Stacie GmrGrl
Adventurer
I also played a Chaotic Evil Shifter that got along with the Paladin party member because she was smart enough to not do anything stupid in front of the Paladin. 
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Has your character ever surprised you?
- Thread starter Olaf the Stout
- Start date
Desh-Rae-Halra
Explorer
Razjah,
I never placed it anywhere online. I had hoped to add to rpgstudies.net,but that site had not been active.
~Desh
I never placed it anywhere online. I had hoped to add to rpgstudies.net,but that site had not been active.
~Desh
Razjah
Explorer
That's too bad, it sounded really cool.
On topic, my kobold bard and squid humanoid thing (I don't know what race this PC is) alchemist had a great in-character argument with the cleric. We wanted to use the drow captain of a spell jammer for the Create Treasure Map spell. The cleric decided this was desecrating the bodies and evil. There was a big (in character only) argument about how the spell was allowed to be used on a dragon, but now that the drow is humanoid it isn't allowed; somehow body shape determines alignment more than behavior. As the cleric got more worked up in the argument it became a stance of "I think this is wrong and won't allow you to do it" vs "It is not wrong, if you object walk away." I didn't think Squizzles would care that much, but being told that he couldn't cast a spell on a slain enemy was an interesting debate.
The guy playing the cleric has decided she will leave the group as this is no where near the first fight about her disliking the group's actions. He plans to play a psionicist once our current mission is over.
On topic, my kobold bard and squid humanoid thing (I don't know what race this PC is) alchemist had a great in-character argument with the cleric. We wanted to use the drow captain of a spell jammer for the Create Treasure Map spell. The cleric decided this was desecrating the bodies and evil. There was a big (in character only) argument about how the spell was allowed to be used on a dragon, but now that the drow is humanoid it isn't allowed; somehow body shape determines alignment more than behavior. As the cleric got more worked up in the argument it became a stance of "I think this is wrong and won't allow you to do it" vs "It is not wrong, if you object walk away." I didn't think Squizzles would care that much, but being told that he couldn't cast a spell on a slain enemy was an interesting debate.
The guy playing the cleric has decided she will leave the group as this is no where near the first fight about her disliking the group's actions. He plans to play a psionicist once our current mission is over.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
That's a Mind Flayer. RUN!!
Olaf the Stout
Hero
Last session I had another situation where my PC surprised me. We’re currently playing through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. The party had gone through a portal and had to travel about 500 feet along a narrow path in some strange demi-plane to reach another portal that will take them to the Outer Fane of the temple. As we go along we are attacked by elementals.
Killing the elementals only results in them reforming into larger elementals. However, the Frenzied Bezerker Barbarian PC goes into a frenzy and he refuses to stop attacking the elementals, despite the obvious futility in doing so.
To make matters worse, Dinky (my Gnome Wizard PC) finds out the hard way that getting within 150ft of the portal at the other end of the path causes you to be zapped by 2 Lightning Bolts, which deal 10d8 damage each! To top it all off, a dozen spider eaters fly out to attack the party. The spider eaters don’t do much damage, but their attacks poisons you and failing the secondary poison save causes you to be paralysed for weeks (yes weeks!).
Everyone in the party except for Dinky and the Barbarian make it to a safe spot near the portal thanks to some good Relfex saves and the Druid PC summoning some giant eagles to transport the PCs. The Barbarian PC still refuses to stop fighting, and will soon be dead if he isn’t forcibly taken out of combat.
Dinky can make it to the safe spot with the rest of the party in 1 round thanks to Fly and Haste. However, before he can act, a barrage of attacks from both the elementals and Spider Eaters reduce him to 30-odd hit points, not enough to survive another hit from the Lightning Bolts.
At this point I was madly scrambling through my character sheet and spell list, trying to find some way for Dinky to make it out this combat alive. I discovered I had memorised Benign Transposition. The spell allows the caster to swap the places of 2 willing creatures, one of which could be the caster. I was just within range of the summoned Giant Eagles, so I could swap places with one of them and Dinky would be safe.
So the easy way out was for Dinky to cast Benign Transposition on himself with his next action and leave the Barbarian to die. The Barbarian was the one who had gotten the party into this mess in the first place by continuing to attack the elementals and Dinky was still mad at him for killing the Rogue in a frenzy (see OP) the day before.
Instead, Dinky again surprised me by deciding to risk his life to try and save the Barbarian. I saw that I had Baleful Transposition memorised in addition to Benign Transposition. It does the same thing as Benign Transposition, but works on unwilling creatures (if they fail their save). I’d learnt in a previous combat that casting Benign Transposition on the Barbarian wouldn’t work if he was in combat (as he refused to allow himself to be taken out of combat).
The problem was that the only way to save both himself and the Barbarian meant casting Baleful Transposition on the Barbarian first, hoping that the Barbarian failed his save (only a 60% chance), somehow survive half a dozen attacks from the elementals and Spider Eaters and then cast Benign Transposition on himself.
As a player I was kicking myself. It was unlikely that Dinky would have enough hit points to survive another round of attacks, and it could all be for nought if the Barbarian passed his Will save and negated the Baleful Transposition spell. At the same time, I knew it was definitely what Dinky would. The main reason he was in the Temple of Elemental Evil in the first place was to try and rescue his brother. So he would not want to leave the Barbarian behind if there was still a chance that he could save him, even if it meant risking his own life to do so.
Thankfully it all worked out. As it happened, the Barbarian was taken into the negatives before Dinky could cast the spell on him. This knocked the Barbarian unconscious and meant he failed his save. Dinky then somehow managed to survive all of the attacks the following round and was able to cast the second spell off to save himself. So the day was saved, but only just!
I think Dinky will be having another word with the Barbarian next session though.
Killing the elementals only results in them reforming into larger elementals. However, the Frenzied Bezerker Barbarian PC goes into a frenzy and he refuses to stop attacking the elementals, despite the obvious futility in doing so.
To make matters worse, Dinky (my Gnome Wizard PC) finds out the hard way that getting within 150ft of the portal at the other end of the path causes you to be zapped by 2 Lightning Bolts, which deal 10d8 damage each! To top it all off, a dozen spider eaters fly out to attack the party. The spider eaters don’t do much damage, but their attacks poisons you and failing the secondary poison save causes you to be paralysed for weeks (yes weeks!).
Everyone in the party except for Dinky and the Barbarian make it to a safe spot near the portal thanks to some good Relfex saves and the Druid PC summoning some giant eagles to transport the PCs. The Barbarian PC still refuses to stop fighting, and will soon be dead if he isn’t forcibly taken out of combat.
Dinky can make it to the safe spot with the rest of the party in 1 round thanks to Fly and Haste. However, before he can act, a barrage of attacks from both the elementals and Spider Eaters reduce him to 30-odd hit points, not enough to survive another hit from the Lightning Bolts.
At this point I was madly scrambling through my character sheet and spell list, trying to find some way for Dinky to make it out this combat alive. I discovered I had memorised Benign Transposition. The spell allows the caster to swap the places of 2 willing creatures, one of which could be the caster. I was just within range of the summoned Giant Eagles, so I could swap places with one of them and Dinky would be safe.
So the easy way out was for Dinky to cast Benign Transposition on himself with his next action and leave the Barbarian to die. The Barbarian was the one who had gotten the party into this mess in the first place by continuing to attack the elementals and Dinky was still mad at him for killing the Rogue in a frenzy (see OP) the day before.
Instead, Dinky again surprised me by deciding to risk his life to try and save the Barbarian. I saw that I had Baleful Transposition memorised in addition to Benign Transposition. It does the same thing as Benign Transposition, but works on unwilling creatures (if they fail their save). I’d learnt in a previous combat that casting Benign Transposition on the Barbarian wouldn’t work if he was in combat (as he refused to allow himself to be taken out of combat).
The problem was that the only way to save both himself and the Barbarian meant casting Baleful Transposition on the Barbarian first, hoping that the Barbarian failed his save (only a 60% chance), somehow survive half a dozen attacks from the elementals and Spider Eaters and then cast Benign Transposition on himself.
As a player I was kicking myself. It was unlikely that Dinky would have enough hit points to survive another round of attacks, and it could all be for nought if the Barbarian passed his Will save and negated the Baleful Transposition spell. At the same time, I knew it was definitely what Dinky would. The main reason he was in the Temple of Elemental Evil in the first place was to try and rescue his brother. So he would not want to leave the Barbarian behind if there was still a chance that he could save him, even if it meant risking his own life to do so.
Thankfully it all worked out. As it happened, the Barbarian was taken into the negatives before Dinky could cast the spell on him. This knocked the Barbarian unconscious and meant he failed his save. Dinky then somehow managed to survive all of the attacks the following round and was able to cast the second spell off to save himself. So the day was saved, but only just!
I think Dinky will be having another word with the Barbarian next session though.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
It seems to me that Dinky the Wizard needs his own animated show on TV.
Olaf the Stout
Hero
I normally DM (first time playing a PC instead of DMing in 8 years), so it's been fun to focus my attention on a single character for a good chunk of time. That said, I've probably only had 2 other times that my PC has surprised me in their actions. In both those case neither of those characters felt as deep and fleshed out as Dinky. That's probably just an indication that I'm a bit more mature as a roleplayer now compared to my late teens/early 20's.
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