@Ellri

Nat 20 with disadvange should at least get a crit effect. C'mon lol

at least once when she rolled with disadvantage:
die #1: 20.
die #2: 1.

even worse for her luck? As a fighter, she's got improved critical, so she should get critical hits on 19 and 20.

In the campaign that character is in, we're not DM, so it is not our decision.

We do hope the DM lets her get transformed at least mostly back to human, though.

Casting Thunderwave on a fucking boat is not a good idea

One of our casters got caught by the town guard burying a dead paladin on the outskirts of town. (long story don't ask) So they came and arrested him and me, being a bratty 12 year old in this game, try to fight them off, lost easily, and was also arrested. We need to leave town the next morning on a very important mission so our two ninjas decided to go and see if they can get us released. One Ninja tries to diplomasize in but fails miserably. The other ninja was able to teleport so he teleported into our cell to try to assess the situation. He just happens to teleport in as the guards are making their rounds. He's not making any attempt to hide so he's seen and a guard asked where he came from. And this is the essential breakdown of the conversation that happened.
"How did you get in there?"
"I teleported here."
"Sir, that is humanly impossible. There's no such thing as teleporting." (In this game there was no teleporting. This ninja was special)
"Of course I can. See?"
*proceeds to teleport out and then back into the cell as the guard stands in awe*
"..... are you human?"
*Ninja thinks about it for a moment before pulling off his glove and biting his finger*
"Tastes like human"

The guard quit that night. It was his third day on the shift. And that's how we escape jail.

Another grim tale from days gone now, that same urban world where the unnatural and strange lurked just within reach but out of sight for most. This one is perhaps just as strange, maybe not as amusing, but it was a crucial point for an extended period and lives up to the mantra of, "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong." It begins simply enough with the players, some of whom I have noted are quite dangerous people in reality and others not so, receiving their mission.

A private security agency was preparing to move a high value asset, believed to be a supernatural artifact, from one location or another. There was virtually no way for them to acquire it head on - both facilities were too heavily guarded, had too many security measures, and would attract far too much attention if attacked. Sneaking in wasn't an option either, given the storage facilities for valuable goods were, as one imagined, designed to protect their client's most valuable items, some worth millions of dollars each. The weakness they found through research, between probing everything from the blueprints of the vaults and the like to attempting to feign being prospective members who wanted to keep their assets safe, were that the armored trucks were their weakest point.

Three armored trucks, three routes the couriers were going to take. No one would know which was which; they had no way of knowing what was loaded into each because the cargo was sealed in impact resistant containers. That made things bad, worse was that the only had so many people to complete their mission. They had the aforementioned ranger, another ranger, a specialist, a psychic, an occultist, and an actor. As one can imagine, they quickly determined which route the actual truck was going to take by observation, but the deadline was cutting it close; they near missed it. Thinking they had this in the bag, they installed remote hubs that tapped into the traffic lights and could control them along the route the truck was going to go.

Their plan was simple, force the truck to divert from any of its routes until it had to make one, one where less people were around, then hijack the truck. Simple, right? They even managed to wiggle their way in to the company and replace one of the security agents and a driver of the truck, leaving only two bad guys; the actual driver and the other guard in the back of the truck. They even pooled all of their money together to buy an identical armored car and paint it to match. But when they arrived with their crew for their day of work and the armored car they bought, the occultist had a brilliant idea when the actual driver told her to go let them know they were ready to load the truck.

She went and knocked on the high security door, not using the intercom everyone had noted was important.

She was then, in very short order, put in handcuffs by all of the guards who did not know her and replaced, carted off by the police who were summoned to figure out who in the hell this was and how she got in here or why. This left the one alternate driver with three bad guys. Fortunately the alternate driver was the psion, also the same one who hacked all the lights and would be able to trip the signals and carry out sending messages via his very expensive, very rare mess of wires he hid on himself to do it.

But it got worse.

He failed every single roll to hack he made, despite having a +10 or so to the associated skill. Nothing but terrible luck and now the truck was on the highway. But they had three lucky breaks, one which was the form of a police car they had stolen a few weeks back, as well as two other vehicles, all so they could try to drive the truck off the road and encircle it after. Solid back up plan, but the bad luck did not end there. When the ranger attempted to pull the truck over and stop it, the ranger and the actor showed up at the same time. The guards knew this was wrong, fast. The psion attempts to short circuit and seize up the truck with an hidden electrical outburst.

The next thing that happened was, was that the ranger got peppered by automatic gun fire and the second car hit the truck as it came to a sudden shutdown. The psion, using his psychic abilities, knocked out the two guards in the back, but the driver witnessed something clearly unnatural happen and the psion do it. Now this one guard is fending off enemies from everywhere, all of who are shooting him, but cant hit to save their lives; the actor isn't a prime tier shooter and the other ranger can never roll. The psion is trying to get out of the truck and sneak up on the driver, but of course fails his Hide check.

The other ranger and actor attempt to breach the containers in the truck, only to realize they're impact resistant and weigh a ridiculous amount. So between being shot at by the one (un)lucky guard holding them all off, they are in their futility fumbling with the cargo. Eventually the truck catches fire, they eliminate the guard, and save the original ranger who had nearly died on the side of the road. In the process they blew their cover, lost tens of thousands on the armored car, narrowly avoided two members dying, and barely escaped the police. All for what you might ask?

An unassuming pink quartz crystal the size of a palm. Of course a very plot relevant crystal, but at the time they legitimately broke open the correct crate at last (the others had all been empty and decoys), recognized it, and snatched it. That moment of, "We did all of this for a rock?"

If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. That was how their game played, no matter how well planned it ever was.

Another grim tale from days gone now, that same urban world where the unnatural and strange lurked just within reach but out of sight for most. This one is perhaps just as strange, maybe not as amusing, but it was a crucial point for an extended period and lives up to the mantra of, "If it can go wrong, it will go wrong." It begins simply enough with the players, some of whom I have noted are quite dangerous people in reality and others not so, receiving their mission.

A private security agency was preparing to move a high value asset, believed to be a supernatural artifact, from one location or another. There was virtually no way for them to acquire it head on - both facilities were too heavily guarded, had too many security measures, and would attract far too much attention if attacked. Sneaking in wasn't an option either, given the storage facilities for valuable goods were, as one imagined, designed to protect their client's most valuable items, some worth millions of dollars each. The weakness they found through research, between probing everything from the blueprints of the vaults and the like to attempting to feign being prospective members who wanted to keep their assets safe, were that the armored trucks were their weakest point.

Three armored trucks, three routes the couriers were going to take. No one would know which was which; they had no way of knowing what was loaded into each because the cargo was sealed in impact resistant containers. That made things bad, worse was that the only had so many people to complete their mission. They had the aforementioned ranger, another ranger, a specialist, a psychic, an occultist, and an actor. As one can imagine, they quickly determined which route the actual truck was going to take by observation, but the deadline was cutting it close; they near missed it. Thinking they had this in the bag, they installed remote hubs that tapped into the traffic lights and could control them along the route the truck was going to go.

Their plan was simple, force the truck to divert from any of its routes until it had to make one, one where less people were around, then hijack the truck. Simple, right? They even managed to wiggle their way in to the company and replace one of the security agents and a driver of the truck, leaving only two bad guys; the actual driver and the other guard in the back of the truck. They even pooled all of their money together to buy an identical armored car and paint it to match. But when they arrived with their crew for their day of work and the armored car they bought, the occultist had a brilliant idea when the actual driver told her to go let them know they were ready to load the truck.

She went and knocked on the high security door, not using the intercom everyone had noted was important.

She was then, in very short order, put in handcuffs by all of the guards who did not know her and replaced, carted off by the police who were summoned to figure out who in the hell this was and how she got in here or why. This left the one alternate driver with three bad guys. Fortunately the alternate driver was the psion, also the same one who hacked all the lights and would be able to trip the signals and carry out sending messages via his very expensive, very rare mess of wires he hid on himself to do it.

But it got worse.

He failed every single roll to hack he made, despite having a +10 or so to the associated skill. Nothing but terrible luck and now the truck was on the highway. But they had three lucky breaks, one which was the form of a police car they had stolen a few weeks back, as well as two other vehicles, all so they could try to drive the truck off the road and encircle it after. Solid back up plan, but the bad luck did not end there. When the ranger attempted to pull the truck over and stop it, the ranger and the actor showed up at the same time. The guards knew this was wrong, fast. The psion attempts to short circuit and seize up the truck with an hidden electrical outburst.

The next thing that happened was, was that the ranger got peppered by automatic gun fire and the second car hit the truck as it came to a sudden shutdown. The psion, using his psychic abilities, knocked out the two guards in the back, but the driver witnessed something clearly unnatural happen and the psion do it. Now this one guard is fending off enemies from everywhere, all of who are shooting him, but cant hit to save their lives; the actor isn't a prime tier shooter and the other ranger can never roll. The psion is trying to get out of the truck and sneak up on the driver, but of course fails his Hide check.

The other range and actor attempt to breach the containers in the truck, only to realize they're impact resistant and weigh a ridiculous amount. So between being shot at by the one (un)lucky guard holding them all off, they are in their futility fumbling with the cargo. Eventually the truck catches fire, they eliminate the guard, and save the original ranger who had nearly died. In the process they blew their cover, lost tens of thousands on the armored car, narrowly avoided two members dying, and barely escaped the police. All for what you might ask?

An unassuming pink quartz crystal the size of a palm. Of course a very plot relevant crystal, but at the time they legitimately broke open the correct crate at last (the others had all been empty and decoys), recognized it, and snatched it. That moment of, "We did all of this for a rock?"

If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. That was how their game played, no matter how well planned it ever was.

I can't even imagine how frustrated they were XD

They were furious, @Metadude. They knew appearances to be deceiving, but it was one of those moments where reflecting they could not help but wonder... did they get the right route? The right truck and cargo? Was the rock it or was it in the other unopened crate? No time to think, the police are coming in a few minutes. Then they drag this petty little not-so-precious stone back to their hideout and keep prodding it, all the while not able to figure out what it does or how it does until the specialist arrives. Even then they are all skeptical about the rock he can't prove does anything. Cue the next story involving dream sequences and dealing with memory tampering, oneiromancy, dreamwalking, and nightmares, but that is a story for next time.

My recounting experience was nothing so slapstick, nothing weird or pervy or cartoonily "epic" like that.

We were level 1, barely any gear and I lost my spellbook.

It was just a "So you come across the maze they mentioned, tales of monsters dwelt within but you have to cross it. The moss laden dirt ..." I stopped the host there, asked him to confirm the type of ground we were on. Confirming it was just peat earth. I turned to my friend who had tremorsense for her racial ability ...and proceeded to Mold Earth (a usually unpopular cantrip spell I have) our way subterranean.

The host had planned all this combat sequences that night which we just were like "Ciao, gtg, next quest pl0x, bai." Through the whole maze. ...In the end, we OOCily decided to play his maze adventure properly. To reward his effort.

ah yes. Our rogue, a Yuan-ti Pureblood, was somewhat lacking in funds to buy rations. She suggested to one of the others (who had plenty of gold) to buy extra rations. Then she'll be regularly "borrowing" rations from him. Why bother carrying the foodstuffs herself, when another can do it for her?

Gotta love rogues, right?

We didn't even have to use the 1/day suggestion spell to convince him. Or to roll anything for that matter.

My group has trouble getting into character and RPing (instead seeming to see the entire thing as a video game-type RPG, focusing on stats and combat and whatnot over character) and in an effort to try to foster some more interactions, for a one-shot I once made a Ninja that could barely speak Common (basically single word phrases only) and instead spoke Japanese. Avoided talking out of character unless it was absolutely necessary.

It made them act in character just a little more (even if it was just for them to ask "What is the ninja trying to say?"). Group was sidetracked by ordering food and watching World War 2 movies, and the oneshot was never actually finished. Despite my pre-school level of Japanese competency, it was good vocab and grammar practice.

Overall: Success. Except for the game. It was superseded by Generation War. Oh well. Will have to try more methods.

Not all players are interested in going beyond diablo-style monster slaughter for their roleplaying. We suggest finding out whether they actually want to go more in character before you force it on them, @Crowvette.

Not all players are interested in going beyond diablo-style monster slaughter for their roleplaying. We suggest finding out whether they actually want to go more in character before you force it on them, @Crowvette.

Yeah, I've basically come to that realization.

If anything, the bigger problem currently is that they can be distracted off of a fight by the prospect of burgers and movies.

If anything, the bigger problem currently is that they can be distracted off of a fight by the prospect of burgers and movies.

Sounds like me.

A tonal shift from my other stories, but here is one of a Dungeon Master in a traditional high fantasy Third Edition game not quite realizing that his party is, for lack of better words, really bad at the game, and making an ante with me they could not hold to.

Just what does this great cat mean by "Really bad at the game.", you wonder? Let us speak to a party that is wholly unoptimized, I mean to even the practical level of say, choosing a feat that actually does something for their damage, and say not wasting two feats on Endurance and Diehard. The sort of people that while every book in the game is allowed, they still bring a fighter or ranger and are confused why they are bad at everything. The sort of party who thinks clerics are only good at healing or that bards only use bardic music in combat. The level of just being impractical and nonviable.

Enter yours truly, as while I have never once brought a truly optimized character to a table, I did bring quite a few startling outcomes. Be it an ardent and psionics as a whole or just a regular warblade using material solely from the supplement. Now, you might ask, how was this an issue?

Because to put it simply, the Dungeon Master cheated. "How does a Dungeon Master cheat?", one might reasonably wonder. The reality of that is quite simple, in that he arbitrarily changed the difficulty class of some abilities, raised hit points as he saw fit on whim, or improved the enemy's defenses. Now, granted there are rules for that, he did so each round of combat depending if he felt we were doing too well and per character. As one can summarize where this is going, he took great issue with me bringing classes that were just plainly better to the table than the others. So much so that eventually I managed to catch him doing it by recording the fluctuating Armor Class of a monster and called him on it; enough was enough.

The rest of the group, being sort of tame and happy-go-lucky sorts were only slightly annoyed, but I was furious. What was the point of playing when the rules did not matter? Why do we even have character sheets, dice, Base Attack Bonuses, class features and the like if it is all entirely at the whim of the Dungeon Master?

He explained his complaint, "You do too much damage."

I had time and again pointed out, even encouraged and taught others the ways to not make their characters largely useless, even walked them through examples in my own free time. This, to say the least, was a flimsy excuse and I was about to prove it to him to make my point. I inquired as to how and why he said that, to which he said the classes I chose were overpowered and the others books outside the Player's Handbook were too strong. His argument? Only the Player's Handbook material was balanced and fair to everyone. I made the typical argument that the druid, cleric, and wizard are virtually better than every other class on print and he more or less ignored it; mind you I rarely played such classes to begin with, let alone to their extremes.

I then struck up a deal, a devious plan fitting of any cat, I said, "Very well, I will make a fighter using only the Player's Handbook and prove to you otherwise. The catch is, you play monsters exactly out of the book or within the rules. I will show you that the issue is not myself and that the books aren't the merit of balance."

Thinking he had his way and that his troubles would disappear, he agreed. Within short order I made a great weapon fighter, down to wealth by level, wielding a +1 Holy Keen Adamantine Greatsword and a plethora of combat related feats, two of which were the go-tos. Power Attack was not the stellar figure here, no, it was Improved Disarm and Improved Trip. My entire premise was simple, charge, disarm, trip, then dump the damage into power attack and massacre enemies. This was even easier than one imagines because the majority of creatures we faced? Open terrain, no obstacles, difficult terrain, and within sixty feet or less, with extremely rare spellcasting foes and fewer flying enemies.

In essence he signed his own death warrant, as did the sorry party. By no fault of their own, outside their laziness, they were content to plink monsters for at most, 2d6 plus a modifier or two per round on their turn, assuming they ever even hit, or cast spells that did little of anything - such as the druid attempting to bludgeon everything with a staff rather than turning into a lion, which I had wrote for them on their sheet. All the while the party as a whole tended to walk away from combat with nearly all their spells spent and only a few hit points left, usually to just be railroaded into the next event.

The following combat did not go that way the next time we played. Oh no, not this time. Held to the rules, we began fighting pirates on this stretch of the adventure and on the first charge, the Dungeon Master realized his mistake; a one hit critical strike and a cleave into downing another enemy. Fighters are not known for being power houses in this edition, but a competently made one, even so limited, wasn't a laughing matter at this table. On and on it went, most the party flailing and failing against even average enemies, orcs, ogres, lizardfolk pirates and the like, while everything I came across was soon disarmed or sundered, tripped, and summarily executed.

We cleared the entire cove of pirates in one fell swoop and went on to the boss, which of course, were more pirates and their captain. We all knew the obvious, that the boss had minions and spells, and that this was going to hurt; mind you much less where some half of the party would die in this encounter normally. However, I did not go for the glory, I spent my turns destroying the lesser foes, hoping, praying the rest of the party would actually manage to take down the pirate captain, but of course, they failed. Two of them were charmed and I was forced to make short work of them; luckily disarming them and keeping them prone had the effect of not killing them.

The Dungeon Master was infuriated. He was red in the face and obviously mad this had not gone as planned. We had a habit of annoying him, but usually it was never in combat, usually it was only when we circumvented some needlessly complicated puzzle - stories on that to come - though you can guess what came next.

He cheated and he cheated hard. How so? Suddenly my average rolls cannot touch the enemies they were regularly cleaning right through and no amount of hitting them when I did hit, usually critical hits now, did anything of merit or note. The rest of the party, whose characters could regularly not hit or do anything to save their life kept plinking away as normal. I called foul and asked for the notes, to which he sighed and turned over, part of our agreement.

It was over then, he needed to smoke and the game folded there. Needless to say, he much rather enjoyed playing in other peoples' games, but he wasn't about to Dungeon Master again for us. The moral of the story? Do not cheat your players or make accusations or agreements you cannot back up. I have plenty of stories of him, but this was the one that led into the games I spoke about of my running; a happy turn of events there.

quite a lot of difference between fudging rolls and changing stats on the fly to "balance" out a single player. Sounds quite a lot like the guy misunderstood the role of the DM. The fact that he kept using the same stuff after agreeing not to do it, proves that he wasn't (at least at the time) capable of being a good DM.

so, do any of you have any good stories with cursed items?

We've distributed a few... Not that the players have truly noticed them all yet.
- a helm that grants +1 AC vs. nonmagical piercing/slashing/bludgeoning, and darth-vader style breathing.
- a set of monkish handwraps that replaced gender and race
- a tunic that grants +9 max HP and a bardic die, but makes one always hear own heartbeat.
- a Loadstone. A small, really heavy stone that people don't willingly want to put down.
- a Mantle that lets the wearer hear Myrkul at times. (one of the numerous gods of death over the years)

@The Harbinger of Ferocity

It sounds like you were a player on an escort run with low level NPC's XD
I know that pain, a bad DM can hamper a game so much, in some cases more than a bad player. As a player can simply die, while a GM has to give up their position XD

When I 'cheat' against my players, I use their own characters against them. "Oh, you're a greedy bastard? Here's a chest in an empty room, a light shining down upon it. Go touch it."

@Ellri

I have a couple of cursed items, but most of which beat the guilds rules over the head until death, so I can't post them here... too NSFW XD all I can say is, Mimic Armor, or the Green Pact from The Elder Scrolls went a little too Evil Dead XD

Oh, I love the heartbeat one - that should drive anyone with low will power insane, or have to use multiple saves to keep it in check XD

I always stood by the philosophy that a Dungeon Master should be one of, if not the, most experienced and versed players at the table. The sort who could recognize the party as a whole was a problem, as was their limited, narrow scope of understanding, not make it worse by punishing anyone doing it well. Unfortunately he too had that philosophy that only certain things were balanced or good, rather allowed. The punishment for myself was coming to the table with a character that did not matter and that we would spend hours flailing at enemies because they just would not die as quickly as they needed to, then be stuck with some ludicrously complicated puzzle that three-quarters of the time required meta knowledge to complete.

Exploiting character weaknesses is not so much cheating as doing your job correctly; you put the responsibility on the player then to play it out. The issue that arises is if and when players get singled out by the Dungeon Master to always achieve their agenda, see the Chaotic Neutral rogue always somehow having opportunities to break the game with a god of chaos on their side while the rest of us have to fix everything.

On to cursed items, which I admit I have only ever employed once and that was part of the objective they had. A clearly magical artifact, a broken sword, in a world where magic items were rare enough to the point they only ever saw a +1 Magic Longsword in the rest of the game. Of course they disregarded every sign of danger, that the weapon was locked away underground in a den, guarded by spirits, required a Dispel Magic casting to break down a barrier, then find it laid out in a large room atop a stone slab over a blood red tapestry, everything covered in dust. The only thing "cursed" about it was that it had a soul of its own bound to it that manipulated the group to free itself.

Yet, somehow, they only somewhat recognized the danger, but went about completing its quest all the same. Until the chaotic sort tried to steal it, throw it into a fire, then beat it with a hammer; said gnome was then jumped by the rest of their party. So no, not too fond of magic items or cursed items, normally because my experience with them is that they were always bad. I am sure you can imagine why based on my previous story.

This would not be the first time I heard of such behavior from players, @Metadude. My old company did the exact same sort of things when I first joined and started playing with them. Why? Because the Dungeon Master always made the random event somehow magical or obscene powerful. For example, the fight would have been over petting the hamster at first, until something about it was hinted to be magical, then they would all kill one another, make new characters almost instantly, then go on their way. Fortunately you had a restart as you did!