Monty Haul X-TREME
When I was in high school, I played D&D almost exclusively with my best friend at the time. And since I was 13, I got some seriously amazing stupid ideas.
A Tale of Greed and Tragedy
I had just discovered multiclassing, and I decided to go for the gold. My character at the time was a Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User named Presto Perfecto, and he was completely awesome. Well, except for that part where it took him 3 times as long to advance as a normal single-classed character. My friend was playing a Fighter/Illusionist, and hated the slow advancement as well. We played these characters for awhile and then just couldn’t stand the burden of slow advancement anymore. So we did what any rational young teenage nerds would do: attempt to rules lawyer.
The plan was simple: we’d found a passage in the DMG that said 1 Experience Point is equal to 1 gold piece. Since it was just me and him, and neither of us was really “the DM”, we could simply come up with a lame exuse to give our characters as much treasure as we wanted to get as much XP as we wanted.
The problem was, I’d also recently gotten a copy of the Manual of the Planes. It was there that the seeds for Presto’s eventual downfall were sewn.
Thar’s Minerals in Them Thar Planes
If 1GP = 1XP, then jewels were worth a lot of GP. And what has more jewels than the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Mineral? So we decided to mine it for jewels and gems. We decided on some “standard” amount each mine would yield, and then set about drawing maps of our huge encampments, detailing where all our mines were.
At the end of the day, my friend and I compared maps, and he had drawn his mines significantly smaller than my mines, and there was consequently way more room on the paper for his. Thusly, his character (by our detailed calculations), was about a 5100th level Fighter / 5096th level Illusionist, and poor presto was only a 3000th level fighter / 2850th level Cleric / 2785th level Magic-User. My friend then declared his character evil and started ravaging the land, his former friend and rival Presto no longer strong enough to be a threat.
I was, of course, powerless to stop him by drawing more mines on a new paper. That would be against the rules.
Share Your Silly D&D Story
I could really stretch for a moral to this story, but there really isn’t one. I was 13, dumb as a post, and loving every minute of it. I guess it just goes to show you can have intense fun playing D&D even when you’re doing it horribly, horribly wrong. This is a prime example of why our D&D group consists primarily of people over 25 – so nobody dies.
At any rate, we’d love to hear your ridiculous D&D exploits, so share your tales with us! (Knowing I was not alone in my teenage stupidity might help me sleep at night.)
LOL! Great Teenaged D&D story.
When I was 11, I DMed this campaing for my 12 year old neighbor. He had a thief character. Our campaign model was using the Hexed map of Greyhawk and rolling a random encounter whenever his character entered a new Hex. (1 hex travelled per day).
He rose from level 1 to level 10 in about 4 sessions. He got a cool set of Thief Platemail that could launch 1 fireball from each hand per day.
The campaign’s apex was when he purchased an arrow of Dragon slaying, went into Hell and slew Tiamat with said arrow while she was sleeping and unattended.
After that I realized that this campaign might have gotten a bit out of control, so I had the Thief wake up from his great dream, still at level 1.
Ahhh the joys of our early D&D games.
When we were 16, a friend tried his hand at running a game for us. When we decided to take the wrong road, he declared that there was a guard tower there, with guards blocking our way. We said we’d fight them! Alright, he says. Have it your way! There are 20 level 20 fighters in this guard tower!!!
When I was in Middle School, my friend and I took a look at our folders of characters, most by that point in the 15+ range. We decided that we would stage a raid on Tiamat, while she was visiting the Prime Material Plane.
We launched 12 characters against her. Multiple high level casters hurled spells, thieves dropping down from the ceilings for their backstabs, and all manner of fighter going head to head (pun intended).
When it was done, we lost 8 of the characters, leaving 4 of us to gain the XP from the fight as well as to split her treasure.
We too we aware of the 1XP for 1GP rule, and the remaining 4 characters vaulted into 20+ level.
It was a great weekend, running the fight on one night, and spending the next day leveling up our characters and dividing up the treasure.
To this day, my friend and I still laugh about that run.
4 words sum up an awful/awesome game I played:
“These paddles are evil!”
My first campaign featured such deities as “Lute Skywriter” and the main villain was “Lord Dort Invader.” It also featured a giant anime robot and a cleric named “Batman.”
D&Disms can be pretty ridiculous sometimes, but at least it’s not that bad anymore…
@dave:
LOL you just reminded me of the “example” character printed on my old D&D character sheets — “Elrond Hubbard”…..
I still remember way back in middle school, attempting to figure out the rules on my own, and thinking that it seemed silly that some of the spell durations were dependent upon how often you change directions in a dungeon….cause they had durations in ‘turns’. 🙂
@zybron:
Don’t feel bad. I used to think “Cure Light Wounds” would only work on damage done by light.
And I used to think Wights were flying undead manta rays. Yeah, it’s weird, but so much scarier.
“Wights were flying undead manta rays”
I must say that is totally awesome! I’m using that. Thanks
“Elrond Hubbard” is pretty clever actually. The first session I played in with the group that I’m still with today asked me to bring a character already made. My middle-school brain thought it would be totally awesome to play a Psionicist Elf named “Spock”.
Not only was it silly in general, but demi-human level limits were a bitch…