Dumbest group you've GMed for

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Your GM let you play a dragon without hitting you with crippling level adjustments?

[guardiandashi]

Your GM let you play a dragon without hitting you with crippling level adjustments?

not really I had the level adjustments, but one thing the GM did allow was buying down level adjustments by burning XP

I misremembered the classes on my high level (epic) gold dragon.

Character name Dalivinjah Foxfire.  Gold Dragon, Classes Dragon 16, Fighter 5, Cleric 5
Alignment Lawful Good, Diety Bahamet  experience 524,170   char level 26 (6)
Gender Female, age 22, size L  Weight 2500lb  Hair Gold, eyes Gold

Str 36 Dex 22, Con 30, Int 29, wis 26, cha 23  HP 443
fort save 28 ref save 21, will save 23
Melee 38, BAB 23
ranged attack bonus 31

weapons and equipment
long sword +5 x2  damage 1d8+15
claws +5 x2  damage 2d8 +10
Armor, White Dragonhide Chain +5 type medium, armor bonus 5 (10) check penalty -4 0% spell failure, speed 20, weight 40lb, Glamoured, Wildshape, 45 cold Resist
Broach of shielding,
Cloak of Arachnia
Cloak of displacement 50% miss chance
Amulet of +5 Natural Armor
+5 armor ioun stone
+2 saves ioun stone
ring +30 sonic resist
Ring of Breathing (Special) Allows use of breath weapon while polymorphed/ Shape changed
Bag of holding
Headband, +6 cha
Earrings +6 Cha
Tail Bracer of deflection +8

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Ah, the buyback option for level adjustments from Unearthed Arcana.  Yeah, that was the one thing that actually made playing a powerful race potentially feasible.

[Cannonshop]

kind of a tangent since this is for GMs, but as a player, we often get away with things we really ought not.

Rifts game.  That should probably be sufficient warning right there, but it gets more wrong.

see, this was a group with a library of books.  one of the patterns with Rift^s(TM) is that each and every successive book put out by palladium through the 90s and early 00's was chock full of yet-more-powerful character types and classes, optional gear that is overwhelming, and so on, to the point that (at that time) someone with the latest supplemental could (and did) generate characters capable of eating the lunch of the baseline RCC's and OCC's (Character races and classes) from the core book without taking a scratch.

Or, at least, that's the conventional wisdom.

I walked in with a baseline, core book, character.  Operator OCC, surrounded by a party containing stuff I don't even remember the names for, but powerful.  we're talking 'mud-stomp Chi-Town's Armies singlehandedly' powerful.

and I'm running what amounts to an average guy who's a pretty good mechanic.

in the process of running my pretty good mechanic, I ended up forcing the GM to reset the scenarios three times, by using what he gave me to break his carefully constructed situations.  It began with a custom vehicle.  Because most of the team were in one way or another flyers, I ended up with a plane.

an A-1 Skyraider.

do you know how many 'fusion blocks' you can put on the wing hardpoints of an A-1 Skyraider?  yeah.

so he reset something like three weeks of gameplay  to 'it was all a dream' it after I bombed and strafed the megadamage bigbad with an airplane dating to the 1950s.

Campaign goes on, the big, wealth-laden and superpowerful guys in the party set up a base at a coastal airport next to a river.  My contribution was to make sure the lights come on, the toilets flush, and the fire suppression system works.

Not 'gunfire suppression', we're talking sprinklers to put the fires out.  In the process, I also made sure the grass was green and the crops were watered.

So he attacks us with a vampire invasion.

I pulled the fire alarm.  RIFTS vampires are vulnerable to running water-as in water-in-motion.

and I'd set up sprinklers, in game, in character, with both outside and inside arrays, because I wanted the wooden buildings to not catch fire thanks to the presence of multiple dragons in the group, along with mystical-technology sentient golems with loads of firepower, and other weird crap.

The vampires attacked, and I pulled the fire alarms.

(and turned on the sprinklers outside.)

this spoiled lots of things for guys who'd been counting on their ultra-magical-supertech badassery to save the day, and...I kept the water running.

keep in mind, now, I'm neither the leader of the group as a character, nor the guy who absorbed most f the time with the GM.  I was just 'this guy', and my character wasn't even particularly powerful.

They trace the vampire attack to a series of tunnels nearby.  I ask questions, and the GM was happy to show me his carefully laid out maps of the surface of the area (it was supposed to be like, boston, or philadelphia or something.)

I noted two things: the placement of the rivers...and the placement of the tunnel entrances.

While the others were arguing about going into the tunnel network to root out the bloodsuckers...

I set about figuring out how to drop the river into the tunnels.

and the GM let me carry out my plan.

nobody stopped me, and the dice rolls worked.  This forced a SECOND reset, as I filled the vampire lair (and their accesses) with running water.

using the power of math.

so he drops a goddess into the mix.  because so far, this damn operator type whose whole powerset is 'pretty good mechanic' has just 86'ed two main badguys without engaging in glorious single combat.

also killed two player characters with that second one-apparently godlike power doesn't include breathing water.

(Hey, they should have TOLD me they were going to go in there and try to battle the horde of uglies on their own!)

Third time, the GM made the mistake of answering my questions.  see, he lined up a Xiticix conflict, and let me find some mostly-intact F-111's.

again, while everyone else is running off in a dozen different directions picking bold, glorious personal expressions of might, I'm wiring up a simple guidance system into a 1960's era airframe with Terrain following radar.

The guidance system is because I'm turning them into big, fat, cruise missiles.

(I even calculated the fuel use.)

I started to realize he was letting me do this kind of thing, because he'd made a mistake by letting people bring in new/replacement characters every time they bought a new book, without checking to see how unbalanced their new characters were going to be.  My character had become the reset button for the campaign.

anyone else, would have at LEAST argued against some of the shit he let me do.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Rifts was a campaign setting made for abusing the rules.  The one GM in my area was the kind of guy who'd give the new player a premade human character and then tell them that it was tots balanced against the apocalyptically powerful dragon the other player was running because each day there was a 1/100 chance that the dragon would be polymorphed into an ordinary rabbit for six hours.

Did not join that game.

[Daryk]

*snip*
using the power of math.
*snip*

Math FTW!  :D

[Cannonshop]

Rifts was a campaign setting made for abusing the rules.  The one GM in my area was the kind of guy who'd give the new player a premade human character and then tell them that it was tots balanced against the apocalyptically powerful dragon the other player was running because each day there was a 1/100 chance that the dragon would be polymorphed into an ordinary rabbit for six hours.

Did not join that game.

want a sick, sick way to abuse rifts?  "Ninjas and Superspies"-and the Rifts conversion rules.  where it takes several mighty hours to construct a baseline Rifts character, that's not fully utilizing the power of Palladium's system.  In particular, the skills system.  Eighteen Hours to generate ONE character that is, for all intents and purposes, a baseline human more dangerous than most of the RCC's in the game.

[Simon Landmine]

want a sick, sick way to abuse rifts?  "Ninjas and Superspies"-and the Rifts conversion rules.  where it takes several mighty hours to construct a baseline Rifts character, that's not fully utilizing the power of Palladium's system.  In particular, the skills system.  Eighteen Hours to generate ONE character that is, for all intents and purposes, a baseline human more dangerous than most of the RCC's in the game.

Ouch. Yes, N&S was an 'interesting' fork of the Palladium house system anyway. But converting them to Rifts as well? Ouch!

[monbvol]

Ah Palladium.

I haven't come across a system that they've put out that isn't actually finished, poorly laid out, makes AToW's Life Module system look damned nice in comparison for creating characters, but somehow still utterly fun.

[DOC_Agren]

TMNT Kungfu Weasal converted to a Rifts Juicer
sick and hard abused in Rifts

[Liam's Ghost]

I wouldn't use the term dumbest (though techically it's pretty much the only group I GM for, so by default...)...

But one of the players in my current d6 Star Wars game is playing around with and feeding souls to an ancient dark side artifact, knowing full well it becomes more conscious and powerful and hungry the more souls it consumes, in the hopes of eventually being able to talk to it and control its ravenous appetite.

Also, the players have caused something of a planetary scale apocalypse by poorly directing fast moving star destroyer debries, and their abuse of the dark side artifact was dramatic enough that the Emperor noticed all the way from Coruscant, and has taken... interest.

(I'm not going to blame them for accidentally exposing the local duchess to space mustard gas, it was still a pretty slick rescue op and the situation was already out of control)

[monbvol]

I've learned that the player who wound up with that artifact is probably the worst person, I do mean person not just a character, to give such a thing to.  Or Best.  Depends on your point of view.

Though I'm trying to remember if I shared the story of the last Pathfinder game I ran or not already.  Pretty sure I have.

[monbvol]

Okay going back through this thread seems I did not.

So basic setup is the group got a side quest to find out what was going on in a nearby quarry providing the stone for a tower under construction.

I setup as opposition a dozen Troglodytes against 4 level 1 characters.  To give them a chance I spread them out enough that a stealth approach could make the encounter easier.  I also decided if they wanted to they could negotiate with the Troglodytes and avoid combat all together.

They chose to just bum rush in making lots of noise resulting in the quarry workers to be slaughtered by the Troglodytes.  They managed to come out pretty battered but alive.

[Cannonshop]

So, a group of 3rd level characters, I'm running the only rogue.  We have 1 priest, 1 Paladin, 1 Ranger, an arcane spellcaster of a sort, and me.

We find our way to a dungeon crawl.  First 'indoors' mission for all of us.

we get past the Myconids guarding the entrance by...well, not interacting with them, honestly. 

Now, all the doors in this place seem to be either locked, or rusted shut.

Naturally, we pass through what appears to be a desecrated chapel of some sort, to a pair of rusted-shut doors, and I set about doing the thief thing of working on getting the damn doors open..right?

So everyone else, well, takes off for parts unknown.  It winds up being a long, sustained action of working on the doors to get them open by lamp light, since I'm the only human in the party and do NOT have enhanced dark vision.

The rest of the team wanders-and-wanders the same two corridors, gets themselves all the way (not that far) back to the entry and voyeurizes the communication/reproduction habits of fungusmen.

with me so far?  good.

Now, to get this further in perspective, our Ranger is a High Elf and he does the High Elf Snob act perfectly.  The Priest is a half-Elf, the Arcane caster is some other form of demihuman with red eyes and gray skin and little bump horns on his forehead, and the Paladin's some kind of dragonborn/hybrid thing.

Both Priest and Pally have significant negatives to stealth.  This is unimportant.  the Ranger has skilled into close combat but stays sixty feet away minimum at all times when it looks like trouble, and the arcane spellcaster REALLy likes dropping AOE effects into the middle of melee and doesn't quite understand why that might not be a good thing.

esp. considering my thief? half the time is doing that jackie-chan shit thanks to an unshakeable case of hellbie dice that have had me falling off of roofs and cliffs right into the middle of enemy guards more than once.

apparently I am at my most lethal when trying to recover from a humiliating fall or fumble.

so here I am, getting the door into the rest of the complex (we were given a MAP) while they're clanking around trying to stir up trouble far, far, far, away from the only guy who's managed an unassisted face-to-face kill on more than one occasion.

(because I'm locksmithing/safecracking the door they all gave up on after one or two loud bashes.)

eventually, I get the door open (Sustained action, GM had me rolling for 20 minutes straight.)

and...they finally return, enter a short corridor with a bend, to find another door.  same condition as the first-locked, and rusted shut.

I'm going through supplies of oil and files at a furious pace unsticking the lock, and when I do, one of the casters lights to the bright idea to use a specific cantrip to open the door. 

Now, that's certainly better than 20 minutes of me prying and lubricating the damn thing to get it open.  (I am a ****** hero.)

So the Priest does this instead of the arcanist, who's busy hanging back behind the Ranger, who is also hanging back, and the Paladin, who's ALSO hanging back, leaving me beside the priest.

door opens, and it's the first time any of us has (In character) seen a troll.

the Priest's player wanted to try a 'friendship' spell on the Troll, who's been trapped in this 10x10 room long enough to be just about insane from hunger.

roll initiative.

Priest beats everyone.  I just tell the GM I'm 'holding my action'.

ufortunately, Troll beat me.

so here's what happens; Priest digs out a Ration pack, and offers it to the hungry troll...who proceeds to accept both rations, and his arm. Chomp!

My held action triggers, and I haul back on the Priest, dragging him out of the room as his hitpoints hit zero.

Troll rakes his ribs on the way out (opportunity attack) and we barely squeeze past the Paladin, who's suddenly become interested in what's going on.  HE runs into claw range and gets chopped up pretty good, but that's our entire healing battery right there. Priest's on his second death failure and I'm using my  (Skilled into it because I had a feeling at first level) ordinary medicine skill to try and stop the bleeding and keep his insides on his inside.

Now, is the time when it's time to shout 'retreeeeeaaat!!'  The passage is narrow and the troll is large, it can't quite reach us easily (Yet).

but I'm stuck doing a sustained action right around the corner from the place our Priest gave his arm for a...pet? friend? whatever.

second death save for the Priest, I roll a 2.  Not happening, but since it's a sustained effort, and my character is...well, he's really stubborn...we go for try number 3.

Natural frikking 20 on a barely-proficient nonmagical healing check.

Essentially stopping the Priest from bleeding out to dead on his third death save.

My 20 success, beat his 3 failure.

He lives!!

only now we've got a wounded paladin, a confused ranger and an apparently apathetic and slightly cowardly mage.

with a troll crawing its way into the open.

I end up with a little time, hand the now-stabilized Priest to the wounded paladin, "Get Out!!" the heroes obey this simple advice, leaving me behind in the room to do my dirty thiefy thing.

In this case, with a jar of lamp oil, 50 ball bearings, a rag soaked in alcohol, and a guttering torch.

I grenade the Troll in the tight entryway just as it pushes its teethy maw through the doorway with arms hooked on the door-sill.

and run away, luckily NOT on fire.

can't say same for the troll, which will have to deal with both ball bearings on the floor, and a 5x5x5 blazing-merrily mix of alcohol, soap, and lamp-oil.

I am thinking I will be negotiating for both a larger share of the treasure from this, AND leadership of the party.  (We're burning through my toys faster an they're harder to find/more expensive than yours.)

assuming of course, the burning troll doesn't find its way outside to finish us off while we're all wounded.  The lesson from this?

do not feed the damn trolls!!!!

[Simon Landmine]

[applause]

[grimlock1]

I've learned that the player who wound up with that artifact is probably the worst person, I do mean person not just a character, to give such a thing to.  Or Best.  Depends on your point of view.

Though I'm trying to remember if I shared the story of the last Pathfinder game I ran or not already.  Pretty sure I have.

Advice one GM gave me was that the best games happen when players are active agents of chaos.:-)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Well, there's chaotic but smart and then there's Chaotic Stupid.

[Daryk]

I could use a player like you in my D&D game, Cannonshop…  ^-^

[Cannonshop]

I could use a player like you in my D&D game, Cannonshop…  ^-^

There are MANY players like me out there-just look for the guys who primarily play Rogues and/or generic fighters-particularly the ones who pick 'baseline human' by reflex instead of min/maxing for optimal stats on the sheet.  (Generally we're all ex-munchkins of one sort or another who burned out on the 'maximize your stats' style of play).

this isn't to say I'm not still a powergamer, just that I tend to put a lot more into intelligence and wisdom without running a spellcaster than the book tends to recommend for non-spellcasting classes, because often as not, I wind up having to 'patch a hole in the lineup'.

which is, in a way, the entire schtick of the adventuring rogue classes in most games.  'able to do most things, but not as well as the specialists'.

accepting that 'not as well as' is the key, of course.  In that above situation, the Pally wasted his spell for the day on a detect magic on a door behind us, the Arcanist was kind of chasing butterflies and the Priest was...well, I guess he was just used to having the highest armor class in the party and didn't think.

not that I haven't done some pretty stupid things in this campaign-I went through an entire adventure without putting my armor on (and almost died three times).

[grimlock1]

do not feed the damn trolls!!!!

That's what you got out of this encounter?  There are a few other conclusions I might draw...

[Daryk]

I've found Rogues to be somewhat OP in 5e.  Being able to sneak attack every round with the barest scrap of cover (with a bow, or against flanked opponents) is simply killer.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Rogues are extremely good at killing single targets.  They're much less effective at fighting in groups and they also tend to do poorly when enemies actually focus on taking them down rather than going after the tanks.

[Daryk]

If that happens, the tanks aren't doing their jobs...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Depends on the situation.  Sometimes you just have too many enemies for the tanks to lock down all of them, and sometimes you're up against enemies who are smart enough to realize that the puny humans that are in the back aiming bows or wands at them are more dangerous than the puny humans shaking swords at them (though that's more true of older editions since fighters, paladins, and barbarians are all pretty good at dishing out sustained damage to single targets).

[Daryk]

After my wife departed the game, I inherited her Rogue in addition to my Fighter.  Her shortbow plus my 20 AC seems to drop things pretty fast, though not due to any damage I do...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

With Fighters it can depend on which fighting style and fighter specialization you go with- a Battle Master with Two-Handed weapons style can get some impressive damage output with their Maneuvers whereas a Purple Dragon Knight with Protective Style functions more as party support.

[Daryk]

I'm a Battlemaster, but I need a shield to get to 20 AC...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

That still doesn't necessarily hurt your damage potential, but just pumping out damage isn't the only way to be useful.

But we should take this to a new thread and leave this one to talking about dumb players.

[Daryk]

True, true... PM inbound...

[grimlock1]

True, true... PM inbound...

I'ld be curious to listen in on that conversation...