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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JeffK1966" data-source="post: 213660" data-attributes="member: 4662">Re: stupid playersOK, back in 2E days, we were playing a long term, heroic campaign in Kalamar and were attempting to save the world from a coming Apocalypse.  This story involves the same person that boxed the rust monster with his gauntlets of ogre power, but this was a regular by-the-book D&D campaign.Our PCs had just survived the first part of the campaign and had gotten up to around 4th or 5th level.  The next part of our journey was a long journey to another nation.  We had to take a ship for about 6 weeks to arrive at our destination, assuming no problems along the way.Along the shipboard journey, we were to escort a beautiful, charismatic elven princess who was leading a part of the rebellion against the evil Kalamaran Empire.One evening, most of the PCs were asleep on what had been a generally uneventful journey - other than our party thief conning a few pirates out of some coin a week or two earlier on a stop over.   Hey, he got with some fantastic dice rolling – three straight rolls of at least 18, if I recall.But, the alarm went up that we were being attacked by “Sea Devils” sailor slang for Sahuagin.  Since we were asleep, the DM ruled that those that made a CON check could act on the next round, while those who failed it had to wait until the following round.In the mad scramble, the DM said the first wave of PCs and sailors would randomly go up any of three hatches in the deck.  The elven princess, who was also a 2nd or 3rd level enchantress (low hit points!), and the party’s 5th level human fighter (good hit points!) heroically made their CON checks and scrambled up the front hatch together by themselves.  They were confronted by six spear wielding sahuagin.So, you would normally think a brave fighter on a mission to protect/escort a beautiful elven princess would charge the sahuagin in an attempt to draw the attacks?  Or maybe, he steps in front of her to shield her while she casts a spell?  Maybe he even pushes her down so incoming spears won’t hit her?None of those heroic actions.  He turns tail and jumps back down the hatch, leaving the princess’ cheese in the wind.  Jumps, mind you.But wait – there’s more.  While he was jumping, the PCs that acted in the 2nd round were starting to scramble up the ladder towards the hatch.  Of course, he fails his DEX check while crashing down the hole and slams into the oncoming cleric and rogue and a couple of sailors, who fail their DEX checks and they all land in a heap at the bottom of the boat, simple prey for a sahuagin net.So, what should have been a tough, but winnable battle turned into a bloodbath.  Most of the sailors were killed and the PCs were down spells and a lot of hit points.This left us easy prey for the angry pirates who had been shadowing us since our thief conned them out of some coin…After that, we made up an out of game song after Marcus Cole (the PC’s name)… “Marcus Cole, Marcus Cole, halfway down the hidey hole.”The best thing was that the woman playing the elven princess had just started in our group and was too polite to call out his cowardice in front of the group in game.  And, since it was a mad scramble, nobody else in the group knew anything in game.</blockquote>

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