Tales From the Table 2010

[Aran Thule]

This all happened a long time ago.
The party were travelling underground and found the route ended in a tall cliff over an underground river.
My thief having the best climb started down with some piton to put in to make the descent easier for everyone else.
As you might have guessed he failed his climb role and started to slip, DM allowed for a dex check to hold on... he failed that as well and started falling towards the river.
The DM then said " At least you will only take half damage as your landing in water" and started to roll, it was then that i remembered that my character had a ring of water walking on... Splat
The party got down the cliff (using a combination of featherfall ring and fly spell) and found the body.
One of his items was a luckblade with 1 wish in it.
"I wish he hadnt fallen off the cliff" the cleric said and suddenly my thief was up on the cliff again very confused.
He then failed his climb roll again and started to slip....
This time he caught a rock to avoid going splat again.

 

[snarez]

In one not-so-serious campaign, a sorceror had a swordfish for a familiar. He was keeping it in a bag of holding full of water. Once, when fighting a group of undead, cleric blessed the water and sorceror was using the fish as a sword, +1 vs undead. Not strictly by the rules, but that DM allowed humorous stuff that didn't change outcomes too much.

How tired players handle locked doors: "I use diplomacy on door". It was hillarious, comments from other players like "Open sesame" or "Excuse me mr. Door, would you mind stepping aside for a moment?"

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

D&D 4e, Norse-themed game. We’re not so much trying to prevent Ragnarok as trying to do as much as we can to save the right bits of the world when it happens. We have a Warforged Cleric of Kord (me), an Eladrin Warlock/Swordmage hybrid, a Gnome Rogue and a Human Paladin of Kord. The group is now at 12th level.

The Gnome Rogue is our primary damage-dealer, and he’s REALLY good at it. However, his defences aren’t that great, so the Paladin has recently been using a power similar to the 3rd Edition “Shield Other” spell – any time the Gnome takes damage, half of it goes to the Paladin. This lasts the whole of the encounter and is working really well in keeping the Gnome alive (much to the chagrin of the DM).

So now you know what’s going on – here’s the story.

We’re fighting werewolves. Lots of them. There’s shapeshifting going on, wolves leaping around, and we’re all thrashing about trying to keep ourselves alive and kill the leader. A few rounds into the combat, and the DM has been asking for Fortitude defences when we’ve been bitten. After a couple of successes on his part, the DM announces that the Gnome has succumbed to bloodlust and will be attacking opponents at random from now on…including the rest of the party. Within another round, the Paladin also succumbs to the same problem.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

On his turn, the Gnome rolls to see who he should attack. The dice come up with…the Paladin. Gleefully, he hurls a shuriken for a few points of damage. On the Paladin’s turn, his dice come up with the Gnome in return. Aware that his only direct route to the Gnome would not only provoke a bunch of opportunity attacks but take him directly through my Blade Barrier, the Paladin elects to use his Sword of Throwing. Chucking it across the room, he smacks the Gnome around the head for about fifteen points.

Laughing wildly, the Gnome player points out that the Paladin has to take half of that damage. The DM, at this point, is cackling to himself, realizing he’s finally found the ultimate weapon to use against us – each other.

Awesome game. Handily, it turns out Warforged aren’t subject to lycanthropy.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

We're getting ready to start a 4Ed campaign, to be run by our group's newest member, if for no other reason than to give the current DM a break. So our 3.5 campaign reached a convenient stopping point...

My current PC in this campaign- the previous one having been voluntarily retired to give the party some healing we lost when 2 players left- was doing his job. A Clc of Obad-Hai/Sorc/MT/Geomancer, he buffed, summoned and healed. Occasionally, he actually swung his sickle or staff. Since the DM likes a "poor" party, my new PC had very little magic equipment- a +2 sickle, a +2 buckler and not much else. I got in the habit of looking to the character's feats & spells instead of his gear.

We had to kill a lot of Salamanders...and Fire Elementals and so forth. We had a few VERY close calls, but we eventually prevailed.

So we were divvying up the treasure, and my PC has been awarded a couple of wands...and that's when I found a Wand of Ice Storms w/14 charges in my equipment list.

I cannot repeat the contents of several of the emails I got after that revelation...though I was able to point out similar incidents that had happened with others.

 

[weem]

I quickly forget the best ones, but my players, during their last encounter, ended up being completely spread out, attacking different creatures... it was a mess.

At one point, the ranger was facing off against another archer at pretty close range. The Ranger was down to 14 HP (this was level 9) and had no means left to heal himself (others who could help were too far away). His enemy was also low on HP... but neither could hit the other.

This went a few rounds with each of them continuing to miss etc.

Finally, the Ranger hit and killed the archer.

When it came back to his turn, he turned to shoot at the next living enemy which happened to be pretty far away... and he rolled a 20!

We joked for the rest of the night that he was farsighted... if you get too close to him, you became a blur, but at a distance you were clear as day

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another tale from the same party as my previous post:

We have 2 monks in our party. So far, both of them have found they possess the uncanny ability to roll "1s" at highly inopportune moments, resulting in utterly anti-climactic and non-cinematic actions.

The gnome monk, mentioned elsewhere as the Killer of Umberhulks (which is only marginally true- he did the last 2hp of damage to one after my PC fell unconscious) had repeatedly rolled critical failures on tumble rolls.

However, not to be outdone, the human monk rolled a 1 doing a Jump in an attempt to go up a wall after a Beholder...

But where that monk's 1s show up in droves is in his Flurry of Blows. Over the past 3 combats, he managed to roll a 1 for the damage on every one of the final successful blows in his flurries. Hit once with FoB, he rolls a 1 on damage. Hit 2 times, the second one was a 1. Score 3 hits, and #3 comes up 1. He even did this with a Crit.

We have started calling this maneuver both The Ear-flick of Doom or The Purple Nurple.

 

[Evilhalfling]

We were trying to break into an estate owned by a Dragonborn Clan.
the party not being stealthy tried to use diplomacy, in a low RP game.
The Bard crits the skill check and with aid from other players and powers, announces the total as 42.
as the guards escort us to our destination...

"can I get sandwiches with that?" [they were delicious]

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You should have asked for a HELICOPTER!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Tonight, one guy's tongue betrayed him time and time again...as it has done before.

Last year, he couldn't say "Water Elemental", instead saying "Watermelon Ental." All. Damn. Night.

Tonight, it was his own 4Ed Elf Ranger that was giving him fits, as he used his "Elvis Accuracy" to ensure the success of his "Hunter's Query."

The impressions we all started doing of Elvis asking our foes questions were eye-wateringly hilarious.

But we had another source of jocularity. The party's OTHER Ranger- a Beastmaster- had a pet panther. Said kitty could not make a simple athletics roll to get up a 10' wall his PC companion had scaled the first time. Multiple times. As in, not for the entire combat.

Comparisons to Puss 'n' Boots from Shrek 4 started quickly.

 

[coyote6]

I was GMing GURPS once, many moons ago, and the PCs were investigating . . . something. I don't even remember which campaign it was any more, just that it was late, both in game and in real life. Something disturbed the neighborhood dogs, or the supernatural pack began to hunt, or both. So I describe to the players, "You hear bogs darking."

It still gets mentioned.

In my defense, bogs can be really dark. Right?