PC Stupidity Stories II

[Adventurer]

Continued from the now-locked PC Stupidity Stories thread.


As I'd mentioned in my previous post, I just started DMing and there's an Elf Druid in my party who did quite a few stupid things in the first session and gave me a hunch that he'd continue doing so. Well, he didn't prove me wrong in our second session.


The first one was minor but still very baffling. The party tracked down a lair of thieves in the forest and once inside found a small room that was evidently the thieves' leader's room. With the other three members of the party occupied (one was searching the walls for secret doors, the other was reading some documents found on a desk and the third didn't enter that room for reasons of her own) the Druid opened up the desk's drawer and found, among some worthless junk, a pouch. I told him it contained 60gp. So he says "I throw the pouch back in the drawer". WITHOUT saying that he takes the gold. WITHOUT writing it down anywhere. WITHOUT telling anyone else about it. I thought he'd just supposed he took it without telling me out loud but when they found a secret chest later he immediately notified the others and wrote that gold down. It was funny seeing the players' expressions when I told them about this "lost gold" at the end of the session.

The second blunder was much worse. Outside the lair they killed four thieves and knew from an NPC source (long story) that two more had been killed the day before. Inside the lair they found documents that stated the thieves were seven in total, so they deduced one was still on the loose. So as they camped in the wilderness they decided to have someone guard them as the rest were sleeping. Since the two Elves need 4 hours of sleep each, they took the sensible decision to have one Elf guard for the first 4 hours and the other for the rest of the 4 hours to complete the 8-hours camp. So once 4 hours were gone, the first Elf woke our Druid up so that he would continue guarding. As soon as the first Elf started his trance, the Druid tells me "I search for a river to fill my waterskin". I ask him if he's serious and he insists. To leave the party. Who are sleeping. In the middle of the night. To go and fill his half-full waterskin.

For the surviving thief who had found their encampment about an hour ago and was looking for a way to attack unnoticed, the Druid leaving them completely open was like a divine gift.

[FoE]

I don't know, the second thing was kind of dumb, but the first thing is kind of nitpicking. In a situation like that, the first thing I would do is ask him "You toss the pouch without taking the gold?"

I remember playing a game with an old friend who was DM'ing. It was a pretty cliche set-up: a bartender hired the party to raid this temple (why he cared about this temple, I dunno) and I left assuming he told us where the temple was. Nope, I had to come all the way back and RP it.

I should have taken that as a sign the whole session was going to go swiftly downhill ...

The DUMBEST thing a party has done when I was DM'ing — or rather, I was co-DM'ing with the buddy I mentioned earlier — was when the PCs encountered this red dragon who was a servant of the Big Bad. He offered to impart them some valuable advice about getting through the dungeon if they allowed him to eat a member of the party. So they drugged up a halfling and offered him to the monster.

The dragon's "advice", spoken in unison by me and the regular DM, was as follows:

"NEVER TRUST A DRAGON!"

Hilarity ensued.

[Blackfang108]

I don't know, the second thing was kind of dumb, but the first thing is kind of nitpicking. In a situation like that, the first thing I would do is ask him "You toss the pouch without taking the gold?"

I remember playing a game with an old friend who was DM'ing. It was a pretty cliche set-up: a bartender hired the party to raid this temple (why he cared about this temple, I dunno) and I left assuming he told us where the temple was. Nope, I had to come all the way back and RP it.

I should have taken that as a sign the whole session was going to go swiftly downhill ...

The DUMBEST thing a party has done when I was DM'ing — or rather, I was co-DM'ing with the buddy I mentioned earlier — was when the PCs encountered this red dragon who was a servant of the Big Bad. He offered to impart them some valuable advice about getting through the dungeon if they allowed him to eat a member of the party. So they drugged up a halfling and offered him to the monster.

The dragon's "advice", spoken in unison by me and the regular DM, was as follows:

"NEVER TRUST A DRAGON!"

Hilarity ensued.

I would have done that.

After cutting off one of the halfling's fingers and poisoning it's body, but I would have done that.

[Morty]

Our D&D campaign might have been stretched over 3 years of rare sessions and threrefore rather short in essence, but it was rife with amazing displays of stupidity.
The most enormous one, I think, was when my wizard character decided to summon a familiar and told the rogue and the ranger to go find him a weasel he could turn into one. The two guys of course decided to cacth a weasel in the woods. Which would be fine, but instead of buying a piece of meat to use as a bait, the rogue tried to steal it. Somehow, they managed to escape capture and, as they've injured several people as they ran away, subsequent hanging.

[Decoy Lockbox]

Our party was invading an undead-haunted battlefield/forest called the "demesne of sorrow", and our plan was to walk right in and start cracking skulls. The DM had us make in-character "stupidity checks" (will saves), that, if failed, gave a -2 attack penalty to represent the feeling of "hey guys, this is really stupid. We should leave right now!"

Most of the party passed theirs, and so we continued on in. Soon we were overwhelmed by wights who proceeded to strength drain the heck out of us. It was then that our wizard came up with the idea to cast rope trick in the middle of combat and hide in it until the undead went away. Genius!

[FoE]

Soon we were overwhelmed by wights who proceeded to strength drain the heck out of us. It was then that our wizard came up with the idea to cast rope trick in the middle of combat and hide in it until the undead went away. Genius!

Did the party survive? Did they kill the wizard afterwards?

[Olo Demonsbane]

I will add something that goes for DM stupidity, like the last thread included.

We were playing Red Hand of Doom...actually, I was helping him get ready for playing it, using 4 characters that I had whipped up.

We came to the battle of Skull Gorge Bridge. I had my Beguiler run up and use a suggestion spell "We want a peace confrence! Just 5 minutes!" Every single monster failed their saving throw, even the Dragon and the Seargent.

Ok, now here is where it gets stupid. The DM let me use Diplomacy to make friends with a dragon. My characters were only third level (geshalt), and none of us was charisma based, so we couldnt do much, right?

In two minutes we had diplomanced Ozyrrandion.

The fight was very simple after that.

[Douglas]

Allowing diplomacy and apparently setting the DC too low is not the only DM stupidity in that story - Suggestion is single target, and there's no way you had access to Mass Suggestion at 3rd level without some serious cheese.

[GreyMantle]

Just avoiding RAW Diplomacy is probably the best idea. I really like the alternate version presented on this site.

[Korivan]

I remember one guy who jumped into a pool of acid for some magical armor. We all knew (including him) it was acid.

In a different campaign, a low ranking demigod was giving us our next assighnment and a different guy went up to it and punched it...mostly just out of spite and misguided pride...or something. Then went on a tangent on how the demigod overreacted when it changed him into a chicken...permenantly.

[mistformsquirrl]

Yeah, Rich's diplomacy fix is good stuff <. .>b


As for my own... PC stupidity eh?

*redface* Uhh... well I mean... err... I didn't...

Okay yes I've done some ridiculously stupid things >.<;

Some examples:

Shadowrun 3rd edition; I'm playing an elven street samurai. My team (including me) is taking cover behind a fallen pillar (we're in an office building - it has those nice marble pillars all around... and one of them was knocked over by a grenade).

Security has us pinned, and they're bringing up heavier firepower.

My decision? I go War Hero mode.

I didn't say "Come on, do you want to live forever?" But I did go over the top...

Unsurprisingly, I was gunned down mercilessly and died <;_;> the rest of the team eventually retreated. Yes, blatant stupidity on my part.

---------

D&D 3.5e - Eberron campaign -

I'm the defacto leader of the group. We've unfortunately run into a camp of human cultists camped inthe jungle. It's night however, and they don't expect trouble, we we have the advantage of surprise.

Better still: We have a very solid group, a Warblade (me), a Cleric, a Ranger, a Paladin, a Wizard and a Rogue.

So I offer the group my plan: We're going to flank them. Me, the Paladin, and the Cleric will go around to the other side of the camp, and act as an anvil. When we start the battle, they'll be focused on us, allowing our caster and more stealthy folks to play havoc while they're facing the 'tough' members of the group.

Seems like a fine plan right? Everyone agrees...

Anyone spot the problem here? <'x'> The Paladin and the Cleric were in heavy armor, and although I'm in Light armor, I have no ranks in hide or move silently.

... yeah, we walked about 10ft and set off every alarm in the camp.

We won the fight, but holy crap... it would have been far, far easier if I'd done it the other way.

*sigh*

<;_;> A dummy is me.

[OMG PONIES]

My first time playing D&D was also my first TPK. We were 1st level, playing an Eberron campaign and fighting some kobolds who were taking cover in an alleyway behind some barrels. I had decided to play a high-WIS rogue, with pretty horrible stats everywhere else, so my archery was not too effective.

For some reason, I believed D&D took inspiration from video games (rather than the opposite), so I proclaimed, "I bet those barrels will explode if we hit them! Barrels always explode!" A quick spot check revealed gasoline leaking from the barrels, so I ran forward with a torch in hand.

It was a very short alleyway, and there were a lot of barrels. The only living thing that survived the encounter was our wizard's weasel familiar.

[Jergmo]

Let's see...at the beginning of my campaign, we had a dwarf fighter, human cleric, human rogue, and kobold sorcerer. The gang found this camp of bandits who had kidnapped a paladin, and they were planning to rescue her. They noticed the camp's sentry, who was hiding in a tree, before she had noticed them. While the other three were planning, the rogue walked up to her and said "Hello, there!".

Later on, we switched to a higher level party (with certain previous players missing), and the gang was traveling through the mountains. The rest of the party was scattered, most of them on top of a cliff while the leader, a level 12 paladin/pikeman was at the bottom of the canyon on his charger. He decided that it would be a good idea to challenge an adult Fang Dragon, on horseback, out in the open with no support. The party barely survived, and the dragon, after killing his mount and knocking his weapons far away, batted him about like a cat and used him as a chewtoy for fun. They survived because the dragon eventually got bored and left.

Later still, same party. The gang decided to take on a Mature Adult Green Dragon in her lair, and as they made their way to the lair, they thoroughly planned the strategy they were going to use to defeat the dragon, and made certain that I wouldn't know what they were going to do. With their plan ready, they finally made it to the entrance to the dragon's lair, and were completely thwarted by the deep pool sitting in front of the cave entrance, which was behind a waterfall. They spent quite some time trying to find out how they were going to get across, and eventually the whole shindig fell apart. Naturally, I cackled my head off.

Also, they had like three magic items that could have helped them cross.

[Rob_The_Impaler]

I really have to say it was me doing the stupid thing..:P My level five halfling rogue was CN at the time and we were at a village to the north. It had just snowed (four feet) and my halfling couldn't walk on the top of the snow, he tried and fell through many a time before he came up with the ideal to just blast the snow away...lets just say, lightning javalin, and wet snow didn't make for a good ideal.... The village population droped to 10 (it was at 56 before I made my 300 ft path in the snow) I also almost died doing taking 10 damage everytime I used it....

The same halfling also did something even more stupid the day before... um, 1000's of gold in a small town is not a good thing, and never lie and say a PP is Silver...the butcher cut off his fingr for that on....

On a side note.... he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt... that town was wiped off the map when he fled, (After getting a bounty of 3 gp on his head...) It was fun....

On another note, my group found a new love for the game, halfling ball.... the point is the see how long you can keep one halfing in the air.... (A group of people came to the blacksmith's shop looking for my halfling....

This all happened in one RL day....

[Jergmo]

I really have to say it was me doing the stupid thing..:P My level five halfling rogue was CN at the time and we were at a village to the north. It had just snowed (four feet) and my halfling couldn't walk on the top of the snow, he tried and fell through many a time before he came up with the ideal to just blast the snow away...lets just say, lightning javalin, and wet snow didn't make for a good ideal.... The village population droped to 10 (it was at 56 before I made my 300 ft path in the snow) I also almost died doing taking 10 damage everytime I used it....

The same halfling also did something even more stupid the day before... um, 1000's of gold in a small town is not a good thing, and never lie and say a PP is Silver...the butcher cut off his fingr for that on....

On a side note.... he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt... that town was wiped off the map when he fled, (After getting a bounty of 3 gp on his head...) It was fun....

On another note, my group found a new love for the game, halfling ball.... the point is the see how long you can keep one halfing in the air.... (A group of people came to the blacksmith's shop looking for my halfling....

This all happened in one RL day....

Chaotic Neutral is not a "be stupid and/or insane free" card.

While many insane people are Chaotic Neutral, not very many Chaotic Neutral people are insane.

Edit: Yay Halflingball!

[Assassin89]

In one session, the party consisted of a half-elf cleric of St. Cuthbert, a warforged healer, a human psychic warrior, a stonechild rogue, and a elf scout. APL 6.

The party came to a cavern that held a giant diamond. The stonechild rogue and the elf scout went down to get the diamond, and the scout approached the diamond. Now imagine this scene from Indian Jones, but rather than replacing the diamond with something, the scout just grabs it and runs. The result of this stupidity? The diamond is lost, the player of the stonechild rogue makes a rule that a bag of holding is to be tied to a rope and lowered down so that no treasures are lost, and the scout and an NPC dies.

The thing is that the DM planned for the scout to die and everyone else wanted the death of the scout due to the player being an annoyance to the entire group.

A second idiotic thing the scout did was put on a necklace and was cursed as a result, and that was in the same dungeon.

[Fitz10019]

... My level five halfling rogue ... lightning javalin... I made my 300 ft path in the snow...he also burned down a tavren with said lighting bolt...

This is also DM stupidity, considering that a javelin of lighting is consumed after 1 use.

[Thajocoth]

"I jump down the pit."

This was said by the party's Swordmage during the last session I ran.

The full situation:
The party fought 3 Warforged in a room full of conveyor belts & pits. During the battle, they dropped a Warforged down a pit who came back through another entrance 2 rounds later. They won, but in the process all Warforged bodies wound up in pits, whether pulled there or conveyored there. Before taking an extended rest, he decided the pits must be safe for him to jump into to loot the bodies. I asked if he was sure, like any good DM, and he was quite sure. Two of his "allies" only fought alongside him for 1 & 2 fights and decided that their characters had no reason to follow him down when they heard him scream by triggering a 2nd encounter. Not only that, but to trigger this second encounter, he fell into ANOTHER pit which was under some illusionary terrain. He did this BEFORE his two rescuers jumped into pits to aid him... So they had to disbelieve the floor the first. Down there with him was a Choker. I decided not to have the two Gnomes reveal themselves yet, and having the Choker only take 1 move action his first turn, allowing the Swordmage to escape... Mostly because it was late and I didn't want to run another encounter right then.

[Rob_The_Impaler]

This is also DM stupidity, considering that a javelin of lighting is consumed after 1 use.

It was a homebrew magic item, Basicly lightning bolt 3/day.

[Rob_The_Impaler]

Chaotic Neutral is not a "be stupid and/or insane free" card.

While many insane people are Chaotic Neutral, not very many Chaotic Neutral people are insane.

Edit: Yay Halflingball!

Ya I get that, he started off normal, but after...countless times used as a weapon, (mainly thrown at goblins and such) and plenty of times hitting his head on things..(Critical fail on the Bar's throw, he lost WIS., and INT., before he died at the hand of a level 1 commoner he had a INT of 5, and a WIS of 3.... not the smartest halfling around....

[Jergmo]

Ya I get that, he started off normal, but after...countless times used as a weapon, (mainly thrown at goblins and such) and plenty of times hitting his head on things..(Critical fail on the Bar's throw, he lost WIS., and INT., before he died at the hand of a level 1 commoner he had a INT of 5, and a WIS of 3.... not the smartest halfling around....

Haha, wow.

[Talon Sky]

The dumbest thing I'd ever done as a player was also probably the bravest....it was more reckless then stupid, but whatever.

I was playing in a short campaign as a half-elf Bard named Aiden Kingsbane, along with a half-dragon fighter and a human druid, and we were all around....3rd level or so. It was the first session....the half-dragon was a prince to the local human kingdom, who believed him to be divine, and the druid was his mentor. My bard was actually the true heir to the throne but didn't know it....the DM had planned, later on, for this to eventually cause some major in-party conflict for us to overcome.

Anyways....

After our characters met, they decided to make camp on the edge of a forest. The half-dragon fighter decided to go exploring on his own, just because the player thought a level adjustment always meant you were stronger then anything else around ;p When he didn't return, the druid went looking for him. The DM kept passing them notes, so I decided the bard should go searching too....and unlike them, I had ranks in hide and move silently.

My bard came on this huge clearing, filled with an army of around 400 hobgoblins preparing to besiege the local castle. My two companions were tied up and trying to get free, but they couldn't due to the hobgoblins watching them. So, having the hero complex that I have....

....I had my bard jump in the middle of the hobgoblin army. Swinging two rapiers and taking a Total Defense stance, I actually managed to kill a good deal and survive long enough for the druid to get free and then free the fighter. By the time they had gotten to my bard, though, he was long dead. To add insult to injury, because the DM was disgusted by my 'stupidity', the hobgoblins had striped my character's body of pants and violated him. After being raised, he never could sit right again ;p

-----

Another screw up of mine was the first character I played, a human paladin. I bought full-plate armor, but no clothes, being an ignorant newbie.

The first group of enemies we faced was led by a wizard. Incidentally, Hold Person and Heat Metal can be very effective and sadistic spells against a paladin in full-plate armor >.>

[PrismaticPIA]

I was playing a cleric in 3.5 World's Largest Dungeon, when are party came across the 20 x 20ft mimic disguised as a bookcase. Our fighter tried to grapple it. Were it not for my character serving the god of drugs, sex, and booze...and toting around an excessive supply of alcohol, it would have an been a TPK.

[Superglucose]

Rogue 1/Ranger 2/Wizard 2/Dragon Disciple 1 halfling. 'Nuff said.

The worst part though was I expressed my skeptecism at the build, but was assured that he "knows what I'm doing" and that it's "a really powerful build." The core premise appears to be having his monkey familiar use wants with a +2 to UMD, and some kinda rod that casts Melf's Acid Arrow 3 times /day. He spend his starting cash on it.

Oh wait, did I say that was the worst part?

No, the worst part is they think I'm a noob GM and a noob player who doesn't understand 3.5 very much. Before I had my intelligence insulted, i was dialing down the upcoming wizard (read: no lesser globe of invulnurability) and now? Now he'll have his globe, plus Stinking Cloud, Plus Obscuring Mist, plus Web (stinking cloud + web is a nice and sexy combo), plus Summon Monster 3 and a few Vampiric Touch/Magic Missiles so he can finish them off (he needs to kill some of them somehow). I don't expect them to survive the encounter unless they flee.

Party level 7 (when they face it, at least) vs an 8th level wizard. So far I've been playing nice, and not targeting weak spots in their defenses. I hope they enjoy facing off against the Flesh Golem (singular) that will rip them to shreds.

[Dogmantra]

Rogue 1/Ranger 2/Wizard 2/Dragon Disciple 1 halfling. 'Nuff said.

That's not a legal build. You need a spontaneous casting class to enter Dragon Disciple, unless you've houseruled it, or there's an exploit I'm unaware of.

[Superglucose]

*shrug* i didn't question it.

[Jalor]

I've told this before, but it's still funny.

4e campaign, we are running a Keep On The Shadowfell. Not [I]the[I] Keep On The Shadowfell, but our DM's rewritten version (see, one of our players torrented and read the real one beforehand). Party consists of me playing a Halfling Ranger, Chris playing an Eladrin Warlord, Aaron playing a Human Wizard, Mike playing a Tiefling Rogue, and Jason playing an Elf Ranger.

We're already a dysfunctional party; Jason's (female) elf has the exact same personality as his dearly departed dwarven cleric. Whenever he kills something, he takes a tooth from the body. Yes, even the human bandits. Also, all of his characters are alcoholics. He has said I go to the tavern and get drunk more than any other player I've ever seen.

Chris is an utter buffoon. He takes the heads of everything he kills. Again, including the bandits. We kill a pack of lizardfolk and he goes to the toilet at the end of the encounter. Mike, the only one of us with wit or panache, goes You know, he's going to come back and ask to cut off their heads. He returns, yelling I wanna cut off their heads. Mike asks him if he heard what he said before. He had not.

They were also directly responsible for the horse adventure, but that is a story for another time. Actually, Jason was sleeping off a hangover and didn't even show up this session.

Anyway, we fight some wights on the first level. Tough, but doable. Nobody spends their dailies, but I am the only one with full healing surges. We go and fight some kobold mooks. No dailies or healing surges are spent. Next room is goblin mooks. There's a pit trap in the room, and we argue for 20 minutes over whether Chris fell in it. The goblins can't hurt us, but we are rolling horribly too. Wee kill them. There are two doors to the south of the room. I go to get some chips, Mike goes to pee. We come back and our DM is grilling Chris and Aaron. They are planning to open both doors simultaneously.

No, I'm dead serious. They're not even our youngest or least experienced players. I am.

But neither I nor Mike are paying heed to their antics. We figured they were discussing rules or something. I had a new Magic: The Gathering deck, which I showed him. The DM's voice pulls us out of our MTG-trance.

"Okay, so you've opened both doors. In the room on the right are two hobgoblin soldiers and two temple whips. In the room on the left are two ghouls and two temple whips." We are around 3rd level and fighting two tough encounters at once.

I win initiative and go nuts on the hobgoblin nearest Chris. I Hunter's Quarry it, hit it with my daily, spend an action point, hit it with my encounter power, and take out about 2/3s of his health. I'm adjacent to a hobgoblin, so I use my last action to leave melee range.

Next the ghouls rush Mike. They stun and crit him. Everyone else backs away from the doors. The temple whips heal the hobgoblin I attacked, and the ones in the ghoul room kill Mike. Everyone runs.

To this day I can't figure out why they decided to open the doors simultaneously.

[snowbard55]

This one's pretty basic, but our Gnome Wizard casts Fireball while the Barbarian is in melee with the evil town guards. The best part was the Barb's reaction... "Did you...did you just light me on fire?"

[Decoy Lockbox]

Did the party survive? Did they kill the wizard afterwards?

Yes, we survived. The wizard actually explained his plan to us, and it allowed the whole party to survive by hiding in the rope trick. Though climbing up a rope when you have 3 strength and are wearing fullplate is no easy task.

[Kris Strife]

The monk decided to attack Detrius while his Peacemaker was loaded and pointed inside the building...

Shortest campaign ever.