Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 angelic_demon Aug 12, 2009 18:20:48	As the title suggests, a list of things that you or your mates have done that have been a complete and total screw up. Whether it be not realizing how Combat Advantage works, or accidentally spilling a drink on the game mat, this is a thread for those moments of total stupidity that happen during games. 1. The 'Pink Phantom Dungeon'. We realized that red ink doesn't come off of a battle mat when you leave it on there for a week. Despite copious amounts of scrubbing, our battle mat now has a light pink outline of a past dungeon that will never come off. 2. 3.5 Combat Advantage. For at least four years, our group thought that flanking something made it flat-footed. And yet, we always understood that Ninja's sudden strike didn't work when the enemies were flanked. It wasn't until about a year ago that we actually had to look up the specific wording, and realized that it only gives a +2 bonus to the attackers.
#2 jutter Aug 13, 2009 3:41:48	3) My very first home-made campaign in 3rd edition. All went smoothly and after 8 months of weekly sessions the party is facing the BBEG, a mature adult red dragon. Enter hold monster spell, Coup de Grace, end of campaign. Two weeks into the new campaign I remembered that 3rd edition dragons are immune to paralysis. 4) A similar (but less campaign determining) effect with a sleep spell and an elven wizard. Elves are immune to sleep-effects in 3rd edition. Needless to say that from that moment on, I took great care to study immunities in the statblocks ;)
#3 fey_feline Aug 13, 2009 13:06:05	5) 4E game, all of us were first-timers. i was DM, and had them rolling skill checks with d6s, and had no clue how to roll crits. We never used a d20.
#4 fey_feline Aug 13, 2009 15:17:36	5) 4E game, all of us were first-timers. i was DM, and had them rolling skill checks with d6s, and had no clue how to roll crits. We never used a d20. Then again, we were playing using a PHB and some idea of how to make monsters-nothing else.
#5 Enlightened1 Aug 15, 2009 10:30:19	6) Our Rogue was frustrated as heck trying to disarm a trap during a fight. He kept missing the roll by 1-2 points. Then one of us looked at him and asked, "don't your tools give you a +2?" The rogue, abashed, got out his tools and succeeded on the very next attempt. By one point. Ever since, we've been giving him a hard time about trying to pick locks with his fingers.
#6 salla Aug 15, 2009 19:12:59	This was a great tactical screwup. The party consisted of a Genasi Wizard, a Dwarven Fighter, a Razorclaw Rogue, and a Longtooth Cleric. While following a map, the rogue is scouting ahead a bit, followed by the other three. When the opponents revealed themselves, the rogue wins initiative and immediately retreats, rather than taking a shot *then* retreating (there was no surprise round, so he had time), then the party collapses into a nice, tidy 2x2 square. For the entire rest of the fight. No rogue flanking. Entire party blasted by Area attacks every round. A Level 5 party, at full HP with all Dailies and Action Points unspent, nearly TPK'd by a Level 6 encounter.
#7 kalbic Aug 16, 2009 0:38:07	Ran a game tonight (3.5). Had my players roll percentile to be hit by lightning (only on a 100) and the same player managed to be hit twice at level 2 and live. Later in the session that collapse 2 levels of a look out tower with only a 20% chance to collapse the third floor, and only 5% chance for the second floor to go down also.
#8 puppypounder Aug 16, 2009 13:53:19	This screw up was made from a horrible decision. The players discovers a flight of narrow stairs was rigged that a boulder would fall down them if you went up the steps. The Rogue, incredibly paranoid, believed that he would somehow be killed by the boulders if he tried to deactivate the trap. So, the Fighter, realizing a boulder couldn't reset itself, decided to step onto the trap, then jump out of the way of the boulder. His Dex was crap, he was wearing heavy arm, and his Ref was crap. So, he casually stepped onto the trap and was smashed by a boulder.
#9 RPJesus Aug 17, 2009 19:34:22	In a 3-4 hour session, my rogue made two stealth checks, and got a 1 on both of them (Which admittedly kinda makes sense given that he was a warforged).
#10 DanTracker Aug 30, 2009 19:39:47	a reasonable roll on a nature check alerted the party to unstable rock formations ahead in a narrow pass. so, three characters cast radiant attacks at the unstable rocks in effort to get them to fall while the party was far away. nothing happens, nothing happens, and nothing happens yet again. "send the fighter up there to knock down those rocks!" "okay, i'll go get those rocks free... should i be standing on these rocks i'm trying to knock down...too late, i'm falling!"
#11 thorn-wychkin Aug 30, 2009 19:48:01	11) Played through 2 campaigns and it wasn't until it was my turn to DM that i discovered that  there was no such thing as a retaliatory strike when one provokes and attack of opportunity. it was jsut some hjouse rule that my original DM played with so long in her previous groups that she forgot it was a hosuse rule and we never bothered to question it.   12)During my first 3rd ed campaign the DM had another house rule which she forgot was a house rule: we all believed that one could not crit with a spell
#12 mouser13 Aug 31, 2009 4:47:59	I always played add up your base attack factions and round at the end never new it wasn't the way intell it was printed has varient in Unearth arcana.   Also we never played you where flatfooted at the start of combat.
#13 bhaelfur Aug 31, 2009 17:12:53	The party was inside a small lodge type structure, and I was outside far away from a door. What did I decide to do? I used my greatsword to try and destroy the wall. I rolled a one and missed the wall completely. Thankfully, no one in game saw it. In a separate campaign, I played an elven rogue that could not disarm traps. Most of the times I tried, I would set the trap off. The funny thing is, everyt time it was a fireball trap, I'd take no damage while everyone else did. Good times.
#14 october_darkness Aug 31, 2009 19:33:13	We had another player in my group, who for some reason didn't know that Dire Boars could BullRush quite well. After being knocked off a 10 ft. cliff twice, he still seemed to think it was necessary to stand next to it. I'm the party Cleric, healing him up, watching him fall again, and wondering to myself, "WTF???".
#15 lofgren Aug 31, 2009 22:00:46	One very early game of DnD, maybe the second or third time I had ever played, I had still not gotten the hang of the polyhedrals and distinguishing them by the shape of their faces. I rolled a d12 instead of a d20 for more than half the session, with predictable results.
#16 katamar Aug 31, 2009 23:12:48	While in a dungeon fightin some bugbears, we had an interesting death. The rogue sneakily opened a door and saw in wait an ambush, then shut the door. Our bugbear barbarian decided to throw an grenade from about 10 feet away from into the next room. We tried unsuccessfully to stop him, as he through the grenade in a small hallway at a closed door...luckily his deviation roll placed it back at his feet, so only he died, but die he did. The best part is the party diplomat managed to convince the enemies that we meant to do it, and they were intimidated. This same player tends to die a lot...also only uses things from the monster manual, hence the bugbear. He has a tendency to throw the rogue out of the way when he's checking for traps, and always ends up needing me(cleric) to fix him, when he's hit by a trap. Worst part is, this can happen no matter what he is. He played a character with a wisdom modifier of 4 and still pulled this. But, he's fun to have around, being our party lacks any use for stealth, he's good at untrappin rooms.
#17 sockmonkey66 Sep 01, 2009 16:05:55	So far my only screw up was to equip my rogue with a rapier and small shield while forgetting about the proficiency rules. I still managed to hit most of the time but I'm doing much better with my simple short sword.
#18 shadow_viper Sep 01, 2009 20:03:56	Rogues have proficiency with the rapier.(well at least in 3.5, not sure about 4th.)
#19 salla Sep 02, 2009 2:07:49	Rogues have proficiency with the rapier.(well at least in 3.5, not sure about 4th.) Not in 4th (without taking a feat, of course)
#20 malkix Sep 02, 2009 2:21:59	Here's one that will make R.A. Salvatore fans, Drow Priestesses, and players in underdark campaigns take notes: don't make the DM mad when in ANY Drow House's audience chamber. Zin-Carla WILL be used, and you will die. (for those unfamiliar with Zin-Carla, I recommend the Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore)
#21 october_darkness Sep 02, 2009 12:21:52	Isn't that a ritual where they sacrifice the male's heart in the name of Lolth? Or, is it the ritual where they bring back someone as an Undead servant?
#22 PrimeSonic Sep 03, 2009 9:22:11	This is my screw up as DM: I thought shields also had enhancement bonuses. All of a sudden, our fighter was practically immune to AC and Reflex attacks unless it was against a natural 20 attack roll. I've fixed the problem since then.
#23 lofgren Sep 03, 2009 14:19:22	This is my screw up as DM: I thought shields also had enhancement bonuses. All of a sudden, our fighter was practically immune to AC and Reflex attacks unless it was against a natural 20 attack roll. I've fixed the problem since then. How did you determine what the enhancement bonus was?
#24 malkix Sep 03, 2009 22:15:12	Isn't that a ritual where they sacrifice the male's heart in the name of Lolth? Or, is it the ritual where they bring back someone as an Undead servant? The Undead Servant. Usually used to restore honor to the House whose Matron Mother summoned it.
#25 mrdoobie Sep 04, 2009 19:03:53	In one campaign, one of the players found a lamp with a genie inside of it. He rubbed the lamp and these were his wishes and the genies responses... 1) Player: I wish for a llama! Genie: So it shall be *llama appears* 2) Player: I wish I was a god! Genie: So it shall be *player becomes llama*. Congratulations, now you're the god of llamas.  And than, because that player was now a llama, he couldn't speak, so another player took his last wish.  3) Player: I wish I was a King! Genie: So it shall be *player becomes a fat Elvis Impersonater* Our DM was kind of a jerk in that campaign. He was hilarious though.
#26 tenor2ba Sep 06, 2009 20:15:54	3.5 ed game:  In a dense forest, the party comes across a t-rex that wants to eat them.  after a few rounds, the raptoran warmage (me) flys (i'm about 15ft off the ground) close to the t-rex to get off a particular spell.  Come to find out, the t-rex has enough reach to, not only bite, but to actually swallow me. That particular character was the only one i had made without a light slashing/piercing weapon, normally a dagger.  So I had no way to escape, as i failed every time i tried to cast a spell.   KFC anyone?
#27 angelic_demon Sep 06, 2009 23:03:52	One very early game of DnD, maybe the second or third time I had ever played, I had still not gotten the hang of the polyhedrals and distinguishing them by the shape of their faces. I rolled a d12 instead of a d20 for more than half the session, with predictable results. We had a player who did the same thing for the longest time, mainly because it was his first RPG and didn't know the difference between the die shapes too well. So he'd constantly have moments where he'd go: "I rolled a 12." *awkward silence* "Right, now roll a d20."
#28 herald108 Sep 18, 2009 0:54:03	This is more of a DM screwup.  Back in the days of 2e, my group used to have the occassional 24+ hour marathon games.  Mostly it was I DMing. In this particular game it was late (or early), and we were all more tired than we thought. The Scene: Pirate cave, complete with water, ledges, hanging bridges, pirates, PCs and an evil wizard. In 2e the spells had casting times (init mods).  The casters began their casting on their initiatives.  The spell was cast when the entire casting time had elasped.  Hit a caster before the spell was complete and the spell was lost (known as 'disrupting' a spell).  The evil wizard had previously cast shield on himself (immune to magic missile).  On the EW's turn, he began casting a feeblemind spell (unbeknownst to the PCs), with the party's mage as the target.  But the party mage was quicker.  He cast a magic missile at the EW.  With all that was going on, we forgot the EW had cast a shield spell.  So, the simple magic missile disrupted a potentially devastating feeblemind spell.
#29 sueil Sep 18, 2009 1:37:02	3.5 game, we were inside a temple that was being taken over by sentient evil magic. All kinds of bad stuff was going down and the party got separated. We meet back up for the most part and run into the npc cleric who was with us, he tells us the mirror is the key and we had previously found a book or something that talked into going inside the mirror. So we figured... ok we should send some people into the mirror. Turns out going inside the mirror killed you. We lost a few PC's that quest. We did manage to save the world in the end though. Same game a different time we were supposed to sneak through a sewer filled with undead during a stealth quest. My cleric was in full plate and a tower shield and had like -15 to move silently or something crazy like that. Same game we were on a mission to recover a powerful artifact in order to save our friends life from eternal damnation. We had enlisted the aid of a local queen who were were friendly with and who was a high level sorceress. We get to the dungeon at the far end of the earth and are inside, everyone is feeling she is going to betray us to steal the artifact. I then have a flashback to a time when I was in her service for a few months and had overheard a meeting between her and some mysterious figure talking about how she is going to do horrible evil things. The mysterious figure notices me and wipes my mind. So I remember this suddenly in the dungeon where the artifact is, decide to take her out in a surprise attack, go for an elder mountain hammer... barely miss knocking her into the negatives. She uses dimension door on her init, the room was warded against teleportation, and a dictum spell triggers in response. Almost everyone gets put into the negatives instantly and we only avoid being instant killed because we had a +2 LA. Again same game, my character steals an artifact book from the party(different from the artifact in the last story) and it contains all sorts of crazy powerful magic that is way beyond epic level but anyone that reads the book can learn and master. Sadly the book has a chance of making you go crazy. I read it all night and learn a few cool powers, the party notices the book is missing and comes and finds me. I fail my roll stop reading the book, they kill me to get me to stop. Finally a story that isn't me screwing up. We are on a quest to save the world and we need to get into a room that is blocked except by one door which is covered by some sort of magical ice that cannot be defeated by any means, except we think hellfire will work. We happen to have a rod that can shoot hellfire but no of us can use it because the demon lord that made it must grant you permission when you use it. So the parties sorcerer performs casts the spell that lets you contact the demon lord and is saying he will enter a soul pact with him if allowed to use the hellfire rod. The demon lord agrees and we use the rod and save the day. However it was only pointed out much later that the sorcerer was actually really stupid in doing this. Because the demon lord had no choice but to let the sorcerer use the rod because if he didn't the demon lord would be killed too when the world ended. There was never any need to enter the soulpact.