Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

[demiurge1138]

So many stories, so little time...

I'll go for an old favorite first. I must have posted this on a few other threads before, but it's still a classic.

3.0. Near-epic levels. The party has ended up going from Faerun to Rokugan, and got involved in stopping the ghost blood-mage Iuchiban from raising the King of all Oni. One of the characters is a elf rogue who's convinced he's a fighter. Oh, and a cursed ring of nine lives had turned him into a catboy. The party's followed Iuchiban to the Festering Pit, where the ritual's already in process. Fu Leng's mammoth horns are emerging from the muck.

"So," say I, "the ritual could be complete any moment now. It has to be stopped. What are you going to do?"

Wonderboy says "I'm going to pounce on Iuchiban!"

I stare. We all stare.

"I said I'm going to pounce on the ghost. Is that a problem?"

Well, the good news is, having a confused and screaming catboy plunge through his ectoplasm was certainly enough to get Iuchiban's attention. The bad news is, he knew creeping doom. And won initiative. Catboy got skeletonized.

Demiurge out.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Drunk player moment:

During the Forge of Fury module, a player that had brought his own case of beer declared that his barbarian was going to charge across the rickety rope bridge at the orc guards on the other side. I reiterated how crappy the bridge looked and asked for confirmation of that action. He didn't relent. Something like three consecutive failed saving throws later, his barbarian was a red mist at the bottom of the gorge.

 

[Nyaricus]

Well, considering he's now a cocaine addict, I think he got his...

Anyways, he was a jerk and an ex-best-friend-turned-backstabber to boot. Oh well, life's a baatezu, and then you die, eh.

 

[demiurge1138]

OK, time for another one. This one is a compound stupidity, if you will. Two bad ideas that went worse together.

So I'm actually playing this time. Our party is stuck on an island, and we've just weathered an army of zombies rising from the sea. The ferry's not coming back for a few more days, and we want off as soon as possible. We found a folding boat, but that can only fit about half of us. Our only recourse is that rather tattered little rowboat sitting in the natural cove on the island.

The whole party's looking down at that boat. The cove is rocky, full of seaweed. None of us want to go there. Looks dangerous. Finally, the party cleric says "fine, if none of you're going down there, I'm going by myself. Help me with this armor."

Yes, that's right, folks. He took off his armor, in case he slipped into the water. Fair enough, I guess... except then he was ambushed by a chuul.

The rest of us are standing up on the shore, firing away. Our druid says, "I know! I'll use the seaweed to entangle the chuul!"

The chuul made his save. The now armorless cleric didn't. The rest of us ran in and grabbed the boat after the chuul dragged the cleric's lifeless body away for consumption.

The guy who played the cleric didn't come back. He was kind of a jerk, so I didn't mind too terribly.

Demiurge out.

 

[Nyaricus]

demiurge, that one has a great set-up I like adn think I might use it in a game I'll be running

 

[Hussar]

Rogue PC enters a magically darkened room in the WLD.

PC: "I move in 5' and feel around."

DM: "You don't feel anything. It smells like a wet dog in here."

PC: "I move in 5' and feel around."

DM: "You don't feel anything. You hear a low growling..."

PC: "I move in 5' and feel around."

DM: "You don't feel anything. You hear several things in the dark, growling."

PC: "I move in 5' and feel around." (Consistent little cuss).

DM: *CHOMP* "You don't feel anything. Your arm was just eaten by one of three dire wolves. Roll for initiative."

All we managed to recover was one of his boots.

Ahh, Region B, so many memories, so many dead PC's.

Merk and Away, you stole my thunder btw.

The funny thing is, the replacement character for the dead druid is a monk/paladin/Templar somethingorother. Can't hit anything. Doesn't do any damage even if he does hit. But NEVER fails a saving throw.

 

[Merkuri]

Ahh, Region B, so many memories, so many dead PC's.

Most of them played by that one guy.

Merk and Away, you stole my thunder btw.

This thread's been around since November. You've had plenty of time to post both events.

The funny thing is, the replacement character for the dead druid is a monk/paladin/Templar somethingorother. Can't hit anything. Doesn't do any damage even if he does hit. But NEVER fails a saving throw.

And he's earned his "iron player award" for surviving 25 sessions. Doesn't do much good for the party, but he's alive. He's gonna be so miffed next level when the halfling rogue surpasses him in reflex save modifier.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The party has ended up going from Faerun to Rokugan

That sounds like fun, in a "why keep people acting all insulted and insisting on a duel" way.

he knew creeping doom. And won initiative. Catboy got skeletonized.

Wait, did the old creeping doom not have a casting time of one full round?

 

[demiurge1138]

Wait, did the old creeping doom not have a casting time of one full round?

Hey! Good catch! I just looked it up, and it did! That was four years ago. Actually, reading all the rules carefully wasn't my forte back then. For example, it wasn't until slightly after the Rokugan game ended that I reread the rules and said "OK, we've been doing it wrong all this time - no attacking and casting a spell in the same round". Silly partial actions...

So yeah, this story could probably get filed under "stupid DM tricks" as well.

These two can't, though.

So the party's travelling via airship from one continent to another, but a saboteur has managed to sneak on board (the saboteur is a PC who left the group by reason of insanity, so I got to use my player's twink natures against them). The saboteur waits until the airship is over the middle of the ocean, starts cutting a hole in their elemental engine. Portal to the Plane of Air opens, weird elementals start crawling all over the ship, the PCs find the saboteur.

The big battle mostly comes down to the saboteur and that player's current broken character (the reason that the frenzied berzerker is forever banned in my games). The other characters are either tied up fighting elementals or unconcious. One of the still concious ones, once the elementals are taken care of, decides that it's too dangerous on the ship, grabs a rope and decides to ride behind.

The saboteur sees this and cuts the rope.

Much later, same party, same airship. The party's taken it upon itself to stop the rampage of terror caused by the aforementioned frenzied berzerker, who's been dominated by a dragon and is running around the countryside killing anything that gets in his way. They spot him in the burned out wreckage of a village.

Do they
a) Maintain their ranged superiority using missile weapons and spells?
b) Load up the ballistae on the airship and fire at him until he bleeds out?
c) Tie ropes to their ankles and charge him bungee style, trusting in the few PCs staying topside to be able to pull them topside if they need it?

My genius tacticians picked c. And got slaughtered for it. Add to that that one of the players, increasingly petulant from the grandstanding done by the player of both the saboteur and the FB (now playing a paladin), healed the berzerker once they'd finally gotten him to the point where he'd die once the frenzy was over.

While the paladin this player hated was safely out of reach. Glick.

Demiurge out.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Hey! Good catch! I just looked it up, and it did!

I knew that one. Our druid used it a couple of times. Since he started with 18 con (lucky bastard rolled 2 18's*), it wasn't easy breaking his concentration, so the spell would usually fire off (and most of the time, the other guy had no SR).

Switch creeping doom with finger of death or power word kill and the story's golden again.


I remember something I first thought was stupid:

My party went through City of the Spider Queen, and found that fiend caged in a circle (for the resident archmage to extort for favours. The fiend launches into his best sales pitch, promising them everything if they let him go (while not intending to give them anything but death).

I was just saying something like "Let me go and I give you whatever you want" and I just hear "I'd like to order something." I think my face fell off my head!

Turns out that one player thought this a great time to call pizza delivery...


*after the campaign ended, I almost begged the DM to use point buy. I said: "that character was dominating like there's no tomorrow. Nothing against the player - he was a great player - but it should be more even." DM refused. Guess who was next in line to have 2 18s for his character. The funniest part: It was 20Modern, so increasing stats wasn't.

After that, we used point buy