dumbest thing a character has survived

[ARandomGod]

Picture this.

You're in a temple.
There is a fountain. In the fountain are scores of gold, silver, and platnum pieces. Obviously thrown in as a wishing well type manner.

Thief: "I put my staff into the fountain and attempt to push around the coins."

GM: "A cloud of acrid smoke bellows forth as the portion of the staff you put into the pool is dissolved in the acid."

Paladin: "I drink from the fountain."

Other characters (and GM): Stare dumbfounded for a few minutes.
GM: "Umm, how?"
Paladin: "I lean over and drink directly."
GM: "A cloud of foul acrid smelling smoke bellows forth from the Paladins lips as he falls over.. Um, backward, from imbibing the acid from the fountain."


Later, after pouring many healing potions down the paladin's throat (I really should have just dumped him in the fountain....)

GM (To the thief, who's scouting) : "As you're walking down the hall way, you notice a glowing line inscribed upon the floor. As you pass the line, the "statues" that are lining the hall in front of you come to life. They're stone golems (10). They look at you, and start moving.

Theif: "I run!"
GM: "When you cross the line, the Golems return to their posts"
Paladin, after hearing the thief's report (We're talking 2-3 level party here)
"I attack"

 

[Aries_Omega]

Stupidity has a name.....and it's a Halfling

Where to begin.....this one player had a halfing that was the "DM's perpetual beating pole". Every nasty and dirty trick I was going to do to the party this guy's halfing Ranger/Rouge....Barabis fell for. Even the ones that the party both IC and OC said....hey...thats a trap he fell into. Only once was it not a trap. A few examples include....

When attacked by aquatic ogres that included one sorcerer/cleric w/ a aquatic wolverine familar (yes....a swimming wolverine). He got out of his hiding spot....put away his bow and he attacked the familar with a halfling sized longsword and shortsword combo. Miss with the longsword and hit....minimal with the shortsword. Mind you he was close enough that he would have hit with a ranged attack but far enough that it took him a bit to close in for melee. The wolverine then went beserk and grabbed him in it's jaws and "grrrrrrrr" like a dog with a chew toy! He was nearly killed by it. Another party member killed it and Barabis limpt over to it and put one foot on it and proclaimed...."See? Barabis does it again!"

Later....same adventure....he saw a large tree with what looked like hangmen's ropes on it and treasure around it. Raise you hands folks if you know what this monster is? If you don't know....would you go there by yourself? Anyhow he was attacked by the hangman's tree and the party hearing his screams went back and fought it.

Barbabis got into SO much trouble...more then can be told in one post that is that the party cleric refused to heal him more then to 0 or 1 HP...that way he couldn't do anything except ride in a AD&D version of a "snugglie" that the party's tank wore.

Aries

 

[RithTheAwakener]

Back in the day of the original Isle of Dread campaing (my favorite campaign ever). My friends level 8 or so barbarian just didnt want to take the easy road. As anyone would remember that played this campaign thru, you might recall a really big pool of acid, with suspened disks above it to jump across with. The barbarian saw the mage, psionist, cleric and rogue make it across using fly, dimension door, spiderclimb, actually jumping.. but the barbarian decided to swim across the acid.

After swimming for 10 rounds or so, and taking huge amounts of damage, he reached the other side, began climbing up at VERY low HP, and fell back in.. but he made it up his next try and miraculously survived... it was the stupidest thing ive ever seen

Edit: Whoops! i meant to say White Plume Mountain, not Isle of Dread...

 

[Jeb McDonald]

"Pretty ball with wiggily things"

My 2e 18th level fighter who possessed a combined intelligence and wisdom of 9 was on watch one night at a keep. While walking the parapet (sp?), a "pretty ball with wiggily things" on it floated by, so he ran across the walkway, leapt off the top of the wall, landed on the beholder, and grappled it to the ground. In the ensuing 4-5 rounds of combat, he had to make about 20 saving throws, but did. He was so sad when the "air" went out of his pretty ball/balloon thingy.

 

[Jeb McDonald]

"Pretty ball with wiggily things"

My 2e 18th level fighter who possessed a combined intelligence and wisdom of 9 was on watch one night at a keep. While walking the parapet (sp?), a "pretty ball with wiggily things" on it floated by, so he ran across the walkway, leapt off the top of the wall, landed on the beholder, and grappled it to the ground. In the ensuing 4-5 rounds of combat, he had to make about 20 saving throws, but did. He was so sad when the "air" went out of his pretty ball/balloon thingy.

 

[iwatt]

In a 2e campaign we had just walloped an adult Blue dragon. Tough fight but no one died. We were all low on hps, when we start checking around the cave the dragon had come out. We find a lot of coins but no eal magic stuff except for a magic bean bag. Somehow my characters older-younger brother (I'm a half-elf and he plays a "teenage" elf) get's his hands on the bag. As we're camping for the night we hear the following words to the DM:

" I put one of the beans in my mouth"

10d6 and a botched saving throw later, my 8th level thief is dead. His 6 th level Fighter somehow made it through. :\

Led to a lot of stern warnings once I was raised.

The same party, some days later, we run intio the dragon's mother. A huge blue. At that moment we were riding besides a canyon full of giant trees. As I see the threat I tell the DM I'll jump towarsd one of the trees. Because of my good jump (ring) and my good climb (high level rogue). So I make my jump. And my climb check. Now I'm dangling 300`above ground very far from my Party, with ahubngry dragon ready to start chewing on me. Thankfully the dragon screwed up it's magic resistance and saving throws and was felled by twin fireballs from the parties mages.

 

[Turanil]

I just remember one of the most stupid thing a character survived!

I was the DM, and my homebrew setting featured nine demons of sin, each of them representing his own vice. When a mortal indulged in a vice, the relevant demon eventually noticed it, and then tried to tempt the character. Then, I had a set of rule that a character tempted is progressively turned into a humiliated slave and then is destroyed with his/her soul sent to Hell.

One of the PC had gone to complete a special quest of vengeance against a NPC who was before all an ignorant, stubborn, and fearful fanatic who had burned an innocent girl believing she was a witch. This quest for revenge was not an adventure I had planned, but something the player wanted to do all by himself. I made a special solo adventure for it.

Hence the domon of vengeance noticed him; I made a roll under the required percentage, succeeded it, and thus the demon tried to tempt the NPC: I really made the encounter with clues as something was amiss, but the player wouldn't dare think about it. Basically, the PC found a magical shop in a place where nobody had seen one before, in a world where magic shop did not exist! For no reason at all, the shop owner gave to the PC at no cost a magical oil to oint hiw sword. Once the PC would oint the sword, he would just had to say a ritualistic oath such as "In the name of Lobiar, goddess of true justice, I kill you and damn your soul to hell for your sins!"

I expected that the PC would find all of this dubious, but no, he didn't. So, as soon as he would say the ritualistic phrase and use the magical item given by the demon, he would forfeit his soul to the demon... Then came a moment where the PC deemed it was time to use the magical oil. He said what was to be said, and proceeded to slay the foe. But then, he made a fumble and broke his blade! Since he didn't slay anyone with it, his soul wasn't damned!

 

[Richards]

I once had a player whose female elven mage/thief (AD&D 2nd Edition) was on a solo mission infiltrating a wizard's mansion at night. She sneaks onto the grounds and before even making it to the building is sidetracked by greed (typical for her) when she spots a deep fountain with gems lying in the bottom and some fish swimming around in the pool. Not wanting to ruin her leather armor by getting it wet, she strips down to her skivvies and leaps into the fountain to gather up the gems, completely ignoring her primary mission (which was to steal a specific item from the upper story of the wizard's mansion).

Completely ignoring the fact that there was a time limit involved, as bad things would happen if she didn't make it back to her contact with the stolen item by dawn.

Completely ignoring the fact that those fish were piranhas.

Johnathan

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

In the first game of our epic campaign, we ran into this Advanced Great Wyrm Blue Dragon, who had ensconced himself in a little hole and was breathing at us HARD. My half-dragon anthropomorphic tyrannosaur monk Abundant Stepped behind the dragon...into empty space, with nothing in reach to grab to use Slow Fall.

Now, this was in the heart of the Elemental Plane of Earth. With 8x gravity.

Strangely enough, Tolthrak didn't die of the fall. He had about 20 HP left, but otherwise was okay. The dragon saw he wasn't dead yet, and gated a balor down to have words with him. Took out the Demon-Fighting Sword, power attacked out the wazoo, and was rewarded with a nice big bang when the balor let go. Evaded that, and then started (very slowly) flying up back to the fight, healing along the way.

The DM later told me, after that, he had a special place in his heart for my character falling into such a mean trap.

Brad

 

[cerberus2112]

In a Planescape campaign, a party, including my Cleric of Nuada Cipher, named Rhys, was battling a giant spider on the Infinite Staircase. I declared Rhys was charging the spider, not noticing that he would have to plow past his allies. Since he was a Cipher, I couldn't even consider asking to take that stupid action back. He pushed his way through, struck the spider dead, and proceeded to lose his balance and fall off the staircase. The very, very noble and self-sacrificing Ranger in the party grabbed his rope, threw one end to the fighter and leaped after Rhys, catching him as the rest of the party all scrambled to hold onto the rope.