Stupidest move your DM has ever had to bail the party out of?

[TuggyNE]

So, in one of the first sessions of D&D I played, we were level 2 and going through a sewer system that had gotten infested with undead, giant insects, and (intelligent) spiders, and also stopped working for whatever reason (). We came upon some clues to the identity and goals of the necromancers responsible, and managed to plow our way past various traps into a chamber in which they were conducting a ritual. We see a couple of black-robed dudes with e.g. scythes, skull-topped staffs, that kind of thing, a few zombie minions, and ... a skeletal creature with a lot of eyestalks.

"Charge!"

At this point, the DM is probably facepalming inside, but he managed to hold it together; the doomsphere hit us with, I dunno, hold person or something similarly innocuous, and basically started floating away to let its underlings take care of us. I, playing a halfling ranger, was not satisfied with this, and fired a couple more shots at it. It hit me with inflict serious wounds or something, gloated a bit, and kept moving away. (At which point we had a more or less difficult fight with the remaining foes, since we couldn't catch the doomsphere any more at all, no matter how suicidally overconfident we might be.)

Anybody have awesome stories of the crazy stuff your DM has had to deal with?

[kardar233]

So, in one of the first sessions of D&D I played, we were level 2 and going through a sewer system that had gotten infested with undead, giant insects, and (intelligent) spiders, and also stopped working for whatever reason (). We came upon some clues to the identity and goals of the necromancers responsible, and managed to plow our way past various traps into a chamber in which they were conducting a ritual. We see a couple of black-robed dudes with e.g. scythes, skull-topped staffs, that kind of thing, a few zombie minions, and ... a skeletal creature with a lot of eyestalks.

"Charge!"

At this point, the DM is probably facepalming inside, but he managed to hold it together; the doomsphere hit us with, I dunno, hold person or something similarly innocuous, and basically started floating away to let its underlings take care of us. I, playing a halfling ranger, was not satisfied with this, and fired a couple more shots at it. It hit me with inflict serious wounds or something, gloated a bit, and kept moving away. (At which point we had a more or less difficult fight with the remaining foes, since we couldn't catch the doomsphere any more at all, no matter how suicidally overconfident we might be.)

Anybody have awesome stories of the crazy stuff your DM has had to deal with?

My DM had to bail my friend's character (a noble who's a skilled swordsman and a decent earth mage) out of a fight against an ancient nearly unkillable swordmaster who was wielding the sword of a god. The same player tried the same fight again later, trying to gas the guy with chemical weapons. He wasn't really saveable that time; hoist by his own petard.

[Jane_Smith]

Level 3 group of four players that had wasted most of there abilities fighting group of armored goblins and a shaman, a barbarian in our party had the idea to make the party wizard cast enlarge person (his last spell) on him while he went into a rage, and turned around to flying kick a IRON GOLEM off the bridge they were on to slow it down while they tried to escape. The fun thing is, he rolled a nat 20 on the bullrush check and managed to pull it off.

[Badgerish]

well, my 4ed party (including a lawful good paladin) did join an evil (masquerading as neutral) cult once...

They shocked me by agreeing to join the cult and agreeing to do whatever the higher-ranking members ordered them to; so I brought out my secret weapon, something that no adventurers would ever do: asked them to remove their weapons, armour and equipment and put it in a chest (guarded by a giant).

... they agreed.

So I took a 5 min break, drew the inner-sanctum and ad-hoced a suitable speech about the cult's goals. When the group realised that the cult leaders where two Medusa and an Oni (and they where unarmed and dressed in robes) that's when they realised the extent of their situation.

[DigoDragon]

Anybody have awesome stories of the crazy stuff your DM has had to deal with?

Awesome? No.

Bone-headed? Yes.


The PCs were exploring an abandoned palace built by dragons. They found one chamber that was a long hallway that ended in a 30-foot pit into nothingness. True Nothingness, as I even strongly hinted that it was as if there was a "black hole" at the bottom. Four of the six players jumped in thinking it was the way to the treasure vault.

It was a Sphere of Annihilation at the bottom.

2/3rds of the party essentially jumped into a dragon toilet and vaporized themselves. I bailed them, letting the party redo their last action so they could stop themselves from falling all the way and wouldn't die in a move that would make Gygax laugh in his grave.
Charged the four PCs 50% of their earned EXP for that specific dungeon though.

[Squark]

Awesome? No.

Bone-headed? Yes.


The PCs were exploring an abandoned palace built by dragons. They found one chamber that was a long hallway that ended in a 30-foot pit into nothingness. True Nothingness, as I even strongly hinted that it was as if there was a "black hole" at the bottom. Four of the six players jumped in thinking it was the way to the treasure vault.

It was a Sphere of Annihilation at the bottom.

2/3rds of the party essentially jumped into a dragon toilet and vaporized themselves. I bailed them, letting the party redo their last action so they could stop themselves from falling all the way and wouldn't die in a move that would make Gygax laugh in his grave.
Charged the four PCs 50% of their earned EXP for that specific dungeon though.

You know, Tomb Of Horrors really ought to be required reading for players.

[Erik Vale]

The PCs were exploring an abandoned palace built by dragons. They found one chamber that was a long hallway that ended in a 30-foot pit into nothingness. True Nothingness, as I even strongly hinted that it was as if there was a "black hole" at the bottom. Four of the six players jumped in thinking it was the way to the treasure vault.

It was a Sphere of Annihilation at the bottom.

2/3rds of the party essentially jumped into a dragon toilet and vaporized themselves.

Good thing they removed themselves from the genepool I would say.

I play Heroes myself and with a couple of the worse players he has enforced certain disadvantages and stat limits based on actions such as this (On a marginally lesser scale though).

[Acanous]

Recently?
Well, my lv 12 party was running through Rappan Athuk, and decided to split up. 3 players went down to layer 10, to try and steal the golden bridge, while two went to layer 9-b to see what was there for the taking. Upon finding the hanging door, (and the rogue being unable to open it), the monk uses Greater Teleport to "The other side of that door" to try opening it from the other side.

So the monk's stranded in the Etherial plane, the Rogue's by himself in an area nobody else in the party knows how to reach, and fighting nothing but undead, while the melee is off taking fire damage/minute. Oh, and then they fought the efreets.

The Rogue eventually triggered the Temporal Stasis trap (Which was a little unfair, that "DC: Impossible" when he's so trap-focused) (So I made it only last a week) but yeah. I'm pulling all KINDS of things out of my bottom trying to save them from TPKs.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Our DM allowed us to blow up kegs to kill 250 gang members in a 50 square floor bar. Yes it defies the law of physics and geometry.

It was an extraction mission, the NPC didn't know who we were so we dressed up as police officers to try and have some face, not realizing the bar was filled with gangmembers.

Also our charismatic Faceman decided to guard the front door, for some reason. In fact the three least charismatic players were talking with the NPC. After a dozen failed diplomacy and bluff checks, the gunman decided to take the NPC hostage. Everyone in the bar targeted them.

If it wasn't for two of us being in the basement with crap ton of kegs(and DM fudging physics), we would have TPK'd. The Bar was on fire by the end.

[Alleran]

The party was foolish enough to, in the middle of the king's throne room, in front of a hundred others (some armed, some not), and a couple dozen royal guards, accuse the queen of being a vampire and attempt to stake her. In front of everybody, mind you. They assumed (and I have no idea why to this day - they admit themselves that it was a stupid idea at the time and they don't know why they thought it was a good idea) that the queen would die and everybody would be happy.

As it turned out, the king was the vampire (his royal signet was a "daylight ring" that allowed him to walk around in the sunlight), his wife simply suffered from a disease that made her unable to tolerate sunlight, and the party was executed where they stood for attempted regicide.

Stepping in, I had the "court druid" (the nobility and royal family didn't trust mages and had laws against them) later reincarnate them and toss them through a portal to the other side of the world, telling them to never come back if they valued their lives (they had died once as punishment and were trapped in new bodies... hilariously, the dwarf became an elf, one of the elves became a dwarf, one of the elves became a drow, and the two humans became a goblin and a half-orc). It was something of a deus ex machina, but I figured giving them a fresh start on the other side of the campaign world would be easier than rolling up new characters.

[shadow_archmagi]

The thing about a lot of these stories is that it's kinda unfair to call them stupid moves- A lot of them are just uninformed. If the party has hereto only encountered skeletons that were extremely weak, there's no reason for them to assume that a doomsphere is eight orders of magnitude more powerful than they are.

A lot of these are just "Ha! We had no way of realizing that our choices wouldn't yield good results."

[Lentrax]

The thing about a lot of these stories is that it's kinda unfair to call them stupid moves- A lot of them are just uninformed. If the party has hereto only encountered skeletons that were extremely weak, there's no reason for them to assume that a doomsphere is eight orders of magnitude more powerful than they are.

A lot of these are just "Ha! We had no way of realizing that our choices wouldn't yield good results."

You want a really dumb move? Try this out...

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. We are five minutes into the first session. The rogue decides, "I wanna kill that guy right there."

That guy, as it turns out was the Captain of the guard.

Cue an hour of running through city streets, hide checks, and a bottle of air in the river.

[Squark]

So, there's

a) Overconfidence/Misinformation, where the party (most likely because the DM did not succeed in communicating that the intent was for the party not to engage in a fight),
b) Suicidal Overconfidance, a variant of a) in which the DM was quite clear that starting a fight would end in death, and
c) Genuinely stupid actions (The sphere of annihilation garbage dump jump, for instance, or Stupid Evil random killings)

[Sipex]

In my 4e avatar game the party just about blew themselves up when the party mechanic severely failed his disarm roll.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it was only one bomb but the PCs had managed to drag three bombs into the same area, within blasting distance of one another.

They only lived because the mechanic had a re-roll at his disposal.

[scurv]

Slightly of topic, But so in the spirit.
I told the party that I was running a human-centric world. Not one human in the group. For that matter not even any halflings or elfs. But it makes it fun at least.

The bail out. The party is not kill on sight.

[Acanous]

So, there's

a) Overconfidence/Misinformation, where the party (most likely because the DM did not succeed in communicating that the intent was for the party not to engage in a fight),
b) Suicidal Overconfidance, a variant of a) in which the DM was quite clear that starting a fight would end in death, and
c) Genuinely stupid actions (The sphere of annihilation garbage dump jump, for instance, or Stupid Evil random killings)

Hey now, *My* party split up, in a dungeon full of traps and environmental hazards, with no way to contact eachother. On level 9 of said dungeon, so it's not like they didn't know there'd be bad stuff around.

[TuggyNE]

So, there's

a) Overconfidence/Misinformation, where the party (most likely because the DM did not succeed in communicating that the intent was for the party not to engage in a fight),
b) Suicidal Overconfidance, a variant of a) in which the DM was quite clear that starting a fight would end in death, and
c) Genuinely stupid actions (The sphere of annihilation garbage dump jump, for instance, or Stupid Evil random killings)

Heh, pretty much, yeah.

In my DM's defense, all of us were pretty new to the game, and I don't think any of us knew, in or out of character, what a beholder really was....

[Trinoya]

I had a case years ago when I was DMing. Had the entire party waltzing about through time and space as it were. There had been hints of this 'big bad horrible thing' that could 'kill them without trying' roaming around the world. It was described to them as something that couldn't outright attack them at any point or any location.. as if there were rules.

They were then told, very specifically, very clearly, in the most well laid out way I could possibly manage, that if they "Stay at this Inn, they will DIE HORRIBLY."

Not ten minutes later the ENTIRETY of the party up and forgets that whole, "DON'T GO HERE AND STAY AT THE INN OR YOU WILL DIE!" that I had taken great pains to tell them. I mean ten minutes literally... 15 tops.

So I sit back and go over all the items in the party, and use one of my ideas as a way to save them from their death... essentially creating a ground hog day effect until such time as someone makes the right decision (using a magic device to basically travel back in time and stop this from happening in the first place).

After nearly 3 hours of the party dying over and over and over again (save for one PC and one NPC who are trying to figure it out basically) I FINALLY get the player to put two and two together, solve the puzzle, and save the day. All the players are absurdly angry with me, as in 'ready to quit the game' levels of angry. They felt that they had been 'placed' in a situation they couldn't escape. The glares were piercing and deep and no effort was made by any of them to hide their discontent and displeasure.

Since negativity was at an all time high AND I had to leave I called session and took a guest who had been watching the session home (she had been waiting during this time, enjoying the spectacle). As we got into the car and pulled away she looked at me and said, "You're far too nice a DM, I would have TPK'D them and they deserved it." My response was, "I know... but I'd like them to finish the stories they started and not just die to something that stupid."

She looked at me and said, "You know they are basically figuring out how to crucify you right?"

"Yeah. Imagine what would have happened if I let them die!" And we proceeded to have a good laugh.

Over the next weekend, through means unknown, all the players were 'politely' reminded that I had warned them of impending horrible death in the location they went... and the apologies and "thank you for not killing all of us" calls slowly came in.

Convinced I made the right decision after that.

[Archmage1]

So, the setup
First, the DM has so far had every major enemy in the epic levels. So, we go to a lake to get the macguffin from a Glisteg.
After a bit of conversation, she tries to charm the spellthief(me). I make the save, and basically say I will kill her if she casts another spell at me.
So I(the Spellthief) Cast Glibness(DM allowed) to try to persuade her to give us the item, as she has been rather reluctant. I fail the sleight of hand check to hide the spell, but pass the bluff check to convince her it was harmless. She then casts dispel, at which point I use my ring of blinking, and move adjacent.
So, the DM, trying to be nice, has her run away. I take the AAO offered, and then cast alter self to chase her underwater. She tries to teleport, so I grab her, and convince the DM that I get to come along(it actually sort of works, as the spell's Targets are self and creatures touched). So epic fight ensues, with the DM rolling horribly to overcome Blink. Eventually, I fail, so I need to make a dc 33 will save, at level 12. Predictably, I fail. So, the DM says she cast dominate monster(from mindbender) takes my daggers(+2), and my ring of blinking, and sends me back to the party(a save)

Now, my character is a bit gung-ho, so he decides to go back into the water to kill her, figuring she was almost dead. After a bit of sneaking around, I manage to fail my hide check vs a pair of Lake leviathans(cr 11). Since I have lost my best evasion method, and my damage dealing method, I am more or less screwed. So the DM has the local goddess save me.

Effectively, 2 dm saves for the price of one.
The Glisteg was, as later deduced, at least a Glisteg 6/Sorc 12/Mindbender 8.
I did manage to deal 377 damage to it though.

[Ozfer]

I was DMing three players-

An Orc (<-- Boneheaded move in the first place)
A Demonborn (<-- Made the orc look cute and cuddly)
A Human (<-- With abilities that literally tear apart an enemies soul)

These players have the special snowflake syndrome. The orc was actually rather tame, being neutral.

Anyway, these players go adventuring, kill bandits, and take loot, and return to the main city, hiding their identities, since they are each rather ugly and evil looking.

Long story short- They are framed for homicide (They weren't against murder, they just hadn't had a chance to commit it yet). They are jailed, and miraculously manage to escape without killing a single guard (Not for lack of trying though).

Then, they jump to the conclusion that the real murderers were the bandits they killed a month ago (in game), miles and miles away.

They proceed to drag the rotten corpses back to the main city over the course of another month, and are arrested for being sadistic morons. They attempted to escape, but they ended up flooding their own jail cell, and giving a guard really bad acid burns.

They were executed the next day.

Hmm... I guess I didn't bail them out. I guess that was kind of off topic.

[awa]

it was second eddtion i was using a premade random encounter chart heavy on dragons (really heavy) so the 2 man low level party stumbles through the back entrance of a ancient green dragon lair. one of the pcs upon see the green dragon grabs an egg and runs. The other player goes im not with him. in retrospect i should have come up with a way to save the player who had not stolen an egg. apperently becuase the bronze dragon helped them and the topaz dragon ignored them it did not occure to him the green would indiscrimenet in it's revenge.

[DontEatRawHagis]

c) Genuinely stupid actions (The sphere of annihilation garbage dump jump, for instance, or Stupid Evil random killings)

Yeah, we had situations where our DM would have actually allowed the genuinely stupid actions to happen. In one case much to the displeasure of the other players. One example:

The husband of our DM suggested to kill the Psychic Sarlac pits in front of us that we should empty our septic tank on the ship(whatever you call the place crap goes in a spaceship) into it's mouth. Note, he wanted us to fly over it with the ship and hope we could aim it down their gullets and drown them.

Instead we took the sensible approach and threw thermal detonators into the pits, via a flying dragon.

Sadly our DM seemed to be more in favor of her husband's idea, because she had the explosions cause a chain reaction that caused an earthquake. And subsequently leveled the BBEG's mansion after the fight.

[SowZ]

Awesome? No.

Bone-headed? Yes.


The PCs were exploring an abandoned palace built by dragons. They found one chamber that was a long hallway that ended in a 30-foot pit into nothingness. True Nothingness, as I even strongly hinted that it was as if there was a "black hole" at the bottom. Four of the six players jumped in thinking it was the way to the treasure vault.

It was a Sphere of Annihilation at the bottom.

2/3rds of the party essentially jumped into a dragon toilet and vaporized themselves. I bailed them, letting the party redo their last action so they could stop themselves from falling all the way and wouldn't die in a move that would make Gygax laugh in his grave.
Charged the four PCs 50% of their earned EXP for that specific dungeon though.

Had pretty much the same thing happen. Difference? I didn't bail my player out. The party has invaded the tower of a necromancer and has got into all kinds of shenanigans. They are on the second or third floor. Anyway. The rogue spots a plaster covered hole in the wall and breaks it with her dagger. She sees an odd safe thing and decides to jar it open best she can. Eventually, she succeeds. Unfortunately, this causes the chest to be sucked in to the black orb in front of her face.

The wall it is touching is then sucked in, creating a big ol' void. She screams for help. The party troll walks in, sees this, and screams, "Shabladoo!" And jumps in...

He re-rolled as an imp, since the necromancer's traps managed to plane shift the party to hell.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So, there's

a) Overconfidence/Misinformation, where the party (most likely because the DM did not succeed in communicating that the intent was for the party not to engage in a fight),
b) Suicidal Overconfidance, a variant of a) in which the DM was quite clear that starting a fight would end in death, and
c) Genuinely stupid actions (The sphere of annihilation garbage dump jump, for instance, or Stupid Evil random killings)

Stupidity, like ice-cream, comes in many flavors. Also like ice-cream, most flavors of stupidity are quite enjoyable, as long as you're not the one who's making it.

(I'm of the opinion that, while delicious, homemade ice-cream is more effort than it's worth.)

[Alaris]

Ah Trinoya... such fun times! And hey, I called and apologized not 2 days later... just had to mull it over.

Nonetheless, onto My Story. My players were not exactly bright during this incident...

So... I'm DMing in a homebrew world, not much needed to be known about that to understand, it's a fairly standard fantasy world.

There are 4 players, around level 6, an Elf Duskblade, a Dwarf Gish (Rogue/Barbarian/Paladin), an Aasimar Bard, and an Aasimar Monk/Favored Soul.

They were traveling with a fairly large caravan, numbering around 30-40 additional people, of varying power levels (but none higher than the PCs). The ball initially drops when a Staff of Evocation is broken, and a Wild Magic Event ensues. At the time, I was really bad with such events, so a TON of effects occured, crippling the majority of the caravan, but leaving the PCs mostly intact (oddly enough).

It gets better though... one of the effects summoned an Ice Devil (Gelugon, SRD), which I know is WELL out of the PCs range of power, and capability to defeat. So... after all of these effects occurred, I called session, so I could give myself a week to prepare, and figure out how NOT to just kill the party.

Next Week:

So, cue next week, the party is now trapped inside a barrier with the Ice Devil. Paladin ensures that it is evil (EXTREMELY so, being an Evil Outsider), but the party stops to listen.

The Ice Devil offers them a deal; he will help them 'escape' the barrier, but the ritual to do so requires them to do two things. Drink something he gives them, and think of the person they love most.

So... >.> I figured they'd be calling bull**** by this point. EVIL DEVIL offers absurd deal, using a ritual unheard of... but no. They prove me wrong. The party drinks the paralytic poison (and chooses to fail the saves), leaving them completely paralyzed. They continue to go along with it, failing the Detect Thoughts save, and thinking of their most loved one. >.> I can't make this up.

So, like I said, I had made preparations for something of this, well, I won't say. Nonetheless, the "Deus Ex Machina" as it were, is that the party is bound to a Prophecy in regards to stopping this Ice Devil, and is freed from their paralysis (after torture, scarification, and the like), and given "McGuffin Weapons."

So they engage in combat with him briefly, and he decides he doesn't want to deal with them, making a hasty exit, now with the knowledge of all of their most loved ones.

Notably, he became a recurring villain (BBEG-ish), so it all worked out. But I honestly didn't expect them to go along with working with the Devil. In retrospect, the Paladin probably should have fallen for associating with such an evil creature. Meh...

[SowZ]

My favorite example and all of my players have heard this story.

So we are on a quest to find a demi-godess and have to scale this mountain. Third level adventurers with a Cleric, a Psionic Warrior, a Rogue, a Sorcerer, (me,) and a Barbarian. Some perils along the way, of course, but we reach the top. It is a deserty plateau of sorts with a steep cliff on one side. There is 'nothing' on top of this cliff. We are a bit disappointed but this is standard. We have to prove our patience or find the secret magic or do some riddle or somesuch, right?

Apparently, our Barbarian didn't think so. The player gets this bright look in his eye, smiling, like he has come up with something ingenious. (Which was intriguing to us, because ingenious he was not.) "Guys, I know what we have to do!" "Hmm?" "We have to JUMP OFF THE CLIFF."

Now, I don't know what kind of test of faith he thought this was, were you have to do something so blatantly suicidal with no prompting to prove oneself but anyways... Everyone, GM included, says, "What?" Response, "I jump off the cliff."

DM: ... Are you sure?
Mr. Barbarian: Yep.
DM: Really?
Mr. Barbarian: Yes, I jump!

Needless to say, it was not a test of any kind. If it was, he failed...

[Osmophile]

P:Let's web the room and shoot arrows at it
--------------------------------------------
Party in the habitation quarters of a lair have just finished a noisy piece of combat. One member takes it on themselves to do a bit of exploring.
Me (GM): You open the door and a green dragon breathes on you
P: I attack
Me: By yourself?
P: Yes, while everyone else gets here
Me:Okay
(Roll initiative, green dragon goes first, Bite, Claw, player is down)
Me: So it still has another another attack, hmmm, what targets are available?
---------------------------------------------
P: We charge
(seriously, your home game party should never utter these words beyond first level)
---------------------------------------------
Actually, come to think of it. Nearly every combat involving a dragon I've had to work hard to avoid a TPK. 5 attacks? Well let me share them amongst all of you then because you're all too thick to prepare for a fight with a dragon in the first place.

[Trinoya]

Ah Trinoya... such fun times! And hey, I called and apologized not 2 days later... just had to mull it over.

Bah Humbug! >=(


^__^

The Ice Devil offers them a deal; he will help them 'escape' the barrier, but the ritual to do so requires them to do two things. Drink something he gives them, and think of the person they love most.

I had so much fun killing your players characters. Thanks for the invite to play an NPC in your game! The look on their faces when their party leader dropped. Mmm.. such sweet tasty tears.

Sweet sweet tears.

^__^

[Dr.Epic]

Literal divine intervention...from Gruumsh. But the party did get to enjoy several owl-bear-burgers afterwards.

[Sith_Happens]

The Ice Devil offers them a deal; he will help them 'escape' the barrier, but the ritual to do so requires them to do two things. Drink something he gives them, and think of the person they love most.

Am I bad person for thinking it should have been a potion of Love's Pain (BoVD, 98-99)?