Ruin Explorer
Legend
I was thinking back to 2E a lot, and I used to DM for a group including my brother (who is currently my DM), and about 4E, where a particularly clever friend of mine used to play (sadly he is abroad atm), and remembering some of the particularly enjoyable times I had where I thought, I, as the DM, knew what was going on, but and understood the plan the PCs had and so on, but it turned out that I'd been completely played, and that the players, or one specific player, had a plan so cunning Baldrick would worship it as a god. Its always difficult to remember details, especially from 2E, but I wondered if other people had had as much fun as me going "What the what?!" to actually-good plans the players had had, which totally ruined your adventure in the best possible ways.
In 2E, they played me like a fiddle and lead to the "war crime" against the Hill Giants in the 2E remake of Steading of the Hill Giant King I've mentioned before, and I just totally didn't see it coming. My brother was playing an INT 18 Elf Wizard, and essentially directing the other players. They scouted the steading extensively and memorably, without being detected. I thought they were going to do some sort of guerrilla war thing. They even set traps and stuff like they were. It was going to be messy and fun, I thought. But what actually happened was that they somehow managed to elaborate lure the son of the Hill Giant King (or favoured nephew or something) out of the Steading with some troops, split him off from those troops without alerting them to trouble, and then kill him in such a way that it appeared to be natural circumstances (specifically, falling), with one of the traps they'd set up (a wide and very deep pit trap created with Dig I think), and then moving the body (Telekinesis or something).
Then they just monitored the situation, getting the invisible rogue to go in and find out what was going on (until he got so scared by the descriptions that he refused to go in anymore). I was a bit peeved, feeling they were wasting time and being over-cautious, and obsessed with scouting, and had the Giants have a big viking funeral for the guy outside the Steading, with all the troops there, everyone armed and armoured as you would be in your finest for a warrior funeral, thinking, "Well, they can't possibly attack this, literally every combatant in the whole Steading is here", but also figuring once they knew exactly how many troops there were and so on they could start their guerrilla war or incursions and stop the endless scouting.
Oh what a sweet summer child I was.
The Wizard's player had clearly anticipated this. He got everything ready, got the Fighter/SP to memorize all the right spells, inventoried all their consumable magic items (particularly potions and scrolls, but also rods/staves/wands) and so on. I was thinking... they won't... they can't... that's crazy... I suspected they'd just maybe try and assassinate the King, which I could probably stop.
They did. I'll spare the details, but the funeral was utterly bombarded with AOE magic from extreme range, and as the Giants realized they probably needed to retreat back into the Steading itself, a 25' tall screaming dwarf Fighter/SP (of Clangeddin) and the Rogue (24' tall human) both came out of invisibilty and were among them (Hill Giants are in 2E were 16' tall, so a lot smaller than these two, and they probably thought the dwarf literally was Clangeddin, come to take his revenge). Both had drunk different potions of giant strength, been Enlarged, and had various other effects on them (potion miscibility rolls were sadly all positive and minor). The Wizard continued to blast away at anyone he could, and before a dozen rounds passed, they'd basically wiped out 80-90% of the combatant Hill Giants and close to 100% of their minions (Orcs etc.). The resource expenditure in terms of potions, scrolls, oils, and charges from magic items was pretty high, but good god, what a thing.
Other times have been more heist-y, like when they managed to avoid an entire dungeon full of monsters and traps with a cunning ploy involving posing as wine merchants, or when they robbed a vault from which nothing was supposed to every be able to be retrieved in a way I totally did not see coming (and involved a tremendous amount of social engineering and blackmail and so on rather than fighting).
Anyway I'm interested if/when your PCs have outsmarted you, or surprised the hell out of you in a good way?
In 2E, they played me like a fiddle and lead to the "war crime" against the Hill Giants in the 2E remake of Steading of the Hill Giant King I've mentioned before, and I just totally didn't see it coming. My brother was playing an INT 18 Elf Wizard, and essentially directing the other players. They scouted the steading extensively and memorably, without being detected. I thought they were going to do some sort of guerrilla war thing. They even set traps and stuff like they were. It was going to be messy and fun, I thought. But what actually happened was that they somehow managed to elaborate lure the son of the Hill Giant King (or favoured nephew or something) out of the Steading with some troops, split him off from those troops without alerting them to trouble, and then kill him in such a way that it appeared to be natural circumstances (specifically, falling), with one of the traps they'd set up (a wide and very deep pit trap created with Dig I think), and then moving the body (Telekinesis or something).
Then they just monitored the situation, getting the invisible rogue to go in and find out what was going on (until he got so scared by the descriptions that he refused to go in anymore). I was a bit peeved, feeling they were wasting time and being over-cautious, and obsessed with scouting, and had the Giants have a big viking funeral for the guy outside the Steading, with all the troops there, everyone armed and armoured as you would be in your finest for a warrior funeral, thinking, "Well, they can't possibly attack this, literally every combatant in the whole Steading is here", but also figuring once they knew exactly how many troops there were and so on they could start their guerrilla war or incursions and stop the endless scouting.
Oh what a sweet summer child I was.
The Wizard's player had clearly anticipated this. He got everything ready, got the Fighter/SP to memorize all the right spells, inventoried all their consumable magic items (particularly potions and scrolls, but also rods/staves/wands) and so on. I was thinking... they won't... they can't... that's crazy... I suspected they'd just maybe try and assassinate the King, which I could probably stop.
They did. I'll spare the details, but the funeral was utterly bombarded with AOE magic from extreme range, and as the Giants realized they probably needed to retreat back into the Steading itself, a 25' tall screaming dwarf Fighter/SP (of Clangeddin) and the Rogue (24' tall human) both came out of invisibilty and were among them (Hill Giants are in 2E were 16' tall, so a lot smaller than these two, and they probably thought the dwarf literally was Clangeddin, come to take his revenge). Both had drunk different potions of giant strength, been Enlarged, and had various other effects on them (potion miscibility rolls were sadly all positive and minor). The Wizard continued to blast away at anyone he could, and before a dozen rounds passed, they'd basically wiped out 80-90% of the combatant Hill Giants and close to 100% of their minions (Orcs etc.). The resource expenditure in terms of potions, scrolls, oils, and charges from magic items was pretty high, but good god, what a thing.
Other times have been more heist-y, like when they managed to avoid an entire dungeon full of monsters and traps with a cunning ploy involving posing as wine merchants, or when they robbed a vault from which nothing was supposed to every be able to be retrieved in a way I totally did not see coming (and involved a tremendous amount of social engineering and blackmail and so on rather than fighting).
Anyway I'm interested if/when your PCs have outsmarted you, or surprised the hell out of you in a good way?
