dumbest thing a character has survived
- Thread starter Taneel BrightBlade
- Start date
Not sure if this qualifies as a 'dumbest thing', but in the very first game I ever GM'd, a character was playing a necromancer obsessed with death. So much so that the necromancer was continually attempting to commit suicide. This is what he survived.
One in particular sticks out in my mind. An invisible bridge of force crossing a large chasm (probably stolen from Indiana Jones, but so long ago I don't remember for sure). Required a wisdom check or some stupid thing to get across. After standing at this chasm, realizing they have to do something but not sure what for about two days in game, the necromancer finally decides that he wants to experience death in a fall...and steps off the chasm. Naturally, he makes the save and lands on the bridge one foot below.
That poor necromancer never did die in the game.
One in particular sticks out in my mind. An invisible bridge of force crossing a large chasm (probably stolen from Indiana Jones, but so long ago I don't remember for sure). Required a wisdom check or some stupid thing to get across. After standing at this chasm, realizing they have to do something but not sure what for about two days in game, the necromancer finally decides that he wants to experience death in a fall...and steps off the chasm. Naturally, he makes the save and lands on the bridge one foot below.
That poor necromancer never did die in the game.
In a first or 2nd edition game (I can't remember which) I was playing an aquatic elf/half elf swashbuckler of low level.
We entered a room with a pool of water with a treasure chest about 30 feet down so I jumped in.
Well the water wierd wasn't very happy and I barely escaped with my life, without the treasure of course
We entered a room with a pool of water with a treasure chest about 30 feet down so I jumped in.
Well the water wierd wasn't very happy and I barely escaped with my life, without the treasure of course
William Ronald
Explorer
One person I used to game with had his fighter character throw a Daern's Instant Fortress as a grenade-like weapon while underground. The resulting cave-in severely damaged the rest of the party and dug themselves out but the fighter laughed off the incident. Seldom have players been so tempted to eliminate another player's character. 
Sargon the Kassadian
First Post
The other two (2nd level) players were in a pit hiding from a nest of wasps and I was hiding underwater. The 1st player lit a torch to smoke away the wasps and then threw it to the other character, who after repeatedly being told to catch it decided to drop it , right onto the backpack filled with flasks of oil! They were both set on fire for three rounds and nearly died (1 hp and 2 hp left respectively). 
BASHMAN
Basic Action Games
Dumbest thing a PC ever did!
On X1 the Isle of Dread, one of the PCs (a female dwarf thief named badger) insisted on us following a megatherium (giant sloth), because she wanted to make it be her mount. We refused, and continued towards where we were supposed to go.
Badger then abandons the party, and goes on a looooooooooooooooooooong solo adventure. (The GM btw should have been flogged for running that person's solo for hours while 5 of us were sitting there waiting to play). During that solo, she finds the megatherium, and it totally ignores her. It is so big that it is pulling trees out of the ground to eat, so she does not try and attack it.
On the way back to the group (we were walking several hours in the opposite direction) she was bushwacked by trolls, and only managed to outrun them because of lowhanging tree branches.
Later, she walked right into a camp of 4 areaneas and began getting blasted by magic missiles, etc. She ran for her life. (even though she was a theif, she had a 19 CON and the most HP in the party)
Then, she ran into a T-Rex, who chased her up a tree, which was overlooking a cliff. After shaking the tree she decides to jump down the cliff rather than be eaten by the dinosaur. She is now hovering on death's door at this point with only 2 or 3 HP.
She decides to find a safe place to rest, to regain HP overnight.
During the night, she has an encounter with a wyvern. Although it attacked her in her sleep, and the other 5 players begged the GM to just rule it automatically hit, (which would likely have killed her), he was nice and rolled. He hit AC 15 by 3rd Edition reckoning, and said okay, you were hit for 4 damage, make a save vs. poison. The player then jumped up and claimed, NO! MY AC IS 18, because I am wearing +1 Chainmail! The GM retorted that if she was resting to regain HP, she was not wearing armor. TO which the player replied, fine then, I don't want the HP, for survival I decided I needed to sleep in armor. So the GM allowed him to totally reverse the stated action of the character for that night, and the attack missed.
She then hit the Wyvern for critical damage, and killed it. A miracle she survived-- but this is not over!
The next morning, worn out, and unhealed (she did not regain any hp because she slept in armor) she sees a green dragon drinking water at the lake she was going to drink from. Rather than try to hide from it (which would have almost been a guaranteed success with her elven cloak and boots) she walks up to it and says hello!
The dragon sees her, and starts laughing, then says she can live if she gives him all her magic items! (the other players began really rejoicing over this, because she had been taking more than her share of items from teh begining)
She does it, and the dragon lets her go.
Eventually she reunites with the party. She says that a dragon attacked her and took all her stuff. We agreed to help her get it back, but she did not get a share of the spoils other than her own stuff back. That was the worst mistake we ever made because this dragon's entire horde was made of her items! So we did not get anything for helping her-- not even a finder's fee!
After many more adventures where badger was the proverbial thorn in our sides, doing too many sidequests by herself, trying to force the party to do what she wanted, etc, she finally died!
After seperating from the party yet again, she was in an area where she had a random encounter with 4 cockatrices. Even though she was bitten several times, she never failed her save! We cursed at each successful save! Later, we got our sweet sweet, moment, however:
She encountered a pair of hobgoblins, who challenged her to a wrestling match! Being overconfident, she accepted. Unfortunatly, her opponents were not actually hobgoblins-- they were Thouls-- Regenerating, Hobgoblins that have ghoulish paralysis! When she wrestled with them, she had to make saving throws every round. She eventually failed, was paralyzed and eaten!
What was better, was that later the party finished a module called "Wrath of the Immortals" in which at the end, the Gods ask you if there are any questions you want answered. We asked to know what happened to badger (she never returned after seperating with us). They showed us a "movie" of it. Although the characters have had multiple opportunities to do so, we have never once used a "wish" to bring her back to life-- even though we did to bring back an ogre hireling of another PC! That really pissed off the player of badger who was now playing a paladin & did not like being "good". Eventually the player left the campaign, and things have never been better!
On X1 the Isle of Dread, one of the PCs (a female dwarf thief named badger) insisted on us following a megatherium (giant sloth), because she wanted to make it be her mount. We refused, and continued towards where we were supposed to go.
Badger then abandons the party, and goes on a looooooooooooooooooooong solo adventure. (The GM btw should have been flogged for running that person's solo for hours while 5 of us were sitting there waiting to play). During that solo, she finds the megatherium, and it totally ignores her. It is so big that it is pulling trees out of the ground to eat, so she does not try and attack it.
On the way back to the group (we were walking several hours in the opposite direction) she was bushwacked by trolls, and only managed to outrun them because of lowhanging tree branches.
Later, she walked right into a camp of 4 areaneas and began getting blasted by magic missiles, etc. She ran for her life. (even though she was a theif, she had a 19 CON and the most HP in the party)
Then, she ran into a T-Rex, who chased her up a tree, which was overlooking a cliff. After shaking the tree she decides to jump down the cliff rather than be eaten by the dinosaur. She is now hovering on death's door at this point with only 2 or 3 HP.
She decides to find a safe place to rest, to regain HP overnight.
During the night, she has an encounter with a wyvern. Although it attacked her in her sleep, and the other 5 players begged the GM to just rule it automatically hit, (which would likely have killed her), he was nice and rolled. He hit AC 15 by 3rd Edition reckoning, and said okay, you were hit for 4 damage, make a save vs. poison. The player then jumped up and claimed, NO! MY AC IS 18, because I am wearing +1 Chainmail! The GM retorted that if she was resting to regain HP, she was not wearing armor. TO which the player replied, fine then, I don't want the HP, for survival I decided I needed to sleep in armor. So the GM allowed him to totally reverse the stated action of the character for that night, and the attack missed.
She then hit the Wyvern for critical damage, and killed it. A miracle she survived-- but this is not over!
The next morning, worn out, and unhealed (she did not regain any hp because she slept in armor) she sees a green dragon drinking water at the lake she was going to drink from. Rather than try to hide from it (which would have almost been a guaranteed success with her elven cloak and boots) she walks up to it and says hello!
The dragon sees her, and starts laughing, then says she can live if she gives him all her magic items! (the other players began really rejoicing over this, because she had been taking more than her share of items from teh begining)
She does it, and the dragon lets her go.
Eventually she reunites with the party. She says that a dragon attacked her and took all her stuff. We agreed to help her get it back, but she did not get a share of the spoils other than her own stuff back. That was the worst mistake we ever made because this dragon's entire horde was made of her items! So we did not get anything for helping her-- not even a finder's fee!
After many more adventures where badger was the proverbial thorn in our sides, doing too many sidequests by herself, trying to force the party to do what she wanted, etc, she finally died!
After seperating from the party yet again, she was in an area where she had a random encounter with 4 cockatrices. Even though she was bitten several times, she never failed her save! We cursed at each successful save! Later, we got our sweet sweet, moment, however:
She encountered a pair of hobgoblins, who challenged her to a wrestling match! Being overconfident, she accepted. Unfortunatly, her opponents were not actually hobgoblins-- they were Thouls-- Regenerating, Hobgoblins that have ghoulish paralysis! When she wrestled with them, she had to make saving throws every round. She eventually failed, was paralyzed and eaten!
What was better, was that later the party finished a module called "Wrath of the Immortals" in which at the end, the Gods ask you if there are any questions you want answered. We asked to know what happened to badger (she never returned after seperating with us). They showed us a "movie" of it. Although the characters have had multiple opportunities to do so, we have never once used a "wish" to bring her back to life-- even though we did to bring back an ogre hireling of another PC! That really pissed off the player of badger who was now playing a paladin & did not like being "good". Eventually the player left the campaign, and things have never been better!
This wasn't my character, but I had a friend who was playing a druid who came across a group of six gnolls. He was alone, and he is the type of player who is always trying to get as much experience for himself as possible. So, he saw the gnolls as lots of XP for just himself. The gnolls had not yet noticed him and he cast an entangle spell which caught all the gnolls. He then realized he had nothing to combat the gnolls at range. No missile weapons and no ranged spells. So, her cast a flame blade spell and waded in to fight the gnolls. Well, it didn't take long for him to caught in his own spell. At this point the gnolls pulled out their bows and started firing at him. He ended up hacking his way out of the entangle spell, only to be run down by some of the gnolls who had made their way out of the entangled area. He was knocked unconscious and the rest of the group had to rescue him later.
Taneel BrightBlade
First Post
These are funny
Taloras
First Post
In our current campaign, we have my half sea elf CG cleric, and we have a ghostwise halfling rogue. We enter a town, and there is a circus/freak show in town. so we go see it. One of the main attractions is this leathery creature in a small cage, titled the "rubber man" The cage is set 15 foot back from a line of bars. So the halfling decides to try to contact it (he had tried on several other freaks, they were illusions). It talks back. It says it was kidnapped and just wants to leave. So, that night, the halfling tells us about what happened. Me, being CG, decides to help him. So when he tries to break into the ringmasters wagon, Im on guard. he breaks a window. guard sees me. I run. guard chases me. I lose him. halfling breaks in, finds the keys and a lamp. he gets into the exhibit, opens the bars, telling the creature that since the cage is wood, he is leaving the lantern there so it can burn its way out. He leaves. None of us know just how stupid this is. The creature is a Cloaker Lord. He takes off to the sewer. We return to the town a month later. There isnt a cat or dog in sight, and anyone who entered the sewer has not returned.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
I was playing my first Rolemaster character ever around 17 years ago. He wore full plate armor and wielded an enormous two-handed sword.
Early in his adventuring career we were going on a sea voyage and he decided that for safety's sake he would only wear his breastplate so that he wouldn't sink instantly if he were somehow knocked overboard. Then the ship got attacked by a kraken.
As my character dashed up to the main deck he saw one of the kraken's tentacles wrapped around another PC (the Monk). In a fit of heroic stupidity my character took a running leap over the ship's railing and attacked the tentacle in mid-air hoping to sever it. I rolled horribly and missed entirely. Then I hit the water.
At about this time I discovered that I had virtually no skill at all in swimming (he came from a tribe of horsemen who lived far from the ocean). The GM informed me that I would better my chances of survival if I dropped my big sword. No way. He loved that sword and it was a family heirloom. So I hung on to the sword and began to sink.
That was when he noticed that he was sinking alongside the kraken. So he lashed out with the sword and managed to hit it. He then used the sword to pull himself over to the creature and began to use his Climb skill (which he was quite good at) to start an underwater ascent of the kraken. About the time I broke the surface again the other PC's had dealt it enough damage that it released the ship and withdrew, leaving me sinking again. Fortunately by this time the Monk was able to swim to my aid and rescue me.
Afterwards the GM and I had this brief conversation:
Me - "Well that was a close scrape. I hadn't counted on missing the kraken when I dove over the rail."
GM - "What do you mean?! Even if your plan had worked perfectly and you'd sliced right through the tentacle you would have wound up in the ocean with no ability to swim, weighted down with a breastplate and greatsword!"
Me - "Hmm. You've got a point there. That was pretty stupid. Still, it would have looked a lot cooler if I had slashed through the tentacle before I started drowning..."
It also happens that this particular PC, named Relinsingersonlyer (in his culture you got extra sylables in your name as a sign of status), became one of my favorites and I used the first part of his name as my handle on this messageboard.
If things had gone slightly differently, I would have a different username!
Early in his adventuring career we were going on a sea voyage and he decided that for safety's sake he would only wear his breastplate so that he wouldn't sink instantly if he were somehow knocked overboard. Then the ship got attacked by a kraken.
As my character dashed up to the main deck he saw one of the kraken's tentacles wrapped around another PC (the Monk). In a fit of heroic stupidity my character took a running leap over the ship's railing and attacked the tentacle in mid-air hoping to sever it. I rolled horribly and missed entirely. Then I hit the water.
At about this time I discovered that I had virtually no skill at all in swimming (he came from a tribe of horsemen who lived far from the ocean). The GM informed me that I would better my chances of survival if I dropped my big sword. No way. He loved that sword and it was a family heirloom. So I hung on to the sword and began to sink.
That was when he noticed that he was sinking alongside the kraken. So he lashed out with the sword and managed to hit it. He then used the sword to pull himself over to the creature and began to use his Climb skill (which he was quite good at) to start an underwater ascent of the kraken. About the time I broke the surface again the other PC's had dealt it enough damage that it released the ship and withdrew, leaving me sinking again. Fortunately by this time the Monk was able to swim to my aid and rescue me.
Afterwards the GM and I had this brief conversation:
Me - "Well that was a close scrape. I hadn't counted on missing the kraken when I dove over the rail."
GM - "What do you mean?! Even if your plan had worked perfectly and you'd sliced right through the tentacle you would have wound up in the ocean with no ability to swim, weighted down with a breastplate and greatsword!"
Me - "Hmm. You've got a point there. That was pretty stupid. Still, it would have looked a lot cooler if I had slashed through the tentacle before I started drowning..."
It also happens that this particular PC, named Relinsingersonlyer (in his culture you got extra sylables in your name as a sign of status), became one of my favorites and I used the first part of his name as my handle on this messageboard.
If things had gone slightly differently, I would have a different username!
