I want to hear your stories about cool or awesome moments with your characters. What was a cool or fun moment you had during a game?
I ask for two reasons. First, I love stories. Second, I have a skald in a game and I'm looking for tales or stories to tell in character just to add atmosphere. It would be more fun to me to use moments of awesome from other games, not just our own.
Story time!
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We had a game where we were introducing a new player to the game. He had his heart set on playing a rogue, which the GM told me about ahead of time (this was just before unchained rogue was released, so bit trickier of a position to be in).
Knowing he could be in for a painful time, I made a bard....but not just any bard. Etrei the Feyish Jester. While a bit on the nutty side, Etrei took a liking to his character and once we started getting into trouble I made him look awesome.
Boost him up with bard songs, heal him by whacking with my jester stick (wand), cartwheeling between enemies to give him a flank. All in a days work.
Anyway, we get our first job from this uptight military lady. Someone Mr Rogue takes an immediate shine to and in his first roleplaying sessions begins to flirt with this military lady. When asked for a charisma check he rolls a 20 and flusters her badly (cracking him and us up). At this point he decides this has to continue being a thing and really takes a shine to her.
So we go on her quest and as mentioned above, I go out of my way making Mr Rogue have a good time and surprisingly effective in combat.
We return victorious, with Mr Rogue ready to sweep military lady off her feet once more. We find out though that the place has been broken into and she is about to be sacrificed in a tower on the coast (70 feet down to the ground with another 30 feet to the water if you get past the ground). Our rogue dashes to her aid, but the cultist is already poised to stab and sacrifice her tied up on some altar and the DM has us roll initiative.
Etrei, bless his twisted soul, wins initiative with a 20 on the dice. I run up to her, spend a hero point (one of two) to use invisibility to make her vanish and save Mr Rogue's crush. The DM was speechless for a moment but continued.
So we battle the three cultists and we're handily winning since they can't see her to coup de grace her at this point. The one higher ranked cultist makes a dash for the window, throwing back a taunt, "Too bad, we still win" as he leaps from the window laughing.
Now I've been playing with this GM for two years and I have suspicions soon as he says that. We're back at top of the order so after a moment of thought I feel around till I find her (knowing which square she was in) and heft her up. DM tells me this takes a move action to do. Then I tell him I run and jump out the window, using my last hero point for the acrobatics check to jump for the water (and the smoother landing).
He falls silent again before cursing me once and rolling some dice. We both hit the water, but survive (though we are both in the single digits). Following my turn the cultist detonates the room for truly obscene damage. Mr Rogue survives...cause he's a rogue and evasion. The two cultists are wiped out.
Afterward he told me for the storyline he prepared she was supposed to die in there either via sacrifice or the bomb and gave Mr Rogue a reason to adventure, avenging her death. Instead she survived and I became Mr Rogue's best friend and truest wingman.
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Played a brutal pugilist/urban barbarian in a low magic, fantasy setting.
We'd uncovered a plot to cause political embarrassment to the land we hailed from, and adventured to stop it/find the cause.
We found that one of the nobles had been involved and we confronted him at court. He did not deny the accusation, and ready to be rid of us, asked for trial of the seven (based on GoT). He named a champion, and a few others, vs the party and the king himself.
My character, ever the large burly redheaded brawler, has his opponent think he's going to stalk this "unarmed" fighter, taunting him. He got one swing and missed, got disarmed, and spent the entirety of combat on his back grappled/pummeled into unconsciousness. A knight of the realm bested by a former bar bouncer with his bare hands.
It was glorious.
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There is a plot monster in
My Halfling Paladin one-hitted it with a Smite-Spirited-Charge-Jump Attack with nowhere to land in case I miss or don't kill. It was a one-way attack.
After killing a Huge dragon with the aid of the party, my Level 6 paladin was stuck out of the castle surrounded by 150 orcs. Managed to survive and disperse the "swarm".
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Back in Living Greyhawk I'm playing Agroo the Coward, an elderly human cleric who had given up on life early and through the grace of his deity was trying to make amends before he died ...
The party is 3rd level and in one encounter the ground opens up and one of the party falls in and gets bitten/grabbed by an Ankheg that is about to drag said character off. I hadn't racked up any spells that would help, so my character pulled out his longspear and jumped 15' down into the pit (taking falling damage) and with his 8 strength and 8 dex, crit the sucker and saved the party member.
I do believe he was known as "Father Agroo" from that point forward.
Back in the day... my old tabletop group started a high level adventure (18th level) in 2nd Edition, I cannot recall which adventure it was unfortunately. I decided to make a gray elf wizard (we never used the racial class level caps thankfully) and our GM allowed me to have a Stone Golem to have around as my buddy.
One of the first encounters was a red dragon, I believe an ancient wyrm, it's been a while since I've played 2nd Ed so I do not recall the exact dragon types. Anyway... dragon strafes us with his breath weapon and does some pretty serious damage to most of us, I survived only by using my golem as cover and made my ST with a bonus the GM granted to me for said tactic. I then cast Prismatic Sphere. Dragons lands nearby me and then decides it wants to full attack me while hiding behind Prismatic Sphere... He passed the first three saves, but failed the next three... So Mr. Ancient Red Wyrm died from poison, then turned to stone, and went insane, he then awesomely passed the last saves. I then used Stone to Flesh to change him back into normal skin and we harvested the hell out of his scales and skin!
I single-handedly defeated the dragon before anyone else even had the opportunity to retaliate from the breath weapon. We had never played that high level before and our GM did not know about the awesomeness that was Prismatic Sphere... The look on his face when I told him he had to roll 7 STs and the effects was priceless.
Not mine but I enjoyed these:
SilverClawShift Campaign
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?116836-The-SilverClawShift-Ca mpaign-Archives
I liked this idea:
http://paizo.com/campaigns/TheWalkingDeadOfGolarionByGMFiendish/recruiting& amp;page=1
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1: What a battle!I want to hear your stories about cool or awesome moments with your characters. What was a cool or fun moment you had during a game?
I ask for two reasons. First, I love stories. Second, I have a skald in a game and I'm looking for tales or stories to tell in character just to add atmosphere. It would be more fun to me to use moments of awesome from other games, not just our own.
Story time!
2: What amazing odds! And, to think we survived!
3: Yeah, THREE against A THOUSAND - simply amazing!
1: We never should have attempted it. THREE against A THOUSAND and we're still here to tell about it.
2: That's enough fighting for me. I'm retiring from the army. Fighting THREE against A THOUSAND has completely worn me out.
3: Me too. I think we've made a name for ourselves. THREE against A THOUSAND - I still can't believe it!
1: OK, I'll quit too. You know, those were the toughest THREE guys I've ever fought against!
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Posted this story before - but it fits the topic:
I'd moved to a new area, and GM vetted and let the character into the game at the start of a new adventure - with a quirky smile.
It was 1986 At this point in my gaming evolution, I had been a hack&slasher most of my gaming life. It was only recently I truly got into the idea of being "in character", role assumption, that sort of thing. I still was something of a powergamer, but it was now always within the constraints of the good characterization.
We were to investigate a Dwarven nation that everyone had lost contact with. So I have Obsidian- Drow fighter, but he was raised by Dwarves, from the age of a few weeks old. He was Lawful Good, and though of himself as a Dwarf. Now, this world knew about Drow, so he was hated/hunted, reviled and such, and always felt like an outsider, even at home.
We get to the town which became our home base and there was a statue to a local demigod in the town square, overlooking the main inn and general store. He had ascended, and this area had been his home in mortality. There was a legend that if somehow you could get inside the statue, you would find the "greatest treasure ever known". This Demigod was born a half orc/half elf.
The adventure happens. A rather exciting mystery, but does not bear on my story. After we had ascertained the problem, and why, we were headed out to leave, but got lost in the Dwarven caves, and after hours of searching came upon a door to a small suite of rooms. A chapel, bed, and study. In the study were two windows, that when we looked out of them, we saw the village inn and store. We realized that we had found our way into the statue. At this point everyone starts ransacking the place looking for the treasure. Obsidian just looks out the window. The GM, taking each of us in turn telling us what we find- nothing. Obsidian keeps looking out the window, and the GM with a small smile keeps describing the interaction of the people, families moving about and such...
One of the other players, frustrated, cries "Where is this Greatest Treasure Even Know", and Obsidian (adopted Drow child of Dwarves) said "Right here." and gestured out the window. He turned and said "This is the greatest treasure, acceptance by your fellow man & family. This god was a half orc, half elf- everyone reviled him, everyone was disgusted by him. That is what is here- community".
Possibly my greatest moment as a player. I had a true sense of transcendence of self- much like the one or two times doing theater in school when everything just came together. It is part of why I play.
As a postcript, we found a chapel to the demigod later, who gave everyone a minor wish. Obsidian wished for a received a grand, silver, bushy beard. :-)>
90% of the time I GM, the other 10% the campaign falls apart, I am a sad panda.
The group is fighting a cult who seeks to restore an ancient lich to power.
Having discovered a stronghold being used by this cult, a tower deep in a dark forest, the group advances to the edge of the clearing and begins to plan their next move.
The wizard, rogue, barbarian, monk, and cleric begin to discuss their options, noting that they have some captured cloaks that the cultists wear, and could potentially infiltrate the base.
The keen wizard, however, notes that the cultist is entirely made up of humans, and no other races exist amongst its ranks.
This debates goes on for some time, when all of the sudden, the dwarf fighter, who has been fidgeting impatiently this whole while, snatches up a cloak, dons it and proceeds across the field to the tower, where two guards stand watch.
The party watches in shock, fear, and disbelief, holding their breath.
On his approach, the guards call out, "Halt, who goes there? State thy name?"
The dwarf pauses in his tracks, totally frozen and stupefied.
"Uhhh... Um..."
"Speak!" call the guards again, raising their swords. "Who are you!?"
"Me? Well... I'm a... I'm a midget!" replies the dwarf.
The two guards recognize the deception and stupidity of this dwarf and call out for their masters in the tower above.
Within moments, the entire garrison in the tower has been called to arms and comes rushing out to slay this imposter.
The party, loyal and courageous, races across the field to save their foolish friend.
After a total bloodbath, the wizard firing fireballs into the midst of combat, slaying friend and foe alike, most of the party lies dead, as well as a great number of cultists.
The wizard and rogue flee, thanks to stealth, and flight, ultimately to return and finish the campaign after filling their ranks.
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Another time, with the same party as mentioned above, we came across a different tower belonging to a band of petty thieves.
The rogue scouts out the entrance and confers with the wizard. They deem these villains to be of little threat and probably not even worth our time. However, the barbarian is itching for a fight...
After some discussion it is decided that we will unleash our barbarian on the tower just for fun. We figured if nothing else, it would scare the $%*#@# out of these bandits when they see a were-wolf hybrid dwarf foaming at the mouth roaring with rage and charging them with a mighty vorpal great axe lifted above his head, providing us with some great entertainment.
The bandits spot him crossing the field, panic, and retreat inside the tower. The barbarian crosses the field in two turns, using his fast-movement to close the distance quickly. He arrives to find the door locked (and unbeknownst to him, barricades from the other side and reinforced by bandits physically stabilizing the clutter used to block the door).
A party member moves behind him and casts Enlarge Person on the barbarian, who swivels, lets out a mighty roar, and charges shoulder-first into the door. He rolls a natural 20 on his str check. The door blows from its hinges in a cloud of dust and falling rubble as the doorway collapses on itself and splinters into hundreds of fragments.
Three or four of the bandits are crushed by falling stone and furniture, while the rest flee in sheer terror up the winding spiral staircase to the upper levels of the tower. The barbarian stops to laugh manically at the mess he's made and proceeds to run up the stairs screaming the whole way.
In the meantime, the party has crossed the field to inspect the scene, taking note of the destruction and delighting in the sheer beauty of their friend's destructive wake. From where they stand just at the base of the tower they can hear the panicked shouts of bandits hurriedly scrambling to arrange a defense.
The barbarian surges up the stairs, encountering scant defenders pathetically attempting to delay his advance. He cleaves them, bites them, rushes right over them, and annihilates them, bellowing laughter the whole time. There may have been some howling thrown in here and there. His party can hear all of this echoing out the many windows scattered along the stairway and can only wonder at the brutality taking place inside.
Moments later, as they stand huddled in a circle, perhaps getting a bit bored by the situation, the keen elf rogue's ears perk up. She spots a shadow on the ground at her feet and looks up just in time to see a mangled corpse rocketing toward the party as it is tossed out the window.
The barbarian, having slaughtered near 20 bandits takes a break from the destruction to toss the bodies out the window, loot and all. He figures he will save the party the burden of climbing a few hundred stairs. What a nice fellow, eh?
The barbarian finishes the task, the party begins to say a few prayers for these poor souls and takes what little loot remains on their bodies. The last of the bandits are now holed up in the very top chamber in the tower, an iron door bars the room. The enraged axeman charges this door, but to no avail. His axe deflects off its solid surface.
By now his rage has worn off, but his bloodthirst has not waned. He speeds down the stairs, grabbing all the wooden furniture he can find along the way and tosses it off the stairwell into the base of the tower. Here he piles it all together, creating a wonderfully stacked pile of fuel.
The barbarian runs out of the tower to safety. He is now visible to the party. His body is covered in blood, guts, bits of broken weapons stick in and out of his thick flesh, and a massive grin spreads across his face. "Light em' up!" He says.
The wizard with no hesitation at all, pitches a fireball into the pile of broken furniture. The group moves back from the blaze and watches as the entire tower is engulfed, slowly slanting as the support beams burn away. Soon, the entire structure collapses into a massive heap of charred rubble and bones. Proud of his work, the barbarian takes the entire party to the nearest tavern. There they recall the glory of the day and enjoy round after round of drink.
In 3.5, we were doing a one-shot at 20th level (Ugh) with some PCs we had played from 1st to 3rd or 5th or so previously. I played a cleric 10/radiant servant of Pelor 10, and we had a swashbuckler and a warlock.
We fought a lich that use Prismatic Spray or Wall, which petrified the warlock and teleported the swashbuckler to another plane. My cleric then cast Mass Heal, rolled a natural 20 on Spell Penetration roll, and the lich rolled a natural 1 on its saving throw. It was destroyed, I used Greater Restoration or whatever to unpetrify the warlock, and Plane Shifted to get the swashbuckler back.
20th level is WAY to swingy....
Another time the same group was doing d20 Modern, had to cut the red wire and then the blue wire to deactivate the bomb, accidentally tried to cut the blue wire first, rolled a natural 1, so missed the blue wire and actually cut the red wire first, saving the day with our incompetence. :-P
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The scenario called for going out into the wastes and coming back with a bulette.. alive for an arena game.
Fortunately I brought a wild empathy focused druid.
Standard action wild empathy, "awwww! aren't you adroable!" *rub bell* the back leg thumps hard enough to shake the ground.
On the way back we're attacked by a roc, who tries to eat the bullete.
"you! put that roc down this instant... shake and be friends.... Good bird"
So we walk back into an orc town followed by a Bullette, followed by a roc. And open up contract negotiations for the Bullettes services, starting at 50 pigs a week and his own swimming pool...
My favorite Pathfinder moment.
One bomb, three trolls. (Takes a little bit of reading down the page to see the full effect of the attack.) As a player put it in discussion, "I'm pretty sure a molotov cocktail to the face means initiative." I'm still rather proud of the moment.
We had a game where we were introducing a new player to the game. He had his heart set on playing a rogue, which the GM told me about ahead of time (this was just before unchained rogue was released, so bit trickier of a position to be in).
Knowing he could be in for a painful time, I made a bard....but not just any bard. Etrei the Feyish Jester. While a bit on the nutty side, Etrei took a liking to his character and once we started getting into trouble I made him look awesome.
I initially read that as fetish jester and was prepared for an entirely different story.
These are awesome folks! I'm really enjoying reading your stories.
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Hmm. I was the first person to cross a bridge, suspended 80 ft above the water. Once I got to the middle, I saw some gobbies on the other side of the bridge, with knives, figured they were going to cut the ropes on the bridge. Told the rest of my party not to get on the bridge and kill those goblins before they cut the ropes, but those gobbies were a little too fast on that. Those gobbies didnt cut it the whole way, I was grabbing onto the planks after making my reflex save, I had a choice of throwing the rope hooked to my belt to my party(so they could possibly attempt to pull me back up) or heading towards the goblin infested side. Figured that someone had to secure the bridge, so I climbed back up to the goblin infested side and smacked the gobbies up, with the rest of the party giving ranged and spell support from the other side of the bridge.
So there's a Rakshasa leading a party into a demiplane. Since someone tried to ascend to god in the area it was magically charged as all hell and pretty damn unstable.
So after a huge plot revel the party starts fighting. The sorcerer takes a holy halberd (known as a kinslayer to them) from his hands with Pilfering Hand while the dwarf bard5/fighter1 charges him and does a little chip damage. At this point I feel should remind everyone that these things have DR 15 good and piercing. The skinwalker barbarian cohort and wolf companion circle around to make sure this guy can't move around that well and thanks to a natural 20 the wolf manages to trip the guy, which is really good since he was alchemically quickened. The druid summons a few more wolves as the wizard/ranger starts casting buffs to nova on the guy. The fight goes on, the barbarian is only able to damage with little flames thanks to her amulet of mighty fists, the bard is barely able to get past his DR, the druid is dropping lightning, when ooc we get the idea that the halberd might be a kinslayer. The sorcerer gives it to our wannabe eldrich knight and well, lets just say that the damage was glorious.
Oh but that's not the end of it. Remember the demiplane I mentioned? Well we had to dispose of the body somehow so the bard got an idea. He tied a rope to a weak pillar, got everyone to step out of the area (this was easy given his reputation) gave the rope a huge tug, and then caused such a shock that the demiplane collapsed on itself and a big shower of gold exploded and rained down.
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Paranoia. We were 3 groups and 3 GMs - one group was security level green (my group), one group was red and one was blue.
(For those who don't know: The security clearance in Paranoia goes Infrared-Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet-Ultraviolet, or something like this).
After some shenenigans I ended up with an exo-skelton from Research&Development and 3 missiles and the usual order: Test them and bring them back intact (because, y'know, Paranoia). The missiles were red (= below my clearance), green (= my clearance) and ultraviolet (= above my clearance, using it was treasonous, but not testing it was treasonous as well because, y'know, Paranoia).
We ended up in a part of the sector where we got surrounded by guards who were mad at us because...I forgot, but I'm sure it wasn't our fault because we were always good citizens. I was pretty high at that point because our Happinesss Officer made it damn sure to keep us happy at all times, screw the consequences. Hammered me loaded the red missile and fired at the guards cornering us (because they were obviously treasonous!). I didn't know that one of the other teams had done SOMETHING to the floor, so the detonation blew away the floor and we plunged in the area directly beneath us were we got attacked immediatly by an army of blue mutant kitties - one of the other teams had screwed up and released them, or created some, or something along those lines. Because, y'know, Paranoia.
I did the only reasonable thing:
"I fire the green missile!"
The GM stares at me, but nods. The green rocket flies towards the cats and...goes straight to them, doing nothing. A bunker buster is not exactly designed to destroy kittens, more cement and alike.
Now you should know that if you die in Paranoia a clone replaces you and you've got 7 clones or so, and depending on the mood the mortality rate can be pretty high. So I didn't really consider it too dangerous to load the white, erm, ultraviolet missile. And firing them. While drugged out of my mind.
The GM stares at me.
"You sure?"
"Yup."
The GM pauses the game and goes to collect the other 2 GMs and the rest of the groups. Everybody gathers round.
"So, what happens is this...THIS group *points at another group* managed to release mutant kittens, who THIS group *points as us* now fights in the main reactor room of the whole sector. And THIS gentleman *points at me* just fired a nuclear missile inside the main reactor room. Directly towards the reactor. Usually I'd say that you're all dead...but you're not only dead, because Blackbot just destroyed the whole MAP, including the clone facilities. We have to stop here because EVERYTHING IS GONE."
Because, y'know, Paranoia. And much laughter was head.
(The game was nearing its end anyways, so it's not like I killed hours and hours of fun to be had...but it was glorious nontheless!)
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Mine I will have to spoiler for those who haven't played Serpent Skull yet.
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Playing a character being sought by bounty hunters in the old Boot Hill Wild West RPG my character, Slim Whitaker, opens his bedroom door only to have some varmint shove a Colt revolver into his face.
"Slim Whitaker", he says, "I've been after you nigh on 6 months now. $5,000 dead, 10,000 alive. I'm not a greedy man." And he pulls the trigger. His gun jams and my character pistol whips him to death with his own gun and escapes to once again ride as the Scourge of the Old West.
I was playing a 3.5 Soulknife, who along the the rest of the party, were faced off against an ogre mage holding a helpless girl over a pit of magma. My character ran full tilt toward them, leaped across the pit and with his momentum grabbed the girl and landed on the other side of the pit. This caught the BBEG by surprise and the rest of the party ganged up on him and defeated him.
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In one of earliest 1e games, I was playing my Antipaladin. In those days if you had a high Charisma you could use Charm Person at will. While trying to sneak past a giant blue dragon, it awoke and was just getting ready to fry us when I called out to it in a flattering manner. It fumbled its saving throw against the Charm and allowed us to enter one of Asmodeus' storehouses without a hitch. The DM was so mad he threw his d20 against a wall and shattered it.
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I've already mentioned this story on another thread, but it's perfect for the topic, so I'm going to bring it up again.
Years ago, in a rolemaster campaign with a GM in love with his crit-tables, I played an elven dervish. A dervish in that game system is a martial artist, who gets to choose which crit-tables he or she rolls on when they inflict a critical hit with their socalled "deadly dances".
The GM didn't like me much, which today I find hard to blame him for, and more than once did he try to find a way of offing my character. I think, in retrospect, he probably wanted me to leave the group but couldn't bring himself to ask. Back then, I wasn't exactly the somewhat-lovable-on-a-good-day-and-in-the-right-kind-of-lighting-creep who sometimes hits the "enter" key while hotheaded and without proofreading my own stuff that I am today. I was just a creep.
So, during a sojourn through a some thick woods where we had been warned that hostile creatures lived, including a band of very angry centaurs (a downright nasty kind of beasty for low level rolemaster-characters for those who don't know), we came upon a clearing and was promptly attacked by ... you guessed it ... the band of very angry centaurs.
We were outnumbered very badly, and the centaurs so overpowered us that it beggars the imagination. Something like fifteen of them and three of us, and each of them could probably have beaten at least two of us rather handily.
And lo-and-behold, the chieftain of the tribe decides that my elf looks the most dangerous, and charges her.
I looked at what to do, used my "deadly dances" ability, and because I enjoyed picking different, but not necessarily the most effective, crit tables for every roll I made (which is entirely doable in Rolemaster, the system of ten thousand crit-tables), I ended up picking a fragmentation crit table. I figured that at least I hadn't done that one before and if I was lucky, I might get a fun hit in before going down.
I then rolled 98 on the dice. In Rolemaster, you use D100's and if you roll 96-00 you roll again and add the result to the first roll. IF you roll 01-05, you roll again and subtract the results. If you then roll 96-00 on the NEXT roll, no matter if you rolled high or low, you continue to roll and either add or subtract. In the end, you add your skill level.
I rolled again and rolled 96. And so on.
I believe I ended up with a crit in the mid 300's if I remember correctly. Most things die very, very messily at a crit of 100.
To which the exasperated GM declared that my elf saw the oncoming monstrosity, used a nearby rock to get good leverage before jumping into the air and doing a spinning kick in the process, before connecting with the sternum of the centaur's upper body. Since the crit I had rolled up -literally- said that whatever was affected "to pieces", the GM ruled that my elf's kick connected, sending kinetic energy into the upper body of the centaur, and the fragmentation effect meant that the human part came off the horse-bit at the bottom.
Which meant I had, as the only player I've ever actually heard of, managed to unhorse a centaur.
The rest of the tribe surrendered, made the elf their new chieftain and the campaign was discontinued shortly thereafter, leaving my dervish in charge of a vicious tribe of dancing centaurs.
Awesome stuff
That sounds Epic.
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This was in a 3.5 game about 10 years ago...
My character Dawn was a ranger/Demon Hunter (homebrew prestige class). In the campaign world, a thousand years ago a BBEG opened up a permanent gate to the Abyss in the middle of the desert, and led an army of demons to try to take over the world. In the past, an Elven paladin sacrificed herself to seal the gate and destroy the BBEG. The gate was still there, but it was sealed such that nothing could pass through from the Abyss. (Things could pass into the Abyss, but travel was one-way.)
Fast-forward to now. The PCs had been tracking cultists dedicated to the old BBEG to learn the ritual to unseal the gate. The new BBEG had already started the ritual on the summoning platform suspended above the gate, and we could all see countless hordes of demon roiling behind the seal. The ritual involved sacrificing a descendant of the aforementioned paladin who'd sealed the gate... and he was tied to an altar with the BBEG about to slay him and complete the ritual.
My turn.
Me:I charge the priest, and slam into him. Bull Rush attempt to push him off the ledge.
GM:There's no railing. You'll need to make a Reflex save to avoid going over, but he'll get one too. And... do you have Improved Bull Rush? If not, he'll get an AOO with his magic ritual dagger.
Me: Let him take that AOO. I want to pin his arms when we collide, so he can't grab the ledge. I want my momentum to carry us both over. If I forfeit my save, can I deny him his?
GM: *pause* You know the gate to the Abyss is directly below, right?
Me: Yes. I intend to make sure, personally, that he goes through.
GM: *realizing what I meant* Wow. Okay. Take a +2 for the charge as well.
Me: I also burn all my Action Points on this, for a +10. *rolls* 19!
GM: He stabs you in the gut as you slam into him, and your momentum carries you both over the edge. The rest of you see the cultist and Dawn fall into the gate. The surface ripples like a pool of water, and you then see scores of demons attack the two when they land. Dawn attacks them in a whirlwind of fury, but the demons swarm and surround her...
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First anecdote : we were playing an all-Evil game, all PCs monstrous races too (though mostly Orcs, and some such), from the same tribe.
After coming back from a good day of plunder and pillage, we find the tribe's encampment burnt to the ground. Bodies everywhere and only the old orc shaman barely alive.
We snatched him from the jaws of hyenas and vultures and found refuge in an old grave where one door led to a safe haven and the other to a wight's resting place (or so the shaman told us).
We learned that the tribe's slaughter was the work of a dragon who was looking for a Dragonslayer blade that could kill it. The blade was a relic of the tribe but the shaman had wisely hidden it somewhere safe.
He told us where we could find it and that now that he was feeling better, we could prepare to get our revenge on the hated wyrm.
All PCs looked at each other and nodded. Our path was clear.
Two guys carried the shaman to the entrance of the wight's lair. And I quickly opened the door just long enough for them to throw the hapless shaman in. His screams did not last that long really.
We recovered the sword and the last remaining PC, having killed all the others, gave it to the dragon in exchange for a lot of gold, only to be burnt to a crisp by said dragon as payment for his betrayal of his tribemates.
Because Evil, right ;-)
This was an entire party win. My sylph shaman, a half-elf warpriest, a human investigator, and a ratfolk swashbuckler reach a tower in a city of the dead. There's a mound of bodies being used as a wall around the tower. While climbing over it, the warpriest, just for good measure, channels energy through it. Nothing happens. So we continue on. After reaching the top of the tower, we meet the centipede necromancer who is currently residing in the city. We are supposed to retrieve a relic that is a family heiroom for our King.
We start by speaking with the necromancer, he's really not that bad of a guy. He doesn't know what chalice we're talking about and wants us to just leave. (He was waiting to be found by bigger and badder parties than our group because of all the loot he's acquired.) So the ratfolk keeps him talking and our investigator slips off to, you guessed it..., investigate. He goes invisible and slinks to the door at the back of the necromancer's study. It's locked, so he pickpockets the necromancer and gets inside.
He finds the chalice tossed to the side on a pile. But he finds so much more. And he proceeds to loot all of it. All the while our rascally ratfolk is running the necromancer around in circles in pointless conversation. He's getting really frustrated with us and kicks us out just as our investigator finishes up. We run down the stairs because the necromancer is going to notice his missing stuff soon.
We hear him yell from up above and we happen to be next to windows on the staircase. We see that pile of bodies from earlier start to form into a ginormous human centipede thing. The investigator drops focused bombs on it and does massive damage to it. But the kicker is, the thing just barely dies because of the channel energy that our warpriest did through it earlier.
The necromancer jumps from the window to meet us at the bottom, but my sylph casts feather fall on him. As he slowly floats to the ground, the ratfolk, who has a wingsuit, flies at him landing a crit on a bullrush. The investigator throws another bomb, and then my familiar, which is a bird, flies over to land an inflict critical wounds. Th ratfolk has landed by this point and she is standing under the slowly falling necromancer, rapier pointed to the sky, with the intention of skewering him. But she crits, so he ends up sliced in two on either side of the now bloody little ratfolk.
Poor guy was robbed and then dead before he hit the ground. Our DM was flabbergasted at the entire encounter. It was great.
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Oh, and from the same campaign as above, the investigtor almost single handedly disarmed a string of gnoll archers. When the battle began, he started crafting a gnoll disguise. Everyone else was in battle and he was in the back sewing or something. One of the archers crit failed on a shot and broke his bow string. But once the investigator finishes, he runs up to the first archer, greets them in gnoll, and says that he's a reinforcement. He's persuasive enough that they don't question it. Then he says that he needs a weapon, he was in a hurry to reach the fight. So the gnoll gives him the bow. Then he proceeds down the line with the same excuse. Even though the save is higher because they overhear the previous exchange and see him putting the last guy's bow into his bag of holding, the investigator keeps beating the rolls and makes it to the end of the line. He made it through six of these guys on pure shenanigans....
So we're a party of six: A ratfolk spell thief, a catfolk swashbuckler, a human warpriest of Norgorber, a human (Azlanti)blind spell-scar oracle, a half-elf-half-undead gunslinger and an ifrit diviner arcanist (me). We were level 10.
The location: a ruined fort bisected by a river of lava.
The enemy: A cr boosted kyton of some variety, 4-5 undead ogres and 4 invisible flying undead ogre mages.
The situation: The party is split in two by the river with the oracle, war priest, swashbucker (magically comatose), and myself on one side with the ogres (now dead) and the mages (now visible and a couple blinded via glitterdust)blasting people with cone of cold spells. On the other side of the lava the gunslinger and spell thief face off against the kyton. Unfortunately the gunslinger and spell thief are unable to overcome the kytons DR, the gunslinger gets torn in half and the wounded and bleeding spell thief retreats via burrowing. Thus the kyton turns it's attention the only player in sight (me) and crosses the lava. The ogre mages are killed. End of round.
The moment of glory: Being a diviner I naturally go first in initiative which here saves my life. So I consult my prepared spells and chose to cast a first level spell - hydraulic push. I overcame the SR but, the smiling DM informed me, only just failed the bull rush by a minuscule amount so at this moment I revealed my last remaining hero point (we use poker chips and are required to call them f*** you DM points) and pushed the kyton into the lava, killing it.
Then all the undead remains formed into a cr 21 gargantuan creature that could cast level 8 SLAs.
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This just happened a couple of days ago.
Our party have been fighting some bad guys that invaded our territory through several permanent portals to other planes. We'd just found two of them located really close together. One led to an evil deity's domain, the other to a sorcerer's private pocket realm. Each portal was represented by an ordinary door, with a stone threshold. The doors didn't open when the portals were active. We never did figure out if the doors were actually integral to the portals, or if they were just there so the henchmen guarding the portals knew where they were located.
There were a ton of different creatures defending the area that we had to fight off while we tried to figure out how to permanently close the portals. In addition, the portals kept opening every few minutes, first one then the other, and disgorging large outsiders. To keep those away, our oracle cast 'telekinesis' and would use it to bull rush whatever started to come out of one of the portals, shoving them back where they came from.
In the meantime, the inquisitor was using a magical shovel to dig a pit behind one of the portals. He hoped that once he'd dug the pit he could push the portal over into it and bury it (an idea that came from an episode of Stargate SG-1 where a stargate had been laid on the ground and buried).
After he finished digging the pit, though, he found he couldn't tip the portal over. It wouldn't budge in that direction, but it *could* be moved horizontally. Once we'd disposed of all the creatures and neither of the portals were currently active, we pushed the portal over to where its partner sat. Then we turned it around so they were facing each other. We piled up rocks and earth around them, and used 'stone shape' to meld the stones together.
We're hoping that any creature emerging from either portal will immediately get sent through the other portal, and they won't be able to get out because both portals are encased in rock. Our enemies will have to send someone out by another method to chisel off the rock or 'stone shape' it away, and we're gambling that they don't have resources to bother with that right now.
This one requires a small bit of setup. The world is a world without clerics, the gods are silent, only paladins able to call upon the power of essentially great good can speak for the divine, as are favored souls bound to an outsider (geased into performing tasks like their deity would normally do, pretty cool in all honesty). The entire party are martials and a favored soul from a militaristic town, my wizard from the magocracy of Crystal Spire and more understanding of others situations.
His name was Gregory Redtower. To his friends Greg, to his enemies it was "kill the one telling them all what to do!" but to Strahd of Castle Ravenloft he was "that pest who dares to call himself a mage." The entire campaign Greg's been a coward, running from fights, hiding behind the tanky members of the party, using tricks to keep the enemies from really doing anything (abjuration wizard and to a gm who knew the magic item book back and forth this was kind of his bane).
The final encounter with Strahd the entire party is ready to face him, my wizard in front of the halfling because she was scared. I had readied an action to cast an abjuration spell in case he cast a spell (not dispel, gm took it as I was getting ready to dispel and misheard). So Strahd, knowing I'd just counter anything uses a simple damage spell, but if I teleported away the halfling would be in danger, and I had no guarantee that a counterspell would work. Instead, Greg stood his ground, took the spell to his face as he cast a spell to turn Strahd's own magic against him (reciprocal gyre, basically takes every level of buff spells on you and turns them into d6's of damage against you) as the paladin slays him with the Sun Sword.
"The sun shall rise over Ravenloft when your dark heart leaves this world monster. And I would do anything to ensure that sun rises *cough* even at great personal cost."
Gregory (soon to be Lord Redtower, but still Greg to his friends) may have been a coward, but his friends learned that if they were in trouble, he would move a mountain and fight a river to protect those he cared about. Granted he was a mage and that was within the realm of possibility, but the message was still pretty clear.
Playing in a heavily-homebrewed 2nd edition game, the first time I'd tried the system. I had told the GM to just make me a generic fighter as a good way to learn the system, so I had classic good physical stats, and crappy mentals-- I think maybe a 10 Int, 12 Wis, and 9 Cha, or something like that.
For flavor, I decided that my guy was a failed paladin-- he really wanted to serve Tyr, but he just didn't have the right 'stuff' (because of that low Cha), so he'd "gotten kicked out of paladin school" as I put it. I played him as a really earnest but kinda dumb and gullible LG fighter.
In the course of the game, we wound up in this dungeon that had a room with paths the 'colors of the rainbow', although there were only six paths. Each path had, alternately, either traps, or rewards. I took a path, made the wrong choice, lost some gold. I was sitting around as the others took their own gambles, and then it hit me... six paths? That seemed weird.
So my guy, Vartan, decides to look around for a seventh path... the GM sort of smiled, and said that I found one... and was promptly teleported Somewhere Else. This happened to be in front of a convocation of all the good-aligned deities. And in front of Tyr himself.
Tyr said he'd been watching me for a while, and decided that my intentions were pure, and asked if I still wanted to serve him. Of course, Vartan said yes-- while OOCly I was laughing my ass off at the idea of a paladin with 9 Cha. I was gonna be the worst paladin in the world... but I couldn't pass up the chance to give my character his deepest wish, right?
So, after accepting in-character, I said something OOCly to that effect. The GM shook his head. "No, you don't get it-- Tyr will make you a paladin."
My metal stats all shot up to the minimums needed to become a paladin, while my physical stats remained unchanged. I bumped eight points of Cha and a point of Wis, boom, INSTA-PALADIN. Suddenly I had by far the best stats in the group, ha, which in hindsight I feel a little bad about, but hey, it's not like I expected it. :P
Vartan was now a force of holy destruction!
Same game:
The finale of that campaign was Vartan's quest for his holy weapon, which lead us to a crazy fight against a lich. Due to a bunch of ridiculous buffing spells and high rolls, I actually managed to sneak up unnoticed on the lich (well, more like vault soundlessly behind him) and was getting ready to magically-longsword him in the back. The GM was neutrally listening to me. However, I must have made my own Wisdom check, because I paused and said, "...wait, that would be dishonorable, wouldn't it."
The GM nodded with a little smirk. I sighed, and said, okay, then-- Vartan taps the lich on the shoulder to get his attention...
Lich turned around, and I caught the Symbol of Pain on his shield right to the face (metaphorically).
Between that and various other things he was doing (I think I picked up three negative levels in that fight), I very shortly wound up in a situation where I would have needed a natural twenty to actually hit the lich. Meanwhile, the rest of the party was scattered, isolated from each other by walls of ice, and generally taking a beating. The lich had been hurt, but one solid hit was going to drop me. Desperate measures were called for.
I asked the GM: 'It's easier to hit with touch spells than to go against regular AC, right?'
GM: 'Yup.'
Me: '...okay, I drop my sword.'
GM: '....sorry?'
Me: 'I have one cure light left. I'm gonna cast it and try and touch him.'
GM: '....go for it.'
And, in classic, could-never-replicate-this form... I rolled a natural 20. The GM narrated it thusly:
"As you go to reach out and touch the lich, you feel Tyr's power coursing into your hand, forming your fingers into a fist... your whole being feels suffused with divine energy... your punch slams into the lich's jawbone with a flash of blinding, pure-white light... when you can see again, nothing remains of your enemy."
It was the most epic end to a campaign I can imagine.
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Not mine, but it was pretty hard to beat.
It was a dark matter campaign (modern conspiracy). The party was trying to stop some thugs from stealing something from a train. Some aliens were in a cloaked ship right next to it trying to do the same thing.
The party's swashbucklery olympic fencer kinda sorta sees the cloaked ship. He jumps off the moving train, onto.. well, nothing , makes a 30ish acrobatics check to walk along a surface he can't see, and then crits the mook with the sub machine gun.
One of the aliens inside actually popped the window to clap.
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Both a moment of triumph and despair. Party basically saunters into a cave on the advice of Detect Magic. We are attacked halfway in by a group of I think young white dragons. Human gunslinger(Musket master, me) somehow wins the intiative. Takes a pot shot at one's wings. Deals damage but only drops it about 10ft down. Proceeds to direct hit max damage and then crit it in the face for full on kill in one round. Unfortunately we were on the other side of a wall of darkness with alot of actual dragons on the other side. After some insane diplomacy and bluff rolls on the part of our rogue he directed us silently to run.
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I was playing in a superheroes game with an adversarial, "gotcha!" kind of GM, and he had a Dr Doom, ruler of a county type of BBEG, let's call him Conqueror. We had a session where most of the group didn't show up, so he asked what we wanted to do with our characters and I said I wanted to infiltrate Conqueror's country and see what he's all about. Nobody else had any other ideas so we ran with it.
The rest of the session ran like a spy novel: we set up covert identities (as security contractors setting up a new security system in his palace), we traveled to the country, did some work in the palace, snooped around and asked questions, gathered some Intel. After a week, Conqueror discovered us (which I anticipated), and the GM gave this self-satisfied bad guy speech about how we could never outsmart him and how his crack security team found the American assassins sabotaging his expensive security system.
I just laughed and said "First of all, I was here in your palace for a whole week under the nose of your security team. They even let me into your bedroom! I could've killed you a hundred different times. You should seriously consider firing those idiots. Second, your security system is up and running perfectly, feel free to check it out."
The GM was actually dumbfounded, I spent a whole week in an enemy country and didn't actually try to take down the bad guy. So the GM/bad guy asks "If you're not here to kill me and you're not here to sabotage my security system, why are you here?" I answered "I hear a lot of bad stuff about you, and I don't know what to believe, so I just wanted to talk and get to know you a bit." So, the BBEG invited us all to dinner and said "You have bigger balls than anyone I've ever encountered".
And that was how I got my superhero team invited to dinner at Dr Doom's palace lol.