Grrl Power #882 – The slippery arm of the law
Just be thankful it’s freshly summoned lube.
Sydney’s not actually correct about it being a cantrip. It’s like the level 6 version of “Lube.” Honestly I feel bad for whoever has to clean up after this fight. That stuff does not wash off easily, and the duration is about 500 hours. Because succubi wildly overestimate every other races’ endurance.
Dabbler is one of those adventurers who knows that in a universe of infinite possibilities, it doesn’t matter how many guns you have, or grenades or cool gadgets. They’re tough to use if you can’t stand. While the average merc or adventurer has good traction, it takes exceptional traction to resist a spell like that. And the ones who are prepared for that eventuality might not be ready for the web spell, and the ones ready for that might not be ready for the insect swarm spell.
Don’t get me wrong, Dabbler is a bullets and swords kind of gal most of the time, but she knows it’s the oddball attack that gets the job done.
Anyone have any unusual takedown stories from your tabletop games? I was in a D&D party once that wound up stripped of all their equipment and facing off against a bunch of vampires. The problem being that vampires in D&D can’t be hurt unless you use magical weapons on them. A friend of mine playing a barbarian with 18/100 strength and 3 intelligence (I watched him roll the character up – he had the craziest dice karma) logiced that vampires can’t be hurt by non-magical weapons… because they’re magic. So, one successful grapple check later and our barbarian was beating one vampire to death with another. If vampires can hurt each other in a fight, they can certainly hurt each other if one of them is being used as a maul.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I one-shot an Ancient Red Dragon by dive-bombing him with flechettes. I used the Fly spell to get up high, wore a Girdle of Cloud Giant Strength and dove toward the dragon, throwing the handful of flechettes at the dragon’s head. I got a nat 20, followed up by 100% on the critical damage chart. Naturally, Tia was a homebrew game…
Yeah, I’ve played a few of those. And there’s always the one guy who convinces the GM that this new character type is a cool idea that should be built into the game … and no, these abilities for the character type aren’t at all unbalanced such that each one individually makes the character more powerful than the rest of the party combined.
This guy in my high-school/college group always made characters with extra-broken abilities that were more powerful than any GM should allow in her/his games. Oh, but there’s a trade-off. To balance out how brokenly powerful they are, they do things that will hurt the other party members.
There was this one berserker-like character who … you can see where this is going, can’t you?
Yeah, I played Fantasy HERO with a guy like that. Luckily, I was forewarned that he was building such a thing, so I built a Final-Fantasy Dragoon-type character, and whenever he’d rage, once all the enemies were dead, I’d get him focused on me and then jump around. Since my Leap was faster than his Run, I could basically just lead him on a merry chase until his rage wore off, thus minimizing the damage he did to the rest of the group.
Eh- I’ve found the trick is to massively limit the risk that such characters can survive.
So yes- you can have a race with natural perfect flying- but you don’t get any legs, and your carrying capacity is limited (AND YES I KEEP TRACK OF THAT).
You want to play a class with massive and enduring psionic abilities? Great! Have a D4 hit die and magic resistance to ALL Magical Effects. Good luck using any items or healing potions!
You want an item that can throw out fireballs a dozen times before needing a short-rest recharge? Sure, but the range is 10 feet, and you need to make an int save every time you pick it up otherwise you take a level of exhaustion.
Best to make things FUN that way.
You are our new hero!!! That is some amazingly, epic shit! #AllTheHighFives
D&D story? Sure. Before I begin, something I should clarify: The group this campaign took place in has plenty of in-jokes and memes surrounding our sessions. One of them was that, no matter the universe or time period, there is always DeVry University.
3.5 campaign where the buildup was towards an Elder Evils endgame. The party was going to have to stop Father Llymic from manifesting on Eberron. Basically squashing an interdimensional space-tick that feeds on darkness and despair. They fight their way to the summit of the mountain, where Father Llymic’s frozen shadow and his herald, a Beetlejuice expy, are waiting on the party.
They manage to pass an epic diplomacy check to convince him to hear an offer of theirs, but there was no way I was going to let them roll to succeed. They’d have to give me something that would persuade him on its own merits, and I couldn’t think of anything they could offer. They ask me if they can have some time outside to discuss things (I think they might’ve got in a smoke break as well, idk), I take the time to pull up Father Llymic’s character sheet so they can fight him when they fail. Then they get back.
It’s worth noting that I’m really, really good at character voices, accents, that sort of thing. I meant to give Father Llymic a phlegmy voice, one that was unsettlingly high while also having a distinct growl. One that had stresses on syllables and volume shifts that wouldn’t come up in normal speech. I accidentally created a really excellent Gilbert Gottfried impression, which derailed the entire session for about five minutes while we laughed over the coincidence. Then I decided to lean into the impression. Screw it. Father Llymic is Gilbert Gottfried, why not.
“WhaT alTERRnative can YOU OFFER meee, MORTAL?????”
And then the party wizard leans forward, classic Phoenix Wright “OBJECTION!” pose. “Have you heard of DeVry University?”
Shit, they’ve won.
My jaw drops, I’m struck absolutely speechless for a straight half-minute while the party grins, realizing they’ve taken me entirely by surprise. I finally manage to get my shit together.
Over the next minute, while I pull up a Gelugon on my laptop and beef it up a bit to around CR19 (because like fuck I’m letting them get away with no combat at all in the climax of the pre-epic stage of the campaign), I manage to Gottfried my way through the conversation. Father Llymic is persuaded to take up the position of guidance counselor in The DeVry University, the multiversal nexus from which all DeVrys University issue and to which they all eventually return. There is no better source of darkness and despair. His avatar still emerges, but without the godly space-tick powering it the party takes it down in four rounds while it acknowledges to having SEVEEEEERELY MISCAAALcuLATed.
The DeVry University meme is retired now. We’ve never found a better use for it.
D&D stories… At a Chicago convention about 35/40 years ago A couple of the guests of honor
were Some of the original game developers, Who regaled us with several funny stories when we took them out to lunch Saturday afternoon.
Apparently in one of the early Test campaigns one of the players managed to talk the DM
into letting His paladin have a slavers stasis sword from Niven’s ring world.
(A mono molecular indestructible thread that can cut through anything, and extend from completely retracted to 40 feet.)
He managed to parlay this into acquiring another indestructible holy sword, Invincible armor that deflected spells, a helm that protected against all kinds of illusion and Mind magic, And oh yes, seven league boots among other things.
They played in that campaign over Many months off and on, And he always refused to roll a different character, Which eventually Became so powerful as to be ludicrous.
Finally the DM had enough and when he next used the character, on his first role….
the DM gave the following Spiel. (Paraphrased- it’s been a while)
A Holy light fills the road in front of your party. Stairs of the brightest silver Form from the light, And you hear a Vast and resounding voice.
My great and noble champion you have done such magnificent deeds, I have decided that you shall never die.
You will sit at my right hand as my Immortal champion of the heavens, come my son join me.
At which point a couple of gorgeous angels whisked him up the stairs and vanished,
leaving the flummoxed player with no character….. Never annoy the DM.
The other story we were told was of one evenings campaign after a certain minigame
had come out which inspired the DM to do something…. Whimsical
As They start, the party are told They are standing in front of a mountain cliff face
with two great doors in the side each door is 20 feet high and 20 feet across.
The doors are neither trapped nor locked and they opened them to find a great tunnel
dimly lit with no decoration 20 x 40’ gently sloping down into the mountain as far as they can see
they enter the tunnel and with every role are told the tunnel continues to slope downward,
nothing to see, no traps or monsters, Until finally there told That something in the distance is coming up the tunnel towards them and when they ask for A description they are told that they can barely make out that it is an ogre.
One ogre, that’s not going to be a problem they decide to continue….
After several more roles being told the ogre is still quite some distance away but still approaching
they start to get more than a little leery about what’s going on and ask for a description of the ogre, to which the DM replies it’s 20 feet high and 40 feet wide… Excuse me, what kind of ogre is this? At which point the DM informs them it is an ogre cybernetic tank, and they are half a mile From the entrance to the tunnel.
Apparently the party actually defeated the thing but not without a lot of Damage to the party.
I think the best takedown I’ve come across was beating up vampires with the campaign intro:
So we’re trapped in the Ostentatorium (big fancy room) of a vampire, at the top of a tower, on a cliff. The group was low level, as in waaay underlevelled for the encounter, and the only source of magic damage we had (a wizard) was targeted and knocked out pretty early in the fight. We look pretty screwed until the guy playing the rogue has a lightbulb moment. He asks “If you, as GM, make a declarative statement about the world, that is true, yes?”
GM says yes, though he might hedge any information he gives with qualifiers to represent the limits of character knowledge.
The rogue says that’s fine, and immediately declares that his character tackles the vampire, trying to know it out a window.
The GM is a little confused, but decides to roll with it, on the grounds of “screw it, this villain’s immune to non-magical damage, he doesn’t need to cast Flight, Feather Fall or similar, he can just walk away from the fall damage”
The rogue looks really smug and asks the GM to read the first page of his campaign notes again, where he was introducing the campaign: “It is a world of magic…”
Subsequent campaigns got the explicit ruling that Falling damage did not count as Magical damage, even if it was a magical world.
With all the stuff they supposedly have WHY ARE THEY FIGHTING USING SWORDS ATTACHED TO THEIR HANDS?
If reaction speed is at all a factor, why not have it attached to a drone or a powered exoskeleton? Where are the smart-missiles with swords attached if ranged weaponry is for some reason extremely ineffective? Where’s the post-singularity tech like Utility Fog that renders everything within kilometers compliant to the fog controller?
Do you know how expensive that stuff is and how much it costs to repair combat exoskeletons!? If the job can be done with a grunt and a simple sword, you don’t waste the expensive stuff. Neuro-Mind Fog(TM) is far too expensive to waist on anything short of a request to acquire an entire city, base or colony. Might as well choose an easier target if you’ll just blow all your pay trying to capture it.
Sure it’s privey but it’s not like electro-swords are much cheaper, and they have the fatal flaw of putting the operator in danger rather than a fleet of cheap mass-produced drone which individually have reflexes, speed, mobility, strength, durability, and number of effective limbs that cannot be matched by even the mostly highly trained and enhanced fragile poorly evolved fleshbeing.
Proper fights ought to be carried out from the comfort of your carrier ship that rests far outsize the conbat zone, I say!
Ancient Green Dragon hovering over lava. Enchanter takes it out with a single cast of “Hideous Laughter” – Dragon can’t do anything but laugh, and that includes flying. Sploosh! Sizzle!
So, couple things:
1) Do the locals get to loot the bodies of the mercs they kill/capture? Would that be an effective way around the embargo? Can the various equipment be taken apart, or is this a fulrened anti-matter battery situation where disassembly leads to a rather loud bang? Dabbler could probably head off a lot of arguments by mentioning that sort of thing, as while the fuel is interesting, the important bit is how you make it. ‘Course, that also depends on having the infrastructure in place to make the fuel in sufficient quantities and low enough cost. A car that goes twenty years without needing refueling but costs a billion dollars to make isn’t worth it.
2) So, with spells that eliminate a physical force, how well does that work? Like, if you cast some variant of friction reducer on a creature with wings, would it fall out of the sky due to severe alteration of air resistance and interactions? That’s one of the things I always like in my magic stories where a normie dude gets sucked into a fantasy world: exploiting magic mechanics for fun and profit! There’s so many minor spells that are only minor because of the lack of understanding of how the world works.
3) Out of curiosity, how closely related is tech and magitech from the wider galactic view? How many different spell forms are required to manufacture some of the basics of what they consider bare bones?
1) This is going to lead to a diplomatic nightmare. It already did with the Fel and it will do it again. You’re right about the antimatter situation most of the tests will probably be done either in space or in remote areas
2) We have never seen complete annihilation of physical force, but there is still a ton of spells that’re very interesting, like featherfall, redirect force into the ground, shield(seems to transform the force mostly into sound), create/teleport lube, sleep, hypnosis, animate object(3CA and 15CA), Scan, wormhole, wind, flame aura and enlarge person.
3) First the galaxy seems to differentiate between psychic powers and magic powers. Both are used in technology, but psychic powers seem to be at least common practice in their ftl devices. In today’s comic seems to be implied that magic is a common thing to use in weaponry and when Dabbler introduces the 6 schools of magic mechanical magic is one of them.
1) Ships are designed to be refueled and maintained, so there’s some level of difference with weapons where they’re designed to have new power supply and ammo dropped in, but parts are frequently just replaced when damaged. There might also be some degree of rights that might be under consideration, as these individuals might actually be answerable to another ‘nation’ compared to the Fel. The Fel fall under ‘natural disaster’ or plague or whatever, but these people presumably have somebody responsible for them. While them getting killed in self defense might not be a big deal, their property getting left to a pre-FTL civilization is likely to get the merc’s government fined by Prime Directive enforcers.
3) I kind of like the way Endless Online did it. Tech is universal, but magic will short circuit it. Magic is planet specific, so your spells only work one place. Psychic powers are universal and as such, are the dominant political force, but require such towering ego’s that it’s almost impossible for people to work together.
Party was joining a countermarch against Myrmidons, homebrew ultratough warriors for a fascist movement we were opposing. They had ridiculous plate armour, fortitude out the wazoo… and basically nothing for a will save. And they were carrying torches. One casting of pyrotechnics rendered their entire army blind for multiple rounds.
Remember one takedown from a D&D game that must have been about forty years ago!
We were exploring a dungeon sited below a castle keep, where each level was located one above the other (spiral staircases in the keep’s corner turrets linked all the levels). We came to a sequence of levels each themed around the elements. I don’t remember what the Air level was like, but the Water level had a huge pool of water in it filled with watery beasties which we defeated. Next level down, the Fire level, featuring an equally big lava lake and lots of fiery monsters to go with it.
That was all we needed to see, we shut the door and went back up to the Water level. A quick passwall (or stone shape or whatever – like I said it was forty years ago) on the floor under the lake and the water hits the lava creating a massive explosion of steam and fiery-creature-death. Good times.
I’ve changed what I was planning to say in mid-speech like Sydney. It leads to some very weird sentences.
Also a bunch of sentences where you say the opposite of your intended meaning because you crossed the streams. Where if you said one thing, it’d be your intended meaning, or another thing, and it’d be your intended meaning, but saying half of one and half of the other leads to the opposite of your intended meaning.
I was in a game where the party was being strafed by a dragon. We were shooting arrows at it whenever it came near, but we had to stay close together so that it couldn’t isolate one of us to focus on, so it was hitting us with its breath weapon.
So the party wizard looked at what scrolls he had. And discovered a scroll of Wall of Force. Which he cast right as the dragon was trying to make another strafing run, causing the dragon to smack into it like a bird hitting a window.
Cue one angry group of adventurers all getting new dragonskin boots.
grease is a classic entry level wizard spell
Ew! Dabs would NOT use anything as crude as grease as lube!
Well of course she wouldn’t. That’s a level 1 spell, Dabbler’s is lvl 6. ;)
Unless someone had a fetish for grease and crudity.
My 3rd level wizard took out a freaking Roc that turned up as a random encounter. It was diving towards the party and I blinded it with glitterdust. The beastie crashed into the solid stone of the mountain and took a ton of damage, and our group all climbed on its back and murdered it.
“Sydney’s not actually correct about it being a cantrip.”
Actually, she is. It certainly can trip.
I think that by the time it’s being cast at 6th level, it’s more of a “will trip”
How’d you kill the last vampire though?
Being used as club against magic weapons is not healthy for most creatures.
I would assume that the one being used as a weapon would also take damage. If not, beat him with a dead vampire. Still magic!
I just realized that dabbler is dressed like the ship captain from the movie Treasure Planet.
You are seriously late to that discussion. That was mentioned in the comments several pages ago when she put that outfit on in order to avoid the unsettling gaze of Ray Cosmos.
In one Iron Gamer contest (48 hours straight of D&D you need to stay up the whole time, 3 hour blocks with 15 minute stretch breaks every 6 hours, rotating GMs) one of our players was a wizard and steadily fading in and out around hour 35.
We’re facing the big bad of the arc who’s a summoner. He summons a pit fiend via a Gate spell as the party watches (GM cutscenes…) and as the demon asks “what is your desire?” to the summoner our wizard half wakes up looks at the GM and says “I cast Quickened Ventriloquism, then make the Summoner say ‘Kill me on your home plane.’” Then he laid his head down and partially passed out again.
Suffice to say the fight ended right there leaving the rest of us with an hour of booked time for a boss fight that never happened.
Epic D&D takedown. We were assaulting a tower that had been taken over by living shadows. My warlock (being the only one who could fly AND see in magical darkness) was send to scout the top of the tower, where it turned out a shadow-lich was leading the invaders and grabbed me with a tendril of pure shadows, turned out my shield had a “daylight” spell enchantment, which dispelled the like 50% miss chance by non ghost-touch attacks, so I activated the shield’s enchantment and used my flight spell to aid the lich in dragging me in as an ad hoc Bull Rush, right off the tower’s roof and 120 feet to the ground, I barely stopped before we hit the ground, but the Lich was still in the shield’s light when he landed and shattered the diamond tooth he used as a phylactery.
While working security at a mall,I successfuly took down a purse snatcher by throwing a shopping cart at him. It was only fifteen feet and he was trying to run past me but it caught him full in the chest. He broke two fingers when he tried to catch the damned thing and dropped the purse. After the police got there I found out that the lady had left her wallet at home and there was nothing in it except some food she was going to sneak into the movies. They nearly arrested me with the purse snatcher.
Drifting the thread back to the topic:
We seem to have misplaced rescuing Maxima.
Someone with higher screen resolution … who is the hovering redhead? And what is happening to her/him/it in panel 4?
The hovering Redhead is Heatwave, and I assume she’s dealing with scorpion dude. It looks like she’s been bolo’d in panel 1, but breaks it in panel 4 and somehow causes a shockwave, knocking scorpion dude over.
For someone who can create and absorb heath creating a shockwave is easy. The sun and bombs does it all the time with only heathing: warm the air at one side, so you have a big heath difference and you have a shockwave/wind
@[Chris]:
I’m not sure if Heatwave caused a shockwave (which I think is possible), or if maybe “Scorpion Guy” got caught in the radius of Dabbler’s “Lube”-spell. Considering how stable his 4-legged stance would be, I’m thinking it would take a combination of the 2, to upset his balance.
An explosion is nothing more than the result of taking a portion of matter (solid/liquid/gas) & heating it (which causes it to expand) so rapidly that the surrounding material is forced to “ripple”, to compensate for the change in volume. Taking the material of the “bolo” & heating it fast-enough to change it into superheated plasma absolutely sounds like something she could do. It would serve as both “escape” & “counter-attack”, all in 1 move.
AWW – [Smoutwortel] beat me to it!
:)
But you also opened the possibility of Dabblers attack effecting more than one enemy. You just can’t have quality and quantity.
I got quantity, you got quality.
I’m reminded of mythbusters test of thermite on ice. I keep thinking extra hot +oxygen and hydrogen….
The one that sticks out in my mind is similar to yours, but it’s Gargoyles. One of the players had magic chainmail, so he took the armor off and started swinging it around. I remember it because he started miming the action himself, and the chair he was sitting in collapsed. The look on his face was hysterical.
Sorry to be so “late to the party”. but I just got caught-up to the present, & I have a question about Pg_881.
—
In Pg_881’s [Characters]-listing, only Sydney is mentioned, & not the alien she’s talking to.
Given the data from “Torchy’s” word-balloon in the last panel of Pg_880, this alien is clearly named “Crimoon”.
Since Crimoon is speaking, wouldn’t they be entitled to at-least a mention, if not a “Who’s Who”-entry?
Yeah, don’t depend too much on the Who’s Who or the character sheets. Not all characters warrant an entry, even if they have a name; generally they have to appear in at least say 5-6 strips. And Dave doesn’t always remember to flag everyone in a given strip for the sidebar.
Yup, and I d9n’t know if DaveB would consider adding the ability for readers to help tag the archives.
Also note too there are sometimes different character tags as you progressed through the archives to help preserve plot.
The actual takedown wasn’t so unusual, but when the GM sends a bunch of low-dex, plate wearing Fighters after a group that’s almost all casters, he really shouldn’t be so surprised when our first response is a combination of Grease, Summon Swarm, Heat Metal, and a bunch of other shit that plate doesn’t do jack to stop.
My cleric damaged a fire elemental by using summon food and water and summoning soup… right over its head. It took us a few minutes to calculate the volume of soup that would be summoned to figure out how much damage to deal.
There was the time I got the paladin to drop a door on the enemies…
So, there was a group of known hostile dwarfs coming up an elevator shaft on a platform just down the hall. Mechanical and hand-cranked, so not super fast. And we could hear them and had time to plan. We’d just come through a door from another hallway and I had a brilliant idea.
GM was not quite understanding why I asked him what the dimensions of the shaft were until I asked the paladin to wrench the door off its hinges. Between the paladin and the warrior they hefted the door over to the shaft and just… dropped it. There was nowhere for the enemy to dodge and that door fell a long ways before hitting them. SPLAT!
GM was a little grumpy with me for knocking out that week’s combat encounter, but I was pretty proud of myself.
Online game, D&D MUSH, so I fail to recall levels, but was fairly high, 12-13 range. Young red dragon shows up outside the city acting really odd. Party heads out to find out what’s up, dragon files up into the air, tries it’s fire breath weapon… finds half the party dodges, is immune, or has enough HP to not care. Dragon tries to NOPE out, fly away. Hobgoblin monk is having none of that, uses ki or chi or whatever to boost athletics, boots of speed to run after, and jumps into the air, grabbing the dragon in a grapple, manages a pin. No more flying for the dragon, cashes to the ground… and now surrounded, switches to more diplomatic tactics.
every tool in her box… PHRASING!
She’s a succubus. Get used to it :D
We all assume that Dabbler has plenty of helpers to keep her tools squeeky clean and thoughly polished.
Plus she makes great cookies.
They can’t be SQUEAKY clean… LUBE you know!!!
This is one I read in a novel, but I have to share. They successfully intimidate a fire elemental by igniting a sprig of magnesium and dropping it in a glass of water. They could make fire where it couldn’t, so obviously they were more powerful than it.
Operation Chaos, perhaps?
Huhuhuh… a succubus’ box always has multiple tools in it.
Sorry, had to be said.
In the 70s played a lot of d&d with a really devious and parsimonious dm: I came up with onion juice in wine skins with a small aperture for blinding/unarming humanoid opponents. DM liked the ingenuity so he allowed it.
Don’t you dare think I missed Mr. Amorphous bitch-slapping a Sontaran in the background.
Also used some cooking oil in potion bottles for either molotovs or slippery obstacle patches for a fast getaway. Not quite as effective as Xuriel’s spell, but my fighter had a decent int. I picked a necklace of fireballs and magic missile wands occasionally when loot was decided because a) no class restrictions, b) added an extra aloe or pin point ranged attack when we needed it, and c)mages often picked stuff I could really use then sold it so fríx them.
D&D takedowns:
In a long-ago, high-level campaign, I was playing a wizard in a party with a Project that the DM didn’t demand an explanation for until too late. He just made us quest for the materials and components, research a special version of Disintegrate I wanted (with different targeting and no residue), and so forth. He didn’t ask why I was casting hundreds of Glassteels, Disintegrates, a couple of Gates, and so forth. He didn’t even ask when I Gated a great big rock to our stronghold.
As a result, when he sprang a mindflayer moon base on us, he had no idea that we had, in effect, a mass driver ready to fire a relativistic rock at any target we could aim a Gate at. Several pages of math later, the moon gained a feature that would eventually be known as “The Eye of Selene”, and new cults were forming. But there were no more mindflayers on the moon. :D
I killed a water elemental by shooting it with the ‘geyser’ setting on a Decanter of Endless Water. The GM still brings that up.
The one I still love is the party being attacked by were-creatures of all kinds. All low-level, and without enough magic weapons, so the barbarian grabbed a were-ocelot by the tail and proceeded to use it as a flail.
And that’s why ocelots have had short tails ever since.
Low level adventurers, like…level 3 low…and this was back in the days of D&D. Not 3.5 or even 3.0…not 2.0, and not even ADYD, but D&D, early 1980s, THAT long ago.
Anyway, we were tromping through a coastal forest, having heard of a sea dragon in the area that was bothering the villagers, and we were stupid enough (aka new enough to the game) to not realize that lvl 3 adventurers could NOT go up against a sea dragon successfully…right?
Spotting a bit of shiny metal, we found the remains of a dead brownie (the race, not the Girl Scout rank, thankfully) in a hollow under a tree, and investigated the remains (aka “looted the body”). Tiny brownie dagger, and a pouch of old acorns. Brownie Acorns. These were a magic item, but we didn’t realize that until the rogue tossed one of the acorns away in disgust, because they looked old and rotting.
It transformed into a 10’x10’x10′ cube…of rotting turkey gravy. Even the party members upwind had to take a constitution check. (We all failed.) We hastened to get AWAY from the glopping, slopping, slumping, putrid mess, and after recovering, continued on our way.
Eventually, we reached the cliffs…just in time to see the sea dragon (young adult, WAY over our challenge rating, in an era long, long before CR) swooping about. It flew up near us, sneered at our pathetically ill-equpped selves, but we bravely ordered it to “Begone! Or we shall visit the wrath of the villagers upon you until you surrender or flee!”
It sneered, squirted seawater at us (we all dodged successfully since the DM explaind it was just a warning shot, and only got soaked, no actual damage with the dodge successes) and it darted into its cave.
Our rogue marched up to the edge of the cliff, shouted down, “Okay, YOU ASKED FOR IT!!” And hurled one of the Brownie Acorns right down onto the entrance of the sea cave.
10’x10’x10′ cube of rotting peanut butter.
Gagging noises from within the cave.
“LEAVE NOW OR FOREVER PUKE, DRAGON!!” shouted our rogue.
A roar from the sea dragon (and more gagging noises), but it didn’t leave.
So our rogue, she hurled another Brownie Acorn. (My cousins, sister, and I were all playing, and the girls outnumbered the boys 4 to 3; remember this was the early 1980s, DO NOT TELL ME GIRLS DON’T PLAY D&D, I BEEN PLAYING LONGER THAN MOST OF Y’ALL BEEN ALIVE, LITERALLY). *ahem* Where was I…? Ah, yes. The 2nd Brownie Acorn.
10’x10’x10′ cube…of rotting pistachio pudding.
Dragon vomiting noises.
“LAST CHANCE TO GO AWAY!!”
A roar of defiance…interspersed with retching noises.
Another Brownie Acorn.
10’x10’x10′ cube of rotting hollandaise sauce.
The sea dragon shot outta that cave as fast as it could flap and NEVER came back.
…And that was how our group, even splitting the XP because the whole group had decided to investigate the tree hollow AND the whole group had discussed how to use the cubes of rotting food offensiveliy…was enough to bump us all up to the halfway point of level 4, all because of past their expiration date Brownie Acorns.
LOL no weapon? No Problem! I’ll just make me a vampire-maul! It’s like the rat-flail only much more effective! ^_^
One reasons to love DND is simply this, much of the creative work is done by the GM but the players get to add their own to the mix.
I like how she be bragging while Maxima is doing an ascension rise like some kind of end game boss in the background. Can’t handle a single succubus let alone what’s going on behind her! Wonder how many will come before they stop underestimating the demons of this backwater planet? ^_^
In regards to crazy stuff? I can a campaign, nothing homebrew, straight legit. One evening the player had a great idea. Jump up OVER the enemies, land in the middle of the group and go to town. He’s a front line melee character. Ok, still not easy, so I have him make a roll. He critically fumbles the roll.
“Perfect jump, perfect air time, and you forgot about the ceiling. You hit the ceiling and fall down prone, surrounded by the enemy.”
And then to throw some humor in, three lemmings showed up and held up score cards, “1.0, 7.0, 9.0” to which a player deadpanned, “Dam Russian judge.”
The lemmings became a running joke when I needed to lighten the mood.
Not a “Take down the foe” style story but instead a comeupance story about a PC. We play D&D but we also play systems like GURPS. Now a 200 point GURPS character in a fantasy setting is probably somewhere around 3rd or 4th level equivalent.
So one of the players goes sauntering into the street and bumps into what is basically a 1st level Fighter, 75-100 point Street Tough with a sword. Being a “bad ass” swordsman he theatens the man who proceeds to roll better on initiative, get the first attack, rolls a critical, and was aiming for vitals with a pointy sword, and rolls almost max damage. My friend has to roll to remain concious. He fails. He is below -Health so since he is unconcious he now has to roll to stay alive. He crit fails and bleeds out in the street before anyone knows why he didn’t show up to the meeting.
This was the first session, first interaction. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why you don’t “Murder Hobo” your way through a game world because this guy who killed him was nothing too special. GURPS is very deadly in that way but even so you don’t go around starting fights with random townsfolk.
I like the little stuffed figure dangling off Dabbler’s sword.
And speaking of the sword, I find it interesting that using it with both right hands. Usually in fantasy art, 4 armed humanoids are depicted with great weapons held in both upper arms, and shields or single weapons in the lower ones.
Of course, we can’t know which is a better way.
In https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-766-bullet-dump/ she’s holding it in 3 hands
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-482-panty-raid-0/ in this and the next page all 4 hands (that or she tucked two away)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-472-bring-a-spike-to-a-sword-fight/ here the top 2 but then switched to the right two.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-279-high-risk-reversal/ here it’s the top two with something in the bottom left hand.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-217-dabbler-second-best-at-swording/ 3 with a spell from lower right.
Overall it seems like she’s using it like a bastard sword but with 2-4 hands instead of 1-2.
Especially when she splits it https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-223-unlike-a-dead-parrot-heavenly-sword-does-go-voom/
I suspect if she was ever fighting someone below her she’d use the bottom two. :)
She is ambidextrous though:
in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-632-the-peg-legginator/ she’s holding her gun with the top two hands
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-287-all-wrapped-up/ she has the piston in her upper left hand and reloads it with her lower left.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-267-dont-worry-hes-got-nothing-on-frieza/ and for a steady shot both left hands. (with her sword in both right hands)
Good job!
So I guess she’s never dual-wielded two-handed swords?
Well, we’ve never seen it in-comic, but since it **CAN** ‘unlock’ into 2 separate weapons, I suppose that it may be possible?
I’ve no clue as to how such a stance might appear, or if it’s even practical to contemplate.
What would be more useful:
1)__1 sword in both UPPER-hands, & the other sword in both LOWER-hands?
2)__1 sword in both LEFT-hands, & the other sword in both RIGHT-hands?
Seems like top/bottom would be good for a single opponent, with better balance and centered defense, while side-by-side would be better for facing multiple opponents with the longer reach and less interference.
One of the ways my friend and I managed to break the game. Horde of the Dragon queen, it was me and my friend the druid. Not really a full party. So when faced with trying to break someone out of an enemy encampment and gather intelligence… we kind of accidentally joined the bad guys. And then cause the kobolds and the cultists to fight each other. Plus side, we still saved the guy and ended up getting paid by both sides. I think I was playing a warlock then now that I think about it though…