Things My Character/I Can No Longer Do In RPGs

[Amara]

- Use 3›-sided dice, or cause a situation where they're necessary.

Oh dear. What's the story behind this one?


- YOU CANNOT HAVE THE ROCK-IT LAUNCHER, EITHER.
- Okay, really. A campaign centered on dead magic zones does not mean you should all go 'challenge accepted' and ensure EVERYONE is playing a caster.
- No, the male baker I made is not secretly Pantheon.

- The DM is seriously considering limiting the amount of things I'm allowed to learn in my Wizard's solo study sessions.
- Further, I am no longer allowed to use things I learned in said solo sessions to do things effecting teammates prior to explaining what on earthUerth I'm doing.
- As funny as it was to use "bodyshapecrystalchange" word conglomerates via words of power on the half dragon to make him sparkly, never again.
- I am not allowed to use "bodyshapestaticchange" on the knight the instant before he successfully bullrushes, either.
- "bodyshapemetalchange" is apparently acceptable on the knight.
- I am still required to explain to them what I'm doing and how I know words of power in a bizarre language that makes my wizard sound as though he's gone insane.

► Show Spoiler

So... the quick summary is that the original language of the extraplanar race we're dealing with, while not the words of creation, is the oldest surviving language we (or they) are currently aware of. It has become forbidden/taboo for their race to learn their entire language... but technically their council does not have rules against a mortal learning their tongue, as they never anticipated that even being a potential scenario. (Most mortals would not be able to comprehend their language in the first place.)
Queue Telaki deciding that obviously the 26 INT loremaster NEEDED to learn their language.

Now, it being a power word driven language, I can pair words I know together to "force" manipulations of reality. What I can do is very limited, and has lasting ramifications if I'm not careful as I'm apparently effectively screwing with the weave of fate itself. What's fun is it's largely a gesture based language, and I can use micro gestures.
This led to a few fun incidents such as the raccoon knight suddenly having sparkly diamond (quartz? I still don't know WHAT kind of crystal it is that I know the word for now,) fur, or the half dragon being suddenly made of fire, and so on.
...and let's not forget the very out of shape wizard suddenly being able to outrun the entire party.
Overpowered? Very. But it's somewhat been established that the three original party members of this 3.5 game are going to effectively be demigods by the time it ends. ...but in a very "massive power, massive limitations, hands are tied," sort of way.
And of course they're rather important NPCs for games to follow that take place in this universe, now.

[Arch Lich Burns]

What are you talking about? He should stay sparkly. I mean....you are the only one that knows how to reverse it so he can't kill you for it.
>:)

[Godbot]

A loremaster! That's unusual o:

As for the 3›-sided dice, we were playing an in-character Risus interlude to quell the urges of some of the players wanting to hijack the campaign for an in-character tabletop roleplaying game. Everyone's character was utterly ridiculous, and I joined in a bit late, so we threw together my character on the spot by having everyone say a random word. (Four ranks in being a spooky skeleton, four ranks in aeronautical plumbing, and I had two ranks left over, so I put them into "calzone," deciding that I'd figure out what that meant as we went.)

So we had to deliver a pizza, and after two hours of squabbling, someone finally asked where the pizza had to be delivered to, and we found out that it had to go to the Old One, who lurks within the seventh dimension and threatened to destroy our world, or something? Unless we gave him this golden pizza. So we got a guy to punch us through space into the seventh dimension (which also turned out to be made of pizza) and upon meeting the Old One, everyone immediately attacked him. We got him down to a few dice of HP, but we couldn't figure out how to finish him off, until it hit me - I could use my two ranks in "calzone," which everyone had completely forgotten about, to fold the Old One up into a more manageable shape. Everyone pitched in, using people's immense size, ranks in building inspection, and fire breath in a truly inspiring show of A-Team bullshit.

So that's how we got to the Three-and-a-Halfth Dimension, where you have to use 3.5-sided dice. (Roll 1d35 and move the decimal point over.)

Anyway, we finally managed to kill him, and upon our return we were rewarded with medals and our hourly wage. I don't know what we did with the pizza.

[gamecreator]

3.5-sided dice. (Roll 1d35 and move the decimal point over.)

How is that supposed to work? It seriously screws up real numbers. I like more to think about non-integer-sided dice as being randomly rounded up or down.

[Godbot]

Don't ask me. I didn't make it up.

We probably could've done seven-sided dice and multiplied the result by 0.5, but if a session ends up requiring 3.5-sided dice, it's probably not the kind of session where anyone cares about the rules making sense.

[SamWiser]

That has to be the craziest game I have ever heard of. Great use of Calzone though.

[M0rtimer]

Damnit Godbot, all you had to do was deliver a damn pizza.

[Godbot]

Well, now he's dead, so he can't complain that we didn't deliver the pizza. That's like the same thing.

[Zathyr]

Clearly the pizza was used in the calzonification of the Old One.

[Amara]

Loremaster remains a favorite prestige of mine. C: I had a bard/cleric multiclass character that went Virtuoso, too.

And that game sounds amazing, haha. I may need to look in to it next time I have a houseful of people to entertain.


Let's see... things that recently came up.
- You cannot have a device exclusively for freeze drying.
- You cannot have a freeze dried rat.
- WHY DO YOU WANT A FREEZE DRIED RAT.
- NO FREEZE DRIED RATS.
- NO, NOT EVEN ALCHEMICALLY.

- When the NPC goes quiet and stares at you, and you stare at them, and they stare at you, that's probably a sign the conversation is over unless you actually talk.
- The fennec kitsune does not suffer a sonic weakness.
- Even if it is a small village with only one paladin, if the village's ONE paladin is ALSO the captain of the guard AND a standing member of the truthseekers/council FOR said village, pissing him off is a really bad idea.
- Pissing off the half orc ranger who he's rather good friends with is a similarly bad idea.
- It is not a game to see how many halflings you can piss off. If you anger enough of them I swear to God I am eventually going to form a tiny people mob and just have them dogpile you.
- Could we just not anger any NPC that's 100lbs heavier than you and has a +4 strength modifier or higher?
- Snark is, sadly, a renewable resource. It is not, however, a trade good.
- The solution is not to throw the fuzzy thing.
- The solution is still not to throw the fuzzy thing, even if you DID just take throw anything.
- Throw anything does not apply to player characters.
- Even small fuzzy things.
- ...yes, you can throw the freeze dried rat.

[spiderwrangler]

- ...yes, you can throw the freeze dried rat.

How much damage does a freeze dried rat do compared to a fresh dead rat?

[Godbot]

...Why did you want a freeze-dried rat?

[Zathyr]

-Just because the GM gives you a spell that can reduce your gnome wizard two size categories, that is not an invitation to Prestidigitation your skin blue and replace every other word with "smurf."
-No, not every third word either.
-Just smurf it the smurf out, okay?

[gamecreator]

...Why did you want a freeze-dried rat?

My guess would be throwable weapon that doubles as preserved food.

[Amara]

I do not know why my warforged artificer wants a freeze dried rat. I really don't.

- the kitsune's player does not appreciate the fae npc taking his existence as 'challenge accepted.'
- I will double check everything I have decided to randomly roll THREE TIMES before ever using it again, even though the Lovecraftian inspired madness fog was pretty awesome.
- if it's becoming obvious that I have a thing for badass half Orc chicks, I should probably stop making badass half Orc chick npcs. Though this was not intentional and was really more the npc generator that I cobbled together deciding I needed a ton of half orcs one day. The next day it seemed to have a Halfling fixation.
- Freja can stay, because she rides a bear and is therefore automatically amazing.
- before ever DMing again, I should ensure that the cats, AND the dog, are safely locked out of the room so that I do not get distracted by MIAOUW MIAOW MIAOW MIAOW and random barking.
- the Siamese cat should be locked in so that he DOESN'T stand outside the door and scream.

Haha I haven't been a player so much as a DM recently, so most of my 'I can nevers' are likely to be things I've told my players for a while.

-Just because the GM gives you a spell that can reduce your gnome wizard two size categories, that is not an invitation to Prestidigitation your skin blue and replace every other word with "smurf."
-No, not every third word either.
-Just smurf it the smurf out, okay?

It's not an invitation, it's an unspoken command :V

How much damage does a freeze dried rat do compared to a fresh dead rat?

I suppose if I really wanted I could do a calculation based on weight and speed of travel for damage.
Instead I opted to decide that the npc in question was just very not amused with being pegged by a flying freeze dried rat.

[gamecreator]

- the Siamese cat should be locked in so that he DOESN'T stand outside the door and scream.

As if it will stop him from screaming inside the room. Some cats just don't like closed doors.

[Godbot]

[How much damage does a freeze dried rat do compared to a fresh dead rat?

I suppose if I really wanted I could do a calculation based on weight and speed of travel for damage.
Instead I opted to decide that the npc in question was just very not amused with being pegged by a flying freeze dried rat.

Challenge accepted.

The rules for improvised weapons say that they get a -4 to attack rolls, have a ranged increment of 10 feet, crit for 2x damage on a 20, and deal damage equal to a comparable weapon.

According to the Pathfinder OGC, a rat is a tiny creature, and tiny creatures weigh 1-8 pounds. A little research shows your average real-life rat is about 300 grams, or 0.6 pounds, so a real-life rat would be diminutive.

A Pathfinder rat is a good match for the Wahaika, a stone-age throwing weapon, so it'd deal about 1d6 blunt ranged damage. A pouch of ten slingstones weighs 5 pounds, or 0.5 pounds per slingstone, which is just about the weight of an average real-life rat. So a medium-sized creature throwing a diminutive freeze-dried rat would deal more like 1d4 blunt damage.

I wasn't able to find much on small limp ranged blunt weapons for comparing to non-freeze dried rats, but I'd imagine they'd pretty much equate to an unarmed strike. So figure the 0.5 lb ones would deal 1d3 blunt nonlethal damage, or a medium creature's fist, and the 4 lb ones would be more like 1d4, for a large fist. And let's be generous and say they'd have the distracting quality (+2 on bluff checks to feint in combat). Because if I thought someone was going to throw a rat at me, I'd be pretty upset.

[spiderwrangler]

According to the Pathfinder OGC, a rat is a tiny creature, and tiny creatures weigh 1-8 pounds. A little research shows your average real-life rat is about 300 grams, or 0.6 pounds, so a real-life rat would be diminutive.

Ah, but a freeze dried rat would weigh less... Perhaps only 2/3 reds as much.

[Wolfie]

Something my current D&D group is no longer allowed to do: unleash a Bad Guy upon the planet.

We let out a vampire that had been staked over 1000 years ago. It took an entire order to take him down, stake him, and get rid of his minions. The leader of the order was killed in the process and sainted afterwards for his efforts and daring do. Now our group of 7, consisting of 3 level 6's, 2 level 5's, a level 3 and a level 2, has to find him and kill him....

yeah... this will not end well.

[raaabr]

Wow. Was releasing him a trap, or...

[Enkrod]

Our windling illusionist is no longer allowed to change the archers camo clothes into a big yellow chicken costume. Let alone in the presence of any noun that starts with the letter D.
He is no longer allowed to take his pillow with him when going on watch for the dragons return.
He is also no longer allowed to complain of the ruckus that woke him.

Our dwarven cavalryman is no longer allowed to "ride the wave of destruction" let alone CAUSE IT when it is aimed against the people we are to RESCUE!

Our troll warrior is no longer allowed to vote "we should kill them all" he's remained silent since.

My elven archer is no longer allowed to fletch arrows that are especially designed to kill windling illusionists.
She is no longer allowed to yell "OVER MY DEAD BODY!" towards demons.
She is no longer allowed to grin and say "I'd hit that." while assessing a target, even if it IS a handsome young man.

[Wolfie]

Wow. Was releasing him a trap, or...

Um, sort of?

We made a deal with a shady shop owner to get the stake (we were unaware at the time that it was pinning down a vampire and he didn't volunteer the information) in order to save a group member, our Bard. She's been getting these splitting headaches that make her pass out and float and give off a weird glow. Supposedly getting this stake would buy us the information we needed to get her help.

Now the vamp is out, the shop guy told us a name, but there are only three people who know enough information for us to find the guy attached to it: the shop owner, the vampire, and the King's Vizier. Shop owner won't talk. The vampire... well, we don't exactly want to talk to him. The King's Vizier is a busy man with a nasty aura and really hard to get to.

Oh, and if the Bard says the name she has to make a will save. If she doesn't make it, she gets a headache and passes out. This has made for a couple of awkward encounters.

[Amara]

So...
I think this one qualifies as something I shouldn't do anymore, but I honestly don't know what on earth to do differently next time.
Except...be less lucky. Now, the encounter was 'challenging' under normal circumstances, but given party construction, they should have breezed the encounter.

I only had the players fighting four leucrotta. Leucrotta are nasty, but not hard to deal with. The average not advanced version has 57 hp, a +9 to hit, and a 1d8+6 damaging bite. On crit they do x3, and also get to auto sunder attempt the armor or shield of what they're attacking. (I tweaked them for pathfinder, but none of their base stats needed changing.)

Normally not a problem...except I rolled crit three times. Twice for max damage.
1d8+6 isn't so bad until suddenly the two tanks get hit for 42 hp each. ...and then the ranger eats a crit for 27.

Add to this that the artificer couldn't seem to land a single hit all fight (when she did she literally rolled minimum damage,) and ...eash. I was, unfortunately, getting amazing rolls. The party not so much.

These things are only CR 4 each, and I nearly wiped a party with them.


I'll note it's meant to be a very difficult campaign. Most of the enemies faced will be intelligent ones (the leucrotta staged an ambush,) and the CR for full encounters is running quite high, but I'll admit I don't typically plan for crits. My mentality there is more of crits happen. I balance around average / statistical norms, and what I know the party is capable of.

...until everyone starts rolling 1's, while I roll literally 3 20s in a row for the baddies. At least the ranger's bear managed to dish out a ton of damage. Actually, the ranger's bear is probably the only thing that saved the party that encounter.

[Dlover]

It's because the bear wasn't one of the actual PC's, I'll bet. If it were officially a player character it would have failed too.

[spiderwrangler]

It's because the bear wasn't one of the actual PC's, I'll bet. If it were officially a player character it would have failed too.

Or if Amara was rolling for the bear. Must be the paws... make it hard to hold the dice.