father) fondly calls 2.5 edition, it's heavily modified and there are enough house rules to warrant an entirely new manual. Seriously, he built an entire magic system from the ground up just because he could.
Without further ado...
My ranger isn't per say "a badass", he's pretty average in stats and skills. To make up for this fact he has a plethora of nifty magical items; The Boots of Fharlanghn, +3 Studded leather armor, a +3 shield. But the centerpiece of his magical arsenal is definitely his weapon, The Blackrazor. For those of you unfamiliar with this legendary item let me describe it for you. It is a +3 longsword with a blade that resembles a clear night sky, it's also got a pretty gnarly hilt and pommel, but wait till you see its stats.
+3, Int17 ego16, alignment CN
Powers:
- speech & telepathy
- detects living creatures 60'r
- haste 1/day for 10 rounds
- 100% magic resistance to charm and fear - that's old-style MR based on caster level.
When you kill someone, your effective level for combat purposes increased by their hit dice, and you add their base hit points to yours. These bonuses last for a number of turns equal to the number of levels received times ten.
Ego increases by 1 point every three days it doesn't kill someone until it can force the wielder to do so.
To balance all that craziness my DM added a particularly nasty caveat. Every time the sword deals a killing blow the wielder has to roll a percentile based saving throw. If they roll lower than the cumulative amount of levels they've absorbed in that encounter the sword takes them over completely and they go into a frenzied state, attacking anything and everything in sight including allies and innocents. This lasts until the effects of the sword wear off. The sword also makes its wielder favor it over any other weapon so no side chicks. Now that I've got all the background information out of the way I can get to the story.
Our party was hip-deep in the Ravenloft campaign. We were making our way up the mountain to Castle Ravenloft when we were beset by dire wolves. Cool beans! My character, Carter, gets a bonus against all wolves and were-creatures due to his preferred enemy. We dispatch about three of the six wolves and Carter deals the killing blow to the fourth. You'll never guess what happens next. I fumble the percentile check. That's right! And guess who gets a second attack that round: two points for Carter! It may be the DM in my blood, but I just love killing PCs. With the bonuses gained from the Blackrazor's soul draining effect I essentially became a bossfight. The first party member I attacked was one of the thieves, she went under with one unfortunate swing. The rest of the party was too busy fighting the remaining wolves to notice so when I came over and started attacking the dire wolves, (this decision was based off of a random die roll to decide who I was attacking) they thought nothing of it. I killed and absorbed its health making mine effectively 120+. Then I took a swing at the other ranger in the group, Berethor. I missed, but he was rather worse for wear so he decided to get creative with how he attacked me. After deftly moving behind me he grabbed me from under the arms and used his cloak of flight to lift me into the air. We got about forty feet up into the air when I had an idea. A terrible terrible idea.
Using my stolen health as a buffer I plunged the Blackrazor through my chest and into Berethor's, basically making a ranger-kabob. That knocked him out and we both plummeted. While this was happening one of the mages in the group was trying frantically to use an item called the Prison of Zagig on me. When a mage can see a person and says their true name the subject is shrunk down and imprisoned in the small golden birdcage. Sadly for them, however, they fumbled the required check to use the item and ended up trapped in it themselves. Berethor and I hit the ground, he was unconscious from the fall and pretty damn close to death. I, on the other hand, was sitting happily at what my usual max health would be.The remaining party members turned on me and began attacking while the other mage in the group stepped back and tripped over the Prison of Zagig. They freed the other mage and together trapped me in the prison where I ended up spending the rest of the campaign. There was one problem that kept them from releasing me; those who enter the prison of Zagig are kept in a suspended state. They don't need food, water, or sleep. They can't take damage or regain health. All effects remain as they were.
It was by pure luck that no one actually died. I can't wait to transfer This character to 5e, just need to find a group.
"When I finally find a pen I have nothing to say..." ~Some graffiti I found once.
Many Decades ago we had a DM who had running all over the Realms fighting this and that. This was all still 1 edition Advanced D&D. Our party consisted of a Cleric Named Cameran Kalfear. Somehow we managed to find/acquire one of those extremely powerful magic items known as a Helm of Brilliance. This helm had about 96 different gems that when used could cast everything from light to fireballs etc. I don’t remember the exact stats for this thing but it was a little over the top.
We ran into a Death Knight, which thought it was in his best interest to cast his own fireball. We laughed at this because with the amount of fire resistance and hit points this should have been an easy fight for our equally powerful adventuring band of 10 level characters.
So the fireball hits us and we all start rolling our saving throws. Each one of passed these with ease…. That is, all but our cleric who rolled a 1. Saving roll fail equals rolling for a saving throw for your items. One after the other he begins to roll saving rolls for his items. Everything was good till he got to the helm and again another 1 was rolled. We all sat there staring at the 20 sided dice on the table. Our DM began to panic a bit and said due to the gods blah blah the cleric could re-roll and the second number would be the fate of our group. Haha.. What are the odds… I mean really.. WHAM! Another 1!!!
And the story ends with the helm blew up killing them all. We spent the rest of the night calculating the damage of every gem going off and the sheer magical energy expended when it was destroyed. I really miss my gnome........
Ah good times!
JT " You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
I was DM for a 3.5 Campaign. We were down a few of our party members, with our Vampire Ranger, Human Rogue, and Human Psychic Warrior left. Therefore it was a session where they were traveling to take care of a side task or two.
They were traveling by horseback and reached the edge of a null-magic plains that was a blasted wasteland. Due to the inhospitable aura of the land their horses refused to progress, so they tied them to a sturdy bush on the edge of the null-magic region and advanced on foot.
After walking for several hours they noticed that there was a rippling of the earth behind them. The rogue tried to hide himself, but rolled a 1 and so took his cape off and tried to hide by flapping it to create an annoying dust cloud that did not hide them. When a massive Brown Dragon burrowed up and threatened to eat them all they were not happy. Luckily for our party they were quite chatty, and tried to negotiate that if they could provide other food then the dragon would let them live. The Psychic Warrior had a magic item that would generate a large amount of food, which the dragon liked the sound of.
Then the Psychic Warrior mentioned the food would be quite bland. People meat isn't bland so that argument failed them. Next the Ranger noticed a chunk of meat in the dragon's mouth. Turned out that it had found their horses just outside the null-magic field, so the Ranger said no hard feelings about the Dragon eating their horses and they'll just go on their way. This almost worked since Brown Dragons prefer the taste of horse, until the Rogue said that the Dragon should thank them for bringing it their horses.
At this point a fight broke out. In the end the Brown Dragon was dead, both the Psychic Warrior and Rogue were unconscious, and the Ranger was furious. Much resting then ensued, and the Rogue and Psychic Warrior were told not to negotiate in the future.
I'm running LMoP for a group new to 5e players including 2 D&D virgins.
They are in a cave and the cleric decided to cast disguise self to change into a gerblin and scout ahead.
I describe the room me enters and mention there are three gerblins, two of them look up as you enter. The middle gerblin is picking at his ear.
DM: Do you speak gerblin? (I already knew the answer)
Cleric: Umm. No.
DM: The gerblin on the left yells something at you in gerblinese.
Cleric: I point to my ears and shake my head. Like I can't hear them.
DM: The gerblin on the left repeats his gerblinish and starts walking towards you. He doesn't look happy you are making him walk across the room. The right gerblin elbows and ear picker to bring you to his attention.
Cleric: I continue to act like I can't hear them. (Acting out the pointing to ears and shaking head) Does anyone else speak gerblin?
DM: Did anyone else go with you?
Cleric: Didn't you guys follow me?
Fighter: #smile# I saw you change and walk down the hall.
This resulted in the cleric getting captured in a very comical fashion. As soon as he was tackled he remembered gerblins speak common. A round too late.
In our game, characters don't recognise the Great Old One Warlock's telepathy ability as someone talking to them unless he goes out of his way to make it clear. So he can just sort of send ominous whispers into other people's mind and they don't know it's not their own thoughts, though they don't always obey the suggestions (in the same way you'd ignore the voice in the back of your head telling you to push someone off a high ledge when they're standing in front of it).
But the Warlock has a two year old son he only just discovered, and the son has hijacked his Death Dog, which doesn't like the Warlock anymore but loves his son, who loves it in turn. Considering the Warlock is a Neutral Evil Drow, it's led to some questionable parenting...
----
"I don't want to go to the Underdark with you, you big meanie!" Said the child.
Hi! I'm Max the Dog! Said the Warlock. I've learnt how to talk! You should definitely come with us to the Underdark!
----
The boy cuddled the polymorphed druid, in bunny form.
"Talk with Beasts," the Warlock murmured to himself. He's replacing you, Max.
The dog looked around, confused.
He's found a better pet, now. Cuter. Safer. You were better off with your old master. He never left you.
So this story is from the first session I ever dm'd with a group of amateurs. I decided to start things off with the the story of how the party was formed asking the players "so how did yu guys meet?". Three of the players decided that they were all aquainted with each other and had been traveling for the past 2 years. The 4th however decided that they had yet to meet yet, this was the rogue. Instead this player decided that she was going to attempt to pickpocket the weakest looking char which she succeeded in doing. A fun chase seen later the 3 players have the rogue pinned to the ground with a sword at her throat and boot digging into her sternum. Still the rogue refuses to apologize or give back the gold, instead offering only insults.
So im literally a minute away from my players killing one of thier future party members and we havnt even started the mission I had planned!
I did what any quick thinking dm would do, the screen goes black after one of the players saying "so what do we do with her". Then the next scene is the group on the road traveling together a month later with that scene to be revisited in a fun flashback later.
ever since my players continue to throw stuff at me I have no way of preparing for!
So, I now find myself in a 5th edition campaign where money is no longer a problem. As kind of joke my monk began selling Ale imbued with fairy dust and tiefling blood that has the blessing of a goddess. I'm essentially earning 4 or 5 gold everytime a shot of the stuff is sold. It is being sold in seven bars(for now). This also counts as converting people to follow the goddess. I own 45% of the stock, the Necromancer owns 40%, and the Rogue owns 15%. We are also funding two Orphanages(thieves guilds), and an Embassy for the town of Gnil Feit. Which I created on accident while speaking with cloud giants. We are also likely to take ownership of another enterprise, including gambling and what not. We will see. I'm a Monk. I'm not supposed to have money. In one session I spent over 40,000 gold pieces and am left with just over 10,000 gold pieces... I'm playing D&D Civ 5.
Storm Kings Thunder module. We had just returned from the Maelstrom with a wooden coin with a golden goose on it(our next business enterprise). Instead of searching for the source of the coin right off the bat we began our business. Which kind of helped, because when it came time to find a way onto the gambling ship they came to us and invited us to come on the ship.
One time comes to mind... my playing days were ending, sadly. It was my 1st year in college, so approximately 20 years ago, and my roommate and I were an adventuring duo - both Drows since he was into Drizzt at the time. Anyway...
Our DM may have been a bit too lenient with treasure, magical items, so I ended up with these swords: Primary Hand, Sword of Dancing... Off-hand, +4 Defender... +3 Frostbrand in scabbard. I was proficient in Dual-wielding so, good combo. When the situation warranted, I'd swap the Dancing with the Frostbite. However... we found ourselves in a bad conflict.
We were not winning against this one enemy... may have been multiple enemies... very early on, like 2 rounds and we were hurting! Barely alive, the 4th round came and went, my sword started dancing - which was usually times used to heal or do some other action, but we both suddenly had a moment of clarity... he focused on healing me - he was a wizard or cleric - and I drew my Frostbrand.
Now, it was 3 big blades fighting for us! I took that battle and didn't just tip the scales, I shoved them over. Overpowered the enemy(ies) easily.
Probably not unknown by others, but we'd never thought of it. We put away that character, though... considered him a tad cheater.
That moment was great, though!
My favorite has to be when I was playing a low intelligence paladin (as most are due to MAD). He had a tendency to not say things right. Not do the right things. Heart was in the right place but logic wasn't all there. Attacked by a Slaad? No, its a salad, sire. Killer salads.
He has hit walls. That were warded. And it hit back.
He has charged into rooms. Without thinking. And gotten downed in the first couple rounds.
However it all was worth it when they were fighting a creature that looked like it misty stepped away. Feeling like 'Im still swinging at this mist' was in character, he did. Disadvantage to swing blind. He hit, as the creature was trying to trick the group. He bleed. The group followed the trail. Worth it.
It wasn't 'and the world was saved that day' but little things like that? They make the best stories for me.
This was a story that got told to me by my dm but when he was in school his dm had a group he had taken over dm'ing for, join in a dungeon raid but the gear they had made it crazy. One guy (the main atacker) had a ring that made him fire proof, so he took a barrel of oil and just befor combat doused himself lit it on fire and just grappled each foe till it died
This happened about a couple years ago, when my friends and I were getting started in D&D. We decided to try 4e (Easy to begin with, quite videogame-ish...), but we didn't quite understand many of the rules, leading to great misunderstandings.
One of these happened when we were testing witch's curse, and we didn't know that it could not be stacked. So, we go into a mission to kill "something" in the forest, and eventually find a bear that attacks us. It wasn't balanced at all, and we were trying to run away from it because we couldn't kill it. But, however, during the last few turns, both warlocks in the group had managed to curse it a hell load of times, so after (unsuccessfully) trying to escape, my elf ranger (Sid was his name) turns around and uses a twin strike againts it. I have to say that that little f***er was hard to hit, so after failing the first attack roll, I managed to hit it, making all of the accumulated curse dice to damage it, and getting us an overkill of about 100 HP.
This other one time was the end of Sid. He had a wolf called Néstor that was a brother to him. Well, at one point of the adventure, Sid went following another character who happened to split up, and because it was our first game, the DM hadn't given us a lot of money, and we even struggled to EAT at level 3. So, as you can imagine, travelling was very expensive, and Sid decided to serve as a guard for a few merchants who wanted to travel to the same place... Heck, I even paid them. After a few dice rolls to see if I happened to encounter any danger, I finally get unlucky and a group of bandits attacks us. Being me the only guard, I had to fight them alone with Néstor, and we eventually died... Although we put up a good fight, I gotta say.
This might be one of my favorite threads of all-time...
My character was an evil bard. He came into town and the first thing he does is finds a lost child and sends her off into the highly dangerous desert alone. Then he finds her parent who is minding a vegetable cart and tells him that his daughter just ran off into the desert alone. The parent takes off after her, leaving the cart. He then attempts to steal the vegetable cart, but with nothing to carry it, settles for the best vegetables on the cart (10 rations). He then proceeds to the meeting place with the party and finds a bar owner annoyed about a couple acting lovey-dovey in the corner. He casts charm person on the guy and has the guy break up with his girlfriend. The tavern owner is happy that they've left and gives the guy a job playing for the night. He plays and makes money after meeting with the others to discuss the adventure they're going on the next day. That night he winds up getting attacked in the inn by some elves that he had shady dealings with before and winds up losing a nipple in a knife fight and running naked through the streets screaming for help. He winds up sleeping naked under the abandoned vegetable cart (the parent and child never returned).
I love this character and he's saved the party's asses so many times so far this campaign. He recently had his soul almost stolen by demons and didn't under the stipulation that he has to provide the souls of others to replace his own. Right now he needs to take 4 souls to prevent his own from being taken. There are four other party members...
Greetings All...
To try & make a long story very short:
A long time ago, in a campaign far, far, away (1979-ish)...
The party's thief was caught trying to pick-pocket. He was arrested & brought before the town's bailiff. Just as his trial began, a couple of the other party members set fire to one of the temples in town and burst into the trial screaming: "A Red Dragon is attacking! The Church is on fire!". They were followed, immediately, by a towns person crying out: "Hey, they just set the Temple on fire!". In the ensuing havoc and chaos, the party managed to escape. They were followed - but, that's another story.
Although none of those players are still active in my campaign, they all still remember it and we still have great laughs over it.
To this day, the ruins of Trent have never been rebuilt, and the legend of the "dragon attack" grows larger and more fantastic with every telling (BTW: these ruins still exist in my campaign world - which has seen play through D&D 0, 1e, 2e, 3e (and 3.5e), 4e :-( and 5e :- ).
Bill W.
And, then there was the time...
Playing AD&D as teenagers nearly 30 years ago.. My character, a fighter, had this magic sword that was a relic from an ancient king. Legend was that it could cleave dragon fire, that dragons' fiery breath could not harm whoever wielded the weapon. On the road, our party was attacked by a dragon seeking revenge for the death of his son. My character steps up, "I got this, guys!" He holds the sword up as the dragon appears to breathe fire, and gets roasted. He hadn't owned the sword long, and assumed he did something wrong. Meanwhile, I'm looking at our spell caster for some explanation. He's flummoxed. So he gets blasted again, and falls, a smoking corpse.
And that is the story of how I learned that dragons can cast spells. This one had stalked us after we'd killed his son, knew I had this sword. He set up an illusion of himself breathing fire when he was really casting fireball. And our party mage NEARLY guessed that was what was going on after the first blast struck true. He felt terrible that my character bit the dust. But it turned out all right in the end. My fighter's soul was trapped in the sword with the soul of the ancient king, and the party went on a quest to resurrect him. (Which was successful, except that both souls ended up inhabiting his body. Even more hijinks ensued! So many good times in that campaign, my first "serious" campaign!)
thats the most hilarious thing ive ever heard of! but a nice save afterwards with the resurrection
- The Mad Hatter
Well, I am DMing a campaign with my brothers, and they were in a cave deep underground dungeon, and found a room with an ettin inside. They decided to close the door, where one of the PC's, and artificer, got his mechanical rhino, and cast invisibility on it. The ettin, who heard the sounds of the rhino being expanded (It had a function that contracts it so he can hold it in his bag of holding), and came out, thinking it was... wind. The rhino charged at it, pinning it against the wall, and it was easily destroyed.