Dungeons and Dragons Story - Failure Is Always An Option

Well last night we got together again. Dropped off our dead and crippled characters.

My fighter dwarf who told the story in the OP quit the party (muttering something about "bunch of lunatics") before stomping off.

Fortunately, the party leader wandered into the local tavern and found three more victim....er.....volunteers, a human monk (my son), a half elf sorcerer (me) and a big human barbarian (NPC by the DM), and off we go again.

We go back down in that place and a rat jumped out of the barrel. Just a rat, right?

Riiiiight......

The barbarian swung his stick at it....fumbled and the stick broke.

Not wanting to waste any of my spells, I went after it with my dagger......and fumbled...stabbing myself in the gut!

Oh no....this was not starting out good!

After getting me patched up, we continued on. We came upon a rope bridge spanning a vast pit. Our paladin tied a rope around our elf ranger and the other end to a post. 50 feet of rope. The ranger started across the bridge, but he was 10 pounds too heavy and it collapsed and the ranger began to fall.

Our party was not paying attention, so I yelled "GRAB THE ROPE! GRAB THE ROPE!"...which they did and stopped his fall.

The Paladin was like "What? No big deal, the rope would have caught him."

Uh, no, turns out the pit was only 30 feet deep and filled with spikes at the bottom. So no, 50 feet of rope ain't gonna stop you.

Then guess what showed up?

Oh yes....another one of those Corrupter of Fates. "If it weren't for bad luck......."

We took it out a bit faster this time, though I had to keep yelling for everyone to get back, as my spells are Ray spells, but the good news is: didn't have to roll to use them, so each one hits, and it couldn't make it's saving throws.

We didn't loose anyone this time, though my son's Spiked Chain weapon was fumbled and embedded itself in my leg (OW! It's in the BONE! It's in the BONE!).

It was late when we killed it and stopped the game for the night.......we've not even reached the dragon yet, hehehehe.

Well done mate!

a reply to: eriktheawful
You have the worst luck lol.

"It's in the bone!" That's what a guy screamed when I threw a dart at him and it stuck in his leg. Ah, memories.

I got to read this again earlier today, and I'm glad I did!

Remember kids, kicking in doors is acceptable in any room

Good old D&D war stories....man, with some of the guys I played with, some of our most memorable adventures were just when our characters met, or sometimes just being in town.

One player, for some reason, always seemed bent on trying to have his character upstage mine. I never did know why. Maybe I'm just a better guy at coming up with a high powered guy, I don't know... Wasn't just me always either...sometimes, it was the whole group.

He was determined to create a character he felt, could defeat any other group member, even though we always were to work TOGETHER in a campaign. This never went well for him.

One time, in a RIFTS campaign (think D&D but if anything went, like cyborgs, dragons, you name it, on an alternate Earth)....he did something stupid and died. Anyhoo, his next character, he took over a week, and was then all excited to debut it. To his credit, the damn thing was immune to all kinds of things, except two, magical fire and mind powers. He'd shrug off bullets, lasers, etc. like they were nothing. Regular fire? No problem. Some kind of magical cat creature, can't even remember the race.

Of course, we didn't know ANY of this, but he DID know the strengths and weaknesses of OUR characters, (as he played with them already). So I'm not sure where his head was at. He wanted the DM to roleplay his character meeting us, to make us in awe of him, I guess.

So, we see him in a firefight with some bandits basically shrugging off their attacks and he quickly dispatched them. He sees us, and basically presents himself as a threat. I try to talk nice, as I'm typically the party leader, but he's still trying to be all big and bad.

So....I, a Temporal Wizard (basically a mage), throw a Circle of Flame spell around him to at least keep him contained (magical fire, about 25' high, and a ring about 10' in diameter). He laughs, and tells the DM he's going to jump through the fire...the DM says, you'll take damage. He looks puzzled. The DM mentions it's magical fire... He says he'll jump over it, checks his jump (20')...not high enough. Fine! He jumps through, and takes some damage.

I still seem unimpressed (after all, he's patting out fire from his hide). He then tries more bravado. Another player, a guy in a mech tank, aims some missiles at him. "Your puny weapons are no challenge to me!" He fires a missile. It does a good deal of damage. Looks at the players' sheet...the tank has Plasma missiles (equivalent to magical fire). He shrieks, and then charges the tank. He does a little damage to it, but then our other player weighs in...

She's a Psionic Warrior (basically a psychic). She decides to try a little mind control. Keep in mind, we STILL have no idea what this new character's strengths and weaknesses are. These are simply our STOCK weapons and tactics, that he should be WELL aware of. Well, by the end of it, she has the new character basically buffing scratch marks out of the tank....

And this was just us MEETING the damn dude!!!

We had another friend try an all kinder campaign ... lasted about two sessions.

Oh...dear God...no....

LOL.

Funny you mentioned the healer who didn't know his spells.

One of our players, was usually an expert at playing a Mage. We even damn near won a tournament once (and toasted many other player groups in the process).

But, his Achilles Heel was the Cone of Cold spell.

One time, picture a well shaft like tube, filled with water (all the PC's have taken a potion of Water Breathing). The rest of the party is in front of him (higher in the shaft). A giant eel is closing in on them. He, the mage, is the first in line to fight the eel. He casts Cone of Cold.

Now, picture this...he's in a tube of water. The Cone freezes, and forms a big ice cone (with the point facing our mage). The eel starts pushing on the cone, as the party gets to the top of the well shaft (which is capped by a heavy iron grate). Luckily, the force of the eel pushing on the cone is enough to force open the grate, but only after impaling a couple of party members.

Another time, the party is on the ocean. They encounter Huzzah, a Hill Giant Pirate (he's actually in the Pirates book), who flings goblins at enemy ships (who then get into the riggings and disable the target ship). Well, our mage flies over to confront them. Huzzah hurls a goblin at him (and surprisingly hits), the goblin grabbing onto his leg.

Now, we have a level 9 flying mage, with a goblin on his leg. Why on earth he decided to do Cone of Cold (again) at the goblin, I'll never know (keep in mind, he was immune to cold thanks to an item). So, he casts it. The damage he rolls is low, but still enough to kill the goblin.....however, STILL a big cone of ice now, thanks to all the water below him (he was only 3 feet above the waves). His flying ability was due to winged boots (one of which is now encased in ice, along with a goblin corpse)...the other can't hold him up...

Needless to say, what does a frozen cone do in water? Float....big end up...mage is at the little end...under water...drowning.