Gamers love their gimmicky powers. But that kind of adoration of nifty can easily blind someone to some glaring downsides.


Share a story about a time someone used their abilities, and the cost of using it was enough that the people around the table had to do a facepalm.

Every Wild Mage ever

I'm playing in a long-time super-hero campaign. Once, one of the other players had their character use a time-stop power, only he paralysed everyone BUT the villain. To make matters worse, said villain's energy blast had the Area Effect bonus.
Fortunately, said character was dropped unconscious the next round and the other PCs could act again, but thank goodness for the Hero Points system!

My Pathfinder alchemist did this often at early level. My answer to most problems was to bomb it, except at first level I didn't have Targeted Bomb, so it hit allies too, and on top of that it was fire damage. We were in the warehouse district at the time, and the party nearly was arrested for attempted arson. I lost my rights to bomb until I came up with a new damage type.

Every undead character ever who discovers Dust of Sneezing and Choking and forgets that the rest of the party isn't immune.

Making the floor into spikes is usefull, untill you realise the rest of the party can't fly like you can...

In Pathfinder, my Monk could make enemies relive any bad drug trip he ever took if he succeeded in a touch attack.