Friendship is Dragons
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Page 509 - Chaperone Duty
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Or running a fruit stand.
Splitting the party AND everything turning out ok? Sorry, that doesn't happen here.
I can tell you about the case where splitting the party singlehandedly destroyed the entire campaign we were playing, though.
I can tell you about the case where splitting the party singlehandedly destroyed the entire campaign we were playing, though.
As it turns out, the DM was a huuuuge fan of the legend of zelda. That means there were switches to trigger, blocks to push, and keys to collect. The rest of the party decided we could complete the dungeon fastest if we all split up. Four guys all taking different routes. A bard, a cleric, a fighter, and a ranger. None of them had ranged weapons, and nobody thought to bring a ten foot pole. I was the only one able to complete half the rooms. I was able to complete the timed puzzles by having my wolf companion wait for the chest to appear while I triggered the switch.
We were running all over the place with the lit torches I brought. It was, in fact, a rather challenging dungeon. Especially the boss, Who was a massive chained beast that was suspended by four pillars. After we brought it down, we had to kill it, and that was really, really hard.
Oddest thing, though. I have noticed a trend. Fighters, for the most part, spend all their cashmonies on weapons and armor, and never on useful tools... Seriously, half the fighters I run with don't even buy rations or food.
We might have had similar players. I remember running a dungeon where the party missed out on exploring a third of the rooms because no one thought to bring rope.
Raxon: That's because weapons and armor are freaking expensive in the game, and utterly vital to the Fighter's ability to contribute. At low levels, where the funds provided are generally just barely enough to cover a merely adequate suit of chain mail and a decent weapon, other folks are going to have to step up.
Funding the party's stash of functional tools should fall to the Monk, the Druid, the Rogue/Thief or the Wizard/sorcerer, usually in that order.
Funding the party's stash of functional tools should fall to the Monk, the Druid, the Rogue/Thief or the Wizard/sorcerer, usually in that order.
I had a hundred feet of rope, a climbing hook, twine, lead weights, oil, torches, cooking tools, flint, tinder, rations, ten square yards of sailcloth, one ladder, two ten foot poles, a bag of marbles, a hammer, a hand axe, several small sacks, three pounds of smooth river rocks, a magic lantern that you charged by feeding it spells, and a guide to local creatures. The lantern was a family heirloom.
There was probably more, but the point remains. Almost half of the stuff I had was scrounged at little to no cost to me. The marbles were made with the discolored cast offs from the glassmakers' shop. The fighter spent literally all his money and some of mine on a +2 greatsword.
Either that or you've blurred the lines between "tall tale" and "outright fantasy"
Storytime!
Campaign: Eclipse Phase, custom universe.
Characters: With few exceptions, a bunch of rich, white, and very bored assholes.
Mission: Break into office-fortress thing that was an asteroid onto itself with the intention of rescuing "the princess" and maybe even uncover evidence of illegal activity.
Events that conspired: So. We knew splitting the party was always a bad thing. In fact, right before we actually did it, we all told each other OoC that it was a terrible idea and that we should stick together and not split the party.
Why must we all be such immaculate role-players and insist on doing what our characters would have done???
Anyway. So we managed to stealth-land our strike team, and finally made it up to the main complex. At that point the party came to a disagreement. Some of us wanted to walk in the front and smoothtalk our way through the place (Group A). The others wanted to crack the cyber-security on the side door (Group B). Still others opted for a ventilation shaft (Group C)... So we split.
And shit hit the fan.
So Group A made it into the foyer and started talking with the guards. A series of mixed successes and failures pretty much meant a failure as the guards told us to go sit in the corner while they looked up the impersonation and fake IDs we gave them. Now, since Group A was dangerously under-equipped, especially compared to the guards, we pretty much followed instructions and sat down, sweating bullets. All of a sudden the guards' radios went crazy, they told us to sit tight, and they all ran out the door...
It turns out while we were talking, Group B attempted to hack the security on the door to the side to get inside... but they crit-failed which sent the security system into high alert: pretty much sending all the guards to the location where Group B was...
Which let Group A successfully sneak in (in the absence of guards) where they eventually pulled a fire-alarm,
which disabled the security features in the ventilation shafts as it switched over to "putting out fire" mode...
Which allowed Group C to get into the building where they were supposed to meet up with Group A...
before which Group A was accosted by guards again who were about to kill 'em since the gig was pretty much up...
and which due to a crit-success on Group A and crit-fail on Group C, they fell out the ventilation shaft and pretty much knocked out the guards (and suffered quite a fall)...
Suffice to say, all of our shenanigans while split helped us succeed... all unintentionally.
It was pretty much idiot's Ocean's Eleven, because none of it was intentional.
I might have taken a trait or two for some extra starting gold to get myself equipped.
Besides, the DM gets what he wants, and he's more lenient. You would be amazed at how generous a DM is when you bring homemade food to game night.
So what is a useful tool that a fighter/melee should bring? I ask because a friend of mine recently started up a game with us playing D&D 1st edition (albeit with some house rules to smooth things out) and I'm playing a barbarian and I kinda was worried about bringing enough utility items. Two weeks of rations, a couple of bags, torches, oil, and a tinderbox with flint all sound good, right? (Someone else got the rope.)
First Gen D&D doesn't have that. But we do have rope and iron spikes; I'll remember that trick for them. ;p
Among the best uses of it is to tie one end to a stone, and the other end to a rope. Throw the stone across the gap, and have someone or something on the other side pull the rope across and tie it off. Really freaking useful.
Splitting the part turning out OK? Hah, oh I have one that's recent from my Marvel Universe Mutants and Masterminds Campaign.
Ok, so the party had been split via a teleporter last session. The one who had gone and gotten himself teleported? Homnier, God of Single Combat and Thor's Uncle. See, last time they had been fighting a giant tree person and the main villain was hiding within, but I digress. Unfortunately Homnier happened to be one of the voices of reason in the party so while he, the God of Single Combat, ended up wrecking around one of AIM's Bases (running into minions, minor villains, robots and trap rooms which almost always ended up being useless against him) The rest of the party available was interrogating two villains.
This is the point where I should explain them. First is Doctor Richterstein, Cyborg/Armored suit user who's a scientist, tends to focus on logic and common sense.
Second is "Charity", a butler who used to serve a wealthy man who was "The Spartan" (basically Iron Man in Bruce Wayne's situation) but then his ward died in an accident (and before you ask, yes, an actual one. It's a point of grief). So why do I call him Charity? Because apparently in the Will the first Spartan decided to leave everything to Charity. He renamed himself Charity. The entire team knows this OOC. He's a good guy, but he tends to be a bit extreme, more comparable to a 90's heroes in actions.
And thirdly is... Mundus. Mundus is interesting as he's essentially a prequal character to a NPC we met in a previous campaign, here being basically the group's version of Doctor Strange, as well as a professor with Tenure. He tends to be the heart of the team and the voice of reason.
Now, as for the interrogation, it went fine... until the guys got the bright idea to leave Charity in the room with the female villain. We expected sexual harassment. When Mundus showed up after realizing the mistake Charity had almost broken the woman's arm.
But aside from that, it pretty much turned out ok. The most damage Homnier took was when the guys found him and Modok showed up with backup, and they all made it home safely and with an intern/villain to redeem.
Ok, so the party had been split via a teleporter last session. The one who had gone and gotten himself teleported? Homnier, God of Single Combat and Thor's Uncle. See, last time they had been fighting a giant tree person and the main villain was hiding within, but I digress. Unfortunately Homnier happened to be one of the voices of reason in the party so while he, the God of Single Combat, ended up wrecking around one of AIM's Bases (running into minions, minor villains, robots and trap rooms which almost always ended up being useless against him) The rest of the party available was interrogating two villains.
This is the point where I should explain them. First is Doctor Richterstein, Cyborg/Armored suit user who's a scientist, tends to focus on logic and common sense.
Second is "Charity", a butler who used to serve a wealthy man who was "The Spartan" (basically Iron Man in Bruce Wayne's situation) but then his ward died in an accident (and before you ask, yes, an actual one. It's a point of grief). So why do I call him Charity? Because apparently in the Will the first Spartan decided to leave everything to Charity. He renamed himself Charity. The entire team knows this OOC. He's a good guy, but he tends to be a bit extreme, more comparable to a 90's heroes in actions.
And thirdly is... Mundus. Mundus is interesting as he's essentially a prequal character to a NPC we met in a previous campaign, here being basically the group's version of Doctor Strange, as well as a professor with Tenure. He tends to be the heart of the team and the voice of reason.
Now, as for the interrogation, it went fine... until the guys got the bright idea to leave Charity in the room with the female villain. We expected sexual harassment. When Mundus showed up after realizing the mistake Charity had almost broken the woman's arm.
But aside from that, it pretty much turned out ok. The most damage Homnier took was when the guys found him and Modok showed up with backup, and they all made it home safely and with an intern/villain to redeem.
The party's leader, our looks-like-a-twelve-year-old drow girl cleric/diplomancer/healbot/prostitute (weird backstory stuff) doesn't like that idea. She's been generally traumatized by the deaths of her "friends" (the rest of the party) throughout the campaign; my character and herself are the only two left of the original formation.
So she decides to sneak out and to the tower in question, alone, hoping to use her skills and ridiculous charisma to infiltrate the place and bring back our objective without a fight.
Thankfully, my character, the tankiest tank to ever tank, managed to spot her thanks to his absurd perception. Being exceptionally loyal to her, his first instinct was to just say "Take us(me) with you."
So we just left the rest of the party to go do that.
Sadly, it didn't end as well as we'd hoped, thanks to an unfortunately high (nat 20 high, actually) sense motive roll from the head drow lady, and the fact that the note we left to the rest of the party only told them to leave us a week to do this before catching up. So just this weekend the party reunited in an all-out assault of the tower, leaving the diplomancer's player kinda miffed that his character's whole concept and specialization only managed to make two enemies defect.
It would have been cool to just social rogue our way into stealing the macguffin while bringing the whole thing down from the inside, but I honestly think that it was planned as a combat encounter from the start, and the DM couldn't manage such a complex change in such short time.
Oh well, at least no one got spectacularly maimed, so I'd call that a party split where things turned okay.
No, not really, or sort of, depending on how one views this. One adventure I was apart of (nothing too fancy or anything, some guys at a local game shop asked me to play until their friend got there). Normally something like that is dangerous, but I'm relatively sure a semi-crowded store is ok for talking to strangers (little off topic, but besides the point). I was essentially a hired blade, just earning my keep for some heroes who were sieging a castle.
The castle, surrounding land, and underground areas (caves, ruins, tunnels) were all pretty much a danger zone since it was heavy on demonic and supernatural presence (If I had known, I would have had quarrels with the group about splitting up).
To siege this castle, we all split up in groups as small as 1's or 2's, and from locations and directions that could take up to an hour or more to get to. Let it be told, I love catapults, and haphazardly being allowed to hurl stones at an enemy castle is kind of fun, but fun-er when improvised to send anything on fire, or alive that will survive the crash.
Within a "few hours" of the start, we started to get reports of a third party invading the castle, and fighting us. Rogue and ranger in a tunnel was fighting zombies, I was with a small platoon of other siege engineers figuring out (if flinging stuff while discussing at what to shoot at is a good way to do that), ad the rest of the party (split on different sides of the castle) were fighting a combination of ghosts, imps, and a demon who was currently having fun murdering things in the castle.
It was at this point there friend got there to join in, and I (only being allowed away from the house for so long anyway) left. Before I left though, the DM said I got my pay from the late member, and could leave the field to go back to my normal duties (which was a traveling fruit vendor, getting a lot of money selling to attackers in the middle of a siege). I'm not sure how I did, but I think the adventurers killed me after the battle (assuming they won or survived anyway, seemed like a real battle going on).
I split the party in the middle of a dungeon once. Kid was stuck on a magical slab that was draining her life force, and as a non-magical monk, there was nothing I could do to help.
So I traveled around the evil Necromancy school we were in. I was able to sneak through a class FULL of Would-Be-Necromancers by getting a nat 20 on my stealth, then another high roll on bluffing past the teachers.
Then I found a Lamashtu-like shrine place. My monk doodled all over it. Lamashtu sent a great feeling of doom all over me.
Then I found my way back to my party, the Paladin successfully used Bless on me well enough to essentially cause a war between the gods, and we walked away unharmed.
It was magnificient.
So I traveled around the evil Necromancy school we were in. I was able to sneak through a class FULL of Would-Be-Necromancers by getting a nat 20 on my stealth, then another high roll on bluffing past the teachers.
Then I found a Lamashtu-like shrine place. My monk doodled all over it. Lamashtu sent a great feeling of doom all over me.
Then I found my way back to my party, the Paladin successfully used Bless on me well enough to essentially cause a war between the gods, and we walked away unharmed.
It was magnificient.
Our Pokemon Tabletop United game eventually split into an early group and a late group, to prevent the GM from having to manage six characters at once. My group, the early group, headed off to Mt. Moon to retrieve a legendary sword. Meanwhile, the late group headed off to do some political investigation. They ended up in Lavender Town, which was now under the control of a bunch of their ghosts and their "king," actually a Froslass in a human disguise. They'd also turned the whole town into a Renaissance Fair. Later on, that group split up as well, with the most prominent one being the Musician, who had recently received a sheaf of weird songs with powerful mind-affecting effects. She then bumped into two other people who were similarly seeking the songs. They offered to trade knowledge, but to share the songs, they had to play them. She tried to focus when learning the other guy's song, but failed a bit and forgot something. Apparently it never came up though, so that was fine.
Also my group lost our NPC companion and a member of the party. But we got the sword.
Also my group lost our NPC companion and a member of the party. But we got the sword.
This was back with my first time playing in the game store. I ran a glaive wielding fighter and, at that time, I tend to stay quiet and try to avoid any kind of social attention or spotlight to the same degree a vampire would avoid the sunlight; My reaction to being caught was roughly the same.
Anyway, we were in the city when everyone decided to split up to do some shopping. Since I had little to no clue what I was doing, I just stood watch over the meeting point with our barbarian. After figuring out who bought what, the DM started scanning the table and immediately pointed to me and said "You! Something happens to you!" I nearly jumped out of my skin. To remind everyone, my past experiences with DMs at that point can be best summed up as "DM's favored enemy." So I sighed and prepared to watch my character die horribly.
Instead, my character got accosted by a rich noble merchant, who decided that I had somehow muddied his expensive cloak and that I must pay for it. I stared at him for a good second before I immediately called the noble an idiot in front of everyone watching. See, the city recently had a heavy downpour. So much so that it was rather muddy EVERYWHERE! The fact that we had to clean our boots before entering the city felt like a pointless gesture since they ended up getting muddy again after leaving the gate. So, if the noble wanted his rather expensive cloak to not get muddy, then he probably shouldn't have been wearing it in the first place! I will never forget the dumb founded look on my DM's face when I basically ranted this off to him. It was more or less my crowning achievement since I came up with that all on the spot and no one could believe it when I told them that.
Anyway, my speech was so good that the thief the noble merchant was distracting for was also dumb founded by my display of logic. So much so, in fact, that my barbarian friend managed to spot the thief in the process of trying to pick his pocket. After a sound beating, both were arrested and dragged off before the rest of the party came back together for the mayor's speech.
...And then the demons attacked, but this happened after we were together so this story still counts!
My parties have a strange tendency to split themselves, deliberately. This usually ends up working out just fine, since most of my D&D sessions are largely improv anyway.
About the only time I intentionally split the party was early into our main campaign. The heroes, of which there were only 3 at the time, one of whom left the group later on, were told to enter into a cave wherein rest the spirits of the past members of their organization. The cave is meant to act as a trial, focusing on bringing to light the character's flaws and strengths and challenging them to improve themselves (and in a more meta sense, it was a way for me to bring our other two characters to the fore for a bit, and flesh out their personalities and back stories, since they naturally fade to the back when my brother takes the lead, which is usually always.
Anyway, the main challenge for me was to balance time spent with each party, and I deliberately had only one combat during the entire trial, the rest was just dialogue until they reached the end and received their reward.
About the only time I intentionally split the party was early into our main campaign. The heroes, of which there were only 3 at the time, one of whom left the group later on, were told to enter into a cave wherein rest the spirits of the past members of their organization. The cave is meant to act as a trial, focusing on bringing to light the character's flaws and strengths and challenging them to improve themselves (and in a more meta sense, it was a way for me to bring our other two characters to the fore for a bit, and flesh out their personalities and back stories, since they naturally fade to the back when my brother takes the lead, which is usually always.
Anyway, the main challenge for me was to balance time spent with each party, and I deliberately had only one combat during the entire trial, the rest was just dialogue until they reached the end and received their reward.
We were in a big city, with heavy anti-violence laws, on the run from a world-spanning network of powerful wind Oni, a guild of assassins, some random druid or something who'd been following us around as a raven, and a crazy Viking lord who kept sending hordes of disposable, exploding minions after us.
Somehow, we decided that it was safe to split the party. Two of us got ambushed by one of the assassins, but she missed with her arrow of human slaying and then I pounced on her in my Eidolon form. It turned into a chase through the streets, where I was loudly proclaiming that I was going to kill her in the name of the Oni and the crazy Viking to confuse the guards.
I think the Oni ended up getting arrested? And then we hired one of the assassins to kill him while he was in prison. For the Viking, we ambushed his wedding party and murdered half his guests, then ambushed the funeral party and killed the other half and set everything on fire.
But it was okay, because he was *bad*.
(seriously, I only attacked the first time because we caught his guests raping the servants)
Somehow, we decided that it was safe to split the party. Two of us got ambushed by one of the assassins, but she missed with her arrow of human slaying and then I pounced on her in my Eidolon form. It turned into a chase through the streets, where I was loudly proclaiming that I was going to kill her in the name of the Oni and the crazy Viking to confuse the guards.
I think the Oni ended up getting arrested? And then we hired one of the assassins to kill him while he was in prison. For the Viking, we ambushed his wedding party and murdered half his guests, then ambushed the funeral party and killed the other half and set everything on fire.
But it was okay, because he was *bad*.
(seriously, I only attacked the first time because we caught his guests raping the servants)
Splitting the party is our normal modus-Operandi, we have the big obvious fighter type with the huge combat numbers and he goes chasing the plot full throttle, I'm usually the face and I'm usually trying to throw as many distracting monkeywrenches i can at things to keep the fighter alive, while our Gnome finds a safe place to hide and a monetary resource to exploit then builds tons of tech/magic stuff while remaining unimportant enough to be ignored by the plot untill he can completely crush it with !!SCIENCE!!.
In our DND campaign, my character Scratch, a heavily scarred Ranger with a Trickster demon stuck in his head (I based him on Deadpool) Split up with the group to go interrogate a she Jackal he had captured at a hotel. He ended up getting into a brawl with her where he kept throwing sleeping potion into his own face, and eventually he had to basically chloroform her with his own mask while trying to not pass out himself. While that was going on the others, (a Half demon and a DragonBorn) killed an elected official and unleashed a swarm of demonic bugs due to his death. The bugs caught fire and burnt the town down while they ran off, looking for me. We all met up afterwards and went on our way.
In our Star Wars Campaign, we infiltrated an Empire Base on the Wookie Home Planet, and were forced to split up since we decided to just land right in the middle of it. My character Tak, a trandoshan (lizard man) ended up buying a Wookie hunting license to keep up our appearance, since that's what his race does. Another member went weapon shopping and got us all some good deals on explosives and health items, while one of our members (In trooper armor) was taken to the medical bay since he didn't sound like a clone, (he claimed to have a cold)where they tried to make him take his armor off, but he kept refusing telling them his face was horrible swollen and he didn't want them to see it. Luckily two of our members set off a bomb after sneaking off the ship, unleashing a lot of angry Wookies that caused a big enough distraction for all of us to steal a Speeder and get out of there and into the forest without the Empire being any wiser.
My party once decided that two members would wander back to an elven forest to retrain their skills while leaving the rest of the party behind. Made sense to them, as it was one of the character's hometown. They figured that player could get some roleplaying in, and they could retrain.
The problem with this is my players turned what was a straight walk into something silly. I attempted to offer a hint of what I had in store for their trip home. Just a small blue glint in the skyline miles in the distance. They decided, in the infinite wisdom only adventurers possess, to walk miles off road, in the desert, to investigate what turned out to be a blue dragon.
Meanwhile the other players were bored, and still on high from saving a kingdom. So they decide to wander off in the opposite direction. Towards the country where they are wanted fugitives. To go visit an npc's hometown and let her father know she was still alive. This somehow resulted in a trip to the swamp. Where we discovered the barbarian could dish out enough dps to pretty much solo a hydra in a few turns. While a cleric healed it every turn for 100 hp.
Somehow none of them died. And the barbarian came home with a tale about slaying a lizardfolk god. I've tried to keep the party together by force ever since. It's just easier on me.
The problem with this is my players turned what was a straight walk into something silly. I attempted to offer a hint of what I had in store for their trip home. Just a small blue glint in the skyline miles in the distance. They decided, in the infinite wisdom only adventurers possess, to walk miles off road, in the desert, to investigate what turned out to be a blue dragon.
Meanwhile the other players were bored, and still on high from saving a kingdom. So they decide to wander off in the opposite direction. Towards the country where they are wanted fugitives. To go visit an npc's hometown and let her father know she was still alive. This somehow resulted in a trip to the swamp. Where we discovered the barbarian could dish out enough dps to pretty much solo a hydra in a few turns. While a cleric healed it every turn for 100 hp.
Somehow none of them died. And the barbarian came home with a tale about slaying a lizardfolk god. I've tried to keep the party together by force ever since. It's just easier on me.
In the Pony Tales campaign I run, the players were aboard the Radiant Dawn, a luxury airship that had been hijacked by vamponies. The ship itself was essentially three connected ships with luxury amenities and VIP quarters in the larger central area, and coach quarters on the port and starboard sides.
Upon seizing the ship, the Big Bad turned it into a hostage situation by shutting down the engines on the side 'ships' and setting up bombs at the connection points so that if she detonates them, everyone who's in those sections plummets to the ground.
In order to save everypony, the players split up and teamed up with Cog Wheel and Gear Shift, the ship's chief engineers, to restart both engines simultaneously, so that even if the big bad set off the bombs, the detached sections would be able to land safely.
(to be continued, because my job calls.)
Upon seizing the ship, the Big Bad turned it into a hostage situation by shutting down the engines on the side 'ships' and setting up bombs at the connection points so that if she detonates them, everyone who's in those sections plummets to the ground.
In order to save everypony, the players split up and teamed up with Cog Wheel and Gear Shift, the ship's chief engineers, to restart both engines simultaneously, so that even if the big bad set off the bombs, the detached sections would be able to land safely.
(to be continued, because my job calls.)
So, continuing where I left off, the two halves of the party split up and Group A made their way to the port-side ship. This team consisted of Glacier (a timid griffon with ice powers), Duri (his fruit bat companion), and Tesla Bolt (homeless unicorn filly with powerful lightning magic). Thanks to their small size, Bolt and Duri were able to sneak past the vampony patrols through the vents, but Glacier had to go outside and fly to a maintenance hatch. He ALMOST made it without incident, but had trouble with the hatch, and made enough noise to attract the attention of Shaggles, an evil version of Fluffle Puff who had previously given the entire group a hard time.
Glacier bought them some time by shutting the hatch and freezing it, but they still had to hurry to the engine room and take out the couple of mooks they found there. Unfortunately, when they inspect the engine, they find that not only was it shut down, but power crystals that provide it with the magical energy needed to run are infected with dark crystals that are leeching off of the magic in them.
Meanwhile, Group B, which consists of Horatio Fisticuffs III (rich earth pony who cons his peers by pretending to be a rugged, Indiana Jones style adventurer), Delta Requiem (pegasus bard with magic music), and Pantalones Enfuego (NPC unicorn; a 'charming gigolo' sort of character who had befriended the group), heads to the starboard side where they find one of the big bad's chief lieutenants, a unicorn illusionist and hypnotist named Mesmer Eyes, forcing some of the engineering crew to plant the dark crystals on the engine. A boss fight ensues where Mesmer brainwashes the engineers into protecting him while the heroes fight off his mooks. They take out the underlings and knock out the engineers, so when he's the last one left, Mesmer uses his ability to distort the senses to slip out of the room in order to alert the big bad and tell her to set off the bombs.
Delta and Pants immediately take off after him, which turns out not to be the best move because Gear, the chief engineer they brought with them, determines that the best option available to them for dislodging the dark crystals from the engine is to find an appropriate sonic frequency to disrupt the dark crystals while they still aren't fully formed. Horatio facehooves over the fact that their singer just ran off, but fortunately for them, despite being rather cowardly behind his carefully crafted self-image, he has the Element of Loyalty. In the version we're using, that means that he can spend a magic point to basically teleport instantly to a teammate who's in combat, which counts when Delta and Pants catch up to Mesmer.
Glacier bought them some time by shutting the hatch and freezing it, but they still had to hurry to the engine room and take out the couple of mooks they found there. Unfortunately, when they inspect the engine, they find that not only was it shut down, but power crystals that provide it with the magical energy needed to run are infected with dark crystals that are leeching off of the magic in them.
Meanwhile, Group B, which consists of Horatio Fisticuffs III (rich earth pony who cons his peers by pretending to be a rugged, Indiana Jones style adventurer), Delta Requiem (pegasus bard with magic music), and Pantalones Enfuego (NPC unicorn; a 'charming gigolo' sort of character who had befriended the group), heads to the starboard side where they find one of the big bad's chief lieutenants, a unicorn illusionist and hypnotist named Mesmer Eyes, forcing some of the engineering crew to plant the dark crystals on the engine. A boss fight ensues where Mesmer brainwashes the engineers into protecting him while the heroes fight off his mooks. They take out the underlings and knock out the engineers, so when he's the last one left, Mesmer uses his ability to distort the senses to slip out of the room in order to alert the big bad and tell her to set off the bombs.
Delta and Pants immediately take off after him, which turns out not to be the best move because Gear, the chief engineer they brought with them, determines that the best option available to them for dislodging the dark crystals from the engine is to find an appropriate sonic frequency to disrupt the dark crystals while they still aren't fully formed. Horatio facehooves over the fact that their singer just ran off, but fortunately for them, despite being rather cowardly behind his carefully crafted self-image, he has the Element of Loyalty. In the version we're using, that means that he can spend a magic point to basically teleport instantly to a teammate who's in combat, which counts when Delta and Pants catch up to Mesmer.
Now, Mesmer is a flunky boss who relies on support from his underlings, but he still has a few tricks that would have enabled him to slip past if Horatio hadn't suddenly shown up, and between the three of them focusing their attacks on him, Mesmer went down pretty quickly. After that, Horatio quite heroically dragged Mesmer to a hatch and bucked him out of it with a kick to the groin. This gave them the time they needed to get Delta back to the engine room, where she was able to sonicly dislodge the dark crystals.
Meanwhile, back on the other side, Group A was trying to figure out what to do. They don't have a bard with them and the crystals here are more mature and solid anyway, but Bolt is able to figure out that if they can be overloaded with energy, they can be 'burned' off. So I have her roll a Mechanics check to see if she can work out how to make it work with her electricity magic.
Natural 20. On her Cutie Mark skill.
Bolt has a flash of divine inspiration. The inner workings of the engine in front of her unfold in her mind in ways she's never experienced before. Running on pure instinct, she jury-rigs a setup attached to her horn, and pours her magic into the machine. The drained power crystals light up, filled with more juice than the dark crystals can drain, burning the dark crystals out in the process and getting the engine going again. And, of course, Tesla Bolt earns her cutie mark in the process without even realizing it until Cog points it out to her.
Meanwhile, back on the other side, Group A was trying to figure out what to do. They don't have a bard with them and the crystals here are more mature and solid anyway, but Bolt is able to figure out that if they can be overloaded with energy, they can be 'burned' off. So I have her roll a Mechanics check to see if she can work out how to make it work with her electricity magic.
Natural 20. On her Cutie Mark skill.
Bolt has a flash of divine inspiration. The inner workings of the engine in front of her unfold in her mind in ways she's never experienced before. Running on pure instinct, she jury-rigs a setup attached to her horn, and pours her magic into the machine. The drained power crystals light up, filled with more juice than the dark crystals can drain, burning the dark crystals out in the process and getting the engine going again. And, of course, Tesla Bolt earns her cutie mark in the process without even realizing it until Cog points it out to her.
Unfortunately, not only does Shaggles choose this time to catch up to them, but the big bad feels the ship move when the engines get running again, so the bombs immediately detonate before the teams on either side can get the levitation spells fully operational again. Both of the side ships start to plummet. Not free-falling, but still descending fast enough that it will cause a lot of harm to anyone still on board if they don't get the levitation working soon. So while Cog and Gear are at the auxiliary controls to get that working, Bolt and Glacier get ready for their own boss fight.
Or it would be, except Bolt, sick of Shaggles constantly blowing raspberries at them, takes a deep breath, sticks out her tongue, and lets out the biggest "PHBBBBBBBBT!" she can. Finding this hilarious, I have her do a Persuasion check. As it turns out, she rolls high enough off of this that, completely by accident, she managed to make an extremely persuasive argument against fighting each other under the circumstances. Thanks to this unintentional diplomacy, Shaggles actually backs off until Cog gets the ship stabilized. She then pats Bolt on the head, gives the group a 'next time we meet, we'll be enemies' sort of look, and vanishes.
So in the end, the heroes managed to save all of the passengers, landed safely, and back on the main ship, Princess Celestia went on a solar-powered rampage against the vamponies once the big bad no longer had the safety of the other two ships to bargain with. In Xanatos-like fashion, the vamponies did still manage to benefit even from their defeat, and the big bad was given reason to take a personal interest in the heroes, but the party still managed to avert the worst-case scenario in grand fashion.
Or it would be, except Bolt, sick of Shaggles constantly blowing raspberries at them, takes a deep breath, sticks out her tongue, and lets out the biggest "PHBBBBBBBBT!" she can. Finding this hilarious, I have her do a Persuasion check. As it turns out, she rolls high enough off of this that, completely by accident, she managed to make an extremely persuasive argument against fighting each other under the circumstances. Thanks to this unintentional diplomacy, Shaggles actually backs off until Cog gets the ship stabilized. She then pats Bolt on the head, gives the group a 'next time we meet, we'll be enemies' sort of look, and vanishes.
So in the end, the heroes managed to save all of the passengers, landed safely, and back on the main ship, Princess Celestia went on a solar-powered rampage against the vamponies once the big bad no longer had the safety of the other two ships to bargain with. In Xanatos-like fashion, the vamponies did still manage to benefit even from their defeat, and the big bad was given reason to take a personal interest in the heroes, but the party still managed to avert the worst-case scenario in grand fashion.
The one campaign I played, we were split a lot and it all went fine. Half of that was because we had an inexperienced GM who didn't know how to keep enough stuff happening for 6 players, and the other half was because 6 players is a lot.
After the party met the first time, our splits were usually either "people running toward the explosion" vs "people escorting the assassination target to safety" OR "people to do diplomacy" vs "people who shouldn't be allowed to do diplomacy with a 10-foot pole".
After the party met the first time, our splits were usually either "people running toward the explosion" vs "people escorting the assassination target to safety" OR "people to do diplomacy" vs "people who shouldn't be allowed to do diplomacy with a 10-foot pole".
Said character is an Inquisitor with a holy mandate to kill all Fey creatures. We began the session with him doing Inquisitor stuff with a group of dead gnomes while the rest of the party kept exploring the abbey. We came across not one, but TWO groups of fey creatures while walking around without the Inquisitor and both were Good, unlike every other Fey we'd encountered prior. We managed to parlay with both groups and get lots of useful info and thanks be to Nethys for not having the Inquisitor around to ruin everything.
Though if he had been around and we'd slaughtered the second group, we could've gotten some rad Bane: Human bows.
You're actually wrong, Spud. I've been in plenty of groups where splitting up but still "Generally in town" still led to a party disaster. :D
The Great and Powerful Trixie, stuck on the human world of Earth, arrived with the SHIELD auxiliary 'Team T' in Tokyo. The team spent the past 36 hours traveling here, so they decided to take this day off to cure their jet-lag. The agreement was not to split up too far. Everyone stays within a single town block and just chill.
Paul (an alien in ways that makes Immigration Services squirm) took Trixie to a cybercafe where he joined a chatroom dating service there. Trixie sat bored in the corner watching people use these funny 'Computers' and gawk back at her. Next door was Jimmy at a fast food joint getting something to eat. Mason was outside beat-boxing for money and Harmony (actually River Song in disguise) was across the street shopping for new clothes.
A street gang started harassing Mason and because of a language barrier Mason couldn't understand that they were trying to roll him for money. Mason finds commonality in the language of violence and gets into a fight with them. Harmony sees this fight and tries to call everyone to help.
The street fight causes a semi to swerve and crash into the clothing storefront Harmony was in. Now she has to go out the back, but because of the crash, a fire is started so Harmony has to go out the back much faster than she'd like. Jimmy gets up and draws his concealed handguns to help Mason.
Note I said the plural form of gun.
Before he leaves the store, a cop jumps up and tries to gun Mason down, thinking he's a terrorist responsible for the semi crash. Or at least that was what Jimmy assumed since he doesn't speak Japanese either. They enter a gun fight with each other. Meanwhile Mason is running away from the gang who outnumber him four-to-one.
Paul decides to implement his usual 'Plan A', which is to cowardly sneak out the back way. He drags Trixie along, but the unicorn protests because the other teammates are in trouble. Paul insists he knows a better way, but gets lost trying to find a route the long way around to Mason. Trixie gets fed up with the alien and kick him in the head, knocking Paul into traffic where he's hit by a car. Trixie attempts to find her way back to the fights, but only succeeds in getting even more lost.
The party is split up, unable to help each other, and become the cause of a several news stories. Paul and Mason end up in the hospital ICU, Jimmy is in prison, River is filing a long-winded report with the fire department on the cause of the fire, and Trixie was the subject of an all day SHIELD 'manhunt' to recover her.
Nick Fury no longer allowed us to split up any farther than 10 feet from each other for the remainder of our Tokyo stay.
The Great and Powerful Trixie, stuck on the human world of Earth, arrived with the SHIELD auxiliary 'Team T' in Tokyo. The team spent the past 36 hours traveling here, so they decided to take this day off to cure their jet-lag. The agreement was not to split up too far. Everyone stays within a single town block and just chill.
Paul (an alien in ways that makes Immigration Services squirm) took Trixie to a cybercafe where he joined a chatroom dating service there. Trixie sat bored in the corner watching people use these funny 'Computers' and gawk back at her. Next door was Jimmy at a fast food joint getting something to eat. Mason was outside beat-boxing for money and Harmony (actually River Song in disguise) was across the street shopping for new clothes.
A street gang started harassing Mason and because of a language barrier Mason couldn't understand that they were trying to roll him for money. Mason finds commonality in the language of violence and gets into a fight with them. Harmony sees this fight and tries to call everyone to help.
The street fight causes a semi to swerve and crash into the clothing storefront Harmony was in. Now she has to go out the back, but because of the crash, a fire is started so Harmony has to go out the back much faster than she'd like. Jimmy gets up and draws his concealed handguns to help Mason.
Note I said the plural form of gun.
Before he leaves the store, a cop jumps up and tries to gun Mason down, thinking he's a terrorist responsible for the semi crash. Or at least that was what Jimmy assumed since he doesn't speak Japanese either. They enter a gun fight with each other. Meanwhile Mason is running away from the gang who outnumber him four-to-one.
Paul decides to implement his usual 'Plan A', which is to cowardly sneak out the back way. He drags Trixie along, but the unicorn protests because the other teammates are in trouble. Paul insists he knows a better way, but gets lost trying to find a route the long way around to Mason. Trixie gets fed up with the alien and kick him in the head, knocking Paul into traffic where he's hit by a car. Trixie attempts to find her way back to the fights, but only succeeds in getting even more lost.
The party is split up, unable to help each other, and become the cause of a several news stories. Paul and Mason end up in the hospital ICU, Jimmy is in prison, River is filing a long-winded report with the fire department on the cause of the fire, and Trixie was the subject of an all day SHIELD 'manhunt' to recover her.
Nick Fury no longer allowed us to split up any farther than 10 feet from each other for the remainder of our Tokyo stay.
...Just what kind of game were you playing that involved Shield (Nick Fury included), River Song, and the Great and Powerful Trixie?
"Oh, why thank you! I must admit, these reavers are getting out of hand. Do you mind if I bring the TARDIS aboard?"
"Not at all. Whatever's going on, it needs to be dealt with."
I have no idea what the Starship Defiant is... but the rest sounds awesome.
This is what the federation builds when it decides to actually do something to prepare for war.
It is captained by Benjamin motherfucking Sisko, the single most badass captain in Starfleet history. A man who led an insurrection against invaders, and created an underground resistance movement. A man who punched Q in the face. Q never appeared on Sisko's station again.
"The USS Ben Sisko's Motherfucking Pimp Hand was the first Federation ship that was designed from the keel plate to be a true warship. It had its teething problems, but typical Feddie engineering mastery ironed them out. After that, it was pretty much unstoppable. It was faster than anything in space (except a Borg cube) had enough firepower to gut whole battlegroups, had monstrous shields, heavy armor, the standard ungodly Federation sensor package and a stealth system.
It took getting jumped during a mid battle rescue attempt and gangbanged by four of the nastiest alien battleships ever built to destroy it, and it still killed one and damaged the others.
The Feddies may be moronic, overly idealistic space hippies, but once the flower children get shut the fuck up (thank you, Section 31) the humans show they still know how to rock and roll."
Humanity: Fuck Yeah.
Pardon my french.
One by a very eccentric GM. :)
It was one of my favorite campaigns primarily because I got to play a unicorn that was the largest ham on the planet.
It was one of my favorite campaigns primarily because I got to play a unicorn that was the largest ham on the planet.
It would be even more awesome if this "Paul" is actually Paul Maud-Dib.
That might have been pretty awesome, but we only got Paul from the movie of the same name.
My ribs hurt just imagining the antics your party must have gotten into, extrapolated from these stories.
Unfortunately, he cast command on my barbarian, and told him to leave. I proceeded to run away for several miles before the spell wore of (Damn focus in move speed).
The succubus seduced our fighter, sending her to his room.
Our rogue, now clearly outmatched, ran for it.
Now, how did this turn out? Well, cue to the next day, where my barbarian bursts back into the city, our sorcerer breaks out of jail, and our rogue convinces the succubus to reveal where the actual owner is as payment for a night with our fighter. (Yes, our rogue out diplomacized an incubus). We converged on the real owner and beat. Him. Down.
And that's how our party split into 5 groups with four players.
Splitting the party? my last pathfinder game the GM enforced it, while we were in a zombie-besieged city. Oh. And our Ranger is a psychotic human-hater. So, the Paladin and the Fighter did research. The Rogue and the Sorc went shopping. And the Barbarian sat on the Ranger.
Second panel.
When Applejack says "stall", initially I thought she meant it in the "horse" sense with hay and all.
Only upon re-reading did I figure out it was "place to sell stuff".
When Applejack says "stall", initially I thought she meant it in the "horse" sense with hay and all.
Only upon re-reading did I figure out it was "place to sell stuff".
Our party wasn't that close to begin with. Even worse, I accidently one of party members into a hospital in our last battle, so there's -1 (he decided to make another character, but didn't came up with concept for some time). The rest decided to ride a spaceship and gather a crew of NPCs... but my character (a fox mage) couldn't join them because of her alergy to dogs (one of the crew was a weredog). So she followed their trail and while everyone entered the ship legally, she was forced to sneak abord.
Even counting her encounter with alien fishman (that for some reason find foxes tasty to eat), everything else was for the best. My fox was cured from her dog alergy by ship's medic and was able to demonstrate her unique skills to the captain (another PC) and negotiate him hiring her on much better terms. So at least for her so the splitting up was a complete success.
Even counting her encounter with alien fishman (that for some reason find foxes tasty to eat), everything else was for the best. My fox was cured from her dog alergy by ship's medic and was able to demonstrate her unique skills to the captain (another PC) and negotiate him hiring her on much better terms. So at least for her so the splitting up was a complete success.
She couldn't ride the same bus with a weredog, but the spaceship is huge: she just avoided the smell of a dog until she got a cure.
My fun loving sorcerer with an int of 2, was known in the party by the nickname he had been given by his village. Bloody stupid Johnson. apparently, I had managed to set the far realm on fire. And I accidentally flooded it. At the same time. To say nothing of what I sorta kinda did to the local bug people.
No character of mine is ever allowed to travel to the far realm without supervision again.
This is going to get really interesting now.
Mean while on the other side of town... I think.
Mind you, we spent the bulk of our time in town, seeing as how we were trying to rig a flower contest. Before we knew about the contest, though, on our first foray into the town of Wheatstone...
Shortly after entering town, we found a hospital, and having run afoul of an enraged mother bear, two of our number rather needed medical attention, so they went in. One was bandaged up without too much effort and left shortly, but the robot was sufficiently messed up that he got pumped full of a cocktail of drugs that left him dreaming kaleidoscopic dreams. That left two of us outside - the social rogue, who was interested in doing our actual job of scouting the place, and my character, who, as the most directly fiend-ish of us, feared the cross on the hospital. He was very fascinated once he spotted Unicorn magic in action, though, being a bit of a magic fanboy, and started staring at civilians, attempting to study local forms of magic while the rogue continued onward. He got moving again once the bandaged psychic emerged, leaving our brobot dreaming contentedly.
Meanwhile, the rogue - who'd already gotten herself mistaken for a foreign dignitary and pushed up the schedule for an event involving an entity called "Celestia" - got herself a room in an inn by flirting with the proprietor, awkwardly rebuffed his advances, and discouraged further ones by posing as her own husband and chewing the guy out. At this point, the psychic and I were advancing separately through town, maintaining telepathic contact, and he coordinated the three of us to convene and briefly plan. As ponies seemed to he gathering for something, I was to assume the rogue's form and participate alongside the mayor in hopes of winning us prestige... When I flubbed that, the rogue jumped out the window to rejoin us, yelling at the 'impostor' while communicating that I should run, which I did, avoiding a small army of guards and wriggling free of a successful tackle by one who was quicker on his hooves.
And that's when Celestia showed up. Miraculously, the rogue bluffed her, and the robot woke up to rejoin the party sans-me, followed by the psychic verbally abusing a guard into a fetal curl so they could escape protective custody during the changeling alert. I joined up in a new form via teleportation and sneaking, and we walked out.
I guess that since we were usually in two groups of one and one group of two, it's not a full split, but from sighting the hospital to leaving Wheatstone, the four of us were never all in close proximity or operating as a unit at once.
Ophilia of House Excelsus, as a specialist in speed & stealth, also tended to range separately from her more heavily armored comrades. It usually worked out okay, despite accidentally sneaking onto a crane that lifted me onto our assassination target's barge, running into a Tau stealth drone in a rival mercenary's tent, and being the first of us to end up face-to-face with a Thallax combat automa. ...that doesn't sound very okay, but it all worked out in the end, thanks to a lucky Concealment roll and Ophilia's absurd Dodge rating.
-Edit- oh, you're still posting.
Well, this isn't much of a split, but I once got split from the rest of my party. We were playing this made up game some of my friends created called Steampunk Vikings, which is as self-explanatory as it sounds.
I was a Viking Berserker, and got surrounded by wolves while my party was elsewhere. They had bitten off my legs and I was immobile and fighting them all off. My rage had built so much they had eventually stopped being able to damage me due to the damage reduction bonus I was getting, and I was one shotting them all from my sitting position. Though there were a lot of them I had to hack through.
Afterwards, when the rest of the party found me sitting in a pool of blood with no legs, surrounded by wolf corpses, I had our healer graft two wolf corpses onto my stumps to be my new legs, Megazord style.
It's a good thing the battle hadn't gone on much longer, because if I built up too much rage, my character would cease to be my character, and would transform into a giant rage dragon that would be hell bent on killing the rest of my party.
I was a Viking Berserker, and got surrounded by wolves while my party was elsewhere. They had bitten off my legs and I was immobile and fighting them all off. My rage had built so much they had eventually stopped being able to damage me due to the damage reduction bonus I was getting, and I was one shotting them all from my sitting position. Though there were a lot of them I had to hack through.
Afterwards, when the rest of the party found me sitting in a pool of blood with no legs, surrounded by wolf corpses, I had our healer graft two wolf corpses onto my stumps to be my new legs, Megazord style.
It's a good thing the battle hadn't gone on much longer, because if I built up too much rage, my character would cease to be my character, and would transform into a giant rage dragon that would be hell bent on killing the rest of my party.
A time where dividing the team actually worked... The closest would be the mage came I was in. Half of the party split up to search a movie studio while the other half (mine) went to search where they stored the equipment. Somehow the villain had made soul stealing videos that would either steal part or steal all of a person soul.
The first group managed to find out how he was making the videos and how he was going to air them. My group managed to destroy most of the equipment he had (but mine stole one of the cameras to reproduce the video). Then the group split up again.
Team 1 from the studio had to stall a group of civilans while team 2 managed to find where the mage was and started fighting him.
Team 3 managed to find where the lab was to recreate the soul stone operation and team 4 went to disrupt the radio dish to prevent the videos from going on air.
It ended with team 2 bringing the civilans to the enemy mage as team 1 hid. Enemy mage casted spell and paradox killed him. Team 4 managed to destroy the dish without being caught by the cops as team 3 managed to take everything of worth and my character was able to reproduce the experiment as we found the connection between the evil mage and mage counsel that currently was in charge.
All in all we stopped the villain. Destroyed the project... and my character remade the soul stealing operation, but under his control.
The setting for that mage game started taking an interesting turn as my character became the token evil character. When ever a wisdom/moral check would need to be made. They all picked me since I gave an excuse for why I made a soul stealing operation for the greater good an passed all of the moral checks.
The first group managed to find out how he was making the videos and how he was going to air them. My group managed to destroy most of the equipment he had (but mine stole one of the cameras to reproduce the video). Then the group split up again.
Team 1 from the studio had to stall a group of civilans while team 2 managed to find where the mage was and started fighting him.
Team 3 managed to find where the lab was to recreate the soul stone operation and team 4 went to disrupt the radio dish to prevent the videos from going on air.
It ended with team 2 bringing the civilans to the enemy mage as team 1 hid. Enemy mage casted spell and paradox killed him. Team 4 managed to destroy the dish without being caught by the cops as team 3 managed to take everything of worth and my character was able to reproduce the experiment as we found the connection between the evil mage and mage counsel that currently was in charge.
All in all we stopped the villain. Destroyed the project... and my character remade the soul stealing operation, but under his control.
The setting for that mage game started taking an interesting turn as my character became the token evil character. When ever a wisdom/moral check would need to be made. They all picked me since I gave an excuse for why I made a soul stealing operation for the greater good an passed all of the moral checks.
This was a few years ago. We were around level 18-19. I was playing a Mystic Theurge, fanatical of Mystra. We split the group. Me and the Cleric of Tymora went off to take down a Church of Shar that was in town, me on a mission from my goddess. The temple was guarded by an item that gave off a weakened anti-magic zone, reducing everyones caster level by 10. I had a feat that allowed me, with a spellcraft check per spell, ignore anti-magic and dead magic zones. I spent so many feats and items getting my spellcraft high enough to make it impossible to fail the check...So here I come strolling into the church, at full power, taking on an army of shar clerics who, normally would of been powerful, but the item effected them too...Now they were mostly around level 2-3 caster level. SO much AoE later, the Temple of Shar is nuked by a tweaked out mystic theurge, with the cleric just healing me when needed. I was happy, Mystra was happy...Till I found out the other party members were out taking care of another Shar temple...our Psion decided it was a good idea to use up most of her money to buy a Gondian Dead Magic bomb...Creating a permanent Dead Magic zone in the area of the temple.
...The fanatical follower of Mystra was not pleased. And this wasn't the last time the Psion angered my character. Glad the DM strongly refused to allow PVP to occur. xD
...The fanatical follower of Mystra was not pleased. And this wasn't the last time the Psion angered my character. Glad the DM strongly refused to allow PVP to occur. xD
My FFG 40k group is constantly splitting the part, not least because we're constantly facing multiple simultaneous objectives that the adventure designers expect us to have to make choices about. It's become something of a tradition for us either to use one objective to accomplish others, or to split the party in such a way that we can manage to pull out successes where the designers intended us to have to sacrifice something to accomplish something else.
Aside from that, there's always the tactical split. Setting up a sniper hide on a ridge while our stealth infiltrator goes in on a flank and our main bruiser attacks from the front probably counts as splitting the party, given that each party member has his own tactical encounters as part of the wider battle, but between our comms (never leave home without them) and our mobility we can usually regroup before it's too late.
Aside from that, there's always the tactical split. Setting up a sniper hide on a ridge while our stealth infiltrator goes in on a flank and our main bruiser attacks from the front probably counts as splitting the party, given that each party member has his own tactical encounters as part of the wider battle, but between our comms (never leave home without them) and our mobility we can usually regroup before it's too late.
My favorite campaign of all time, we got brainwashed around level 15 by an epic-level spell encased in an enormous, highly magical diamond that everyone saw and picked up immediately because "OOH SHINY!" It detonated while we were leaving the dungeon, so even the smart ones who didn't touch it (aka me) got caught in its effects.
We came to three weeks later wearing new uniforms and armor, no idea where our stuff went, and through increasing interactions with the other in similar getup we discover that everyone else is still brainwashed and knows what the hell is going on. Which is when we find out that our party took part in taking this town by force, killing hundreds and enslaving hundreds more. Our hexblade got angry enough over it that he attacked everyone in our uniforms that he could find. Not because of the brainwashing mind you, but because the effects of the brainwashing made him forget said killing of hundreds. He got arrested, we found our gear, and then decided to split the party.
The hexblade broke out of prison, taking every captive with him who was able to resist the brainwashing, and took off into the woods to warn the next city this cult/army was headed to. The rest of us stayed behind and played saboteur: ruining food, dropping rust powder on weapons, controlling the weather to make loading up the wagons absolutely miserable, breaking wagon axles on the road, etc.
The end result was that we bought him an extra two days to prepare the town, which he did in style. We finally arrived with the army to find him standing cheerfully on the walls, with a hundred cannons aimed our way, and doing pelvic thrusts in rhythm to the cannon shots. We took out leaders and caused general magic-based chaos from behind while the front lines exploded one by one - both to cannons and to mines laid in the ground. In literally five rounds, the army ceased to exist and everyone was dead, with no one even close to reaching the city walls. We didn't have any good-aligned characters, so the general consensus was "They wanna kill us, then brainwashed or not they die first."
We came to three weeks later wearing new uniforms and armor, no idea where our stuff went, and through increasing interactions with the other in similar getup we discover that everyone else is still brainwashed and knows what the hell is going on. Which is when we find out that our party took part in taking this town by force, killing hundreds and enslaving hundreds more. Our hexblade got angry enough over it that he attacked everyone in our uniforms that he could find. Not because of the brainwashing mind you, but because the effects of the brainwashing made him forget said killing of hundreds. He got arrested, we found our gear, and then decided to split the party.
The hexblade broke out of prison, taking every captive with him who was able to resist the brainwashing, and took off into the woods to warn the next city this cult/army was headed to. The rest of us stayed behind and played saboteur: ruining food, dropping rust powder on weapons, controlling the weather to make loading up the wagons absolutely miserable, breaking wagon axles on the road, etc.
The end result was that we bought him an extra two days to prepare the town, which he did in style. We finally arrived with the army to find him standing cheerfully on the walls, with a hundred cannons aimed our way, and doing pelvic thrusts in rhythm to the cannon shots. We took out leaders and caused general magic-based chaos from behind while the front lines exploded one by one - both to cannons and to mines laid in the ground. In literally five rounds, the army ceased to exist and everyone was dead, with no one even close to reaching the city walls. We didn't have any good-aligned characters, so the general consensus was "They wanna kill us, then brainwashed or not they die first."
It didn't exactly end well (or, to be more precise, hasn't actually ended yet, but there's no way it's going to end well), but my boyfriend and I are playing a 5th ed game with a new group of guys that we've only recently met. My boyfriend is the DM, I'm playing a CN half orc barbarian, and the rest of the party is a LN dwarven cleric of Moridin (who has a massive alcohol problem even by dwarven standards), a N way of the shadows black dragonborn monk, and a N half red dragon warlock of Vecna.
As we were traveling along a trade route, we came across a caravan that had been beset by hobgoblins. The three merchants were tied up in the middle of camp. We quickly dispatched the hobgoblins, but our warlock accidentally missed one of his scorching rays, which killed one of the three merchants and singed another. We then set about untying the merchants, and I tried to help them get their wagon back in order while our cleric used create food and drink. While this was going on, I found a barrel of ale in their wares, which our party immediately tried to claim as "compensation." I tried to help the problem by giving the two remaining merchants a chest full of copper and some silver pieces that we'd found in a loot horde in the last session as payment, which they accepted. The cleric asked if he could roll an INT check to see if he could determine the quality of the ale. He rolled all right, and my boyfriend informed him that he thought it was of halfling origin. That's when things went completely to hell.
The first thing the cleric did upon learning the ale's origin was fire a sacred flame at the more singed of the two merchants. I was outraged, and my boyfriend was just shocked. I tried to roll to stop him, but I failed. The flame stopped just short of the merchant's face because Moridin was obviously not too happy with that course of action, but the cleric just picked up his axe and went to town, killing the merchant. My character began yelling at him, the magical hammer of Moridin that he was carrying renounced him, and he was informed that he'd just made a VIOLENT alignment shift to CE, but he was still in a blind fury about being "sold" halfling ale. So my barbarian just threw up her hands, said to hell with you guys, and walked.
We haven't had another session since then, and we're thinking about trying to find another group since we'd already been feeling like the two of us didn't really mesh with their friend group. The other three party members now want to try and track down a hobgoblin warlord, with the cleric having rejected the offers of some evil gods to be his patron (he threw his axe at the messengers), having had all his current abilities stripped from him due to Moridin renouncing him, and a STR of 10.
On the other hand, this did allow my (severely low on HP) character to solo a Bulette (giving me almost 3000 exp at the end of the session compared to their 450), which was pretty badass, so I guess it turned out all right for me.
As we were traveling along a trade route, we came across a caravan that had been beset by hobgoblins. The three merchants were tied up in the middle of camp. We quickly dispatched the hobgoblins, but our warlock accidentally missed one of his scorching rays, which killed one of the three merchants and singed another. We then set about untying the merchants, and I tried to help them get their wagon back in order while our cleric used create food and drink. While this was going on, I found a barrel of ale in their wares, which our party immediately tried to claim as "compensation." I tried to help the problem by giving the two remaining merchants a chest full of copper and some silver pieces that we'd found in a loot horde in the last session as payment, which they accepted. The cleric asked if he could roll an INT check to see if he could determine the quality of the ale. He rolled all right, and my boyfriend informed him that he thought it was of halfling origin. That's when things went completely to hell.
The first thing the cleric did upon learning the ale's origin was fire a sacred flame at the more singed of the two merchants. I was outraged, and my boyfriend was just shocked. I tried to roll to stop him, but I failed. The flame stopped just short of the merchant's face because Moridin was obviously not too happy with that course of action, but the cleric just picked up his axe and went to town, killing the merchant. My character began yelling at him, the magical hammer of Moridin that he was carrying renounced him, and he was informed that he'd just made a VIOLENT alignment shift to CE, but he was still in a blind fury about being "sold" halfling ale. So my barbarian just threw up her hands, said to hell with you guys, and walked.
We haven't had another session since then, and we're thinking about trying to find another group since we'd already been feeling like the two of us didn't really mesh with their friend group. The other three party members now want to try and track down a hobgoblin warlord, with the cleric having rejected the offers of some evil gods to be his patron (he threw his axe at the messengers), having had all his current abilities stripped from him due to Moridin renouncing him, and a STR of 10.
On the other hand, this did allow my (severely low on HP) character to solo a Bulette (giving me almost 3000 exp at the end of the session compared to their 450), which was pretty badass, so I guess it turned out all right for me.
For my party, being in town is no guarantee that it's okay to split the party. This is probably because 'hostile territory' is not a geographical location to them; it's a state of being. (Amazing how many enemies you can make when you insist on fighting everyone and stealing everything.)
Not that this stops them from going their separate ways...
Not that this stops them from going their separate ways...
"Tomb of Horrors cannot be THAT bad. Lets split up in these tunnels. What can go wrong?"
I think you can all imagine what happened next, with the DM laughing like a lunatic.
I think you can all imagine what happened next, with the DM laughing like a lunatic.
You only need to bring the hammer down if you're a shit-tier GM that can't multi-task for dick.
Our party is a rather diverse bunch. We all come from different dimensions, so the GM allows for just about any origin we cared for, and any race, so long as they could be balanced with the rest of the party.
The party at the time;
A dhampir thief pacifist
An anthro hound world war 1 fighter pilot
A drow sharpshooter
A human soldier from a WW2 where the Nazis had blood mages (in fact, a Nazi Blood Mage from his world is our biggest recurring villain)
A cyborg who dreams of making herself fully a robot some day
An Averial (winged elf) cleric
An anthro snow leopard bars
And a kitsune mage
Our quest involved acquiring an artifact from the tomb of an ancient king. The tomb is completely inaccessible by day. By night, it opens, but is surrounded by unkillable wraiths by night. But, once a month, on the full moon, the wraiths head out on the Wild Hunt, leaving things open. Now, there are legends that they'll let mortals join their hunt, and if you are badass enough to impress them, they'll let you come and go as you please.
Problem. Their hunt is an all night killing speed of just about anyone caught out doors on these nights. The thief and the drow view this as, well, evil. So they want to skip that, and try to sneak past. The hound, OTOH, views even the suggestion of stealth as an insult to her honor. So big in character argument over which path we should take.
So finally, unable to agree, we split the party. The hound led one team, the soldier, the cleric, and the cyborg, who all had little to no stealth skill anyway, and went to ride with the Wraiths. The thief led the drow, the bard and the mage, who all had moderate to good stealth skills, snuck past them and some lesser undead that stayed behind.
Both teams actually survived.
The party at the time;
A dhampir thief pacifist
An anthro hound world war 1 fighter pilot
A drow sharpshooter
A human soldier from a WW2 where the Nazis had blood mages (in fact, a Nazi Blood Mage from his world is our biggest recurring villain)
A cyborg who dreams of making herself fully a robot some day
An Averial (winged elf) cleric
An anthro snow leopard bars
And a kitsune mage
Our quest involved acquiring an artifact from the tomb of an ancient king. The tomb is completely inaccessible by day. By night, it opens, but is surrounded by unkillable wraiths by night. But, once a month, on the full moon, the wraiths head out on the Wild Hunt, leaving things open. Now, there are legends that they'll let mortals join their hunt, and if you are badass enough to impress them, they'll let you come and go as you please.
Problem. Their hunt is an all night killing speed of just about anyone caught out doors on these nights. The thief and the drow view this as, well, evil. So they want to skip that, and try to sneak past. The hound, OTOH, views even the suggestion of stealth as an insult to her honor. So big in character argument over which path we should take.
So finally, unable to agree, we split the party. The hound led one team, the soldier, the cleric, and the cyborg, who all had little to no stealth skill anyway, and went to ride with the Wraiths. The thief led the drow, the bard and the mage, who all had moderate to good stealth skills, snuck past them and some lesser undead that stayed behind.
Both teams actually survived.
Never Split The Party is far more strict doctrine in hostile territory, or - heaven forbid - the party try to go off on separate adventures altogether, going in different directions in the world. That's when someone has to bring the hammer down... usually.