Irresponsible use of magic and other WMDs

[Jon_Dahl]

"With a great fireball comes a great responsibility"

Have you ever had players that frustrate your group with highly erratic use of powerful magic, technology or other stuff that can make dozens of grieving widows and a GM in a nanosecond?

My case...
I have a player with a brand-new sorcerer (D&D 3.5) and this guy is really flailing around with some potent mid-level evocations.

During the last session he decided to cast Shout while two PCs were in the area of effect. His reasoning was that since there was a huge creature standing between him and his companions, it would be enough to absorb the Shout before it reached his friends. Wrong. And this wasn't even the first time! (and he has a link to SRD and plenty of chances to familiarize himself with his spells)

Not only did his companions take full damage from the Shout but also one of them rolled natural 1 on his save. Items in possession were effected and since it was sonic-damage - the uncrowned king of anti-materiel attacks - he lost about 4500 gp worth of gear.

Usually this sorcerer makes a really rash decision first and tries change his mind later. Talking to the player is impossible due to his natural tendency to rush head-first to situations.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Kind of the flipside...One of the PCs in an ongoing, 26 year old AD&D campaign is quite the firebug. If a spell can produce fire, he knows it.

In one adventure, the party encountered a Lich and some death knights in a forested area. That Mage decided he would open up on them with his biggest, baddest fireball. The Rgr/Druid/MU who was one of my 2 PCs in the game* told the Mage that if he tossed that spell in a forest, he'd get run through. We had about a 20 second (RW) staring contest. He blinked.

We won that encounter through other means.

Good thing, too- that Mage, while powerful, has a bit of a bad luck streak. If something can go wrong for him, it usually does...for us. He's let spells fly in wild magic zones, he's had a supercharged lightning bolt deflected to hit a lake...in which half the party was standing, and so forth.







* everyone in that campaign was playing 2 PCs, since the group had shrunk a bit at that time.

 

[jonesy]

Same wizard, same campaign:

"I fireball the gnolls." (Gnolls are hiding inside a flower shop. They have hostages.)

"Could I snipe him with a Lightning Bolt without the [human shield] getting hurt?"

"Oh come on! It's not even like I'm using Fireball or something now, i'll just freeze the church a little!" (Freezing Sphere is 400 ft. + 40 ft./level. And it explodes.)

"What do you mean I can't use meteor swarm to flush out the bad guys out of the House of Healing? The patients already ran away!"

 

[steeldragons]

Perhaps more of an example of bad dice-mojo than irresponsible spell-use, though I am still inclined to think the wizard should have had the maturity and intelligence to act responsibly enough to not do this...

Fighting a large group of drow, I believe it was, the group was thoroughly blessed and bolstered, by the cleric, with multiple "resistance" spells (including fire).

The fighter, wearing enchanted armor, enchanted sword (though I don't recall just how magical. But he'd had it a long time and treasured the thing and always used it), is taking a beating from multiple opponents. He's doing tons of damage (as usual) but there are 2 more for every one he drops.

"Fireball their asses!" he cries out to any/all spell casters in the group.

"But you..." one wizard replies (the fighter wasn't the only character in the melee, but he was the most vocal and completely assured that they would take next to no, if any damage, due to the cleric's protections and his own armor.)

"I cast fireball" the other wizard says. As I recall, he wasn't of "good" alignment and generally acted with Chaotic abandon.

"Just do it!"

"Oooo.kkkk." says the first wizard.

It was a very heroic maneuver/scene and might have had a great outcome...except when the fighter, more so than anyone else, botches all of his saves, his equipment's saves and ends up barely alive, with a slagged sword, taking continuing burning damage from the slagged armor (plus a few other minor magic items and practically all of his mundane gear) that is now baking him for an additional 3 rounds.

The drow, other than those who didn't survive due to their spell resistance and quickly retreated, were laid low...but what an unexpected price!

The fighter had very little argument to make since he'd told them to do it...but attempted to defend himself by arguing "I didn't say TWO fireballs!"

The wizards just shrugged.

It was several encounters later before the nearly naked (very large and muscular) man was able to find a usable weapon and some form of protective clothing that would fit.

Last time that player ever "suggested" how the spell-casters utilized their magics ever again, though.

--SD

 

[Ringlerun]

In an old 2nd edition ad&d game the mage didnt like the attitude of the inn keeper. (the town was biased against magic users) so he calmly walked outside and cast death spell.

The same mage later on didnt like the local lord who was throwing a banquet. So quietly in the dark he casts vocalize and then phantasmil killer. No one sees or hears anything except for the lord screaming in fear and falling dead into his soup.

 

[steeldragons]

In an old 2nd edition ad&d game the mage didnt like the attitude of the inn keeper. (the town was biased against magic users) so he calmly walked outside and cast death spell.

The same mage later on didnt like the local lord who was throwing a banquet. So quietly in the dark he casts vocalize and then phantasmil killer. No one sees or hears anything except for the lord screaming in fear and falling dead into his soup.

Wow. That sounds like some serious irresponsibility right there.

Dare I ask, what was this mage's alignment (before and after these castings)?

 

[jedavis]

Hmm... ours are pretty responsible, usually. We had a pyromanic halfling sorc over the summer; barely kept him from burning down a blacksmith's shop for next-to-no-reason (got him to settle for prestidigitation pranks instead). Had an incident similar to the "Fireball my position" one upthread, with my ranger holding off a bunch of berserkers... I failed my saves, but didn't natural-1 so my gear was OK. Did take more damage from friendly fire than from the enemy, though...

In Mongoose Traveller, there's a sidebar in the weapons section about plasma weapons that starts with "The PGMP and FGMP are weapons of such unbelievable destructive potential that they are never deployed without due care and forethought – except by player characters.", and it just gets better from there. We kind of averted "indiscriminate behavior" in my last Trav game, though - I let the PCs get their hands on a briefcase nuke just to see what they'd do with it. They (very wisely) decided to bury it in an undisclosed location in the middle of a desert on a backwater world. I was impressed.

 

[Ringlerun]

Wow. That sounds like some serious irresponsibility right there.

Dare I ask, what was this mage's alignment (before and after these castings)?

Not sure what alignment he was by the end. I know he started as Lawful Neutral. I guessed he was using a ring of mind shielding when the paladin in the party started to get a bit suspicious. Near the end he was an 18th level mage with an arsenal of magic items at his disposal so no one pushed the point. We were just glad he was on our side.

 

[jonesy]

Not sure what alignment he was by the end. I know he started as Lawful Neutral. I guessed he was using a ring of mind shielding when the paladin in the party started to get a bit suspicious. Near the end he was an 18th level mage with an arsenal of magic items at his disposal so no one pushed the point. We were just glad he was on our side.

Heh. You just got to love those evil mages on the side of good. Got to, 'cause they'll turn on you otherwise.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

So, I haven't run into an irresponsible magic user (usually because *I* am the spellcaster and I'm always responsible! ), but in my 3/3.5 group, two of the players decided to Epic-ify (their word) the Rod of Wonders.

Now, these guys were good roleplayers, but didn't have a great grasp on magical item mechanics or balance. And since they were both 20 (maybe 19) at the time, they were, shall we say, a touch on the juvenile side.

The first effect was that a large rock falls on the target, doing 25d6 (remember...bad grasp of game balance) or Reflex for half damage.

Another effect was that it created two clones of the target...which emerged from the target's anus. Each clone did 5d6 points of damage with no save.

The other I remember off the top of my head was that a stream of bird feces shot from the wand, blinding the target and making the target make a Reflex save or fall prone in the bird poo.

The original DC for all of this nonsense was 25 and somehow got changed to something like 42 at some point.