Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

[prosfilaes]

sending a letter to the cleric which you were comming to kill, then, once you got there as the thief, you drew you offered the cleric a choice "by my sword" showing it to the cleric, in his church, armed with a few guards, countless witnesses, and other servants, "or this" showing him a cup of poision which you've made into a tea blend.

Someones seen way to many anime movies....*he thought he was a ninja* to bad, the cleric had magic and put the hurt on him.

To me, that's not stupid; that's a failure to agree on genre standards. I would encourage behavior like this, the concept that not everything is solved by walking up and bashing its head in, and the dramatic exchange of words between heroes and enemies before fighting. I would have had the cleric respond with derisive words and step back or pull a weapon or shield, all without fear of AoO, rather than have him immediately attack, all of which are appropriate genre moves and which don't discourage the players from trying dramatic heroic acts.

It's not just anime, either; what comes to mind is swashbuckling movies, and a lot of generally pulp action movies.

 

[sniffles]

The PCs in my campaign had been hired by the Calimport Thieves' Guild to investigate disappearances of their members near the Upperdark where the Calimport Muzaad meets the Underdark. After some small difficulty they made their way underground and were able to find a small outpost in some cavern. They decided to sneak into the main towers, invisible. So, they go in, grapple their way up the tower. Their invisibility is about to wear off, so the elf necromancer (who cast it) leaves and goes back to safety, leaving the others in the top room of this tower. The other party members mess around for a little while, searching the rooms and whatnot. Eventually, they decide to leave. The best route out is deemed to be for the wizard to cast a disguise self as a drow priestess, and take the other two as prisoners on her way out. The other characters think he's nuts, so they grapple back down the side of the building and start sneaking out of the cavern (towards where the necro was). The wizard proceeds to disguise himself and head down the flight of stairs. In my campaign, Drow as a language is a dialect of Elven (which, none of the chars happen to know). So, he's heading down stairs and he passes a group of drow soldiers playing dice and cards. They say something to him (something along the lines of, "Where's the soldier on duty up stairs?" (dead, since the players found him in the first topmost room)) and point upstairs. The player wasn't paying particular attention, and had his character RUN down the stairs. Naturally the soldiers told him to hold up, and he didn't, so they chased. Well, suffice it to say they basically alterted the entire garrison, and had wizards and clerics chasing them, and they *nearly* killed the party's fighter (who is the wizard's in game cousin, both from Thay) before they made it to the portal that they came through. It was all very comical from my point of view.

Good story, but how do you grapple a tower?

 

[orsal]

Good story, but how do you grapple a tower?

See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/grapple. In particular, check definitions 1, 2, and 6, all referring to definition 8. If you weren't familiar with this meaning of the term, you must have been confused by the inclusion of "grappling hook" (a mountain climber's tool) in the equipment list.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/grapple. In particular, check definitions 1, 2, and 6, all referring to definition 8. If you weren't familiar with this meaning of the term, you must have been confused by the inclusion of "grappling hook" (a mountain climber's tool) in the equipment list.

I'm not sure you're serious or not.

Anyway, that page neglects to mention the most important definition of grapple. Go watch Firefly and you'll learn that one.

 

[Slife]

Good story, but how do you grapple a tower?

Starting a Grapple

To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).
Step 1

Attack of Opportunity. You provoke an attack of opportunity from the target you are trying to grapple. If the attack of opportunity deals damage, the grapple attempt fails. (Certain monsters do not provoke attacks of opportunity when they attempt to grapple, nor do characters with the Improved Grapple feat.) If the attack of opportunity misses or fails to deal damage, proceed to Step 2.
Step 2

Grab. You make a melee touch attack to grab the target. If you fail to hit the target, the grapple attempt fails. If you succeed, proceed to Step 3.
Step 3

Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.

If you succeed, you and your target are now grappling, and you deal damage to the target as if with an unarmed strike.

If you lose, you fail to start the grapple. You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.

In case of a tie, the combatant with the higher grapple check modifier wins. If this is a tie, roll again to break the tie.
Step 4

Maintain Grapple. To maintain the grapple for later rounds, you must move into the target’s space. (This movement is free and doesn’t count as part of your movement in the round.)

Moving, as normal, provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents, but not from your target.

If you can’t move into your target’s space, you can’t maintain the grapple and must immediately let go of the target. To grapple again, you must begin at Step 1.




Just watch out for its size bonuses. They're a killer.

 

[Lalalei2001]

Player has ring of undead control and has found some low-level undead to boss arround (skeletons & zombies). He starts handing out orders (first time he's had a chance to use this in 7 sessions).

"You, open that chest. (trapped--poison darts) You, open that door. (also trapped--explosive runes) You, go down this passage, kill anything you see, and report to me here. Oh, wait, you can't talk. Don't listen to me..."

After a beat...

"Oh CRAP!!!"

 

[orsal]

Just watch out for its size bonuses. They're a killer.

Yup. That's why I think wrestling a tower is even harder than climbing up its side using mountaineering equipment.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

This happened last session.

The party has been fighting Fiendish Locathah (fish men) who have spreading disease on an island. The party follows some tracks that lead them to a small 15ft x 15ft puddle/hole of thick muck that seems to be "breathing". The party figure out that it is a portal to another plane and also that it radiates faint evil.

The Ranger/Rogue's response upon being told this information by the Cleric?

I dive in!?!

I could have easily killed him by transporting him to a Paraelemental Plane filled with Oozes and various diseases where he wouldn't have lasted long. However I was feeling a little generous and decided that it was a one-way portal only. He still nearly managed to die from drowning in the diseased muck. In trying to get him out another PC was pulled into the muck! Finally the other PC's were able to pull both of them out. A couple of Potions of Remove Diseases later and everyone was ok.

I still can picture the look on everyone's faces when the player said that he was going to dive into the diseased, evil-radiating portal though. Priceless!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Lalalei2001]

In my old D&D group, we were once faced with a dilemma.

A big rift had been opened, and demons were coming out of it. Two giant towers had also shot out of the ground. This was all part of a prophecy that had been activated when we killed a main villain. Basically, in order to get the rift to close, we had to go to the top of the towers, and ressurect either the villain, or this other guy who we knew nothing about. Whoever got revived would get one wish.

We did some research, and came up with some info on the guy we knew nothing about. Unfortunately, accounts on him were conflicting; he was either a great pacifist, or a horrible warlord. Well, the group was divided on who to revive, and we argued over it for quite awhile. Finally, I made a truly brilliant suggestion: Revive both.

Now my logic here was that if the other guy turned out to be a pacifist, he'd be no problem. If he turned out to be a warlord, he'd hopefully turn on the other villain. After much convincing, I got the group to accept my plan; the ultimate compromise.

Well, turns out that guy we knew nothing about was actually an Elder God with dominion over pestilance, who had nearly killed all of the other gods with a divine plague eons ago. Everything we'd read about him was purposely misleading, and he'd already been in league with the villain.

Yay us!

 

[chakken98]

So in my Brother n' Laws game its me vs. his roommate. Won't go into how that happened but his roommate told me bout his last game with the DM.

Currently in our world we cause a rift to open in both the 9 Hells and the Astal plane and now both Devils and Angels are warring in our backyards. So Lim Dul (Roomy) has just completed a bunch of rituals and spells to ascend into a higher being (some template that I dunno but appranently I got my work cut out on me...anyway) saw out in the distance the warring armies fighting. Figuring they were further away he decided to rest to regain strength and spells. 4 hours later after being awakened by the sounds of battle, he see's that the battle has spilled into his tower. This made Lim Dul very upset (DM said much cursing and all) and being uber powerful he started to annilate the baddies. After his tower was cleared out he headed outside and saw a large group of baddies w/a Pit Fiend finishing up some angels. Dul figuring that both the baddies and himself are evil he'd try to convince then that he was all powerful and they should work for him. Pit Fiend wasn't having that and battle ensude once again. So Dul charges Fiend thinking that he's newly revamped and has mass power to kill it off so they go toe 2 toe, and Fiend lands 2 critical hits on Dul both backed up....with a Vorpal weapon...Roomy asks if his head falls off...Dm tells him "hell no, I don't like that rule, but a random body part yes." Rolls twice on old 2nd vorpal dice and Dul loses both arms. So last I heard Dul is running away arm less lossing mass amounts of HP to get back to his clerics to heal him up, while Fiend chases him down....