Rystil Arden
First Post
When a player comes up with something creative that is a bit sketchy but fairly creative, do you usually say 'Yes'? I often do--my rule of thumb is "Yes if it makes the game more fun. No if it makes the game less fun."
Last session, this led to the incident that we shall forever remember as "The Flaming Cellist". The low-level group was beset by a Vampire, starting with his three bat swarms. They didn't have anything that could hurt the swarms except the Wizard, and the crazy pyromaniac bard had been stalking an NPC who was trying to use the bathroom, so he was out of the fight for the start. The others were trying to beat back the bats, and the Wizard managed to disperse one swarm quickly and almost got another eventually, but the Vampire himself proved trouble. With a series of bad Will saves, the Cleric and one of the Druids were both dominated. The other Druid forgot that he had Entangle prepared. Either way, nobody had magic or silver, let alone magic and silver. So, with two members dominated, the rogue wasting three rounds to try to make a UMD check with the party's wand of cure light wounds and then getting knocked out, the Wizard in deadly peril in melee flanked by the Vampire and the dominated Cleric and counting on his AC 20 (Shield and Mage Armour) to save him from certain doom, and the last Druid about to get Entangled by the dominated Druid, the Bard heads back and looks for a torch to take care of the bats.
The party has none. So he casts...Summon Instrument. He summons a cello and lights it on fire. The halfling Druid uses the fire to melt silver onto the stones he has just enchanted with the Magic Stone spell--silver and magic now. Then the Bard wields the flaming cello as an improvised weapon. Swing! I give him Torch damage against the bats and he kills the last swarm. Then he grabs the wand of CLW and charges it on his way over to the Wizard but doesn't expend the charge. Meanwhile, the Wizard coordinates his last spells against the Vampire that he hopes will coincide with a hit from the Halfling's stones, but the Halfling misses with all of them and the Wizard goes down. So the Bard heads over and asks to dual-wield the charged wand of CLW and the Flaming Cello (cello versus the last near-dead swarm, wand versus the vampire). I allow him to do this with the full penalties (-4 for the cello being an mprovised weapon, and the full penalties for two weapons without the TWF feat). He rolls a 20 followed by a 19 with the cello (a crit due to the swarm's terrible AC) and another 20 on the wand (didn't confirm but didn't matter--its an undead). The vampire gasps at the positive energy as the bats disperse. Fortunately for the vampire, the halfling's incompetence allowed it to Fast Healing a bit, so the Bard drops the cello (which vanishes) and fights the vampire to the death with the CLW wand (an unlikely proposition, considering that the vampire's Fast Healing is 5 per round and the CLW wand averages 4.5, but the vampire was almost at 0 to start with thanks to the Wizard/Druid tagteam).
If I hadn't allowed the crazy idea with the flaming cello and the wand, the party would have all been enslaved by the vampire, but as it is, the Bard (yes, the Bard!) became the hero of the night, and the game was more fun for all!
So tell me a story about when you bent the rules to allow a tactic like this--or tell me why you wouldn't allow it.
Last session, this led to the incident that we shall forever remember as "The Flaming Cellist". The low-level group was beset by a Vampire, starting with his three bat swarms. They didn't have anything that could hurt the swarms except the Wizard, and the crazy pyromaniac bard had been stalking an NPC who was trying to use the bathroom, so he was out of the fight for the start. The others were trying to beat back the bats, and the Wizard managed to disperse one swarm quickly and almost got another eventually, but the Vampire himself proved trouble. With a series of bad Will saves, the Cleric and one of the Druids were both dominated. The other Druid forgot that he had Entangle prepared. Either way, nobody had magic or silver, let alone magic and silver. So, with two members dominated, the rogue wasting three rounds to try to make a UMD check with the party's wand of cure light wounds and then getting knocked out, the Wizard in deadly peril in melee flanked by the Vampire and the dominated Cleric and counting on his AC 20 (Shield and Mage Armour) to save him from certain doom, and the last Druid about to get Entangled by the dominated Druid, the Bard heads back and looks for a torch to take care of the bats.
The party has none. So he casts...Summon Instrument. He summons a cello and lights it on fire. The halfling Druid uses the fire to melt silver onto the stones he has just enchanted with the Magic Stone spell--silver and magic now. Then the Bard wields the flaming cello as an improvised weapon. Swing! I give him Torch damage against the bats and he kills the last swarm. Then he grabs the wand of CLW and charges it on his way over to the Wizard but doesn't expend the charge. Meanwhile, the Wizard coordinates his last spells against the Vampire that he hopes will coincide with a hit from the Halfling's stones, but the Halfling misses with all of them and the Wizard goes down. So the Bard heads over and asks to dual-wield the charged wand of CLW and the Flaming Cello (cello versus the last near-dead swarm, wand versus the vampire). I allow him to do this with the full penalties (-4 for the cello being an mprovised weapon, and the full penalties for two weapons without the TWF feat). He rolls a 20 followed by a 19 with the cello (a crit due to the swarm's terrible AC) and another 20 on the wand (didn't confirm but didn't matter--its an undead). The vampire gasps at the positive energy as the bats disperse. Fortunately for the vampire, the halfling's incompetence allowed it to Fast Healing a bit, so the Bard drops the cello (which vanishes) and fights the vampire to the death with the CLW wand (an unlikely proposition, considering that the vampire's Fast Healing is 5 per round and the CLW wand averages 4.5, but the vampire was almost at 0 to start with thanks to the Wizard/Druid tagteam).
If I hadn't allowed the crazy idea with the flaming cello and the wand, the party would have all been enslaved by the vampire, but as it is, the Bard (yes, the Bard!) became the hero of the night, and the game was more fun for all!
So tell me a story about when you bent the rules to allow a tactic like this--or tell me why you wouldn't allow it.
