What is the funnest non-combat encounter you've experienced?

[bigbluepaw]

Hey folks. I'm building out a library of encounters and adventures I can use impromptu in a campaign. Am curious to see what kind of non-combat encounters, which involved die rolling, folks have experienced.

Could be a verbal debate. Could be navigating a dark forest.

Thoughts?

[gaara6666]

probably was a travelling carnival with skill contests for food eating, strength, dexterity, surviving curiosities.

[jasonthelamb]

probably was a travelling carnival with skill contests for food eating, strength, dexterity, surviving curiosities.

Is this what I think it is?

[Ellspeth]

Oh this can be difficult because I play with so many groups that emphasize role playing and utilizing other character skills. One would be when my sweet little gambler outcheated the local nobleman at a game of dice in warhammer.

[gaara6666]

yes jason it would... we as pc hired a travelling carnival to come to this town to just blow our money on for fun and gold. And the carnival turned out to be evil as hell

[ozziewolf]

My favorite of all time involves some one having a dangerous magical artifact in a bar. It starts off with the group discretely splitting up and going to different tables and starting up a conversation to try and narrow down who it is. The idea is we want to figure it out with out letting them know that we know.

Most of it involved talking and asking questions about different things. My Barbarian Cromwell took a different approach. He walked up to a table and challenged a Dragonborn to an arm wrestling contest. He actually lost which meant that the Dragonborn was obviously alright and not the culprit. Because the only way to really get to truly get to know some one is through manly acts of strength. (It was a female Dragonborn.)

So we figure out who it is but the guy gets jumpy and starts to run but drops a magical dagger. Lightning shoots out of it and starts electrocuting him. Cromwell picks up the dagger and the Cleric shout stick him with the dagger to see if the lightning goes back into it. Now he meant just poke him with it. But he wasn't very specific and the Barbarian isn't one to half-*** things so he plunges the dagger to the hilt at the base of the guys neck and he collapses to the ground. The lightning jumps to some one else electrocuting them.

We spend a couple rounds with it jumping to various people and us trying to figure out how to put the lightning back in the dagger. Suddenly the guy who we're pretty sure is dead from a gaping neck wound gets up and starts walking towards the door along with others who were electrocuted. Now Cromwell has never seen a zombie but feels like this qualifies and the rest of the party seems to agree as we start attacking the guy. So the guy gets stabbed a couple of times and is still walking to the door. The Halfling wizard in the party shouts that you have to destroy it's head. Cromwell being the ever helpful person that he is picks up a large bench and crushes the guys head in with it.

Around that time some people start to think maybe they're not actually zombies and instruct the party to try and restrain them. We also start to figure out that all the people the lightning is jumping to have recently been to the same location and are carrying various items of that reason. It's all above my Barbarian's head so I just stand there with two of the "zombies" grappled"

One of the guys picks up an item from the region while holding the dagger at the guy currently being electrocuted and it jumps to him next right into the dagger solving the problem.

Queue the screaming at the dead guy in the bar and shouts from one lady in particular about their being "so much blood" every where. The rest of the people kind of snap out of it and stop being "Zombies."

The way the dagger works is to basically allow some one to use non-wizards to summon a Dracolich by sort of possessing the people for a bit.

No combat was actually required for this encounter. However you're never going to convince Cromwell that the guy who got up with the gaping neck wound was anything other than a zombie.

Xorn could give more specifics as he was the one who ran the encounter.

[Xorn]

Xorn could give more specifics as he was the one who ran the encounter.

A local representative of the Lords' Alliance got Cromwell off the hook for brutally murdering a commoner, since it was a "zombie".

[bigbluepaw]

Great examples guys. Good stuff. Thank you!

[drakonin]

Playing pathfinder Mythic campaign:

A player uses disguise to dress up like a famous tiefling and convinces an entire tiefling army to stand down and then fight for him, he leads the charge and then dimension doors away leaving two enemy armies to fight it out. Zero combat on the players part.

The best parts was the impromptu role playing I had to do as the tiefling army, I tried everything I could think of to stop his influence but between his great D20 rolls and some great answers I let it happen.