Sounding hammer

sounding hammer , n. an object that is symbolic of a completely horribly executed and not very well thought-out plan.
Ex: “You're going to go by yourself into the pits of Hell? Don't forget your sounding hammer!”
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Addendum: As hinted at in “It would have worked if it would have worked!”, this is the infamous “sounding hammer” incident. Trapped in my campaign's version of the Underdark (after already screwing up and getting my party down there in the first place, conveniently forgetting nobody spoke Drow), the party was attempting to find a missing companion when, after splitting up, my character ended up at a wall. Trying to be honest and avoid metagaming after a previous character had gone ethereal and slipped through, my character first listened to the wall to determine whether there was a space behind the wall. He heard voices, as if in song or a chant. Apparently I had gotten too far in character mentally (he had an INT of 14, but at the time only a WIS of 9) because the first idea that sprang to mind was to pull out a hammer from the character's climbing toolkit and tap out whether or not there was a trap door in the wall. Of course, the voices stopped. Still locked in my role, I gave up trying to find the trap door after a few minutes, and turned to the party mates who had made it to the wall. Fishing Dimension Door from his mind, he then proceeded to utter the words that damn many a good character, “I'm going to investigate. I'll be right back.” The fact that the character survived to 22nd level and was retired due to game ending and not horrible death surprises me to this day.