First off, I've been stalking these boards for a few weeks now, and I've come to learn that my absolute favourite threads are the ones where people share their stories and experiences. So let's have one of those threads!
So, Hero Points. When, why and how have you used them, and what were the results? Give us your stories. I'll start, of course. May contain spoilers for RotR.
A knowledge check had revealed that trying to climb the wooden stairs of the clocktower would cause them to collapse, so we decided to try something else: our inquisitor would try to scale the walls using climb and a climber's kit, while the witch would pick the halfling up and fly. However, as the odd couple flew up, the great bell fell down on them, dealing a certain amount of nonlethal damage and rendering the witch deaf. So now we have a deaf caster, that's obviously bad. Still, we decided to try again. The bell was down now, so it wouldn't fall on us again anyway.
Thus, naïve as we were, the witch and the bard ascended again, while the inquisitor got practically nowhere with his climb checks, eventually deciding to stay behind after taking a 30 feet fall. Once up on the next floor, the lone witch and bard were immediately attacked by 3 faceless stalkers. Having already taken damage, we soon went down and fell unconscious. Death was certain, but then we were reminded about hero points. My turn was next, so I asked our GM how far the fall was, and how long it would take to reach the bottom. Getting a satisfactory answer, I then expended a hero point for my halfling to stay conscious, grab hold of the unconscious half-orc, and drag us both over the edge into a long fall. During the fall, I had the halfling then pull out a wand of cure light wounds, but failed the concentration check to cast in this greatly stressed situation. Still plummeting, I expended another hero point to get a bonus to the second attempt, and this time it succeeded, healing the witch enough for her to regain consciousness. She then immediately used a hero point to grasp the situation and get a bonus to a concentration check of her own, to cast feather fall, letting the two float safely down to the ground, where the halfling would then succumb to the damage he had taken and fall unconscious.
This was half a year ago, (which is a lot to me as a relatively new player), and I still love the mental image of the small halfling bard in the gaudy entertainer's outfit dragging himself and an almost 7 foot tall half-orc witch over the floor's edge, frantically casting spells as they fall.
I have to say, as the Witch in this story, my heart was pounding hard during the whole ordeal.
Definitely one of the highlights in our campaign so far, even though it was us being beaten badly :)
No stories about Hero Points saving the day in awesome ways?
Spoiler for Hook Mountain Massacre
Finally they reached the second floor of the fort and were faced with the final leaders of the ogres. A brutal battle ensued and the party finally claimed victory. Only Lucrecia remained, backed into a corner. Her turn came up. She had one slot remaining for a final dimension door she had saved as her escape. She had done this twice before early in the fight to get away from the party.
She began casting defensively, made her check and was about to disappear and escape to the grounds outside the keep and then away to Hook Mountain. The paladin in the group decided enough was enough - he used a hero point to gain an attack of opportunity even though she had successfully cast defensively. He was already smiting evil against her. The attack was a crit and Lucrecia, who thought she was home free, fell in the end.
The players actually cheered around the table when the paladin's player stated what he wanted to do. As the GM I thought it was a great use of a hero point and was just as excited when it came out so much in the party's favor.
Ah yes, that one. She was a female dog. *censure circumvention*
We ended up losing our inquisitor to her, because he didn't want to use hero points to cheat death. Nice use from your pally's side, I would've been quite excited too.
I wish I had more stories to try to keep this thread alive, but unfortunately I've only been in this one campaign, and we've only used hero points that one time. I'm still curious about more ways people have used these points ;)