274 – She’s MY puppy now!

Many years ago, in one of the many D&D games I’ve played in, I was running a cleric of Tyr named Mikalen Norn. He was also known as “Mike of the Hammer” because that was his preferred weapon. In one encounter, Mike and the party was waling away at this huge iron golem and Mike ended up getting squished. Not missing a beat, my friend Amy grabbed Mike’s hammer and dealt the killing blow. She then began to pantomime hitting ME with the hammer, all the while chanting “MY HAMMER NOW! MY HAMMER NOW!”

Ahh, memories. Speaking of which, what were some of your favorite in-game moments?

See you all on Monday!

~Rob

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After a hard fought battle with a two headed dragon, my friend, Rob, pantomimed holding up the two, now removed, heads, over the ends of his hands, like puppet. “I’m a silly dragon head!” he said, miming like he was working one of his macabre “puppets.” “No, I’m a silly dragon head!” he said with the other. “Oh, really, fool?!” asked the first. Then he mimed smashing them together. Very much like the bathtub/shampoo vs. conditioner famous scene from “Billy Madison.”

Waaaay back when in 1st ed. AD&D, I was running a module from Dragon Magazine called “Baba Yaga’s Hut”. Those that don’t know, it was basically a tesseract of sorts and travel in the module included going up and down stairs to get to the next available room.

Well, my old DM was playing a 1/2 ogre who was the half-brother to a 1/2 orc, both playing barbarians. The character was named Grok.

He was placed in the lead of the party and was walking up stairs. I asked him to roll for initiative for the party. He rolled a 1. Surprise, surprise, surprise! The monsters in the next room rolled 6, which at that time was the highest roll. Reading the DM text for the room, I saw that there were salamanders in there. Their body heat could cause immolation in the right conditions. I gave it a 1 in 20 chance. Guess what? Bingo! I rolled a 20 (high was better than low for those out of the know).

This is what I told the group: “As Grok heads up the stairs, a ruddy colored scaled hand reaches down as if the assist Grok in his climb. What does Grok do?”

He said, in character: “Grok takes hand.”

I asked him to roll a d20 for a save. These characters would have been considered high level characters at that time.

He rolled his d20 and rolled another 1.

I said: “As Grok’s hand clasps the other hand, flames shoot down his arm and engulf his body, causing him to burst into flames! The hairs of his body immediately burn off and the skin takes on the consistency of burnt meat. The other hand releases Grok’s death grip and Grok’s body falls down the stairs. Grok has died.”

The room was a quiet as a tomb, then the players (except for Grok’s player, of course) begin chanting, over and over: “He killed Grok!” and laughing all the while.

It seemed that that was Grok’s virgin death. The player has since refused to play with me as the DM. I wonder why?

We were adventuring underwater using some pretty stong magic to stay alive. The bard in the group decided we could use some reinforcements, so he blew his Horn of Valhalla summoning a group of berzerkers. The berzerkers drowned immediately (not having any magic to allow them to breathe underwater). The bard’s player looked at the DM, and, witha straight face, said, “Do I get experience for that?”

On an I believe 3.0-based MUSH several years ago, I had a little gnome wizard with illusion specialization and a fondness for summoning. He was a clownishly charming little fellow, who kept an amused demeanor during most situations, and rarely ever showed deep seriousness.

He joined a party going out on a patrol of low level characters (lvl 3 or 4 I think) from the city, with a player DM running things. The party consisted of the gnome, an elven ranger of whom he was quite fond, a paladin, a priest of the death-related deity (complete with favored scythe), and I think a bard.

We ran into an ambush that proved to consist of a small set of trolls. Three, I believe. And things began to go badly. The paladin charged in and rolled badly and got himself knocked nearly dead. The bard also got critted to near death. My little gnome, largely ignored, fired off his magic missiles on the target his ranger-friend was focused on, which did decent damage but the ranger was doing most of it. The priest took heavy but not quite incapacitating damage (I think he was at 5hp at most) as the trolls were whittled down to only one remaining, and said remaining troll managed to knock the ranger unconscious with a blow. To make matters worse, the DM began dropping hints that a party of ogres was on the way.

Seeing the ranger go down infuriated my little gnome, and he went into action. First: Globe of invisibility. Fortunately all party members were within its range. No targets for the troll. Next: Summon Monster brought in three Celestial Badgers (his usual summoning choice). The troll killed one the first round, taking minor damage from the other two. Third spell: Summon Monster bringing in a thoqqua (flaming worm). This thoqqua had in its only previous encounter earned the name Bob the Blind Thoqqua due to my inability to roll a hit for him. I brought him in anyway because of course his fire damage was one damage type the troll could not regenerate.

So now we have Bob the Blind Thoqqua and two Celestial Badgers vs one troll. Badgers attack, doing minor damage, benefitting on their to hit rolls from the flanking situation. Bob the Blind Thoqqua also attacks, also benefitting from flanking bonus….and misses. Still living up to your name, Bob.

The troll, in its round, attacks Bob as the obvious target. Hits. Does low damage to Bob, but takes a nasty bout of fire damage from having performed a melee attack on a flaming worm.

Next round, more minor badger damage, another Bob attack roll with flanking bonus….another miss. Still blind, Bob. The troll once again attacks Bob, and once again burns himself while further damaging but still not killing Bob. Ogres still making ominous noises nearby.

New round. I believe the badgers faded and my little gnome brought in one or two with his last memorized summoning spell to maintain the flanking. Minor badger damage. Bob’s turn again. A roll and…. a HIT! Major burn damage to troll but not enough to kill it, and that’s Bob’s last round. He’ll vanish as soon as the turn comes back. But the troll is weakened, and our still-alive death priest decides to try something risky.

Out of invisibility he comes, attacking the weakened and flanked troll with his scythe, and manages to roll two natural 20s in a row. Troll incapacitated. There was a chance the troll could have regenned enough to come out of incap on its turn, but the DM was so impressed with the risk taken and the double-crit that he ruled the priest’s deity was particularly happy with him and claimed the troll for the afterlife.

With ogres on the way and most of the party out of commission, my little gnome cast his very last memorized spell, producing a large magical disc onto which the incapacitated were loaded and the party beat a path back to town.

I’ve been gaming for over 30 years, 25 of which with my best buddy GM. One of our favorite pasttimes at games is, of course, retelling war stories. “Remember the time…”

So, long long ago, we’re playing Champions 4th edition, a good superhero system. It’s my first time playing this genre, and I’m running an Ironman analogue. For some reason, my buddy the GM allows the Odd Fellow in the group (every group has one, right?) to run a character that’s got a light saber that does ego damage instead of physical. A typical min/maxer, this guy knows that most folks/opponents don’t have huge ego defenses. Oh, and the terrible ego light saber? It’s got a fault – it can be used by others (most Powers in the game are personal and only usable by the character, but to make the less expensive point-wise you can give them faults).

We’re high atop a sky scraper, battling a demonic entity. My guy is hovering over the edge of the building firing power beams into this thing, and the sword guy takes a huge beating by the demonic entity. Down he goes. The Entity, not enjoying the strikes of that ego sword, picks it up and turns it on me. Mr. Mega Physical Defenses, very little Ego Defenses. One hit, zorch, my guy is unconscious, and falling twenty stories. He lands in a crash, leaving a 3″ deep impression in the concrete sidewalk.

One of the other player’s decides to draw a police outline around the mini, complete with cracks radiating out. Hmph. But it was funny.

And from then on, whenever we got in a fight in whatever campaign playing whatever characters, inevitably that darn outline would get re-drawn on the map when I was out of the room. It became a running gag. 🙂

Our most memorable adventure for me was two years ago. We were running an AD&D Campaign where i played a CN human cleric with the luck of the god on his side, I survived every encounter we had with this guy, which meant I carried everyone else back a couple of times, had a DM created relic, and carried the Maul of the titans as a last resort weapon.

We had a human Cavalier, an half-elven/half-elven demigod Ranger, the elven Prince who was a Magic user, his elven cleric who was sent to bring him home when he falls, a human Fighter and a human Druid. Huge party right? We decided we were the best thing since Codpieces and could take a giants keep. Not our best idea…

So we devised a plan to kill off the majority of the by poisoning the water source. Once that was complete we Polymorphed into insects and flew inside to scope things out. All the orcs had died that were protecting the inner courtyard. But surprisingly the Giants were unaffected. Then we decided that a frontal attack would be the best so we unmorphed and rushed inside. we killed room after room of orcs i think the final total was 125 giants (not even a quarter we learned afterward) and came to a giant room sealed on all sides save for the giant hole we put in the wall to make our own path to the Giants leader.

Now this room was a DM marvel. It was empty save for 12 glowing discs on the ground. Of course to players, Glowing=Investigate. Upon entering the room 12 Iron Golems entered the room via the discs and turned to attack us. We fought and fought but, they were never ending, one would die and another would teleport in. Being the last one left everyone unconscious, but alive (Gods bless the man who invented Rings of Regen =]) I used my Boots of Flying and flew up. as soon as i did they stopped. Pressure switches on the floor to alert the guards of enemies. Genius. So i pulled out my handy dandy flying carpet and picked up all of our bodies and piled them on it, we waited as everyone regenerated health and i cast some heals. Then we flew around and sniped the 12 Golems in the room from upon high.

In solving that riddle I decided to make another way out. In the ceiling. Breaking through the ceiling we entered the “Throne room” more or less. Awaiting us were two Titans, 100+ health with Magic resistance.one advanced and we rushed and the other started casting spells. we all kept heath other healed up and got the first one down to one last blow before he died, and he cast heal, which if you have played AD&D you know that in that game, “Heal” brought you back to Full HP -1d4 HP. Yea, time to start over. so we got him down again, purely through melee, as Magic had a slim chance to work. he then cast heal once more, but failed his MR so it wouldn’t work. As his spell fizzled, we saw the look of fear in his eyes and dealt the final blow. One left. Nope as the titan fell the second one caught him, and disappeared. WTF right?

To that I said, “I have the Maul of the Titans out right?”

To which our DM responded, “…Yeah?”

“It has Eight foot reach, plus two or so for my arms right?”

“…Sure…”

“I swing at the spot they were just at”

“Ok, but they are Invisible and about to Teleport, beat initiative and roll a Natural Twenty to hit. the one that hasn’t taken damage. With *Blah* hit points. You’ll have to Crit it for alot.”

We rolled initiative, they got a 5, I got a 5. Reroll. Three for them three for me. Six for me, five for them! We got a chance! so i rolled my to hit. Natural 20. The Gods were on my side. now to roll what kind of crit it was. Our DM had a table he had wrote up with specific types of crits, and different damage. I still remember what I rolled, 97. Head hit, INSTANT DEATH. Out of nowhere I smack an invisible being, and fell with my Maul of the TITANS. I left the maul in its head and cast Temporal Stasis on the Titan and took it with me and made a Statue in the town I built Immortalizing that great battle for ever.

*Sorry for the length and the grammar mistakes. It was my best adventure even everything after that couldn’t compare to the greatness that had happened. Thanks*

well I guess orcs arnt 100% dumb

I was playing a “deranged” Elven War Wizard [he had 4 imaginary friends that were disembodied voices of a past Adventuring group he had traveled with and whose death he had witnessed]. My group consisted of 2 Human Clerics [one of Life/Renewal and the other a Neutral Death deity] who were brothers, a Dwarven Fighter [with a slight Napoleon complex],and 2 Halfling Thieves [one a Neutral Assassin type and the other a “Trap Finder” type]. We had fought hard to get to a Wizard’s Tower [8 Wizards] who had made a deal with Drow to invade the area in exchange for “preferential treatment” and casting a Weather Control ritual to make it permanently cloudy in that area. Once inside we realize ofcourse this is just an outlying tower of a lacky wizard but decide to take him out anyway and maybe learn more about the Cabal of Eight. Being cocky we sneak into his lab and surround him,..he turns smiles and tells out thieves that “I have heard Ettins that walk quieter than you two”. Still being cocky we tell him he has no chance of escape and he must tell us all about his bosses,..which he does laughing the whole time. We still have not gotten the idea that he is not scared of us and finds our attempts comical [players had but characters had not]. After he explains the Cabals plan in decent general detail he laughs again and says ” Now that I gave away all my secrets I guess I can kill you now,…I truly hate to see people die without knowing our true genius” and he launches multiple Magic Missiles at all of us [he had created new MM spell that targets all enemies in a radius]. Laughing he floats up and begins to toy with us hitting us with what appear to be low lvl spells but that work oddly or pack a greater punch,…the whole time we are hitting him with everything we have and he is still laughing. After a few rounds he laughs again and slowly fades from view saying “lets raise the stakes”. Everyone tries to locate him but is unable to ,… one of the thieves tries Blind Fight but keeps missing,… the fighter walks around swinging at air. My Wizard walks into the middle of the room talking to his “invisible friends” saying things like “Yes I know he is around here somewhere,….no I cannot see him,… yes we can have some wine later,.. I know you would do that but you are just plain mean spirited”. He takes his bow [he is an elf so had the proficiency] smiles at the group and aims straight above his head and fires. DM’s ,who had been grinning the whole time, face drops and he says “you do what”,..I explain I fire up right above my head. DM rolls a few dice,..tell me to roll my to hit,..I roll a 20,..he says again,.. I roll another 20,… he says once again,..I roll another 20,..he says roll it once more,..I roll a 15 or a 16,..he rolls some hidden dice and tells the group “You hear an ear piercing scream and Silvermane [my Wizard] suddenly falls to the ground and seems to be struggling under something”. Turns out the Wizard was floating right above the center of the room watching us try to find him and my character [on a wild guess] hit him perfectly with the arrow,..first 20 was I was in the right area,..second 20 was to hit,…3rd 20 was to Inst-Kill,…and 4th roll was to see if the body hit me [which it did since I rolled lower than DM]. Ever after that whenever I pulled out my bow the group would shout “Enemus the Piercer”[the name my DM gave the bow after he made it magical].

In an Advanced D&D game lo these many years ago, one of our characters came across a Figurine of Wondrous Power; unlike other figurines, it could take three forms, since this was a DM-created piece. Form 1 was a sock monkey that when slept with, provided protection against psychic attacks. Form 2 was a little rhesus monkey. Form 3 was a giant orangutan. You had to repeat the command word to get to the different forms.

Well, our relatively low-level party was getting its collective ass kicked by a high-level dark wizard, and my little elven thief couldn’t get to a place to backstab Evil Mage as a distraction. But as he was starting to cast a fireball spell, one of us gained initiative and threw the figurine, chanting the command word three times. Before Evil Mage could complete the spell, the orangutan flew smack into his face. OOK! Mr. Orangutan then went to work giving Evil Mage’s head a “friendly” hug, providing one of the fighters a chance to hack at him, and me a chance to backstab. And we were saved. Hurray!

A group of 4 –

Shawn: D.M, plus running a human Palidin, 10th level.

James: Human Magic User, 11th level.

Dave: Human Cleric twins, both 10th level.

Me: 1/2 Elf Jester, 10th level, Cainam.

If you aren’t familiar with the Jester class, it was basically a sub class of thief. They aren’t great at anything, but they can do everything. Jack of all trades. Limited lockpick/thief abilities, limited spells, plus a bunch of free cantrip spells per day, ventriloquism, AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT – has a 5% chance per level of actually controlling what comes out of a wand of wonder, and does not drain charges from the wand while using it. So at 10th level, I have a 50% chance of controlling the wand that the unsuspecting D.M. let me have.

SO. . . Our party was getting ready for the final assult on the Nasty Evil Dude (16th level Magic User.) He was holed up in a Daern’s Instant Fortress with a bunch of archers, and we were getting hammered. I had enough. I had our magic user cast fly on me, and I hit myself with Reduction from the wand of wonder. Made the % roll for that. I’m now 6″ high and flying. I fly up to one of the arrow slits on the tower, and hit the magic user with a lightning bolt from my wand. Made that roll. He isn’t happy, and hits me with dispell magic, disrupting the fly spell. I throw another lightning bolt at him. Made THAT roll. The guy steps over to the arrow slit and flicks me off the ledge. Now I’m falling, but I figure I can handle the damage and I’d rather hit him again than save myself from the fall. I assume that he is still right next to the arrow slit, so I use my wand one more time to throw a fireball at the slit, hoping I’ll catch him with it. . .

Didn’t make that roll. Roll again to see what ACTUALLY comes out of the wand. . .

Summon – Rhinoceros. . .

Right above my little 6″ high body. . .

60 feet in the air. . .

OUCH. . .

We had to stop playing for almost an hour to recover.

Ok, pure comedey here. Led by the Paladin Amee, Our heros burst into a chamber, weapons ready. The Great and Powerful Magnus (Cue Fireworks) lifted his hand and light.up the chamber. Surprised by the Party, The Kolbolds in the Caver stopped torturing the Dire bear in the center of the chamber, and turned to face the party even as Vrak Levik, The Headstrong, Dumb but Powerful Githzerai monk, slammed into the leader and with a mighty twin palm strike snapped every rib the creature had. Ifrix the Summoner was up Next, and With his abilitys he called a Celesyial Wolf from the plane of Arcadia. The Wolf Pounced on the Kolbolds, Along with Ifrix’s dog, mauling a Pair to death. Amee, not wasting time, charged the ladt Kolbold in front of the cowering Dire bear, Slicing the creature in twain with her Bastard Sword. The Kolbolds had berely enough time to recover from the shock when the Party Advanced, Hoping to trap the remaining 3 and Let Magnus Finish them off. Amee and Ifrixs dogs blocked the escape routes down either side of the dire bear. But as Maguns began charging a spell, Vrak Levik Ttempted a Leaping charge over Ifrix’s dog. Failing Miserably and tripping over the Dog, Vrak fell forward. The Dire bear, Scared as it was by the Kolbolds torment, Lashed out and Knocked Vrak into the wall, nearly taking vraks arm off and slicing his stomach open. Vrak fell unconcious to the floor. Magnus finished his spell, Slaying the last of the Kolbolds, And Amee, raging from the inconvienience of it all, was forced to heal Vrak with her Lay on Hands ability, something she swore she would never do- though Ifrixmanaged to convince her otherwise after talking the Dire bear into a stare of helpfullness. The Party slept well with the Direbear now watching over them. Come morning, The group bid Amee goodbye as she fell back to the surface to finish her dutys, and Magnus led the group deeper into the Kolbolds Lair. They came in very short order, to a Deep pit. Vraks darvision could see the ground, and he guided the party diwn the stiff stone walls. Finding a Kolbold ambush, Magnuss stepped forward, and proceeded to tell the kolbolds they were weapons merchants, and at the top of the rocky climb was a selection of their finer weapons. The Kolbolds, consumed by greed and pursuaded by Magnus’ Charisma and skill with Bluffimg, The Kolbolds climbed the ledge.

They were promptly torn apart by the Very Angry and Vengeful Dire Bear.

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MeatShield by Rob Chambers

Bi-Weekly D&D-style Fantasy Hijinks!

274 – She’s MY puppy now!