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Half-orc Bard
2010-08-15, 11:43 PM
this is a place to post all of your funny noob moments. For example when I started playing dnd I thought chain lightning sucked because I thought it did 1d6 damage to the first target and half that role to the others.:smallredface:

Valifor
2010-08-16, 12:02 AM
i have one, though it's more of a stupid moment than a noob moment, as this is in my most recent campaign ive played in out of around a dozen (and my sixth cleric incidentally, nobody ever seems to want to heal).

so the story is that we went into this dungeon and came up to a stone dragon statue with it's mouth open, with the next hallway down it. the statue asks us some riddle to answer, and i answer it quickly, thinking i was right, and walk into the dragon's mouth. turns out it was wrong, the statue slams down its mouth, killing me instantly. i rightfully had gotten knocked down a peg or two:smallredface:

KenderWizard
2010-08-16, 12:11 AM
I think if you're talking about real-life (well, real-roleplaying) stories, you should have this thread in the Roleplaying Games section, rather than the Order of the Stick section, because you're not talking about the comic specifically? I understand you can get your thread moved by reporting your own post and asking the mods to move it to a more appropriate section. Sorry to have interrupted, it's a fun topic! :smallsmile:

GSFB
2010-08-16, 12:12 AM
when we started 3.0, we didn't understand multiclassing and XP and were still stuck in AD&D mentality where you tracked XP separate for each class. this led to power munchkining where martial characters would get a bunch of XP and then multiclass into fighter/ranger/barbarian with as many prc as possible, because we could raise total levels much faster. then like halfway through the campaign when all the warriors were twice as powerful as spell casters, I had a light bulb moment and explained it to everyone else.

DemLep
2010-08-16, 04:01 AM
When I was first learning D&D(3.5) I had a Gnome... Fighter I think, anyways he was a TWF and used daggers. Because I didn't fully understand at the time what modified what I as adding str modifier (might have been something else too) to my attack and damage. My character was out doing like every one else, just running around and stabbing them with his toothpicks. Finally one of my friends started paying attention to what I was doing and corrected me.

BridgeCity
2010-08-16, 04:01 AM
My first campaign was also my regular DM's first campaign. I played a dwarf warrior, and so of course I had power attack and cleave and all that. We totally misread the rules for supreme cleave, and somehow ended up believing that you could take a 5 foot step between each and every cleave attack made. It dawned on us that we possibly had this wrong when my dwarf was able to, in one attack, march down a 60ft corridor filled with kobolds, killing each and every single one, and still have attacks left over when he was done.

super dark33
2010-08-16, 08:19 AM
the first time i played i was a monk (cuz the class feuters looks alot and powerfull, but no)

Choco
2010-08-16, 08:39 AM
My first campaign was also my regular DM's first campaign. I played a dwarf warrior, and so of course I had power attack and cleave and all that. We totally misread the rules for supreme cleave, and somehow ended up believing that you could take a 5 foot step between each and every cleave attack made. It dawned on us that we possibly had this wrong when my dwarf was able to, in one attack, march down a 60ft corridor filled with kobolds, killing each and every single one, and still have attacks left over when he was done.

I think that's how it is supposed to work, and when combined with Great Cleave you should be able to do that. It is not OP at all because the odds of you fighting a massive army of low level things you can kill in 1 hit are not that great, and odds are you will only kill about 19 of them on average from cleave per 5 points of BAB. This is actually weak compared to a caster using a widened fireball on an army of mooks, though it is a lot cooler IMO.

But back on topic, I once thought it was a good idea to try to have a pleasant chat with the Lovecraftian horror to see if there was a peaceful solution our issue. I even went up to it solo so it would not feel threatened....

kaptainkrutch
2010-08-16, 09:07 AM
I once created a minotaur barbarian with Leap Attack. (doubles your extra damage from power attack if you charge and jump before attacking) I didn't factor in his racial hit die to his ECL, I added the rage Con mod to his health twice, and I QUADRUPLED his total damage from using Leap Attack and Charge together.

He was badass. :smallcool:

Valifor
2010-08-16, 12:30 PM
My first campaign was also my regular DM's first campaign. I played a dwarf warrior, and so of course I had power attack and cleave and all that. We totally misread the rules for supreme cleave, and somehow ended up believing that you could take a 5 foot step between each and every cleave attack made. It dawned on us that we possibly had this wrong when my dwarf was able to, in one attack, march down a 60ft corridor filled with kobolds, killing each and every single one, and still have attacks left over when he was done.

my friends who plays an exotic weapon master had to be convinced that that's not how great cleave works. i think the next highest up cleave feat works that way, but not great cleave, and he REFUSED to believe us when we told him that.

Another_Poet
2010-08-16, 01:26 PM
A noob GM moment:

"Just because there is literally a monorail that takes you directly to the boss monster does not mean you're being railroaded."

:smallsmile:

GoatBoy
2010-08-16, 01:31 PM
As a new DM, I thought Mage Armor was a deflection bonus and let the party Wizard cast it on the tank every day.

"That sure is powerful for a level 1 spell"

Yukitsu
2010-08-16, 01:36 PM
My first character ever was a warlock fluffed up to be a transforming magical school girl. Unfortunately, it was a blast to RP, and worked really well mechanically, so I rather unfortunately never stopped playing stuff like that.

Claudius Maximus
2010-08-16, 02:53 PM
For some reason I thought Simulacrum took a standard action to cast, and didn't have material components. I also thought it copied any existing spell effects on the subject. This was 3.0, and my wizard had Haste on...

Snake-Aes
2010-08-16, 03:02 PM
Scene: Our chariot is being attacked by harpies
Round 1) I cast Expansion. the guy we are escorting is snatched
Round 2) I behead the harpy that snatched him and said "hide!"
Round 3) Guy hides under the chariot. I jump over the chariot to reach some of the fliers. Unaware that I was weighing 64x more than usual...

The Rabbler
2010-08-16, 03:11 PM
I used to think that all enhancements on magic bows stacked with the bonus on arrows. Then I found the Arcane Archer. I ran around a campaign manyshotting everything in sight for 1d8 + 30-ish.

Also, (this one isn't mine, but it's worth of mention) up until two months ago, my group thought that you were limited to one sneak attack per round. Their reasoning was that with a full attack, the rogue would out-damage an epic level wizard's fireball.

And finally, when ToB came out, my group declared the whole book overpowered because of the crusader's Immortal Fortitude stance.

AtopTheMountain
2010-08-16, 03:13 PM
When one of my friends was DMing (and playing the game at all) for the first time, he misread the stat block for an orc. This resulted in my character (First level, mind you) getting a magic +7 Falchion for loot.

Ksheep
2010-08-16, 03:24 PM
So, second campaign I played in, still kinda new at everything, I was playing a Spirit Shaman. We were on the edge of the woods, being attacked by a group of archers and a spellcaster. Most of my party was still hiding in the trees, using ranged attacks on the attackers. I had the great idea of becoming incorporeal and sneaking around them so that they'd be in range, not knowing that they could still see me. They all opened fire with their magic bows, hitting me, so I dived back into the tree that I was in…*only to have their spellcaster use Dispel Magic on the area, making me corporeal again… and stuck inside a tree.

EagleWiz
2010-08-16, 06:37 PM
I thought empower spell increased all values by 150% and ran around scorching raying things for a lot of damage.

Lysander
2010-08-16, 06:49 PM
The first time I played I didn't know that humans got a free feat. And the other players overlooked it so I played without it.

Cheesy74
2010-08-16, 06:51 PM
"Alright, guys, add 4 to your ACs, I'm casting mass mage armor."
"Uh, we all have an armor AC over 4. They don't stack."
"I thought it just didn't stack with magical bonuses."
"Nope. Any armor at all."
"...****, that was my factotum's only buff spell."

It's fun when I play a powerful class like an imbecile.

Nihb
2010-08-16, 07:08 PM
When we started playing 3.5, we could invest in class-skill by spending one skill point per rank. Even if your new class didn't have it on its class-skills list. We used that one for over two years. When I re-read the rule, we decided not to change our current characters, but from now on, all our characters would be "legit".

Trodon
2010-08-16, 07:32 PM
For the longest time (1 1/2 or 2 years) I didn't know how many spells wizards get... :redface:

ExtravagantEvil
2010-08-16, 10:06 PM
Ok, 1st Campaign I had ever taken part in, and it was mildly Monte Haul, in that I bought a Scroll of Wail of the Banshee, and I thought that "Hey 19 intelligence, wizards can cast spells of levels per intelligence, so I get to cast Wail of the Banshee." I think my thought process was "Forget spell slots, I can cast the spell thanks to my intelligence". Dare I say looking back I still wave my head in shame at that horrid thought process.

Douglas
2010-08-16, 10:29 PM
I used to think that all enhancements on magic bows stacked with the bonus on arrows. Then I found the Arcane Archer. I ran around a campaign manyshotting everything in sight for 1d8 + 30-ish.
That's actually how it did work back in 3.0.

Urpriest
2010-08-16, 11:06 PM
As a noob DM:

Players: We attack Jonas! (Jonas being their contact in the Dragonslayers organization, run by the city government)

Me: Boccob appears and casts a wall of force, preventing your attacks. He then wipes the memory of everyone and disappears.

mobdrazhar
2010-08-16, 11:09 PM
on my soulknife (yes i know... noob mistake #1) in a planscape game i thought Weapon finesse let me use dex for damage as well as to hit

devinkowalczyk
2010-08-16, 11:24 PM
First character was an elf cleric in the heaviest armor i could wear with a mace. woo nill for everything.

noob as a dm: attacking my npc healer (the only one in the party) and killing him in the first game

Jivundus
2010-08-17, 02:27 AM
Forgetting to add weight to jumping, allowing my half-orc to jump a 10 foot gap across the rooftops carrying the semi-conscious body of the other player. Made for a pretty awesome moment though

Ormur
2010-08-17, 02:53 AM
In our first campaign we thought metamagic feats only applied to a single spell but that they had no spell level increases. Our default tactic for six or seven levels was for me to quicken enlarge the cleric and cast another spell in the first round. It worked out just fine but when we discovered the truth I just retrained it and now still later the character is of a high enough level to use quicken spell properly.

Amphetryon
2010-08-17, 06:10 AM
When we were first learning 3.0 - when it first came out - my group thought you needed to take a Metamagic Feat separately for every spell you wanted to apply it to. So, the Wizard's Feats looked like: Level 1: Scribe Scroll, Extend Spell (Prestidigitation); Level 3: Extend Spell (Mage Armor); Level 5: Empower Spell (Fireball); Level 6: Extend Spell (Fox's Cunning).... etc. :smallsigh:

hamishspence
2010-08-17, 06:18 AM
Until Complete Divine came out, the Corrupt Spell and Violate spell feats were like that.

Complete Divine fixed Corrupt Spell, and Fiendish Codex 2 appeared to fix Violate Spell- making it one feat that could be used to Violate any spell the caster wanted to prepare.

Amphetryon
2010-08-17, 06:22 AM
Until Complete Divine came out, the Corrupt Spell and Violate spell feats were like that.

Complete Divine fixed Corrupt Spell, and Fiendish Codex 2 appeared to fix Violate Spell- making it one feat that could be used to Violate any spell the caster wanted to prepare.I'll tell you one thing: it made magic slightly easier for the DM because after that 1st character died, nobody wanted Metamagic until we discovered our error.

Calmar
2010-08-17, 07:53 AM
When we were first learning 3.0 - when it first came out - my group thought you needed to take a Metamagic Feat separately for every spell you wanted to apply it to. So, the Wizard's Feats looked like: Level 1: Scribe Scroll, Extend Spell (Prestidigitation); Level 3: Extend Spell (Mage Armor); Level 5: Empower Spell (Fireball); Level 6: Extend Spell (Fox's Cunning).... etc. :smallsigh:

This is actually quite interesting...

PallElendro
2010-08-18, 12:32 AM
Mine? I kept marking all the lower level creatures with Divine Challenge before moving onto something like the Fire Opal Guardian, or the Ochre Jelly.

darkpuppy
2010-08-18, 12:53 AM
Funniest noob moments for me were my true-noob character Nayell Darhan... the Force *Inept*, who managed to waste all his force points for that period telling Imperial Stormtroopers "These aren't the droids you're looking for" and rolling crit fails... when they weren't the droids they were looking for, and I got punished for metagaming...

and the facepalm moment, where my character cried in front of police officers... in Vampire: The Requiem... the problem being he had been embraced more than 50 years ago (and thus, could only push blood through tear-ducts)... finally making the truly noob mistake of drawing attention to myself by running away...

jseah
2010-08-18, 01:17 AM
I remember my first campaign (I was noob GM for noob players).

We didn't look at the monk too carefully, and turned out it was doing too much damage. Apparently, we thought that every time the unarmed damage increased, this was an addition to the previous unarmed damage instead of replacing it.
1d4+1d6+1d8+1d10+2d6...
Was quite interesting to see that it made the monk at least useful at DPS.