Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="BlackMoria" data-source="post: 1960800" data-attributes="member: 424">I remember one from a while back while playing 2E.Our party consisted of seven 3rd level characters.  Due to a combination of bad luck and some bad decision making, we found ourselves quickly being overwhelmed by a few ogres, a massive amount of orcs and dire wolves.It was a TPK in the making.  In short order everyone but the paladin and myself (I was a scout type rogue) was either dead or at minus hit points.  The paladin was completely surrounded and cut off by a mass of orcs, dire wolves and one ogre.  The only nearby companion I could try to save was the dying wizard who had gone down. I was already making my move when the paladin screamed for me to save myself and run.  I dashed over and picked up the wizard and moved off as fast (boots of speed don't fail me now) as I could through some brush and trees.  The paladin, bless him, managed to buy me a few rounds head start, before he went down.I found myself at the top of a long, wide cliff, which I suspect the DM just made up to put me out of my misery faster since he was basically hinting that it was all over as he reminded me that I could hear the howls of the dire wolves which had found my scent. And that with me carrying the wizard, the dire wolves would overtake me in a few rounds and that there was no escape.I tied a 50ft rope to a sturdy tree near the cliff edge to climb down when the first of the dire wolves broke cover further down.  I asked if I could jump over the edge (it was 60 feet straight down) and the DM said that the rope would most likely break, meaning that I would take 6d6 damage anyhow and that the even if the rope didn't break, the rope would do nearly as much damage to me due to the abrupt stop in acceleration.Inspiration hit me.  Stating that I was holding the end of the rope and with the wizard still draped over me, I ran along the top of the cliff in the opposite direction of the, by now, 5 dire wolves pursuers.  The DM had a puzzled look on his face as he was wondering what I was up to. The dire wolves were  literally breathing down my neck when I reached the end of my rope as the rope went taunt.  Then I told the DM I step off the cliff.  The DM was astonished as I described the dynamics of using the rope as a massive tarzan swing to the bottom and that excessive G-forces on the rope or on me were negated by swinging in a arc on a taunt rope.The DM allowed it to happen and after a few pendulum back and forth swings, I safely was on the ground.  I poured a potion down the wizard's throat (which the DM said was a -9 when I performed this action) and then carried the wizard out of there as quickly as I could.By the time the orcs caught up with the dire wolves after looting the bodies of my companions, I had too much of a headstart.  It would take them a hour to move to a location where the dire wolves could get down off the cliff and the orcs couldn't track me if they climbed down my rope, because that would mean leaving the wolves behind.So the wizard and I got to live another day.  A clever idea prevented an almost certain TPK.  I got bonus XPs for the clever escape and saving the wizard to boot.</blockquote>

Verification