BlueBlackRed
Explorer
Psychic Warrior said:
Sounds like an appropriate reward for the actions to me.
The D&D Darwin Awards.
- Thread starter BlueBlackRed
- Start date
Sounds like an appropriate reward for the actions to me.
Turanil
First Post
I have always been known as a lenient and benevolent DM. Very rarely do I kill a character, and this one was my only TPK. The dungeon had been made so the characters could kill the orc priest. What I believed was that they would discreetly close the double door while the orc priest was in prayer (turned toward the statue and praying eyes shut), then attack him without risk of the miners coming to help their leader. Unfortunately they acted stupid, without any pecaution, without looking beyond the great double door, etc.; plus they killed the miners so the orc priest was really angered! (Hey! Orcs need much less motivation to kill anything that moves!).Psychic Warrior said:
More resently I killed 2 PCs and captured a 3rd like this:
a group of four 9th/10th level enter a monastery of assassins. They KNOW this is a monastery of monks-assassins, from a previous adventure. So they enter, and at some point there is a large scale battle between them and the monks. The two big warriors (actually a barbarian and a monk) are fighting with their back to a door, and behind them the gnome sorcerer. Since basic monks are 4th level, they hold the place and suffer few damage. Note that the players see me openly making count of rounds as the combat proceeds! The gnome says: "Oh finally, no need I waste a Stoneskin with such mooks, just let the monk and the barbarian finish them..."
So, at one point I have got enough rounds of combat so the senior monk-assassins had (1) cast Invisibility, (2) cast spider climb, (3) crawled onto the ceiling until being above the PC, (4) observe the PCs for three rounds, (5) cast True strike, (6) and then fall on them and perform their death attack. Two PCs dead, and the barbarian captured. No players complained, they agreed they had actd stupidly. I was not happy either as this did put an end to my last D&D campaign.
BlackMoria
First Post
Our party had a total adventure kill. Yep, not TPK.....a total adventure kill. Read on.
The adventure was Return to White Plume Mountain.
There is a room in the dungeon with magical (near artifact) windows that look into the heart of a volcano. The party had entered said room and had a battle with several magma elementals and some other stuff. They were successful in defeating them. Then for whatever reason, the party takes a brain dump, except for the party wizard. They willing allow themselves to be taken one by one into another room with one of the false Keraptis and each is subsumed in turn.
The wizard doesn't accept, so the first order by the false Keraptis to his new minions is to seize the wizard and forcefully submit him to the subsumation ceremony. The wizard very quickly figures what is happening and realizes that the rest of this party (well armed with magical items) is about to attack him. Thinking that a Mordenkainen's Disjunction would help get the party back to normal, the wizard casts it from a scroll.
The first consequence is all the other party members magic items went bye bye.
The second consequence is that the magical windows were all the in the area of effect.
Five of the 8 windows failed the save. The adventure mentions the consequence in the highly unlikely event that one of the windows is destroyed. The super heated gases and lava spill in and do 20d6 per round to everything.
TPK...and more. The party had gone through most of the dungeon by that point and noone had stated that they were closing doors. So I traced the path the gases and lava would flow and it affected over 3/4 of the dungeon. Those sections of the dungeon that didn't have the deadly gases or lava in them were effectively cut off from escape to the outside, meaning the creatures in them would die in due time.
In short, the wizard took the entire party out, himself, and almost the entire dungeon with that ill considered spell.
The good news was (if you can consider it good news) the volcano effectively stopped the plans of the false Keraptis. The threat was averted....but not in a way that the party expected.
The adventure was Return to White Plume Mountain.
There is a room in the dungeon with magical (near artifact) windows that look into the heart of a volcano. The party had entered said room and had a battle with several magma elementals and some other stuff. They were successful in defeating them. Then for whatever reason, the party takes a brain dump, except for the party wizard. They willing allow themselves to be taken one by one into another room with one of the false Keraptis and each is subsumed in turn.
The wizard doesn't accept, so the first order by the false Keraptis to his new minions is to seize the wizard and forcefully submit him to the subsumation ceremony. The wizard very quickly figures what is happening and realizes that the rest of this party (well armed with magical items) is about to attack him. Thinking that a Mordenkainen's Disjunction would help get the party back to normal, the wizard casts it from a scroll.
The first consequence is all the other party members magic items went bye bye.
The second consequence is that the magical windows were all the in the area of effect.
Five of the 8 windows failed the save. The adventure mentions the consequence in the highly unlikely event that one of the windows is destroyed. The super heated gases and lava spill in and do 20d6 per round to everything.
TPK...and more. The party had gone through most of the dungeon by that point and noone had stated that they were closing doors. So I traced the path the gases and lava would flow and it affected over 3/4 of the dungeon. Those sections of the dungeon that didn't have the deadly gases or lava in them were effectively cut off from escape to the outside, meaning the creatures in them would die in due time.
In short, the wizard took the entire party out, himself, and almost the entire dungeon with that ill considered spell.
The good news was (if you can consider it good news) the volcano effectively stopped the plans of the false Keraptis. The threat was averted....but not in a way that the party expected.
Korin Tempest
First Post
Spelunking at Skullcap
Back during 2e, we played a Dragonlance classics campaign.. we'd gotten into Skullcap, got to the destroyed spiral staircase, the party started climbing down.. being impatient and figured it would be highly unlikely that i'd make all the strength checks required, I jumped out in the open stairwell, muttered pveather fall and floated down the bottom safely...
I was immediately taken down by the pair of skeletal warrior guardians that were lying in wait at the bottom of the stairs..
Back during 2e, we played a Dragonlance classics campaign.. we'd gotten into Skullcap, got to the destroyed spiral staircase, the party started climbing down.. being impatient and figured it would be highly unlikely that i'd make all the strength checks required, I jumped out in the open stairwell, muttered pveather fall and floated down the bottom safely...
I was immediately taken down by the pair of skeletal warrior guardians that were lying in wait at the bottom of the stairs..
spacemonkey
Official ENworld Space Monkey
I've to two of these situations that come to mind, both from the same player:
1) The PCs are about 15th level, in a massive dungeon. They go for the head on assault, and so they are surrounded by about 10 fairly hardy enemies - or at least the cleric is (battle cleric build, pretty tough, decent fighter) as the mage is shapechanged into a pixie and floating invisibly nearby.
The cleric wades into battle, but the wizard (evoker type, lots of straight damage spells) is getting restless as he doesn't have anything handy to zap the baddies with that won't also get the cleric (lots of statues in the way, etc). The wiz player starts whining...
The cleric's player, always the metagamer, tells him that he should just lay a fireball down, centered right on his character. It will help whittle down the enemies (he's feeling their blades now, even with his uuber munchkined AC, as they are using flanking and aid another) and he can take it, especially with his ring of fire resistance. Wiz player says no, its too dangerous, they argue for a little bit, finally the cleric's player is shouting at the top of his lungs: "Just Do it! I AM INVINCIBLE! Nothin can harm me! (not a direct quote, but quite accurate - also note that the PLAYER was actually screaming this, at my friend's house, at like midnight on a Wednesday, with his parent's sleeping down the hall - luckily they were cool about such things, as long as they weren't too frequent
So the wiz lays down a fireball, with the words: 'maximized is all I got though, I already used my other ones up'. The cleric player seems a little worried, but figures he is still ok. He rolls his save (quite a high bonus as well) - fails agains the evoker's specialized class. Ok, he says "Not to worry, I've still got my ring of fire resistance" - I then inform him it only soaks 5 damage per round... which he knew but didn't seem to remember. Cleric-boy then says "Oh well, guess I'll take some damage then. What's that do, like 30 points or something?" He is informed that the 15th level evoker specialist with his maximized fireball does double that damage, and promptly realizes his buddy just napalmed him to death. He was quite upset, especially as everyone else at the table was bustin' out laughing
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2) This player's next character is a sorcerer. A half-orc sorcerer who specializes in buffing spells. He transforms himself into a fire giant, casts all sorts of buff spells and plays as a fighter, basically. Interesting concept really, but it has its weaknesses, as will be seen...
On to the next dungeon. The baddies know they are coming (this group was never quiet or sneaky - not their style). One of the main henchmen is a decently powerful wizard, and he calls his burly bodyguards as soon as he finds out the party is coming. Half-orc/fire giant sorcerer is on point, comes to the entrance to a large room, sees the bodyguards standing like a guantlet before the wiz-baddie and decides to charge. Combat initiated, he rolls initiative after the wizard and his bodyguards. Player #1 starts pulling out a magic item or something, Big baddie wiz starts casting a spell, bodyguards take defensive stances (obviously readying for something, probably the first PC stupid enough to approach...). all PC spellcasters (most of the party) fail their spellcraft checks to determine the specific spell bieng cast by the baddie. Half-orc/fire giant's turn: he charges.
He charges forward, trying to go straight through the gauntley and take out the evil wiz in one shot (had a decent chance too, actually - with his current condition/weapons/etc). As soon as he gets even with the first 2 bodyguards, his fire-giant self shrinks to a half-orc. His buffs go poof. His oversized sword seems mighty heavy and unwieldy. All 4 bodyguards commence whaling on him, killing him quite quickly.
The evil wiz had cast antimagic field. He figured, I'm fighting mostly spell casters, so if I remove the magic equation then my beefy guard can shred them up. The fact that the character who charged first was based almost entirely on buffs just magnified the outcome (and quite hilariously). We had pretty much all forgotten that the character was a half-orc in the first place (it had been like 15 sessions since he had been anything but his favorite fire-giant shape) - and imagining the look on the character's face (coupled with the actual look on the player's face) was just priceless. We still rib him about this one to this day. In face, I think I'll go do that now.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
1) The PCs are about 15th level, in a massive dungeon. They go for the head on assault, and so they are surrounded by about 10 fairly hardy enemies - or at least the cleric is (battle cleric build, pretty tough, decent fighter) as the mage is shapechanged into a pixie and floating invisibly nearby.
The cleric wades into battle, but the wizard (evoker type, lots of straight damage spells) is getting restless as he doesn't have anything handy to zap the baddies with that won't also get the cleric (lots of statues in the way, etc). The wiz player starts whining...
The cleric's player, always the metagamer, tells him that he should just lay a fireball down, centered right on his character. It will help whittle down the enemies (he's feeling their blades now, even with his uuber munchkined AC, as they are using flanking and aid another) and he can take it, especially with his ring of fire resistance. Wiz player says no, its too dangerous, they argue for a little bit, finally the cleric's player is shouting at the top of his lungs: "Just Do it! I AM INVINCIBLE! Nothin can harm me! (not a direct quote, but quite accurate - also note that the PLAYER was actually screaming this, at my friend's house, at like midnight on a Wednesday, with his parent's sleeping down the hall - luckily they were cool about such things, as long as they weren't too frequent
So the wiz lays down a fireball, with the words: 'maximized is all I got though, I already used my other ones up'. The cleric player seems a little worried, but figures he is still ok. He rolls his save (quite a high bonus as well) - fails agains the evoker's specialized class. Ok, he says "Not to worry, I've still got my ring of fire resistance" - I then inform him it only soaks 5 damage per round... which he knew but didn't seem to remember. Cleric-boy then says "Oh well, guess I'll take some damage then. What's that do, like 30 points or something?" He is informed that the 15th level evoker specialist with his maximized fireball does double that damage, and promptly realizes his buddy just napalmed him to death. He was quite upset, especially as everyone else at the table was bustin' out laughing
----------
2) This player's next character is a sorcerer. A half-orc sorcerer who specializes in buffing spells. He transforms himself into a fire giant, casts all sorts of buff spells and plays as a fighter, basically. Interesting concept really, but it has its weaknesses, as will be seen...
On to the next dungeon. The baddies know they are coming (this group was never quiet or sneaky - not their style). One of the main henchmen is a decently powerful wizard, and he calls his burly bodyguards as soon as he finds out the party is coming. Half-orc/fire giant sorcerer is on point, comes to the entrance to a large room, sees the bodyguards standing like a guantlet before the wiz-baddie and decides to charge. Combat initiated, he rolls initiative after the wizard and his bodyguards. Player #1 starts pulling out a magic item or something, Big baddie wiz starts casting a spell, bodyguards take defensive stances (obviously readying for something, probably the first PC stupid enough to approach...). all PC spellcasters (most of the party) fail their spellcraft checks to determine the specific spell bieng cast by the baddie. Half-orc/fire giant's turn: he charges.
He charges forward, trying to go straight through the gauntley and take out the evil wiz in one shot (had a decent chance too, actually - with his current condition/weapons/etc). As soon as he gets even with the first 2 bodyguards, his fire-giant self shrinks to a half-orc. His buffs go poof. His oversized sword seems mighty heavy and unwieldy. All 4 bodyguards commence whaling on him, killing him quite quickly.
The evil wiz had cast antimagic field. He figured, I'm fighting mostly spell casters, so if I remove the magic equation then my beefy guard can shred them up. The fact that the character who charged first was based almost entirely on buffs just magnified the outcome (and quite hilariously). We had pretty much all forgotten that the character was a half-orc in the first place (it had been like 15 sessions since he had been anything but his favorite fire-giant shape) - and imagining the look on the character's face (coupled with the actual look on the player's face) was just priceless. We still rib him about this one to this day. In face, I think I'll go do that now.
master0fdungeons
First Post
I was DMing a group that battled a medium sized blue dragon and managed to knock it down to low hp at which point the dragon flew off (AoO brought it to under 10 hp) The fighter (who himself was at 1 hp) screams at the mage to polymoph him into a blue dragon himself to chase it down. At the dragon's turn each round, the player was within 50' of the dragon before it flew on. Finally, it just turned and let loose a lightning bolt before flying on. Poor fighter lost must more than his only remaining hit point, plumetted to the ground far below, and died. They were so far from the rest of the group, the dragon flew down and tore up the body, shreaded his clothing (and magical cloak) and stole all the gear he could carry.
Swedish Chef
Adventurer
Back in the 2nd Ed. days, I was running a conversion of H1 Bloodstone. I had warned the characters ahead of time that I was going to run it as it was written, IE very tough. They all "pooh-pooh'ed" that and off we went.
The mage, for some reason, suspected the local Cleric of being up to no good (he was right, but couldn't prove it), so decided to investigate.
All by himself.
Without telling the party.
He had a Staff of Power (character's were created at 18th level, with something like 75,000xp worth of Magic Items). He polymorphed into a snake and slithered into a rat hole into the church. The cleric, of course, is really a vampire. Who has lots of local RATS under his control. Who promptly inform him that a Boa Constrictor is invading the church. The vampire, of course, orders the rats to attack and has a human slave go searching for the snake. Now, a boa constrictor in a rat hole is not going to move very far or very fast. And, the mage had used his "mammal" form to sneak throw the town as a dog. His only shape left was Avian, and it wouldn't help any.
So, the rats attack. He eats the first one, but can't touch the ones biting his tail. And, of course, he can only swallow so fast, so the next one at his head is biting his head. And, part of his body is exposed through a rat hole in the wall, so the human slave is poking him with a dagger.
Needless to say, he died. Then, of course, the spell expired. While he was still in the rat hole. His body and equipment couldn't expand outward enough for obvious physical reasons, so he rolled savings throw vs crushing blow for his items. Staff of Power - failed.
The party never did learn what happened to the mage or why the church blew up, but at least the vampire was no longer feeding information to the invading army.
The mage, for some reason, suspected the local Cleric of being up to no good (he was right, but couldn't prove it), so decided to investigate.
All by himself.
Without telling the party.
He had a Staff of Power (character's were created at 18th level, with something like 75,000xp worth of Magic Items). He polymorphed into a snake and slithered into a rat hole into the church. The cleric, of course, is really a vampire. Who has lots of local RATS under his control. Who promptly inform him that a Boa Constrictor is invading the church. The vampire, of course, orders the rats to attack and has a human slave go searching for the snake. Now, a boa constrictor in a rat hole is not going to move very far or very fast. And, the mage had used his "mammal" form to sneak throw the town as a dog. His only shape left was Avian, and it wouldn't help any.
So, the rats attack. He eats the first one, but can't touch the ones biting his tail. And, of course, he can only swallow so fast, so the next one at his head is biting his head. And, part of his body is exposed through a rat hole in the wall, so the human slave is poking him with a dagger.
Needless to say, he died. Then, of course, the spell expired. While he was still in the rat hole. His body and equipment couldn't expand outward enough for obvious physical reasons, so he rolled savings throw vs crushing blow for his items. Staff of Power - failed.
The party never did learn what happened to the mage or why the church blew up, but at least the vampire was no longer feeding information to the invading army.
Ogre Mage
Hero
Darwin Awards
We have a player who ....
1. Was fighting a huge earth elemental and got disarmed. This non-monk character promptly tried to pimp slap the earth elemental (unarmed attack). He was killed by the attack of opportunity.
2. Ran a sorceress who ran right in front of an iron golem and tried to cast burning hands. She was killed by the attack of opportunity.
3. Ran a ranger who ate a zombie foot, then ran off alone in the middle of the night in THE RUINS OF MYTH DRANNOR!!! He was killed by a random encounter. Pehaps his mind was corrupted by eating a zombie foot.
We have a player who ....
1. Was fighting a huge earth elemental and got disarmed. This non-monk character promptly tried to pimp slap the earth elemental (unarmed attack). He was killed by the attack of opportunity.
2. Ran a sorceress who ran right in front of an iron golem and tried to cast burning hands. She was killed by the attack of opportunity.
3. Ran a ranger who ate a zombie foot, then ran off alone in the middle of the night in THE RUINS OF MYTH DRANNOR!!! He was killed by a random encounter. Pehaps his mind was corrupted by eating a zombie foot.
