Wednesday, July 9, 2014

The Tale Of "Willie The Nadstabber"

All of the online talk about D&D 5e has me reflecting on the classic D&D games of my youth. The adventure, the excitement, the acts of valor and chivalry. Then, there’s the one hysterical event that derailed the game so hard, we had to break for the evening to regain our composure…

The game was a low-level one with most in our party hovering around level 2 or 3. One member of our group was playing a kender thief named Willie who was armed with only a dagger. During a typical wilderness random encounter, we met an ogre who swiftly trounced everyone but Willie. As the only one left conscious, he knew he was the only thing standing between us and a TPK.

"I run between the ogre's legs and stab him as I dart through!" the player announced. The DM nodded, and the player rolled a successful hit.

Now then, the guy playing Willie meant to say he was stabbing at the ogre's LEG as he ran through, hoping the ogre would drop to the ground where he could fight it better. Instead the DM assumed Willie was stabbing UPWARD as he ran through.

"OK, you run through his legs and stab up and under his loincloth as you do so,” the DM said. “His groin takes 4 points of damage.”

Howls of laughter erupt from the table, and Willie's player smiles.

"OK, I do it again!"

The orge took a clumsy swipe at Willie, missing handily, and Willie darted through its legs again with a successful called shot to the ogre's plumsack.

"You stab it in the nuts again, and it takes double damage. The orge screams and staggers a bit. It’s clutching its groin and cursing in orgrish, but it's still on it feet."

Half of us are on the floor, laughing ourselves sick due to the absurdity of the fight. By the time the fight ended, Willie was victorious, and the ogre was dead due to multiple called shots to its junk.

From that day forward, Willie demanded that we call him "Nadstabber."

1 comment:

  1. I played in a Dragon Ball Z table top in high school. During one of the fights I did a called shot to the knee cap with a energy disk power. I rolled massive damage and severed my opponents leg. Because of that and the fact my character was really short, he became known as the "kneecapper."

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