Tales of terrible tactics

[Jack7]

When I was DMing as a kid, and for some reasons I still don't understand, most of the players decided they would change around their marching order when they entered an underground dungeon.

I had encouraged them months before to develop a marching order and a series of commands they could call out that would let them take up advantageous combat formations. I still encourage my players to do that. (I strongly encourage that in real life too.)

And they had developed an excellent marring order and some really superb formations that made them very formidable in fights. Or in most any situation. But for some reason that night they decided they'd scrap all that, formations and marching orders, and plans and logic, and just wing it. So they did, even when it became apparent their previous marching order was well suited to what they faced, was better at finding and avoiding traps, and that their previous combat formations were far more effective than their ad hoc plays.

That night though they just went about everything willy-nilly. No organization at all, just on the spot improvisation in every circumstance.

Well, in fight after fight they got their lungs handed to them and barely escaped after the first three encounters. They had to retreat back home and rest and recuperate for quite awhile before making another attempt, and they lost much of their gear and had to leave all of the treasure they had found behind, just to escape.

My advice to them after it was all over: "if ya got something that works then it works for a reason people - never experiment in the field just to see what happens."

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I once had a teammate play a pyromaniac sorcerer. He knew absolutely nothing but fire-based spells.

Our DM decided to "punish" all of us (his words) for having strategies that we liked. For most of us it just required a little adapting (our fighter who specialized in tripping for example simply had to defeat a gelatinous cube the old-fashioed way). For the sorcerer on the other hand it resulted in death.

What happened was he decided to use his massive move speed (nearly double what the rest of us had. I don't remember how he got that) to charge waaaay ahead of us into the dungeon. There he met a recurring villain of ours who had been expecting us.

The villain, knowing about our sorcerer's complete lack of anything but fire spells was prepared and had gotten some sort of magic item crafted since last time we'd seen him. It either absorbed or made him heavily resistant to fire. I'm not sure exactly, it was never fully explained.

Our sorcerer, instead of running away or going back to get the rest of us to help him decided to just keep blasting the guy with fire spells. Every turn they did absolutely nothing, even with some of his better rolls, but he just kept doing it.

Eventually his fire actually overloaded the magic item (or something) and broke it. By that point he'd been taking hits for a lot of rounds already though. But he still wouldn't run and was eventually killed before we could catch up with him.

We recruited that villain to our team as that player's new character after realizing that he'd killed our sorcerer (none of our PCs had really liked the sorcerer anyways). As for our old teammate, we burned his body. It seemed appropriate, but was hard to pull off. His corpse had retained his massive fire resistance

 

[Jhaelen]

The party carefully approached a bridge crossing a subterranean river with a guardhouse on the other side in an area of the Underdark, known to be inhabited by Kuo-Toas. Then the sorcerer walked out into the open to use detect magic on the bridge discovering a magical symbol.

The kuo-toa guards in the guard house didn't fail to spot the sorcerer, sounded an alarm and started firing crossbow bolts at the sorcerer.

At this point the fighter decided to charge over the bridge, triggering the symbol. Everyone else sighed but eventually followed suit.

Some guards left the guardhouse by its only entrance in the back to block the party's progress and shortly after a Kuo-Toa priest that had been attracted by the alarm appeared out of the river with reinforcements, neatly cutting off the party's last escape route.

With great effort the party managed to win the day, slaughtering several waves of Kuo-Toas, narrowly avoiding a TPK.

Then they retreated to the entry cavern to rest, only to be ambushed about an hour later by the remaining Kuo-Toas...

 

[Jon_Dahl]

In the current group I'm DMing the party fighter has been very "successful" with his baffling idea of 1st wave/2nd wave-tactics.

The idea is simple:
First wave of adventures advance to potentially dangerous area.
Second wave (the sole fighter) stays behind (sometimes quite far away) and comes to the rescue when needed.

I find this astoundingly terrible and it has already costed one PC his life (total waste really), but other players seem to be content with this tactic (not always though). I'm afraid to meddle, since I'm the DM and I want my players to make their own decisions.

Please note: Of the original PCs only the fighter is still alive... Actually he loses very few hp most of the time.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

We are in the middle of a combat that I really believe will lead to a TPK when we pick it back up.

A dragon attacked the town two of the characters come from so they rode out wanting to hurt it. The dragon was also hunting the town wizard who was said to be at one of the local cairns.

My character kept trying to get them to listen about how important it was to catch the dragon on the ground.

We got to the area outside the cairn it was after dark. I suggested since the dragon has darkvision we wait until dawn. One of the PCs who gets pluses for fighting in the dark says no. I then suggested he take one of his invisibility potions and since he is the rogue and can see in the dark to scout out and see if he could find where the dragon is. He again says no that it would be better for us to all stay together and move silently towards the cairn.

I point out that we have horses and they will make noise and the dragon might smell them. We should set them lose. Again I am vetoed it seems no one wants to lose their horse.

So they come up with a plan to wrap the horses feet and equipment and off we go as quietly as possible. Did I mention we have a paladin in plate armor.

The dragon attacks us from the air we don't see him until he is almost on top of us and his breath weapon knocks two of us to almost half our hit points. The rogue and the paladin don't have range weapons, the warlock can't hit his armor class. My sorcerer is the only one who can hit it. I manage to get two lighting bolts off at it. It saves and takes half damage. I lose two more spells because I can't get through its SR.

The horses freaked out and took off as well as some NPCs that some of the party insisted on bringing with them. The rest of the party is running for their lives to the cairn leaving these NPCs to their fate. But they have a way to go before they reach safety.

I cast improved invisibility on myself and went after the fleeing NPCs to try and save their lives. I am kind of pissed at the rest of the party. First they refuse to listen to me then they insist on bringing innocents when I try and talk them out of it.

I am almost out of spell slots because we have not rested something I begged them to do but they refused. So I entered this battle with almost no open spell slots.

At this point I am going to run and try and save the NPCs and myself.

Hey, if it doesn't kill your PC, then it's not really a TPK, now is it.

Man, that's a lot of stupidity and thick-headedness. I still don't get how the rogue doesn't bother to carry a ranged weapon and the warlock can't hit a touch AC that should be like 12, tops. But whatever. Maybe the next set of partymembers you join up with after this bout of natural selection will be a little wiser.

 

[Elf Witch]

Hey, if it doesn't kill your PC, then it's not really a TPK, now is it.

Man, that's a lot of stupidity and thick-headedness. I still don't get how the rogue doesn't bother to carry a ranged weapon and the warlock can't hit a touch AC that should be like 12, tops. But whatever. Maybe the next set of partymembers you join up with after this bout of natural selection will be a little wiser.

I just realized something that player playing the warlock messed up I think he forgot it was a range touched attack he was trying to hit the dragon's regular AC of 30. I just asked the DM I live with her and she forgot to. Duh.

The player playing the rogue did not bother with ranged weapons because it is only a D6 and he does far more damage in melee this is the first time we have really needed ranged weapons. I always have some kind of ranged weapon unless I am playing a in Kingdoms of Kalamar as a certain God's cleric or paladin and they are not allowed ranged weapons.

I am getting the blame for this disaster because I brought up that they usually act to paranoid and take freaking forever to come up with a plan and if they can they hire others to take the risks. Well I guess they showed me right?

This was not what I meant of course. But it will be kind of funny if they die on the other hand it will probably make them more paranoid in the future.

 

[billd91]

I am getting the blame for this disaster because I brought up that they usually act to paranoid and take freaking forever to come up with a plan and if they can they hire others to take the risks. Well I guess they showed me right?

This was not what I meant of course. But it will be kind of funny if they die on the other hand it will probably make them more paranoid in the future.

I was going to say "Wasn't this the group with the obnoxiously paranoid PCs from the other thread?" But you outed yourself before I got the chance.

Clearly, I think the problem is that your fellow players are idiots. They seem to be unable to predict the totally reasonable consequences of their actions and, despite repeated attempts by you to straighten them out, constantly disrespect your advice.

I'm starting to think there's a trend here and it's not a pleasant one. They reject your advice to be bold, do foolish things and run into trouble. They reject your advice to be cautious, do foolish things and run into trouble. And now they're blaming you for their stupidity. I'm starting to think these other players have issues with you. They certainly don't seem to respect your brain.

Are they like this with respect to anything else other than gaming? That may bear closer observation in the future.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I just realized something that player playing the warlock messed up I think he forgot it was a range touched attack he was trying to hit the dragon's regular AC of 30. I just asked the DM I live with her and she forgot to. Duh.

Well, even if it had hit, it sounds like the spell resistance was very hard to overcome anyway. Poor warlock.

 

[Elf Witch]

I was going to say "Wasn't this the group with the obnoxiously paranoid PCs from the other thread?" But you outed yourself before I got the chance.

Clearly, I think the problem is that your fellow players are idiots. They seem to be unable to predict the totally reasonable consequences of their actions and, despite repeated attempts by you to straighten them out, constantly disrespect your advice.

I'm starting to think there's a trend here and it's not a pleasant one. They reject your advice to be bold, do foolish things and run into trouble. They reject your advice to be cautious, do foolish things and run into trouble. And now they're blaming you for their stupidity. I'm starting to think these other players have issues with you. They certainly don't seem to respect your brain.

Are they like this with respect to anything else other than gaming? That may bear closer observation in the future.

I am aware that they deep down don't think I really have good tactics. One of the guys was who I first started playing with a long time ago. I had played some DnD in the 70s and 80s but stopped to play Rune quest and Hero. I also had a young child so that cut into my game time.

When I started up again in 1997 I didn't remember much of DnD and this was second edition not first. So he helped me relearn how to play. I think he still sees me as this inexperienced player even though I have far more experience with 3.5.

The other guy is his best friend from childhood. He moved down here and joined our group in 2007. In games where his BFF does not play he treats me differently. But when he and his BFF are together in the game he tends to follow his lead.

It is frustrating for me because I know the rules better and over the years I have learned good tactics.

This is only in gaming in everything else they treated me with respect and they are both loyal friends who I can depend on in a crisis.

I have brought this up but they don't see it. It is kind of a catch 22 I enjoy their company and I even don't hate game day but I wish I could find another group to play with as well as this one so I could really enjoy the game without some of the frustrations.

 

[Elf Witch]

Well, even if it had hit, it sounds like the spell resistance was very hard to overcome anyway. Poor warlock.

That's true warlock's have a tougher time getting through SR but if they don't they hve not lost a spell.

I have played both mages and warlocks and while warlocks lack the versatility of mages there ability to throw eldritch blasts all day is nice.