Unexpected Moments You Pulled On Your DM

[Maliki]

In one campaign(2nd ed) our party was sailing aboard a small ship, just the captain, hus grandaughter(about 10 years old) and the party. A day or so into the voyage a group of pirates who had snuck aboard before we sailed came on deck with the grandaughter as a hostage. Of course they demanded our surrender. He was holding a knofe to the girls throat, He claimed that all he wanted was the ship, if we surrendered and allowed ouselves to be tied, they would drop us off at a safe location.

I felt like if we surrendered we were at the pirates mercy so I(a bard) cast magic missile, two at the pirate leader and one at the kid(just to drop her). The party fighter types charge take down the pirate leader, and the cleric rushes to the kid and casts a cure spell. we mop the floor with pirates in two rounds, turn to the cleric and he informs us the kid is dead. The grandfather attacks me, has to be subdued and we land the ship near a town, Of course the kid fails the system shock roll and is dead for good. The grandfather it turns out was the major plot hook in the campaign and will have nothing to do with the party, the campaign dies the next week.

My thinking was since we used the not dead untill -10hp rule, there was no way I could slay the kid with a single magic missile. The DM says that he only uses that rule for PC's, NPCs are dead at 0.

My problem with this was three things

1 we used not dead until -10, i thought it should have applied to the NPCs as well
2 The grandfather should not have realized I hit the girl on purpose, He was a sailor and probably had no idea how magic misssile worked.
3 If this was going to destroy his campaign make the system shock succeed automatically

 

[Ourph]

An improved invisible, flying Wizard was making life hell for our group. As the only PC with the ability to see him, I was looking for a good way to help the rest of the group target the guy, as most of my major offensive spells (I was playing a Wizard) had been used up in earlier fights.

I combined spectral hand with a light spell. The DM said something along the lines of "that's a good idea, but he'll probably dispel the light so the rest of the group isn't going to be able to see him for long".

I responded, "Oh. I'm not targeting the Wizard. I'm targeting his spell component pouch." Then I told the Ftr/Bbn with the spiked chain and the Ranger with the pouch full of alchemist fire flasks to aim for the light.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

1st ed. I was playing a druid in a solo campaign. My brother was the DM.

I came across a small town filled with undead. The gates to the town were closed and locked. Call Lightning x 3 = massive x.p. for me with almost no risk.

I almost had him convinced to give me the x.p. for permanently killing the vampires; I reasoned that with their building and coffins destroyed, they'd be out in the sunlight and dead permanently. But he decided I had enough x.p. and didn't allow it.

 

[demiurge1138]

I decided to take a break from DMing for a while, so one of my players cooks up a game that combines the Forgotten Realms with some cool Airship rules that he found. Our party are a bunch of brigands and sellswords, I playing an intelligent, disguised skeleton, and we've hired passage on an airship headed for Waterdeep. During a storm, I sneak around, having overheard talk in port that the captain's a smuggler. I find his loot in his cabin. A chaos gem. Worth about as much, if not more, than his entire ship. I quickly shove it into my ribcage and sneak back.

The storm gets so severe that the ship is forced to make an emergency landing in the wilderness. I tell the rest of the party that I've stolen an item of great import, and we need to leave. The dollar signs going off in their head, they agree and we make excuses to get off the ship. That night, though, before we publically leave, I roll a Disable Device check on one of the fireball bombards, to make sure they can't shoot us from the air if they find out.

I roll a 20. The DM goggles for a bit, then accepts it.

A matter of hours later, my theft is discovered, and they start attacking us. The cannon fires. The ship explodes.

OK, the moment was more unexpected for the players, but the DM didn't expect me to find the gem, much less roll a 20 to disable the cannon.

Demiurge out.

 

[Jdvn1]

I was playing a Psion in an uber-high level game. We were all pretty powerful and the object was to prevent a BBEG from becoming a god. The way one became a god was to collect the Essence of each the planes and take them to the Great Meeting Hall of all the gods of the pantheon (Greyhawk pantheon).

So we collect the Essences in order to beat him to the chase and stop him. So we take the Essences to the GMH and are seated as we wait for the overdeity to come to mediate the meeting. It's kind of an impressive/overbearing situation. We're in this huge hall surrounded by every god in the Pantheon. Some of us are sitting next to Kord or whatever.

Well, the BBEG comes in with his own bag -- his plan was for all of us to become gods so that the evil/good balance would be sustained -- and as the GM is describing how he's walking in, I interrupt him, "-- I manifest Crisis of Breath, heightened. Then a Quickened Disintigrate. Quick, throw your spells at him, guys." The GM's mouth dropped.

 

[Kaffis]

The last 2nd Ed. AD&D campaign I played, we were low level, had just escaped an invading army, and spent weeks skirting encampments and such to be nearly clear of their lines. We stumble into a patrol that was looking for us, and is accompanied by a big bad guy (I was never clear on whether he was the BBEG or merely the really bad-*** lieutenant that was a buffer for the super-overpowering BBEG in charge) who was basically running the army. They'd gotten some scout reports on our whereabouts, and so the bad guy had come along to gloat at us in person.

We desperately fought off his horde of underlings with some clever spellage (was ensnare a 2nd ed spell? If so, that's probably what it was), and he immobilized us in order to laugh and make a getaway. I, playing a ranger, decided I was sick of his laughing and taunting. I told our DM "I want to do a called shot to his eye. I'm using the +2 arrow we stole from that encampment we snuck through to get across the bridge." He gave me a penalty to hit and told me to roll. I critted.

Normally, I don't gloat over screwing up a DM. But wow, the look on his face as he put his head in his hands and went "That's gotta kill him. Anything less and I could hand wave it away. But I'll be damned if you're getting xp for that. I'm not letting you level like 4 times off one die roll." was just .. unforgettable.