Monte Haul Campaigns (long thread)

[Aeris Winterood]

How many of you have some good Monte Haul stories?

I was in the Navy for a few years and when I was stationed on a new ship I came into contact with the gamers on board. They let me start play right away with them and I was told to make a character. I was usud to playing in good "normal" role-playing groups til now.

The groups average level was around 16 or so, and I had no idea as to how they played. I was to make a 9th level character and I chose to make a half-elf Ranger. (1st ED., with no level limits) I thought this was all fine and dandy and then the DM of the group told me I could choose 6 items of my picking to have. I thought about it for awhile and then made my choices. A ring of Vampiric regeneration, a vorpal blade, a girdle of Storm Giant strength, a double strength amulet of protection, and bracelets of armor class (ac2) and finally a ring of protection +4. In melee, I was a machine, with the girdle and the sword I would do a minimum of 18 points of damage per hit and recieve half that back in hit points due to the ring, not a bad combo!

I knew this wasnt going to be a normal campaign after the first encounter. The party was at an inn and there was some trouble in the stables, so we investigated. Inside, we were ambushed by 8 Death Knights and 20 skeletal warriors. Yes, I did not stutter! Well, with my blade and ring and girdle I swept a path of destuction and most died in my wake. I killed 6 of the 8 Death knights and over half of the skeletal warriors. The group was very impressed with my fighting abilities, and were shocked to know that I was merely 9th level to boot.

This is were it gets funny. The barbarian in the group, who was 18th level, really coveted my sword, because of the beheadings I had in the previous fight. First, he asked me if I would give him the sword, of course I sadi no. And then he threatened me to give it to him. Again, no was the answer.So, he tells me that he will kill me and take i, so I matter the factly tell him to tyr and do it.

Initiative is rolled, in which I win, and with my first attack his head is rolling down on the ground. The cleric in the group resurrects him on the spot but the barbarian doesnt learn. He again tells me he is gonna take it from me. I look at the DM and shrug my shoulders. I win initiative again and once again his head rolls with the first hit...Resurrected once again, and now with two very nice scars on his neck he finally relents and leaves me alone. From that time on I was the party leader and the action in this campaign got more and more outlandish.

Anyway, I am wondering if many of you out there have stories like such?

 

[Ma'varkith]

Hee hee - "We can keep doing this as long as you've got Constitution points to spare!"

 

[Aeris Winterood]

heheeee

After the second scar I think he took the hint, but I did have to constantly watch my back with him, he always liked to leave me alone in combat, hoping I would die so he could take it from me!

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Hee hee! I once played in this campaign, in 2nd edition.. I started the campaign, I think it started at around 5th level. This other guy had created a set of characters based around an Elmore painting in the 1st printing of the 2nd edition of the PHB -- anyone else remember that group of guys that look like they've just dispatched a wyrmling green dragon (or something very similar) and they've got it strung up like a deer, hanging froma branch? Anyhow, so he created those characters and I made an NPC and we ran through the Time of Troubles series of modules for the Forgotten Realms.

After those modules were all done, he took over DMing and I just ran my bard NPC, Skald Liktrer. My brother joined the campaign. Next thing I know, ol' Skald goes from level 9-10 to level 40 (we adventured this out, of course, but I don't remember much aside of killing the tarrasque), and he's married to some astronomically high-level half-drow fighter/thief. The party mage's apprentice became the Magister somewhere along the way in there. Her master was, of course, way more powerful, but uh, he was like, too busy to be Magister or something. That and maybe Azuth didn't like him. Anyhow, my brother's drizzt-issue drow ranger could have killed four or five actual Drizzts at once, I think.. His fighter character had some sort of spaceship/spelljammer thingus that could, I conservatively estimate, have levelled a Borg fleet. The party cleric (that curly-haired dude with the hammer in the picture I mentioned, for those who remember it) was running about with a hammer that made a Hammer of Thunderbolts look like a tack hammer.. everyone else was comparable.. I think that ol' Skald, actually, was probably the weakest dude in the party.. I mean, really, a 40th level bard? Coye Stormlord was tooling around in Battlestar Galactica fer chrissakes, and I think I had a neat-o harp and a talking +5 rapier. Geez, I got shafted

Ohh, god was all that fun for a while, though. Up until we killed the tarrasque. Three or four round battle, as I recall, and that's just cause the guy's got a pretty impressive number of hp... I think it was 300 in 2nd edition. But really, once you've killed, burned, and then Wished the tarrasque to death and the DM has to make up wacky monsters that're even nastier.. sheesh. I think the next Big Bad Horrible Thing was some fool dragon who, clearly, should not have messed around with us. He lasted longer than the tarrasque and did some decent damage, but I don't think anyone died. It was his hoard that had that spaceship thingie.

That DM was really monty-hauly.. I just remembered another campaign he ran.. We had an AD&D campaign that ran at high school on Wednesday nights, and when the DM graduated, he ended the campaign where we interrupted a conflict between the chief gods of light and darkess, who were secondarily interested in goodness and evil.. they were trying to obliterate one another, which would have Ended The World Entirely. So the big Balance God, who looked like a lizardman, showed up and just obliterated them both at the same time, while suspending creation for a bit. So the party replaced them, or rather.. My character, a cleric of the local law god, became the god of light and good. Our archnemesis, a high priest of the darkness god, replaced his own god. So it was all good -- we Saved The World and some of us got to be gods. So then the first DM's brother (the same guy from above) took over the campaign and those of us who had become gods got to play avatars of ourselves, which were conveniently identical to our PCs at the time of deification, and could go up levels and such. I'll give him one thing, he came up with good stuff for avatars of gods to DO, but man did we get a lot of treasure doing it.

In another campaign he ran, in which I was not involved, the halfling thief ran by my best friend (though I barely knew him at the time) got 3 artifacts at first level and gave one of them away, retaining the Dagger of Pain and the Amulet of Soul-Sucking for his own personal use. Gideon became a pretty evil-minded halfling, and the artifacts had decent drawbacks, but slow-moving ones.. so he was able to use them for quite some time before they busted him up good.

The only artifact -I've- ever possessed is Daoud's Wondrous Lanthorn from the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Nice thingus, but expensive to maintain.

[edited to add something I forgot the first time]

 

[Aeris Winterood]

later in the same campaign...

Later on we were plane-hopping and ened up on an unfamiliar prime plane. We had to assault this iron ship which turned out to be the Bismark and were hunted by Nazis. We had to get into Germany to find an artifact to get off this world,of course, after killing thousands of Nazis! It was actually alot of fun although the characters and enemies we fought were outragously Monte Haulish....

 

[Aeris Winterood]

re: Skarp Hedin

Sounds like alot of fun. I guess Monte Haul isnt too bad to play once in a great while. That was the only group I have ever played with that was over the top. Later on, I ended up DMing and they loved the world we played in, they actually all learned to role play and had a great time.

I did have a character with an artifact once. The group I played with in high school campaign ran for 6 years (ok, from 6th grade to 12th) from the beginning of 1st Edition. In my senoir year my Ranger was 17th level, after 6 years, not too bad! I had obtained a Crown of Might but I only had it for only a coule of months when my games brother who was an evil mage had his demon ambush me and steal the artifact, and then I was p[lane shift to a prison in the abyss... and I do believe he is still there...shame I never got out, but... I may have to have my new players go to the abyss and help him escape!

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Woo! Adventuring, finding treasure, -and- killing Nazis! I bet they all had +2 lugers.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

they actually all learned to role play and had a great time.

Actually, I think that's a lot of why all that monty haul stuff -was- so much fun.. there was a lot of roleplaying as well. I do remember roleplaying out Skald's relationship with Rani, his future wife.. there were a lot of squabbles and such in the group of guys that the DM ran, too.. there was a nice plot involving Grintharke, the ah, Type VII Demon (I think? a balor anyhow) who ruled Hellgate Keep, and the paladin father of 2 of the DM's guys (puny mage and hulking fighter, of course), etc. I think that if it had just been whack-kill-loot, whack-kill-loot over and over again, it would have been boring boring boring. When it devolved into something pretty close to that (not long after my brother got involved.. roleplaying just ain't his thing).. well, we quit not too long after.

 

[Aeris Winterood]

Hmmm.. +2 lugers

Actually, they were wimps! The SS on the other hand... many of the higher ups were mages. Hitler had a thing for the occult, and we had to fight many a mage and cult member, the SS acctually was able to plane shift the Bismark to our home world were we finally defeated the crew and had our very own pocket battleship! Talk about owning the seas! CAravels and galleons didnt have a chance against us!

The only thing that we had to do was that the mages modified the power plants once we ran out of fuel to run her.. one thing we forgot about and being dead in the water was not fun, especially when you are trying to assault a whole navy with one ship...

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Okay, it's late at night and I'm sick in the haid.
I just got out my folder on this campaign, and lo and behold! Character sheets. BWAHAHA.

My brother's fighter, Coye Stormlord, was 36th level but somehow only had a -6 AC. With his, ah, Stormsword +3, he seems to have a THAC0 of -22. Yep, negative 22. I guess he's a pirate or somesuch, because he seems to have a hook-hand, with which his THAC0 is -18. 164 hps, some pretty normal magic items (stuff like a Trident of Fish Command, and an Apparatus of Kwalish -- powerful enough, but he -is- 36th level).. Oho, his flametongue longsword is intelligent. His score in his "Dragon-turtle riding" proficiency is 11. His Stormsword +3 seems to do some stuff related to electricity, but my brother's handwriting stinks bad, so I can't quite tell. I think it does +2d6 damage during a storm (not bad on the DM's part, as they now have those flaming burst weapons and such).. and throws lightning bolts. Coye has 6,300,000 xp.

Ahhh, Archduke Skald Liktrer, 40th level bard.
He's got 16 Con, 17 Str, Dex, Wis, Chr, and 18 Int. 131 hp. Oho, a long sword of sharpness +3, -5 THAC0. Ahem, a wheel-lock pistol +3. Good god. He appears to be a martial artist of some sort, speaks fluent demon, and has some psionic wild talents. I didn't have any cool proficiencies like dragon-turtle riding, but I've got spider-runner control proficiency (spider-runners were some sort of wacky drow constructs we reverse-engineered and learned how to mass-produce).

I guess the DM kept the sheets for his guys, which isn't too surprising. Sorry about this. Had to post. Sickness.. in.. brain..