painful player hijinks

[tardisvalkyrie]

so, my players are in a boss fight, the rogue just took six poison arrows to the (insert variose apendeges here) and failed six fortitude saves, takes 6d6 strength damage, and is reduced to zero strength. the cleric whose mace was just sundered, and he picks up the halfling (rogue) and says, "can i throw him?" "yes". "how much damage?" "1d6, but he will also take 1d6" "can i throw him at the fire elemental?" "not if you want him to live" "I thow him at the fire elemental" the rogue's player is looking more and more scared throughout this conversation says "can i try to wriggle free?" "no, your strength is zero" "can i poke him with my dagger?" "no, your strength is zero" "can i plead for mercy?" "no, your strength is zero" the wizard narrowly saves the rogue by pointing out that killing your allies is against his god

another time, just after a bos fight (this is with a different party, a paladin, fighter, sorcerer, and rogue, all level 2) the goblin warpries/warlord, barely surviving, and he flees through a gate, they have seen these gates before, but the kind they have seen go between towns, and they charge after him, as he is almost dead. they come into the throne room of a demon prince
the sorcerer "i make a knowledge arcana check (rolls a 19, for a total of 25)"
me "this is the demon prince mula tahn, he is the gobins deity"
the sorcerer rogue, and fighter "we have to run"
the paladin "i have to try to kill it, don't I"
me, checking the dmg "yep... sorry"
the sorcerer casts sleep, the paladin rolls a natural 2 and they escape wth thier lives, just barely

what are the moments where you almost got your party killed by not acounting for your players?

[Guizonde]

what are the moments where you almost got your party killed by not acounting for your players?

it's late, so i'll keep it brief for now, but saying "my entire pc life" could resume it. danger-awareness is for serious people, and we're completely off our rocker. off the top of my head: running away from 200+ guards, then fighting them (and winning barely), fighting the grim reaper, fighting a time demon, getting various buildings toppled on top of me, getting a plaguebearer up in my face (not cool), getting a powder keg storage exploded 2 streets away, the mage blowing up the hotel room and me taking the brunt of the damage, torturing various powerful npcs (who got their revenge), sinking an airship by goomba-stomping through it (at least it worked, though i had to reroll, since minotaurs can't swim, especially after a 600ft drop)... yeah, my team isn't the sharpest. worst would have to be fighting a devil who would just not die (dice karma and murphy's law). 5 against 1, and 2 could've taken him... took out 4 to 0hp, the ranger equivalent took him out with a lucky roll, and not a moment too soon. when the dice hate you...

[Yukitsu]

Every time I run an encounter. A level 1 commoner managed to solo three of my players, who were level 2.

As an interesting and related tangent, when I'm a player, the party tends to get wiped every time I don't show up.

[Crossblade]

the paladin "i have to try to kill it, don't I"
me, checking the dmg "yep... sorry"

No, no it doesn't. No where in the DMG does it say the Paladin has to commit suicide because his Detect Evil pings. Sorry, but this makes you a poor DM for designing this encounter and telling him that.

[Chilingsworth]

I haven't DMed much, so I have no notable experiences from that side.

However, one time I paniced while playing my bard, and cast amplify near a night twist.

Cue DM glee: "OK, you guys who were past the edge of the night twist's haunting melody, roll will saves."

[Gnomish Wanderer]

I made a Will-Based (save ends) trap that caused allies to be perceived as enemies (described as 'You feel yourself being dragged into a different room, dropped away from the party facing faceless monstrocities!'). The combat was hard enough to run with splitting into three groups with three identical boards (the rogue and fighter failed, everyone else succeeded), but I forgot that the party fighter had
A. not passed a will save this four-month campaign and had
B. the capability to do some serious damage.

I ruled it wore off right before he would have executed the third party member (DMPC, like 2 levels lower than the party AND his character's current love interest) >.>

[tardisvalkyrie]

No, no it doesn't. No where in the DMG does it say the Paladin has to commit suicide because his Detect Evil pings. Sorry, but this makes you a poor DM for designing this encounter and telling him that

i thougt it said somewhere that the paladin cannot run away while evil was threatening. please note this was pre hinjo in oots, so it was awile ago, my third time dming

[KillianHawkeye]

i thougt it said somewhere that the paladin cannot run away while evil was threatening. please note this was pre hinjo in oots, so it was awile ago, my third time dming

OOTS has nothing to do with this. Paladin's are not required to fight anything, EVER. And the DMG has nothing to say about roleplaying a Paladin.

[Ashtagon]

i thougt it said somewhere that the paladin cannot run away while evil was threatening. please note this was pre hinjo in oots, so it was awile ago, my third time dming

• Can't run away while evil is threatening.
• Can run away while evil is playing cards with his beer buddies.

[Lea Plath]

Isn't the saying Paladins are lawful good, not lawful stupid?

[Guizonde]

Isn't the saying Paladins are lawful good, not lawful stupid?

add to this one thing: paladins are warriors. only berserkers and slayers consider death a valorous option. a good warrior knows when to back off and spring a devastating counter-attack. even with a revolving door afterlife, a paladin won't enjoy meeting his maker (he's more useful alive to continue smiting evil non-stop rather than enjoying a 3 month vacation)

and why level 20 paladins are immune to death due to their iron will. overkill feat? nah, they're meat-shields who can heal. it helps them save more lives.

[Roderick_BR]

No, no it doesn't. No where in the DMG does it say the Paladin has to commit suicide because his Detect Evil pings. Sorry, but this makes you a poor DM for designing this encounter and telling him that.

And to complement: Paladins don't need to go "EBIL! GOTTA KILL'EM ALL, DURR HURR!"
Since it was not a direct threat to innocent beings (they were inside the deity's throne room, not protecting some town), nowhere says he needs to kill it just because it's there, and nowhere says he needs to attack stuff way above his level.

i thougt it said somewhere that the paladin cannot run away while evil was threatening. please note this was pre hinjo in oots, so it was awile ago, my third time dming

You need to protect people. If some giant monster attacks a village, you try to kill it. If you can't, you rescue people, divert the monster's attention, hold it while reinforcements arrive, etc.
In this scene, there was no reason to risk his live, as there was no one being threatened other than themselves.

[BootStrapTommy]

In a campaign I DM'd, the party was facing off with a rather nasty ogre mage. They dropped him down to 1 health. The party's mage then preceded to knock the party's ranger on his ass in order to cast a certain spell. The lack of the ranger's bow that round lets the ogre mage take a five foot step and gaseous form to escape down a tunnel. When a number of his minions flee as well, the party (containing a werewolf, an illusionist, and a ranger) started arguing about how to proceed. They finally pursue with a snail's pace. By the time they reach the ogre mage, he has full health again (regen) and is flanked by nasty guards. The party makes quick work of the guards, only to have a single cone of cold kill two of the three party members. The party however is saved by the grace of the lone wolf survivor (excuse the pun), who with only a handful of hitpoints, trips the ogre mage and precedes to keep him pinned long enough to render him unconscious. He then guts the ogre with a coup de grace.

Meanwhile all members of the party had alchemist fire and never bothered to use it.

Later in the campaign, now sporting a fighter, the party faced a rather supped-up troll who happened to be trapped in a basement below them. The illusionist and the werewolf then tricked the ranger and fighter into going down, telling them the two would flank the beast through the "other" non-existing way down. The fighter escaped the fight by a rescue invisibility spell from the illusionist, who now felt bad. The ranger escapes, but not before an attack of opportunity took half his health. Ultimately, the werewolf took care of the troll much the same as last time, only this time added by the the ranger half dead on the stairs and the illusionist's alchemist fires and a summons.

[Guizonde]

not painful as much a lesson in sleeping quarters security, but i finally saw my dm in action in pathfinder. the campaign is the return of darkness, and when they earn their room at the golden goblin, my dm (1st time playing bard and being crazy-prepared) goes into his room:

-3 search checks for traps and entry points (only the main door)
-detect magic (negative, duh, it's a hotel room)
-booby traps the following: the window (despite shutters and bars and being like 30 feet up), the window landing (with oil), places pillows under the covers (gnome bard), places caltrops (spelling?) in front of the door, attaches a bell to the doorhandle, and tightens a line at ankle height in front of the door (because eff you, that's why).
-sets up a bed under the bed for added protection.

it was so overkill (he was thinking about rigging an alchemist's fire over the door) that i decreed that he had to place a sign about knocking before entering.
nevermind that nothing was meant to happen (then again, if he continues, i might have fun), i guess that for him "properly paranoid" is a lifestyle rather than a necessity. (keep in mind they were sleeping invited and just got a job in a very secure casino...)

it was humbling.

(just to be clear, my dm and i switched roles so he can teach me to dm, whereas he gets to play)

[Alejandro]

No paladin serves his or her god by dying without just cause and for no purpose. The player should have freely withdrawn.

[Chilingsworth]

No paladin serves his or her god by dying without just cause and for no purpose. The player should have freely withdrawn.

Well, I did a little googling and it looks like there was a goddess of suicide.

[Erik Vale]

Paladins to her commit suicide at first level, as do clerics. Everyone else is less devoute and so few in number divine rank 0 occurs.

[Re'ozul]

4E game, dragonborn sorcerer. We are assaulting a floating fortress with airships. My character has already used his encounter based flying and his airship is drifting away from the fight. He could try to balance 150ft along a chain, but hes pants at that.
Solution: The ship has a ballista. He binds himself to the bolt, aims at a huge enemy on the fortress and uses magehand to fire the ballista.
He hits and both the enemy and he take 60 points of damage. The impact throws him in a random direction ... over the edge of the fortress. He barely manages his save to catch the edge.

[Guizonde]

4E game, dragonborn sorcerer. We are assaulting a floating fortress with airships. My character has already used his encounter based flying and his airship is drifting away from the fight. He could try to balance 150ft along a chain, but hes pants at that.
Solution: The ship has a ballista. He binds himself to the bolt, aims at a huge enemy on the fortress and uses magehand to fire the ballista.
He hits and both the enemy and he take 60 points of damage. The impact throws him in a random direction ... over the edge of the fortress. He barely manages his save to catch the edge.

rule of cool... not always as safe as portrayed by action movies

must have been one of those "what the hell was i thinking" moments

[TheAmazingOP]

3.0 game with
Human Paladin (me)
Halfling Druid
Elf Wizard
All level 5
We're adventuring in this "tower of power" as the DM calls it, and the second floor we come upon an extremely buffed up ice hydra guarding the staircase to the next floor. Obviously the DM doesn't want us to fight it and get past it somehow using skills or the such. But where's the fun in that?
The Druid casts wall of smoke on the hydra, and it fails the save when it breaths in to blast me so it's nauseated until the end of the druid's next turn. Next, I rush up and attack, dealing 20-ish damage. The wizard stays back a bit and casts some buff spells on me.
The Druid sees his chance, so he runs past the hydra while its still nauseated. The hydra recovers, and blasts me with icy breath, taking about half my HP down. I attack back, doing some mild damage. The wizard retreats, fearing he would be 1HKO'd by the beast.
What happens here is amazing. The druid uses splinter bolt calls the shot on one of the hydra's heads. Amazingly, he crits with a natural 18, dealing x8 damage, with a whopping 102 damage done in one turn. The DM says the hydra survives the massive damage, but is staggered for a round. I attack next scoring ANOTHER critcal, dealing 40-ish damage with my bastard sword because I rolled low. Finally, our wizard takes an opportunity to strike and charges with his magical staff (birthday present, does 2d8 damage) and crits. He deals another 52 massive damage, which the hydra survives again but the stagger did not stack with the other one.
Next round, the druid tries to finish off the beast from behind by jump attacking it. He fumbles and falls onto the ground in front of the hydra. I miss my attack. The wizard retreats again.
Second to last round, the druid attacks from the ground but misses. The hydra bites me with multiple heads, -3 heads due to those amazing crits, and knocks me out, but I deal 11 points of damage to it with armor spikes. The wizard laughs for his turn (CE).
Finally, the druid attacks from the ground and miraculously hits, dealing a massive 2 damage that fell the mighty hydra. The DM was astonished, and we each gained 3,000 xp each, advancing us to the next level.

[Avilan the Grey]

I usually don't dm / gm, but as a player being killed / almost killed (far more common) because of OTHER players being stupid... far too often. (And the fact that I usually survive because I refuse to take part in whatever they are doing leads to... tensions, as well).

[ArcturusV]

I love moments like that TheAmazingOP.

I suppose the one I got isn't quite as funny, though higher on Painful.

We're playing a Dark Heresy game I'm GMing it. We got a Psyker on our team (It's the first session). Apparently the Psyker player was a Warhammer 40k fanboy but not exactly up on the rules.

He uses his powers to blast away at a bunch of enemies in the first encounter, nothing bad happens. He's all high on his Psychic Powers and the fact that he's the OP guy in the team, doing about 50% of the team's total damage every turn with his powers.

Second encounter, his luck holds. He just dominates and at this point he's laughing maniacally at the table. Other players are trying to tell him that he should chill out with the Psychic Powers. Psyker doesn't listen, just goes on about how they're all jealous of him.

Third encounter they're in a warehouse, navigating among stacks of containers weighing in at several tons. The Psychic Player decides that since everyone is telling him that they should be a LITTLE more cautious and not just blast everything in the face and hope nothing blasts them back, that he should use some Divination powers to decide what is the best way to sneak through here.

Cast his power, rolls two 9s triggering his appropriate power, and two Psychic Phenomenons.

One of which was Falling Upwards, the other Spectral Gale.

When I start talking about how everyone is falling towards the ceiling (But they didn't reach it), he was sweating bullets. When I mentioned about how all the unsecured cargo containers, along with the players and NPC Guide were all falling in a heap... suddenly a bunch of people were staring at the Psyker with death eyes.

When I told them I'd be sporting and give them a roll to determine if they get winged, maimed, or killed by several thousand tons of metal crashing around everyone was on nerves. Lot of death, lots of missing limbs. The NPC Guide had his head crushed by a crate and just obliterated.

Despite the fact I pointed out that was pretty much exactly how the rules were written, the only change being me giving them a sporting chance to survive something that should have been pretty much unquestionably lethal or severely damaging, the Psyker raged that I just was jealous and was pointlessly killing off characters and punishing him and Psychic Powers were supposed to be much more reliable than that.

But most of the party took it as a lesson about power abuse, and even laughed at it. Short of spawning Demons there weren't really any results the Psyker could have gotten that were WORSE on the table.

[Avilan the Grey]

Oh and to the OP:

Have you tried saying "Are you sure?" when they want to do something?

If any player doesn't immediately change their plans when a DM says these three words, he or she deserve anything they get.

[ArcturusV]

That and the other magic words that strike fear into the hearts of PCs....

DM: Okay... I'm going to offer you a deal...

[Guizonde]

That and the other magic words that strike fear into the hearts of PCs....

DM: Okay... I'm going to offer you a deal...

my dm's favorite scare tactic: "hand me your character sheet"

works when possessed, or dead, or whatever. he blows through the sheet, sounding like he ripped it in half. bullets are sweat so fierce we leave dents in the table.

my dm's least favorite words:

me"hey! i got an idea!"
either it's goofy, munchkin, unorthodox, or all of the above
good thing i don't have many

[themocaw]

No, the GM's REAL most feared words are, "So this campaign is a one-shot, right?"

[Erik Vale]

Depends whether or not the character s decided to by themselves a bank vault.

[Acanous]

I ruled it wore off right before he would have executed the third party member (DMPC, like 2 levels lower than the party AND his character's current love interest) >.>

This is why people hate DMPCs.

[Lord Torath]

No, no it doesn't. No where in the DMG does it say the Paladin has to commit suicide because his Detect Evil pings. Sorry, but this makes you a poor DM for designing this encounter and telling him that.

Rather than say he's a poor DM, rather say he made a mistake. Making a mistake doesn't make you a poor DM. Refusing to own up to and fix your mistake (allow the players a way out that doesn't penalize them for something you did wrong) makes you a poor DM. (at least in my opinion. We're all learning, after all)

[ArcturusV]

That and he might have been confused by old rules. Like in 2nd edition a Paladin in that situation would have been forced to "hold the line" by strict reading of the rules until everyone else escaped, THEN he would be allowed to break ranks and run.