D&D Players, What's your favorite "didn't need to fight" experience?

[@blakeetter280]

In a pirate campaign, we came across a random encounter enemy ship and decided to beard them. The artificer used vortex warp to send my paladin across and I appeared behind their captain. I then picked him up, and chucked him over the side. After which I loudly proclaimed “I am the captain now” to which the first mage replied “ok what’s your offer?” Which is how my paladin ended up negotiating salary’s and benefits with pirates. He won them over with dental! It’s just him putting his finger in their mouth and using lay on hands, but he never claimed it was good dental!

[@TheComicOpossum]

some sessions ago on a (still ongoing) game, we were finally going to face a big bad evil guy who had schemed up an insane and psychotical game (imagine Hunger Games, but inside a temple). we were all expecting a difficult fight and we were second guessing ourselves. then i asked if i could try talking the man down, since my character is a kobold bard. i tried. what followed was a long and wise speech about why this man had the right intentions, but the wrong methods. it was so good that he actually turned sides and started to help the party. the best part? the whole speech was completely improvised on the fly. needless to say, i was proud of myself :)

[@Busshhu]

I can imagine how amazing that must have felt

[@reaper7point030]

Well done

[@NerrawGnap]

Give this guy a Nobel Prize!(not sure if that would be the correct award, but if anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know and I’ll change it.) 🫡

[@yoface2537]

>Ambushed by Drow while in underdark >My CG artificer decides to try negotiations for the first time ever >Over the course of several rounds, the other 4 members of the party choose to enter combat >A few rounds later, the entire party except for me is unconscious >Talk with Drow leader >Still kidnaps me, but I think things would have been different if the rest of the party hadn't attacked

[@kjj26k]

This gives the funny if unfortunate image of the two leaders trying to have a cordial conversation while their comrades are just murdering the crap out of each other.

[@yoface2537]

@kjj26k That... is exactly what happened

[@owenfyfe7993]

Don't know if this counts (as my party did ultimately fight) but some npcs were harassing a female npc in our first session. My paladin/bard: Arnalore Obsidian. Tried the old "She's with me" trick. It didn't work. He tried words, it again. Didn't work. Finally he decided to just tell them to quit it or he'd make them quit. Initiative was rolled. In the fight, I kicked a guy in the ol' family jewels from behind with a NAT 20 to hit no less (yes he was one of the harassers). The moment became legendary in the campaign.

[@metadragon6443]

At the end of my first ever campaign, we were supposed to fight a black dragon as the BBEG. None of us wanted to do that, so we used my character’s high stealth and investigation stats - I was playing a rogue thief - to infiltrate the dragon’s lair undetected. Getting out was much more difficult though, as the dragon had returned by that point. Fortunately, we had a bag of holding on hand. So, we stuck the three other players in the bag, and my character used his +10 stealth boost combined with a natural 20 roll to escape the dragon’s lair completely undetected. It never even knew we were there.

[@jacobkaio-hanohano7951]

I had to pause as soon as I recognized the music, Hollow Knights ost is the best for videos like this!

[@goddessdeedeebubblesofimag7789]

Yeeeeee! Crossroads is a pleasant surprise!

[@zackposey592]

A small fight that avoided a bigger fight. We came up to a building surrounded by dragon cultists. We've been fighting them for this campaign. But these guys didn't know us as enemies. So they questioned us. The Goliath barb, who at this point has straight-up fight, everyone decided to convince the cultists we were from a different sect. He succeeded. Him and I a artificer nome decided to take a walk around the building to see how many enemies there was. Meanwhile our dragonborn rouge has snuck onto the roof. We get back to the front and count over 30 enemies. We decide to try to leave but the cultists tries to talk shit to the Barb. I try to intervene but fail. The Barb challenges him to one on one. ALL but one kobold gather around. I use this opportunity to start taking bets. All the cultists bet on their buddy. Myself and the barb bet on himself. Meanwhile the rogue is trying to take the kobold out in the back. He gets two nat 1's in a row on a attack but it's dark and his stealth is insane. So he eventually gets him. Back to the fight. Cultists goes first hits the barb with his sword for 10dmg. Barb uses stones endurance reduces to two. Cultists talks shit about it and I bring up that it's part of his race and that he's a racist. Barbs turn. Great axe to the cultists. High Dmg 2 HP left. DM says he cuts his arm off and lodges his axe in the cultists. Barb says he leave it in there and let's go. Cultists turn, absolutely wiffs it. Back to the Barb, he does the gladiator thumbs up or down to the crowd who are all doing thumbs down to finish him. Same time the rogue is signaling me with a thumbs up from the roof that he snuck everyone out that we needed to save. The Barb sees him and gets confused that he is the only one giving a thumbs up. The barb then grabs the severed arm knocks the cultists to the ground and beats him with his arm to an absolute pulp. The crowd goes from cheering to dead quiet from fear. My nome yells out that's all she wrote gents it was a fair fight. Another cultists yells for everyone to go back to there positions. Rogue already dipped. My nome grabs the barb and hands him half of the 400 GP from the fight. We completely avoid fighting 30+ enemies at level 2. All while making gold from the bets of our enemies. Not a single bit of it was planned.

[@dagdammit]

Sci fi game. We were trying to flee the planet with a macguffin as multiple armies pursuing it clashed with each other. There's a squad of space marine types in the spaceport that is shooting at anything that tries to take off, including us. Our hotshot pilot rolls well and they STILL take out half our vessel's HP in one round. GM tells us it'll take 9 more rounds to be out of their range, we are VERY screwed. I have a hacker specialist who also has maxed-out bluff, all I'd contributed so far was tapping their comms. I ask him if I could now JAM the space marines' comms. He says sure, it'll be a higher DC check, that's fine by me. Now I ask if I can say something on their comms first. GM says sure, no check needed there. My guy takes a deep breath. "ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT INBOUND! PULL OUT NOW, REPEAT NOW, SOLD-" (jamming activates) The space marines stopped firing IMMEDIATELY and got the hell out. First of many times I saved the party's ass with a well-placed lie.

[@NerrawGnap]

Two questions: first, what RPG system? And second, would you mind sharing a few more of those incidents you mentioned above?

[@johnscarborough9627]

So. Our party had spent roughly a Month in universe travelling through the Quoraska Jungle, Flotket Alps and Savalierwood (thanks to some wayward temporal magic that teleported us across the continent of Wildemount). Needless to say, by the time the four of us staggered into Shadycreek Run, we had gone from level 3 to level 8, killed dozens of different monsters, survived encounters with a Manticore, Remorhaz, and fought a Dragon and won. Needless to say, the pack of thieves thinking we were an easy mark were poorly mistaken as they dropped like flies. After the session, the DM explained he had set up that encounter as a way to express to us just how strong our adventure in the wilderness had made us.

[@kjj26k]

That's so cool, sounds like a fun ride.

[@nabodabo1235]

i guess there were a lot of HDYWTDTs in the wilderness

[@LarryJ2022]

My old DM and his teenage son were playing and a group of bandits come walking up wanting to pick a fight. DM's son suddenly speaks up, delivers a few devastating lines that I wish to god I could remember, but sadly cannot. He then says "and I roll to intimidate." His father replies, "No, you don't need to." The rest of the table agreed.

[@NerrawGnap]

If you do remember (or if anyone from that table should happen across this comment), please share with us!

[@abadidea5984]

In my most recent session, our party was headed down to the lair of the Dödkong, the undead king of the Stone Giants, to investigate a case of corrupted diamonds being shipped into our city being used by evil cults to steal the souls of the impoverished. Our journey into the caverns of the Stone Giants was part history and culture lesson, and part fighting to the death against stone giant sentinels. By the time we reached the throne room of the Dödkong, we were expecting a boss fight to top off the end of our journey. However, my Dwarf Rogue Mastermind, a noblewoman and merchant heiress, always chooses to talk first. At first we asked the Dödkong what he knew about the art of sequestering souls from living bodies, given that he himself is undead and has a propensity towards necromancy. And while we found our answers here, the Dödkong demanded recompense for the death toll we had unfortunately racked up on the way down to his chamber. My Rogue reasons that while he is a king and he cares deeply for his people, he is also a Necromancer and knows that death is not the end of the soul's journey. Our group's Forge Cleric, by matter of strange circumstances, has learned the secret of Soul Forging, the ability to affix dormant souls into weapons and armor. In order to appease the Dödkong, we offered the services of our blacksmith to have the souls of the slain reforged into armaments for the Dead King of the Giants. Intrigued by our offer, he allowed us to use his forge, and with our understanding of the Stone Giant's lore and culture, we put all of our resources (and no small amount of magic items!) into the kiln and let our soulsmith get to work. They produced a chain of authority, a piece of regalia that would stand as the eternal icon of the one and only Dödkong. So impressed was the giant king with his gift that he permitted us to pass without conflict, directing us toward the root cause of the corrupted diamonds.

[@JAY-gl5xd]

3.5 game. My brother dming and his daughter playing with us. DM: it seems you've cleared the area of hostiles. The only thing left in the room is a couple suits of Not animated armor, and a chest. We had been fighting haunted suits of armor. Normally mundane objects had been coming to life and attacking. My niece didn't pick up on the trend. Niece: I open the treasure chest!!!! Everyone else playing are Dads. We all silently decided, let the kid learn the hard way. DM: Your hands stick to the lid of the chest. The lid opens on it's own revealing large fangs as a tongue like appendage snaps out and wraps itself around your small halfling torso. Make a grapple check as it tries to pull you into it's "mouth" and devour you. Niece: WHAT THE HECK! I'm playing a monk. I don't want to touch this thing with natural weapons and get stuck also. And I have a couple.ranks in knowledge arcana, so my character knows what a mimic is. Me: Hey there buddy. Can you understand me? I know your just hungry but I don't want you to eat her. I know where we can get a dead elf you can eat. It's suspiciously fresh. Can we trade? DM holding his tongue to properly voice the mimic with it's tongue around the halfling: but I want to eat this one? A couple diplomacy checks from me, some attack rolls from the mimic because it was impatient, and some strength checks from the 8 strength dwarf to drag a dead elf from outside down to the armory we were in, and we ended up with a shaky truce between the party and Chester. I want to add, unrelated to the topic, the next session the halfling saw a door appear suddenly on a beach. Niece: OK. I leave. Dm: Aren't you going to open it? Niece: nope DM: are you going to inform your party? It might be what you are out here looking for? Niece: OR IT MIGHT BE A MIMIC! I'M NOT LETTING YOU DO THAT TO ME AGAIN! I WAS ALMOST EATEN BY A BOX! DON'T YOU REMEMBER?! So she learned her lesson.

[@MasonNumbers]

5:30 While that person‘s creativity is good and should be rewarded (and it was), it should also be noted that those poisons don‘t work in the same way as normal rat poisons. The nightshade and hemlock work by attacking the nervous system, and poison oak (what I‘m assuming wad referred to by the mention of an oak forest) is a mild irritatant that activates allergic reactions. If a rat were to eat one of these, it would pretty quickly realize that what it‘s eating doesn’t taste good or is actively harming it since these poisons are fast acting, and would probably leave it alone after a bite or two and survive relatively unharmed. This is different from conventional rat poisons, which instead are usually much slower acting. A common form is an anticoagulant (blood thinner) made to taste good to the rat and act much slower to ensure the elimination. The rat will eat the poison and not realize anything is wrong, so it will eat the whole thing and then go about it‘s day, but since rodents are built to get scraped and heal rapidly, the rat‘s normal activities will lead to it cutting itself and bleeding out because it can‘t patch the wound due to the anticoagulant. There are other forms of rodenticide, but most of them rely on the principle of being slow acting and appearing appetizing to encourage the full consumption of the poison. All this to say, read Agatha Christie‘s works.

[@XperimentorEES]

Had one from our tabaxi gunslinger ranger of all people in a good campaign, along with him was a halfling rune knight fighter a human conqueror paladin and myself a dwarf genie warlock. At one point when we're traveling across the countryside we stop off at a small town next to a forest and it's surprisingly got a small population compared to their homes, after asking around come to find out giant bees in the forest were killing anyone that went foraging and asked us to help, so we went hunting thinking it'd be an easy side quest, which it was but not in the way the dm expected; we were able to sneak through most of the forest without encountering the killer bees until we got close to the hive, these things were the size of t-rexes and venomous to match. We had a couple of close calls going down from just killing a couple of these monstrous bugs, with only the ranger being above half health and the rest of us being almost empty on features, but we'd seen the mouth of a nearby large cave was covered in honeycombs and we heard increasingly loud buzzing from inside. The ranger shouts for us to flee and runs into the cave, dumping the last of his blackpowder around the sides of the cave before lighting it . . . it didn't explode or cause a cave in, but within the minute the forest was on fire and the sky was filled with giant flaming bees flying in all directions. We ended up not getting paid much from the town, as we'd burned down most of forest from the ranger's impromptu solution, but we leveled up for killing the queen without facing it XD

[@somniferousSirenSocial]

Player of mine was a low level artificer, semi evil chaos party. He wanted to have a long term process to perfect bomb making. He has managed by level 3 to only make a solid grenado like casing. After being double crossed by the leader of the gang that gave them the job, they were deep under the city and the extra large manor above the sewers they were at. He pulled out his casing and said three words that stopped the fight. "I have a bomb." Deception against sense motive and I rolled 2. Entire thing became informing the gang leader that he would rather die than let anyone take what was his.

[@donnydoesthings]

In our newest session we had to retrieve farm animals from goblins so we made a deal with their leader that we would give them goodberries in exchange for the farm animals and we had him eat 7 killing him instantly and letting us drop the difficulty by half

[@o.d.d.792]

Why did that kill him instantly.

[@animationlover219]

@@o.d.d.792I think the DM questionably ruled that eating more than one of something that can nourish you for a day will result in a ruptured stomach.

[@donnydoesthings]

​@animationlover219 you are somewhat correct seeing as eating three makes you throw up in this campaign

[@Dones47]

Woah @7:15-8:37 sounded badass

[@serketenglish5963]

Sunless Citadel. Party’s higher level than the citadel usually calls for to start. Needed a challenge for them. (Just last session they had killed a Young whit Dragon before it got to act). So they get into a goblin village, and the kobolds they had with them immediately rush in and start a fight because nobody was watching them (it was also the kobolds’ current mortal enemies). Roll initiative, and the tribe’s Jester comes running out of the chief’s place. He goes right up to one of the party and baps him with his stick. The jester did not survive the round. He falls down dead, and I start the boss music. Nilbog (Boss Edition, homebrewed to be a little more formidable) is awakened. All the songs had some version of the messages “you can’t hurt me,” and “this fight is optional, diplomacy can get you out.” They wound up slaughtering about 20 goblins, chasing the Nilbog from body to body until it eventually took over one of the fleeing crowd. In all of this the hobgoblin chief tried killing the Nilbog, the goblin shaman tried killing the chief and convincing the party to stop fighting, and 5 Nilbogs died that day. They then sent the Kobolds ahead to scout the next room. The skeletal gardeners ensured the kobolds did not make it.

[@ArcherLoew]

This is a 2-player campaign with me and and my sister. I was a bard who was on a quest to find my most overpowered instrument. We were in a room with 5 dark mages and "The Spider Queen." who was extremely evil. They tried to make a deal: Play a spell, and they would give me my instrument back, if not we fight. Take into account that this was a very evil witch that a ghost dwarf said could destroy the earth... Basically get my flute back or cause the apocalypse. A couple of days later, we are now running from a dark fog that kills everything inside and will spread around the earth until everything is dead, and my sister hates me. Good job team👍

[@cyborgninjamonkey]

There was a vampirespawn private security team that was supposed to be a meatgrinder for the party. DM had decided to make the musket we'd found in an earlier session incredibly unwieldy and inaccurate, and had "balanced" for that by giving hundreds of shots worth of blackpowder in that loot. We got to the less developed back corner of the manor estate and over the wall without notice, seemingly a small respite area with unkempt vegetation and another fence to climb over to the paved and lighted pathway the guards were patrolling once we felt like getting lacerated. I asked if there was a tree to drop down over onto the path from, and the DM said no but there was a gardening shed against the fence. I changed plans instantly, and went inside the shed. I asked how many nails and fasteners were around. Hundreds. Paint can? Yep. I filled a can with as much gunpowder and nails as I could fit, then loaded the wonky musket and climbed on top of the shed. I fired the musket in the air and stepped into the lamplight, immediately attracting the attention of all of the outdoor guards, who raced towards me and started trying to climb the other side of the fence. I lit the can full of gunpowder and nails and dropped it on the vampire security's side of the shed while jumping off the opposite side. These things were strong enough that one of them was nearly a TPK in a straight fight, but their response to being swiss cheesed with hypersonic fasteners was the common reaction of Just Dying. Bonus: because I fired the shot, waited, taunted, and pulled my nonsense at the last moment, the entire outdoor security detail was present. *They all died* , no attack or damage rolls.

[@obolisk0430]

A month or so ago, my Tuigan (basically Mongols) Ranger ran into an air elemental when I was playing Adventurer's League at my local game store. Tuigans worship Teylas, a male interpretation of Akadi, the elemental goddess of air (which is uncommon, the elemental gods in Forgotten Realms are aloof and have few worshipers. Rangers get extra languages from a wide list, and one that I choose was primordial, the language of elementals. I was able to talk the air elemental out of fighting us.

[@iesika7387]

Playing dungeon crawl classic but same vibe, when my party encountered goblin minions doing maintenance work deep in a in an ancient dungeon my thief stole one of their weapons then offered it back + food. She eventually ended up Queen of the Trash Goblins after we killed a big monster that kept eating them. Invested in keeping the peace between the goblins and our nearby home village by using my adventure treasure to pay folks to raise goats and cart periodic goats and all our trash to the Trash Goblins. When she later was brough down to one hp, sole survivor of a TPK, I had her final act be arranging to have her body delivered to the Great Compost Heap, dressed in her garbage crown and gown.

[@Drakoni23]

As a DM, my level 6 party was infiltrating a big fortress. One of the encounters was an umberhulk (big hypnotising bug monster), which got captured by the duergar who lived there. The idea was for the duergar to go invisible and let go of the shackles, so the furious monster would attack the party instead. However the bard just got an ability to talk to ANY creature for an hour. With a 25+ high persuasion check she managed to convince the umberhulk that they weren't its enemy and it should attack the duergar who captured it instead :D

[@havellcunha9289]

I had something similar with the first story. Me, a Half-Orc and really compasionate barbarian, A Elf Arcane Warrior and our Druid were given a mission of hunting a Werewolf, in Character, for some reason with some investigation, after coating my Axe with silver and going to hunt the beast, we noticed something about the Werewolf that was left untold by our quest giver. He wasn't evil and was completely in control of his mind. He was a man who had his family killed by the quest giver who was a part of a cult. Together, me, my party and the werewolf strategized a Raid into the city...after that, we almost died, but we lived and I adopted a Child. But that's a story for another time of my Barbarian, Ragnar Orc

[@lobesteriiiesq3772]

Our wandering circus party made a group of cobalds unionize, and sent them to help repair the town that sent us to deal with them

[@QuixoteBadger]

Not me, but a group of my players. It was during my first campaign as dm. The players were in a new town and decided to go straight to the pub for some r&r. Now, i did (and still do) have a tenancy of making my early campaign town NPC's op but still fair. And while the players were starting their usual harmless shenanigans near the end of the sesson, i decided to have some fun while also moving things along. I introduced them to the young, spry captain of the guard (there was no town guard, she was the teenage daughter of the innkeeker) who was conveniently about two levels above the party. (They were still only lvl3) Upon seen the ensuing chaos, she gave a verbal warning before grabbing a bound up roll of papers (still only 1d4, but counted as a non-lethal blunt weapon) and she started wailing on them. After taking a whole 15 collective damage, and still in the mood for shenanigans, the two party members who hadn't decided to just opt out and watch from the sidelines started clacking ideas around with their collective two brain cells, and came up with a plan. One (the rogue) decided to use their rope to bind the opponents hands together, which they succeeded with a high slight of hands roll. While the other (the druid) splashed a mote of ink in their face, blinding them. Then, after the opponent failed both their attack rolls, the first player made another high slight of hand check to tie them to one of the tables while the two ran to the other side of the room. The "guard captain" then made one more anger induced attempt to throw a bar stool at them, which between the binding, being pinned, and blided, fail miserably. Initiative then ended as she broke from her bindings with raw strength and anger and went storming out to wash her face, all while her father giggled like an idiot from behind the bar. (This was canonically not the first time something like this had happened) The two players were battered to within an inch of unconsciousness, and had not landed a single hit the entire time. Everyone in the call was laughing their ass off.

[@sam7559]

One time our party went to deal with some evil cultists who were harassing a nearby coastal city, mostly extorting local merchants and supply caravans. I was playing a NG Rune Knight Tiefling with 6 Int and 9 Wis. The party managed to sneak up to the cultists in the abandoned stables they were using as a base of operations. Turns out said cultists were part of the same cult my once again NG Tiefling was a part of at least unofficially due to an earlier adventure against that same cult where they were able to share their tenants to us and they really appealed to the personal traumas my character had. So the cultist with their metaphorical pants around their ankles were caught by the party who their scouts confirmed that this adventurering party were the ones who the day before came in on a ship where specifically my fighter as she were attacked in the bay as the party arrived by a hydra of all things grabbed it by its many necks, pulled it out of the ocean onto the ship and proceed to beat it with a hammer until it stopped moving. My fighter then handed them a bag of gold and tell them to go away from the town because to her the only possible reason why they were doing their crimes was because of poverty. Cue very scared and confused cultists fleeing.

[@ruanlima2415]

My group was agains ghosts, one of the ghosts was a wraith that was a kind of imcomplete lich so it would come back, as a wraith, many times as long as a amulet was still intact.the ghosts were the father and mother of one of the pcs, who was an orphan. The pc managed to charm the ghosts and convince her that she was their long lost dougheter... in the end ahe realy was and was very emotional as they helped her to destroy the amulent and set them free

[@SomeRandomKydd]

Two. One form the session I just got out of an hour ago and form the session last week. Last week: the dwarf paladin tried to challenge three Orakockra monks, only two of which needed to attack to completely flatten him. Nat 20 fury of blows baby! That paladin still has a concussion. Today: a Wyvern tried to eat us but my 5 on animal handling beat it’s Nat 1 so I was able to convince it off by saying “You will find more metal than meat on our bones.”

[@grimalkin6676]

We found a dragons lair but didn’t know it at the time. Especially since the back of the cave had some nice house like rooms including a kitchen with quite a few kinds of exotic spices and stuff that could sell for abit. Dragon came back and we thought we would have to fight it. Nope our lumbering front line orc manage to convince it to let him cook it a meal so good he will let us go. He had very high profession cooking or chef or something to do for cooking I forget the actual term he used, which none of us knew. We jokingly called him gor-dork Ramsey to this day. And yes it worked.

[@shield_rat221]

Not exactly a "didn't need to fight", but once we ran into a particularly cocky bard handling some swamp thing. Our own bard decided it would be funny to goad the guy until they attacked so maybe we could steal his magic instrument, which they did. What i did next was disengage, run towards the enemy bard, then action surge to force him to drop his arcane focus with a combat maneuver. Pretty much ended the situation entirely and i got to have a snarky "you're welcome >.>" moment haha.

[@dragnar-sw6hm]

I am in a campaign and IN THE FIRST SESSION we were tasked to get rid of someone but we were able to circumvent it and make it look like we did it

[@doombox1211]

It was in DnD Club at Highschool, I was playing an Ettercap Merchant We were supposed to fight a mermaid vampire and her 2 ghost eels, but instead since I asked "Ok you're undead, whose house do we need to burn down?". she said she wanted to go to the ocean but was too far inland to make it before sunrise We stuffed her in a box, her ghost eels helped float her down the river, and she disappeared into the depths AFAIK we got the treasure, can't remember what it was, without fighting her

[@RelicRaider]

I have one my party and I were in the plane of water as we were asked by the water folk to gather artifacts from the shipwrecks guarded by 5 hungry Sharks... Me the paladin had some spoiled stinky rations as I asked the Rogue to put it on one of her bolts to get the Biggest Shark, a nat 20 in the eye and the 4 others went after it as we were able to avoid them both ways.

[@SupersaiyanSlytherin]

Had a Friend who played a lamia priestess/Warlock back in college. Lamia for those unfamiliar with them are a centaur like race that are half human half giant snake. Because she’s half snake she tends to eat in a snake like manner, swallowing her prey whole. We were camping and she had eaten a decent sized deer. Wegot ambushed by three halfling bandits. My friends cleric cast an illusion spell that made it look like her snake tail was writhing and wriggling while pained grunts were coming from it. She told them she’d eaten the last robbers they’d encountered and it was lucky the halflings showed up since they looked like just the right size for dessert! She rolled a nat 20 on her deception and they ran like scared babies.

[@itskitt3237]

My players had gone hunting, and when they go out and do things I like to throw curveballs and things that they don’t even need to interact with to make the world feel more alive and less leveled… one of the things they found on this hunt was a giant heron sitting in a nest. As in, the heron put the giant shrike they were actively running from to shame in terms of sheer size. So what did they do? They shot the damn thing. They almost died, and the pet bird to the player who didn’t even go on the hunt was killed (I made sure to double check with that player that she was okay with it out of character because it was her pet). The only reason they escaped was because one of them was able to use speak with animals and make a deal to leave the damn bird alone.

[@qbertking1910]

I was playing solo through the beginning of Tyranny of Dragons when I came across a camp shared between some human cultists and a group of kobolds. I took a bit of time to observe, and I saw that the kobolds were constantly trying to steal the cultist’s share of food. Since I spoke Draconic, I stood up and told the kobolds that if they let me kill the 3 human cultists they could have all the food. Surprisingly, the kobolds stood back, and all ended well (except for the cultists of course)

[@justinhermann4926]

Pathfinder. We were being chased by an ancient blue dragon allied with an empire we were escaping. When it finally caught up and demanded our surrender, my sorceress pointed out we had taken great care not to kill any of the guards or soldiers though we could have. She then stated she could kill the dragon with a single spell. This was technically true if absolutely everything went in my favor but was extremely unlikely. Still my GM had me roll Intimidate, and this massive ancient dragon cowered before my tiny 4'8" frame. One of my best gaming moments ever.

[@alexmiller1800]

At one point in a campaign, we wound up smuggling a package for a shady shopkeeper up to a tavern in the wealthier parts of the city for a bit of coin. Turns out the package was full of drugs and they were laced. One of the buyers trued the new stuff and basically began to magically OD, which involved blasting a lot of uncontrollable magical fire as the dude nearly spontaneously combusted. Needless to say, the guards of the city specialized in combating magic users arrived quickly, and happened to catch my Dwarf Ranger and our party Rogue. We were promptly arrested (my character was a member of a famous criminal gang with two other party members and the Rogue was the daughter of the Guard Captain. Awkward…) Anyway, we’re arrested. The rest of the Party watches us get perp-walked and starts plotting a way to break us out. Meanwhile, my character (unable to cast spells cause anti-magic restraints) befriends one of the guards assigned to watch him and convinces him to bring the Captain of the Guard to meet me. My normally quiet and stoic Ranger called in the greatly feared/respected Captain of the Guard who was holding him prisoner and basically came at her saying she needed his help more than he needed hers. That while she might disagree with his methods, my Ranger was certainly effective at what he does and was willing to work with her in protecting the city, but he couldn’t do that from within a cell. The Captain eventually released my character, who then refused to leave without the Rogue. The Captain was pissed, but was also too pragmatic to refuse my Ranger’s demand. And that is how my -1 Charisma Ranger managed to out hardass the most notorious hardass in the entire city. My Ranger would go on to fight alongside the Captain of the Guard (with the rest of the Party of course) as we worked to negate the worst damage of a demonic terrorist attack on the city.

[@kylethomas9130]

My party had been informed of an awakened beast terrorizing a fishing village. When we rowed out on the water, and the beast appeared, I declared salutations as a courtesy before we engaged in combat. To everyone's surprise the beast halted it's attack and returned conversation. When the creature explained its motives for fishermen harrassment, my character who was familiar with druids and their magics knew they misunderstood their Awakened state. After two Persuasion checks from not the Rogue, not the Bard, but the Barbarian we had talked the beast out of a fight, and out of attacking fishermen. Even suggested they could work together to safeguard the fish population in the lake.

[@TheNoobRapter]

This is for cyberpunk games I run. When the party starts to get a reputation I have a police officer ether stop the party while they are driving, or knock on one of the party member's apartment doors to be let in. The cops are looking for some edgerunners that have a striking similarity to the party. I make sure to let the party sweat and think their would be a shoot out with the cops. However if the party does no form of violence/face downs, or if they fully comply with the cops, I have the cops get tipped of that a poser gang that face sculpt to look like the party. Sometimes their is a shoot out with posers Vs cops + party, other times the cops just apologize for the inconvenience and let the party be but in a later session the party meets the poser gang pretending to be them.

[@Tomha]

There was a moment that perfectly encapsulated my DMs bullshit of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't!" Basically we got sucked to another world and had a large mob of people screaming at us with murderous intent. Can't talk to them cause they spoke a language nobody knew, and nobody had the right spell to translate. Now, the DM and gang like to give me grief about "jumping the gun." So I did nothing. The party tried throwing up gang signs to make the locals like us, nothing. The mob is still coming, nothing is working. So we had 1 turn before they get within melee range and they all were brandishing weapons, so I Acid Arrow the leader of the mob in the face, 1 shotting him. Everyone stops and goes "WTF OP!? Those are farmers and stuff! You just murdered him!" Well, time to get violent, the others, feeling dragged into a fight opened fire as well. We shredded half the mob while the other half ran away. SOMEHOW I was blamed for mass murder. I argued how they literally came at us with weapons! And the DM said "You didn't need to fight them, you could have surrendered." Why would I surrender!? How does a mob charging at you says "Peace is an option!?"

[@masquerabe6692]

The party had just had an encounter with the BBEG who notably had pink hair. We were now on a quest to assemble the artifact that would destroy him. On the way we encounter a group of monsters in a forest who claim to work for a person with purple hair. Jumping to conclusions, and doubting the monster’s intelligence, brought us to combat. Partway through, my character was taken by one of the monsters and flown away to meet the purple haired one. Turns out he wasn’t the tyrant we had just faced, but a child who had made a monster sanctuary. Realizing the mistake, my character was able to stop the fighting. Bonus story: My character (a drow shadow monk) liked to do vigilante work at night since he didn’t need to sleep as long. One time he encountered a warforged and his posse robbing a store. Thinking quickly he took a bead from his necklace of fireballs and threw it in the warforge’s mouth. He dies instantly and turns into a living shrapnel grenade, critically injuring the rest. My character then finds out that the warforge was forcing the rest of them to do the robbery, so he ended up paying for their medical treatment.

[@ShugoAWay]

Mine was a group of friendly gobinoids that were going to be a big side quest arc that if the players made it to the end there would be an artifact but I made the mistake of having them all fit in a single fireball and couldn't justify any not being in due to the scene...yeah so many dead gobos

[@kriss3134]

(English is not my first languaje, so I apologize for any mistake) This was a few weeks ago: Our party arrived at an abandoned mansion, we find some kind of dark ritual taking place. We decided to check the building first. We LITERALLY ended up killing everything in sight, and setting in fire the entire building, because fireball, obviously, dont get me wrong; we are not murder hobos, but things happens. Since we took too much time clearing enemies and looting, the ritual already started and some kind of lovecraftian god was being summoned. So we rush towards the altar, avoided some tentacles, defeat the cultists and saved a girl from being sacrificed, at the cost of link her to a pact with a devil. We ended up escorting her home, but since something dark was inside her she join the party to keep her safe and find something to cure/exorcise her. At the end of the session our DM told me told me that his idea was fast mission, our party was supposed to get in and out quickly, and quietly if possible, since the girl was the the key piece in the ritual AND most of the enemies were in the back of the building or sleeping, with just a couple of cultists preparing the altar. Basically, a 20 minutes adventure, becomes an entire arc itself

[@actual_nonsense]

All-drow +1 crazy grugach party riding in a noble's stolen carriage with a chest of gold got held up by highwaymen on a lonely stretch of road one moonlit winter's night. "Stand and deliver!" with some bother, we unloaded the chest and opened it revealing it to be full to the top, the highwaymen training ranged weapons at us all the time. A single coin was tossed indignantly at the feet of the lead brigand. "That's all you get to walk away with, human." Roll intimidation wasn't even necessary because it was so funny. The brigands apologized and left without the coin, which was left there in the snow on the road.

[@kleszczoros4885]

We convinvced a large group of kobolds that we (2 dragonborn and a gnome) were dent by a dragon to help fight some drow (they first hirerd em and then treated em like slaves, we overherd their conversation earlier)

[@nabra97]

I believe RAW steel defender perishes when the artificer creates a new one, but it doesn't necessarily disappear. So it could just stay in a possession of a dragon, not animated anymore, but still allegedly valuable. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the ruling saying that steel defender disappears when it's supposed to perish, it just could be funnier in this particular situation if the dragon was left with a broken beyond repair and completely useless mechanism that they believe is priceless

[@pancakemaster4182]

I got a question: how did you do that low, hard voice when talking about the paladin yelling at the thieves? Would like to try how it sounds for my half orc barbarian but I'm kind of new to trying other voices that my own.

[@silverscreen842]

Oh god, this is what's currently happening in our campaign. So, our GM is guiding us to a chaoel where we believe one of our fallen comrades may be waiting for us. On the way, there's an orchard full of bloodsucking trees. We could have gone around it, but we wanted to look at the trees. A couple ability checks later, we are now surrounded by 4 ghuge worms who are threateniñg to ll uskj, because we had to put our names on the tree.

[@captainrail88]

Soooo, it was my fault we were in the situation in the first place. Well on the road I found large animal tracks. Yes I knew they were owl bear tracks. But I ran after them like a kid at a pet store; right into it's cave. The party followed swearing under their breath the whole time. I find the owlbear and cast speak with animals. I tell it that if it becomes my friend and follows me I'll keep it fed. It worked...of course the party then also almost got us all killed when they all started asking me to "look under it's skirt and see if it was a girl" or ask it if it laid eggs.

[@Blaze-primeYT]

today in dnd my careter who s a faingpire (the campaine is based of ninjago) me and a skelation where fighting. he took of his arm and hit me on the head with it and i hit him on the head with snake chuks. we had skelations chearing for hm yelling go bob go

[@doublea106]

I was playing a level 4 artificer kobold and I decided to take a potshot at count Strahd due to how angry my character was at him for being an evil bastard, no one died thankfully due to Strahd losing interest in the party and leaving us to fight a small army of undead that began to wither after he left.

[@artemiy88888]

Not related to the video. Recently finished my second ever big dnd campaign. I was a DM and it was the final session of the campaign. My players fought illithilich with newly acquired magic items. A tabaxi rogue got a sentient gun named Gunter (it's a Enter the Gungeon reference) . My PCs were in quite a bad situation and tabaxi's player asked "can my gun help us in some way? Maybe it could seduce bbeg's (also sentient magic) cape, so it can't cast spells?". I said "okay, but I roll to seduce" nat flipping 20. Our table got flabergasted, gaberflasted and rolled under the table. Then the same battle my other player jokingly said "power word "seduction" " I replied "great idea, I roll to seduce you" nat 20 to flirt with the player, NOT THE PC. Now I am prohibited from using flirt rolls ever again.

[@wolfskinchanger]

A Pathfinder introductory module, meant to teach new players the basic rules of the game (Spoilers Ahead). The module dealt with a group of kobolds who had stolen a green dragon's egg, had hatched it in the caverns underneath a fishing town, and had been stealing salted fish in order to feed the baby dragon. We didn't know about the baby dragon until it showed up as the 'final boss' of that little adventure, and if we had played according to how the module was written, we would have had to kill the dragon, or die trying, before it got hungry enough to invade the town above and start looking for its own food. HOWEVER... the majority of our party happened to be kobolds themselves, from a nearby warren that (according to DM improv attached to our characters' backstories) had made themselves rivals of the kobolds we'd been fighting, and we had previously looted the necklaces that the enemy kobolds had been using to mark themselves as the dragon's caretakers. Feeding the dragon from our own rations kept it calm enough that it followed us to said nearby warren, at which point the friendly kobold elders took over looking after it. We've since reached the end of the pre-written modules for our level and transitioned to homemade adventures, so there's plenty of potential for this to become important in some way later. An honorable mention goes to a 'mini-boss' fight from earlier in the same module, us against a small fire elemental in the shape of a rat; a few lucky handle animal rolls allowed us to approach the rat peacefully, and my character gave it one of our spare torches as a nibble-stick, after which we were able to investigate the room without a scratch or scorch on us.

[@camwyn256]

Party stubbled across a bunch of orcs. Orcs attacked the party immediately. Party killed the orcs. Then they saw the evil sorcerer that was controlling them, when he spoke his spell to raise the orcs as much stronger undead. The party didn't have to fight the orcs. Shame they failed to notice that sorcerer

[@sleepinggiant4062]

Witchlight.

[@filtousik]

DMs new rules "dice of mischife" wich is rolled along side with normal dice and use of items on start of every encounter. On the start of campaign we had one granted wish, everyone save it for later but I wished for legendary item "Spoon of mischife" I roled 1-1. Spoon of mischife: granted one wish and nat.20 on dice of mischife(useless in DMs eyes). I never use it untile last boss wich is was DMs masterpies "we are all long time WoW players" full of great mechanics. But on the start of fight we use our items and I used my Spoon of mischife roll nat.20, wishes for "not killing boss by throwing spoon on him and killing him by chocking on spoon" but with rolled nat.20 combined with spoons granted mischife nat.20 outcome was complete oposite. Boss died by chocking on Spoon of mischife. With out fighting. 🤣 Sometimes even completly stupid idea works flawlesly.😅

[@filtousik]

Dice of mischife is complete oposite of normal dice higher number "worst" outcome but is rolled with normal dice so higher numbers more chaos. 😂

[@Caragoner]

NGL that siege weapon one feels kinda crappy. GM should have at least let them splat the guards and let the BBEG do some damage

[@bobbiscub]

So one night my players are camping in the jungle when they're attacked by a BUNCH of gorillas. Well my players obviously slaughtered a majority of them and harvested their meat... About a week in game later the players are on a ship about to be attacked by a bunch of very hungry harpies, giant eagles, and a giant two headed eagle, when suddenly one player is like "i got an idea!" and empties his bag of holding full of gorilla meat into the deck and the harpies and eagles gladly ate their fill and fucked off happily. Honestly it was the best way I've ever sun a group avoid a fight!

[@SomeRandomKydd]

Two. One form the session I just got out of an hour ago and form the session last week. Last week: the dwarf paladin tried to challenge three Orakockra monks, only two of which needed to attack to completely flatten him. Nat 20 fury of blows baby! That paladin still has a concussion. Today: a Wyvern tried to eat us but my 5 on animal handling beat it’s Nat 1 so I was able to convince it off by saying “You will find more metal than meat on our bones.”