Players Who Are Just Goofs

[dogoftheunderworld]

Okay, one more. Early Eberron module. New 1st level party. They had found clues to an underground area and were headed that way. They were sure it would be un-lit, because they found a note from previous explorer "bring torches". Well, half the party had darkvision or low-light and the other members had all purchased their spiffy new Sunrods, so they were good to go. They get to the cavern and have to jump down a 10' ledge. No problem. Once down, they are attacked by.... beetle swarms. Yes, the torches were for the swarms, not the darkness. No one in the party could hurt the diminuative swarm. They eventually started throwing ration packs at the swarm to lead it off, while they climbed back up the 10' ledge (much harder for some reason )

 

[darjr]

No thread like this is complete without the wubba wubba story.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzpgAQpcp8o"]YouTube - Wubba Wubba by R.A. Salvatore[/ame]

 

[Abciximab]

This may seem familiar to some of you if you’ve read my Barrow story hour…

In book two of the trilogy, The Sinister Spire, the party encounters an Aboleth. With its Projected Image and Enslave ability it presents a bit of a problem. First, the Barbarian makes his save vs Domination. A few rounds later the Paladin does not.

They realize something is wrong when the Paladin takes an Attack of Opportunity as the Gnome Illusionist moves away. Having nothing on hand to break or dispel the enchantment the party decides they have to knock the Paladin out (none of this “Non-Lethal Damage” stuff here though.). In one round he goes from almost full hit points to just 4 hp with just the Barbarian left to attack with his Great Axe. “Ok, let’s see… now I want to… uh…” The Barbarians player tosses his d20 before he finishes the sentence.

Natural 20, Crit (x3).

"um.. dah... duh..."

The Barbarians player explains that he was going to say that he was going strike with the flat of the blade.

I caved and let him do non-lethal damage.

 

[rogueattorney]

Many of you will probably recall that the Ring of Invisibility in 1e could be... problematic. My group had a well known protocol that the ring would be assumed to be taken off at the end of an encounter and would not be back on until specifically stated as such.

Anyway, this particular group had Ikim, a halfling fighter/thief who, for all intents and purposes, WAS Belkar the Halfling from Order of the Stick, and, of course, that's the character that had the ring.

In a final confrontation with a big bad guy, Ikim declared that he was going to try to sneak up on the bad guy and successfully rolled to Move Silently. Unfortunately, it was a well-lit room and Ikim's player never stated that he was putting his ring on. The image of Ikim tip-toeing up to the bad guy in plain sight of everyone sticks with me to this day.

Much more recently in the Caves of Chaos:

Thief (played by the same player that played Ikim): I investigate the altar, but don't touch it.
Me (DM): <Describes the insidious looking, blood-soaked altar.>
Fighter: I throw my dagger at it.
All: You what?
Me: Are you absolutely sure?
Fighter: Yeah.
Thief: NO!!!!
Me: You hear a distant bell, followed a few moments later by the ominous shuffle of many feet...
Thief: I put on my Ring of Invisibility.

 

[coyote6]

The adventure is Monte Cook's "Queen of Lies", wherein our heroes deal with a drow outpost made up of a three bridge-connected towers and some outbuildings. The PCs are working their way down one of the towers, having entered from the top; I think they'd raided the place a couple of times before, and by now know that they can't let any alarm get out, or they're liable to get massacred.

So, they fight some drow & kill them all. IIRC, on the previous incursion, the alarm got tripped when a drow stationed inside the stairwell snuck off to sound the alarm. Whatever the reason was, the wizard decides to be safe, and chucks a cloudkill down the the stairwell -- they know most of the drow are relatively low-level, and the spell is SR: No. All the players (& characters too) hear the wizard make the announcement, in and out of character. The group then finishes a quick search of that level, grabs some obvious loot, etc. A few minutes of game time and a few minutes of actual time pass.

They then move on. As they reach the lower levels, I describe the lingering odor of bitter almonds, the twisted, choked bodies of drow & bugbears scattered about, a couple on the stairs, and even more scattered around the base of the stairs, all with bloody foam around the mouth, etc. Just routine flavor text, while I mark down the XP for all the kills. Meanwhile, the players of the dervish and the arcane archer are looking at one another in wonder, awe, and excitement -- "What happened here? Who killed all these drow? It looks like they choked, or were poisoned!" They are baffled.

I and the other two players do doubletakes, look at each other, and bust up laughing. Archer and dervish: "Huh? What's so fun- Oh. Cloudkill." <facepalms>

 

[maddman75]

This happened last night in my Buffy game. Kind of a two-for-one now that I think about it.

The PCs had been tracking some kind of monster that was beating up girls, and had killed one of them. They eventually figured out that it was the captain of the football team who had gotten some demon-roids and had been beating up his girlfriend. They decided to meet at the girl's house to make sure she was okay and track the guy down. All the PCs are at the school except the white hat girl, she was at the club. She went to walk to Cindy's house while the rest took the vampire librarian's station wagon.

Well, as they got into the parking lot, the rebel white hat went to retrieve a gun he'd hidden in the bush, not wanting to take it onto school property. His brother decides to try and stand between him and the teachers to help block his view. They both roll, and the brother's bad luck kicks in. He bumps him as he's getting the gun. It goes off and puts out a tire.

That's one.

The white hat has arrived at Cindy's. Fred the jerk is there, has beaten up Cindy and her Mom, and grabs the girl by the throat and drags her in as well. The librarian and slayer get on his motorcycle with a tranq gun and speed across town, noting that neither Cindy nor their friend are answering phones. He gets a phenomenal success, speeding across town in record time. He sees the door standing open and makes another check to drive up the steps, through the front door, and into the hallway.

"Too bad no one invited you." From one of my players.

True enough - the librarian driving the motorcycle was a vamp, and couldn't enter the home uninvited. He flew off the motorcycle at the door. The Slayer did a matrix-style move to slide under him, off the bike, and land on her feet in front of the bad guy. Hey, she was a damn good gymnist before she became a slayer! The poor librarian was left crumpled on the porch, the mystical barrier as forgiving as a brick wall.

That was two.

 

[Mallus]

I'm tempted to recount the strange story of Glutinous Maximus, the partially-digested human monk/gelatinous cube hybrid who lost a political debate (ie, fistfight) with a possessed, magically enhanced bull (who later was Awakened to sapience with an 18 INT, won the election, and entered academia as a professor and founder of a field of study called semioxtic, under the name "Umbullto Ego").

Glutinous went on to die, be reborn in the Land of the Dead, and eventually be made part of the harem of Malshabbazidek, Father of the Nine Hundred and Ninety Four Whores, where he currently spends his days pioneering new forms of pornography for his demonic master.

Which was (mostly) the fault of one player, who posts here as Atlatl Jones, in case you'd like to assign blame (or credit).

Or the Gospel of Treasure the Pig, who was elevated to divinity on the strength of pure, on-the-spot player b*llshit.

 

[Humanaut]

About 20-25 yrs ago in highschool, I had a cleric about 6th level, we were all in a series of tunnels under a city, sewers and ancient crypts. There was this low howl or hum.

Eventually we came to a large room with a cage, in it was a bizzare looking creature and source of the cry... so we did what comes natural... we shot it through the cage.

After it's death, we stood in horror as all the skeletons, perhaps thousands of them, rose up as one! We ran and ran, about to be trapped we dove into a sewer line, I had to dump my magic armor or drown!

We left none the wiser I'm sure, but wow, what a bone-headed move.

 

[pawsplay]

They're Just Ogres

My players, busily attempting to save the world, found themselves exploring a cavern as 12th level characters. Their dwarven scout goes ahead and discovers the room ahead is guarded by four ogres, two with greatclubs and two with morningstars. He reports back. The group starts planning their cunning ambush, when one player remarks, "Well, they're just ogres." The wizard revises his plan to opening fire with a charge of his wand of fireballs, which does 5d6, rather than one of his own precious spell slots. This party, which heretofore has used and abused detect magic in every conceivable way, does not bother to inspect the ogres for gear or spells, nor do they take the time to ask what the ogres are wearing.

Surprise round. The scout shoots one ogre with an arrow. The wizard uses his wand... delivering something like 9 points of damage with his fireball. The cleric fires his greatbow. The barbarian charges with her greatsword, delivering a solid blow. The barbarian starts to activate her rage, then says, "Naw, I'll save it." The paladin charges, and decides to conserve his smite.

Round one. The scout scoots and shoots. The wizard casts gillterdust on two of the ogres. One of the ogres power attacks the barbarian, crits, and kills her instantly. Another grapples the wizard, who is forced to d-dor to escape. The paladin attacks a blinded ogre, who responds by flailing blindly at his mount... striking it, and sending it into the small negatives in hit points. The cleric heals the wizard.

Round two. The scout identifies that the greatclub wielding ogres seem to be less well equipped, and scoots and shoots. The wizard unleashes empowered magic missiles against wounded ogres. The paladin viciously smites the blind ogre.

Round three. The party mops up, easily downing the relatively low CR opponents.

The players are rather taken aback. One of the players accuses me of being a "killer DM." The paladin's player adopts a more reasoned attitude and announces, "I am henceforth striking the phrase, 'They're just ogres,' from my vocabulary." The accusatory player later makes a snide comment about customized monsters not in the MM... I open up the MM and point to the entry for Ogre Barbarian.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The accusatory player later makes a snide comment about customized monsters not in the MM... I open up the MM and point to the entry for Ogre Barbarian.

LOL What was the guy gonna do call the HMPA and request a campaign audit?