I hereby designate this thread as one for you all to list funny/stupid things your PC have done. This is yes, somewhat inspired by both Heroics and the Non-Heroics thread, consider the place to put things that don't fit at either.
Here is the setup...my players some weeks before the incident created their characters..three players, and my rule they not speak of what they were making.
2 Bards
1 Cleric of Kord
Later, while fleeing from the forces of a noble they had angered, in North Kingdom, they ended up coming across the Causeway of Fiends. I suitably describe the scene ominously, the rain, strange silence, et al.
My wifes Bard proceeds to use her +3 keen dagger to try to start chipping a large (preferrably dagger sized, she loved daggers) piece off of one of the monoliths. The bad weather of course immediately got worse and lightning started crashing whenever she connected with the pillar, she didn't stop. Her messing with the monolith brought up some planar magic, and in pops a Hezrou demon. It laughed and promptly uses Chaos Hammer on them. Of course, the entire party was Chaotic, so no effect.
The Demon stared at them stupidly. They start kicking the $#!^ out of it.
After it looks like they are going to win, dagger-bard pulls out of battle and starts chipping stone again. This time a Horned Devil comes in. Bear in mind this was 3.0, spell-like abilities were different. This time they know they are in trouble, especially when the Cornugon ignored them and killed the Hezrou with a Full-attack.
Dagger-Bard casts Haste, Cornugon casts Suggestion on her, "Why don't you keep working on that, with your increased speed, it will work much faster." She turns and starts Hastily chipping at this stone (I am rolling to see if anything else turn up, so far nothing). The Cleric of Kord charges and does moderately okay.
Blink-Bard (he always is blinking) casts Blink. The next round the Cornugon casts Hold Person on the Blink-Bard, he is then an immobile Flash-Bard!
Fortunately the cleric carried the day by trying to use (inexperienced player) an area dispel magic on the Cornugon (who really didn't have any magical effect going) and it dispelled the Suggestion. Dagger-Bard returns to the fray and things go rapidly south from there. Fortunately no more evil outsiders came out. Ohhh...but they ran from that place and didn't stop.
For several turns my rogue tried to steal a 5000 gp platinum crown off the head of a gnome king that was a "Permanent Illusion"... I kept failing my will save to interact with the illusion. (and I thought all those move silently and hide checks were a good idea)
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During an trek through the Underdark, the party found their path had been blocked by a bottomless chasm. They tried throwing something over the edge to listen for it's impact, but they heard nothing.
Then, the gnome bard declared "There's no such thing as a bottomless pit! It's clearly an illusion." He then defiantly jumped off the edge of the cliff......
...and he's still falling to this day.
great.. moments.... (from a GMs perspective )
Player gets shot by a sniper while climbing onto the top of a barn (Siege situation, Sniper is hidden in some rocks hundreds of feet away, nighttime, but the player is in illuminated area). Looses 50% HP from first two arrows, jumps down ladder, swearing....
Waits two (2 !) rounds, then climbs up again, peering over the edge of the roof... Then climbs fully onto the roof again... shouts "he seems to be gone" ... and gets hit with another couple of arrows (same sniper), looses the other 50% of his HP and slides off the roof, killing him.
Player breaking up a peaceful protest and vigil by a religious sect (who are actually on their side and their supporteres, numbering around a hundred worshippers) in front of their house.... The sectrians want to see (!) and show their respects to the recently deceased body of their religious leader, one of the PCs (!), who had just been killed in a public duel.
One player mumbles "we don't need those guys right now".... Other player's character walks outside and breaks up the vigil with a set of fireballs right into their midst, with several dozen victims and a massive panic..... and looks really surprised that they a) resent that and b) that the town authorities come and arrest him for the massacre.... the campaign was practically finished after that
Ah, did I mention the players were on a mission that their employers had insisted required "great discretion and circumspect action" ? *sigh*
(if you wonder, these were/are veteran players in their late twenities, early thirties.... )
Oh, and there was the "clever player" who's bard/rogue waltzed into the famously paranoid and tyrannical king's court and introduced himself as "McSween, contract killer for hire and here to end Your foul reign !"... no kidding. He looked slightly askance at getting really beaten up and interrogated really quickly by really quite a lot of guards who clearly didn't have any sense of humour.
Two barbarians, cut through my abandoned temple dungeon with moderate ease. Then they roll exceptionally well to find a secret door. Both decide to go in, door locks closed behind them. Air tight, the only way out is to read the inscription on the bottom of a sarcophagus in the room.
Barbarians can't read unless they spend the skill points.
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Two barbarians, cut through my abandoned temple dungeon with moderate ease. Then they roll exceptionally well to find a secret door. Both decide to go in, door locks closed behind them. Air tight, the only way out is to read the inscription on the bottom of a sarcophagus in the room.
Barbarians can't read unless they spend the skill points.
That's just cruel...
I'm surprised that, with two barbarians, they couldn't muster enough 'umph' to smash the sealed doorway open again. Ah well, masterfully done sir.
I love it, defeated by illiteracy!
Two barbarians, cut through my abandoned temple dungeon with moderate ease. Then they roll exceptionally well to find a secret door. Both decide to go in, door locks closed behind them. Air tight, the only way out is to read the inscription on the bottom of a sarcophagus in the room.
Barbarians can't read unless they spend the skill points.
*Laughs hysterically*
Teach 'em to assume the GM is obligated to make things illiterate-friendly ... good job sir. ^_^
Charging a retreating dragon (Ancient Deep Dragon) while at only 9hp. Full details in the Heroics thread. Please also note this was a character with Wings of Flying, and a Warmage/Rogue/Daggerspell Mage. He would have been much better off lobbing a spell, but he closed to melee reach instead. Why!??? Glory...no....GREED and to give the dragon the ultimate insult, which failed as he was grabbed and subjected to a diving Crush attack.
Not a bright move...
Also, this was more motivated by greed over the dragons hoard, than it was over defeating the dragon for a more altruistic purpose.
2d-level party. They encountered the whistling skeleton from "The Whistling Skeleton" (Dragon 200). After said creature saunters past the party, apparently holding some sort of valuable in one of its bony hands, the sorcerer (!) states, "I charge into the underbrush after it!" Of course, the wizards waiting in ambush made short work of him - Agannazar's scorcher will do that.
Same party, going through "The Matchmakers" (from an old Dungeon) set in Silverymoon. They develop a terrific plan to infiltrate the manor to grab the girl. Rogue will move in, find girl, convince girl to come with him, hide girl in portable hold and exfiltrate the compound. For security, rest of party is hiding outside the walls. Contingency is in the event of a problem, said rogue will blow a dog whistle. Druid's wolf companion will react, druid will use his bag of tricks to create a diversion in the stables. All goes very well. Rogue makes insane move silently rolls but finds the wrong girl (target's almost-twin cousin - long story) and actually makes it out of the compound. As he is making his way away from the area, he calmly says, "I blow the dog whistle to let everyone know I'm out." Rest of party: "Huh?!?" Of course, the druid withdrew a fuzzball from the bag and hurled it into the stables. The horses were not thrilled when the black bear materialized. Much hilarity ensued.
Why can I not see the new post...
This one player in my Red Hand of Doom campaign, insists on always grappling hobgoblins and then using them like clubs. I've told him repeatedly about the penalties he takes for wielding a "weapon" he's not proficient with let alone an "improvised" weapon. I've also pointed out to him that his magic weapons deal more damage and that part of the reason the other characters keep getting KO'd is because he's not pulling his weight which is why he doesn't receive teamwork XP bonuses at the end of the sessions.
Gotta love glory hounds.
Have I mentioned that this 18-year-old DMs an epic-level party for this same group (where-in everyone is between 25-35) yet half the time can't calculate his own BAB? Oh yes, and of course there's the level 88 pantheon-killer character he claims to have legitimately leveled up from 1st level thru actual playing. *rolls eyes*
If You're going to do something — even if it's being a munchkin — at least try to do it well...
Oh yeah, if You keep up with the DM Kill Board, this is the same player who had his minotaur try to solo an invisible young adult red dragon at 7th level. Yeah... he got killed twice over by a single round of its full attack.
*sigh*
He sounds like one of my players. Down to the fondness for epic level crap. He recently wanted to run a campaign for us at level 55.
Let me guess, when he makes a cleric, the deity prays to his character for spells?
Nah, he never creates clerics, only uber powerful sorcerers and tome of battle characters. If he did create a character it wouldn't surprise me much.
I think he was quite disappointed by the depth of the water and how high he would have had to jump to reach the keel.
Lol, it was a good plan up until then.
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So the player, knowing that the campaign is set in an archipelago and involves lots of sea travel and chasing pirates, creates a Paladin who worships a god that won't allow him to use missile weapons.
Are we talking about Kelanen, here? If so, he allows crossbows. Or chucking blades. Take your pick.
And on that note, I'm sure a ballista counts as a really really REALLY big crossbow. ::shrug::
ANyways, this stupid PC moment takes place in quite possibly my most FAVORITE Living Greyhawk experience. At the beginning of the adventure, a ragged looking elf bursted into the Insert Color Here Dragon Inn, asking adventurers to help him. Three of the PCs actually ignored him, until my half-elf took an interest in his plight. After some conversation, my character decided to take him to the Insert A Different Color Here Dragon Inn, thinking it to be a more secure place (he was friends with the proprietor), and he and his dwarven friend left with the elf in tow.
Obviously, the other PCs in the tavern decide to follow, despite the fact that they had absolutely no connection to our characters.
THings happen, and a rumble between us and the Greyhawk Thief's Guild erupts. In the midst of this, the elf stumbles, and the cloak covering him slipped, revealing that he was shackled. One of the PCs, seeing this, said "He must be an escaped prisoner!" and charged him, killing him in one blow.
This PC was a Chaotic Good Favored Soul of Kord.
Needless to say, gameplay actually stopped, and the DM had to leave the table in order to consult with the Game Coordinator, since not only did one of the PCs kill the plot hook, but another one of the PCs (me) was about to kill HIM.
Fortunately, they were able to work it out: the thieves fled, thinking their goal a lost cause, the Favored Soul was jailed for a number of Time Units, fined five thousand gold to pay for the Raise Dead, and we continued on with one less player.
And it just didn't stop. At the end of the module, another character was dead (kinda his fault, and kinda bad luck), I barely managed to negotiate a cease of hostilities to save the party from a TPK, we managed to get the plot hook to Celene, and I had an awkward moment when the DM looked up at me and asked, "By the way, is your character a woman?"
It was an absolute blast. I'll never forget those four hours.
GAAAHHH!!! A perfectly good d20 apocalypse campaign ruined by my players' dice. The PCs were supposed to be captured by a military group, who used sleeping gas to subdue them. To make it interesting, I made the DC for the gas attainable (17). While two of the players succumbed immediately, one insisted on rolling 17+ for the entire encounter. Halfway through, one of the other players woke up. They succeeded in slaughtering all seven of the attackers, making a great plot hook but ruining the one I had planned.
I hope next game Mr. Shiny's dice roll nothing but ones, that bastard. AWED too. Jerks.
During an trek through the Underdark, the party found their path had been blocked by a bottomless chasm. They tried throwing something over the edge to listen for it's impact, but they heard nothing.
Then, the gnome bard declared "There's no such thing as a bottomless pit! It's clearly an illusion." He then defiantly jumped off the edge of the cliff......
...and he's still falling to this day.
So technically he is not dead? Someone could rescue him... magically or something. I think it best that this player does not roll up a new character, but waits until he is rescued :-)
heh
one time, I was playing a thief (yeah it was AD&D)We needed to get past some undead to something we needed. We were kind of low on muscle and magic at the time. I decided that the best way was to sneak by them in disguise. I reasoned, "hey they are undead, they cant be that smart." I covered myself in dirt and stuck sticks in my hair and did the stereotypical "zombie walk". I may as well have said "hello my fellow undead, how are we nonliving creatures doing this evening?" for all the good it did me.
I forgot about a little ability called "sense life"
*rolls eyes*
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Now, before I go on, my friends from high school, the players in every epic campaign I've ever run until now, were paranoid. Of me. They didn't trust anything I said or did because they knew I loved deception and misdirection, so to this day, almost two decades later, I have no idea how I pulled this off.
It was back in high school, and I was running Temple of Elemental Evil. Our good friend Aberzombie was there, although I can't remember what he was playing. We must have put in thirty hours of play time so far, and we're maybe three-quarters through the adventure. The players enter a room with a muddy, earthy floor and large mushrooms everywhere. There's a lamia hiding, ready to use all of her various illusions to bring the party down.
They were right, you know- I do love trickery, smoke and mirrors, all of that. But I'm also a HUGE fan of subtlety. So I decided to start the lamia's illusions small:
Rot grubs.
We all know rot grubs. They're relegated to the DMG these days as a minor postscript of a threat, but back in the day they had a full entry and some great pictures of the little winners in the MM. And I was going to use these maggots with attitude to bring down a group of upper-mid-level PCs.
The party steps into the room and, once I give them a detailed description, begin to do the usual cursory check of things. After maybe a minute of discussion between the players I have one person make an INT check (we were reduced to these lows back before Spot checks came along, you understand). He gives me the thumbs up that the roll was a success, and I toss his a note I had ready to go that read "You see small, pallid worms beginning to burrow into your foot through the leather of your boot." There's a shout for help, and as the party begins to scramble to his aid I let everyone else make rolls to notice that they, too, are infested with rot grubs.
As D&D players are wont to do, my crew had studied the DMG and Monster Manuals more than the Player's Handbook. They had the situation under control. The paladin strides forward, cocksure and exuding hubris like the stink of bad cologne. "I'll handle this," he brags, and begins to cast Cure Disease on an afflicted ally.
Nothing happens.
The grubs can still be seen all over.
The cleric joins in, and now all the healers are administering what aid they can. Still nothing. People are chugging curative potions like beer at a frat party. It's all in vain.
Someone yells, "Fire will kill them!"
Torches get whipped out and lit with cantrips. The party begins to methodically and systematically burn each other with blazing sticks, and I'm watching as my D&D game turns into a fetish party.
AND STILL- nothing happens. The rot grubs can still be seen. The very hearts of the party will be rot grub fodder in less than a minute.
Now people are grasping at straws. There's a suggestion of acid, and I almost lose my mind trying not to laugh. But I maintain control. I'm the Iceman. This will be epic.
I let them go on a little bit longer. I announce over their panicked din "There are ten seconds before the rot grubs reach your hearts!" The countdown begins...
"Ten!"
"Nine!"
"Eight!"
"Seven!"
"Six!"
"Five!"
"Four!"
My friend Rob shrieks, stuttering, hoping an actual plan will follow his interjection, "The bard...!"
"Three!"
"Two!"
"The bard...! The bard!"
"One!"
"The bard...!!!"
"Zero.
"The bard is dead, Rob."
It was as if I had told them all at once their families had died. A total party kill had never happened to us before. So much time had been invested, so many depraved and perverted monsters bested, and they were taken out by worms.
I waited. People packed their bags in silent mourning. We were in our buddy Ricky's bedroom and I didn't say a word until the first person reached for the door to leave.
"You all wake up, badly burned from the torches, and find all of your equipment taken. You have no idea how long you've been unconscious."
You could see the light bulbs click on in unison. Someone said incredulously, "It was an illusion."
Yep. TPK with illusionary rot grubs. As I'm sure Aberzombie will back me up on, it was the stuff legends are made of. And I could have never pulled it off without the help of the eight people that night who forgot one simple little word: disbelieve.
Illusions never worked on the party again. And honestly, I hardly used them after that. Trying to top that would have been like trying to write better noir than Hammett.
Once, a long time ago, a 1st edition Ranger character of mine was exploring a dungeon and came upon a pillar of stone set with numerous red and blue gems. It suddenly became hugely important to me that my character get at least one gem of each colour. Why? Because I had recently finished reading the Mika trilogy (a series of Greyhawk Adventures books by Rose Estes - in case some of the younger folk haven't heard of them) and in these, the hero gets hold of a blue gem that hugely enhances his spell-casting ability. Later on, he combines it with a matching red gem, the two blend into one and he is pretty much granted total mastery of magic with very little effort or study.
Being young, foolish and easily-influenced, I naturally assumed that the red and blue gems on the pillar were exactly the same miraculous magic-granting stones that I had read about. I didn't stop to think that a pillar completely covered with near-miraculous and obviously priceless artifacts was an unlikely garnish to a third-level dungeon - it never even occurred to me that they might just be rubies and sapphires. As far as I was concerned, this was an opportunity for my Ranger to gain all the powers of an Archmage without the boring levelling-up process.
My character attempted to lever a red gem out with his dagger and was immediately hit in the face by a blast of poisonous gas. Forced to retreat from the area, he waited for the gas to disperse and then went back to try his luck with a blue gem. Once again, his ill-advised prying led to a faceful of poison gas and a hasty retreat. Obviously this was a puzzle. Sadly, the difficulty made me even more convinced that these were wonderful magical treasures.
I'm afraid that I attempted ingenuity in the form of a homemade gas-mask. I'll not bore you with all of the fine details, but the upshot was that my character, after a frenzied attempt to dig as many stones out of the pillar as possible (unsuccessful in every attempt, by the way), was left unconscious on the floor with an ineffective, but highly embarrasssing, urine-soaked cloth tied around his face.
Two other party members had to rush in and drag him out by the ankles, suffering undesirable gas effects themselves in the process.
To this day, the precise nature of those gems remains a mystery, but the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to believe that it was possibly a trap of some kind.
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So technically he is not dead? Someone could rescue him... magically or something. I think it best that this player does not roll up a new character, but waits until he is rescued :-)During an trek through the Underdark, the party found their path had been blocked by a bottomless chasm. They tried throwing something over the edge to listen for it's impact, but they heard nothing.
Then, the gnome bard declared "There's no such thing as a bottomless pit! It's clearly an illusion." He then defiantly jumped off the edge of the cliff......
...and he's still falling to this day.
Amusingly enough, that was the last game that said player ever attended with our group. He was one of those asinine types whose play style did not mesh well with the rest of us (who are more-or-less serious roleplayers). Before the party was able to get ahold of anything that could have saved the character, I'm quite sure that he would have died of starvation well beforehand. :)
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I decided that the best way was to sneak by them in disguise. I reasoned, "hey they are undead, they cant be that smart." I covered myself in dirt and stuck sticks in my hair and did the stereotypical "zombie walk".IM-HO-TEP!
IM-HO-TEP!
"I gots an idea. Shaun, how's bout we act like them zombies and sneak righ on inter the bar?"
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GAAAHHH!!! A perfectly good d20 apocalypse campaign ruined by my players' dice. The PCs were supposed to be captured by a military group, who used sleeping gas to subdue them. To make it interesting, I made the DC for the gas attainable (17). While two of the players succumbed immediately, one insisted on rolling 17+ for the entire encounter. Halfway through, one of the other players woke up. They succeeded in slaughtering all seven of the attackers, making a great plot hook but ruining the one I had planned.
I hope next game Mr. Shiny's dice roll nothing but ones, that bastard. AWED too. Jerks.
One psychotic, machete-swinging hillbilly takes down seven armored soldiers. Priceless.
One psychotic, machete-swinging hillbilly takes down seven armored soldiers. Priceless.
I just wanted to see how many you could take down before they finally got you! Like the movies!
All ruined. All of it. *sob*
Last Monday my players faced the avatar of a troll god (size Huge) climbing up the side of a cliff over a lake of "boiling hot magma". The druid in the party turned into a wolf and leapt off the cliff to bull rush the avatar back into the magma lake.
He failed!
"I gots an idea. Shaun, how's bout we act like them zombies and sneak righ on inter the bar?"
heh
when i saw that movie I was like "hey they heard about our game!!lol
I've got players blessed with an abundance of short-term thinking (a nice way of describing stupidity). One of my personal favorites, was a classic. One player known for his supreme ability to die in almost every adventure we played in, was attempting to kill a Salamander noble who was swimming in the middle of a lake of LAVA, taunting him mightily. Said PC did not have a missile weapon. So he ties his very expensive magical sword to a rope and throws it at the Salamander noble in the middle of the LAVA lake, hoping to pull the sword out and back to him after he hits the Salamander with it... Yeah, he figured it out too... Afterwards. And then got upset and had his character dive into the lava to end it all...
In the Red Hand of Doom, a fairly n00b player of youthful persuasion found himself cornered all by his lonesome in a room by a pair of fairly tough hobgoblin fighter types rather eager to carve his pointy ears off for trophies. Said room also had a 10ft x 10ft pit leading further into darkness than he could see.
I casually suggested (DM to player) that he could certainly elect to jump into the pit in order to escape what seemed like a certain character death at the business ends of his foes' weapons. (He probably wasn't, as you will soon see...)
Amazingly, he jumped right on in ... to a 70ft deep pit filled for the bottom-most 10ft or so with a grey ooze. The falling damage almost killed him outright - the ooze's acid damage DID kill him outright.
The party overheard a comment from one hobgoblin to the other: "What'd he go and jump in the disposal like that for ? We'd have only killed him, not ate him." Needless to say, the other players did not see fit to attempt to retrieve his remains, swag nor the ioun stone down below.
Well, uh... Hmm. I've seen so many stupid things players have done over the years, but one of my recent favs was a one-night session in which I told my players they could run whatever characters they wanted using only the WotC books (all of them) we collectively own. The goofy characters these guys showed up with could be a post unto itself. However, I'll stick to the subject at hand. I did not tell my players what adventure I was running, so they had no idea what to expect other than it was a dungeon crawl.
So, the night of the game session arrived, a one-shot I like to call:
We had a troll werewolf (that shouldn't have been allowed), a pixie sorcerer, an advanced fiendish dire ape, a drow something or other (can't remember what class), an ogre fighter, and a bunch of henchmen. There may have been another I'm forgetting.
The session consisted of the party searching around for the entrance to the dungeon, setting off the trap for the first false entrance, finding the real entrance, and setting off every trap in that hallway that a party could possibly set off.
First the ogre and the troll took point and entered a trapped archway that teleported them into the bottom of a deep pit elsewhere in the dungeon where they were both crammed together and couldn't escape so they decided to try and dig their way out. Back to that in a moment.
The advanced fiendish dire ape set off a couple pit traps, but they were more of an annoyance than anything else. When he got to the end of the hallway I told him about the grinning face and the dark hole in the mouth and without any further thought proceeded to try to crawl into it. A second later, dead gorilla with a disintegrated head.
The last of the party found a secret door into a side chamber and decided to press on. They encountered the 4 armed gargoyle who proceeded to hand their remaining asses to them.
After nothing was left but the henchmen who ran like hell far, far away from that awful place, we figured out that in a matter of about a day or two the troll and ogre could tunnel their way out, but at that point I happily called an end to the most retarded game of D&D I had ever played. I say that affectionately because we all had a great time and still joke about it now and then.
A few amusing moments all from the same evening whilst playing thru Chapter 3 of The Red Hand of Doom:
After discovering that something big and nasty was eating take-out in the lower entry way to the Ghostlord's lair, the party wisely decided to take the highroad and enter thru the stone lion's mouth. Since the doors were barred, the party decided to send our ghostly knight (Sacred Watcher template) thru to scout ahead.
He found a group of hobgoblin monks meditating in silence as they kept watch. Now having a telepathic bond to the rest of the party, the knight's player was able to be influenced by their collective lack of intelligence. The suggested course of action? To whap one of the hobgoblins upside the head with his holy ghost-touch sword so that they'd think one of their brethren did it and get into a brawl.
So the knight conks one of the hobs on the noggin and the holy power from the sword bursts forth scorching the monk who shouts an alarm and runs for the stairs down drinking a potion of haste as soon as he's out of sight.
The party yells for the knight to sunder the beam barring the doors but when he doesn't quite hack thru it on the 1st try, the warlock (known for her ability to cause property damage and friendly fire regardless of intent) uses her Baleful Utterance (Shout) invocation to blow the door apart. Sadly, this attracts the attention of the fiendish behir that they'd taken pains to avoid.
The knight tries to give chase to the hobgoblin running away (who thinks to close the open doors atop the stairs behind him before he goes warp-speed). The pixie warmage, seeing that the doors will likely be barred decides not to use her Force Ram spell to knock the doors open, but instead flies right up to the doors and uses Gust of Wind to blow them open. Being as it was an extremely confined area and she weights all of 1 pound, I ruled that while the doors were indeed blown open, she spit-balled herself clear out of the dungeon and bowled over those still standing inline with the outer doorway.
Now when I'd tested this battle originally, I was concerned that the encounter would be far too easy for our 7 player party. Thus the behir was strengthened a couple hit dice. Well, wouldn't You know it but the ghostly knight (normally the main damage dealer) took off after the fleeing hobgoblin monk who was now hasted. i.e. there was no chance of catching him being as the sacred watcher cannot move more than 60-feet per round.
Meanwhile, even as the party's cleric and rogue get swallowed-whole, the big burly monk, rather than attacking with his most effective attacks, is instead trying to use hobgoblin monks as clubs. Fortunately, the pixie warmage has the ingenuity to use a stinking cloud spell to upset the behir's stomach. Since I don't feel like having to input at least 5 new characters into my database the following week, I go with it and the behir yacks the swallowed characters up and falls back to her cave below. Did I mention that's where the bard and warlock had retreated to when the beast showed up? (Yeah, they kind of ran rather than helping out.)
Miraculously the party survived when the knight teleported back to save the day but the hobgoblins in the guest quarters were now fully aware of who had come to visit them.
Now it just so happens that our rogue had a racial ability that allowed him to Alter Self. Rather than joining the party when they went down below to fight the behir, he waited up top until the inner doors were opened again. (All was quiet and a scout had been sent back up to report if the intruders were finished off.) The rogue easily dispatches the monk, assumes the deceased hob's form and goes to wait below in the fog-filled room where he's kind of bewildered about what he should do. You see, the character is mute and could think of no good way to bluff should he try to knock and enter the guest quarters. Thus, he waits.
When the rest of the party emerges from the secret door, the rogue is overjoyed to see they survived and jumps out of hiding to try and hug the rogue... who was the knight's GF when he was still among the living. Yep, he gets slobber-knockered by the knight who pauses to consider why the holy power of his sword didn't burst forth. Of course, the hobs inside hear all of this commotion and decide to crack the door and start unleashing spells upon the party by barring their way with summoned hell hounds and spiritual weapons.
Yep, they pretty much managed to make every encounter (except meeting the Ghostlord himself) about as difficult as they possibly could. Fortunately, Barry White, er? our Monk was somehow able to seduce Wyrmlord Stormcaller (we'd dispelled her Glibness already) and adjust her disposition to Helpful with aid from the rest of the party. Being as the monk had made the wyrmlord "see what Heaven is like", and I was still flabberghasted by the insanity from earlier, I said, "Sure." when the cleric asked if she could cast Atonement to seal the deal.
What a night to remember that was!
O.o
I am soooo glad I made this thread. The Heroics and the Non-Heroics just seemed like they were missing the most important parts of the campaigns. When players are being, well...idiots. Those always seem to be the most memorable games/sessions sometimes.
Oh...Turin's heard a little of this one.
Very high level party, all very experienced players, one super-nasty monk,
dumn player, DM with a penchant for too nasty of monsters.
Deep in the Underdark, after having been captured by a huge force of drow and made to fight in an arena against wierd fiendish fish and stuff, we broke out (during the fight), began laying waste to the arena, alerting the entire drow city (Menzoberranzan in FR) to our annoying selves.
We were there trying to find things out about a Lichlord who had been trying to kill us, there was supposedly some artifact we needed to defeat him. The Monk, thus-far, had incredible success with wrestling (grappling I know, but 2nd edition) and managed to get a Master of Sorcere who let himself get too close tell us what we needed to know. Long story short, we go under the lake (water-breathing all around) and go to the underwater temple.
There we find: 1 Undead Elder Orb Beholder of ??? HD Lots of hp.
and a HUGE Deepspawn. Needless to say, while we are trying to kill the Beholder-Diety of Death, the Monk runs away and starts fighting the Deepspawn, trying to 'Wrestle' it into submission.
Would anyone who has ever seen a picture of a Deepspawn grapple one? He did. Looked right at the picture, "I Wrestle!"
Shortly thereafter he was pinned and being crushed. Apparently thinking
this would somehow help, he triggered his Ring of Spell-Storing, which had an Anti-Magic Shell in it. I guess he thought the deepspawn was an Illusion? Needless to say his waterbreathing ended and he was summarily Crushed and Drowned.
First the ogre and the troll took point and entered a trapped archway that teleported them into the bottom of a deep pit elsewhere in the dungeon where they were both crammed together and couldn't escape so they decided to try and dig their way out.
To be fair to my ogre barbarian, the advanced fiendish dire ape grappled him and threw him into the trap.... stupid monkey.
Amusingly enough, that was the last game that said player ever attended with our group. He was one of those asinine types whose play style did not mesh well with the rest of us (who are more-or-less serious roleplayers). Before the party was able to get ahold of anything that could have saved the character, I'm quite sure that he would have died of starvation well beforehand. :)
Well, so really he did you all a favor!
Seriously though, sometimes its best to part ways when it turns out that your gamestyle is incompatible....
...And you got a point with the starvation thing :-)
Twilight 2000:
Player is captured and imprisoned. To trick his way out, he fakes hanging himself with a note on his shirt. The plan is for the guard comes in to read the note:
"You didn't really think I was dumb enough to hang myself?"
At this point the player was to grab and subdue the guard and escape.
The plan, of course, didn't account for the 1 the player rolled -- he was, indeed, dumb enough to hang himself :/
That is so totally Awesome Tatterdemalion...I had a similar incident with an assassin trying to drown a girl whom had witnessed a murder. He ended up fumbling, tripping into the water and drowning himself. She got away. Good ol Karma.
I am reminded of a game in which one of our party found a ring of wishes. Knowing that the DM was very tricky with the wording of wishes the player thought through each one very carefully. This DM always tried to grant the wish with side effects that were less then benevalent. I can't recall the first two wishes now, but I dont think I will ever forget the last. After nearly an hour the player proudly declared, "I wish to become naturaly immune to fire." The DM paused for a momment and anounced, "Ok....your now a Salamander" and hand the player the Monsterous Compendium (yep 2e days) to review his new character abilites.
And now for the stupidest player of all time. Back when we were first getting into DND one of the kids we gamed with was notorious for cheeting. On one particular day we all sat down to roll up some new characters for an afternoon of adventureing. Once we were all ready to start the DM asked for each of our character sheets to see what we all were playing. This kid had an uber character with an 18 two 17's a 16 and two 15's. When we called him out he protested that he rolled the stats naturally and showed us the dice he used. Since we were playing at my house he was using my dice and this kid had unknowingly grabed two of my d3 dice (d6's labled 1-3 twice each). We used the roll 4d6 drop one method in those days and when we pointed out that the best score he could possibly have rolled naturally with two d3's and two d6's was a 15 he quit.
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I am reminded of a game in which one of our party found a ring of wishes. Knowing that the DM was very tricky with the wording of wishes the player thought through each one very carefully. This DM always tried to grant the wish with side effects that were less then benevalent. I can't recall the first two wishes now, but I dont think I will ever forget the last. After nearly an hour the player proudly declared, "I wish to become naturaly immune to fire." The DM paused for a momment and anounced, "Ok....your now a Salamander" and hand the player the Monsterous Compendium (yep 2e days) to review his new character abilites.
That reminds me of a story a friend of mine told me, though how this player didn't see it coming I don't know. He was granted a wish, and decided to wish for "Hill Giant Strength." You can imagine what happened. Of course, the game being incredibly cheesed, someone immediately handed him a girdle that allowed him to change size at will, so there was no problem.
A related story from that same group (which I never played with, thankfully) is more of a stupid DM story, but still kind of appropriate. Someone's character had used a potion that turned him into some kind of red dragon hybrid. Later, this same character is bitten by a vampire - so not only does the DM allow him to keep playing the character as a red dragon vampire, he rules that the character is now a Great Wyrm, under the theory that before he died, he had to age to the oldest stage. Because, you know, when someone dies in a car accident, they instantly age seventy years and look like a senior citizen when they're buried.
.... Now it just so happens that our rogue had a racial ability that allowed him to Alter Self. ....
Interesting - what template or race would that be ? Player of mine looks for something in that vein, and if it is not overpowered I would like to allow it.
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A related story from that same group (which I never played with, thankfully) is more of a stupid DM story, but still kind of appropriate. Someone's character had used a potion that turned him into some kind of red dragon hybrid. Later, this same character is bitten by a vampire - so not only does the DM allow him to keep playing the character as a red dragon vampire, he rules that the character is now a Great Wyrm, under the theory that before he died, he had to age to the oldest stage. Because, you know, when someone dies in a car accident, they instantly age seventy years and look like a senior citizen when they're buried.
Stupid DM stories? I got lots of those! Like this one: I pitted my two overpowered PCs (a fifth-level rogue and a fifth-level paladin with some rather overpowered randomly-rolled magic items) up against a Deck of Many Things, hoping to rid them of their godlike booty. Using a standard 4-suit, 52-card deck, I was amazed when they drew two high-suit red cards apeice. Two hours later, after finishing the adventure (with the now fourteenth level paladin and rogue- each with even more powerful magic items), I realized my problem: I hadn't shuffled the deck. Oops.
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My favorite was a player whose Rogue always tumbled and jumped etc.. For the most part all that didn't bother me since combat was never static. However at one point the party was crossing a very small natural bridge over a canyon when they were attacked by some flying monster that I can't remember. (Geez I'm starting to get feeble minded.) Well some of the creatures land on the bridge while others are flying by. The Rogue trying to stay out of the heaviest fighting decides to tumble. He rolls a nat 1. So he falls but manages to catch himself at the last moment. Then one of the monsters moves to stand over him and prepare to kick him off the bridge. So the Rogue holding on for dear life says, "I let go and try to stab him." So I tell him sure you try but since your falling you miss.
Interesting - what template or race would that be ? Player of mine looks for something in that vein, and if it is not overpowered I would like to allow it.
I'm guessing that he's referring to the Changeling, a race presented in the Eberron Campaign setting and also available in the third Monster Manual.
I had a "no go" room in a dungeon last weekend that a low level party was given plenty of clues about--meaning clues that they should have avoided it. It was a huge roper that seriously outclassed them sitting in the middle of a pool--the chamber was filled with stalagmites and stalactites and they hardly even glanced around; the point man just walked right up to it.
Needless to say, the party fled a man short and never went back.
Back in second edition Illic the Grey, a wizard of eigth level, found a ring of freedom of movement, but had a mishap while identifying (like 3% or so, bad luck) and believed it to be a ring of feather falling. As he had read dragonlance, where Raistlin drops himself down from the inn of the last hope, startling all of his allies, Illic wanted to do the same trick, although in an immense subterranean cave and with a 100m drop. In this case of course he was quite startled when the ring of feather falling did not kick in after 1,50m, but he became faster and faster falling to his death. A hastily cast web did help neither due to the true nature of the cursed ring.
I felt benevolent and had an elven follower wizard (whom Illic envied all the time) cast a spontaneous dimension door half way down and let the poor wizard crash upon the ledge which he had left much more confidently some seconds before (and only taking 10d6 damage, which he barely survived).
Also in second edition my two players found a ring of two wishes as final reward in an adventure. The fighter, only having strength 15, opted of course for higher fighting prowess and after some time of thinking decided that his wish was not too big: "I want three points of strength!" Which he got. Being barely able to lift his sword, much the less his armor and gear, the second player had to give up his wish to set this error right.
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Also in second edition my two players found a ring of two wishes as final reward in an adventure. The fighter, only having strength 15, opted of course for higher fighting prowess and after some time of thinking decided that his wish was not too big: "I want three points of strength!" Which he got. Being barely able to lift his sword, much the less his armor and gear, the second player had to give up his wish to set this error right.
Jesus. I hate rings of wishes. I (as a PC, and a newbie player) once found one in a dungeon that was quickly filling with water from a trapped room. The ring had two wishes. Wish one: "I wish the water was gone." The water emptied out of the dungeon, which promptly began to fill back up with water, as per the nature of the trap. Wish two: "I wish I could go to the source of the water." My character, as well as everyone else in the party, was transported to the Elemental Plane of Water. Thankfully, there were multiple spellcasters in the group, so everyone made it back safely, if a bit wet.
Rings of Wishes are where a lot of crazy fun can happen, but it's so easy for a DM to stretch credibility and try and make something of the words that they aren't.
Still, when reaching for a comparative "in game" term for the OOC concept of experience points, it's great to have a player say "I wish to have a new experience" and promptly be placed in combat with a very angry Tarrasque.