Most Unexpected/Funny Ways the PCs Killed A Creature

[KrazyHades]

So, I want to ask the EN World community what for them was the funnies and/or most unexpected way a party has killed an enemy creature (or group of creatures).

Here's one of my most memorable (I may add more later as I remember them):

The PC's are in the Underdark, are faced with a small battalion of drow and a drow-driven pumped-up gelatinous cube (with that ring...I'm forgetting the name). They are in a tunnel the ooze could fit through with only 5 ft of clearance on the sides and top...and a cliff at the end. The characters are trapped, but the drow are not yet aware of their presence. With the help of the wizard, the rogue disguises himself as a lost drow from the same city and house (as the drow batallion) who was the only survivor of a raid on the nearest druegar outpost. He succeeds on his bluff/disguise checks and manages, walks to the back of the battalion (where the ooze is) through very clever bluffing (and the help of some buffs to Cha), to convince the driver of the ooze to exit the ooze. The disguised rogue then quickly severs the driver's finger (the one with the ring) tumbles his way to the ooze, and gets inside using his "borrowed" ring. He chases the drow towards the cliff, killing them all as they try to run by him, with the help of his fellow PCs (who are now joining the fray)...and then they were able to keep the ooze as a mount for the rest of their campaign!

 

[Mycanid]

Hmm ... I'd have to think about that one. But the most immediate one that comes to mind involves a gelatinous cube - the trap in 1e module A3 that sends the pc's down a chute and smack on top of a gelatinous cube! Always thought this was a great trap ....

 

[demiurge1138]

The party was on an extended sea voyage, and their ship was attacked by a flock of quetzalcoatluses (giant pterodactyls). One of them grabs the kobold exotic weapons master, swallows him whole. The player says to me, "so... I can cut myself out, right? What about those dust of dryness pellets I've been saving up?" The poor pterodactyl proceeds to explode as 100 gallons of water leave its body very, very quickly.

Another year, another game. The party's investigating a druid's cottage that's been taken over by a tribe of orcs. They go around back, peer in a window and see that the orcs have just finished barricading the front door and are all patting themselves on the back for a job well done. So the fighter breaks open the window, the druid casts flaming sphere and all the poor orcs get rolled up into a fiery katamari of death, having nailed shut their escape route.

Demiurge out.

 

[mythusmage]

We're hired by this group to go investigate a world known as Krynn. I'm playing an elf of dubious morality who, in the adventuring previous, had picked up a bag of poison. To shorten the tale we're tromping around Vermy's digs when Vermy's dragon catches me eavesdropping on his boss.

My attempt to bs the dragon fails, so he bites me. As he's about the bite me again I toss the bag of poison in his mouth. Enough poison to kill about a thousand people, so the dragon actually has a chance to fail his poison save. The dragon expires.

For the rest of that session the DM would look at me from time to time and announce, "You killed my dragon."

 

[Pielorinho]

A long series of mishaps involving undead left sides of corpses, spellcasting parrots, featherfalling merchants gently floating down a cliff face while calling out in alarm, and flying camels (all this was in a fairly serious game--I toldja they were mishaps) ended with my killing the undead with a grease spell.

We'd finally saved the camels (and our supply carts) from plunging to certain doom by casting Fly on the camels--but as they pulled out of their dive, we saw two undead clinging ot the cart and slaveringly crawling forward toward the camels. One grease spell on the cart=2 very surprised undead, continuing their briefly interrupted plunge into the canyon.

That's my most memorable kill in a game, anyway. I've seen better deaths in games I've run: if you're gonna be playing in my Snakes on a Zeppelin game, don't read this:

Spoiler

This 1930s game's climactic battle was set in an Old West movie set: hired Mexican banditos were on rooftops with guns, while a Nazi sorcerer and his mooks cast a dark ritual in the set's "church." The PCs entered the scene not on horseback as I had hoped but in a Studebaker loaded down with dynamite, and they didn't sneak onto the set but drove their car right into one of the flimsy buildings. I declared, on a lark, that the building was wired for a movie-style explosion (yeah, anachronism, who cares). The characters have looted Nazis for grenades, and each PC is carrying a couple.

So: fight the banditos, then the sorcerer's ritual is completed, and among its effects are the summoning of a large flying snake. One of the characters, a doctor/soldier, has a phobia of snakes, so of course I target that character with the snake, and she blows her will save and starts running.

"Can I use an action die to choose where I run?" the player asked; of course I said yes. So the player ran for the building with the car, snake in hot pursuit. "As I run through the building," the player told me, "I'll pull the pin from the grenade and drop it."

Once I got done laughing, I described the results. The doctor ran from the building, the snake flew in. Boom! goes the grenade. BOOM! goes the car. KABOOOOM! goes the building.

And that was the end of the flying snake.

In the denouement to the adventure I described the doctor's great success on the lecture circuit touting her controversial but effective method of overcoming phobias.

Daniel

 

[Kaodi]

I don't know how well this compares to others, but in a short lived Eberron game DMed by NiTessine, we were attacked by kobolds in an inn, and my warforged fighter had two to contend with. So, one of my allies, a sorcerer I believe, uses colour spray on them, and me. The kobolds are fine, I am blinded. Somehow, I believe I managed to critical one of the kobolds for quite a large amount of damage, and the kobold was described as exploded into chunks. Not exactly orthodox, but it always brings a smile to my face.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

In an adventure my group playtested for something I wrote for Goodman Games, they are supposed to rescue what they assume is a Rapunzel type damsel from a high tower. A bit up the road, a lizardfolk has been making a good living selling ladders to adventurers attempting this heroic feat (most don't succeed). You see, there's supposedly no entrance other than the tower window 25 ft. up.

The group decided to go ahead and purchase one so the 2 big fighters are carrying it between them as they approach the tower. From around the tower comes a black knight on an armored destrier. After he calls out for them to clear out or be smashed to a pulp, etc., etc., the group decides it's fightin' time. We roll initiative and the two big fighters are up first, followed by the sentient briar patch surrounding the tower (an assassin vine patch) that the party isn't yet aware of, then the black knight, and the rest of the party working down.

The two big fighters suddenly decide to use the ladder their holding between them to clothes line the black knight off of his horse. They succeed! They killed him on the opposed rolls. The black knight is knocked backward off his horse landing in the furthest square threatened by the man-eating briar patch, which on its turn does nothing yet. On his turn, the black knight stands up, which draws an AOO from the briar patch. More opposed rolls and the briar patch beats him on an opposed grapple check after it slammed him.

The next few rounds, the party watches in surprise as what they took for an ordinary briar patch proceeds to squeeze the black knight to goo. His mount runs off, they blast the briar patch a few times with ranged spells, and problem solved.

Turns out that ladder was the best investment they made to prepare for the adventure!

 

[Brimshack]

In first edition, I had made up a home brew creature/character class, I called a Waggamaeph. It was originally a cross between a Tasmanian Devil and Grog from BC. It's evoved a bit since then, but the main thing is it was fast. Super high movement and more attacks than a 1st edition creature could normally hope to get. Our characters were staging an attack on a huge compound. It was an all day battle (literally 16 hours) and there were separate points of conflict on a map hundreds of yards apart from one another. At one point 3 mid level Waggamaephs from among the enemy left one side of the battlefield and charged full speed to the opposite die where our characters were taking a key position. Seeing them coming, the players wondered what to do for a moment, then simply put up a Wall of force. You've seen the effect on your windshield.

 

[CrimsonWineGlass]

In one of my earlier groups I had a bit of bastard for a DM. He honestly thought it was his job to kill at least one PC every other session. I tend to be quite creative and therefore make a good caster. The game was level seven when I joined and the party had no caster. Normally, due to my efficiency, I rarely play a caster unless the rest of the party has equally effective characters, but the party basically forced me into it. After a couple sessions where the DM was getting quite annoyed as my character bolstered the party via buffing the party and through creative use of various arcane/divine spells. Due to this, the DM had not killed a single PC in nearly six sessions. Finally, he decided to kill off my character and refuse to allow me to play a caster with my next character. He pulled some reason off the top of his head to explain why my character had angered an epic level barbarian and why the barbarian planned on killing my character and only my character, effectively to gain revenge. The party's rogue who had recently aquired a bag of holding tossed it 25 feet in front of my character and the party's ranger readied a shot with his bow, aimed for the bag of holding. As the barbarian charged over the bag of holding the ranger rolled a nat. 20 on his to hit roll and ended up bursting the bag of holding, destroying the epic barbarian. The DM then kicked me out of the party for "cheating and not following the rules of the game" and never let me come into his house again.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

In an adventure my group playtested for something I wrote for Goodman Games, they are supposed to rescue what they assume is a Rapunzel type damsel from a high tower. A bit up the road, a lizardfolk has been making a good living selling ladders to adventurers attempting this heroic feat (most don't succeed). You see, there's supposedly no entrance other than the tower window 25 ft. up.

The group decided to go ahead and purchase one so the 2 big fighters are carrying it between them as they approach the tower. From around the tower comes a black knight on an armored destrier. After he calls out for them to clear out or be smashed to a pulp, etc., etc., the group decides it's fightin' time. We roll initiative and the two big fighters are up first, followed by the sentient briar patch surrounding the tower (an assassin vine patch) that the party isn't yet aware of, then the black knight, and the rest of the party working down.

The two big fighters suddenly decide to use the ladder their holding between them to clothes line the black knight off of his horse. They succeed! They killed him on the opposed rolls. The black knight is knocked backward off his horse landing in the furthest square threatened by the man-eating briar patch, which on its turn does nothing yet. On his turn, the black knight stands up, which draws an AOO from the briar patch. More opposed rolls and the briar patch beats him on an opposed grapple check after it slammed him.

The next few rounds, the party watches in surprise as what they took for an ordinary briar patch proceeds to squeeze the black knight to goo. His mount runs off, they blast the briar patch a few times with ranged spells, and problem solved.

Turns out that ladder was the best investment they made to prepare for the adventure!

Who would have thought that the best way to kill a Death Knight would be with a ladder!

Olaf the Stout