MaxKaladin
First Post
This happened back in a 2nd edition AD&D game I ran in college. It happened more than 10 years ago, so forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.
The party was in Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms. They'd gotten pretty powerful and were probably 12th-14th level by this point. They also had collected quite an arsenal of magic items, which shall become important later. They'd gotten a land grant and were at the point where they were establishing their own keep and settling the land. Unfortunately, drow raiders were showing up and causing havoc.
After fighting off various attacks on their lands, the PCs headed off into the mountains to try to figure out where the drow were emerging from the underdark and eventually close it off. They manage to track the drow to a cave mouth recessed in a chasm. They decided to set up an ambush and wait. Their tactic was to use magic to hollow out part of the chasm slope and then cover it with an illusion. A couple of the PCs could go invisible through various spells and items they'd accumulated. The idea was that they could hide behind the illusion and the invisible PCs could poke their heads out to observe then the entire party could spring from hiding when the time came.
Well, eventually the drow emerged from the cave mouth and were obviously on another raid. The PCs fell quiet as the drow were set to pass very close to their position and they planned to spring out and attack them from behind. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of the wizards who was with the raiding party was wearing some goggles that gave him True Seeing. He was looking around and did a double-take as he saw the party right through the illusion. He shouted an alarm and cast Cone of Cold at the assembled party members.
Now, normally this group could have handled the drow without problems. It was one of their own party members who did them in -- quite accidentally. There was a player who we shall call "Joe" to protect the guilty. Joe was playing a wizard and announced that he'd absorb the Cone of Cold into his Staff of the Magi (which was not considered an artifact back in 2e, "just" a really good standard item). The 2e version of the staff allowed you to recharge it by absorbing spells thrown at you and converting them to charges. One spell level became one charge. Thus, what he did was a valid move. It would save the party from taking any damage at all - except for one little detail...
Me: "Ok, you absorb the spell. How many charges does that bring you up to?"
Joe: "Thirty!"
Me: "Uh, staves can only hold 25 charges. Are you saying the staff was fully charged before you absorbed the spell?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "And you meant to do that?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "Ok, you remember what happens if you overcharge it, right? "
Joe: {Thinks for a minute} "Awww...."
Other Players: "GROAN!"
The 2e Staff of the Magi, if overcharged, would explode in a "Retributive Strike" unleashing all of the energy in the staff as a massive explosion. The explosion caused 1d6 damage for every charge, thus this staff exploded for 30d6 damage. Even this, the party could take. It was a fairly high powered game and they had lots of magic and everything else. That proved to be their undoing. See, if you failed your save (at all, not like in 3.x) your items all had to save or be destroyed. Some saves were failed and items started failing saves and being destroyed. Unfortunately, one of the other party members was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs and it, of course, failed it's save causing all of the fireballs on it to detonate...
To make an already long story a bit shorter, there was a cascade effect. The Staff of the Magi exploded and did 30d6 to the party all packed nicely together in their little ambush spot. The Necklace of Fireballs exploded and did a bunch more, items failed and were destroyed and several custom magic items with explosive potential similar to the Necklace of Fireballs also exploded doing yet more damage and destroying more items. The effect must have looked something like a fireworks factory exploding. I can't remember the damage total anymore, but it ended up being at least 100 points more than anyone had at full even if it was all reduced to half for successful saves.
I ruled that they'd been more or less vaporized and any surviving items had been looted by the very surprised drow.
Technically, one PC did survive. His player had to work that night so we had his character stay behind to watch the keep. When he got home (he was a roommate), I told him that his character was on the ramparts of the keep looking into the mountains when he saw a large mushroom cloud...
They learned their lesson about carrying around a bunch of dangerous stuff like the Necklace of Fireballs though...
The party was in Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms. They'd gotten pretty powerful and were probably 12th-14th level by this point. They also had collected quite an arsenal of magic items, which shall become important later. They'd gotten a land grant and were at the point where they were establishing their own keep and settling the land. Unfortunately, drow raiders were showing up and causing havoc.
After fighting off various attacks on their lands, the PCs headed off into the mountains to try to figure out where the drow were emerging from the underdark and eventually close it off. They manage to track the drow to a cave mouth recessed in a chasm. They decided to set up an ambush and wait. Their tactic was to use magic to hollow out part of the chasm slope and then cover it with an illusion. A couple of the PCs could go invisible through various spells and items they'd accumulated. The idea was that they could hide behind the illusion and the invisible PCs could poke their heads out to observe then the entire party could spring from hiding when the time came.
Well, eventually the drow emerged from the cave mouth and were obviously on another raid. The PCs fell quiet as the drow were set to pass very close to their position and they planned to spring out and attack them from behind. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of the wizards who was with the raiding party was wearing some goggles that gave him True Seeing. He was looking around and did a double-take as he saw the party right through the illusion. He shouted an alarm and cast Cone of Cold at the assembled party members.
Now, normally this group could have handled the drow without problems. It was one of their own party members who did them in -- quite accidentally. There was a player who we shall call "Joe" to protect the guilty. Joe was playing a wizard and announced that he'd absorb the Cone of Cold into his Staff of the Magi (which was not considered an artifact back in 2e, "just" a really good standard item). The 2e version of the staff allowed you to recharge it by absorbing spells thrown at you and converting them to charges. One spell level became one charge. Thus, what he did was a valid move. It would save the party from taking any damage at all - except for one little detail...
Me: "Ok, you absorb the spell. How many charges does that bring you up to?"
Joe: "Thirty!"
Me: "Uh, staves can only hold 25 charges. Are you saying the staff was fully charged before you absorbed the spell?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "And you meant to do that?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "Ok, you remember what happens if you overcharge it, right? "
Joe: {Thinks for a minute} "Awww...."
Other Players: "GROAN!"
The 2e Staff of the Magi, if overcharged, would explode in a "Retributive Strike" unleashing all of the energy in the staff as a massive explosion. The explosion caused 1d6 damage for every charge, thus this staff exploded for 30d6 damage. Even this, the party could take. It was a fairly high powered game and they had lots of magic and everything else. That proved to be their undoing. See, if you failed your save (at all, not like in 3.x) your items all had to save or be destroyed. Some saves were failed and items started failing saves and being destroyed. Unfortunately, one of the other party members was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs and it, of course, failed it's save causing all of the fireballs on it to detonate...
To make an already long story a bit shorter, there was a cascade effect. The Staff of the Magi exploded and did 30d6 to the party all packed nicely together in their little ambush spot. The Necklace of Fireballs exploded and did a bunch more, items failed and were destroyed and several custom magic items with explosive potential similar to the Necklace of Fireballs also exploded doing yet more damage and destroying more items. The effect must have looked something like a fireworks factory exploding. I can't remember the damage total anymore, but it ended up being at least 100 points more than anyone had at full even if it was all reduced to half for successful saves.
I ruled that they'd been more or less vaporized and any surviving items had been looted by the very surprised drow.
Technically, one PC did survive. His player had to work that night so we had his character stay behind to watch the keep. When he got home (he was a roommate), I told him that his character was on the ramparts of the keep looking into the mountains when he saw a large mushroom cloud...
They learned their lesson about carrying around a bunch of dangerous stuff like the Necklace of Fireballs though...
