A touch of idiocy in your game

[Percivellian]

This is a thread for those truly frustrating, humorous, or just plain confusing moments of bonehead-ery perpetrated by DMs and players alike. What are the dumbest things you've ever seen crop up in your games?

One example was the entire premise for this two-shot campaign a friend of mine DMed a couple summers ago. It ran something like this:

Ancient black dragon sends werewolf minions to kidnap the local King's daughter, to the end of attracting powerful adventurers to help said dragon escape from this magical prison beneath the kingdom. The dragon agreed to let us return the King's daughter to safety, but only under the condition that we return within 24 hours and help him escape. When the possibility of just simply not helping the dragon was raised, this was his threat: "If you do not return and help me escape from my underground prison, I will raze the kingdom and kill everyone on the surface!" ... :\

Another example from a one-shot, same DM:

DM: "Alright, everyone, roll up 10th level characters."
Player1(me): "Sweet. I'm gonna play an Arcane Blade. My crit range is gonna rock."
DM: "Sure. Cool."
Player2 : "Gonna have to go barbarian. Do keen and improved critical stack?"
DM: "Hell yes."
Player3: "10th level rogue, here I come. Sneak attack, baby!"

So, after a lengthly character creation process, we delve into this dungeon and our first encounter is with a group of harpies. Construct harpies. Followed by a Helmed Horror, a chain golem, and a spider. A construct spider. Turned out that this whole dungeon was this mad construct constructor's lab. We didn't finish the adventure. :\

Just plain dumb, but we laugh about it these days.

 

[DragonLancer]

Not as bone headed at your examples but in a Homebrew/Wilderlands campaign I played in early this year the party was in a city called Laggervillion. One party member was a halfling bard with perform singing as his speciality, and the party was told (by a DM NPC) that no one in the city was allowed to sing, dance or play musical intruments unless they bought a license which cost 1000gp... so no one could ever legally sing or what have you... ever! Despite objections to this nonsense we played on. The bard eventually saved up enough gold to buy a license so he could ply his trade and was promptly turned to stone in the next session.

This was the same DM who had an NPC cry in pain... in elvish!


I have to be fair he had never DM'ed before and a little later he handed the reigns of DMness back over and went back to being a player.

 

[Bullgrit]

I was thinking of posting the following anecdote from our most recent game, and this thread is a perfect opportunity.

I don't want to say anyone in the group is dumb or stupid, but "boneheaded" is good.

The group consists of:

Cleric 6
Bard 4 [NPC]
Necromancer 6
Sorcerer 7
Fighter 7
Fighter 7 [NPC]

The are about to enter a known-to-be haunted graveyard in which sits a single structure: a mausoleum. They've been told by the locals that the graveyard rises up to attack anyone who ventures into it. They know there are going to be up against undead.

They enter the graveyard and head for the mausoleum. When within 60', the ground rises up in the shape of a large form of graveyard earth and bone and stone markers. The cleric tries to turn the creature, but as the area is unhallowed, he gets -4 to his turning. No joy. So they engage it in combat.

[This is a "homebrew necromental". Basically a Large earth elemental with the undead traits.]

While the cleric and a fighter engage it, the necromancer hits it with a chill touch (via spectral hand). It fails its save and tries to flee. Between the AoOs and the sorcerer's magic missiles, though, it is destroyed.

One round later, "another" necromental arises. Repeat the above combat sequence -- attack, chill touch, attempt to flee, destroyed.

[A necromental will continue to arise one round after one is destroyed -- this is pretty much why this area remains as a dangerous site.]

One round later, another necromental arises. Repeat the above combat sequence.

One round later, another necromental arises. You know the drill, but this time the NPC fighter is killed in the battle.

One round later, another necromental arises. This time though, the party has become rather stretched out. The remaining fighter tries to open the door to the mausoleum, but it won't open. The fighter then fends off the necromental while the cleric tries to open the door -- still won't open. Everyone agrees to flee the graveyard.

The necromancer throws halt undead on the necromental and holds it so everyone can get away (with the living fighter hauling out the dead fighter's body).

Of course they didn't know the creature would "respawn" after death, so I don't hold it against them that they had to fight it a couple or few times. But I didn't expect 5 times. And as it is only a CR6 creature, I didn't expect a character to die. But, oh well.

Then the party starts trying to figure out how to get in the mausoleum without "arousing" the necromental. They figure to use fly and stone shape. Fly works for getting the cleric to the mausoleum without fighting, and he makes a 4'x3' hole in the door. Then he comes back. They decide to rest overnight so the necromancer can load up on fly spells for the whole party the next day, to get everyone over there and in.

Now here is the overall boneheadedness of it all:

The necromancer had at least 4 spells that would stop or remove the necromental from bothering them (not killing it, so another would not rise up again) -- chill touch (prepared), halt undead (prepared), command undead (prepared), and control undead (scroll). Plus he has a special magic item that lets a wizard rebuke undead as a cleric of his wizard level (and unhallow gives a +4 bonus to rebuke attempts).

The group never discussed strategy. Everytime the necromancer hit the necromental with chill touch, the others killed it because they didn't know what chill touch did. They were perplexed after their retreat to find the necromancer could halt the creature -- "Why didn't you do it at the start? Or at least tell us you could do it?"

And, to top it all off, the sorcerer has a wand of knock that would have easily opened the locked mausoleum doors.

So, a simple 1st-level spell (chill touch) and one charge off a wand could have gotten them in the mausoleum without any fuss (after realizing killing the necromental wasn't a quick solution).

I fear they will be completely eaten once inside the mausoleum (stairs lead down under the graveyard).

Bullgrit

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

A few years ago, I was running the GDQ series (2e), and the party had just gotten their first taste of Eclavdra and her minions. This was in the temple to Ghaunadaur on the lower level of the Hall of the Fire Giants, and the party had managed to rout the drow. Some were dead, Eclavdra had fled, and the party was all set to loot.

Now, many of you may remember this temple, and assume the 'boneheadedness' has to do with the altar. Nope, something far, FAR more elementary.

In the room are several chests containing the personal wealth of the drow priestesses and their consorts. Naturally, being drow (and this being a 1e/2e kind of dungeon), the chests are MASSIVELY trapped (fireballs, IIRC). The party attempts the standard F/RT checks, failing on the first chest and setting off the fireball. Damage is done, the party heals up, they move on to the next chest. The thief can't figure out how to remove the trap, so the priest of Kord steps up. Volunteering to take the risk, he orders the party out of the blast area, and smashes the chest open. The fireball goes off, nearly killing the priest and destroying several magic items....AND Eclavdra's personal correspondence and her maps of the Underdark tunnels leading down to the Vault of the drow.

The party then sees to identifying what they can, which involves searching the bodies...one of which has the keys to the chests. Which also disarm the traps.

Man, were they dumb...

 

[sniffles]

I think I've done the same module Luthien Greyspear describes. But I'm not sure who was the idiot.

Our party, though lacking a rogue, somehow managed to find the secret door to the chamber containing the treasure chests, without ever encountering Eclavdra and the drow. We came down the stairs from the giants' hall, avoided a trap with a high Spot check, and after negotiating a pit of spikes walked right into the treasure room. I don't recall how we got the chests open; I think we may have just taken the damage - one of the PCs had an invisible dancing tower shield.

So we raided the chests and then just walked away.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

From the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil ....

SPOILERS!!!!





Yes, spoilers!!!!






So we had just gotten to the interior lake for the first time and the rogue, who was a sneaky scouting type, finds the boats. He hops in one, just for kicks. That lake monster thing zaps him, he fails his save, and is pulled underwater. Stupid move, right? Never fear! There's more to come! We were all playing two characters that night, so the rogue's "second" a two-bladed sword fighter, jumps in after him ... only to get zapped, fail his save, and gets pulled under. I was playing a cleric, so I figure I'll save the day! I jumped in ... yes, really ... to use my wand of cure light wounds to exploit a loophole in the drowning rules. There was a thread on this forum about that after the game.

Anyway, what happens? I get zapped, fail my save, and get grappled while underwater. So now three of us are drowning out of six. The remaining three ran off, one didn't get away due to the bullywugs or whatever it was that was chasing us. So four out of six characters die because a failed save vs. stupidity. Ooops.