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Vorpalbob
2010-03-17, 02:47 AM
The title of this one pretty much says it all. Post a tale of a well-meaning or possibly ingenious idea that went terribly, terribly wrong.

I'll start with a story from a D20 Modern game I ran a few years back.

The three-character party included a Strong hero that played the typical gangster and wore a rediculous amount of bling, a Determined hero who was a 'doctor' as well as a former member of the Spanish Inquisition (yes, we expect them by now!), and a Fast hero who was a half-rat, I think? whatever those genetically made animal/human crossbreed things are. Maurin, maybe? Anyway.

The three characters dressed very conspicuously, even considering my setting was modern-day Los Angeles with rifts constantly opening from other dimensions and times (hence our former torturer). As such, by the time they reached mid to high level, most of the world's law enforcement officers recognized them on sight (did I mention they were an evil party? No? well they are).

They usually dealt with beat cops and SWAT teams relatively easily, but the fateful day came when they were caught inside a bank they were in the process of robbing, and there were far too many cops for even a level 10-14 party to handle. That's when one of the PC's (the Fast hero) had a great idea! They selected three of their hostages who matched them closest in size and height, and led them into the main vault (some of you who may have watched a certain Batman movie might be getting ideas). They dressed the hostages in their distinctive clothes, taped some spare machine pistols to the hostages hands, wore the hostages clothes themselves, and concealed their weapons on themselves.

Their master plan was to send one of the remaining hostages out to the police and say that they were ready for a final shootout. They would release all the hostages, and then the police would enter the bank and the party would die fighting. The party, disguised as the hostages, would simply have to escape police custody, and would be gone before anyone noticed what they did. You're probably thinking, so what did they do wrong?

Remember those machine pistols they taped to the hostage's hands? They didn't unload those, as one particularly present-minded hostage discovered. A lucky burst, and our friend rat-boy was a pile of bloody fur. The police heard the gunshots, assumed a hostage had been killed, and ran in. The remaining two party members were unable to hold off the persistent patrolmen, and their story ended.

All but one of the hostages was killed in the firefight. The survivor? Mr. Trigger-Happy.

Brendan
2010-03-17, 10:35 AM
My first time playing, i tried to reason with and use diplomacy on a mindless undead BBEG. two rounds later, i was just a smear on the ground. Whats more, I knew it was the boss, and just didnt realize that reasoning with it was the equivalent of asking a guillotine not to cut a your head off. I died.

druid91
2010-03-17, 10:58 AM
Less of a PC mistake and more of a DM mistake but early on in the adventure some guy had faked his own death I had looted his corpse for the poison, now A couple of adventures later everyone had forgotten about the poison, so when we find out that someone has released a dire lion into the airships cargo deck, we were debating battle plans when I look at my inventory and notice hey I still have that poison its ingested to, so I point this out and go geta steak from the galley poison it and lower it down for the lion to munch on, so the Dm looks it up and it did ridiculous con damage, Dark reaver powder if I remember correctly. so we turned his really tough fight into a pretty easy one:smallbiggrin:. How is this a story of PC stupidity you ask? Because a little later he released Giant scorpions in the gambling room and we were all out of poison.:smallmad:

illyrus
2010-03-17, 12:31 PM
new World of Darkness game, session 5. We know that there are at least 10 people inside a warehouse with guns that don't like us. Three PCs are there. My PC sneaks inside during some confusion to just scout out the place. The following conversation happens.

PC2: Ok I can go around to the other side and PC3 can go in the back and we'll have them surrounded.
me spoken OOC: All 3 of us?
PC2: Yes

This is actually the plan the other two PCs tried. PC2 compounded the stupidity of the plan by thinking he was too good for cover. His 7 health and flak jacket proved to be inferior to 8 of the 12 gunmen that decided the guy out in the open was the target of choice.

Evard
2010-03-17, 12:40 PM
A monster had the cleric of the party in it's mouth... the two weapon fighter decided to attack the monster to make it give the cleric up... all of the fighter's rolls ended up nat 1's I laughed as my team mate sliced the healer up :D Sure no healer means bad for me too but it was still great that he rolled like 6 nat 1's

Mongoose87
2010-03-17, 12:44 PM
One of my party mates had used the Alter Form ability to change into a colossal dragon and bitten our opponent, who then jumped down his throat. o keep our enemy from slashing up his insides, I used Alter Reality to induce vomiting. Not only did the enemy manage to hold on inside, but I managed to get vomit everywhere, too.

Evard
2010-03-17, 12:48 PM
hahaha niiice

But it could have came out the other end so it wasn't soo bad

Toliudar
2010-03-17, 01:09 PM
The group was in a forest and climbed up a VERY tall tree in search of some harpies thought to be staying in an old elven tree-fort a hundred feet up. In an initial skirmish with the harpies, the very resilient tank got pushed off the top of the building, falling more than 150 feet. Damage was such that he was unconscious but not dead, and the other players thought it unwise to expose themselves to further attacks by climbing down after him (this was a non-flying kind of group).

After exploring the tree fort for a while, they got down to a storeroom the lower level, and the player found a hatch in the floor leading outside (in elven times, it was meant to receive supplies carried up the side of the tree). Looking down (and making an excellent spot roll!), he saw that the unconscious body was being nibbled on by several small scavengers. Enraged, the player was determined to scare them off. The group had just opened a few crates in the storeroom, and found one that was full of cheap silverware.

PC: I want to scare off the animals. Can a crate fit through the opening?
Me: Yes. It seems likely that the crates came in through that hatch.
PC: Great. I push the crate off and aim to hit the animals.
Me: The animals that are muching on Gorlag?
PC: Yeah!

I stare at him for a moment, while everyone else in the room facepalms. He nods. He rolls a to hit for the square with where the animals - and Gorlag are, and makes it quite handily. Silverware explodes everywhere, completely obliterating Gorlag and several small rodents.

Thus, the term "death by fork" entered the vocabulary of our group.

alisbin
2010-03-17, 01:43 PM
my rag tag band of pals was going after the local head of an undeath cult we're trying to eradicate and over the course of the setup sessions we came to the conclusion that she was a vampire (wore all black, a wide brimmed hat, refused to travel during the day, ran a mortuary, high up in an undeath cult, was traveling with 5 coffins in her coach. seemed reasonable). so, after pitting our mercenaries vs her guards in an awesome ambush, we set her coach on fire and started to break the roof open so she would die in the sun. well, she comes out, with a shadow version of stoneskin on her which (according to the warlocks really high spellcraft check) was protecting her from the sun, nifty. well we fight her for a round or 2 but the warrior can't get through her protection very well and she's also got fire shield on. so our cleric decides, "to hell with this, we're getting more hurt then her when we hit her" and casts cure moderate wounds, the cleric rolls a total of 19 damage and we cheer!
cue the dm holding his head in his hands for a moment before saying "well, she looks significantly healthier then before" followed by one of the PCs yelling "She's not undead!!!" apparently she was just a drow traveling with a bunch of ghouls...

of course this freed my psion up to blast her with a heavily augmented mind thrusts (which as vampire we thought she'd be immune to) so it all ended up well enough, but i suspect that "she's not undead" will be our way of reminding each other not to assume too much until the group breaks up. and, because of this our cleric has decided that vampires do not in fact exist...

Mauther
2010-03-17, 02:17 PM
2 quick ones. A fight had gone horribly south, and the sole party member standing was badly injured vs a juvenile red dragon. Desperate for help, he grabs 2 vials from a previous treasure that had never been identified and tried pouring both down his throat at the same time (apparently hoping for the old random effect generator for mixing potions from 1st or 2nd ed). Unfortunately, they were not a potion but acid, and the character collapsed in pain as the acid at his face and the wyrmling ate his legs.

Second incident was at least partially DM error as well. PC enters a room that is clearly trapped (there's a big brass line embedded in the floor at the door), drawing out the room quickly I (the DM) draw a square in the middle of the room (the map uses squares, it was easier and I wasn't thinking) and describing the room tell the player there's a circle ringed in arcane markings in the middle of the room while pointing to the square. The group laughs that I can't draw a circle. The PC tries to leave the room only to find that a force wall has popped up along the brass line at the entrance and a magic mouth begins reciting a warning to return to the circle and await the authorities or face deadly consequences. The message repeats 5 times before detonating a Wail of the Banshee, killing the character. When I asked him why did you stand there he said "I don't see a circle" I'll take half the blame, but come on.

Cyrion
2010-03-17, 03:06 PM
The party has just found a small crystaline ball, and one of the fighters looks into it. "There's an eye staring back at you." "I'm scared of it, so I smash it on the floor." Other fighter's player facepalms as the released demon congeals out of the resulting smoke...

Fighting a hydra in a small cavern, a player draws his black powder rifle and fires. Several failed saves. An entire party of deaf people yelling at each other can be strikingly funny...

Yukitsu
2010-03-17, 03:12 PM
In my group, it usually comes up at character introductions when one or more players wasn't paying attention to what everyone is playing, their alignments and etc.

"We have 3 wizards, a cleric and a bard, so if you have to make a caster, you're going to need to think of something clever when we do character intros."
*Later*
"Greetings. I was wondering if you adventurers needed a caster of spells."
*Defacto party leader takes stock of party* "No." *party facepalms.*

We recommended that he instead ask if he can come along, but he decided his character would wander off and delay the DM until the DM "rocks falled" him for not even trying to be a part of the party.

Same guy, next character, forgot alignments of the party (mostly good. I was CE, but got away with it because I'm not overtly CE, what with a character int of 26.) So his chaotic evil cleric got wacked by the party when he acted overt evil.

And in a blatant case of either not learning, or perhaps overlearning from his mistakes, built a barbarian, and followed the dumbest member of the party (who had an int of 4, but had regen due to wierd racial template) and jumped 400 feet off an airship to what should have been terrible death. DM let him live arbitrarily, because at least he was with the party, and not trying to play a caster, to which he doesn't know the rules. :smallsigh:

Greenish
2010-03-17, 03:14 PM
The party has just found a small crystaline ball, and one of the fighters looks into it. "There's an eye staring back at you." "I'm scared of it, so I smash it on the floor."Too much Lord of the Rings. (Seriously, if the Palantíri had been smashed right away, there'd been much less hassle.)

Cyrion
2010-03-17, 03:19 PM
Too much Lord of the Rings. (Seriously, if the Palantíri had been smashed right away, there'd been much less hassle.)

Quite possibly- but this was pre-LOTR (movie, not book; I'm not QUITE that old). More like, too much perverse randomness. Though this was the character who managed to roll well enough to seduce a barmaid with what was effectively a double-barreled fork.

Traveler
2010-03-17, 05:24 PM
Well, here is how this story went.
The bard (CN) in the party wanted to get married so he went to the jeweler to get a gem made into a ring. The gem was a dimond worth 10,000 gp or close to it. The jeweler just stares at it (DM hint) and says it can be done in a week. The bard agrees (missing the hint) and leaves the gem with the jeweler.
The bard came back the next day to check on the ring to find the jeweler had left town. So he asks the paladin to come and help track him down. They go and find him after a few hours, tie him up and the paladin gives the jeweler his rights. The bard started the threaten the jeweler with his weapons. The paladin, having arrested the jeweler LAWFULLY takes the bard's weapons away for the prisoner's safety.
Cue mistakes.:smallbiggrin:
On the way back the bard and the jeweler are about 10-15 feet behind the paladin. Well, the bard had hidden a dagger from the paladin's search so he gets one good stab in. But wait, the dagger he used does extra damage against helpless opponents, so what happens is that instead of a minor cut turns into a major slash killing the jeweler and making the bard a murderer 10-15 behind the paladin. :smalleek:
Thus the bard was arrested and sent to jail. But wait, there's more. While in jail, the bard is put in the cell next to a sorcerer bugbear that the party had arrested earlier. Within seconds the two are fighting via magic. One of the spells the bard used was summon fiendish viper. Whiel they are fighting the paladin is called back in to sort it out. The paladin arrives to the fight seeing that the bard had summoned an evil creature.
The fight was stopped, the party is still together, but the bard is under the paladin's custody and isn't given an inch of room to do anything without the paladin knowing.

herrhauptmann
2010-03-17, 05:56 PM
The party cleric had a tendency to not pay attention and make dumb mistakes (partly just because he didn't know the game too well).
The DM finished describing a monstrous scorpion by saying "It's stinger is the size of a labrador."
Cleric (not paying attention) hears the phrase "Size of a labrador" and assume the DM meant the scorpion. Now the cleric was not optimized (for combat or anything else. he was a gondsman btw), was only 7-8th level, and on his third fight of the day. Cleric was the closest to the monster when it came out of the ground (by about 40feet), and managed to roll highest initiative.
He charged, the gargantuan scorpion on his own.
Cleric then spent the rest of the fight bouncing between +10 and -9 hitpoints as the bard would heal him to positive HP, he'd then stand up and try to attack the scorpion again.

Kaulesh
2010-03-17, 06:19 PM
I joined a PBP game last week (which in itself could be a stupid PC mistake - a week in and we haven't had our first fight yet) that starts off in the Elemental Plane of Earth. I, the Dwarf ranger with a Cha of 6, am likely the face man of the party, seeing as I'm the only one that took Terran. Some slightly better news is that I may have gotten our party a xorn-snake follower, whatever that is, with a lucky wild empathy roll.

A year or so back, some guys at my previous university and I started a game. Some rules were lessened. We started at between 4-6th level. Paladins didn't have quite so strict requirements, so the paladin was just fine running around with a rogue, warlock, and someone else I can't recall. This is a desert campaign. In our first session, we go out into a box canyon and get ambushed by some two-legged raptor-type creature. I'll look through the MM in a bit and see if I can find the name. Anyway, that particular encounter ends with my warlock making the only kill, the second of the two creatures running away (it was getting late and the DM has a fickle girlfriend), and the rest of the party unconscious.
This just in: After skimming through MM I and II, I've decided that they were Felldrakes and we were probably fifth level. Should have been doable as they're either 3, 4, or 5 HD depending on type.

Crow
2010-03-17, 07:29 PM
In a D20 Modern game we were playing, we were making characters, and one of our friends who was not playing looked at the cover of the book and loudly proclaimed "What kind of idiot takes a sword to a gunfight!? What a dumbass."

So we all laugh, and about a half hour later, the guy in question decides that he wanted to play after all. So we help him get his character together. What does he choose to play?

A Fast Hero who's primary weapon is a three-section-staff.

He ends up getting wasted in the very first gunfight when he breaks cover to run up and get into melee with a guy. Then gets mad because "It is stupid that a single shot from a gun can kill you."

HunterOfJello
2010-03-17, 07:31 PM
PCs find a dagger on a table inside an underground that the cleric can feel radiating overpowering evil energies. The sorcerer and cleric start feeling a compulsion to hold the dagger. The Monk gets some good rolls with spot and sense motive and grabs the dagger to keep it away from the 2 spellcasters.

Then the Monk decides that the best course of action would be for him to place the dagger tainted with overpowering evil on the temple's altar that is also radiating overpowering evil.

As DM, I had to walk outside and take a minute to think of what the appropriate consequences there would be for doing this.


Later on, once the Monk became possessed by an evil demon/old god the player admitted that putting power evil objects close to one another in a secret temple dedicated to an evil god probably wasn't the greatest idea.

Curmudgeon
2010-03-17, 07:46 PM
D&D game. I was playing (as usual) a Rogue. There was an opening to a dungeon that was directly over a pool of inky black water. I lowered myself down on a rope, swung to the side, and dropped to the floor away from the pool, then went scouting ahead. My friend played a Druid with a Cheetah animal companion. She had the bright idea to put her Cheetah in a net and lower her down with the rope. Of course she had no Use Rope skill, and instead of off to the side, dropped the Cheetah directly into the pool -- where it started to get eaten, while still firmly entangled in the net. Then the two guys with bows decided to fire into the pool, with zero visibility. I'd maxed out my Spot but had sucky Listen, so I failed to hear the commotion the first round. Anyway, by the time I got back the Cheetah was dead, the thing in the pool was still alive, and the whole party was milling around above because they'd lost both ropes to the strong, hungry thing in the pool.

And that was just the dungeon entrance.

illyrus
2010-03-17, 11:03 PM
The party gets some help from a priestess of an unknown god as a secondary healer because they're both after the same thing. They witness the priestess cast a cure spell. The PCs convinced themselves that the priestess couldn't be evil despite all evidence to the contrary because evil clerics couldn't spontaneously cast cure spells and no self-respecting cleric would ever memorize a cure spell. As a DM I had to struggle to keep a straight face on that one. What was supposed to be an easily foiled double-cross turned into an easy win for that faction of bad guys.

SethFahad
2010-03-18, 01:59 AM
(Seriously, if the Palantíri had been smashed right away, there'd been much less hassle.)

Unlikely. The palantiti were made of an unbreakable glass or crystal substance. It was believed that they could only be destroyed by intense heat. One can say that palantiri had RingOfPower-like endurance...

Octopus Jack
2010-03-18, 02:48 AM
I'll just talk about the PC mistakes from the campaign im DMing:
Halfling cleric attempting to cross a fast flowing river with no ranks in swim, in scale mail.
The barbarien slaughtering the humans we were meant to rescue.
After the sorceror truestriked the rogue in a fight against demons, the rogue then charged in with his rapier not his SILVER mace...
Also running into an owlbear fight with no preperation

TheMadLinguist
2010-03-18, 04:39 AM
Unlikely. The palantiti were made of an unbreakable glass or crystal substance. It was believed that they could only be destroyed by intense heat. One can say that palantiri had RingOfPower-like endurance...

Plus, Aragorn totally managed to psyche out Sauron by using it.

It was pretty sweet.

Lin Bayaseda
2010-03-18, 09:13 AM
Three PCs and one summoned monster burst into a chamber with about a dozen Orcs. They win initiative; the rogue sneak-attacks one Orc to death, the summoned monster gores another Orc to death, the Paladin charges and smites another Orc, yes, you guessed it, to death. As the last remaining PC, a Cleric, is contemplating her choice of spell (Greater Command or summon another monster?), the Paladin calls to her: "Don't waste any spells, we're winning anyway."

Famous last words.

The Cleric limits herself to a crossbow shot, missing of course. One of the remaining Orcs was, how shall I say it, a bit higher level than the PCs expected. The Paladin went from seventy-something hit points to negatives in one round.

Soonerdj
2010-03-18, 09:25 AM
Hehehe.

I had one player who had his heart absolutely set on using the Necrotic Cyst Spells from Libris Mortis. Now looking at them they don't appear to be too bad, You target someones Fort Save then lower all their saves and open them up to a number of Suck or Suck more spells with decent range.

Now the killer thing about this is the fact that the spell you have to use on them is Range: Touch with Verbal and Somatic components. So this Cleric player is really excited to use them and once they find another (enemy) cleric he walks up to him and attempts to hit him with it.

Mistake 1: Clerics have good Fort saves.
Mistake 2: Melee range with a spell that has saves and doesn't do anything for a round is a terrible idea.
Mistake 3: Waiting around in melee after he missed with his spell.
Mistake 4: Not realizing that it was a Cleric who could not only SC the spell but knew that it was a hostile one.

The cleric, seeing this attack, reaches over and casts Slay Living. The cleric fails his save and dies right then and there. Luckily, the rogue was within 10 ft. and takes his AoO. Not that the cleric couldn't of defensively cast, I just forgot (sorta). Anyways that is also the story of the first PC I killed.

Sliver
2010-03-18, 09:42 AM
Luckily, the rogue was within 10 ft. and takes his AoO. Not that the cleric couldn't of defensively cast, I just forgot (sorta). Anyways that is also the story of the first PC I killed.

Well, if he made his concentration check to cast that slay living after the AoO then that rogue couldn't have done significant damage, right? :smallwink:


One of the remaining Orcs was, how shall I say it, a bit higher level than the PCs expected. The Paladin went from seventy-something hit points to negatives in one round.

Unless it was made obvious that that orc was far stronger then the others (by equipment, stance, anything) then I fail to see how it is a stupid mistake. It is fairly common to reserve resources when you believe you are winning it, and when you kill a good portion of the opponents with ease in a single easy turn..

It's like as if I would post about my players targeting a rogue instead of a wizard, allowing the wizard to cast a spell and one shot the PC. Sure, they switched clothes, but it was a mistake..

Everyman
2010-03-18, 10:07 AM
I have a player who likes to do actions that "technically" work, but shouldn't make sense from a role-playing standpoint. For example, jumping off a 40 foot roof when he was a fighter with no ranks in Jump but with 39 hit points. He would have to sustain full damage to risk dying (and there were other party members around). What he forgot is that he had a curse on him, so he could no longer fly (long story). The effects caused him treat all falls as twice as far as they usually are. Further, he couldn't treat any fall as an intentional jump.

He took 49 points of damage. Exactly enough to kill him.

Glass Mouse
2010-03-18, 11:21 AM
I remember when my players had captured (read; "beated into unconsciousness") the evil wizard whose dungeon they had trawled for the last two sessions. They head back, reach their camp, and decide to rest.
Since the only tactically minded player was moping at the time, they didn't think of tying up the wizard. I actually decided to cut them some slack, and asked; "So, you aren't tying him up? Okay. You taking guard rotation? No? Um... okay." I mean, come on.
I really should have let the wizard cut their throats when he woke up. Sigh. I'm too nice (and the wizard had a Teleport prepared, anyway, and over-twenty int, so I guess running away was the most logical turn of events. At least he got to haunt them until I stopped as GM :smallamused:)

Oh yeah, and then there was the time we (I was a player) decided to explore a mysterious well on a dungeon crawl. I have no idea why we were so deadset on that well - there was nothing but a monster down there, and it was kicking our behinds. Still, we kept trying to get down there and kill it. Oh yeah, and none of us had Use Rope worth a cp.
In the end, we did kill the monster. We also lost a party member - an unconscious paladin whom we tried to hoist up from there. Did I mention the no ranks in Use Rope? Yeah. The paladin died from falling. Twice.
Poor paladin.


Edit: Forgot this...

Second incident was at least partially DM error as well. PC enters a room that is clearly trapped (there's a big brass line embedded in the floor at the door), drawing out the room quickly I (the DM) draw a square in the middle of the room (the map uses squares, it was easier and I wasn't thinking) and describing the room tell the player there's a circle ringed in arcane markings in the middle of the room while pointing to the square. The group laughs that I can't draw a circle. The PC tries to leave the room only to find that a force wall has popped up along the brass line at the entrance and a magic mouth begins reciting a warning to return to the circle and await the authorities or face deadly consequences. The message repeats 5 times before detonating a Wail of the Banshee, killing the character. When I asked him why did you stand there he said "I don't see a circle" I'll take half the blame, but come on.

That's not stupidity, neither from you nor the player. That's plain obnoxiousness.
"Come on", indeed. :smallsigh:

Thorcrest
2010-03-18, 11:24 AM
A friend and I once snuck into a bandit fort with the intention of killing the commander so that the rest of the party could mop up the disorganised bandits. Don't ask why that was decided, I was also the DM so I refrained from making all choices and just played along as they REALLY needed the help. Anyways, as I was saying, my friend was playing a custom class that was basically a weak fighter with a few weak spells, It was a no magic campaign, so having any magic was a big deal. He did have the nice ability to fight using his sword telekintically though. So anyways, we break into the main building after killing a few guards, and then kill another guard when this massive man in heavy armour comes running down the stairs to fight us. We duck into a side room that had a table, and I thought, OK, you just go to the other side of the room and use your telekentic abilities while I flank and then we'll kill him. So what does he do? He picks up a chair and positions himself at the door... did I mention he had an AC of about 14? Suffices to say he ended up with his brains and teeth splattered about the room and I had to fight the guy on my own! I killed him though, I had another player check the rolls so they wouldn't go AARGHH A DMPC! and that is probably the stupidest thing I have seen done.

Second was fighting in a dungeon against several trolls, my monk and a druid, I use terrain to my advantage so only one can get to me and has a tone of negatives to hit, as well as having my fire damage bonus. I am handling it, when the druid comes in to "save" me. He runs into the middle of the room, having already used most of his spells, and being at half health, and tries to fight them, well it doesn't go well, and he tries to escape. Luckily for him he manages, but he runs towards the wrong door, going further into the dungeon into some lurking tentacle monster in a small pond in the next room, since then, "Tentacle Rape" has been a common phrase during our games.

Savannah
2010-03-18, 12:06 PM
This didn't kill any PCs, but it's still stupid.

We were in a dragon-themed dungeon and we kept finding these interesting potions left over from the builders. Then we found two clay bottles, stoppered with dragon heads. Stupidly, we assumed they were potion bottles without noticing that they were "bottles" not "vials", and did our standard potion-identifying procedure (open the bottle, look at the contents, sniff the contents, person with best saves takes a sip).

They were, in fact, bottles of alchemists' fire. Which ignites on contact with air. And we had removed the stopper.

What do you do when the bottle in your hand starts shooting out flames? You drop it, of course. Naturally it falls into your 5' square. *Sigh* I think the DM has come to hate the words "So the vial is a potion vial, right?"

Lin Bayaseda
2010-03-18, 01:26 PM
Oooh, forgot another one, which is probably much worse:

PCs come to a destroyed underground temple. The floor by the altar is broken, and some dark murky water accumulated in the resulting pit, hard to determine how deep. They hear a booming voice coming from an unknown source telling them to cleanse themselves in the pool (it wasn't any kind of compulsion, just illusion).

After delibrating among themselves, they decide to enter the pool "because they're nothing else to do". I kid you not. That's the reasoning they gave. But wait! It gets better! As they're taking off their armor and stuff, the Cleric has a realization.

"Wait! I cast Detect Poison on the pool!"
DM (me): The pool seems to be poisoned.

After a few more minutes of deliberation, they decide to enter the pool anyway. Because there's nothing else to do (there were two dungeon branches left uninvestigated, by the way. The map was on the table in front of them all that time).

They enter the pool. All the PCs but one fail their saves and lose enough STR to start drowning. The one PC that made it casts Summon Monster IV, and with the creature's help, starts pulling his unconscious comrades out of the pool. Since I'm a kindhearted DM, I conveniently "forgot" the summoned creature also needs to make a save vs. Poison. That was the closest I've ever come to a TPK.

Redpieper
2010-03-18, 01:41 PM
I have a player who likes to do actions that "technically" work, but shouldn't make sense from a role-playing standpoint. For example, jumping off a 40 foot roof when he was a fighter with no ranks in Jump but with 39 hit points. He would have to sustain full damage to risk dying (and there were other party members around). What he forgot is that he had a curse on him, so he could no longer fly (long story). The effects caused him treat all falls as twice as far as they usually are. Further, he couldn't treat any fall as an intentional jump.

He took 49 points of damage. Exactly enough to kill him.

How'd he take 49 points of damage? 40 foot fall times two would make 8d6 damage so a maximum of 48 damage.

juggalotis
2010-03-18, 02:27 PM
How'd he take 49 points of damage? 40 foot fall times two would make 8d6 damage so a maximum of 48 damage.

He could be playing 4th edition in which every 10 feet of fall damage is a d10. would have came out to be 8d10. unfortunatly he wouldnt die at -10 in 4e. so this is truly a conundrum.

Choco
2010-03-18, 02:46 PM
He could be playing 4th edition in which every 10 feet of fall damage is a d10. would have came out to be 8d10. unfortunatly he wouldnt die at -10 in 4e. so this is truly a conundrum.

Maybe the ground scored a critical hit?

Seriously though, he probably got the numbers mixed up while posting. Some of these stories are old, it happens :smallsmile:

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-18, 03:02 PM
3rd level gnome starts a fight with a 16th level fighter by breaking a chair over his head.
Nuff said

jiriku
2010-03-18, 04:03 PM
A few years ago, one player in a group I was part of was playing a hound archon character, and tried to escape a hellwasp swarm by teleporting.

1500 feet into the air.

Now I should mention four things of signifigance. First, the character in question had no means of flight. Second, the campaign setting obeyed the law of conservation of momentum, so a teleporting character retained his velocity. Third, the DM required Concentration checks to cast spells or activate spell-like abilities while falling through the air at tremendous speed.

And fourth? This character had only a handful of ranks in the Concentration skill.

He failed his first couple of Concentration checks, and by then his airspeed was such that teleporting to the ground would simply have pancaked him. He managed to teleport a few more miles up to give himself some time to think, but basically, the guy had royally pooched himself. Eventually he came up with the idea of teleporting underwater and using the lift from his boots of water walking to negate most of his velocity and his damage reduction and the cushioning effect of the water to soak the rest of the impact...the DM was kind and allowed it to work.

But years later, we still laugh about it.

AngelisBlack
2010-03-18, 04:19 PM
3 of my players signed a contract with an imp, without reading it. I don't think much more needs to be said.

Greenish
2010-03-18, 04:42 PM
Unlikely. The palantiti were made of an unbreakable glass or crystal substance. It was believed that they could only be destroyed by intense heat. One can say that palantiri had RingOfPower-like endurance...Oh yeah, stupid indestructible first age artifacts…

Well, they should've been tossed to the sea, it's not like they had a ring-like lust to be found and used.

Just psyching up Sauron was not worth Saruman and Denethor, both of whom were quite cool guys before they got stoned.


3 of my players signed a contract with an imp, without reading it. I don't think much more needs to be said.That takes the cake, even with the lake of poison.

Nidogg
2010-03-18, 04:44 PM
I'll just talk about the PC mistakes from the campaign im DMing:
Halfling cleric attempting to cross a fast flowing river with no ranks in swim, in scale mail.
The barbarien slaughtering the humans we were meant to rescue.
After the sorceror truestriked the rogue in a fight against demons, the rogue then charged in with his rapier not his SILVER mace...
Also running into an owlbear fight with no preperation

Lets not forget a Barbarian bull rushing through Illusionary zombies (where there had been invisible floors before) then falling through a hole in the floor. (despite multiple 'flex saves, will saves and a Spot).

Gamgee
2010-03-18, 04:58 PM
Party is in Hyperspace, and it is fairly routine. I mean we are just going from planet a to b with nothing happening.

Player Idiot: I override the lock down on the ship, and open the cargo bay.
Me(GM): Are you sure? You are in Hyper-
Player Idiot: Yes!!! YES!!! DO IT!!! (maniacal laughter.)
Others players who think this is a joke and are stunned: That would be funny.

*rolls some dice*
Me: Yea, you guys ship explodes and emergency compartments seal. You go off course and fly through a gas giant while in hyperspace, and more importantly hyperdrive is blown to pieces and backup hyperdrive is heavily damaged and currrently inopperable.

Your damaged and helpless ship comes out of hyperspace in a planets gravity well and plummets to the surface of the planet. A quick scan of the planet shows no advanced civilization.

Eventually we kicked that guy out for doing stupid **** like this. Well, I kicked him out being the GM providing everything. I can't believe they wanted to give him another chance after he "just stood there in the middle of combat turning his only weapon into a grenade and back again before declaring himself tired and leaving!(leaving the whole session, not just the table)" They wanted to give him another chance... I didn't. Obvious though.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-03-18, 05:20 PM
This one goes back to 2nd edition,
The party, two fighters and a rogue are staring down a deep black pit.

The rogue tosses a rock down the hole, seconds later we hear a splash,
the first fighter jumps off the edge he doesn't have proficiency in swimming which means he can't.

My character having the swimming proficiency is capable so he jumps in after him. My mistake was there not being a way back up. So the rogue actually thinking ties a rope and lowers it.

Now here's one from yesterday, the party is moving through some adventure module involving an crashed alien ship, in one room we find this huge white dragon (which was about five or six CR's above us) the door locked behind us.

Now he had suspicions it may be some time of illusion[turned out a hologram] it was my characters fault we got locked in there.
"Its a good thing were all about to die, because you guys will never let me live this down"—Me
"Your right we wouldn't"—The sorcereress

It had appeared to have maybe killed one PC or at least knocked him out, and not wanting the party to be captured, and still not having hard evidence it wasn't real. (as the damage felt real)

I took one of the alien weapons a plasma grenade that dealt 1d6+7 fire damage in a 10ft radius, threw it in the bag with 11 other grenades, I then ran towards the dragon planning heroic self sacrifice, the dragon's AoO missed me so I actually managed to drop the bag under him and keep going.
BOOM 12d6+72 fire damage times 1.5 due to fire vulnerability.

Though that action may have pushed my gnome from lawful neutral a few steps towards good.

In the end it was a hologram and when the program ended our damage vanished, the computer asked if it would like us to restart the program and all the PC's shouted "NO!" in unison.

It wasn't as suicidal as you may think, due to the fact this DM has a history of going way overboard on what we can actually handle. So instead of raise dead or other such spells your character has 3 strikes. Which basically means fate makes you survive 3 times after that your dead for good.

Desmond Tiny
2010-03-18, 05:49 PM
This is 3.5.

I was DMing for a group of new players but i thought they had common sense. keep in mind this is a level 3 party. They were freeing mind flayer slaves when they get mind blasted by a ulitharid. they all fail will saves. Not so bad right. Then one player starts insulting the ulitharid about its intelligence and consequently got dominated. Note that the only optimised player playing a wizard got dominated. Then another player says that if the ulitharid lets them go they will bring 100 people each to it as food. The ulitharid agrees and uses suggestion to make them keep their deal. They all fail will saves. They Go to the nearest city and convince the town that there is a sight rich in gold in the forest near a cave. The people who want money all go. They all get captured by mind flayers and taken as prisoners. The party ended up wiping out 10,000 people due to being near a booming metropolis and a lot of people being poor. Also the wizard made sure that many many people knew how much gold there was to be found. They became very infamous after that.:smalleek:

Volkov
2010-03-18, 06:12 PM
Charging an entire legion of level 10+ fighters, all 6,000 of them.....with a level 7 Conjurer who ran out of spells three in-game hours ago.

Of course that was many years ago.

ashmanonar
2010-03-18, 07:01 PM
Unlikely. The palantiti were made of an unbreakable glass or crystal substance. It was believed that they could only be destroyed by intense heat. One can say that palantiri had RingOfPower-like endurance...

If my memory holds, they were created by Feanor himself.

Greenish
2010-03-18, 07:13 PM
If my memory holds, they were created by Feanor himself.Some might've been, but not all of them, I should think, since there were quite a few of them, if my memory serves.

Smeggedoff
2010-03-18, 07:16 PM
3 of my players signed a contract with an imp, without reading it. I don't think much more needs to be said.

In an OWOD game I'm in we managed a doozy similar to this.

Our characters work for a secret agency dedicated to preserving time and have been told to go to america to find an artifact (a chainsaw for travelling through time).
As a punishment for relying on Agency resources too much we've been told we need to make our own travel arrangements.

At this point we realise the majority of the party doesn't have a passport, though even if we did only one of us had the ability to transport weapons secretly (apart form me as I was playing a modified Promethean with a machine gun arm).

It never even occurred to us to buy guns when we got there, despite the fact that we had a Giovanni with various underworld connections.

So we look for magical means to get to America, and get tipped off to a mage operating out of a dingy little corner pub.

We make an appointment and go to the pub to wait and the mage turns up around midnight, we manage to convey what we want and he suggests that we step outside to make the arrangements. We do.
He agrees to send us to America, we shake hands to finalise the deal.

We pause, look up at the unusually bright moon and twig that he never actually asked us for anything.

We just made an unspecified deal, with an unidentified party, on a crossroads, at midnight, under the full moon.

He then zaps us to America right there and then. Our Vampire dives into a nearby dustbin since the time difference means it's sunny there.

we all facepalm because at the time the sum total of our weapons were two that were attatched to my character, a magic sword and a beretta 9mm.

Our DM wets himself laughing.

ArcanistSupreme
2010-03-18, 07:23 PM
Two level one PCs decided to assault the Goblin fort without waiting for the other two PCs to get across the river. One fell in a pit trap while the other one got slaughtered, and he managed to finally climb out (no ranks in climb with check penalty) just in time to get chopped to bits. As the DM, I had even asked them if they were sure they didn't want to wait for their friends. [/facepalm]

Lapak
2010-03-18, 07:55 PM
3 of my players signed a contract with an imp, without reading it. I don't think much more needs to be said.I agree with Greenish; that wins the 'Stupid' award. Some of the other entries failed to think things through or made bad judgment calls or were just trigger-happy players, but this...

AngelisBlack
2010-03-19, 12:09 AM
I agree with Greenish; that wins the 'Stupid' award. Some of the other entries failed to think things through or made bad judgment calls or were just trigger-happy players, but this...

On the bright side, it was my best bit of acting. But yes, some of my players are sometimes too dumb to live. To top it off, part of the contract, that the imp succesfully negotiated for, said that they wern't supposed to mention the existence of the imp to the party paladin [at another dungeon, in story]. Guess what my ranger player does next session... Was I too soft by just having an inevitable beat him to -9 and stable with a lead lined scroll tube [with the contract inside it, of course]?