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On Wednesday night, my friends and I continued a combat that been running for 3 hours on a previous Saturday. The week before, they had decided to take on a gnoll druid vampire who’d upset them enough.
They were ill-prepared, partly because of the players, only one or two knew much about the way the game worked. Partly because they hadn’t listened to my hints and advice or read their spells well enough. It would eventually be a learning experience. The first few rounds saw the vampire’s wolves arrive. I let one of the players roll the 3d6 and he got a 16, one of many dice rolls that didn’t go their way.
Next the sorcerer in the party fireballed the vampire, and in his haste managed to burn most of the party as well. It wasn’t the first time. sigh
I mentally revised my plans deciding to capture the party. Otherwise a TPK was on the cards. Luckily we had to stop playing so I had plenty of time to prepare the vampire round by round.
Last Wednesday was a good session for the DM, but the players fluffed their dice repeatedly. Spiked Growth, Call Lightning, Flaming Sphere and then Entangle proved great at whittling the hit points down.
Finally there was one guy left. The rest of the players wondered how he would save them. To be fair he was and is their most experienced player, so may have had something up his sleeve.
But before he could act, one of the last gnoll minions shot him with a longbow. I couldn’t believe it because I needed a 20 to hit and had been trying all night. Rolled a D8 and his face told me he was now very low on hit points.
The Moment
I started to move on when the player next to be, Mark, whispered, “Isn’t that a critical.” Unfortunately everyone else heard him. It was a pin dropping moment. They had fought for about 5 hours. Only one guy was left and his mate had dropped him right in it. I rolled a D20, got a twenty and picked up 2D8. Mark was laughing, everyone was laughing but no one could believe he had said it.
Luckily I only took him to -7 or so. The party were captured.
But none of them will forget what Mark did. I’ve never seen anyone be too honest before, but that time he was. In the words of another player, “he (me) doesn’t need your help!”
If you have any of your own, I'd love to hear them.
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Ah, mine deals with Natural 20s as well. For some time I have been playing a human scout (eventually human paragon scout). He is a gruff, take no prisoners, who does not consider personally safety when fighting his foes. So, our story begins with the PCs investigating a rash of disappearances in the woods outside town.
1. We fight a group of zombies/ghouls in the woods - we now know out foe. We find an abandoned cottage that looks like it has been gnawed upon and clawed. It is boarded up, but eventually we convince the woman inside that we are friendly. Turns out her son is also missing, she wants us to find him. SHe offers to hole us up for the night, and to make dinner. The PCs accept. This is where things get interesting.
2. My character refuses to eat, as he only eats what he makes himself. He gets suspicious when she is offended, and watches her carefully when she makes tea. Spot check, roll a 19. She put some herbs in. Knowledge (nature) check, roll a 17. The herbs are a sleeping drug.
3. My character doesn't tell anyone, there is no time. Instead he prepares, informing the woman he will stand on guard, but will take a cup of tea while on watch. The PCs tuck in, my character dumps his tea in a potted plant. The PCs all sleep like logs, and soon after a group of ghouls enter the room. My character kicks awake a fellow PC, and battle begins. Decent initiative, unfortunately the warmage is paralyzed by a ghoul.
4. Ignoring the ghouls, handled by my waking comrades, my character spots the woman casting spells at the bottom of the stairwell.
Scout: "I move to gain skirmish, pull my bow and fire at the woman"
DM: Okay, I'll give you a -2 to hit her because of the stairs, and another -4 because of the ghouls in the way. You sure?"
Scout: "Yep." Roll a natural 20 (but fail to confirm).
5. The woman runs away from the stairs.
Scout: "I jump down the stairs, tumbling through the ghouls."
DM: "Okay, the DC on that is pretty high, but go ahead."
Scout rolls pretty high, 18 or so, takes some damage, chases the woman, and brings her down.
Since then, that character rolls more natural 20s than the other PCs combined. One session, I rolled over 5, averaging one per hour.
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A long time ago, i was running a 1st edition game with a bunch of friends in Germany in my army days....one of the most fun group of players i ever had the chance to sit around a table with....The party had gone on a memorable quest to rescue an Elven Princess, and the Wizard who was one of the Elders of the Elven tribe was passing out the much deserved rewards....
One of the party members was a Lizardman Fighter named Sterak. (in case hes out there looking in) had aqitted himself bravely, and was instrumental in the Princess' rescue. He was asked if he could have anything in the world what would it be....
a moment of backstory: I had always played that Lizardmen grew lethargic in cold weather and it required a save to keep from becoming slowed and eventually falling into a deep slumber.This adventure had the party going into a very cold clime for the rescue. Sterak and the party thief Zinga Falth (a half Elven Fighter Thief) had to climb up an icy slope to gain access to a secret entrance. The climb was more precarious than normal because of the extreme weather conditions and Sterak's diffficulty with them...
.....The once bitterly cold Lizardman said with all seriousness " I never want to be cold again, and I always want the warm light of the sun on my body...."
To which I (as the Wizard) remarked, are you sure? There is nothing else you would want? (I scratched my head as I looked over the magic item list I had prepared with potential rewards...) "Yes your wisdom" was his answer....and one wish later Sterak had a perpetual ray of sunlight shining on him forevermore....
Something the party lived to regret and remember amusingly everytime they tried to sneak anywhere...
Ahhh the joy of Role Players and not Roll Players.
The PCs had captured an unconscious giant and were pulling him down the mountainside on an improvised sled--or rather, the two humans and the centaur were, as the three halflings were not much good at it. Finally someone missed a Wilderness roll and the sled began to slide.
The two humans and the centaur seized the ropes, slung them around trees, held on for dear life, and managed to stop the sled from plunging downhill. Only then did they have time to notice the three halflings--
--who were all sitting on the sled with the giant, apparently having decided that if it was taking a death-ride toboggan down the mountain, they were going along for the ride!
We were laughing about that one for quite a while.
***
The PCs were attending a banquet held by one of the PCs' "evil twin." (Long story.) They'd been warned that he might try to sway their minds via drugs. During the banquet, the evil twin pressed a drink on the good twin, who eventually accepted.
I rolled the save in private (a 20) and passed the player a note.
The player then proceeded to roleplay being drugged and enchanted with such chilling vividness that the other players were completely fooled, the evil twin was fooled, *I* would have been fooled if I hadn't rolled the save myself. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The result was a triumph for the party, followed by the other players descending on that PC's player and demanding to know the truth!
I've seen a lot of excellent in-game acting, but that one stands out in my mind for sheer impact. The player's eyes were unfocused, his voice was just a tiny bit slurred, word choice was different...wow.
Mary
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High level Party of 6 against Colossal Half-Demon Red Dragon, 3 hours later, with most of the party either dead or in the negatives, the ranger as the last standing member of the party rushes the dragon and spears the beast. The player rolls not 1 or 2, but SIX natural 20's in a row. The entire table was on their feet and cheering with each roll. The dragon fell dead at his feet. It was a fantastic moment that everyone at the table recalls even today 14 years later.
End of "Champion's Games." Almuric (or Amalric or whatever his name was) has been grabbed into the ulgurstasta's mouth. Other characters are stupidly trying to melee the thing. No one had heeded my warnings about not letting it swallow anyone whole except the elf cleric's character, who had recently acquired a flame strike spell. Next round, he readies it; the melee guys fail to kill the worm, and it's about to swallow the guy; the cleric shakes his head sadly and flame strikes the whole melee, killing everyone.
Then he gathers their gear, sells it for diamonds, and raises dead on each PC, one per day, and finishing with Amulric (?) as a nice thing to do. Up until then, he was the "sissy elf." After that, nobody annoyed him.
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Situation: Party pointmen(all Level 4: Human Monk, Human Ranger, Halfling Rogue) encounter angry Ape.
Pre-Round 1: Monk readies longbow to fire at anything "hostile" that comes through the door, Ranger with Hand of the Mage opens door. Monk sees big mean monkey and tells the Ranger to shut the door. Ape busts through closed door, Monk's readied action succeeds and scores immediate hit.
Round 1: Now enraged Ape advances on Monk. Monk goes unarmed. Ape hits Monk, fails to hit with both claws, does not rake. Monk hits ape. Halfling fires crossbow and misses the massive target somehow. For some reason, the Ranger was found around the corner and had to advance before being capable of attacking.
Round 2: Halfling retreats and fires crossbow from a distance. Monk hits Ape. Ape hits Monk, fails to Rake again. Ranger takes shot and hits- the Monk, even though they're on opposite sides of the Ape, which is also a Large creature.
Round 3: Halfling retreats around corner and flees to the rest of the party. Ranger misses attack. Ape hits Monk, fails to Rake. Monk hits Ape.
Round 4: Party nears combat. Ranger misses attack, begins to close to melee. Ape hits Monk. Monk uses Flurry of Blows, hits both times, Critical on second. Ape dies. Monk does victory pose.
Monk: Yes! I punched the big monkey!
DM: Give me a Reflex save.
Monk: Yeah! I ju- wait, what?
Failed save. Ape falls on Monk.
I remember that because I was playing the Monk. My party is very horrible when it comes to ranged attacks. My character might as well change his name to "Pin Cushion" or "Coat Rack". I swear, I need to tell them to aim at me so that their failed attacks will actually have a chance of hitting the bad guy.
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I once co-DM'ed about 70 players with a megaphone at a UK GenCon. It was the comedy event on the Sunday morning, "Goblin for a King" which culminated in two tribal champions facing off in battle in the University Car park.
The three DMs took turns running the fight and crowds because we were losing our voices.
Lots of Monty Python screechy voices in the crowd.
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Our group (human ninja-type Rogue, Human Ranger, Halfling Rogue, and Elven Spirit archer) were raiding a bandit camp at night. Me (the ninja-like rogue) and the halfling made quick work of the guards standing outside the gate and began to ascend the wall to open it for the rest of the party. As a team, we quickly defeated almost all of the other bandits in the camp as well, but the leader holed himself up in the main building with a few of his lackeys. We knew that if we charged in there that we would get the sneak-attack from every angle, so we had to find a way to get them to come out.
Then came the alchemist fires and smokesticks. We found a window and tossed the alchemist fires wrapped in smokesticks in, and panic ensued.
I layed some caltrops down previously in front of the door. Then, the other rogue and I each grabbed the end of a length of rope and pulled it taut as the bandits ran out. Succeeded strength checks from both me and the halfling, they fell like a ton of bricks, face first onto the caltrops. Stepping on their bodies like stones in a pond, we entered and dispatched the leader 4-1.
The party (my scout, a paladin, an aristocrat/bard, and a wizard/truespeaker, oh, and a gnome rogue/cleric cohort) had to take out a stone golem with no adamantite in a big cave complex off of an even bigger crevisse. We came up with an intricate plan where the truespeaker was the bait, the gnome cast stoneshape to make a ramp near the edge of a big cliff, the bard cast grease, the paladin bull rushed the golem, and my scout lassoed the golem, drank a potion of Enlarge, and jumped off the cliff, using my x8 weight to pull the golem over the edge. I then used a 1-use ring of fly I'd been carrying around for 8 levels to prevent myself from going splat. I think the truespeaker climbed a rope net to get out of the way.
I had a dwarf ranger-fighter that did the same trick with an animated suit of armor, a chain, and an anvil.
Not D&D, but incredibly memorable.
Twilight: 2000 game in the early 90s. An annoying player in the group had managed to get captured. As far as I remember, his capture was the result of considerable foolishness, and his buddies weren't motivated to go help him -- so he puts together an escape plan.
The character makes a noose in his jail cell, pins a note to his chest, and carefully suspends himself from the ceiling. The note reads:
So it turned out he was that stupid :)
There are so many, but here are my favorite two:
Non D&D homebrew game centered around Mecha:
The plot consisted of the group investigating a young girl, Delta, who was engineered to be a perfect meca pilot. Sad little girl with long greasy black hair (kind of like River Tam, but this game happened long before Firefly).
A player had the idea of kidnapping her after a test run of an experimental Mech. His plan was to hide in a spider hole on the arena, and once the test is concluded, he was going to run up to the 30 foot mech (named Alpha and Omega), scale up it, place a charge of explosives on the pilot door, blow it off and yank little Delta to freedom and raise her like a daughter.
As he popped out of the hidie-hole, the proximity alarm of the mech went off. Delta got the instructions to terminate the intruder. The mech swiveled in place and lowered its gauss cannon and vulcan gun to the target.
I really gave him every chance. I discouraged him from the plan from the beginning, I even rolled to hit.
The rest of the encounter was described by what the other player saw: You see him skid to a stop and look up at the weapons pointed at him. A loud rumbling noise fills the arena as the vulcan cannon spat slugs the size of babies at your friend. Dirt and dust are thrown in the air followed by an explosion. When things settle, all that is left of him is a pile of stained, ruined earth.
The second is a good example of why DMs need to check the character sheets of players they are allowing to join a campaign mid way.
The encounter went something like this:
DM: "ok, the 12 orks get up from their tables on the other side of the tavern and draw weapons"
Player: "I pull out this little wooden box, throw it at the orks and say the command word."
DM: "ok, what's it do"
Player: "it turns into a skiff"
DM ". . . waits. . a . . . a skiff? like rowing in the ocean type skiff?"
The encounter didn't last long.
I was playing in a D20 Modern game, and me and the other player were supposed to be elite military types. I think my guy was a Fast martial artist-type, and the other dude a Strong/Tough or something.
Anyways, we take out the terrorists, but they have a bomb filled with nerve gas and a timer. And neither one of us has Disable Device. So we call in for help. They walk us through the what we need to do, which is cut the BLUE wire, then the RED wire. Well, us players were distracted or something, so we attempt to cut the RED wire first. And roll a natural 1....which means we totally cut the wrong wire, so instead of cutting the RED, we cut the BLUE, which is what we were supposed to do anyways. So we saved the city.....and the ended the campaign there because we were so pathetic.
In 2nd Edition, I DMed a cat hengeyokai monk-wu jen who decided to cast Fire Wings, then fly around the back of a beholder and attack it from above. He swooped down at it, and was the target of every single eye ray. He had to make 10 saving throws, and made all of them by 1. (This was back when there were 5 different kinds of saves, and you had to roll UNDER what the static "DC" was.) It was flippin' amazin'!!!
You know that old trick when the main villian turns up early in the campaign to taunt the (low-level) PCs?
Well my uber bad-guy, thousand year old evil warrior 'Janus' did just that in the second hour of play. All was going swimmingly until one of the PC's pointed out that his name rhymed with 'anus'.
Outside of Call of Cthulhu, this was the fastest any of my players have had to roll a new character. Sure puts a smile on my face thinking about it : )
The one I will always remember is the party was fighting a group of dwarves and the leader of the dwarves had the ability to enlarge himself so he did. Then the rogue decided he should sneak attack him, moving around him to get into a flank position. He moves his mini, I ask him if he is tumbling around the LARGE dwarf. He replies "Nah, he cannot reach me." Which of course is wrong since he is large now, one attack of opportunity later with the enlarged War Axe that was a critial and the rogue is left with 1 hp. He is quite happy and pleased with himself, until there is a comment from one of the other players looking at the two dice I rolled for damage.
"Don't axes do Triple damage?"
Director of Brand Strategy
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High level Party of 6 against Colossal Half-Demon Red Dragon, 3 hours later, with most of the party either dead or in the negatives, the ranger as the last standing member of the party rushes the dragon and spears the beast. The player rolls not 1 or 2, but SIX natural 20's in a row. The entire table was on their feet and cheering with each roll. The dragon fell dead at his feet. It was a fantastic moment that everyone at the table recalls even today 14 years later.
You know, the chances of that happening are 1/64,000,000. Are you sure it wasn't a weighted die?
The one I will always remember is the party was fighting a group of dwarves and the leader of the dwarves had the ability to enlarge himself so he did. Then the rogue decided he should sneak attack him, moving around him to get into a flank position. He moves his mini, I ask him if he is tumbling around the LARGE dwarf. He replies "Nah, he cannot reach me." Which of course is wrong since he is large now, one attack of opportunity later with the enlarged War Axe that was a critial and the rogue is left with 1 hp. He is quite happy and pleased with himself, until there is a comment from one of the other players looking at the two dice I rolled for damage.
"Don't axes do Triple damage?"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
man, thats golden.
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High level Party of 6 against Colossal Half-Demon Red Dragon, 3 hours later, with most of the party either dead or in the negatives, the ranger as the last standing member of the party rushes the dragon and spears the beast. The player rolls not 1 or 2, but SIX natural 20's in a row. The entire table was on their feet and cheering with each roll. The dragon fell dead at his feet. It was a fantastic moment that everyone at the table recalls even today 14 years later.You know, the chances of that happening are 1/64,000,000. Are you sure it wasn't a weighted die?
They were clean dice. We were not smart enough to think of weighted dice back then.
They were clean dice. We were not smart enough to think of weighted dice back then.High level Party of 6 against Colossal Half-Demon Red Dragon, 3 hours later, with most of the party either dead or in the negatives, the ranger as the last standing member of the party rushes the dragon and spears the beast. The player rolls not 1 or 2, but SIX natural 20's in a row. The entire table was on their feet and cheering with each roll. The dragon fell dead at his feet. It was a fantastic moment that everyone at the table recalls even today 14 years later.You know, the chances of that happening are 1/64,000,000. Are you sure it wasn't a weighted die?
Besides, we've all rolled a million dice, so there's actually only a 1 in 64 chance of that happening.
I play with a girl who almost always rolls over a 17, and getting several natural 20s in a single common is expected of her. And she doesn't cheat.
Speaking of cheating, I was playing in an epic level Dragonlance game being DMed by a professional poker dealer. It came down us playing Poker with Hidukkel or whatever. Anyways, my kender somehow gambled away the entire kender race, then somehow won back just the females. All the other males were dead. So pretty much the other half of the kender race hated me too. But I digress. One of the players actually cheated by keeping some extra cards, and won!!!! And he sat right next to the professional poker dealer!!! And the dealer's good....he bought his house with poker winnings.
(I was the type of kender that used Sleight of Hand to GIVE stuff to others--whether they wanted it or not!)
I really gave him every chance. I discouraged him from the plan from the beginning, I even rolled to hit. The rest of the encounter was described by what the other player saw: You see him skid to a stop and look up at the weapons pointed at him. A loud rumbling noise fills the arena as the vulcan cannon spat slugs the size of babies at your friend. Dirt and dust are thrown in the air followed by an explosion. When things settle, all that is left of him is a pile of stained, ruined earth.
Eh. Any plan, no matter how spectacular, can turn to poop real quick when you lose initiative and the badguy rolls a nat 20 to hit. That said, it was a good plan. High drama stuff. It really had the potential to be one of those "HA! You can do NOTHING...er...you got her? WHAT? ummm..." moments. When they fail, yeah it can look a lot like that.
That said, the absolute horror from the rest of the group, who had all really come to like Anun was just priceless! I still remember the character and his last goshawful story with fondness. Heck, it got my sand-speckled Chessex die officially re-named my Anun "dead".