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Monday, July 07, 2008

Oops!

Geek Alert!

Saturday we settled down for a Gaming Day, and my D&D character accomplished what we all consider the most tremendously bone-headed act of stupidity we had ever witnessed. (As the player, I'm absolved of any blame, of course!) The former Top Boner was a wizard casting Lightning Bolt while everybody was knee-deep in swamp water.

Wendy (she has stormy eyes) was accompanying her gal pals (a priestess and a paladin) and a fighter on a quest to save the soul of a slain paladin. She's only a 5th-level Wizard (Transmuter), but her prized possession is a Wand of Polymorph Other and she has an amulet that summons three minor demons (manes, left) to serve and protect her (I don't think the paladin ever caught her using it). Her selection of highest-level spells had only one offensive choice (L. Bolt) so she kept in mind a use for the Haste spell that wouldn't magically age friends of hers. If the offal started flying, she'd Haste the demons and send them out to fight at double speed! When a great big Shambling Mound enveloped and tried to smother the priestess, she applied the tactic. Unfortunately, she overlooked the fact that these demons explode in a puff of acid when they die... and everybody but Wendy ("Ouch!") was within the danger radius. "Oh, I know, I'll turn one of the remaining ones into a Hydra! With the wand!" Poof! It worked!

Jon, the DM for this session, rolled some dice and sadly looked at me, "You know, you don't control the Hydra...."

"The Hasted 11-headed Hydra, you mean?"

Remember Boromir's expression in Moria when he said, "They brought a Cave Troll?"

It certainly helped us kill the Shambling Mound, but it killed everyone else too! Wendy could have escaped, but stayed to Lightning Bolt the Hydra or Polymorph it into something else; she was rent asunder before she could even start the spell. A good time was had by all, though we'd hardly touched the good stuff yet.

We continued the adventure with another set of characters and have a date in mid-August to finish it.

I just re-checked the description of the Wand in the DM's book. You can't Polymorph Others into Hydras with the wand! You must turn them into bunnies, snails, or other innocuous creatures, like Wendy has been doing ever since she's had the thing. I don't know what Jon's gonna do about it.

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4 Comments:

  • At 7:19 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Well obviously your wand was of superior quality and can turn manes into hydras. After all, isn't that what happened? Just think how happy Wendy will be (if she makes her ressurection roll) when she realizes the superior quality of her wand. Obviously it was made in the United Fantasy States of America.

     
  • At 9:40 PM, Blogger Serr8d said…

    Of course that wand can change demons to hydra, when used in the same general area as a haste spell.

    Because a wand is a missile weapon, and haste adds to the speed...so, if your wand 'change-to' table is set up for, say, a roll of 1-99 'bunnies and snails', then a roll a 00 moves you to the 'monsters' table...where you might find the hydra. So, you roll a 95, add +5 to the wand result table, and voila! you're there.

    (I haven't played D&D since the late '70's, but I recall that the best part of it was the imaginative rolls; and always '00' brought out some excitement! I still keep a couple six-sided on my desk to do 'attitude checks' with... )

     
  • At 10:01 PM, Blogger AlanDP said…

    The wand was cursed, man. Anytime an artifact does something it's not supposed to and the DM doesn't catch it--that artifact is cursed.

    Cursed, I say!!!

     
  • At 10:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I would have loved to have been there to see that in person. We should play a round of D&D sometime. Or Magic or something. I haven't had a good game of D&D in a while.

    One of the last good games I've played, my group which consisted of a Human thief, a Gray Elf Wizard, 2 Dwarven Clerics, a Drawven Warrior and myself, a Human warrior, were guests of a fellow of "transylvanian" decent if you catch my drift. All was going well until our Dwraven warrior decided to imbibe a flask of Holy water, hold it in his mouth, and spit it in the Vampires face. Good times.

     

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