As the pole hits the speed of sound, the sonic boom sends peasants flying - deafened and bleeding as the Mach 1 pole hits the ground, fragmenting, sending rocks and splinters into peasants in the immediate area of the explosion. You have rolls 2683 angry peasants looking to extract vengence from your soon-to-be corpse. What do you do?
Let's see... assuming you're the Imperium of Man, as mentioned down at the bottom of the page on 1d4chan, order the Commissars to execute any vengeful people and have the Ecclesiarchy bless the fallen as martyrs in the Emperor's name.
One of my favorite exploit-ish things was early D&D, maybe Basic? Or maybe it was in some module. But plain old housecats had multiple attacks like 1 hp for a front claw, 1 hp for a bite, 1 hp for a rear claw, plus a rake attack if they hit with both back claws. So I would have parties slaughtered by a bunch of cats.
I had a whole joke module that was basically just absolutely mundane things being the Tomb of Horrors for L1 heroes.
I can't be the only one who remembers the greentext about a bunch of random townsfolk deciding to try clearing out the rats from the tavern's basement all by themselves instead of waiting for a party of adventurers to come along. It uh... doesn't go well and the rats devour everyone in the town, the last group of townsfolk they rolled up dying in a desperate, failed escape attempt, the guy carrying the key to the gate falling before they even reach it, and the rest of the party members forgot they needed it until they were at the gates and the rats were between them and it. Best part is when the players visit the place much later as an actual party and their characters conclude that the village was overrun by some foul plague, with the villagers choosing to lock themselves inside their walls to keep the rest of the world safe despite the cost to their own lives.
Naturally those players never, ever turned down a request to kill some vermin ever again, no matter how below them such a task might seem.
An insanely courageous Pierson's Puppeteer (who was occasionally outright schizo) and a reasonable Kzin (not a pacifist in the least though) who were best friends and shared a fondness for classical Greek and Latin drama, Shakespeare, baroque music, and human culture in general. The Kzin was an expert violinist who had won musical awards, as well as military awards from his own people before he was exiled for being seen as a xenophile.
These two were sort of the task assigners in a Ringworld campaign.
They only showed up once in an actual scenario because they were so ridiculously OP that the question often came up "well why don't they just do this themselves?" And the running gag was coming up with some ridiculous other thing they had to do.
That sounds suspiciously like Chmee/Speaker-to-Animals and that other fella I forget the name of.
So, quick question for you all; what was your favorite character concept, and why? Like, regardless of which game that you run; what character did you come up with that you just really, really enjoyed for whatever reason?
An albino dark elf (as in actual dark-skinned elves as opposed to just plain evil elves) who along with her parents was cast out from her people not long after birth due to her aberrant mutation and as a result grew up among humans, adopting their culture and ways, and eventually becoming an accomplished healer, before finally going psycho after patching up one too many violent criminals while working in the local hospital and euthanizing every single one of them in the wards before fleeing the law. She is a psychotic, murderous bitch with a sadistic streak a mile wide who delights in how easily her skills at healing can be twisted into cruel ends, and also the best damn doctor you'll ever run into so long as you don't plan on being an unrepentant criminal. She can also good, clean, garden, play an instrument, and is overall a surprisingly genial and fun-loving person to be around until you trigger her very twisted sense of justice. The irony is also completely lost on her as she is fully convinced of the righteousness of her somewhat diabolical actions.
Due to her not actively adventuring much, she was able to bullshit the party's goody two-shoes into thinking she is a doctor who adheres to something resembling a proper code of ethics instead of someone who wouldn't hesitate to flay someone inch by inch with a surgical scalpel either for information or because she just didn't like what they did, using her medical skills to keep them alive and in agonizing pain the entire time until she's satisfied.
And yes, the GM 100% approved all of this and considers her a hilarious character since not only does
Evil doctor in Good party have no end of entertainment value (as well as the obvious absurdity of a pale-skinned dark elf), she is still 100% committed to helping those in need. Just as long as they aren't hardened criminals. Then she'll kill them quietly for the good of society, assuming there isn't an overarching reason to keep them alive and breathing valuable air.
