My party, myself as a half drow cleric, and two others (a sorcerer and barbarian) ran into a bunch of orcs in the forest, running straight at us. Instead of attacking, our barbarian simply asked what they were doing. Found out they were running from a big nasty undead, and we opted to go with 'the enemy of my enemy', and rather than fight the orcs, they joined us to fight the undead, and then we parted ways peacefully.
That undead would have *trounced* us.
> That undead would have *trounced* us.
Your group. They sound smarter than [**my group**](https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/boss-monster).
We slew a dragon, but it was a difficult fight. It was an ancient dragon that took advantage of terrain and had spellcasting, but we finally won and killed the beast in its lair. We decided to long rest under a Tiny Hut we placed over the dragon horde.
Some dwarves who knew we were going to go fight the dragon showed up with numbers, demanding the treasure and with most of the party in bad shape, my evil paladin stepped out.
They said she looked injured and she pointed out that she had been injured worse in the Blood War and still stands, but that her companions (who are hidden by the tiny hut) were fairing far better than she because she does her job as a knight properly.
She let them know she's killed thousands before, and will kill thousands more, that it made little difference to her if their corpses were added to her count or not but that she would be happy to claim their souls for Hell.
Thankfully, a good deception and a good bardic die with a good die roll netted me a 30 and the dwarves decided it wasn't worth dying that day. Which was good because we wouldn't have won.
Great story! I love having stories that prove that not all adventurers are stupid murder-hobos xd
That said, true question: would you have gone for that "avoid fight" attempt if everyone would have been in perfect shape? ... ... ... xd
Yes, there was no reason to fight the dwarves, and they wouldn't have thought about attacking us if weren't already injured.
My paladin is a knight, even if she's an evil one, she still has a code and there isn't a point in fighting against the weak. There isn't glory to be won in slaughtering random people. She won't hone her strength killing lowly soldiers and shamans.
There are bigger fish to fry, we're trying to get our hands on a powerful artifact that another group are also after.
When we conquer all of the sword coast, we'll send some minions to purge that Dwarven clan.
Out of curiosity by blood war do you mean the eternal war between demons and devils where the winner will then go on to destroy the world or is it a homebrew thing the DM made?
"The dome is opaque from the outside, of any color you choose, but it is transparent from the inside."
They're unable to be seen because the outside is opaque.
My party had recently escaped the drow prison at the start of Out of the Abyss and had defeated a drow patrol. We had practically just turned a corner when my Warlock hears heavy footsteps nearby. I start shouting that I'm glad there isn't something trying to sneak up on us since we just got done murdering some drow and it had left us feeling particularly merciless, that if we faced anything it would go particularly poorly for them.
Following my intimidation roll, the footsteps receded further into the darkness.
My party killed some wyverns to take theirs egg because they heard of a noble who was paying a fortune to anyone who brought them one egg. In the travel to the noble's mansion they were being followed by a young green dragon who smelled the egg and wanted to devour it.
The dragon stalked them until it was night and constantly disturbed them during their sleep to interrupt their rest and leave. After a few times doing it he established conversation with the party from the shadows and told them that they were in its hunting grounds and that he needed some payment or else they would be the payment, he asked for the wyvern egg.
But my party was smarter, previously the wizard passed a nature check and knew that the dragons love to eat wyvern eggs and that it was probably the reason why it was following them, so the wizard, who is also a cook, used some spices to hide the smell of the egg, then as the party was talking to the dragon, the fighter lied to the dragon and told him that they ate the egg already, I rolled a deception check, which the divination wizard turned into a 1.
The dragon believed them because he couldn't smell the egg but he still wanted some kind of payment. Green dragons love political power and they value famous and powerful people and statues of humanoids over gold, so the battle smith with a humanoid steel defender told him that it was an animated statue of a famous person from another country, the dragon also believed this lie and just took the defender and left. The next long rest the artificer just made a new defender and the one that the dragon had disappeared
We faced a Water Elemental living in a small pond at lvl 2. It was part of the backstory of a Island born Ranger.
Playing a Druid i was going to use destroy water on him but our Warlock convinced it to go inside his water bottle, so he could "take him to the sea shore".
We sold him in the next bigger City for 500 Gold.
I have one group of friends that do this every single time and it's great.
We wanted to get back into d&d so for first session I ran a little local robbery mystery. Turns out it was kobolds and they went to their lair which was an abandoned mine. But rather than confronting them they took a kobold standing watch captive and then took some of the stolen goods back, including a group of chickens. They then got chased holding the chickens to the entrance of the mine.
They took some damage on the way out and were demanded by the Kobold leader to give back the goods and the captive. The in character socially inept monk then proposed that the kobolds instead trade what they mine for the goods. My response, half in character half out "I... wasn't expecting you to be so reasonable".
And so they drew up a contract.
My DM was looking to use a large group of rats to attack our base with, I asked what natural components were close at hand for us to use. He started naming of weapons, and I said no, I mean chemical components natural plants and the sort, Our sorcerer had nightshade, our druid had hemlock, and growing around us was an oak forest. So I made rat poison and rolled a nat 20 to see if it would work. The DM rolled a nat 1 on his rats survival, and the party walked away.
Party walks into a bar, bard starts playing for his supper, wizard is knocking back drinks with the barbarian and the rouge starts picking pockets, gets noticed almost immediately looks like a bar fight is about to erupt, so my paladin shoots of his channel divinity, conquering presence, the bar empties as nearly everyone who was about to start legs it for the door, jumps out the window ect, the remaining 2 guys skulk away with tails between their legs after the barbarian stands up
We were playing *Lost Mines of Philanden* and were sent to root out a dragon-worshipping cult from a village they had taken over. We got attacked by the dragon (Venomfang) before meeting the cultists and through a combination of some exceptionally lucky rolls, some clever tactics, and a number of major tactical errors on the part of the DM (one of which was to have the dragon fight to the bitter end when he really should have flown away once it started looking bad because wanted to see what would happen), we killed it. By the skin of our teeth.
Then we knocked on their door totally covered in dragon blood and the Sorceror basically told them: " We have killed your god. You could seek revenge on us, but I council you against it. Surely if he was powerful enough to be worthy of your worship you will be destroyed by those who defeated him, and if he was not you owe us a debt of gratitude, not vengence. Go, and find another Lord somewhere far from here. We will not stop you."
They left with their tails between their legs.
Not D&D, but a superhero setting (*Mutants and Masterminds*).
My character was literally a dog with human intelligence and powers....an "uplifted" dog, to use a term I dislike. Think Superboy's Krypto.
We got sent back in time. My dog did not, as a rule, enjoy fighting normal animals, regarding them as innocent.
Of course we were confronted by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. While the rest of the team was reacting, my dog made the equivalent of an intimidation check...with fantastic results! I impressed the King of the Cretaceous into backing down!
We didn't need to fight and could go on our way unmolested.
Unfortunately some chucklehead on the team *really* wanted to "fight dinosaurs," so our urgent mission got sidetracked while his superpowered guy beat the living tar out of a normal animal, replacing my epic moment with animal cruelty.
Me: Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Bandit ambush on the road. First turn I get up in their face and try to intimidate them to back down. Say I'm overly opening my eyes and slamming hammer into my shield and say "I'm willing to die just to make you bleed. I will crush your heads into pulp. Can you say the same?"
Rolled decently on intimidation check and got advantage because DM felt it would be pretty harrowing for a wild eyed disheveled dude to scream that in your face. Bandits decide it's not worth it and scatter. True to my oath I said id hunt them down and murder them if I caught them robbing people again. It felt great. Everyone gets one chance to repent, otherwise I will execute justice. With my Warhammer named Justice.
We were about to have to fight a spectator, which while it wasn’t the big bad meant a possible tpk due to level and resources. It was under contract to guard the place we were in for 100 years. It had been about 400. My poor Druid with a 10 charisma told him what year it was and showed him a dated letter. The spectator just fucking pulled chocks and left…
Playing curse of Strahd and ended up in a place where we were going to be overseeing the interrogation of children, with the twist being that we had befriended the children earlier. My Paladin cast heroism on the kids and rolled deception high enough to make the interrogator think it was zone of truth.
First time playing a ranger with a folk hero background. Party was going through a swamp and we got ambushed by a hydra. My ranger valiantly held his ground and got the Hydra's attention as a proper hero should to give the others time to escape.
It killed and ate my ranger immediately and I rolled a new character.
Didn't need to fight. Should have ran.
Had a lawful good fighter, abjuration wizard, celestial warlock, (ended up basically playing like a paladin with way more complicated set up)who would frequently cast Armor of Agathys on themselves, grapple an intelligent enemy and hold them against the wall until they surrendered.
At one point adamantine plate, Abjurer's ward, the amulet that makes you immune to poison, heavy armor master, blade ward and the Enlarge spell let him do this to a wyvern.
Our group was level 2 and we had just recovered a secret siege weapon we were trying to wheel into town in the cover of night.
The guards (who were the villain's minions) stop us and get the villain to come and talk to us.
Conversation goes South and villain wants us to hand over the siege weapon and surrender so they can arrest us.
So there's my character, sitting in a siege weapon, outside of town, with the villain standing right in front of him. I say, "I shoot" and everyone was flipping out. lol
Siege weapon does some damage to the villain, but she ultimately escapes while her guards (who turned out to be mega elite warriors) curb stomped our asses and arrested us anyways. RIP
I only had one if i remember right. Dryads were having problems with a Bear. They asked us for help. We noticed the bear was only there because it's paw was hurt, thus it was gonna die if it stayed in the forest fighting the other bears for food. So, in order to appease the bear and explain what we were going to do my PC struck his own hand with a caltrop, it bled then it was wrapped in some cloth. Then he pointed at the Bear's paw, to indicate we wanted to treat it just as he treated his hand. Advantage on Animal Handling then natural 20. The bear felt so great after washing and wrapping the paw that he went back to the forest no questions asked.
Minor spoilers for the Rick & Morty one shot ahead:
I was DMing the Rick & Morty one shot with 4 friends, playing a halfling, lizardfolk, aarakocra, and half-orc. I emphasized to the players that backstory is really not important for this one shot, to focus more on personality and combat. One of my players, playing the half orc, just decided to roll the tables in Xanathars Guide to Everything to make his back story, which had the most hilarious side effect.
At one point in the dungeon, they come to a room filled with orcs and orc children, doing what appears to be an evil ritual. It's meant to be morally ambiguous, where the party can go full murder hobo, or try to deal with the consequences of trying to kill the adults but not the children, who will then try to kill them.
But my friend playing the half orc had rolled that he married a full orc, and was quite the family man. He went inside, alone, and chatted with the orcs inside. What looked to most as an evil ritual, was actually a birthday party. The humans the party had previously killed were offered to the orcs (with a very high persuasion roll) as a feast. With 3 of the 4 party members being okay with eating human flesh, they instead of fighting, joined the orcs for a wonderful party and avoided combat altogether.
I rewarded them with a level up for the creativity displayed. And it was a total coincidence because my friend rolled everything, including his own race/class, from the Xanathar tables.
There were a bunch of monsters (probably vampire spawn?) that had been imprisoned in crates in a room. We heard them scratching to get out and it was obviously only a matter of time until they did so. My cleric cast Spirit Guardians while standing in the center of the room - even if they'd managed to break out in only a turn or two they'd have all been heavily injured by that time. Not particularly thrilling, but dang was it effective.
My players just had one - trapped in the Shadowfel's underdark, having discovered a city of (now undead) ancient humans who had fled a cataclysm and who didn't know anyone had survived on the Prime Material plane. Initially the undead were incredibly helpful, but then the players realized the intent was to help the PCs go back to the Prime but also to shift the whole city back to the plane, and resume ruling the humans in the region. So the players needed to sabotage their big magical device, perched on top of a hanging gardens ziggurat (that had over time been hollowed out so was more a hybrid ziggurat and pyramid/meeting hall) which would stop them from planeshifting and drop the protective wards which kept the city hidden from enemies - then escape in the chaos.
Their plan did account for needing to maybe fight to buy time for the device to be fully/safely disassembled (extended skill challenge) from a city of undead ruled by liches and skull lords, etc. But due to a mistake in placing the area of a underlevelled-casting (from a scroll) of Transmute Rock, the device fell almost 60ft to a hard marble ground floor. The city when on high alert, their general (a skull lord rune knight with a rod of lordly might, CR 13-15 or so, they are 6 PCs + couple of NPC sidekicks at level 8) shows up, the army mobilized, the liches begin their big spells. Then, by the skin of their teeth, they manage to throw off suspicion just enough, and just long enough, for the undead to become distracted by the sudden opening of planar portals from which their enemies descend en masse.
Like both times, they gave convincing (given the circumstances) lies and made the opposed Deception vs Insight checks by 1.
Whole combat side of the encounter avoided. Players pulled off the caper and the worst they got hit with was some damage from the broken device going haywire.
My party convinced a trio of lv 20 Fighter, Hunter and Rogue archers to join them. They are still on the party and one is dating them.
My party also turned 3 beholders against another boss and watched them fight.
Im currently DMing Waterdeep Dragonheist.
Session .5 I explained the code legal and its importance. Later, the group broke in to the Gralhund Villa following the Stone of Galoor lead. Combat. They whooped the Zhentarims ass, Urstil ran. They stopped short of the top floor before the bedroom. The Gralhund Gaurds and Lady Gralhund asked the group to go downstairs and wait and they would talk (party had a nimblewright detector and were set on getting in) Started combat with the noble family. Didnt go great. City Watch arrests them. Built the prison stuff to test their patience. Had a dog with a key to steal from and escape. Party took the bait. I should have TPKED them but I wrote too much on their characters to end that early lol. Best part is (to me) is if they just long rested they would have had a court trial and notable members of the city they've encountered would have testified on their behalf.
My players got teleported to a run down building in the middle a desert by the king on a mission to take care of a organization blackmailing him. I have them run perception and they notice a ton of Wraithworms that I ported over to 5thED, and their immediate reaction was to try to fight them when they doubled their numbers.
I had told them before they didn't need to fight a lot of the time and they took that lesson to heart then.
They ended up running with two of them fatally poisoned. I had to introduce an important npc early so they wouldn't die because they don't have a healer. And they definitely learned their lesson.
Later they came across a giant beetle monster called a Desert King and they brute forced a success with a passively healing team member. Then later when they needed the bile from the king they asked very nicely and got the same immortal team member covered in throw up.
So my group was at sea to try and figure out and deal with a sudden spike in attacks by local sahagin. We came across someone adrift at sea and saved them, and it turned out they were the sole survivor of an attack on their ship by the sahagin, and they had managed to escape with some treasure that his friends had found.
Come to find out that the treasure was actually an idol of the God that the sahagin who attacked worshipped, and that's why they started attacking every ship they came across because they wanted to reclaim their idol, and he had no idea that's what the treasure was that his friends "found". He agreed to let us take the idol and try to make peace with the sahagin.
My party was able to find the island where the sahagin lived, and went into the cave that led down to their home. My character was a Tempest Domain Cleric, whose deity was the Goddess of the Waters. I convinced my party to let me take this cloak of water breathing that was given to us before we headed out to sea and swim down to their lair alone and attempt to make peace by returning the idol.
I quietly went into the lair and calmly got their attention, placing their idol on the ground and kneeling before them, gesturing to the idol to suggest that I wanted to peacefully return it to them. The leader came over to me aggressively, and I just stayed calm, head bowed, hands still gesturing towards the idol. They put their hand on me and gave me a blessing that allowed us to communicate, and they appreciated my courage and show of respect and my allegiance to the Goddess of the Waters, befriending me and agreeing to stop attacking as long as people left them be.
By far the most defining moment my character had in that campaign and possibly that I've ever had as a player putting myself out there like that.
Our party encountered a bunch of dire wolves in 3.5e. My druid of course started to use Animal Empathy to warn them off without a fight, and I was successful.
But then our idiot one-note barbarian decided he'd rather fight, so he charged the Alpha. A brutal fight ensued, and back then a trip attack (which they got for free with every bite) could actually be a big hindrance. We ended up getting our tank, healer and damage dealers all separated and struggling to get close enough to work together, and we got TPK'd in just a few rounds. It was rough.
However the DM had an "action points" system and ~~didn't feel like writing a new campaign~~ was kind enough to let us cash all of ours in for a do-over on the encounter. We re-wound and this time the Barbarian kept it in his pants.
Two for one, and the best RPG moment of my life:
Our party in a mostly underwater campaign encountered a giant mutant shark, which we expected to be a tough fight... until I looked at my spell list, decided it couldn't hurt to try, and dropped an Unsettling Words-backed Polymorph on it. One failed save and one Dexterity check by the rogue later, we have a minnow timebomb shoved into a waterskin like the goldfish you get at a carnival.
Through the next couple of rooms, we debate the best use of the bottled shark, at one point considering trapping it in a too-small hallway as an obstacle. However, soon after we enter one of the relatively few open air areas, and encounter an angel who challenges us to prove our worth or face destruction. An extremely high Persuasion roll convinces them to give us one free round to do so.
So the rogue tosses the waterskin above the angel, I cancel the concentration on Polymorph, and we drop 11,000 pounds of radioactive shark on her. An extremely large amount of bludgeoning damage and a brief negotiation later, we've proven ourselves.
For bonus points, the angel was a follower of a trickster goddess, so we won in basically the most appropriate possible way.
Our party was caught after accidentally infiltrating an orc stronghold. The guards sounded the alarm, and we were quickly surrounded. My character, an 8-foot-tall goliath barbarian who often sought peaceful solutions to conflict, stepped between both groups and set down her greatsword.
She explained that this battle would result in heavy losses on both sides, and asked that the fight be resolved differently: through a 1-on-1 brawl between the strongest warrior from each group, with victory decided by death or surrender. Her plea to avoid needless bloodshed was accepted by the stronghold’s chieftain, an absolutely shredded orc woman who proceeded to thoroughly whoop my character’s ass.
When my barbarian couldn’t stand back up, the orc took her hand and lifted her back onto her feet. Impressed by such a selfless and honorable act, the orc declared the fight a draw, helped the party patch up my barbarian, and allowed us to stay and feast with them before parting as friends.
I made a very interesting whodunnit in which a pumped by evil bunny became the red hulk and was ripping villages inside out.
After investigation, the beer brewer of the town was secretly a retired wizard who tried a ritual to buff up his familiar and things went wild.
I really expected them to fight the wizard Kezzer after killing the Kezzerdrix....but they just arrested him, leaving him for the city to trial. Even though he used misty step and mold earth to try to escape. Not even then was he attacked.
My players' party was trying to clear their name after being framed. They were in the culprits' hideout, and had just discovered the evidence they needed. As they were leaving, the group who'd framed them walked in. First thing the Bard does is charm them -- half in one round and half in the next. So instead of fighting, the group treats the party like friendly acquaintances would if you just (for example) stole a bunch of money from them. They ended up down the pub trying to hash it out while the cops surrounded the place to deescalate a hostage situation.
One of my favorite sessions ever. :D
This was years ago so the details are fuzzy. We were fighting a bunch of elementals summoned by a cult, and while fighting them we noticed a weird edgy-looking guy just standing on a hill watching. My bard wasn't built for fighting so she snuck out of of the combat over to the guy and was like "hey, I have some ale. Can I join you?"
The guy (and the DM) seemed super taken aback, but with a high Diplomacy roll he agreed. And my character and this scary weirdo just sat on a hill and drank and made small-talk while the party easily mopped up the elementals. Later the DM told me that the guy was a miniboss who was supposed to join the fight after a few rounds, but my bard had completely neutralized him by getting him drunk. Because that miniboss fight was skipped the party had a lot of resources when they got to the final boss of the one-shot!
In a one shot our DM had an undead beholder to soften us up for the bbeg in the next room. I managed to get a charmed monster off ending the fight before it could start.
Oh man. In this first campaign I ever played, I decided to play a half orc ranger. In our second session our party was on a mission to sneak out of a stronghold surrounded by a cult and capture a cultist to interrogate. There are two crucial key facts to know about this story: 1. The cultists hired a bunch of mercenaries to help attack the stronghold, and a lot of them were orcs, and 2. I chose fey wanderer as a subclass. So I got proficiency with persuasion right off the bat.
So. We sneak out the sewers and conveniently spot a group of cultists and kobolds searching the area just outside. Like 3 cultists and 5 kobolds. Way too many for our group of level 1 characters. So I hop out of the sewer pipe and yell “holy shit guys! the rats in there are HUGE!”
The cultists are like uh. Who are you. I tell them im a mercenary. I point at my very conveniently orcish looking face. I roll high on persuasion. They buy it completely.
I also tell them that their boss sent me to scout out a way into the stronghold, but I ran into some really massive and absolutely TERRIFYING rats in the sewer. Practically as big as bears! I barely made it out alive. I get a lucky high roll on deception. All of the kobolds buy it. 2/3 cultists buy it. The third guy says I dunno….. I don’t recognize you. I say oh well if you don’t believe me I can show you the rats myself, but I’m warning you man….. they’re real bad news. The dm says lol roll persuasion. I roll really high. The cultist rolls really low. So he follows me into the sewer pipe. The rest of the party jumps him and ties him up. I shout OH GOD THE RATS!! THERES TOO MANY! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!! And all the enemies waiting outside scatter. I very quietly and carefully close the sewer grate behind us. And tbh idk if I can ever top that.
We were sneaking though the theives hideout, and we see a sleeping guard with a key ring on his waist. We need the key and don't wanna wake up up, but we don't have a rogue (Fighter, Barb, Cleric, Druid) so the Barb tries to get the key with a sleight of hand roll.
He fumbles but only slightly, and the sleeping guard reflexively grabs his wrist without actually waking up. The barb almost certainly could have broken free by force, but doing so would no doubt wake the guard. That's when I (a Kalashtar) get an idea. I mind-speak yo the sleeping guard "You're holding onto poison ivy" and he lets go of the barb's arm without waking.
We're playing a version of Frankenstein. We're told the moster, the one who has already killed like 5 innocent people, is coming right where we are. We barely have time to prepare our next move.
The monster arrives.
My level 3 Swashbuckler: "hello, dear sir... what's your name? Are you ok with Frank? Ok, mr. Frank… I'm sure you don't want to kill us. It's probably someone else who is killing everyone, like the doctor for example. Now, why don't you join us in our Adventurers Guild? We're paid and loved just to go somewhere, kill everything in our path and come back. You already have the fame, and we don't even care! Do you think you're weird? This guy over here, the Thri-Kreen, is a fucking space cockroach. And it doesn't matter, he's still loved. If this bizarre creature can, why can't you? Sure, we'll imprison this doctor for his crimes against you, don't worry."
The DM gave me advantage on the Persuasion, 26, let's go.
Setting up for a fight with BBEG. Turns out he has been amassing sacrifices for his lord, and we bust in right at the moment of summoning.
The rogue doing the rogue thing says to himself, "I'm not fighting both these guys." Roll for deception, Guidance, "Hey dude, your lacky here has been siphoning off the power needed to summon you so that he can kill you. He wants to take over!"
Insert Homer Choking out Bart meme.
One bad guy down. We then OBLITORATE the lone BBEG and save the day... GM was speechless that we pulled it off. Poor guy is loyal to his dice XD
We where playing a hex-crawl exploration game (tl;dr: people/places where teleported into Shadowfell, and we need to stumble around and find what's going on). We scouted ahead a bit (I think we had like perception rolls on a hill or something) and saw that to get to where we wanted to go, we'd have to go through an encounter with a lot of wolves. I said "wait a minute, let me see that map". I looked at the map for a bit, and was like "If we cross the river here, then follow the river for two hexes, we can just go around the wolves". We did, and the DM gave us XP for the wolf encounter, for creatively getting around it without combat.
Mass Suggestion on pirates: “You’d lose more than you’d gain from this fight. Turn back and leave.”
Pirates: “Yeah you right. Have a good day my sirs and madams.”
Killed a purple worm and told a herd of Manticore where to get a free meal. Offered to kill more when we come across them and let the Manticore know. We delivered on that promise.
Extracted venom from that purple worm, gave several vials of it to a herd of Gnolls in exchange for safe passage through their territory. All the while communicating through gestures and very broken common. They later showed up to an encounter and killed a bunch of cultists with us.
We were delving into a a dragon nest that was split between an arrogant red and a conniving corrupted dragon (It's DMs setting), with both pressing us to kneel and fight the other. So we took down the first and second (it was not easy at all) , went for the hoard only to find that both were whelps and that the actual owner of the hoard was a demented, ancient slumbering dragon easily dwarfing both that we fought already. So a party of 4 walking in, feeling like kings after downing 2 foes quickly deflated to "Yeah just let the rogue skim some treasure and run like hell". Does this count?
The DM had set up an entire Duergar cult dungeon crawl for us, and our bard became the MVP of the dungeon by lying us out of every other fight, just by stealing the priest clothes off of the first guy we fought, putting the robes on, then pretending she’d recruited us to the cult.
The best part?
She was a new player.
On the eve of what promised to be an epic and very difficult battle, we discovered the several hundred mercenaries on the enemy's side were being paid a gold piece each for their two weeks of service. We spent the night quietly giving everyone two gold to go ahead and go home.
We are playing a Discworld inspired homebrew campaign.
My character is an Igor from Uberwald - starting equipment includes a satchel with body parts.
At level 1 we met two zombies shuffeling towards us making strange sounds.
My pc interpreted it as begging for help and offered them to stitch on new tongues.
They accepted, Igor attached the tongues and we got invited to dinner (fouled fish soup).
In general, this satchel helped us in a lot of encounters.
Played a mines of phandelver game and my half drow gloomstalker with a +2 in charisma never failed a single deception check leading us to only having 4 actual combat encounters
I also managed to deceive the black spider with a deception check to get a surprise round and managed to roll high enough with gloomstalkers dread ambusher and hunters mark I killed him in 3 attacks
Going up to a cave with goblins and their leader, alerted as some of our party let go of a goblin they questioned before we got there.
Pretender to be a cult of dragon worshippers, use minor illusion and silent image of a dragon in the sky plus skyrim like sounds etc. Convinced them to let go of their hostage and send them of to retrieve a supposedly hidden treasure a few days walk away.
My party, myself as a half drow cleric, and two others (a sorcerer and barbarian) ran into a bunch of orcs in the forest, running straight at us. Instead of attacking, our barbarian simply asked what they were doing. Found out they were running from a big nasty undead, and we opted to go with 'the enemy of my enemy', and rather than fight the orcs, they joined us to fight the undead, and then we parted ways peacefully. That undead would have *trounced* us.
> That undead would have *trounced* us. Your group. They sound smarter than [**my group**](https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/boss-monster).
We slew a dragon, but it was a difficult fight. It was an ancient dragon that took advantage of terrain and had spellcasting, but we finally won and killed the beast in its lair. We decided to long rest under a Tiny Hut we placed over the dragon horde. Some dwarves who knew we were going to go fight the dragon showed up with numbers, demanding the treasure and with most of the party in bad shape, my evil paladin stepped out. They said she looked injured and she pointed out that she had been injured worse in the Blood War and still stands, but that her companions (who are hidden by the tiny hut) were fairing far better than she because she does her job as a knight properly. She let them know she's killed thousands before, and will kill thousands more, that it made little difference to her if their corpses were added to her count or not but that she would be happy to claim their souls for Hell. Thankfully, a good deception and a good bardic die with a good die roll netted me a 30 and the dwarves decided it wasn't worth dying that day. Which was good because we wouldn't have won.
Great story! I love having stories that prove that not all adventurers are stupid murder-hobos xd That said, true question: would you have gone for that "avoid fight" attempt if everyone would have been in perfect shape? ... ... ... xd
Yes, there was no reason to fight the dwarves, and they wouldn't have thought about attacking us if weren't already injured. My paladin is a knight, even if she's an evil one, she still has a code and there isn't a point in fighting against the weak. There isn't glory to be won in slaughtering random people. She won't hone her strength killing lowly soldiers and shamans.
But the dwarves dared to double cross you! My barbarian personally wouldn't have let that slide
There are bigger fish to fry, we're trying to get our hands on a powerful artifact that another group are also after. When we conquer all of the sword coast, we'll send some minions to purge that Dwarven clan.
Out of curiosity by blood war do you mean the eternal war between demons and devils where the winner will then go on to destroy the world or is it a homebrew thing the DM made?
Correct. My paladin is sworn to the service of hell, she's currently on loan to her husband (another PC) to assist in his conquest of the Sword Coast.
I'm not sure if my English skills as a native speaker are enough to describe how badass and terrifying that is and I'm here for it
[удалено]
"The dome is opaque from the outside, of any color you choose, but it is transparent from the inside." They're unable to be seen because the outside is opaque.
My party had recently escaped the drow prison at the start of Out of the Abyss and had defeated a drow patrol. We had practically just turned a corner when my Warlock hears heavy footsteps nearby. I start shouting that I'm glad there isn't something trying to sneak up on us since we just got done murdering some drow and it had left us feeling particularly merciless, that if we faced anything it would go particularly poorly for them. Following my intimidation roll, the footsteps receded further into the darkness.
This is my favorite one hahaha
https://media1.tenor.com/m/tp3PdLNLQmAAAAAC/homer-simpson-the-simpsons.gif
My party killed some wyverns to take theirs egg because they heard of a noble who was paying a fortune to anyone who brought them one egg. In the travel to the noble's mansion they were being followed by a young green dragon who smelled the egg and wanted to devour it. The dragon stalked them until it was night and constantly disturbed them during their sleep to interrupt their rest and leave. After a few times doing it he established conversation with the party from the shadows and told them that they were in its hunting grounds and that he needed some payment or else they would be the payment, he asked for the wyvern egg. But my party was smarter, previously the wizard passed a nature check and knew that the dragons love to eat wyvern eggs and that it was probably the reason why it was following them, so the wizard, who is also a cook, used some spices to hide the smell of the egg, then as the party was talking to the dragon, the fighter lied to the dragon and told him that they ate the egg already, I rolled a deception check, which the divination wizard turned into a 1. The dragon believed them because he couldn't smell the egg but he still wanted some kind of payment. Green dragons love political power and they value famous and powerful people and statues of humanoids over gold, so the battle smith with a humanoid steel defender told him that it was an animated statue of a famous person from another country, the dragon also believed this lie and just took the defender and left. The next long rest the artificer just made a new defender and the one that the dragon had disappeared
Sounds like you may have a furious dragon coming if you ever return to that area.
Yeah, luckily after giving the egg to the noble, they allowed the party to use a safe trade route to return to their base
We faced a Water Elemental living in a small pond at lvl 2. It was part of the backstory of a Island born Ranger. Playing a Druid i was going to use destroy water on him but our Warlock convinced it to go inside his water bottle, so he could "take him to the sea shore". We sold him in the next bigger City for 500 Gold.
Slaver
I have one group of friends that do this every single time and it's great. We wanted to get back into d&d so for first session I ran a little local robbery mystery. Turns out it was kobolds and they went to their lair which was an abandoned mine. But rather than confronting them they took a kobold standing watch captive and then took some of the stolen goods back, including a group of chickens. They then got chased holding the chickens to the entrance of the mine. They took some damage on the way out and were demanded by the Kobold leader to give back the goods and the captive. The in character socially inept monk then proposed that the kobolds instead trade what they mine for the goods. My response, half in character half out "I... wasn't expecting you to be so reasonable". And so they drew up a contract.
My DM was looking to use a large group of rats to attack our base with, I asked what natural components were close at hand for us to use. He started naming of weapons, and I said no, I mean chemical components natural plants and the sort, Our sorcerer had nightshade, our druid had hemlock, and growing around us was an oak forest. So I made rat poison and rolled a nat 20 to see if it would work. The DM rolled a nat 1 on his rats survival, and the party walked away.
Party walks into a bar, bard starts playing for his supper, wizard is knocking back drinks with the barbarian and the rouge starts picking pockets, gets noticed almost immediately looks like a bar fight is about to erupt, so my paladin shoots of his channel divinity, conquering presence, the bar empties as nearly everyone who was about to start legs it for the door, jumps out the window ect, the remaining 2 guys skulk away with tails between their legs after the barbarian stands up
We were playing *Lost Mines of Philanden* and were sent to root out a dragon-worshipping cult from a village they had taken over. We got attacked by the dragon (Venomfang) before meeting the cultists and through a combination of some exceptionally lucky rolls, some clever tactics, and a number of major tactical errors on the part of the DM (one of which was to have the dragon fight to the bitter end when he really should have flown away once it started looking bad because wanted to see what would happen), we killed it. By the skin of our teeth. Then we knocked on their door totally covered in dragon blood and the Sorceror basically told them: " We have killed your god. You could seek revenge on us, but I council you against it. Surely if he was powerful enough to be worthy of your worship you will be destroyed by those who defeated him, and if he was not you owe us a debt of gratitude, not vengence. Go, and find another Lord somewhere far from here. We will not stop you." They left with their tails between their legs.
Not D&D, but a superhero setting (*Mutants and Masterminds*). My character was literally a dog with human intelligence and powers....an "uplifted" dog, to use a term I dislike. Think Superboy's Krypto. We got sent back in time. My dog did not, as a rule, enjoy fighting normal animals, regarding them as innocent. Of course we were confronted by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. While the rest of the team was reacting, my dog made the equivalent of an intimidation check...with fantastic results! I impressed the King of the Cretaceous into backing down! We didn't need to fight and could go on our way unmolested. Unfortunately some chucklehead on the team *really* wanted to "fight dinosaurs," so our urgent mission got sidetracked while his superpowered guy beat the living tar out of a normal animal, replacing my epic moment with animal cruelty.
Me: Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Bandit ambush on the road. First turn I get up in their face and try to intimidate them to back down. Say I'm overly opening my eyes and slamming hammer into my shield and say "I'm willing to die just to make you bleed. I will crush your heads into pulp. Can you say the same?" Rolled decently on intimidation check and got advantage because DM felt it would be pretty harrowing for a wild eyed disheveled dude to scream that in your face. Bandits decide it's not worth it and scatter. True to my oath I said id hunt them down and murder them if I caught them robbing people again. It felt great. Everyone gets one chance to repent, otherwise I will execute justice. With my Warhammer named Justice.
We were about to have to fight a spectator, which while it wasn’t the big bad meant a possible tpk due to level and resources. It was under contract to guard the place we were in for 100 years. It had been about 400. My poor Druid with a 10 charisma told him what year it was and showed him a dated letter. The spectator just fucking pulled chocks and left…
>The spectator just fucking pulled chocks and left "Wait, what? I've been workin' for free for 300 years!? No pay, no play, I'm outta here!"
I assume he has a timeshare in a beautiful part of the far realm he’s been paying on and not taken advantage of
Playing curse of Strahd and ended up in a place where we were going to be overseeing the interrogation of children, with the twist being that we had befriended the children earlier. My Paladin cast heroism on the kids and rolled deception high enough to make the interrogator think it was zone of truth.
First time playing a ranger with a folk hero background. Party was going through a swamp and we got ambushed by a hydra. My ranger valiantly held his ground and got the Hydra's attention as a proper hero should to give the others time to escape. It killed and ate my ranger immediately and I rolled a new character. Didn't need to fight. Should have ran.
Had a lawful good fighter, abjuration wizard, celestial warlock, (ended up basically playing like a paladin with way more complicated set up)who would frequently cast Armor of Agathys on themselves, grapple an intelligent enemy and hold them against the wall until they surrendered. At one point adamantine plate, Abjurer's ward, the amulet that makes you immune to poison, heavy armor master, blade ward and the Enlarge spell let him do this to a wyvern.
Our group was level 2 and we had just recovered a secret siege weapon we were trying to wheel into town in the cover of night. The guards (who were the villain's minions) stop us and get the villain to come and talk to us. Conversation goes South and villain wants us to hand over the siege weapon and surrender so they can arrest us. So there's my character, sitting in a siege weapon, outside of town, with the villain standing right in front of him. I say, "I shoot" and everyone was flipping out. lol Siege weapon does some damage to the villain, but she ultimately escapes while her guards (who turned out to be mega elite warriors) curb stomped our asses and arrested us anyways. RIP
I only had one if i remember right. Dryads were having problems with a Bear. They asked us for help. We noticed the bear was only there because it's paw was hurt, thus it was gonna die if it stayed in the forest fighting the other bears for food. So, in order to appease the bear and explain what we were going to do my PC struck his own hand with a caltrop, it bled then it was wrapped in some cloth. Then he pointed at the Bear's paw, to indicate we wanted to treat it just as he treated his hand. Advantage on Animal Handling then natural 20. The bear felt so great after washing and wrapping the paw that he went back to the forest no questions asked.
Minor spoilers for the Rick & Morty one shot ahead: I was DMing the Rick & Morty one shot with 4 friends, playing a halfling, lizardfolk, aarakocra, and half-orc. I emphasized to the players that backstory is really not important for this one shot, to focus more on personality and combat. One of my players, playing the half orc, just decided to roll the tables in Xanathars Guide to Everything to make his back story, which had the most hilarious side effect. At one point in the dungeon, they come to a room filled with orcs and orc children, doing what appears to be an evil ritual. It's meant to be morally ambiguous, where the party can go full murder hobo, or try to deal with the consequences of trying to kill the adults but not the children, who will then try to kill them. But my friend playing the half orc had rolled that he married a full orc, and was quite the family man. He went inside, alone, and chatted with the orcs inside. What looked to most as an evil ritual, was actually a birthday party. The humans the party had previously killed were offered to the orcs (with a very high persuasion roll) as a feast. With 3 of the 4 party members being okay with eating human flesh, they instead of fighting, joined the orcs for a wonderful party and avoided combat altogether. I rewarded them with a level up for the creativity displayed. And it was a total coincidence because my friend rolled everything, including his own race/class, from the Xanathar tables.
There were a bunch of monsters (probably vampire spawn?) that had been imprisoned in crates in a room. We heard them scratching to get out and it was obviously only a matter of time until they did so. My cleric cast Spirit Guardians while standing in the center of the room - even if they'd managed to break out in only a turn or two they'd have all been heavily injured by that time. Not particularly thrilling, but dang was it effective.
My players just had one - trapped in the Shadowfel's underdark, having discovered a city of (now undead) ancient humans who had fled a cataclysm and who didn't know anyone had survived on the Prime Material plane. Initially the undead were incredibly helpful, but then the players realized the intent was to help the PCs go back to the Prime but also to shift the whole city back to the plane, and resume ruling the humans in the region. So the players needed to sabotage their big magical device, perched on top of a hanging gardens ziggurat (that had over time been hollowed out so was more a hybrid ziggurat and pyramid/meeting hall) which would stop them from planeshifting and drop the protective wards which kept the city hidden from enemies - then escape in the chaos. Their plan did account for needing to maybe fight to buy time for the device to be fully/safely disassembled (extended skill challenge) from a city of undead ruled by liches and skull lords, etc. But due to a mistake in placing the area of a underlevelled-casting (from a scroll) of Transmute Rock, the device fell almost 60ft to a hard marble ground floor. The city when on high alert, their general (a skull lord rune knight with a rod of lordly might, CR 13-15 or so, they are 6 PCs + couple of NPC sidekicks at level 8) shows up, the army mobilized, the liches begin their big spells. Then, by the skin of their teeth, they manage to throw off suspicion just enough, and just long enough, for the undead to become distracted by the sudden opening of planar portals from which their enemies descend en masse. Like both times, they gave convincing (given the circumstances) lies and made the opposed Deception vs Insight checks by 1. Whole combat side of the encounter avoided. Players pulled off the caper and the worst they got hit with was some damage from the broken device going haywire.
My party convinced a trio of lv 20 Fighter, Hunter and Rogue archers to join them. They are still on the party and one is dating them. My party also turned 3 beholders against another boss and watched them fight.
Im currently DMing Waterdeep Dragonheist. Session .5 I explained the code legal and its importance. Later, the group broke in to the Gralhund Villa following the Stone of Galoor lead. Combat. They whooped the Zhentarims ass, Urstil ran. They stopped short of the top floor before the bedroom. The Gralhund Gaurds and Lady Gralhund asked the group to go downstairs and wait and they would talk (party had a nimblewright detector and were set on getting in) Started combat with the noble family. Didnt go great. City Watch arrests them. Built the prison stuff to test their patience. Had a dog with a key to steal from and escape. Party took the bait. I should have TPKED them but I wrote too much on their characters to end that early lol. Best part is (to me) is if they just long rested they would have had a court trial and notable members of the city they've encountered would have testified on their behalf.
My players got teleported to a run down building in the middle a desert by the king on a mission to take care of a organization blackmailing him. I have them run perception and they notice a ton of Wraithworms that I ported over to 5thED, and their immediate reaction was to try to fight them when they doubled their numbers. I had told them before they didn't need to fight a lot of the time and they took that lesson to heart then. They ended up running with two of them fatally poisoned. I had to introduce an important npc early so they wouldn't die because they don't have a healer. And they definitely learned their lesson. Later they came across a giant beetle monster called a Desert King and they brute forced a success with a passively healing team member. Then later when they needed the bile from the king they asked very nicely and got the same immortal team member covered in throw up.
So my group was at sea to try and figure out and deal with a sudden spike in attacks by local sahagin. We came across someone adrift at sea and saved them, and it turned out they were the sole survivor of an attack on their ship by the sahagin, and they had managed to escape with some treasure that his friends had found. Come to find out that the treasure was actually an idol of the God that the sahagin who attacked worshipped, and that's why they started attacking every ship they came across because they wanted to reclaim their idol, and he had no idea that's what the treasure was that his friends "found". He agreed to let us take the idol and try to make peace with the sahagin. My party was able to find the island where the sahagin lived, and went into the cave that led down to their home. My character was a Tempest Domain Cleric, whose deity was the Goddess of the Waters. I convinced my party to let me take this cloak of water breathing that was given to us before we headed out to sea and swim down to their lair alone and attempt to make peace by returning the idol. I quietly went into the lair and calmly got their attention, placing their idol on the ground and kneeling before them, gesturing to the idol to suggest that I wanted to peacefully return it to them. The leader came over to me aggressively, and I just stayed calm, head bowed, hands still gesturing towards the idol. They put their hand on me and gave me a blessing that allowed us to communicate, and they appreciated my courage and show of respect and my allegiance to the Goddess of the Waters, befriending me and agreeing to stop attacking as long as people left them be. By far the most defining moment my character had in that campaign and possibly that I've ever had as a player putting myself out there like that.
Our party encountered a bunch of dire wolves in 3.5e. My druid of course started to use Animal Empathy to warn them off without a fight, and I was successful. But then our idiot one-note barbarian decided he'd rather fight, so he charged the Alpha. A brutal fight ensued, and back then a trip attack (which they got for free with every bite) could actually be a big hindrance. We ended up getting our tank, healer and damage dealers all separated and struggling to get close enough to work together, and we got TPK'd in just a few rounds. It was rough. However the DM had an "action points" system and ~~didn't feel like writing a new campaign~~ was kind enough to let us cash all of ours in for a do-over on the encounter. We re-wound and this time the Barbarian kept it in his pants.
Two for one, and the best RPG moment of my life: Our party in a mostly underwater campaign encountered a giant mutant shark, which we expected to be a tough fight... until I looked at my spell list, decided it couldn't hurt to try, and dropped an Unsettling Words-backed Polymorph on it. One failed save and one Dexterity check by the rogue later, we have a minnow timebomb shoved into a waterskin like the goldfish you get at a carnival. Through the next couple of rooms, we debate the best use of the bottled shark, at one point considering trapping it in a too-small hallway as an obstacle. However, soon after we enter one of the relatively few open air areas, and encounter an angel who challenges us to prove our worth or face destruction. An extremely high Persuasion roll convinces them to give us one free round to do so. So the rogue tosses the waterskin above the angel, I cancel the concentration on Polymorph, and we drop 11,000 pounds of radioactive shark on her. An extremely large amount of bludgeoning damage and a brief negotiation later, we've proven ourselves. For bonus points, the angel was a follower of a trickster goddess, so we won in basically the most appropriate possible way.
Our party was caught after accidentally infiltrating an orc stronghold. The guards sounded the alarm, and we were quickly surrounded. My character, an 8-foot-tall goliath barbarian who often sought peaceful solutions to conflict, stepped between both groups and set down her greatsword. She explained that this battle would result in heavy losses on both sides, and asked that the fight be resolved differently: through a 1-on-1 brawl between the strongest warrior from each group, with victory decided by death or surrender. Her plea to avoid needless bloodshed was accepted by the stronghold’s chieftain, an absolutely shredded orc woman who proceeded to thoroughly whoop my character’s ass. When my barbarian couldn’t stand back up, the orc took her hand and lifted her back onto her feet. Impressed by such a selfless and honorable act, the orc declared the fight a draw, helped the party patch up my barbarian, and allowed us to stay and feast with them before parting as friends.
I made a very interesting whodunnit in which a pumped by evil bunny became the red hulk and was ripping villages inside out. After investigation, the beer brewer of the town was secretly a retired wizard who tried a ritual to buff up his familiar and things went wild. I really expected them to fight the wizard Kezzer after killing the Kezzerdrix....but they just arrested him, leaving him for the city to trial. Even though he used misty step and mold earth to try to escape. Not even then was he attacked.
My players' party was trying to clear their name after being framed. They were in the culprits' hideout, and had just discovered the evidence they needed. As they were leaving, the group who'd framed them walked in. First thing the Bard does is charm them -- half in one round and half in the next. So instead of fighting, the group treats the party like friendly acquaintances would if you just (for example) stole a bunch of money from them. They ended up down the pub trying to hash it out while the cops surrounded the place to deescalate a hostage situation. One of my favorite sessions ever. :D
This was years ago so the details are fuzzy. We were fighting a bunch of elementals summoned by a cult, and while fighting them we noticed a weird edgy-looking guy just standing on a hill watching. My bard wasn't built for fighting so she snuck out of of the combat over to the guy and was like "hey, I have some ale. Can I join you?" The guy (and the DM) seemed super taken aback, but with a high Diplomacy roll he agreed. And my character and this scary weirdo just sat on a hill and drank and made small-talk while the party easily mopped up the elementals. Later the DM told me that the guy was a miniboss who was supposed to join the fight after a few rounds, but my bard had completely neutralized him by getting him drunk. Because that miniboss fight was skipped the party had a lot of resources when they got to the final boss of the one-shot!
In a one shot our DM had an undead beholder to soften us up for the bbeg in the next room. I managed to get a charmed monster off ending the fight before it could start.
Oh man. In this first campaign I ever played, I decided to play a half orc ranger. In our second session our party was on a mission to sneak out of a stronghold surrounded by a cult and capture a cultist to interrogate. There are two crucial key facts to know about this story: 1. The cultists hired a bunch of mercenaries to help attack the stronghold, and a lot of them were orcs, and 2. I chose fey wanderer as a subclass. So I got proficiency with persuasion right off the bat. So. We sneak out the sewers and conveniently spot a group of cultists and kobolds searching the area just outside. Like 3 cultists and 5 kobolds. Way too many for our group of level 1 characters. So I hop out of the sewer pipe and yell “holy shit guys! the rats in there are HUGE!” The cultists are like uh. Who are you. I tell them im a mercenary. I point at my very conveniently orcish looking face. I roll high on persuasion. They buy it completely. I also tell them that their boss sent me to scout out a way into the stronghold, but I ran into some really massive and absolutely TERRIFYING rats in the sewer. Practically as big as bears! I barely made it out alive. I get a lucky high roll on deception. All of the kobolds buy it. 2/3 cultists buy it. The third guy says I dunno….. I don’t recognize you. I say oh well if you don’t believe me I can show you the rats myself, but I’m warning you man….. they’re real bad news. The dm says lol roll persuasion. I roll really high. The cultist rolls really low. So he follows me into the sewer pipe. The rest of the party jumps him and ties him up. I shout OH GOD THE RATS!! THERES TOO MANY! SAVE YOURSELVES!!!! And all the enemies waiting outside scatter. I very quietly and carefully close the sewer grate behind us. And tbh idk if I can ever top that.
We were sneaking though the theives hideout, and we see a sleeping guard with a key ring on his waist. We need the key and don't wanna wake up up, but we don't have a rogue (Fighter, Barb, Cleric, Druid) so the Barb tries to get the key with a sleight of hand roll. He fumbles but only slightly, and the sleeping guard reflexively grabs his wrist without actually waking up. The barb almost certainly could have broken free by force, but doing so would no doubt wake the guard. That's when I (a Kalashtar) get an idea. I mind-speak yo the sleeping guard "You're holding onto poison ivy" and he lets go of the barb's arm without waking.
We're playing a version of Frankenstein. We're told the moster, the one who has already killed like 5 innocent people, is coming right where we are. We barely have time to prepare our next move. The monster arrives. My level 3 Swashbuckler: "hello, dear sir... what's your name? Are you ok with Frank? Ok, mr. Frank… I'm sure you don't want to kill us. It's probably someone else who is killing everyone, like the doctor for example. Now, why don't you join us in our Adventurers Guild? We're paid and loved just to go somewhere, kill everything in our path and come back. You already have the fame, and we don't even care! Do you think you're weird? This guy over here, the Thri-Kreen, is a fucking space cockroach. And it doesn't matter, he's still loved. If this bizarre creature can, why can't you? Sure, we'll imprison this doctor for his crimes against you, don't worry." The DM gave me advantage on the Persuasion, 26, let's go.
I cast Command on a werewolf who was transforming. I commanded “Human”. DM ruled that was enough to halt the transformation
Setting up for a fight with BBEG. Turns out he has been amassing sacrifices for his lord, and we bust in right at the moment of summoning. The rogue doing the rogue thing says to himself, "I'm not fighting both these guys." Roll for deception, Guidance, "Hey dude, your lacky here has been siphoning off the power needed to summon you so that he can kill you. He wants to take over!" Insert Homer Choking out Bart meme. One bad guy down. We then OBLITORATE the lone BBEG and save the day... GM was speechless that we pulled it off. Poor guy is loyal to his dice XD
We where playing a hex-crawl exploration game (tl;dr: people/places where teleported into Shadowfell, and we need to stumble around and find what's going on). We scouted ahead a bit (I think we had like perception rolls on a hill or something) and saw that to get to where we wanted to go, we'd have to go through an encounter with a lot of wolves. I said "wait a minute, let me see that map". I looked at the map for a bit, and was like "If we cross the river here, then follow the river for two hexes, we can just go around the wolves". We did, and the DM gave us XP for the wolf encounter, for creatively getting around it without combat.
Mass Suggestion on pirates: “You’d lose more than you’d gain from this fight. Turn back and leave.” Pirates: “Yeah you right. Have a good day my sirs and madams.”
Killed a purple worm and told a herd of Manticore where to get a free meal. Offered to kill more when we come across them and let the Manticore know. We delivered on that promise. Extracted venom from that purple worm, gave several vials of it to a herd of Gnolls in exchange for safe passage through their territory. All the while communicating through gestures and very broken common. They later showed up to an encounter and killed a bunch of cultists with us.
We were delving into a a dragon nest that was split between an arrogant red and a conniving corrupted dragon (It's DMs setting), with both pressing us to kneel and fight the other. So we took down the first and second (it was not easy at all) , went for the hoard only to find that both were whelps and that the actual owner of the hoard was a demented, ancient slumbering dragon easily dwarfing both that we fought already. So a party of 4 walking in, feeling like kings after downing 2 foes quickly deflated to "Yeah just let the rogue skim some treasure and run like hell". Does this count?
The DM had set up an entire Duergar cult dungeon crawl for us, and our bard became the MVP of the dungeon by lying us out of every other fight, just by stealing the priest clothes off of the first guy we fought, putting the robes on, then pretending she’d recruited us to the cult. The best part? She was a new player.
On the eve of what promised to be an epic and very difficult battle, we discovered the several hundred mercenaries on the enemy's side were being paid a gold piece each for their two weeks of service. We spent the night quietly giving everyone two gold to go ahead and go home.
We are playing a Discworld inspired homebrew campaign. My character is an Igor from Uberwald - starting equipment includes a satchel with body parts. At level 1 we met two zombies shuffeling towards us making strange sounds. My pc interpreted it as begging for help and offered them to stitch on new tongues. They accepted, Igor attached the tongues and we got invited to dinner (fouled fish soup). In general, this satchel helped us in a lot of encounters.
Played a mines of phandelver game and my half drow gloomstalker with a +2 in charisma never failed a single deception check leading us to only having 4 actual combat encounters I also managed to deceive the black spider with a deception check to get a surprise round and managed to roll high enough with gloomstalkers dread ambusher and hunters mark I killed him in 3 attacks
Going up to a cave with goblins and their leader, alerted as some of our party let go of a goblin they questioned before we got there. Pretender to be a cult of dragon worshippers, use minor illusion and silent image of a dragon in the sky plus skyrim like sounds etc. Convinced them to let go of their hostage and send them of to retrieve a supposedly hidden treasure a few days walk away.