VkmSpouge:
What did they do to his corpse?
More like "What *didn't* they do?" I believe there was "I set his corpse on fire!" "I piss on his dead body!" "I stab him thirty times!" etc, etc. I was quite adept at my boss characters escaping. Darth of course had insanely high evasion and lots of annoying attacks as opposed to big heavy-hitting ones. (This is common for him.)
VkmSpouge:
What did you in that campaign that horrified EPSC?
*smile*
Well, it began when they were fighting the then-thawed lord of the 5th, Levistus. While I consider myself as decent a DM as the next guy/gal, I do have a bit of a forgetful streak. Unfortunately that night, it involved me forgetting many of the options and immunities that would've made the fight go from "OK" to "DEAR GODS NO!".
As it turned out, some of the players were making wisecracks after I left that I didn't challenge them enough, etc etc. Well, I got wind of that.
Now... I suppose revenge for insults may've been petty, but I also had one player (a rogue) obsessed with collecting the blood of every outsider they slew, and another (a wizard, who was good at avoiding combat and chucking in spells) who obsessed over every freakin' piece of magical equipment, especially weapons, and wanted to loot every corpse.
Now, maybe it was just me, but I was pretty annoyed at that point. So! Get even it was!
Culling my knowledge of D&D material, I remembered a few things out of the Forgotten Realms series. Specifically, Gem Magic and Spellfire. I decided that I'd set up a trap for the players. But how? What would exploit their weaknesses the best? Well, I figured an anti-magic field would be fun, but the range was a paltry 10' radius. That's where the Gem Magic came in. ^_^ I designed a small valley laden with crystals in a region the PCs had yet to go, but knew a goal they had to reach lay in that general direction. I eventually figured that a fast-moving creature unleashing loads of spellfire charges could 'set off' the anti-magic fields stored via gem magic. But ahh, there was one sticking point - EPSC. A) She was playing a Monk - a character who would be less hampered in my mind by the loss of magic, and B) she had aquired the winged template from Savage Species already - so she could've flown, carrying the PCs from danger. Remember I said valley? We'll get back to that.
So... How to get them into said deathtrap? One player, who was also a rogue, was notoriously difficult to get to 'play along' in anything. But, his character was new to the group, and therefore, they didn't really know him... He was also an excellent melee sneak-attacker with hide in plain sight. This too would be a nuisance in my lovely setup.
Enter the Book of Vile Darkness. >:)
I loved all the evil spells one wanted to use but were too messed up for a normal campaign. Specifically, I loved the abusive powers of Mind Rape. Of course, it had a save. Saves are no good, especially when your target has slippery mind. But, this was epic, and the caster had high enough slots to silence his spell. Silence, for me means "No saves when the gamer sleeps!" But, what would I do with him? Basically, the assassins I had were a 3 man cell of a half-ogre with a large adamantine greatsword, a Pixie Rogue with boosted CON and many, many spellfire charges inside her, and an old-school human sorcerer. We'll tie things up in a second here...
So, to start off, I wanted to seed some mistrust and paranoia in the group. I also wanted the blood of Levistus for 'bringing him back' (though really I know devil lords can theoretically never actually die). So! We started by having the Pixie and its deliciously evil always-on improved invisibility go to the blood collecting thief, lure him into the alley, rough him up, and then steal his devil blood. To enhance the idea, the sorcrer was nearby with an illusion of the party's wizard, though I dun think he made the spot check to notice him. I then had the pixie sneak up on the weapon loving wizard, disjunction his dancing mercurial adamantine greatsword (also a cause of many headaches) and then took off. Both players managed to convince themselves (the wizard liked doing screwed up crap to the blood-collecting thief) and they immediately went at each other. EPSC's character managed to break things up, but the group already wondered what was going on. That night, the other rogue (Mr. Sneak Attack himself), sleeping away from the group in another inn got a visit in his sleep... The sorcerer changed himself into a mouse, crawled onto the pixie, who snuck down the chimney. Quietly approaching the sleeping rogue, the sorcerer reverted form and cast the silenced Mind Rape. Upon waking up, they talked to the rogue, telling him that he had been casing the group for them for the last month, and the final installment of his 100,000gp reward would be paid in-full when he helped assasinate the group in the anti magic field trap.
All that was left was to get them to cross over the valley. Now, a few mods before, a great (and somewhat insane) dragon deity named Ryuujin had been awoken. Half the group didn't trust him one bit. My assassins knew that. Using a half red-dragon tyrannosaurus rex, I had the sorcerer use illusion magics to disguise the creature as Ryuujin in a frothing rage. (I had recently gotten Draconomicon... Hehe.) Sure enough, they took refuge among the crystals in the valley.
I had the pixie spring all the gems in a flyby, followed by a large area horizontal prismatic wall and that topped with a horizontal wall of force. These were JUST above the reach of the anti magic field, and would therefore be there quite a while, in theory.
Then the fun began. ^_^
The Mind Raped Rogue told EPSC's monk that everything was OK, and he knew a way out of the trap. She went over to help him, and, beating her in reaction, got off a wicked sneak attack to the gut (the PC loved the idea and agreed to play along). The half Ogre then showed up and combat began. I killed EPSC's monk in the first round and shattered the wizard's Mercurial Greatsword. The Holy liberator, whose sword was made of... Oh what the hell was that crap... Ferroplasm! Yeah, in the field, his sword melted. Now the group was down to a knife thrower and a lot of unarmed combat vs a mind raped rogue and a half ogre with a greatsword. They held up fairly well though, with the blood stealing thief using his last ounces of strength to take the half ogre down. Eventually, they managed to break a crystal, use Plane Shift, and escaped. When they came back healed up, they had the 3 assassins again, and a freshly rezzed Levistus... Yes, they still beat him. Yes, they did in the end realize what was wrong with Frank the Rogue and got his mind straight.
But I did scare the piss out of the lot of them. ^_^
Never mess with the DM.