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Old 11-09-2006, 06:43 PM   #1
Blood Legend
 
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Default Creative Use of Spells

Whats the most creative use of a spell you've ever seen/can think of?

I want to make a mage who'll just constantly screw around with the GM's head whenever I start casting, but for that I need plans, plots, methods, schemes. Whats the craziest thing you've ever done with a mage?

Also, some side questions. Can Fast Fire be used on Fireball? And if so, would I cast it before fireball, or right before I throw it? Do I have to target pre-existing flames or is it like an area enchantment? I'm thinking targeted.

Favorite Tricks So Far:

Create Object - Temporary jewelry, sell low, sell lots.
Greate Haste - Cast multiply on an enemy mage who'll suffer fatigue damage.
Concussion - Pre-emptive strike to prep a room for entry.
Evisceration - For quick-and-dirty surgery (no this is not safe.)
Insubstantiality - Assassination by dropping a rock in someone's braincase.
Test Food - Poor Man's Demon Summon, Demonlist the spell and fail miserably.
Teleport+Timeout+Arrows - Basically the timeout example in the book with teleporting.
Glue Spell - Cast in odd places; door knobs, ceilings, etc.
Knot+Itch - Use knot on armor straps, itch on wearer.
Pull+Repel - Use to save you from falling damage.
CreateServant+anyhighskill = Free Labor
Throw+Animal+Independant = Throw swarms of scorpions yay!
Undead Submarine - Summon Whale Bones to Life, and skeletal crew men.
Undead Snakestaff - A long mummified snake capable of being used like a magic staff that can attack on its own.
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Last edited by Blood Legend; 01-19-2008 at 09:35 AM.
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Old 11-09-2006, 08:01 PM   #2
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

The first creative use of spell example I can recall was to levitate the enemies and turn them head over heels. Standard fare nowadays but when I first saw it (several years pre-Unearthed Arcana AD&D) the tactic was novel and amazing.
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Old 11-09-2006, 08:36 PM   #3
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

This should have worked. The players opted not to use the successfully cast spell to their best interests.

A wizard heavy grouop of PCs wanted some confiscated gear a town took from a PC who got arrested.

An attempt to sneak in and steal it failed because of a loousy die roll. Threats to attack the town were made by the fleeing failed felons.

Warned, the town had time to ready the big two shsots a day canon kept mostly for parades and the like.

The PCs, rather than try another theft and hope for better die rolls opted to commit about 70 percent of their combined fatigue to building a hughe Earth Elemental and the remaining 30% of their fatigue into powering an enlarge spell for it. I think it had a 96 ST when they were done.

Rather than let the thing function as a walking catapult and getting the town to cooperate, they had it charge.

I got one shot off with the canon. I rolled a six. It didn't come close to dodging...

Should have worked. Didn't.

Under 5th edition rules, it probably would have worked. ST provides HP these days and they concentrated on making the Elemental muscular.

A more sucessfulo use of a spell was with Create Object. The wizard very openloy explained that the object would forever vanish if it wasnot on thei person of a living being. Would cast the spell to demonstrate this. He had a good jeweler skill and made first rate jewlry and charged a low price. As long as the custormer wore the ring or necklace they'd keep it.

Made more money that way than he did adventuring.
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Old 11-09-2006, 10:01 PM   #4
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

Quote:
He had a good jeweler skill and made first rate jewlry and charged a low price. As long as the custormer wore the ring or necklace they'd keep it.
:o that is very creative.
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Old 11-09-2006, 11:19 PM   #5
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

A friend of mine had a fighter-mage whose favorite trick was casting a Grease spell under the feet of his enemies, but only after he used Super Jump to "Attack from Above". Just as the enemy braced for impact, *slip* *stab*. The fight was over.
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Old 11-09-2006, 11:25 PM   #6
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

Lol thats awesome! Total cinematic win.

Has anyone ever used a spell in such a way where no one they know would have ever thought to have used that spell that way?

I mean everyone knows the dropping them from the sky with levitation routine. But has anyone ever had 3 mages cast multiple levels of Great Haste on an enemy so that he'd snap to a second later and die of pure fatigue loss? (thank you Amy)

Stuff like that =3
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Old 11-10-2006, 03:26 AM   #7
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

The most creative use of a spell I have witnessed was not during GURPS play, but a heavily modified rules set for high-level play in AD&D 2nd edition.

The players were 30th level or above. There were many options or skills which made fighters very powerful, such as superhuman precision, defences and feints. Most of these relied heavily on the mind of the warrior guiding his weapons, so that the most dangerous weapons of a fighter were his mind, experience and savvy.

Since most of the combat benefits characters had were derived from their understanding of combat and quick-thinking, if a fighter used magic to move faster, his mind couldn't keep up and he would lose a lot of the benefits. Sure, he'd attack faster, but his attacks would not be as coordinated and since he would be moving faster than he could plan, he would be predictable and unable to recover from feints very well.

As a result, buffing spells such as Haste and Improved Haste were mostly used on Mages and Rogues, not on Warriors who were much deadlier without them.

The situation:

The group of PCs are fighting a Demigod, a drow god of Warriors named Selvetarm (Lloth's son). He has multiple forms, but the one he is in is a male drow warrior with mace and sword. Since he is a God of Warriors, this one is pretty much the essence of drow elven combatant; inhumanly skilled with his weapons and capable of incredible feats of cunning, guile and bladecraft.

What do the PCs do?

They cast Haste on the Demigod. Haste, in AD&D 2nd does not have a saving throw and the PCs are capable of overcoming Magic Resistance (even 100%) with a few auxiliary spells.

Suddenly, the incredibly talented drow warrior was too fast for his own good.

Being uncoordinated meant that the PCs got in a few hits. Since their hits were precise and aimed for the weak points of limbs, the few hits meant that the Demigod was now crippled.

After a long fight, the high-level party was able to call themselves Godslayers.

For added fun, the final blow against a God was struck by the humble Magic Missile.
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Old 11-10-2006, 04:19 AM   #8
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

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Originally Posted by Icelander
buhduh budhah skeebedo whop Magic Missile.
That wins. o_O on a side note, listening to scatman until 6 in the morning does things to your mynnnnnd. The most creative use of spells I'd ever seen usually came from my brother, who had no rhyme or reason in character creation and most of his roleplay was done off the sheet. No one really took mind since the disadvantages he'd play out where actually worse then the ones he wrote down.

Anywho, he somehow gets a hold of a 200 point powerstone (oh yee lords are unforgiving) and somehow it unlocks most of the spells upper limit requirements.

We're at some giant obelisk that can be seen from space inscribed from head to toe with runes...EVERYwhere. There are four circular gates on all four sides of this huge thing. When white wolf pirate plucked the sacred orb from its perch (from beyond one of the gates) it summoned hundreds of thousands of lesser demons, a few hundred hell knights, and one really nasty Arch-Demon.

Combat move one - Giant humongous stone pillar erupts from ground underneath White Wolf
demons cluster around the White Wolf
Combat move two - Spike the Pillar
demons start climbing up spiked wall.
Combat move three - wait.
A huge spiked wall you say? Next to a giant obelisk you say?...And demons crawling up the side inbetween?...You don't say.
Combat move four - SPLAT
oo survivors
-BIGGER SPLAT-

I was trapped in a stupid cage 40 yards down the road cuz I was chasing after a platoon captain that had harrassed us earlier >_> Stupid...evil...bone...unbreakky...-grumble- The GM was just being mean cuz I was chasing down a plothole and he needed me in the big fight, so he ruled that my common sense told me not to chase down the winged Captain and stay in the thicket of spiked grindy red firey doom. OHhhhhhh yeah, cuz I'm sure if I had common sense, I'd TOTALLY stick around for THAT.
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Last edited by Blood Legend; 11-10-2006 at 04:23 AM.
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Old 11-10-2006, 04:23 AM   #9
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

Well, there was always the use of Enlarge to cause game-shattering effects (Which I now keep well in check!).

Creative? Well, there was some creative use of enchanting in one of my early campaigns... And by creative, I mean "not allowed by the rules". A pair of gauntlets, both enchanted with Haste and Great Haste to give the guy 3 actions per turn... No.

Though I still think the simple ones are the best. Like when I was playing a lizardman shaman in an early campaign. He was basically just a heavy warrior, who was coming into being a shaman. Only spell he had was ignite, but he was going to get more later. However, he GREATLY prefered fighting in melee, and his prefered weapon was a spear (With a bastard sword backup). At one point, they get in a fight with a "slayer", who was the GM's obvious attempt at "black bad-ass dangerous bad-guy". The guy is a threat to our whole group on his own, and only two of the four are actually in the fight. One (A mage) was tied up at the time, and I, for various reasons, was restricted from joining in the melee.

Since I had not once cast magic since we started the campaign, nobody even remembered I had the ability. But they never forgot it after the bad-guy lit up and started rolling on the ground to put himself out, making the rest of the melee a rather one-sided affair. It was probably the most effective single casting in that campaign.

Other good ones include using Concussion to "prepare" a room for entry (A mage can do 1-die concussions quickly and with little cost, and with the HT-3 roll to resist stunning, it's a GREAT way to start off a combat... Especially if you're fighting people with the nasty habit of aiming crossbows at the door.

And dumping all of a mage's energy and all of his powerstone into a (critically succeeded) shape air spell at one end of a long cave (More like tunnel) just seemed far too amusing.
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Old 11-10-2006, 09:33 AM   #10
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Default Re: Creative Use of Spells

Back in one of my first AD&D games I used a non attack spell to kill three creatures.

We were in a tavern for the night and apparently everyone in the town was a were-creatures... so now the three of us were standing in a small tavern with 5 werebats 2 wererats and a werebear. We split up and took our own groups... warrior took the werebear and 2 werebats, rogue/fighter took the wererats, and three werebats came rushing at me.

I was pretty new at AD&D and we played quick and dirty combat so... quickly looked at my spells, ask if the werebats were walking, and then I cast Tenser's Floating Disk in the middle of the werebats. I now know that the spell can't be used to cut creatures in half by casting it in their space, but it was still very cool to me at the time and the DM allowed it and combat continued.

I don't think most experienced GMs would allow anyone to use that spell that way, but it is a funny little memory from back in the day.
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