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<blockquote data-quote="fourthmensch" data-source="post: 1728559" data-attributes="member: 16723">At the risk of turning this into a contest, I've got a story of personal stupidity that can give anyone else's stupidity story a run for their money.&nbsp; It still makes me laugh when I think about it.&nbsp;&nbsp;I was running my players through a heavily modified &quot;The Black Egg&quot; from Dungeon magazine. For those unfamiliar, it involves a wizard's stronghold plummeting to earth from low orbit--a stronghold that is made of solid iron. &nbsp;&nbsp;One of my players (the one who is always thinking on his toes, looking for unusual advantages) actually did research (between sessions, that is) and discovered that ferric meteors become heavily magnetized during their descent. So he innocently asked me in the middle of the next session, &quot;So would the iron in this place be magnetized?&nbsp;&nbsp;It was kind of an off-day for me, and I didn't really think about it too hard. &quot;Sure,&quot; I said. He promptly picked up several chunks of magnetized-iron rubble.&nbsp;&nbsp;It slipped my mind that magnetized iron is a metamagic component (from UA) for a maximized chain lightning. I had no idea until they toasted a party of hardcore half-dragons and bodaks with two maximized chain lightnings. Did I mention that I failed to notice that bodaks are immune to electricity? <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh&nbsp; &nbsp; :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> After that massacre, they loaded up on all the iron they could carry.&nbsp;&nbsp;That's two bags of holding and a portable hole full of magnetized iron, conveniently packaged in small rubble-sized chunks as per the adventure text. &nbsp;&nbsp;Do you have any idea how many maximized chain lightnings that is?&nbsp;&nbsp;Neither do I. But rest assured, it is a disgustingly high number. &nbsp;&nbsp;Thankfully, my players were very cool about fixing my blunder; the one who hatched the scheme even admitted that he was just screwing with me, and wanted to see if I would say yes. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> They refrained from taking advantage of their hoard, save for a once during a suitably climactic moment, and then &quot;sold&quot; their iron to a component collector for a fraction of its market value. &nbsp;&nbsp;Bless them for their mercy on a silly DM prone to blithe answers to innocuous questions. Needless to say, now every time a player asks a question that comes a little bit from left field, I respond with, &quot;Why do you ask?&quot;<img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"&nbsp; class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid&nbsp; &nbsp; :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="fourthmensch, post: 1728559, member: 16723"] At the risk of turning this into a contest, I've got a story of personal stupidity that can give anyone else's stupidity story a run for their money. It still makes me laugh when I think about it. I was running my players through a heavily modified "The Black Egg" from Dungeon magazine. For those unfamiliar, it involves a wizard's stronghold plummeting to earth from low orbit--a stronghold that is made of solid iron. One of my players (the one who is always thinking on his toes, looking for unusual advantages) actually did research (between sessions, that is) and discovered that ferric meteors become heavily magnetized during their descent. So he innocently asked me in the middle of the next session, "So would the iron in this place be magnetized? It was kind of an off-day for me, and I didn't really think about it too hard. "Sure," I said. He promptly picked up several chunks of magnetized-iron rubble. It slipped my mind that magnetized iron is a metamagic component (from UA) for a maximized [i]chain lightning[/i]. I had no idea until they toasted a party of hardcore half-dragons and bodaks with two maximized [i]chain lightnings[/i]. Did I mention that I failed to notice that bodaks are immune to electricity? :heh: After that massacre, they loaded up on all the iron they could carry. That's two [i]bags of holding[/i] and a [i]portable hole[/i] full of magnetized iron, conveniently packaged in small rubble-sized chunks as per the adventure text. Do you have any idea how many maximized [i]chain lightnings[/i] that is? Neither do I. But rest assured, it is a disgustingly high number. Thankfully, my players were very cool about fixing my blunder; the one who hatched the scheme even admitted that he was just screwing with me, and wanted to see if I would say yes. :) They refrained from taking advantage of their hoard, save for a once during a suitably climactic moment, and then "sold" their iron to a component collector for a fraction of its market value. Bless them for their mercy on a silly DM prone to blithe answers to innocuous questions. Needless to say, now every time a player asks a question that comes a little bit from left field, I respond with, "Why do you ask?":uhoh: [/QUOTE]

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