This can't turn out well... for the PCs!

[Reynard]

As a GM, I loveit when the PCs do something that sets themselves up for a difficult time of it (because i believe the fun of the game, on both sides of the screen, comes from the challenge).

Yesterday in my PFRPG Dragon's Delve campaign, the PCs

Spoiler

used the demonic idol to clear a "poltergeist" from a haunted room, without realizing that IT is now in the idol.

Now that they are carrying IT around with them, I have carte blanch to mess with them via ITs powers (at least until the figure out what is happening to them). It makes me giddy like a school-girl!

Anyway, what are some of your favorite moments when PCs did something that instigated a great deal of painful fun?

 

[CuRoi]

Stop me if I've told this one before....

Dragonlance campaign - party is behind Darconian occupied lines at Kalaman (I think I'm remembering that correctly - was many years ago.) They are doing some recon and decide to send the Ranger into a tavern in the occupied section of the city to get some intel.

Yes, the Ranger, gathering intel. The ranger who happened to really, really dislike draconians.

So, a bar fight ensues when the ranger takes exception to one of the draconians. A bar fight, was normal fare for the area really, so no red flags yet. However, when the party comes in to help out, the cleric of Mishakal casts a healing spell in plain view of the entire bar. For those of you familair with the DL campaign, you'll know whay this was a very bad idea. (Clerical power was pretty well lost on the continent and revealing yourself as a cleric of a good god was not the best idea.)

So, with their cover blown, and beat to heck, the party proceeds to allow one of the draconians to escape into the night. They then are in the now emptied out bar trying to decide what to do next. I'm not sure where the communication failure was here but the cleric decides he needs to cast an augury. The question: "Is it a good idea to spend the night here". In the bar.

The deity provided a negative answer.

They decided to spend the night there.

Having done all I could, I washed my hands and the fun ensued. A dragon, several draconians, an evil wizard and an Otilukes Resilient sphere which I allowed the party to use as a hamster ball in a crazy attempt to escape led to all but one character dying. The rest were given dumb luck rolls to survive, which one actually made.

 

[Hand of Evil]

When my players decided to throw the evil guy into the gateway he was opening...a gateway that he was opening via sacrifice!

 

[Dioltach]

I once put my players face to face with a demonic machine (or whatever it's called -- from d20 Modern). They proceeded to hack the machine to pieces, and I ruled that the demon spirit fled to their all-purpose scanner. It spent some time feeding them wrong information, until they encountered a scouting team of angels, armed with laser guns and driving a flying tank.

When the angels asked them about their scanner, which was setting off their Detect Evil alerts, they realised the demonic spirit must have hitched a ride, and proceeded to destroy the scanner. Even though it was in there because they'd destroyed the previous host.

Any DM worth his salt will know what happened next: one demonic flying tank, one group of very angry angels and one party of adventurers heading for cover at top speed. Definitely a twelve-change-of-underwear trip, to quote the Cat.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I loved when the party stuffed the body of an NPC killed by a bodak into their bag of holding to be raised later. After a few days went by, they realized that they now had a "bodak in a bag", along with all their treasure and supplies.