Critical Success/Failure Stories

[ORione]

So, the other day I was DMing this game in which the players were being attacked by rats. I let one player do Handle Animal checks to calm them down, although that's probably more of an Animal Empathy action. Anyways, he got a critical success on one of the rats, which I decided that not only did the rat stop attacking them, but it started following them and attacking their enemies. The sorcerer is planning to make it his familiar.

The rat turned out to be an entertaining addition to the group. One encounter took place in a dining hall during a feast, and I required the rat to make Will saves every round to attack enemies instead of eat. During another encounter, the rat got caught on fire, and the players all stopped attacking enemies to save the rat.

This made me wonder about other groups' critical successes and failures. Did you have any entertaining interpretations of critical successes and/or failures?

[Retech]

Well, I had a cat familliar that helped defend me during an ambush by gnolls. Somehow, it was a better fighter than I was, in terms of melee.

It managed to crit on one of the gnolls and confirmed! I was so excited, because I was close to death (1 hp). Then I checked on the chart: kitty critted for 2 damage.

[BlueInc]

I started out a level 9-ish campaign introducing a BBEG's lieutenant putting down a peasant rebellion with a small army of low level wizards. One of my players managed to sneak up on the (mind you) level 20 and use a "save or die" spell on them. natural 1 on the fortitude save. FML.

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In one campaign, I played a character who was supposed to be (fluff-wise), an extremely unlucky rogue. Most of the time, his rolls confirmed this.

One time, though, fortune smiled on his Bluff check and he convinced a pair of vampires that he was an extremely deadly vampire hunter long enough to bully important information and a map out of them :D

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In another campaign I DM'ed, the players tried to sneak into a fortress city under occupation by trolls. An NPC druid's bear animal companion rolled a 1 on a move silently check, so I told the players it roared as loud as possible.

A troll barbarian charged over, crit with one claw attack and hit with the other, doing rend damage, ripping the bear in half and killing it instantly. The party barely managed to survive, but I've almost never seen players more panicked in their lives.

That is, until the Blackguard decided he wanted to raise the troll as a skeleton...

[Major]

Couple years ago my DM at the time was using a house rule were a 20 on a skill check added a massive boost to it (+10 I think?) and a 1 was a massive penalty (-10?)

Anyways, my character was a bard and my personality was one of having to lie to make everything more epic so that the story he was telling was better.

At one point I was asked to hunt these rare shadow creature things and get the skin of one to make into some armor. These things were powerful and normally tore into people and killed them. I traveled into the woods anyways and thus began the game of natural 20s.

At first I was attacked by goblins while on my horse and someone had cast a darkness spell. I proceeded to randomly charge forward and try and trample things whenever an arrow hit me. Each time I either got a 20 or a high enough roll and one by one trampled each goblin and had them convinced the darkness trap had no effect. The goblins cried and begged me to let them live. Eventually I ran into this guy who protected the forest and such and the shadow panther things were hit pets.

Due to us both having this mark thing that sealed us to the dark elves we ended up becoming teammates. He also gave me a liquid that blocked the mark so they couldn't find me. Long story short after quite some time roleplaying he ended up giving me a shadow panther that had recently died of natural causes that he had put out of its misery.

So I walk back to town, walk into the leathersmith and hand the chick who had hired me the corpse. I'm still wearing beautiful noble robes and not a mark on my body. She looks at me confused how I killed it without a mark on its body or a mark on mine.

I smirk and went "I'm a god," and winked. Then I walked out. I walked back in. "Uhhh remove the innuendo, you are kinda ugly actually. But I am a god." Then walked back out.

I go to the bar, order drinks and am bragging about it when a group of rangers gets pissed that I killed this rare beautiful creature for no reason then to get some cool armor.

They ask me how I killed it.

I tell them the longest and most stupid lie ever and then we roll the DM face palming the entire story.

"Well, I was traveling through the woods when I ran into the Shadow Panther. We were getting ready to battle when we got caught in between two warring tribes of goblins. Stray arrows flew everywhere and one hit the poor creature."

"So a stray arrow killed it?"

"No! Are you stupid, that thing just laughed off the aura with it's sheer aura of manliness and we teamed up and destroyed all the goblins in an epic battle. We became friends shortly after and as such we were wandering around the woods chatting when it stepped on a poisonous thorn and..."

"Stray poison killed it?"

"Stop interrupting dood! A little poison wouldn't kill something that awesome. No it glared at the poison and scared the poison out of it. We laughed and high-fived...or high-pawed I guess, and continued talking and decided to have a manliness off. We arm-wrestled and I beat it so badly it cried itself to death."

By now the DM is looking at me like I'm crazy. "...Screw it, roll bluff."

I roll and jump up "YES!!!! NATURAL 20!" I look over, "Did you hear me? natural 20!" The DM is banging his head against the table and looking sad. He moves the sheet blocking his dice. And he had a natural 1.

"The Rangers believe you and let you go."

I turn to the bartender, "What idiots! I can't believe those stupid morons believed that story."

"Roll spot."

"1"

"You turn around and one of the rangers grabs you again and looks pissed."

The next game I ended up rolling mostly ones while the DM rolled 20s so...it kinda turned out badly.

[subject42]

We were fighting a home-brewed monster that my DM created at one point.

It could climb on walls, had a Dex in the high 20s, could become invisible (as the spell) at will, had a custom item of haste, and duel-wielded chainsaw whips.

Yes, it was as absurd as it sounds.

We just couldn't hit the thing, and it kept sundering the weapons of those who could hit it. We were getting ready to run out of the building, eat the AoOs, set the place on fire, and barricade the exits.

Our resident charging smite paladin was getting really annoyed that she couldn't do anything, so she just kept casting self-buffs every round and getting angry.

We eventually managed to get it visible and on the ground. On the ground FIFTEEN FEET FROM THE PALADIN.

She charged it, rolled a 20, then rolled a 20 to confirm. We pulled a card from the crit deck, which read "Triple damage and and target is knocked back 1d6 squares".

Between divine power, divine might, bull's strength, smite evil, charging smite, power attack, and god knows what else, she hit it for something like 190 damage, bounced it off the far wall, and landed right in the middle of the rest of the party, prone.

[Ksheep]

A while back, our group ended up fighting a Bone Lord and a pair of Serpentir. Things were going OK, except for my character. I was playing a UMD Rogue, and I ended up going up against the Bone Lord while the others took care of the Serpentir. After getting beaten up a bit, I decided to try to get out of it's reach by levitating. I forgot that it could shoot bones out of it's mouth. He hits me… dropping me to 0. In a last ditch effort to do something, I throw an alchemist's fire at it… and miss. I then pass out, and the boots of levitation turn off… making me fall into the fire.

So, there I am, on fire, bleeding out, at -9 due to fall damage and initial damage from the fire, going to die on the next turn… and the fighter, who is still at over half health, gets tripple crit from one of the Serpentir and dies. We almost had a TPK, until the DM decided to let another player bring in a character to intervene.

[aquaticrna]

I was playing in a one shot campaign that a friend of mine was running while he was in town (one of the best dm's i've ever played under, though notorious for murdering characters right and left) we were playing in a post apocalyptic world that had been conquered by demons with only a few magically protected cities remaining. At this level we were mostly adventuring around one of the cities exploring the large abandoned sections and doing other random tasks. We ended up on an escort style quest trying to get a couple to the temple of pelor so they wouldn't get assassinated. We meet them at their house to lead them out and before we can leave a seemingly endless stream of assassins begin attacking us. Our party is mostly melee characters of some sort and the assassins are shooting into the open windows and crawling in through the windows and doors so each character is covering an opening trying to kill everyone that enters. We are doing pretty well covering the entrances but the stream of enemies is slowly overwhelming us as the random attacks that are hitting chip away our meager hp. Over the course of a couple turns the battle turns against us as a couple of us fall (myself included). The party is getting scared and beginning to consider abandoning the people we're supposed to protect. To make matters worse a bolt flies out of nowhere and strikes one of the characters that was completely hidden from all the previous ranged attacks killing her. We quickly realized that the only way that the bot had to have come from through one of the walls! Fortunately that section of wall was directly adjacent to our 5 int half-orc barbarian. In an act of desperation he takes his greatclub and attempts to swing through the wall and hit whoever is on the other side. The dm smirks at the shear improbability of the move and tells him to roll it. 20. 20. 20. 20. Four in a row. The room is silent for a moment before we all cheer in amazement as the 1st level borderline non-sentient barbarian vaporizes the 8th level rogue that was leading the assassins in a blind backhanded swing through a wall. The attack granted us a momentary respite that gave us enough time to regroup and escape. To date it is the only quadruple crit i've seen

[Herabec]

With one DM I rolled with for a while, he had a rule that, upon an attack roll with a natural one result, something was going to die. My Fighter/Cleric swung his greatsword at a lizardfolk that was attacking a village. Of course, the one came up and my weapon instead hit a lamp that was hanging off the side of a building, lighting my weapon on fire due to the oil, but he didn't elaborate further.

I didn't give it much thought, assuming he had simply changed his rule. About three rounds later, I've finished off the lizardfolk and I glance back at the town, and apparently that lamp had started a fire due to some hay on the ground, and that fire had spread to the highly flammable buildings nearby and kept spreading.

My failed attack burnt down the village I was trying to defend and killed several dozens of villagers. They were less than grateful. :smallmad:

[subject42]

That is, until the Blackguard decided he wanted to raise the troll as a skeleton...

Was the Blackguard a party member of the BBEG you mentioned earlier?

[BlueInc]

Was the Blackguard a party member of the BBEG you mentioned earlier?

Sadly, no. Two different campaigns. Though come to think of it, the blackguard was the same player as the death attack one...probably should have clarified that the blackguard was a PC. I had given the party a few consumable magical stones that would reanimate any humanoid or monstrous humanoid corpse as a mindless skeleton, but did not grant any kind of control over undead created in this way.

The other players were BEGGING him not to reanimate it as there was a distinct possibility he wouldn't make his command undead roll and they'd have to fight the thing all over again XD

He made the roll, though. He became a favorite member of the party. Originally known as "Big F***er," his name changed to "Patches" when they got a tanner/leatherworker to sew scraps of troll hide into a makeshift skin for his frame.

The party often asked Patches for advice, which usually resulted in a blank stare and fruitless attempts to eat nearby objects. Using Command Undead, the Blackguard forced Patches to be friends with a squirrel another party member tamed through Handle Animal. The squirrel lived inside Patches, occasionally poking its head out through an eye socket.

[Edit]: Improved explanation of the object, more cute stuff about Patches.

[Paperbag4]

I was DMing for my brother and our friends years ago. My brother's fighter rolled a 1 on a search check, and was studying the ground so intently that he fell off a bridge into a river. He failed to swim out before being thrown over the waterfall. Somehow, he survived the fall and ended up swimming out of a pool right next to the dragon's treasure hoard.






edit -- I have a brother, not a borther.

[RedWarrior0]

A little bit ago, the campaign I'm in had a minor PvP issue. We were on a boat, and our roided up enlarged CE ex-pro wrestler decides to bull rush our dwarven barbarian off the boat. On the attack of opportunity, he gets a natural 20, confirms, and then rolls max greataxe damage. Suddenly there was a lot more room on the boat.

[OracleofSilence]

hmm, may hap my favorite is this.

my friend was playing a sorcerer, who was desperately in need to sleep, having been hit by Nightmares for several nights consecutively. Anyway, the parties secondary caster (a warmage) was being a really irritating and constantly waking me up for strategy advice. Purely out of humor, he decided to lob a rock at at the warmage (1d3 nonlethal was the ruling),rolled a 20, confirmed, hit for 6 nonlethal, and knocked him cold. the DM for got, and ran some late night, ambush, and the unconscious warmage gets killed in the first round of combat.

[Big Fau]

I got one for you... (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8122030)

[Tyndmyr]

Last friday, the DM decided to pump up a premade encounter in D20M. So, as a bonus, he had a team of well equipped folks bust in a door and pursue us through a labryinth. As bullets were taken by team members, I laid down in a hallway, and had the rest of the team get behind me.

I then specified a readied action to shoot the next thing that entered the hallway. The DM asked me if I meant next person. I said no.

One of the hostile team whipped his hand around the corner with a grenade, tossing it at us. I say "I'm shooting the grenade". The DM looks at me and says "you know that's a crazy modifier, right". Natural 20. Boom.

Thirty seconds of gleeful cleanup and looting later, I realize not every grenade went up in the explosion. I take the single survivor. Oh look, boss fight, with four heavily armed minions. All within twenty feet of each other. It's a damned shame I'm not proficient with grenades, but hey, I can't resist. Oh look, the dice love me. Bodies everywhere.

I eagerly await finding out what happens when you start grenading people in a city park.

[Undercroft]

There was a halfing ranger npc in a game I DM'd years ago. I forgot his actual name, but my players nicknamed him Trueshot. Every attack roll i did for him was natural 20 (and almost every shot was indeed a critical). He had some serious good rolls in every fight.

[Socratov]

i was in a naval comapaign (or at least a naval part of it) and I had made sure the pirates loved us, and hated some country. When the navy decides to visit us, the first battle my druid casts vortex of teeth, giving us a boat in pristine condition. the boat was given to an old sailor in the tavern, and he and his crew (old hands at this) shoot with 3 cannons: 1 critted enemy ship #1 in the powderchamber, boom, and ship is lost, #2 hits enemy ship #2 again on the powerderchamber, boom goes the second ship, the third critted on the deck of enemy ship #3, our DM was rolling for them, and he looked kinda sad... next round I have my ship fire the ballista, while sailing alongside another ship. i use rope to land next to the enemy captain (i was a dread pirate called Jack sparrow, so my DM allowed this), quick draw his two +1 rapiers of wounding, standard attack with both, 2 crits. then my DM told me i just sliced and diced the enemy captain in 1 slick move. I continue with an intimidate roll (on which i roll a 2 on a d20) and my DM looks at me saying "You just cut down their captain as if it were nothing... they will do what you say as long as you dont start things like you did with their captain.

After this naval battle, I was inofficially crowned as the admiral of the pirate island. Sadly the dungeon died before I could have a visit from the pirate king (read duel for the island).

[Malimar]

The first time I DMed, one of the first monsters I threw at the party was a gargantuan shark (a huge shark one of the villains had animal growth'd). It was probably much too strong for them; it had far higher damage potential than the party did, and nearly killed the character who was trying to tank it.

Then it rolled a 1. And it rolled a 1 to confirm the fumble. It bit itself, doing more than half its hit points in one bite, doing enough for the party to take it down with only one or two more hits. (Just for kicks, I rolled an additional d20; I think the third one was a 2, so if I was playing with instant death rules, it would have instantly bit itself to death.)

My players still talk about that encounter to this day. That, incidentally, is why I still play with critical fumble rules.