Worst Swim check in history

[Gez]

The bane our the paladin in the campaign I DM is initiative rolls. Between puny Dexterity and player's bad luck, his init is often in the 1-5 range. As that particular Paladin's also lacking in the Consitution sector, acting after the monsters frequently mean that his only actions is rolling stabilization checks.

 

[Ravellion]

Slight Forge of Fury spoiler.

I think I have just told the story haven't I ?

Anyway, my Fighter1/Cleric2 decided he wanted to kill the orcs on teh otehr side of the rope bridge. He decided he needed to get there fast because the wizard was low on health.

"Can I make it across the bridge? how are my chances."
"Not spectacular, but you can make it."
"I am going for it!"
Rolls a 16.
"That's a 6 modified. Am I across?"
"Make another check"
"4. Now What?"
"Your character slips, tries to hold on to the side but fails, and the rest of the party sees his full plated form fall down quickly"
Me rips character sheet in half since I was very unhappy about the character anyway.
"So what did I need anyway"
"Errr. You needed 12."
"I couldn't make 12. At all."
"Oh. So I gave misleading information. Well, nothing I can do about that now."

Yuck.

 

[Felix]

Interesting skill checks?

The paladin, ranger and I (the barbarian) had to scale down a 400 foot cliff, with only about 75 feet of rope. The DM said there were ledges here and there, and a 75 foot rope, after being tied to two of the three people would have enough slack to reach them all. We just needed to make 10 climb checks a piece.

Needless to say, we all took our armor off, and decided that I would carry it; I was supposed to be the anchor if anyone fell. They tied the rope to me, and began to lower me down over the edge... and both failed their initial STR check. So I fell 50 feet. Luckily, they recovered and caught me before I pulled the ranger over the cliff to our deaths.

I anchor myself to the ledge, and the paladin begins to climb down the rope held taught by the ranger at the top... and fails his climb check. So he starts plummeting to his death. Only to be saved by me who made DC 20 DEX and STR checks. Whew!

Ranger's turn. Starts climbing and [drumroll] fails his climb check. I fail a DEX check to catch him, so the ranger shoots past us on the ledge to fall about 80 feet altogether. The paladin however, makes his DC 22 STR check to hold me back from falling, and stops the ranger from going all the way down.

At this point, we're thinking: "Hey, this is going pretty quickly, why don't we just keep doing it this way all the way down?"

So we climb/freefall all the way to the bottom of the cliff without much of a problem. Unless you think it a problem to be making STR and DEX checks every other minute to save your buddy from falling to a grizly death. Heh.

Moral of the story: have a friggin wizard in the party who can cast Levitate!

 

[Someone]

Player: "I tumble back behind the tanks, and shoot the hydra with my bow"

Me: "Make a tumble check to avoid attacks of opportunity"

Player: "Natural 2....uh, 14"


Hydra: "Yummy"

Skaros

I hereby recommend Hydras to be used against archers. They seem to be unnaturally effective, and attract archers like the flame attracts the moth. IMC, in which the players are not very familiar with the rules. They were once fighting against a Hydra (and notice that I use minis and counters, s he knew exactly where he was):

"I shoot with my bow!"

"You´ll have to step back or you´ll eat an AoO"

"Ok, I do"

later:

"I shoot with my bow!"

"You´ll have to step back or you´ll eat an AoO"

"Ok, I do"

The fourth time:

"I shoot with my bow!"

"The hydra bites you for X damage"

"Oops. I die"

 

[Angcuru]

Balance Checks Suck Hard!

I think the -1/5 lbs. rule is a BIT off. The way I run it, you get -1/10 lbs. you are carrying. I think it's a bit much for a character to have to take -14 if they're just wearing Full Plate. -7 Seems more doable, wouldn't you agree?

 

[Hypersmurf]

"You´ll have to step back or you´ll eat an AoO"

Sometimes you eat the AoO...

... and sometimes, the AoO eats you...

-Hyp.

 

[Chimera]

Re: Balance Checks Suck Hard!

I think the -1/5 lbs. rule is a BIT off. The way I run it, you get -1/10 lbs. you are carrying. I think it's a bit much for a character to have to take -14 if they're just wearing Full Plate. -7 Seems more doable, wouldn't you agree?

-1 / (STR * 0.5) would seem more reasonable.

Makes it -1/4 for STR 8, -1/10 for STR 20.

 

[Angcuru]

Re: Re: Balance Checks Suck Hard!

-1 / (STR * 0.5) would seem more reasonable.

Makes it -1/4 for STR 8, -1/10 for STR 20.

You know, you're right.

 

[Mersie]

Re: Re: Re: Balance Checks Suck Hard!

Hiya all. New to this but had to recount our parties colosall inability to get a good roll between them.
The Scene. Midway thru Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Fire Temple)
Me, a 9th lvl Sorcerer and recently elected Tainted Spellcaster (Prc from Dragon) due to selfishly hogging a nifty idol that changed me from Neut Gd to Chaotic Evil, due to demonic possesion. I had spent the past 8 seshions since "getting evil" very casually and carefully raining friendly Lightning Bolt (Empowered of course) on my fellows, to good effect, and after many seshions they clicked I was possessed, probably after the 4th time I had Polyed into a Green Dragon and was flying about invisibly pissing them all off and scaring them silly.
So eventually I got bored of fighting the party, and allowed them to come a get me and recover and destroy the evil idol.
Standing stock still in a room, no def spells up, a 11 Dex and a desire to getting grappled, a 9th lvl Paladin, Monk, Fighter6/Rogue3 and a 1/2 Dragon 1/2 Orgre Barbarian ALL charge me, each rolling 1's on their Grapple checks, and slipping on the blood on the floor, much to my mirth. Again they all try to grapple me, expecting firery death to fall on us all at any moment, again each failing their rolls! I, being the easiest PC ever to get nobbled by this form of arcane counter-attacking am wetting myself laughing as 4 PC's are sliping on their arses, and me WANTING to get grappled, so we can get on with the game and duff up some baddies...... Much cursing ensued, and eventually they got me on the floor, stripped of everything and rendered spell-incapable, and still they are holding a stilletto to my throat. To mine and the DMs hilarity (as we have been planning these encounters in secret) a handfull of cultist baddies turn up and attack them, I poly into a snake, free myself, slither off and come back and save the party from certain death with some well placed Fireballs. Suffice it to say my share of the loot has been less than fair since then, and the Gnome Paladin still hates me cos I killed his beloved War-Dog. Twice.