DM's head explodes, film at 11

[Stone Angel]

MY PC's tend to lull me into feeling bad. Everytime I think I made an encounter too hard

"Ok so the frenzied berserker won't PA for 15 this time and the 1/2 demon sorcerress won't hit you with a maximized empowered Horrid Wilting"

And then before you know it the minion is dead and they are ganging up on BBEG.

Head starts to vibrate and shake with much intensity


The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Bigwilly]

Tactics and Notes

If I have the time to detail out NPCs, I use both these tricks. For a while now, I have been trying to highlight SR and other special abilities that I often forget in bold. Recently, especially for casters, I have been adding one or two lines on tactics - anything from kill the mage to: round 1 - cast X, round 2 - do Y, round 3 - etc.

The more detailed casting schemes usually break down at some point, but the BBEG caster did get away as planned in the last session of my homebrew campaign. A couple of lesser bad dudes didn't make it out as planned, although that won't stop at least one of them from coming back, bwuhahaha!

Bigwilly

 

[barsoomcore]

I've taken to duct-taping my head before each game session. It saves on cleaning bills.

 

[francisca]

If I consistently remembered all the tactics my BBEGS are capable of, I'd be TPKing right and left. Fortunately for my players, I have a mind like a sieve.

'tis better to screw up and turn the BBEG into a paper tiger, than mess up the other way and end up with a TPK. (of course, I get to put more skulls on my DM screen with the former....)

 

[Droogie]

Once I was watching a friend roll a reflex save to avoid being blinded by my cleric's shield of blinding. He's a rogue (fighter, really, but got a few rogue levels, and his dex is solid). He expressed his concern that he wouldn't succeed.

I said, "Don't worry. You only need a three."

He rolled a two. Not a one, but still.

Warrior Poet

Ooh, ooh, I've got one.

In the game I was running, the dual-wielding wizard/ranger cast True Strike on his longsword.

Next turn, he steps up, longsword and short sword in hand. He grabs a pair of d20s.

I said, "don't roll a one".

He rolled snake-eyes.

Hilarity ensued.

 

[ajanders]

Good Dice

I was playing a paladin.
The campaign was not going well. When you're a Pelorian paladin and you get roped into a six-month dungeon crawl livened up with the occasional teleportation, you miss the sun. When you get chased from Keoland to White Plume Mountain by an advanced retriever, it's even worse.
And when Iuz starts sucking the entire world down through the Plane of Shadow into the Abyss and has put you and your party on his list of "people to be captured, then robbed, then tortured, then killed, then raised from the dead, then killed some more" a Pelorian paladin just has to look up at where the sun used to be and say: "Thank you, Pelor, for giving me adversity to strengthen my character. Please let any further adversity strengthen the character of the party rogue."
The party is chasing through the Wight Wood when suddenly we find ourselves in Shadow Keoland. Ahead of us, a nightstalker is bearing down on a familiar looking village.

Wizard: We're leaving before that thing spots us.
Paladin: Makes sense.
DM: Spot checks all around.
(Paladin makes high spot DC)
DM: Gellar, you recognize this is your home village.
Pal: Oh man.
DM: The bells of your father's fortress-temple are ringing the alarm. Armored fighters with pikes are boiling out of the fortress doors. Your father's banner is in the van.
Pal: *Sigh*I wheel my mount.
Wiz: How much might I know about nightshades with a Knowledge: Arcana check of 34?
(DM shrugs, hands him the Monster Manual)
Wiz: Right. Good luck with that. I cast expeditious retreat on myself.
Rogue: I snag the gold pieces out of his pack as the paladin goes by.
Druid Player: Here's a blank character sheet.
(Paladin charges Nightstalker, takes 50 point attack of opportunity, makes Fortitude save)
Paladin: I take Hellsmite (+1 holy heavy flail of disruption), use my smite evil, and call on the light of Pelor in my hour of darkest need.
(Roll attack. Hits!)
Pal: Huzzah! Thirty points of damage! Does it look hurt?
DM. It has 140 hit points. It doesn't look that hurt.
Me: It has HOW MANY HIT POINTS?
DM: 140. Less thirty now.
(I start fishing 4d6 out of my dice bag.)
Rog: Well, there goes the light of Pelor.
DM: And now we'll just do the save vs disruption.
(Rolls. For those not familiar with these mechanics, the disruption property requires any undead creature struck with the weapon to make a Fort save DC 14 or be blasted into oblivion. The Nightstalker has a fort save of +7. This isn't good.)
DM: I think the party should see this.
(Moves screen. A bright shiny beautiful 1 is looking up at us.)
DM: The nightstalker explodes into glittering sparkles of incandescent golden light. You hear angelic voices from the sky.
Rogue: I am so converting to Pelor.

 

[Darkness]

DM: And now we'll just do the save vs disruption.
(Rolls. For those not familiar with these mechanics, the disruption property requires any undead creature struck with the weapon to make a Fort save DC 14 or be blasted into oblivion. The Nightstalker has a fort save of +7. This isn't good.)

Were you playing 3.0?

'cause consistent with the mechanics of its prerequisite spell, heal, it's now a Will save in 3.5.

(Obviously, assuming you're playing with the default 1 = auto-miss on attacks and saves rule, it didn't really matter in this case what kind of save it was. But still.)

 

[Beretta]

Fickle are the GDI, and we laugh about saying certain things out loud, such as declarations of imminent victory or success. The GDI are listening.

They are indeed. If you want to guarantee failure in an endeavour that is almost certain to succeed, all that you need to do is preface your (or somebody else's!) roll with the phrase:

"I need anything but a '1'."

Of course, the outcome of the roll will be a '1'!

I too forget NPC abilites, feats, powers etc, so I also resort to using bold and underline to highlight important features. Works quite well.

 

[Fieari]

My players were attacking a Gelatenous Cube just the other day. I use the -10/+10 for 1s/20s method. At an AC of 5, one of my players didn't even have to roll to hit (+16 on his attack). The bard only needed a 2 or higher. He's firing a crossbow at this cube. The cube litterally takes up the ENTIRE corridor (in fact, the entire reason I was throwing a CR3 at my ECL8 party was because this cube was, in fact, acting as the tunnel's structural support and killing it would trigger a cave in, unbeknownst to them at this time). We're talking broadside of the barn here. He's ten feet away from the thing. In order to miss, he'd litterally have to turn 90 degrees and fire down the other corridor.

He rolls a one.

My players and I discussed this for a few moments. We ended up deciding that the only way he could have missed is if one of the other characters attacking the cube accidentally got in the line of fire at that last instant. Roll damage on player 2.

It was a weird night.

 

[Gez]

Were you playing 3.0?

Yes, obviously.

3.0. Nightwalker: 136 hp, Fort save +7.
3.5. Nightwalker: 178 hp, Fort save +11.