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This thread is hilarious. It is a relief seeing worse cases than mine.
Me: You see a circular room with a circular tank of black liquid. From the liquid emerges a statue of one goddess of evil.
PlayerKineticist: Fire blast to the statue.
Me: The statue seems unafected.
Rest of players: enter the room to hit the statue.
Me: The black liquid was hiding a mechanism and some joints razors appear and start spinning. Roll reflex, damage, etc.
Players: Climb the tank/fly to get out of the razors, hit the statue.
Me: Roll Acrobatics to avoid falling into the tank (all succeed). After your 2 rounds of hitting the statue the head breaks. The razors stop spinning, but look like the events are not connected.
PlayerMonk: I grapple the statue and apply constrict damage 3 times with my super combo.
Me: you break the statue and fall into the tank with the razors, roll direct damage.
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Star Wars The Age Of Rebellion.
The pilot/mechanic/slicer blunders during the landing crunching Blip -
astromech droid belonging to the base's CAG. We learn that the CAG is one nasty b Duros and the astromech was a jerk anyway. Rest of the party made a deal with quartermaster to get a clean astromech droid of the same type and managed to recover Blip's memory banks. Now, the pilot/mechanic/slicer only needs to put those memory banks into the new droid so we can present it to the CAG together with saying "Sorry!"
Instead of doing that, she turned on the new droid, declared it has cute, not-yet-formed personality, and proceeded to merge its default personality with Blip... Critical failure ensues sending the new droid on murderous rampage to destroy our astromech... While falling in love with our pilot.
The first campaign I was GM for ended when the party decided to try using dimension door in an alcove that had a door blocked by a collapsed wall. They specified to just go 10 feet in the direction of the blockage which put them in the area's "boss fight" chamber without the added benefit of having cleared the rooms prior.
The whole time they had been meticulously clearing the place room by room so I'm not entirely sure why the sudden impatience with a blocked door when it was far from the only option available.
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Actually I just remembered I DO have one of those stories! ^_^
This one is about me in a World of Darkness game.
First a bit of backstory. We were changlings, so the gist of it is that we got sucked into the Hedge, basically the Fey world, but we don't age in there. Then we get spat out together at some later time with weird Fey powers.
My character, Germanus, was a roman centurion from around 50AD. We got spat out sometime around 1990s.
So my character is around 2000 years old and has no clue about modern technology, you know, things like electricity or cell phones...
Btw, it should be noted that I have a TERRIBLE memory, and this was an IRL game, so your character only remembered what you remembered. Germanus remembered almost nothing...
He was FUN to play >:)
Anyways, at some point early in our story we have to deal with the mob, and its mob boss Fario. Problem is, none of us liked him much but we were threatened into working for him.
So, of course, the moment we were out of earshot, we said "Screw that!" turned our backs, beat the carp out of our "ally", his #1 henchman and left him half dead in a church pew then promptly forgot all about it. As was proper.
Later on in the game, we are doing a chase scene with the police on my Harley that got botched.
Why were we being chased? Literally for no reason :/ My ancient roman had no idea what the car with the flashing blue lights meant and the resident klepto yelled "FLOOR IT!" so I had too D:
Anyways, a critical ride check failure later and my character loses his cell phone :/
We escaped but I had no phone after that >:(
Thats fine and all, and we are nearing the end of the campaign on the last day that we are meeting up when we decide we are going to do one last big mission. So of course we split up X(
I, having no phone, ask to borrow someones and then call up Will, our scout to tell him what the plan is.
GM: Alright, you pull out your phone and call.. Oh right, you lost it. Here, this NPC lets you use his.
Me: Thanks! Ok I call up Will.
GM: His number is not in that phone. Do you remember his number?
Me: Hmmm. Nope. Not at all :(
GM: Ok, you better roll for it.
Me: I roll a critical failure...
GM: Hmmm. Thats not good. I guess you call a random person...
GM: thinks for a moment, then gets an evil idea...
GM: Hello? Who is this?
Me: Hey is this Will? Its me, Germanus. We figured out our plan.
GM: ... Yessss. Hello Germanus. This is Will. I am listening.
Me: Great! Heres our plan. We will be at "X" in 3 hours. We are going to negotiate with that idiot, Fario to get him off our backs. Of course we are not going to actually pay him. But he doesn't know that. Where are you, do you want us to pick you up?
GM: Suuuuuree... I am this address.
Me: Ok, great. see you soon.
Then I talk to the rest of the party,
Me: Come on guys, lets go pick up Will!
Ya... Needless to say, when we got there, there was 3 white vans with machine guns and full of goons just waiting for us. A completely unnecessary car chase ensues and later negotiations go VERY south. Can you guess who I called?
Ya, I often felt like we were playing the 3 stooges that game. It got pretty bad sometimes ^_^ Would you believe me if I said at one point we tried to take a freaking gladius and a submachine gun onto an airplane? Or, when we were arrested by the cops, we told them to mail our firearms back to our secret lair and told them the address to it?
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Musta been 1996...
I was playing D&D 2E as a dwarven battlerager from the Complete Book of Dwarves. They were the precursor to the 3.5 and beyond barbarian, but with heavy restrictions.
Such as:
Int and Wis no higher than 10. I think mine were around 6. To end your rage, make a Wis check or attack the nearest creature.
While enraged, temporarily unaffected by all "cure" spells, bless, aid, heal, regenerate.
Must continue fighting each round until all enemies are dead.
Anyhow, we're around level 9 as a group and end up fighting a beholder of one sort or another. The beholder casts earthquake at some point, creating a huge rent in the earth separating the group from the beholder.
Being a front-liner, I was in close and when the rent began to appear, I was given an action to move or fall into the chasm.
Enraged and non-too-bright, I opt for plan C. I jumped into the beholders mouth, swung my dwarven axe and hit once, and promptly got munched.
Hard.
He didn't die, but did take a crap ton of damage, leapt out of the maw, and survived...
Luckily, there were other targets to attack.
It can be tough playing a der character. Or easy. Just make poor choices.
This happened just last week. We were on a ship and being attacked by a megalodon. One of the other players turns into a bear (though he's not a druid, I'm not sure how he does it). He halfway transforms so he can lift up one of the ship's cannons and fire it at the megalodon. The GM then has him roll a Dex check. The result is that he drops the cannon into the water and falls in himself, where he promptly gets swallowed whole. The rest of us keep attacking and manage to kill it and pull him out and back onto the ship. He then grabs my boar companion and use him as a teddy bear for the rest of the 'night.'
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I love when players start fights for no reason. LOL
This reminds me of a game I ran. There was a paladin in the group who thought he could defeat anything... and he pretty much could. He had a kick-ass magic holy sword that, I admit, I shouldn't have let him get. Well, they were looking for someone specific underground when they passed a side room. There were slots in the floor and ceiling where sword blades continuously fell like rain. In the back of the room was a vampire with a sword. When the group stopped, the vampire warned them away. Something like, "Leave now lest you take my place" or soemthing like that. He was cursed to stay in that room. The paladin detected it as evil and, against the urging of the party, went in to challenge it. He activated his holy sword, making it glow with a holy light that the vampire could feel from there, so... when the paladin charged across the room, getting pummeled by the rain of sword blades, the vampire proceeded to sunder the holy sword with his adamantine sword. I thought the player was gonna cry when that happened. They beat the vampire and it went gaseous to escape under the floor. The paladin was so pissed, he got the party to basically destroy the room. They stopped the sword rain and the cleric, via stone shape, opened the floor to get to the vampire and they permanently killed it. But, he lost his holy sword... all because he couldn't walk away from a fight.
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Wow, Chuck, I think I know that module. Did they get different magic swords at the end of it?
As for my story: we had a player who showed us the character sheet of his aasimar sorcerer (infernal bloodline). DEX 10, CON 8. Living dangerously was the way he wanted to live.
In our first real dungeon crawl together, we find a fountain in the room with the apparent McGuffin hanging from it, and a flight of stairs off to the left.
My witch gets suspicious and suggests the sneakiest of us look at the fountain in case it'll start spewing acid or something.
The sorcerer immediately rushes for the stairs, saying, "Oh no, I'm staying where it's safe! *Hops to the first stair* Right here!" *Ominous click*
He later came around to find himself on the other side of the room, stuck to the results of a trap, my witch bottling her smelling salts and asking him, "Now, what have we learned from all this?"
He croaks out in reply, "Nothing..."
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I played with a lady who always had some pretty stupid ideas. One time we were playing a PFS scenario where we go to one of the planes of hell(as far as I can remember) and we came up to a miles wide field of a strange kind of weed. One of the characters rolled a really good nature check and found out that it is some sort of weed that causes an uncontrollable rage. The Lady was playing a Paladin who was very proud of her warhorse (that she could never use as she always had it hooked up to a cart that she rides in). We were all confused as to why she didn't just buy another horse to pull her stupid cart. In fact, we were confused by the cart to begin with, especially for a PFS campaign where you don't keep loot. I don't know how many times that she tried to ride the horse into battle, just to be reminded that it was pulling a large Gypsy-style cart. Anyway, her idea of solving the rage weed problem was to:
Stupid player: I set the weeds on fire.
Player 1: I get on my horse and ride in the opposite direction as fast as I can.(He had played with her before)
Rest of the players: We follow player 1.(We had played with her before too.)
GM: Ok. You set the weeds on fire. The smoke washes over you. Roll a fort save.
She failed.
GM: You attack the closest living creature with your strongest attack.
She killed her prized horse. The funny thing is that the horse passed it's fort save.
in a recent Star Wars game set just between the prequels and original trilogy, we had just narrowly escaped a Empire controlled planet by the skin of our teeth, our shipped just barely holding together with bailing wire and our hope in the Force and only capable of making one jump before our mechanic figures our hyperdrive is going to kick the bucket, though our "leader" feared we had been scanned by the Star Destoyers in orbit and that they could then follow our ship, so he gets the ships captain to take us to a pirate moon on the far Rim. There he plans on buying a scrubbed drive from the black marketeers. So far, fine I guess. We get to the moon, hyperdrive goes KAPLOOEY and we track down the black market shipyard. Our "leader" speaks with the mechanics there who tell him that they have what he wants and that they'll even cut him a deal in exchange for an in with the Rebellion (a deal he lacks the authority to give btw), so he agrees and they tell him it will be like 15,000 credits, which is indeed a hell of a deal for a new drive. Only problem, we're rookies (read 2nd level) and have about 200 credits to our names. When he finally realizes what he's done (most of the rest of the group had long since figured out his mistake in this and were waiting around to see how far he would take it), he panics and makes an emergency call without trying to encrypt it or even make a coded message along the Empire controlled and MONITORED hyperspace channels to the rebellion (see you can all guess how that turned out later). The black marketeers get tired of waiting around for him to make up his mind and eventually leave, while the group proceeds to make various jokes based on the Underpants Gnomes about his "plan" until we essentially flag down a ride.
"We need to get this ennemy on the top of this tower"
Grippli druid : "I'll climb and get her"
Grippli druid failling his climb check
Rogue : "It's OK, I shot an arrow at him to make him stick to the wall"
I pass the details but when the druid finnaly (I don't know how he managed not to die because of his teammates...) got to the top the tower they ennemy add disappeared using a flying device.
Grippli druid : "I use my blanket and jump to follow her"
Well... you could have just use the stairs... but OK
(He crashed of course)
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This didn't happen to my group specifically but was told to me.
Basically the whole party thought a sphere of annihilation was a portal. TPK.
Sounds like several Tomb of Horrors stories I've heard.
"He disappeared."
"Gone?"
"No noise, no flash, nothing."
"Must be a portal. Let's get going before he gets all the loot/gets in over his head."
GM shakes his head....
I don't get stories like this. The moment you touch it, the sphere SUCKS YOU IN. I'm not sure how the rest of the party would miss that.
That should send off plenty of alarm bells to the other characters. Any GM not describing the sphere's effects appropriately, is killing the players' characters himself. It has nothing to do with player stupidity and everything to do with a malicious GM.
Watching someone touch a sphere of annihilation, and then touching it yourself, would probably look something like this. Just stupid. I really don't believe this ever happens at real tables unless the GM actively manipulates his players into doing so.
Did this one myself as a player:
Playing a paladin member of a group, we fight our way through an entire adventure. Kill big bad guy. Looting ensues. Players start grabbing everything in sight.
Large crown of the Scorpion King on a pedestal.
Me (Paladin): I detect evil on it.
DM: No evil.
Me (Paladin) (not getting anything as players have looted everything else in sight). I take the crown.
DM: Ok.
Me (Paladin): I put it on.
DM: (Facepalms). Congratulations guys, you are now the Scorpion King and his scorpion minions via the cursed (but not evil) crown.
Exactly my point, plus I got the bonus of being the king. The rest of the party didn't see it my way however.
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I swear my group could easily have 1 event per campaign, and most of them done by the same player.
From the top of my head, I was dming Seven days to the Grave. They had gotten to the hospice and intimidated their way in, starting a fight with the guards inside. Now they distrusted the grey maiden and went straight to lethal. Then the wizard of the group,(who had recently joined the group) looked at the enemy grouping and figured one fireball should end the combat and as such throws it out. In the middle of the overcramped hospice filled with people at death's door. Considering he was an highly experienced roleplayer, I took into account he knew what he was doing and told him to shift one step toward evil. As he gave me a look of confusion I explained the scenes of the scorched armors of the guard piled on top the numerous charred corpse of the innocent he so mercilessly slew.
Another one remember clearly is was when my party reached a dangerous dinosaur infested island. They had to reach the temple at the center of it and so the party start discussing the best way to get there.The swordmaster Tengu listens for a short while then tells me he's walks toward the forest. The other members don't notice him going on without them and so he finds himself alone. I roll a random encounter and get 1 T-Rex. Because him kind, I have the T-Rex roar and let the rest of the party know whats going on. I'm giving one 1 delay to reach the battle. Believing the Tengu can last at least 1 round. Low and behold, he rolls low on initiative and I rolled high, T-Rex goes forward and bites, crits and kill him outright. So I describe to the other player that, as they come into view of the creature, they see its massive jaw clamp on the Tengu, toss him in the air and swallow him in one gulp.
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My players are an interesting bunch, rarely stupid on purpose though they have very nearly TPK'd once or twice.
The most recent event happened when they had cleared out a fort and were investigating a piece of artillery. The party is currently level 4, and have been running around as fixers for the town's Oligarchs. The massive canon was fitted with a magical piece of ammunition, but the canon was so big that none of the casters could make the climb checks to get up and look into it (it was a really big gun, 30ft tall). So the party sets the canon to 180 degrees (pointing straight up) and the martials climb/fly up to bring the thing down.
Inside the gun was a very nasty piece of magical ammunition designed to trigger on impact with a solid surface, it starts off by triggering a 360ft radius Circle of Death and then follows it up with a Storm of Vengence. This is the last ditch attempt from one of the oligarchs to eliminate the other and take over his businesses (said agressive oligarch was recently deceased thanks to the party's efforts).
Anyway, the party hasn't had a chance to learn about the magical qualities of the ammunition yet. Instead, all they saw was a big ball of pipes, gears, glowy runes, and the blue dust that powers magical devices in my campaign world. Since no one has been able to spellcraft it yet (none of our casters can fly or climb), the Martials start manhandling this thing to bring it down to the casters. They land on it (making climb checks the whole time, failing them would have resulting in them falling onto the bomb and triggering it), tie some rope to it, haul it up the canon's barrel (which was pointing straight up, dropping it would have triggered it), and then lowering it back down to the party to investigate (once again, a drop would have triggered it).
Meanwhile, all they had to do was lower the barrel to 90 degrees and have the caster walk into it. That was three seperate instances that involved multiple dice rolls where a failure would have resulted in a TPK.
Upon learning this, they freaked the hell out, and very nearly didn't take it with them. Of course, clearer heads won out and they eventually decided that they could pawn it off on an NPC (oddly enough, after surviving several rolls none of them wanted to try and use it themselves, hehehe)
Anyway, its little moments like those that I love.
Agh, just happened. We have a player that has a hard time... doing anything. One player in character actually lied to her and pointed to an enemy, saying that it was her arch nemesis. She full rounded and knocked the guy prone, nearly dead. That trick hasn't worked since.
Today, we have convinced her to take some actions. After 5 minutes of debating with herself, she decided that her character would shoot some VERY high powered explosives. In a cave. Underneath an acid lake. Attached to a support pillar. These explosives had JUST been placed by a long time NPC friend.
He's dead.
... Not sure if she will survive the encounter anymore.
p.s. Her intelligence is supposedly 16
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I did a stupid thing, once.
Since druids can potentially summon girallons, the first time we encountered one, I wanted to fight it, win, then rescue it so that would be the Nature's Ally I'd summon later.
Unfortunately, that was the time my druid had learned Geyser, and was itching to see how it worked.
So, I dropped it at the girallon's feet. He failed his save, got shot into the air, took scalding damage, then fell. The rest of the group threw stuff at him, and the monk closed to deal the knockout blow.
...Then we realized, too late, that the Geyser had a duration of concentration+1 round per level.
There was a lot of yelling about how to stop the geyser and save the girallon which we couldn't move, since nobody had Ant Haul ready. The monk had to makeshift a way out by dumping everything out of the bag of holding, then holding the bag over the geyser until it ended, while I stabilized the girallon.
I apologized, healed everyone, and asked to make tea or soup or something out of the magic bag full of hot, magic geyser water. The monk just poured it all out and told me that the one spell had hurt him more than any enemy since we'd met.
A topic to share situation when the player we'rent really thinking. Did something stupid and paid the price.
In a Golarion inspired world, the player in a dongeon see a well with a pale golden liquid in it. On the outside they see a carving of the Godess Desna with a golden coin between her finger.
To summarize :
First player : I take a golden coin a threw it into the well
Me : When the coin reach the surface, it melt into the water. (rolling random dice) You get +2 to all your will save for the next 24 hour.
Second player : I toss all my gold into it!!! ( level 5 had 3000gp )
Me : ... you get +2 to all your reflex sa..
Second player : Oh F...What's your story?
I followed a man down an alley way while the entire time my gm was hinting that this was a bad idea and that i should leave and i knew he was and i knew i shouldnt be doing it, but i did it because he was a legend and i thought i could get mythic status. In three rounds the mythic monster known as the faceless man
I followed a man down an alley way while the entire time my gm was hinting that this was a bad idea and that i should leave and i knew he was and i knew i shouldnt be doing it, but i did it because he was a legend and i thought i could get mythic status. In three rounds the mythic monster known as the faceless manA topic to share situation when the player we'rent really thinking. Did something stupid and paid the price.
In a Golarion inspired world, the player in a dongeon see a well with a pale golden liquid in it. On the outside they see a carving of the Godess Desna with a golden coin between her finger.
To summarize :
First player : I take a golden coin a threw it into the well
Me : When the coin reach the surface, it melt into the water. (rolling random dice) You get +2 to all your will save for the next 24 hour.
Second player : I toss all my gold into it!!! ( level 5 had 3000gp )
Me : ... you get +2 to all your reflex sa..
Second player : Oh F...What's your story?
Had swallowed my character whole.
A topic to share situation when the player we'rent really thinking. Did something stupid and paid the price.
In a Golarion inspired world, the player in a dongeon see a well with a pale golden liquid in it. On the outside they see a carving of the Godess Desna with a golden coin between her finger.
To summarize :
First player : I take a golden coin a threw it into the well
Me : When the coin reach the surface, it melt into the water. (rolling random dice) You get +2 to all your will save for the next 24 hour.
Second player : I toss all my gold into it!!! ( level 5 had 3000gp )
Me : ... you get +2 to all your reflex sa..
Second player : Oh F...What's your story?
Three words....Goblin One Shot. 30 minutes in weve tried to kill a major npc, burned down one of the pcs houses two of the pcs got "married" and weve barely started the one shot. Bad thing was it was the gms forst time gming. Poor guy didnt know what to do to reel us in. It was fun tho
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The lvl 12 PC's arrived at a major metropolis and found out that a Vampire, a Drow Cleric, and a really rich guy who runs the docks had been conspiring to take the throne when the heir-less king died. So, over the course of several sessions (but one full day in-game), they had raided the Drow Cleric's evil shrine and killed everyone who couldn't teleport out, found a map to the Cleric's evil ritual and started erasing all of her "Ritual Arcane Marks" that she had been placing all around the city, sneaked aboard a shipping vessel and tried (and nearly succeeded) to kill the vampire while he was in his coffin during daylight hours-- and killed almost everyone on board, and did a "jailbreak" on one of the rich guy's torture rooms to free an important NPC.... so nightfall came and they went to a tavern inn to sleep and plan for the next day to "seal the deal" and put an end to the Vampire, Drow, Rich dude triumvirate. So, just imagine the BBEG's ire right now...
Here's where the hell breaks loose...
The druid decides he's going to not sleep in the tavern, he's going to sleep out in the woods and commune with nature. The two girls in the party decide they're going to upgrade to a penthouse suite and have chambermaids bathe them, do their hair, and give them manicures/pedicures, and the other two guys just get normal rooms. The entire party is now split up... after REALLY pissing off the BBEG's.
BBEG's sent assassins that night and 3 player deaths later the party re-learned that ancient adage "never split up the party, especially after nearly-dismantling the BBEG's entire operation in 1 day".
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Dumbest player induced suicide I ever had was a guy who went the wrong way down a dark tunnel for five or so days before dying of dehydration because he "wanted to see where it led." Human. No dark vision. No torches after day 1. I tried to get him to come back and just play the adventure. Checked on him after two real life hours. Still exploring the tunnel? Yep. Ok. You get hungry. Pack any food? Nope. Water? Nope. Well, you're getting thirsty, if you turn back now you might make it. Nope, continued on. Ok. Two hours - real life - later. Did you turn back? Nope? Ok. You died. Thanks for coming.
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Ok. I have another one. My wife learned last week when a GM smiles and says "you can do that, are you sure you want to?" The answer is not "yeh, he's probably friendly. I wave the Dragon down to talk to him." Well, it was a lynworm, not a dragon, exactly. 69 lava damage + being on fire for (thank god, because it would have killed us) two party members. We spread out and thankfully someone made their knowledge roll to type the immunities, so we blasted it with lightning bolts and such while my wife lunged with a whip to its 20' fly height (where it was easily one sided fighting another party member without reach, who bravely challenged it knowing it would otherwise cook the party from on high, even though he couldn't really hurt it he could evade). Yen. CE. Not really the "talking to" type dragon. Oh, and we had been warned to avoid it. Yes. Yes we had. The second breath attack nearly killed her. But we brought it down in the 3rd round. Nobody died. But 3 people were taking 2d6 or 3d6 lava damage a round...
This moment of stupid comes from a good friend of mine who was playing at the next table, with my wife GMing. (I got to play the scenario when another friend GMed it a week later, so got the full story then.)
(Spoilers for Oathbreakers Die)
The party reaches the part of the sewers where the bad guys' hideout is, and encounter a cistern that contains violet fungi. The PCs make Perception and Knowledge checks to spot and identify the monsters, but they've attracted the fungi's attention and combat begins.
The bard decides to swim across the pool so he can attack from the other side. The GM checks to make sure he wants to do that, and the player insists. The module doesn't specifically address whether the water is safe or not, so my wife rules that he has to make saves against rot every other round because these deadly fungi have been living in this water for quite some time. Lem takes some ability damage right away--but keeps going. It takes several rounds for him to cross the cistern, because halfings are slow and weak, but he keeps trying. He's nearly dead by the time he reaches the other side--and the fight's pretty much over by then.
It would have been silly to have Lem swim across a room under ideal conditions, but just plain suicidal to get into the water with walking disease vectors!
Normally this friend is a LOT more careful to keep his support characters out of harm's way (his dash-2 is a bard who's survived to reach level 8+). I guess he was still channeling the BDB(tm) that he originally showed up to play.
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Here's a rare player PFS death I witnessed. This one was due to mix of 'stupid' and 'impatient'.
4th level Pathfinder PFS party. We're exploring an icy mountain monastery. We have learned that there's a ravenous insane berserk yeti hiding nearby. It must be very close.
No other player had a martial PC. My reach cleric has, out of necessity, taken on the role of main front rank combatant. Numerous clues indicate this yeti BBEG was in the next room. The next room was 50' across and had several yeti-sized doors and hiding places.
Another player, playing a squishy support bard with lots of skillz but minimal combat ability, loudly discounted the yeti as a serious threat. He had taken several needless, reckless chances already and had got lucky each time. I'm pretty sure he didn't know that he'd got lucky earlier. Other players had already warned him about recklessness.
My PC, who had lead the way quite effectively so far, said to the others, "Can you not feel it nearby? It's just ahead. I'll go forward and draw it out. Please cover me." My PC then cast Enlarge Person and moved to the center of the next big room, covering the entire 50' room with a reach weapon and combat reflexes. My PC then called out, "Come out Mr. horror yeti! Come out! Wherever you are!"
Just before the Yeti came out the support Bard decided he could not wait. The squishy bard ran into the room, approached a door at random, and opened it. The Yeti happened to be hiding behind that door. Combat started. Bard was surprised, we were all surprised, and the yeti rolled well for initiative. Yeti proceeded to Full Attack the squishy flat-footed bard. Bard died before even getting to act. Rest of the party then killed the yeti easily, working as a team.
No one offered to chip in with gold for a Raise Dead. Another player muttered something about 'just desserts'.
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Here's a player PFS death, due entirely to reckless stupidity, I had the pleasure of refereeing. The authors created an encounter to exemplify the feat Broken Wing Gambit. This feat is not mentioned, yet the encounter exemplifies the feat!
Pathfinder often rewards reckless aggression. Pathfinder occasionally punishes reckless aggression. This death is the due to the latter.
I was running a PFS adventure. The party was powerful well-oiled machine and was crushing the scenario. One particular otherwise-easy encounter was clearly designed to punish reckless aggression. Here's how it worked:
The party is in a 10' wide hallway and approaches the entrance to a large room. At the far end of the big room is a minor BBEG, flanked by several goons with longspears. The angles and distances are such that a typical PC can just barely charge across the room and attack the BBEG. Not seen by the PCs are several more goons, lurking just around the corner from the entrance.
Combat begins. The scenario provides very detailed tactics for the monsters. The monster tactics are designed to cut off, surround, and kill anyone who charges into the room alone!
The players see the situation and most are cautious. One player can't resist the temptation to charge and says so. Two other players say, "no don't!", but recklessly aggressive player ignores them. Lone PC charges the BBEG.
Monsters go into action, precisely following their rehearsed tactics. Lone PC charges, takes multiples AoOs from the goons with longspears and is tripped, ending the charge prone at the BBEGs feet. Other goons with longspears then leap out to block the other PCs from coming to. Lone prone PC is now flanked by BBEG and multiple goons. Rest of PCs try to fight their way through to help but the dice gods are not smiling. Lone prone PC stands up, takes more AoOs, and presses the attack, with seemingly no thought of retreat or survival. Lone PC eats multiple full attacks and is killed, dead, just before the rest of the party breaks through to come help.
Remainder of group works as a team to easily defeat the encounter. The lone reckless charger, now dead, watches quietly.
I ran this encounter exactly as specified in the module description. It was an easy encounter, unless one recklessly aggressive PC charges in alone. That's precisely what happened. I did not grieve.
I've no idea whether or not the recklessly aggressive player learned anything from this character death.
@GMs: Do some of YOUR players play their characters with extreme reckless aggression? If so, here's another tool for your tool chest.
P.s. Military history has a rich tradition of exploiting reckless aggression. Sun Tzu squarely addresses this issue. Many generals have successfully taunted a [soon to be defeated] foe into reckless aggression. Some modern martial arts also teach one to exploit reckless anger in an opponent. The basic idea is to present the foe what seems like an opening, but is really a trap. Thus the analogy to the Broken Wing Gambit feat.
I have one of these, I think.
I had a level 4 party exploring a vampire castle during the daytime.
They defeated some CR 3 and 4 enemies. That was fine. The party's sorcerer had even grabbed a standard CR 4 vampire spawn and thrown it out into the sunlight, then they'd blocked it from getting into the shade and it poofed easily.
The second standard CR 4 vampire spawn they encountered, they were deeper into the castle and throwing it into the sunlight wasn't an option. But they didn't attack it. Instead, the party sorcerer (who was the de facto party leader) requested that it take them to its master, as he had important business with the master.
Not wanting to potentially attack an ally of its mistress, the vampire spawn told them to wait and it would confirm that its mistress would see them. They waited.
It came back a few minutes later and told the party that its mistress would see them. The vampire spawn lead them into a nearby alchemy lab on the lower level of the castle. As they were led into the room, the first three characters entered the room and saw the vampire standing near an ancient alchemy table covered in broken phials and such. They all had darkvision so didn't carry light sources. The fourth party member was human and entered carrying the lantern. When he did it was revealed that the room was also full of shadows circling along the walls. (Shadows in my campaign are variants that have natural invisibility in darkness so aren't visible to darkvision in darkness like normal shadows would be.)
The shadows were literally just there to impress upon the players that combat would be a very bad idea because I thought they might not realize that otherwise. The vampire by herself would have been enough to wipe them out, so the shadows were just to make the point that it was not a fight to fight. The vampire was CR 9 gravewalker witch.
Anyway, it was glaringly apparent that they had allowed the vampire to set the stage for the visit and they would be outgunned if there was combat, even though they did not know the vampire's CR was more than double the average party level.
So the tiefling sorcerer started to parley with the vampire and...
The party's full-blooded orc mad dog barbarian ordered his white tiger animal companion to attack, then he moved to circle the vampire to flank with his animal companion. He moved through a threatened square and the vampire hit him with its slam attack. So, yeah, he gained two negative levels, no save. (As that occurs 24 hours after the energy drain.)
The player said "Well, I'm dead," packed up his stuff, and handed me his character sheet.
I said, "You're not dead yet, she only drained you two levels. You haven't actually attacked yet, so there's a chance you surive."
He said "My guy wouldn't stop attacking, so he's dead."
Literally, he pulled out the "It's what my character would do" when he knew it was death on the next round if his character followed that routine. (He probably thought it was death that round, but she'd already used her energy drain for the round.)
So he packed up and left... The shadows slew his character with STR damage attacks and the party turned on his animal companion, slaying it as a show of good faith toward the vampire. The party escaped the castle unscathed and still has a tenuous alliance with the vampires as of the last time we played that campaign. (They're now a mix of level 9s and 10s.)
That player came back after 3 months or so (I ran the game a a game store at the time) and asked to rejoin the campaign. He wanted to play the same race and class. I had already mentioned to the players that in the lore of my campaign there were a high incidence of twins in the region, so I suggested he come back as his twin brother, and literally just handed him back his character sheet. He changed the name on the sheet. I have no idea what the original orc's name was. I asked him the name of the new orc's animal companion. It was the same. Twin brother orcs with white tiger animal companions, both named Samson. Sure.
He tried to use the "It's what my character would do" again another time, along with "He's an orc, he don't care." That time it was a situation that was Not OK, so I had to flat-out tell him it wasn't happening because it was not appropriate at our table.
Red flags all over that place. But that's another story.
He's not in the group anymore.
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PFS was/is its own special brand of stupid. At public game days you are rarely sitting with the same characters or even players as the last time you were there. Which means that when you do something foolishly risky that turned into a flawless victory last time you did it (because your party meshed perfectly with it) there’s a pretty good chance you are going to be in real trouble this time.
And then there’s the players who avoid metagaming vs. those who can’t help themselves. . .
I was playing a scenario I had previously GMed, so I knew everything that was coming. I tried not to take the lead in making decisions, and let the table know that I wouldn’t be using player knowledge. The party comes to the base of a 200’ cliff. We’re all between levels 8 and 10, so even though only one of us has a flight ability (the witch) we’re all carrying at least one potion of fly. Conveniently, someone has left a rope hanging down. Hmmm, we’re trying to find people who probably don’t want to be found. Should we climb the rope they left or expend some consumables?
The debate goes on for half an hour. No one wants to be the first to make a decision. Just endless rehashing of “what if we get attacked” vs “I only have one fly potion with me.” Finally I had had enough and declared “look, everyone make their own decision. I’m going to climb the rope.” (Not at all an unreasonable decision for an inquisitor/monk of Irori.) Everyone except the witch, who had a negative climb skill, decides to climb as well. Even the cleric took off his heavy armor with large ACP to climb.
As I knew would happen, we get attacked as soon as one of us reaches the 100’ mark. As PCs are falling unconscious from damage - then falling to the base of the cliff - several of the players were shocked that I would have made the dangerous choice. “You’ve run this before! I only climbed because you did, so it must have been safe!”
The Druid had - for some unknown reason - not maxed out Knowledge (Nature).
The party is exploring a farmhouse inhabited by a very unpleasant family. They reach the basement area, where there's a very big room with a huge pile of plant matter. One failed Knowledge (Nature) check later, the size Small Druid walks blithely past the pile and is then swallowed whole by the oversized tendriculos.
The Barbarian decides to save her by deliberately allowing himself to be swallowed whole right after her.
Both Druid and Barbarian fail the necessary saving throws/attack rolls to cut their own way out of the belly of the beast. The rest of the party have great difficulty in destroying the creature from the outside, but they do finally manage to rescue their friends.
The Druid started maxing her Knowledge (Nature) skill after this incident.
I mean, its not that unreasonable. Clerics get like, 2 skill points per level and have scant incentive outside of skill points to take int? Assuming a non human with 10 int, perhaps he had perception as a class skill from some trait, and then invested one point into diplomacy and one into sense motive per levelup.
On the other hand, it got her Callistrias attention at level 2-3! Do you have any idea how many epic mythic quests Cayden had to do just to even ask her for a date? (Spoiler: She said no)
Maybe his fault was having kn. religion as a skill all along? Or at least having bardic knowledge in it.
I myself have been stupid as a player, partly influenced by metagaming.
You see, its wroth of the righteous. I played the CRPG. We are to do a diplomatic mission to the Abyss to convince Nocticula to not screw over Golarion, and its clandestine so only Galfrey was in the room when we received these orders. Oral, nothing written, because deniability.
Galfrey cant bluff her way out of a wet paperback, when my skald has a 38 or so on his sense motive and got told "yeah, absolutely truthfull and very anxious too" I effing fell for it.
Yeah, turns out it wasnt Galfrey, but Minagho in disguise, and the inquisition wants my Kellid but for very publically consorting with various demons.
You see, I had the cunning idea to setup a livestreaming service for "crusade commander Beerfiends bizzarre Abyssal adventure" in order to get more notoriety.
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I'm in a living world group so parties are always changing after each mission. In this case, we were a mix of level 3 and 4 and doing a scavenger hunt in this rich guy's place. One of the items we had to get was a red dragon scale. We entered the indicated door and found ourselves in a cave. The door was actually a portal to a small demi-plane that the red dragon controlled but was also imprisoned in. We were SUPPOSED to press a rune on the wall to call for the dragon and then convince it into giving us a scale, all without leaving the cave. Instead, we misunderstood the clues and headed down the mountain.
As you can guess, the dragon immediately attacked and captured the entire party. In that single move, we completely derailed the fun little scavenger hunt into a WAY ABOVE OUR CR quest to break out of the dragon's jail cells and get back to the cave safely. AND convince the tribe of Kobalds that also lived in the demi-plane that they needed to come with us or the dragon was going to punish THEM for our escape. I was honestly surprised everyone made it out ok.