DM: roll
Finally, a good roll! The seven of you stumble across a sign saying "This Way to Merlin's Castle."
Twilight Sparkle: At least it isn't that dragon again. So, how far away does the castle look from us?
DM: That's a good question.
Twilight Sparkle: Let me guess: it's not visible at all, is it.
DM: That's not...totally true.
Fluttershy: Do you know anything about Merlin, Uni?
Uni: I only know him as the wizard from many of my foalhood stories.
DM: Think of him as this world's Starswirl the Bearded.
DM: You run into another sign.
Twilight Sparkle: And definitely not into a castle, right?
DM: Nnnnnope.
Twilight Sparkle: Then, I guess we should fan out and see if there's any invisible-
Pinkie Pie: I've solved your sign puzzle, Spike!
DM: Huh?
Pinkie Pie: This map is two-dimensional, but the world isn't so we just need to look up!
DM: ...wow you worked that out really fast.
DM: Yep, Merlin's castle is floating above you all.
Rarity: Oh, how quaint! A little cloud villa.
DM: Well, he's not a pegasus, so this is supposed to be impressive.
Rainbow Dash: ...Spike, is this a scale model of my house?
DM: Mmmmmaybe?
Rainbow Dash: ...can you make another?
Guest Author's Note: "After a few sessions have established the general pattern of play, I like to remind my new players that the space they're playing in is in fact more than just the map that sits on the table in front of them. Never with a punishment, mind, but I think it's important to teach players that verticality does matter, especially for combat at higher levels. After all, most of the dragon in the title of the game can fly, and that can really make a brawl troublesome if you fail to account for it. Pinkie, always having her head in the clouds, was a step ahead of the game. (That said, I also try not to be too much of a stickler about height, because I know it's hard to process without visual aids, and well, I can't really afford 3-D terrain. D&D is expensive enough as is.)
Any stories about a DM utilizing a map's verticality interestingly, or failing to take it into account in a funny way?"
Notice: Guest comic submissions are open! Guidelines here. Deadline: February 20th.
One of my DMs had a white board on the wall behind where we played, where flying creatures got marked with those little colored magnets. For some reason, she loved using the one that looked like a bunch of bananas for dragons.
In a campaign I'm running, the party has a spaceship. At one point, some PCs were having a loud conversation in the commons area, with the rest of the party busy on the bridge.
The commons area is one deck directly below the bridge, and they are connected by an elevator shaft. Depending on the lift's position, and especially if the conversation is loud, it is possible to hear a talk in one room from the other - especially when the subject matter is the PCs that are not present (being on the bridge).
Honest, this was not just on-the-spot justification when one of the PCs on the bridge reacted (the player having forgotten that their PC was in another room). I had already shown the ship's map to all the players.
Then there was the campaign where the GM had us going through an urban maze, forgetting that my PC could (and did) simply jump onto the roofs and make a beeline for our objective (with the rest of the party racing to catch up). By the campaign's end my PC had a chocobo (local mounted animal) doing wall jumps.
If you use map tiles, what you can do is get some carboard sheets, glue them together, and use it to elevate some of the tiles to make it look higher than other tiles. This works great for balconies, lofts, catwalks, bridges, etc. Very budget-conscious too!
Party gets ambushed on the ground by some big stonkin' monsters that would crush the party in a ground melee, but which have no flight or ranged capability.
Response: "Dimension Door to maximum range straight up followed by Featherfall."
I mean, there's nothing new under the sun and all that, but yeah, Spike does seem to have some problems with originality. Where's that creative insight that gave us Princess Shmarity? ; p
I do like playing with 3d tools... Once did a map with Tabletop Simulator where I saved where the party members were and had the ground drop under their feet. ...Most of them could fly and they did have spells to fly, so I was not being too cruel...
I was part of a playtest of the then-know-as Ponies for Pathfinder, and was playing a pegasus (doppleganger) bard; early on, there's a set of archers setup on some stairs, giving them a beautiful way to shoot at players approaching. Hard to have a six pack of archers shooting bows at the party stop a party in their tracks when one or two can take to the air and be a distraction for at least an archer or two.
So, less DM using it interesting, more player doing so and DM adapting.
I did live through the attacks with barely a scratch, because there's some quilted cloth armor in Ultimate Equipment, that has DR 3/- vs small ranged piercing attacks (arrows/bolts/darts/shuriken/thrown daggers/etc.), so most of the bow shots didn't really do damage to the bard.
Guest Author's Note: "After a few sessions have established the general pattern of play, I like to remind my new players that the space they're playing in is in fact more than just the map that sits on the table in front of them. Never with a punishment, mind, but I think it's important to teach players that verticality does matter, especially for combat at higher levels. After all, most of the dragon in the title of the game can fly, and that can really make a brawl troublesome if you fail to account for it. Pinkie, always having her head in the clouds, was a step ahead of the game. (That said, I also try not to be too much of a stickler about height, because I know it's hard to process without visual aids, and well, I can't really afford 3-D terrain. D&D is expensive enough as is.)
Any stories about a DM utilizing a map's verticality interestingly, or failing to take it into account in a funny way?"