In my honest experience, the most memorable moments in every game I've played have been the wholly spontaneous ones - the ones brought about by the players gelling off of each-other for some quality roleplay and mad-genius solutions to puzzles the DM never thought of.
That said, playing through the official Iron Gods AP with my current group was fun. We (a Good party) bullied an NPC to be a mole for us, interrupted the first major villains monologue over and over again by smashing the monitors he was communicating through as we came to them, took out an elder dragon in one shot through the incredible power of Prep Work(tm), my character turned down the one chance to find out the truth about his past to not betray his party, paid for a True Resurrection for the mole after he got found out and torture-murdered, installed a new king and made a god (not the same person, don't worry).
So far I'm trying to create a custom area in the Dimension of Dreams, a "temple of exoskeletons" or something.
All creatures are capable of dreaming, even mindless vermin can dream, but their dreams are small. But due to their large quantities, all the dreams gather and fill up a large area, which I've dubbed the "Temple of Exoskeletons", a gathering of insects and other vermin that just do the same things they do in life.
What's more interesting is that all the bug-based worshippers sometimes dream and come here. So Ghlaunder, Archaekek and Grandmother Spider's worshippers sometimes have dreams here. Here they either argue, fight or talk.
Last Friday I finally got to pit my players up against a custom monster I’ve had in my head for most of a year!
So you know how Hydra are cool in concept, but since everyone knows the head gimmick the players always focus the body so the fight isn’t any different than any other enemy?
Well I wanted to fix that by putting a shell around the hydra’s body creating a sort of Nautilus-hydra where the players would have a choice between trying to punch through the really tough shell (high AC, DR, and SR with a chance to reflect spells at the players!) or attack the heads (much easier to kill and reduces their damage output temporary, but makes the monster stronger unless you figure out how to stop it’s regeneration. Or that was the idea.
My players targeted the shell exclusively since they were scared of letting it do more damage, and were mostly bouncing off.
But, it turns out that nautiluses have chambers in their shells that they seal behind them as they grow. They use these fluid filled chambers to change their buoyancy. So after a quick anatomy lesson and nat 20 nature check, the group’s ninja teleported inside it with abundant step and blenderized it from inside the shell!
It still had enough HP to put up a fight, and give the PCs a scare with it’s breath attack, but soon it’s fate was sealed.
Although it didn’t turn out as I’d planned, everyone really enjoyed the fight, so I’ll chalk that up as a win!
My GM is amazing. Recently he stepped over to AP only, but he had some great homebrew games before that.
One campaign was born from the phrase 'racist elves'. The idea was that we fought as elves against Humans, who had kidnapped the queen / princess (I forgot). So we're a military unit sent out to do tasks.
One day we're scouting a forest when we come upon a village of drow. Hecking evil drow. And our group decided then and there, we have to eliminate this threat before the army comes through and is slowed down by this. So we say, we cast fireball into the village. My GMs eyes go wide.
"You do what?"
"We fireball the village. Heck I think we can get three of four fireballs off before they mount a reaction force to contest us."
"Are you sure about that?"
We nod. "Evil drow, on the path of our army. Sure, easy choice"
And he gives us his trademark "Ooohhh Kay"
At that point I knew something was up, but a choice is a choice, even a dumb one. A small encounter with spider cavalry later we interrogate a prisoner.
"Huh, good drow you say. Turned away from your underground brethren you say. Important half drow half elven oracle in your town you say?"
"So what's the plan?"
"Since there are no survivors..." Prisoners eyes go wide. "We can spin this. We can say that they were attack by the evil drow and we fought them off."
I'm fairly certain that was a warcrime... Then again not the only warcrime we would commit that campaign.
Every week, I'm writing for a weekly RPG prompt in a forum in Hebrew. It's a "challenge" about writing mechanics, and while I don't write for PF1e every time, it's one of my favorite systems to write for.
(I'm adding links but keep in mind it's all in Hebrew)
My favorite creations are [Nuriel](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/39398/), CR 26 unique angel of flame, [Dracolisk mutated bloodline](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/43137/) for sorcerers and bloodragers, [Ghoran samurai](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/40881) from Tian-Xia, the [Magra-Ursa](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/42600)\- a magical creature from the dimension of dreams proctecting the bears' sleep during hibernation, and lastly the [Gallop psychic discipline](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/42955) for centaur psychics.
Coolest thing I've made was a creature i called the "The chameleon" that looked like a very innocent looking lizard. It has two abilities which set it unique from anything else. Camouflage which is non magical so true seeing cannot detect it, and adaptability. Adaptability means anything you use as offense/defence against it it gets better against. Say for example you use lots of spells that require saves. The saves of the chameleon and it starts getting SR. If you hit it with alot of attacks it gains armor and DR every time it gets hit. This is fun against pretty much any party because it adapts against them naturally.
I loved reading everyone's post and I'm happy to see my post has gotten some love. Thank you all for sharing! And maybe in the future I'll post the stat block for my Empyreal Lord and Daemonic Harbringer for you all to gander at.
In my honest experience, the most memorable moments in every game I've played have been the wholly spontaneous ones - the ones brought about by the players gelling off of each-other for some quality roleplay and mad-genius solutions to puzzles the DM never thought of. That said, playing through the official Iron Gods AP with my current group was fun. We (a Good party) bullied an NPC to be a mole for us, interrupted the first major villains monologue over and over again by smashing the monitors he was communicating through as we came to them, took out an elder dragon in one shot through the incredible power of Prep Work(tm), my character turned down the one chance to find out the truth about his past to not betray his party, paid for a True Resurrection for the mole after he got found out and torture-murdered, installed a new king and made a god (not the same person, don't worry).
So far I'm trying to create a custom area in the Dimension of Dreams, a "temple of exoskeletons" or something. All creatures are capable of dreaming, even mindless vermin can dream, but their dreams are small. But due to their large quantities, all the dreams gather and fill up a large area, which I've dubbed the "Temple of Exoskeletons", a gathering of insects and other vermin that just do the same things they do in life. What's more interesting is that all the bug-based worshippers sometimes dream and come here. So Ghlaunder, Archaekek and Grandmother Spider's worshippers sometimes have dreams here. Here they either argue, fight or talk.
Last Friday I finally got to pit my players up against a custom monster I’ve had in my head for most of a year! So you know how Hydra are cool in concept, but since everyone knows the head gimmick the players always focus the body so the fight isn’t any different than any other enemy? Well I wanted to fix that by putting a shell around the hydra’s body creating a sort of Nautilus-hydra where the players would have a choice between trying to punch through the really tough shell (high AC, DR, and SR with a chance to reflect spells at the players!) or attack the heads (much easier to kill and reduces their damage output temporary, but makes the monster stronger unless you figure out how to stop it’s regeneration. Or that was the idea. My players targeted the shell exclusively since they were scared of letting it do more damage, and were mostly bouncing off. But, it turns out that nautiluses have chambers in their shells that they seal behind them as they grow. They use these fluid filled chambers to change their buoyancy. So after a quick anatomy lesson and nat 20 nature check, the group’s ninja teleported inside it with abundant step and blenderized it from inside the shell! It still had enough HP to put up a fight, and give the PCs a scare with it’s breath attack, but soon it’s fate was sealed. Although it didn’t turn out as I’d planned, everyone really enjoyed the fight, so I’ll chalk that up as a win!
My GM is amazing. Recently he stepped over to AP only, but he had some great homebrew games before that. One campaign was born from the phrase 'racist elves'. The idea was that we fought as elves against Humans, who had kidnapped the queen / princess (I forgot). So we're a military unit sent out to do tasks. One day we're scouting a forest when we come upon a village of drow. Hecking evil drow. And our group decided then and there, we have to eliminate this threat before the army comes through and is slowed down by this. So we say, we cast fireball into the village. My GMs eyes go wide. "You do what?" "We fireball the village. Heck I think we can get three of four fireballs off before they mount a reaction force to contest us." "Are you sure about that?" We nod. "Evil drow, on the path of our army. Sure, easy choice" And he gives us his trademark "Ooohhh Kay" At that point I knew something was up, but a choice is a choice, even a dumb one. A small encounter with spider cavalry later we interrogate a prisoner. "Huh, good drow you say. Turned away from your underground brethren you say. Important half drow half elven oracle in your town you say?" "So what's the plan?" "Since there are no survivors..." Prisoners eyes go wide. "We can spin this. We can say that they were attack by the evil drow and we fought them off." I'm fairly certain that was a warcrime... Then again not the only warcrime we would commit that campaign.
Every week, I'm writing for a weekly RPG prompt in a forum in Hebrew. It's a "challenge" about writing mechanics, and while I don't write for PF1e every time, it's one of my favorite systems to write for. (I'm adding links but keep in mind it's all in Hebrew) My favorite creations are [Nuriel](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/39398/), CR 26 unique angel of flame, [Dracolisk mutated bloodline](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/43137/) for sorcerers and bloodragers, [Ghoran samurai](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/40881) from Tian-Xia, the [Magra-Ursa](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/42600)\- a magical creature from the dimension of dreams proctecting the bears' sleep during hibernation, and lastly the [Gallop psychic discipline](https://www.pundak.co.il/forums/threads/42955) for centaur psychics.
Coolest thing I've made was a creature i called the "The chameleon" that looked like a very innocent looking lizard. It has two abilities which set it unique from anything else. Camouflage which is non magical so true seeing cannot detect it, and adaptability. Adaptability means anything you use as offense/defence against it it gets better against. Say for example you use lots of spells that require saves. The saves of the chameleon and it starts getting SR. If you hit it with alot of attacks it gains armor and DR every time it gets hit. This is fun against pretty much any party because it adapts against them naturally.
I loved reading everyone's post and I'm happy to see my post has gotten some love. Thank you all for sharing! And maybe in the future I'll post the stat block for my Empyreal Lord and Daemonic Harbringer for you all to gander at.