More Funny D&D Stories

[The TechnoGnome]

So I've been lurking and reading on this thread for a while, and figured it was high time I posted a story of my own. So gather 'round, all, and listen to the tale of Mordek the Drunk, paladin of Moradin, AKA the World's Most Psychotic Paladin.

A bit of background first: I was in high school at the time, and the 4th edition PH2 had recently come out. This was the first game of D&D I had ever played, and pretty much everyone involved was completely new to the game, except for one player who had played a few games with his family in the past. Of course, said veteran player wasn't the DM of this game, because that would make too much sense. No, instead the DM was the guy who brought us all together in the first place, and he had never even played the game before, let alone DMed before. So already this was going to be a very 'interesting' game. Most of our cast were rather generic members of their race and class, with the most original race/class combination being my dragonborn ranger, and even he ended up fighting with dual scimitars and generally acted more like a fighter than a ranger. And then there was Mordek.

Mordek the Drunk was a supposedly Lawful Good Dwarf Paladin of Moradin, played by my brother. You would think that a character concept like that played by a new player would also being generically boring at best, and Lawful Stupid at worst. However, Mordek was... well, he was something 'special'. Despite his alleged alignment, he was drunk, violent, bull-headed, and pretty much every other negative stereotype of a dwarf you can think of. The scariest part of all this, however, was that my brother had taken the time to completely justify said behavior in his backstory.

You see, Mordek was technically a heretic of the Church of Moradin. He genuinely believed that every action he could possibly take was perfectly in line with the divine will of Moradin. His logic went something like this: Since Moradin is god of the dwarves, he must have personally created all dwarves in his own image. As Moradin is the god of creation, anything he creates is by definition created perfectly and without flaws. Therefore, every aspect of dwarves and their culture, both good and bad, was not only created intentionally, but perfect in every way. Thus, all dwarves are divine beings who can literally do no wrong, as they are all created perfect by Moradin. By this logic, a devout dwarven follower of Moradin is duty-bound to do whatever they feel like, as since they are created perfectly in Moradin's image, they will always act exactly how he would want them to in said situation. And of course, members of other races who worshipped Moradin would have to completely assimilate themselves into Dwarven culture in order to truly appease the Divine.

Needless to say, this rather logically circular and self-justifying belief system didn't fly with either his church or his dwarven community, and he was thus exiled from both. However, due to the rather lax rules of 4e paladins, once he got his powers, he pretty much keeps them for life, barring him outright denouncing his own god which, as a devout follower of Moradin, he would never do. In all honestly, the DM should have shot this idea down before the campaign even began, but since he was new to DMing and wanted to play D&D pretty badly, my brother was able to convince him to go with it (I don't remember his exact argument for maintaining his alignment, but I'm almost certain it had something to do with exploiting the subjective nature of 'lawful' and 'good'). And thus began one of the craziest campaigns I was ever a part of. Two stories in particular come to mind whenever I think of Mordek: Mordek vs. the Owlbear, and Mordek's Ballista Cart.

Mordek vs. the Owlbear

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The party had just finished clearing out a cave full of kobolds that were terrorizing a nearby village. During the final battle, our group had managed to capture a kobold alive, and started debating over what to do with him once we were outside. The bard wanted to let him go, assuming that he learned his lesson and wouldn't harm the village ever again, the other ranger (a bow-user) and I wanted to kill them so that they couldn't hurt anyone else, and our wizard didn't really care either way, and just wanted to recharge his spells. Mordek, on the other hand, wanted to enslave the kobold and use it as a personal servant for himself and pack-mule for the other players (I'll get to why he didn't want a pack-mule for himself in the next story). When we pointed out that slavery went against pretty much everything a lawful good paladin stood for, his response was basically "But kobolds are monsters, not people. They don't count. If anything, he'd be my pet, not my slave." (I don't remember if the DM knocked his alignment down or not for that statement, but if not, he really should have.)

Oh, I should also mention that Mordek was incredibly racist towards any species smaller than a dwarf, which resulted in a rather one-sided rivalry with the halfling.

Anyway, while we were arguing over this, the kobold managed to slip out of its restraints, and wisely made a mad dash into the undergrowth. The rest of us figured it wasn't worth the hassle to track him down and were willing to let him go, but Mordek was dead-set on having his own servant to serve him ale, and thus chased after him. The rest of the party were pretty tired and had used up most of our healing surges and dailies against the chief kobold in the earlier fight, so we went back to town, figuring Mordek could handle himself.

Meanwhile, Mordek was trying to find his way through the undergrowth of the forest on his own. As the party tank, Mordek had about 13 wisdom and didn't have training in Nature or Perception, so needless to say he ended up getting super-lost trying to track the kobold. And as he was wearing full plate mail and not even trying to be stealthy, he rolled badly enough to attract the attention of an owlbear. Note that an owlbear is considered a level 8 elite boss, and at the time Mordek was level 2 and had already spent his daily power and most of his healing surges, so I'm pretty sure the DM was trying to teach the player a hard lesson on why you shouldn't run off on your own like an idiot.

Of course, none of us other than the DM (and maybe the veteran, but he'd only played a couple of small campaigns before us, so it's possible he didn't know either) knew this at the time, so Mordek assumes that he could easily take it and get some bonus XP in the process. He was very quickly proven wrong as his Radiant Smite encounter power barely scratched the beast, and the owlbear somehow managed to completely disarm Mordek and break both his warhammer and shield within two turns of combat. Mordek tried to fight back by picking up a large branch and whacking the owlbear with it in an attempt to scare it off, but fumbled the roll and ended up tripping over a root, knocking himself prone and losing the branch.

The player at this point was beginning to panic, as his character was lying prone in front of a massive beast ready to kill him and none of our characters were anywhere close enough to Mordek to help, or indeed even knew what was happening to our friend (and yes, despite his rather insane antics, we really did like the guy. Except for the halfling, of course, but even that hate was only IC). He starts searching his inventory for something, anything he could use as an improvised weapon. At that point, however, he only had one thing left in his inventory. Or rather one kind of thing.

You see, after buying the bare necessities, Mordek's player had blown pretty much all of his extra gold during character creation on pitchers of ale, which he constantly drank through our adventure. And with that much constant drinking comes a consistently full bladder. To save time on the road, Mordek had gotten into the habit of peeing into the empty pitchers of ale cluttering his inventory and saving them like a bearded Howard Hughes for reasons that baffle me to this day. Thus, he had almost 25 pitchers worth of his own urine cluttering his inventory. And that's what led to this immortal line:

"I start throwing mugs of pee at the owlbear."

Everyone is silent for almost ten seconds as they process what he just said, and then the entire table cracked up in laughter at the mental image of a dwarf drunkenly hurling his own pee as a weapon. It takes a couple minutes for the DM to regain his composure enough to continue, and when he finally does, he states that the shock of having stale urine thrown in its face stuns the owlbear long enough for Mordek to stand up and start running. Mordek begins to do so, but the owlbear manages to make its save and, now thoroughly pissed off, starts chasing him. As the beast is obviously faster than he is, Mordek does the only thing that has worked so far, and keeps throwing his pitchers of pee at the owlbear while running full tilt in the opposite direction, hoping to slow it down enough that he can get away. At this point, any pretense of this encounter being taken seriously has completely flown out the window, and so the DM does the only appropriate thing left and starts playing 'Yakety Sax' on his computer. This chase scene continues for several minutes, partially because the DM and Mordek are dictating their actions between peals of laughter, and partially because Mordek's plan was actually working. Eventually though, the owlbear manages to catch up to him, and trap him against a tree while knocking Mordek into the single digits. Now Mordek the character is positive he's screwed, so he does what any devout follower would do and prays to Moradin for a miracle.

The DM ended up taking pity on the poor bastard (partially because he was feeling guilty at this point for pitting Mordek against a monster six levels higher than him without any backup, and partially because if Mordek died, we would have no tank and only a bard to heal us), so he ruled that the overwhelming smell of the pee-drenched owlbear had attracted a metallic dragon, which unceremoniously swooped down and plucked the owlbear right off Mordek at the last second, because apparently dragons like their meals marinated in urine. Mordek, probably attempting to save face, yells at the dragon that he was doing just fine on his own, but of course the dragon just ignores him and flies away. It takes Mordek until past midnight to make his way back to town, and he refuses to share exactly what happened with the rest of the party when they ask why he's covered in blood, missing his weapons, and smelled like pee. He had to spend his share of the looted gold replacing his (silvered and spiked) hammer and shield, and as far as I know, that was the last time Mordek ever intentionally split the party.

Mordek's Ballista Cart

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This story has its beginnings a couple sessions after the owlbear incident. We had completed our first major story arc, which I think involved stopping some cultists from opening a portal to summon their demonic master, but honestly it doesn't really matter for this story. The point was that our actions had earned us an audience with the king of the area. He personally thanked us for saving the kingdom from disaster, and then mentioned that because of this, we were the best men to deal with a situation that had him very concerned. He wanted us to go to the desert and investigate an obviously magical sandstorm that had completely engulfed the neighboring kingdom for almost a year now, and created a physical barrier that no one could get through. Since the kingdom was in our debt already and the desert separating the two kingdoms was incredibly dangerous on its own, he not only offered a large payment for any information we could find, but offered to equip us with any items we requested for the journey ahead. Upon hearing this, Mordek's player started flipping through the Player's Handbook to figure out exactly what he wanted.

The rest of us discussed what we wanted him to give us (he wasn't willing to give us hard cash or magic items, and we already had pretty much all the equipment we needed/wanted), and eventually we settled on asking him for his best horse and wagon for the road, a request which he gladly accepted. As we were about to leave the throne room, Mordek's player set down his handbook and asked, "Would the king give us a ballista if I asked?"

"Probably," the DM replied, "but it would be so heavy that you wouldn't be able to reasonably carry it without help."

"I totally could," Mordek said, "After all, dwarves can't get encumbered, so I can carry anything I want."

The DM just stared at him, dumbstruck, "...What?"

At this point, he and the DM began arguing. For those not familiar with 4th edition, one of the dwarf's racial abilities is 'encumbered speed', which basically negates the speed penalties for being encumbered and heavily encumbered, as well as any speed penalties imposed by wearing heavy armor. In theory, this was supposed to be a balancing tool to make up for the fact that dwarves were naturally the slowest of the original player races, and any speed penalties below -1 would make them too slow to be a viable player race. However, Mordek's player didn't understand the difference between 'encumbered' and 'overloaded'. Thus, he assumed that this trait gave dwarves unlimited carrying capacity (and continues to insist he's right to this day, which is why he's banned from ever playing another dwarf in 4e).

Even at the time, I thought this sounded like total bull****, and now that I'm way more familiar with the rules, I know it is. However, back then no one in the group, even the veteran, knew the 4e rules well enough to argue with him on this point. The DM tried to point out that this was absolutely ridiculous and there was no way dwarves would actually have a racial ability that broken, but my brother opened the rulebook and pointed to the racial ability, saying "See? It says that I can carry a heavy load with no penalties. I can totally have a ballista!"

Eventually, the two of them managed to reach a compromise. Mordek would be able to carry the ballista on his back by himself, but it would require both hands to do so due to its unwieldy size and shape, and thus he would have to put it down in order to do anything else with his hands, like fight. In addition, it would take a standard action to set up if he wanted to actually fire it, and as a siege weapon that he wasn't proficient with, it would have a noticeable penalty to accuracy if aimed at human-sized targets. Mordek accepted these terms, and the king (as baffled with the request as the players were) gave him his ballista and ammunition.

Mordek managed to carry that ballista throughout the rest of the game, and used it whenever he was able to. From that moment on, Mordek's main strategy in battle was to set up the ballista on his first turn while the rangers covered him, and then bombard the enemy from a distance alongside the wizard until they got close, at which point he would ditch the ballista (which, since he kept the ammunition on his person at all times, the enemy couldn't use) and start using his divine melee powers. Despite being unable to use the majority of his powers with it, the ballista was one of the party's strongest weapons, even managing to kill a boss in two shots at one point. Eventually, he bought a wheelbarrow to mount it in, thus keeping it prepped even when he was carrying it so that he could get it into the battle even faster. At one point, the DM even tried to destroy the damn thing, but Mordek simply carried the wreckage with him to the next town and paid to have it repaired. I think the only reason it didn't end up stolen was that even in the wheelbarrow it was so heavy that only Mordek could move it, and the DM wasn't clever enough to have a dwarven thieves guild pop up.

There are a couple more stories about Mordek's antics, but this post is long enough as is. The campaign itself eventually died down at some point while we were still travelling to the sandstorm kingdom, so my brother and I eventually decided that the entire party got lost in the desert and died after a rather brutal sand worm attack. However, if I ever get a chance to DM using a homebrew setting I've been cooking up, I'm considering having Mordek be the only survivor of the encounter, and start his own cult of Moradin with others who get lost in the desert, which would eventually evolve into him actually turning evil, becoming a warlord, and his dynasty becoming a succession of Dwarven Hitlers bent on conquest and the extermination of halflings for the glory of Moradin (who at some point would end up being corrupted into a Lawful Evil deity through his connection to Mordek). Honestly, it something like that wouldn't even be that out of character for him to do.

[Godie1803]

I think one of the funniest sessions I've played so far was this time when our party got really drunk and ended up with an alpaca, who we adopted as a friend and party's mascot, later on the game we found an abandoned fort that we wanted to turn into our base of operations but couldn't because of legal reasons.

We track down the owner of the fort, who turned out to be an evil elf king who had some kind of curse that prevented him from leaving the tower in which we found him. We convinced him that we would work for him in exchange of the fort (we would pay some sort of rent for the fort) and we would restore it and bring it to his former glory.

But of course a pc would never work for anybody, they are their own boss! So in the end we turned the the old fort into a brothel called the spicy alpaca.

[Inevitability]

FR campaign (HotDQ). The party is in Elturel*, and the least... law-abiding party member, a kobold fighter, decides to 'earn some extra money'.

*As FR-veterans should know, Elturel is constantly illuminated by a giant orb of undead-harming light floating above the city.


Kobold: I wait until it is dark outside. Once it is, I leave my room and...
Me: Er... Giant orb of light?
Kobold: Fine. I wait until I can see the moon...
Me: Kind of hard when a giant light orb covers it.
Kobold: I wait until I feel like it should be night and go outside. I then try to find a dark alley.
Me: *sigh* What part of 'giant orb of light' do you not understand?

[turbo164]

Haha, Mordek sounds great!


So here's a few funny bits from our group's recent escapades. (more in the Campaign Log in my signature! /shameless plug)

Sharks!

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In the classic PC tradition of grabbing anything that's not nailed down and on fire (or is, for that matter), the party has previously looted the following:

scorpion stingers (handy!)
roach guts (alchemy?)
griffon feathers (pretty!)
mud (...it was magic mud!)
pretty water (purple!)
undead trees (worth a shot)
beetle shells (also pretty!)
statue chunks (...it was a magic statue!)

And probably more I'm forgetting. I usually roll up values for such things on the fly. But when the party came across a bloody carcass in a river being chewed on by flying sharks, I made sure to pre-roll the value for Shark Teeth, Shark Fins, and [secret carcass stuff]. But the group actually left without looting anything!

Back in town hundreds of miles away...
"Okay lets sell our loot."
"We've got that stuff from the tower...what else have we got since we were last in town?"
"The only other fight was with the sharks...ARGH! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!"

They debated whether it was worthwhile to scrounge up some Teleports purely to grab the shark bits that may or may not still be there when they get back, haha.

Which led to the following on a later forest excursion:

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A third day brings the party across a very large skull, attached to a long, decaying body.
Gort: "Knowledge Nature! Natural 1!"
DM: *rolls a d15* "You think it’s from a Monstrous Humanoid."
Gort: "Guys! I think this was a Centaur or something!"
Old Man: Knowledge Nature 20, diplomacy 37 “It’s actually a dinosaur…”
Gort: "…It’s a Centaursaurus!"

The group then spends about 30 minutes pulling dozens of teeth from the skull and sending the Gnome climbing into its rotting gullet to look for valuable remains…
DM: "You’re not going to ever repeat the Shark incident, are you?"
Players: "Heck no! We’re looting EVERYTHING!"
DM: "Heh. Well, I guess you find…*roll* 13 gold worth of copper ore in its gizzard alongside the rest of the digestive stones."
Gnome, dripping rotten dinosaur slime: "WORTH IT!"

^_^

[Inevitability]

The abovementioned kobold character left the party during yesterday's session, together with his gnome friend (another PC). In order to avoid the problem of having to travel several days through hostile terrain, he took out his bag of tricks.

Anyways, three sudden animals, several exploitations of the rules on riding, and a lot of weird glances from the other players later...

Me: *sigh* And so, the kobold rides away into the sunset, riding a giant badger. Which is riding a giant moose. While the kobold is carrying a normal-sized badger himself. Oh, and there is also a gnome sitting behind the giant badger. Aaaaaaand you are all barred from ever riding anything again.

[Iximaz]

So, in my most recent D&D session, I actually ended up being the munchkin for once and managed to beat the entire encounter all by myself:

DM: You see, at the top of the cliff, a group of orcs. Roll initiative.

Me (playing a wizard/psion): How close are they to the cliff?

DM: Right at the edge. Apparently they were acting as lookouts.

Me: *evil grin*

I somehow managed to win the initiative, and cast Wall of Fire around the orcs. Since the other two members of the party were melee, they were rendered useless. That's why you always pack a bow!

Anyway, I proceeded to throw the lead orc off the cliff using Force Hammer, then proceeded to cast Betrayal on the other orcs, causing them to jump off the cliff after their leader and attack him as they fell before going splat on the ground below.


Of course, it doesn't quite measure up to the time my brother had the brilliant idea to sneak attack the baron during a boring speech...

~~~

Oh, and then there was our very first dungeon crawl as a party. We'd been charged by the local Thieves' Guild to take out their rival, the Beggar King, and return with his head.

Cast: DM, Austin, Alex, and myself

It took us several sessions, but at long last, we killed the target.

DM: As the Beggar King falls to the ground, you feel the ground sart shaking.

Austin: Oh crap! What's going on?

Alex: There's an earthquake?

DM: As you stand around discussing what might be happening, you hear a roar and the tower roof is torn off to reveal a mighty black dragon.

Me: How big is it?

DM: It looks pretty big, probably an adult-

Me: We're only level two! There's no way we could take on an adult black dragon!

Austin: We're running away.

Everyone else: RUN AWAYYY!

DM: Aren't you guys forgetting something?

Alex: You mean the giant man-eating dragon?!

Austin: Screw looting, we're getting outta here!

Me: Yeah, you can keep your treasure!

And we ran back to the Thieves' Guild to tell them we did the job and to please give us the money they promised. That was when we realized... we'd forgotten the guy's head. Oops. At least the loot we'd gained on the adventure made up for the lost bounty.

As for the dragon, it just disappeared. I have no idea what was the deal with that.

[Iximaz]

After the last character had crawled in, there was a moment of silence. The party waited in eager anticipation of what lay next in the tomb, I sat in stunned horror at what had occurred. I stood up, closed my books, and said, "Congratulations everyone, you have all willingly crawled into a Sphere of Annihilation," then walked out.

I read the story to my family and we couldn't stop laughing for the longest time. Now to convince my mom (our resident DM) to run ToH...

[DontEatRawHagis]

Players knock on the door of a hermit's shack.

Hermit: I'm in the middle of nowhere. Must be my imagination.
Paladin: Hello!
Hermit: now I'm hearing voices.
Rogue: yes, we are your conscious. Leave all your gold at the window sill.
Warlock: and any other valuables.
Paladin: Don't listen to them they aren't voices in your head.
Rogue: That's exactly what he wants you to think.

---------------------------

Read aloud.

Hermit: Who are you?
Paladin: I am a Paladin of Sif, Goddess of Woe
Hermit: Wow.

Simple but my players couldn't keep their composure after that.

[goto124]

I'm ashamed that I don't understand the Paladin of Sif, Goddess of Woe joke.

[Milodiah]

Reminds me of the two gods I've homebrewed...Stercotara, Goddess of Poorly Thought Out Plans (and patron goddess of adventurers) and Esterbürdur, Elder God of Doritos.

[ellindsey]

The PCs in my Pathfinder game have just reached level 5. The Cleric in particular is excited about her new 3rd level spells, and for her first one to memorize picks Prayer. That's nice, I think. A global +1 buff to allies/debuff to enemies ongoing area effect spell. Probably won't make a huge difference, but if that's what she wants to spend her spell slots on, fine with me.

For their first combat at level 5, I throw a pair of Forest Drakes at them. I expect it to be a tough but winnable fight. The Cleric casts Prayer as her first action of the fight, and the player hams it up, acting out in character a detailed plea to her god for assistance in the upcoming battle. What followed after that was an entire series of rolls where the difference between success or failure was made by that +1 buff/debuff. "Roll to hit the Drake. Ok, you fail to hit its AC by one ... wait, remember to add the Prayer bonus, so you actually hit it." "The Drake makes its saving throw to resist your spell exactly ... oh, right, it's within the radius of Prayer still, so it fails" "The Drake rolls to hit you ... missing by one thanks to Prayer." It pretty much turned a tough battle into a fairly easy win by the PCs.

The Cleric's player was insufferably pleased with herself by the end of the session. As a GM I'm going to have to keep an eye on her, she's starting to realize that a Tier 1 primary spellcaster played well is incredibly powerful, especially as the rest of the party are mostly martial and skillmonkey types.

[Lord Raziere]

I'm ashamed that I don't understand the Paladin of Sif, Goddess of Woe joke.

Well she could be a Goddess of Woe, or a Goddess of Whoa, y'know what I mean?

[ironsnake345]

So, here's something that happened a while ago in the school d&d group (which I had to go straight to the dm on the first day of school in order to join. It's hard to find an eligible d&d group.) and I thought I'd post it here, because we have some darned funny mishaps. Alright, before we start, here are the characters:

Spoiler: characters incoming!

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Brocc: (AKA sparklegem, AKA Daergel) Gnome wizard, in it for treasure and glory. An outlander who plans to multiclass to rogue to carry on Kendri's legacy. My character, and the only who hasn't been replaced yet. As a gnome, he chose three names to take with him adventuring. Chaotic good.

Severus: Human fighter, considers himself a paladin without powers. (yet is chaotic good) A true badass in combat, but never really uses his class abilities, except second wind. second wind rocks. He died after the events of this post, and became Fay, who is discussed later.

Syrinden: Human paladin, but so short he often gets confused with a dwarf. He, as per character roleplaying requirements, is no fun. (lawful good, quite fervently.) His name means starman in sweddish, (which is an inside joke refferencing another paladin from a past campaign who was so tanky he fell down an incredibly deep pit of poisoned spikes and survived. He had no way out, but no big deal, he would simply cast create water as many times as he could every day, and eat his own flesh for sutainance. He was immune to disease, and could lay on hands. He still is trying to swim his way out!) and he gets hit a lot. Replaced a very, very deadly, however stupid, monk who would always run into danger.

Shela: human wizard, and my personal rival. A strong however arthritic old woman who is also very, very noisy. The whole reason she went on this adventure was because the records brought back by other adventurers were all biased and muddled, and she wanted to go out and do her own field research. she is eventually replaced by Osric, who will be described later.

Girda: Dwarf barbarian, bristling with all kinds of weapons. She gets hit even more than syrinden, and is the third character used by this player so far. At present day, he's on his fourth, and the DM finally let him make a second level starting character. Replaced a wood elf priest named lucious, who replaced a gnome thief named kendri, who Brocc is directly responsible for the death for. Which is why he's multiclassing over to thief. Eventually, she dies yet again, and is replaced by a thief named burgle, which goes to show how much her player as at the end of his rope for new characters.

Dinten: a ranger who I have a REALLY easy time forgetting about. I am out of attention to pay this guy. Not that I had much to begin with. I think he's some kind of elf.

Now the story: we're playing cult of the dragon queen, and are currently working to purge a cave where they are presumably hatching and raising dragons, of the cult. This module is a bit badly scaled, and has the party up against a fourth (at least!) level fighter with almost-as-dangerous barbarian guards at first and second level. That's all you need to know.

Alright, now the stories I have for you.

Spoiler: never bicker around Severus!

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We were at the entrance to the cave and, after being ambushed in a little dead-end on the right side of a fork in the caves, we went to the left to investigate a drop-off. We find, at the bottom of a ten foot drop, a large field of huge, bluish, faintly glowing mushrooms. There's a stairway down, and Girda goes first. the last step turns out to be trapped and folds away from under her, tripping her up, and sending her into the mushrooms, which spring to life and start whipping her with little tendrils. Everyone bursts into action; syrinden and severus leap onto the mushrooms and get to work, Shela greases the floor under them and manages to trip some of them up, and Brocc casts burning hands to fry them. This works, even killing one, but it also ignites Shela's grease and wastes it. Brocc and Shela bicker with each other for the rest of the round, on into the next, when Severus uses his action surge to whirl around and smack Brocc with the broad side of his blade for bickering with shela! Critical hit, 12 damage, Brocc's max is 11, and he is out cold! The moral of the story? never bicker around severus! The rest of the fight continues as normal, except without Brocc.

Spoiler: hit the mushrooms to stay mad!

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after those past events with the living mushrooms, The party elects to take a short rest and heal up, but a few of the kobolds around the cave decide to contribute their opinions into the group discussion on resting. And by opinions, I of course mean daggers. The fight is going well enough, but when Girda gets hit, she decides to go into rage mode, and the first thing she does is pick up her warhammer and smash the kobold right in front of her. Critical hit again! Dealt obscene amounts of damage, and quite literally reduced that kobold to a bloody pulp, in that one smash! The other two would have run... If they hadn't been killed by syrinden's sword and Brocc's dart. But wait, what's this? Girda doesn't want to lose her rage, which she has to make an attack every round or she loses it, so she goes off and attacks a mushroom which looks like the ones that came to life! The DM even had her make a wisdom (insight) check to see if she could tell the difference! She succeeded, and rage ended. But what happened with the actual players was what made me laugh; we started joking around because of how ridiculous that was, and said stuff like "why don't you just start carrying around small animals for that? 'Oh, I don't want to lose my rage! Move towards the kobolds and BUNNY! smash! keep moving and ANOTHER BUNNY! smash!"

Spoiler: morbid hilarity

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The party continues on into the caves and encounters a half blue dragon fighter who looked familiar. He breathes first chance he gets, which leaves shela looking quite fried, syrinden unconsious and trying to stabalize, and severus hurt. Everyone flees except severus and brocc; Severus grabs syrinden and pushes past everyone, and brocc casts expeditious retreat and grabs shela to drag her along. Then the DM pipes in, "what do you grab her by?" To which Brocc's player responds, "I grab her from under the shoulders! I'll get a better grip there!" This causes Shela's arms to get ripped off, with ashy bits of skin flaking off. Brocc looks at the arms, and takes off running with expeditious retreat speeding him along, still carrying the arms, and "making horrified noises." (his player's words) Next round, the process repeats itself, except Brocc continues on attempting to "keep it down to nothing more than a scared wimper." Everyone laughs hearing this. Brocc's player shouts in response to everyone's laughing, "I'm carrying dead shela's burnt up arms! How else am I gonna react in this situation?" At this point, everyone made it to a safe zone they'd set up in the caves, and Dinten noticed after a while that severus was missing. Dinten: "I'll go see if I can find Severus!" Brocc" *jumps up* "I'll help!" Dinten: "No, you've caused enough damage already." (Brocc is heralded as a bad luck charm in the party.) Brocc: "Ok..." *gets into the fetal position in a corner, still holding Shela's arms* Shela's player: "Wow, you're more attached to those arms than I am!"
Cue five minutes of trying to stop laughing.
Brocc kept one of shela's hands for posterity, and made a burial of the rest of the arms.

That's it for now. We may finally be taking care of that cave... After a ransom and losing all our stuff, and several new characters. Oh, I almost forgot to mention Osric and Fay! Those two replaced Shela and Severus. Osric is a dwarf bard with a gravely voice and a greataxe. His bardic instrument is an enormous gong hung from his back, which he plays with the butt of his greataxe. Keep in mind, he plays this gong to perform a song of rest and help the party rest better! Good thing he's got the whole "calm zen temple gong" thing down. Fay is a human bard who is much more petite than osric, and has been best friends with Osric for years. Which is hard, because, well, you know dwarves. His instrument is a harp, chosen specifically for how amazingly dainty it is compared to Osric's gong. He is very useful in combat, because he is able to not only give combat disadvantages to, but also kill, his enemies by insulting them! no seriously, he shot a winged kobald out of the air and downed one of those big barbarian guys, with only harsh words! Explanation: vicious mockery is a cantrip which can be learned by bards. Cantrips don't need to be prepared in fifth ed. and can be cast whenever, with no limit except the DM's discretion. To balance, they are hard to learn more of, and are fairly weak.
Have a nice day, y'all!

[rs2excelsior]

I've got a couple of good ones.

Spoiler: Cast of Characters

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Birios, a CG Gnome Sorcerer (Golden Dragon bloodline)
Nova, a CG Dwarf Druid
Andrison, a CN Half-Elf Rogue
A LG (LN?) Dwarf Inquisitor whose name escapes me right now--he wasn't with the party for long.

The entire party is either level 4 or 5 at this point.

Spoiler: A bit of background

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So, about Birios--he was very scrappy for a spellcaster. Partially because our party started out with basically nothing but spellcasters, so I figured someone ought to be able to take some hits. Fluff wise, he'd grown up in an Elven trading city facing bullies, so he wasn't afraid to get hit or hit back. Mechanically, I saw that dragon Sorcerers get claws--so I wanted to be able to use them. After my best roll was put in Charisma, I gave him good Dexterity and Constitution, and Weapon Finesse as a feat (and later Toughness). So for a while, Birios was a combination of the party face and the closest thing we had to a tank/fighter.

Spoiler: Battling the Inevitable

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So, the party is tricked into putting on Rings of Quest and sent into the realm of a long-defeated demon god to see if he might be awakening. We're making our way into the demon's plane, and one of the guards is a large, mechanical construct in the shape of a centaur with spiked chains for arms. We were up against a Zelekhut Inevitable, a creature of pure law, although I think the DM left off the wings. Take a second to look at how many members of our party were chaotic. Yeah, this was going to end well.

So the Inquisitor's player had dropped from the campaign for RL reasons, and left his character in control of the DM, with instructions to give him a suitable death in battle. We all knew that, but we'd be damned if we sat back and let him die easily. After all, the crazy Dwarf was a party member.

So negotiation gets nowhere, even with my 20 Charisma and the fact that we're following our orders, a Lawful act despite our alignments.

The Rogue activates his ring of invisibility and tries to sneak around it. Thinking quickly, I cast an illusion where he had been standing, hoping the creature wouldn't notice the disappearance. Unfortunately, the Inevitable followed the movements of our actual Rogue, despite his invisibility--so we find out this thing has true seeing.

Our Inquisitor, based on a die roll from the DM, decides it'd be a good idea to jump onto the thing's back (and no, that's not really out of character for this player or any of his characters, really). Predictably, within a round or two, the Dwarf is unconscious and falls off it's back.

In the meantime, our Rogue has taken off and gone through the portal the Inevitable was guarding. The Druid and my Sorcerer weren't going to give up so easily, though. I tag the Inevitable with a Scorching Ray, which crits, and I am told nearly one-shotted it, although its healing kicked in after the hit. Another round passes, and I cast at him again and grow my claws, trying, and I quote, "to look as intimidating as possible," in an attempt to get it to attack me instead of them. Predictably, my three-and-a-half foot tall, forty pound gnome failed to intimidate the constructed being of pure law that probably outweighed him by a factor of fifteen. The Druid went and grabbed the Inquisitor, trying to drag him to safety. Unfortunately, the Inevitable managed to trip the Druid with its chains. She's still conscious, though, but standing up would keep her in range of those chains. So I grab on to her, dragging her toward the portal. So I'm dragging a Dwarf, who's dragging another unconscious Dwarf.

The Inevitable goes again, and stamps our Inquisitor in the head, killing him. The Druid scrambles up and escapes. At this point, I'm facing the Inevitable down alone, but I go before it does. I'm still on my feet and could have just run, but I decide it's given us too much trouble for that. In one last bit of defiance, I cast acid splash at it, flip it off, and step backward through the portal.

The next one won't be quite as long, I promise.

Spoiler: Facing your Demons

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We are sent into a dream-world of some sort (I'm still not exactly sure what happened), each of us on our own. I face off against some kind of demon, which is (naturally) immune to my fire spells. I fight him with claws, though, and get some hits on him, but it's clear I'm not going to win. Finally, he tags me with a Scorching Ray (my own signature spell, might I add), which almost kills me, then closes in to finsih me off. I black out, and meet the Dragon which had once fought alongside an ancestor, who had blessed my line with its sorcerous powers--who informs me that he's been killed.

Long story short, I get a speech about adaptability, which is a strength the dragon didn't have, and come back fully healed with a ring that allows me to convert fire damage to acid damage. The demon is standing over me, looking quite confused.

My first response to the situation? Maximized Fireball, as acid damage. I get knocked back down to low health, and we're both sent flying across the room. I know it wasn't the smartest thing tactically, but it was totally worth it.

I just wish it had been face-to-face rather than over IM, so I could've seen the DM facepalm

[Yukitsu]

NPC: Just take the stupid data and tell your technomancer to get his sprite out of our host!
Down the line
Me: She said our Technodancer needs to stop drinking 7-up in the parking lot!
Further down
PC 2: We need to turn down the music and stop drinking soda!
PC 3: We aren't listening to music or drinking soda...
NPC: You're all idiots.

Me: I just need to find a moment to do the club sandwich rant.
PC3: The what?
Me: That thing from Johnny Mnemonic. Or Jazzpunk I guess.
Blank stares
Me: We're playing shadowrun and literally none of you have watched Johnny Mnemonic?
DM: I dunno, I figured shadowrun is more of a William Gibson sort of setting.
Me:

[ironsnake345]

Alright, me again, and I've just had another session and thought I'd share some moments.

Spoiler: 180 degrees turn: top of the world to run for your lives.

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Our party had just beaten who we thought to be the BBEG, (this was the guy who fried Shela in my last post) and mopped up his guards. We were feeling pretty dang happy, and Osric went off to clean up a frightened kobold that had run from us. We noticed, in the corner of this room with carvings of intertwined dragons, one of which was Tiamat rising out of a volcano, all over the entire wall and all the cielings, a treasure chest encrusted with mother of pearl. Instantly, Brocc, Burgle, and Syrinden moved in to secure their earnings. (remember, Burgle and Osric are replacement characters, perhaps somewhat glanced over in the last post. If you want to know who I'm talking about, you've got some reading to do!) Anyway, we try to unlock it, but accidentally bump it and cause all the dragon carvings to spit acid at us. Yes, all of them. And this was a VERY thoroughly carved room. You can imagine the issue, when the room is filled with a thick, acidic mist! Straight away, everyone flees and leaves dragon guy to dissolve in the corner. (they take his head, though.) Osric, who had just returned with a recently knocked out kobold we joked about being a pet, decided to drop its melting skeleton as he ran. Thankfully, Syrinden managed to grab the chest and run with it. We flee out of the cave, apologize to the neutral hunters who had been supplying the cult with meat, collect 50 gold we had bet on ourselves that we could beat dragon guy, made camp, and recovered. Thankfully, the chest itself as well as its contents will go for quite a bit, but I will never forget how quickly we went from "Yeah!!! we killed (Dragon guy's name removed for spoilers) and beat the cult!!! we won the dungeon!!! We're unstoppable!!!" to "OH **** RUN RUN RUN RUN RUUUUUUNNNNN!!!"

Spoiler: No, you save!

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After we returned to the dungeon after our previous success turned acidic fleeing, we were quickly ambushed by the real BBEG: a female cultist who was the leader of the bunch, and may or may not be a master of illusory weaponry which actually hurts. Cue an epic fight scene involving Brocc roasting several cultists alive and half the rolls being made ending up nat 20's Guess what? they were all... Evenly distributed between players and DM. Gotcha! Anyway, in the middle of a grueling battle, it's discovered that the BBEG makes people doing mundane (we discover it's only mundane when this happens, and not magical as well) attacks (EG, swing, shoot, or even smite) on her do wisdom saves: fail and you attack another enemy of your choice at random. Simply lose will to attack her for the round if no other enemies. Fay slings vicious mockery at her, and the DM goes up saying he has to save, but then remembers saves don't count. Then he has to make a wisdom save for the BBEG instead! Official, quoted-from-memory ingame dialogue: DM: "Alright, make a wisdom save for that. Wait... Actually, you don't need to save for vicious mockery. In fact, I need to save for that!" Fay's player: "'Alright, save!' 'No, you save!'"

Brocc died in that fight, meaning that, officially, no original party members are to live through the campaign. However, the chances of rezzing Brocc are looking good, so it just may be that an original party member makes it through the whole campaign! Anyway, one more.

Spoiler: Starman awakens

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So, I'm dead at this point, because I'm Brocc, and I'm just watching the party go to the room behind the dragon guy's room, where we fought him. The party goes down and finds dragon eggs down in a warm pit, and Dinten instantly slings an arrow down into the pit at one of the arrows. It hits, and the egg begins leaking what is apparently albumin. Syrinden and the rest of the party except Dinten go down, and syrinden, being the merciful paladin he is, tries to lay on hands the egg. This doesn't work. Then Osric patches up the egg with mending, turns to Syrinden, and says "Alright, that's done. Why are we sparing the dragons?" Cue discussion about how perhaps our hirer was planning to raise them or perhaps sell them, and that a live sample was at least more valuable than a dead one. That was pretty funny, but not the focus of this bit. After that happened, the party heard a low, sort of rumbling sound coming from the right. At this point, I decided it would be fun to go use the bathroom and see how badly the party had screwed up when I got back. (man, they were missing me at this point.) So, I walked out of the DM's classroom/lounge/office/computer tinkerer's workshop (he was the tech guy in the school. I believe I mentioned this was the school's D&D club I was playing in), had a drink, relieved myself, and took the back entrance back in because he always keeps the front locked from the hallway side. When I got back, imagine my surprise when the first thing I hear is "Alright, your warhammer glows with holy energy, and you crack badly into its shell. the edges of the hole you made in its shell are glowing with holy light." That was nice. Dinten joined the group and they headed down the hallway to their right, and Syrinden noticed an evil aura coming from one of the stalagmites around. He walks up to it, and it sprouts an eye, a mouth, and two tentacles, and proceeds to grab and eat him. It then proceeds to similarly chomp devastatingly down on and eat all the remaining melee fighters and then sit helplessly as Fay and Dinten respectively bombard it with vicious mockery and arrows. (I forgot to mention; Dinten is known for critting and doing insane damage with 90% of his hits) The monster dies and they chip away its stony layer and pull their allies out of its stomach. Osric and Burgle are dead, but when they picked syrinden out of the wreckage, they found something incredible: he was alive. The essence of Starman the unkillable is beginning to surface in Syrinden!

That's it for tonight. Next week I'll be back for the next session's funny moments. See Y'all!

[derpdidoda]

I nearly got killed one time when my necromancer tryed to replace his minion with a hooker body... The hooker had class lvl's

But my DM was nice so she just robbed my sorry ass... I now have an ongoing deal with the city mortician.

[Inevitability]

*snip* After we returned to the dungeon after our previous success turned acidic fleeing, we were quickly ambushed by the real BBEG: a female cultist who was the leader of the bunch, and may or may not be a master of illusory weaponry which actually hurts. Cue an epic fight scene involving Brocc roasting several cultists alive and half the rolls being made ending up nat 20's Guess what? they were all... Evenly distributed between players and DM. Gotcha! *snip*

I wish the battle was that epic when I ran it... My players pretty much lured the boss out of her study, ambushed her, dealt over 3/4th of her hit points in the surprise round, and then proceeded to butcher her as she rolled an 1 on initiative... with only three out of four players present.

[ironsnake345]

I wish the battle was that epic when I ran it... My players pretty much lured the boss out of her study, ambushed her, dealt over 3/4th of her hit points in the surprise round, and then proceeded to butcher her as she rolled an 1 on initiative... with only three out of four players present.

Oh, really, man, that's lame. The battle was so much more fun when we did it. Did she even get to use the little demon thingies that slow you down and dig into you? or the purple halberd? that one's cool.

[Inevitability]

Oh, really, man, that's lame. The battle was so much more fun when we did it. Did she even get to use the little demon thingies that slow you down and dig into you? or the purple halberd? that one's cool.

Nope. She was killed before even taking her first turn. Players, if you are reading this, I hate you.
JK...

[ironsnake345]

Nope. She was killed before even taking her first turn. Players, if you are reading this, I hate you.
JK...

Yeah, your guys suck. I mean, granted, as a player who personally has died to her purple halberd and watched her demon thingies effortlessly drop two of my companions, I can understand why they'd want to take extreme measures, but COME ON!!! I mean, really now, they just went straight in for the kill, and sure I can understand why,

Spoiler: don't read this if you want to play this module later. it will ruin the fun of this boss!

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after all she is the kind of boss you'd want to sneak up on, what with the fact that she can deal very well with distant targets, even better with those moving in to attack her, and the best way to fight her is to just get in there and stay in there,

but they just ruined it like that. You want my advice? Tell those players that they ruined a LOT of fun for themselves the next time you see them!

[ironsnake345]

Nope. She was killed before even taking her first turn. Players, if you are reading this, I hate you.
JK...

Only now am I seeing that hidden JK.
*clap*


*clap*


*clap*


still, they missed a really awesome battle.

[Mittur]

Hello everyone. I have only started playing Pathfinder recently, but some very interesting things have happened in my first few sessions.

So, gather round, all ye who would wish to listen, as I tell the tale of the smoothest Drow on the planet.

Spoiler: The Party

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Everyone is 1st level, this is the very first session.

TN Elf Wizard specializing in Conjuration (me)
CN Human Fighter
NE Drow Inspired Blade Swashbuckler (who always hides his face with a mask and covers up his arms, legs, etc. so people don't know his race)

Additionally, we had a level 3 Rogue helping us out on this session, because our assignment was a bit above the pay grade of a few level 1s and we had a no-show (sadly).

Spoiler: The Buildup

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This story takes place in a world where the balance between technology in magic is in turmoil. Spellcasters are not unheard of, and things like war blimps are used to wage war.

The campaign started with the party meeting with the Rogue in a tavern. Tensions were rising between a few countries, and we were hired to assassinate the Admiral of a small scouting fleet of zeppelins (10 or so ships, with ~4 gunboats, ~5 destroyers, and a flagship) in order to hinder troop mobilization and aggression. We ended up hiding in storage crates (a bit cliche, but it worked) and sneaking aboard a gunboat as the fleet took flight on a journey across a sea.

When the gunboat's engineer came back to check the storage room, I cast Ghost Sound on a box we weren't in to distract him while Swashbuckler stabbed the guy. That gets him to very low HP, and we roll initiative and Swashbuckler goes first. He knocks him out with the side of his rapier, and the rest of us plan our next move.

This gunboat was fairly small (~60 feet from back propeller to front, and ~25 feet wide), so our options of being stealthy were... limited, at best. So, as any good adventuring group would do, we told the Rogue to put on the engineer's clothes while we shoved his unconscious body in a storage box.

The Rogue convinces the Sergeant on board that there were mechanical difficulties with one of the guns (which are mounted on outside balconies, one on each side of the ship). When he goes outside, the Swashbuckler promptly sneaks through the central room (while the rest of the people on board are distracted by the Rogue) and pushes the Sergeant off the edge.

We then go into open fighting with the three remaining crew members. The armed ones weren't a problem, but the pilot managed to pull us out of formation with the fleet and almost crack the windshield on the bridge.

After having neutralized all targets aboard the gunboat, the Swashbuckler tortured (and then killed) a surviving crew member for the siren-based communications code, but to no avail. The rest of us searched frantically for a communications handbook, and we managed to decipher the signal for "Technical Difficulties". Another gunboat was dispatched to assist us, and then things got good.

Spoiler: Smooth Talking

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In the time it takes the other gunboat to come over to us and put down a plank between us for transfer of crew and items, we come up with a daring plan: We all dress up in the uniforms of the enemies, and I Prestidigitation a torch onto the engine, causing it to explode immediately after we board the other ship.

Naturally, the crew members on the other ship were suspicious of us, and they began interrogating the Swashbuckler. What followed was one of the most insane series of Diplomacy and Bluff checks I have ever seen. Keep in mind that the Swashbuckler's bonus to these rolls is only +5.

"Who is your engineer?" asks the ship's Sergeant.

The Swashbuckler points to the Fighter.

Sergeant: "You have failed in your duties to the fleet (draws sword, points at Fighter). You must be executed at once. Die with honor."

Swashbuckler: "Are you sure the ship's destruction was not the builder's fault for making the engine so easily flammable? If anything, they are more at fault than our engineer here, who simply happened to be on a faulty ship." Diplomacy - 21.

Sergeant: "He still failed in his duties. While the blame may not rest entirely on his shoulders, he failed to prevent the loss of valuable military assets (continues pointing sword at Fighter)."

I Ghost Sound someone yelling "WAIT!" from the bridge. No one bothers to see who said it, because they are transfixed on the Swashbuckler, who boldly approaches the Sergeant.

Swashbuckler (staring down the Sergeant): "Are you SURE he deserves execution... PRIVATE?" Bluff - 21.

The rest of the room looks around dumbfounded.

Newly-demoted Private: "But I've seen your registration file! You are merely a corporal! Do not insult a senior officer like that!"

Swashbuckler: "Do not deny me, unless you WANT the others to hear about your past..." Bluff - 21.

By this point, everyone in the room is convinced of the Swashbuckler's story, except for our new Private.

Private: "But you can't do that! You are going to be killed for insubordination!"

Swashbuckler: "Am I, though? I am an undercover agent working for the king, currently investigating bad military conduct. I demand to see the Admiral at once." Bluff - 23.

The pilot pulls us up to the flagship, and we go up to the bridge.

Spoiler: Yay for surprise rounds, crashing, and burning.

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We talk to the Admiral, but he is sadly unconvinced of our story. We are alone in the bridge with him, our Private from earlier, and two pilots. I try to cast a Silent Image of an approaching enemy ship, but the Admiral is unfazed. So, we decide to enact a surprise round.

We pull out all the stops taking this guy down, and down he goes, before he can even react, thanks to some extremely lucky rolls. We found out after the fact that he was a Level 6 Executioner Slayer.

We manage to take out one pilot and the Private, but the other pilot jams a dagger into the controls, causing the ship to wobble. After a few lucky rolls and a Mending spell, we are in control of the flagship in the middle of the fleet, and the other ships (and the rest of the flagship crew) are none-the-wiser.

Since the flagship is in the middle of the fleet, we decide to make a hard right, ramming and destroying a few ships in the process. We start burning and losing altitude over a forested coast, but Feather Fall (specifically in scroll form) saves the day, and the party makes it out unharmed, having not taken a single point of damage for the entirety of the mission. We land comfortably on a beach and watch the ship slowly descend and crash.

The ship goes down in what can be only described as a magnificent fireball of metal, wood, and the charred and crushed bodies of woodland creatures. We salvage what we can, get paid 5,000 gp each, and are recruited into a shadow organization due to our good work.

This all happened in our first session. If the party ever has more memorable tales, I'll be sure to post them here.

[Othniel]

I've got on from the start of our Skull and Shackles campaign that my group started this weekend:

Spoiler

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We'd just been told by one of the NPCs to climb to the top of the rigging to see who the riggers would be. One of our characters, a Tiefling Knife Master Rogue, critically failed his climb check and fell off the top of the rigging. Had it not been for the quick thinking of another party member, and a kind DM who let said party member roll a reflex save to catch the Tiefling by his tail, the Rogue would've died 1 hour into the campaign...at level 1.

[The Random NPC]

I've got on from the start of our Skull and Shackles campaign that my group started this weekend:

Spoiler

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We'd just been told by one of the NPCs to climb to the top of the rigging to see who the riggers would be. One of our characters, a Tiefling Knife Master Rogue, critically failed his climb check and fell off the top of the rigging. Had it not been for the quick thinking of another party member, and a kind DM who let said party member roll a reflex save to catch the Tiefling by his tail, the Rogue would've died 1 hour into the campaign...at level 1.

And that's why you don't play with crit fumble rules, especially on checks that can't crit succeed.

[ComaVision]

And that's why you don't play with crit fumble rules, especially on checks that can't crit succeed.

1. Sounds like they enjoyed the game as it's in the "Funny D&D Stories"

2. You don't need critical fumble rules to fall on a 1 during a Climb check.

I get it, a lot of people on the forum don't like fumble rules. Do you really need to get huffy about it any time it is ever mentioned regardless of the context?

[Othniel]

1. Sounds like they enjoyed the game as it's in the "Funny D&D Stories"

2. You don't need critical fumble rules to fall on a 1 during a Climb check.

I get it, a lot of people on the forum don't like fumble rules. Do you really need to get huffy about it any time it is ever mentioned regardless of the context?

Yeah, my use of "critically failed" might have thrown folks off. He made it UP okay, but rolled a 1 climbing down, and according to the DM that means he lost his grip and fell off. I'm kind of a noob when it comes to terminology and remembering all the rules (I've been playing for 6 months, but that's probably like...maybe 10 sessions tops), so I just generally go with what the more experienced members of the group tell me. I'm getting better though.

And yes, it was hilarious at the time. The guy had 3 other character sheets ready to go, just in case (which made it even funnier).

[Mittur]

And that's why you don't play with crit fumble rules, especially on checks that can't crit succeed.

IMO it really depends on the group. If you have a group that doesn't really care what happens so long as it makes a good story, crit fumbles can be great. To get mildly back on the thread's topic, in a session that I DM'd, a crit fumble deck ruled that an enemy (warrior 1 NPC) managed to wedge his rapier into the smooth, undamaged cave wall without it or his arm breaking in the process. Somehow. Hilarity ensued as no one was able to pull it back out after the battle.

Sure, having your party Rogue drop his weapon one too many times or accidentally shoot the Wizard in the foot is annoying, but it is a great feeling when a powerful enemy accidentally trips and falls on his sword. Unrealistic, unpredictable, but possibly very fun (and funny).

But like I said, it depends on the group. In this specific group, such a story was memorable enough for a member to post it here and the DM was merciful enough not to let one stroke of bad luck ruin a character. Things like that can break a planned-out story or kill off a cool character if handled badly, but they tend to look cool (or incredibly stupid) in the process, and most DMs are merciful about that kind of stuff.

[The Random NPC]

1. Sounds like they enjoyed the game as it's in the "Funny D&D Stories"

2. You don't need critical fumble rules to fall on a 1 during a Climb check.

I get it, a lot of people on the forum don't like fumble rules. Do you really need to get huffy about it any time it is ever mentioned regardless of the context?

I had this whole speech planned out about how it should have been impossible for a likely Dex based character to fail what was likely a DC 5 or 10 climb check, but then I remembered that Climb is Str based. I do apologize for comment though. You are correct, this wasn't really the place for it.

Sure, having your party Rogue drop his weapon one too many times or accidentally shoot the Wizard in the foot is annoying, but it is a great feeling when a powerful enemy accidentally trips and falls on his sword. Unrealistic, unpredictable, but possibly very fun (and funny).

Personally I disagree, I normally feel robbed if a powerful enemy dies through no action of mine. Mostly for the same reasons I don't generally like fiat. Regardless, you're right, if everyone is having fun, you must be doing something right.

[Mittur]

Personally I disagree, I normally feel robbed if a powerful enemy dies through no action of mine.

I can understand where you're coming from, because being challenged is a big part of playing games like these. My group and I are likely to marvel in awe at an improbable yet favorable situation that occurs right in front of our eyes. Rather than seeing it as a missed opportunity to face a challenge, we tend to view it as a stroke of good luck and fortune. We're the type of people who try to bypass as many challenges as possible rather than face them head-on, and if the enemies make it easier for us, then that's less work for us.

Our outlook on the situation is likely largely impacted by the fact that when a member of our group DMs, it is not expected to be an easy session by any means. It is supposed to push us to the limit both as characters and players, and fighting everything up front is likely to get us all killed. However, we are all okay with this ruthlessness, and we all have a good time.

But that's why everyone rules it differently. Everyone has different preferences, and it's hard to please everyone. To each their own, so long as everyone has a good time.