Craziest combat move by a PC

[brehobit]

5th level party fighting a bunch of mooks and a strafing (medium) dragon. The swordsage/barbarian has climbed to the top of a tower. He readies and action to "tackle the dragon out of the air when it flies by". Given the situation, it pretty much has to fly-by the tower to use it's breath weapon. He jumps, hits, wins the grapple (I forgot the AoO from the dragon, but there you go) and pulls the dragon out of the sky and both take falling damage. I rule (mainly because of the forgotten AoO) that both are prone but the landing knocked them apart. The dragon gets a single attack off then dies...

What's the craziest/oddest move you've seen a PC try to pull off in a fight?

Mark

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

The good old "fastball special" has come up twice in my campaigns, with two totally different groups, indepenent of eachother.

The first was a minotaur PC tossing the less-than-sane half-elf thief (2nd ed) at the enemy, daggers extended. The second was the human/blue half-dragon tossing the elf/red half-dragon at the enemy, claws extended. The throw fell short on the second occassion, so Red, who landed prone at the enemy's feet, simply took a bite out of him after sitting up (putting her at just the right angle to make him an exceedingly short-lived eunuch).

Another half-dragon occassion had Red riding a centaur/half-red dragon (another PC) who did a flying bull rush into the cave wall against the green dragon they were fighting. Red then attempted to rain great-axe destruction down upon the green dragon, only to roll a 1. The group had said, en masse, "Don't roll a 1!" Since the three were a falling tangled mess at that point, I ruled that she needed to make another attack roll to see if she accidentally hit the centaur. Again, the group said, en masse, "Don't roll a 20!" She rolled a 20. Dead centaur.

During Heart of Nightfang Spire (Spoilers), the ogre character became supremely frustrated with Gulthias flying about willy-nilly, unleashing spells. So the ogre climbs the wall and attempts a jumping grapple. Rolls well enough to pull it off, drags the vampire down to the ground and the rest of the party proceeds to pulverize said spellslinging vampire. The same adventure was also the only occassion where the big bad ogre could be heard to say "eep!" when faced with energy draining attacks.

I'm sure there's more, I just can't think of them right now.

Quentin

 

[FnordBear]

Playing a Human psychic warrior in a Dark Sun game. We came upon some magera(kinda like psionic ogres) trying to capture humans for slaves. Now we were outnumber almost 2-1 and we were at a level where a single Magera can be a tough fight but 10 was out of the question and they had hostages.

My character tried to sneak up unoticed on them however on magera decided to be difficult and roll a natural 20 on a spot check. Spoted he came out in the open and challenged the leader of the Magera to single combat.

Now the Dm chuckeld at this because 1-on-1 my character is no match for this Magera. We walked out on to a rope bridge stradleing a small canyon near the Magera, drew our baldes and rolled initiative.

I had him fight for two rounds (getting in an impressive crit to boot and possibly evening the odds) then I got creative. Doing "That which the DM does not expect" one his next attack he gives a flipant salute with the blade of his sword and says in his best "Shortround" voice "Hang on ugly, you goin for a ride!" and proceedes to hack the support ropes for the bridge dropping it and the Magera leader in to the canyon. Oh and the psychic warrior? Well having a powerstone with the psionic levitate in it can really help in these situations.

 

[Clueless]

We were in an arena battle - and the center of the arena was filled with a tiny village, and a few towers full of little trinkets, toys and equipement for opposing parties to pick up and use against each other. I was playing a cleric of Set, and my team won the coin flip to go in first...

The GM even went to all the trouble to announce our opponents by name, and rank as they came trooping out of the gate on the far side of the arena. They posed ever so nicely so the spotlight could hit them and of course - as I was playing a cleric of Set - I called 'dibs' on their cleric.

The look on the GM's face was priceless, when he finished the introductions of 'the Grand Champions of Soemthing-or-other' and I smiled ever so sweetly and said : "Held action, domain spell True Strike."

"On what?"

"On the ballista we've got in this tower ... What's the AC on your cleric?"

My only other really good story really isn't a combat manuver cause well... there was nothing to combat by the end of it: My favorite spell is prismatic wall. Because ships don't have brakes.

 

[Nifft]

Human Paladin/Monk grapples a Vrock (one of three who were about to precipitate a Dance of Ruin).

Grapples a Vrock and wins.

-- N

 

[shilsen]

The PC group (including my dwarven PC) ended up in a cavern with an ancient white dragon whom we had absolutely no chance of beating. So my dwarf yelled insults at the dragon till it swallowed him, just as he'd planned. He promptly triggered the Daern's Instant Fortress he'd readied, killing himself and the dragon instantly.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Here's another one I just remembered...

From Sunless Citadel (Spoilers).

Players finally make it into the sarcophagus chamber holding the "Dragonpriest" troll. Not knowing what was in the sarcophagus, they, being player characters, pry off the lid.

I describe this horrific, malformed, twisted up creature about to rise up and attack. One member of the group promptly tosses the Quaal's Feather Token-Tree they'd gotten from the kobolds into the sarcophagus. Instant tree = instant stuck troll, regenerating around a tree trunk through the chest.

It also meant they couldn't get to the goodies in the sarcophagus...but that was ok with them.

Quentin

 

[Darklone]

The PC group (including my dwarven PC) ended up in a cavern with an ancient white dragon whom we had absolutely no chance of beating. So my dwarf yelled insults at the dragon till it swallowed him, just as he'd planned. He promptly triggered the Daern's Instant Fortress he'd readied, killing himself and the dragon instantly.

Good luck... the last dwarf PC who insulted a dragon in my game didn't survive the breath attack.

Apart from the short story in my sig where two PC clerics without spells attacked two fully buffed assassins with two levels more?

Fighter PC jumping down to a battlefield from the flying carpet of the groups mage... landing on a black dragon, critical hit, confirmed, dragon dead.

Dwarven fighter in forge of fury (scaled up for higher level) blocks a horde of orcs plus ogre to help his buddies escape... they leave him behind (too slow anyhow) and run. Somehow they miss the right way out and get stuck between two other groups of orcs... 15 rounds later, the "self-sacrificing" dwarf shows up, waves around the ogres head and singlehandedly slays one of the orc groups besieging his buddies. Great Cleave plus more criticals I've ever seen.

Halfling druid riding on his cheetah around the battlefield calling down lightnings while several enemies tried to catch up. It had a slapstick feeling... everyone runs to the left... everyone runs to the right...

My bardy multiclass crime with close to 0 hitpoints tumbling into flanking position with Rage and Bards song to get in a sneak attack, scoring a critical hit (scimitar) that dispatched the fighter that gave our cleric a hard time... soon later falling unconscious right next to our cure machine. After this happened the second time, the cleric started to call it my "knockout charge".

 

[Hypersmurf]

Fighter PC jumping down to a battlefield from the flying carpet of the groups mage... landing on a black dragon, critical hit, confirmed, dragon dead.

Heh. We were only about 3rd level. The white dragon was a little one, but still, dragon!

For some reason, the half-orc paladin was being played... cautiously. I don't think the player was very confident, and the result was that the PC came off as a wuss.

The paladin and the dwarf ranger had climbed a rope to the top of the ice cliff to engage the dragon in melee... at which point the dragon scuttled down the cliff to the river at the foot. Not far from the vulnerable spellcasters.

We all sat the player of the paladin down and laid it out for him.

"You're a paladin. Fearless. That dragon is directly below you. You swan-dive off that cliff, sword first, and land on the dragon. It'll be awesome. It'll be a campaign-defining moment. You may save the rest of the party. You may become a dragon-slayer. Campaign-defining moment."

"I..."
"Do it."
"... uh..."
"Campaign-defining moment."
"... I climb down the rope."

We all groaned, and the DM continued.

"And the ranger?"
"Hell, I'm diving off the cliff at the dragon!"

Unfortunately, he tanked his Jump check and made a natural 1 on the attack roll, so it wasn't awesome after all.

(Incidentally, that paladin continued to be lame until the session the player couldn't attend; we generally run PCs of absent players by committee. The paladin ditched his shield, swapped his longsword for the magic greatsword we recently acquired, and started Power Attacking. He saved the party by going toe-to-toe with a Bearded Devil, whose DR none of the rest of us could scratch - he went unconscious three times in that fight (being healed by the cleric's last remaining cure spells), the last resulting from an attack-from-prone while disabled (dropping him from 0 to -1) that finally finished the Devil off. It was a shame that the only time the paladin was an effective member of the party was when the player wasn't there )

-Hyp.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Does it have to be strictly combat?

Anyway, My characters have a knack to get other people to dive into water, fully armoured.

First time, it was my elven rogue during a fight on a ship. He just told one of the enemies to go take a cool, refreshing bath, the best thing to do in this heat, and the guy did it (of course, he was actually a fey'ri assassin who could do suggestion as a spell-like ability - meaning no verbal or somatic components beyond the suggestion itself). Freaked out the other party members, who had no idea that their elf collegue wasn't your average run-of-the-mill elf.

The second time, it was not my character with the spell-like suggestion. It was me. Another boat-ride (river this time), and a pyrohydra attacks the ship. After we talked the dwarf out of jumping on the thing to attack it (typical dwarf with full plate and everything, played by a RRPG newblood). So we beat the thing, and I say, jokingly: "Hey, dwarf, why don't you just jump in and look for treasure?" And he just goes "Okay" and does it.

I've been feared for my headology ever since


Another fun time was us interrogating a Red Wizard. He plays heroic, saying "Kill me, and you'll never gain the knowledge you so gravely need!" And my character deadpans "She's a cleric, she can Speak with Dead." That got him singing like a nightingale.

There's also the usual "summon big freakin' whale to smash up a bridge" (a small flower pot was summoned alongside, don't know why ).

Does spreading your dark wings, showing your glowing eyes, and telling some bloke that you're the Angel of Death, and that his name is on the top of your list, count? Because he did definetly not fight after that.


I also remember dropping the bad-ass supremist "I'm so great" ranger NPC who was so annoying, with a single stroke. It went like this:
DM: "You hear a familiar voice behind you: 'You have crossed us once too often!' As you turn around, you see the ranger with the bow pointed at you.'
Me: "Ini?"
DM: "Sure, he's on 23"
Me: "31"
DM: "What?"
Me: "That's right. I fly there and do my (whatever swordsage maneuver was hip at the time), does a... oooooh, natural 20, and a 17 to boot. Does that hit?"
DM: "Yes"
Me: "Crit! With the extra damage from my strike, the insightful strike, and the sneak attack, it all adds up to..... 101 points of damage."
DM: "..."
DM: "..."
DM: "... he's dead."
Me: "Alright."
DM: "He can't be dead! He's level 17!"
Me: "What's he doing on level 17 with 101 HP?"
DM: "Well... bleeding, it seems."


Another story from my Fey'ri (same character, different campaign): The guys he was touring with contained one tiefling wizard, follower of Talos. Well, when I say follower, I mean most favourite soul in all the Realms, as far as Talos was concerned. I think Talos got aroused each time he watched this guy. So much destruction. It was the best character for that player to play, becuase he could stop pretending to be someone else

Anyway, one fight the (spell-)trigger happy wizard smokes out some alley with cloudkill - only my character was in there (not that the wizard cared too much). One quick dimension door later finds my assassin on the rooftop, caughing his lungs out.

The next thing he did was see the wizard standing at the end of the alley, grinning like a maniac, and ring-of-the-rammed him in the nads. With sneak attack. He had the voice of an aasimar for a couple of days, but he learned not to peter off demon-blooded elves who were good at hitting places where it hurts.

Since we're talking about that wizard: He had a familiar. Well, not really. He only thought it was his familiar. It wasn't. He thougth it was a quasit. It wasn't. It was an imp telepath (another PC) who would plant psionic suggestions and mind messing into his "master"'s head all the time. The wizard eventually catched a whiff of rodent, and we thought he'd fry the quasit/imp. He didn't.

So the campaign's practically over, the DM tells us what course our future will take, when the following conversation took place:

DM: "..And finally, your Imp will turn into a pit fiend who will have a whole nation as his mind-thrall and..
Wizard: "So it's over? I power-word-kill my "familiar."
Familiar: "WHAT?"
Wizard: "Surely you have less than 100 hp."
Familiar: "I erect my defenses, I now have Spell Resistance against mind magic.
Wizard: "How much?"
Familiar: "24"
Wizard: "Don't even have to roll, bye bye."
Familiar: "You guys will raise my character again, right? He's to become a pit fiend!"
Me: "I spit on the devil corpse. Filthy order-spawn. I say we let the little bugger rot right there"
Everyone: "Alright!"
Familiar: "Damn!. I was so close to true power."
Wizard: "Well, level adjustment's a killer."