Inexplicably dumb things by people who should know better

[JackRackham]

I thought it would be fun to rant on the inexplicably dumb things party members or PCs in our campaigns have done, particularly those who should have known better - whether things worked out or not.

For example:

Last session, my party member and I - just the two of us - encountered an ogre. I was a wizard and he was a rogue. We were level three and had a surprise round. Despite having played 3.5 and Pathfinder for years, and despite the fact that 1. I had greased the ogre's weapon, and 2. blinded and stunned him with Color Spray before the ogre could act, and despite my insistence that he was outrageously wrong, he decided that the fight was hopeless and snuck past, leaving a crowd-control Wizard to try and solo an ogre. Meanwhile, he snuck into a cave a scant 40 feet away and tried to unchain a bear he found, assuming it would aid us in our fight.

Luckily, one of the powers from my school specialization dealt enough damage for me to defeat a very handicapped ogre - thank God this was pathfinder. But, man, PC paranoia to the max.

PS: As it turns out, the bear was a polymorphed NPC that we needed to rescue anyway, but he had no way of knowing this and never thought of it.

[AlanBruce]

This one happend a few years ago for a one shot session.

The party were all ECL 9, going into a very dangerous trap filled dungeon. They knew about the dungeon IC through judicious use of research and check, so they prepared accordingly.

Come the very first long hallway in the dungeon, they begin to read cryptic writings on the wall- warnings of what is to be found inside. Honorable mention to a creature simply referred to as "The Tormentor", something that should already ring some alarm bells in the PC's minds.

Nonetheless, they send the riogue to scout ahead while the Boccobite cleric uses clairvoyance on a wall, after finding out there is a room past it.

Sure enough, the divination informs the party's cleric that there is a creature- gargoyle like in appearance with four massive clawed arms standing still like a statue. The creature bears a passing semblance to the writings on the wall (which included pictures) referring this Tormentor.

The following conversation at the table went like this, if memory serves right:

It's that monster from the writings, right?

Most likley, yeah. Shall we move on? We have this long hallway ahead.

Found some traps! Nothing too bad. What's up with the false door?

Monster. Probably the one the writings speak of. Let's move on.

Hold on... he's alone, right? We're four! We can do it!

Yeah!

Open the door!

Hold on, guys. Seriously. I cast Omen of Peril... it wasn't pretty!

The party proceeds to kick the door in, old school style...

And an old school death is what they got.

[JackRackham]

Ha, classic. Yeah, around level nine is when PCs start to get cocky, what with their dimension-hopping, coming back from the dead and teleporting and whatnot.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sometimes I end up doing reckless or overly aggressive things just because I'm sick of everyone else putzing around "planning" for hours on end...
We only get to play 4 hours a week, I want to actually do something!
In a similar vein, one game the DM had us on a wild goose chase going after some epic level wizard who was always 10 steps ahead of us and left traps and illusions and pre-recorded messages and minions at every stop. We got so sick of hopelessly looking for clues on how to find him after over 6 months of playing that we decided to just march into the Underdark and start killing drow because we suspected one drow was behind some assassination attempt. Was it completely disproportionate and unreasonable? Heck yeah. We were making a statement, we were sick of drowning in the DM's little sand box and if he didn't give us stuff to do, we'd find things to do. :smallbiggrin:
Just half a session into our mutiny, we got a Sending from NPC allies that they had a clue for us. Such a coincidence...

I never do outright stupid crap like flee from an already half-beaten enemy, or charge someone w/ reach when low on hp, though. I've just gotten impatient with age.

[Virdish]

This one happened in this week's game. I'm playing a necro type character and there is an exalted druid in our party. What do I do when I find a hall piled with bodies? I raise a small meatshield brigade... What does the wild shaped pouncing druid do... pounces, beating the crap out of me in the surprise round until another party member teleports me the hell out of there and the assassin paralyzed him. I'm currently hiding with a group of goblins that I have diplomancer'd.

[Angelalex242]

Heh. That's when the GM says, "For the record, the monster that just killed you all was ECL 16. Just because it's in the dungeon doesn't mean it's level appropriate. Oh. And your stupid PCs unleashed the tormentor to wreck havoc through all the lands. It kills... *rolls dice* 12,384 people before a high enough level party can be found to kill it. Good job, guys. Oh, and unleashing it counted as an evil act, so those deaths counted on your character's souls in the afterlife. You all end up in Baator, Gehenna, or the Abyss, as Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic dictates."

As for my funny story...

There was a campaign when we were playing half dragon dragon riders in 2nd Edition. So, we were underground, and found the leaders of the ogres in a magical item cache underground. The Half Gold Dragon Paladin and his Gold Dragon mount breathe fire simultaneously underground. The GM had a house rule where if you sync breath weapons with your mount, the mount's breath becomes twice as powerful. Anyways, he ruled there was explosive gas underground and didn't mention it to anyone. He rolled a saving throw for the dungeon. He rolled a 1. All the PCs died, all the ogres died, all the NPCs died, everyone we went there to rescue died, the land above became a giant crater, wiping out several villages of helpless NPCs, the kingdom was completely destroyed, except for the castle not built over the dungeon, destroyed so thoroughly even the darkest of blackguards would be jealous of the blast radius caused.

Needless to say, the Paladin was not raised from the dead. When some particularly angry people wanted vengeance, the Paladin refused to resurrect, being (Quite reasonably) too ashamed to come back. The wizard took to animating his dead corpse so people could beat on it. His whole family was banished from the kingdom.

The player appeared to be blindsided, as if he'd had no idea such a thing could happen. The GM refused to have high level wizards go back in time and undo it, so the campaign went into a 'post apocalyptic' feel after that.

[StreamOfTheSky]

This one happened in this week's game. I'm playing a necro type character and there is an exalted druid in our party. What do I do when I find a hall piled with bodies? I raise a small meatshield brigade... What does the wild shaped pouncing druid do... pounces, beating the crap out of me in the surprise round until another party member teleports me the hell out of there and the assassin paralyzed him. I'm currently hiding with a group of goblins that I have diplomancer'd.

And this is an example of stupidity on who's part, exactly? Raising undead and trapping the souls of the departed in plain view of an exalted character is pretty freaking dumb. What did you expect from him? A high five?

[JackRackham]

Actually, I'll give another example (3.5). This time, the bone-headed PC in question is me. I was playing a tiefling rogue/swashbuckler (planning to take swordsage) and I woke up, knowing nothing, not even my own name, in this campaign world where everything and everybody was just awful. The Gods weren't even Gods, they were festering, half-corpses of high-level celestials that their clerics were keeping alive, so they could collect the ***** runoff they used to power their spells. Anyway, I was asked to steal some of this juice for a cleric in exchange for information.

Naturally, to do so, I broke into a lower-level cleric's house to steal his cleric outfit, only his wife saw me and screamed, so I had to murder her while I was at it - this wasn't the dumb part. I get to this higher-level cleric's manse and tell them I have permission to study in the cleric's library. That gets me through the door. As I search the house for the juice, however, I smell rotting flesh covered by perfume. Thinking this might be the juice, I enter the master bedroom (on the 2nd floor), only to find a ritually sacrificed, decomposing corpse and a bathtub in the adjoining bathroom full of jars of perfume. And here, my PC paranoia kicks in.

I jump to the conclusion that I'm being set up - even though there's no good/lawful establishment in place anywhere that would look down on things like ritual sacrifice. So, naturally, I pour all of the perfume on the bed with the corpse, and light the whole thing on fire. At this point, having searched only one room, I begin to fear I've been too hasty, and decide to continue searching for the juice.

Only, the fire draws the attention of one of the cleric's apprentices (I assumed he was head guard), and I lose a few precious hit points in the ensuing combat. I press on, however, and find the juice. But when I try to leave, I find that the fire has spread and the stairs are a blazing inferno - so I jump from the balcony. Of course, I take falling damage, leaving me with only a few hit points. No matter, though, because I'm at the door.

But the guard outside has noticed the fire, and I now have to explain why I'm fleeing the burning house and bleeding from stab-wounds. So I spin an elaborate lie about the head guard trying to frame me for a murder, and starting a fire to cover his tracks. I roll something ridiculous on my bluff-check too - except that I'm telling this lie TO the head guard. So we fight and I win, but I only have two hit points. I'm presumably covered in my own and multiple people's blood, smell like smoke, and am fleeing a burning building.

So, naturally, I cast darkness in the nearest alley, strip naked, and torch my clothes. Then, I run/sneak back to the inn stark naked. Again, it all worked out, but I have no idea why.

[Virdish]

And this is an example of stupidity on who's part, exactly? Raising undead and trapping the souls of the departed in plain view of an exalted character is pretty freaking dumb. What did you expect from him? A high five?

I'm a Necromancer. It's my thing. I raise the dead. There had been no discussion in character that raising the dead was badwrongfun. I as a player knew what would happen... or at least that it would piss his character off. However the character is undead, has undead minions. The character thought he was helping. I realize it was not the best decision. Did I day who was pulling the not smart move? No, I in fact did not. I was the one who pulled the not smart move but it was only not smart from a meta perspective. Also I would appreciate being spoken to in a much less hostile way. It was a funny story.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Sorry, it sounded like you were complaining about it.

I've been conditioned by too many forum stories of people complaining about good PCs (usually Paladins) reacting to evil actions in a fairly rational way and framing it as the good PC's fault for not tolerating their character. Glad you guys had a laugh about it all.

[WarKitty]

Sorry, it sounded like you were complaining about it.

I've been conditioned by too many forum stories of people complaining about good PCs (usually Paladins) reacting to evil actions in a fairly rational way and framing it as the good PC's fault for not tolerating their character. Glad you guys had a laugh about it all.

Honestly, the party composition there kind of sounds like a dumb thing. There's no way that could have ended with everyone happy unless someone was seriously not roleplaying their character.

[Virdish]

Honestly, the party composition there kind of sounds like a dumb thing. There's no way that could have ended with everyone happy unless someone was seriously not roleplaying their character.

Yeah we got along for a little. The druid was going under the motivation of "I signed a binding contract, for this adventure I will accept the abomination, unless he proves I shouldn't". The assassin is more lawful then evil and the tibbit wizard is just cute. We knew this would lead to some issues.

[Angelalex242]

That's a serious lack of common sense. Why would you make a character to pick fights with your own party members? If it's a good party, don't make evil characters. If it's an evil party, don't make good characters. How hard is it?

[torrasque666]

Its called creation in a vacuum.

[Zanos]

Sorry, it sounded like you were complaining about it.

I've been conditioned by too many forum stories of people complaining about good PCs (usually Paladins) reacting to evil actions in a fairly rational way and framing it as the good PC's fault for not tolerating their character. Glad you guys had a laugh about it all.
To be fair, a lot of people run undead more like constructs, where creating them definitely isn't good but doesn't inherently make you satan. I prefer that point of view since many undead don't really do anything if they don't have orders, but other people like the inherently evil interpretation, so to each their own.

In the game I run, the party had recently been killed, but their bodies were taken back to the vampire master and experimented on pretty severely, since the PCs and the vampire lord are both descendants of a powerful but intentionally ambiguous ancestor race. Anyway at the end of it the PCs are alive but a bit worse for the wear, so the lord's second in command takes them to go see him, because there's a sun temple he can't get into, being a vampire and all. I made it pretty clear that this dude was extremely powerful, but one of the PC's(in character) really, really hates the undead. The character made it pretty clear that she didn't like listening to a vampire. An insult or two was made. So first he made it impossible for her to move her mouth with telekinesis, and when she kept trying to talk she got thrown through a stained glass window and nearly died.

Now the party always makes jokes that if he shows up again he's going to summon a bunch of windows to toss them all through, but I like to think they learned something.

[AslanCross]

My favorite was still how my RHOD party tried to kick down the door to the Fane of Tiamat in Act V. They'd failed to find the traps, but when they didn't find any, they just looked at each other and yelled "DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

The trap exploded in their faces, and they ended up healing more after that encounter than after the preceding dragon battle.

[Angelalex242]

Creation in a vacuum is itself an 'inexplicably dumb thing by people who should know better.'

Players sitting around a gaming table should cooperatively make characters, people online have a GM who should quickly figure out that, "Hmmm, if I let the Paladin in a party with a Neutral Evil assassin, the party ain't big enough for the both of 'em, so I should either advertise this is an evil game, or I shouldn't allow evil characters."

[Flame of Anor]

As for my funny story...

There was a campaign when we were playing half dragon dragon riders in 2nd Edition. So, we were underground, and found the leaders of the ogres in a magical item cache underground. The Half Gold Dragon Paladin and his Gold Dragon mount breathe fire simultaneously underground. The GM had a house rule where if you sync breath weapons with your mount, the mount's breath becomes twice as powerful. Anyways, he ruled there was explosive gas underground and didn't mention it to anyone. He rolled a saving throw for the dungeon. He rolled a 1. All the PCs died, all the ogres died, all the NPCs died, everyone we went there to rescue died, the land above became a giant crater, wiping out several villages of helpless NPCs, the kingdom was completely destroyed, except for the castle not built over the dungeon, destroyed so thoroughly even the darkest of blackguards would be jealous of the blast radius caused.

Needless to say, the Paladin was not raised from the dead. When some particularly angry people wanted vengeance, the Paladin refused to resurrect, being (Quite reasonably) too ashamed to come back. The wizard took to animating his dead corpse so people could beat on it. His whole family was banished from the kingdom.

The player appeared to be blindsided, as if he'd had no idea such a thing could happen. The GM refused to have high level wizards go back in time and undo it, so the campaign went into a 'post apocalyptic' feel after that.

That is kind of funny, but it also strikes me as a horribly unfair "rocks fall everyone dies" call on the DM's part. I would not want to play with a DM who would do that and not give the player a chance to reverse it with reasonable amounts of effort.

[weckar]

Well, my party has a bit of a hand in this, and if you read some of my earlier topics you may be entertained by my attempts at trying to deal with it. Just over the last two sessions, they basically sank Sharn into the earth (all of it), and then got themselves banished to Ravenloft ON PURPOSE. Note that these two events were unrelated. And I am pretty sure they are set on trying to take over a dread realm next session, and are just drawing straws on who has to be the Lord. I love them so much.


PS: As it turns out, the bear was a polymorphed NPC that we needed to rescue anyway, but he had no way of knowing this and never thought of it. Someone been playing Quest for Glory?


"Hmmm, if I let the Paladin in a party with a Neutral Evil assassin, the party ain't big enough for the both of 'em, so I should either advertise this is an evil game, or I shouldn't allow evil characters."Right on you for the Paladin point, but there is nothing inherently wrong with mixing good and evil. Seems to me the Paladin is the issue here, not the alignment.

[PersonMan]

Players sitting around a gaming table should cooperatively make characters, people online have a GM who should quickly figure out that, "Hmmm, if I let the Paladin in a party with a Neutral Evil assassin, the party ain't big enough for the both of 'em, so I should either advertise this is an evil game, or I shouldn't allow evil characters."

I'd say the solutions here would be:

1. Talk to each player about the issue. See if one of them will switch characters.
2. Modify the Paladin's Code to allow 'guide to Good' as an alternate to 'leave him or kill him 'cause he's Evil' if they'd be up for the intraparty conflict.*

Rather than blanket banning one thing or changing the entire premise of the game.


*This doesn't mean "omg you're evil, die", by the way.

[atomicwaffle]

about a year back, i was in a group with a player who shall be called 'Garbage Truck'. Anyways, the party is good or neutral characters out to save the world. Garbage Truck dies, a lot. And remakes questionable characters. He decided to remake a neutral evil rogue/assassin. The DM had already informed him not outright, but basically implied 'no evil alignments'. Garbage Truck didn't listen. Long story short, an angel forcibly converts him to neutral good. His solution? Blatantly ignore his alignment, go to an assassins guild and accept a contract to kill said angel. His character died that same session. One of the players tended to write a journal of our adventures and we all agreed that session should be called 'Neutral Stupid'.

BTW Garbage Truck is a dumb-bum thieving scum irl so no sympathy is to be directed towards him.

[Jbr208]

Pretty much anything I've done in table-top gaming.This includes the following:

Dive bombing a gunpowder factory with Wind Walk and a demolition charge.

Rushing into a seemingly safe room as a rogue/Dread Pirate, discovering salamanders, and not immediately leaving.

Using Maze as a punishment for a party member insulting my wizard after a failed dispel attempt. More petty and immature than stupid, but all the same it was a bad choice and poor conduct.

Stealing a house. Yeah... That was an amusing one-shot.

Creating an Evil Warlock in what was to become an all Good party. So far so good, but Evil plans are on hold until later levels. I expect things to start going awry when the implementation of evil schemes begins.

Opening an interrogation at a suspect's door with these questions: "Where are the bodies?" and "What are you eating?" In that order to a wealthy merchant whom we interrupted during dinner.

[Virdish]

The problem is that this is a really mixed party. The assassin doesn't really clash with the druid because he's more lawful than evil. My character is actually neutral. He uses his dark art for the cause of good. With my gaming group it's hard to not do creation in a vacuum. We are half local half not and can only coordinate on game day. It would literally tale a while session away to try and create characters together.

[Angelalex242]

In that case, I'd say it's worth the day to make a harmonious party that actually works together like a team instead of working at cross purposes.

Unless working at cross purposes and being inefficient is your bag of chips, of course.

[illyahr]

To be fair, a lot of people run undead more like constructs, where creating them definitely isn't good but doesn't inherently make you satan. I prefer that point of view since many undead don't really do anything if they don't have orders, but other people like the inherently evil interpretation, so to each their own.

This is how I run mindless undead. They ping as evil because of negative energy, but a mindless creature can't make decisions so can't be evil. It's why animals, no matter how aggressive, are true neutral.

I had a halfling necromancer who moonlighted as a gravekeeper who used skeletons to dig graves for the dead. He absolutely hated sentient undead and even created a death spell that worked on them.

[Pinkie Pyro]

"the evil faerie-dragon is rampaging across the elven kingdom, stop him" was the quest.

"I'll take all the king's men, arm them with bows, hire a few bards, they should be able to do like, a good thousand damage on round one." was the response.

and lo, the hero did take the elven archers, and many ballista into the forest, and waited for the dragon to approach.

"fire!" he commanded, and they let loose a stream of arrows that blocked out the son,

"quickened wind wall." said the faerie-dragon, followed by "dimension door." and with a waggle of his odd little arms, he appeared there before the army, his very presence enchanting them.

high OP game, the ranger//scholar forgot about wind wall.
and lead an army against a creature he knew had an aura of charming.

he then later intentionally got captured by drow, thinking, for some reason, that he wouldn't be horribly abused. honestly no idea what he was thinking there.

[JackRackham]

Someone been playing Quest for Glory?


The DM based this campaign on some old computer game. Quest for Glory might be it, I don't know. No spoilers.

[Asteron]

The whole campaign, my DM and his brother had joked that you always go left when given the choice (I have no idea where that comes from, it was just something they said...) They have both been gaming longer than me, so I just went along with it... One time we were faced with 3 doors, pretty much in a row. My friend starts for the left door. On a whim, tired of the silly superstition, my Warblade yanked open the right door. Low and behold, there is a demon there with Phantasmal Killer readied.

DM: "Roll a will save as the scariest thing your character can think of leaps out at him..."

Me: "Hah! Moment of Perfect Mind" *rolls a 2 on the die* "Damn, hows a 17?"

DM: "You fail... Roll me a fort save."

Me: "Hah! I have a great fort save!" *rolls a 2 on the die* "Damn... How's a 16?"

DM: "You fail. Kuamali (my character) is dead..."

At those words, the rest of the party (who had been chatting kinda loudly...) fell quiet.

I'll never go right again...

[The Random NPC]

The whole campaign, my DM and his brother had joked that you always go left when given the choice (I have no idea where that comes from, it was just something they said...) They have both been gaming longer than me, so I just went along with it... One time we were faced with 3 doors, pretty much in a row. My friend starts for the left door. On a whim, tired of the silly superstition, my Warblade yanked open the right door. Low and behold, there is a demon there with Phantasmal Killer readied.

DM: "Roll a will save as the scariest thing your character can think of leaps out at him..."

Me: "Hah! Moment of Perfect Mind" *rolls a 2 on the die* "Damn, hows a 17?"

DM: "You fail... Roll me a fort save."

Me: "Hah! I have a great fort save!" *rolls a 2 on the die* "Damn... How's a 16?"

DM: "You fail. Kuamali (my character) is dead..."

At those words, the rest of the party (who had been chatting kinda loudly...) fell quiet.

I'll never go right again...

When in doubt, left is right, and right is wrong.

[yoshi67]

This one is on me. Our party of lvl 7 characters had been fighting through an abandoned underground mine that was taken over by a group of necromancers and evil sorcerers. It was our first dungeon of the campaign so it wasn't designed to be hard. Two sessions into it we come to a large open round room that has a narrow ledge starting at the door and going around the wall to the door on the opposite side. In the middle of the room was a black pool of water too dark to see the bottom. The ledge extends past the door on the opposite side a little and a rusty cage with an unconscious man sits on the edge of it. Our party carefully edges around the pool on the ledge and gets to the door, which is locked. A debate starts with the rogue/fighter about what should be done with the man in the cage. I was impatient and wanted to get through the room, so my 6'4" Hexblade with 18 Str examines the lock.
DM: "It's very rusty."
Me: "I grab the door and try to break the lock." The guy next to me gives me an "Oh-My-God-What-Did-You-Do" look.
DM: "Really? Roll Strength." I roll a 10, for a total of 15.
DM: "Yeah, that's not enough. A giant black ooze comes out of the pool and grabs you. It pulls you into the lake. You have to make a Fort save or take 50 points of acid damage. How much health do you have?"
Me: "...46..." Everyone just stares at me with shock and pity.
DM: "Uh, you might die."

We got out safely after I rolled a 20 on a reflex save to hold onto the ledge and the rogue picked the lock on the door, but lesson learned.

[sideswipe]

me and my party were in a war canoe sailing away across a sea and we were attacked by a shark (we were level 4) and we were easily beating it. just then our player who always likes to swash buckle, and has never built a character with any ability to do so, makes his bard jump out of the boat and onto the sharks back! thinking with a positive dex and no ranks in balance or ride he can ride a shark in combat in water whilst killing it... needless to say he fell off instantly and became food for the shark we were about to kill.

[Anlashok]

And this is an example of stupidity on who's part, exactly? Raising undead and trapping the souls of the departed in plain view of an exalted character is pretty freaking dumb. What did you expect from him? A high five?

Well, he is a necromancer... and the druid loses his exalted status attacking him like that. The necromancer might not even be aware of the "trapping souls" bit, especially considering that even the books are confused on that part.

[Virdish]

Well, he is a necromancer... and the druid loses his exalted status attacking him like that. The necromancer might not even be aware of the "trapping souls" bit, especially considering that even the books are confused on that part.

This necromancer definitely does not know about souls being trapped. He believes his craft to be just an extension of himself. He is a necropolitan himself and so he considers being turned undead as a second chance. Unintelligent undead however are simply a tool to him.

[Renen]

On a ship.
Character can fly.
See enemy ship.
"I fly towards it"

Turns out our ship's faster than me. So I was totally late to the party. Though those teammates that tried to teleport on the enemy ship were just shunted into the ocean.

[Necroticplague]

I'll just quote myself from another thread:


At one time, a wizard in a party I was in ended up turning to the other side. As a parting gift, he tried to dominate me into joining him, figuring a rainbow dreadsnake would be useful. After me failing the save, he decides to "shake on it." Against a paranoid who always held a charge of necrotic cyst active. He failed his save. Not appreciating the control IC or OOC, I used any ambiguity of wording to screw him over. One day, he asks me to make some undead. So I asked "any type in specific?" With the answer being "no, just make sure you can get it to me quick." One necrotic termination later, he had his undead.

The stupid part was the unnecessary handshake when he should know about the charge. And not being more specific when giving orders.

[Kazudo]

My entire group was passing around the idiot ball one night.

The adventure was along the lines of the typical adventure: The group had to break into a factory to steal the plans to a powerful magical item so that the group could replicate it in another country so prevent this specific power-hungry lord from spreading his influence. Setting up a back-burn, essentially.

So they're in this chocolate factory at night, fighting their way through various guardian golems to the back room. The squishy sorcerer of the party and resident blasty fire mage decided to take point while the Paladin took the back of the party. At that point, a plant guard of some kind (I forget, it's been years) jumps the group, hits the sorcerer (being in the front of the party), hits his pitifully low AC with a pitifully low attack and gets a free grapple attempt. He succeeds his grapple because of the Sorcerer having a terrible grapple mod. Surprise round over. With the high-op fighters in the back of the party, the entire round went by without terrible damage being done to the thing. The plant then dunked the sorcerer in molten chocolate. Ouch.

The party eventually vanquished the plant and pulled the sorcerer out of the chocolate. A few cures and prestidigitations later and he's cleaned off and back to full. They rearrange the party and handle several more encounters. Then they get to the back. The barbarian attempts to force the door without anyone listening at it, using any detect spells, or the rogue checking for traps. He springs the Force trap that's on the door. It forces the group back and trips an alarm spell. The rogue who traded Trap Sense off for Penetrating Strike fails his Reflex DC vs. the trap and flies over the rail, falling twenty feet onto the production floor. He gets back up there to find that in the group as a whole has moved on and done the same thing to the office door, since the break room didn't have what they needed. The office door was protected with a wall of force.

The Sorcerer forgot to prepare disintegrate this morning. What does the group do? They have the Paladin break the wall down. I gave him a slap on the wrist (-1 to all d20 rolls for the remainder of the encounter) rather than making him have to lose his class features and find an atonement spell for an act going against his patron deity (property damage was explicitly against his code of conduct. Destroying a book that belonged to someone else was punishable with a fine and time in the cloisters. This was HIS idea). But they got into the office. While there, they rifled through paperwork and found some plans, snagged them and left without having the rogue look over them. They were met by armed guards at the door, since the alarm roused the security who lived in a barracks on staff. After the Sorcerer threw a fireball or two and the group left the area, they learned back at their hideout (which they went directly to with all due haste, not once checking behind them and failing any Listen checks I threw at them to try to get them to get the clue) that the schematics were not only fake, they were coated in Sepia Snake Sigils.

The Knights of the Realm caught up to them and put them under arrest. It was easy because they were, well, not moving.

THANKFULLY the next episode they got their brains strapped back on and escaped prison very easily. The Paladin died in prison after losing his class features so that the player could try again with a different character idea.

[Angelalex242]

The sorcerer FORGOT TO PREPARE...

Uh...Sorcerers don't prepare spells. He might've run out of them, but he can't forget to prepare.

[Hyena]

he then later intentionally got captured by drow, thinking, for some reason, that he wouldn't be horribly abused. honestly no idea what he was thinking there.
Well, I think I have an idea.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Well, I think I have an idea.

care to be slightly less enigmatic?

[Anlashok]

care to be slightly less enigmatic?

some joke about leather-clad drow domimatrices I imagine.

[Zanos]

some joke about leather-clad drow domimatrices I imagine.
It is canon. :smallwink:

[dehro]

me and my party were in a war canoe sailing away across a sea and we were attacked by a shark (we were level 4) and we were easily beating it. just then our player who always likes to swash buckle, and has never built a character with any ability to do so, makes his bard jump out of the boat and onto the sharks back! thinking with a positive dex and no ranks in balance or ride he can ride a shark in combat in water whilst killing it... needless to say he fell off instantly and became food for the shark we were about to kill.

that's one way of jumping the shark

[VariSami]

I just remembered one particular scenario...

The party was basically a few bums in Stormreach that wanted to take up the pirating life. They included... a Synod Erudite, a Rogue/Barbarian/Scarlet Corsair who specialized in Intimidate, a Half-Drow Bard and a Sun Elf (Valenar) Wizard/Sea Witch. They had heard a rumor about a Bugbear small-time Pirate called Captain Ahab the Rancorous having had his ship confiscated. Supposedly Cpt. Ahab was to be found in the Leaky Dinghy -tavern by the Docks. Well, they did go see the good captain, only to find out that the Leaky Dinghy was the most miserable, worst smelling tavern they had ever seen and was barely held together by some fishing nets and goo.

Thus, once inside, they decide to demonstrate their power to the good captain who is quite suspicious about the contributions some elves might be able to provide to his ship once it was recovered. The rest pulled off some incredibly stupid antiques which involved Minor Image and hacking away at it to show off. What did the Sea Witch do? He cast Windstorm inside this hut which had been described as creaking ominously at the slightest hint of a breeze. Less than surprisingly, the Leaky Dinghy collapsed on everyone. (Although none died. And Captain Ahab was actually quite impressed.)

Well, later that day, when the characters were recruiting new crew members, the Sea Witch initiated a discussion with a Half-Valenar who implied that he was a champion of the oppressed but had come in contact with the tyrants of Stormreach and needed to distance himself from the city for the time being. He even mentioned that life on the open seas had always allured him because his father was an honorable corsair of some renown. This guy was a Paladin of Freedom, mind you. And the party's alignments, not motives, were all that corrupt. They simply wanted excitement and jink, basically. Somehow, however, the Sea Witch managed to outright state that they would be more than willing to traffic slaves... And I believe he also insulted the halfbreed's pride by implying that the mongrel's mere existence shamed his ancestors. Yeah... A duel of honor was initiated, and one power attack later, our dear wizard friends was barely grasping to his dear life. The paladin was willing to end the duel there and heal his adversary's worst wounds. The wizard, on the other hand... Turned invisible and moments later, began firing lightning bolts at the paladin. This did not end prettily although the Sea Witch did actually get to live because his allies intervened after he had been downed.

[Kazudo]

The sorcerer FORGOT TO PREPARE...

Uh...Sorcerers don't prepare spells. He might've run out of them, but he can't forget to prepare.

You must excuse me. I meant to say that he used up the spell slots necessary to cast it.

[Curmudgeon]

This one's pretty good, as it's got both a planned dumb move by one character, and a panicked reaction dumb move by another.

I was playing a Rogue (as usual) and we found a smallish hole leading underground, directly over a scummy-looking pool about 40' below. I tied off a rope, climbed down, and swung adroitly to the side. I didn't find any place to secure the rope at the bottom and wasn't heavy or strong enough to hold it just by my weight, so I called up that I'd look around a bit to see if there was anything that merited the whole party coming down. I used my tent and bedroll to hold down the bottom of the rope so it wouldn't get slimed in the pool. Then I headed down the one passage that led away, Searching for any traps. That requires a minimum of a full round every 5' square of floor or wall, hence I was moving slowly.

After a while the Druid got impatient and had the bright :smalltongue: idea of sending down her Animal companion. Well, Tigers can't climb ropes, so she convinced it to get into a net and she and the Fighter hauled up my rope, tied it to the net, and tried to lower a creature with about double their combined weight. Neither of them had any Use Rope skill, so they failed to swing the net to the side and instead dropped the Tiger the last 10' into the pool. Naturally, the "pool" turned out to be some Ooze critter, and the companion trapped in the net was basically a sack lunch for the thing. All of my party members yelled for my attention, but I had no ranks in Listen and didn't hear them. Then the Fighter decided to shoot arrows at the Ooze grappling with the Tiger. We were about level 8, so he didn't have Improved Precise Shot; that meant he had a 50% chance of shooting the Tiger — which he succeeded at on 2 out of 3 shots (with one critical!); the one shot at the Ooze missed. :smallsigh: What with the falling damage, 2 arrow hits (1 crit), and the Ooze, the Tiger was gone just a round later.

[dehro]

not sure it qualifies but when we were rather fresh into our current campaign (sadly, a few characters ago for me) we found unquestionable evidence that one particular shop was a front and an entrance to a local thieves guild that had plenty of caves underneath that shop and others... we also had our druid scoop out those galleries with tremorsense and other nifty tricks.
yet when I (dwarven cleric) proposed that we should just march into the shop and make the crooked shopowner fess up about him hiding an entrance to the guild on the premises, nobody backed me up, on account of how we were not legally appointed to conduct searches and the simple fact that the shop owner said "no" to my direct questions was enough for them not wanting to get into trouble with the law.
I should point out that the druid was the only neutral good member of the party, all others varying from neutral to caotic neutral with a side of thievery and so on. And yes, we had absolute certainty that we were on the right track (which was confirmed by later events).. yet we all drooped off apologetically because the shop owner flat out lied to our faces and nobody seemed inclined to back me up on calling him out on it. this botched attempt caused us to have to explore another route into the caves, which cost us valuable time and even more valuable hitpoints, making us walk right into a trap set because we basically revealed our intention by our bumbling attempt in the store.

I still think this was a bad case of meta something.