Non-Heroics Thread


3.5/d20/OGL

Liberty's Edge

Inspired by this thread, I thought that it should have a counterpart. It seemed lonely. Now without further ado, go! Post your PCs' most cowardly, chicken-livered moments! Don't be ashamed. Be proud!


My rogue character killed an entire clan in their sleep because the "matriarch" of the lot cast daylight on me (hey I was a shadow creature with light blindness). The only problem was that that was the clan we were hired to protect (oops).

We ran away from the Imp in Pathfinder #1 (different campaign and character than the one above), yup after crit failing and killing my ally (we use old-fasioned crit and crit-fail charts) we had almost no way to hurt the bloody thing and we had no healing; to quote my character "run away!"

Liberty's Edge

Character: Aleric Cillian (CN male human fighter 1)
Category: dumbass idea
Campaign: homebrew

Attempting to bully the party rogue into buying him drinks, Aleric turns her upside down, possibly to shake money form her pockets. She promptly vomits on him.

Character: Aleric Cillian (CN male human fighter 1)
Category: boneheaded move
Campaign: homebrew

Attempting to bully the party rogue into climbing a wall, he prods her repeatedly with his spear, not noticing the trio of armed thugs sneaking up behind him. The thugs rob the entire party, taking all weapons, aromor, scrolls, potions, and cashy money, leaving the party in the woods to die.

Character: Aleric Cillian (CN male human fighter 3) (sensing a pattern?)
Category: boneheaded move
Campaign: homebrew

Upon seeing a large and evil-looking sword cluctched in the grasp of a large and evil-looking statue, he immediately tries to pry the sword from the grasp of the statue. Which immediately awakens the imprisoned half-dragon fifth-level fighter. D'oh! Aleric is immediately knocked down to -2, but the rest of the party manages to destroy the half-dragon. Upon awakening some three hours later in the local temple, Aleric immediately gives up his share of the treasure for the next two years in excahnge for the sword--a +1 Vicious greatsword.

Character: Aleric Cillian (CN male human fighter 4) (yep, definitely a pattern)
Category: extreme cowardice
Campaign: homebrew

Impulsively retreating from a statue (he thinks it's going to animate and attack him), he finds himself in a dark, locked, rotating hallway. He begins to yell for help, eventually passing out from sheer terror, combined with sheer motion sickness.


Not cowardly, but stupid: I had a barbarian who invaded the City of Oz in a homebrew campaign. After the (evil) party killed the Wizard, my barbarian came out from behind the screen and bellowed to the residents of the Emerald City, "I am Falrake, the Great and Powerful! Bow down!"... only to be met by a hail of green-fletched arrows.


you kidding right; my pc's make the Cowardly Lion look like Lancelot du Lake. They dont think so, of course.

Once, the major bad warrior type of my world was kidnapped in his bathrobe and delivered steaming mad to the pc's, he had almost no gear, but a couple rings and a necklace and some fled from him in terror and the others let him walk; the pc's are only about 3 levels lower than this one guy and they could have took him out easily, but without any rolls, the pcs were so intimidated they let him walk - a major bad guy; unbelievable. The guys that kidnapped him are now all mostly dead and the others running for their lives. Lol how some pc groups mess over other pc groups.


I had a very chaotic and petty near evil player who once started and continued arguing with a greater female diety who was known to be malicious, spiteful, hateful, petty, and cruel that said diety was not this that and the other and that he was gonna straighten her out and there was nothing she could do about it; after repeated attempts by the other party members to not do this and the gm (me) taking him aside and telling him gm to player that this is a malicious and powerful diety in her place of power and that this is a bad idea and does he want to change his action, continued to give this diety grief; well he was wrong; very wrong and now has a vicious and petty penance to correct his behavior and is one of the stupidest and non heroic things a player has done recently. All the other pc's just sat there shaking there heads and telling me that I had to do it and was justified and stuff like that.


hehe; I once had a pc barbarian captured by a shadow dragon; the dragon was fairly young and interested in the party so was trying to manipulate the barbarian and question him though various means, the dragon was getting a bit frustrated by the barbarian not giving any information so the threats and pain began to escallate; so the dragon offers him all kinds of deals and everything and gets a bit frustrated on why the barbarian wont tell him anything about the pc's; so the dragon finally asks him, now keep in mind this is a pretty involved roleplaying session, the dragon says; "why won't you tell me what I want to know little human, I could make you powerful, rich if you tell or feast on your flesh and give your bones to the jackals if you do not; what is your final answer?" so, the pc blurts out in a panic " I can't tell you, I am and idiot; I just dont know anything, I'm a farmer, those guys scare the hell out of me and so do you, I dont wanna know nothing, I am stupid; leave me alone." and he starts crying (not the player)

Well, my mouth just hung open and I was speachless, totally shocked. Hehe, after a few seconds the rest of the guys just all laughed at me and to this day tease me about my expression and speachless moment; you decide; was the pc heroic; i think not.

Liberty's Edge

Character: Daniel Lovoth, High champion of Calum the Bronze Warrior (NG male human v. paladin 5 / artificer 1 / infused warrior 1)
Category: 'oh s#&%' moment
Campaign: Amahra (homebrew)

Upon entering a temple to Tenma the Overdemon, Daniel rashly shouts "I shall cleanse this place of its EVIL and destroy all of the land's taint!" A growling can be heard, and the PCs realize that there is a strong connection to the Abyssal planes in the temple. (Read: Tenma is watching you.) Follow-up comment: "Stay where you are, fiend! I shall come to you!"


While exploring deep into the ruins of Ascalhorn/Hellgate Keep, the Demonslayer paladin believed he had found where he was most needed in the world. He carried his trusty Holy Demonslayer sword (or whatever the heck it was).

In the first major fight, he entered single combat with a Half-fiendish Paladin of Slaughter. Our DM was usually pretty lenient...but SEVEN consequtive natural 1's later, his sentient sword teleported away (after repeatedly dropping it, hitting other party members, etc).

The character dropped to his knees and started sobbing and begged for the Anti-paladin to kill him. He did not resist the coup-de-grace, much to everyones annoyance. Total copout. The Player then promptly abandoned the game.

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