Springing surprise tricks in the game.

[maddman75]

There was a pretty good one in an AFMBE game not too long ago. The PCs were in a small town when zombies attacked overrunning the town. The military had surrounded the town and was trying to contain the infection. They managed to get a humvee K9 unit from the police station and tried to get out of town. They found a field with no guards, but there was air support. A blackhawk helicopter was on them.

The minigun disabled their vehicle, but they did manage to get into the cover of the woods. The soldiers came down the rapel lines - the survivalist PC managed to snipe two of them as they were coming down the lines, but two made it in.

After a brief firefight, the PCs were wounded but victorious...except there was a helicopter, likely to call back for backup any minute. They quickly threw on the enemy uniforms and got on the radio - they said 'targets neutralized - we have wounded'. The copter descended.

At this point, I was preparing in my mind to screw the PCs over when they tried to BS their way onto the chopper. They had no knowledge of military protocol or behaviour. When they got close to the helicopter, the survivalist looked as the other PC and said 'Run.'

Then he looked at me and says "I toss a grenade in the door and run"

 

[shilsen]

Coming up with tricks is really easy when your group won't use tactics in combat unless you tell them. For example:

Player of greatsword-wielding PC: Bring it!

Me (rolling for much smaller NPC with spiked shield and flail): Give me an attack roll.

Player: But it's not my turn.

Me: It's an opposed check.

Player: Huh? Why?

Me: Roll and I'll tell you.

Player: Got a 15

Me: The soldier twirls his flail around your sword and and flips it out of your grasp. Give me a Str check.

Player: WHA_ ?

Me: *grin* Just roll

Player: *%$!* Got a 10. Why?

Me: On the backswing, he flips your feet out from under you dumping you square on your back. As soon as you land, he smashes the shield into your face, making you feel like your jaw just came loose.

Player: *%$*#!*

*****

Me: The kobolds charge into your group. They seem to be dressed and armed like the ones you just killed.

Players: HAH! Piece of cake!

Me: Everyone roll grapple checks.

Players: *%$*#!*

*****

This one was a fun one:

Player: I run around the corner into them. Since it's dark, they'll never see me coming.

Me: True. Pity it also stops you from seeing the metal wire spanning the corridor at neck level.

Player: *%$*#!*

*****

And one last one, which was not so much of a trick as an unexpected situation:

Me: Hmm! The animated table criticals. It smashes into you, shattering your hip and pinning you to the wall.

Player: *%$*#!* Help, you guys! The furniture's killing me!

 

[Hammerhead]

Kobolds with grapple checks? That's a foolish tactic, not a good one. Half of them are going to die from the attacks of opportunity, and kobolds are weak and small, together making grappling pretty much suicidal.

 

[Testament]

Party fighting a Will O' The Wisp, and getting slaughtered by it and its impossible AC.

Player 1: I pull out my bottle of sovreign glue, and pull the stopper.
Me: Um...OK.
Player 2: (grinning) I grab my hammock and ready to charge.
...
Player 1: I pour the sovreign glue over the ball. I don't care if its deflection AC or what, there's still glue all over the area around it!
Player 2: I charge and drop the hammock's body on the glue. Then I grab the cords and start bashing it on the ground!

I found this so clever and funny I had to allow it.

NOTHING will top the Daern's Instant Fortress stunt though! NOTHING.

 

[Imagicka]

Greetings...

These are some of the things I live for when playing...

I remember when I first started playing 2nd Ed. AD&D, and there was a spell called 'Create Water'. Which said that you had to have a container in which to allow the spell to be effective...I'm sure you all know it well.

Well, the thief of the party had a wand that would create instant pits. He also carried around a wand of fireballs.

One time, we're fighting a bunch of particularly nasty monsters, and we start running low on spells. The thief whips out his wand...points at one of the creatures and...the GM informs him that he pulled out the wrong wand. He doesn't fireball his intended victims, but digs a pit to which they fall into.

As a round goes by, for the stunned creature to get it's bearings again, I look at my character sheet and list of the few spells I have remaining...

Me: "I run up to the pit and cast 'create water' and then yell at the wizard, 'Freeze it! Freeze it!!!'"

---

Another great situation... a friend was in a D&D Ravenloft adventure that I was fortunate to sit in and watch occationally.

DM: Okay...the tavern is in shambles. You have just defeated the dire wolves that have attacked you. The party is in bad shape, the furniture is smashed. What few remaining tables there are, you've piled near each other in a makeshift barrier. The big window in the front of the tavern is smashed. You can see in the dim light of twilight however, a cloud of blackness heading towards you. As it gets bigger, you can hear squeaking and realize that it's a swarm of vampire bats...what do you do?

Cleric: I cast silence, out in the courtyard in front of the tavern.

DM: Silence? Okay, you can't hear that bats coming anymore, but you can see them.

Cleric: However they can't see where they are going...no echo radar.

DM: (Stunned look) Duh!?

---

We also had a number of 'swallow-whole' adventures.

The half-elf that was swallowed by a giant dire toad. Who proceeded to cast burning hands while inside the creature. -- The rest of the party was able to tell which toad had swallowed the half-elf... it was the one with the smoke billowing out of it.

Or the time that the wizard's familiar was swallowed by some giant worm (not purple though), and the familiar then proceeded to cast Enlarge Self.

 

[Incenjucar]

These were back in the day of 2e, but I had my iconic character, a 'ninja'-classed bloke (not a hi-ya kind of ninja, just a stealthy warrior), who was a little.. odd... like using his ring of proof against fire to sleep on a bed coals. When he was with a group, they encountered a camp full of orc marauders and a few ogres. Rather sure that a direct confrontation would get them killed, ol' ninja just grinned, and gathered all of the oil and greek fire the party had on them, and snuck in to the camp. There, he carefully replaced as many water skins with oil as possible, to assure that any attempts to put anything out would make it worse. Then, he snuck out, and had the wizard cast Web and some fire spell or other on the camp, and sent the whole place up. After a quick battle, finishing off the ogres, he made a point to dance in the flames.

A second moment of DM-cringing triumph was during a solo mission. The DM made the -huge- mistake of giving him a pick of earth parting. The mission involved going up a tower. Ninja looked up, then looked down, shook his head, and started digging, then scooted off to the side to watch the tower collapse.

 

[der_kluge]

Me: Nope. I'm getting out, but doing it in style.

DM: ???

Me: I activate my Daern's Instant Fortress....

Perfect example of why I'll never hand out an instant fortress in any game I ever run again. Those things are just too powerful.

The last one-shot we played, I made a Leprechaun barbarian (don't ask). For a token magic item, I found that a rope of climbing was within my gp limit. Those things are also too powerful. I got out of more tight spots with that thing in that game than I ever thought possible.

I find wondrous magic items like those to be the most powerful in the game. They can easily cause all kinds of abuse like your instant fortress story.

 

[MaxKaladin]

Me: I activate my Daern's Instant Fortress....

So, how did you manage to survive being inside a worm with an expanding Daern's Instant Fortress?

 

[Argent Favrelauch]

Instant Fortress

As to surviving being inside the worm with tghe expanding Daern's instant Fortress...When you activate it, it expands around you. So he was inside the Fortress as it expanded, and thus in no danger...even if the worm somehow survived.

 

[FireLance]

My character did this during the climactic encounter of a game some time ago:

Spontaneously casting hammer of righteousness (from Book of Exalted Deeds) - Cost: one third level spell slot, being a good cleric, 1d3 Strength damage (sacrifice component) :\

Casting at 6th caster level - Cost: being a Cleric 4/Human Paragon 2 (from Unearthed Arcana) with access to the Good domain

Boosting caster level by 4 - Cost: one feat (Divine Spell Power, from Complete Divine), one turn undead attempt, a good turning roll

Maximizing the spell - Cost: one feat (Maximize Spell), one action point to apply a metamagic feat known to a spell being cast without increasing the spell level or casting time (as per the rules in Unearthed Arcana)

Look on the DM's face when his BBEG, who was grandstanding just the round before, fails the Fortitude save and dies after taking 80 points of force damage: Priceless