What's the Stupidest Thing You've Ever Seen Players Do? (3.5/PF/d20)

[ColorBlindNinja]

So, have your players ever do something so breathtakingly stupid that you stare at them dumbfounded and ask, "You did what?!"

I have recounted an instance of this in my own group:


So picture the following scene.

You're exploring a dungeon and you've heard some of the monsters inside refer to a "summoning room." After a bit of exploration, you find the chamber in question.

Inside, you spy Demogorgon himself trapped within a magical circle (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicCircleAgainstEvil.htm).

Your brave band of adventurers are level 10 or so in strength. Demogorgon angrily turns to confront you, and before he can properly introduce himself, the party Druid kicks the magical circle, disrupting the powdered silver trapping the mighty demon prince, freeing him!

Pretty much sounds like a guaranteed TPK, but fortunately for my players, I possessed more foresight than they did. It was merely Demogorgon's Aspect, a monster of CR 9. Good thing too, or they'd all have had to roll up new characters!

Not that they had anyway of knowing that. Seriously, they probably deserved death in this instance.


What utterly brain-dead things have your players done?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[The Insanity]

Switch to 5ed.

[HouseRules]

Think the game is balanced!

[Karl Aegis]

The party rogue tried ambushing a crit-immune paladin.

I was that paladin.

[Ignimortis]

Switch to 5ed.

...while still thinking it's gonna play anything at all like 3.PF.

[inuyasha]

This is less stupid and more really funny to me, and my players still laugh about it every once in a while.

One of the neat things about my group is that I've been playing since I was incredibly young, I was raised playing and it's a big part of my life. So, naturally, when I got some friends later on I got a group of people to play D&D with and DM myself. These people have not been raised around the tropes associated with D&D, and despite playing with me for years now I can still surprise them.

So, years ago, on one of their early adventures I threw a Gelatinous Cube into a room, with a suit of plate-mail trapped within. They could see a shiny film in the air, and that he was floating, but the cube hadn't moved yet...

One of my players assumed that it "was a time vortex, he's stuck and we have to pull him out! And proceeded to run into the cube, arm first to go grab the guy. He survived, but he got some terribly nasty burns, and it was a learning experience for them.

In retrospect I kinda wish it was a time vortex... that was cool...

[Draconi Redfir]

After learning that touching a mirror breifly transported us to a plane of hell with an Elder Devil who would awnser one question using either the truth or a lie, and realizing that doing so caused us to taker huge hits to our... strength score i think it was, maybe charisma... Our barbarian kept going in and asking more and more questions until her ability score was down to like, three or something.

[Hackulator]

Walk up to this particular campaign's version of Baba Yaga, who they KNEW was cursed such that any time anyone asked her a question she aged a year, and fire off three questions within 10 seconds of meeting her.

They got turned into a bird.

Then I demonstrated how to ask questions without asking questions and got Baba Yaga as an ally, which was pretty sweet. She gave me the egg her hut laid.

[Gwyllgi]

We fought a small cabal of illithids that we're building a new city, which was actually a spaceship, in a cave, which was actually a hangar. They had illithid tadpoles for converting a few farmers before they would rejoin their group in space, our barbarian wanted desperately to be a warming or some other Psionic paladin-esque class based on a picture he saw. He put it in his ear, said it was all good, went into a coma for a couple of days, then got up as a illithid, brushed himself off and walked away.

He rolled a new character.

[flappeercraft]

Ok so three things that happened. All in the same campaign and its still ongoing, two were in the same combat. I remember vividly thinking to myself "What the **** are they doing" for those in combat, fortunately it turned out well, the third one is just funny not stupid.

So for context, this is going on in a TO game where they were in combat with an Ice Assassin of a Great Wyrm++++++++++++++++++++ (That's 20 +'s) Force Dragon with class levels which due to some cheese I pulled just became more powerful in every way the more damage he took, to the point that he also got more HP than what was taken away and even had better casting stats. Essentially you damage it and he's more powerful and has more HP, that's before fast healing. They were advised of this prior to the battle as they actually were organizing the battle because they needed something from the Ice Assassin. One of the players is some kind of initiator, cleric mix with some RKV and WRT cheese and a dab of wizard. First thing he does is charge the thing and try to beat the crap out of it. Didn't turn out so well and he didn't die I believe due to come contingents he had but just made the damn thing stronger in every way. Now go to the Assassin of the group, he jumps directly into the dragons mouth to try get inside its stomach. Yes, you read that correctly, he willingly jumped directly into the mouth of a dragon and tried to go to its stomach. The plan was to death attack him from the inside which failed, fortunately this allowed him to see there was some kind of Cyst inside which resulted was a Necrotic Cyst and due to a spellcraft check noticed the Ice Assassin was being controlled by a 3rd party via Necrotic Tumor which ultimately won them the fight as they hit it with a Ruby Ray of Reversal to undo it and gain control over it themselves. As a redeeming factor it was the cleric/initiator that got the idea of using Ruby Ray of Reversal and actually hit the dragon with it.

The last one is quite recent and is just silly rather than stupid. A player got his sword converted into an artifact and decided to name it "a Paper Cut." because that way whenever he kills someone with the sword he could say "Oh yeah I killed (insert powerful person here) with a Paper Cut.". The original idea was to name it Winnie Pooh but we had some exchanges and ended up with that name.

[NontheistCleric]

The druid and bard//barbarian I DM for came up against an owlbear in the middle of a forest. Having absolutely no stealth capabilities, they chose to run and hide in a bush. When the owlbear found them and attacked, they healed and then tried to run and hide again.

Rinse and repeat until TPK.

[Crake]

I think my players topped anything stupid they've done in my last session: they were siding with a rebel god to destroy the planes, and they were deep in enemy territory, and they were juuust before their objective, only for the druid to decide "I want to rebuild my multiclassed character" to which I said if he did, he wouldn't get any new spells until he rested, including missing the high level spells he would gain access to (since he wasn't that level of a druid when he prepared spells), so the party, acquiescing to his needs, ended up resting in the middle of enemy territory while being actively hunted, ended up resting in a cave, only to have the cave be sealed over using transmute rock to mud/mud to rock, and have earth elementals be sent in waves to harass them to whittle them down. Now, don't get me wrong, the party had access to 2 different sources of teleportation magic that could have gotten them out of the place, but for some reason they decided to hole up, flying in the middle of the cave, and well, it took 2 of the players dying before the third (it was a 3 man party) decided it would be best to just go ahead and leave.

And yes, when they started looking for a place to rest, I did the very stereotypical GM thing of making it very clear that this was a terrible idea by asking "now... are you sure you want to do this?"

As a side note, I actually told the druid he could rebuild his character BEFORE they went into enemy territory, but he said no at the time.

[AmeVulpes]

Well, from a session I just finished:

1) Made a deal with some red dragon wyrmlings to help kill their father while mother was away*, and they'd take one item each (total 5) from the horde. This particular father had a small cult tending to him, some of whom were half-dragon bastard children. Many fire breaths and a fair number of sling bullets nearly TPK'd

2) (This was actually my DMPC) Druid (deadly hunter variant, primary FE dragon) spotted a half-dragon across a narrow but deeeep chasm. Needed at least a 15 (precisely 2 on the dice) to get across. Came up 1. 150ft drop on horseback. :smallbiggrin: (no animals were permanently maimed)

3) When the wyrmlings betrayed the party, who hadn't even fully recovered yet, and gave them the option to walk away, they decided that they could take them. With some very clever tactical footwork and maneuvering, and lucky rolls, they only lost two party members. Really could not have gone better for them. I don't think anyone had more than 20 hit points left at the end.

4) Bit of a silly thing also, they dropped all of their arrows to carry more currency, not knowing where the nearest surviving town is. (main plot is destroying towns)

Bonus DM stupid thing) Now I have to deal with them having access to all of this loot that's way above their WBL.
Yes, they are going to have to deal with mother and no, they are not prepared. I made the consequence impossibly clear.

EDIT: Whoops, title. Dumbest ever? Solo low-level Hexblade taking the Total Defense action while caltrop'd against a pair of Leopards at least 150ft from receiving help. Easily the dumbest thing. Not really sure what he thought he was going to accomplish that way. He died. For context, they were his own caltrops, and he failed a jump check to go over them and lure the leopards into them. Granted, the leopards went through them, the caltrops didn't hit their AC.

[Efrate]

I had a drunken master in a game who willingly got swallowed by a mature adult red dragon so he could hit from the inside, with an adamantine brick which was his improvised weapon of choice.

I had a dervish get swallowed by an advanced nightcrawler because he jumped into its mouth to dervish dance from the inside (I have FoM I will be fine!). He did not make it.

[Spore]

I am more on the "do stupid stuff" side than the "watch stupid things" side.

1) I robbed a dwarven merchant and kicked his son in the head during the escape.

2) My halfling paladin tried to "smite" a half-fiend red dragon with his plane. Yes I did do damage. No, the impact did more damage to me than it.

3) We killed an archangel protecting an artifact which we used to free ancient evil clerics of an undead kingdom so that we could remove a mildly evil lich from the city in order to free our rogue's sister from what effectively was a private school to which she went VOLUNTARILY.

4) I tried to ram a slaver with my jeep but due to an oddity in the rules, again my jeep took more damage than the human it rammed.

[noob]

I decided to play a monk once.

[MeimuHakurei]

I decided to play a monk once.

This one wins the thread.

[Kurald Galain]

Let's see,

A new character that, as his introduction, decided to "prove himself" by charging our party leader without so much as a word first. He was promptly put down by the rest of the group.
The party wizard (well, beguiler) whose strategy against a freakin' dragon was to not cast spells, but engage it in melee with a rapier he found. Not that his build had any feats or ability scores to support melee. Seconds later, he ended up eating a full attack which did about twice his max HP in damage.
The party fighter unwisely decided to assault an NPC rogue in the middle of a tavern. Said rogue knocked him out in one hit with a sneak attack, then quickly ran away. After being healed, the fighter decided to run after that rogue. By himself. In the dark. After the rogue already proved capable of one-shotting him. Yeah...

[Maryring]

My party had found an artifact (a gemstone violin) and two shards of essence belonging to a spirit of spring. Preliminary testing revealed that playing the artifact alone induced a mind control that compels the wielder to keep playing, and people to dance towards the player, leaving those who get too close utterly drained. Prior to this, they've learned that artifacts containing the essence of such spirits can supplant and take over a person's body to get, essentially, reborn as a lesser avatar.

So obviously the next thing to do is bring out the essence shards and play the violin in the same room as the previous party member who just got drained by the artifact.

Long story short, the party successfully summoned the spirit of spring, using one of their own party members as the sacrifice. With heroes like this, who needs villains?

[finaldooms]

ive had a player whom after getting the 600 warnings about the ominous glowing purple orb in the middle of the room ( even had him roll knowledge and the party warned him) still touched the orb and died...then was mad that he died because "no one warned him"


i ran tomb of horrors before and had the ability to see things ( void sense..it allows you to know whats in the area or something) so as a joke i convinced the other 9 people in the party to walk into the room that auto kills you..orginally i did it to kill an annoying player who was already triggering every trap..somehow because no one heard from him after walking into the room everyone else assumed the room was safe...

[BowStreetRunner]

New player joins the party. There is an existing PC druid with a wolf animal companion. So the new player decides his dwarf is going to seriously hate wolves. He thought it would add 'flavor' the the game. The first time our party encounters the new PC at a crossroads outside town he decides to attack the wolf. Although party members shout at him to stop, that it's the druid's animal companion, he persists. :smallsigh: So we killed him, looted his corpse, and continued on.

The player didn't understand why we didn't try to have him raised. Somehow he couldn't get through his head the idea that the characters didn't really have PC stamped on their forehead or anything like that. He was miffed that we treated him like some random-encounter-generated NPC. He was even more miffed when the DM gave us XP for the encounter. :smallbiggrin:

[Uncle Pine]

Assuming a random bottle stolen from the table of a wizard contained a fly potion after deciding to take a shortcut down a waterfall probably takes the cake. Disclaimer: I had not suggested the bottles stolen by the player contained potions in any way.

[AmeVulpes]

My boyfriend just reminded me of one that happened probably a year and a half ago.

The party had been stalked by a Doppelganger posing as a Wise Old ManTM, and eventually it struck in the dead of night, kidnapping the barbarian and leaving them safe, but very well secured in a basement.

When the party realized in-game-days later that their barbarian suddenly couldn't rage, a line of questioning outed it as an impostor.

The pixie immediately shot it with a Memory Wipe arrow. The party was well below the point of having Heal, and the local towns had no sufficiently high clerics (clerics above 5 are rather rare in my worlds). They had checked potions prior, no Heal. I actually slow-clapped that one. No more barbarian.

EDIT: It was cool, the barbarian player just kept playing the now-confused doppelganger, which joined the party.

[Efrate]

I am reminded of another. Setting: Creepy horror mansion you cannot get out until you find out secrets.

In a room that only unlocks every 3rd day a harp that plays a haunting tune. They walk in and are compelled to listen, they make will save they can leave. Each minute you take 1d4 wisdom damage. They listen, take damage (save 1/2). Still able to leave they continue listening. After a few minutes a suggestion to go play the harp. Will negates. Make the save, still go to play. They start to play, and they play by having the razor sharp strings slit their wrists, taking con damage now 1d6 a round. They play for a few rounds still, then leave after dropping below 10 con. 2 different players. The entire rest of the party is screaming at them to get out the entire time.

[3SecondCultist]

I had a player (who was a Factotum Diplomancer type build) who tried to seduce an angry Dracolich... while wearing magical armor with a Hide from Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hideFromUndead.htm) effect on it. It even made the 'Out of Context D&D Quotes' page, if I recall. :smallbiggrin:

[noob]

I had a player (who was a Factotum Diplomancer type build) who tried to seduce an angry Dracolich... while wearing magical armor with a Hide from Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/hideFromUndead.htm) effect on it. It even made the 'Out of Context D&D Quotes' page, if I recall. :smallbiggrin:

How is being impossible to detect or hear prevent you from diplomancing?
It totally makes sense to go around undetectable and turn people which are not aware you are here into friends without them being aware of the transformation nor of the fact you diplomacied them.
Just like it makes sense to turn iron into swords by staring at it hard or gaining money as a merchant while being all alone and never meeting anyone or of being spotted gathering information while you were trapped into a small box of adamentine.

[The Kool]

Oh man, you guys made me log in for this. I haven't logged in in years. Let's see, I have two. One recent, one second-hand.

The second-hand: Have a friend who introduced his party to a magic item merchant. This merchant sold things at discount. They peruse the items, and decide to heck with it, cheap items aren't enough. So they mug him and take all of them. Next they turn to the wizard they're dragging along with the party, and force him to identify the items. Well, unfortunately for them, they'd kind of screwed him over more than once already and were bullying him into this, but he did give the rundown of what the things did. Well, supposedly. As you probably guessed, all the items were cursed, and the players didn't find this out until they geared up with every single items. Sucks to be them too, because that DM likes transformative and devilish curses.

The recent: There's a player in our group who is mere sessions from being told he's no longer welcome at our table. Before he goes, I'm hoping to give the other players the satisfaction of ganking him, but I'm going to let them come to that conclusion when the time is right. Anyway, one of the stupidest things he's done (aside from making his presence highly memorable at a magic item merchant while his familiar stole a magic bag, then going back to that merchant later to steal a bigger bag) was the last time he played. We were playing the evil party, and the rogue was pursuing a mission given to him by anonymous letter to kill his cousin, the mayor of a prominent city (meeting requirement for Assassin). The stupidhead was surrounded by evil and uncaring individuals, and the only thing he needed to do to get along was to not directly screw over the entire party. So what does he do? Talk his way into being the advance scout, then spill the entire plan to the target in hopes of getting... I don't know, something out of it? As soon as he was gone, the rest of the party looked at each other and realized they shouldn't have let him go, and probably should have put him on a leash again. Yes, you heard me. Again.

[unseenmage]

I decided to play a monk once.

This one wins the thread.
I can beat that.

My first epic character was a monk.

[The Kool]

I can beat that.

My first epic character was a monk.

Did you hate your character, or did you just relish the challenge of being so pitifully far behind everyone else you might as well have been pre-epic still?

[unseenmage]

Did you hate your character, or did you just relish the challenge of being so pitifully far behind everyone else you might as well have been pre-epic still?

I was new and did not understand what epic spellcasting was. So very very new.

[The Kool]

I was new and did not understand what epic spellcasting was. So very very new.

Understandable, it's hard to wrap your head around how game-changing it is until you've either seen it or heard it explained in raw detail

[Chainguy]

Last game, my players are trying to stop an evil Kuo-Toa cleric, who's the herald of Leviathan, from awakening the elder evil. They had traced his ancient mentor and asked his help in defeating his old apprentice, he complies and offers them a javelin inscribed with a maxed-out rune of Disintegrate.

I had planned for the herald to be protected by a Wall of Force while doing his ritual thing, hence if they couldn't circumvent it to strike directly at the root of the problem they could at least use the spear to dispel it.

First encounter on their journey to the ritual's site, they get attacked by a huge spellwarped shark, take it down to less than half hp in a few rounds without so much as breaking a sweat, and the player carrying the disintegrating javelin decides to use it to finish it...Facepalms all around the table.

The spear went easily through his SR, but it saved on his Fort so took like...peanut's damage. In the end they had to expend a Miracle to get through the Wall because they had also expended any other teleportation spells they had, let me tell you javelin-guy was not very popular that evening.

[Quellian-dyrae]

So the party has this evil undead orb artifact that...I think they're trying to destroy, or keep from the bad guys, or something. This was a long time ago and I don't remember all the details. Anyway, one of the PCs, the one who was responsible for taking it from the lich who had been using it previously, is carrying it. The orb, like any good corruptive evil artifact, is whispering promises of power, telling him he just has to tell it to show him his power and he'll be unstoppable, blah blah blah.

I want to make clear, there were no Will saves being required. There were no sentient item ego tests. No compulsion effects, or gradually increasing penalties for resistance, or anything mechanical at all. There was nothing but the telepathic promises of a known evil artifact. The player was in complete control of the actions of his PC with no external magical or mechanical influence whatsoever.

I seem to recall that it took a couple of days.

Then in the dead of night, the PC in question leaves the inn the party is at. If my memory serves, he specifically used stealth to avoid being detected by, say, any other PCs who might have talked him out of what he was doing. I think one of the PCs had even been a thri-kreen (no need for sleep) keeping watch and he stealthed past him. He went out front and climbed on top of the Nalfeshnee statue that was, in fact, an actual Nalfeshnee that the group had petrified in a previous battle outside of the inn! And once atop the literal demon trapped in stone (I cannot stress this enough), he lifting the orb into the air and yelled out at the top of his lungs, "SHOW! ME! YOUR! POWERRRRRRRR!!!!!"

The good news was, he got a giant undead army out of the deal.

The bad news was, he was no longer a PC.

We still laugh about that one.

[Torpin]

light the ship on fire, while they were in the ocean

[Awakeninfinity]

light the ship on fire, while they were in the ocean

They randomly decided to do this?

[Torpin]

it was winter and the pcs were cold so in his room he lit a fire to warm up, i even gave him not 1 not 2 but three "are you sure"s

[DarkSoul]

They had an unidentified potion and one of the players decided to drink it to see what it did. It was oil of slipperiness. He suffered through the frictionless colon like a champ.

[CactusAir]

it was winter and the pcs were cold so in his room he lit a fire to warm up, i even gave him not 1 not 2 but three "are you sure"s

Carbon monoxide poisoning? OR just dying from lack of oxygen?

[Aldrakan]

Pathfinder: We're in a mining town that excavates magical crystals and one player, a gunslinger/spellslinger decides he wants to have a specific one (we were later told that one was special and important, not sure if that was metagaming by the player or a retcon to make his actions seem less stupid), which is embedded in the wall in a disused part of the mine. It's disused because of lava.

After a large battle against bandits the other players go for dinner, and he sneaks into the mine to retrieve the crystal, which is located on a ledge above a lava lake. He casts fly on himself. He does not cast any spell to protect from fire damage. He flies to the ledge, taking a large enough chunk of fire damage that most people would take it as a hint from the GM. Landing on the ledge, he tries to dislodge the crystal by whacking it with the butt of his gun, which does nothing. He keeps taking fire damage, realizes he's about to burn to death, so tries to fly back. He gets knocked to negative HP on the way, spends a hero point to survive, and the GM lets him fall unconscious far enough away from the lava to live.

After dinner, the other party members realize he's missing and figure he probably needs rescuing. After being healed he makes up a story about being attacked by a fire elemental, believability resolved via Bluff check, he rolls a 1. Said character was later really annoyed about the party second-guessing his strategies.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

Take Leadership and show no interest in doing anything with it.





Or there was the kender who absolutely insisted on playing solitaire with a deck of many things.

[grarrrg]

Carbon monoxide poisoning? OR just dying from lack of oxygen?
Unquoted reply, read previous responses for context:



light the ship on fire, while they were in the ocean
They randomly decided to do this?
it was winter and the pcs were cold so in his room he lit a fire to warm up, i even gave him not 1 not 2 but three "are you sure"s

[AmeVulpes]

Unquoted reply, read previous responses for context:

Thanks for making sense of that for me, and it seems others as well.

I've actually had almost the same thing happen, but it was a blaster Sorc using Burning Hands in an unwise manner. Oops.

[finaldooms]

oh that reminds me!!

deciding to burn down an evil guys house because I could not prove he was evil ( and nearly causing a riot and tpk)

[AmeVulpes]

deciding to burn down an evil guys house because I could not prove he was evil ( and nearly causing a riot and tpk)

In a game I wasn't DMing, one of the other players did this exact thing in a desert-set campaign. Got us all perma-banned from one of the three major cities available to us.

[Torpin]

oh i almost forgot the wasted wishes of like three weeks ago, the players come across a lamp and the druid rubs it out pops a genie
Genie: for freeing me from my bondage i shall grant you three wishes
Druid: Im hungry I WISH I had a sandwhich
Genie: Uhh ok here is your sandwich
i take a minute to describe a really awesome sandwhich
Ninja: Wow thats a really good looking sandwich I want one too
Druid: I WISH avery had a sandwhich too
Geniee: wow really , ok
at this point the dragon shaman is furious over this and starts yelling in character about how irresponsible both of them were for wasting wishes like this
druid: i guess i really shouldnt of done that, hey wait i have an idea I WISH I hadnt done that
Genie: *sigh* ok, poof the sandwiches and genie disappear in a puff of wasted wishes

[finaldooms]

In a game I wasn't DMing, one of the other players did this exact thing in a desert-set campaign. Got us all perma-banned from one of the three major cities available to us.

funny thing..this was in a mountain area where wood is hard to come by but most of the town was still made of wood...the DM said the only reason the town did not burn down is because he just happened to place the mayors house ( aka the evil but i cant prove it) at the top of the area with a large space between...side note i may have now aquired my own personal nemisis

[noob]

oh i almost forgot the wasted wishes of like three weeks ago, the players come across a lamp and the druid rubs it out pops a genie
Genie: for freeing me from my bondage i shall grant you three wishes
Druid: Im hungry I WISH I had a sandwhich
Genie: Uhh ok here is your sandwich
i take a minute to describe a really awesome sandwhich
Ninja: Wow thats a really good looking sandwich I want one too
Druid: I WISH avery had a sandwhich too
Geniee: wow really , ok
at this point the dragon shaman is furious over this and starts yelling in character about how irresponsible both of them were for wasting wishes like this
druid: i guess i really shouldnt of done that, hey wait i have an idea I WISH I hadnt done that
Genie: *sigh* ok, poof the sandwiches and genie disappear in a puff of wasted wishes

Actually it is extremely wise.
When you ask for actually useful stuff gms always punish you very very very hard like "I wish I had a +1 longsword" is followed by "the universe explode and everything ever dies and is sent in hell and you are trapped in a cage which thanks to curious geometry is surrounded by an infinity of people all within 3 meters of the cage that can all be seen simultaneously and they blame you forever for what you did".

[Torpin]

Actually it is extremely wise.
When you ask for actually useful stuff gms always punish you very very very hard like "I wish I had a +1 longsword" is followed by "the universe explode and everything ever dies and is sent in hell and you are trapped in a cage which thanks to curious geometry is surrounded by an infinity of people all within 3 meters of the cage that can all be seen simultaneously and they blame you forever for what you did".

actually it isnt, wish has clearly defined parameters about what is allowed before the dm starts messing with it

[noob]

actually it isnt, wish has clearly defined parameters about what is allowed before the dm starts messing with it

Except many gms does not respects those parameters and just use wishes as excuses to screw the player without even being aware of what they are doing.

[Arbane]

actually it isnt, wish has clearly defined parameters about what is allowed before the dm starts messing with it

An awful lot of GMs feel that the Monkey's Paw approach to wish granting is mandatory.

Stupidest thing I've seen a player do? Well, one guy in our Pathfinder group tried to intimidate a Hellknight into giving up his weapon... in broad daylight.... in a city where that order of Judge Dredd wannabes had been specifically called in to maintain order.

Oh, in a different group, one guy snorted fungus-man spores just for the hell of it. Sadly, he made the fort save, so he didn't have to make a character who wasn't Chaotic Neutral. Later, he was tripping on some hallucinogenic drug, and tried to sneak into the Royal Vaults. I think he ended up in a jail-cell for that one, one of the few times he had any consequences for his idiocy.

[Angrith]

Dumbest thing I've seen is a wizard (level 1) who was entering a plague town. He's new to the area, but is aware that disease is rampant and asks the nearest street urchin to take him on a tour. I roll to see if the kid is a carrier (she is) and proceed to describe how terribly ill she is. Wizard doesn't care, he offers a few coppers and spends the whole day with this kid on a tour of the plague town. The next day to his surprise, he's taking con damage and losing hp.

[ColorBlindNinja]

oh i almost forgot the wasted wishes of like three weeks ago, the players come across a lamp and the druid rubs it out pops a genie
Genie: for freeing me from my bondage i shall grant you three wishes
Druid: Im hungry I WISH I had a sandwhich
Genie: Uhh ok here is your sandwich
i take a minute to describe a really awesome sandwhich
Ninja: Wow thats a really good looking sandwich I want one too
Druid: I WISH avery had a sandwhich too
Geniee: wow really , ok
at this point the dragon shaman is furious over this and starts yelling in character about how irresponsible both of them were for wasting wishes like this
druid: i guess i really shouldnt of done that, hey wait i have an idea I WISH I hadnt done that
Genie: *sigh* ok, poof the sandwiches and genie disappear in a puff of wasted wishes

Count yourself lucky. My group was tackling the Tomb of Horrors, and one of the players picked up the cursed gem that grants wishing. Despite it being surrounded by the charred remains of dead adventurers.

Despite everyone's warnings, he used the gem to wish for a pet. What he got was an evil Plantar who promptly trapped his soul in a gem and escaped.

[skunk3]

This one wins the thread.

His comment didn't make me laugh - it's the fact that his name is "noob" and he said that. I lol'ed.

[MisterKaws]

This happened to a Druid player in a game I played. We were doing solo adventures to meet each other:



Dm: "You find yourself before a large hole in your way. What do you do?"

Tree-hugger: "I leap over it."

*Rolls exactly the needed DC*

Dm: "Just as you begin to slip into darkness, your fingers find purchase at the very edge of the hole. You climb safely onto the other side."

Tree-hugger: "What about my wolf companion?"

Dm: "Oh, he just walks around the hole."



For context, he was strolling through a forest after having fled from his elven parents who didn't approve of his choice of profession. Quite odd backstory for a tree-hugging elf, to be honest.

[Torpin]

Except many gms does not respects those parameters and just use wishes as excuses to screw the player without even being aware of what they are doing.

those are bad dms

[AmeVulpes]

those are bad dms

It depends on whether the source of the wish is (or should be) fairly obviously against the player, and they take no precautions. The guidelines for what you can absolutely get away with operate under the assumption that you are dictating the spell yourself, or calling upon a neutral power to do it. If you're asking someone for the wish, and they make said wish, it's dramatically different. Like the wish-granting thingamabob in Tomb of Horrors mentioned earlier in this thread.

good to know "thingamabob" is actually a word recognized by spellcheck.

[mehs]

In a game I wasn't DMing, one of the other players did this exact thing in a desert-set campaign. Got us all perma-banned from one of the three major cities available to us.

Age of sanmere? Your quote is really similar to a game I'm currently in.

[AmeVulpes]

Age of sanmere? Your quote is really similar to a game I'm currently in.

I didn't ever get the name of the module, if the DM was using one. We didn't get very far before we went on hiatus and subsequently decided to do something else.

[MesiDoomstalker]

On the very first session of my very first game, which I joined in the middle of the campaign. We were on a trading ship for reasons lost to the ether. The DM goes on and on about how nothing is happening, while rolling behind his screen. Me, naive noob, ask another player why he's rolling and nothing is happening. Experienced player just shrugs. Suddenly, another boat with pirate colors appears on the horizon. The Warforged Bard starts playing his Lyre of Building to make the ship invulnerable to damage for 24 hours. As the fight with the pirates continues, the DM keeps mentioning how the pirate ship is higher in the water and gets progressively higher. Eventually, we realize why the DM was rolling and saying nothing was happening was because the Shaugin who where with the pirates were attacking the ships hull underneath the water and we all failed many perception checks to notice. And since the Bard made the ship invulnerable after there was many holes, we could not repair the ship because the nails couldn't penetrate the wood. Our ship sank and we stole the pirates ship.

[PrismCat21]

~snip~

How was this a stupid decision by the Bard? The ship is seemingly about to be attacked by pirates, so the Bard decides to protect the ship. That was a smart decision by the Bard.

There is nothing in your story that makes what the Bard did 'stupid'. He made a smart decision with all the available information. It would only be a stupid decision if he already knew the ship was sinking before casting the spell. The way you wrote it implies it was quite awhile before 'anyone' knew.

[MesiDoomstalker]

How was this a stupid decision by the Bard? The ship is seemingly about to be attacked by pirates, so the Bard decides to protect the ship. That was a smart decision by the Bard.

There is nothing in your story that makes what the Bard did 'stupid'. He made a smart decision with all the available information. It would only be a stupid decision if he already knew the ship was sinking before casting the spell. The way you wrote it implies it was quite awhile before 'anyone' knew.

I realize the way I phrased it precluded the possibility of figuring out the Shaugin's gambit earlier. The ship was sinking (with clues to the fact it was) prior the Bard using the Lyre. I didn't realize it was a possibility, because I was new, but the Bard was the second most experienced player (behind the DM) and made active comments about the oddity of the situation as a whole.
And then he used the Lyre the second the ship came into view, long before either ship was within fighting range. Basically, the experienced player knew better, but instead of investigating the weirdness he just went to the Lyre and called it a day.

[Hangwind]

Had some players assume a Wyrmling Gold Dragon was probably alone and orphaned when they stumbled across it in the wild. Even that wouldn't have been so bad, except the Rogue decided it was a good idea to try stealing some scales from the thing. To be fair, his stated reasoning was that since he was an old Goblin, he figured he would be dead long before the dragon could grow enough to track him down and take revenge.


The Wyrmling was not an orphan. It was not alone. He was right though, he didn't live long enough for the Wyrmling to take revenge...:smalltongue:

[PoeticallyPsyco]

So we had this one player who was just a fount of terrible but hilarious decisions. Here's a few standouts. (At the time of these, his character had been reduced to a sentient slime).

DM: Okay you reunite with your party member.
Me: Oh hey, what have you been doing?
Him: [demonstrates by activating this flame trap he's found, which turns the next hundred feet of hallway into a blazing inferno]
Slime: I jump across.
Everyone: [Stunned silence]
DM:... Okay, you are now amidst the flames. Take X fire damage.
Slime: Uh... I keep going!
DM: You are surrounded by fire. Your world is fire. You are fire.

Miracle of miracles, he actually made it all the way to the other side before passing out from fire damage, despite stopping halfway through for a turn because... reasons.


Another time, we were investigating this trap-filled dungeon:
Slime: I search for traps. [nat 20]
DM: Okay, you are 100% sure there are traps here, here, here, and here.
Slime: Okay, I jump through.
Everyone: [dead silence]

In fairness, that time he had misheard that he was sure there weren't traps at those locations.


This character ended up dying from one final stupid decision, but after many attempts I'm forced to conclude that a full description of it just isn't very funny, so instead I'll just say he got into a PVP he really, really, really shouldn't have, and as a result spent the rest of his life in a mason jar being stabbed periodically to counteract his healing so he couldn't wake up and escape.

[ericgrau]

I was new and did not understand what epic spellcasting was. So very very new.

It's possible to do alright with experience, and at the right optimization level, and if the game is not allowed to get too out of hand (like epic usually does). And your fellow players said nothing? Why are they so cruel?

When I first started I ran off from the party a few times to go after some foe.

[unseenmage]

It's possible to do alright with experience, and at the right optimization level, and if the game is not allowed to get too out of hand (like epic usually does). And your fellow players said nothing? Why are they so cruel?

When I first started I ran off from the party a few times to go after some foe.

Oh they warned me. I just didn't listen.

This was a stupid decision after all.

[Calthropstu]

Captain Yolo.

Rogue: I search for traps.
Me(gm) you find one. It is located here by the statue.
Rogue: I try to deactivate it (rolls and fails several times.)
Captain Yolo (A paladin): Yolo! I run through.
Me: You are blown down the t section by a powerful wind. You take *dmg* and are pinned by the continuously blowing wind.
(After being thrown a rope and pulled away from the wall)

Captain Yolo: YOLO! I run down the rest of the hall.
Me: You activate another trap. This time the statue is at the end of a t juncture, sucking you into the hallway. You take *dmg* (More hijinks are needed to get him out of the hole.)

Captain Yolo: YOLO! *Runs through the rest of the dungeon. activating 3 simultaneous encounters*

He ended up also activating the final boss of the dungeon by himself. Everyone was a bit frustrated by the guy.

[Selion]

I realize the way I phrased it precluded the possibility of figuring out the Shaugin's gambit earlier. The ship was sinking (with clues to the fact it was) prior the Bard using the Lyre. I didn't realize it was a possibility, because I was new, but the Bard was the second most experienced player (behind the DM) and made active comments about the oddity of the situation as a whole.
And then he used the Lyre the second the ship came into view, long before either ship was within fighting range. Basically, the experienced player knew better, but instead of investigating the weirdness he just went to the Lyre and called it a day.

The player was not wrong, his character couldn't know about "dice rolling" and acted accordingly. Btw the way he screwed the situation himself is hilarious.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The player was not wrong, his character couldn't know about "dice rolling" and acted accordingly. Btw the way he screwed the situation himself is hilarious.

It wasn't the dice rolling he was supposed to investigate but the sinking ship. The sinking ship that had, at that point, been sailing just fine with no issues and had started sinking just prior to a Pirate Ship appearing on the horizon.

[Crow_Nightfeath]

One time I was DMing for my group of friends, and the party was ambushed by some nasty creatures. One of my friends, Diazo, decided to cast darkness, since he was both a shadow creature and shadow caster. This is before we understood what the actual darkness spell did, we thought it made a pitch black area at the time. Regardless my friend could hide with no issues, the enemies all headed out if the area while our characters hid inside. My friend also had the ability to fly, this was a decent level campaign, so after rolling a hide check while in the darkness, he flies straight up out the top.. into the daylight.. with nothing to hide behind. He got pretty angry when all the enemies targeted him, because he didn't understand that his rather good hide check he rolled inside the darkness didn't apply outside of it.

[noob]

One time I was DMing for my group of friends, and the party was ambushed by some nasty creatures. One of my friends, Diazo, decided to cast darkness, since he was both a shadow creature and shadow caster. This is before we understood what the actual darkness spell did, we thought it made a pitch black area at the time. Regardless my friend could hide with no issues, the enemies all headed out if the area while our characters hid inside. My friend also had the ability to fly, this was a decent level campaign, so after rolling a hide check while in the darkness, he flies straight up out the top.. into the daylight.. with nothing to hide behind. He got pretty angry when all the enemies targeted him, because he didn't understand that his rather good hide check he rolled inside the darkness didn't apply outside of it.

Look the gm is the one that was wrong with the written rules(he should clarify he is using a house rule):



Hide (Dex; Armor Check Penalty)
Check
Your Hide check is opposed by the Spot check of anyone who might see you. You can move up to one-half your normal speed and hide at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than one-half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty. It’s practically impossible (-20 penalty) to hide while attacking, running or charging.

A creature larger or smaller than Medium takes a size bonus or penalty on Hide checks depending on its size category: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Large -4, Huge -8, Gargantuan -12, Colossal -16.

You need cover or concealment in order to attempt a Hide check. Total cover or total concealment usually (but not always; see Special, below) obviates the need for a Hide check, since nothing can see you anyway.

If people are observing you, even casually, you can’t hide. You can run around a corner or behind cover so that you’re out of sight and then hide, but the others then know at least where you went.

If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check; see below), though, you can attempt to hide. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Hide check if you can get to a hiding place of some kind. (As a general guideline, the hiding place has to be within 1 foot per rank you have in Hide.) This check, however, is made at a -10 penalty because you have to move fast.
So you can totally get to a place where you can hide then hide and go in plain sight and still be hidden.
Also hiding have nothing to do with illumination it is just that usually shadows confers concealment(not always: there is ways to ignore concealment from shadows.).

[Calthropstu]

Look the gm is the one that was wrong with the written rules(he should clarify he is using a house rule):

So you can totally get to a place where you can hide then hide and go in plain sight and still be hidden.
Also hiding have nothing to do with illumination it is just that usually shadows confers concealment(not always: there is ways to ignore concealment from shadows.).

Negative. You can go through plain sight to other cover and remain hidden, but ending your movement in plain sight negates hide unless you have hide in plain sight. In order to stay hidden you need cover.

[noob]

Negative. You can go through plain sight to other cover and remain hidden, but ending your movement in plain sight negates hide unless you have hide in plain sight. In order to stay hidden you need cover.

So basically invisibility does not helps at hiding in plain sight since the opponent stills does an opposed spot check and that you literally can not hide without cover or concealment and that invisibility provides neither and insteads makes you impossible to see

If you are invisible, you gain a +40 bonus on Hide checks if you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Hide checks if you're moving.

And since people observing you even casually(they do not say the person have to see you and you think that seeing the person is not needed since you say that someone that did hide successfully (and so is not seen) is still subject to that rule) prevents you from hiding then you are just found automatically.

So with your interpretation invisibility does not helps at infiltrating in places with no cover or concealment.
Also a well lit manor with open rooms(and no corridors nor pipes nor dark air vents) and one guard per room can not be infiltrated without raising the alarm or using some way of having cover that itself is not possible to see.(such as that truenaming power that gives total concealment for no reason whatsoever.)

[Crow_Nightfeath]

Look the gm is the one that was wrong with the written rules(he should clarify he is using a house rule):

So you can totally get to a place where you can hide then hide and go in plain sight and still be hidden.
Also hiding have nothing to do with illumination it is just that usually shadows confers concealment(not always: there is ways to ignore concealment from shadows.).

Yeah, though as a whole our group didn't understand how the darkness spell worked, and we all applied it uniformly throughout campaigns as this way til we learned what it actually did.

His template the shadow template gives shadow blend, which grants total concealment in anything but full daylight. And he flew straight up out of the globe of darkness into the sunlight, with absolutely nothing to hide behind, without hide in plain sight or any other abilities for hiding without something to hide behind.

[noob]

Yeah, though as a whole our group didn't understand how the darkness spell worked, and we all applied it uniformly throughout campaigns as this way til we learned what it actually did.

His template the shadow template gives shadow blend, which grants total concealment in anything but full daylight. And he flew straight up out of the globe of darkness into the sunlight, with absolutely nothing to hide behind, without hide in plain sight or any other abilities for hiding without something to hide behind.

Except that what I was saying is that if you are hiding you no longer need cover once you started hiding to stay hidden because I consider that someone is not observed if it can not be seen and if it was hiding successfully then it can not be seen.
So with my interpretation you can not start hiding while being seen but once you are hiding you can go around unseen.
Without using that interpretation of the rules it is trivial to make entire mansions where it is impossible to hide without raising alarms(if someone see shadows or someone he raises the alarm) except for people which got special powers but those are so high level they are irrelevant in many campaigns which means that basically it is impossible for thieves to do their job of sneaking around until stupidly high levels.
So the quest "go in the mansion and steal the gem without letting anyone know" would be basically be possible only for very high level rogues with your interpretation(or rogues with templates but those are conditional unlike class levels)

[finaldooms]

i really don't want to jump into this but..if he was hidden in the darkness ( makes sense so far) but goes straight up out of the darkness ( still makes sense) and no long has anything to hide behind ( because i never once saw a reference to turning invisible like you said) it seems to me that if he ended his turn right there in plain view he would either A. no longer be hiding cause..hey HE IS RIGHT THERE above us..or B) oh the enemy makes a new spot check with him getting penalized and they pass it because..he is RIGHT THERE in plain sight.

i can understand if he had cast invisiblity or had an ability stating otherwise that he would not be visable after that..but obvious thing should be kind of obvious? ..now if he had said he went like into a tree or high to the clouds i could understand..but from what i read he just went..up? and nothing else

edit: if you want to use video game logic ( which most people seem to default to anyways when it comes to situations like this) that would be like you using stealth in skyrim or something similar..and then walking right in front of the guard you were trying to avoid without having done something extra to start with
oh..OR using dnd games as a reference cause this is dnd..that would again be like using stealth in a shadowy corner ( yay icewind dale) and then walking to the bright torch with guards looking at you ( hey look at that -x modifier and their passive spot check going .oh i have above that negative score..i see you!!)

[noob]

i really don't want to jump into this but..if he was hidden in the darkness ( makes sense so far) but goes straight up out of the darkness ( still makes sense) and no long has anything to hide behind ( because i never once saw a reference to turning invisible like you said) it seems to me that if he ended his turn right there in plain view he would either A. no longer be hiding cause..hey HE IS RIGHT THERE above us..or B) oh the enemy makes a new spot check with him getting penalized and they pass it because..he is RIGHT THERE in plain sight.

i can understand if he had cast invisiblity or had an ability stating otherwise that he would not be visable after that..but obvious thing should be kind of obvious? ..now if he had said he went like into a tree or high to the clouds i could understand..but from what i read he just went..up? and nothing else
Invisibility does not helps at hiding in plain sight at all with your interpretation of the rules.
invisibility gives a huge boost to hiding but otherwise the arguments to say that invisibility allows to stay hidden while getting out of cover/concealement are exactly the same that allows to stay hidden while being hidden and getting out of cover/concealement.
So with your interpretation of the rules invisibility have simply no use in hiding in plain sight.
Invisibility does not provides anything extra that magically allows to hide in plain sight: it boosts your hide check a whole lot and makes you impossible to see but hide does also makes you impossible to see.

Do not forget that someone rocking around 150 in balance can walk on clouds so it makes sense that the person with 80 in hide can just go in front of the guard and not be seen.(it is not videogame logic: it is logic based on having people incomparably better at their skills than the best human could ever physically be in real life at their role: there is humanoid people squeezing through holes smaller than their head just with a skill)

All you are doing is interpreting rules in ways to disadvantage rogues relatively to casters by saying "nope you can not hide in front of that guard even through you beat his spot check by 50 but you the wizard who used invisibility that uses the same mechanics and just gives you +20 to hide you get unnoticed by the guard".

With your interpretation the guard that have lost an eye and which have eyes half covered in mud and that is progressively dying of a poison damaging his psyche could instantly spot someone that is better at hiding than any human in real life because that person just got out of concealment or cover.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Invisibility provides total concealment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) actually. Although it may be somewhat easy to miss since the Invisibility spell references the Invisible condition which references the Invisibility special ability which actually contains the rule. :smallconfused:

[noob]

Invisibility provides total concealment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) actually. Although it may be somewhat easy to miss since the Invisibility spell references the Invisible condition which references the Invisibility special ability which actually contains the rule. :smallconfused:

Which is even more dysfunctional rules since they indicates a boost to hide checks while total concealment remove hide checks.
So essentially the invisible stealth rules are completely absurd and I am quite sure no dev ever tried to read the rules to see if they could hide or not.

[Malphegor]

Eat fey sandwiches... Though in fairness nobody warned him about accepting food from the fey, and the rest of us assumed it was standard knowledge that one does not accept food from the fey, but then I guess we were metagaming to assume that.

It's okay though, he died trying to take on 3 minotaurs on his own.

... We left his corpse because the fey teleported us back to normal places afterwards. I had meant to carry him on a tenser's disk, but um... we tried to use it for a zelda-esque jumping puzzle and to do that we had to dump him in part of the dungeon. Next to an acid pit. From which acid monsters sometimes oozed out.

His body's probably fiiiiine. No angry spirit in a random dungeon in the forest, no siree...

[EldritchWeaver]

Eat fey sandwiches... Though in fairness nobody warned him about accepting food from the fey, and the rest of us assumed it was standard knowledge that one does not accept food from the fey, but then I guess we were metagaming to assume that.

What is the effect of those fey sandwiches?

[JMS]

What is the effect of those fey sandwiches?
Supposedly, fey food makes you beholden to the fey, or is harmful to mortals (Not too knowledgeable on this). Generally, being controlled by fickle, strange logic using, prank loving beings on the good end is a problem.

[JeenLeen]

I can think of some doozies for World of Darkness, but most of the stupid actions we did in D&D were from lack of information or just stupid in view of bad luck (e.g., took a reasonable course of action, but bad rolls doomed us.)

I think the stupidest is probably when my cleric (aka, I) with awesome turning powers didn't think to Turn Undead when confronted with a necromancer wearing black, thick clothing covering 100% of his skin and a mask completely shielding his face and eyes. I forget if the dude was a vampire or lich, but I had close to 100% chance of dusting him. Instead, my cleric got Disintegrated to dust.
Sure, I had no solid evidence it was undead, but the DM had laid plenty of hints.


Think the game is balanced!

We switched from a homebrew system to 3.5 because we assumed everything was balanced and we could play any class and it be even with others. After all, we reasoned, it's a game made by professionals, so it must be balanced. Took us a while to realize such wasn't the case. Interestingly, my first assessment of wizard was how underpowered it was, since I was playing a level 1-3 blaster-type.

[Telonius]

Most jaw-droppingly horrible example:

Can't remember exactly what level this was, but the player had been playing a Warforged melee guy. We were somewhere around level 12-15, something fairly high like that. He'd assured us that he'd played before and knew his way around a character sheet. We worked with him to get his character set when we started, at level 3 I think, then just left him to his own devices. Then came the horrible moment during a boss fight.

"Hey, X, what Feats do you have on that guy anyway?"

" ... Feats?"

The DM just looked at him slack-jawed. I thought the power gamer was about to have a heart attack. It took a couple of minutes to restore order.

So yeah, he'd been playing for something like 9 -12 levels without giving himself any feats at all. I managed to pull a couple from memory that he could use until we had a serious talk after the session.

[noob]

Most jaw-droppingly horrible example:

Can't remember exactly what level this was, but the player had been playing a Warforged melee guy. We were somewhere around level 12-15, something fairly high like that. He'd assured us that he'd played before and knew his way around a character sheet. We worked with him to get his character set when we started, at level 3 I think, then just left him to his own devices. Then came the horrible moment during a boss fight.

"Hey, X, what Feats do you have on that guy anyway?"

" ... Feats?"

The DM just looked at him slack-jawed. I thought the power gamer was about to have a heart attack. It took a couple of minutes to restore order.

So yeah, he'd been playing for something like 9 -12 levels without giving himself any feats at all. I managed to pull a couple from memory that he could use until we had a serious talk after the session.

if it was in 5e the mistake would be taking feats instead of that.

[Lleban]

Once my players were chasing an Illthid savant across the underdark when they ran into a Beholder mage. They were suspicious that the Savant may have been following them, but they weren't 100% sure. Surprisingly the manged to just barely defeat the beholder, but there was one problem. They left the beholder's dead body just lying around....brain and all.

[Calthropstu]

So basically invisibility does not helps at hiding in plain sight since the opponent stills does an opposed spot check and that you literally can not hide without cover or concealment and that invisibility provides neither and insteads makes you impossible to see

And since people observing you even casually(they do not say the person have to see you and you think that seeing the person is not needed since you say that someone that did hide successfully (and so is not seen) is still subject to that rule) prevents you from hiding then you are just found automatically.

So with your interpretation invisibility does not helps at infiltrating in places with no cover or concealment.
Also a well lit manor with open rooms(and no corridors nor pipes nor dark air vents) and one guard per room can not be infiltrated without raising the alarm or using some way of having cover that itself is not possible to see.(such as that truenaming power that gives total concealment for no reason whatsoever.)

Invisibility provides concealment.

[noob]

Invisibility provides concealment.

which as I said raise another dysfunction since it provides total concealment and that you do not have to roll for stealth when you have such concealment and yet they write that invisibility provides a boost to hide checks of 20 while moving and 40 while static.

[Calthropstu]

which as I said raise another dysfunction since it provides total concealment and that you do not have to roll for stealth when you have such concealment and yet they write that invisibility provides a boost to hide checks of 20 while moving and 40 while static.

Where does it say you don't have to roll hide checks under concealment?

[Quellian-dyrae]

which as I said raise another dysfunction since it provides total concealment and that you do not have to roll for stealth when you have such concealment and yet they write that invisibility provides a boost to hide checks of 20 while moving and 40 while static.

Err...no, it actually explicitly says that even though Invisibility provides Total Concealment, it is still possible to use Spot to at least get a general sense of where an invisible creature is. This isn't two mutually-exclusive rules, it's a specific exception to a general rule.

Though it does have different, albeit not mutually-contradictory, rules in both the Invisibility (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#invisibility) (special abilities) section and the Concealment (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/combatModifiers.htm#concealment) (combat modifiers) section. The Invisibility section details the flat DCs to simply get a sense that an invisible thing is present based on its movement, while the Concealment section details the modifiers invisibility grants to active attempts to Hide. The modifier for the bonus to Hide while moving is +20, the same as the modifier to actually pinpoint something off the Spot check. The modifier for the bonus to Hide while not moving is +40, the same as the combined increase to the base DC for remaining completely immobile and the increase to the DC to pinpoint location.

So as weird as it feels to be defending D&D from claims of dysfunction, in this particular case everything is quite consistent. The most dysfunctional part about it is that the rules are all spread out over at least four different sections of the game!

[Arbane]

Oh, yeah - the same guy who tried to shake down a Hellknight also punched a Black Pudding. He was playing a monk and we weren't sure that's what we were up against as some magic made them look like humanoid statues, so that's not the stupid part. The stupid part is that after the horrible acid burns on his hands, and the healing, he tried to punch it AGAIN.

[Telok]

Archmage at a magic school: "So we trapped a major demon in a secure area. The other two archmages have a plan but I don't think it will work and I need some stuff from the secure area. Here are written instructions on how to bypass the death-trap. Go through and kill the demon while I distract the other mages."

Later...
PC 1: "I pull the lever four times."
PC 2: "No! The instructions say to pull it twice."
DM: "So... You do what?"
PC 1: "I pull the lever four times! I want to see what this thing does."
Party: "Run away!"
DM: "Are you sure?"
PC 1: "I pull it four times. Now quit stalling and tell me what it does."

Wall of Force over the outside of the steel doors. Antimagic field in the room. Knee deep acid floods in. Poisonous flammable gasses from the the treated wood paneling in the room reacting with the acid. The 10 foot thick stone ceiling, on top of the 1/8th inch thich wood ceiling, turns into lava and falls down. The flammable gas burns off all oxygen and the acid boils into steam. The room was 10 feet high, it is now 20 feet high half full of lava and half full of boiling acid steam.

[EldritchWeaver]

So who died?

[ColorBlindNinja]

He was playing a monk and


I think you could have stopped there. :smallbiggrin:

[Krypt]

About level 7 or 8 with a group I had DMd since 1, it was intended as a good campaign, and had adopted a 14 l level paliden as a sponsor and mission giver. Like most paladins he was a little self righteous and was also a politician in the town. The group had returned from getting a mission and had their first wish ring. One of the players had put it on, when they read the note that lord Talon was away and would return home after town hall they got impatient. One of the fighters then mused... I wish I could talk to lord talon.

I gave him temporary telepathy to lord talon... 20 min worth of a pissed of lord and palidin

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Okay: So this is an first level campaign with players who have played D&D before but only for a couple years. They're on a dungeon crawl and they need to climb down to a lower level. They use a rope* to do it but it turns out the low strength party members don't have any ranks in climb. Fair enough. A couple bad rolls and two characters fall down, taking enough damage to be bleeding to death on the floor. The paladin decides he'll get down there quick and heal them. That sounds sensible, he's got a high enough Strength he should be able to make the roll easily. Except he decides that's too slow and he just JUMPS down. No, he doesn't any points in skills or abilities that would reduce the fall damage he's just seen knock out two of his party members or even a high Dexterity. The damage dice roll high and he's incapacitated, too. The party rogue climbs down to help and now has to fend off the monsters that were in that room by himself because everyone else in the party has been taken out be 3d6 falling damage. Thanks to some extraordinarily lucky rolls, he manages to squeak by with a win but we almost had a Total Party Kill, which could have been largely avoided if the paladin hadn't decided, "Eh, I've got 13 hit points, I can probably take that."

*but not a knotted one or this could probably would have played out differently.

[Gnaeus]

The party is camping in the woods. One member is on guard. He hides. He sees some orcs trying to sneak into the camp. He waits to see what they will do. They coup de grace the other 7th level PCs to death.

I also watched a party TPK into the sphere of annihilation in Tomb of horrors.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I also watched a party TPK into the sphere of annihilation in Tomb of horrors.

:eek:

I only lost one player to that deathtrap of a dungeon, and that was because of the cursed gem of wishing.

[Calthropstu]

I think you could have stopped there. :smallbiggrin:

Wtf? Why are you always such a jerk? Playing a monk is not "dumb" nor is it bad playing. Monks can be fun and interesting to play, and bashing people who do play them, and enjoy playing them, isn't appropriate in the slightest.

Just... Stop. Seriously.

[finaldooms]

:eek:

I only lost one player to that deathtrap of a dungeon, and that was because of the cursed gem of wishing.

and here i am feeling proud of myself for managing to convince the entire party ( minus my character so...6 people?) into that room last time i played..

[ColorBlindNinja]

Wtf? Why are you always such a jerk?

Coming from you? Really?


Playing a monk is not "dumb" nor is it bad playing. Monks can be fun and interesting to play, and bashing people who do play them, and enjoy playing them, isn't appropriate in the slightest.

Just... Stop. Seriously.

It was a joke. You need to chill.

[unseenmage]

Wtf? Why are you always such a jerk? Playing a monk is not "dumb" nor is it bad playing. Monks can be fun and interesting to play, and bashing people who do play them, and enjoy playing them, isn't appropriate in the slightest.

Just... Stop. Seriously.
I take it you missed the anti monk jokes up thread huh?

If any thing continued anti monk jokes are on topic.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I take it you missed the anti monk jokes up thread huh?

If any thing continued anti monk jokes are on topic.

And there's a reason people pick on the class after all. :smallwink:

[noob]

Wtf? Why are you always such a jerk? Playing a monk is not "dumb" nor is it bad playing. Monks can be fun and interesting to play, and bashing people who do play them, and enjoy playing them, isn't appropriate in the slightest.

Just... Stop. Seriously.

The thing is that playing a monk is just like playing a commoner except you do not even have the pride of playing a commoner.
So you can play a commoner as well.

[BowStreetRunner]

All you people who are saying someone playing a monk was the dumbest thing you've ever seen a player do - those players are just amateurs. I once played a straight monk 15...


...with Vow of Poverty! :smalleek:

If you're going to do something dumb, you might as well go all-in! :smallamused:

[Calthropstu]

All you people who are saying someone playing a monk was the dumbest thing you've ever seen a player do - those players are just amateurs. I once played a straight monk 15...


...with Vow of Poverty! :smalleek:

If you're going to do something dumb, you might as well go all-in! :smallamused:

I don't find monks to be dumb at all. And I find anyone denigrating people's characters or their concepts to be obnoxious and rude. It's not funny, it's offensive.
A game, rpgs more so than anything else, is about enjoying them. Mocking others as a "joke" isn't, in any way, cool.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I don't find monks to be dumb at all. And I find anyone denigrating people's characters or their concepts to be obnoxious and rude. It's not funny, it's offensive.
A game, rpgs more so than anything else, is about enjoying them. Mocking others as a "joke" isn't, in any way, cool.

Apparently this is a failure to understand the difference between mocking a poorly designed class and the people who play said class.

[unseenmage]

I don't find monks to be dumb at all. And I find anyone denigrating people's characters or their concepts to be obnoxious and rude. It's not funny, it's offensive.
A game, rpgs more so than anything else, is about enjoying them. Mocking others as a "joke" isn't, in any way, cool.
Then by all means report the offending posts for bullying... the monk class?

Afraid I'm not seeing what you're seeing.

My own jab at the monk class was self referential. I did not offend myself. So there's one monk joke at least whose target is definitely not offended.

[Calthropstu]

Apparently this is a failure to understand the difference between mocking a poorly designed class and the people who play said class.
Maybe, except...

I think you could have stopped there. :smallbiggrin:

What you responded here was clearly referencing the person ascribed to playing the monk in question. It implicitly states anyone who plays a monk is dumb; or, at the least, is doing something dumb. As someone who has had a monk who I thorpughly enjoyed, I find this quite offensive.

Then by all means report the offending posts for bullying... the monk class?

Afraid I'm not seeing what you're seeing.

My own jab at the monk class was self referential. I did not offend myself. So there's one monk joke at least whose target is definitely not offended.
It's not the posts bullying the monk class I take exception to. It is the posts stating those who play the monk class are dumb that I decry. I am well aware of the limitations of monks in both pf and 3.5. Noting those limitations is fine. Joking about them is fine.

Playing one, however, is purely a matter of taste. Maybe one likes a challenge, or the allure of eastern martial arts as a class is appealing.

Not all characters need to be batman.

[Covenant12]

The party is camping in the woods. One member is on guard. He hides. He sees some orcs trying to sneak into the camp. He waits to see what they will do. They coup de grace the other 7th level PCs to death.

I also watched a party TPK into the sphere of annihilation in Tomb of horrors.Didn't personally witness, but a group I DM'ed with had an impressive story on that. They knew it was absurdly dangerous, so they called for search checks on every 5' floor, wall, ceiling, anything DM described...and the DM was getting annoyed. DM described a circle of darkness on the far wall. "Charge?" "Charge?" "Charge!" "CHARGE!!!!". ...."Ok, hand over your character sheets." I believe the wording of the sphere of annihilation at the time was saving throw was to avoid the thing, physically diving into it was insta-death.

[Calthropstu]

Didn't personally witness, but a group I DM'ed with had an impressive story on that. They knew it was absurdly dangerous, so they called for search checks on every 5' floor, wall, ceiling, anything DM described...and the DM was getting annoyed. DM described a circle of darkness on the far wall. "Charge?" "Charge?" "Charge!" "CHARGE!!!!". ...."Ok, hand over your character sheets." I believe the wording of the sphere of annihilation at the time was saving throw was to avoid the thing, physically diving into it was insta-death.

Same, except my party figured it was teleportation.

[The Kool]

I will some day run ToH. Can't wait. None of my players have ever experienced it. I want to savor it.

But to the topic at hand, recall that player who kept stealing from the magic bag merchant? He went back to find out why he was wanted. He got up close and personal with the merchant, using a disguise. At this point, I figured I'd better stat the guy out, rightly assuming some conflict might break out. It was at this point that I realized that the minimum level he could be and make such bags (I had long ago decided he made them himself) was not only almost twice the PC's level, but could also cast Locate Creature... and had been established as vengeful and paranoid. Early the next morning, said PC got a visit from a scarcely optimized Conjuror. Two rounds in, trapped in EBT, he managed to use the classic extradimensional space trick to invert space and dump him on the astral plane. I think he thought it would go better than it did. We'll get some updates on him if his stupidity continues.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Maybe, except...


What you responded here was clearly referencing the person ascribed to playing the monk in question. It implicitly states anyone who plays a monk is dumb; or, at the least, is doing something dumb. As someone who has had a monk who I thorpughly enjoyed, I find this quite offensive.

You would wrong, it was a jab toward the Monk class and you're the only one who seems to interpret it as an attack on the individual.


It's not the posts bullying the monk class I take exception to. It is the posts stating those who play the monk class are dumb that I decry.

To my knowledge, no one in this thread has attacked the people who play the class. Merely the class itself.


I am well aware of the limitations of monks in both pf and 3.5. Noting those limitations is fine. Joking about them is fine.

Playing one, however, is purely a matter of taste. Maybe one likes a challenge, or the allure of eastern martial arts as a class is appealing.

Obligatory, "play an unarmed Swordsage" comment.

[Resileaf]

In a Warcraft RPG campaign, tip over a cauldron full of a substance that can only be described as 'Every deadly disease ever', which constantly spews a choking cloud in the air to keep the land around it blighted and sick. The character was afflicted by it and would have died if not for a side quest later.
This was a player who knew enough about Warcraft lore to know this was a bad idea.

[BowStreetRunner]

I don't find monks to be dumb at all. And I find anyone denigrating people's characters or their concepts to be obnoxious and rude. It's not funny, it's offensive.
A game, rpgs more so than anything else, is about enjoying them. Mocking others as a "joke" isn't, in any way, cool.You are welcome to your opinion.

However, don't single out my own personal experience as your example. My RPG group still, to this very day, groans every time any mention of that VoP Monk is made. It really was a dumb idea. For lots of reasons. And I will never, ever, ever, ever play a VoP Monk again. It was my character concept, and it's mine to denigrate. And yeah, it was funny - after I retired the character and made something else of course.

[Flame of Anor]

What you responded here was clearly referencing the person ascribed to playing the monk in question. It implicitly states anyone who plays a monk is dumb; or, at the least, is doing something dumb.

Oh for heaven's sake, this entire thread is making fun of players who make bad decisions. Why are you so mad about the one post which is only half making fun of the player (and half making fun of WotC), and not about all the other posts which are entirely making fun of the player?

[gogogome]

A fighter asked a wizard to cast light on a horse's eyes so it's like headlights. The horse started screaming because it can't see and closing his eyes doesn't stop the bright light in his eye. The fighter then mercy killed the horse and the wizard just then remembered he could've dismissed the spell.

[Resileaf]

A fighter asked a wizard to cast light on a horse's eyes so it's like headlights. The horse started screaming because it can't see and closing his eyes doesn't stop the bright light in his eye. The fighter then mercy killed the horse and the wizard just then remembered he could've dismissed the spell.

And no one in the game realized that light can only be cast on objects? XD

[The Kool]

And no one in the game realized that light can only be cast on objects? XD

A frequently overlooked rule! I tend to prefer rewarding creativity, and I know I've seen the spell used this way before (cast on someone's eyes). But there is also the Flare spell which is designed for this exact purpose (or, as I have recently discovered... as a signal flare!).

[Arbane]

And no one in the game realized that light can only be cast on objects? XD

In AD&D, casting Light on an enemy's eyes to blind them was a valid tactic.

[Covenant12]

In AD&D, casting Light on an enemy's eyes to blind them was a valid tactic.Also a lightproof sack with several continual light rods. And continual darkness bombs. Continual darkness cast on a pebble, then spherical pottery made around it. Thrown real darkness for all party members, not 3.5 darkness-kind of.

[Sto]

How stupid is wanting to roll diplomacy to get past Iron Golems that have been instructed to let no one through a door?

[noob]

How stupid is wanting to roll diplomacy to get past Iron Golems that have been instructed to let no one through a door?

Not so much.
Maybe if you get some way to use diplomacy on nonintelligent constructs.
There might be an obscure source that allows that.
Or maybe make the list of bonuses you have to diplomacy until the gm gives up and say that you succeed with the 3244 bonuses to diplomacy you have.

[RNightstalker]

This is a second-hand story but there was a party back in 1st that was annoying the tar out of the DM wanting to play a game with gunpowder in it. The DM finally gave in and said "Fine! I'll put all the gunpowder in the world in one room in this dungeon." The only problem was the party's SOP had become to throw a lit torch through any door they found and then slam it closed...I was never told if they were able to close the door or not lol.

[The Kool]

I have to share something that's somehow both brilliant and stupid. Back in the AD&D days, I witnessed a party going through a dungeon. Party finds a secret room with a door on the other side. Door looks interesting, might be a puzzle. Floor is covered in gold coins. Party dives in headfirst and loots every single coin in that room, scraping it into backpacks. Then they look at the door, and trigger a chain lightning trap that was SUPPOSED to bounce off the floor and shock everyone in the room multiple times thanks to standing on highly conductive metal. They lived due to their ignorant munchkinity.

[EldritchWeaver]

This is a second-hand story but there was a party back in 1st that was annoying the tar out of the DM wanting to play a game with gunpowder in it. The DM finally gave in and said "Fine! I'll put all the gunpowder in the world in one room in this dungeon." The only problem was the party's SOP had become to throw a lit torch through any door they found and then slam it closed...I was never told if they were able to close the door or not lol.

What is the purpose of throwing a torch and and closing the door?

[King of Nowhere]

How stupid is wanting to roll diplomacy to get past Iron Golems that have been instructed to let no one through a door?

this is the new textbook case of "too dumb to fool"

Unless maybe you can take ulysses' hint and try to persuade them that you are called "no one", but i'd go more for bluff in this case

[noob]

What is the purpose of throwing a torch and and closing the door?
So that you can take door shards in the face while being killed by the pressure change.

[thorr-kan]

I have to share something that's somehow both brilliant and stupid. Back in the AD&D days, I witnessed a party going through a dungeon. Party finds a secret room with a door on the other side. Door looks interesting, might be a puzzle. Floor is covered in gold coins. Party dives in headfirst and loots every single coin in that room, scraping it into backpacks. Then they look at the door, and trigger a chain lightning trap that was SUPPOSED to bounce off the floor and shock everyone in the room multiple times thanks to standing on highly conductive metal. They lived due to their ignorant munchkinity.
If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid. :smallbiggrin:

One of the priests in my Al-Qadim campaign tried evangelizing to a dao, in what was supposed to be an overpowered combat encounter. Due to some spectacular dice rolls and some really, really good player fast talk, he gained a convert to Kor, the god of wisdom. Not a henchman, but somebody willing to talk.

And the evangelizing has spread...

[RNightstalker]

What is the purpose of throwing a torch and and closing the door?

Not a clue...I wonder if they were still itching to play with gunpowder as they were rolling up new characters?

[Logosv]

What is the purpose of throwing a torch and and closing the door?

In theory, the thrown torch stands a chance of triggering any traps immediately beyond the door, which the door would then protect the party from.

Additionally, there are several non-trap possibilities that the torch might warn you of or otherwise see your advantaged for having thrown it. For example:
- If there are creatures in the room, throwing a torch among them is likely to provoke a response, which might let the party make a listen check to notice them.
- If the room is filled with a gas that displaces oxygen, the torch will cease to burn shortly after having been thrown in. My personal guess is that their GM did this once, and the party picked up the torch-throwing as a precaution against a repeat.
- If the room is very dark, the thrown torch will provide a minimal amount of light without requiring hands, while being very cheap.

Overall, as trap-finding rituals go it does have the advantage of being fast, rather than shuffling a series of five-pound weights onto every square before daring to step on it and letting loose backs of ball bearings to check for inclines.

As for my contribution to the thread, I'm not sure if it counts as foolish, but my group has been taking on challenges rather recklessly, especially considering that one of us hasn't shown up since the second session. Most recently, we decided that we could take the optional boss fight while low on spell slots, answering 'yes' to the GM's dreaded "are you sure" in the process.

On the other hand, and why I'm not sure if it actually counts as foolish, is that the increased difficulty is likely to put us 3-4 levels ahead of what was planned by the end of the campaign.

[5crownik007]

I failed to read the thread title, but I feel like it's arbitrary to restrict dumb player stories to just 3.5, PF & d20. If you feel I'm wrong, sue me.

Game system was Stars Without Number 1e.
Crash landed on a radioactive planet controlled by a totalitarian socialist government(that wasn't stupid, they were just screwed by dice).

Planet was TL3(no FTL space travel) but the largest city in the province that they crashed in did have a tightly secured government space launch center. There was also a TL4 Exchange Station in the system, so they did have a plausible means of escape.
The idea was that they were going to do jobs for corrupt gov't officials, travel through the intricate map I had created and have an adventure(between the session where they accidentally landed and we played, I made a map & adventure).

Instead of that, they decided to go directly to the spaceport and try to sneak in. I really should have seen it coming, I mean they really didn't want to be there.

So, they snuck in, nearly got slaughtered when they were caught, boarded a space shuttle, killed the pilot, overrode mission control's control lockout and attempted to blast off as an attack helicopter fired a missile at them. Mission control had also drained a majority of the fuel, meaning that they crash landed inside the city limits. In my infinite mercy I allowed them to survive although I really shouldn't have.

They went on to find the secondary means of escape I had placed, in case a situation like this occurred.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I failed to read the thread title, but I feel like it's arbitrary to restrict dumb player stories to just 3.5, PF & d20. If you feel I'm wrong, sue me.

Well, I did post this in the 3.X forum.

[Mike Miller]

This thread had been made before in the RPG forum. Now it is specific to third ed

[Mrark]

We had to somehow infiltrate the majority of the party in an important Noble’s house (also a very well equipped 15th level warrior) to organise an ambush while he was having sex in his Harem. While the barbarian could enter the room flying with the dragon from height (the roof was windowed to make a more romantic atmosphere), the rest of the party had no idea of how to sneak in surpassing the magic defenses and the controls. The cleric then said “we could pretend we are the plumbers, then go repair the bathrooms until it’s time”.


It worked.

[The Random NPC]

We had to somehow infiltrate the majority of the party in an important Noble’s house (also a very well equipped 15th level warrior) to organise an ambush while he was having sex in his Harem. While the barbarian could enter the room flying with the dragon from height (the roof was windowed to make a more romantic atmosphere), the rest of the party had no idea of how to sneak in surpassing the magic defenses and the controls. The cleric then said “we could pretend we are the plumbers, then go repair the bathrooms until it’s time”.


It worked.

Reminds me of a saying I like.
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.

[Mrark]

Reminds me of a saying I like.
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.

You are right, indeed.

[jintoya]

Had some players who thought freeing an ancient death god who clearly was not happy about being replaced from a dungeon/fortress/prison might be a good idea... He was supposed to be more of a questionable motives quest giver... Ended up seeing the campaign altered heavily and killing the paladin

[Oberron]

Had a player who was shackled, had no gear, at level 1 try to fight the captain of the guards(who had improve grapple), failed to beat the captain in a grapple (player rolled a 14 total), because he refused to give his name to the census taker who was wanting to make records to prove he was a legal citizen and was going to be freed. He slammed his dice down and raged quit saying I was "using the stick and not the carrot", mean while the two other players (who where kenders) gave one of their 7 names and was already free and having a fun time in the town....

[Resileaf]

Eyeballs are objects

Only if they're not inside your body at the time.

[Silva Stormrage]

Where does it say that? I'm pretty sure a gauntlet is still an object despite being on your hand, and a warforged component is an object even though it's embedded inside you. Treating body parts as objects does make the rules go haywire so it's best not to do this but technically gogogome's players did not break the rules.

They aren't objects because they are alive... Living things are creatures not objects, in this instance eyes still attached to creatures are just part of that creature. You can't just target a part of a creature and say it's an object... If you declare you can take any part of a creature and declare it and object then you get silly things like casting Shatter on someone's eyes.

[Silva Stormrage]

Plants are objects and they're alive.

The rules do go haywire just like you said which is why I don't suggest people do that so I'm not gonna defend my position.

The exact quote regarding plants are "Note that regular plants, such as one finds growing in gardens and fields, lack Wisdom and Charisma scores (see Nonabilities) and are not creatures, but objects, even though they are alive."

The only reason regular plants are objects is because they lack a Wis/Cha score so I guess I was not accurate with my first statement. Still eyeballs are attached (usually anyway) to creatures with Wis/Cha scores so that logic doesn't apply. Still no real need to continue this derail.

[The Random NPC]

The exact quote regarding plants are "Note that regular plants, such as one finds growing in gardens and fields, lack Wisdom and Charisma scores (see Nonabilities) and are not creatures, but objects, even though they are alive."

The only reason regular plants are objects is because they lack a Wis/Cha score so I guess I was not accurate with my first statement. Still eyeballs are attached (usually anyway) to creatures with Wis/Cha scores so that logic doesn't apply. Still no real need to continue this derail.

So what you're saying is piercings are not objects while worn.

[Resileaf]

So what you're saying is piercings are not objects while worn.

No, we're saying that eyeballs are bodyparts, not objects.

[Quertus]

I just noticed that the title says "players", not "characters".

That being the case, I'm pretty sure that the indisputable answer, for the stupidest thing any 3e player I know has done, from the PoV of any of my tables, is, "switching to 4th edition". :smalltongue: :smallwink:

[The Kool]

So what you're saying is piercings are not objects while worn.

A piercing, despite being in contact with your body, is not a part of your body. It is an object in your possession (which follows slightly different rules from an unattended object). Something formerly an object that has become part of your body (like, say, a graft) ceases to be an object and becomes a part of the creature in question.

[Bobur]

My players fight an army of hobgoblins in a ruined city, which belongs to a Lv20+ red dragon.
So far they did everything they could do piss him off. Broke into his lair, killed his pets, killed the hobgoblin king, "nuked" the city....
But at some point the dragon appeared and got a hold of some of them.
With some smart magic the grp escaped but in a chaotic way and nobody of the players knew where the rest was going. So 1 player did the smart thing and shouted the name of the city where we came from... of course the dragon heard and payed the city a little visit soon after.

Stupid and for me personally enraging:
I played an animal-like character who had a quest to find some old dwarf friends.
We found one in a mine, dead. The thing is, our rogue found him since he went ahead, recognized the dwarf and FOR SOME REASON thought it was a good idea to kick his face in so that my character wouldnt recognize him and... I dont know... wouldnt have to feel bad?
This made my quest basically impossible to finish and I tried to use my sent ability (cause animal) to recognize the smell and of course I roll way too low and fail that too... no way that I could know it was him until my team tells me... which they didnt until way later.

A low lv grp got imprisoned by the Drow. Withot any gear and rather low level, 2 of the players were taken out of the cell to do forced labor.
The guard was fully equipped and had a sort of werewolf with him to keep a watch on the 2.
One player talked the other into fighting them... which did not go well. One died and the other got badly beaten.

A player got tired of his PC so that character took his leave and soon after his new character was introduced in an underdark adventure.
A duergar dwarf. In a scenario where he was obviously the key for our grp to get out of yet another prison cell or not even getting there since we were still walking in chains, when he arrived and lead the group of prisoners through the duergar city.
His story introduction was presented to him on a silver plate by the DM and all he had to do was lie to some guards and we all would go free, running from the city.
But no. All of a sudden he wanted to do the unexpected and sell us out to his king (which was about to be removed from power anyway). The usurpers knocked him out for being a loyalist, stripped him of everything and threw him in the cell with the rest of us.... So not only did he not free the others, he also lost all his stuff AND made enemies with our grp. Well done man... well done.

The grp got into a fancy royal diner, because they got warned that something dangerous might happen there.
Our cleric was mistrusting of the food and cast a detect poison spell on it... in front of the guests and royalty. Which of course was a big insult and the PC had to leave the party.

[Lord Torath]

I have to share something that's somehow both brilliant and stupid. Back in the AD&D days, I witnessed a party going through a dungeon. Party finds a secret room with a door on the other side. Door looks interesting, might be a puzzle. Floor is covered in gold coins. Party dives in headfirst and loots every single coin in that room, scraping it into backpacks. Then they look at the door, and trigger a chain lightning trap that was SUPPOSED to bounce off the floor and shock everyone in the room multiple times thanks to standing on highly conductive metal. They lived due to their ignorant munchkinity.Yeah, that's not how Chain Lightning works. :smallannoyed: Or how real-world electrical conductivity/resistance works either. :smallsigh: But, you know, whatever. :smallamused:

[The Kool]

Yeah, that's not how Chain Lightning works. :smallannoyed: Or how real-world electrical conductivity/resistance works either. :smallsigh: But, you know, whatever. :smallamused:

AD&D, still probably didn't work that way by RAW but the DM was the type who's been running for decades and has those little house rules that make the game feel more mysterious and dangerous. I like his world. Though, to be fair I overstated the implications. The idea was that the first hit was the floor and shocked everyone, then it bounced around normally.

[StarriDanni]

Wasn't DMing, but this was my party in college. I'm forgetting quite a few details, as I was very new at the time, but I remember the stupid quite well.

We're in a cave, and after exploring for a while, we get split up looking for...something. An encounter happens, and I can't for the life of me remember how, but one of the PCs ends up impaled on a thick stalagmite, straight through his stomach, He somehow doesn't die, but he is unconscious. (I want to say he jumped down from a bridge above the encounter to join us. If that's actually the case then consider that mistake 0.)

This particular adventure was pretty much "Leader Dragon Beatstick and His Friends"™, so after the encounter, LDB sees his injured party member and makes 2 mistakes. The first one was removing the impaled PC from the rock. This PC was a midget human of a homebrew class that was essentially being a pokemon trainer, so not a lot of HP. Heavy bleed damage starts from the gaping stomach hole, and we all start panicking.

Now, LDB was a dragonborn (?) that was prestiging into Dragon Disciple. Both the player and the character revered gold dragons as the end-all-be-all, so of course he had a fire breath weapon. It was at this point, entrenched in our panic, he makes mistake #2 and decides to use that breath weapon and cauterize the gaping stomach wound to stop the bleeding. The DM is stupefied, asks "are you sure?" He still goes through with it, all while the rest of the party is slack jawed.

The patient didn't survive the operation. At least the trainer was a good sport about it, but we never really let him live that down.

[Ignimortis]

After last session I finally have something to post here.
Basically...they've entered the dwarven kingdom, which is currently at war with a mysterious force of constructs which seems to be unbeatable but somehow dwarves manage to hold them back through sheer luck and perseverance. The kingdom is huge, the cave ceiling is maybe a kilometer away or even more, and it's full of stars somehow.

Naturally, they get curious. A warlock with Fell Flight and a Wildshaped druid fly over to investigate. They find a mysterious fog covering the top of the cave, and the stars shine on from beyond the fog. The warlock tries to enter it, gets shocked for some lightning damage and Dispel Magic, starts falling down with a shout of "don't touch iiiiiiiiit".

The bird druid doesn't care, flies through the fog at full speed, hears some cautioning cryptic whispering in a tongue she doesn't understand, but is otherwise unscathed. Sees a whole bunch of shiny jewels embedded into the cave's ceiling, all connected by shining magical strands.

Her first thought? Try and drag one out. She succeeds. It's a massive ruby cylinder...and it's also a lynchpin for a massive ward erected by the dwarves' first king, when the magic was powerful and mortals could become gods. The ward is down. The party's dwarf just heard their first king, also their best god, warn all the dwarves in the kingdom that "well, you're basically on your own now, guys, I can't interfere anymore".

Wonder how all of this will play out...

[Biggus]

Reminds me of a saying I like.
If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid.

Depends. If it sounds stupid but succeeded because no one was expecting anyone to do anything so brazen/ bizarre/ simple that they hadn't defended properly against it, it was clever. If it had a 99%+ chance of getting you killed, and you survived solely because you rolled two consecutive natural 20s at the right moment, it was stupid.

[Covenant12]

Depends. If it sounds stupid but succeeded because no one was expecting anyone to do anything so brazen/ bizarre/ simple that they hadn't defended properly against it, it was clever. If it had a 99%+ chance of getting you killed, and you survived solely because you rolled two consecutive natural 20s at the right moment, it was stupid.Well, under that category I have one I actually DM'ed.

Player: I want a vorpal weapon, how can I get one?
Me: You have divination spells, use them?
Players: Vorpal weapon?
Me: Volcano a moderate ways to the south.

1st edition, said vorpal weapon was guarded by a max age red dragon. Who had respectable spellcasting, and to the PC's shocking upset attacked them in transit overland with invisibility up.

Flies by, snatches at two party members. One bare miss against plate mail (dragon needed 2 or 3), one successfully snatched bard. Maybe 150' range when they could respond to surprise, I let them do one round of ranged attacks. They couldn't do much if they even hit. But they had a wild mage cohort. The only spell he had that could reach was the random wild magic one. 85% spell resistance. Penetrated. Needs a 3 to save vs. spell. Rolls a 1. d100 result....target falls in love with caster. F.....

But they did get a vorpal weapon.

[Mr Adventurer]

After last session I finally have something to post here.


Bit of a crappy God-ward if it's taken down by, what, just some dude plucking at one bit of it? 🤔

[noob]

Bit of a crappy God-ward if it's taken down by, what, just some dude plucking at one bit of it? 🤔

I guess it was just that the dwarves were lucky to face a mysterious force of unintelligent constructs lacking the ability to do anything like exploring or randomly smashing stuff or setting everything on fire.