Funny D&D Stories

[devinkowalczyk]

The not so smart paladdin, played by the not so smart player, attempts to jump over a river of raw sewage and fails. He is swept down river.

My creation of a half dragon, werebear, troll with the pseudonatural template and possibly something else nearly killed by party of 3 level 10. The only reason they survived is because one had dropped alot of treasure on a homebrewed Potion of Dragonshape.
He still nearly died in the first 2 rounds.

My shadarkai wizard, known as the TANKzard, loved to do what he wasn't supposed to. So, following his natural progression, he touched the pool of virginal blood at the base of a demon relic in the center of an evil temple long buried.
Needless to say the demond nearly killed us. Why? That is interesting, the tank, who had been complaining about not being challenged, took off up the stairs leaving all of us down there to fight it ourselves.
I now have a really cool permanent bloodstain on my fingers


And the best
my cleric of obad hai took a level in ranger to gain martial weapon prof to use a longsword
we were attacked by dinosaurs, i dropped my cleric staff and drew my longsword. i was then killed by the dinosaur
the god obad hai was NOT HAPPY

[Gravious]

Although not in Tabletop D&D (It happened in D&D Online (Yes I do play both) in a Roleplaying guild) this still qualifies as a funny moment. I thought that a wizard in the guild was a Warforged (They were actually a human) and while I was looking for a maintenance panel on then, they hit me with a Disintegrate. I was, understandably, not happy with this. (At this point you should note that I played a Monk) So I attempted to remove his "power source" thinking of removing it later. I accidentally tore out his heart. We needed to find a cleric who knew True Reincarnation, because he, well, had no heart.

EDIT: Just realized how much Signature potential this has.

[Dr Gunsforhands]

So we're playing an evil campaign. My bros, a lizardfolk necrocleric and a human sorceror desperate to become a lich, have been captured by a righteous group of paladins and are being held in a small enclave/hamlet that the paladins have fortified in order to lure myself, a kobald Warmage, and my companions, an ogre barbarian and a fairy rogue, into an ambush.

The fairy rogue sneaks into the small hamlet and details the number of guards, traps, and obstacles in the way of their rescue.

Fairy Rogue: "Also I found the guys, they're being held in a small cage enchanted with a scroll of anti magic field.

Warmage Kobald: "Wait, you're telling me that people we like and only the people we like are completely immune to magic right now?"

I was lvl 14 at this point. I flipped on my cd of "Flight of the Valkyries". I walked to the top of a hill overlooking the hamlet. I had taken the feat Delay spell and began casting five delayed fireballs. On the fifth round I cast a Sudden Quickened/Widened/Empowered/Maximized/Explosive Fireball.

I screamed "Dragon Slave!" and the entire town exploded.

We found our compatriots in the center of a crater drinking tea next to a broken cage. They invited us for a cuppa. We accepted.

[Zieu]

(Epic story)

Such....such WIN!

[Balain]

Oh there are so many stories. Mostly low level stories.

1. We are about level 3 looking for who is responsible for a bunch of thefts or something like that. The DM was thinking we would be sneaky find out who it was and report back to the noble that sent us. We were sneaky and found out who it was and knew they were in the next room. So we decide to surprise them by kicking in the door and attacking. The surprise was on us when we were face to face with a level 17 fighter, level 15 wizard, level 22 rouge and level 18 evil cleric.

2. Again low level about 2 or 3. Wizard decides to look impressive and scare off the kobolds or what ever we were fighting. One kobold throws a dagger rolls a crits and kills the wizard with about 8 HP in one hit.

3. I was playing this kender in Dragonlance campaign and find this magic belt. I put it on and the buckle all of a sudden has my name on it. Everytime I activate the belt I get some random physical deformity. Sometimes useful. For the longest time he would point out the 4; long devil horns to people with glee on his face.

4. We find a magical treasure map that always shows the largest deposite of magical treasure in the area. It was cool buit it always should where one of the party members was. In fact when the party was near an ancient dragon's lair the map still showed the party member.

5. Oh yes one guy decided to go for a swim in the river styxs

[koscum]

Epic story...

...deserves EPIC WIN ⚡ FTW:

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[darkpuppy]

Oh, man, where to begin... yeah, the older games, that'd be a good idea. First off, there was my first attempt at porting an old setting to 3E, Dragonlance (DL3E wasn't out then). We ran the original trilogy adventures, and the party had just gotten the Disks of Mishakal. I'd handed a note to our kender, Dimble, pointing out that he hadn't "handled" anything in a while. He hands me a note back saying exactly what he's suddenly curious about...

...fast forward a couple of minutes, as Dimble attempts to wander past our Solamnic knight (based on Baron Mandorallen)... "DIMBLE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" (safe assumption, I thought)... "Nothing!" and the player then describes Dimble as "mincing along"... naturally, our knight gets suspicious, and, to cut a long story short... the players had to sandwash the disks of Mishakal.

Then, of course, there were the Axenshield twins. A pair of dwarf Thunder Twins, both basically dwarven beserkers like Pwent, first discovered in the middle of the Anauroch desert arguing over a map neither of them could actually read. This was one of those bizarre pairs of characters where the players (who I was trying to wean from munchkin tendencies) had their cake and ate it too... they were the baddest, hardest, and most stupidly difficult to kill characters I'd ever faced, but the fact that they were also, basically, somewhat dull-witted and argumentative with each other provided massive entertainment to everyone involved with them. The amusing part? they survived the gravity sphere of death (for those who don't know it, it's a sphere with special "gravity rebound" spells everywhere except the doors, so you kept accelerating until you either hit the opposite door or flew back through the open door a good 150 feet or so.)

In fact, not only did Flail Axenshield survive 20d6 of impact damage with the door, he also plowed through the kuo-toa guards on the other side with his spiked armour, skidded for a good few meters, and then... got up and demanded more guards turn up so he could do that again...

Just two of many hilarious anecdotes in my long and speckled GMing/playing life. :)

[elpollo]

I have a couple from the same few games. The campaign only met up for 4 sessions, as we didn't live very close to each other, so couldn't meet frequently, then people ended up moving away. There were three players and the GM - I was a rogue/fighter, one guy was a fighter/rogue, and a guy new to the game was playing a sorceror (us two who had played before had created characters at home to speed things up, and whilst we had communicated to each other what the characters would be, we had not discussed actual builds, so ended up with two people with levels in fighter and rogue. I had rogue 3/fighter 1, whilst the other guy had fighter 2/rogue 2, I believe. I was focusing on throwing knives whilst he had a spiked chain build.

The first session:

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The first (and perhaps most referenced) incident was at the start of the first game. We spent some time in town getting to know each other, then a wounded villager staggered in telling us about a cave where monsters had started gathering again. After taking the fellow to the local healer (who was totally incompetant and scamming the town) and visiting the local wise man for guidance (who was pretty much unhelpful), we headed out. We get to the cave and there's a large stone slab blocking it. "Ok," we think, "bit weird, since they've barricaded themselves in somewhat" (We never did find out exactly why that was on there). We move the slab and I drop down into the cave, since the other two refused to go first. I come face to face with a strange dwarf-like creature (a Derro, but we had never seen them before and thus had no idea what they were), which says something to me in a language similar to dwarven (which I can speak). Being a nice fellow, when the thing pulls a sword on me I throw some knives at it non-lethally, but with the -4 penalty I miss horrifically with both of them. The guy with the spiked chain drops down and smacks him in the face, the sorcerer fires down with a crossbow but misses, then I run up and smack the derro with the pommel of my dagger to knock him out. We tie the Derro up and loot him, finding some poison and a shiny belt buckle. I immediately seize upon this and say that I'm going to put the belt buckle on, then disguise myself as the derro. As I have a hat of disguise I manage this, and we continue on.

After continuing on and nearly falling down a pit-trap we open a door to a dark, empty room (except for another door on the other side). Shining a light source in we disturb a bat swarm, and slam the door on the bats before they can swamp us. We deliberate a bit before the player playing the spiked chain weilding fighter/rogue says he's going to drop his torch and head into the bat room. The sorcerer and I suggest this might not be the best idea, since he can't see in the dark, but he continues and we decide to let him go on for a few moments to learn a lesson. He closes the door to the bat room behind him, and fumbles his way around the wall until he reaches the other door. He opens this door, steps through into another dark room, then closes this door behind him as well. It's at this point that he hears several growls and the sound of several somethings pulling against chains. Unable to see anything he backs into a corner and starts madly flailing with his spiked chain, whilst the creatures in the room with him start barking and howling, throwing themselves at him only to be yanked back by the chain. With two doors between us and the noise, and a bit of distance, both my character and the sorcerer manage to fail our listen checks, so have no idea this is going on. Meanwhile the spiked chain guy is still madly flailing, and hears a door open somewhere in front of him, and another of the Derro say something. The spiked chain guy knows he's in trouble.

At this point the DM figures that we must have heard this noise, so we put out our torches, cast light on a stone and hide it. We head through the bat room, get into the other room and close the door before throwing the light source into the open. We see the spiked chain guy flailing madly whilst a derro on the other side of the room tries to unchain three slavering canine creatures of some description (I can't recall what they were off the top of my head). The derro pauses at the sudden appearance of another interloper and a very tall derro and asks my character what's going on. I can't completely understand him, since he's not speaking proper dwarven, but catch the gist, and throw out a few key dwarven words, hoping my meaning will be caught (things along the lines of "Prisoners", "captured", that sort of thing). Then, as we had previously figured that all of these derro were crazy, I start drooling and cackling. I then remember my belt buckle, and say that I'm going to start rubbing it. Everyone looks at me in a very weird way as if they don't understand my masterful plan. "The other dwarf was wearing it," I explain, "so it's probably some sort of symbol of their god or something. Rubbing it will draw his eyes to it, thus making him accept me as one of his own." Laughing, the DM says that the derro shakes his head and disappears into the room he emerged from. The spiked chain guy then followed him in and killed him. The belt buckle then became a running joke for the next few games.

*

Later that session we entered a room with two statues standing by a chest. We stepped in and the statues came to life, slowly lumbering towards us. We freak out and run back outside, slamming the doors shut and getting ready to defend ourselves. After a minute we realise nothing's coming after us, so open the doors and peek in to find the statues back where they were. Ok, so they only come after things in the room, but we want that chest. We draw the statues up to the entrance of the room, then I tumble past and leg it to the chest. The sorcerer and the spiked chain guy open up on the two statues, who ignore them and go after me. We work out that they are targetting the person closest to the chest, so I spend the next five rounds tumbling around the chest and the statues like a mad man whilst the other two tried to kill them before they can reach me (they were slow, and I believe they only had a single action in a turn. Still, the room was small and I ended up having to tumble past them both every turn in an attempt to avoid being hit. It was a little tense). In the end I used a bag of marbles to take one down, and we ended up managing to bypass them without taking a hit.

*

I had picked up quite a few things with my money in character creation, and found quite a few nice things in the Arms and Equipment Guide (including marbles). One of these was a springwall - a fun little ball of ball of wire mesh that you throw at a surface. When it strikes the surface it opens up into a flexible metal mesh wall, making it difficult for creatures to pass through. We were at a door, and listening in we heard creatures inside. We readied actions to attack whatever opened the door and knocked loudly. Moments later a bugbear opened the door and received a bunch of hits, almost killing him. Behind him we see a derro priestess, who starts casting spells at us. We take the bugbear down and the priestess decides that now is the time to leave, opening another door and running out. I see my chance for greatness and throw the springwall in front of her, causing it to open up, only for the priestess to get a natural 20 on her reflex save and basically leap past the thing before it opened. We are now on the wrong side of a springwall from our opponent, and in our attempts to get past manage to get entangled. The priestess ran off into the main room and alerted the guys in there. I've not used a springwall since.

*

We get past the springwall and get ready to take on the main room of bad guys. Barging in we find the priestess and three other derro. The derro start by using darkness (this spell became my bane). The priestess casts a fear spell, causing the spiked chain guy (our main damage source) to run off screaming. Things are looking bad, and I pull out two flasks of alchemist's fire and throw them at the three derro close together, hoping to cause some damage. I manage to score two hits, and am about to roll for damage when we remember the darkness. I roll two threes, meaning that both of the flasks missed. This is basically how the fight went for me. The spiked chain guy ended up running for two or three turns, meaning he then had to spend the same amount of time returning. The sorcerer was actually quite effective with flaming sphere, managing to turn the fight for us. I end up missing with something like all but one attack throughout the entire combat, and I swear to god that something like 90% of my rolls to see if I missed due to concealment were 3s. That was a crazy combat.

We finish the session soon after the combat ends.

The second session doesn't have as many incidents as the first that stick out:

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The next time we meet we continue down to the second level of the cave. One of the first things we do is run into a room full of sleeping goblins. I manage to convince spiked chain guy that we shouldn't kill them, and so we tie them up and put them into a pit trap we almost fell down on the first level in the first session. Later we came back and took them to the authorities, who instantly took them off to be hanged. Still, we were rewarded a little extra for out efforts.

*

A key moment in this session was in the kitchen of the place. We found an empty kitchen filled with pots and pans, as well as a 20ft deep 10ft by 10ft pit which had some bits in it at the bottom. "Weird," we think, "but they are all crazy here". We have a look round the kitchen but don't find anything, and the spiked chain guy decides that he wants to climb down the pit. The sorcerer casts light on a pan and throws it in, only it stops about 10ft above the bottom before slowling sinking down with a sucking sound. It's at this point that we realise that there's a gelatinous cube at the bottom of the pit, and that our bad spot checks could have meant a lot worse than missing loot for the spiked chain guy. It seems that the derro had been using the gelatinous cube as a way to get rid of organic waste, which is just brilliant. Laughing at our near escape with the cube, we then proceed to throw pans at it until it dies - after all, it would be cruel to leave it to starve.

*

Later we came to another big room which had huge stone doors. We couldn't open the doors, but there was a slot which matched the shape of a strange symbol we had found earlier. We put it in and found a large chamber with some more various gribblies in, as well as a glowing portal with someone trying to get through. The fought the gribblies and ended up managing to close the portal on the person as they headed through, meaning that we had an arm and a bit of a head coming out of the wall. We later claimed the entire cave complex as out base of operations, and decided that spiked chain guy was a guest (there were only two keys to the main chamber, so me and the sorcerer got them). We found some cool magical paints that created whatever you painted (so long as it was less than a certain gold limit).

*

Having ridded the cave of evil, we headed out to the local lord's manor to get our payment. We were stopped by the guards, and despite our best attempts to bribe our way in we were thrown out. Cue magical paint to create a door in the wall! Huzzah! Anyway, we got in and confronted the lord, who eventually paid us.

The third and fourth session:

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These sessions introduced two new players, who told us that they had been hired to go and investigate a wizard's tower, and offered us some gold to go and help them. We agreed, and headed off to earn our fortunes. These sessions were fun, but nothing sticks out in my mind quite like in the first two sessions. Inside the tower we met some azer who were being hounded by some of the local monstrosities, battered down a magically trapped door with a bench, skipped the entire dungeon by a bad choice of paths and went straight to the boss, and generally were heroic.

There's a few stories in one of the first games I ever played with a friend and my brother as we were learning the rules. Muley the mule was the most effective party member, and we ended up setting sail on a raft barely big enough for us with Muley aboard. We were attacked by hordes of orcs who were much too large a threat for us and it turned out that "they had plastic weapons", which soon turned into "It was a dream". We ended that game soon after. There was a general misunderstanding of balance when I got a ring of invisibility and a custom garotte wire that basically allowed me to one shot anything from behind. We learnt the power of the Coup de Grace weapon enhancement when we one shotted a white dragon. I certainly learnt a lot about how not to do things in these games.


A fourth edition game:

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A fourth ed game I played in had us as heroes who had lost our abilities when a magical red mist descended, driving most of the townsfolk insane. We regained out consciousness together as a mass of townsfolk attacked. We instantly start defending ourselves, and I (an avenger) and striking people with my blade's haft, my fists or my feet to stop killing them whilst the others' opening salvo rips quite a few of the people apart. I point out that these are in fact towns folk, and the embarressed party attempt to fend off legions of old people (not just old people, but the old people stick out in my mind). A key moment of this fight was the weak elf wizard's first attack being a critical hit on an unarmed attack, taking out a minion.

The party continues on, and begins tracking down those responsible. We come across a drugs lab, which leads us to a house next to a river. Beneat the house is an incredibly tough insane djinni imprisoned in a suit of armour, who can shape the molten metal as it pleases (and it does so). The revenant warlord proceeds to try and rip a support out of the wall to flood the room, but we defeat the creature by shoving a mcguffin down it whilst it's venting heat, which causes it to run off through the wall. This causes the river to pour in, and flood the entire underbelly of the city, which is connected. We did not make friends.

Eventually we end up in nearby mountain, tracking through the snow, when we are ambushed by beardless dwarves. It turns out that our guide has been shaving them in their sleep, and they're angry. Using a combination of bombs and axes they have at us, and we manage to defeat them, with the last one disappearing over the edge of the cliff after the beard we threw off.

We arrive in an ice cave with the ghost of a crazy mage. There are curtains covering the doors, and opening one causes a huge wind to rip through the room. After fighting some shadow creatures that appear, we open the curtains to blow them out into a huge drop, which leads to me falling off. I am clinging to the ice, hoping someone will help. Someone does. The only problem is, he starts going off too. He hits the warlord for help, who misinterprets this and kicks us off the side. As I fall I declare him my oath target and attempt to abjure his ass, which, with a lot of GM fiat, instead saves us.

Generally the game was a blast, with some awesome set piece battles and the GM spending a lot of time making custom monsters who were pretty badass (there were often very anime style crazy things going on), despite this being his first foray into DMing. Whilst the game did show me that I prefer 3.X to 4th as a system, it was still very enjoyable and taught me that I can endure the system to play a good game.

[Dr Gunsforhands]

Thanks for the epic wins from my last post, so here's another story:

I remember the last time I faced some high level evil. It was Mortos, a powerful necromancer lich who had picked up a homebrew orb of invulnerability. I was the powerful wizard, and the rest of the party needed to shatter some ancient magical obelisk to break his connection to the orb. In order to buy time for my friends, I challenged the lich to a magical duel. He started monologuing about how invulnerable he was and that he was going to let me hit him with my best shot. But he's invulnerable right? I don't have any spells that can undo invulnerability. He's letting me stall while I look for something in my bag of holding, getting impatient, but then I find what I'm looking for.

I pick the pie out of my pack and throw it at him. It hits him in the face. I yell "Ha! Now you're a powerful lich with a pie on his face! Pie all over you!"

He spent the next few hours taking me apart. Worth it.

[SigCorps]

Many years ago while sitting around with one of my longest running groups we were escaping from the city of Greyhawk. We had stolen a boat from the docks and were making our way to the opposite bank. At one point our boat tips and we all get chucked into the river. While we were near the bank we are also near some alligators. Just as our last party member was trying to climb out, one of the toothy fellows grabs his arm.

The DM looks at the player and goes "what do you do?". Now in certain situations the DM gave us limited time to respond to questions like that to keep the pace going. The player stuttered for a moment and the DM asked again "What do you do?". A few more stutters and he replies" I...I bite his eye!"

We all go "What?" as the DM nods and goes "OK roll." Well the player rolled a nat 20, and got the double damage crit. Needless to say the gator lost an eye and let go. From that point on when ever were were in a situation where the DM asked us "What do you do?" our first reaction was always to go....Uh..I bite his eye.

[Elemist13]

One of my favorite stories involves one of the campaigns that I had just finished. The setting was a mixture of heroes of horror and some frostfell thrown in for taste. The party had just vanquished the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) who had set up his ice fortress on top of a skyberg (iceberg that floats through the air).

The party had spent the last fifteen minutes discussing how much damage you would take from falling from over a mile in the sky. One of my players happened to be a rules lawyer who knew that falling damage caps out at 20d6 damage. He tells the rest of the party to teleport back to town and he will meet them there. So the party teleports and he decides to jump over the side of the skyberg being the high level tank he knew that he could survive even max 20d6 damage.

He survived the fall, but he did not take into account the fact that I would decide that a fall from that height would leave most of his bones broken. Thus he spent a night laying in muddy field where he was found in the morning by a "friendly" group of wolves that had been hunting in the area. Needless to say the rest of the party spent two weeks waiting in the local tavern for him to show up to no avail.

[Lycan 01]

I love it when rules abuse backfires miserably.

[The Glyphstone]

I love it when DM's pull new houserules out on the spot to kill characters.

(Would need more information to actually form an opinion though - primarily if the guy actually deserved this or if you just felt like being a jerk to him for lulz.)

[Meirnon]

I love it when DM's pull new houserules out on the spot to kill characters.

(Would need more information to actually form an opinion though - primarily if the guy actually deserved this or if you just felt like being a jerk to him for lulz.)

You need a better reason?

[WarKitty]

I love it when DM's pull new houserules out on the spot to kill characters.

(Would need more information to actually form an opinion though - primarily if the guy actually deserved this or if you just felt like being a jerk to him for lulz.)

Chunky salsa rule FTW.

[The Glyphstone]

You need a better reason?

For arbitrarily murdering someone's (presumably) high-level character? Yes, yes I do. I'm odd like that.

Chunky salsa rule FTW.

Oh, definitely, but not pulled out mid-game or even mid-session with no precedent beforehand. This is dragging the thread off-topic though, so I'll leave it alone now.

[Lycan 01]

The dude jumped to save time and then fell a mile from a floating city to the hard ground below. Logically, he should have died, but the rules lawyer claimed that falling damage totalled out at 20d6, which he could survive, even though no one should be able to survive a fall from that height without magical intervention or something. Common sense would have dictated that a fall from such heights would be insta-salsa, remaining HP or not. I wouldn't feel comfortable bending the laws of reality just because of a dice mechanic, especially if the player was abusing said mechanic for his own gain.

But, that's just my opinion.

[Meirnon]

The dude jumped to save time and then fell a mile from a floating city to the hard ground below. Logically, he should have died, but the rules lawyer claimed that falling damage totalled out at 20d6, which he could survive, even though no one should be able to survive a fall from that height without magical intervention or something. Common sense would have dictated that a fall from such heights would be insta-salsa, remaining HP or not. I wouldn't feel comfortable bending the laws of reality just because of a dice mechanic, especially if the player was abusing said mechanic for his own gain.

But, that's just my opinion.

1) People have survived falls from that height. Even falling on fences.

2) Maybe the rules are made to follow terminal velocity? I dunno. We should totally check into that.

[Lycan 01]

Alright, I'll admit, people have survived falls from extreme heights. But never without several broken bones. And as we read, he didn't kill the guy, he just broke his bones. Still within reason, since 20D6 is still a ton of damage to be taken at once. And it wasn't really the DM that killed him, par se, but the fact that no one thought to go look for him.


...


Why didn't anyone go look for him? Didn't they see him jump off? Surely they would have thought to at least check back after a few days...


In the end, I think the DM was right to break his bones. It was just a bad combination of things that led to a fatal - but hilarious - situation.

[DementedFellow]

The dude jumped to save time and then fell a mile from a floating city to the hard ground below. Logically, he should have died, but the rules lawyer claimed that falling damage totalled out at 20d6, which he could survive, even though no one should be able to survive a fall from that height without magical intervention or something. Common sense would have dictated that a fall from such heights would be insta-salsa, remaining HP or not. I wouldn't feel comfortable bending the laws of reality just because of a dice mechanic, especially if the player was abusing said mechanic for his own gain.

But, that's just my opinion.

They just finished off the BBEG and maybe he wanted to exit in a grandiose fashion. Would it have hurt the party or hampered the story to allow him to continue? Doubtful.

I see it as no different than a football player dancing after a touchdown.

But the DM says, "Oh he's just having too much fun. We can't have that. Even if it is legal by the rules."

I'm sorry but we all agree to a game from the get-go. Unless real-world physics are a part of the campaign from the start it is irresponsible to just arbitrarily say, "No the rules we all agreed to from the beginning are really just suggestions and I'll just make up slapdash rulings on the fly to screw you all over. Character investment be damned."

[darkpuppy]

*grins* well, before I drag out another old anecdote, I will put my two cents in on the falling rules lawyer thing... firstly...

BRAVO!

Right, there we are... now the GM-ness. While yes, 20d6 is meant to represent terminal velocity, what the book fails to take into account (but I don't, unless it's dramatic), is that friction starts taking effect around that time too... wouldn't take effect over only a mile (although I would state that, depending on ground conditions, the Chunky Salsa rule takes effect), over, say, 5 miles, you would start burning, thus adding constant fire damage to the fall for, say, the last mile. Admittedly, that's only something like two or three rounds, but hey, it still adds damage!

Anyway, my anecdote, which is somewhat related. While running that dismally written piece of excreta, The Babylon Project (great setting, bad rulebook), I began with the starting adventure. For context, the protagonist of this story had the character trait... Impulsive. So there they are, confronting the CBEG (Corporate Big Evil Guy), when his guards rush in and tell everyone to freeze. Immediately asking what everyone does, Mr. Impulsive cries out "I jump out of the window!"

Now, for those of you who know neither the Babylon Project's starting adventure (woo), or the universe, on Earth, they build big in the future. This gentleman's office was on the penthouse of a something like 3000 storey building. He got his character point, and would have survived died were it not for the fact that a) I hadn't made that 100% clear, although everyone had guessed, and b) It was the first session, and it's just bad form to kill someone in the first session, especially when everyone is quite amused. Nonetheless, he definitely got his character point... and it was the only one ever earned in that short, painful campaign.

[Umael]

While yes, 20d6 is meant to represent terminal velocity, what the book fails to take into account (but I don't, unless it's dramatic), is that friction starts taking effect around that time too... wouldn't take effect over only a mile

Nope.

Most of terminal velocity is reached after a fall of 1000'. 99% of terminal velocity is reached in 23 seconds. Terminal velocity, also, is not constant, depending on the person and the way in which they are falling (flat, arms out, about 120 mph; like a needle, about 190 mph).

By the rules, a person reaches terminal velocity in only 200'. Also by the rules, terminal velocity is 20d6, which averages to 70 points of damage. Mass damage rules say that after 70 points of damage, a person has to make a Fortitude Save DC 15... which is kinda ridiculous, since you can do 50 or 100 points, and it is still a Fortitude Save DC 15. Another example of the rules being stupid, but hey, they're the rules.

Cinematic interpretation calls for a 20th-level or so hero to be so incredible, even a fall of such incredible heights should be enough to stop him or her. Socially, some players often believe that they have an entitlement to get to play these high-level characters because they jumped through the hoops that the GM had to provide.

However, abuse of meta-gaming means that the player was breaking the verisimilitude of the game, and it means that the GM is well within his or her rights to have the universe react accordingly.

over, say, 5 miles, you would start burning, thus adding constant fire damage to the fall for, say, the last mile.

No.

Objects which burning up in the atmosphere are already going well over terminal velocity. Furthermore, at extreme elevations, the thinning of the atmosphere makes the surrounding environment colder, not warmer. Ignoring what low-pressure and a lack of oxygen does to someone at high elevations, someone who was, say, 5 miles up, will be suffering the effects of cold for a while. At 120 mph, a person would fall from a height of Mt. Everett is a little less than 3 minutes - not nearly long enough to cause serious damage.

However, if someone 5 miles up deployed a parachute too soon, the cold would actually become a factor (although hypothermia due to wind alone is not a major threat - usually moisture is involved).

[Meirnon]

SCIENCE!

Because knowing is half the battle, in which case using that knowledge is metagaming and the DM will hurt you.

[DementedFellow]

How is knowing the maximum falling damage any different than not using certain spells against undead because they are mindless?

We all meta-game to some degree. But the question is, does it hurt the game? I doubt that character's fall would have interrupted gameplay at all.

Then the DM convinced the player's it's their fault that the character died because they didn't go looking, not because it was DM fiat. Shenanigans!

[Umael]

Look, WotC made an attempt to include reality into the game, but they fell short in a few places. When it comes to falling, they made the mistake of capping the damage at 20d6, when the damage should (logically) cap at 100d6. The second mistake was to make massive damage a flat DC 15 rather than a scaling DC based on the amount of damage taken.

If the DC was equal to half the damage taken, minus 10, then 50 points still is a DC 15 save, but 70 points is DC 35. Suddenly those massive damage rules change the game significantly. The variant rule for massive damage based on the size of the target will help in the cases of people trying to take out giants and dragons and the like.

A second variant rule of increasing the base damage die by the size of the target for falling damage will then help reflect the reality that bigger creatures suffer more from falling the same distance as smaller creatures.

Fine = d1 damage (i.e., 1 point per 10 feet)
Diminutive = d2 damage
Tiny = d3 damage
Small = d4 damage
Medium = d6 damage
Large = d8 damage
Huge = d10 damage
Gargantuan = d12 damage
Colossal = d20 damage

Use those variant rules and falls become a LOT more deadly.

[Umael]

How is knowing the maximum falling damage any different than not using certain spells against undead because they are mindless?

In the real world, I can know the stats for various kinds of guns and how much damage they can do. Do I know how many hit points each bullet will do?

In the real world, NO ONE seriously says that they know how much damage a fall WILL do, not and be truthful, because there are cases of people dying from a fall from a standing up position and plenty of stuntmen who survived falls several stories high. In the real world, the maximum falling damage is chunky salsa.

The knowledge that certain spells are ineffective against undead can be found through simply empirical evidence, just as people can detect how certain chemicals will react. You put zombies in the real world and spells that affect the mind in the real world, and you can figure out that those spells don't affect zombies. But you still don't know how many hit points you have or the amount of damage you will take.

At best, your analogy is a poor one.

[DementedFellow]

In the real world, I can know the stats for various kinds of guns and how much damage they can do. Do I know how many hit points each bullet will do?

In the real world, NO ONE seriously says that they know how much damage a fall WILL do, not and be truthful, because there are cases of people dying from a fall from a standing up position and plenty of stuntmen who survived falls several stories high. In the real world, the maximum falling damage is chunky salsa.

The knowledge that certain spells are ineffective against undead can be found through simply empirical evidence, just as people can detect how certain chemicals will react. You put zombies in the real world and spells that affect the mind in the real world, and you can figure out that those spells don't affect zombies. But you still don't know how many hit points you have or the amount of damage you will take.

At best, your analogy is a poor one.

Meta-game knowledge is meta-game knowledge, regardless of degree. Because really if spells and zombies were around, would it take you ONE casting of a spell to learn that "Hey, this type of spell doesn't affect this zombie, therefore ALL zombies are not bothered by it."? I'm willing to bet you'd try it out at least more than once, but typically you'd be hard-pressed to see that scenario in a game.

You talk about bringing real world physics into a game. But yet, we have no proof that the DM used real-world physics prior to that event. Then he used his own fiat to screw over a character, and convinced the other players it was their fault that the other was eaten by wolves.

And really, real-world physics have no place in a fantasy game where it is used to screw a character over. If a player can tear open a hole in reality and unleash an angelic horde with a simple word, then complaining about verisimilitude is moot.

[Umael]

Meta-game knowledge is meta-game knowledge, regardless of degree.

That's tautology for you.

Kinda useless in this case, I'm afraid.

Because really if spells and zombies were around, would it take you ONE casting of a spell to learn that "Hey, this type of spell doesn't affect this zombie, therefore ALL zombies are not bothered by it."? I'm willing to bet you'd try it out at least more than once, but typically you'd be hard-pressed to see that scenario in a game.

But I could communicate with others who have access to spells and have encountered zombies. I might not run into a zombie more than once, but several others people who have run into zombies can tell me what they used and how effective they were.

Now in the generic world of D&D, zombies have been around for a long time. If the real world has legends about werewolves being vulnerable to silver, why can't Undead 101 classes tell you zombies are immune to mind-affecting spells?

You talk about bringing real world physics into a game. But yet, we have no proof that the DM used real-world physics prior to that event. Then he used his own fiat to screw over a character, and convinced the other players it was their fault that the other was eaten by wolves.

I'm not defending the DM, only the notion that a player should feel an entitlement to survive a long-distance fall due to mega-game knowledge which flies in the face of real-world physics.

And really, real-world physics have no place in a fantasy game where it is used to screw a character over. If a player can tear open a hole in reality and unleash an angelic horde with a simple word, then complaining about verisimilitude is moot.

I think you need to look up what verisimilitude means beyond the dictionary definition.

And this part of the conversation IS moot, because I will not address it again.

[Meirnon]

Okay, we should stop arguing and agree on two things:

1) The story was funny.

2) A wizard did it.

[DementedFellow]

If you can have open discourse on vampires & werewolves and their weaknesses, why can't you have tavern discussions on how far people fell?

"Old Jim fell off the Church steeple a few days ago and walked away with a few scratches."
"Black-eyed McGee was abducted by a colossal eagle and was dropped over 300 feet. He was hurt, but he still thinks divine inspiration saved him."

Yeah because it's much more reasonable to assume people talk about how to kill local demons and other abominations other than the drunken yokels playing games of "Hey guys! Watch this!"