Dumb tactics you used as a DM

[JacktheRabbit]

Running my game a few days ago and we hit the final climactic battle against the main villian and her minions.

Well the villian is a cleric and at one point she gets into melee with the party fighter. He is a dual wielding fighter who a scimitar and a short sword. He dishes out quite the damage.

Well at one point she scores with a touch attack and hits him with a Bestow Curse spell. Without thinking too hard about it I chose the -6 to his strength curse.

Now this does hurt him since he is also under the effect of trog stink but he has a bullstrength on him so he only ends up with a 8 strength.

Then it occurs to me. I screwed this one bad. The cleric should have looked at his deadly double weapon attack routine and instead nailed him with -6 to dexterity. Once she did that he would have dropped him below the dex requirement for his ambidexterity and from there he would have lost access to 2 or 3 more twin weapon style combat feats.

Any other DM's do this when they use their troops in a very unoptimal manner? This one should have been obvious to the cleric since she saw how agile he was with his blades.

 

[bunnyhat]

About a year or so ago, a fourth level party ran into a couple of 3rd level monks and a 5th level wizard. While the party fighter types took on the monks, the druid and the rogue went after the wizard. They both ate a fireball from the wiz, dropping them into single digits. The (now smoldering) rogue and druid closed in on the wiz and dropped about half of his hp. I had the wiz turn and run, even tho he had two magic missles left, which would have been enough to take care of them.

After the game I thought I had played the wizard badly, but then it occured to me that the wizard had seen the two PCs take his best spell and keep on coming, he was at half hp, another round and he is dead. Even tho I, as the DM, should have known that he could take out the PCs with his remaining arsenal, there is no way the NPC could have known that.

So, Doc, when your cleric sees a really big fighter heading his way, in the heat of battle his first thought is lets make him weak so he wont pound me into mush.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Yeah, but it was so obvious that he was a two weapon type of guy. He even has the twin swords feat from FRCS which grants him a +2 AC in melee when he has both weapons out.

 

[Xarlen]

Well, here's a blunder of mine.

PCs were fighting a 10th level cleric, and some fighter types in an underground cavern system where the city draws it's water from. Well, the cleric was about to lay down an Unholy Blight. I rolled out the damage... and it would have killed the party Wizard and the Party NPC. I hastily decided not to use that, because up to this point I had not had any deaths, and we were in an intensive plot I felt a death would have weakened.

Bad move on my part. On the one hand, she cast water breathing, and dived into the water, and got away, to deal with the party later.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Um...not to be mean...but randomling DM'd for me once and let me 6 13th level characters (including a lightning Savant) meet a 17th level cleric with no spells prepared. I toasted him in one round, slightly embarrasingly.

You don't mind that I told this story, do you randomling?

 

[Victim]

Player: "Nobody would be stupid enough not to have a second entrance."

Me: "Oops."

 

[Kershek]

A long time ago when I ran Sunless Citadel I forgot (in the heat of battle) that sorcerers get lots of spell slots. When I ran Ysdrayl (sp), she ran around a lot not doing much. She could have been pegging characters with Magic Missile multiple times instead of just once. Duh.


In an event that just happened last weekend, the party just wasted an 8th level cleric who had a Vierhaander as a "pet" (from GR's Book of Fiends - thanks Dungeon Mag!). The party rolled poorly on their knowledge checks and didn't know what the heck it was. Well, it just wanted to get away, so it attempted to run right past the party out the only exit. They whacked at it and easily dispatched it after it stopped running and began grappling the dwarf cleric for damage.

Then the big 'duh' happened. It had several spell-like abilities such as haste and blur. I could have cast haste and blur and then had it run out of there. It possibly could have survived and gotten out of there with that. Or at least turned around and started really whacking on people on its way out. Man, I hate it when that happens.

 

[nameless]

I was running a group of bizarre elementalist mages, and the PCs broke into their stronghold in order to destroy a big magic crystal that was doing nasty things. So they come up with a good plan to distract most of the guards and the charmed hydra guarding the vault.

One invisible barbarian sneaks in at this point, and starts pounding the vault door down. Some elementalists find him, and do their signature move of Acid Fog + Wall of Ice. Unfortunately, their initiatives were different, and the one with Wall of Ice went first. He trapped the barbarian behind a big, thick curtain of ice, and blocked the line of effect for acid fog, and hedges everyone out of the vault. The barbarian then had a couple of leisurely minutes to knock down the door, smash the crystal, and dispatch the greatly weakened wizards.

 

[Arken]

I once played in a rather hack heavy game which featured a gnome mage churning out golems in an evil stronghold (this was at low levels, maybe 3-4). In any case rather unfortunately for the Dm (he was quite new) when we entered into the stronghold the Gnome confronted us and was indignant about our tresspassing. (He entered into the room as we were looting a guard). In any case he was quite a few levels higher than us but came over to us to escort us out rather then killing us (not sure why). He took one of the characters roungly by the sleeve. The party, as noted already, were quite hot headed and so at this point attacked the poor gnome who, as a mage, was pretty doomed standing as he was in the middle of the party.

Since then the DM has learnt quickly though and doesn't let his mages be anywhere except a long distance away with a good amount of rank and file infront of him.

 

[Deadguy]

I have to confess thta an encounter with an important undead NPC screwed up for me. I had a clear picture in my mind what this Cleric-Rogue was like, and I statted him out carefully in advance detailing items and spells. I guessed exactly where the encounter would take place and, and was spot on the nail with it (sometimes PCs are so predictable.

So there we were, facing them in a narrow doorway. One of the PCs heard him enter so they were looking round, but he still had the drop. I knew that he was going to cast a darkness spell, so that he'd have the edge (he was a Blindfighter). It was then I realised that his best item, a magical shield, was a large size one. So there was no way he could transfer his scimitar to his offhand so he could free a hand to cast a spell. The fight consisted of him repeatedly sheathing and picking up his sword (since he wasn't about to drop the sword and potentially lose it in the darkness).

Oops!

He still nearly escaped, but one of the PCs kept up with him up the crumbling stairs and finsihed him off.