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I just need to tell this to everyone, we ran a one shot last for the last two weeks because some of our regular players were out of town. I pulled out the dragon with “The Mud Sorcerer’s Tomb” and let everyone make a one shot 15th level player and gave them all 150,000 gold with no restrictions on characters or what they could spend the gold on. We ended up with a human cleric of Wes Jas, a Goliath barbarian, a Halfling wizard, and cat folk rouge. The game was going nicely until the last 50 before the ship. We had the rouge and barbarian fall into a 40’ pit with silence on the last 20’. It was at that time they realized no one in the party has any rope at all. The only thing they had were boots of levitation and they are code word activated and will not work in the pit. They ended up having to use a limited wish to mimic fabricate to create rope so they could get out. It was great between them all 600,000 gold to spend and no one bought 1 gp of rope.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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They ended up having to use a limited wish to mimic fabricate to create rope so they could get out. It was great between them all 600,000 gold to spend and no one bought 1 gp of rope.
That's amazing. To quote "Boondock Saints":
"Name one thing you're gonna need a bunch of stupid f%!+in' rope for!"
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Brilliant! We finished up Rappan Athuk the other week by pumping the characters up to 18th level and going up against Orcus.
We got to the final area, with a bottomless pit and a ten foot jump, and realised that no-one had put any points in Jump for about 10 levels. Nor did we have any rope! The rogue was fine, of course, the fighters were screwed! The wizard took off and immediately bumped into an invisible dispel magic ceiling. Doh!
Five 18th level characters and when the demons arrived, four of them were standing at the edge of a 10' jump nervously shuffling their feet. Boy did we feel foolish!
Stupidest thing I did was last night though. My Duskblade had just levelled and learned Dimension Hop. The rogue was in a grapple with an enormous lion and had just been clawed, bitten and raked. Instead of giving him the evac, I tried to teleport the lion away instead. Blame it on a cola overdose, I'll pay for the funeral.
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We got to the final area, with a bottomless pit and a ten foot jump, and realised that no-one had put any points in Jump for about 10 levels. Nor did we have any rope! The rogue was fine, of course, the fighters were screwed!
Wait... you had a group of 18th level fighters and they didn't have a good enough Jump check to clear a measly 10-foot gap?!?
Fighters only get like 4 skills in-class. What on earth did they do with their skill points?!? Did they all have like Intelligence 4 or something? Hell, at 18th level, a Fighter should have enough of a bonus from STRENGTH ALONE to clear that kind of jump with a running start easily! Unless they were decked out in ultra-heavy full plate armor with lead weights tied to the joints, their armor check penalty shouldn't have been THAT bad.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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We'd a fighter, a paladin, a wizard and a cleric all too scared to risk it. Where we were was almost magically slippery stone and we didn't have a running start. As far as we knew, failure was basically instant death and the dice had not been good for the last half hour or so. I can't remember what we needed to roll but the combination of a DM who was not used to the high-level game and demoralisingly frequent balance checks had got us all thoroughly freaked. (The checks probably weren't THAT high but we did seem to slip and fall more often than a fool in a slapstick movie) didn't help.
Ten foot standing jump is DC20 and I think that was about 50-50 for most of us, assuming we didn't slip on the edge. We could all swim like fish and tumble like otters though ;)
And the DM thing? We were pumped up in levels but without the corresponding equipment boost since that was WAY too much cash. I had 50 grand to pump the paladin from 9th to 18th, but got a nice +4 keen holy sword as a present on the side. By the time I'd got decent full plate and shield, I could barely afford potions, never mind strength items beyond +2. So it's not really the same situation as the OP, and the whole situation was artificially skewed to begin with but it still sprang to mind since we'd all four of us forgotten to pump Jump in our haste to cover other bases.
My worst (recent) goof as a player:
We’re fighting a Giant and I’m a druid that specializes in summoning creatures. I concocted this plan to summon low-level creatures around the giant and make them move through his threatened areas. This would provoke AoO, and hopefully he would take the bait. Out of AoOs, our characters would be able to move freely to set up a tactical advantage.
He goes the plan: he takes the bait and hits the first fiendish rat. Dead! Cleave! (My plan suddenly shatters due to an oversight on my part - I’m a total moron!) He kills the next rat, and the next rat, and the next rat! I knew after the second rat he had Great Cleave. He took his next swing on my friend. He was hit for a lot of damage, but fortunately didn’t go down; that would happen later in the round ON THE GIANTS TURN. I made a bad situation worse.
I just shook my head in disgust at myself and said “My bad.”
Back in 3.0 I was playing some sort of home brew setting with about 5 friends.
Now, before you read on. I *HATE* psionics, with a passion, can't stand them.
Rogue and psionic(lvl 10) are good buddies, they've been doing a lot of things together; killing people for money, stealing things from shops, cheating at card games and being general pains in the arses to the other three players. I was playing a lawful-neutral fighter, big shot for the whole honor thing, so killing people, fine, but do it to their face and give them a chance.
So halfway through a session the player of the psionic shows the DM a prestige calls(or some sort) from the psionics handbook; pyromaniac. He meets all the prerequisites except for one: 'must have set fire to a building purely to see it burn down'. So the dastardly duo goes out into town and they buy four small barrels of oil which they roll over to the town square. They put the barrels down on the square and go to the tavern till the clock hits midnight. They go out again, gather up some wood and stash the barrels behind the shed holding the town's oil supply. They figure they can use one barrel to lay a trail so they have a safe distance margin from which to start running. Psionic does so(makes the fatal mistake of letting the oil gather into a puddle at the point of ignition) strikes up a match, lights the oil, fails a balance check in the puddle of oil, falls, sets his right leg on fire. Oil trail catches fire quickly, rogue sees his buddy go down, runs back to help him up, psionic tries to put his leg out. Rogue grabs psionic, fails a strength check, psionic attempts to roll to put the now-spreading fire on his leg and lower torso out, takes down the rogue like a bowling pin. Cue oil reaching barrels, explosion.
Result, two dead PC's, one shed blown to kingdom-come and much laughter from the other three players. The psionic then played a orc-barbarian gone lich(don't ask...) which I offed(same fighter) by getting a level of cleric and using a scroll of heal on him when he wasn't looking my way.
Guy still likes me, duno why.
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I'll tell on myself in a second but the funniest thing I've seen recently involved another player. She was playing a rogue and we were in a wild or dead magic area near Thay -- by an ancient Netherese accident site. Lots of really bad things were flying towards us and we had few options since magic was either wild or, ah, non-existent (dependeing on where, exactly, the PC caster was standing). So the Rogue, already hurting from failing to disarm a trap, decided to jump into the Priest of Lathander's Bag of Holding to hide... Did I mention she was carrying a Heward's Handy Haversack?! Now, after a few moments of giggling thought, the DM decided that, due to the Wild Magic, the two extradimensional bags rip a hole in the Planar fabric allowing temporary two-way access to, um, The Abyss -- out walk 2 curious Hezrou. They didn't ask us if we wanted to have a tea party. I think the funniest thing about this, though, is the fact the the same player did THE EXACT SAME THING only a few months earlier! She just forgot she had a Heward's Handisack on her character.
Now for me, first, I have to say I'm usually way too thoughtful and deliberate in my roleplaying to blunder like this. For example, with another group that just began the Cormyr adventue WotC recently published, the one that starts in Wheloon and the PCs have to investigate the recent temple to "Mystra" being built just north of town, well my PC decided the best way to handle the situation was to post flyers throughout the town trying to get the people to rise up against the obviously evil cult and do all the dirty work for us. Of course, our DM didn't let it work and the other PCs decided we should just storm the place like the game designers want us to. Even then, though, I had our party approach pretending to be auditors of Mystra from Suzail so we could get through the door. Then, when they show their true colors we'd pretend to be evil and ask to join them, anyway, now that you know what kind of player I am I'll get back on topic...
Several years ago, on gaming night, I decided I'd get a little buzz on before the game so I could look and feel my very best for my friends. I should probably mention that I don't drink. I've only been drunk once my entire life. And considering I'm as thin as my avatar suggets, one screwdriver, homemade, is enough to get me a buzz -- let alone 7. Well, sometime during the session (I honestly don't recall much), my character gets a Deck of Cards as treasure from, er, something, and I begin laying the cards out, face up. HOW WAS I SUPPOSE TO KNOW IT WAS A DECK OF MANY THINGS?!!!! I"VE ONLY BEEN PLAYING D&D 25 YEARS!!!! Well, in a matter of seconds I switched my gender, caused an earthquake, created a magic dead zone and fought a shadow of myself (dying in the process). The other PCs decide not to have me resurrected.
-W. E. Ray
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The most recent, really memorable, goof up came a few months ago in my previous Eberron campaign. I was running one of the Sharn adventures from Dragon Magazine where the characters have to descend into the depths to stop the evil guy from opening a permanent gate to Fernia (plane of fire).
They descended into the old tunnels and managed to force the young red dragon guardian to surrender. The next step was to descend down a deep pit into the depths. The artificer had not taken any points of “Climb” and so was terrified of attempting the 30+ meter descent and falling to his death. In his panic he apparently failed to realize that he could be lowered down the shaft by his companions or otherwise get out of making climb checks (these guys did have plenty of rope).
His solution was to make a deal with the surrendered red dragon to heal some of its wounds if it would allow him to ride it down the shaft… Why he thought this was a better choice then the rope still escapes me but… The other characters attempted to dissuade him, although perhaps not as emphatically as they might have since I think they sorta wanted to see just what form the ensuing chaos would take…
So the artificer straps himself onto the back of the red dragon (he made some good diplomacy and intimidate rolls and the dragon [me] had a plan…) and prepared to go. The dragon was healed of some of its damage and then dropped down the shaft. Everything going to plan so far… However, the dragon did not stop at the bottom of the shaft but instead flew down a wide corridor into a cavern filling with molten rock from the opening gate to Fernia. The dragon, fed up with the situation, was now going to fly through the gate and escape…
The artificer attempted to draw his weapon and beat on the corkscrewing dragon… but it turns out that not only did he not have skill points in Climb but neither had he taken any points in Ride… After an abysmal roll he was forced mainly to concentrate on holding on as he barfed over the side. In desperation he did manage to cut himself free, just before the dragon reached the gate, and jump off… into the pool of lava. He managed to make a save and land partially on a rock but he was now badly injured and facing the main bad guy while his companions, using the rope, were still in the process of reaching the lower level.
He did manage to die heroically, distracting the BBEG while the rest of the party rushed to the site in time to see him torn apart by some spell.
So, “the red dragon incident” has become synonymous among my players for doing something foolish and excessively complicated in the face of easier and safer alternatives. Quite amusing, although, perhaps not quite the myth and legend that has become known as the “Portcullis Incident”
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(Ack, stupid database ate my post. It only happens with the long ones, and then only when I forget to copy the text first.)
(Nope, the second time I tried to post it, it failed too. This time, I had a copy.)
None of the players in the following anecdote has been playing RPGs for less than 20 years. They are experts; do not try this at home.
Two weekends ago I was running a low-level campaign. I included a long and somewhat unstable rope bridge across a canyon as one of the probable obstacles. At the far side of the bridge were unfriendly nomads.
They weren't attack-on-sight hostile, though, and the PCs knew that to be likely, so they sent their negotiator across to arrange for safe passage. Said negotiator was a Wizard with no training in Diplomacy and an 8 CHA. (Well, I mean, who wouldn't choose that character to negotiate?) While the negotiation didn't go very well (?!), the PCs could also succeed by besting the nomads at two out of three contests. The PC got to choose the first contest; he chose magic ("resist my best spell", basically), and failed. The nomad then chose archery, at which the (elf) wizard beat him. The final contest (chosen by the nomads after a rock-paper-scissors match) was riding. The nomad's horse refused the first jump (on a roll of 1), the wizard succeeded with a roll in the high teens, and safe conduct was granted.
The hobbit ranger managed (by dint of a few Balance and Handle Animal checks) to chivvy his riding dog across the bridge without serious incident. Then came the 1/2 Orc Barbarian and the human Cleric (in full plate armor). The Cleric knew that he might be in trouble, since his Balance check was untrained and his DEX was only 12 (-5 on the check), so they roped themselves together.
Since they were the two biggest characters and were on the bridge together, I increased the DC by 2 (to 7) because the bridge was bouncing a bit more. The beginning of their ordeal involved several blown Balance checks, but in each case, they managed to make their STR checks to keep from falling off the bridge. About 2/3 of the way across, though, both characters blew their checks badly at the same time. Then the Cleric failed his STR check as well and dropped to the bottom of the rope. The barbarian made both her original STR check, and the subsequent check when the cleric hit the end of the rope, but now both were hanging over the side of the bridge.
It was at this point that they found out why some characters buy levels in Use Rope as the poorly tied rope around the cleric's waist began to slip. It soon became clear that it wasn't likely both characters would make it back onto the bridge without help, so the hobbit ranger pulled out his rope (100', he was well prepared), tied it to the bridge supports (good idea) and tried to throw it to the cleric.
When you're 4 feet tall and weight 40 pounds, throwing 100' of rope any serious distance is difficult though, and rolling a 5 isn't precisely what you need. So the hobbit headed slowly out onto the bridge to lower the rope. By the time he had the rope in position, the cleric had slipped almost to the end of his original rope and as he slipped off the end, he made a lunge for that held by the hobbit. The good news is that he caught the rope. The bad news is that a 40' hobbit is hard-pressed to stop the fall of a 300 lb. human. A second (and a few failed rolls) later, the cleric is in freefall and the hobbit is hanging from the bridge's guy ropes.
The shock and release of tension from the cleric's fall caused the bridge to recoil and forced the barbarian to make another balance check, which was duly failed, as was the subsequent STR check and a last-instant Reflex save. And now the Barbarian was falling too. At this point, the players were nearly apoplectic with laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
The cleric fell only 20 feet (they never asked and I didn't tell them, because I thought they were a bit preoccupied, but they were nearly across the bridge) and the barbarian took a 60' fall, but neither was particularly seriously damaged and both made saves to keep from rolling down the wall of the canyon. A minute or so later, they had made it across the canyon.
Now, you might be wondering why a DC 5 challenge where the worst penalty was -5 wouldn't be handled by taking 10. I was too, but I was having too much fun to ask until they had made it across.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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Okay, time to stop spectating and start contributing.
I was running a two-player game with my best friends (as was common in my college days). An evil cult had converted one of the players into joining them and the other player was completely clueless of the first player switching sides.
Player 1 (Steve) is a ranger. He's the one who's been converted by the cult and was Chaotic Neutral at the onset of this story. Player 2 (Jared) is an ex-paladin/barbarian who still fancies himself "good" but has had some serious issues with "honor" lately, mostly due to Steve's character's subtle manipulations. Because it was a two player game, both of these characters were built using 36 point buy and were given maximum hit points at each level. These were FORMIDABLE characters, so naturally they had some serious self-confidence. The cult wanted Steve's character to kill Jared's character because he was a serious threat to their operations (he had thus far managed to completely avoid their attempts to convert him and knew a little too much about the cult for comfort).
Venturing in the open plains near a mountain range, the characters spot smoke in the distance. Knowing that there is a major trade road nearby, they decide to check it out. Upon discovering that the source of the smoke is a campfire from an ogre village, the "good" character says: "These ogres are a threat to the trade route. We should deal with them." The converted ranger agreed and told the good character to run ahead and engage them in battle and he would provide covering fire for him.
The good (and gullible) character charges forth, attacking the first ogre he sees. The ranger provides covering fire as promised. Soon, several more ogres emerge from the tents. Ogres with CHARACTER LEVELS. The good character hacks his way through three of them but is still being badly beaten by the remaining two. The fights seemed to be taking longer as he continued fighting. Why was that? Ohhh... because the ranger had activated his cloak of invisibility and left him there to DIE several rounds earlier. He proceeded to do so, violently, at the hands of two ogre fighters with greatclubs knowing all too well the sting of betrayal. The ranger's alignment shifted to Chaotic Evil immediately and the ex-paladin's body was never recovered.
After this event, I was dubbed an unforgiving and 'ogre-bearing' DM. ::groan::
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I know I posted already but I think this one takes the cake.
I was playing in a Game of Thrones setting, D&D game and our thief decided he would earn a little extra cash one night with a B&E at the local jewler's home. Now, not staking the place out before hand was kind of dubious, we the other players thought, but we couldn't comment or give advice 'cause our PCs weren't there; we're sleeping in separate rooms at the inn by midnight.
So the thief picks the guy's front door lock, awaking the mastif, and is quickly chased through the town out to the river where he can, he hopes, lose the dog. Well the DM didn't want the dog to kill the PC (metagame reasoning) and the thief gets away.
30 MINUTES LATER, half past 12, the PC goes back to the same house, this time with something to give the dog, a bone or porkchop or something. So he bypasses the lock, distracts the dog and makes a few VERY LUCKY move silently checks (gotta figure the owner hasn't even fallen back asleep yet and the PC doesn't know the layout of this place!) and after a few rounds finds a locked chest.
Picking the lock successfully (without first checking for traps) the thief feels a pin prick in his finger and what can only be described as "a stinging sensation" go up his hand and into his extremities. He fails his Fort save and flees the house (making lots of noise) to go back to the inn and wake up the PC healer for an antidote. The best part, he had the chest open and FORGOT to pick up the treasure!
So 1 HOUR LATER, at 1:30, goes back to the SAME house! Gets through the front door, past the dog, finds the chest which has been closed an trap reset and this time he attempts his Disable Device AND FAILS! Once again the pin prick but at least he remebered to grab the treasure this time and run back to the inn.
-W. E. Ray
Player stupidity involving a rope bridge
That sounds like something my players would do.
I one of the first campaigns I ran the players were on a ship. They were fighting some pirates who'd kidnapped a nobles children for ransom and about midway through the fight when, for reasons I can't remeber (I think she was wounded or wanted to look for treasure or the nobles) the groups ranger (a 1000+ pound centuar) decided to jump on the wooden grate over the ladder to the rest of the ship (I'm not too good with nautical terms). So one of the other players suggested that the centaur jump on the wooden grate to get down there, since opening would provoke an AoO from about half a dozen sailors armed with big knifes. The other player had suggested jumping on the grate as a joke but no sooner had the other player said it than the centaur jumped on the grate. Needless to say the centaur broke through the grate, and parts of the deck. And the ladder down to the rest of the ship. So she fell 30 or 40 ft and broke all her legs as well as being at less than 5 hp. All of her companions (including the cleric) were on the top deck of the ship, fighting pirates, with no easy or quick way down (thanks to the broken ladder). Then to make matters worse the skeleton guards of the nobles came out of the holding area and started to attack the centaur, who couldn't do much about it. I took pity on the player (this being my second or third campaign and her first character) and didn't kill her. We remind her of this incident almost every time we play.
Ok so here I am playing in Waterdeep Campaign as a Cleric of Gond. We are in the process of investigating the disapperance of a noble's son and track the kidnappers to a warehouse on the docks. After a long draw out battle we began searching the warehouse and find that the warehouse owners is in his office doing paper work or something. So me and three of the other PC's decided to question this guy who was a 15th lvl wizard. I start the converstion and some words are exchanged and some threats he get ready to cast a teleport to 'return with the city watch'. I think he was lying even though I failed my Sense Motive. I am standing ten feet from him with a desk inbetween me and him. I try to grapple him and the DM says I am to far away so I get the bright idea to try and jump at him. So Str of 14 + no ranks in jump + fullplate = equals me doing a belly flop on this guys desk. The DM turns to the other PC's still down in the warehouse and say they hear an explosition and see me come flying out of the third story office window and I land at the feet of the party's Healer still smoldering from the exspolsive fireball he just cast. So folks if u plan on grappling a wizard 8 levels higher than you make sure to have some ranks in jump.
one of the stupider things ive done is with Black Mage, a fighter. We were 3rd level and trying to free this mining town from the tyranny of the capatilist scum mine owners. The underground had some big sonic magic device that they were going to use, but Black Mage convinced the rest of the party to attack now, before it was ready. We end up fighting four fighters, a hard battle that we had mabye a 50% chance of winning; Black Mage gets criticaled and dies. Next round, the horn blows and the fighters become panicked and run for their lives. Noone had raise dead money, so they left me in a box with gentle repose on it while they left. Long story short, the DM takes pity and sends in a wandering cleric who takes all my money and magic items. Black mage is mow a 12th level fighter/1st level dragon rider/6th level dragon slayer/ 2nd level survivor who rides a copper dragon and weilds a +14 total bonus adamantine lance.
Not all that long ago I made the blunder of trying to talk sense into fanatics.
Campaign was a homebrew that a friend of mine cooked up based on some books he had read (don't remember the series). I was playing a Ranger/Rougue. Concept was he was the master of stealth. Due to he low Cha I figured he not bad lookin but just didn't have the social skills due to prefering to be alone. The other 2 party members were a fighter and a wizard. We were in lands controlled by a group of people that hated magic. As we came to a town that was held in more of a militant state by them I was sent to scout it out. After coming to close to one of their gaurds I decided to walk up and talk to him. Me as the player regonized that things were going to get ugly very quickly but couldn't stop it. Long story short we all end up capture and have to take on about 100 soldiers on a hit run basis to get free.