Tell Me Your Best DM Dirty Tricks...

[werk]

here's a few...

Unexpectedly difficult opponents. Throw a couple generic hill giants and a 15th level kobold...that kobold can do some real damage while the party focuses on the meat.

Enemies in waves. Coming from a sports med background, I can appreciate interval training. Send in a wave of mooks, a couple rounds later a few more bad guys show up and they are a little tougher, couple of rounds later a couple casters show up, a couple rounds later a champion with a couple pets, couple rounds later a few more casters.

They start out so overconfident, wasting spells and resources, but by the time the third or fourth wave shows up you'll really start to get 'the look' from your players.

Difficult terrain/crowd control spells.

 

[der_kluge]

A friend of mine once played in a game where every time the monster was hit, it got stronger. The way to defeat it was to cast a healing spell on it.

Piratecat did that to us at Gen Con in a round-robin game. Really flummoxed my tank character.

One of the players had to eventually grapple it and pull it down an infinite hole, sacrificing himself in the process. Great game.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Kobolds with a pet rust monster....

A well played kobold band should be able to skin the crap out of a group with the sandpaper tactics and multiple traps they use.
. Kobolds strike quick and fade
. Party pursues
. Party runs into pre-planned trap (BTW traps are meant to be deadly or crippling, not annoying)
. Kobolds strike again - rinse repeat until
. Party is dead or defeated OR They reach the center point of the lair and they run itno the elite leaders with their rust monster
. Party is dead or defeated

I never really understood why kobolds (or orcs and goblins for that matter) are considered throw away monsters. Frankly, they can be quite nasty if played correctly.

 

[Ulrik]

This prompted me of another trick...

Take an elemental-based creature, like a Frost Giant (spellcaster of some sort), and have him cast spells on him that make him look like a Fire-based creature. Continual Flame, or some sort of fire immolation. They will assume he is fire based and hit him with ice/cold/water/frost based spells, which (the their surprise) will do little damage to him.

A similar trick which was once played on a group I played in was a dragon using alter self (this was 3.0, dunno if it works in 3.5). We did wonder a bit what a red dragon was doing up in the ice wastes...

Fortunatly my current GM(s) subscribe to the school that says dragons are way too arrogant to do stuff like that.

 

[Rechan]

This idea was in the RatBastardDM thread.

The PCs come across a badly mangled body in a trap. The body is facing the direction the PCs come from (so they're looking at his front). In the body's possession is a journal, which has a half-drawn map. The way that the victim was going is marked as heavily trap laden, and filled with monsters, and a dead-end where his group was sealed inside.

It should direct them down a different path, possibly an older map the guy was following, towards some treasure.

Of course, the other path leads directly into some traps, or the big ugly monster's lair. The victim is a shapechanger, whose looking to ambush the party and pick off the stragglers while they're healing.

 

[Rechan]

I know one thing that I'll use that they seem to not understand is softening up your opponents with missile fire or long range spells before closing to melee range.

Harpies. Harpies my friend.

Advance some harpies so they can pick up FlyByAttack. Have two harpies swoop down from surprise, grapple a target. Assuming they win, have them whisk him up into the air (still on their move turn). This works great if it's either the spellcaster or the fighter. It works even better if a third harpy spellcaster throws Reduce Person (in the case of a fighter or barbarian). They fly up, and just wait while their friends attack the rest of the party. Or, if he's a wizard or rogue, just drop him.

Carrion crawlers. I wiped out a 7th level group with three carrion crawlers. A CC gets 8 attacks at +3 for a full round. That averages out to about 3 hits. Now, the PC has to make 3 consecutive fort saves. They'll inevitably fail.

Any sort of ooze that splits. Be sure to not describe it as what they are accustomed to. I had my PCs roll fort saves; two PCs proceeded to vomit up gallons of black goo. After they were done, the black goo attacked. I used Ochre Jelly stats. OJs split when hit by slashing, piercing, or electricity. Watch the axe-wielding barbarian's face when he hacks into the jelly and it splits in two and tries to grapple him. This works best when you start out with multiple jellies

Half Farspawn/Gelatinous cube. I know templates are dumb, but seriously, it's creepy. That, and 4 attacks from a Cube, at which point it engulfs next round? Yeek.

Have them kill a giant monster. Then the multitude of parasites that live inside the huge beast burst out, looking for hosts.

Phase Spiders with Rogue levels.

The PCs are on a boat, for whatever reason. It's just a rowboat, so it's probably on a lake. Have a green dragon use its breath weapon on the boat. Bonus points if the dragon uses some other type of disguising magic, like Darkness.

 

[Rechan]

Although, maybe the players for one of my games are just too jaded, but all I have to do to mess with their heads is put something in the room with them.

They once argued for twenty minutes real time what to do with an evil shrine just sitting out in the middle of the dungeon. The Shaman wanted to undesecrate it. The Cleric wanted to leave it alone to come back later. The rogue just wanted to steal the knife off the shrine. The Barbarian and mage didn't care either way.

I once had a statue that was a little, big-mouthed demon with hands over its mouth. It was just sitting there in the hallway of an evil temple. The PCs knew that there was an evil priest and an archer in the area, but it took them forever to approach the damn statue, thinking it was going to eat them. The statue had a permanent silence on it. As soon as they entered the silence, the priest popped up and started firing, and a hidden guard monster charged from the other side. (One of the PCs spent two turns hauling the statue off the balcony. Was real exciting. )

But nothing messes with PCs more than just random, unexplained events. For instance, a dungeon I ran was infused with the essence of Madness and Chaos, as some unwitting mages were toying with a link to that plane. Powerful emotions are linked to Madness, and some psionic powers originate from Madness. So, when the Cleric of Passion cast spells, or raged, I'd have him spontaneously manifest psionic powers, like Enlarge and Claws of the Beast (Enlarge wasn't as helpful when fighting in a tight hallway).

 

[Warren Okuma]

Ogre magi plus monk's belt.

or

Two Iron golems that grapple and a red dragon to heal them.

 

[Rechan]

Bump.

 

[Darklone]

Did I mention veiled medusa archers yet?