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View Full Version : Best Nat 20 stories? (inspired by hushblade)



Jukebox Hero
2012-06-12, 07:26 PM
So I was just reading hushblade's thread and all the wonderfully horrific stories about natural ones. And I just got to thinking about the opposite, nat 20s.

Here's mine:
I was running for a small party of 3, and as they were climbing up a mountain, they encountered a trio of harpies. They managed to kill two and subdue the other. They then got into a fight about whether to kill it or to let it go. One of them wanted to troll me really badly, saying that it was impossible for ALL harpies to be Evil, despite what it says in the Monster Manual, so the party should give it a chance. So I indulged him and said that if I rolled a natural 20, the harpy would be Chaotic Good and had been wanting to rid herself of her oppressive society...and well...as the gods of fate would have it, I rolled a 20.

Masaioh
2012-06-12, 07:34 PM
In a session of 3.5 that was the first for everyone but the DM (who wasn't me), someone randomly says "I win", grabs a d20 and rolls a natural 20. We stopped everything because we were paralyzed with laughter.

Vladislav
2012-06-12, 07:41 PM
Not nearly as awesome as you'd expect from a nat20 story.... We were attacked by some huge bird. My Ranger tried a Knowledge (Nature) check. I got a 20.

DM: so, how much is that after modifiers?
Me: 27
DM: Hmm. So the DC for identifying monsters is ... <clicks through d20srd.org> 10+HD. Okay, you don't know anything about it.
Everyone: AAAAAHHHH! Run!

Delvin Darkwood
2012-06-13, 06:17 AM
Well, a shade-wight-undead-ravenlost-monster thing got a nat 20 one me and i lost 2 levels and over 8000 experience. Thats really it as far as nat 20s with that character go.

Frenth Alunril
2012-06-13, 06:30 AM
After a 6 month stint of adventures twice a week, (sometimes more) that lasted between 6 and 8 hours each, my adventure party of 7 was finally in the 18-20 level range. The whole story had culminated in their quest to slay the avatar (not earthbound, outcast avatar, the full power avatar) of a dark god that was being summoned by the orphaned wizard's parents (surprise surprise) and their cult.

I made it practically impossible. The only way they could beat the dark god was if they decapitated it, and I was only going to allow that in the 13 rounds that would make up an eclipse.

After the god had trounced a series of PCs, The Monk picks up the holy sword dropped by the Cleric (the parties tank) and has a go at the avatar, failing horribly. He uses his last action, at the end of the 13th round of combat, to toss the weapon to the bard, who hasn't really done much for the last 6 months.

The bard catches the sword, drops the die, and rolls a 20.

But seriously, this is a god, a few players had dropped 20's already, they would need to do better than that. They all agreed that the only way they could decapitate a god was is they rolled a 20 on a check of a 20.

The bard announces, "well, it's no longer 400 to 1 odds, nows it's just one in 20".

Everyone leans in.

I remind the party that this is the last die roll before the world turns to darkness and the avatar sets itself up as a tyrant.

The dice hits the table, tumbles around, everyone leans in to see it better. "20!"

My apartment erupts into a roar as the collected player shout combinations of, "We win at Dungeons and Dragons!"

Kol Korran
2012-06-13, 06:46 AM
if i wasn't there i wouldn't have believed it. last session of the campaign, the party is on top this tower, dragons batting overhead, as they are trying to contain some fiend from by gone ages, by delivering enough damage to a sort of quasi portal the fiend was exerting influence through. once the gate was weakened enough, the party could use some effect to close it alltogether.(yes, i know, a bit cliche, but bear with me).

i was a bit worried about this fight, as this was entirely made up. the mechanics of the fiend, the portal and so on. i've pre tested the thing 2-3 times, till i got it to "nearly a disaster, but they'll probably make it" kind of balance.

or so i thought.

players being players, they tried all kind of whacky tactics to get the portal weakened, some worked better, some... less. the party was getting beaten down thoroughly. they caused it a lot of damage, but not enough to enable it to close. and they had one shot only left for this.

one of the dragons (controlled by the fiend) was making it['s way to them, the fiend itself was about to break free, spells nearly gone, hp one hit from being dead, it was apparent this is it. the cleric and duskblade attacked the portal with all they had.

i was afraid that would prove measly damage, and cringed at having the players fail at this last epic battle of the campaign. i do not fudge things, and the players rely on it, i felt i really screwed things up. :smallfrown::smallsigh:

but BOTH players somehow rolled quadric criticals, in front of everyone! (i told you i wouldn't have believed it unless i saw it. the chance for that is abysmal) i'm usually not a superstitious guy, but this is the first time in my life i thought there may be some entity of dice that was smiling on us. the portal was weakened enough, the effect closed it, and the day was saved bla bla bla...

it was a good end to the campaign! :smallbiggrin: thanks to the entity of dice!

(not a must, but if the campaign might interest you, check my sig. Faces of Darkness)

DigoDragon
2012-06-13, 06:59 AM
The party I'm running for has a cocky monk with a really large movement rate. In our latest session the party agreed to enter a cave complex and finish off a wounded huge red dragon for an army.
The party quickly locates the secret passages that lead to the dragon and initiate combat. The monk goes first and speeds his way behind the dragon and punches it for decent damage. The rest of the party couldn't reach the dragon this turn, even with double moves, so they spread out and take good defensive positions in case of breath weapon.

Dragon's turn. It decides to just pummel the monk for literally "throwing the first punch" and connects with four of its six attacks. Two of them were 20s. :smallbiggrin: Total damage was 99. If it weren't for the temporary HP earlier from Heroes' Feast, he'd be paste. As it is, he's got 3 HP left.

Next round, the monk tumbles away from the dragon's large threat range and uses his Cloak of the Montebank to teleport himself out and around the corner of the lair far away from the dragon. This put him too far away from any of the party healers to fix his injuries AND right in the path of the dragon's two cohorts (a half-dragon druid and half-dragon barbarian).

The barbarian strikes! 20.
The barbarian strikes again! 20.

If it weren't for the monk's Ring of Nine Lives, he'd be pasted again. Twice.
Meanwhile, the other party members were engaging the dragon, whereas the fighter/duskblade and cleric both took a 20 from the dragon's claw attacks.
Despite the whole "CoDzilla" thing, good die rolls for the DM can hurt anything. :smallbiggrin:

At the end of the fight the party won, but the monk was sitting there nursing all his lost HP and a Ring of Nine Lives with only 1 charge left. He wondered if I was fudging any dice rolls.

Me: "I did fudge some rolls, in your favor because the druid should have hit you as well and the barbarian got another 20 hit on you that I ignored."

And then I tossed my die on the table for everyone to see.

It rolled a 20.

Blisstake
2012-06-13, 09:41 AM
Friend (making a new character after his last one died): Can I play a warforged now?

Me: We talked about this: no.

Friend: Why not?

Me: Because they don't exist in this world, there aren't any stats for them in this game system, and there would be no reason for the rest of the players to have one join them.

Friend: How about I roll you for it? *Gets a 19*

*I get a 20*

Friend: Never mind, I'll be an elf or something.

Nyes the Dark
2012-06-13, 10:18 AM
One time, we had to break into an enemy encampment and steal a powerful artifact. We succeeded, but our Monk was captured. The DM basically said he was probably going yo be tortured and killed. He tried Diplomacy: Nat 20. They let him go after he just destroyed the camp.

While fighting an ogre, we were losing, so I pulled a Heroic action (basically a super-powered attack) to combine Burning Spray and Chaos Bolt. Nat 20: The Ogre exploded.

During a long boss fight against a powerful High Priestess of Lolth, our Ranger tried Twin Strike. Miss, and 20: He basically dramatically backstabbed her, which saved me, since I probably would've been killed next turn.

Bigbrother87
2012-06-13, 11:04 AM
I can think of three moments in a recent AD&D 2nd Edition Masque of the Red Death module.

Since it's an official module, I'll spoiler the moments for anyone who expects to play the second of the three modules, the one in San Fransisco:

The Natural 20 stories

We're making our way to the docks, and we're met by 10 scraggly dock types. After some conversation, they attack, with the front two starting to shift into rat form. Great. Ten Ratmen.

One player, due to being in the Navy, is sadly absent more than others. And his character, even after eight sessions of being a demolishionist, has yet to get to use any dynamite.

He lights, he throws, he rolls a Nat 20 and sends three of them into the harbor. He also leaves a large hole in the dock that I later tackle the last rat man into to finish the fight.

The next two moments are mine. My character is basically the wizard's butler, and he's not optimized for gun combat. So when the party of NINE characters finds out they're facing the actual Count Dracula in a large bedroom, I know I won't be able to do much in a fight. So I try and get smart.

I tackle the Medium away from him, dropping the jug of water I was holding at the time, after she's already been accidentally shot by one of the party.

From the floor, I grab a string of garlic from her pocket and throw it at Dracula's face. Rolled a Nat 20. ...It only made him sneeze when it hit.

So I start talking in German, which no one in the party understands, trying to negotiate, or at the very least, distract our opponent. It doesn't work. As I'm doing that, I'm moving over to the window, which had been blocked off by a large wardrobe. I rolled a Nat 20 to get that thing out of the way to allow a possible escape route. I, in the words of the DM, "bench pressed" that wardrobe.

And it's a good thing I did.

What happened after the 3rd Natural 20, spoilered for length, and spoilers:

The fight did not go well, at all, especially after our Pinkerton type got charmed into helping Dracula. That puddle of water, from the dropped jug of water, actually did serve as a conduit for a Shocking Grasp from the wizard, but otherwise I did nothing damage wise.

By the final moments, two are unconscious inside the room, one outside(having already been evacuated through the window by a doctor NPC). Three are already dead, and three, all physical types, are in the hallway outside.

The demolisionist from before charges into the room, with a bounty hunter for backup, to distract Dracula as I dragged the charmed Pinkerton to the window. The overbearing attempts inside the room are going badly, the bed and roof are on fire, and I finally get myself and the pinkerton out the window.

Then the demolisionist lights all ten sticks of dynamite on his chest and tries to grab Dracula again.

I'd love to say that he rolled a Nat 20 and tackled Dracula on to the burning bed. But he didn't. He tripped and fell to the floor instead, so Dracula was standing over him when the dynamite went off.

The finally tally is that only three characters survived, out of nine. My butler, his wizard mistress, and the charmed Pinkerton, which all made it out that window in time. And only the first two will continue on to the next module, since the Pinkerton's player figures he would need serious psychiatric care after all that.

However...Only two kills belong to the DM from that entire campaign! One kill from the 1st module's BBEG, and one from when Dracula killed the Medium in this fight.

The charmed Pinkerton shot two characters dead, and when the demolisionist took out the building, he killed the bounty hunter AND an unconscious pirate.

Needless to say, This Wizard and her Butler are NOT going to be caught flat footed by a vampire, ever again.

The Bandicoot
2012-06-13, 11:05 AM
My halfling barbarian is down to three hp when the Kytons attack. OOC I know he's probably dead if I attack. IC he's a bullheaded barbarian. So I go rage, throw my spear, Natural 20 AND max damage. So the next turn I run up and my DM rules that ripping the spear out is just a melee attack as if I were stabbing it. Once again natural 20 and max damage.

My DM fluffs it as me taking a running start, practically throwing the spear through the thing's neck and then leaping and ripping thr spear out with the head still attached.

Madcrafter
2012-06-13, 01:42 PM
Several years ago I was running a solo adventure for one of the other players in the group. He was exploring a sewer complex under a city, and in one of the rooms I had left a pit fiend, bound in a summoning circle, as a plot element (though on reflection a weaker devil may have been more appropriate, pit fiends are just too cool). Upon entering said room, and having it described, their first action was "I charge and leap at the devil". I do not know how well they knew the pit fiend stats OOC, but probably enough to realize that this was not a good idea (magic circle or not). Three consecutive 20s later, the devil was down (it has been a longstanding rule in my group that triple 20s is an instakill).

The best part: the character was only level four.

Anxe
2012-06-13, 02:21 PM
I was playing the party rogue, Anxe (my first character :smallredface:). Also in the party was a wizard, Gastron, who was my character's uncle (played by my dad in my first campaign). During an investigation of a haunted island we were attacked by some sort of spellcaster (probably a yuan-ti, but it got away). The enemy spellcaster fireballed the whole party and Gastron failed his reflex save. Gastron had an abysmal HP total, so he died instantly. The rest of the party spread out to engage the enemy spellcaster and his minions. I pickpocketed a scroll off my party's own cleric. I knew a bit about magical scrolls, having taken a level of wizard. I noticed that I had taken a scroll of raise dead! I immediately went to Gastron and began casting the scroll. It was a divine scroll, so I had to use my UMD skill on it. I'd only put 1 rank into the skill, so that I could use it in dire circumstances like this. I needed a 20 to succeed on the skill check and I got it! I managed to resurrect my character's uncle during combat! It took a minute to cast, so he was only back for the last two rounds of the combat, but it was still pretty damn epic.

DiscipleofBob
2012-06-13, 03:07 PM
I once played in a campaign with a lot of its own faults. For one thing, there were DMPC's, LOTS of DMPC's. As in Suikoden-levels of side characters (a major influence on the game) but since there were frequently only one or two players, we got a wide variety to choose from.

One of the other problems was the DM's PC-killing dice. Whenever he used them as a player, he never rolled above a 4. Whenever he was a DM, he'd routinely roll several natural 20's in a row. Not bull****ting either. We watched each time.

The loophole to this conundrum was that he'd constantly roll really well for the DMPC's (since he WAS DMing after all).

We come across the big boss monster of this particular adventure. One of our DMPC's, some kind of warrior woman monk but supposedly on PC-level of power steps up for the first attack. Natural 20. Roll again. Natural 20. I should also mention that the houserule was keep rolling in these instances until you didn't get a natural 20. Said DMPC got seven natural 20's in a row./

Well, the DM refused to let the big bad monster die in one hit, but he did say that the DMPC ripped off one of its two room-spanning tentacle-limbs and beat it silly with its own arm.

Hylas
2012-06-13, 03:12 PM
The first real campaign that me and my friends, except for the DM, had been in using the 3.5 rules. We were trying to protect a town from a mind controlled king from being enslaved to bolster his army. Our plan was having me be in charge of the archers, my friend the fighter being in charge of the ground forces, and the rest were to protect the church from anyone who got through the lines or flanked us, as the church was full of the women and children.

Of course, when the battle started the first thing to happen was our party members running off to fight instead of protecting the church. The fighter, in full plate, saw this and after knocking off an enemy captain from his horse decided:

Fighter: "Alright, I'm going to jump over the enemy between me and the horse, land on the horse, and ride off to the church."
DM: "Okay, roll jump to jump over the guy. You get a penalty for wearing full plate."
*20*
DM: "Roll your AC to avoid the attack of opportunity"
*19*
DM: "Roll ride to keep the horse from bucking you off."
*2*
DM: "You're knocked off the horse and land in a chicken coop. Feathers are everywhere."**
Next round he rolls a 19 to get on the horse, rides off into the church where there's soldiers ready to kill the women, takes out his scythe, and on a critical hit using greater cleave manages to kill every enemy in the room in a single blow.

**I like to leave this part out, but he insists that I leave it in.

The same person, in a different game system in a game I was DMing. There were werewolves attacking a town and the party got split up. He was off trying to get silver plating on his lance (he did a poor job so I ruled he only got a single attack with the bonus) and the rest of the party manged to get trapped in a noble's house, cornered by a werewolf, trying to use candlesticks and silverware to fight it off.

He comes charging down the street on his warhorse, lance in hand.
Passes his roll to go full speed up the stairs.
Passes his roll to duck under the doorway.
Passes his roll to jump over debris created by the party.
Critical hits with his lance with exploding damage dice, while in mid-air, hitting the werewolf in his head (randomly determined).
Passes his roll to stop the horse from landing on the party and running them over.

After this I joked that he's never allowed to have a horse again.

Zjordan85
2012-06-13, 03:25 PM
The second session after our 3.5 DM's fiancee started playing with her as yet unnamed scout. We were to net and subdue a werebear, which we did, however after the nets were in place, she decides to jump on the bear and grapple him.

She rolls a 20 on the grapple check, the werebear rolls a 1.

Not only does she maintain the grapple another round, but when she goes to jump off, she rolls another 20 on the jump(or maybe tumble) check.

She forever became known as Ursula the Bear Wrangler.

MReav
2012-06-13, 03:26 PM
Has anyone heard of The Spoony One's Thieves' World Campaign story? Because it has what is probably the best and the worst Natural 20 story ever:

Spoony's players were attacking a corrupt magic items shop at the behest of Tempus Thales (think if Kratos from God of War was forced to keep order in a rebellious city and slaughtering everyone was supposed to be a last resort), and with a fair amount of planning, managed to kill the cultists, their summons, and everyone else in there. When they were finishing up, they heard pounding at the door (they had caused a huuuuuge commotion). The bar the door and get to acquiring all the magic gear they can. Just as the door busts open but before Spoony can say who is there, the party alchemist throws a vial of acid at the face of the intruder, thinking it was more cultists. He rolls a natural 20 and confirms the critical. Spoony goes on to say with abject horror, "As Tempus Thales enters the room, a flask of acid smashes into his face." Cue everyone else crapping their pants in fear. Only a Natural 20 would result in the crapstorm that would follow, because Tempus Thales would normally be able to shrug off such an attack (he's like a level 20 character with some powerful templates added on in a world where most people never leave 4th).

This ends up completely derailing the plot, as it turns from them working with Tempus to them screwing with Tempus at every opportunity.

I'd like to link to the full story, but it gets really nasty by the end of it, and I'm not sure if I can link to it due to the forum rules against excessive violence. To give you an idea how nasty it is: Tempus Thales is basically the avatar of the god of every nasty aspect of warfare. The really nasty stuff. And if he doesn't indulge in this behavior every so often, his god revokes his powers, and Tempus likes having his powers. The players proceed to one-up him when he goes completely bonkers and starts having people publicly executed in these nasty aspects of warfare, in what they called The Chicago Way. Oh, and Spoony swears a lot when doing his commentaries.

Note: I never played it, but I think it should be mentioned.

Novawurmson
2012-06-14, 09:26 AM
So the players have infiltrated a ship filled with brainwashed elven paladins and clerics and started beating people down. One of the enemy clerics decides that the battle is lost, and summons a whirlpool to drown everyone. The players, thinking quickly, start grabbing the elves and throwing them overboard.

One of the elven paladins could not fail his swim checks.

As the battle raged, with a deadly whirlpool at his back, he rolled incredibly well, nothing below a 16, most natural 20s. Every time he managed to climb back on board, the party would just toss him off again.

Finally, the party manages to divert the ship from impending doom, but the paladin is back on board. The players decide they cannot let such a tenacious warrior go to waste, and spare his life.

The continuing tale of the elf paladin...
I feel like typing out the full story, so I will :P

An ongoing joke with my players is that they HATE the names I come up with for NPCs and locations. I don't even remember what name I gave him, but when I said it, my whole group just moaned. "Fine!" I said. "FINE! YOU NAME HIM! We'll vote on it!" I tore off scraps of paper and handed them each a pencil. I was kind of upset, and the room was pretty subdued. Eveyone quietly handed me back their slips of paper.

I opened up the first slip:
A drawing of...shall we say, a rooster.

I opened up the second slip:
A drawing of...shall we say, a hotdog.

I opened up the third slip:
Same.

At this point, all tension is gone, and I'm laying on the ground crying laughing.

I open up the last slip:
I think you know at this point you know what was drawn there.

And so he became Richard (often shortened) the elf paladin.

He went on to have many happy adventures, such as being brainwashed into believing he was a wizard who could understand every language in existence, drawing five unbelievably lucky cards from a Deck of Many Things, and happily marrying the dwarf wizard who brainwashed him in the first place.

Anxe
2012-06-14, 12:40 PM
Ah... The best NPCs are the ones you don't see coming.

Unseenmal
2012-06-14, 12:57 PM
Many years ago in the beginning days of 3.0, I was in a group where the DM introduced a feature to weapons he called Powerpop. On a crit, the weapon had a small chance of doing some massive damage. IIRC it was like an extra 3d10 that was added in before you multiplied the damage on a 3% chance so it was small but do-able

EX: 1d6+Magic+Str+3d10 x2 or x3 whatever 3% of the time.

The campaign had been going for a few months and no one had gotten theirs to go off. We enter a large cavern in the dungeon and find a mini-boss of the BBEG. She is a wizard spec'd for Conjuration. Cue battle. We fight to a stalemate when she begins to flee but she is close to death. To slow us down, she summons a Baleen Whale to block the way. Yes, a Baleen Whale. My dwarven defender is first to go. My Greataxe wielding dwarven defender.

The DM worded it as such...

DM:"The lady in grey begins to run and you can see her casting a spell."
US: "We give chase"
DM: "Before any of you can react, a giant whale blocks your path and you can hear her laughing from the other side"
ME: "I slice the whale with my axe"
*rolling ensues*
I roll a 20 :smallsmile: ...then I roll % and get 2%. :smallbiggrin:

I roll damage. 1d12+2(magic)+5(str)+3d10 x3....I don't recall the exact rolls but it was enough to kill it outright (132hp according to SRD)

The DM simply looks up at me amazed then back to the group and says "Where there once was a whale, there is now a red stain on the rocks as the dwarf obliterates it with one swing. The laughing from the women in grey stops...quickly."

The rest of the group easily dispatched her after that.

Yukitsu
2012-06-14, 01:21 PM
Me: I'm going to ask the princess for help.
DM: Roll that diplomacy.
Me: Natural 20...*
DM: Keep rolling.
(5 rolls later)
Me: I'm, uh, I'm over 160.
DM: That puts her pretty well into the fanatic range. She'll help you after you've helped her with something in the bedroom. **
Me: Stupid house rules.

*A few DMs use a house rule that a natural 20 lets you add 20 and roll again. I rolled 6 consecutive 20s.
**It's a running joke that at some point, my male characters will all get dragged off by women. The worst was when it was a hag.

genderlich
2012-06-14, 02:02 PM
In a Pathfinder game: So we're pirates - or at least pirate-esque. We didn't do a whole lot of actual piracy, but we were on a ship and on the run from the Empire, so... close enough. (It's a running gag in this group that all pirates prefer the more politically-correct term "entrepreneurs of opportunity", but that's another story.)

One day when we're level 4, out at sea, a really classy wererat shows up on the ship wearing an awesome hat and a rapier. Nobody has any idea how he got there. He says he's been on the ship for 30 years somehow - apparently hiding below deck eating rats ("You are what you eat..."). He reveals that he was placed there by the current antagonist, "the man with the black glove" who serves the evil prince, to spy on our captain.

So, naturally, we decide to kill him and dump his body.

Due to out-of-game reasons, only three members of the party could be there that session: the Gnome Witch, the Half-Demon Cleric, and myself, the Human Alchemist. (The other two were an Elf Fighter and a Bard of a homebrew race. We decided that the bard was just constantly on the top of a mast singing so we all got Inspire Courage for the battle.)

We take him up to the top deck and start attacking him out of nowhere. The fight... does not go well. From the very beginning it's clear that this wererat is far more skilled than any of us. The problem is only made worse by the Gnome (who had befriended him and was sad to kill him) giving him a potion of Reduce Person thinking it would reduce his damage, but it only made him harder to hit.

The Cleric is killed. (He got better.) In a rage-fuelled rampage, my character chugs a mutagen and a potion of Enlarge Person. So now I'm a 12-foot tall raging monster with claws and fangs and +8 to strength, fighting a 3-foot tall wererat with a sword that's basically a needle. I do a full attack on him.

All three blows hit, two of which were nat. 20 criticals. I end up doing something like 90 damage to him (remember, we're level 4). And he's still standing. If it weren't for those 20s, it would have been a TPK for sure.

Then it's the rat's turn, and even though he's nearly down, he does a full attack on me. He also gets two criticals, and I die. Seriously, I went from almost full HP to below -15. In order to be epic (and because the witch didn't have much of a chance finishing it off), the DM allows me to have one more round before I die "for real". So what does the 12-foot tall hulking monstrosity do to the 3-foot tall rat who just killed him?

I pick him up and crush him to paste between my hands. I drop his remains to the ground... and tumble overboard to my grave.

And the Gnome is left on the deck, alone, with his two best friends and the wererat who he was starting to warm up to, all dead, as the bard up on the mast sings a funeral dirge.

Drowlord
2012-06-14, 04:24 PM
Okay.

So, my party, with several mid-level characters, are in a dungeon filled with level upon level of traps set by a very high level lich whose goal was to raise a demon army to destroy all nonhumans. The party rogue wasn't there that day, so... We lost about all of our potions of healing and the cleric's healing spells before the BBEG.
At the final level, our somewhat weakened party descends into what we think will be a good final battle and win for this quest. Instead, we find ourselves in a massive chamber filled with hypnotized monsters. As we fight through them, our archer-type elf is put unconscious, the mage leaves to get her out of the dungeon alive before she is killed, and the plain soldier-type fighter falls, also taken out by the mage.
We finally reach the lich, who has summoned the demon. The paladin of Kyraquis, a god of water, tackles the demon with the team Dragon Disciple. I, a magic-item rich fighter, tackle the lich with our half-elf Hexblade. The lich kills the Hexblade, and the demon kills the paladin and the Disciple. The demon is down to 12 HP, and the -1 AC lich is down to 10. My fighter is down to 3.
The DM rolls to see what attack the demon uses, and rolls a 2. The demon claws me for *roll* 2 damage, and the lich hits me with a Magic Missile I barely make the saving throw against, it being a 13 on a 12 versus Rods.
Me: I attack the demon with my +4 sword.
DM: Okay. *roll* Wow... well, you knock the demon unconscious with a swipe of your sword. It growls with fury as you smash it in the head with your sword. The lich attacks with another Magic Missile. Save *roll*... you got a 12. It barely misses you.
Me: I slice desperately at the lich's head, my sword's runes glowing bright red.
DM: *roll* AC, natural 20. *roll* What!? Uh, you hit it, doing the virtually-impossible, and cleave its head off. You are at one HP, but your character has saved the world from a great danger. You have slain the mighty Demon Mage.

Jukebox Hero
2012-06-15, 12:00 AM
Ah... The best NPCs are the ones you don't see coming.

Ah yes, my chaotic good harpy became a major asset to the party, and actually, I've had several players immortalized in my campaigns, the most notable of which was Guy Gwissome, a level one Paladin traveling with his best dwarven barbarian/bard buddy, Vokor Stonehammer. Unbeknownst to the player, Vokor was actually a joke character. I allowed him because this was a one-shot that we were just playing to burn some time. In the middle of the session, as they were about to reach level 3, they ran into a small group of bandits, and after defeating them, they decided to go eliminate the rest of the bandits in the area, being the LG and CG characters that they were. Towards the end of the epic battle which ensued, Vokor and Guy were fighting the bandit leader, along with several of his cronies. It soon became clear that they were going to lose, and escape was impossible. They'd provoke too many AoO's from the people around them. So they stayed, fighting a losing battle, separated from each other. Guy was holding off most of the cronies while Vokor concentrated on the leader. Vokor, living off of temporary hitpoints, began to "sing the song of his people," which told of his clan's story; how he was the last of the Stonehammer clan, and it was his destiny to plant the flag on top of the tallest mountain on the continent. (It was told very well).

Guy began to move towards Vokor, to heal him, but Vokor would have none of it, saying things like "focus on your enemies, I'll be alright." Of course, Vokor died to the superior foe in front of him.

At this point, I was sure it Guy would die, outnumbered and alone. But the dice gods would not have it. He rolled continuous crits, slaying foe after foe until none remained, while the bandits floundered about on critical failures.

At the player's request, and wanting to see what he would cook up, Vokor was allowed to make one last dying speech. He entrusted Guy with his clan's duty, to climb the tallest mountain and plant the flag, with tears in his eyes, saying that Guy had to live for both of them, now that Vokor had given his life for him.

Now, that player uses "GuyGwissome" as his username everywhere, and if you see guygwissome, it's probably him.

XionUnborn01
2012-06-29, 01:07 AM
I was playing an ECL 5th level goliath cleric, I was the most experienced in the group and it was a new DM so I was playing a healbot but the DM did allow me to use a large sized goliath greathammer that did 3d6 damage. We go to a kingdom that's been under attack be drow to try and help ( we were the chosen ones and so on) Well, the drow were using neanderthals for their grunts and had ogres as their generals. one night during a raid the army shows up and we pretty quickly tear through the first force. I decide to challenge the ogre to a duel. The rest of the party was arguing against it but my character was pretty bullheaded and the ogre was fine with them coming out to the field to ensure there was no interference (he also had a group of neanderthals). the group brings a bunch of oil soaked hay to form the ring and ignites it.

Fight starts and I win initiative.

Me: "okay, I use my standing long jump to jump at him and smack him in the face"

33 on the jump

DM: "Okay, you easily jump to him, make your attack."

Nat 20, two 6's and one 5 on the dice

DM: "How...how much damage is that?"

I add it up

Me: "Umm...104. Wait, it's flaming and +1 so.." I roll a 6 for the flaming "111 damage."

DM: "Okay. You leap at the ogre and bring your hammer down on his head, the fires behind him go out as his blood and organs soak them. You land inside what looks like it was his ribcage and see the neanderthals falling to their knees. I hate you."


We used that squad of neanderthals to attack the drow and my cleric became known as The Harbringer of the Pink Mist.

Kira_the_5th
2012-06-29, 11:36 AM
So, my friend recently started a new pathfinder campaign over Roll20, which I decided to make a tetori monk for. Each of the characters had, for one reason or another, been shopped off to an island up in the middle of nowhere to serve out a life sentence. Needing a reason for my monk to have been arrested, I decided that he was a lunatic who believed himself to be the reincarnation of the legendary luchador Los Tiburon, based on the story passed around gaming sites about a half-orc grapple monk with a similar concept. My monk claimed that Tiburon had ascended to godhood, and then was reincarnated into himself. All this despite the fact that the man was level 1 and a human. He got himself arrested when he claimed that gods don't have to pay their restaurant bills, suplexed the restaurant owner into a table, killing him, and then resisting arrest when the police came for him.

The problem with El Tiburon's claims of godhood is that, despite the fact that he has no real powers, fate hasn't proven him wrong. The first thing he did upon meeting the party was, seeing them fighting a wolf, run in and dropkick it. Natural 20. Last session, however, was what cemented it.

Having cleared a volcanic cave of the monsters and necromancer that lived there before them, the party found two ogres trying to take over. Setting himself in a chockepoint, El Tiburon readied action for one of the ogres to move forward, planning on grappling it when it came through the chockpoint.
Natural 20.

The ogre, now in El Tiburon's grip, couldn't manage to break Tiburon's CMD, through some unfortunately bad rolls from our DM. Soon enough, the other ogre runs over to assist in the grapple, adding himself. Another terrible roll later, and now both ogres are failing to control a grapple from one lunatic. While all this is going on, half the party, still back at the base, is running towards the battle, but the two ranged characters are taking potshots at the grappled ogre, eventually killing it. Having one of the ogres dead, and a big pool of lava that the ogres meant to bull rush us into, El Tiburon makes one last grapple check to pull the ogre and throw it into the lava. 19. The ogre, having one last chance to escape, botches, and ends up into the lava while the party somehow believes that El Tiburon may actually be a god. At level 1. I have no clue when this ridiculous luck streak will end, but I am determined to milk it for all it's worth until that happens.

Inkpencil
2012-06-29, 11:41 AM
We had a cleric of Pelor in the party and were visiting the (homebrew) high temple of Pelor. Things started looking hinky when my CN rogue touched the Big Book of Pelor and didn't have anything happen to him. I don't remember the exact name of the book, but I think it was an actual item with rules for Neutral and Evil chars touching it.

We start investigating, which gets noticed by the high priest and his cronies. After the place clears out, the doors get closed and the high priest and his cronies turn out to be drow spies and saboteurs. We're level 4 or 5, outnumbered, and surrounded by drow with character levels. The DM is thinking we should surrender. This fight is well above our pay grade.

The cleric is having none of that. He's defending his faith, and his party is behind him. He steps up to the "high cleric", says a little prayer that the corruption would be exposed, and resigns himself to dying for his deity.

He rolls a 20. Crit to the face.

We wound up walking out of that fight without casualties, despite an answered prayer in the form of a meteorite falling into the middle of our battleground and our elf wizard forgetting that she's immune to sleep.

Madara
2012-06-29, 01:42 PM
In my very first game, we had a Half-Orc who always rolled nat 20s on jump checks. "Jump, Orc boy, jump!"

When they fought a dragon, and a hydra, he didn't have to attack the feet, he jumped on its neck. It was pretty crazy stuff, but very memorable. :smallsmile:

genderlich
2012-06-29, 02:12 PM
Another one.

It was the first session of a Pathfinder game set in Waterdeep. We were teenagers in an orphanage that had some sort of secret importance.

So this creepy guy and his drow minions attack the orphanage trying to kill the Abbot, our father figure. The fight isn't going well - a couple of us are unconscious from drow poison and the Abbot is in danger; he's not exactly the fighting type.

I'm playing a halfling paladin archer. The Abbot is being threatened by the villain and takes a five-foot step back. It's the villain's turn next, but I spend my hero point to take my turn out of order. I step in between them and fire my bow point-blank in his face with Smite Evil going. Natural 20. His eye is gone. He runs away.

When he captures me later the first thing he does is take out my eye in revenge. But... worth it.

MachineWraith
2012-06-29, 03:27 PM
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game
In this system, everything is rolled on percentage dice. The goal is to roll under your skill value, which is based on your statline and relevant modifiers. Damage is rolled with d10s, and if you ever roll a 10, you effectively crit, doing damage as if you had hit twice.

The party had a (very) minor nobleman named Richter as a PC, who really liked to challenge anyone who looked at him sideways to a sword duel. Richter was good with his sword for his level, but the campaign was just getting started, so anything leveled would trounce him. I was the GM.

The party ended up, through some shenanigans, getting invited to a fancy shindig full of nobles, with the goal of finding a sponsor for an archaeological dig they were trying to make. Richter decides that it would look good to potential sponsors if he showed his prowess on the dueling field, so he goes up to one of the other noblemen at the party and proceeds to pick a fight. The random nobleman he pointed to on my map of the ballroom's layout happened to be one of the most famed swordsmen of the entire kingdom.

I tell the player so, but his response is, "Oh well. I already did it. Besides, my character wouldn't back down. I've got an idea for a replacement, I guess." This nobleman Richter picked a fight with is several thousand XP above him, so it's kind of assumed Richter will lose, and badly.

The duel begins: Nobleman rolls a 14% to hit, which Richter fails to parry, taking him all the way down to 1 wound in the first round. Richter responds with a 4%. Nobleman attempts a parry: 98%. Richter's player rolls damage: 10. Roll to confirm, 1%.

Richter stabs the nobleman's brain via his eye socket. Dead nobleman, duel over, Richter wins, entire party loses money on the bets they had placed.

BarroomBard
2012-06-29, 09:39 PM
We were playing a Future d20 Space Opera game. The party had been captured by pirates and forced into hard labor. As they were returning us to the ship one night, my character (a cab driver/secret agent) killed the guard with a shovel and put on his uniform. As I was leading the other PCs to freedom, we were stopped by a pair of heavily armed pirate thugs.

Pirate: "Hey, why don't I recognize you? I haven't seen you around the ship before."

Me, without thinking: "Well, I haven't seen you around the ship either."

Everyone's jaws drop around the table, as this is quite possibly the stupidest bluff any of them have ever heard. I have a pretty good Bluff score, but even so, the DM tells me that it only has a hope of working if I crit.

Yada, yada, yada, we drive off into the sunset in my cab, free as birds.

Beowulf DW
2012-06-29, 10:24 PM
So, my friend recently started a new pathfinder campaign over Roll20, which I decided to make a tetori monk for. Each of the characters had, for one reason or another, been shopped off to an island up in the middle of nowhere to serve out a life sentence. Needing a reason for my monk to have been arrested, I decided that he was a lunatic who believed himself to be the reincarnation of the legendary luchador Los Tiburon, based on the story passed around gaming sites about a half-orc grapple monk with a similar concept. My monk claimed that Tiburon had ascended to godhood, and then was reincarnated into himself. All this despite the fact that the man was level 1 and a human. He got himself arrested when he claimed that gods don't have to pay their restaurant bills, suplexed the restaurant owner into a table, killing him, and then resisting arrest when the police came for him.

The problem with El Tiburon's claims of godhood is that, despite the fact that he has no real powers, fate hasn't proven him wrong. The first thing he did upon meeting the party was, seeing them fighting a wolf, run in and dropkick it. Natural 20. Last session, however, was what cemented it.

Having cleared a volcanic cave of the monsters and necromancer that lived there before them, the party found two ogres trying to take over. Setting himself in a chockepoint, El Tiburon readied action for one of the ogres to move forward, planning on grappling it when it came through the chockpoint.
Natural 20.

The ogre, now in El Tiburon's grip, couldn't manage to break Tiburon's CMD, through some unfortunately bad rolls from our DM. Soon enough, the other ogre runs over to assist in the grapple, adding himself. Another terrible roll later, and now both ogres are failing to control a grapple from one lunatic. While all this is going on, half the party, still back at the base, is running towards the battle, but the two ranged characters are taking potshots at the grappled ogre, eventually killing it. Having one of the ogres dead, and a big pool of lava that the ogres meant to bull rush us into, El Tiburon makes one last grapple check to pull the ogre and throw it into the lava. 19. The ogre, having one last chance to escape, botches, and ends up into the lava while the party somehow believes that El Tiburon may actually be a god. At level 1. I have no clue when this ridiculous luck streak will end, but I am determined to milk it for all it's worth until that happens.

My oracle will consider worshiping you if, like our current DM's last paladin, even your nat 1s start benefiting us.

Grail
2012-06-30, 11:06 AM
Not my best, I'd have to think too long about it an i'm lying in bed on the phone atm.

However, my half orc character in my sig its responsible for this one.

Playing Legacy of Fire AP in pathfinder, one of the group (currently a DMPC as we tag-team running the modules and this character belongs to the current DM) is captured and held to ransom by a group of mercenaries. We didn't realise that they were working for some gnolls at the time and thought that they were responsible for the extortion. The character they had captured was 7th level, so we also thought that they were reasonably competent.

They had tied the halfling to an explosive filled barrel and we decided to launch hostilities because we weren't going to give them the artefact they were demanding. The sorcerer cast "enlarge person" on me and I charged the leader.

A natural 20 for the attack roll, he's flat footed and I did 60odd damage.

The DM describes the blow as cutting the man in half from crown to crotch and spraying the other 4 enemies with brains and blood.

They scream in terror, drop their weapons and begin random acts of running or dropping into fetal positions.

Turned out the were all only level 1, and were being used by the gnolls to lure us into the open. They weren't even PC classes or evil. Just mooks offered a few coins to stand next to the halfling and read out a scripted couple of lines.

Hunter Noventa
2012-07-02, 02:12 PM
In our first Pathfinder campaign (back when it was in beta0 I was playing a dual-wielding fighter.

At one point she was fighting a Paladin twice her level alone, having been flung ahead into the fray by a giant eagle while everyone else took the guards on outside. Regardless, for one round the pair of them trade blows, single attacks due to having to move and such. Then it comes to my turn. I make my flurry of attacks, and one of them hits a nat 20. I roll the damage, and it's enough to cross the massive damage threshold. The DM rolls a 1. So my level 7 fighter instantly killed a level 14 paladin, in what is simultaneously my best nat 20 and nat 1 story.

NinjaTBB
2012-07-04, 12:35 AM
Firstly, a crucial point to this story is the fact that my gaming group uses the rule where a natural 20 is rolled again but +20 and vice versa for a natural 1.

My character A and another character D are two sneaky characters built around Hide and Move Silently so we make use of the skill checks quite often. At one such occasion A and D were sneaking about some encampment, nothing too dangerous. DM calls for Hide and Move Silently rolls. D gets decent Move Silently, A gets decent Hide...but the other rolls...:smallamused: Due to chains of natural 20s, D got amazingly high Hide check and A got an amazingly high Move Silently check. I don't remember the exact numbers but rather the end result of them: for those brief shining 6 seconds the majority of the pantheon could not see D nor hear A. High-fives were given and laughs enjoyed. :smallsmile:

The Dark Fiddler
2012-07-04, 06:55 AM
Hmm... best Nat 20...

DMing for my friends, a skeleton attacks the barbarian. Who happens to be both the main source and sponge of damage. Roll... 20. Confirm... 20. Everybody starts screaming about how the barbarian is dead and the fight is over and it's going to be a TPK...

Then I remind them that I don't do the "double 20 = auto kill" houserule, because it's stupid.

Kind of had to be there.

DontEatRawHagis
2012-07-04, 09:34 AM
Best one:

My friend was tackled to the ground by a Mutant. I decided to jump on the mutants head to try and knock him out. My character was a hyper evolved iguana with a pension for kicking.

Nat 20.

GM: You crushed the skull of the mutant and your friend beneath him.
Friend: Wait I have FATE POINTS!
GM: They are only supposed to be used if you fail a roll and want to reroll.
Friend: I think me dying is close enough to a fail.