A classic: Allies blasted by Friendly Fire

[Odhanan]

Yesterday, our regular RP group played the last part of their exile on the icy lands of I'ix. During the very last encounter against a 17th level minion of Iborighu, the mojh mage blade decided to cast a Sorcerous Blast (Fire) in the room. Result: one PC reduced to -7 HP (Mandingo, the hummingbird totem warrior). He would die at -8 (as per AE rules) at the end of the turn. Then, the winter witch tries to stabilize him by using her Heal skill... and rolls a fumble, which kills the character.

This made me think of Fireballs/area-damage spells cast around friendly targets, resulting in their death. I fairly believe this is a classic, since I've seen this happen multiple times while playing D&D/AD&D. What are your own experiences about this? Did you see characters die because of friendly fire? How?

Anecdotes are welcome.

 

[Crothian]

It happens about once a week for us. THe dwarf cleric goes charging into the fight making it so he's going to be in area of effect spells. They got him a reing of fire resistance to help with it though.

 

[Beckett]

Not death, but I've certainly seen some damage dealt by friendly fire.

In AU, the party was exploring a cave and found a shaft. I told them it was a 30' drop, but the mojh tied a 50' length of rope around his waist, handed the other end to the giant, and jumped down. After he recovered from the fall, he managed to pull the giant in after him. That's when the two frost salamanders attacked. The giant moved to engage them, putting him between the fire breathing mojh and his targets. After two breaths, the mojh hesitated because he didn't want to kill the giant with his third, but the giant's player insisted. Some lucky rolls, and the giant did survive.

Last night during my on the fly ToEE conversion, the characters were having a difficult time fighting invisible foes. One character used an EVIL artifact to summon an air elemental to aid them. The elemental went straight into whirlwind form and started flying around the room, causing damage to many of the opponents, but also to any party members who happened to be in the way.

 

[takasi]

A few weeks ago our group's kalashtar cerebremancer's fireball denoated prematurely when an invisible wall of force interrupted his line of effect. Almost the entire party felt it, including two members that almost dropped.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

This is one I didn't expect.

level 12.

Mission:
Infiltrate the "institute for psudoamebaoid studies" and find a olive slive needed to prepare an antidote for a green slime poisoned princess.

After fighting off the security staff, the players obtained the crystaline slip (key card) that operates all of the doors. They then had to figure out how to operate the control panels that opened and closed the doors. They walk right up to the first door and luck upon the button combination that opens both the inner and outer door of the "containment cell" (air lock to the monster being sudied)..........

After killing the beholder....the druid used a summon creature to lock the entire party in the beholder proof room.....

 

[painandgreed]

In one campaign I was in, we had a wizard who was known for ground zero fireballs. It was somewhat excusable because he was the most likely be killed by them, but it was funny to hear everybody else scream when he announced one. He'd always roll low or make his save and just be up by a few hit points, but it did usually manage to end the fight in our favor. Of course, he usually hadn't taken any damage in combat and would occationally take down a party member or two also, but never resulting in death.

 

[Croesus]

Many years ago we had a player (who was a good player and fun to have along) who had a couple quirks, one of which was constantly tossing fireballs into the middle of melee. His trademark phrase was "but it will hurt them more than it will hurt us..." The fact that "us" meant the fighters and not his magic user weakened his argument considerably...

BTW, his other quirk was a fixation on defending the mules that were carrying most of our loot. If we were ever attacked, he'd announce that he was protecting the mules and click on his cube of force.

Good times

 

[Croesus]

In one campaign I was in, we had a wizard who was known for ground zero fireballs. It was somewhat excusable because he was the most likely be killed by them, but it was funny to hear everybody else scream when he announced one. He'd always roll low or make his save and just be up by a few hit points, but it did usually manage to end the fight in our favor. Of course, he usually hadn't taken any damage in combat and would occationally take down a party member or two also, but never resulting in death.

My character did something similar in RttToEE. I was flying around and some tentacles came out of a wall of fog. Realizing that being grappled and pulled into the fog would likely result in a permanently dead character, I deliberately flew into a blade barrier. Sure enough, the tentacles couldn't get to me and I was safe, if a bit sliced and diced.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Back in 2E, when you had to calculate the volume of the fireball and how much space it filled up, we had a player who was playing a wizard, and he had just leveled up so he now could learn the fireball spell. He was very eager to use it.

The next dungeon the group entered, they found a smallish room filled with kobolds. He decided he would clear out the room with his fireball. The rogue opened the door and the wizard cast his fireball spell. It filled the room, and the excess energy backblasted down the corridor the party was in. He killed all the kobolds, but took most of the party down to near zero HP.

The funny thing is, a few years later the same player, this time in a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, tried to use his newly-purchased grenade launcher in the flooded subway tunnels beneath London against some policemen who had interrupted the players' transaction with black market arms dealers. The player missed badly with both shots he took with the weapon; his second attack, in fact, was a critical miss. I was the GM, and ruled the recoil from the first shot had caused the weapon to fire the second grenade straight up. It hit the roof, came back down and blew up the PCs.

The player's wife looked at him and said, "This is just like the fireball all over again. No more explosive weapons or spells for you." We all had a big laugh over that.

 

[JoeGKushner]

When I'm a player, I generally inform the other characters that if I'm the target of such a spell I can't be held responsible for what my counter actions will be.

If your choice of spells is so limiting that you can only blast the enemy by hitting your allies, don't be surprised when the allies lead the monsters right to you through use of spring attack and other abilities.