Table-Top Discussions: Sorcerer Shenanigans Part 1

A while back I mentioned a Sorcerer in one of my Tabletop Discussions, and said I'd go over some of the stories I had of his. The thing with this sorcerer is that while he played very smart and clever most times, it's when he does something a bit crazy and things go off the rails we get a good story and this is the first of such stories I have for you.

He had just joined the party, he was out for school for a few months and only just got back when I started running a pathfinder game, so this is his first interaction with the current story. He joins the party and using his characters seductive charms (He took a level in Rogue), he manages to gather a lot of intel a lot more quickly then I had anticipated the party would. So far so good, they track down a group of bandits that may have connections to the devil cult they are dealing with at this point in the story.

Here is what I didn't anticipate, my sorcerer bluffed his way through the bottom floor of a two-story building these guys are occupying. See, he built his guy like a Sorcerer stat-wise, but a Rogue Skill wise. So with really high charisma and class skills in things like Bluff, paired with a couple of traits, he had a very high bonus for his level. So even though they were getting some pretty huge bonuses because they knew some things he was saying were lies (The bandits had info my sorcerer didn't) he still made it past the first floor with a high roll on his part, and a low roll on their part. The problem is this didn't hold true on floor two.

See, before going into the building the rest of the party was waiting in case something went wrong, and had cast a preemptive message spell. When he didn't get really lucky with this second-floor guard, he got his ass taken down in a flash, having enough time to warn the rest of the party he was in trouble. Rushing to the building, the bandits realized the intruder had friends, so what I did is kept his character alive, but now there was a hostage situation on their hands.

Some of the stealthier players had hidden under the windows on the sides of the buildings, and broke in through the glass as the rest charged through the front. Overall they quickly handled the first floor with no issues, but couldn't safely progress up the stairs. Everyone is sitting there trying to figure out how to handle this standoff, and that's where the thugs make their move.

One of them opens a window from the second floor and scales down to the ground below. This guy doesn't have much PC class levels but does have a 2D6 sneak attack. At this point of the game, it's not a lot for my players, but it is a pretty mean thing to tag on to a single attack. Considering how close one player was to one of the windows they themselves broke, he was within the 30ft sneak attack range limit and got shot with a longbow.

See, this was not built to be a hard encounter. It was, overall, pretty simple and straight forward. Then they were down a character from a hostage situation, and then got the jump on them with a rogue and a longbow. Where things got very unfortunate, I rolled a critical. For those who don't know, a Longbow is times three damage on a critical hit, though it doesn't really apply to sneak attack. Either way, it was the summoner who took this hit, and they are not a class meant to tank a lot of damage. Between the shot from the longbow, followed by fire from the men upstairs the moment the attack happened, I also end up with a dead character.

I kind of love encounters like this, not because a player died, but it's fun to see how at times players have a way of completely upending your plans as a DM and forcing you to change your plans entirely. This was not a life-threatening encounter, but because of my wonderful sorcerer over complicating the plan, he created a lot of room for things to go wrong and a few bad dice rolls for my players something that should have been simple ended up costing a player their life. And the best part is The sorcerer didn't even die, it was a different character entirely that payed the price for his mistake. Even more than that, one of their smarter plans, breaking in through the windows to surround the enemies had backfired on them setting this up.

Conveniently, this actually set up Phil, the one who died, with a bit of an interesting idea for his next character. A new Summoner looking for what happened to their brother. This kind of set up an idea for a family of summoners, and we worked out a few details about it and I now had room for doing more to include his new character and his family into the narrative of the game. It actually ended up adding a lot to the game's world.

Fluke Dice Roll and unexpected player actions are always going to put a wrench in your plans as a DM, but at times it's not bad to let it play out in unexpected ways. So long as you can get the hang of adjusting plans, and don't railroad what your players should be doing too much, mundane encounters can become memorable. I even encourage you to not be afraid to kill your players, though that should never be the goal. But sometimes things go wrong, and just do what you can to make the most of the situation.

Even as players, put effort into your characters but know sometimes things are going to go wrong. Also, remember this is a team effort, so when another player screws things up it's not just them who suffer the consequences.

There is another great story for another day involving the sorcerer, but that one is a bit longer to explain the setup. Hope you enjoyed reading these silly RPG stories of mine.