Jedi mind tricks, smooth talking, and all that jazz.

[Delemental]

In a short-lived FR (3.0) game, one of my fellow players was playing a cleric. She had been very vocally salivating over the Blade Barrier spell, which she was within a level of receiving (remember that this was the version you could cast horizontally, as a sort of area-effecet spell). Finally, she got enough XP to advance, and was eagerly awaiting her first chance to use it.

The first major combat we get into involves an ambush by two illithids, a fiendish minotaur, and his band of bandits. The enemy is spread out everywhere, and there are a number of innocents spread about the area (the 'bandits' are local citizens being mind-controlled) - in other words, any area effects are bad news. It comes to the cleric's turn.

DM: What's your action?
Cleric: I cast Harm on the minotaur.

The minotaur, with 1 hit point left, was dead in the next round.

It was just amusing how the player had managed to inadvertently psych out the DM, since he'd so obviously set up the scene to interfere with Blade Barrier on the assumption it would be the first spell she would use.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

In a short-lived FR (3.0) game, one of my fellow players was playing a cleric. She had been very vocally salivating over the Blade Barrier spell, which she was within a level of receiving (remember that this was the version you could cast horizontally, as a sort of area-effecet spell). Finally, she got enough XP to advance, and was eagerly awaiting her first chance to use it.

The first major combat we get into involves an ambush by two illithids, a fiendish minotaur, and his band of bandits. The enemy is spread out everywhere, and there are a number of innocents spread about the area (the 'bandits' are local citizens being mind-controlled) - in other words, any area effects are bad news. It comes to the cleric's turn.

DM: What's your action?
Cleric: I cast Harm on the minotaur.

The minotaur, with 1 hit point left, was dead in the next round.

It was just amusing how the player had managed to inadvertently psych out the DM, since he'd so obviously set up the scene to interfere with Blade Barrier on the assumption it would be the first spell she would use.

She should have yelled out psyche to the DM after she announced that she was casting Harm.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Bubbalicious]

In our current campaign, our adventuring party had recently acquired an oceanside keep. In choosing rooms, our "reluctant leader" naturally selected the nicest room. He was keeping an artifact in his room (I don't remeber now what) that I wanted occasional access to. He is a Woodsman, and I am a Bard / Rogue. He made a point of saying that I needed his permission to have access to the artifact, to which I responded that if it was in his room, I could pretty much use it whenever I wanted... even if he was in there sleeping at the time. His response wasn't so much to forbid me to enter his room without his permission, but to say that I wouldn't be CAPABLE of doing so.

Skip ahead about 2-3 months (after Christmas and his leave to welcome a new baby to his house), and of course he's forgotten the incident... but I haven't. Over the next several months, every night we spent in our keep, I would go invisible, sneak into his room while he slept, and move everything in the room around. Sometimes I would stack everything in piles on the floor, or surround his bed with sharp objects, or put itching powder in his smallclothes, or any of a number of other annoying, but relatively harmless pranks.

He had no clue.

Unable to figure out what was going on, he asked ME to help him booby-trap his room to try to catch "whatever" was doing this. Of course this just made me redouble my efforts, until one "night" a bad move silently of mine came around (I had pre-rolled a number of checks that the DM was comparing to the other player's nightly listen checks) and the other player rolled a 20 on his listen. After about ten minutes of my dancing around the room, and his trying, in vain, to do me serious bodily harm, I let my invisibility fall and told him it wasn't wise to "dare" me to do things he really didn't want me to do.

 

[Sound of Azure]

Rangerwickett,

congrats on turning this thread into a real topic!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm lying in this post.

 

[Piratecat]

Two games ago, the PCs in my game were tricked into accepting the symbolic rod that bound together the red dragons and the githyanki. They knew that the red dragons possessed it currently, and that if the rod was destroyed the githyanki would no longer be able to call on the red dragons for aid. They also knew that the rod could only be destroyed by a creature that was the enemy of both races bound to it. "Sure, we'll take it!" said the PC githzerai, planning to break it and deprive the githyanki of a powerful ally.

By accepting the rod, the PCs bound every single githzerai into githyanki servitude instead.

Oops.

On the other hand, last night the PCs were fighting a proxy of Maanzecorian, an illithid-beholder cross known as The Devouring Prophet. "Don't let it get that rod!" truthfully shouts the paladin. "It's the most important artifact to the githzerai people!"

And totally suckered by the PCs, the beholder-mindflayer (an enemy of both the githzerai and the githyanki, mind you) disintegrates the rod. Freeing the githzerai from their new bondage. Screwing over the githyanki. And - as per disjunction - robbing the Devouring Prophet of all of its magical abilities in the middle of the fight.

*sniff* It was beautiful.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

You can't have a thread of this nature without The Head of Vecna?... Although this time it's all about the cunning of the PCs setup rather than the results.

That Githzerai/Githyanki solution is excellent - Multiple problems solved with one simple truth. Fantastic!

 

[WayneLigon]

We're adventuring in a desert area and come across an old ruin. Of course, we must investigate, and quickly find ourselves surrounded by Efreets. We are toast. There's no way we can even fight one efreet, much less five of them. The sheik gives them the order to kill us, and my mind is racing to figure out a way out of this.

I remember where we are, what the culture is like, and I know the GM well; he's read much the same literature as I have.

My guy is a pretty charismatic fellow, so he rounds on the efreet sheik.

"What? This is how you show hospitality to guests seeking shelter from the desert? We've brought bread and wine, and this is the reception we get? Apparently the tales of your generosity are false! You shame your house and name!"

The GM grins, as he knows I've read stuff about guest-right and the like, and that this character would know such things (one of his parents being from this area). The efreet sheik raises his hand and stops the others from roasting us, gives us water and food, and demands stories from each of us. It was still a tense encounter since one misstep or slight and they'd have the right to kill us, but I was proud of myself for remembering that bit of trivia

 

[WayneLigon]

On the other hand, last night the PCs were fighting a proxy of Maanzecorian, an illithid-beholder cross known as The Devouring Prophet. "Don't let it get that rod!" truthfully shouts the paladin. "It's the most important artifact to the githzerai people!"

That is beautiful, yes. Good Lord...

 

[shilsen]

In an online game, the PCs are passing through a planar battlefield with a weird magical effect that sometimes teleports them back to the start. Along the way, they run into four tiefling grave robbers, who are apparently powerful worshippers of Wee Jas.

Before battle can begin, my gnome beguiler Kylian steps up to spin a completely made-up tale about how he and his followers are working for the pit fiend involved in taking over the area (he knew there was one), and are supposed to eliminate anyone messing with the battlefield before his lord can harvest all that's there. The tieflings start getting worried, and then the damn teleport kicks in and removes all Kylian's allies, leaving him alone with the four tieflings.

This was my response:

Kylian turns back and grins, only amusement showing in his smile. "Not to worry," he says calmly. "They can take care of themselves. They also tend to be a little ... well, more bloodthirsty than I am, so they wouldn't have been that keen on my preference to not start ripping your heads off immediately. Did you notice my buddy with the metal face? He's just ugly when he's in a foul mood. Saw him rip a succubus's spine out through her ass one time. Still, he - and the others - know better than to cross me, so they won't touch you for the time being. At least not as long as you don't do anything foolish."

He purses his lips as if in thought, and then says, "I should warn you, however, that I can't really control what they do when I'm not around. So, once you get out of the field, move fast, okay? And if you see any of them without me, run like Hell is behind you. It might as well be."

"Wait!" This is said loudly, and then Kylian turns his head slightly, and speaks, as if addressing an invisible speaker. "Yes, master! No, there is no problem here. We've encountered...," his eyes flicker to the group and he gestures for them to be quiet, "...two groups and eliminated them so far. No, we don't need the reinforcements to teleport to me. Yet. Please send them only if I'm hurt. Yes, I know you will. Thank you."

Kylian stares in the same direction for a moment, and then turns back to the woman, with a friendly smile. "Don't worry. He, or they, to be more precise, can't see anything around me when that happens, but can only pick up sound. Lucky for you."

Kylian calmly turns his back on the group, stares up into the sky, and stretches. "Aaah, pretty day, isn't it?" Then he turns around, pulling a wand from his belt, and looks up, as if puzzled, at the woman. "Oh, you're still here?"

Mechanically, the above was a DC 60 Bluff check (he'd just thrown up a Glibness). Completely taken in by his attitude and story, the tieflings skedaddled.