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Adventurer
2009-06-29, 11:29 AM
Continued from the now-locked PC Stupidity Stories (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34561) thread.


As I'd mentioned in my previous post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6362982&postcount=869), I just started DMing and there's an Elf Druid in my party who did quite a few stupid things in the first session and gave me a hunch that he'd continue doing so. Well, he didn't prove me wrong in our second session.


The first one was minor but still very baffling. The party tracked down a lair of thieves in the forest and once inside found a small room that was evidently the thieves' leader's room. With the other three members of the party occupied (one was searching the walls for secret doors, the other was reading some documents found on a desk and the third didn't enter that room for reasons of her own) the Druid opened up the desk's drawer and found, among some worthless junk, a pouch. I told him it contained 60gp. So he says "I throw the pouch back in the drawer". WITHOUT saying that he takes the gold. WITHOUT writing it down anywhere. WITHOUT telling anyone else about it. I thought he'd just supposed he took it without telling me out loud but when they found a secret chest later he immediately notified the others and wrote that gold down. It was funny seeing the players' expressions when I told them about this "lost gold" at the end of the session.

The second blunder was much worse. Outside the lair they killed four thieves and knew from an NPC source (long story) that two more had been killed the day before. Inside the lair they found documents that stated the thieves were seven in total, so they deduced one was still on the loose. So as they camped in the wilderness they decided to have someone guard them as the rest were sleeping. Since the two Elves need 4 hours of sleep each, they took the sensible decision to have one Elf guard for the first 4 hours and the other for the rest of the 4 hours to complete the 8-hours camp. So once 4 hours were gone, the first Elf woke our Druid up so that he would continue guarding. As soon as the first Elf started his trance, the Druid tells me "I search for a river to fill my waterskin". I ask him if he's serious and he insists. To leave the party. Who are sleeping. In the middle of the night. To go and fill his half-full waterskin.

For the surviving thief who had found their encampment about an hour ago and was looking for a way to attack unnoticed, the Druid leaving them completely open was like a divine gift.

FoE
2009-06-29, 11:54 AM
I don't know, the second thing was kind of dumb, but the first thing is kind of nitpicking. In a situation like that, the first thing I would do is ask him "You toss the pouch without taking the gold?"

I remember playing a game with an old friend who was DM'ing. It was a pretty cliche set-up: a bartender hired the party to raid this temple (why he cared about this temple, I dunno) and I left assuming he told us where the temple was. Nope, I had to come all the way back and RP it.

I should have taken that as a sign the whole session was going to go swiftly downhill ...

The DUMBEST thing a party has done when I was DM'ing — or rather, I was co-DM'ing with the buddy I mentioned earlier — was when the PCs encountered this red dragon who was a servant of the Big Bad. He offered to impart them some valuable advice about getting through the dungeon if they allowed him to eat a member of the party. So they drugged up a halfling and offered him to the monster.

The dragon's "advice", spoken in unison by me and the regular DM, was as follows:

"NEVER TRUST A DRAGON!"

Hilarity ensued.

Blackfang108
2009-06-29, 12:39 PM
I don't know, the second thing was kind of dumb, but the first thing is kind of nitpicking. In a situation like that, the first thing I would do is ask him "You toss the pouch without taking the gold?"

I remember playing a game with an old friend who was DM'ing. It was a pretty cliche set-up: a bartender hired the party to raid this temple (why he cared about this temple, I dunno) and I left assuming he told us where the temple was. Nope, I had to come all the way back and RP it.

I should have taken that as a sign the whole session was going to go swiftly downhill ...

The DUMBEST thing a party has done when I was DM'ing — or rather, I was co-DM'ing with the buddy I mentioned earlier — was when the PCs encountered this red dragon who was a servant of the Big Bad. He offered to impart them some valuable advice about getting through the dungeon if they allowed him to eat a member of the party. So they drugged up a halfling and offered him to the monster.

The dragon's "advice", spoken in unison by me and the regular DM, was as follows:

"NEVER TRUST A DRAGON!"

Hilarity ensued.

I would have done that.

After cutting off one of the halfling's fingers and poisoning it's body, but I would have done that.

Morty
2009-06-29, 12:50 PM
Our D&D campaign might have been stretched over 3 years of rare sessions and threrefore rather short in essence, but it was rife with amazing displays of stupidity.
The most enormous one, I think, was when my wizard character decided to summon a familiar and told the rogue and the ranger to go find him a weasel he could turn into one. The two guys of course decided to cacth a weasel in the woods. Which would be fine, but instead of buying a piece of meat to use as a bait, the rogue tried to steal it. Somehow, they managed to escape capture and, as they've injured several people as they ran away, subsequent hanging.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-29, 12:59 PM
Our party was invading an undead-haunted battlefield/forest called the "demesne of sorrow", and our plan was to walk right in and start cracking skulls. The DM had us make in-character "stupidity checks" (will saves), that, if failed, gave a -2 attack penalty to represent the feeling of "hey guys, this is really stupid. We should leave right now!"

Most of the party passed theirs, and so we continued on in. Soon we were overwhelmed by wights who proceeded to strength drain the heck out of us. It was then that our wizard came up with the idea to cast rope trick in the middle of combat and hide in it until the undead went away. Genius!

FoE
2009-06-29, 01:27 PM
Soon we were overwhelmed by wights who proceeded to strength drain the heck out of us. It was then that our wizard came up with the idea to cast rope trick in the middle of combat and hide in it until the undead went away. Genius!

Did the party survive? Did they kill the wizard afterwards?

Olo Demonsbane
2009-06-29, 02:17 PM
I will add something that goes for DM stupidity, like the last thread included.

We were playing Red Hand of Doom...actually, I was helping him get ready for playing it, using 4 characters that I had whipped up.

We came to the battle of Skull Gorge Bridge. I had my Beguiler run up and use a suggestion spell "We want a peace confrence! Just 5 minutes!" Every single monster failed their saving throw, even the Dragon and the Seargent.

Ok, now here is where it gets stupid. The DM let me use Diplomacy to make friends with a dragon. My characters were only third level (geshalt), and none of us was charisma based, so we couldnt do much, right?

In two minutes we had diplomanced Ozyrrandion. :smallbiggrin:

The fight was very simple after that.

Douglas
2009-06-29, 02:29 PM
Allowing diplomacy and apparently setting the DC too low is not the only DM stupidity in that story - Suggestion is single target, and there's no way you had access to Mass Suggestion at 3rd level without some serious cheese.

GreyMantle
2009-06-29, 03:39 PM
Just avoiding RAW Diplomacy is probably the best idea. I really like the alternate version presented on this site.

Korivan
2009-06-29, 04:02 PM
I remember one guy who jumped into a pool of acid for some magical armor. We all knew (including him) it was acid.

In a different campaign, a low ranking demigod was giving us our next assighnment and a different guy went up to it and punched it...mostly just out of spite and misguided pride...or something. Then went on a tangent on how the demigod overreacted when it changed him into a chicken...permenantly.

mistformsquirrl
2009-06-29, 04:05 PM
Yeah, Rich's diplomacy fix is good stuff <. .>b


As for my own... PC stupidity eh?

*redface* Uhh... well I mean... err... I didn't...

Okay yes I've done some ridiculously stupid things >.<;

Some examples:

Shadowrun 3rd edition; I'm playing an elven street samurai. My team (including me) is taking cover behind a fallen pillar (we're in an office building - it has those nice marble pillars all around... and one of them was knocked over by a grenade).

Security has us pinned, and they're bringing up heavier firepower.

My decision? I go War Hero mode.

I didn't say "Come on, do you want to live forever?" But I did go over the top...

Unsurprisingly, I was gunned down mercilessly and died <;_;> the rest of the team eventually retreated. Yes, blatant stupidity on my part.

---------

D&D 3.5e - Eberron campaign -

I'm the defacto leader of the group. We've unfortunately run into a camp of human cultists camped inthe jungle. It's night however, and they don't expect trouble, we we have the advantage of surprise.

Better still: We have a very solid group, a Warblade (me), a Cleric, a Ranger, a Paladin, a Wizard and a Rogue.

So I offer the group my plan: We're going to flank them. Me, the Paladin, and the Cleric will go around to the other side of the camp, and act as an anvil. When we start the battle, they'll be focused on us, allowing our caster and more stealthy folks to play havoc while they're facing the 'tough' members of the group.

Seems like a fine plan right? Everyone agrees...

Anyone spot the problem here? <'x'> The Paladin and the Cleric were in heavy armor, and although I'm in Light armor, I have no ranks in hide or move silently.

... yeah, we walked about 10ft and set off every alarm in the camp.

We won the fight, but holy crap... it would have been far, far easier if I'd done it the other way.

*sigh*

<;_;> A dummy is me.

OMG PONIES
2009-06-29, 04:17 PM
My first time playing D&D was also my first TPK. We were 1st level, playing an Eberron campaign and fighting some kobolds who were taking cover in an alleyway behind some barrels. I had decided to play a high-WIS rogue, with pretty horrible stats everywhere else, so my archery was not too effective.

For some reason, I believed D&D took inspiration from video games (rather than the opposite), so I proclaimed, "I bet those barrels will explode if we hit them! Barrels always explode!" A quick spot check revealed gasoline leaking from the barrels, so I ran forward with a torch in hand.

It was a very short alleyway, and there were a lot of barrels. The only living thing that survived the encounter was our wizard's weasel familiar.

Jergmo
2009-06-29, 04:29 PM
Let's see...at the beginning of my campaign, we had a dwarf fighter, human cleric, human rogue, and kobold sorcerer. The gang found this camp of bandits who had kidnapped a paladin, and they were planning to rescue her. They noticed the camp's sentry, who was hiding in a tree, before she had noticed them. While the other three were planning, the rogue walked up to her and said "Hello, there!".

Later on, we switched to a higher level party (with certain previous players missing), and the gang was traveling through the mountains. The rest of the party was scattered, most of them on top of a cliff while the leader, a level 12 paladin/pikeman was at the bottom of the canyon on his charger. He decided that it would be a good idea to challenge an adult Fang Dragon, on horseback, out in the open with no support. The party barely survived, and the dragon, after killing his mount and knocking his weapons far away, batted him about like a cat and used him as a chewtoy for fun. They survived because the dragon eventually got bored and left.

Later still, same party. The gang decided to take on a Mature Adult Green Dragon in her lair, and as they made their way to the lair, they thoroughly planned the strategy they were going to use to defeat the dragon, and made certain that I wouldn't know what they were going to do. With their plan ready, they finally made it to the entrance to the dragon's lair, and were completely thwarted by the deep pool sitting in front of the cave entrance, which was behind a waterfall. They spent quite some time trying to find out how they were going to get across, and eventually the whole shindig fell apart. Naturally, I cackled my head off.

Also, they had like three magic items that could have helped them cross.

Rob_The_Impaler
2009-06-29, 04:53 PM
I really have to say it was me doing the stupid thing..:P My level five halfling rogue was CN at the time and we were at a village to the north. It had just snowed (four feet) and my halfling couldn't walk on the top of the snow, he tried and fell through many a time before he came up with the ideal to just blast the snow away...lets just say, lightning javalin, and wet snow didn't make for a good ideal.... The village population droped to 10 (it was at 56 before I made my 300 ft path in the snow) I also almost died doing taking 10 damage everytime I used it....

The same halfling also did something even more stupid the day before... um, 1000's of gold in a small town is not a good thing, and never lie and say a PP is Silver...the butcher cut off his fingr for that on....

On a side note.... he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt... that town was wiped off the map when he fled, (After getting a bounty of 3 gp on his head...) It was fun....

On another note, my group found a new love for the game, halfling ball.... the point is the see how long you can keep one halfing in the air.... (A group of people came to the blacksmith's shop looking for my halfling....

This all happened in one RL day.... :smalleek:

Jergmo
2009-06-29, 05:00 PM
I really have to say it was me doing the stupid thing..:P My level five halfling rogue was CN at the time and we were at a village to the north. It had just snowed (four feet) and my halfling couldn't walk on the top of the snow, he tried and fell through many a time before he came up with the ideal to just blast the snow away...lets just say, lightning javalin, and wet snow didn't make for a good ideal.... The village population droped to 10 (it was at 56 before I made my 300 ft path in the snow) I also almost died doing taking 10 damage everytime I used it....

The same halfling also did something even more stupid the day before... um, 1000's of gold in a small town is not a good thing, and never lie and say a PP is Silver...the butcher cut off his fingr for that on....

On a side note.... he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt... that town was wiped off the map when he fled, (After getting a bounty of 3 gp on his head...) It was fun....

On another note, my group found a new love for the game, halfling ball.... the point is the see how long you can keep one halfing in the air.... (A group of people came to the blacksmith's shop looking for my halfling....

This all happened in one RL day.... :smalleek:

Chaotic Neutral is not a "be stupid and/or insane free" card. :smallannoyed:

While many insane people are Chaotic Neutral, not very many Chaotic Neutral people are insane.

Edit: Yay Halflingball!

Assassin89
2009-06-29, 05:51 PM
In one session, the party consisted of a half-elf cleric of St. Cuthbert, a warforged healer, a human psychic warrior, a stonechild rogue, and a elf scout. APL 6.

The party came to a cavern that held a giant diamond. The stonechild rogue and the elf scout went down to get the diamond, and the scout approached the diamond. Now imagine this scene from Indian Jones (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgnlu-kpdOs), but rather than replacing the diamond with something, the scout just grabs it and runs. The result of this stupidity? The diamond is lost, the player of the stonechild rogue makes a rule that a bag of holding is to be tied to a rope and lowered down so that no treasures are lost, and the scout and an NPC dies.

The thing is that the DM planned for the scout to die and everyone else wanted the death of the scout due to the player being an annoyance to the entire group.

A second idiotic thing the scout did was put on a necklace and was cursed as a result, and that was in the same dungeon.

Fitz10019
2009-06-29, 06:38 PM
... My level five halfling rogue ... lightning javalin... I made my 300 ft path in the snow...he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt...

This is also DM stupidity, considering that a javelin of lighting is consumed after 1 use.

Thajocoth
2009-06-29, 07:22 PM
"I jump down the pit."

This was said by the party's Swordmage during the last session I ran.

The full situation:
The party fought 3 Warforged in a room full of conveyor belts & pits. During the battle, they dropped a Warforged down a pit who came back through another entrance 2 rounds later. They won, but in the process all Warforged bodies wound up in pits, whether pulled there or conveyored there. Before taking an extended rest, he decided the pits must be safe for him to jump into to loot the bodies. I asked if he was sure, like any good DM, and he was quite sure. Two of his "allies" only fought alongside him for 1 & 2 fights and decided that their characters had no reason to follow him down when they heard him scream by triggering a 2nd encounter. Not only that, but to trigger this second encounter, he fell into ANOTHER pit which was under some illusionary terrain. He did this BEFORE his two rescuers jumped into pits to aid him... So they had to disbelieve the floor the first. Down there with him was a Choker. I decided not to have the two Gnomes reveal themselves yet, and having the Choker only take 1 move action his first turn, allowing the Swordmage to escape... Mostly because it was late and I didn't want to run another encounter right then.

Rob_The_Impaler
2009-06-29, 07:59 PM
This is also DM stupidity, considering that a javelin of lighting is consumed after 1 use.

It was a homebrew magic item, Basicly lightning bolt 3/day.

Rob_The_Impaler
2009-06-29, 08:01 PM
Chaotic Neutral is not a "be stupid and/or insane free" card. :smallannoyed:

While many insane people are Chaotic Neutral, not very many Chaotic Neutral people are insane.

Edit: Yay Halflingball!

Ya I get that, he started off normal, but after...countless times used as a weapon, (mainly thrown at goblins and such) and plenty of times hitting his head on things..(Critical fail on the Bar's throw, he lost WIS., and INT., before he died at the hand of a level 1 commoner he had a INT of 5, and a WIS of 3.... not the smartest halfling around....

Jergmo
2009-06-29, 08:53 PM
Ya I get that, he started off normal, but after...countless times used as a weapon, (mainly thrown at goblins and such) and plenty of times hitting his head on things..(Critical fail on the Bar's throw, he lost WIS., and INT., before he died at the hand of a level 1 commoner he had a INT of 5, and a WIS of 3.... not the smartest halfling around....

Haha, wow. :smallbiggrin:

Talon Sky
2009-06-29, 11:34 PM
The dumbest thing I'd ever done as a player was also probably the bravest....it was more reckless then stupid, but whatever.

I was playing in a short campaign as a half-elf Bard named Aiden Kingsbane, along with a half-dragon fighter and a human druid, and we were all around....3rd level or so. It was the first session....the half-dragon was a prince to the local human kingdom, who believed him to be divine, and the druid was his mentor. My bard was actually the true heir to the throne but didn't know it....the DM had planned, later on, for this to eventually cause some major in-party conflict for us to overcome.

Anyways....

After our characters met, they decided to make camp on the edge of a forest. The half-dragon fighter decided to go exploring on his own, just because the player thought a level adjustment always meant you were stronger then anything else around ;p When he didn't return, the druid went looking for him. The DM kept passing them notes, so I decided the bard should go searching too....and unlike them, I had ranks in hide and move silently.

My bard came on this huge clearing, filled with an army of around 400 hobgoblins preparing to besiege the local castle. My two companions were tied up and trying to get free, but they couldn't due to the hobgoblins watching them. So, having the hero complex that I have....

....I had my bard jump in the middle of the hobgoblin army. Swinging two rapiers and taking a Total Defense stance, I actually managed to kill a good deal and survive long enough for the druid to get free and then free the fighter. By the time they had gotten to my bard, though, he was long dead. To add insult to injury, because the DM was disgusted by my 'stupidity', the hobgoblins had striped my character's body of pants and violated him. After being raised, he never could sit right again ;p

-----

Another screw up of mine was the first character I played, a human paladin. I bought full-plate armor, but no clothes, being an ignorant newbie.

The first group of enemies we faced was led by a wizard. Incidentally, Hold Person and Heat Metal can be very effective and sadistic spells against a paladin in full-plate armor >.>

PrismaticPIA
2009-06-30, 01:52 AM
I was playing a cleric in 3.5 World's Largest Dungeon, when are party came across the 20 x 20ft mimic disguised as a bookcase. Our fighter tried to grapple it. Were it not for my character serving the god of drugs, sex, and booze...and toting around an excessive supply of alcohol, it would have an been a TPK.

Superglucose
2009-06-30, 02:33 AM
Rogue 1/Ranger 2/Wizard 2/Dragon Disciple 1 halfling. 'Nuff said.

The worst part though was I expressed my skeptecism at the build, but was assured that he "knows what I'm doing" and that it's "a really powerful build." The core premise appears to be having his monkey familiar use wants with a +2 to UMD, and some kinda rod that casts Melf's Acid Arrow 3 times /day. He spend his starting cash on it.

Oh wait, did I say that was the worst part?

No, the worst part is they think I'm a noob GM and a noob player who doesn't understand 3.5 very much. Before I had my intelligence insulted, i was dialing down the upcoming wizard (read: no lesser globe of invulnurability) and now? Now he'll have his globe, plus Stinking Cloud, Plus Obscuring Mist, plus Web (stinking cloud + web is a nice and sexy combo), plus Summon Monster 3 and a few Vampiric Touch/Magic Missiles so he can finish them off (he needs to kill some of them somehow). I don't expect them to survive the encounter unless they flee.

Party level 7 (when they face it, at least) vs an 8th level wizard. So far I've been playing nice, and not targeting weak spots in their defenses. I hope they enjoy facing off against the Flesh Golem (singular) that will rip them to shreds.

Dogmantra
2009-06-30, 03:28 AM
Rogue 1/Ranger 2/Wizard 2/Dragon Disciple 1 halfling. 'Nuff said.

That's not a legal build. You need a spontaneous casting class to enter Dragon Disciple, unless you've houseruled it, or there's an exploit I'm unaware of.

Superglucose
2009-06-30, 03:30 AM
*shrug* i didn't question it.

Jalor
2009-06-30, 09:15 AM
I've told this before, but it's still funny.

4e campaign, we are running a Keep On The Shadowfell. Not the[I] Keep On The Shadowfell, but our DM's rewritten version (see, one of our players torrented and read the real one beforehand). Party consists of me playing a Halfling Ranger, Chris playing an Eladrin Warlord, Aaron playing a Human Wizard, Mike playing a Tiefling Rogue, and Jason playing an Elf Ranger.

We're already a dysfunctional party; Jason's (female) elf has the exact same personality as his dearly departed dwarven cleric. Whenever he kills something, he takes a tooth from the body. Yes, even the human bandits. Also, all of his characters are alcoholics. He has said I go to the tavern and get drunk more than any other player I've ever seen.

Chris is an utter buffoon. He takes the heads of everything he kills. Again, including the bandits. We kill a pack of lizardfolk and he goes to the toilet at the end of the encounter. Mike, the only one of us with wit or panache, goes You know, he's going to come back and ask to cut off their heads. He returns, yelling I wanna cut off their heads. Mike asks him if he heard what he said before. He had not.

They were also directly responsible for the horse adventure, but that is a story for another time. Actually, Jason was sleeping off a hangover and didn't even show up this session.

Anyway, we fight some wights on the first level. Tough, but doable. Nobody spends their dailies, but I am the only one with full healing surges. We go and fight some kobold mooks. No dailies or healing surges are spent. Next room is goblin mooks. There's a pit trap in the room, and we argue for 20 minutes over whether Chris fell in it. The goblins can't hurt us, but we are rolling horribly too. Wee kill them. There are two doors to the south of the room. I go to get some chips, Mike goes to pee. We come back and our DM is grilling Chris and Aaron. They are planning to open both doors simultaneously.

No, I'm dead serious. They're not even our youngest or least experienced players. I am.

But neither I nor Mike are paying heed to their antics. We figured they were discussing rules or something. I had a new Magic: The Gathering deck, which I showed him. The DM's voice pulls us out of our MTG-trance.

"Okay, so you've opened both doors. In the room on the right are two hobgoblin soldiers and two temple whips. In the room on the left are two ghouls and two temple whips." We are around 3rd level and fighting two tough encounters at once.

I win initiative and go [I]nuts on the hobgoblin nearest Chris. I Hunter's Quarry it, hit it with my daily, spend an action point, hit it with my encounter power, and take out about 2/3s of his health. I'm adjacent to a hobgoblin, so I use my last action to leave melee range.

Next the ghouls rush Mike. They stun and crit him. Everyone else backs away from the doors. The temple whips heal the hobgoblin I attacked, and the ones in the ghoul room kill Mike. Everyone runs.

To this day I can't figure out why they decided to open the doors simultaneously.

snowbard55
2009-06-30, 10:56 AM
This one's pretty basic, but our Gnome Wizard casts Fireball while the Barbarian is in melee with the evil town guards. The best part was the Barb's reaction... "Did you...did you just light me on fire?"

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-30, 11:38 AM
Did the party survive? Did they kill the wizard afterwards?

Yes, we survived. The wizard actually explained his plan to us, and it allowed the whole party to survive by hiding in the rope trick. Though climbing up a rope when you have 3 strength and are wearing fullplate is no easy task.

Kris Strife
2009-06-30, 12:41 PM
The monk decided to attack Detrius while his Peacemaker was loaded and pointed inside the building...

Shortest campaign ever.

Irreverent Fool
2009-06-30, 01:22 PM
Yes, we survived. The wizard actually explained his plan to us, and it allowed the whole party to survive by hiding in the rope trick. Though climbing up a rope when you have 3 strength and are wearing fullplate is no easy task.

How do you even move in full plate with 3 STR??

herrhauptmann
2009-06-30, 01:48 PM
The monk decided to attack Detrius while his Peacemaker was loaded and pointed inside the building...

Shortest campaign ever.

Might want to explain that Detritus and his Piecemaker are from Discworld. Most of my groups haven't read the books, and I assume a similar ration elsewhere.

warrl
2009-06-30, 02:06 PM
This isn't exactly a PC stupidity story, it's more of a player stupidity story.

And I'll start with the moral:

DO NOT beg the best role-player you know to join a game in progress as a 10th-level halfling rogue, and immediately start laying "short" jokes on said rogue.

(These were all experienced players who had played with this person before. Oh, and by the way, the person playing the rogue is five feet tall.)

A few sessions later:
* The party (rogue temporarily absent) is rescuing the king from an attempted regicide by the palace guard
* The palace guard is actually attempting to prevent the party from kidnapping the king
* The rogue gets credit from the king for uncovering the regicide plot and directing his rescue, *and* from the chancellor for safely delivering the ransom money and retrieving the king from the party.
* The rest of the party end up with a price on their heads.
* The rogue shares the reward from the king for rescuing him with the rest of the party.
* A reward from the chancellor? Ransom money? What are you talking about?

Kris Strife
2009-06-30, 02:47 PM
Might want to explain that Detritus and his Piecemaker are from Discworld. Most of my groups haven't read the books, and I assume a similar ration elsewhere.

Actually, the monk's player was the only one who'd read more than one or two of the books... He knew perfectly well who Detrius was... (They requested that I start the campaign in a tavern. I was stuck for a name so I chose the Mended Drum at their suggestion. Then they started a bar fight... amongst themselves. For no reason.)

TheCountAlucard
2009-06-30, 03:44 PM
Had two of my players make a metaphorical deal with the devil* in order to help defeat a necromancer... when they were next door to a church that had already been more than willing to provide assistance to them.







*and by metaphorical, I mean get your coat. :smalltongue:

Wraith
2009-06-30, 04:22 PM
A perfectly good In Character example of stupidty, I think.

I'm playing a Deadlands game set in an alternative 1920's Call of Cthulhu sort of world. The party includes a female socialite-come-Spy (lots of CHA skills and lots of Resources to spend), a mad scientist with a fixation on lightning-themed weaponry, a Biplane Ace pilot and me, a former-Mafia-enforcer-turned-straight hulk of a man who now has legitimate work as the bodyguard of the socialite.

The adventure takes us up the Amazon, trying to find the source of some legend about a gemstone that has miraculous properties. Along the way we discover that not only had the previous party sent to retrieve the artifact been murdered, but so had half of a scouting party of Nazi SA troopers who had the same goal as us.

We caught up with the Nazis and ambushed them in a clearing in order to obtain the informaion that had brought them here - we were supposed to be the only ones with such knowledge, afterall, and anything they knew we had to also.
As it turns out they didn't know much, so we let the survivors run away into the jungle to fend forthemselves and pressed onwards, eventually breaking into another clearing - containing a 30-foot idol of an ancient crocodile God and his half-human, half-alligator minions, who soundly whupped us about the place until everyone but I was uncapacitated, and I managed to scare off the High Priest with some sporadic gunfire, forcing him to flee into a nearby cave (read: The GM took pity on us, having not realised how badly the fight was going to go....).
These things were tough - hitting them in close combat was ridiculously unlikely, their Natural Armour made any successes in doing so completely pointless, and they were much more... efficient combatants than we were, even with our gun-jockey and a Mad Science gun that made lightning bolts strike from the sky and hit our enemies....

Anyway, the NPC we were escorting miraculously (and gratefully) sprouted a PhD in medicine and stitched us back together, and we decided that between us we were well enough to enter the cave and track down the last Croc/Human Priest and take his stuff. Standard Adventurer attitude, I think :smallbiggrin:

What we didn't realise was that the Priest was actually fleeing to meet his God - a 40 foot long Crocodile/Demon monster - and beg it to replenish his magic, so we walk in on this thing and it it immediately goes for us.
As you can imagine, if it's spawn almost murdered us then this was going to be a steamroller of a fight, but it won initiative and lunged for the Ace Pilot before any of us thought to turn and flee (lucky dice rolls turned against us in magnificent fashion). One bite, and it would be all over...

...So I burned my Once-Per-Session Bennie and threw myself between the Monster and it's prey.... and punched it on the nose.

40 foot of Demon-Crocodile, whose children were still picking bits of me out of their teeth, and I actually specified that I would aim for it's nose, the most non-lethal and useless location that I could possibly have chosen. Ignoring the shotgun slung from my shoulders and the stick of dynamite thrust into my belt, I should add. Oops....

Needless to say, even though the dice took a surprisingly impressive turn for the dramatic and exploded my damage multiple times, it didn't feel a thing. Thankfully the GM had a sense of humour as he described it ("You know that scene in Justice League, where Superman punches Darkseid and all the windows shatter across the city? Well, it's like that, except that afterwards Darkseid just looks a bit confused....") and ruled that I had baffled it long enough to allow the Mad scientist to lightning-bolt the roof and make it cave in, burying the monster in it's cave so that we could make out escape.

Seriously... punch it's nose? What was I thinking!? :smallredface:

Talon Sky
2009-06-30, 05:06 PM
Gotta love Futurama, Alucard ;p

I got another. I was DMing a game in which the party consisted of a half-dragon samurai, a dwarf samurai, an elf samurai, and a half-elf rogue (because he just had to be different ^_-). Anyways, through the whole game we teased the player of the elf samurai, calling him a dainty little wimp and whatnot because he lacked a lot of strength. What he did have was dex, though, and an archer build (plus the Unicorn clan). All in all, he tended to kill more things then our half-dragon friend. Which, of course, made the half-dragon player very angry.

So one session, the party is one side of a chasm and the drow were on the other, guarding the switch to lower the bridge. I meant for it to be an archery encounter, and obviously a chance for the elf samurai to get some fun in. Well, the half-dragon player gets a devilish look on his face and makes a grapple check against the elf. He succeeds (obviously) and proceeds to throw the elf across the chasm. And rolls a 20.

The elf knocked into the drow, knocked them over the edge to their death, and then proceeded to lower the bridge in a huff. When they leveled up, I allowed the half-dragon to take a special, homebrewed feat....Weapon Focus (Improvised Elven Missile). Lol.

herrhauptmann
2009-06-30, 05:32 PM
Actually, the monk's player was the only one who'd read more than one or two of the books... He knew perfectly well who Detrius was... (They requested that I start the campaign in a tavern. I was stuck for a name so I chose the Mended Drum at their suggestion. Then they started a bar fight... amongst themselves. For no reason.)

That's the point, not everyone knows Detritus is an 8ft tall, obscenely strong rockskinned troll who carries a converted siege weapon as a sidearm. Or that he's dumber than a rock in the summer, and smarter than Einstein in the winter.

Frogwarrior
2009-06-30, 05:36 PM
So, it was my second campaign, and we started at level 10 - I think we hadn't even leveled up yet.

My only prior experience in D&D had started at level 1. Yeah, I wasn't used to it yet.

We're in the sewer system, leading from... somewhere, and we enter a door and - surprise - get attacked. We quickly back out of the door and wait for them to show themselves.
I decide, after a round or two of waiting, that it would be a GREAT idea to just walk in there and start bashing heads.
Two half-orcs use their readied action to charge and bash me. The wizard casts a spell.
Hideous Laughter.
Fail my Will save.
One round later, there's fighter salsa on the ground.

BossMuro
2009-06-30, 06:20 PM
My party, consisting of my Mystic Theurge of Flarlagn(sp), an Orcish Eye of Gruumsh, and an Elven Dread Pirate (none of us got along very well) needed to cross a large lake to get to the evil temple in the middle. Instead of using one of my many many transport-based spells to get across, I decided not to show off and row across with some canoes that were handy. This was a mistake, of course, but fortunately I didn't have to pay for it myself, because our Dread Pirate had no such qualms about showing off. With magic items giving him both water breathing and freedom of movement, he casually walked into the lake and told us he'd see us on the other side.

And very quickly walked right into the gigantic Crocodile guarding the temple. He at least had the presense of mind to activate one of his other magic items, which let him walk on water.

Warned by his feet zooming to the surface of the water, I was able to cast fly on the orc and flee into the sky. Neither of us were particularly sad, of course. Him because of the pointy ears, me because of that whole "ambushing sailors" thing. I did jump down the croc's throat in an attempt to save the gear though.

GreatWyrmGold
2009-06-30, 06:44 PM
I bought full-plate armor, but no clothes...
But I never keep track of clothing costs...so every character I have ever played or DM'd for was...NAKED?!?



Overall, :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin: times 10^10^10. At a minimum.

holywhippet
2009-06-30, 09:11 PM
I thought it was assumed that all players start with a free set of clothes.

Talon Sky
2009-06-30, 09:37 PM
Not with my first DM, apparently lol

herrhauptmann
2009-06-30, 09:37 PM
It was the punchline to a strip in the Goblins webcomic soon after the fight for the warcamp.

Umael
2009-07-01, 02:53 PM
I recall one, as told to me by my very first DM. Said DM was and still is a sadistic, devious, unnerving DM and one of the best DMs I have ever had the honor with whom to play. You know the button, "When the DM smiles, it's too late?"

Whenever he ran a game, he was always smiling.

Always.

Do you have any idea how unnerving that can be??

In addition, he favored low-magic, scarce resources, and sparse-populated dungeons (Ph. D. in biology, knows his ecology)... but lots and lots of traps. Lots of traps.

Keep in mind that he mostly played AD&D (although he also ran a few games from 2nd edition, when it came out) until he simply got to be too busy to run games anymore. He also loved to create worlds like you wouldn't believe, I mean, setting up computer programs to generate the raw scientific data (mass, volume, gravity, distance from sun(s), length of year, length of day, axial tilt, etc.), and then drawing these absolutely intricate maps, beautifully colored to denote the different biomes, watersheds, rainfall, elevation, etc.

Now this party in particular was used to his style of running games. They knew that a dungeon-crawl was not likely to get much in the way of treasure, maybe a level or two at most, and plenty of opportunites to die in horrible ways.

Let me repeat - the party knew what he was like.

So having just investigated part of the dungeon, making doubly-sure it was safe, the party comes up to an alcove, apparently plain. Going into the alcove teleports the group into ANOTHER alcove elsewhere in the dungeon, which is at the head of a "T" intersection.

At this point, the paladin (I think) decides to walk out of the (second) alcove to take a look around.

At the intersection was a pit-trap, filled with honey.

So the paladin, who was wearing plate armor, and is now utterly covered in honey.

Paladin's player (paraphrasing here): Uck! Ick! Okay, I climb out of the pit!
DM (still smiling, as always): Okay. You climb out of the pit.
Paladin's player: Is there somewhere I can wash off?
DM *gestures*: Sure. Over there's a (pit) pool of water.
Paladin's player: Fine. I go wash off.

I'm not sure, I wasn't there, but had I been, I would be positive that the DM's smile got bigger.

Did I mention that the DM was sadistic and trap-happy? And that the party knew about this beforehand already? And now the paladin goes into another pit, sans making sure that it was safe?

Did I mention that the DM was fond of giant two-headed crocodiles?

Two snaps later, the group is down by one paladin, while the DM's pet Siamese crocodile enjoyed a meal of honey-dipped paladin.

As a sidenote, I learned well from the lessons this DM taught. As a player, I tend to be very, very cautious, and as a DM, I tend to be very, very sadistic.

I hope you're proud of me, Dad.

herrhauptmann
2009-07-01, 03:40 PM
I recall one, as told to me by my very first DM. Said DM was and still is a sadistic, devious, unnerving DM and one of the best DMs I have ever had the honor with whom to play. You know the button, "When the DM smiles, it's too late?"

Whenever he ran a game, he was always smiling.

Always.

Do you have any idea how unnerving that can be??

In addition, he favored low-magic, scarce resources, and sparse-populated dungeons (Ph. D. in biology, knows his ecology)... but lots and lots of traps. Lots of traps.

Keep in mind that he mostly played AD&D (although he also ran a few games from 2nd edition, when it came out) until he simply got to be too busy to run games anymore. He also loved to create worlds like you wouldn't believe, I mean, setting up computer programs to generate the raw scientific data (mass, volume, gravity, distance from sun(s), length of year, length of day, axial tilt, etc.), and then drawing these absolutely intricate maps, beautifully colored to denote the different biomes, watersheds, rainfall, elevation, etc.

Now this party in particular was used to his style of running games. They knew that a dungeon-crawl was not likely to get much in the way of treasure, maybe a level or two at most, and plenty of opportunites to die in horrible ways.

Let me repeat - the party knew what he was like.

So having just investigated part of the dungeon, making doubly-sure it was safe, the party comes up to an alcove, apparently plain. Going into the alcove teleports the group into ANOTHER alcove elsewhere in the dungeon, which is at the head of a "T" intersection.

At this point, the paladin (I think) decides to walk out of the (second) alcove to take a look around.

At the intersection was a pit-trap, filled with honey.

So the paladin, who was wearing plate armor, and is now utterly covered in honey.

Paladin's player (paraphrasing here): Uck! Ick! Okay, I climb out of the pit!
DM (still smiling, as always): Okay. You climb out of the pit.
Paladin's player: Is there somewhere I can wash off?
DM *gestures*: Sure. Over there's a (pit) pool of water.
Paladin's player: Fine. I go wash off.

I'm not sure, I wasn't there, but had I been, I would be positive that the DM's smile got bigger.

Did I mention that the DM was sadistic and trap-happy? And that the party knew about this beforehand already? And now the paladin goes into another pit, sans making sure that it was safe?

Did I mention that the DM was fond of giant two-headed crocodiles?

Two snaps later, the group is down by one paladin, while the DM's pet Siamese crocodile enjoyed a meal of honey-dipped paladin.

As a sidenote, I learned well from the lessons this DM taught. As a player, I tend to be very, very cautious, and as a DM, I tend to be very, very sadistic.

I hope you're proud of me, Dad.

I'm surprised he never coated you in gravy, then dropped you in with a few thousand puppies. Easy way to kill your way out, and gain XP for it. But you've just kicked the dog x1000, and turned evil for your trouble.
But not killing your way out, leads to death by puppies.

Umael
2009-07-01, 04:32 PM
I'm surprised he never coated you in gravy, then dropped you in with a few thousand puppies. Easy way to kill your way out, and gain XP for it. But you've just kicked the dog x1000, and turned evil for your trouble.
But not killing your way out, leads to death by puppies.

*blink*

Um... I wasn't playing the paladin.

I wasn't even THERE for that game.

Maybe you missed that. Sounds like you missed a few other things too.

herrhauptmann
2009-07-01, 06:07 PM
*blink*
Um... I wasn't playing the paladin.
I wasn't even THERE for that game.

Yeah I got that.


Maybe you missed that. Sounds like you missed a few other things too.
Like what? It was AD&D where oddball traps are more common? Yeah I got that too. Or that it was your dad DMing foryou? I got that too.

It was a generic 'you.' If you played with your dad DMing after childhood, I'd be surprised if he didn't throw strange things at you. Again, AD&D, weird traps are the norm. Like the ones which can only be beaten by moving around like chess pieces.

So which things do YOU think I missed.

Umael
2009-07-01, 06:45 PM
Yeah I got that.
It was a generic 'you.' If you played with your dad DMing after childhood, I'd be surprised if he didn't throw strange things at you. Again, AD&D, weird traps are the norm. Like the ones which can only be beaten by moving around like chess pieces.

Actually, not so much with my father. His traps were more weird-but-perfectly-understandable. Also, for the most part, perfectly feasible without being flashly.

Example: He put a 20' long pit filled with spikes in one corridor. One of the walls was apparently made of bad mortar. The thief, climbing along the wall, decided to investigate, and used his fingers to wiggle a hole through, like the wall was wet sand. On the other side of the wall? More Siamese crocodiles (who this time got to snack on thief fingers).

(For the record, different campaign, one in which I was actually partaking. And, no, I wasn't playing the thief - my brother was. Come to think of it, I don't think I EVER lost a character or suffered serious catastrophe in one of my father's dungeons.)

In keeping with the thread topic, the above example serves. I mean, we had already mapped out that part of the dungeon, we knew the pool with the crocs was there, but the thief got caught in the moment of "huh. this is interesting..."



So which things do YOU think I missed.

Off-hand, I'd say clarity.

Putting more thought into it... what's the deal with puppies and gravy? Do you have something against crocs and honey?:smalltongue:

Talon Sky
2009-07-04, 09:38 AM
This was kind of a dual case of player stupidity and them purposefully trying to tick me off. I was DMing a session with the aforementioned players (the half-dragon, elf, and dwarf samurai, and then the half-elf rogue), all guys.

They'd just gotten through a dungeon, pursuing a black-cloaked sorceress that was actually a drow priestess for the main baddie-organization of the campaign. They managed to corner her at the end of the dungeon (the walls had a magical resistance so she couldn't teleport out or anything....I had to make it fair, after all ;p ).

She goes into her evil monologue, which is the signal for the players to start gearing up for battle....except the half-elf rogue.

Drow Priestess (me): You fools! Have you any idea whom you triffle with? I am the great lady of fire, searer of worlds! You pitiful mortals have no chance!

Half-dragon: I quick-draw my katana and wakizashi and take a readied stance.
Elf: I notch an arrow and ready an Aid-Another stance on scaly there (the half-dragon's nickname ;p )
Dwarf: I take out my katana and prepare a readied stance as well.
Half-elf: *smiles* Wait, this villain is a girl? I move my character up to her.

DM (me):....you what?

HE: Move up to her.
Dwarf: Russell, you moron....

DM: Okay....*rolls drow's AoO, misses* crap. Roll initiative, guys.

*the half-elf wins first in., followed by the drow*

HE: I make a grapple check. On her breasts.

DM: ....
Dwarf: ....
Elf: ....
HD: *laughs*
DM: No. Just no, Russ.
HE: Yeah! *rolls* Did I succeed?
DM: *sighs* No. The Drow Priestess is infuriated that you tried to grope her, and casts (I forget the spell).
HE: *rolls Reflex save, makes it* Whoo-hoo! Dodged!

The round proceeds somewhat normally....the half-dragon charges, the elf disrupts the drow's AoO spell with an arrow, and the dwarf gets close enough to flank.

DM: Okay, Russ, you're up.
HE Rogue: Is she significantly distracted?
DM: Considering the eight-foot tall, dual-wielding half-dragon in her face, I'd say yes.
HE: Sneak-Attack grapple for her breasts.

That time, I think the Finger of Death got him ^_-

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-04, 09:39 AM
I thought it was assumed that all players start with a free set of clothes.

My point exactly.

Talon Sky
2009-07-04, 09:41 AM
My point exactly.

Most of the time they do, but in my case the DM was just being a nit-picky asshat.

TSED
2009-07-04, 09:47 AM
I thought it was assumed that all players start with a free set of clothes.


I thought it explicitly stated that somewhere in the PHB or DMG?

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-04, 10:13 AM
Most of the time they do, but in my case the DM was just being a nit-picky asshat.
Yeah, but...


I thought it explicitly stated that somewhere in the PHB or DMG?
No, in fact clothing is listed as having a price in the PHB.

TSED
2009-07-04, 10:16 AM
No, in fact clothing is listed as having a price in the PHB.

For extra sets.

This is what I remember reading, but I can't find it now. Oh well.

MickJay
2009-07-04, 10:33 AM
Otherwise it would mean that all people who become adventurers were going naked until their players purchased a set of cloths or armor.

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-04, 11:04 AM
For extra sets.

This is what I remember reading, but I can't find it now. Oh well.
(checks)
Oops. Well, I just assume a character can wear what he/she likes as long as it confers no advantage. That clause is important because I know some players would take clothes that improved Diplomacy checks by something insane, Robes of the Archmagi, etc...

Yukitsu
2009-07-04, 12:06 PM
(checks)
Oops. Well, I just assume a character can wear what he/she likes as long as it confers no advantage. That clause is important because I know some players would take clothes that improved Diplomacy checks by something insane, Robes of the Archmagi, etc...

All clothes have some advantage. Especially for the people who have to look at your adventuring charisma dumping hide. :smallamused:

Of course, I never dump charisma, so maybe I don't need to buy that stuff.

TSED
2009-07-04, 12:58 PM
I'd just put a price limit on it.


"Ok I take the Royal clothes worth a jillion gold pieces."

"You're in a marketsquare."

"I buy peasant's clothes and sell my royal clothing."

"..."

MissK
2009-07-04, 01:43 PM
This is more a story of one player being a jerk, but...

We're in Castle Ravenloft, in the crypts. Traps everywhere. I'm the rogue. Our paladin was an experienced player and so familiar with the module that he should have known better. My character gets a warning from the ghost of his twin sister that a trap is dead ahead. Of course, I yell "Stop! There's a trap!"

And what does the paladin do but take ONE STEP FORWARD. Seriously. He was teleported into a crypt filled with wights and survived due to plot cheese and the DM being a very nice guy. I wanted to throttle him. The first thing I said when the paladin was recovered? "My character slaps your character right across the face."

Ravens_cry
2009-07-04, 01:45 PM
Yeah, but...


No, in fact clothing is listed as having a price in the PHB.
That's for additional outfits.
Yeah you already knew. Sorry about that.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

Korivan
2009-07-04, 02:08 PM
This is from an old group years back. We were in a dungeon crawl and came accross a brothel...ya thats right. A cat house, house of ill-repute, discatect, whatever you want to call them. So anyways, the vast majority of us turned down the evenings "pleasures" and procceed to tear down wall curtains and anything else to find an opening to get us the the next stage. Well, three of us decided to partake in the "entertainment"...long story short, only three of us (6 total) left that place with positive levels intact...Really, getting your jimmy off in a monster infested hole with dozens of women who shouldnt be there in the first place is alot like drinking from a well that says POISON...sure it can be done, but you really shouldnt.

only1doug
2009-07-04, 02:09 PM
This is more a story of one player being a jerk, but...

We're in Castle Ravenloft, in the crypts. Traps everywhere. I'm the rogue. Our paladin was an experienced player and so familiar with the module that he should have known better. My character gets a warning from the ghost of his twin sister that a trap is dead ahead. Of course, I yell "Stop! There's a trap!"

And what does the paladin do but take ONE STEP FORWARD. Seriously. He was teleported into a crypt filled with wights and survived due to plot cheese and the DM being a very nice guy. I wanted to throttle him. The first thing I said when the paladin was recovered? "My character slaps your character right across the face."

That sounds more like a player rebelling against the railroading...

seriously, a ghost warned you of the trap? you as a rogue can't find the trap so the GM has a ghost warn you... Lame, why bother putting in a trap if when the PCs fail to find it they get warned anyway.

GreatWyrmGold
2009-07-04, 02:44 PM
That's for additional outfits.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm

I figured out when I checked. Which I mentioned.

Ravens_cry
2009-07-04, 04:08 PM
I figured out when I checked. Which I mentioned.

* * *

:smallredface:



:redface:
<mortification-mode engaged>Dang, I was sure I had read to the bottom of the page, but I guess I hadn't. My bad.</mortification-mode engaged>

Pulsecode
2009-07-04, 08:06 PM
I don't really know where to start... there've been a good few. But I think the quote which will always stay with me is:

"Hrm. How long would it take to hide my gun IN me?"

Teln
2009-07-05, 01:00 AM
I don't really know where to start... there've been a good few. But I think the quote which will always stay with me is:

"Hrm. How long would it take to hide my gun IN me?"

Story behind this. NOW.

Pulsecode
2009-07-05, 03:32 AM
It was Vampire the Masquerade, and the pack was about to have to crawl through a flooded storm-drain in an attempt to find a Nosferatu they suspected of carrying out infernal rituals. Not wanting to get his gun all wet, one Lasombra decided the best plan was to slice open his own intestines, shove the gun in, and heal up the wound.

I really should have allowed it, as I'd have loved to see him reacting to an enraged infernalist monster with inhuman strength bearing down on him by frantically trying to disembowel himself...

He didn't even have a knife. :smallconfused:

MickJay
2009-07-05, 06:00 AM
Well, it would have worked for Tzimisce... :smalltongue:

Belobog
2009-07-05, 06:06 AM
Not from a game I run, but from a game I play in, and it's a generally funny story, anyway.

So one of my friends is playing a Halfling Rogue of the drifter/merchant/thief variety in a recent 4e game my group is running. Fearless, determined, enterprising, that sort of thing. However, his main character trait, which the game has apparently handed down to him from the heavens, has been that he is jinxed. No matter what he is doing, if it requires a die roll, the roll will always produces a result that inconveniences him. Mostly, these are ones with spectacular consequences. Mostly.

This particular instance, he has decided to do a little liberating of some imprisoned currency from the wallets of those who would detain them, and being in a busy city, goes out to do just that. In the space of a few seconds, he finds a mark, makes his move, and walks away with his prize (the prize being three copper). When he goes to stow it, he notices that his purse is lighter; specifically, missing the 12 silver he had been carrying on him. Turning back (and arguing the specifics of what happened), he discovers his mark...and two more men who look just like him. He follows the closest target, who soon stops to have a leisurely chat with a nearby friend on the street corner. Convinced he picked the wrong horse, he switches to the next closest man, and follows him for the distance of around two city blocks before the mark turns down a dead end road. The rogue climbs a nearby ladder to get to a roof, and watches the man walk up to a flat, knock, and attempt a conversation before he gets the door slammed in his face.

The player would attest that this was 'thief-ish activity'.

Deciding he had the right man, the halfling unloads his Small Superior Crossbow, which he sets up, aims, and fires on the unwitting victim. He crits. The man's head is blown to pieces in front of horrified witnesses. Within seconds, the halfling scrambles down the ladder to the body, says 'Oh my, what happened to him," (a bluff check that he botches. Imagine dead pan), and then rifles through the corpse for what's his. One scream of 'Murderer!' and a short chase later, he has the time to look over his rightful earnings and make sure what he lost had been returned. He looks down to two silver and a pamphlet describing a fundraiser being held by a local church.

We call this tale Death of a Salesman.

HamHam
2009-07-05, 04:57 PM
This story may not qualify quite yet, but at the moment in a game I'm in we are on our way to some ancient temple to get some sort of mac guffin or other.

We have so far promised to deliver it to The Evil Empire, Tiamat, and a Lich King.

This will either turn out to be the greatest shell game ever done or the most hilarious TPK ever.

horus42
2009-07-05, 06:00 PM
Does the fact that one of my players named his character "Seamus O'Harness" count? (O'Harness being a play on the fact that he plays Bari Sax, and he needs a harness to hold it.)

holywhippet
2009-07-05, 06:18 PM
This is more a story of one player being a jerk, but...

We're in Castle Ravenloft, in the crypts. Traps everywhere. I'm the rogue. Our paladin was an experienced player and so familiar with the module that he should have known better. My character gets a warning from the ghost of his twin sister that a trap is dead ahead. Of course, I yell "Stop! There's a trap!"

And what does the paladin do but take ONE STEP FORWARD. Seriously. He was teleported into a crypt filled with wights and survived due to plot cheese and the DM being a very nice guy. I wanted to throttle him. The first thing I said when the paladin was recovered? "My character slaps your character right across the face."

Well, that's a mistake from the start. IIRC, Ravenloft has all sorts of special rules on how to deal with paladins. They can be summarised fairly simply: "Make their life a living hell".

Magnema
2009-07-05, 07:25 PM
More funnies than stupidity stories, but hey.
(3.0)
I named my half-elven sorcerer Bloppe-Bloppa. Second adventure as this character.
We meat two Locatha. I, knowing draconic speak to them.
"Hello. My name is Bloppe-Bloppa"
"I'm sorry to hear about your stuttering problem"
*Whole group cracks up*

Also, other characters thought this was stupid, but I still don't.:smallbiggrin: Playing as half-elf-half-dwarf bard, 3rd level (I didn't have a good grasp on the rules, and my DM was loose)

We are sleeping in a randomly found cottage (with clothes etc. in it) Undead cat shows up in the middle of the night. I ask the DM if there are any windows. There is one. I summon an unseen servant to throw it out the window. CN half-orc barbarian leaps down and attempts to pet the cat. The cat flees. (Now is the time to note that we were traveling to fight a necromancer. She wasn't there when we arrived at here tower. Oh, well.:smallamused:)

On a tangent, the barbarian had one rank apiece in many, many skills - practically every single-category skill, and many crafts besides, stats 18, 18, 18, 18, 3, 3. Note to self - do not give players all 13's and allow to bump up or down, 1-for-1, as they choose.:smallwink:

Another tangent - for some low-rules short role-playing, I am playing a sociopathic blow people up warlock - named :smallamused: Belkar.

JeminiZero
2009-07-05, 07:59 PM
Another tangent - for some low-rules short role-playing, I am playing a sociopathic blow people up warlock - named :smallamused: Belkar.


I think Richard might be a more appropriate name for that.

Ravens_cry
2009-07-05, 08:15 PM
I think Richard might be a more appropriate name for that.
For Pony!
What, can't I say that?

Yukitsu
2009-07-05, 08:22 PM
One player that we're hoping won't show up anymore rolled up a new character after his last died to a druid in a fight that he wasn't really ready to take part in. He handed a note to the DM that he wanted to attack the party, who, disliking his new character due to incredibly poor RP never really could get into a position of doing so anyway. When we found out later, in a big brawl between us, he and some lackies, I forcefully teleported him from the battle to a desert, knocked his wisdom to 0. Waiting for some of his wisdom to recover, I put the character into an interrogation style situation, and since his character had no satisfactory, in character reason for attacking us, he was burned alive.

I also found out I didn't have to roll dice to beat his character. :smalltongue:

lothos
2009-07-05, 08:45 PM
I was playing a 1st Edition AD&D Game. It was only the 2nd time I'd played AD&D, having played some basic (boxed set) D&D prior. The rest of the party was on their very first characters. The DM was very happy to let us kill ourselves..... We were all 1st level.

So the party magic user (Wizard in 3rd edition) only had 1 hit point. It wasn't until 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana came out that the concept of minimum hit points at 1st level was introduced. He had a single hit point. Annoyingly so did I... as a 1st level fighter. Yes I had rolled a 1 on my d10 for 1st level hit points and had no con bonus.

The party thief (rouge) only had 2hp..... we were all pretty weak. The cleric had the most HP, I think 3 or 4, can't remember.

We were on a mission from the cleric's temple to go and raid this evil guys lair for some healing potions and other things he had stolen earlier that were needed by the temple. We were fighting a pair of goblins guarding the potions (the evil head guy was not far away) and everyone but the cleric was down, unconscious. The cleric had already used up ALL his magical healing earlier in the fight. The 2nd goblin went down, but we thought the head evil guy would return soon.

The Magic user was at -8hp. The thief and my fighter were both about -3 or so, I can't remember exactly.

So the cleric realised he didn't have time to stabilise us all naturally or wait a day to get new healing spells. He decided to pour a couple of healing potions down the Magic users throat. Sadly, one was unlabeled.... and wasn't healing.

Now the thing is in 1st Edition AD&D, when you mix different types of potions, there is a chance something unusual happens. It was called the "potion miscibility" table. I don't know if our DM really rolled 01 on d% or if he just decided to give us hell.... but the result was that the magic user EXPLODED violently.

Bits of Magic user violently flew across the room, inflicting damage on the unconscious thief and fighter lying next to him, killing the thief and taking me down to -9hp.

The cleric gets knocked unconscious, having been tending the poor injured Magic user as he poured the potions down his throat. The DM then ruled that the explosion set off the flasks of oil the cleric was carrying in his pack, which finished the cleric off while I died of my wounds without being healed.

So after that we NEVER mixed potions again.. Those characters didn't last long, but we had such a laugh about it afterwards and always teased the Magic user's player any time another character of his drank a potion "mind you don't explode..."

woodenbandman
2009-07-05, 09:10 PM
Well there was this one time when a player who, after having stabbed a clock for no reason whatsoever (no explanation) discovered that doing so caused the house to come alive and rape us. It attacked us a lot. I frantically tried to fix the clock, but it was gone. Then it healed. Also this clock bleeds.

Anyway, we're in the pitch dark after doing all of this, and getting attacked etc. , and I search, and find another clock. It's obviously trapped. I discover that it is trapped. I can't communicate this because I've lost my voice (we all have, long story, great module), but I try to grab him etc. What's the guy do?

Punches the damn clock. Poison gas, I die, nobody else dies. Fortunately, we have staff of resurrection, with 2 charges left! So we get downstairs, finally find out how to kill the house, and walk out. On the way out, we remember that there's a broken clock in the hallway.

He takes it out of the house.

:roy:

Of course, there was this one that I did this session just an hour or so ago, where there was an obvious trap that consisted of a book and several suits of armor, and he book was obviously evil. Not quite as dumb as the repeated clock-related stupidity demonstrated above.

warrl
2009-07-05, 11:09 PM
In our current game, the big stupidity stories have mostly starred one recurring villain sorceress who is now officially insane.

First time we met her, she cast a spell with 50 foot range at a target 60 feet away. No, it was not an area effect spell.

Yesterday, she cast a 20-foot-radius area effect spell at a target 15 feet away, and both she and one of her major allies were caught in it. So were precisely two of our characters.

Ecalsneerg
2009-07-06, 06:49 AM
This story may not qualify quite yet, but at the moment in a game I'm in we are on our way to some ancient temple to get some sort of mac guffin or other.

We have so far promised to deliver it to The Evil Empire, Tiamat, and a Lich King.

This will either turn out to be the greatest shell game ever done or the most hilarious TPK ever.
You so need to post that story when you find out which of the two it is. :smallbiggrin:

This story becomes less stupid if you look at it from a roleplaying point of view, but not much less stupid. I can't remember which of our group showed up, but we had my Dark-kin Druid (sort of like a tiefling. Animals feared me) and a Half-Hobgoblin Fighter. Who was obscenely strong and tough.

It was level 5, and we'd not long levelled up. So we assaulted a wizard/rogue, who proceeded to turn himself invisible an start attacking us in a very crowded room. Thus, I ducked into a walk-in wardrobe to let the rest of the party in.

When I turned into a bear, the fighter justified this with: "I'd never seen you wildshape before, nor did I know you could. And I didn't see you do it this time, all I saw was a bear run out of the cupboard."

He grappled the bear and tried to suffocate it with a potato. So the enemy rogue started sneak attacking me. Thankfully, that part gave him the hint that something was wrong. So he got up, went to fight our enemy... and got downed. I as the bear was so badly wounded I was forced to leave the room, demorph and heal myself and the damn fighter.

Avilan the Grey
2009-07-06, 06:49 AM
"Are you sure?"

...Any player that does not seriously question the "bright idea" when those words are heard is per definition a candidate for this thread, I am sure.


Anyway:
Stupid, but heroic and a happy ending...

Call of Cthulhu. London, 19th century. My character was an old Irish priest that had broken with the Catholic church and was now a self-employed preacher.
Quite useful, since he had good knowledge of Latin, and myths and legends in general. But he completely lacked any kind of combat ability. The closest thing he ever got when he managed to throw a monster over on it's back (or should that be "back"?) by slamming a door into it while the others tried to fight it.

Anyway.

At the end of the adventure, sneaking up on a cult in progress of the usual Human Sacrifice ploy, this time aided by a Magnetism machine. The girl was chained to it and sparks started flying.
We all were in sneak mode but I started to feel like I really needed to do something.
One of the others, with some significant weapon skill (I think he was a retired army officer) started picking off cultists, all of a sudden (the rest of us went "WTF???"). The fecal material was about to hit the rotating air-circulating unit, so we all had to improvise, thanks to our trigger-happy moron.
My character makes a quick decision, runs past everyone...

DM: "What are you doing??"
Other players: "What ARE you doing??"
Me: "I tackle the lady in the contraption!"

(DM thinks about it, and rolls stuff)

DM: "You actually succeeds! The impact is so strong that you rip her free from the contraption, and the ammount of electricity you get hit with does not do much damage (since I was flying through the air and "passing through")".

Big anti-climax following! NO elder dude. Some furious, but mostly disoriented cultists easily handled, and a grateful young woman with cracked ribs and sore wrists.

The cult leader disappeared in the fray, but we found his remains in the epilogue; apparently whoever he served, did not take kindly to failure.

I was definitely betting my character would die; I just did this because A) I felt it was in character and B) I was frustrated (both in- and out of character) because of my lack of ability to help in the situation.

---

Other adventures, other game:
"If I drop my torch into the pit, will it set the oil on fire?"

And
"I ride the basilisk into town".

KatfishKaos
2009-07-06, 07:02 AM
The dumbest thing I'd ever done as a player was also probably the bravest....it was more reckless then stupid, but whatever.

I was playing in a short campaign as a half-elf Bard named Aiden Kingsbane, along with a half-dragon fighter and a human druid, and we were all around....3rd level or so. It was the first session....the half-dragon was a prince to the local human kingdom, who believed him to be divine, and the druid was his mentor. My bard was actually the true heir to the throne but didn't know it....the DM had planned, later on, for this to eventually cause some major in-party conflict for us to overcome.

Anyways....

After our characters met, they decided to make camp on the edge of a forest. The half-dragon fighter decided to go exploring on his own, just because the player thought a level adjustment always meant you were stronger then anything else around ;p When he didn't return, the druid went looking for him. The DM kept passing them notes, so I decided the bard should go searching too....and unlike them, I had ranks in hide and move silently.

My bard came on this huge clearing, filled with an army of around 400 hobgoblins preparing to besiege the local castle. My two companions were tied up and trying to get free, but they couldn't due to the hobgoblins watching them. So, having the hero complex that I have....

....I had my bard jump in the middle of the hobgoblin army. Swinging two rapiers and taking a Total Defense stance, I actually managed to kill a good deal and survive long enough for the druid to get free and then free the fighter. By the time they had gotten to my bard, though, he was long dead. To add insult to injury, because the DM was disgusted by my 'stupidity', the hobgoblins had striped my character's body of pants and violated him. After being raised, he never could sit right again ;p

-----


Bravest and really should of been rewarded. You did a heroic not stupid thing.

huttj509
2009-07-06, 07:19 AM
"Are you sure?"

...Any player that does not seriously question the "bright idea" when those words are heard is per definition a candidate for this thread, I am sure.


Anyway:
Stupid, but heroic and a happy ending...

Call of Cthulhu. London, 19th century. My character was an old Irish priest that had broken with the Catholic church and was now a self-employed preacher.
Quite useful, since he had good knowledge of Latin, and myths and legends in general. But he completely lacked any kind of combat ability. The closest thing he ever got when he managed to throw a monster over on it's back (or should that be "back"?) by slamming a door into it while the others tried to fight it.

Anyway.

At the end of the adventure, sneaking up on a cult in progress of the usual Human Sacrifice ploy, this time aided by a Magnetism machine. The girl was chained to it and sparks started flying.
We all were in sneak mode but I started to feel like I really needed to do something.
One of the others, with some significant weapon skill (I think he was a retired army officer) started picking off cultists, all of a sudden (the rest of us went "WTF???"). The fecal material was about to hit the rotating air-circulating unit, so we all had to improvise, thanks to our trigger-happy moron.
My character makes a quick decision, runs past everyone...

DM: "What are you doing??"
Other players: "What ARE you doing??"
Me: "I tackle the lady in the contraption!"

(DM thinks about it, and rolls stuff)

DM: "You actually succeeds! The impact is so strong that you rip her free from the contraption, and the ammount of electricity you get hit with does not do much damage (since I was flying through the air and "passing through")".

Big anti-climax following! NO elder dude. Some furious, but mostly disoriented cultists easily handled, and a grateful young woman with cracked ribs and sore wrists.

The cult leader disappeared in the fray, but we found his remains in the epilogue; apparently whoever he served, did not take kindly to failure.

I was definitely betting my character would die; I just did this because A) I felt it was in character and B) I was frustrated (both in- and out of character) because of my lack of ability to help in the situation.



Rule of cool won. It was plausable that it might do something successful (knocking her out of the way), and having you effectively hit a wall and fry there would have just been spitting in your cheerios. Might have gone for a middle ground "you knock her away, but you get stuck there in her place" or something if the setup was such that it seemed plausable. Definite moment of the brave/stupid boundary line there though, props.

Heroic stupid IMO deserves a lot more leeway, depends on what sort of campaign you run. Note that leeway might be "you survive, barely, but your pride's at -10 hp."

Avilan the Grey
2009-07-06, 07:27 AM
Rule of cool won. It was plausable that it might do something successful (knocking her out of the way), and having you effectively hit a wall and fry there would have just been spitting in your cheerios. Might have gone for a middle ground "you knock her away, but you get stuck there in her place" or something if the setup was such that it seemed plausable. Definite moment of the brave/stupid boundary line there though, props.

Heroic stupid IMO deserves a lot more leeway, depends on what sort of campaign you run. Note that leeway might be "you survive, barely, but your pride's at -10 hp."

I agree.
(Although it appears he was serious about the dice rolls and stuff; according to him he had calculated, on the fly, some very bad odds for me, but I cleared it).

Personally I keep reassuring the GM he was doing very well. We apparently outsmarted him twice in the adventure (this being the second time) but we couldn't tell. He's really good at improvising, but he feels he didn't improvise good enough.

Brauron
2009-07-06, 10:29 AM
I always feel weird telling this story, since it involves a fair amount of behind-the-scenes villainy on the part of myself, the DM, and all but one of the other players.

One player basically strong-armed his way into the campaign, claiming it as his reward for providing transportation for another player. Strong-Arm is a poor roleplayer, basically playing every character as a destroy-everything combat monster, whining when his characters don't do much damage.

We wanted to get rid of him, but we knew from experience that merely talking to him about it and asking him to leave would result in him sulking and being unpleasant to us all FOR WEEKS, and he was my roommate at the time.

He was playing a Scout who hadn't put any skill points into move silently, hide, climb, anything like that. He'd maxed out Intimidate; I forget what else. I was a Fighter built around getting frequent attacks of opportunity and being hard to hit. I was more of a Scout than he was.

The plan we came up with behind this player's back was for the DM to say he had too many players (which was true, he hated going above four and we had five) and, to be fair, would run a session where he'd try to kill us all and whoever died first would leave the game. We were then going to rig it so that this player's Scout died first.

We had to escort a prince into the throne room of his father, the king, who was trying to kill him. We had to pick three of our number as an escort -- the heavily-armored cleric was an obvious choice, and I argued that I'd be useful against the king's guards. We sat around debating who the third would be, waiting for the opportunity to suggest the Scout. Well, we didn't have to wait, as the Scout volunteered, even arguing that with him in the room, running around stabbing people with his spear, I wouldn't have a place on the battlefield. He argued that he and the cleric were enough of an escort.

He didn't last long against the ninjas. In fact, he didn't last as long as the DM had planned for since the ninjas were attacking a smaller party than he'd expected.

Random832
2009-07-06, 10:43 AM
So why was he a Scout? It seems like Barbarian would be a better fit for his play style.

Brauron
2009-07-06, 11:44 AM
I think he was playing a Scout because he liked the artwork in CAdv. Either that or he liked the idea of moving to get extra dice of damage, or some combination thereof. He plays a lot of barbarians and fighters and he may have been looking for a change.

Of course, this is the same guy who rolled up a Druid to be party healer in a different game and took nothing but fire spells and then tried to argue that trying to sell the rest of the party into slavery to ensure his own safe passage through a forest was Neutral Good.

Talon Sky
2009-07-06, 12:16 PM
Bravest and really should of been rewarded. You did a heroic not stupid thing.

Well thank you. I feel loved ;p

I do have another story, involving the same group of guys, but I probably shouldn't tell it due to the fact that in the end, the elf samurai had to convince a fairy princess to restore his genitalia back to normal. ^_-

warrl
2009-07-06, 02:16 PM
This story may not qualify quite yet, but at the moment in a game I'm in we are on our way to some ancient temple to get some sort of mac guffin or other.

We have so far promised to deliver it to The Evil Empire, Tiamat, and a Lich King.

This will either turn out to be the greatest shell game ever done or the most hilarious TPK ever.
No problem. Get the Lich King bound to Tiamat and then help him take over the Evil Empire. And deliver the MacGuffin.

The New Bruceski
2009-07-06, 02:24 PM
No problem. Get the Lich King bound to Tiamat and then help him take over the Evil Empire. And deliver the MacGuffin.

I think you need to arrange the handoff with all three parties at the same time in a way that each one thinks the other two are stealing it. The hard part is doing so without acting out of character to tip anyone off. You can't just start screaming as party B walks into the room.

Ratflail
2009-07-06, 02:39 PM
Arrange for them to arrive to collect it one after another, with a very short difference in time.

#1: Aha, here you are at last, to collect your item. I have it here, safe from harm. etc, etc. (Try to draw on until the next one arrives, although don't say anything potentially incriminating if overheard.)

When #2 arrives: It's you, (#2). I suppose you want this? (Show item). Well, (#1) is here for it already. It looks like the intended owner will have to defend it for themselves. (Still keep it going, maybe they will fight)

Upon #3s arrival: I'm sorry, it appears that there are 2 people who already want (Item name here). If you want it, I can't do anything about it at this point.

Sorry, but I can do no more. I also think it's best for me to leave now, so good luck.


It might work, maybe with a few changes.

Glyphic
2009-07-06, 02:52 PM
Arrange for all three to arrive at some place, all at the same time. Leave it in the middle of the room and be either, no where near by, or in a place where you can pick off the survivor. Given that the lich and Tiamat can probably teleport and plane shift, I'd go for somewhere -no where- near by.

I hear the plane of shadow is nice this time of year, incidentally.

MissK
2009-07-06, 03:25 PM
That sounds more like a player rebelling against the railroading...

seriously, a ghost warned you of the trap? you as a rogue can't find the trap so the GM has a ghost warn you... Lame, why bother putting in a trap if when the PCs fail to find it they get warned anyway.

I was actually across the room at the time, so I couldn't find that trap. And the ghost was the result of taking "Haunted" as a feat -- you SHOULD get something from spending a feat for roleplaying purposes. Also, this player had the habit of opening doors without waiting for me to search them for traps, once unleashing a boneclaw, several zombies and an air elemental on the party.

Umael
2009-07-06, 03:52 PM
I posted this some time ago in the forums, but I think it has been long enough that the story has been somewhat lost to time.

So I'm running a 3.0 game, the party is 1st level. The dungeon is the obligatory sewer-crawl, and the party is running into dire rats and a few shadowy characters. You know, the usual.

After killing a guard (?), the party fighter searches the body and finds, among other things, a vial of white powder. Thinking it is important, he pockets it and the group continues on.

Eventually, they find a way out of the dungeon, which involves a large steel grate (that they open) and a 50' (or so) drop down a cliff. Why bother climbing, the group has a rope, one skill roll later, the fighter is leading the way with the rogue and barbarian and cleric (no PC wizards or sorcerers in this campaign - the setting made them all default evil) covering him from above (also to be sure that the rope didn't have too much weight on it).

Under the rope end is a ledge, which is narrow on one side and widens and goes up until it joins the top of the cliff. Away from the cliff is the drop into a river (which cut its way over the eons to form the cliff). The ledge itself has some high grass, and into this grass, the fighter jumps.

This is where I had one last trap. Around the fighter, eight previously sleeping poisonous snakes woke up and hissed at the fighter, alarmed.

Now I figured there was several ways to get around this trap. I had them make Spot checks when looking at the ledge (although my description was such that it didn't give them an OOC warning). Failing the Spot check, if the fighter just climbed all the way to the bottom, he could get another Spot check. A Move Silently roll would translate into moving slowly enough that the snakes wouldn't wake up.

Even with the snakes awake, the fighter wasn't in trouble yet. I figured, snakes just woken up, not hungry, just a bit scared, they would probably retreat if the fighter just stayed where he was. Alternatively, the fighter could climb back up the rope, or just hold on while the rest of the group pulled him up. He could even stay put, as the snakes hadn't attacked so he wasn't in melee combat, and have the rogue pick them off with her bow. I would have allowed taking a Defensive Stance for a bonus to AC, just in case. If the player asked, I would have given hints that the snakes really weren't interested in a fight, just, you know, poisonous and unhappy with being woken up, so they would slither off soon if he stays put.

Does he freeze? No.
Does he climb? No.
Does he ask me questions? No.
Does he even fight? No.

He tries to jump through the snakes.

Eight attacks of opportunity later, the fighter, tough as he is, has snake venom coursing through his vein. He's not going to survive the secondary effects, and having made the rolls, he knows it.

But he has that vial with white powder!

On the off-chance that it's anti-venom, he downs it.

Anti-venom, it was not.

Cocaine.

The fighter died with a smile on his face.


Later in that campaign, we have another move of stupidity, one that pretty much ended the campaign.

The party is 3rd level by now, and they are mucking around underground, dealing with a lot of undead, particularly ghouls. Now the ghouls were off in their little bands, each band about strong enough for a decent encounter if taken on one at a time. They have already run into a few of these groups when they enter a large cavern with lots of tunnels going off the sides.

I'm not sure why or how, but the group, or maybe one of the PCs, decides to make a really loud noise (mistake #1).

I describe how the group can hear noise coming from down the various tunnels or further back in the cavern, beyond the light of their torches.

Obviously nasty things were coming their way. Do they retreat? No (mistake #2).

The party de facto leader (mostly by personality), who happens to be the barbarian, declares, "Let's split up!" (Mistake #3).

1 3rd-level PC against 4 or 5 ghouls. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Philaenas
2009-07-06, 04:21 PM
Lol, that's pretty hilarious. I dunno what I would have done in the fighter's situation though, climbing ropes always unnerved me... Think I've fallen to my death once...

So I've two stories as well from some campaigns I played in with the same group. The first is my own mistake and the second is not so much a mistake as more of a stroke of very bad luck.

1) So our group was walking down a system of caves in a mountain, looking for a portal through which fiends were entering the material plane and would soon be doing so by their thousands. Walking along we come across a few crates that have been left by mineworkers who dug all the tunnels. A short description tells us that they probably contain high explosives. My cleric then decides to do a very bold and strange thing, which is throwing the box of explosives on the portal after we found it. I don't know why, but I just decided my cleric would do such a thing. Needless to say, an enormous explosion ensued, bludgeoning and searing the party to near-death, after which the sealing of the tunnel collapsed to kill us all. The group was very happy, lol.

2) Our party (another party obviously :) ), was sleeping in the forest and during the watch of one of the elves (only thing elves are useful for...) we got ambushed by a large tiger, prolly a dire one. After some hits with a blade, some spells and a few arrow shots, the tiger decides to take off and save his sorry ass. The team wizard however didn't like the beast getting away for some reason and wanted to kill it. He shot a fireball at it through the thick forest. The DM decrees he rolls a ranged touch attack to not hit one of the trees standing all around us... He rolls a natural one, fireball hits nearby tree, we are all in pain. So far all is well except for some heavy damage. He then proceeds to roll another natural 1 on his reflex save. Summoning the tome of D&D rules, we found that when a player succeeds in this rare feat, his or her equipment might be hit by the attack requiring the save. Saves should be rolled for the equipment as well. It just so happened that he was wearing a necklace of fireballs type V and proceeded to roll a reflex save for that item. You guessed it, he rolled a third natural one, setting of all the remaining fireballs in the necklace (which was all blasts if I remember). Now except for his character which would have died anyway, since even the lowest posible damage would kill him in his weakened state, the others, fighters and cleric still had a fighting chance. Then the damage roll of all the fireballs was almost maximum damage (I never saw so many sixes) and we all died :).

Melamoto
2009-07-06, 04:30 PM
..ouch. I bet the Wizard player was feeling pretty embarrassed after that, not to mention pissed. But still, you must have had some pretty jinxed dice for that 1 in 8000 chance to natural 1 on all those rolls.

If I had been in that situation with the explosives, I would have placed all the boxes at the portal, set off a fuse, and gotten the hell out of there.

holywhippet
2009-07-06, 05:10 PM
During a Dark Heresy game last year the party consisting of a techpriest, a scum and an adept (my character) were investigating some mines when we came across a pair of doors on either side of a corridor. The tech priest opened one of the doors and inside was some kind of demonic creature. However, the techpriest noticed a number of containers in the room and smelled the distinct scent of promethium (think petrol on steroids). The techpriest won initiative and decided that firing into the room would be too damn dangerous so he backed into the corridor and prepared to fight the thing at close range.

Next up was the scum - IIRC he was either a forgeworlder. He deliberated for half a minute trying to decide exactly how much his character would know about promethium and decided that he wouldn't know enough to realise how friggin dangerous it is. So he stepped into the doorway and unloaded with both of his pistols on full auto. He literally decided that roleplaying his character was more important than survival or common sense.

Even one miss would ignite the stuff, he only got one single hit. We had to burn fate points to avoid the firestorm by fleeing through the otherdoorway (technically impossible but the DM allowed it). Thankfully there were no monsters in the other room, and no more promethium.

Teln
2009-07-06, 05:32 PM
Next up was the scum - IIRC he was either a forgeworlder. He deliberated for half a minute trying to decide exactly how much his character would know about promethium and decided that he wouldn't know enough to realise how friggin dangerous it is. So he stepped into the doorway and unloaded with both of his pistols on full auto. He literally decided that roleplaying his character was more important than survival or common sense.


*emphasis mine*
I'd have given him roleplaying XP.

Melamoto
2009-07-06, 05:44 PM
*emphasis mine*
I'd have given him roleplaying XP.
Agreed, Roleplaying is what the game is all about, so he was completely correct about doing what he did. To be honest, with that as a given, the techpriest could have simply told the party in his round.

warrl
2009-07-06, 05:44 PM
*emphasis mine*
I'd have given him roleplaying XP.

I would agree, except that the character got a bad case of dead.

Maybe give the XP to his next character. because a death as a direct result of playing the character well SHOULD be rewarded.

And not by cheesing a totally implausible way for the character to survive. A character who dies well enough to deserve this sort of reward, deserves the respect of not being cheesed.

Teln
2009-07-06, 09:26 PM
Now that I've had some time to think about it, I'd have let the rest of the party escape for the purposes of avoiding a TPK, but not the scum. Because the player knew his character's actions had a high chance of getting killed, but did it anyway because it was in character, I'd give the next character he rolled an entire level.

holywhippet
2009-07-06, 10:02 PM
Actually none of us died because we burned fate points. In Dark Heresy fate points can be used one of two ways. The first is to allow a reroll of the dice. You can do this a number of times based on your total fate points per session. The second is to burn one off - lose it permanently in exchange for not dying when you would normally. You are supposed to be able to earn points by good roleplaying but the DM I had never handed them out (not surprising considering how badly we tended to do).

Getting a new level at the start of the game isn't much. Technically you gain a level every 500 XP (IIRC) - and you start with 400.

Talon Sky
2009-07-07, 08:37 PM
Actually none of us died because we burned fate points. In Dark Heresy fate points can be used one of two ways. The first is to allow a reroll of the dice. You can do this a number of times based on your total fate points per session. The second is to burn one off - lose it permanently in exchange for not dying when you would normally. You are supposed to be able to earn points by good roleplaying but the DM I had never handed them out (not surprising considering how badly we tended to do).

Getting a new level at the start of the game isn't much. Technically you gain a level every 500 XP (IIRC) - and you start with 400.

Fate points sound....interesting.

Not really player stupidity, but in my campaigns I handle death in a unique way. When a player dies, they're out of the game until combat ends. When the battle is over, said player awakens floating through space, talking to their bodyless God or Goddess (imagine Excel Saga). Three orbs appear before the character, and in order to return to life, the character touches an orb. One orb will have a quasi-positive effect, while the other two will have negative effects (that often amuse me). Effects so far have been:

1) a gnome coming back with a deep, Barry-White voice that surprised everyone he talked to.

2) a character coming back with a somewhat uncontrollable necrophiliac urge (have to make a Will save everytime the party ended combat).

3) an elf coming back with +4 to his strength....even though he was an archer build (yup, my elf Samurai player ;p )

4) a wizard coming back with an incredibly high-pitched, squeaky voice. NPC's couldn't take her serious, but she got me in the end....see, whenever she spoke, characters around her had to make a reflex save to cover their ears or be stunned for a round. She walked into the room with the final bad guy and screamed. Simply screamed. While he was reeling, the other members of the party slaughtered him.

Lupy
2009-07-07, 08:44 PM
Okay, so my party rolled for abilities, and it worked out fine, except for one guy who'd never played before, who rolled a 4. He was playing a halfling fighter, so we just told him to put it in INT and use his points at level 4 and 8 to boost it up. (NOTE: He didn't want to be the only person with a re-roll, I offered it to him.)

So a few sessions later the party are level 4 and they're in a dungeon. They're in this trapped room where the doors shut and lock behind them, and holes open in the walls and sand pours through. There's a ledge up above that they might be able to get to. Instead of trying to climb up, the ranger and warlord toss up the fighter. He lands on the ledge and sees a magical apparatus with a red button and green one. He pounds the red one, and the walls start closing in. He pounds it again and spikes come out of the walls. He pounds it again and the spikes shoot a round of magic missiles at the party. By this point in time the ranger is unconscious, the wizard is sitting on the paladin's shoulders holding him so that he doesn't drown in the now chest level sand, and the party is freaking out. They revive the ranger and he manages to climb onto the ledge with 2 nat 20s and hit the green button until everything stops and the sand drains out.

Both funny and stupid. :smallbiggrin:

Talon Sky
2009-07-07, 08:48 PM
Okay, so my party rolled for abilities, and it worked out fine, except for one guy who'd never played before, who rolled a 4. He was playing a halfling fighter, so we just told him to put it in INT and use his points at level 4 and 8 to boost it up. (NOTE: He didn't want to be the only person with a re-roll, I offered it to him.)

So a few sessions later the party are level 4 and they're in a dungeon. They're in this trapped room where the doors shut and lock behind them, and holes open in the walls and sand pours through. There's a ledge up above that they might be able to get to. Instead of trying to climb up, the ranger and warlord toss up the fighter. He lands on the ledge and sees a magical apparatus with a red button and green one. He pounds the red one, and the walls start closing in. He pounds it again and spikes come out of the walls. He pounds it again and the spikes shoot a round of magic missiles at the party. By this point in time the ranger is unconscious, the wizard is sitting on the paladin's shoulders holding him so that he doesn't drown in the now chest level sand, and the party is freaking out. They revive the ranger and he manages to climb onto the ledge with 2 nat 20s and hit the green button until everything stops and the sand drains out.

Both funny and stupid. :smallbiggrin:

Wow. Just....wow. For once, not necessarily player stupidity, but understandable IC-stupidity. Love it!

HamHam
2009-07-08, 12:11 AM
From the same game I mentioned before:

This was a couple of sessions ago. We were level 3 or something. We found some really ridiculous loot, like a +10 weapon and a ring of elemental mastery and just crazy stuff.

I come to find out that the stuff is cursed. It apparently was stolen from a temple to Tiamat and reveals your location whenever you use it.

So I went back to my room at the inn and sat there and used the at will Burning Hands ability. Tiamat showed up.

It all worked out in the end, but in retrospect this was not my most brilliant plan.

obliged_salmon
2009-07-08, 12:20 PM
I'm DMing. The party gets hired by a dwarven mining colony to investigate missing miners. They ride up to the mouth of the tunnel and leave their horses behind with some dwarves hanging around outside, who seem confused about how to deal with the animals.

As the party goes inside, a dwarf calls in "Hey, this horse pooped, and it stinks! What are we supposed to do about it?"
The party ranger calls back "Just set it on fire!"
"....Uh...ok."
*fwoosh*
*frightened, painful neigh, followed by galloping away*

It's NPC stupidity, but it still cracks me up.

Choco
2009-07-08, 02:02 PM
2) a character coming back with a somewhat uncontrollable necrophiliac urge (have to make a Will save everytime the party ended combat).

Oh man, that must make for some hilarious stories...

I wish I had something good to add, but almost all of our stupidity is new player or chaotic stupid related. Though there was this one time where our chaotic stupid dex/archery fighter ran off into the woods to go after 2 (or so she thought...) soldiers that had been part of a group that had attacked the monastery we were at but retreated, while we were in the process of guarding/escorting our VIP prisoner back to town. This prisoner used to be part of the attacking army, but now they wanted him dead to keep his mouth shut. They were willing to go through great lengths to kill him... She only survived because my char sent 4 of our minion NPC's after her to make sure she was OK while the rest of us hauled ass to town like we were supposed to. After that brush with death, both player and character finally toned back on the chaotic stupid a bit, to the relieved sighs of most of the rest of the group...

A stupidity story in the making, however, involves our assassin PC. He is only still alive because the DM is being merciful, as this guy has a habit of walking up to anyone and everyone, no matter if you are a peasant or a god, and talks mad trash to them. I am waiting for the day when he does this to the short-tempered evil warlord. I will just sit back and laugh.

Lord Loss
2009-07-09, 07:14 AM
One word: Deck of many things.

PC Number One, the ambitious half Dragon. BOOH YAH! I draw one card: It's one of the two things that renders the character useless.

PC Number Two: A paladin I draw one card. He gets the other thing that Imprisons Him.

PC Number Three, a duskblade.: No way I am drawing from there.

PC Number Four A Shadowcaster with a mysterious past. : I Draw a card. Gives him two uses of the wish spell (By means of item).

Him: Ahww, c'mon!

(Frees other two)

Tough_Tonka
2009-07-09, 02:29 PM
In my first session of DnD I put a portable hole in a bag of holding (or its was the other way around). Afterwards were all sucked into the Astral Plane and surrounded by a bunch of portals. We found a gold shining portal and the gnome cleric and my barbarian decided to enter it, but our rogue wasn't going to fall for the shining golden portal trick. Instead he searched farther and decided to enter the rust colored portal.

The cleric and I ended up in Celestia while the rogue ended up in Hades.

Talon Sky
2009-07-09, 03:36 PM
Oh man, that must make for some hilarious stories...


You bet. The funniest was when I threw them into a dungeon full of undead. He made every single Will save in every single room, except for when they killed the boss....a giant kraken that the enemy wizard summoned. He rolled a nat 1.

So the necrophiliac held it in through a whole dungeon of zombies and skeletons, and ends up losing it to the carcass of a giant squid. Ah, good times ;p

AslanCross
2009-07-09, 03:41 PM
The worst in my experience is still this.

Red Hand of Doom. The Goblin Raid. They forgot to heal up.

They started a very dangerous series of encounters with about half HP (I had beefed up the encounter since I had expected them to be fresh when the event triggered). The artificer got messily splattered by AoE spells, and while the psion got knocked into negatives three times, and the dwarf crusader once. It was only through judicious use of invisibility potions that the warforged scout rogue managed to bring the dwarf back up and kick some hobgoblin butt.

They really learned to respect the Red Hand that night.

Adventurer
2009-10-13, 05:48 PM
Aaaaaaaand my D&D campaign is back from its summer break and so is the Stupid Elf Druid already mentioned in my previous two posts. He didn't fail at amusing us this time either!

The party had managed to defeat a potentially dangerous encounter by planning ahead, based on the information they had, and coming up with an ingenious strategy. So when, shorty afterwards, they stood outside the lair of the story arc's arch-enemy behind a wooden door in a cave, they started discussing a plan once again. After a half-hour (in real time) of thinking they thought of a plan that started with the Cleric having to inspect the area around the door to find if it could withstand a small explosion without collapsing. So they moved there as one, rolling Move Silently checks as they approached. Once near the door behind which lied their nemesis, the Cleric moved silently ahead and started inspecting the cavern... until the Druid came charging from behind and smashed the door with his longsword! It took him quite a while to tear the door apart (as his partner continuously failed to stop him) giving ample time to their until-then-unaware enemies to fortify and buff themselves up. The party nearly died in that encounter.

The other incident was only a bit stupid but really funny to look at. Since entering the cave, the party's Bard (called Celest) was trying to be secretive. A bit earlier than the above incident, she had stayed behind while the other members were battling some Underfolk (partly due to rp and partly due to low remaining hp) , and only walked silently towards them a while later while clinging to the cave wall (that was full of crevices and such). Her Move Silently and Hide checks were going marvelously until she failed one miserably but only the Druid -fighting a hell hound by that time- managed to spot her from about 30 feet away. So he immediately starts shouting "HEY! CELEST! COME HERE AND HELP ME!". The Bard's player was looking furiously at him at that point and hurriedly motioned him to stop talking. And he did comply with that... all he did was walk next to her and asking for her help against the hell hound, which followed him right in the next round.

When the Bard's turn came, her player was asking me if she was allowed to attack the Druid instead of the hell hound. She didn't do that then, but at least smacked him one good when the Druid went to trance after the battle:smallbiggrin:

Nada Rakshasa
2009-10-14, 06:15 AM
Within the span of about a week, in two separate GURPS campaigns, two different players in my group went into melee combat with an NPC who'd cast a spell called "Body of Fire" on themselves. The first player's character was a human martial artist... the other player's was a Tremere, a vampire mage from the GURPS WoD material.

gman
2009-10-14, 03:03 PM
One that was me, one that was my brother:

I and my fellow party-members were solving a riddle that was a grid of letters in sand, where you have to solve the riddle and then step across the right letters, Indiana jones style. It took us a long time to solve the riddle - when we eventually got it (the more you take the more you leave behind - footsteps) my character was so excited that I had him immediately stride straight across the grid. I picked up my miniature and tapped it on each letter in turn, saying them out loud: "F-O-O-T-S-E-aaaah!". There were skeletons waiting at the bottom.

My brother was running a party of five by himself to test out a campaign for me. He knows there's a Dragon behind the door, he saw it through the keyhole. Baern, Dwarven Warlord, assays the situation: "Alright lads, form up behind me, we're going in". The PCs all clump up behind the door, kick it down, lose initiative, all get hit by the breath weapon for max damage, leaving them half of them unconscious and the others on about 3 hp. To Baern's credit he uses an action point and eveyr healing power he knows and gets the party to safety. The next day, he goes back. "Alright lads, take cover behind the walls and stay loose, we're going in!"

Who says XP only gives you mechanical benefits?

NorseItalian
2009-10-14, 04:03 PM
"You see an enormous statue of a demon's head. His mouth is wide open and within it is a dark void which-"
"I DIVE INTO HIS MOUTH!"
"...."

(we were playing Tomb of Horrors...)

Piedmon_Sama
2009-10-14, 04:29 PM
"When the dog star has reached its zenith, its light will fall upon the Black Chamber of Orcus, and the dead god shall rise...."

"((OOC: What's the dog star? Is that something from your setting we should know about?))"


"((....it's.... the Dog Star. Come on, Sirius?))"

"((What?))"

cZak
2009-10-14, 07:39 PM
I was playing in a Deadlands game with three other players in their late twenties to early thirties...

Two of the players were fighting some BBEG on a plane. The BBEG disabled the plane and flew off, leaving the players to "ride it out."
I seriously convinced one of the players... "at the moment before the plane hits the ground, if you jump up hard enough you'll cancel out the speed of crashing and reduce the damage you'll take." :smallwink:

"Really?"

I then used the existence of bugs bunny cartoons as proof of this effect...

He tried it, convinced of its logic. :smalleek:

After that I tried (unsuccessfully) on numerous occasions to get him into our poker games.


Fools are made to suffer, not to be suffered

Jokasti
2009-10-14, 10:19 PM
Well, my groups mission was simple: combine the Elemental Planes of Fire and Water. To get there, we had to go through the Gate. Turns out the Gate is a swirling vortex of death. To go through, one of us would have to go in, retrieve a scroll and heart inside and come out. Sounds simple. While the druid and paladin argued over what magic to use, my character (monk) jumped in, and grabbed both items before failing a Fort, Will, and Reflex save. So now they had to get my body out. About 10 minutes later I was looking at my character sheet and saw I had Improved Evasion. I told the DM, and he said something like, "Holy crap, you lived." I dimension doored out, and died outside, but our lich escort transplanted the heart into me and TRezzed me. I got two feats: Asskicking and Behemoth (Homebrews) and +12, +4, and +8 to S/D/Con, respectively. After we finished the mission, I was hailed as a prophesized hero.

It was Awesome-Sauce.

CrazedBanana
2009-10-14, 10:55 PM
One of my party mates, the ranger, shot an arrow with a string attached, into the roof of an abandoned, rotting warehouse, in an attempt to land on top of an ancient wooden, also rotting crate. Well, half way thorugh swinging through the air, the roof beam decided to crumble. He soared through the air, crashing into the box. It was a storeroom owned by the old assasins guild, and was filled with glass bottles of poison. If that wasn't enou8gh, the weakened ceiling beam collapsed, and chunks of the roof started falling in. One of them crushed the NPC we were trying to save. That was our first adventure in that campaign.

starwoof
2009-10-15, 12:50 AM
So were playing D20 future, zombie apocalypse on the moon. Its just me and this other guy. He's a cop, I'm a high school sports hero. Keep in mind that we never really regard this player being especially intelligent; we expect him to do stupid things.

So were in a mall, hanging out with some survivors we met, and we hear a crashing noise. Then one of the walls of the food court caves in and a zombie wizard riding a massive brumak grey render thing stomps in.

:eek:

The GM is smily wickedly at us when he asks us for our initiative and our actions. We both went before this thing by a fair margin, so we have time to escape.

I flee on my hoverboard, because as the melee guy theres NO WAY I'm getting in that thing's reach. The other player: I stay where I am and shoot it with my plasma gun!

DM: You aren't going to take cover, or move back?
Player: Nope.

Us: ...

He's got a lot of faith in his gun.

One turn later, smash, grab, swallow. He still has a chance to escape by shooting the beast's belly open with his plasma pistol, but what does he roll to hit? A seven. Whee.

He got himself digested later that round.:smalltongue:

MickJay
2009-10-15, 05:42 AM
I just have to ask, he was made to roll for accuracy while being 100% surrounded by the thing he was trying to shoot (i.e. stomach)? :smallconfused: Does that even count as PC stupidity? :smalltongue:


Pulling the single lever of a huge, mysterious machine described as having something to do with alien gods in Call of Cthulhu without even knowing what exactly it was supposed to do. My character was bored at the time (it worked, he was bored no longer).

karnokoto
2009-10-15, 06:11 AM
Okay, I have two.
These are both the same player, by the way. He's pretty cool like that.

The first one, hes playing a paladin.
The guy loves paladins, and bless him for it because his heart is in the right place, hes just not very good at it yet.
We're dungeon crawling, and we get to this big square room. We venture out from the doorway carefully, gently metagaming at this point because we know the DM looooooves traps.
The room is floored with big 4 foot by 4 foot square tiles set in a kind of grid, but with about a foot of space between the squares. We quickly discover that each square is on a kind of fulcrum or something- they seesaw in all directions when you put weight on them.
One player fails his balance check (I'm pretty sure it was the dwarven barbarian) and falls down through the floor. Down very far, something like 100ft I think. Into maybe 10 feet of water. Disgusting water. He screams one thing before silence. "Abolith!"
Ah crap.
For those who are familiar, there is a module called Tomb of Horrors, and thats where the DM had taken inspiration for the trap from.
Long story short, I'm shooting, the wizard is waving his hands around, two more players are down in the water whackin away at the thing, and the paladin decides to jump down the hole...at the abolith. All that happens is he gets knocked away by one of its many flailing tentacles, hits a wall, and dies from fall damage.

Shortly after that I had a bit of a 'durrrr' moment myself. I think I put my wounded hand or something into a barrel of stagnant water? I got infected and the DM rolled to see what happened to my elven ranger.
Blindness! I was so lucky.



Second story- this is for the campaign we're playing in right now actually.
All of our characters were enrolled in a sort of 'adventurer's academy' from the age of 15 onwards. At the end of our 5th year training in our chosen class, we were first given an individual test, and later a group test. The test is supposed to make sure you can actually do well in stressful situations- in the fighter's case, it was supposed to prove 3 things:
1) You are tough enough to take a beating.
2) You have good footwork and are somewhat nimble.
3) You can think on your feet.
Everyone passed their test, except for the fighter. Well, he did, but it was a pretty wide grey line.
Okay, so he's on the run from a half orc who has previously near-kicked the fighter's face in. Not good. Picture the player running down a ramp, and, Indiana Jones style, the orc is barreling down behind him, followed shortly by 2 rolling logs (dexterity!).
The fighter enters a room, with 2 vials laid out on a table before him. Both are identical in every way, and a sign tells him one is a healing potion which will get his HP back to full, and the other is a vial of acid which may very well kill him. Acid.
The orc is 3 turns worth of movement behind him. What does the fighter do?
Uncorks both, and drinks them both at the same time.
Acid.
The healing potion was dissolved in the throat by the acid, and coincidentally so was his throat. He loses the ability to speak.
When the clerics at the end of the test offer to heal his throat, he refuses, saying he prefers to live with his mistakes. Thats cool, will be fun to roleplay.
Later on in the campaign his throat is healed while hes knocked out by a state cleric. When he comes to, he goes bat**** on the poor guy, and punches the NPC out.

This guy has a history of dumb things, but those are the 2 worst that come to mind.

Darkameoba
2009-10-15, 06:56 AM
This is the same player mentioned in Karnokoto's post, im dming this campaign, the second i was playing with him in


So same campaign as the acid story for karnokoto's post, they are on a boat...hes a warblade that wares heavy armor (without the proficiency, yeah hes that smart) now he's waring full plate, its stormy and the crew is running around the deck lashing things down, the other pc's have removed their armor and are trying to help the crew, what does he do? nothing, he stands on the deck in his full plate holding the railing, long story short the boat sank, and he nearly drown trying to strip the armor (it had quick release clasps). so hes down his armor and they end up in some ruins held by lizard folk, and he doesn't have his armor, did i mention he was the parties meat shield?

Second instance of retardation: the campaign: Shadowrun 3rd edition. The character: A adept with killing hands and thats it

realy there isnt anything else to say except melee character in 3rd edition shadow run that wore no armor.

Kesnit
2009-10-15, 10:35 AM
So same campaign as the acid story for karnokoto's post, they are on a boat...hes a warblade that wares heavy armor (without the proficiency, yeah hes that smart) now he's waring full plate, its stormy and the crew is running around the deck lashing things down, the other pc's have removed their armor and are trying to help the crew, what does he do? nothing, he stands on the deck in his full plate holding the railing, long story short the boat sank, and he nearly drown trying to strip the armor (it had quick release clasps). so hes down his armor and they end up in some ruins held by lizard folk, and he doesn't have his armor, did i mention he was the parties meat shield?

Standing on the deck in armor he isn't proficient in is dumb. But that isn't the reason he is without his armor. With the ship sinking, he was going to lose his armor no matter what. You can't blame him because the party's meat shield is armorless. Maybe take this opportunity to get him into armor he can wear without penalty.