Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

#1: (2e) PC party is chasing a wounded lich through his stronghold. The party pours into a room with one other corridor leading off. Said corridor is blocked by a shimmering purple field. This was the exchange between players (PC 1 - NE elf wizard - everyone knows she's evil; PC 2 - NG elf ranger - everyone knows he's stupid)

PC 1: Hey ranger - why don't you step through that purple stuff to see if it's safe for us to walk through?
PC 2: Okay. (Steps through purple field)
DM: Roll a save vs. Death.
PC 2: 1.
DM: The ranger screams and turns to dust.
PC 1: Fine. I cast passwall beside the purple field and we walk around it.

#2: (2e) PC party is exploring an old ruined dwarven stronghold. They enter a 40' diameter circular room that is almost entirely filled with a cone-shaped mound of fine, silvery white powder. Everyone in the party (except one) agrees that they should just leave it alone. The dissenting PC walks up to the mound and pokes it with Whelm (yes, that Whelm). *POOF* a cloud of the powder wafts from the point he poked it and envelops him. A few dozen item saves later, his best magical gear (including Whelm) has been rendered permanently non-magical. A forgivable mistake - after all, he couldn't have known what it would do.
The other dwarf PC kits out the unfortunate former-wielder-of-Whelm in some spare gear. Feeling lucky, he rushes back into the room and dives into the pile of powder this time.
Needless to say, he spent the rest of his life (all two hours of it) with non-magical gear.

#3: (2e) PC party is being accosted by a large (20+) group of trolls. The party bard (with the kit that lets him show off with his weapon to intimidate enemies - not kill, just intimidate) convinces the wizard to fly him above the trolls, and then drop him in the middle of them so he can chop them up.
It rained bard for a good long while.

#4: (3e) ~15th-level/6 member PC party has to go to Skullport and hook up with the Xanathar thieves' guild to get some info.

#4a: The party walks through the portal to Skullport and ends up in a ramshackle hut, with the only door out guarded by a hill giant and his pet hellhound. The hill giant demands 100 gp per head to leave to Skullport proper. Rather than pay the easily affordable toll, the party elects to slaughter him and his little dog too.
When the skulls showed up to investigate the death of one of their guards, the PCs resist. A (overly?) nice DM was the key to surviving this pickle.

#4b: After paying the fine for killing the hill giant (~10,000 gp), the party goes to the tavern where their contact was supposedly waiting. The rogue says "Let me handle this - I know how to talk to them."
The rogue confidently walks in, idles up to the bar, and in a normal speaking voice asks the bartender "Do you know how I could get in touch with the Xanathar thieves' guild?"
The bartender just looks at him and snorts derisively.
The rogue leaves the bar dejectedly.
The paladin decides to handle things his way. He walks into the bar, party in tow, and threatens the barkeep at flaming greatsword point into revealing who is Xanathar's contact in the tavern. With shaking fingers, the barkeep points out a rat-faced gent sitting in the corner. Dudley Do-Right grabs the poor thief and drags him outside, threatening death if anyone tells what they have seen.
Outside, the paladin tells the thief "We're here for some information...give it to us!"
Needless to say, the thief provided inaccurate intel.

#4c: With most of their Skullport contacts dead/intimidated into uselessness, the party has one last avenue to gain the information they seek - a medusa who runs a statuary in Skullport.
The two barbarians decide that this time, they'll run the show. As the 'roid freaks kick in the front door of her store, the medusa runs through a door at the back and closes it behind her. The lead barbarian kicks that door in (natural 20) and it clobbers her (she was right behind it). The wizard, under the effects of iron body grabs the unfortunate medusa, with nothing but her head poking out from his massive iron fist.
Just when they could have interrogated her peacably, the axe-wielding barbarian decides that he'd better subdue her. "Flat of the blade," he exclaims, "so I'm just doing non-lethal damage. Oh...and full Power Attack, since she'll be easy to hit." One critical hit from a raging barbarian wielding an axe later (~150 hp of "non-lethal" damage), and the wizard is holding the limp form of a medusa with a flattened head.
Party returns to Waterdeep, no smarter than when they had left.

#5: (From D&D tournament last year) One encounter had the party land their ship on a desert island. In the middle of the island was a small freshwater lake. On a small rock in the center was a silver lamp, covered in dew. Rubbing the lamp frees the marid (water genie) within. His tale of woe (on a handout) ostensibly tells the PCs to use the wish granted by the marid to free him (if you've seen Aladdin you know what to do here). No less than five of the PC teams wished for something else, and had to fight him, whereupon he goes back into the lamp after being defeated. Two teams fought him twice, turning what should have been a 5-10 minute encounter into a 2-hour bloodbath. When one team tried to fight him a third time, it was time to drop some hints for them.

#6: (From D&D tournament this year) In exploring the ruined tower of a supposedly long-dead lich, the PC party discovers a room with a stone pedestal in the center. Upon the pedestal lies a very well-preserved, and very pretty, human woman. Her face has the pallor of death, but she hasn't decomposed at all. On the side of the pedestal is an inscription that informs the PCs that to wake her, someone must kiss her. The funny thing here is that two of the PCs actually get into an argument over who gets to kiss her. That being settled, the victor collects his spoils and lays a big ol' kiss on her lips...
...which wakes up the vampire monk from her sleep. Did you know vampire monks are really tough?

#7: (3e) PC party is trying to get through a drow base in the underdark. The first guardian they encounter is a gargantuan spider who makes his home in a chasm lined with webs. Only a few PCs could fly and therefore safely fight the spider from somewhere besides the narrow ledge they were walking on, and they were not doing well. The PC ranger decides that he's going to jump from the ledge onto the spider's back. He missed. One 500-foot fall later and the drow had a new body to make a zombie out of.

#8: (3e) The PC party is trying to figure out a way past a forbiddance spell cast around a castle that they want to enter. Not only is this barrier in place, but the castle is surrounded by an army of fire giants (and worse) that also wants in. The cleric, upon reading the description for find the path learns the forbiddance password and tells it to the rest of the party. The PCs charge through the giants' lines and each whispers the password as they cross through the forbiddance. The last PC to cross (the rogue) decided to holler the password loud enough for the giants to hear it.
It created a lot of extra drama, having an army of giants chasing the PCs through the castle filled with drow/undead/demons. If not for small doors, they would not have survived.

That's all I've got for now...I'm sure I'll remember more later.

WtS
 
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Back when I was just starting out playing AD&D (DMG had just gotten released a few months before) the DM let everyone have a 5th lvl char for the campaign instead of having to start off at 1st. So eagerly siezing the oportunity to wield the AWESOME might of "Fireball" and "Lightning Bolt" I ran a mage.

Went off into the dungeon where we ran into some sort of small dragon and I decided to use the MIGHTY Lightning bolt. Which since this was AD&D the Lightning Bolt, then bounced off the wall behind the dragon and hit my mage (and a good chunk of the party) knocking him unconcious. While unconcious he was murdered by one of the other party members who had wanted to try and subdue the dragon. When the party tried to raise my mage, he then of course failed his system shock roll and died for good. All in all probably the single unluckiest character I had, who was not helped by a fair amount of stupidity on my part.
 
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My girlfriend just reminded me of a few of hers.
Actually, I just didn't post them before out of fear. Send help.

#9: (2e) During our exploration of a tomb in the Mere of Dead Men, we stumbled across a room full of grandfather plaques (about 30 of them, IIRC). All that they could do was fire one magic missile each, but it was 30 of them. We weren't dead yet - then the wild mage runs to our rescue. Being fresh out of real lightning bolts, she belts out a Nahal's reckless dweomer, hoping to get a lightning bolt out of it. She rolled a 99 on the surge table - it worked!
...it also lasted for 10 minutes.
The DM figured that since lightning moves at something close to c, a 10-minute duration, 2e-style bouncing lightning bolt would incinerate everything within several miles that it didn't bounce off of.
This included the party entire (of course), a pair of big black dragons, all kinds of undead, lizardfolk...millions of XP. The wild mage had a few "if i get killed" type contingencies, any of which would have meant she gets us resurrected and we win. She blew her rolls, and we all died.
Thus was born the legend of one lone wizard wiping out the Mere of Dead Men.

#10: (3e) The 5th-level PC party was fighting a medium-sized black dragon in it's lair, an underground cavern with about 20 feet of water at the bottom.
The battle wasn't going too badly, the party spread out so as to not get decimated by the dragon's "pop out of the water, breathe, pop under the water" schtick. and had managed to do a fair bit of damage via readied spells/arrows.
The barbarian, frustrated at her lack of missile weapons, dove into the water on top of the dragon.

Rest of party and DM: :confused:
Barbarian: So can I make an attack roll, or what?
DM: ...ok, go ahead.
Barbarian: uh...AC 14?
DM: Miss. Dragon's turn...(rolls behind screen)...uh...how many hit points do you have?
Barbarian: 15 left.
DM: The rest of you are showered by barbarian parts. Thank you, come again.

#11: (2e) Wild mage fun again (forgot about this one...my stupidity this time). The wild mage was handing out strength spells before a big fight. The gnome rogue took one from her, and she wild surged...the effect was permanent!
"Hmm...I could use one of those," thought my rogue. Of course, the mage was happy to oblige. Her wild surge ended up making my teeth explode. A handy potion of regeneration before I woke up helped her convince me that it had all been a bad dream.
 

Wonko the Sane said:
Being fresh out of real lightning bolts, she belts out a Nahal's reckless dweomer, hoping to get a lightning bolt out of it. She rolled a 99 on the surge table - it worked!
...it also lasted for 10 minutes.
The DM figured that since lightning moves at something close to c, a 10-minute duration, 2e-style bouncing lightning bolt would incinerate everything within several miles that it didn't bounce off of.
This included the party entire (of course), a pair of big black dragons, all kinds of undead, lizardfolk...millions of XP.

This should spawn two more threads: "Stupidest Rules Designers have done" and "Stupidest rulings DMs have made"
 

Ok... here's a couple more.

The first one took place with my group before I joined, but we all heard of it. One of the players was playing Snaxar, a Kobold Thief-Acrobat. He was in the top of a tower and they had just defeated the enemy. In the process of the fight, a large amount of water had been spilled around the tower floor. When investigating the potions, Snaxar tasted one and suddenly his feet rose from the floor. Deciding that he could fly, he promptly jumped out of the window... After he was resurected, the others explained to him that it was a potion of waterwalking...

The otherone was with a group of PCs I was DMing. The main fighter in the group was a meglomaniac and had been ticking many of the others off. The party was heading down a long underground tunnel, when that player announced that he was going first. Another player decided that enough was enough, and his ranger said that no.. he was going to go first. This went back and forth, and soon both players declaired that they were racing down the hall to be first. The rest of the party (mage, cleric, theif) were all walking along behind at regular pace. Shortly, the two characters (making much noise in their armour) ran into a chamber that had a line of gnoll archers waiting for them. The table went quiet... the two players looked at each other, looked at me, and in unison pointed at each other and said "He was first". I couldn't have been planned better.
 

Ban was hanging by one leg from a fourth story window after having been kidnapped by arms smugglers. The party fashioned a catch-net from tied-together overalls to break his fall.

One of the characters set her blaster on 'stun' to cause Ban's body to go limp, thus making it easier for him to hit the catch-net held by two other PCs.

This had the unintended effect of causing stun damage. He fell THROUGH the catch net and absorbed just enough damage from that and the blaster shot to kill him.
 

Lalalei2001, how old are you? And how is it that your games involve so many cases of people doing or saying stupid things?

The amount of posts you have on these threads just boggles me!

Olaf the Stout
 


Diremede said:
I explained to the player that the room he was in had many torture implements and execution devices along with what appeared to be many experimental traps. Upon scanning the room I explained that on one wall was a hole just large enough that a medium size being could stick their head inside. Around the bottom of the hole was a black stain that ran to the floor.

In all seriousness his response was to stick his head in the hole to see if he could see what was on the other side.

I simply replied that there was a bright light.


lol, classic.
 

oh i have sooo many but my fav it statred by the mage soaking herself in oil to fit though a hole in the hall earler long story there but when the deathknights fireball hit her she went up in flames so there she is running a round on fire the party trys to put her out the ranger cover he in whisky "to put out the flames " we just stop then all hell broke loose the player playing the mages screams no he dosnt im laughing so hard i almost fall out my chair the others are argueing with each other over it he looks dumbfounded and then says hay whats the big deal its wet so it got to be better then nothing ....it must have been 30 mins b4 we could go on it did make the death night confused lol
 

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