Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done


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Not all of these are necessarily stupid, but I found some of them pretty entertaining.

This isn't my story, but I heard of a DM who cobbled together a wizards tower with the nastiest traps he could think of.

Trap 1: A pit 5' wide and 10' deep. At the bottom of the pit, it turns into a pit 6" wide and 50' deep. A super minaturize spell is cast on the openning of the 6" that lasts for one round. PC falls 10' into the pit, gets shrunk, falls 50' and is now a normal sized PC in a 6" shaft...

Trap 2: An adamantine door is at the end of the hallway. It isn't locked, but when they open the door a fist of force punches them in the nose, then slams the door. The party gets beat to hell trying to open the door and is about to give up when a player who was running late to the game shows up. His halfling walks up, sees the party all beat up, and says "what's with the door?"

Before they have a chance to tell him, he walks up and knocks on it. The hand of force opens the door for them and waves them in.

Magic Item 1: The PCs are searching the tower when they find a solid golden necklace on a pedestal. After carefully searching the pedestal for traps, the fighter grabs it and puts it on. Nothing happens and after some experimentation, they discover the DM has created a new item: a necklace of protection. It isn't until they leave the tower that the Enlarge spell cast on the ring of protection goes away. The halfling casually picks the ring up from next to the decapitated fighter and puts it on.

Magic Item 2: The halfling thought he scored - a magic ring AND a +5 whip! It's not until later that he finds the whip summons an anvil at the top of the swing on a critical fumble.
 

Now, for stories from actual games I've run:

Back in 2nd edition when I was a new DM with young and inexperienced players: They are searching a cursed temple. The first trip they lose two people to a gargoyle golem(when it hits it petrifies, hits again to shatter) and it chases them outside. After getting their friends rez'd, they head back, playing hit and run with the golem in the woods. The wizard decides to levitate it so he can force it to the ground, then lassos it and ties the rope to his waist of all things. The golem looks at him, looks at the rope, then takes off dragging the mage off through the bramble filled woods.

Also in the temple they find a library full of dark tomes and a glowing pentagram on the floor.

One of them touches a bookshelf. *BOOM* fire trap. Not deterred, another player winces and touches another one. Nothing. So he grabs a book off the shelf. *BOOM* fire trap. Still not deterred, another player winces and touches a bookshelf. Nothing. Wince, pulls a book of the shelf. Nothing. Opens the book. *BOOM* firetrap.

I figure they're deterred by now, but no. Yet another player does the same routine: wince/touch/wince/pull/wince/open. The player grins. "Clear." Starts flipping through the pages, finds it's warping his brain, so slams it. *BOOM* fire trap.

Fed up with the books, on of them shows his distain by throwing one of them into the pentagram on the floor, the ritual on the pages triggering the pentagram and openning a portal to the hells... They only survive by running like hell as the uber-wizard of the world drops a meteor on the church to seal the portal.

---

Later in the game, the wizard(the player of the wizard went through 13 characters in the span of the game) was experimenting with Transmute Liquid, trying to find "the most explosive liquid there is." He of course tested this by scooping water into a bowl and then lighting it on fire. He did this every time the PCs made camp. They knew he found it when he went flying over the camp training flames.

Once they'd put him out and healed him up, they decided to use a barrel full of the stuff to destroy an army of goblins that lived below a nearby tower. After planting the barrel with a long fuse, they riled up the goblins, mounted, and waited for the goblins to come pouring out. The grand plan was that the wizard with through a Flame Disc to light the fuse as they rode off. Unfortunately, he missed and hit the barrel instead.

They wizard died instantly, while the Paladin woke up on his mount... in a tree, 200' from a huge crater.

Fortunately(un-fortunately?) the wizard's spell book survived and the party's new wizard decided that they'd try the whole deal on a larger scale. They went to town, got a water wagon, filled it with water, made a 1000' long fuse, then transmuted the stuff to the super-ultra-mega explosive. They then halled it to ye old Necromancer's Castle and parked it just outside the gate. As the undead began to swarm, they stood about 50' from the water wagon and discussed when/how to light it. At about that time, the Chaotic Neutral dwarf lights it, interrupts the discussion, taps them on the shoulder, and points.

Miraculously, all survived except the wizard whose levitating body was found skipping across the ground at 40mph.
 


A halfling rogue made a deal with a pseudodragon to get him a magic helm. The dragon told him the password that would let him waltz by the skeletons that were killing his other party members. It was "Sucitpyrc" -- the name of the god Crypticus backwards. (Crypticus likes codes.) So the halfling went in, spoke the word, took the helm, and went straight back to get his party and betray the dragon.

"We can't go through there," the party said. (One of the skeleton creatures was a reskinned babau demon.) "I know the secret," the halfling said. In fact, he was so determined to keep it a secret that he insisted they close the door after him and stand back so they couldn't hear what he was doing to get passage.

The skeleton creatures lunged at him, but he won the initiative roll. "Crypticus!" he said clearly. It wasn't till after the game that somebody explained to him why he had to be rescued from a babau demon. It was all in the same session too...
 

PC1: I start climbing down. (roll, botch). Crap.
DM: You slip and fall. It's a hundred and twenty foot drop. I need twelve dice. (collects, rolls) You're level 2, right? You land with a wet splat.
PC2: I start dragging his body, so we can get him resurrected.
(ten minutes later)
PC1: Wait, what about my bottles of alchemist fire?
DM: What bottles?
PC1: (Gestures to character sheet) These, nine of them.
DM: ... Dice. Everyone, I need more dice.
PC2: Instead of dragging him, I scrape what's left of his remains into a flask, to be blessed later as a good luck charm. (records Flask o' Ben on character sheet)
 

That reminds me of a classic moment back in 2nd edition that still comes up at least once a session:

The main villain of the campaign was an Elven prince named Reval. He had seven Death Knights working for him and, looking at the Death Knights, I saw that each had a sword that shot 20d6 fire-balls at will. I made a note that Reval had a "Death Knight sword", gave him an item that made him immune to fire, then forgot about it.

Two years (RL) into the campaign, the party has a magical key that unlocks the last seal to the Demon Realms - and Reval wants it. The 8 or so members of the party gathered in their castle after getting the key, trying to figure out what to do with the key when Reval walks in the front door and sits down at the table without saying a word.

There is a moment of shocked silence as 8 minds try to process this devepment. Six voices cry out "Kill him" in unison (the other two voices cried out "Run away" in unison). I glance at Reval's stats and notice the sword, look up Death Knight, look in my dice bag, then look at my players all getting excited for the epic battle that's about to start.

"Reval points his sword at the ground and shoots his feet with a fireball, hitting all of you." I extended my hand, with 10d6 in it. "I need more d6s."

The player's expressions fell in unison. Two characters died instantly and the rest ran for their lives.

At tonight's session, 10 years and 2 editions later, one of my players reached down to roll damage for an encounter power and said "I need more d6s."

Good times.
 

When his ship was hijacked, Alan and his party escaped his captors and set the ship for self-destruct. There was one problem. They forgot they had to jettison the two lifeboats on a previous mission and they never bothered to replace them.

 

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