The best laid plans of mice and DMs

[Henry]

Never discount the ability of players to throw a sabot into the best DM plots. It's what makes me play.

 

[Vahktang]

I know the feeling.
I had Formians invading the land in my campaign yesterday.
The big baddie had it all set up.
Teleport without error away.
Nearby formian workers to do a cure serious after cure serious.
Teleport back.
Hack into party.
Two of the PC's had cursed items making them vulnerable to the outsiders charm/domination ablilities.
And _one_ _critical_ _hit_ _later_...
BBG was all ready to T-port away and come back, but that left him at negative and the plan was thwarted.
Now I have two taskmasters, 3 warriors, a dozen and a half workers all in a charmed goblin village making it ready for a queen.
Who isn't going to show up.
Dang PC's, foiling my good plans.

More later,

Vahktang

 

[Richards]

Isn't a fical a creature out of some old book?

Actually, Psion, I think you're thinking of the cifal, from either the original Fiend Folio or the original Monster Manual II.

Johnathan

 

[Taren Seeker]

'do you use templates, you non-purist scum'

That line made me COL.

 

[Kender42]

In this same vein, I had a campaign that we played for almost a year. They had to quest for the pieces of this magical rod, which when assembled with the blood of a virgin sacrificed in a specific ritual would open up a permanent Gate into Hell. (They had to find it before the bad guys did.)

So towards the end, the PC's are like 11th level, and one of their own gets seduced by Glasya, a Princess of Hell, who offers him immortality and power if he betrays the party. The PC (who was now holding 6 of the rod pieces) took it, and the party was left standing there with no rod, and a hole in their lineup where this character had been.

Flash forward a few months, and we're at the climactic battle. The sacrifice to activate the item was laid out on an altar, and the ritual was about to start. The turncoat PC, the Big Bad, everyone was there and I had it all scripted and was ready for the big fight to rescue the girl...

When one of the PC's, Garrett, the ranger, picks up his bow, and critical-hits the girl on the altar, killing her instantly, spoiling the ritual.

I was speechless.

 

[Psion]

Yeah, except that his brother will probably have to be undead since everyone the sorcerer knew died a few hundred years ago.

Undead is good...

Or, great grandson looking to reclaim a lost legacy, only to find that the PCs destroyed it...

 

[KarinsDad]

And that's a problem because...?

The only thing better than a recurring villain is an undead recurring villain. May I recommend that since his brother has had a few hundred years to hone his skills, he be a half-vampire half-drow half-fiend lich archmage (wouldn't want to disappoint the people posting on all the 'do you use templates, you non-purist scum' threads, would we?)

Actually, it's not a problem.

Just have to get all of the ideas to mesh properly in my head.

They killed the NPC Sorcerer out in the wilderness, so I was thinking of just throwing an undead template of some sort on him (as opposed to an old brother) since he was effectively killed in cold blood while unconscious. Coming back undead himself would be pretty sweet revenge. However, he will be one of those "collect a bunch of evil henchmen and throw them at the party" sort of villains now because he has already tasted close up the "if you get too close, you might get smacked" type of situations. He is going to gain a significant fear of grappling and of facing the PCs directly.

In fact, I lost two reoccurring villains yesterday. The other was a juvenile black dragon who decided to never get in melee again with the PCs (after getting its butt handed to it the first time). So, it attacked them on their boat out on the ocean and was doing quite well. But, it again made the mistake of getting in too close when it tried to grapple the Barbarian off the boat and into the water (a sound tactic if it works). The grapple failed and in that split second before it could dive underwater again, nearly everyone in the party got a successful attack on it plus the Wizard/Rogue who was steering the boat changed the direction of the boat which made the flying dragon move over several PCs (which meant that he "moved through several threatened spaces") and they got Attacks of Opportunity on it (since changing the direction of the boat was a Move Action, the wizard used his Lightning Bolt wand to drop a 5D6er on the dragon as well). Best tactical move I had seen in a long time (although two PCs lost their balance and ended up taking a bath, they needed it anyway though ).

 

[Mortanis]

Ah.... how I love things like that. If the Players didn't do such things, the game would grow stale.

Near the beginning of my last campaign, 2 years back, the party was in hot pursuit of a very high level spellcaster who was racing to a tower to claim the Big-Bad-Magic-Item-That-Can-Ruin-The-World. He arrived before the Players, but as the players were very close behind him, I decided to adopt a ruse. He took the item, a quick Change Self and some new clothes later, pretended to be a gardner at the place.

The players arrive, corner the "gardner" about anyone that had recently entered. The gardner let them know some magic looking guy had entered recently, but left in frustration shortly before they arrived. I made up some BS about the room holding the Item being magically protected and needing some special key, which the "gardner" told the players the magicy guy probably didn't have.

Everything was going good, the players looked to be buying my ruse, when suddenly one of my players says "I attack him. It's the mage!". Shortly there after the NPC was dead, though he took 2 of the party with him.

The mage they killed was to be a major player in my game for a while, now deceased. And, being that the player who figured out the ruse was of that type, took the mages head and made the skull into a Cod piece which he faithfully wore for years to come.

To his credit, I've known that player for 15 odd years now, and he's always had an "intuition" with my plot lines that stems from knowing me so well. But still. The best laid plans.........

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Well the first mistake in my book, if you really wanted this sorcerer as a recurring character, was to not fudge his Concentration roll. I'm sure that there are those who would not agree with it, but DMs are not slaves to the dice if that is needed to advance the story. If the Sorcerer were going to stick around and fight then I wouldn't fudge rolls (except to perhaps save a PC from dying due to some serious bad luck), but if all he was doing was escaping, then he WILL escape, especially since he is so much more powerful than the party. His death at this point does not serve the storyline at all and might even unbalance the game.

It's like when the film hero can pick off 10 of the villian's cronies with 9 shots, but for some reason cannot hit the villian until the end of the film...it's not allowed.

 

[babomb]

a half-vampire half-drow half-fiend lich archmage

I don't have a problem with templates, but that's too many halves, darn it!