When players make you say "Cool"

[Schmoe]

My players hit upon a trick last night that just struck me as really, really cool. I had to smile.

Early in their adventuring careers, the group found an Immovable Rod. The rod languished in the backpack of one of the party members for a long time, unused. In the meantime, one of the characters was reincarnated as a Grig a while back. Just last night, they decided that the Immovable Rod made an excellent Grig Perch (TM). The Grig flies up about 20' above the ground and activates the rod (move equivalent action). Next round he spends his move action to perch on the rod, and voila! He is now safe out of harm's way, free to blast the battlefield. It doesn't hurt that this particular Grig is a sorcerer. Obviously, it doesn't work so well against flying opponents, but when you are trekking across a vast grassland, with no cover in sight, it does a wonderful job of keeping you out of reach from a swarm of vicious man-eating lizards.

I just thought I'd share that with the board. Anyone else come across any "tricks" that have made you pause in admiration?

 

[blackshirt5]

The PCs got ahold of a set of 6 Earrings of Telling(from Materia Magica) and had 2 extra(now they're down to one extra, with 5 party members). They hit upon the idea of using the extra earring to listen in on people after they left the room by activating and discreetly placing it. It was such an awesome idea(and the book was ambiguous on whether or not something like that would work) that I let it slide. Truly an amazing tactic.

 

[Piratecat]

The immovable rod is also GREAT for when that grig character is swallowed by a flying beastie. If he gets swallowed, the first thing he should do is activate that rod. A fast-moving monster can suffer quite a lot of indigestion as it rips through its innards...

I know because that's what my PCs did once. It was messy, and horribly effective.

 

[Drawmack]

The wizard is inside of a magic shell (O forget the actual spell, but is was an impentrable barrier) to cast a spell that the rest of the party said they would attack him if he attempted to cast. So the rogue goes up and knocks on the shell dangling a portable hole and a bag of holding.

 

[Zhure]

We had a gigantic mashing doorway we had to get through, but weren't sure we could disable the door. So we cast a SNA 3 (for some small air elementals), then hit our own group with a bead of force, and failed our saves. A tiny bit of damage and we had the air elementals push the globe into the room.

Voila, instant safe adventurers. turns out the massive amounts of undead in there would've pasted us. We D-doored out when we were done scouting.

 

[Schmoe]

The immovable rod is also GREAT for when that grig character is swallowed by a flying beastie. If he gets swallowed, the first thing he should do is activate that rod. A fast-moving monster can suffer quite a lot of indigestion as it rips through its innards...

I know because that's what my PCs did once. It was messy, and horribly effective.

Hehe. I can only hope that my players don't read these boards. That's a pretty ugly picture.

 

[Schmoe]

The PCs got ahold of a set of 6 Earrings of Telling(from Materia Magica) and had 2 extra(now they're down to one extra, with 5 party members). They hit upon the idea of using the extra earring to listen in on people after they left the room by activating and discreetly placing it. It was such an awesome idea(and the book was ambiguous on whether or not something like that would work) that I let it slide. Truly an amazing tactic.

That's awesome! I think I'm going to have to introduce a couple of these things to my game, just to see what my players do.

I've found that the "funky" magic items are the ones that I enjoy the most. Those that encourage creative application seem to be the magic items that add the most to the game.

 

[MarauderX]

Doesn't involve magic items, but it's still fun. In our group we get such a thrill when we knock a bad guy off of a cliff/tower/bridge, and I gotta admit it's just cool to think about.

The first case our party rogue was facing two bad guys that were attacking then drinking invis. potions afterward. Our rogue got the upper hand on one of them and then pushed the other from the top of the tower where they were struggling. Nothing like a fearless bull-rush at someone on the edge of a 60' drop.

The latest was a bridge over chasm (not bottomless) where the fighter pushed one off and the ranger tried to trip one off. I have a bard with a whip and I was looking to do some tripping too, but the battle was over before I got the chance, aided with a grease spell.

 

[Eldorian]

My 13th level barbarian has an immovable rod. He also has a ring of jumping and the Rod of Lordly Might. He uses these 3 items in strange combinations. First off, the immovable rod is the perfect way to bar a door... or a coffin that you just KNOW a mummy is going to come out of as soon as you touch it. He uses the ring of jumping to gain altitude, and then clicks on the immovable rod mid air, for a platform. He also uses the immovable rod as a base from which to use the forcing effect of the rod of lordy might, to force open doors and what not, mid air. Since we ruled that clicking a button is a move equivalent, but if you wanna click the same button many times, it's also a move equivalent, the immoveable rod also makes a makeshift feather fall effect. Fall 5 feet, click, fall 5 feet, click.. etc. While in a narrow hallway, I used the immovable rod as a barracade to stop several iron golems from reaching the party. Mine was made of adamantite, so i wasn't too worried about it becoming damaged. I was definatly thinking of getting a second immovable rod, and use it for climbing, but with the rod of lordly might, its not so important.

Clever barbarians..

Eldorian Antar

 

[Greatwyrm]

One of the players in a 2e game I ran a few years ago was playing a barbarian. During his career, he found a two-handed club that could cast Knock once per day. All you had to do was tap on the item and open it came.

This was all well and good until one day the party was getting pretty messed up by a large, Purple Dragon. The barbarian managed to sneak around to the back of the beast. Not knowing what else to do, he shoved the club in one of those places that is usually reserved for bodily waste and thermometers. It "opened".

I won't go into detail. Due to the innovative use, only one party member died -- it wasn't the barbarian, but he was never the same after that.