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

[lukelightning]

In the session I just played in, we needed to get invitations to a party. So we go to the people in charge of distributing the invites and my surprisingly-well-versed-in-social-skills mage says in his best hoity-toity voice "I'm here to pick up my tickets and of course he wasn't on the list. No problem. Glancing at the list of names he sees someone named Smedley who hasn't picked up his tickets and says "I had arranged for my servant Smedley to pick them up, but because of his laziness we fired him..." Bluff check of 23, we were the proud owner of 5 tickets to the Grand Ball.

 

[dog45]

I convinced a town to hang their priest. And destroy his temple.

Two weeks ago, I'm playing a Warlock/Cleric of Hextor with a semi-evil party. (Like the diet coke of evil). We clear out this castle that was infested with bad guys, clear out the gem mine next to it, and the neighboring town lets us keep the castle and mine as our reward.

Cool. We hire a foreman and tell him to gather all the townspeople that want to work in the mine at the town square tomorrow. We're going to open the mine and rejuvenate this depressed and dead town. There's a problem though - the towns Cleric of Pelor has discovered that one of our players character is a werewolf, and sends his lackey to have him killed. Of course we capture the would be assassin and question him. I form a brilliant plan to remove the priest and proceed to cut out the lackeys tongue.

Before the meeting the next day I grab a tome of demons from the captured castle, warn the mayor about a conspiracy i've uncovered, convince the magistrate to have guards on hand at the meeting, and bluff the priest into coming to the meeting. I told him the mayor was going to give him a special comendation for healing some of the people we saved from the mine.

After the foreman describes the job and people start lining up, I interrupt and motion for the priest to come forward to receive his reward. I give the signal to the magistrate, and he has his guards bind the priest. I go into my speech about how the priest was actually behind the evil in the castle and mine, that he was summoning demons to do his work (show the magistrate the book on demons), that he knew we discovered his plans and sent his minion to kill us. I present his lackey, and explain that he cut out his own tongue before we could subdue him. (now the lackey cant argue otherwise).

After the tremendous good we've done for the town (clear out castle and mine, give jobs to people), they are ready to believe anything, and the people cry out for the priests blood. The magistrate hangs him on the spot, the people mob over to the temple and destroy it, and the mayor pats us on the back.


Not a bad days work.

 

[Rackhir]

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.

Sounds like a cool campaign, you should start a story hour for it.

So did the IB disintigrate the rod or disjoin it?

 

[Piratecat]

So did the IB disintigrate the rod or disjoin it?

Disintegrated it -- we adopted the disjunction/artifact rules for any artifact destruction. Man, the look on the poor thing's face when his levitation failed and he bounced off the floor...

 

[Wilphe]

Does a beholder have a face, or are they all face?

 

[Dykstrav]

Wow... I could do entire pages on how my characters have either smooth-talked or otherwise wheedled their way out of situations. For brevity's sake I'll leave out my Vampire experiences for now.

I played a wizard in a 3.0 Greyhawk game a few years back, Lekinvahr, who focused on enchantments (charm person was the spell he ended up casting most often). The party was working for the thieves' guild in the City of Greyhawk. By the end of the first session we had already established the modus operandi of me covering everyone else's getaway.

First mission was to sneak into a dwarf's house and steal a map and some papers regarding a gem mine somewhere within the Cairn Hills. The DM let us stake the place out for a week of game time and it became obvious that no one was home. He figured we'd try for a strict infiltration route (as we were supposed to be thieves, after all). I instead headed over to the tailor's shop, purchased a Velunan courtier's outfit and distressed it, and went to the authorities claiming that this dwarf owed money to investors in Veluna. I wanted to get the map and titles to the mine to be divided up among the "investors." The DM actually took me away from the table to explain how that plan was just too damned smooth, since with a judiciously applied charm person, the magistrates would go get the map and titles for me themselves. "Incredible idea, but please don't derail my adventure." I still got a roleplaying award to my XP for the idea though.

As you might imagine, the party essentially burst out onto the street with armloads of loot, followed by members of the Nightwatchmen's Guild concurrently barreling down the street. I jump out buck-naked, flailing my arms and screaming about how an assassin cult kidnapped me and brought me there. Still claiming to be a Velunan traveler, the clerics of Saint Cuthbert take me in and question me about exactly what happened. I told them that these assassins kidnapped me and kept me in the house, where they were apparently operating before some rogues broke in to loot the place and the fight broke out. This was unbelievably sweet- the clerics questioning me actually shared everything they knew about this dwarf. Apparently he'd disappeared a few weeks back, and now the clerics of Saint Cuthbert thought they had a new lead. Not only had I bought the party the time they needed to escape, but I had also inadvertently gathered more intelligence for the thieves' guild and threw the focus of the authorities on finding these "assassins."

Turns out the clerics of Saint Cuthbert were my best friends throughout that campaign. They actually assigned guards to protect me and granted me an audience with Eritai Kaan-Ipzirel when I had a "prophetic dream." I had told them that I had seen a cudgel break a mace, then break and axe, then break a sword, but a dagger stabbed the cudgel, splintering it but not breaking it. The cudgel then bled... This was all followed by clerics furiously scribbling down what I was saying and consulting obscure texts for the meaning of this "dream."

Lekinvahr's crowning achievement (from a smooth-talking standpoint) was surrendering to a really angry paladin and convincing her to let me go. I started passing out bread to kids as I walked down the street with this paladin, saying that, "Hey, yeah, I work for the thieves' guild. But I'm not really evil at heart, see? I work for them because I'm trying to take them down from the inside out. Haven't you noticed how the really evil thieves somehow always slip up at the wrong moment? Did you really think those terribly stupid mistakes were just coincidence? You know when you take me in, whoever replaces me could be alot worse... (sigh) I just hope someone feeds the kids while I'm rotting away in the dungeon for my 'crimes,' noble paladin... Could you at least stop by every once in a while and see how they're doing?"

The DM told me that the paladin was almost sobbing as she told me that I'd better not cross her path again and I'd better be a bit more discrete.