You are a monster.

Grogg was an orc. He was a slave, rescued from slavers by the Paladin Roy, of the House of Ziegfried: others claimed he should die, but Roy believed that all creatures, even evil ones, deserved the benefit of doubt. In gratitude, he pledged himself Roy's servant and squire. He was not the most intelligent of companions, but he had a strong back and a good heart, and he always strove to please the "Shineyman" who had rescued him.

Criminal scum.

We were deep in the jungles of Chult, fighting monsters, when a magical effect suddenly transported us across the world to the mountains north of Thay in the dead of winter. There was a blizzard closing in, and we were ill-prepared for the bitter cold. Somehow, we made our way to a cave and found shelter from the storm, but try as we might, we could build no fire (no one rolled above a four on their Survival checks).

It seemed that our deaths were inevitable.

>>5818672
Best response ever

No, sadly my games are almost always about the lulz.
Entire party made of Chaotic Neutral running around while I try my best to give them a story based on their choices.
You're great though. Nice moment. Will be watching this thread for stories.

Then Grogg rose and said, in his dull voice, "Grogg will find fire for shineyman!" And with those words, ran out into the driving snow. Though Roy tried to follow him, he soon lost track of the orc in the snow (damn movement penalties for plate armor) and was forced to return to the cave.

It was a miserable night, but we survived by hudding together in the snow and finally building a tiny fire out of twigs and branches (finally managed to get a decent Survival roll).

The next morning, we emerged, half-frozen and exhausted, from the cave and found a dead orc, laying face down in the snow.

"Poor guy didn't get very far, did he?" sighed Roy, the paladin.

". . . wait," said Cale, the Bard. "He's facing TOWARDS the cave."

"And that's a torch in his hand," said Anton, the rogue.

"Sonovabitch," murmured Roy. "That crazy bastard actually found fire."

We built a cairn for him on that snowy mountaintop, and laid him to rest under rocks. No sword had we to lay at his head, the torch he found would suffice. On a piece of slate, we inscribed this epitaph.

HERE LIES GROGG
He found fire.

For all we know, he lays there still.

>>5818763

I almost shred a tear. I guess I shouldn't read this thread with the music I used, still looping on winamp : http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HGC2JSKF

>>5818593
>>5818848
>shred

SHED. S-H-E-D. You shed tears. You do not shred them.

>>5818875

dammit. I knew that. Thanks.

The first time I ever played D&D, I was following my friend

Apparently he was following me.

So for the last 2 hours we've been walking in a circle at town while everyone else did shit.

>>5818995
that's.... okay, that's sad. But not for the same reasons.

Katrina Major was a NPC in a Sci-Fi game I was running, young female mutant girl (Mutation being telepathy and clawed hands.) who had grown up in a major city in a Semi-Cyber Punk RP I was running. Basically the attitude of the major populace to mutants was somewhere between the average citizen in WH 40K and the KKK.
They picked her up at a execution after killing the guy who was going to kill her and 3 others for unrelated reasons (They were paid to kill him, not save them).
She then says her life belongs to the guy who saved her (Powergamer merc with no personality.)
He tries to get rid of her and after 3 or 4 sessions of nothing happening, she turns up on his doorstep (in the middle of the No Mutants Zone.) he grabs her and plls her in and gives her a long talking to about how if she keeps this up he's going to report her, then realizes she's soaking wet and stinks, asks about it. It turns out she climbed up a half full sewer chute to get to this level, in a thunder storm thats going on outside. He gives in a little and realizes he's not going to get rid of her and lets her stay the night after having a shower.

I once made a Fighter/Drunken Master (3.0 had less stringent rules) who was the son of a cobbler, and resultingly, had a boot fetish. So my character always carried around a large burlap sack, and if he killed anyone with particularly nice boots, he would take them and put them on his feet or in the sack.

After a while, I acquired a good few pairs of boots, but then we were introduced to a dhampir NPC that had the fanciest fucking boots ever. I tried to beat him up and take the boots from him but the rest of the party stopped me.

Eventually we found his 'corpse' later, and I immediately looted his boots and hid the body from the rest of the party (it was supposed to be a plot point to let them know that the BBEG was around).

(cont)

>>5819102

Eventually the dhampir came back to life (since this was his NPC power or some shit), tracked me down when I was sleeping, beat my ass and took my hard-stolen boots back. This clearly, meant war. Over the course of the next few weeks, my DM set up his rich deep plot, and it involved attending an opera at one point in time on the moon. The dhampir was there because the opera singer was his ex lover and he wanted to see her perform one last time. I knew that he would be there ahead of time, so I took all the party gold and bought a wooden stake that was as tall and broad as a man. Some rope. A hooded cloak. Potions of Bull's Strength...

In the climax of the opera, the dhampir goes on stage to give his lover a bouquet of flowers to full orchestral accompaniment. This is precisely the moment I leap from the upper balcony box seats to stake that mother fucker to the stage and reclaim my boots. The stake broke in half and then we started beating each other with the respective halves in a bloody hell feud while my DM facepalmed and my party sat, mouths agape.

>>5819177

...But did you get the boots? The BOOTS, man! THE BOOTS.

In our campaign, we were going off to a pocket dimension, where some god's child or something was kept...

As we were leaving, we saw a tarrasque wake up.
(Character History)
I was a rogue, who loved hunting big bad things.
I saw this absolutely MASSIVE creature stand up, and had previously been warned about what happens when portable holes get jammed into bags of holding.
[The ship had bags of holding to hold ballast, and portable holes to hold goods]

>>5819102
>>5819177
Your DM is a stupid asshole.
Dhampir NPC? Acceptable, but I'm watching you.

Dhampir NPC who's the center of a tragic love plot at an opera? You're on thin ice now, buddy.

Dhampir NPC who can come the fuck back to life for no apparent reason who's the center of a tragic love plot at an opera? FFFFFFFFFFFFF!

>>5819046
They sleep (In seperate rooms) he wakes up early and decides (Being an asshole and the worst sort basement dweller) 'Hey, she's female, I can have some fun with this!' and starts screwing with her in return for shelter and having helped her.
This continues for several sessions while he also plays about with another love interest behind her back feeling like the worlds greatest play boy until one day, his PC is captured by the group who captured her in the first place for 'Crimes against our cause (Killing the guy basically)'
He spends 3 days imprisioned and being tortured to confess him love of mutants before the other PCs realize he's missing and track him down, they find out he's being held in the main faction base which is a massive sewer fortress and decided 'Fuck it, he wasn't that good a shooter anyway, leave him to rot the evil bastard'
Katrina is at the meeting that decides this and storms out crying. One of the PCs (Other Love interest) follows her and finds out about what he was doing and realizes she doesn't love anyone that nasty, but after a lot of begging agrees to help.
The two of them spend the next 2 sessions (About 4 days) rounding up things for their plan and various bits and bobs, like convincing the local mutant leaders to work together.
On the 7th day (Day before his execution) theres a storm, flooding the sewers with water nearly to the brim, the PC guns her way into the main sewer control and opens all the flood gates on the way to the base except one, setting up up a flood of about 3,000,000,000 tons of water to drop on a hair trigger.
As the guards on the base get settled in for the night, they start to go missing with a sickening crunch of bone and screaming one by one. Red eyes and torches flare as they swarm out of the grates and pipes around the base.
9:00 at night, the mutant army has arrived at the base.

>>5818757
>Cale
oh hai there, LFG

>>5819211
"But what about your HEAD, Dib? YOUR HEAD?!?"

>>5819211

No :(

The DM claimed that the shitstorm we caused brought the ire of the moon guards upon us. There were moon cops all over the fucking theatre within minutes and I had to book it AND got a bounty on my head.

I did however, cockblock the dhampir's attempt to reunite with his ex and earned his undying emnity. It also prevented the party from following the smoothly oiled railroading the DM had planned for us, since we were supposed to team up with him.

I grabbed our wizard's lucky feather (single use featherfall item), grabbed several portable holes and bags of holding, and went diving off the side, exclaiming "None of you can EVER top THIS!!!" with murderous intent and glee.
[Their ship now planeshifts, missing the next bits]

After a marathon run, pretty tired as all hell, i finally came accross the creature. I hid, and waited for it to eat something, and i sprinted up to its mouthful of food. After barely making it inside, i jam my hand holding several portable holes into one of the bags of holding, praying that it would work.

I made a miles, and by miles, i mean tens of miles, sphere of nothingness, which then collapsed.
the shockwave of that much air rushing in, and slamming into the central point caused massive devastations, as well as essentially creating a supervolcano (60 miles wide hole straight to mantle... with nothing holding it in) which detonated instantaneously, created a second shockwave filled with debris, more devastating than the first.

[The pocket dimension had faster than normal time, 10 in-game years goes by for them, 1 week to the Prime Material Plane, and 1 real time year later]
They come back to our plane, only to find it absolutely devastated. they had to quickly jump to another plane, since this one was too hazardous to survive in. After some study, the party barbarian said "Hey wait... didn't that one guy we had, like, grab several portable holes and holding bags, and dive off?"
It was here that the party realised what had happened, and instead of calling me a hero (singlehandedly solo'd a tarrasque) called me the worst thing to happen to this plane (singlehandedly destroying millions of sentient races, only underdark survived, and even then only just.)>>5819229

>>5818711
Ziegfried and Roy
REALLY?
REALLY?

>>5819236

Yeah, I was like "Fuck year" when I found his 'corpse' wrapped in barbed wire and flayed open in a chair. Some kind of space cultists had killed him for spying and left him out as an example. I took the boots but left his corpse tied up and hid it in a closet. Apparently he wasn't really dead and can regenerate from retarded amounts of damage like that.

S'why I tried to stake him in the heart. I figured a stake the size of a man would do the trick, but the DM really wanted to keep him alive.

I suck at writefaggotry/the english language, but I´ll try to bring what happened into a readable form.

The campaign revolved heavily around the two PCs personal stories. It was kind of a mary sue campaign, but at that time it was awesome.
One of the chars was an orphan. He never knew his family and was obsessed of finding one of his relatives.
Now during the campaign they encountered the BBEG several times and every time they either weren´t able to stop him, or were defeated by him and this strange girl, that never said a word who was the BBEG´s personal assistant/bodyguard.
At one point in the game the BBEG mocked the chars who layed before him in their own blood and finally told them that his bodyguard was the sister of this PC who he kidnapped and raised for the sole purpose of defeating and humiliating him.
However, they escaped from that encounter only to find themselves in a similar situation several sessions later. It was then when they found out why they always got away from all those almost fatal encounters in the past. The BBEG directed them in a masterful JUST AS PLANNED manner to prepare an ancient ritual for him, while they thought they were collecting weapons and knowledge they needed to destroy him.

>>5819347
cont.
And the final part of the ritual was the sacrifice of this one PC.
He screamed in agony as the beginning ritual sent wave after wave of destructive energy through his body, his companion lying next to him unconciouss and useless and his sister who brought him into this mess on the other side, silent as always and the bloody sword still in her hand.
Just as the players thought that this was the end of the campaign the PC felt something strong, pulling him out of the sacrificial circle. As he fell backwards, out of the devastating magic he saw his sister kneeing in his place, her body twisted in pain.
The last thing he saw of her was how she turned her head back to him opening her mouth. He couldn´t hear it over the screeching noise of the ritual, but he was sure she said his name before vanishing into nothingness.
I think this player hates me still today for this...

>>5819240
They swarm the defenses and the main base, massacring the guards and taking prisioner anyone they can.
Katrina and the PC make their way down to the cells and find the PC, torn up, emaciated and tortured, but alive. The female PC goes off on a massive triadre at him about being the worst bastard in the world for what he did and what they had to do to save him including rigging up the whole gate thing.
At which point the leader of the faction is revealed as he steps from behind the door and blows the commander of the mutants away (He survives on one HP, just.) smashes the female PC in the mouth, grabs the button she has to open the gate and presses it screaming about washing away the mutant scum as his last act, then gets shot by a NPC soldier.
The entire base rumbles as the water starts to rush in, killing both mutant and civillian alike.
The female PC and Katrian grab the PC who can't move by himself and start to drag him to the surface as fast as they can, trying to outrun the wayer.
It catches up with them a few hundred meters from the exit, female PC drops the PC and runs, Katrina starts to drag him.The water hits them and both are washed away. PC wakes up god knows how much later in the dark with the sound of water rushing past his ears.

>I immediately looted his boots and hid the body from the rest of the party

>The stake broke in half and then we started beating each other with the respective halves in a bloody hell feud while my DM facepalmed and my party sat, mouths agape.

I FUCKING LOVE YOU. THAT IS THE BEST THING EVER. I JUST LOL'ED OUT LOUD IN THE MIDDLE OF A WENDY'S AND PEOPLE ARE STARING AT ME

>>5819401

oh shit that DM didn't... he didn't...

>>5819401

Oh god I hope the mutant chick is going to be alright.

>>5819401
They're on a tiny ledge about 3 meters above the water rushing below only large enough for the two of them if they scrunch together, she obviously dragged him there from the water (Note, he weighs about 3 times what she weighs and the water is going about 300 mph.)
Shes lying next to him with a weak smile on her face which is splattered n blood, while they were in the water they smashed into a pipe and she took the brunt of it for him.
He asks her why she did this when he's such a jerk, why did she bother saving him instead of escaping?
She smiles painfully and whispers "Just because someone doesn't love you, doesn't mean you don't love them...you were my first kiss...and other things...my first love...and I'd die for you, even if you wouldn't die for me...I love you, anyone else would of turned me away...you just used me, it means I was worth something to you, even if only that."
At which point the player tears up and (while having no healing) asks to make a healing roll for her, using all his character points (Character points are like gold dust to this guy, rare and valuble. He wouldn't even spend one to save his own brother (Literally, it happened))
He rolls.

>>5819475
>He rolls.

GOOD GOD MAN DON'T KEEP US IN SUSPENSE

I once played a half-vampire girl. Needed to feed for the day. I started to put the moves on our rogue, got him away from the party for some 'alone time.'

Conversation was as follows:
"I try to pin him."
"I'm good with this."
"... Seriously?"
"Yes. Very yes."
"Cool. I drain *rolls* 3 con from you."
"WAIT, WHAT?"

He tried to break the grapple. I rolled 16+, he rolled <4 every time. Death by con damage. Our other friend who had 'stormed off in a rage' gets back and finds I did this, retcons that if he knew I was going to drain our rogue he'd have stopped me, pulls his mary sue bullshit blood magus spells and kills me with some hyrda he summoned that spat fireballs.

That campaign lasted 2 sessions. I caused DM rage when I killed his Iron Golems with a Brimstone Eldritch Chain. Caused the rogue player to lose several man points, and inevitably ended that campaign from in-fighting TPK from the mary sue blood magus faggot.

>He wouldn't even spend one to save his own brother (Literally, it happened))

His in-game brother, or his brother's character?

>>5819518
Negi, I long to see you make a post that doesn't reinforce your position as a complete and utter fucking prick and/or massive, clueless tool.

I'll keep hoping buddy, but you should maybe just stop. Everything.

>>5819518

If you consider that the crowning moment of your RPG history, Negi, it really speaks volumes about what the normal moments must be like.

>>5819475
And gets 1 below the required roll to keep her alive, on a secret rolls, shes going to die soon but he thinks he managed it (Con roll every hour.). She passes out due to the pain.
They wait 3 hours for the water to go down at which point he (While on 1 hp) carries her to the nearest hospital and threats to kick the crap out of people until someone sees to her.
At which point she fails her con roll on the way to surgery, I roll to see how bad it is and she rolls bad.
Total kidney failure, they can grow kindeys but who would waste one on a mutant and the PC can't prove he has the money to buy one.
So he gives her a kidney.
Long story short, both nearly die in surgery and it takes them 3-4 months to recover.
Ever since that player has never played a emotionless, powergamed PC since as 'it's more awesome to play a character than a set of numbers, you win more often.'
He's now one of my best players.
I'm really proud of that.

>>5819518
Uh, wtf? You just had her kill another PC for no fucking reason at all?

Also, an Eldritch Blast wouldn't harm an iron golem, you god damn idiot.

>>5819568
D'AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!~

>>5819568

This thread is over. I can't see anyone topping that.

You, sir, are fucking awesome. All the more so for them both having survived.

>>5819438

This is pretty much exactly as the dhampir was described, word for word.

I figured he had it coming.

>>5819542
Wasn't so much my crowning moment of awesome, but it was pretty fucking sweet. To this day he still says I damaged his masculinity.

Can't really remember what wold be my peak.

>>5819534
I am a prick.

>>5819568

I was going to insult you for actually let her die on a failed roll (failed by ONE)

But now I like you.

>>5819518

You fucking killed another PC? Are you retarded?

>>5819588
Brimstone turns it into fire damage with a burn effect.

Or at the time that's what we rationalized.

I was GMing a game on the fly, as the current GM had been GMing for like, 12+ hours, wanted to play, and was suffering from GM fatigue.

There was two folks playing: the previous GM (who made an epic character), and a total douche (who made himself).

Over the next 8 hours, I contiually pulled more and more stuff out of my ass, allowing the previous GM to find love, the douche to embarass himself, and some decent character development...

One of my better GM moments came about when it was my turn to DM a game that had been running with a few friends of mine, and my sister. My best broseph had DMed before me, and he'd introduced this fucking retarded 8th level unstoppable lich-king-lord asswipe called "Ludo." (We were 1st level, for reference.) Said best friend was also playing a huge-ass barbarian character.

So I decided to put things in perspective a bit, and give our party a realistic chance. One night good old Ludo shows up in the darkness at the edge of our campfire (as he was wont to do,) to go through yet another round of mocking and insults- when he suddenly stopped his speech mid-insult, and stared at something behind us.

Two inevitable. A Marut and a- a- the centuar one. Ludo had committed a horrible betrayal to achieve lich-dom, so he fell under the jurisdiction of TWO inevitables.

At this point I asked for character reactions, and my friend walked into it by saying that his barbarian gets to his feet and readies his weapon, looking wary. I had the Marut step forward and casually bitchslap him out of the way. "Out of the way, little man. Some serious smack is about to get thrown down and I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

It was part "no your barbarian is not that unstoppable shut up" and part Worf Effect.

>>5819475
>>5819568

MANLY TEARS

>>5819650
It's more the fact you complain about PvP shit after you initiate PvP. I really hope you'll stop coming here one day.

>>5819656

Zelekhut.

>>5819568

>Ever since that player has never played a emotionless, powergamed PC since as 'it's more awesome to play a character than a set of numbers, you win more often.'He's now one of my best players. I'm really proud of that.

/thread

>>5819648
They way things were going it hardly mattered. Our party was a mix of characters who in no way saw eye-to-eye, we were all prison-break escapees, and there was already fuckloads of rage from all the players that the DM was allowing the blood magus, to start as a blood magus, on equal level with all of us.

>>5819651
By the end of it, the two characters are trapped in some kind of demonic fightan arena, which contains progressively more and more difficult fights, until eventually, the former Gm winds up facing his love, and the douche a manifestation of his god.

After some epic soliquays, declarations of love, and the douche getting arthritis in his late 20's, they faced off against an epic boss that beats the shit of them, who they just barely beat and manage to leave with love in hand.

They said it was one of the best games they had played in quite some time. I was quite happy considering that I had only pulled this out of my ass.

>>5819676

Thank you sir.

>>5819692

See, all trolling must be taken in context. I would have trolled that game as well.

>>5819731
I'm assuming you're agreeing with us claiming the death and subsequent 'true ressurection' or 'ressurect w/ restoration' is a completely bullshit backstory claim to allow for a blood magus.

>>5819527
Both, it was his in game bothers who was the character of his actual brother.

>>5819568
Oh, and afterwards he actually started to be kind to her, they ended up dating, which had some awesome scenes, like when they went to the opera and a splinter of the faction they destroyed tried to kill them, which ended with him standing on stage, surrounded by piles of bodies having beaten an entire platoon unconsious screaming "FUCKING FUCK OFF! I'M ON A DATE! CHRIST!!! CAN'T A MAN HAVE A QUITE NIGHT WITH THE WOMAN HE LOVES!!!" His PC having never said he loved her before.
At which point the computerized orchestra burst into song as they hadn't noticed the musical wasn't still on, a romance song at which point she ran over lept into his arms and kissed him and the crowd burst into applause and started throwing roses, which he gave to her.)
Yeah, his character developed quite well after the whole thing.

>>5819752

Blood Magus is not a good PRC. There is nothing game breaking about letting someone play one without having died.

>>5819752

Yes, it is. That's the prestige class from Complete Arcane, right? The whole fucking POINT of that class is that it has a rather tough prereq- the death. Which either results in a lost level, or a metric fuckton of cash lost for the true ressurection. You can't stick that shit in backstory; the character either starts a level lower or the party pays it out of their starting monies (subtracted from whatever they'd have for starting at that level.)

>>5819568

GOAL!

>>5819806
It's pretty much exactly the kind of thing that can be covered in backstory, actually. No-one wants to have to start a level below everyone else.

>Both, it was his in game bothers who was the character of his actual brother.

Holy... DOUBLE DICKERY! Still, I can see how imaginary girlfriend might trump real brother. Siblings are strange like that. My sister's wizard once "helped" my rouge by setting fire to the fucking tree he was at the top of to escape wolves...

>Oh, and afterwards he actually started to be kind to her, they ended up dating, which had some awesome scenes, like when they went to the opera and a splinter of the faction they destroyed tried to kill them, which ended with him standing on stage, surrounded by piles of bodies having beaten an entire platoon unconsious screaming "FUCKING FUCK OFF! I'M ON A DATE! CHRIST!!! CAN'T A MAN HAVE A QUITE NIGHT WITH THE WOMAN HE LOVES!!!" His PC having never said he loved her before.
At which point the computerized orchestra burst into song as they hadn't noticed the musical wasn't still on, a romance song at which point she ran over lept into his arms and kissed him and the crowd burst into applause and started throwing roses, which he gave to her.) Yeah, his character developed quite well after the whole thing.

.... You are a very good GM. Just putting that out there.

>>5819568

Fucking awesome story. Excellent handling of that player.

/thread

>>5819806
Exactly what we were arguing.

If he was -1 from us, MAYBE we wouldn't have raged as hard, but no, he was in tip-top shape.

Oh, and the spells he bound to his scars?

Fucking bullshit. That hydra summon and like empowered + maximized fireball and shit.

>>5819824

Well, 3.5 isn't really known for having well-balanced PRCs (understatement of the year,) so I figure anything they actually put a significant entry barrier on would be pretty damn twinkeriffic. On the other hand, I haven't looked through that book for a while, so...

>hydra summon and like empowered + maximized fireball and shit.

... what level was this game starting at?

>>5819857
Hydra summon and empowered/maximized fireball? A Hydra summon is something you might expect any wizard to throw out, and empowered/maximized fireball is pretty non-optimal. You don't maxmize the empower, remember. If he was twinking he would have hit you with a crazy Ennervate or some 400-damage Orb spell.

>>5819650

Iron Golems are healed by fire!
Your are a terrible DM! Stop playing games!

>If he was twinking he would have hit you with a crazy Ennervate or some 400-damage Orb spell.

400 damage orb spells are the twink way to go if you're optimizing for PvP, but most games are about PvM. Being overshadowed in every fucking fight by some twinkerrific asshole is at least as annoying as retarded PvP.

>>5819906
IIRC between 10-12th level.

>>5819918
I might be mixing shit up. It was an empowered, then maximized fireball or w/e the 50% increase meta feat is.
He stacked it and dropped fireball nukes everywhere. Max damage.

>>5819948
No, they're the most optimized way to go if you're blasting, full-stop.

Negi has no or little basis for being annoyed with this dude.

>>5819977
It doesn't work like that, no matter what order you do it in. It specifically says in the rules that you only maximize the initial damage, and you roll the additional 50% as normal.

>>5820009
Oh. Well, at the time, we worked it as we read it, so we're just retarded in that aspect.

But still, 60+6-30 damage against a warlock at that level is almost an auto-kill.

>>5820041
So? You're the one that started PvPing, and a warlock can easily twink out more than that. Fuck, the guy was being -tame- by optimization standards. You have an idiotic and self-centered bent to your perception of this character. I bet the level thing only stung because you weren't getting that discount on your vampire.

>It specifically says in the rules that you only maximize the initial damage, and you roll the additional 50% as normal.

Well considering that Negi's DM let him get away with killing Iron Golems with fucking FIRE, it's possible that this guy was putting some line of bullshit past the GM as well, which would make him a twinkery lying asshole from the start- as opposed to afterwards when you've become fed up with the bullshit.

>IIRC between 10-12th level.

That's pretty low level to be dropping maximized and/or empowered fireballs on a regular level. He could only have 2 levels of the PRC at that, too.... o_O

>No, they're the most optimized way to go if you're blasting, full-stop.

You deal 400 points of damage to the Hobgoblin! Fantastic, only 30 left.

Fireballs are better IMO because even though orbs only need to hit touch AC, a lot of monsters have rather good touch AC (better then most players who use heavy amour, for example.) Not very many have evasion, though. And you can wipe out entire ENCOUNTERS with a single spell, as opposed to one monster.

I might be a colossal faggot, though, and be totally wrong. I'm not one of those guys who really sits around and contemplates the numbers a whole bunch.

>>5819806
compared with a straight caster, a blood magus ONLY receives disadvantages. There is literally no way to use the class features to become overpowered.

Nice fucking job, Negi. Just by posting here you've turned an excellent thread to shit.

I hope you get hit by a cement mixer.

>>5820101

Eh there's more to a Mary Sue player then raw numbers. There's the player who never has a bad die roll (because he argues semantic shit as often as possible,) who's charcter is THE MOST SPLENDIFEROUS EVAR and will endlessly bitch and whine of reality does not conform to THE VISION, etc, etc, etc. Quite possibly he was just an asshole, regardless of twinkination.

That's the vibe I'm getting, at any rate.

>>5820121
You deal 400 points to the dragon. It's dead. They're not a great example due to low touch AC anyway, but stuff like Shivering Touch is often a sufficient debuff for that.

When you come up against a bunch of mooks - the hobgoblins, for instance - a fireball might be better, but it probably still isn't as good as Glitterdust or Web. The truth is that encounter is not going to be a problem anyway - you may as well let the melee guys handle it, since they can, and burn a little control if you like. Then keep your slots for the fight that they can't handle.

Remember that the Batman - widely seen as one of the most powerful Wizard builds - doesn't do damage at all, and that doing damage is the worst use of a Wizard's abilities.

>>5820101
Don't think I wasn't twinked out. I play warlock or fighter. My two favorite classes. If I had won initiative I would have Voracious Dispelled his ass and completely fucked his character.

>>5820141

We're just talking about the balance of the Blood Mage prestige class. Chill the fuck out. It's keeping the thread bumped until more people with more awesome stories show up.

tl;dr cut out those negative waves

>>5820184

Well...alright, then. But I still hope he gets flattened by a large, speeding chunk of motorised metal.

>>5820179
So why are you bitching?

Also, it doesn't matter how 1337 you think you are - Fighter is never something 'twinking' should be applied to.

>You deal 400 points to the dragon. It's dead.

Yeah, that's the idea. Different spells for different HP allocations- all in one, or spread out over several.

>a fireball might be better

Well, if you're at tenth level and you get jumped by three 6th level Drow or something, I'd rather pop a fireball. Three rounds of fireball will probably waste all of them and I don't have to let anything ride on an attack roll...

Of course, now that I think of it, most enemies that have a high touch AC usually also have evasion... and lacking that, a poor Will save, so I can see what you're getting at.

>Remember that the Batman - widely seen as one of the most powerful Wizard builds - doesn't do damage at all, and that doing damage is the worst use of a Wizard's abilities.

Good point.

ITT: Anon learns something new.

>>5818593
P IN THE T

>>5820222
I was built to pick off things for a decent distance. If I had won initiative, Voracious Dispel - as Dispel Magic, but also deals damage for each level dispelled.

>>5820275
Really, I hate Wizards. The situation you mention there is where you use a save-or-suck, if you need to. Remember that Drow have at least some SR (shouldn't be a problem if you're doing it right) and if you're 10th level the melee dudes can probably handle 3 of them fine too.

I do hate them, though, they're really hard to cater for effectively. I tend to ban them in homebrew campaign settings.

>>5820380
You're bitching about him being twinked and then saying you were too, is what I mean.

Whatever, I can't be bothered with your shitty post anymore.

>>5820396
I'll revoke my statement and change it to this:

I was a ranged damage caster.

He was a fucktard who blew up whatever he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted.

Only had one good experience with an npc like that. I was in a group about a year ago that hit epic levels and wanted to keep playing. So the paladin got a nice little quest of protecting his god when she was reborn. It basically entitled him to go to this mountain alter pick up a baby and take care of it for about three months as it aged into an adult super fast. At first he had no paladin powers (god is a baby and has no chosen) Then he had to take her around to the temples and get them to recognize that the kid was their god (at which point the kid had reached the body size of a 10 year old) to regain their clerical powers. Finally when the girl reached the age of about 25 he had to take her and sacrifice her at the alter where he picked her up.

our DM made her really likable while still somehow godlike and through all of this was making hints that she had to die but we never caught it. So we take her and when we get to the alter she says something like "Now my chosen. It is time for me to die! You must kill me so I can once again take my place as your diety!" The paladin looks at her then nods and as he goes to run her through he kisses her. Blinding flash of light and next thing we know she and the paladin were gone and we were all like wtf?

Two in game months later the paladin shows back up with some sort of half angel template and a book for the wizard. Seems that he had been "enjoying the company" of his god. The wizard got the book for almost getting himself killed while protecting the child.

This. I'm afraid I post this one a lot, but this is most definitely my crowning moment right here.

---------------------------------
Game: Dark Heresy

So, final session of the game. The PCs (our Priestess and fearless leader, lovely both in and out of game, who constantly lusted after the God-Emperor (only in-game, I hope); our crazy Psyker, Pierin, the Cleric's best friend, and amazingly entertaining in and of himself; our Techpriest, Xerxes, who'd gone a bit corrupt over the years, and had this tendency to eat the flesh of his enemies; our Guardsman, Bojangles, whose amazing luck and ability to hit things with a rocket launcher never ceased to amaze me; and myself, Nihilius "Bones" Guilliman (thank you, random name generator), a grizzled old (and rather dumb) Arbiter with a love of filling things with many, many bullets) had just absolutely failed (through only some fault of our own) our mission to recover Eldar thing-gummies from a mining site, resulting in the deaths-by-psyker-powers-and-hallucinogen-grenades of dozens of workers and loyal cops, and had returned to our Inquisitor to receive reprimand.

So, being the Arbitor, the second in command, and the man officially in command of the part of the mission that led to all those deaths, I returned to the Inquisitor in disgrace. He stripped me of my acolyte position, officially "retired" me, and ordered the rest of them on unpaid leave until he had calmed down some.

The Priestess, the Psyker, and I all left the briefing room, as ordered, and began marching back to our tiny little ship, the better to drop me off at the nearest planet. The Guardsman and the Techpriest stayed behind, saying that they had important information to discuss with the Inquisitor. Since they had been communicating a lot in the last mission, and they had always been our loyal companions (even with the flesh eating), we paid no heed to it.

We got about thirty feet down the hallway before the shooting started.

>>5820426

We rushed back to the briefing room. The security systems had gone on lockdown. Sirens were blaring throughout the ship. We could hear yelling in the compartment beyond. Our Priestess, ever the melee-specialist, pulled forth her monofilament chainsword, and began hacking her way into the room, cutting carefully through the Inquisitor's massive door.

And then the ship's intercom activated. We could hear screaming in the background--the Inquisitor's voice, howling in rage, and the sound of the Techpriest's various weaponry. And then Bojangles started talking.

"[Priestess character's] acolyte team has attacked the Inquisitor! Kill them at any cost!"

The Psyker twitched at every word. Some sort of foul Warp-power had accompanied Bojangle's speech; though we were scarcely affected, our Psyker immediately reported that this speech would have some foul influence on the unprotected crew, corrupting their righteous fury, and making negotiation or surrender suicidal.

Seconds later, our Priestess cut the door the rest of the way down, revealing the grizzly scene inside. We were too late; as we watched, Techpriest Xerxes pulled two krak (anti-armor) grenades forth from his robes, and, using his augmented bits, slammed them hard onto the Inquisitor's face, killing him instantly. Bojangles stood, facing the door, weapon ready and waiting for us. Both Xerxes and Bojangles were marked with symbols of the warp; we could practically feel the power of Chaos they now represented.

>>5820438
Fortunately, by the God-Emperor, we were ready for them, too. Psyker Pierin slammed Bojangles hard with a force-choke equivalent power, while our lovely Priestess ripped him to shreds with her chainsword. I pulled free both of my autopistols, and emptied two clips of manstopper rounds straight into Xerxes face. We were rolling like we were on fire that night.

The fight was over in seconds, but the damage had been done. There was no way we could get out of their peacefully, so we grabbed the Inquisitor's rosette (which he used to control the ship), and bid a hasty retreat, running for our ship.

We got about five feet before a squad of twenty Inquisitorial Stormtroopers in Carapace armor came flying around the corner.

And this is where our survival became truly amazing.

An important thing to remember about Dark Heresy is that it has a very strict jamming system. Now, naturally, some weapons are better about not jamming than others; lasweapons, for example, rarely ever jam. Even seeing one out of twenty jam is unusual. And, as befits Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, they were each carrying Hellguns, a form of suped-up lasgun.

And fully half of their guns jammed in the first round. The rest just plain missed.

Naturally, we shot down enough of them to clear a path, and then split, again running for the ship. They chased us, still missing on all but a scant few shots. We ran into more enemies--ship's security and midshipmen, all wielding lasguns, and all after us due to Bojangles' sorcerous command. And still more jammings occurred. We were watching our GM's dice; it was amazing. If they weren't the same dice he always used, we would have sworn they were loaded. Truly, the God-Emperor himself was with us on this day.

>>5820449

We all knew what would happen if we charged back, even for a single turn; the hordes behind us would catch up, and, no matter what we did, we would eventually be torn to pieces by our former comrades and shipmates. Nevertheless, as by the rules, the Priestess and I turned around, and started to charge towards the enrushing foes.

Psyker Perin, in desperation, turned to the one psychic power that had never failed us (except on the last mission, where it led to most of the deaths, but that's another problem): Fear. He figured it might knock our opponents off their game, or scare them enough to give us a chance to run.

He rolled on the Fear power table, to see how much effect it would have. And, by sheer luck, rolled as high as he could roll--to the exact power level that had killed so many people in our final real mission. The point where whoever sees the Psyker's face is driven so far into insanity that they immediately start shooting at the nearest person, friend or foe, and continue for quite a long time indeed.

And, because of Perils of the Warp, the Priestess and I were facing away from the Psyker, and were just a scant thirty feet from the crowd. Just far enough away that all aforementioned crewmembers started shooting each other, and not us. Truly, the God-Emperor was with us on this day.

>>5820477
The Priestess and I snapped out of our rage. We turned back around, safe in the knowledge that the Psyker's power only lasted for a single turn, and then immediately jumped aboard our ship, and blasted off. We made it.

And then the ship's batteries came online, and blew us to kingdom come.

But it doesn't end there. Naturally, we remaining players started packing up, sighing, and staring forlornly at our character sheets.

And then I noticed something. An item, on my sheet, that I had never used before. A Talisman (I forget the proper name)--an article of faith, in this case a bolter shell casing from a DeathWatch boltgun, that would, on GM's permission, allow a character to be exempt from an unfortunate fate that befell his fellows. Naturally, as I'd rather risk death by space than guaranteed death by laser, I immediately pointed this out to the GM, and after some rules clarification, he said he would allow me to be saved by this item.

The Priestess' player, seeing a chance, immediately looked at her character sheet. She had one, too. Psyker Pieren's player looked down at the sheet for her character, but Pieren, the poor Psyker, did not.

The GM grinned his foulest grin. He gazed at us for a few seconds, and then, laughing, told us that, fine, we had earned the Emperor's favor. We deserved something from the Talismans we carried. And, he promised, we would survive. Two of us would, that is; after all, there were only two Talismans, and some kind of price had to be paid. And it would be up to us, the players, to decide amongst ourselves who would live and who would die.

I looked back at the GM, and grinned. I knew the heart of "Bones" Guilliman. I knew exactly what he would do.

"Bones stands up, inside the ship, and, screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR," dives headfirst into the laser beam... or whatever he needs to do to save the other two."

>>5820484
The players of Pieren and the Priestess cheered.

Now, of course, the GM couldn't let me get away that easy. He insisted that the other two had survived purely through luck, and that, given the nasty warp-sorcery going on in the ship behind us, my soul was immediately sucked into the warp and eaten by a demon. Pieren and the Priestess snuck off and retired on a Pleasure World, using my old autogun (machine gun) to mark my empty gravesite, and my old autopistols as ways to remember me.

>>5820490
But I don't care what he said. I know, in my heart, that this is what Bones would have wanted. That this is exactly how Bones deserved to die.


And, one final, only somewhat related note: not long before this writing, my GM talked to me by GTalk, and informed me that, for the lulz, he'd decided to replicate our Dark Heresy characters in Sims 3. And that, as befitting poor, unlucky old Bones, my character's replicant had found one of the many myriad ways to die horrible.

And Death refused to take him. Death, in fact, insisted that his antics were too funny to end, and that the world deserved for Bones to live.

Apparently, even other games seem to be on Bones' side.

>>5820497

Awesome. Mc. Possum.

>>5820497
"I'm not dead yet! Jim."

>>5820541
This is probably a terrible idea, but I've been thinking about paying a drawfag--such as Mr. Culexus, or someone else who does comics on occasion--to turn this story into a four or five page comic.

What say you, /tg/? Good idea?

>>5820275
What the hell is the 'Batman' wizard build?

>>5820647
I'm guessing it refers to the utility belt, specifically Adam West era utility belt. Where there is a solution to every possible situation.

>>5820647
You take virtually no combat spells. You're 'Batman' because you have a utility belt of spells and skills.

You don't blast, you boost/debuff.

>>5820647

It's when you name your character Michael Keaton.

>>5820484
You are now certifiably MANLY AS FUCK

>>5818593
hey op is that a GRIEVING MAGPIE?

>and if you're 10th level the melee dudes can probably handle 3 of them fine too.

As it should be- all classes being balanced, of course. The problem comes in when you have things like, well, dragons, where the fighters CAN'T handle it but the wizard CAN.

But that's an old problem in 3.0/3.5 anyhow.

>And then the ship's batteries came online, and blew us to kingdom come.

I would have kicked your GM's ass right there.

The players were stranded on a haunted ship and, being evil, decided they would attack next ship that passed and take it over. After much failing at that, soon came a small fishing ship that wasn't that much bigger then their own cursed one. The group draws the ship near and boards it, they are surprised when they are greeted warmly by a pudgy human with an oar in his hands and a cockney accent. He introduces himself as "Captain Arnold." Rather then just killing him and taking his ship they try their hand at asking him if he could bring them to his destination. He says sure. On the way they are attacked by pirates, Arnold's entire crew is killed and yet he acts as clueless as ever. He is far too focused on the fact that he actually killed a pirate. He prides himself so much on this that he adds another "Captain" onto his name. The players had a hard time accepting such a moron, but soon they fell in love with his stupidity and uselessness in combat (He was a level 2 commoner). When they arrived on the island Arnold followed, where they fought, he fought. He was blindly loyal and always strived to be as good as the rest of the group.

>>5820878
Nah, wasn't worth it. The rest of the game (including that session) were pretty damn badass, and he'd been a fairly reliable DM in games before that.

Besides, he was my roommate. Kicking his ass would have made things difficult.

>>5820497
This was amazing. How do I get into playing something like this? (In general. I've never played a tabletop sorta game).

>>5820952
1. Find a group to play with. A good one. Things like this don't happen often, and require some luck.
2. Pick a good system. Dark Heresy has faults, but its pretty good for this sort of game.
3. Create an interesting character concept.
4. ???
5. Profit

>>5820903
Arnold trained as they trained, but not necessarily the RIGHT way. He gained one level in fighter, then one level in rogue, then one level in monk, and then one is wizard. He was trying to be all the group was put together, he admired them solely for their combat prowess. The group couldn't get enough of his trying. After a long, long time the group were epic level. Arnold wasn't quite there yet. Then came the grand climax, in the form of a battle against the BBEG. Arnold rushed him first and was killed instantly. His last words were "I only wanted to impress you, I did." My players all raged and killed the BBEG. As a DM I felt awesome.

tl;dr: the thread

This thread is awesome.

Once upon a time, I rolled up a human psion with a Charisma score of 8. Jokingly, I said that only a mad Russian could have achieved this result in D&Dland. Then I made the mistake of imitating a bad Russian accent, which was met with insistence that I play the character that way.

His name was Boris Vladimir Kossevitzky.

This campaign was a military strategy game, set in a low-magic setting. Apparently, someone forgot to tell me that, because I wound up bringing psionic firepower to the party. But, hey, I found out before I started picking equipment, because part of it was that we weren't allowed to buy magic items. So I bought fucking everything in the Player's Handbook, along with a guard dog to make sure no one disturbed the wagon that held it all.

>>5821114

To say that this dog was a force of nature would be an understatement. He was chained to the lid on my wagon, which is where he menaced everything from. He drew sustenance from the rocks that I threw at him, from the back of the wagon seat that I sat in, and from his all-encompassing hatred of the world. This dog had six types of mange, seven kinds of ticks, and a guerrilla terrorist band of fleas that harassed the ticks. This was an animal that was so malevolent, he had his own backstory.

"You want to know how I got dog? Weeelll... I found him with three crossbow bolts sticking out of him. Because I shot him. And he lived. So I do right thing, I feed him and water him and nurse him back to health. And he eats crossbow. So now he is indentured servant until he works off cost of crossbow, which I value at roughly one hundred thousand gold pieces."

His name was What The Fuck, so called for the reactions of thieves upon meeting him, and for the reactions of my fellow players after I made up this story to account for the guard dog. This story was told after the army-types tried to take possession of my wagon, and the guard dog successfully warded off three different soldiers by mercilessly biting their faces, arms, and hands through helmets, chain shirts, and gauntlets.

What The Fuck wound up being a celebrity amongst the players and the DM for this particular campaign. People would go out of their way to make sure that the dog was not forgotten. "How's the dog?" "What's the dog doing?" "Let's make sure the dog is all right." "I bet the dog is growling at this NPC." His antics and happiness, such that it was, became a subplot.

But then, misfortune struck.

>>5821125

A surprise attack whilst our little army was traveling came up. Arrows and crossbow bolts flew. One of my mules was hit with an arrow and proceeded to tear out like the fires of Hell were coming for it. What The Fuck was still chained to the top. The battle turned against us and we were forced to retreat into a nearby town, which the attackers immediately sieged.

We stayed there for approximately fifteen days, trapped behind the walls of the town, before the other players realized that What The Fuck was missing, alone, and probably in danger. A moment of silence passed, and then the single most organized set of events I've ever witnessed played out before my eyes.

The highest-ranking PC in the group started issuing orders to his underlings, telling them to start gathering the townspeople. The ranger PC took a couple of those underlings and started gathering armor and weapons. The rogue began creating traps. When the townspeople were gathered, the bard gave a speech to the townspeople. I can't recount exactly how it went, though the general idea of it was that the besieging forces were the ones responsible for their army getting trapped in the place. And then he dropped this line.

"We number at three hundred soldiers! They number at eight hundred! You number at one hundred able-bodied men! The numbers do not sound promising, I know. But the simple fact of the matter is that the numbers are actually very good for us. If you help us throw off this siege with us, each of us need only kill two of their number before victory is assured!"

>>5819568

Fucking amazing

>>5821139

And then the Diplomacy check. The die was rolled. It tumbled and bounced and spun for what seemed like forever before turning up a result of a natural twenty.

The bard's speech was so inspiring and so convincing that within fifteen minutes, every able-bodied male in the town had taken up whatever they could get their hands on and immediately bolted out the front gates, ready to tear this army a whole new asshole.

For a dog.

My cleric character was a wanna-be ladies man with a long string of failures. It was kind of the running gag of our campaign... we'd roll into town, the other characters would go to sell loot, and Hoshi would find the hottest available-ish woman in town. Then she'd turn out to be possessed, or married to a powerful wizard/noble/other vengeful bad guy, or an illithid with shapeshift, or whatever.

So we're out scouting this goblin army, and things look okay... a few hundred, nothing our party can't handle with the help of a town guard. We head to the frontier town they're about to assault, and Hoshi meets the captain of the guard. Hottie, tough fighter, etc.. And the rest of the party thinks, "oh shit."

>>5821280


But Hoshi is optimistic, as always. And sure enough, to everyone's surprise, after a few days' wooing and displays of heroism in a couple of side quests, he manages to get her in the sack. Awesome!

So we're all thinking we're going to have us a good NPC ally. She's been around for a few months' worth of sessions, and things are looking good. The goblins are coming, but I'm not too worried. I give her my +4 chain mail, a ring so I can cast protection spells on her from a distance, other good loot. No way she's going to die..

>>5821291

The 200 goblins we saw were the scouts. The 20000 behind them turned out to be a problem. And that enormous blue dragon. Sure enough, as we're evacuating the villagers, the dragon charges in, we get separated, and the last Hoshi sees of her is a horde of goblins hauling her bloodied unconscious body away, biting chunks out of her. Now there's a river in the way, and thousands of goblins... it's hopeless getting her back.

The party was distraught. We were seriously upset. It was subtly impressed upon us that we were supposed to run from the dragon at this point, but we were mad. An epic battle ensued, and we managed to kill the thing, plus a couple hundred goblins... but the wounds incurred would later catch up with two of the characters as we fled and fell prey to a goblin scout party, with a couple of tragic character deaths.

The druid's body remained in the forest, and a tree grew from the place where he lay. The thief... well, he was disintegrated. My cleric collected his ashes and kept them in a vial, wearing it on a vine from the druid's tree around his neck, next to his holy symbol.

>>5821114
>>5821125
>>5821139
>>5821150

>"We number at three hundred soldiers! They number at eight hundred! You number at one hundred able-bodied men! The numbers do not sound promising, I know. But the simple fact of the matter is that the numbers are actually very good for us. If you help us throw off this siege with us, each of us need only kill two of their number before victory is assured!"

I'm totally using this, next time a DM puts us against an impossibly large army.

>>5821150
>>5821385
Looks like you left your name on, whoops.

>>5821150
... so did you find the dog?

I demand an answer.

>>5821448
Not only that, but I recognise the story about a russian with low charisma and a dog name what the fuck.
Had a different ending then.
Either the same dude reposting it or someone changed it.

>>5821484
>>I've Told This Story Before, But... Not This Part. 09/11/09(Fri)18:36 No.5821114

>>5821496
Ah yea.
My bad, kinda skipped when I saw the parts i recognised.
Sorry.

>>5821468
Come on, I have to get up in 4 hours and I'm still waiting for you to tell the goddamn finale.

Also good thread, OP, except for that negi intermission.

>>5821795
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5818593/

Archived.

>>5821468
>>5821795
Seriously. This waiting is fucking INFURIATING!

>>5821795

Thank you.

Here's one of our more memorable events from back when the group had dwindled down to almost nothing, with only one player left for a bunch of solo games while we tried to recruit more so as not to let the campaign die.

We weren't really expecting much, with the party consisting of exactly one PC, a street kid turned legendary tough guy, and his female NPC ally, trusted fighting partner and childhood friend, whom the PC is secretly sworn to protect (having lost everything else from his childhood already and hanging on to this one last thing). Yes, a very cliché setup, I'm sure, but the player in question pulled it off with enough confidence to make it work, especially in this one session.

So, the protagonist duo were invited for a visit by a seemingly friendly warrior king type person they had come across, along with their newfound mentors, who were rumored to have some sort of amazing power (one of them was originally meant to be the main villain, but using a rather ingenious plan too long to describe here, the PC in question had earlier managed to defeat one of them, then turn both onto his side and even reform them somewhat... but that's another story)

Anyway, the warrior king allows them all to stay at his castle, while attempting to convince the PC's powerful teachers to train his army using the skills they have. The two of course refuse, saying the powers are meant for only those they judge worthy of them (meaning only the PC at this point). The king claims to understand, but actually now knows these people can never be of use to him, just a serious threat. So he wants them dead instead.

>>5824140

While the two mentor NPCs are ambushed by a part of the king's army, the PC and his ally, still unaware, are invited to bid the king farewell. Knowing the two fight perfectly as a team but will be much weaker without the other's support, he embraces them both one by one as a farewell gesture, then easily manages to stab the girl with a poisoned dagger before the PC can react. She goes down, and the hit didn't look very survivable, either.

The king explains the two have outlived their usefulness, and orders his personal guard to finish off the lone PC. This being GURPS, the odds don't look good for him in a one-on-many fight... but through sheer grit, tactics and desperation, the PC fighter not only wipes the floor with the bodyguard, but even manages to pay back the king with a good solid blow of his own, and using his now fallen ally's weapon of choice (a kind of improvised katar), no less. Finally, he grapples one of the guards by his shield, and throws the guy out of the room at the now-retreating king and his escort.

Injured but not seriously so, the king retreats, and tries to order his guard to attack once more, but to no avail. None of them wants to go back to the room and be the first to die. Meanwhile, the PC turns his attention to his stricken friend lying on the ground, but not being a surgeon or anything, knows the wound is far beyond his skill to treat. Fortunately, the two mentors have done slightly better than the king expected (they're much tougher than they look, especially given that one of them was originally meant as a BBEG of a sorts), and have managed to escape the ambush set up for them, though not without being wounded themselves.

>>5824153

So the mentor duo arrives at the scene, and one of them (a sorceress of a sorts, also originally into nasty human experiments and thus quite skilled in surgery as well) attempts to treat the fallen girl's wounds while the other one keeps a lookout. She warns the PC that there is some sort of poison in her blood, and that survival looks uncertain even with her medical skills.

At this point, the PC (normally quite the silent and stoic type) finally breaks completely in a very rare display of emotion, takes the unconscious girl's hand and begs her to hang on, and just not die, admitting he'd have nothing left to live for if she did. As generic as the dialogue might sound here, the player delivered it with unbelievable conviction, completely unheard of before in what had essentially been an unremarkable, even hack&slashish fantasy campaign before that.

To his great relief, the girl does eventually make it, though the sorceress (who kind of owed the PC one from one of their encounters before) is now just as unconscious from using every bit of skill and power she had to keep the girl from dying. And they still have to fight their way out of the fortress, with just two combatants - the lone mentor-figure-swordsman remaining, who's technically centuries ahead of the PC in skill, but currently not so powerful what with having been wounded and not exactly being made of iron. And our strong-willed hero, who can keep fighting at his usual level despite a scratch or two.

>>5824163

It takes them a while to do it, but they eventually get out of the keep and to the front gate after plenty of desperate and climactic fights, carrying the two unconscious females almost all the time. They do get surrounded at the main gate, but by that time the enemy soldiers' morale is very low from the strings of defeats they've been dealt, and what finally does it is the angry threat/bluff issued by our hero, paraphrased from memory roughly as such: "You want to kill me and my loved ones? Well, I could do the same to you! Want to try your luck with me?"

The guards actually backed off despite probably having the upper hand, since they just weren't too sure of their chances themselves anymore. Eventually, the PC even got to return in a later session and deliver a good old righteous fist of vengeance into the face of the treacherous king, after challenging him to a bare-handed duel (which he couldn't really refuse without losing face in the strict warrior society).

So, from what we expected to be a sub-standard couple of weeks before we got a good party together again, came this little story we still fondly remember years afterwards. Apologies for any confused writing or poor storytelling (it's very late at night and I'm not exactly a great author even when fully awake). But I just thought I'd share what, despite being cliché and all, we considered one of our campaign's crowning moments of awesome.

Mutt was a Mauler addict in the City. He had brain damage from the drug use, and wasn't the smartest of people, but his heart was in the right place. He was a friend of the Orphans, meaning he was a friend to all children. The party loved messing with him, urging him into acts of physical daring only he could manage.

One night, Mutt and the party went to track down a serial killer who had been preying on children. Armed with only his bare fists against the killer. (But not to worry, guns were exceedingly rare in the city.)

After playing around and jumping a fence for part of the session, we find the serial killer. Mutt charges him in an animalistic rage. We cheer him on.

Mutt is taken down with a single pistol shot that tore through his abdomen. Even our medic, who had performed miracles, couldn't do anything in the bloody mess that once was a ribcage.

To this day we still hate our GM a little for it.

Epic shit for the most part all around. I comment the Roleplaying I see, most of my friends when I played tabletop were all about being powergames, ruleslawyers or munchkins.

I think I have 2 PCs I invested a heavy amount of time in but no super sacrifices.

One I did use as an NPC in another game and her epic tale of living her life and the interactions on the behalf of another player managed to turn the story into quite the touching one.

>>5824303
Expand on this? City? Mauler?

Any more, btw?

Also, the only story of this sort I have is something called the Wagon Incident.

A few years ago, I was in the height of Retarded Teenagerdom, and I had rolled up a catfolk cleric named Argul Fraster.

Argul was Chaotic Insane incarnate. He would go diving through the trash piles at the side of town "looking for cool shit," made improvised things out of his Cool Shit-like a bell made out of a tin can, a bit of wire, and a bolt-and lived in this little tiny room in the top of the inn in his hometown.

He also, however, bought a wagon. Argul and company-a fighter who could have been a paladin if he'd been more religious, a stoner druid/wizard, and a more-or-less faceless female rogue who acted as a flanking device and trap remover-took good care of this wagon. It was drawn by a pair of good horses, it held everything that they'd use (but not regularly enough to carry on their person.)

>>5824702
Time passed, we had adventures, made friends and enemies alike-the most notable a pair of rangers from people who Argul'd pissed off, a little old lady he'd accidentally hit in the hand with a dagger, and a very pretty girl whose highwayman boyfriend Argul'd slaughtered for killing his horse. (He'd spent good money on the horse.)

Nevertheless, we eventually came to hearing about a tower infested with the undead, and being adventurers, six eyes suddenly had their pupils turn into dollar signs-except the wizardruid, because his pupils were already dilated to hell.

>>5824754
We spent the day galumphing about town, preparing for the fight ahead-with alchemist's fire-ENRICHED alchemist's fire, because we wanted to be able to see them buggers burn, and also because both the DM and I agreed fire was good.

Everything's going fine, we've loaded up, and headed out for the tower with our massive barrels of alchemist's fire in the back, along with a few sets of digging tools after our last encounter with undead led to us burrowing frantically out of the crypt with a pack of ravening wights behind us.

My DM had recently gotten his hands on the Draconomicon, and on our way, snickered and pulled it out. Being a savvy D&D player at the time, I immediately went "oh shit," and prepared for the worst.

>>5824806
Everything's going fine, the wagon is plodding evenly along, when SUDDENLY A QUICK-MOVING SHAPE SLAMS INTO THE WIZARDRUID.

I panic and cast Fireball.

Now, we're on a wagon. Which is flammable. Also, the wizard is flammable. The dragon manages its ref save for half, and the wizard...doesn't.

We get about three rounds of panicked flailing before the fire hits the enriched alchemist's fire.


BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The fighter and I get knocked clear of the blast. The cleric we'd hired for healans and undead turnans and the wizard...didn't. The dragon got thrown free. The rogue and her horse both got hit by the dragon's fear aura, and are running SCREAMING LIKE HELL. Or whatever horses do. Whinny?

The fighter and I look at each other and go 'Oh shit.' He takes the intact shovel and buries what's left of the cleric and wizardruid, while I go to collect what I can of the molten gold. I find the dragon-a puny Plains Drake-while I'm searching, and use my staff to beat its skull in.

We lose about half our gold, bolstered though it is by the dragon's small hoard and single amethyst. I take a small shard of cleric and druidwizard each, we put what remains of the gold into our backpacks, and leg it back to town.

An npc character that had been slightly helpful throughout the campaign. She's a young teenage girl named Nina who was saved by the PC's early on and had been helping them as best she can sense then. It's mostly small things like letting them sleep for free in her house (she lives alone in a rather large one her parents left her.) Although she did once give them a place to hide when they were framed for a crime.

They aren't truly attached to her, but they do like her, and even started giving her a (abet small) share of the loot near the end. Now when they finally kill the BBEG, they discover that the host he used for the insane goddess's resurrection was Nina.

So the scene is this: The PCs fighting an eldritch and yet beautiful, almost angel-like being with the head and torso of this npc girl sticking out the front (Which is also the most vulnerable point.) They HAVE to kill her now, while the beast isn't fully connected to it's body (They know this.) All throughout the fight, Nina is speaking. Sometime she will scream in pain, say dark threatening things to them in a mad voice, randomly babble, and speaking incomprehensibly of strange random things...but she said other things as well. She begs for mercy, asks them why they are hurting her, cry, Beg for it to stop, and worse of all...talk like nothing is wrong, like she would if they were talking in the dining room of her home as they often had done.

Her last words were "please...please don't hate me..."

>>5825020

>Her last words were "please...please don't hate me..."

Oh god, THIS story. You bastard, why did you have to go and repost this...isn't it bad enough that I had to Coup de grâce her in the game?

Great emotional moment, but I wanted to fucking hit you after doing that!

>>5825020

Manly tears were shed...

>>5824974
Patience. I'm getting there.

We make it back to the trading caravan we'd been traveling with as mercenary guards, and ask really quietly if we can have a berth. We take a trip, both feeling very disheartened, before we hear tell of a dimensionally-isolated ancient library, and a group of four elves looking for muscle and arcane muscle to help them explore it.

Long story short, we fight off a shardcaster, an aborted lich, and a fucking HANDMAIDEN OF LOLTH to get out of there, the elves' fighter dying in the process. Due to finding a crystal with a huge amount of info on drow in it, Argul had enough to True Res both the cleric, the druid, and the elves' fighter.

He continued on his merry way, but more careful with a fireball, and with a hug for the Wizard first.

>>5819268
It's only two days after Tarrasquemas!!

Y U DO DIS?!?!

>>5825181
lol u mad?

bump

bumping an awesome thread

>>5824702
The system was an indie game called Fates Worse Than Death, set in Manhattan in 2089.

Mauler is a drug that causes its users brain damage, becoming more and more like an animal, until they can't buy anymore, and then the withdrawal causes them to scratch themselves horribly, and then they die. Mutt wasn't that far along yet, Mutt was basically a friendly, fun loving, loyal puppy who could talk.

If you're interested, there is a free pdf of the game at http://www.fatesworsethandeath.com/!FWTD/ All you need is a working email address. It's one of my favorite games.

>>5826802
Thanks!

bump

3.5, I was playing a rogue/assassin, a couple of other people were playing a Warforged and a wizard. The setting was a clockpunk Victorian city currently acting as a willing host to an invasion force of clockwork golems from another plane. The PCs were infiltrators from a neighboring country, my character was the main agent of the city ruler.

The Mayor - a changeling vampire dipshit ponce with terrible taste in clothes - sent my assassin off to murder the pair. After a failed ambush in a sewer (knocked the bitch wizard down to -7HP and kicked her into a river of effluent, but the warforged saved her), my character spent ELEVEN SESSIONS stalking the pair, striking every so often with posioned bolts or shortsword. I swear I took the wizard below 0 at LEAST eight times - circumstances included backstabbing, posioned food, sabotaged magical items, a -civil war- and -faking my own death- with epic Bluff and Disguise rolls.

It ended up developing into a massive ongoing feud, even after the story shifted into the countryside. The DM started bending his railroads around it. My one-shot temporary antagonist character developed into a minor BBEG with a cult of followers, with the fued culminating in the Warforged punting her off an airship mid-monologue and the wizard hitting her with a maximized disintegrating ray.

I was running GURPS Night of the Living Dead, when one character's daughter comes stumbling out of a bedroom, having become a zombie. Daddy is understandably protective, but Cop(another PC) has to put down the zombie. An argument ensues, and Cop shoots Daughter in the chest to illustrate her deadness. Daddy fails his Will roll, freaks and charges the Cop with an axe. Both All-Out-Attack, succeed and hit, Daddy hitting for additional damage, Cop hitting multiple times with 9mm pistol. Both end up mortally wounded, bleeding out, as Daughter gets up and begins chowing down on Daddy and Cop. Both players receive a standing ovation from our table and the one next to us(Convention Game).