What are your favorite RBDM tricks?

[Pbartender]

Rock to mud, followed by a quickened mud to rock. No one's going anywhere after that.

FLESH TO STONE, ROCK TO MUD, PURIFY WATER, then DRINK 'EM!

I've always been partial to Tasha's Hideous Laughter in the middle of knee-deep water. It rarely kills players, but it sure is fun to watch them scrambling to save the guy who's drowning, because he can't stand up and he can't stop laughing.

 

[mhensley]

I just read thru the adventure Mud Sorcerer's Tomb from Dungeon #138 and I must say it is a textbook on how to be a RBDM. There were several times where I cringed at how nasty and unfair it is. That's why I'll be running it tonight.

 

[mhensley]

*ghouls armed with slings and rot grubs

Nice one. I like kobolds with clay pots full of green slime too.

*shocker lizard colonies

Don't forget to team them up with a Shambling Mound or Flesh Golem.

*things with fairly high DR incorporating falling damage into pounce/ambushes

Heh, I did this with a Bebilith. It weighs two tons, ouch.

 

[green slime]

Nice one. I like kobolds with clay pots full of green slime too.

I don't appreciate the potting. I prefer to have space to slosh around in, if given a choice.

 

[Evilhalfling]

My favoriate one involved a Spectral rider- and balent thievery.

He challanged a the group send a single man to a joust, on a bridge. He even allowed them to buff the character chosen. A few rounds later the PC charges forward through the concealed pit trap, and falls into the river. His Phantom Steed charges over it and rides down the party spellcasters, having just assesed their abilities, and depleted thier spells.

Idea stolen directly from a player who said "wouldn't it be awful if ... "
I was planning on him avoiding the "champion" but the pit idea, was too good to pass up

 

[Nail]

One of my problems is that the players have access to more books than I do so they have a lot more options available to them.

The solution is to say: "IMC, no book will be allowed that I do not own." This is neither unreasonable nor onerous. You are not required to accept all splatbooks.

My solution to their munchkin pc builds has been to carefully track encounters so that I can determine their real effective character level. I can safely say that they are 2 levels above in real power compared to what's printed on their character sheet. Knowing that, I have been able to challenge them again. For example, our last game had their level 11 pc's go thru 4 CR 13 encounters. They were tough but nobody died (at least not permanently).

The issue there is that the PCs get far more XP than they should, and thus level-up even more quickly.

They've been playing with the earlier form of energy substitution (i guess) for over a year now so I don't really want to make them change the way they play so far into the campaign.

Then the other option is to tack on energy resistance (sonic) onto everything that should have it. Good monsters for sonic resistance include demons and chaotic outsiders.

Look: Don't let the "Player with the Most Books" win. It's a role-playing game, not a book-collecting game.

 

[Darklone]

One of my old favorites: Veiled medusa archers.

At first everyone wants to close for melee combat... then everyone wants to back off.

Even better if you put the medusa on a flying carpet. Your players might make the saves, but their flying mounts?

 

[shilsen]

One of my old favorites: Veiled medusa archers.

At first everyone wants to close for melee combat... then everyone wants to back off.

Even better if you put the medusa on a flying carpet. Your players might make the saves, but their flying mounts?

Another fun variation on that is medusas with greater invisibility. It's really funny when the mage casts See Invisibility, says "Oh, shi...," and turns to stone. For a certain value of funny

 

[mhensley]

Another fun variation on that is medusas with greater invisibility. It's really funny when the mage casts See Invisibility, says "Oh, shi...," and turns to stone. For a certain value of funny

LOL

Now that's funny. I have to use this sometime.

 

[mhensley]

The solution is to say: "IMC, no book will be allowed that I do not own." This is neither unreasonable nor onerous. You are not required to accept all splatbooks.

I agree, except that I didn't start dm'ing for this group until after they were up to 10th level. It's kinda late in the game to make them change everything now. When we start a new campaign, it will be core rules only. That's one of the main reasons I'm really looking forward to 4e- a nice fresh start.

The issue there is that the PCs get far more XP than they should, and thus level-up even more quickly.

Yeah, there's that. Still I would rather they level up quickly than have them slog through a bunch of encounters that are really no challenge to them.

Then the other option is to tack on energy resistance (sonic) onto everything that should have it. Good monsters for sonic resistance include demons and chaotic outsiders.

Hopefully this is one area that they fix in 4e. Having virtually no monsters in 3e with resistance or immunity to sonic energy is huge gaping hole in the rules. Oh well, I'll start hitting them with Slaad soon enough.