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Tadanori Oyama:
They do them on the show, so why not do more on the forums? Post your best stories from game sessions.


This story is from years ago when I was running a 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons game, my very first long term campaign. It started in the Forge of Fury premade and moved up into the higher levels over months of play. Great time. I spent most of my time being fairly nice to the players. They had tough fights but they got treasure at an amazing rate so they were equipped to handle themselves properly.

At around eighth level I decided to throw them back into the dungeons after a lot of military campaign behind enemy lines kind of adventures. So, they have to get this book for some wizard to win the guy’s help in their country's war. This book is in a tomb but that’s easy enough, they've handled undead before.

The party enters the final room of the tomb/dungeon. The book, which they know is cursed, sits on a stand in the middle of a platform in a floorless room. The platform is held up by a massive pile of bones which descends into darkness. It's connected to the doorway by a narrow rope bridge that has a lot of slack on it. The characters have to balance their way across it, which two of them do while the other two wait.

The Cleric decides to read the book. The trap for the room triggers when the book is removed so I ask him if he’s going to open it on the stand or pick it up. He says he’ll  pick it up and crack it open. The moment he does so two things happen: the platform rumbles and the bones start clattering below them and the book blasts the Cleric with negative energy. He takes light damage but he is now totally paralyzed.

A round later, as the Wizard tries to pull the book out of the Cleric's hands so he could close it and the Fighter is rushing across the bridge to see what's going on, skeletons start to come crawling up over the edges of the platform. The skeletons aren't really a threat to the players but there's a problem. The skeletons are what's holding this platform up and as more and more come to get the adventurers the platform is starting to lower.

The Fighter gets to the platform and starts smashing skeletons as fast as he can because that's how Brutar the Dwarf liked things: smashed. Meanwhile the Wizard managed to get the book loose at last and tosses it into a bag. The Cleric, no longer staring into the cursed book, starts to come out of his paralyzed state. The Rogue is still at the doorway, because 1) he was kind of a dick and 2) the character’s player didn’t want anything to do with skeletons (which he couldn’t sneak attack or inflict significant harm on with his piercing damage).

The platform is about ten feet lower by this point and has pulled the formerly slack bridge tight. Skeletons are still pouring up from the edges and the Wizard manages to convince the Fighter that smashing them isn't actually helping the situation that much. The Cleric, thinking quickly, managed to stumble his way back onto the bridge and start back towards the doorway while the players of the Fighter and Wizard argue about how to stop the skeletons. The Cleric assumes he can take the opportunity attacks without much trouble. But the skeletons don't try to claw him; they grapple him (which took me a LONG time to get right, I wasn't great with the grapple rules) and work as a team to pin him down on the rope bridge.

Now the platform is getting even lower and the bridge is more of a ladder. The ropes are surprising strong and take some of the weight from the platform as it continues to sink, which tilts the platform at a thirty degree angle and forces the Wizards and Fighter to keep their balance and returns their attention to the problem of escape. At that moment the Cleric, using an awareness of his class features he had not yet demonstrated, remembers he could turn undead. He wins his grapple to get out of the pin and I rule he could turn while in grapple so he makes the roll and crits it. He totals high enough to turn all the skeletons on the platform, about ten of them, and then some (skeletons have about 1/2 a hit die, if I remember right). He assumes they will crawl back over the edge, thereby stabilize the platform. I then remind him that because they’re less than half his level so they are not turned; they are destroyed.

All of the skeletons around the players turn to dust; than the platform starts to tilt farther. I inform the players that the burst of positive energy destroyed skeletons still under the platform. The “floor” is at something like a sixty degree tilt now with the Cleric hanging onto the rope bridge while the Wizard and Fighter try to scramble up the slant to do the same. At this point the party is starting to get worried because the Wizard had used most of his spells for the day already and he only has damaging spells remaining, not utility spells. Some anger is also expressed towards the Rogue and his player, who still remains completely safe at the doorway.

Skeleton hands start to peak around the bottom on the platform where it still touches the pile of bones and it begins to tilt again. With some good climb checks from the Wizard and Fighter they get high enough to catch hold of the Cleric's legs. The Clerics player, after checking his strength score, informs them that he couldn't hold them up. The Wizard, in a fit of brilliance, pulls the cursed book out of the bag and tosses it up to the Cleric. He tells the Cleric to lace his arms through the ropes on the bridge and open the book.

The Cleric does so and promptly freezes in position. The remaining skeletons can not reach the Wizard and Fighter before the platform finally comes away from the bone pile and hangs totally vertical. The party is now hanging from the Cleric, who is in turn latched to the rope bridge.

The Wizard, hanging from the paralyzed Cleric, didn't want to try and make a climb check because significant failure would result in a fall into the pit. The Fighter, however, makes a quick check to climb up the Cleric until he is high enough to grab the planks of the bridge. He manages to get to the top and promptly begins kicking the crap out of the Rogue for not helping them. I get them back on track, reminding them half the party is still hanging on for dear life. The Rogue aids another, the Fighter pulls but they couldn't pull the bridge up with the platform attached to it. So they drop a knotted rope to the Wizard and get him level with the Cleric. After a few tries the Wizard gets the book loose from the Cleric’s hands and stuffs it back into his bag.

Within a few rounds the Cleric and Wizard are pulled to the top and the challenge has been conquered. They had the book, and they resolved to never open any books in the dungeon, ever again. Also, the Rogue would have to go first from now on.

rayner23:
I know I told Ross, but I'm not sure if I posted it here or not:

I run a game for my high school students and in one session, they were supposed to lure vampires into a town while Obad-Hai used his nature bad-assery to destroy their coffins (Swamp Thing fans will see a blatant rip-off there). Anyway, I told the kids they had to figure out a way to get the vampires to come into the town.

One player said, "Maybe we could pay some parents to let us borrow their kids for awhile."

I told them that a parent would probably find that to be incredibly creepy, but maybe for the right price and a really bad parent . . .

The players looked over their funds and came to the conclusion that it would be too expensive. Then, one player's eyes lit up and he said, "Is there an orphanage around here?"

I was silently proud of them.

clockworkjoe:
Funny bit in last night superhero game. The players were looking for a rare book that contained information they needed. Only one copy was available - in the rare book section of the NY public library - couldn't be checked out. When I told them that, they were crestfallen for a bit as the idea of stealing the book did not even occur to them. And these were characters who all committed multiple felonies - murder, assault, breaking and entry and the nicest PC had stolen evidence directly from the police. But if they couldn't check out the book, then they couldn't get it.

Player logic is hilarious.

Dawnsteel:
And it's a LIBRARY for god's sake.  If it bothers you so much, then hit Kinko's, photocopy the pages you need, and RETURN IT.

Librarians aren't going to press charges.

clockworkjoe:

--- Quote from: Dawnsteel on March 28, 2009, 09:56:07 PM ---And it's a LIBRARY for god's sake.  If it bothers you so much, then hit Kinko's, photocopy the pages you need, and RETURN IT.

Librarians aren't going to press charges.

--- End quote ---

well to be fair, it was a 3000 page tome.

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