Epic fail

[Rob_The_Impaler]

Well I've been thinking about posting this small story of a rogue hafling that I made for some time. It should get some laughs-like it did with the group I was in. He was only level five at the time, and after almost dieing many many, Many! times(on of witch was a DM save after he fell from a clif, after making his excape from a orc that had grown fond of him-like a pet of sorts-, but anyways enough side tracking.

The story would have to start with the female bard of the party. She had made friends with the innkeepers husban, and a rough night, my halfing being tied up for his own safty in the room right next to theirs, he sould know. But it ended in the mans wife walking in on them-my halfing at the moment making the greatest checks of his life, where he opned a window and jumped out of the second story, atleast three nat 20s in a row on a jump to open the window, and jump to jump out of it, and then another jump and tumble to take no damage on the lightly snow covered ground below.

After that excape and some work to get untied he found said bard standing outside of a house, her face sslightly red from a fresh smack from the innkeepers husban-who was beat up by the fact his wife left him. My rogue asked her what was wrong and soon found himself unlocking the door to let her in. We both entered, the level five bard confronted the commoner, talking it out as my rogue did his thing and found tresures just laying around, this included a shiny new knife that he pocketed. The person who ha tied him up took and sold his weapons saddly it was another PC,the wizard who also put a nucrotic cyst in him -_-.... The talk between the bard and the commoner started to get rough so my rogue decided he would stand behind the man, keeping the new knife inches away from the base of his spin. The commoner pulled out a longsword and my rogue attacked (Non-leatel) and missed, a nat 1 and then a 20. The commoner wasn't happy seeing a knife (one that was heavaly enchanted that I did not know about until later...) slide between his legs, with a tiny hand gripping the handle. He reached down and with one move grabbed my rogue and started to strangle him..-nat one on AoO....-, the bad fasanated him for one round as my rogue started to stab at his arm, still being stragled-I've never seen so many 1's and 2's in my life... he even stabed himself once. After my rogue was KO'ed for lack of air the commoner started to beat the bard, useing me as a weapon... somehow on bad luck he got nat 20 after nat 20 after nat 20..... and the bard was soon out.... At this time the wizard and Sor. walked in hearing much thump, thump, thump as my halfling was being used as a club, and the bard was getting hit, now at -8 and still going. THe commoner turned in time to through me at the wizard, my head hitting the cornner of the table with a splat and now at -9. The commoner got just enough time to stab the bard in the gut with the dagger (THe DM did ask if it was ok before he did it...).

This story ends with the commoner getting hit with a single magic missle, killing him.

We had a laugh that two level 5's just got pwned by a LEVEL 1 commoner.... I have to say this just shouldn't happen. I would have hatted to fight a can if this is how we fair against a commoner.

Commoner Stats
HP: 2
AC:12 (He had simple armor on...)
Attack: +2, Longsword (1d6)
Base attack/Grapple +0/+2
Str:14 (He spent a year as a guard but never picked up any class levels)
Dex: 10
Con: 10
Int:9
Wis:8
Cha:10

Well nothing to good, he had ok stats, my DM wanted it to be alittle harder then us a PC's pwning him, but it turned out the other way around.

Well anyways post your own epic fails or talk about how this one went..... rather badly I'd say.

[Flickerdart]

This was my first D&D game, and I was playing a 10th level Wizard (without any items, our DM didn't give us much gold...and gave me much less than the 2/level of spells). We got teleported to the plane of Mechanus somehow, and after some running around, found an abandoned tower with no lights inside.
So, naturally, we go in to investigate. When we're at the stairs up, the Ranger heard a sound, and turning around we saw some sort of creature that my non-maxed Arcana check failed to recognize and the DM described as a golem of some sort, with glowy runes and implements of horrible death attached all over. We agreed to bolt up the stairs and assess the situation from there. But as we run, the thing ran faster, and was 5ft away from my Wizard. So I hastily scroll through my prepared spells...
"Hey, this is handy. Wall of Ice!"
The creature is stopped by the wall and we catch our breath. A quick few Spot checks later reveals that my Wizard just boxed us in the top room of the tower, with seemingly no way out. We heard the creature doing something that sounded like casting spells, so in effect I gave it free buff rounds. The rogue, meanwhile, finds a chest in the corner and goes to open it. He doesn't have any tools, so he uses his rapier...*snap!* and it breaks off in the lock as he rolls a 1.
A natural spot check 20 later, my Wizard looks up to see a trap door. The creature was now catching fire or something and the wall wouldn't last long, so I tried to pull the trap door open and failed the Strength check. The Rogue comes over to help, fails the Reflex save and gets clobbered on the head with the trap door as it falls down.
The door leads us to the roof, and none too soon. There is no ladder down, though...my Wizard is last to climb down (having already used up his Fly spell's duration earlier in the day). He loses his handhold and plummets something like a hundred feet down, losing consciousness. Our Cleric runs up to heal him...our Evil cleric of Wee Jas, who forgot he couldn't Cure. They managed to stabilize me, but that was really sad...

[Origomar]

Rob that was pretty funny i just imagined a halfling being thrown around an inn then all of a sudden the attacker just get slammed by magic missle :)

[Lawless III]

In my first game, I was a half elf rogue. It started out as a pretty good game. We had to perform an excorcism on a king. We snuck in through the sewers, fought some monsters, bluffed some gaurds, etc. Standard stuff really. Going up the stairs to the kings throne room at the top of the tower, our dwarven fighter fails his move silently check. Suddenly, every one of the kings men is on our tails as we rush as fast as our base land speed will allow. We beat them to the landing, and one of our spell casters uses some random spell to destroy the stairs. The soldiers all turn and run to the base. It's just us, on the landing, staring at the door to the king's throne room. We used another spell to see through the door (the king has no gaurds with him due to our earlier sabotage, and there apear to be no other doors or windows), and began plotting our attack. This is where all the trouble began.
As we finalize our strategy, the dwarf expresses a query. "What if there are soldiers?" he asks. "They're all trapped downstairs." We reply. "But what if they find a way up?" ... "IT'S TEN FRICKIN' STORIES" ... "Maybe they'll get a ladder..."
We spend the next hour arguing with him about the logistics of any soldiers intruding upon our battle, but he just refuses to be sated with any sort of explanation. He thinks they might be invisible, or there might be a secret door, etc. This kind of thinking might be usefull if we were playing tomb of horrors, but this was a campaign meant to get most of the members into DnD. (Excluding him and the DM, both of whom had played for a few months prior) We should have just moved on with out him, but we weren't experienced at dealing with snags like this. We were first timers for Pelor's sake!
The DM was enraged almost to the point of tears and made him a promise, not unlike the rainbow covenant, ensuring him that there are in fact NO SOLDIERS involved in the upcoming battle.



"But what about AFTER the battle " he asks.


We pushed that frickin' dwarf to his untimely demise, and went on ahead with the campaign. Though traumatizing, this event gave insight into the necessaty of non-mechanics realted house rules.

[Master_Rahl22]

My favorite epic fail story was from my first game. We had a guy playing a Paladin-type homebrew class, and he had managed a 7 for his Int. This guy really took his roleplaying seriously, so his character was definitely Lawful Stupid.

We were escorting an Elf Wizard to her home city where we would get more info/items/etc. to help us go after the BBEG. While we were travelling through a tunnel under the mountains in our way, the BBEG teleports in and tells us that he will leave us alive for now, but that the only way we can save the Elf is to bring somebody who can Resurrect her to X location in 2 months time. Due to previous story elements, we know that the Elf chick is the only one who can stop BBEG, and that there are only 3 or 4 Clerics in the world who can cast Resurrection. He then proceeds to kill the Elf and grabs her body, explaining that it's much easier to keep somebody captive when they're dead.

So, the Lawful Stupid paladin-type has all of the info he needs that this guy is Evil, and Something Must Be Done. He charges, and his spear bounces off the bare torso of BBEG (some sort of uber damage reduction, we mostly defeated him through story elements since he was LVL 14 or so and we finished the campaign at LVL6). BBEG proceeds to Disintegrate him, meaning that he can never come back as there is no True Resurrection in this world. New character time. :)

[Lord_Drayakir]

My "best" epic fail moment was when I was playing a frail wizard that had a specialty with poisons. I had a decent Constitution score, but nevertheless...

We were tracking down a guy who murdered a noble. We got to a cave which was some sort of lair for a group of bandits/mercs, and we come to a hallway with several pits. We all make it past the first one. The second one... the monk sailed over gracefully, as did the ranger, and the other guy. The wizard? He falls splat down on the floor, and the impact broke two of his poison bottles.

The first poison was fine, because it was an Injury-only poison. The other? Lotus Leaf Residue, which is a contact poison that does 3d6 Con damage. I'm basically dead, because it rolled for maximum damage, and a good con for a wizard is like 14 or something. Anyway, the ranger type went down, and tried to retrieve my body. Unfortunately, he was careless, and also got hit with the poison. Needless to say, we were not amused, and we had to re-roll.

[Origomar]

My "best" epic fail moment was when I was playing a frail wizard that had a specialty with poisons. I had a decent Constitution score, but nevertheless...

We were tracking down a guy who murdered a noble. We got to a cave which was some sort of lair for a group of bandits/mercs, and we come to a hallway with several pits. We all make it past the first one. The second one... the monk sailed over gracefully, as did the ranger, and the other guy. The wizard? He falls splat down on the floor, and the impact broke two of his poison bottles.

The first poison was fine, because it was an Injury-only poison. The other? Lotus Leaf Residue, which is a contact poison that does 3d6 Con damage. I'm basically dead, because it rolled for maximum damage, and a good con for a wizard is like 14 or something. Anyway, the ranger type went down, and tried to retrieve my body. Unfortunately, he was careless, and also got hit with the poison. Needless to say, we were not amused, and we had to re-roll.



See that is why you make up some backstory stuff saying that you are immune or partially immune to poisons because you gave yourself small doses of it every day for years :)

[wadledo]

Or used metal bottles?:smallconfused:

[MickJay]

Yeah, in case of OP, a background story of being slightly injured by 1st level commoners every day would have helped, too. :smallbiggrin:

How about carrying a magically kept alive eye of a basilisk, to get petrified a little each day? Or putting your hand into the fire for a few seconds to gain fire resistance? Or getting Charm thrown at you, to develop immunity? I wouldn't buy either of these stories (including the perfectly valid IRL poison one) unless the PC also paid something for that immunity (a feat, few skill points, something).

Reminds me of an old WH session, where the party entered an underground labirynth of sorts. One of the chambers was filled with cursed (obviously) gold, it turned those who touched it to stone. After somehow managing to survive, and after the curse from what was in fact a forgotten temple complex was eventually lifted, one of the party members went back to get all that gold. Unfortunately for him, the gold itself (and we had enough hints about that already) remained cursed. :smalltongue:

[Coplantor]

Most recent failures I've seen:

Number one, a friend of mine.

After travelling back in time and accidentally making the drow the dominant race of Faerun, we made a pact with an evil wizard to return us to the present, the wizard took us to his basement and says that he has to sacrifice a gnome in order to travel to the future, while I was searching for an alternative to the gnome's death, our CE swashbuckler girl murdered the gnome and the ritual started, I saved some of the gnome's hair because I felt I owed the little guy something and I plan to resurrect him. Anyway, back in our time, our altered time in wich the drow had conquered almost the entire faerun, we enter into a forest, I'm playing a factotum, and my only arcane dilettante spell prepared was "light", my equipment was stolen so all I had was a quarterstaff and a robe (I like to disguise myself like different classes whenever I can). Suddenly, an ambush! arrows flying in our direction! we made spot checks, and we all saw humans firing at us from the trees, I rolled poorly my initiative and I was the last to act. The scout (my friend who is about to fail twice) charges against the humans and gets injured pretty badly, so did the swashbukler, then it was the favoured soul with a jesus complex who chooses not to act, anyway, my turn, I cast light on my quarterstaff, raise it in the air and shout "In the name of the gods I order you to stop!". It worked! The guys were actually some sort of underground resustance against the drow, they thought the elven scout was a drow, because in this timeline, the drow were unchanged. Anyway, the scout felt pretty bad because he got all injured and these guys were not the real enemies.
We join the resistance, and wait for a group of drow and attack them, the scout was shooting from a tree, he wanted to leap to another tree to get a better attack angle, and instead of just walking from tree to tree he chooses to go a la tarzan but he ended up looking like george of the jungle and smashed against a tree, taking some more damage in the process.
He climbed the tree and a drow hitted him with a poisoned arrow, he was paralyzed and with 0 hp, the DM asked him to make a reflex check in order to stay in the tree, natural 1, he falls, the DM asks for another roll, to reduce damage, natural one again, the DM decided that he took double falling damage, 4d6, the guy died, he was pretty upset because pretty much, it was a tree that killed him, and to make things worse, I'm not trying to resurrect him, the gnome had an unfair death, he died fighting for a noble cause :smalltongue:.

Second fail, another friend of mine

I was DMing at a local con, since most of the rpg tables had regular DnD, I opted to use a personal homebrewed setting, project awesome/eclectic. It involves steampunk, pirates, ninjas, cowboys, cthulhu, wizards, werewolves and dinosaurs. Anyway, I had 4 newbies and a friend of mine (remember the CE swashbuckler?) playing, the mission was easy, they were hired as security personal at a diplomatic party/ball in a victorian style manor near the border of two countries. They discovered a spy, good, they killed him, or so they thought, the spy took a dosis of what they thought was poison, it was actually a feign death potion thing. During the main event, a smoke bomb blows off in the middle of the dance room, men dressed in black attack the guests and kidnap the daughter of the landlord, needless to say, the party rushed to save her. After a nice chase scene involving a shootin while riding horses and fist fight on the top of a moving train, the villians jumped off the train into a river, and in their desperation, they entered a cave while trying to escape.
The party reaches the cave, strange runes are carved in the walls and wierd statues with queer angles and impossible shapes stand in the entrance. An eerie sensation invades their character while a cold chill runs through their spines, screams are heard coming from the cave. As they explore it, they found one of the guys they were chasing with it chest tored apart, at the end of the cave, they found an amorphous fleshy being, a mass of tentacles constantly changing it's size and shape, but always gigantic, in other words, a shoggoth. On the other side of the cave, the girl and one of the kidnappers are hiding from the beast, I describe the place and tell them that, there are some narrow passages that they can use to crawl to where the girl is, but, the girl that played the CE swashbuckler on the other campaign (now playing a lvl 1 cowboyish ranger dwarf) said "You guys go ahead, I distract the thing"... And so she did, she screamed and shoot at it trying to call it's attention, so the beast attacked her, dealing 1d8 + 17 damage. She was happy when she saw a 1 on the d8, not so happy when I told her it meant that she took 18 points of damage.

If you were wondering, two of them survived, one choosed not to enter the cave, the other one got out alive with the girl.

What did she learned? Not to poke on the other wordly creature three size categories larger than you.

[woodenbandman]

I have a story.

I used to suck at character building. My first character was a bard, and (s)he died challenging an orc to single combat. Then the next bard stabbed a barbarian in the back (well, the player was being a douche). Then she got crit for hammer.

The third character lasted a session, along with the game, and finally didn't suck.