How have bad dice ruined your campaign?

[Jett Midknight]

So the setting on last nights session involved my players going through a dungeon. About halfway through they encountered this mid level devil who I had planned out a really cool fight for. Before he died I was planning on having him escape and become a reoccurring villain later on, he even had a name and everything.

This being said my party walks into the room, the fight starts, the Ranger goes first. He uses Rapid Shot and proceeds to roll a 20 and an 18 on his first attack, and a 20 and 19 on his second attack. He dealt 80+ damage and killed my boss in one hit before he even got a turn to go.

So my question to the Playground is this. How have the dice screwed over your plans for a campaign?

[druidicforest]

Actually, why this should screw your campaing? You can just use "Glory of Satan" or some other super strange method just to raise that guy alive.. Like he weren't really dying.. :)

[Gwazi Magnum]

My personal plans? 0.

But that's cause I've only DM'd for 2 weeks in d&d and the campaign having been brought down by player sabotage rather than due to dice.

Though just yesterday in an online group we had something like that happen.
Me and another player walk up to a door and fight over who opens it. We pull silly antics a few times and this was no exception, we started playing leap frog back through the dungeon trying to get behind one another so the other would open the door.

It got to the point where we hit a one tile only passage and he stopped not allowing me to pass. So I attacked, did some decent damage. He then steps aside and allows me to pass through. I was cautious and took some 5-foot steps to avoid AoO.

Note: By this point the DM already fiated the door open and announced there was nothing but treasure in there, but that didn't stop us.

Anyways, once a move a few tiles he does a charge attack, rolls 20 and then confirms on a 20. Damage dice almost maximized he bring me down from almost full to almost dead. And we ended the session there cause our healer was absent and we needed to see his reaction to this to determine if I'd live through this or not.

Also, before people say "You Player attacker! You bad person! You deserve you lose your character!". It was taken in good humor and the two of us actually played left 4 dead 2 together for several hours after the session had ended so there was no hard feelings over it.

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Another example was with an in person group, this example of dice didn't ruin the game though. Just made an awesome story.

We start in a tavern after having our party being made in a guild (this was the first session of the campaign). One of our players Zukaro (Character name, not actual name) walks over to a bookshelf and starts trying to climb it... cause he decided he has a fascination with bookshelves or something.

(To this day in d&d if the DM mentions a bookshelf his first instinct to run over to it and climb it).

Anyways, he get's a 20 and the DM throws him a bone saying there's a light at the other side of it. So he starts tearing books out, to see the light better. The bartender mad at him for this throws a bottle at him, he rolls at least a 17 on reflex and catches it. Then he drinks it, the drink was poisoned... So he rolls Fortitude and get's a 19 or 20 and resists the poison. The bartender now thinking that he's a god allows him to continue.

This bone the DM tossed him turns out to be him trying to cram in some enemies he wanted us to fight since it leads to a tunnel leading to a room with 6 treasure chests. I stay back, all 6 of the other players go to open a chest each. They all roll a six sided die on opening it. The d6 was the DM determining which chests were alive and would try to eat the players and which were just normal chests. Only Zukaro's chest wasn't a monster that spontaneously tried to eat him.

[CRtwenty]

Reoccurring villains are never made, they are born. That NPC with the five page backstory you painstakingly created specifically to challenge the PCs and hound their search for the Macguffin? He'll get dropped in the first round of his first appearance.

The random Kobold that the Fighter missed with every single attack, somehow passed the saving throw on the Wizards spell, and dropped the Cleric in a single crit with a crossbow bolt? Now that's somebody they'll fear and remember.

[Jett Midknight]

Actually, why this should screw your campaing? You can just use "Glory of Satan" or some other super strange method just to raise that guy alive.. Like he weren't really dying.. :)
I don't really want to get into the habit of reviving dead enemies though. I feel like it detracts from the feeling of success of the player. Why should they care if they just killed the BBEG if they know he will be revived somehow and show up a few session later. Baring extreme circumstance I don't like raising the dead.

Reoccurring villains are never made, they are born. That NPC with the five page backstory you painstakingly created specifically to challenge the PCs and hound their search for the Macguffin? He'll get dropped in the first round of his first appearance.

The random Kobold that the Fighter missed with every single attack, somehow passed the saving throw on the Wizards spell, and dropped the Cleric in a single crit with a crossbow bolt? Now that's somebody they'll fear and remember.
I am starting to learn this more and more. It seems every time I create a character with a name my players couldn't care less about them, while the ones who's names I literally make up on the fly they fall in love with. Who cares about the corrupt politician who is manipulating all the string of this country and is going to use it to start his own genocide, we want to go and talk to the hillbilly riverboat man with a pet crocodile named Jebediah.

[Deophaun]

Generally in my sessions, recurring villains are recurring before they're villains. Or they're obviously working in the background and always surrounded by witnesses. The player's could kill them at any time, but if they do it too soon, the party will find the authorities after them, and the campaign goes another direction.

Otherwise, the standard rule is in place: if you don't want your villain dying, don't let him fight the PCs.

[XionUnborn01]

The two best recurring villains I've ever made started out as completely innocent encounters.

Bob the truly horrid umber hulk went from a random encounter to a save making, crit throwing, party stomping machine. Not too long later they encountered him again but this time he was a little more well dressed and played a little smarted and same the next time. I gave him a bonus feature of his confusion thing that gave him a bonus to int, wis, or cha randomly every time he used it.

Then there was that damn balor...it started out as an encounter in his territory when the party was plane running. Apparently this balor was well trained. His vorpal sword got a workout when I think is activated like 6 times over the battle. granted we had ruled that the cleric could spontaneously cast revivify earlier in the campaign by burning a higher spell slot. But the balor made plenty of appearances as he was filled with new confidence after beating the party so easily.

[Lanson]

In my party, we currently have an orc ranger that keeps coming back to fight us more. Started off as a random encounter, nobody could hit him, he nearly 1 shot the sorcerer from 100' away, and then when we almost hit him, he fled. Next time we met him was an orc encampment, where there was a bow wielding orc who just wouldn't get hit, who stuck our monk with a good cluster of arrows. Then fled. We determined it was the same orc, named Guam. (one of the party had a souvenir hat from the island of Guam) Our DM then statted him out and made him a ranger instead of warrior.

[RollynT.Glal]

As long as the dungeon wasn't in Baator or wherever devils originate in your campaign your devil can still be a reoccurring enemy. The devil's essence would reform on its home plane (again assuming the dungeon wasn't on it), it would be humiliated and likely assaulted by any devils in the immediate area.

Devils are harsh when bringing about punishment on their subordinates who fail them. Despite destruction being more permanent, a more painful punishment for devils is demotion. Depending on why the devil was in that dungeon (soul harvester, corrupter, assassin or a revenue builder) its superior would be moderately to severely upset that its peon was defeated which could potentially ruin its plans.

The devil your players defeated may appear as a lower devil, which can change its combat strategies, powers it can bear and even mental capacity but the one thing it will retain is a grudge against the people who ruined its life. It may take it a while to pull enough strings to get itself back on the PC's trail but unless its being directly watched by its immediate superior, your devil WILL track them down (or their family, friends, financial interests) to exact its revenge in attempt to regain social standing.

Tl/dr: Don't fret! Your player one-shotting the devil can potentially give it BETTER reason to become a reoccurring villain.

[Grayson01]

Here are some ways you can bring that Devil back. As was stated above as long as the devil was not killed on it's home plane it is still "Alive" just banished back to it's home plane. Depending on what novels you read the banishment is for a 100 years, unless summend by the person who slayed it. In one of Salvator's books a Balor was summoned back from it's banishment because information was needed from the Demon. You could send the PCs on a quest that requires information needed from the Devil and the PCs have to find out who this devil is, then find out that it was the devil they slew, then have to find someone who can safely summon the devil again in a magic circle of protection. They can then intergate the Devil for said information, but in doing so free him from his 100 year banishment (or however long you want). Then he could enlist the aid of stronger or several weeker devils in order to excact revenge. Or from a Wizard or evil Cleric.

On another note of dice effects this didn't ruin a campaighn but made a great story. We always played with a house rule of, if you role a Nat 20 on attack then confirm the crit with a second nat 20 you roll a third time and if it is a third Nat 20 in a row it's an auto kill. This rule was all fun and games till we the PCs decided to have a snowball fight. The Monk threw one at our Elf Ranger and low and behold rolled a 20 then confirmed with a second 20 and then yup a 3rd 20. So that inocent snowball turned out to be an ice ball that splatted the rangers Face open.

[Calimehter]

Back in AD&D 2e I was running a sailing ship/exploration campaign out of the Ships and the Sea sourcebook.

Things were going quite well for several sessions, but then at one of the exotic new ports they were visiting they had a confrontation with a vampire (no class levels back then!) who had fled the PCs homeland ages ago as a notorious villian. My initial plan was to have the vamp attack the PCs and/or try to charm one of them to gather info about the old homeland, but at the initial confrontation EVERY single one of them pooched their save vs. charm . . . and for about 15 minutes of real time I was basically roleplaying by myself with the party charmed and me figuring out what to do to salvage things. :smallsigh:

After some thought, I decided that instead of having the vamp drain them for food after he was done interrogating them, that he would instead use them and their ship as passage back to his old homeland to take revenge on the descendants of his old enemies - since he didn't know how to sail, he just kept them all charmed and let them do all the work while he rode out the daylight hours in his coffin belowdecks.

Saved the day, right??

Well, the very next session, the PCs rolled an absolutely atrocious set of skill rolls and managed to get caught in bad weather and crash their ship on a deserted island. Most of the expendable deckhands didn't make it, but the PCs were still there . . . as thralls to a hungry vampire on a deserted island and no functional boat to justify their continued status as non-snack items . . . yeahhhh . . . . :smalleek:

Luckily, the dice actually came back to save me here. I had been rather religious about using the random weather and encounter tables from Ships and the Sea, and the very next day was a "Pirate" encounter. Huzzah! The pirates stop by on the island to refresh their fresh water supply, and a few rounds of combat later I've got myself a whole vampire charmed crew and a new boat!! They sailed on like this for many days of game-time, but with so many of the crew to keep charmed I gave the PCs a better chance to escape it (since the vamp couldn't be as careful with each of them anymore with his attention more spread out) and they finally managed to pass some saves and escape. With the boat and coffin burned behind them, they had to make a dangerous overland trek back to their homeland that lasted several more sessions.

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That hardly counts as a "ruined" campaign, and it turned into one of the more fun and memorable campaigns we ever did. But it all pretty much came about from the dice "screwing over my plans" as the OPs last sentence mentioned, and not from any planning on my part!

[Jett Midknight]

On another note of dice effects this didn't ruin a campaighn but made a great story. We always played with a house rule of, if you role a Nat 20 on attack then confirm the crit with a second nat 20 you roll a third time and if it is a third Nat 20 in a row it's an auto kill. This rule was all fun and games till we the PCs decided to have a snowball fight. The Monk threw one at our Elf Ranger and low and behold rolled a 20 then confirmed with a second 20 and then yup a 3rd 20. So that inocent snowball turned out to be an ice ball that splatted the rangers Face open.

This happened in a campaign I was playing before. The party was looking for information on this dragon cult so we busted into what we believed to be a stronghold. All that was in there was a lonely kobold. The Paladin went up to try and get information out of it, when it then proceeds to pull out a dagger, the DM rolled three 20's in a row, and that is the story of how a lowly CR 1/3 kobold killed a 13th level Paladin.

[BowStreetRunner]

Back in 2ed I had a DM running us through a Forgotten Realms campaign where the villain kidnapped someone and headed into the ruins of Myth Drannor to hide her. The party was only 3rd level at that point, so it was not expected that we would pursue her into the ruins, which would be tantamount to suicide. However, when my barbarian decided to go after her (completely in-character) no one made any effort to dissuade him. The DM figured it would be easiest to run right through until my character died, then go back to everyone else while I rolled up a new character. What the DM wasn't expecting was that I would have a ridiculous series of miraculous die rolls while he would have an abysmally poor set of die rolls of his own. We were both rolling in front of everyone, so there was no fudging involved. After about 30 minutes I had not only made it far enough to find the victim (she was already dead) but was nearly out of the ruins. At this point, the DM apparently decided he wasn't going to allow my character to survive merely due to a set of unlikely die rolls. Instead, he had the main villain step out of the shadows and launch a surprise attack at me with his signature vorpal throwing axe...and then the DM rolled a '1'. We were using critical failure rules that resulted in the villain beheading himself. I considered going back for the axe, but when the DM informed me three ice demons had just appeared I thought better about pushing my luck any further and retreated.

[ArcturusV]

I dunno. Maybe it's just me. The dice have never really ruined a campaign for me. They've altered it. But even weirdly good/bad luck never has "ruined" it. Usually because the random outcome provided for something that ended up being much better than what was originally planned.

For example, one of my recent campaigns where this goober had obviously loaded dice. His "(Player's Name) Luck" as we called it with a bit of venom certainly ruined a lot of the basic plots the DM was putting up. And major villains who were supposed to be hard, if not impossible fights for us were going down in a single round. In part due to DM inexperience as well (The guy who we had DMing missed a lot of obvious tricks, not the least of which was making the guy swap out his dice).

So his good luck, where plot NPCs and Bosses were falling like Mayflies BECAME a plot in and of itself. His "Infernal Luck" (Along with some poor RPing choices on his part) drove a PvP plot that ended up far more interesting than the base campaign would have been.

Similarly, another campaign I myself was running. I knew from the temperament of one of the players that they would try to make themselves into the **** of the walk, big dog on campus, etc, when they ran into this resistance base. Since he was just a Fighter himself, I didn't want to just have some Mage go "Nope, you're Mazed" or the like... so I made a significantly higher level fighter who was going to be the second in command, and in the way of him taking over.

Sure enough, the guy picks a fight with him. And I just roll TERRIBLE... I think if a series of 6 attacks over two rounds I ended up rolling three 1s... that terrible. And this guy just rolled well. Not dice rigged well like the first example, but just well and his fighter was well built. So he eventually beat this guy into a coma, and just because the PC was like this, broke his arm to "send a message".

... it's really not how I was looking for it to go. I wanted this guy to be a mentor of sorts. A figure they'd look up to becoming as powerful, or more so than, and someone that through either fear or respect they would listen to. Instead, PCs got a puffed chest because they schooled the "Boss". They started running that base with an iron fist, etc.

... and instead of a Mentor, he turned into a vengeful enemy. One who luck wouldn't always be against. He ended up selling out the rebels and the PCs to the Empire. Personally put his sword in the back of the guy who "schooled" him originally during the opening of the attack. And after they were captured he took a crowbar to the guy's hand to maim it (No one playing Cleric, no way to fix it, as my NPC cleric I gave them for healing died in the battle).

... and that spawned another revenge arc that made things very personal for the PCs, and interested them a lot more than the Rebels vs the Empire line did.

[Sutremaine]

How much talking did your devil get to do before he was taken down? If he didn't get a chance to reveal his nature as a to-be-recurring villain, pour him into a new body and have another go.


we want to go and talk to the hillbilly riverboat man with a pet crocodile named Jebediah.
I bet he's more fun to talk to than the politician guy.

[Jett Midknight]

How much talking did your devil get to do before he was taken down? If he didn't get a chance to reveal his nature as a to-be-recurring villain, pour him into a new body and have another go.


I bet he's more fun to talk to than the politician guy.

I'll probably end up going this route, or as other have said, have him reappear as a demoted devil out for vengeance. And yeah, the riverboat man doesn't offer much in terms of plot development, but it is fun to do his accent.

[lsfreak]

This being said my party walks into the room, the fight starts, the Ranger goes first. He uses Rapid Shot and proceeds to roll a 20 and an 18 on his first attack, and a 20 and 19 on his second attack. He dealt 80+ damage and killed my boss in one hit before he even got a turn to go.

Tangential post:
While a quick skim shows that others have given ideas to rescue your idea, I'll give other advice: never throw important characters at your players 1-versus-all without seriously thinking it through. Action economy, general badassness, and luck are all stacked against a 1-versus-all fight. More actions means more chance for lucky crits, more ways of crippling him with save spells, and extra heads to come up with something you hadn't considered. I'd advise always playing through a single enemy at least once, preferably more than that, on your own before sticking him on your party.
Consider the following:
- Lots of defenses. Going 1v4, as a typical party, should mean lots of defenses in order to survive. High AC, miss chance, decent amounts of DR, ways of escaping attacks including environment-reshaping spells, and ways of escaping period if the battle goes south.
- Enough offense to matter, without being overwhelming. There's a delicate balance: too weak and the party doesn't feel threatened, too powerful and there's no logical reason for him to not just TPK right there except for holding the Idiot Ball. For this reason, simply grabbing a high-CR enemy doesn't often work well for someone who's an encounter by themselves.
- Action economy. Halve the party's advantage by making sure he can use/abuse quickened spells, ToB counters, immediate-action defenses every round, and potentially just grant them an extra action or entire turn every round (though this works better with monstrous enemies, so the PC's aren't trying to figure out what feats/classes you used to get an extra standard a round).
- In addition, there's the logical issues, like why someone apparently this badass is facing the party alone in the first place.

My personal view on recurring villains is that they shouldn't, generally, be in a position to face the PC's directly. They need to be known but distant until they're mythified up enough that, even if the PC's are in a position to fight and win, they'll take it dead-seriously and still be second-guessing whether or not they should fight or run. Living through the consequences of the villain's actions (or even just witnessing them on e.g. a scouting mission, provided it's not too contrived and railroady) are generally going to be far more effective at the mythification than sticking the villain in combat with the PC's, and safer for the health of your villain as well.

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Last time this happened to me was when I last GM'd a Mutants and Masterminds game. I've told this story before, so you may/may not know it.

Long Story Short: The players built stupidly optimized telekinetic-stealth-ninja-wizards who specialized in warping space. I had them fight Dr Dinosaur. Dr Dinosaur was the entire point of the entire campaign I had built for them. He was the architect of every plot, the dagger in every shadow.

While he fled from them in their first encounter on his motorcycle (they'd already trashed his ninja-robot-christopher-walken's), one of my players did this:

Player: I telekinetically lift up his back tire. Precision, no roll.
Me: Ffffffffffffff- okay. He makes a balance check.
*Nat 1*
Me: :smallfrown: Um...he uses a Hero Point to try again.
*Nat 1*
Me::smalleek: Toughness save?
*Nat 1*
Me: :smallfurious:...:smallsigh: Dr Dinosaur falls off his motorcycle...at 120+ mph. And he...he's a greasy smear. And his bike explodes.

Needless to say, PETA brought them up on charges between adventures. :smallwink:

[ArcturusV]

Adding on to Isfreak's post:

This is the reason that in some video games, like Final Fantasy, they have that power Climhazard, etc, which just drops people to 1 HP without killing them. Usually so the villain can chuckle about how they are hardly a fight, not worth the effort, etc. Some players, particularly in younger generations I find, expect that sort of thing to happen. They see that there are basically only two types of encounters with enemies:

One where the enemy is beatable (Tough or not) and they have every reason to believe that starting a fight to the death is a good idea.

Or,

One where the enemy is so massively going to outclass them, but will just knock them to 1 HP, deliver a villain speech, and walk away.

This does go hand in hand with the Firepower thing Isfreak mentioned, the offensive power. I've had players who actually expected me to have some AoE Doom "Everyone has 1 HP" power as some sort of ultimate attack, to prove how hard hitting a villain is. But then again a DnD Hero at 1 HP is still 100% capable of battle. And outside of things like a Cleric's Death Domain power, there's nothing that really triggers off "Enemies with very few HP" to make it a reason why that would ever exist. Except to end fights against players who feel that should be a way the ultra powerful bad guy ends a fight against enemies 15 levels below him.

One of the healthier behaviors you have to instill in the players, and sometimes this is hard, is just a simple bit that duty for the most part, ends at Death. Even champions of a God/Cause don't seek to die in battle, because that means they stop being a Champion. They start being a soul on some outer plane seeking enlightenment, good times, noodle salad, etc.

If you've got the random character who has some sort of "Warrior" background or Martial history to them, this is usually the guy you should give a reminder to when he is in this position. Soldiers and Warriors know that the soldier's creed is: 1) A soldier's duty is to survive. And 2) A soldier's duty is to follow orders. A soldier may fail the first, but may never fail the second.

When they get into the mindset that A) Enemies can be more powerful than you're used to handling and won't just have some "I leave you at 1 HP power", and B) Survival is the primary goal, you end up with players that don't seek to charge into battles instantly and trust the DM's sense of fairplay to always see them through alive (Or at least if they died it was a close, fair fight and luck just broke that way). Then suddenly it's a lot easier to have villains put in appearances and survive to talk about it. Particularly metagamey minded players who might try to do something like use Knowledge: Local to try and ID some humanoid enemy... They know the check DC by RAW is 10+HD... and when their result of 25 fails to turn up any information they go "Oh ****... it's at least level 16!"

[Cat Dungeon]

Not so much a bad die roll, but an orc barbarian rolled a crit against my halfling rouge when I was low on HP. I guess the die roll was bad for me if that counts.:smallfrown:

[PaucaTerrorem]

My first game as DM and I had used a couple old high level characters I had. Planned to cripple the party for a couple days. Everything's going as planned, even the fighter kicking in the door to start initiative. The fighter rolls high, I roll a 1. Power Attack Rage Charges the muscle of my two man operation into oblivion leaving the smooth talker to at least a quick-ish death.

[TuggyNE]

This is the reason that in some video games, like Final Fantasy, they have that power Climhazard, etc, which just drops people to 1 HP without killing them. Usually so the villain can chuckle about how they are hardly a fight, not worth the effort, etc. Some players, particularly in younger generations I find, expect that sort of thing to happen.

If you really want that (and I can't figure out why you would, but whatever) homebrewing a simple mass harm, Clr 9, is probably the easiest.

[ArcturusV]

Personally I wouldn't. The only thing I could think of off the top of my head that would ever benefit would be the Cleric's Death Domain power. Though if your level 17 Cleric Baddie is facing off against some level 3 PCs, he probably could have used the Death Domain power anyway without setting it up like that.

[Sponson]

I was a level 14 frenzied berserker. I walk into a room with my cleric and wizard allies, but we had initiative against us. First thing is a fireball hits me in the chest for 51 damage (whatever, it's not like I have 200 more).

That's massive damage. I roll a 1 on my fort save and promptly die. Game over. The cleric gets grappled by black tentacles and the wizard is counterspelled turn after turn after turn...

[lsfreak]

Spoilered for side discussion again.


When they get into the mindset that A) Enemies can be more powerful than you're used to handling and won't just have some "I leave you at 1 HP power", and B) Survival is the primary goal, you end up with players that don't seek to charge into battles instantly and trust the DM's sense of fairplay to always see them through alive (Or at least if they died it was a close, fair fight and luck just broke that way). Then suddenly it's a lot easier to have villains put in appearances and survive to talk about it. Particularly metagamey minded players who might try to do something like use Knowledge: Local to try and ID some humanoid enemy... They know the check DC by RAW is 10+HD... and when their result of 25 fails to turn up any information they go "Oh ****... it's at least level 16!"
Once again, I find mythification to be useful. My example above of scouting party was taken from a game where the PC's were scouting out a command post of a goblin siege. They happened to catch the seer interrogating a prisoner, listened in rather than stopping it, and then witnessed an execution-by-skull-implosion. They promptly freaked out and all jovial talk of in-and-out assassination died. Now, they could have taken him - he was a telepath of lower level than the party that used mind thrust on a much-lower-level NPC, with a fluff augment to implode heads if you kill them. But it freaked the PC's out enough that they waited till they had better planning and were not in the middle of hostile territory. Mythification.

[Sylthia]

Whenever the players manage a string of really lucky hits, I roll with it, no pun intended.

As DM, I've been screwed by very good rolls on my part. I had an encounter that wasn't meant to be overly challenging, but turned into a party defeat (the party got taken prisoner) because I didn't seem to roll under 17 that whole encounter and the party was less than wise with tactics.

As a DM, I try not to make the campaign hinge too much on any one die roll.