Shortest AD&D character life
Brett Easterbrook
The shortest life of a character in our campaign is 3 segments.
1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
goes "Who was that?"
5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
6) Party kills giant then loots both bodies!
It still make everone laugh!!
Brette:)
schu...@dnvr.uswest.net
In article <32DD4E...@jcu.edu.au>,
Brett Easterbrook <Amand...@jcu.edu.au> wrote
> 1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
> 2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
> yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
> riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
> 3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
> 4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
> goes "Who was that?"
> 5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
Here's a one-rounder--
My first gaming group in my college years had a similar situation. I had
just joined the group as a ranger, and my friend had just joined as a
halfling "rogue". We didn't know the DM too well, and thus didn't know
that he doesn't like halfling rogues..
*sigh*
The short of it (double pun intended) was:
First combat, stone giants come over hill and start throwing rocks.
Round 1. Giants have initiative at segment one. Giants throw rocks. (DM
looks up with evil grin) Halfing thief ends up unintentionally hiding
under rock. (It landed on him) Halfling soup seeps out. Next segment,
party initiative, Ranger takes cover behind big rock that fell from sky.
End of round
one.
-s hampton schubert
"Once upon a time.."
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
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Daniel Llewellyn
>The shortest life of a character in our campaign is 3 segments.
>
>1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
>2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
> yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
> riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
>3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
>4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
> goes "Who was that?"
>5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
>6) Party kills giant then loots both bodies!
>
>It still make everone laugh!!
>
>Brette:)
We had a similar experience, but the newly created character (a mage)
only lasted 2 rounds.
1) Party is fighting a band of skeletons.
2) Soon to be new party member see's combat and polymorphs
into a skeleton. (Not exactly sure why he did this).
3) Soon to be new party member comes out from hiding and
runs over to group.
4) Toughest fighter in the group assumes he is being attacked by
one of the skeletons, swings, hits for maximum damage and
kills the new character.
As you said, we all still laugh about this incident.
Scott Parrish
Here's 2 more.
Allana decides to play a kind of ditzy mage. The party is on a tropical
island spread out and spying on a dragon. Allana skips in see's the
party hiding behind the bushes, looks up sees the dragon and says in a
very shrill voice. "Whos that". 5 seconds later all the people hiding
behind the bushes have moved away and the dragon is reaching for the
curious mage...
Brett is attempting to join the party. He is playing an illusionist
named Malthun. He decides to have a little fun, does an illusion of a
pair of Iron Golems (he's riding a horse in between). The Iron Golems
crest a hill and march for aour paranoid and wanted party and says
"resistance is useless" 5 seconds later the mage has his rod of
disintagration out andsweeps left to right from 1 fake golem through
Malthun and to the next.
--
***********************************************************
* "Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most *
* of the time he will pick himself up and continue on." *
* --Winston Churchill *
***********************************************************
* Scott M Parrish spar...@fc.hp.com *
***********************************************************
Jod
ROTFL
"That's the way dice goes."
Jod
Foru...@nycnet.com
I was GMing an evil adventure at a convention, and while this didn't happen until 30 minutes into
the adventure, I consider it a short lifespan.
The elven thief who had a Hat of Disguise, for some unknown reason, decided to change his
appearance into a dwarf.
There was this Ogre fighter in the party named Og. As part of his character background to give the
player an idea how to roleplay the character, I wrote "Og smash dwarves".
Think about it.
Gerald Katz
He-Men characters have a right to exist!
Jason Hatter
Otis Viles (cier...@ic.net) wrote:
: Per PHB2, page 106, paragraph 1, that should be "50 points of damage",
: not "50% of points in damage" but I imagine that on a natural 20, the
: giant might still be able to score enough. Still kind of amusing, as I
: imagine him flying over the tree tops for some reason ... "gee, that
: looks like a long drop ..."
"Go for the distance, go for the distance!" 8)
--
Jason
http://www.cris.com/~towonder/
RPG stuff at http://www.cris.com/~towonder/rpg.html
featuring Sailor Moon V at http://www.cris.com/~towonder/fanfic.html
Tim and Kim
Jason Hatter wrote:
>
> Otis Viles (cier...@ic.net) wrote:
> : Per PHB2, page 106, paragraph 1, that should be "50 points of damage",
> : not "50% of points in damage" but I imagine that on a natural 20, the
> : giant might still be able to score enough. Still kind of amusing, as I
> : imagine him flying over the tree tops for some reason ... "gee, that
> : looks like a long drop ..."
>
> "Go for the distance, go for the distance!" 8)
> --
> Jason
Doesn't that depend on the giant type? I believe stone giants prefer
accuracy over distance. :)
"Bet I can get 'im between the mountain peaks. Oops, I'll try again."
Tim
Otis Viles
>5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
Per PHB2, page 106, paragraph 1, that should be "50 points of damage",
not "50% of points in damage" but I imagine that on a natural 20, the
giant might still be able to score enough. Still kind of amusing, as I
imagine him flying over the tree tops for some reason ... "gee, that
looks like a long drop ..."
Otis.
Net.Rules.Lawyer
--
On the advice of my attorney, my .sig has no comment at this time.
Otis H. Viles, cier...@ic.net, http://ic.net/~cierhart/
James Tackett
Daniel Llewellyn <dlle...@dimensional.com> wrote in article
<32ddafd4....@news.dimensional.com>...
> On Wed, 15 Jan 1997 13:37:24 -0800, Brett Easterbrook
> <Amand...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>
> >The shortest life of a character in our campaign is 3 segments.
> >
> >1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
> >2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
> > yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
> > riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
> >3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
> >4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
> > goes "Who was that?"
> >5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> > roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
> >6) Party kills giant then loots both bodies!
> >
> >It still make everone laugh!!
> >
> >Brette:)
>
>
> We had a similar experience, but the newly created character (a mage)
> only lasted 2 rounds.
>
> 1) Party is fighting a band of skeletons.
> 2) Soon to be new party member see's combat and polymorphs
> into a skeleton. (Not exactly sure why he did this).
> 3) Soon to be new party member comes out from hiding and
> runs over to group.
> 4) Toughest fighter in the group assumes he is being attacked by
> one of the skeletons, swings, hits for maximum damage and
> kills the new character.
>
> As you said, we all still laugh about this incident.
>
>
>
hmmm well this is similar as well
{DM takes player into another room and discusses new character ideas...
once he has ok's the info and the player rolls stats scores DM leaves to
let player finish. DM tells player that when he is ready for his character
to meet/join the party simply walk into the room and introduce himself]
1) Party gets into a battle with a group of brigands in a tavern
2) [Player walks into room, DM places a miniture at door of tavern]
3) [Player mimes opening tavern door] Soon to be new party member says "Hi"
4) DM rolls for one of the brigand's to-hit on a party member who is behind
partial cover, misses, rolls on miss-fire table, xbow bolt continues over
party member's shoulder straight at door, but door is now open, DM rolls a
to-hit on soon-to-be-new-party-member, gets 18 (which is more than 5 above
needed) critical hit, location head.
5) Soon to be new party member falls dead with an xbow bolt sticking out of
eye socket.
total time from introduction to death, under one segment (simultaneous
actions)
Nipper Phinizy
In article <32DD4E...@jcu.edu.au>, Brett Easterbrook
<Amand...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
> The shortest life of a character in our campaign is 3 segments.
>
> 1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
> 2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
> yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
> riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
> 3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
> 4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
> goes "Who was that?"
> 5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
> 6) Party kills giant then loots both bodies!
>
> It still make everone laugh!!
*laughs*
My shortest character wasn't that short, like 30+ rounds, but he got
killed by a sparrow :(
--
USCRA#47
David Richardson
>The shortest life of a character in our campaign is 3 segments.
>
>1) Party encounter a Giant- fight begins
>2) At end of second round, soon to be new party member enters stage left
> yells "Your mother is a bearded troll!" at the giant. He was
> riding a dire wolf from memory (Beast Rider Kit)
>3) Giant attacks new character rolls 20 to hit
>4) Character exits stage left, wolf exits stage right. Rest of party
> goes "Who was that?"
>5) Wolf rider takes more than half damage and then fails system shock
> roll- one dead character- total time- 3 segments
>6) Party kills giant then loots both bodies!
>
>It still make everone laugh!!
>
Our shortest ever PC life was about 4 seconds game time.
1) New character appears over hill, commands party to halt, knocked
unconscious by colour spray.
2) New character is tied to 10 foot pole by party and woken up.
3) New character demands to be released, and calls the paarty "peasants"
4) New character is vindictively killed by the rest of the party.
Again, it made us laugh, even if it was slightly unfair.
David
"Nice, in a bodyguard, is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate a whole
lobster!"
Marquis de Carabas - Neverwhere
mtabo...@aol.com
One of our parties lasted a little more than one round but still lived
pretty short:
Our party had a rumor that Kobolds were holding something of value (can't
remember since this happened about two years ago). Anyways our party is
hired to check it out. The party was a halfling ripoff (The person
created a character based on a book he read and the DM OK it); a firbolg
giant; a human cleric; and my human Holy Slayer. We went down into a
hole, and as we entered the room the door slammed shut behind us.
There was an incline and at the top, we saw 3 kobolds, I need to point out
the DM based the kobolds on the Humanoids handbook and not the monster
manual, so they are smarter and tougher. Also there was an object that we
couldn't make out with them. The kobolds demanded our surrender and of
course we refused so the let the barrel go. I tried the jumped the
barrel and missed so landed on top of the barrel as it rolled crushing me.
The giant stuck his hands out and the rocks inside broke both arms when
it smashed him. The halfling ripoff dove under into a pit that was dug
underneath the barrel, and got hit by a roller the went along underneath
it. ANd the cleric got acid on him from the surrounding barrels when the
rock smashed them open.
Mine and the Cleric went down (at -10 you are dead, and at 0 you go down)
but the giant and halfling ripoff were alive. The kobolds declared that
if out party leaves thier weapons they may take the wounded and leave.
Since our characters where dying, we couldn't say anything, and the other
two players were stupid and went on to attack, and died at the hands of
the kobolds.
There the party stayed until another group of adventures came and talked
to the kobold. They ate the humans, gave the giants to come monster who
got sick and died, and the halfling ripoff was a sacrifie
Mike T
Mike Tabor E-mail: Mtabo...@aol.com
Robert Moore
Here's my best one:
This comes from playing D&D in the boxed set (pale blue? if I remember
correctly). THerer was an adventure included that was set in a cavern
complex under a city. The leader of the city hired the PC's (all played
by me, as it was just me and my friend playing - he DM'd) to locate his
daughter, who had been kidnapped by pirates.
Well, most of the dungeon went fine, until we got to the hidden cove
where the pirates were located. We went in (remember this is th first
dungeon, on pretty much the first day of playing ANY RPG, and we were
13) and got killed. All of us.
We rolled up another half-dozen PC's, and since we'd already done the
rest of the dungeon, we just sent them in to the cove. And we got
killed. All of us. Again.
This happened 6 times! (Actually, it was sort of like saving a game in
Doom right before a tough room). Finally, we beat the damned pirates,
saved the princess, and then we had to retire the PC's 'cause the basic
set we were using didn't include the experience point tables for
anything over 3rd level! Not knowing how to proceed, we hardly played
again until the AD&D Players Handbook came out later that year. We
cobbled together stuff from the basic set & the PHB, since at this point
there was no DMG, no MM, no nothin'. And when those did come out, they
tended to be 6 months behind schedule.
Aaahh, the good ole days,
Rob M
Gavin Clayton
In one of our games the shortest-lived character didn't even get three
minutes.
This is how it happened:-
* The DM had decided to bring a new player into the game with his character
unconscious after an attack on his trading caravan. He happens to be the
only living member, so I take it we were meant to nurse him back to health
and become fast adventuring buddies.
Unfortunately we had this fool playing a CN character (this guy is CN in
real life, we're certain) who was nowhere near us at the time we (by
looting the bodies) found this poor half-dead soul. He starts loading
bodies onto the wagon (the new pc included) and then sets fire to the whole
thing. A warriors funeral, or some crap like that. Of course we thought he
was joking, but our DM at the time took it very seriously, and our new pc
went up in smoke while we were driven back by the flames.
We all shout at the CN guy, and he just says, "well I was over there at the
time, how the hell was I supposed to know." Our new characacter didn't even
get a chance to speak, or play.
If you're wondering how a DM could allow such a travesty of fun gaming,
this is the same DM who carried away THREE of one player's characters by
wyverns. Every time this guy brought in a new character, we'd tell him to
duck. :)
Cheers, everybody.
Gav
-------------------------------
Tim and Kim
Robert Moore wrote:
<story snipped>
> Not knowing how to proceed, we hardly played
> again until the AD&D Players Handbook came out later that year. We
> cobbled together stuff from the basic set & the PHB, since at this point
> there was no DMG, no MM, no nothin'. And when those did come out, they
> tended to be 6 months behind schedule.
>
> Aaahh, the good ole days,
>
> Rob M
Just a minor point, but the MM was the first of the AD&D books to come
out.
Tim
WoodMage
Well, most of my AD&D characters have lasted at least one game (except
when I was in my "elf of the week" phase). I am reminded, though, of the
first RuneQuest character I ever rolled up. When the GM saw the stats, he
ruled "your parents took pity on you and drowned you at birth - roll a new
character."
Randy
Brett Easterbrook
OK i have another one
One of or group had a character that was turned into a vampire, we were
mostly underground so the sun was not a problem, anyway he explaind that
he gained regen. powers through his new magic sword. He then became our
trap finder, "walk, walk, walk, THUD Found one!" anyway he was
prettymuch unkillable.The DM then sent us on The Mud Sorc. Tomb and one
of the magic items finally killed him, well almost!
Guess what it is?
A necklace of strangulation- taking into account regen he took 3 points
of damage a round, lasted about 15 rds before hitting 0 hp, but insted of
dying he turns into gas, heals up for 8 hrs, comes back and again dies 15
rds later, this goes on for ever!!!
"Hi guys, anything happen?" Gasp
"No not much"
"Well", gasp,"got to be going" gasp
(Vampires don't gasp due to be them being dead and not requiring to
breath. but you get the idea!)
Brette:)
Hierophant
Brett Easterbrook wrote:
<snip>
>
> A necklace of strangulation- taking into account regen he took 3 points
> of damage a round, lasted about 15 rds before hitting 0 hp, but insted of
> dying he turns into gas, heals up for 8 hrs, comes back and again dies 15
> rds later, this goes on for ever!!!
>
> "Hi guys, anything happen?" Gasp
> "No not much"
> "Well", gasp,"got to be going" gasp
> (Vampires don't gasp due to be them being dead and not requiring to
> breath. but you get the idea!)
But how would strangulation be any problem then? I can see how he'd
have a problem talking, but a vampire wouldn't die from strangulation, I
don't think he'd care much if the blood flow to his brain was cut off.
And why didn't he just shed the necklace while in gaseous form?
--
-Hierophant | Bury me at sea, where no
| murdered ghost can haunt me
Christian K. Kielland | If I rock upon the waves
<ch...@follonett.no> | no corpse can lie upon me.
<chri...@ifi.uio.no> | -S. MacGowan
odragon
Hierophant wrote:
> But how would strangulation be any problem then? I can see how he'd
> have a problem talking, but a vampire wouldn't die from strangulation, I
> don't think he'd care much if the blood flow to his brain was cut off.
> And why didn't he just shed the necklace while in gaseous form?
Or, how did he prevent shedding the necklace while in gaseous form?
"Gasp" <poof>
<thunk> (necklace hitting the floor)
Though in "reality" i agree with the idea that a vampire wouldn't even
notice a necklace of strangulation. In fact, why not keep it on.
"To show my appreciation of your heroism, take my necklace as a momento"
<grin>
odragon
Doug Smith
Brett Easterbrook <Amand...@jcu.edu.au> wrote:
>OK i have another one
>One of or group had a character that was turned into a vampire, we were
>mostly underground so the sun was not a problem, anyway he explaind that
>he gained regen. powers through his new magic sword. He then became our
>trap finder, "walk, walk, walk, THUD Found one!" anyway he was
>prettymuch unkillable.The DM then sent us on The Mud Sorc. Tomb and one
>of the magic items finally killed him, well almost!
>Guess what it is?
>A necklace of strangulation- taking into account regen he took 3 points
>of damage a round, lasted about 15 rds before hitting 0 hp, but insted of
>dying he turns into gas, heals up for 8 hrs, comes back and again dies 15
>rds later, this goes on for ever!!!
>"Hi guys, anything happen?" Gasp
>"No not much"
>"Well", gasp,"got to be going" gasp
>(Vampires don't gasp due to be them being dead and not requiring to
>breath. but you get the idea!)
Lack of breathing wouldn't be a problem for Undead. The physical
damage might. Don't see it even killing him though unless you say it
gets smaller and smaller to the point it severs the spine and pops the
head off. Course in that case the neclace is off and the Vampire goes
gaseous and reforms later. Else it merely crushes the throat.
Painful for an Undead, and he won't be able to regen the damage as
long as the neclace is there but otherwixe will probably be mobile.
Would go out and get himself lightning bolted or such to destroy the
neclace since he won't care if he 'dies' - just go gaseous and reform
later sans neclace which is now a charred lump.
Sounds more like the GM wanted to get rid of the guy's character.
>Brette:)
DES
"Ooops. So much for a live arrest." Yuri
Mark Garard
odragon wrote:
>
> Hierophant wrote:
>
> > But how would strangulation be any problem then? I can see how he'd
> > have a problem talking, but a vampire wouldn't die from strangulation, I
> > don't think he'd care much if the blood flow to his brain was cut off.
> > And why didn't he just shed the necklace while in gaseous form?
>
I see the necklace as slowley contracting until a person has died, normally
this would propably take as many rounds as a person has levels. As the
necklace gets smaller and smaller it causes damage not only by lack of blood
to the brain but also by crushing the throat, at about this time a normal
person would die, but being a vampire (regen) it would take longer, the
necklace becomes smaller and smaller cutting into the neck causing major
physical damage. I would say that it does not stop getting smaller until that
person is dead and then it stops shrinking. If you said that is was similar to
a person strangling someone with a constant force but didn't start cutting into
the neck then a person would survive by having, say, an ioun stone-sustain
without air, as thay would take no damage from having no oxygen to the brain!
and you would prob take no damage from the constant pressure on neck but you
prob would not be able to talk/cast spell or swallow potions with a crushed
throat!
> Or, how did he prevent shedding the necklace while in gaseous form?
> "Gasp" <poof>
> <thunk> (necklace hitting the floor)
>
> Though in "reality" i agree with the idea that a vampire wouldn't even
> notice a necklace of strangulation. In fact, why not keep it on.
> "To show my appreciation of your heroism, take my necklace as a momento"
> <grin>
>
> odragon
Easy, you don't have a choice of what you can make gaseous and what you cannot.
As per the potion description "as well as anything he's carrying or wearing,
to become gaseous" a person has no say in what items he has becoming
gaseous or not, otherwise you would have people turning gaseous to remove
cursed rings etc. The normal way is for a character to remove items before
he turns gaseous, has no choice here!
Of course there must be some limitation to this carrying
or wearing, ie wouldn't turn another character gaseous that is being
carried (maybe if he was in a bag of holding though!, and items that
I would classify as being carried, ie a sword inserted into caharcter
would fall out as turns gaseous (and adds to the story)
Also have a look at the item description "cannot be removed
by any means short of a alter reality, limited wish or wish spell",
this is a pretty big magic item that is very hard to remove, I
wouldn't allow a character to remove it simply by turning gaseous!
It also remains until he is a dried skelton, so any attempt to bring a
character without getting necklace off first (I favour citting head
off character and cutting/prising it off neck) will imediately
cause it to start to constrict again.
Brette:)
Hierophant
Mark Garard wrote:
> I see the necklace as slowley contracting until a person has died, normally
> this would propably take as many rounds as a person has levels. As the
> necklace gets smaller and smaller it causes damage not only by lack of blood
> to the brain but also by crushing the throat, at about this time a normal
> person would die, but being a vampire (regen) it would take longer, the
> necklace becomes smaller and smaller cutting into the neck causing major
> physical damage.
But does the necklace count as +1 or better weapon? ;-)
Cigam---Dragonlord
<snipity snip>
Why would the neckless of strangulation even work on an undead, they
are already dead...
--
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Kneel Mortals