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almightyk
2009-08-16, 12:18 AM
hey. just wondering what some of your favourite moments are to beat your dm in a roll. or if your a dm, the worst times you have been beaten in a roll.

for example. i was playing a game with some friends once
DM: you enter a room. there appearts to be no way out. and the only thing in the room is a small rock.

player: i look up the walkthrough

DM: there is no internet

P: i invent the internet (rolls a 20)

Sanguine
2009-08-16, 12:21 AM
hey. just wondering what some of your favourite moments are to beat your dm in a roll. or if your a dm, the worst times you have been beaten in a roll.

for example. i was playing a game with some friends once
DM: you enter a room. there appearts to be no way out. and the only thing in the room is a small rock.

player: i look up the walkthrough

DM: there is no internet

P: i invent the internet (rolls a 20)

ROFLMAO:smallbiggrin:

The Glyphstone
2009-08-16, 12:24 AM
You must have named your character Al Gore, because there'd be a massive circumstance penalty otherwise for inventing the Internet in the middle of a dungeon with improvised tools - remember that skill checks like Craft (Internet) aren't automatic successes on 20's.

sofawall
2009-08-16, 12:25 AM
You don't go against the DM. You work with him to have fun.

Although it was pretty hilarious when my str 4 kobold sorcerer won the grapple check vs. BigFighter McStrongGuy.

FMArthur
2009-08-16, 12:26 AM
My greatest moments were usually cooperative efforts with the DM. In fact...


hey. just wondering what some of your favourite moments are to beat your dm in a roll. or if your a dm, the worst times you have been beaten in a roll.

for example. i was playing a game with some friends once
DM: you enter a room. there appearts to be no way out. and the only thing in the room is a small rock.

player: i look up the walkthrough

DM: there is no internet

P: i invent the internet (rolls a 20)

This, being thoroughly impossible, was a collaborative effort between yourself and the DM.

I did just see, as a DM, every player and player-controlled creature easily escape Evard's Black Tentacles on their first rolls (8 creatures were in this thing!), and I can assure you that they were at a substantial disadvantage in terms of grapple modifiers. Only one of them even had a 50% chance of not getting grabbed by the damned spell. This was followed by my panicked wizard NPC casting Celerity and Stinking Cloud to catastrophic failure.

Gnomo
2009-08-16, 02:14 AM
Once playing the game Ork:

GM: You have fallen into the river, and you're being drag into the rapids, what will you do? (remember that your character cannot swim)
Me: I... mmm... I will use my last and only Ork Point to augment my Brawl skill.
Rest of the players and GM: WHAT!?
GM: Why did you do that?
Me: To fight against the current!!!
GM: Excellent! that's how an Ork thinks, you get 2 extra Ork Points.
Me: I use those 2 extra Ork points to get out of the river xD.

Comet
2009-08-16, 04:43 AM
GM: You have fallen into the river, and you're being drag into the rapids, what will you do? (remember that your character cannot swim)
Me: I... mmm... I will use my last and only Ork Point to augment my Brawl skill.
Rest of the players and GM: WHAT!?
GM: Why did you do that?
Me: To fight against the current!!!
GM: Excellent! that's how an Ork thinks, you get 2 extra Ork Points.
Me: I use those 2 extra Ork points to get out of the river xD.
That's awesome. And demonstrates perfectly that you can't have fun going "against" the GM. You have fun when you're working with the GM for maximum awesomeness.
Every GM should be like the GM in that game. If a player comes up with something crazy and cool, the GM better reward him for his efforts.

almightyk
2009-08-16, 07:27 AM
You must have named your character Al Gore, because there'd be a massive circumstance penalty otherwise for inventing the Internet in the middle of a dungeon with improvised tools - remember that skill checks like Craft (Internet) aren't automatic successes on 20's.

i see what your saying
but we play by the rule of a 20 on a d20 is always a success and 1 is always a fail
no matter what your doing

Ice&Fire
2009-08-16, 07:46 AM
i see what your saying
but we play by the rule of a 20 on a d20 is always a success and 1 is always a fail
no matter what your doing

Oh man, our group plays like that, until i pointed out that 1's are not always a fail
But with 20's always being a sucess, some crazy stuff could happen that I might try. Anything you can roll a skill check for has a 5% chance of happening. Hilarity Ensures

Swim up a waterfall? Sure, give about 20 rounds or so

Also, slightly off topic, but what is this Ork game? I've never heard of it

almightyk
2009-08-16, 07:49 AM
Oh man, our group plays like that, until i pointed out that 1's are not always a fail
But with 20's always being a sucess, some crazy stuff could happen that I might try. Anything you can roll a skill check for has a 5% chance of happening. Hilarity Ensures

Swim up a waterfall? Sure, give about 20 rounds or so

Also, slightly off topic, but what is this Ork game? I've never heard of it

yeah we know that ones are not always a fail
but we diod it that way to even out the anythiong can happen possibility

MickJay
2009-08-16, 12:54 PM
I'd probably go: "okay, you've just invented the internet. Now if anyone in the world actually had a computer, they could start, perhaps, filling it with various data, at their own pace; roll another 20 to see if someone invented a computer, and another 20 to see if they're feeling inclined to upload data on this dungeon here. While you're at it, roll a 20 to build a computer from that rock, and a 20 to make a communication satellite appear somewhere in the orbit above you" :smallbiggrin:

Xenogears
2009-08-16, 01:03 PM
I'd probably go: "okay, you've just invented the internet. Now if anyone in the world actually had a computer, they could start, perhaps, filling it with various data, at their own pace; roll another 20 to see if someone invented a computer, and another 20 to see if they're feeling inclined to upload data on this dungeon here. While you're at it, roll a 20 to build a computer from that rock, and a 20 to make a communication satellite appear somewhere in the orbit above you" :smallbiggrin:

And if they did manage to roll all those 20's they deserve to get a complete walkthrough of the dungeon. Then tell them that their computer crashed because of viruses...

Milskidasith
2009-08-16, 01:19 PM
20s being automatic successes on skill checks is extremely stupid... I mean, since you can take 20 on basically everything, it means that everybody should be able to know everything and do everything. I can see how some players might like it... but I just don't like the idea of a system where a 20 on "skill check: untrained" beats a character who is opitimized to do something rolling a 19.

sofawall
2009-08-16, 02:25 PM
i see what your saying
but we play by the rule of a 20 on a d20 is always a success and 1 is always a fail
no matter what your doing

So, how many times have you jumped to the moon with no ranks in jump?

Or swam up Niagara Falls, with no ranks in swim?

The Glyphstone
2009-08-16, 02:41 PM
So, how many times have you jumped to the moon with no ranks in jump?

Or swam up Niagara Falls, with no ranks in swim?

At least he has a 1 in 20 chance of seeing the Sun, despite the distance penalties. :smallsmile:

Pika...
2009-08-16, 02:45 PM
hey. just wondering what some of your favourite moments are to beat your dm in a roll. or if your a dm, the worst times you have been beaten in a roll.

for example. i was playing a game with some friends once
DM: you enter a room. there appearts to be no way out. and the only thing in the room is a small rock.

player: i look up the walkthrough

DM: there is no internet

P: i invent the internet (rolls a 20)


Oh Sardior, that is awesome dude. I laughed IRL.

Moriato
2009-08-16, 02:46 PM
At least he has a 1 in 20 chance of seeing the Sun, despite the distance penalties. :smallsmile:

Sun can't hide, doesn't have any concealment

Pika...
2009-08-16, 02:47 PM
You don't go against the DM. You work with him to have fun.

Although it was pretty hilarious when my str 4 kobold sorcerer won the grapple check vs. BigFighter McStrongGuy.

Depends.

If you have a group which actually enjoys the older editions Gygaxian style of running games, well that is fun for them.

Hoping to one day get such a group myself. :smallbiggrin:

The Glyphstone
2009-08-16, 02:57 PM
Sun can't hide, doesn't have any concealment

It has Displacement as a constant (Ex) ability due to it being 92 billion miles away and moving at a relative speed of 67,000 miles per hour. Where you think it is is actually where it was eight minutes ago.

Roderick_BR
2009-08-16, 03:01 PM
i see what your saying
but we play by the rule of a 20 on a d20 is always a success and 1 is always a fail
no matter what your doing
"I'll kill a god and take over his powers and portfolio"
*rolls 20*
"yay, I'm a god now."

Worth a try, according to your rules.

Sanguine
2009-08-16, 03:08 PM
"I'll kill a god and take over his powers and portfolio"
*rolls 20*
"yay, I'm a god now."

Worth a try, according to your rules.

That would require fighting the god though not rolling a skill check. Now Diplomancing a God into giving you all of his divine powers and portfolios...

Yukitsu
2009-08-16, 03:38 PM
Natural 20s and I have a long history of not working together. Specifically, I generally roll them when I don't want to succeed, or the DM makes my success go a bit beyond normal rationality, and into the realm of problems. This is mostly because I play talkers in the party, and as such, if I hit the "fanatacism" DC for my perform or diplomacy checks, I get into all sorts of problems later on, mostly because I refuse to abuse diplomacy to get fanatics, and I refuse to lead them into trouble. (Which coincidently makes them more fanatical.) In fact, I have so many of these stories, that I'm going to have to spoiler it.

The best example of this was Jo Pistachio, a child savant/psychotic inventor with a kind streak to him. He was, at one point, stuck in a deathtrap cave, surrounded by horrible undead on one end of the tunnel, and huge hulking mutants at the other, while standing in the chamber to a dark god holding an item of such horrible radiating evil that even his non-spellcasting self could detect it. Being an inventor, and not a combatant, he had nothing but EMP grenades and a pistol loaded with nanite darts on him at the time, which wouldn't have helped at all. The rest of the party at this point in time was knocked out, and captured by the enemy, far far from where I could help them, or they could help me. The conversation from there went like this:

Me: I put the artifact on.
DM: What?
Me: Doomed anyway. I may as well hope that whatever is about to possess me manages to kill off the mutants before I go down.
DM: Alright, you put it on. Will save.
Me: I chose to fail.
DM: OooooK. You see in the landscape of your mind, a young woman carrying a religious icon. Initiatives.
Me: I have higher.
DM: OK, make your move.
Me: I grapple. *Rolls, succeed.* (as a note, I was rolling well here, and blowing through action points and a few of my items of moment of prescience (gained by crit failing against realizing I was making a Faustian pact) to succeed at these checks.)
DM: OK. She fails to break her grapple. (She crit failed) Your move.
Me: I make another grapple check.
DM: From grappled to pinned?
Me: No, to grapple her tonsels with my tongue. I did tell you that when I die, I'm going to do it with style.
DM: ...
Other players: ...
DM: Make a charisma check.
Me: *Rolls a 20, as a charismatic hero.*
DM: Congratulations, Hel's highest priestess now has a thing for you. Hold on while I ratify everything that was supposed to happen to you.

I wound up making it out alive, thanks to a favour from her. However, from that point on, he had a mysterious new co-worker who would follow him around. I had to save the rest of the party too, but I largely failed at that, as by the time I got there, most of them were dead, ironically from inner party fighting.


Same character, a different "mixed worlds" anime/earthbound campaign wound up critical succeeding almost all of his diplomacy checks against random NPCs. The party had two charismatics, but I was the one of the two who RPed people into the helpful status, then rolled my diplomacy. (DM emphasized RP first, diplomacy came after) and by the end of the campaign, the poor guy had like 3 stalkers, 4 robots, and a pet dog, all who followed him around. When the deus ex machina god machine came down and asked if we prioritized our significant others over raw power, I had to choose between power, and from between a gaggle of people, a group of robots, and a dog. I refused to pick, (But said all of them before power) on the basis that all those people (robots are people) were very important to me. DM ruled that I got the combined power of all of them, for actually using that sappy an answer.

A different character recently was dragged off to, ahem "perform a service" for his boss. He decided for an ad-hoc perform check, no ranks from the NPC and I, she got a critical 1, and my character got a natural 19. So my character had the worst, roughest night of his life, and his boss was considered happy. Then we remembered that I had a + to next skill check item, and that I hadn't used it yet, which increased my check from a 29 to a 49. After we finished piling on all my miscellaneous skill modifiers from other items I had that wouldn't have gotten in the way, I had something like a 55.

Now the epic level DMPC who jumps in to save us from random death (DM uses it to save us from certain doom, and is his tacit admission that he didn't properly calculate CR.) won't leave me alone. This has its ups and downs. There's a -2 penalty to both hit and AC when people are sharing your square, but more importantly, I now have plot armour. At least, I do for the next few months in game before DMPC has to stop adventuring.

A merchant character I made once had a long string of very high skill checks. Our group was arrested for various crimes we didn't commit, and some of us managed to sneak out of our cell. We snuck about the facility, looking for clothes to steal, and I managed to gank a junior officer and steal her uniform. I then tied up the other two PCs, and started leading them about. We met a group of senior officers, and they asked what I was doing. I passed a bluff check stating that I was bringing these two around, and needed to drop off there gear wherever we stored it. They asked why I didn't know where they store prisoners gear, and I passed a bluff to say I'm new. (I also laid on a thick valley girl accent, to make my character seem a bit like a ditz, because she was, in reality, incredibly smart.) They bought that, and said I could take it to room (whatever) but that they would take the prisoners down to the cell.

From here, the other PCs make an OOC agreement that going along with it would be for the best, because they knew they could escape from the prison if they wanted to, but our gear was at this point in time more important. While I was heading down the hallway, I told the DM I'm making a forgery check, which was a natural 20.

So I head down the hall with the few scraps of gear we had acquired as we went through the place to the spot were they had stored all of our stuff. opened up the door, and set off an alarm trap, and took some damage from an electricity trap. DM ruled that I had enough time to grab something like 3 items and run before anyone showed up. Instead, I swapped my stolen rucksack for my confiscated handy haversack, which had all my gear, and I flipped it on. I then grabbed some other miscellaneous stuff for the other players and shoved it in there. Here DM said, "what do you do now?"

Me: I fall to the ground and start crying.
DM: What?
Me: A gentle newbie recruit like me just like, totally got electrocuted by that mean door. That's totally like, cry worthy.
DM: OK, the patrol comes by. They ask you what you're doing there.
Me: "I was just like, trying to put these items into the store room, and this door totally like, shocked me." *Bluff wins*
DM: *Now irritated by speech pattern* "That door only shocks intruders. It's set not to go off if you are a registered officer here."
Me: "I am one. I just started here today. *Sniff.*" *Bluff wins, and I hand them my forged paperwork.*
DM: "I see. This seems to be in order. But you shouldn't have been shocked if the magistrate had his copy of your papers. You did hand in a copy to a senior officer, didn't you?"
Me: "Sure, I put it in the mailslot labeled "Mr. Shredder." That's a senior officer isn't it?" *Bluff passes, and since I RPed braindead for the past 2 hours, I took no penalty on the idiocy of that statement.*
DM: ...
Other players: ...
DM: They shuffle there feet awkwardly, and ask that you fill out a new form, and that they'll give it to the proper officials, and that you should take the rest of the day off.

Later on, I'm put on the task force responsible for hunting my character, who is an escaped convict, down to bring her to justice. After I steal all of my office equipment, and leaving a note saying "You'll never catch me. <3, Lorne" on my desk, I declare that I'm leaving the city to go hunt down that evil convict, even if it's the last thing I do. DM ruled that "the rest of the force is practically in tears, because you're the highest charisma officer there, and you're so stupid, while chasing someone so smart that you'll probably never make it back." The rest of the PCs managed to make it out safely as well, and we all had our gear back when all was said and done.

Starscream
2009-08-16, 03:51 PM
It was one of my first campaigns, and I had decided to play a monk, because monks are awesome, right? That's how much of a noob I was.

The rest of the party had stopped in town to find that there was a fair going on. It was meant to allow them to have some fun and make some money between adventures. There was a music contest for the bard, jousting for the paladin, etc.

The DM had included an unarmed combat tournament for my monk. Unknownst to me (but knownst to the rest of the players), my opponent was one of the DM's former characters. And a werewolf. And way more optimized than I was.

The idea was that I'd get trounced, lose all my money, and end up joining the party so that I could earn it (and my honor as a warrior) back. Instead the dice were nicer to me than they had ever been before or since. Every time I threw a stunning fist the other guy flubbed his saving throw, meaning that he couldn't change form.

By the time he was finally able to transform the fight was almost won, and even then I was consistently able to do enough damage to overcome his DR. He started seriously fighting back though, well enough that it was clear I would never have had a shot if he'd been able to change from the outset. The dice just fell my way.

Bottom line, I won. Instead of ending up battered and broke and being offered a place in the party out of sympathy, I was filthy stinking rich and got a spot because they were just so impressed. The look on the DM's face was priceless.

Moriato
2009-08-16, 04:36 PM
It has Displacement as a constant (Ex) ability due to it being 92 billion miles away and moving at a relative speed of 67,000 miles per hour. Where you think it is is actually where it was eight minutes ago.

Ok. Does it know how to hide?

Milskidasith
2009-08-16, 04:41 PM
Considering hide is an untrained skill, it doesn't need to have any ranks in it.

Flickerdart
2009-08-16, 04:51 PM
Ok. Does it know how to hide?
The idea was that being so far away gives an enormous penalty on Spot checks to see it, hiding or no hiding. It's all a bit silly, of course.

Milskidasith
2009-08-16, 04:53 PM
Well even if we get less silly, I can make a similar scenario that could actually happen. If a fine sized construct about the size of a speck of dust is hiding 10 feet from you, and somebody throws a tarp over a castle (or does something to make it "hidden") 250 feet away from you, it is easier to see the construct than it is to see the castle

I don't know about you, but at less than a few inches away from my face I can't see details on individual pieces of dust, but I can see giant buildings pretty clearly from over a few thousand feet away.

Glass Mouse
2009-08-16, 05:21 PM
Considering hide is an untrained skill, it doesn't need to have any ranks in it.

The Sun just takes 20, duh! :smalltongue:

But how about the guy who rolled a twenty to see it? Will he have to see something that has to stay hidden? Will the two dissolve eacher - the Sun will step forward, the guy will become blind? Will... *sound of brain breaking*

sofawall
2009-08-16, 05:33 PM
Skill checks don't auto-succeed on a 20.

Milskidasith
2009-08-16, 05:37 PM
But that's the system that people mentioned for how they were able to do this crazy stuff; you auto fail on a one, and auto succeed on a 20. For opposed skill checks, the universe just breaks (or you use the higher modifier) but still, it's dumb how the greater invisibility using epic level rogue with max ranks in hide can roll a 19 and be perfectly spotted by a level 1 commoner with a wisdom penalty who rolls a 20. Not to mention other stupidities (I put a single rank into every craft skill, then take 20 to make weapons more suitable for God's than humans.)

Glass Mouse
2009-08-16, 05:39 PM
Yeah, that was kinda the joke. Y'know, the absurdity of that rule (I use it myself, though, because we like the randomness factor, but it's still pretty silly).

But I'm pretty tired so I guess I'm not that good at getting my point across...

Edit: Ninja'd.

Forbiddenwar
2009-08-16, 09:39 PM
This thread has been horribly derailed.
What was the best moment (not necessarily a roll of the dice) you have had against a DM?
Example:

DM(Me): Okay, you are trying to intimidate this contact to give out information on who is trying to kill you (and cut around 15 levels of game play. DC 30)
Player: (rolls) Nat 20, with my modifier that is 30.
DM: :smallfrown: crap. Okay roll your luck.
Player: (Rolls) another nat 20.
DM: Double crap. I guess I have to tell you now.

Another example:

DM: (i know exactly what has to be said in order to motivate this NPC to join the party. It can't be done with a roll)
Player ON THE FIRST TRY! says exactly what needs to be said. "You are a man of Action, Peter. You can't take this blasphemy lying down. Join us to stop it."
DM: Crap, I guess I need to make a character sheet for him.

Curmudgeon
2009-08-16, 10:18 PM
I'm playing a Rogue. DM's girlfriend is a Paladin. My Rogue is also a religious fanatic (DM had me roll on a player quirk table) of a deity opposed to the Paladin's. She'd been spouting off about how I had to toe the line or she'd smack me down in righteous fury. So I waited for the right opportunity, and tried to sneak a blade into her kidney -- but missed. :smallannoyed: Then the DM said her "devotion to her cause" gave her a big situational bonus to initiative to respond, and she'd automatically get the next action. :smallmad:

I figured I was toast. Apart from the roleplaying chance of getting into theological squabbles, my fanaticism only had one other feature: a 1% chance of divine intervention. So I figured I had to try ... and made the roll. :smallbiggrin:

DM said she swung her greatsword right at me and it hit an invisible wall so hard the recoil knocked her on her butt. I figured I'd used up all my luck, and my Rogue skedaddled. Of course, he happened to be the bag man for the treasure the party had acquired up to that point. It's good to know how to Hide. :smallcool:

almightyk
2009-08-17, 01:44 AM
20s being automatic successes on skill checks is extremely stupid... I mean, since you can take 20 on basically everything, it means that everybody should be able to know everything and do everything. I can see how some players might like it... but I just don't like the idea of a system where a 20 on "skill check: untrained" beats a character who is opitimized to do something rolling a 19.

thats another thing we play by
if you take 20, its not the same as rolling 20

and to use a skill untrained that normally must be trained, anything below rolling a 20 fails MISERABLY

Drevius
2009-08-17, 01:41 PM
I'd say one of my more favourite times besting the dm in a challenge would be when my deadly hunter neanderthal druid named Tunk took on a white dragon psion creature and went for a "falcon punch" having run out of useful spells, i said screw it why not, first roll 20 doing great...roll to confirm, 20....holy s*** one more and he's gone. The last roll was a 1 but I leapt up jumping and yelling " YEAH! HE'S DONE! WOOOO!!!" The dm didn't know, much to his chagrin that I had taken a few luck feats including "dumb luck" treating a natural 1 as if it were a natural 20. Man I loved Tunk he was such a great role playable character with decent power to boot (plus he ran around naked believing pants were an illusion and built workable snow forts)

sofawall
2009-08-17, 02:38 PM
thats another thing we play by
if you take 20, its not the same as rolling 20


So what is it the same as? Taking 20 is, by definition, trying over and over again until you get a 20. Statistically, this will take 20 tries, so taking 20 allows you to treat your roll as a 20, in exchange for taking 20 times as long.

You know, seeing as how natural 1s don't auto-fail and natural 20's don't auto-succeed, for skills.

If you count Taking 20 as having a roll result of 20, but not an auto-success, just simulate taking 20 and actually keep trying until you actually roll a 20. Jumping to the moon in 20 rounds, making a god-sword in 20 tries...