Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

[Lalalei2001]

Linc fired an arrow (normal, not enchanted or enhanced in any way!) at Tiamat, who up till then had been ignoring him in favor of the PC who was trying to use an artifact to return her to her own plane. Tiamat glanced at Linc, annoyed, and breathed on him with her black head. What little that was left (mostly a stain on the floor) was sucked into the gate the other PC had opened to get rid of the Dragon Queen.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Set self on fire to better engage the supernatural rat swarm? Done it.

Dove head first into the clearly-marked "Portal of Death?" Oh yeah.

Prodded the sleeping pyrohydra with a Spiritual Weapon ? Why not?

Dangerously low on hit points while playing a Blackguard, attacking the suspicious "maiden" while already in the midst of a brawl with a vampire? Naturally.

These are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head, all of which were from my brief tenures as a Player rather than DM. Can you guess which of the characters from the above examples lived?

 

[BV210]

Party is playing "The Matchmakers" from an oooooold Dungeon magazine. Anyway, they decide the best way to get the soon-to-be-married-to-the-old-guy maiden away from her family and joined with her true beloved is to sneak into the manor house at night and spirit her away. They put together a pretty decent plan, lookouts on perimeter, sneaky rogue to infiltrate, find girl, convince her of their plan, and use portable hole to sneak her out (stopping every couple of minutes to refresh the air within). Part of the plan was in the event of a problem, said rogue would blow a dog whistle. The druid's wolf companion would hear it and react, whereby the druid would reach into his bag of tricks, toss whatever he pulled into the barn, and use the distraction to let the rogue have an opportunity to escape.

Well, the plan was working very well, rogue made it in, avoided any awake servants and squeaky floors, found the girl sleeping (actually her near-twin cousin, but that's neither here nor there), convinced her to come along, and successfully made it out of the compound. As he was moving toward the rendevous point, he states, "now that I'm out, I blow the dog whistle to signal everyone to rally up."

D'oh!

Suffice it to say, the black bear drawn from the bag of tricks did make an excellent distraction, only now the family (and soon the entire city of Silverymoon) was aware of the kidnapping.

 

[BV210]

Oh, one more. Once in a 1ed game many years ago. My high level wizard was separated from the party as they were assaulting a temple to Orcus. No sweat, I'll just teleport in. Small problem, I teleported in low. Carrying a staff of power. And a staff of the magi. One MASSIVE retributive strike later and my wizard was nothing but a memory and the temple of Orcus was a complete loss.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Playing a Paladin in a long running 2e game, the average level of the party was about 10th.

Trapped in a place known as the mind realm, we needed to strike a bargin with a Vampire Lord in order to use a magic item held in her posession. Being the good Paladin I was, I boldly state "I will not negotiate with evil!"

I think 2 party members ended up back at first level, I ended up at 4th level. However we did manage to win (we drove off the Vampire Lord, killed one of her vampire minions, and trapped the 2nd one in a bad of holding with the help of a well place Wall of Force).

Good times

 

[Merkuri]

The party has been told that the area of this dungeon we are in is filled with traps. Basically, if we see something shiny, it's got a trap attached to it. One of our players has just gone through two characters in the past couple sessions. This is his new character's second session. He's playing a half-orc storm druid with a shocker lizard companion.

We come upon a room with metal walls, a peaceful aura, and a big golden idol in the center. One of the characters casts detect magic and reports that the idol and the area around it radiates evocation magic. My not-so-smart favored soul asks what evocation is and is told, "kaboom." The rogue checks the doorway of the room for traps and finds none. Up until this point, we've all been standing in the hallway, looking in warily. We are arguing (both in and out of character) over whether this might be an oasis in the middle of the trap-desert or if it's another trap. I decide a good strategy would be to summon a monster and send it in to land on the idol while we sit outside. If it gets fried, we leave the idol alone. If the monster is unharmed, we investigate it a bit more.

I propose this idea and the rest of the party likes it. As I look up what I want to summon the half-orc druid steps into the room. "This place feels nice, guys," she says. "Come on in!"

"I'm not going to do it with you in the room," my favored soul says to her. "Please leave, then I'm gonna summon something to see what happens."

"There's nothing bad in here." Keep in mind that we've been told several times that this area is full of traps. Full full full of traps. Anything we see is probably a trap. His last character died from an electricity trap.

"Fine," my character says. "Then you touch the idol! See what happens."

To our complete and utter surprise, she listens to me. There is a smell of burning orc as lightning fills the room. The shocker lizard is left unharmed.

The player still gets made fun of for going through four characters in five sessions. His reply is, "You told me to touch it!"

 

[awayfarer]

My first D&D character ever was Bargeld the CN half-orc rogue. I like to imagine he's what James Bond would have been if Bond were a scumbag who grew up on the streets.

We were playing online on Openrpg. The campaign took place in the Scarred Lands setting in the city of Shelzar. In the third session of this campaign, the party, a sorceress, a cleric of the goddess of luck, a bard, Bargeld and another rogue. The lot of us are hired to help locate a merchant caravan lost in the desert. After a few days we find said caravan. It's surrounded by ratmen. The ensuing fight is unspectacular thanks to the aid of a bunch of npc's. Although, the cleric of the luck god dies in one spectacular hit after a 30 (or more) foot jump impales her through the chest with a spear.

We fix up the caravan and start to bring it back to the city. On the way Bargeld notices a loose plank on the wagon and pries it open. A small sack with thirty emeralds, worth about 1,000 GP a piece. Those of us that remain divide the emeralds evenly. We get back to town and sell a few. Bargeld hangs onto several, storing one in his (rather rank) sock.

A few weeks later we're approached by a half-orc who says that a local crime boss wants to meet with us. We go to the tavern, checking our weapons at the door. It's a half-orc/orc bar and is lit so poorly that only Barg can see thanks to darkvision. He spots four orcs with loaded crossbows in one corner.

We sit down and have a talk with the crime boss, who is pissed at us. Apparently those emeralds were supposed to be delivered to him. We all have some left and my line of thought is that this guy can't touch us because we know where to find his jewels and he needs us alive. Bargeld invites him to take the emerald in his sock, which he promtly throws in the face of said boss.

My connection suddenly hits a lag spike. A minute later all the attack and damage rolls pop up on my screen. Bargeld now has three crossbow bolts sticking out of his back. This just as it dawns on me; the boss only needs one of us alive if he wants those emeralds back.

By sheer, stupid luck, Bargeld survived though.

 

[thulsadoomson]

While adventuring in Rappan Athuk, the PC's find an efreeti bottle, and are granted 3 wishes by the efreeti. With the final wish, the paladin in the party wishes for a holy sword that he was told is located somewhere within the dungeon. Unfortunately for the party, this information came from a drunk in the local tavern and was completely false. Needless to say I gave him the sword, but instead of it being a holy sword, it was an intelligent chaotic evil sword who eventually corrupted the paladin before being taken by a demon lord.

 

[Lalalei2001]

The party was deep under the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. They'd come across an underground orchard with different colored fruit trees. Reyn grabbed a dark colored apple, and was immediately zapped for a healthy dose of damage. Recovering, he for some bizarre reason figured that it couldn't hurt to try it again... and as he plucked the second apple, he was instantly vaporized into fine powder.

 

[Lalalei2001]

We had just been portaled to Baator by accident, and I was knocked unconcious by a blow to the head. A Pit Fiend ran around the corner and when my fellow character was dragging me to safety, he dragged me accross some VERY sharp rocks which cut me and bled me to death before he was bright enough to figure out what he had done.