oh dice thou art a heartless mistress

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fun stories of when something has fallen flat because of a bad dice roll?

I guess there's always fumble stuff and describing an epic attack then rolling a 1 but I'm thinking more role play things I once had a bard try to show a racist murderous halfling the error of her ways by listing off examples of how interaction between races was really useful I made an over long speech about how murder was bad and then rolled a 1 on my knowledge history check to list of evidence of the benefits of good interracial relations it fell so incredibly flat at a point where I was trying to do something profound that it irritated me to no end.

[Deimess]

Two stories:

In one of the groups I play with regularly, our party motto is "we suck when it counts" I came late to the group and this was a long standing tradition for them.

Example 1: The rogue rolled a natural 20 on his search check for a trap, then a natural 1 for the disarm check, resulting in an accidental set-off of the trap...

Example 2: There was also the time when they did their first 3rd edition adventure. They didn't know the rules that well and the first encounter was with a few rats and dire rats. Both the DM and the players rolled SOOO bad that this resulted in a TPK... to dire rats, in a party of five or six, after several rounds of combat.

I still play with them, and frankly, they are some of the worst rollers i have ever seen. This makes it all the more glorious, however, when a 20 is rolled :smallbiggrin:!

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I had a bard that now I can't quite be certain of this it was a little while ago but I'm pretty sure he didn't do any damage (he did not last long) for the time I played him most of the people he went up against that died were a result of their fumbles or other players taking them out after me failing to hit them for 4-5 rounds in a row.

The dm kept throwing dire weasels at us early on and their auto-grapple shut down our barbarian EVERY TIME.

[Drelua]

One time, in a level 30ish campaign, where I played the rogue (rogue/invisible blade/street fighter/void disciple to be exact, I didn't see a trap. The DM told me to roll a reflex save, told me the DC, and I said, while rolling, I'll be fine as long as I don't roll a 1. And I rolled a 1 right as I said 1, and died.

A few weeks ago, my swashbuckler tried to help search for traps on a tower. He rolled a 1, so he pointed at a leaf that was growing on the tower and yelled, "Its a trap!". Then the rogue reached for the leaf and grabbed it, calling me an idiot. As she grabbed it, she accidentally touched another leaf and it poisoned her. It [I]was[I/] trapped. Then being a swashbuckler, I attempted a bluff, saying that was the leaf I meant. And rolled a 20. We were doing this death match thing on a demiplane at the time, so there were people scrying on us as spectators. Even they thought I spotted that trap.:smallcool:

[Socratov]

One time, in a level 30ish campaign, where I played the rogue (rogue/invisible blade/street fighter/void disciple to be exact, I didn't see a trap. The DM told me to roll a reflex save, told me the DC, and I said, while rolling, I'll be fine as long as I don't roll a 1. And I rolled a 1 right as I said 1, and died.

A few weeks ago, my swashbuckler tried to help search for traps on a tower. He rolled a 1, so he pointed at a leaf that was growing on the tower and yelled, "Its a trap!". Then the rogue reached for the leaf and grabbed it, calling me an idiot. As she grabbed it, she accidentally touched another leaf and it poisoned her. It [I]was[I/] trapped. Then being a swashbuckler, I attempted a bluff, saying that was the leaf I meant. And rolled a 20. We were doing this death match thing on a demiplane at the time, so there were people scrying on us as spectators. Even they thought I spotted that trap.:smallcool:

hilarious!

anyway, I was in a naval combat once, and entered another ship by a rope swing (yes my character was a dread pirate and named Jack sparrow), quick drew my 2 rapiers, and hit a crit on both attacks, so I sliced and diced through him, killing him instantly. Next I roll a 1 on my intimidate roll against crew, making me look sad. The DM look sme in the eye and says: "seriously, you just ripped through their captain, killing him instantly. It doen't matter what you roll they will obey as long as you don't do to them like you did to their captain."

[Undercroft]

One of my homebrew rules is a nat 1 attack roll with a ranged weapon means the weapon fires but ends up targeting some random creature within the line of fire (with a 2nd roll to confirm whether that hits).

There was an ambush set up against my PCs, but when it came to doign the attack rolls 3 out of the four ambushers got fumbles and ended up killed eachother with crossbows. My players were laughing their heads off as I explained the scene.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

First off, you can't auto fail OR auto succeed at making a skill check, so if you have one metric ton of points into a skill and roll a one you still take the result and see if it succeeded or failed.

And now second, my story. We were in an alley fighting this DM plot point, so there was not point trying to kill him because the DM would never let us even if we did somehow manage it. As we were getting away the guy unleashed this barrage of bone spikes that were aimed at me, but I was aloud a reflex save. I had a +17 to reflex and improved evasion. The DC was 20 so all I had to do was roll a 4 or better, silly me for thinking that my dice were fond of me, I rolled a 3 and took a whopping 65 damage, knocking me unconscious with -5 hp. Granted they did what they were told when I threatened to melt them, re-solidify them, then grind them up into dust if they made me fail my Fort save for massive damage. My dice decided that the wanted to live and rolled just enough to make my save, so they could screw me another day.

[Taelas]

Red Hand of Doom. The party was facing Regiarax, who had been upgraded an age category. One of the players attacked him in the air and rolled a twenty, followed by a twenty, followed by a hit. As a house rule, this constitutes an immediate kill.

Ryu, if the DC was 20, your 3 was enough -- the DC is the number you need to equal, not the number you need to beat.

[Deimess]

I had a +17 to reflex and improved evasion. The DC was 20 so all I had to do was roll a 4 or better

...3+17=20. Which was the DC. Wouldn't you have made it?

Another short story: My spiked chain fighter was fighting vampires, and one of them cast blur and moved within reach. I had haste and hit the vampire 4 times, and failed all four 20% miss chances... Same mod, a vampire dominated me and i scored 2 critical hits on the other fighter in the party, taking out 2/3 of his hit points.

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

You have to beat the DC (at least that is how we played) not just meet it, makes the games a bit harder so said the DM. But in the end we killed the guy by brutalising his body with a giant hammer so all was forgiven.

[Deimess]

You have to beat the DC (at least that is how we played) not just meet it, makes the games a bit harder so said the DM. But in the end we killed the guy by brutalising his body with a giant hammer so all was forgiven.

Okay haha I was wondering, and justice feels great. :smallbiggrin:

[Trouvere]

Hunting and being hunted by a tentacled thing that lurks in the shadows, two of my party wait by the doors of a rickety boatshed, while the other three climb onto the tumbledown roof - and promptly fall through. One gets tangled up in a net hanging from the beams out of reach of the ground. Those outside begin trying to pick the crudest lock imaginable, while the creature, clinging to the underside of the roof, whacks the fellow in the net until he breaks loose and faceplants on the floor. His companion - a half-giant, no less - tries to break open the doors from inside. Outside, they forget the lockpicks and begin bashing the lock with morning stars. Inside, flatface also throws his shoulder against the doors.

Raw d20 rolls: 1, 5, 7, 2, 1, 6, 5, 7, 5, 5.

Rickety shed door wins. In my head, I award it XP. It levels up, and is now a multiclassed Doorcerer/Dooruid/Dooragon Disciple.

Then someone finally rolls double digits.

[ExemplarofAvg]

All the time, Stat Rolls, Hit Point Rolls, all awesome,
When it comes time to using my stats to help anything else well its useful if they're high. I mean Attacks, Skills, Saves, Initiative and Damage. All Suck-tastic.

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Ryu: I'm aware of that but the 1 was a failure for me.

There was another time where I decided to scout ahead for a little while the rest of the party set up camp in an old stronghold that had grimlocks scattered around inside I rolled decently on my move silently (I decided to only worry about one roll since they're blind) ended up with a 23 or something using my bullseye lantern I went to go make sure everything was clear ahead. I went down a hall that opened into a large room and spotted 2-3 grimlocks 2 rolled low on their listen and the last one rolled 20 so instead of being a declared a champ scout all the casters got pissy at me.

[Zaq]

Rickety shed door wins. In my head, I award it XP. It levels up, and is now a multiclassed Doorcerer/Dooruid/Dooragon Disciple.

I do not know how, or when, or where, but SOMEWHERE, I will steal that and put it in a game.