FireLance
Legend
I happened post most of the following for completely different reasons on CircvsMaximvs, but since I went through the trouble of compiling and formatting the post, I thought I'd share it with ENWorld as well.
I want to collect moments of pure awesome from 4e game sessions.
Just to kick things off, I'd like to share three of my favorite anecdotes from ENWorld.
First, raven_dark64's Awesome Moment, for sheer guts, fantastic role-playing, and using character ability to exploit terrain in a truly inspired manner:
[SBLOCK]In a recent game our party was in full retreat through the jungle after having been beaten to a pulp by a band of bounty hunters and their brutish monster (a macetail behemoth I think) that bore them about via an oversized war chariot. The second cleric in our party, the child Cala, was unconscious and being carried by the fighter. Quite simply, they overwhelmed us with brute strength, better mobility, and superior tactics.
We fled from the battlefield into the jungle hoping that their large steed would be unable to fit through the trees. To our dismay, the beast was apparently able to smash his way through the trees, though it did slow their progress substantially allowing us to gain some ground. Finally, our characters made their way into a clearing to find that there was only an open cliff trapping us between certain doom and inevitable doom.
Luckily, my cleric's overpowered perception allowed him to detect a kind of "land bridge" a short ways off. We made our way there as the enemies finally began catching up to us again.
As we crossed the land bridge, the enemies hot on our heels, my cleric stopped dead in the middle of the bridge.
FIGHTER: What are you doing!? We are no match for them, even here!
CLERIC: They are too fast! We will never outrun them on foot wounded as we are. You continue on to protect the others! I will hold them here as long as I can.
FIGHTER: Let me stay then!
CLERIC: Nay! You need to save little Cala! Besides, I am old and my time is nearly up, you are still young and full of potential.
FIGHTER: But...
CLERIC: Don't argue! Just go! It's too late to decide now anyways! GO! *turns to face the approaching enemies*
*Party flees onward while the bounty hunters stop on the start of the bridge in mild confusion at the venerably aged man now feebly attempting to block their path*
CLERIC: You'll not catch them! You'll go no further!
BOUNTY HUNTER: Foolish priest! We will crush you into paste and not even be slowed in our pursuit of your friends!
CLERIC: Then may you trip o'er my corpse and plummet to your doom! *readies iron staff for battle*
*Behemoth and bounty hunters charge forward*
At the final moment before the beast ran my cleric down my prepared action went off and I cast Command on the charging mount.
CLERIC: STUMBLE AFORE' ME AND PERISH!
BOUNTY HUNTERS: Aaaagh!
*The beast mount stumbles violently, veers to the side, and plummets over the edge, dragging its entourage with it.*
Reminiscent of other heroic scenes in movies and mythology this was one of the cooler moments we'v had in our games.
I just LOVE playing high wisdom characters wisely!
[/SBLOCK]
Second, LostSoul's Cursed Rope, for turning failure (in this case, a failed skill challenge) into a fiendishly twisted complication:
[SBLOCK]So we're playing Thunderspire Labyrinth and the PCs want to assault a well-defended complex that's ready for them. They have very good intel on the site, so they know who's manning what location and where to assault from.
They decide they need to cross a deep (300') chasm and slip onto an undefended battlement. But how?
They start looking for a Rope of Climbing - the Wizard in the group has Enchant Item, he can make it. But no, it's too high level, he can't make it.
Well I think it's a cool idea, so I make a ruling: You can make a one-shot rope of climbing if you succeed at a level 10 skill challenge.
The Wizard starts describing how he's preparing for the ritual. I say that he can sacrifice some animals to get their spirit into the rope - a snake to make it climb. He runs with this, summons some animals using Animal Messenger, and infuses their spirits into the rope.
All good so far.
I describe the rope coming to life, and the first thing it does is to strangle the Wizard. Skill challenges don't work without some kind of conflict, right? So they tear it off the Wizard and the Warlock, using an Infernal power, tries to command it to obey. I say somethng along the lines of, "So you want to infuse it with a devilish spirit?" He nods yes.
The roll comes up as a failure. I decide that the rope, imbued with infernal spite, is starting to come to life with a personality all its own. An EVIL personality. When the Wizard follows up with his final command, there's another failure, and the rope feigns obedience.
When they actually use the rope, they fail to notice that it's being deceitful and they miss their last chance to get the rope to obey their commands. The skill challenge is failed.
The outcome of that failure means that the PCs have a permanent rope of climbing, but it's cursed - it has a personality all its own; it's evil; and it craves the blood of slithering, crawling, flying creatures. Though human blood will serve just as well.
That's what I like about skill challenges - you go in with a basic idea, and through roleplay you end up in a place that no one would have ever expected.[/SBLOCK]
Third, Nightchilde-2's Interesting Session, for creative in-game rules lawyering done right:
[SBLOCK]I normally don't bore y'all with the details of my weekly sessions, but last night's wsa very much not what I had gone in expecting..and I just had to brag on my players a bit.
The characters...(everyone showed, and all but one actually on time!)
* Yuiru (eladrin wizard), played by my eldest daughter (who is 13)
* Brother Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
* Que'Lara (showed up late), eladrin paladin/rogue of the Raven Queen
* Akarnon tiefling starlock
* Sindiin, human wizard
* Erroll, human rogue
When last we left our heroes, they had arrived at a village called Two Rivers to retrieve a girl somehow tied to the current goings-on in Estrabaq (the capital city in my game) with the Faceless (a group of Juibex worshipping dopplegangers) and their infiltration fo the royal family. While Sister Hagrid, priestess of Erathis and the lady in charge of the orphanage, went to retrieve the girl (named Genevieve, and she looks rather like the Queen, I might add), something weird happened. The entire village had a worldfall into the Feywild.
After being approached by some hobgoblins looking for "their tribute," the party stalled long enough for the Mayor to explain exactly what the Hell was going on. Seems at the village's founding, a deal was struck with a fey hobgoblin named Murkeye the Immortal One; an unknown amount of time full of peace and prosperity for the village, but one day it would be called to Murkeye's side and the price paid; every child in the village. As luck would have it, today was the day Murkeye opted to call the village.
Now here's where they surprised me (and this is why I love gaming as well as why I love this group). They actually found a loophole in the pact; they had the mayor write up a law that every citizen of the village over the age of 2 days was an adult, forged and aged the paper (via prestidigitation) to make it look as though the law had been in effect for years and decided to try to fool Murkeye.
(Akarnon also set himself up so that he could use Murkeye as a future patron should he need one for his warlocky stuff. No, I hadn't intended Murkeye to be that powerful (they could've taken him in combat, the Immortal One referred more to his not aging than his not being able to be killed) but, hey, I rolled with it..)
Akarnon was unable to fail the resulting skill challenge. So they convinced the hobgoblins to take Akarnon directly to Murkeye. Akarnon bluffed the crap out of the hobgoblin chieftan, convinced him that this was all legal and binding. He also offered to bring back magical treasures for Murkeye from a nearby ruins (that Yuiru knew about; as part of her backstory it fit best that she be a native of the Feywild to tie her in with the group; a detail that she just made up on the fly, I might add).
I was impressed so much with this plan and that they managed to get out of this situation without spilling a single drop of blood that I just gave everyone however much XP they needed to get to 5th level. That also means that next session (in 2 weeks; taking next week off for Valentine's Day weekend festivities), we get to have a good old fashioned dungeon crawl.[/SBLOCK]
What are your favorite 4e anecdotes, either from your own game or what someone else posted?
I want to collect moments of pure awesome from 4e game sessions.
Just to kick things off, I'd like to share three of my favorite anecdotes from ENWorld.
First, raven_dark64's Awesome Moment, for sheer guts, fantastic role-playing, and using character ability to exploit terrain in a truly inspired manner:
[SBLOCK]In a recent game our party was in full retreat through the jungle after having been beaten to a pulp by a band of bounty hunters and their brutish monster (a macetail behemoth I think) that bore them about via an oversized war chariot. The second cleric in our party, the child Cala, was unconscious and being carried by the fighter. Quite simply, they overwhelmed us with brute strength, better mobility, and superior tactics.
We fled from the battlefield into the jungle hoping that their large steed would be unable to fit through the trees. To our dismay, the beast was apparently able to smash his way through the trees, though it did slow their progress substantially allowing us to gain some ground. Finally, our characters made their way into a clearing to find that there was only an open cliff trapping us between certain doom and inevitable doom.
Luckily, my cleric's overpowered perception allowed him to detect a kind of "land bridge" a short ways off. We made our way there as the enemies finally began catching up to us again.
As we crossed the land bridge, the enemies hot on our heels, my cleric stopped dead in the middle of the bridge.
FIGHTER: What are you doing!? We are no match for them, even here!
CLERIC: They are too fast! We will never outrun them on foot wounded as we are. You continue on to protect the others! I will hold them here as long as I can.
FIGHTER: Let me stay then!
CLERIC: Nay! You need to save little Cala! Besides, I am old and my time is nearly up, you are still young and full of potential.
FIGHTER: But...
CLERIC: Don't argue! Just go! It's too late to decide now anyways! GO! *turns to face the approaching enemies*
*Party flees onward while the bounty hunters stop on the start of the bridge in mild confusion at the venerably aged man now feebly attempting to block their path*
CLERIC: You'll not catch them! You'll go no further!
BOUNTY HUNTER: Foolish priest! We will crush you into paste and not even be slowed in our pursuit of your friends!
CLERIC: Then may you trip o'er my corpse and plummet to your doom! *readies iron staff for battle*
*Behemoth and bounty hunters charge forward*
At the final moment before the beast ran my cleric down my prepared action went off and I cast Command on the charging mount.
CLERIC: STUMBLE AFORE' ME AND PERISH!
BOUNTY HUNTERS: Aaaagh!
*The beast mount stumbles violently, veers to the side, and plummets over the edge, dragging its entourage with it.*
Reminiscent of other heroic scenes in movies and mythology this was one of the cooler moments we'v had in our games.
I just LOVE playing high wisdom characters wisely!
[/SBLOCK]Second, LostSoul's Cursed Rope, for turning failure (in this case, a failed skill challenge) into a fiendishly twisted complication:
[SBLOCK]So we're playing Thunderspire Labyrinth and the PCs want to assault a well-defended complex that's ready for them. They have very good intel on the site, so they know who's manning what location and where to assault from.
They decide they need to cross a deep (300') chasm and slip onto an undefended battlement. But how?
They start looking for a Rope of Climbing - the Wizard in the group has Enchant Item, he can make it. But no, it's too high level, he can't make it.
Well I think it's a cool idea, so I make a ruling: You can make a one-shot rope of climbing if you succeed at a level 10 skill challenge.
The Wizard starts describing how he's preparing for the ritual. I say that he can sacrifice some animals to get their spirit into the rope - a snake to make it climb. He runs with this, summons some animals using Animal Messenger, and infuses their spirits into the rope.
All good so far.
I describe the rope coming to life, and the first thing it does is to strangle the Wizard. Skill challenges don't work without some kind of conflict, right? So they tear it off the Wizard and the Warlock, using an Infernal power, tries to command it to obey. I say somethng along the lines of, "So you want to infuse it with a devilish spirit?" He nods yes.
The roll comes up as a failure. I decide that the rope, imbued with infernal spite, is starting to come to life with a personality all its own. An EVIL personality. When the Wizard follows up with his final command, there's another failure, and the rope feigns obedience.
When they actually use the rope, they fail to notice that it's being deceitful and they miss their last chance to get the rope to obey their commands. The skill challenge is failed.
The outcome of that failure means that the PCs have a permanent rope of climbing, but it's cursed - it has a personality all its own; it's evil; and it craves the blood of slithering, crawling, flying creatures. Though human blood will serve just as well.
That's what I like about skill challenges - you go in with a basic idea, and through roleplay you end up in a place that no one would have ever expected.[/SBLOCK]
Third, Nightchilde-2's Interesting Session, for creative in-game rules lawyering done right:
[SBLOCK]I normally don't bore y'all with the details of my weekly sessions, but last night's wsa very much not what I had gone in expecting..and I just had to brag on my players a bit.
The characters...(everyone showed, and all but one actually on time!)
* Yuiru (eladrin wizard), played by my eldest daughter (who is 13)
* Brother Iruel, tiefling cleric of Pelor
* Que'Lara (showed up late), eladrin paladin/rogue of the Raven Queen
* Akarnon tiefling starlock
* Sindiin, human wizard
* Erroll, human rogue
When last we left our heroes, they had arrived at a village called Two Rivers to retrieve a girl somehow tied to the current goings-on in Estrabaq (the capital city in my game) with the Faceless (a group of Juibex worshipping dopplegangers) and their infiltration fo the royal family. While Sister Hagrid, priestess of Erathis and the lady in charge of the orphanage, went to retrieve the girl (named Genevieve, and she looks rather like the Queen, I might add), something weird happened. The entire village had a worldfall into the Feywild.
After being approached by some hobgoblins looking for "their tribute," the party stalled long enough for the Mayor to explain exactly what the Hell was going on. Seems at the village's founding, a deal was struck with a fey hobgoblin named Murkeye the Immortal One; an unknown amount of time full of peace and prosperity for the village, but one day it would be called to Murkeye's side and the price paid; every child in the village. As luck would have it, today was the day Murkeye opted to call the village.
Now here's where they surprised me (and this is why I love gaming as well as why I love this group). They actually found a loophole in the pact; they had the mayor write up a law that every citizen of the village over the age of 2 days was an adult, forged and aged the paper (via prestidigitation) to make it look as though the law had been in effect for years and decided to try to fool Murkeye.
(Akarnon also set himself up so that he could use Murkeye as a future patron should he need one for his warlocky stuff. No, I hadn't intended Murkeye to be that powerful (they could've taken him in combat, the Immortal One referred more to his not aging than his not being able to be killed) but, hey, I rolled with it..)
Akarnon was unable to fail the resulting skill challenge. So they convinced the hobgoblins to take Akarnon directly to Murkeye. Akarnon bluffed the crap out of the hobgoblin chieftan, convinced him that this was all legal and binding. He also offered to bring back magical treasures for Murkeye from a nearby ruins (that Yuiru knew about; as part of her backstory it fit best that she be a native of the Feywild to tie her in with the group; a detail that she just made up on the fly, I might add).
I was impressed so much with this plan and that they managed to get out of this situation without spilling a single drop of blood that I just gave everyone however much XP they needed to get to 5th level. That also means that next session (in 2 weeks; taking next week off for Valentine's Day weekend festivities), we get to have a good old fashioned dungeon crawl.[/SBLOCK]
What are your favorite 4e anecdotes, either from your own game or what someone else posted?
