The Worst Thing Thats Happened To Your PC's?

[Gorfang113]

So, what are some of the absolute worst things that have happened to your PC's? Some just horrible, and others horribly funny. Wether you caused them, it was unexpected or they brought it on themselves, what were they? Mine has to be the time I had a brass dragon follow them across an entire desert. And it did not stop talking for one round the entire session. At the end the tried tried to kill him as he was driving them insane. 1 minute and a breath weapon later they were buried in sand to their necks and the dragon continued the conversation untill a merchant caravan finally saved them (after about another 10 minutes of roleplay).

[Icestorm245]

That's hilarious dude. The worst thing that happened to a PC when I was DMing, the party was fighting two ogres and a drider. The PCs were busy with the ogres, so I made the drider cast web on the ranger who was trying to pelt it with arrows. The ranger had already taken some damage from a previous fight, and the cleric said "Dude, you don't need a heal right now. You got tons of HP left." Well, the ranger was stuck in the web, I had the drider turn invisible on the PCs, snuck around to the ranger, and point blank casted lightning bolt in his face. Max damage, no save due to being stuck in a web. He dropped to -9 hp, luckily for him the cleric was right there to save him on his next turn.

[Talonblaze]

LMAO. Thats funny as hell. Dragon troll ftw.

Me and other Players have gone through quite a number of bad things, mostly due to our inexperience from when we were beginning.

Our party was going through a temple of Olidammara. We were fairly confident in succeeding in our task along here given to us by a man in the village for us to find this special dagger.

We managed to avoid getting killed by all sorts of traps (although still taking alot of hurt and time to do so) and so forth as we came to a chamber. An alter with the dagger set on top. Typically we thought this is where we claimed the treasure for quest complete. Until one of our party members informed us whom this god was.

So out of sheer paranoia we avoided touching the dagger. Thinking it was a trick even if it was exactly what was described as the dagger. Even though we wanted to grab it for our mission. We spent 3 days debating over it and searching the entire area for possibly other entrances before the Rogue grabbed it (to get it over with).
Turned out it was perfectly fine.

We later found out that the NPC was a disciple of the god and did this to waste our time and paranoia for trickery via a note left upon our return. We never did find him.

To boot, the dagger, treasure and gear we found was worth nothing.
We learned to never trust halflings again. lol

[Big Fau]

Being set on fire at the start of the campaign. No combat, no spell effect, the DM just randomly said "your character is on fire, start rolling".



Revenge is a bitch.

[Cornelius Grim]

After ticking off our DM too much (half of the group, excluding me as far as I know, were morons and decided to do stupid things every session), he had our Ogre Mage nemesis cut off our hands. And tie the casters off from the Arcane Arts. So, the sorcerer, who was me, and the wizard were sad. :smallfrown: We had a mulligan though, it was okay. :smallredface:

[Greenish]

Max damage, no save due to being stuck in a web.Being Entangled isn't "lol no save for you", it's -4 Dex penalty.

[Icestorm245]

Being Entangled isn't "lol no save for you", it's -4 Dex penalty.

Well I'll be damned! Still, I thought a point blank range lightning bolt to the face while entangled justified max damage. So, now the funniest thing is the PC almost dying due to negligence on my behalf. =P

[Kurgan]

This was in an adnd2e game a couple of months back. My players (there were two of them, plus a small cohort of henchmen to make up for the small party size) had just puzzled their way through a rescue mission without sounding any alarms or attracting notice from the guards.

They then comment that they want to fight something, and ask for a random encounter, like bandits or something. I tell them to give me a couple of minutes, and dig up a monster that I had wanted to use at some point but had no way to shoehorn in while they were in civilization: a hangman tree.

The hangman tree is a vaguely mobile (it can move a staggering 5 feet...per hour!), has something like a d4+5 tentacles, and a massive gullet of sharpened teeth and acid. It also of moderate intelligence (int 6-8 or something like that) and for all intents and purposes looks like a tree unless the characters pass a check. It can attack with three of its tentacles at a time, and when it catches you, it begins dragging you to the maw over the course of 4 or 5 rounds.

So anyways, they are traveling on some back roads/animal trails in case the Count of Frey sends men after them to recapture their prisoner. Along the way, they see a tree (all fail their saves), with a man hanging from it.

The players thought this was the hook for introducing some bandits, and the cleric, figuring that this man was a victim, ordered him to be cut down for a proper burial. One of the henchmen does this, and gets caught. The party leader then orders everyone to charge headlong into the meatgrinder and attack the vines rather than the trunk (they have separate hp tracks), with the cleric being the only one doing significant damage to the creature itself. Even then, this was mainly because I ruled that his fire based attacks continued to damage it for an extra two rounds after the initial strike.

Long story short, the entire party was bloodied and one of the henchmen (the most useful, or course) was dead. All this, from a throwaway monster.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The hangman tree is a vaguely mobile (it can move a staggering 5 feet...per hour!), has something like a d4+5 tentacles, and a massive gullet of sharpened teeth and acid. It also of moderate intelligence (int 6-8 or something like that) and for all intents and purposes looks like a tree unless the characters pass a check. It can attack with three of its tentacles at a time, and when it catches you, it begins dragging you to the maw over the course of 4 or 5 rounds.

So THAT'S why dwarves hate trees!

I guess you could say it's the root of their suspicions.

[Kurgan]

So THAT'S why dwarves hate trees!

I guess you could say it's the root of their suspicions.

Now now, we don't want to branch off into a tangent.

[Big Fau]

Now now, we don't want to branch off into a tangent.

Stop that, or the dwarves will hear you.

[Ursus the Grim]

Now now, we don't want to branch off into a tangent.

That would certainly be barking up the wrong tree.

Worst thing that happened to a PC in my group? Old School DM cut off the elf wizard's hand due to making a stupid mistake with a trap.

Worst thing that happened to me? Probably one of my first characters. Half-elf druid with a badger companion. Along the way he somehow became a dire badger with a level in badass on full moons. Sure enough, the clever boy that I was pestered the DM (same one mentioned earlier) about the lunar cycle. Eventually I got into a dungeon with my companion at his prime, and proceed to solo everything via Produce Flame and my overpowered companion. We came up against the boss, and he did enough damage to actually annoy the badger, causing him to rage and destroy the boss. Of course, said badger then turned on me. I don't even recall if I was allowed a Handle Animal check, but I sure didn't have ranks in it.

The next characters were sent to murder a monstrously malevolent monochromatic mammal.

[Jack_Simth]

We came up against the boss, and he did enough damage to actually annoy the badger, causing him to rage and destroy the boss. Of course, said badger then turned on me. I don't even recall if I was allowed a Handle Animal check, but I sure didn't have ranks in it.The 3.5 version of the Badger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/badger.htm) (including the Dire (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direBadger.htm) version) have the same wording on their Rage:
A badger that takes damage in combat flies into a berserk rage on its next turn, clawing and biting madly until either it or its opponent is dead. It gains +4 to Strength, +4 to Constitution, and -2 to Armor Class. The creature cannot end its rage voluntarily. (emphasis added)

The rage ends, automatically, as soon as the thing that hurt it dies. Assuming D&D 3.5, of course.

[Calimehter]

Worst thing that ever happened to one of my characters was a near TPK during a 2nd ed. dungeon crawl. I say "near" TPK because we were ambushed by gargoyles while low on resources, and everyone was killed, except me. Thanks to my "precious" Ring of Regeneration, I kept coming back at 1HP . . .

. . . to a roomful of gleeful gargoyles, who were able to torment me to death. At least until I regenerated

. . . to a roomful of gleeful gargoyles . . .

Yeah. Years later in real life, we still talk about that poor guy.

[Inferno]

We were on a boat. Our metagaming selves decided that instead of buying a ship so we could try for a privateer's license, we would be better off buying passage to a distant town and just grabbing the pirate ship that our DM wont be able to resist throwing at us. So, the pirates came (duh) so we boarded and the pirate group destroys the monk in 2 rounds. Then the fighter gets bullrushed overboard (fullplate) by the Red Half-Dragon captain. My Bard Dragon disciple just flew back to land.

[Crocodactyl]

In an ongoing game of 1e AD&D I run with only two players when nobody else is around, the players were traveling through the desert 3 weeks from the nearest known city, and were attacked by a tyrannosaurus. It rolls great and swallows both players whole in two rounds, reducing each to under 5 HP leaving their level 0 friends to fend for themselves. The thief tries to cut his way out and rolls terribly, killing himself instantly with his magic sword. The cleric finishes it off with magic then breaks free, uses the last use of their resurrecting artifact on the thief, and they reach their destination quickly. Once there, the Cleric gets to looking at his inventory and sees that he has two unlabeled potions. He drinks them both on the spot and dies because one was a vial of poison. The thief then spent the next three weeks in game returning to the city to sell off the Cleric's possessions and get him resurrected before they could go back.

[Zonugal]

I once played in a DnD tournament at PAX 09 with some buddies from the Penny-Arcade forums. Well we're going against each other in a dungeon and the DM has been releasing monsters every once in a while. About thirty minutes into the game he unleashes this huge crocodile monster towards my team. We begin to fight but sadly my character is bit by the monster.

What followed was an hour of me having to make the appropriate saves as to not be swallowed whole. There was so much screaming and blood... Finally at the end of the hour I make a successful series of saves and get myself out of the monster's mouth. A teammate comes up and heals me up to almost full health.

Than he pushed me back into the monster's mouth, and for another hour I was chewed on till finally being eaten alive.

THAT IS THE WORST I HAVE EVER BEEN THROUGH!!!

[Halna LeGavilk]

I once had a low level wizard, by the name of Cale Ilnian, who, once he had run out of spells (which happened often) would proceed to throw acid flasks or alchemists fire, dealing lots of damage. If he didn't have any of that, he would proceed to run headlong into combat, trying to stab people with a rapier (at -2 to hit.) Needless to say, he went into negatives almost every encounter, and to -9 more than a few times.

Awesome, awesome character to play.

[bravebonebook]

The 3.5 version of the Badger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/badger.htm) (including the Dire (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/direBadger.htm) version) have the same wording on their Rage:(emphasis added)

The rage ends, automatically, as soon as the thing that hurt it dies. Assuming D&D 3.5, of course.

Maybe it was a dire badger with levels in Frenzied Berserker! :smallbiggrin:

[Ursus the Grim]

Maybe it was a dire badger with levels in Frenzied Berserker! :smallbiggrin:

It was a dire badger with levels in "my DM is a manic-depressive old-school DM who tends to throw fits when things don't go his way."

At least that was one of the more amusing asinine things he did.:smallsigh:

[Elboxo]

That's hilarious dude. The worst thing that happened to a PC when I was DMing, the party was fighting two ogres and a drider. The PCs were busy with the ogres, so I made the drider cast web on the ranger who was trying to pelt it with arrows. The ranger had already taken some damage from a previous fight, and the cleric said "Dude, you don't need a heal right now. You got tons of HP left." Well, the ranger was stuck in the web, I had the drider turn invisible on the PCs, snuck around to the ranger, and point blank casted lightning bolt in his face. Max damage, no save due to being stuck in a web. He dropped to -9 hp, luckily for him the cleric was right there to save him on his next turn.

Wait, he got no save for being in the web? That makes perfect sense, but where does it say this?

EDIT: Read a bit further down... my bad, i see why it's a common house rule though

[Ursus the Grim]

Worst thing that ever happened to one of my characters was a near TPK during a 2nd ed. dungeon crawl. I say "near" TPK because we were ambushed by gargoyles while low on resources, and everyone was killed, except me. Thanks to my "precious" Ring of Regeneration, I kept coming back at 1HP . . .

. . . to a roomful of gleeful gargoyles, who were able to torment me to death. At least until I regenerated

. . . to a roomful of gleeful gargoyles . . .

Yeah. Years later in real life, we still talk about that poor guy.

I think he's got the worst one so far.


In an ongoing game of 1e AD&D

I can see where things went wrong.

Some of the fun of older editions seems to be the more fatal gameplay, hence a situation like this, and DMs who like to think like this. Nothing wrong with it (when the group's expecting it) but it certainly makes things unfortunate for the characters.

[Icestorm245]

Wait, he got no save for being in the web? That makes perfect sense, but where does it say this?

EDIT: Read a bit further down... my bad, i see why it's a common house rule though

I personally think a point blank lightning bolt to the face while not being able to move at all would equal max damage right away. It's a freakin' lightning bolt lol. Besides, the player was being cocky, because he has good luck a lot of the time and ends up out damaging most of the party just because of his sheer luck. I think he needed to be knocked down a peg.

[Major]

Does it count if it was an out of character "punishment" for an in character action?

We encountered an NPC who seemed really suspicious in one game. He was trying to get us to get these artifacts for him that he couldn't get himself. He wanted our party to get the artifacts for him to help open this tomb that had "the secrets of the ancients." We didn't know much about the ancients except that they were super technologically advanced to the point that it was ridiculous. Multiple things came up that sent up red flags:

1) He hadn't told anybody about this tomb and kept the knowledge just to himself.
2) He was very evasive about answering questions.
3) When my character pointed out that the person with the technology and knowledge inside would be like a god, he quickly became defensive and claimed he only cared about knowledge.
4) When I pointed out that regardless of his intentions the results would be him being a god or others trying to use the power to start massive wars he dismissed any chance at all of any risk.
5) When another party member pointed out that he doesn't know what is inside and it could be something he couldn't control he dismissed any risk again.
6) When questioned further he snapped and said that lower beings and idiots like my character didn't understand geniuses like him and he'd show us all when he got the knowledge inside. Then he'd make people see how wrong they were.
7) When continually questioned by my character he got pissed and silenced my character by casting baleful polymorph.
8) The entire time he lied about his identity and only revealed the truth at the end.

So...lied the entire time, had countless villain type personality traits, was evasive, dishonest, and aggressive, and more. That's just what I remember.

At the end of the session when the DM handed out RP exp (we had zero combat), he gave me 2/3 of what everyone else gained. When another player (who hadn't RP'd at all the entire session due to arriving late and not having much to say) questioned him on how I'd RP'd more, the DMs reply was wasting game time.

So...my character was docked role playing exp for...role playing. This was the straw that broke the camels back (I'd had lots of other problems with this DM) and I finally quit the group. It was a mix of principle, stupidity, and the fact that things like this happened all the time. To punish a player both in character (baleful polymorph) and out of character for role playing with your NPC and not wanting to aid him when his goal was questionable is stupid.

[Circle of Life]

Feeblemind times four. That sucked. :smallyuk:

[Andreaz]

As part of payment to earn the rights of command over her devil-lover, my character spent roughly a century doing all the duties of devils to the archdevils that ruled over him.

Imagine anything bad, it happened to her. we had little choice but to leave it deliberately abstract to keep it really bad.

[Alleran]

The paladin fell (justified, in my opinion, but that's too long a story to recount here). The player RP'd that falling sent him insane. The rest of us didn't actually notice for quite a while. He'd been doing some odd things, sure, but only our wizard got suspicious. Since that player knew how to pull off "paranoid" we didn't pay much attention to it either. In the meantime, the fallen paladin had been quietly selling our souls off to an archdevil.

When we finally died, we found ourselves facing an aspect of said archdevil as spirits. The fallen paladin (who died along with us) was with said aspect, having received a promotion for handing him such a group of fine souls. The language used around the table was... impressive.

Our next campaign was set in the Hells, our characters attempting to bust out (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LikeABadassOutOfHell). The fallen paladin was the BBEG's new right-hand man, and his player rolled up a new character.

[flumphy]

This probably isn't the absolute worst thing, but it's one of the most amusing given that it was entirely unintentional on the DM's part.

I was playing a ghoul paladin. Fluffwise, she had been a paladin whose party fell to a necromancer and regained free will after the other PCs killed him. She ended up having to kill the rest of her adventuring party that had been transformed into mindless skeletons and having to agonize about whether her deity was okay with her continued existence. So, all in all, a pretty emo character. That's not really the bad part though.

She eventually ended up having to disguise herself and head back to her home city, where she was recognized by her estranged uncle, who, as she was soon to find out, was a high level cleric and unabashedly evil. (It turns out my paladin's parents were the "white sheep" of the family, so to speak.)

The conversation went something like this:
Paladin: So, uh, uncle, why do I never see you around, anyway?

Uncle: Well, to tell you the truth, I have this thing with my son trying to kill me. I killed my father, my son's trying to kill his father...It's a family thing.

Paladin: (Tearfully) You...you killed grandpa?!

DM: (Now OOC) What do you mean, your grandpa?

Me: Not my grandpa? My grandma cheated or something?

DM: (After muttering something about cousins and grandparents, clearly working out the whole lineage thing in his head.) Oh @#!&! Your uncle's father would be your grandfather, wouldn't he?

Players:(In unison) Yes.


DM: Wow. That's really sad.



So, one of the most heartwrenching things ever done to one of my characters was laid upon her unintentionally. In the DM's defense, he's normally very intelligent. I guess he was just having a very off day.

[Krazzman]

The Bad things? Ouh I've got many.

I played a monk for the first time. After the first encounter he was wounded pretty bad and as we came to the tavern the barkeeper punched my char for not ordering something to drink but in his comatouse status drinking from his waterskin, (he was at 0 hp).

I played a Halfling Cleric in a group of halflings. We were at a graveyard where the dead kept raising and helped purge some of them and lock the others to another part of said yard. While in the tavern our breakfast was being poisoned, my char got poisoned and we purged the rest (antidote is a lifesaver). We again started to purge the graveyard but were bombarded with sleep bombs. Since the Ghouls weren't affected by that my char lost his "pinkie-finger". While laying in bed to recover he got his throat cut open and poured acid in it. Afterwards his recollected finger began rotting.... :smallannoyed:

My evil cleric got eaten by a ghoul, since the DM thought i roll too good on saves and rolled them for me, while the rest could roll their saves themselves. :smallfurious:

My orc barbarian rolled apparently too godlike on a day and ended up instead of rescueing the goblin rogue killing him. :smallmad:

My first bard was thrown into a dwell, and after recovering and escaping a contamined city, captured for telling that the next city was plagued and should be executed for being the bringer of bad news. :smallconfused:

My Halfling Barbarian got deaf when our bard blow a whistle directly in his ear...he went to -1 from this dmg...

My first time playing a ranger (4th ed) he got his teeth punched out, got scarred and was accused for not telling the guards that an attack was approaching (while the guards wanted to threw him out for talking to them).

My first time playing a 4th ed Rogue that rogue was nearly killed twice in every encounter. And for OOC asking what my opponent wears i got screamed at that the party needs help and i shouldnt loot. Same party wouldn't help me the encounters before.

That's all for the first thought about bad things :smallfrown:

[Hazzardevil]

The Bad things? Ouh I've got many.

I played a monk for the first time. After the first encounter he was wounded pretty bad and as we came to the tavern the barkeeper punched my char for not ordering something to drink but in his comatouse status drinking from his waterskin, (he was at 0 hp).

I played a Halfling Cleric in a group of halflings. We were at a graveyard where the dead kept raising and helped purge some of them and lock the others to another part of said yard. While in the tavern our breakfast was being poisoned, my char got poisoned and we purged the rest (antidote is a lifesaver). We again started to purge the graveyard but were bombarded with sleep bombs. Since the Ghouls weren't affected by that my char lost his "pinkie-finger". While laying in bed to recover he got his throat cut open and poured acid in it. Afterwards his recollected finger began rotting.... :smallannoyed:

My evil cleric got eaten by a ghoul, since the DM thought i roll too good on saves and rolled them for me, while the rest could roll their saves themselves. :smallfurious:

My orc barbarian rolled apparently too godlike on a day and ended up instead of rescueing the goblin rogue killing him. :smallmad:

My first bard was thrown into a dwell, and after recovering and escaping a contamined city, captured for telling that the next city was plagued and should be executed for being the bringer of bad news. :smallconfused:

My Halfling Barbarian got deaf when our bard blow a whistle directly in his ear...he went to -1 from this dmg...

My first time playing a ranger (4th ed) he got his teeth punched out, got scarred and was accused for not telling the guards that an attack was approaching (while the guards wanted to threw him out for talking to them).

My first time playing a 4th ed Rogue that rogue was nearly killed twice in every encounter. And for OOC asking what my opponent wears i got screamed at that the party needs help and i shouldnt loot. Same party wouldn't help me the encounters before.

That's all for the first thought about bad things :smallfrown:
Your DM sounds like a bitch.

The worst thing that happened to me?

I was a changeling rogue, (was using Jarian's WOW rogue.)
My character and the paladin where basically teaming up to kill stuff, I forgot to post on 1 day and I then carried on posting.

The DM then had my character eaten by some Fey hunting Brain eater creature, I got killed no-save, and when the party tried to save me it was immune to everything the party threw at it, I didn't even post again after that.

[Krazzman]

Your DM sounds like a bitch.

It were different DM's, mostly oneshots/two sessions.

[Boci]

I personally think a point blank lightning bolt to the face while not being able to move at all

You can move whilst in a web. If you couldn't, you would loose your dexterity bonus to AC.

Besdies, if point blank range figures into a reflex DC, wouldn't you need a houserule that adjust your ref save modifier based on distance?


would equal max damage right away.

Depends on your group. If I was the ranger I would argue that a split second before the spell the hairs on my back stand up warning me to dodge, thus allowing a reflex save.


Besides, the player was being cocky, because he has good luck a lot of the time and ends up out damaging most of the party just because of his sheer luck. I think he needed to be knocked down a peg.

Maybe, be taking him down a peg with houserules is generally considered bad form.

[Greenish]

(was using Jarian's WOW rogue.)Sounds interesting, link?

[sonofzeal]

Yesterday, my LG Cleric/Paladin assisted in unmaking all reality and destroying at least two universes in the process. Solving this directly caused a fae party member to impregnate himself via time travel, in full view of the rest of the party.

I'm not sure which was worse.

[King-Strawberry]

Off the top of my head I have had 3 truly abysmal things happen to characters I have played.

1 In one of the first games I played in, I had a lvl 4 (maybe 5)? Paladin. we were in an underground temple kind of thing, the BBEG (known for sending tensers floating disk's inscribed with explosive runes at us)
I got a couple of rounds ahead of the rest of the party, having run past the orcs they were fighting in pursuit of the "Sorcerer" he gets to the end of the tunnel and turns around, apparently a last stand, I proceed to smash his face in with my greathammer, and...... it turns out it was an illusion....... the real BBEG turns visible and charges me with a bastard sword..... and crits..... suddenly I'm at -3hp where a few seconds earlier I had been slightly bloodied at 39 hp (out of 50ish) of course at this point I start freaking out.. "He's a sorcerer how can he deal 40+ damage in 1 hit....... etc, etc"

The rest of the party arrives has a huge fight and gets him down to negative hp, with only 2 of us left conscious out of 5 (druid and rogue) the sorcerer gets teleported away somehow.

2
Later that same game (lvl 6) I was away for spring break and the dm is playing my character as an npc temporarily. The party fights a chaos beast, it hit me and dm rolls a 2 on my fort save, He's a decent guy and doesn't want to kill my character while i'm away so he rerolls, and what does he get? you guessed it, a 1. he says "The dice gods have spoken" and my paladin is now a bunch of goo.


3
This last one happened only a couple months ago our lvl 2 characters just arrived at a city that had been recently besieged by hobgoblins. The spellthief wants to go to the ancient library 8 hours away from the city and the psion stays behind to interrogate a captured hobgoblin (who happened to be terrified of psionic powers) so the rest of us go to said library, we get there and while we are snooping around 2 owlbear skeletons and a human skeleton pop out of some crypts. Combat ensues with the spellthief able to do 0 dmg because he is using a rapier weapon and my dual blade (homebrew) using 2 slashing weapons can't do much better the druid (shapeshifter) wolf form tears an arm off the small skeleton and runs away.

The spellthief and I are tossed down chutes hidden inside chests that go to an underground complex. We kill a couple guards and are searching for a way out, when we are separated by a magical teleportation stone. I go back to the place we saw before with similar runes, just in time to see the spellthief being dismembered on a sacrificial altar by way too many skum to handle. My character tried to find a way out and after a few days (in game) my half starved elf was dragged up onto the same altar.

[logan247365]

I've had quite a few vindictive DM's in my gaming career. One that stands out is my 3rd level party and my halfling rogue are hired on to help the local magic school gather spell components. We meet up with a teacher at said school, next thing we know we are in this dungeon complex with lots of bats.

The party sets about gathering guano for the school. After like an hour game time the instructor informs us that we have enough guano. We then start to explore the dungeon complex and run into green mold, and some other nasty wandering monsters. The fighter dies so we take him back to the Instructor for help. He reincarnates him as an ogre.

No big so we continue exploring and run into some trolls (still lv3 party). The dm informs us that the trolls look battle worn and much worse for wear. So we decide to chance it and take them on. 3 rounds later we are all dead or incapacitated.

In the end 2 of us get fed to the green mold and my halfling and the elf become dinner.

[Ursus the Grim]

No big so we continue exploring and run into some trolls (still lv3 party). The dm informs us that the trolls look battle worn and much worse for wear. So we decide to chance it and take them on. 3 rounds later we are all dead or incapacitated.

Honestly, even without much metagaming, you should have realized that this was way above your level.

Trolls have Regeneration.
I doubt you had much fire or acid ready.
Two trolls are an EL 7.

I'm surprised you lasted 3 rounds, honestly.

[Krazzman]

My Girlfriend has played a Dragon Disciple Bard. Today she can laugh at what happened, but after that session she rolled a maiden of pain and terrorized the group a bit.

Behold the everdieing bard:
A Group of Midlevel Characters (I think it was about 11) ventures through a dungeon and comes to face a purple shining door. After discussing who should open the door, the bard begins to rant and steps to the door and pushes it open...fails save and drops dead.

The other players begin to undress her and test if her dwarven nipples bring beer instead of milk....and venture forth. After a few minutes they come back and use a spell to revive her for 10 minutes. After a bit of discussion they told her that she is only revived for 10 minutes and that there is another shiny door. Again failed save -> dead bard.

Afterwards she was raised normally but died as the monk (with spell resistance) gave her a purple book. Failed save -> dead bard.

After some time, she was additionally killed by the Blackguard and the Warrior of the group (they were gazed by a vampire). After ressurrecting: Tada Maiden of Pain, after this the group got completely wiped out at the start of the adventure: Citadel of the Spiderqueen?

Have a nice Day,
Krazzman

[_flint_]

One Time a beguiler of mine tried to charm a priest. she was caught by the town guards (while disguised as an old tailor) and banished from the town after having her ring fingers cut off.

[bimple_rouge]

So one time my players were making 15 lvl charecters for an underdark campain. they all made charecters and brought them over to my house to play. I asked them if they were done and they all said yes. so we started, they started in a castle, an old wizard needed an artifact so there job was to get it from deep in the underdark.
The adventureres get teleported to the underdark, in the second round of the first encounter the wizard casts light to affect the drow, so I ask if anyone is negetivly affected by this in the party. NO, they all say
"well than how are you guys seeing", I ask?
the fighter says that the wizard cast darkvision on them,
The wizard says no, the rouge has torches. the rouge says no I thought someone else was handeling that. so for the rest of the adventure ( the PCs needed to get the relic to be teleported away) they played with the wizards every spell as light.

[DarkestKnight]

my bit of a horror story comes in two parts.

the first one
my party and i were sent into a dragons lair to kill it, proving our worthiness to this new godlike being. in the cave i think we found some giant thing, i can't really remember and honestly it wasn't that important. my dm had given the party a unique crossbow that acted like a rod of wonder but with 100 different effects. the party psion who was carrying said crossbow fired it at our single opponent. the bolt spontaneously transformed into a direshark (crushing our opponent) that immediately starts trying the swallow the shiniest lure it could find. me, the radiant servant of pelor, who had mere hours before gotten my set of fullplate with a continual light effect and never dirty properties, happened to be the shiniest thing it could get its maw around. so as i am getting chewed apart, the psion decides to fire again. this time turning the shark into stone. i hadn't gotten out of its mouth. at this point, the party ranger/scout (who isn't the best party player) laughed as i tried to think how to escape. as he did so the dm informed him that he heard a small rumbling sound and to make a spot check, as small pebbles fell on his head. at this point the ranger looks up into the grinning face of a blue dragon, which promptly zapped him into near oblivion (1 or 2 hp left). at this point the ranger yells (player and character) at me to heal him. did i mention he's not a great team player? the part wizard/sorceror casts a rather ineffectual spell, the wild shaper tries to jump up at the dragon, misses, and i try to pull myself further into the petrified shark, figuring some cover would be helpful. at this point the psion does what he does best, and fires the cross bow yet again. he rolls the same as last time. at which point the dm chuckles knowing the saves of the dragon and rolls. in the silence that echoed after his roll he quietly states that the dragon has turned to stone.

the second one (which i found funnier)
this one takes place after the first one, same party/dm. while walking to this fortress we get ambushed by about 4 vrocks and 3 babaus. the fights going pretty well, but guess what happens? the psion fires the crossbow. suddenly we are fighting 3 vrocks, 3 babaus and a tarrasque. yup, the psion spawned a tarrasque. at this point the ranger legs it, not waiting for anything. i heal the wizard and haul him up so he can run on his own, which he does. the psion says "i shoot the crossbow at the tarrasque" and rolls. at this point the dm face palms and tells us that the tarrasque violently explodes (for those who are following diablo 3, look up exploding palm. now think of that on a colossal creature). now the ranger turns around and runs back to the fight, the wizard starts casting a fireball, and i contemplate if flamestriking the psion would be an evil act. the psion goes ahead and fires the crossbow. rolls what started this whole mess, spawning another tarrasque. now the fight consists of 1 vrock, 2 babaus, the party, one slightly exploded tarrasque (who is regenerating back together), and one slightly unexploded tarrasque. the ranger books it, again, the wizard goes with him, the psion laughs, and i'm standing there wondering why pelor hates me so. and you know what happens? the psion fires the crossbow yet again. this time he creates a spatial rift that sucks the living tarrasque, most of the regenerating tarrasque, a babau, and a quarter of a city block into some remote plane.

i should mention, the psion used the crossbow more than any of his class features combined. to this day, we never ever, let that character get anywhere near 'the glowy stuff'.

[Captain Six]

I had one campaign where I had told my players up front that it was going to be a survival based game in a very deranged setting so there were plenty of encounters that killed characters. It had an almost 1:1 session to character death ratio until either they wised up or I grew to like the party to much and lost my edge (I suspect both).

But the one time I threw something at them that I was even unsure of. The party was level six, consisting of a barbarian, bard, dragon shaman and a fighter. They walked into the courtyard of a castle. The knew a necromancer lived here and after I described the scent of death and the muddy ground they knew they were in for a fight. I had them set up their minis on the battle map and described that skeletons began to rise from the ground under them, surrounding them.

They asked me how many.

Now I have a penny cup that I use for enemy mobs, monsters that are identical to one another and don't need to be differentiated. I had no idea how many pennies I had in this cup. So I took the whole thing, poured it on the battle map and threw my hands up in the air and excitedly shouted "This many!"

I counted afterward and it turned out there was 100 of them. No PCs died somehow.

[Herabec]

Worst thing that's happened to ME in a game was actually just a couple of game sessions in Vampire: The Masquerade. My vampire was winked out of existence - not dead. Never has been, never will be. My companions don't even remember him. :smalleek:

Funniest thing done to my players when I'm DMing 3.5? ... Catfolk rogue, first gaming session, provoking a commoner woman by scaring her son...who then proceeded to smack him with a rake. For a critical hit on the first roll of the campaign. Which dropped the rogue to -3 hp.

The player rightly fears the return of the barbarian commoner who wields the Vorpal Rake.

[Darkomn]

The worst thing that has happened to ME is probably very early in my dnd career when one of our party members decided he wanted a new character and the best way to get it was to have the DM turn his current character into a doppelganger. So one night my poor defenselessness little cleric is sleeping when suddenly he is getting shanked by his good buddy the rogue. The worst part was he only took me down to -1 HP and I spent the next nine rounds rolling failed stabilization checks :smallfrown:

The worst thing that has happened to a player in a game I DMed is very early in my DM career when the group thought they had outsmarted me. The party had been sent to deal with a band of orcs that had recently got more organized and where raiding a nearby village. They approach a cave set into a cliff with one opening at ground level and another 20ft up with a small stone ledge protruding out. It was basically my first time DM so the party happily provided friendly advice about how one must always think about what the characters will do, how 20 ft isn't really that high, and how next time I should be ready for stuff like this. And of course its all true I didn't expect the party to go in there it as really only a little bit of flavor... a place for the dragon to fly in and out of thats all. If only they had something stronger then hemp rope to bring the two dragonborns up there instead of splitting the party before facing the boss oh well.

[BlueInc]

Surprised no one's mentioned the Deck of Many Things.

I was very lenient about how horrible some of the "bad" effects were, but the rogue just barely survived the Dread Wraith and the Blackguard got his soul stuck in a mirror.

THAT turned the campaign upside-down.

[Talentless]

Surprised no one's mentioned the Deck of Many Things.

I was very lenient about how horrible some of the "bad" effects were, but the rogue just barely survived the Dread Wraith and the Blackguard got his soul stuck in a mirror.

THAT turned the campaign upside-down.

Similar in vein. I got suggestion cast by the BBEG on my Bard once, then proceeded to fascinate and suggest to both the Rogue and Cleric, who both possessed a Deck of Many Things (Why they both kept them, i have no clue).
And who both failed their saves.

The DM let me pick the wording for what they had to do when under the suggestion.

This being my first encounter with what Deck of Many Things does, I ordered the following "Play 52 card pick up"

Both players were rather distraught about that.

[Calanon]

3 words: Arrow of Regret (http://www.gloomcorps.com/2011/06/15/item-arrow-of-regret-dd-3-x/)

So i finally completed the long and arduous task of becoming a Lich. completed my Phylactery and was preparing to perform a massive sacrifice to Vecna as i was doing this an arrow of regret hit me in the back, rather than hitting me it smashed my phylactery... now you can obviously imagine how pissed i was :smallfrown: having wasted all that GP and XP for nothing... and all that time T_T

Anyway~ i did the sacrifice and got enough of a religion check so i could wish my phylactery was never destroyed...

I was gonna wish for Arcane mastery of epic proportions... :smallannoyed: My DM wanted me to work for it rather than me just wishing for it... took me a while and a few games of plane shifting around to almost every library in the multiverse to get the spells that i wanted but eventually i completed my goal
:biggrin:

Moral of this story: DM's who use the Arrow are basically telling you "No" without rule 0'ing you xD

[~Nye~]

The worst thing that happened to one of my characters recently was they were investigating an anomaly of arcane energy that appeared above a ruin, in the campaign a number of these anomallies appear in locations then disappear to reappear somewhere else on the world map.
Anyway, agains the better judgement of my fellow players, my halfling wizard's curiosity got the better of him. I cast detect magic when I was near the anomally and I was told I felt an excruciating pain i my head, I went blind and deaf and my character went into a three week coma where I was out of game. However against my knowledge, the party tank who is a very simple Warforged Duskblade did the same, since he wasn't organic the effects weren't the same, not really understanding squishies, he tried to emulate my characters reaction and imitated my coma for 3 weeks. He was conscious the whole time. But pretended to be in a coma. We were in stitches but the rest of the party missed the adventure because two of us were down... Have yet to find another anomally :smalleek:

[FearlessGnome]

I was in a Call of Cthulhu campaign last year. Some of us made pact (individually) with dark gods, behind the backs of each other and the other players. My character got so paranoid (After a party member already tried to kill her once when she was down, and another time threatening her with a shot gun just-in-case-the-vision-granting-artifact-turned-her-evil) that she decided to set a trap. She contacted Y'Golonac and managed to convince him not to take over her body right that minute, but to let her start a cult in his name instead. All well and good. So she wrote a note with the word "Y'Golonac" on it. She hid the note on her person, such that it would only be found if somebody killed her and looted the body.

(For those of you who don't know Y'Golonac, his modus operandi is to immediately assault the mind of anyone who reads his name, take over their body and kill everything in the area by eating it with his hands. Charming guy.)

We got to the end of the campaign, defeated the Evil Cult trying to resurrect an Evil God, and split up, several of us trying to achieve Immortality and various degrees of godhood on our own. Mostly by starting up Evil Cults.

The half of the party that hadn't made any sinister pacts decided to come after us. When my cult leader got taken out Y'Golonac decided to help her out.

By destroying her mind, taking over her body and eating up all the cronies and heroes with his hands.

Best final session ever. :smallbiggrin: