Friendship is Dragons
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Page 511 - Improv Night
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Also, we're not gonna have the comic start two hours early again this year, are we?
Xander, elf cleric of Tamara the Merciful goddess. One adventure had the party attacked by an adult blue dragon and his gang of some 20-sih kobolds. We numbered a party of about 5.
The kobolds were not tough in little groups, but 20+ of them could take down one of us with only a little effort. The blue dragon was VERY much out of our league (We were around 4th-5th level, the dragon was a CR 8 minimum).
The blue dragon shouts 'Surrender!'
--and without missing a beat my cleric replies "What? You wish to surrender to us? Very well we gladly accept!" The party and the GM looked at me like I was insane. But no, Xander isn't insane, he's overconfident. He bluffs that if the blue Dragon didn't surrender, Xander would see that his death would be a slow warming and painful embrace from Tamara's hand.
The dragon orders his kobolds to attack. I lead the other PCs to get the kobolds to split up. The wizard uses grease to keep the kobolds off-balance. The fighter and paladin Bull Rush into melee so that the kobolds were in groups when the sorcerer started casting his area spells. I went after the blue dragon with the other cleric buffing me.
The dragon let loose his lighting breath. 40 points of damage. However, I made my save for half, and thanks to the other cleric I had protection from the remaining 20 points of lightning, effectively taking nothing. I joked that I should make a 'save versus tickle'. The blue dragon didn't take that blow to his ego very well. He dove at me and we went into a grappling melee, with him being nearly 3 times my size. Little did the dragon (or the GM for that matter) know that grappling was precisely where I wanted the dragon. I successfully cast a spell that set myself on fire. Anyone grappling me with the spell active takes automatic fire damage. The dragon wasn't worried as he could easily break the grapple, for his strength was greater than my own, but he didn't account for one thing--
The other cleric using Sovereign Glue on us.
The blue dragon and I were now melded together with magic glue and he was burning to death. A slow warming (and very painful) death. The 20+ kobolds were reduced to one-quarter their numbers by this point and they retreated. The blue dragon died and I was freed from his charred hide with the other cleric's application of Universal Solvent. Word got around about that stunt and other dragons learned quickly to never get anywhere near Xander, the "Flaming Elf of Death."
That title was a direct translation from draconic. I'm pretty sure context was lost there...
The kobolds were not tough in little groups, but 20+ of them could take down one of us with only a little effort. The blue dragon was VERY much out of our league (We were around 4th-5th level, the dragon was a CR 8 minimum).
The blue dragon shouts 'Surrender!'
--and without missing a beat my cleric replies "What? You wish to surrender to us? Very well we gladly accept!" The party and the GM looked at me like I was insane. But no, Xander isn't insane, he's overconfident. He bluffs that if the blue Dragon didn't surrender, Xander would see that his death would be a slow warming and painful embrace from Tamara's hand.
The dragon orders his kobolds to attack. I lead the other PCs to get the kobolds to split up. The wizard uses grease to keep the kobolds off-balance. The fighter and paladin Bull Rush into melee so that the kobolds were in groups when the sorcerer started casting his area spells. I went after the blue dragon with the other cleric buffing me.
The dragon let loose his lighting breath. 40 points of damage. However, I made my save for half, and thanks to the other cleric I had protection from the remaining 20 points of lightning, effectively taking nothing. I joked that I should make a 'save versus tickle'. The blue dragon didn't take that blow to his ego very well. He dove at me and we went into a grappling melee, with him being nearly 3 times my size. Little did the dragon (or the GM for that matter) know that grappling was precisely where I wanted the dragon. I successfully cast a spell that set myself on fire. Anyone grappling me with the spell active takes automatic fire damage. The dragon wasn't worried as he could easily break the grapple, for his strength was greater than my own, but he didn't account for one thing--
The other cleric using Sovereign Glue on us.
The blue dragon and I were now melded together with magic glue and he was burning to death. A slow warming (and very painful) death. The 20+ kobolds were reduced to one-quarter their numbers by this point and they retreated. The blue dragon died and I was freed from his charred hide with the other cleric's application of Universal Solvent. Word got around about that stunt and other dragons learned quickly to never get anywhere near Xander, the "Flaming Elf of Death."
That title was a direct translation from draconic. I'm pretty sure context was lost there...
Had the dragon gotten a couple better attack roles than he did in the grapple, he would have killed me. So... kinda a bluff in that there was some significant risk. :)
@Digo, Never thought I'd see the day when an elf would turn themselves into living napalm to kill a dragon.
Someone reads too much into THE NINJAS CAN'T GRAB ME IF IM ON FIRE
We (my brother, my friend, and I) were part of a group of seven/eight adventurers (one of us had a companion, so it was like 7.5), and we were tasked with infiltrating and destroying a ritualistic circle within the confides of our leaders arch nemesis, the faceless man.
We had done as we were suppose to do, and wrecked not only the circle, but three quarters of their base within an hour. During this time, I was confronted by the faceless man, and he told me (through a proxy servant, since he has no face) that I was to lay down my arms, or die a slow and painful death. I had two quirks about my character that the DM knew about, but didn't really account for: 1) My character has suicidal tendencies, and 2) I have murderous tendencies.
So I responded with "Slowly! I'm going to die either way you faceless coward, we set enough explosive runes within your personal chamber alone to level this castle and the surrounding country side."
He saw through my bluff, and fought me for trying to manipulate him as if he were an idiot. But, little did I know, my friend and brother (one who likes overkill, and the other like fire) were just chucking random chemicals and stuff all around the castle, hoping they would do something. The last one they threw was an equivalent of a nuke, and they threw it in a room with what was essentially the power source for the castle.
...
None of us survived the resulting explosion, so we went our respected domains to be judged for our deeds. I and the faceless man were part of the same domain, so I started taunting him for not believing me. A good majority of us were brought back to life in the end, since we have yet to achieve our life , but our leader stayed dead since his arch nemesis died, and the faceless man stayed dead because he didn't believe a suicidal man.
Let's see, bluffs coming true... Racking my brains, I'll see if I have anything..
Man, half my characters favor bluffing, but I'm drawing a blank here. Last night's session was solved with honesty and diplomacy, to shock and horror around the table, but when in hell, do as the Lawful Evils do. It helps that the players who weren't present are, I'm told, the worst murderhobos of the team.
If that wasn't fancy, I'd love to see when you break out the fine china dishes!
I had a rogue a while back who surgically grafted wings onto himself and covered himself in glitter. One of his party members (a vampire) made the dumbass choice to stand on a rooftop in a metropolis and shout that he was a vampire who was going to bring all the other vampires into daylight (in the sense of turning them good, not dominating the world). He got resounding silence for like 30 seconds. So my rogue jumps up next to him, spreads his wings and casts a subtle low-level light with an item to make him glow, and announces that as an archangel, he blesses the quest. The crowd began cheering and threw a massive celebration in response. The rogue didn't really care, but didn't want a mob to form and gank his team mate while he was still in town. Later, the rogue (who was half-elf anyway) gained the half-celestial template as a favored of Olidammara and became an actual divine entity. He even began performing miracles and blessing entire cities.
So, we were doing a party-gathering session, the fighter having a mercenary group and the rest of us needing to get hired to go on the adventure. And the rogue panics, because the Job we're being hired to do is protect a fancy nobleman's family while they journey to a great temple. A thief isn't going to be hired for that! So she claims she is a sorceress, and denies having "that spell" when asked for some magic. Third level, she's tired of lying and trying not to get caught, so she goes ahead and takes a level of sorceress.
In fact, it always goes so badly that I've started rolling bluff checks when telling people the truth, And they believe the exact opposite.
So, as any good captain would do, I immediately ordered my party to deal with this threat while I was stuck on the bridge because of reasons. After a couple of turns of me twiddling my thumbs, the bridge was infiltrated by 9 gretchin (think odd little goblins.) After the first round of combat with them (where I did a one-hit KO on one of them with my plasma pistol,) I came to a very important realization: I was the only one on the bridge with weapons. This realization sunk in deeper when a bullet broke my leg and another gave me a mild concussion. After taking another one down (again, one-hit KO,) I immediately demanded that they surrender or I would have them all eviscerated! This was more my attempt to get them to flee than anything and one look at my broken leg was all it took for them to call my bluff and continue firing. Can't really blame them since I didn't even believe in my own bravado. Still, if I was going to die, I might as well say something vaguely awesome.
What happened next was, well, nothing that anyone really was able to predict. See, the church owed Tristan a favor and decided to use that favor to give him a Sister Repentia despite the fact that Tristan neither called in said favor nor wanted a Sister Repentia that was in a power struggle with a daemon on who got to control her body (especially since everything else seemed stacked against the poor man.) So, in the middle of a battle with the 6 orks that had already massacred the red shirts sent to delay them, she accidentally triggered her transformation into a succubus with razor sharp crab claws because chaos. When I called for help, she was the only one able to answer and thus, when she arrived after I took down my 3rd one (everyone seemed to be one shotting everything in this battle), she literally eviscerated the last 6 gretchin with her crab claws of death.
Its rare for me to see something I said at random come true word for word. Kinda makes me sad I'll never be able to play 4th edition DnD. I'd probably make an awesome Bravado Warlord.
That statue has to be depressing whenever Luna looks at it... also, the artist chiseled the sparkles in the mane. I forgotten that detail. :)
In my experience, when you want PCs to pay attention to something, have an NPC reaction like Zecora's in the last panel.
In my experience, when you want PCs to pay attention to something, have an NPC reaction like Zecora's in the last panel.
DM: You enter a grand foyer, it's dark and everything is covered in cobwebs. Or, all except the 3-story statue in front of you.
Player A: I examine statue.
DM: It sparkles with some radiance, and is shaped into a menacing dragon.
Player B: Sparkles? It must be enchanted.
DM: No, it's not.
Player B: Then, how is it sparkling?
DM: The sparkles are chiseled into the statue.
... Player C: How the hell did SPARKLES get CHISELED into a statue?
DM: ... Magic?
Rouge Trader where combat consists of either getting one hit, or taking no damage.
"Is it something you can eat?"
"No, but it can get other people to give you things to eat"
And that's how we gained our meatshield, until we came to the exit ladder that he was unable to get up. One chopped tree later and we were hearing shouts of "WHERE'S MY GLORY?" as we left.
I haven't the slightest idea how to find a false truth in YouTube...
So I found Micheal Bay!...
Or someone who used his name.
So I found Micheal Bay!...
Or someone who used his name.
Also, I am ^ up there. My personal laptop is sort of being used. So I'm using a school one. Sorry.
Rouge: "Guards! Help the <blank> is on fire!"
Guards: Yawn
Wizard: I cast fireball
Guard: "Oh crap! The <blank> is on fire!"
Guards: Yawn
Wizard: I cast fireball
Guard: "Oh crap! The <blank> is on fire!"
Works every time.
The trick, of course, being that the mounted player isn't attacking at all, rather placing a hat atop the first PC's head, causing the head to disappear. It works doubly well if you have a bag of holding stuffed down your shirt, filled with blood or a blood-like substance. The mounted PC draws off the guards once they see you're 'definitely dead,' and you're then free to go about your business.
Just a heads-up: Daylight Savings Time goes into effect here tomorrow. (Or rather, it ends tomorrow.) What that means for the comic is that, for the next few months, the site time will be an hour ahead of PST, and thus the comic will update one hour earlier. You long-time readers know the drill.
No Fallout is Dragons this week due to no session last week. But I am working on getting a big side-story chapter out, on top of starting two new Let's Plays. Should be seeing the fruit of my labors in the next few days.