the accidental rat bastard.

[alsih2o]

i had a terribly mean encounter planned for my players. a grell would attack while they were chest deep in water and they only had 3 rounds before a bunch of baddies showed up (schistites, can't explain them yet, the players may face them soon though).

while waiting to get to this the party came upon a small diversion. a pressure plate that cause a cave-in, with a pit trap on the other side.

3 party members were unconcious and it was nearly the end of the party dealing with thsi pit trap. the first character (a rogue, mikey 6990) tries to step over the pressure plate and falls in. a second character (barb, stone angel) tries to jump it to save him and slams head first into the pit. the cleric (buttercup) tries too and almost ends up like a bug on a windshield. normally my party handles things very well, and normally they do not metagame badly at all, but here i was with a simple diversion almost slaying the party outright. i was laughing so hard it hurt, this was supposed to be 3 inutes to let the party know they were in a rough place and it took almost the whole session and probably 75% of their resources.

anyone else have a non-rbdm maneuver almost wipe their party?

 

[Belen]

Oh no! Poor buttercup.

Actually, my players had some really funny instances where they almost bit the bullet.

Vortex Trap: The players were at the end of a long tunnel/ secret entrance into a supply depot for an invading army. They came upon a pool and, of course, they all jumped in without a moments notice. While swimming down, they felt this pulling sensation. Before they could be dragged down, the monk pulls out a immovable rod and the entire party then hangs on to the monk.

So while trying to think of a solution, the monk decided to let go (after giving the rest of the party another rod to hold on too. He was pulled to the bottom of the pool and was having the very life sucked out of him (10d6/round). So, of course, the cleric decides to join him for moral support.

With both the cleric and monk flat against the bottom, the mage was able to swim up (3 rounds), get to the surface, cast dimension door, then wall of force in order to save their lives. They were both 16th level at the time and in single digits hitpoints.

I just couldn't believe they all jumped in together!

Dave

 

[Maldur]

This is why I love the unpredictability of dice

 

[Nightfall]

Same here Maldur. But I also like character deaths. Reminds PCs they aren't the center of everything at times.

 

[Piratecat]

I once decided that I wanted a nice, simple one-session dungeon; nothing too tricky, so I designed a complex with three rooms. THREE ROOMS.

It took them two and a half sessions, and the difficulties they made for themselves were astonishing. Sob.

On a more rat-bastardly level, I recently almost killed an 18th lvl PC with a simple suggestion spell. It turns out that suggesting "you can swim and breath water, and should do so!" to someone in heavy armor can be very, very deadly. The other PCs didn't react quickly, and the PC was one initiative count from drowning when he was saved... using up the reserve healing in the process. Not what I expected!

 

[Maldur]

Like the general said: "No battleplan survives contact with the enemy".

 

[Nightfall]

Or as another wise man said "Know your enemy. Know yourself. And know what the heck you are doing!"