Crazy Combat

[Kemrain]

We've all seen it. Someone pulling off a crazy combat maneuver or fighting in a way no one would have expected. Using Air Walk in combat to get higher ground, or using jump, tumble and spring attack to hit an opponent from the space above theirs and continue down (Ala Prince of Persia). Drow levitating up to stalagtites and dropping down with darkness flying, or a vampire spiderclimbing up above a doorway to grab and grapple a PC as they sneak through. A flying PC grabbing a badguy and grappling them so they can ride them to the ground, pulling up at the last instant possible. What sort of crazy thigns have you seen PC's or monsters do in your DnD games? What sorts of things have you done that have made the others go "Wow!"?

- Kemrain the Krazy!

 

[freebfrost]

I had a campaign based on Necromancer's Orcus series of adventures. At one point, the party was being attacked by a Hezrou demon - at the time, it was a very challenging encounter for their level.

Anyways, the Hezrou was wreaking havoc on the party and they were being forced to give ground to it. IMC, cold iron was always effective against demons, but only one character had cold iron weapons. They did have a cold iron chain though...

So the party's pirate/rogue declares that she wants to leap on the Hezrou's back and choke it out with the chain!

I'm like, "Ok - but you'll need to make a jump check to get high enough, a grapple check, and make an opposed grapple with the demon." Figuring there is no way she'll be able to pull this one off.

Rolls a nat 20 on the jump, makes the grapple check, and the Hezrou rolls a 1 for its grapple roll. So she's on its back choking it out while it desperately tried to figure out just what the heck it had gotten itself into!

Priceless.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

This was back in a 2nd edition game, in the very first or second session of a long campaign. Jalea, the party thief (2E, remember), was in a formal ball which was going to hell due to a powerful psychotic drug having been added to the food supply. He saw the bad guys, but he was below him, and Jalea was on the balcony.

He loaded his crossbow, lept to the chandelier, swung on it, dropped to the floor, and fired his crossbow at the bad guy.

I'm figuring this is going to take a hell of a Dex check. The player rolls a natural 1 on his dex check (remember rolling under is good for that in 2E). He executes the reload/jump/swing/land part of his move perfectly.

He then rolls a natural 1 on his attack roll, firing his crossbow directly into the ceiling above.

It set a long precedent of Jalea following spectacular moves with utter failure that lasted for ten years.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

The craziest thing I ever saw was when a lone PC faced off against a red dragon. He shot an arrow with a line of rope attached to it at the dragon and then proceeded to fight the dragon like a very mean tetherball. He won, too.

Utterly absurd and probably against the laws of physics, but it's one of the in-game incidents that we still talk about to this day.

 

[werk]

I had a campaign based on Necromancer's Orcus series of adventures. At one point, the party was being attacked by a Hezrou demon - at the time, it was a very challenging encounter for their level.

Anyways, the Hezrou was wreaking havoc on the party and they were being forced to give ground to it. IMC, cold iron was always effective against demons, but only one character had cold iron weapons. They did have a cold iron chain though...

So the party's pirate/rogue declares that she wants to leap on the Hezrou's back and choke it out with the chain!

I'm like, "Ok - but you'll need to make a jump check to get high enough, a grapple check, and make an opposed grapple with the demon." Figuring there is no way she'll be able to pull this one off.

Rolls a nat 20 on the jump, makes the grapple check, and the Hezrou rolls a 1 for its grapple roll. So she's on its back choking it out while it desperately tried to figure out just what the heck it had gotten itself into!

Priceless.

True outsiders do not breathe.

 

[Voadam]

I like using disintegrate for non-damaging effects.

Like zapping the ground beneath a tombstone golem fighting our dwarf fighter. The golem falls 10' and provokes an AoO from the power attacking high level dwarf who smashes it to pieces with his adamantine hammer.

Or our paladin pinpointing the evil of a dreadwight hiding in a wall so I disintegrate the wall so the arcane trickster (drained to 1 hp after con loss) can do a readied action magic missile to finish it off.

 

[demiurge1138]

One of my favorite crazy combats happened in an air pocket on the Elemental Plane of Earth. The party's fighter was being lowered into a chasm on a rope (in order to mine more ground, of course), and his activity awoke a behir with its lair below. The behir climbed up and swallowed him in one fell swoop, with the rest of the party still holding the rope he was being lowered on.

The rest of the combat acted much like fishing, with most of the party trying to pull the behir up by the rope in its throat, and the wilder using mind thrusts on the behir to try and kill it. After the second blast and a natural 1 on the Climb check, the behir plunged to its death, leaving an unconcious and slime-covered fighter still dangling.

Demiurge out.

 

[sfedi]

Most of the party was in a pit.

And a goblin archer was 10 ft above, firing with impunity.

A Player Readies to help another climb.
The other player, a Druid, climbs, jumps to reach the goblin, grapples him and...
let's himself drop!
Bringing down the goblin with him.

What happened to this goblin in that pit full of 4 very angry PCs was not pretty. At all.

 

[sniffles]

The party was on the roof of a building that had been set into a cliff face, so the cliff overhang formed a second "roof" over the building. Our halfling warlock spider-climbed up to the rock roof and started eldritch blasting our opponents from overhead.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Had a 2.0 ninja in one group (that no one liked) that decided he would combat the blue dragon by spider-climbing up the wall and ceiling, then dropping onto the dragon's back with both short swords in the stabbing position.

1) He didn't ask how high the ceiling was - 100'.
2) He forgot about that pesky to-hit roll.

The dragon took a short step to the right, and the ninja spread himself neatly across the cavern floor.