Humbling defeats

[Inconsequenti-AL]

In my last campaign, the party (~10th level) had met a group of really young adventurers - all 1st level - these guys were dead set on completing the same quest as the PCs - kill a blighter/lich in her own forest. The PCs realised these guys were going to get horribly killed, so felt it was their duty to try and dissuade them.

The PC ranger thought he'd sneak into their encampment and give them a scare... botched his rolls completely and got caught by the 1st level fighter. Then had to try and persuade these kids that he wasn't trying to kill them and wasn't a secret spy for the lich...

The player had been bigging up his Rangers 'awesome sneaking skillz' for quite a while, which made it even worse. He did turn a kind of red shade.

Unfortunately another PC was clairvoyancing at the time - so the whole thing was witnessed in character... Kept getting snidey remarks for the rest of the campaign.


For myself, it was my fighter charging into a group of 4 goblins with an out of character "Woo, Great Cleave time". 4 goblin rogues. With clubs. I woke up in some necromancers cellar.

 

[Hussar]

Had my entire party eaten by the monk's house in the module The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror that got updated to 3e. Only the Barbarian managed to carve his way out but then perished after his rage wore off. Never TPK'd with a house before or since.

 

[diaglo]

Had my entire party eaten by the monk's house in the module The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror that got updated to 3e. Only the Barbarian managed to carve his way out but then perished after his rage wore off. Never TPK'd with a house before or since.

reminds me of the adventure in Dungeon with the House-sized Mimics.

 

[Warrior Poet]

Saw an animated rug kick the hell out of a fighter/rogue in a dungeon once.

In that same campaign, my cleric (first of 3 characters I've played in that campaign. I'm really not that bad at this game. Just unlucky, I guess) had a classic encounter with three kobolds.

I was playing the cleric as a peacemaker (long before the pacifist presitge class). There weren't any benefits to it, I was just trying for flavor. It's a great idea in theory, and would work with a party of like 8 people, where he could play medic, which is what I had in mind. In a party of 3, the cleric needs to kick ass if there's going to be any fighting.

So he opens the door to a room and holds up his hand in a gesture of peace, calling out "Denizens of the deep, there is no need for violence!" The kobolds didn't see it that way.

3 crossbow bolts later, the cleric, hand still outstretched in benediction, falls Nestea-plunge-like, with a nice tight group of feathered shafts emerging from his chest (one of the bolts was a crit, and when it crit, brother it crit). He was dead before he hit the ground.

My next character was a barbarian

Warrior Poet

 

[Joshua Randall]

Anyone else remember the infamous "party gets beaten into unconsciousness by Su-Monsters, then the party's horses kill the Su-Monsters" story from Dragon? I don't know which part of that story is more embarrassing.

Actually, the most embarrassing part is that I remember this.

 

[Voadam]

Nah, just your run-of-the-mill giant goat. Especially funny since it was a Planescape game and they were meeting all sorts of bizarre creatures.

Driving around my hometown one christmas I came home and told my wife and family about a pair of "Giant goats!" I had seen from a distance at the edge of one of the farms. "They were huge!" I said excitedly. I was a little freaked out because of how tall they were compared to the fence they were near as I realized they were taller than me (and I'm over six feet). It was completely out of my experience of how big goats get. Turned out it was a pair of llamas. My wife still laughs about the "giant goats".

 

[Voadam]

Anyone else remember the infamous "party gets beaten into unconsciousness by Su-Monsters, then the party's horses kill the Su-Monsters" story from Dragon? I don't know which part of that story is more embarrassing.

Actually, the most embarrassing part is that I remember this.

Vaguely, but yes I remember.

 

[EricNoah]

Good stories -- let's see if we can combine "spanked halfling" with "llamas" and "su-monters" and "chest of drawers."

 

[jgsugden]

Well, a single kobold once killed an entire party of PCs. The party decided to sneak up on an enemy lair. The only guard was a kobold. However, the lair was up on the side of a cliff. The halfling rogue climbed up the cliffside, killed the kobold (quietly, or so he thought), and then lowered a rope ladder for all the other PCs to climb.

Well, he made a little more noise than he realized when he offed the kobold and another kobold came to check on the sound. It bull rushed the rogue off the cliff, then managed to cut the rope ladder before any of the PCs could climb up the rest of the way. Each PC fell at least 50 feet. They were 3rd level. The only PC to survive, the barbarian/druid, tried to loot his friends, thinking that his rage/AC would be good enough to allow him to survive any missile attacks from a single kobold (long enough to gather the magic items and flee). The kobold got him with a critical hit and killed him in 1 shot of his crossbow.

That kobold went from 1st level warrior to 1st level warrior/3rd level fighter that day ...

 

[Ruined]

I was running a Planescape module 'Harbinger House' years ago. In one scene, the dabus that serve the Lady of Pain are acting exceptionally weird. The rogue in the party decides to mess with one, eventually getting into a brawl with it. Then four others nearby join in and send him fleeing across the city. Pretty embarassing to get your butt kicked by a bunch of janitors!