"That Guy"

[packetpirate]

We've all got stories about terrible or insane players in past or current groups. Share some of your stories. Here's a couple short ones of mine:

Story #1

I regularly play D&D Encounters every week, and this is a short story about one other recurring player, who is becoming a bit of a nuisance, mainly because of all the stupid things he does.

On one occasion, we were investigating a tomb of sorts, if I remember correctly, that appeared to have spells that were preserving things throughout the tomb in time. We came across one room that appeared empty and decided to investigate. In the room, there were only a few beds and some other pieces of furniture.

The player decided to run into the room and jump on the beds. Not surprisingly, skeletons came out from under the beds and slaughtered the player in the first round.

Story #2

This story is also about the same player. We were in some sort of dining hall with a table in the center of the room. I was at the time playing my Dwarf Battlemind, and the player was using an Elf if I remember right. Skip forward to the combat... I had just thrown my Psychokinetic Craghammer over the dining table to hit an Ogre (I think it was an Ogre). On the next turn, the player wants to attack the same target and is standing next to me. Before the attack, he asks "Can I see over the table?".

Story #3

This story happened to me in particular. This was around the time I was still new to D&D and was pretty bad playing a Rogue. I had been rushing into battles before the tank and getting beaten pretty badly. In this particular fight, though, I finally took some advice from a fellow player and hung back. We had just gotten off a lift and encountered a wyrmling and some kobolds. The battle seemed to be going okay until the kobolds and wyrmling came close to the lift and trapped me against the wall. I was knocked unconscious pretty fast.

On the next round after I was knocked unconscious, the Sorcerer used Bedeviling Burst to push the wyrmling on to the lift, where the kobold still was from fighting me. This was followed by the Wizard in the group using Mage Hand to pull the lever on the lift, sending the lift crashing down to the bottom of the shaft, with the wyrmling, the kobold, and myself still on it. The kobold and I promptly died, and the wyrmling somehow survived, climbed the stairs back up to the other players, and surrendered, started crying, and divulged all its secrets.

So... what stories do you guys have to share?

 

[Oryan77]

Way back in a 2e Dark Sun game, our 9th level group snuck into a Sorceress Queens treasure vault to retrieve some of our stolen gear. For those that don't know, Sorcerer Kings/Queens are some of the most powerful people on Athas.

We somehow alerted her that we were there and she appeared near us in the room. Rather than run, or try to talk, or beg for our lives, the Half-Giant PC takes a swing at her with his Greataxe and manages to roll a natural 20.

Although he got excited about it and thought he was badass, I groaned and luckily had the next initiative. So my Fighter/Thief tumbled past her and ran out the door to get as far from the group as he could.

On her turn, she cast Chain Lightening and hit everyone except for me. The Halfling died instantly, the Half Giant lost an incredible amount of hitpoints and no longer thought he was badass, and I thanked my lucky stars that I had a good initiative because I would have died. We were then teleported out of the room by someone else and never did get our gear back.

The Half-Giant was my characters best friend, and I had to remind him again how much of a bonehead he is. He got incredibly paranoid and tattooed his face thinking he was disguising himself because he knew he would be a wanted man.

 

[Evilhalfling]

The Terrible:

Low level characters, vs Beetle as big as a truck. Beetle is hanging out in a dark cave. Everyone else starts setting up to fire on the beetle as it comes out, moving into the trees, taking up ambush positions, discussing ways to get the beetle to come charging out (preferably at a fake target) That Guy is the only one with darkvision. He rushes in, one other player comments "we wait for the screaming to stop, then toss the torches wrapped with wet leaves in." one AoO and regular attack later, the screaming stopped.

That guy (already wounded) "I shoot the guy who just cursed me" me. "you know that that will provoke from the Orc who has you penned up against the fence?"
okay... you take 10 damage from the curse, the orc in front of you does 18 more.
"Ive still got 3 hp, I use my heal"

Me: the details fade, but we had a map, with three pits marked in a long hallway. They were concealed so I fell in the first one, and then found out the rope/spool we were using was magical in length. I exuberantly went running off down the hallway, only to fall into the second pit, and drag another PC into the first pit. I'm pretty sure I fell in the third, marked pit as well.

 

[CuRoi]

I was runnning a game and had the party looking at an open pit of sorts that dropped down into an underground labrynth. At the bottom of said pit was a massive beetle just waiting for a snack. The party did some recon, discovered this problem and while discussing it, the wizard decided to put his own solution into affect. He did this often. I could go on on. Anyway....

The wizard enacts his bold plan of summoning mounts and dropping them into the pit from ground level (about 30 foot drop). His logic is that he may damage the beetle by dropping a heavy object on it and since the heavy object had hooves, it might also flail about and hit the beetle a few times.

After a few rounds of horse parts spewing out of the pit and the ranger struggling first with an ethical dilemma (he was a protector of animals sort of ranger) and next with the Wizard, the party entered to find the beetle had retreated. (It was full and went off somewhere to take a nap.)

BTW - The same wizard would later summon mounts to Vampiric touch them...so it wasn't a very good relationship with the ranger...

 

[Hussar]

Player playing a high level 3e rogue needs a 20 to disarm a repeating lightning bolt trap, but only fails the save on a 1 and, being a high level rogue, takes no damage. Decides to keep on trying, setting the trap off again and again. Only to roll a 1 before the 20, then dying instantly to the damage of the trap.

This was his eighth character of the campaign...

Wizard player decides to play a practical joke on the cleric character. Creates a massive illusion over the town of the cleric being caught in various embarrassing inuendoe situations involving a donkey. Cleric player, in a fit of pique, hammers the gathered crowd, gathered on the waterfront mind you, with a 2e Fear spell, despite me stopping the game and explaining words like incitement to riot, drowning, and mass murder. :/

And, just to show that I'm not above anyone else, while playing a fire priest, we come across a wand. The priest of fire believed that water was the embodiement of evil. The wand had the word "Freeze" written on it.

I snapped the wand in half, thus breaking the wand of paralyzation that the rest of the party probably really would have liked to have.

They were not happy with me.

 

[adwyn]

Low level party were up against orcs in a rather precarious fight. The cleric took total defense behind his tower shield without getting off a single spell which tipped the balance. Finally it was down to just two wounded orcs and the untouched cleric who continued to take total D as the orcs couldn't seem to hit him.

The frustrated orcs began to sunder the tower shield which he would then cast mend on - his only spell casting of the whole encounter.

 

[Wik]

Had a player (my brother, actually) who was playing an alchemist-type character. The PCs had to hole up one night in an old winery. The PCs knew that their ally, a drow priestess (drow are not evil in this setting) was going to meet up with the group in the morning.

Anyways, the alchemist sees that his entire group is dead tired, and doesn't want to post a watch. The place is crawling with monsters, though.

"No worries! I have these exploding stones! We'll put them underneath the stairs leading into this room, so that if something tries to enter, we'll hear the noise and be able to attack!"

So, he sets up the stones. And then, of course, they hear the explosions. Everyone draws their swords. Then they hear a drow priestess cursing, and the whole party steps back from the alchemist, points at him, and says "He did it".