Improbable or just plain unusual dice rolls you stuck with...that improved your game?

[Isamu Dyson]

What system did it occur in, why was it such an outlier, and how did it end up working out for the better?

[Zavoniki]

Can I make an Astrophysics roll to farcast to Titan.

Sure at -60

Players roll a 2.

Went with it and... that campaign isn't over yet so I can't say how it ended up.

[Jlerpy]

A critical failure on an Appreciate Beauty roll (this was 3rd Ed GURPS at the time) led to a PC dressed in a spandex daffodil costume. That livened things up at the art show when he took the terrorists of the White Dawn apart with his bare hands.

Another critical failure: Same player, different character, was the only one to fail their fear resistance roll upon meeting the new undead PC. This from the unaging sorceror with Will 20. Everyone else thought Martin (the revenant insurance investigator) was merely horrifying, but Tyrone couldn't abide to be in the same room, yet spent every waking moment trying to help him resolve the unresolved business that was keeping him walking around.

[nedz]

AD&D 2E

Wildmage using a Wish to modify a card in a Deck of Many Things he was also manipulating whilst standing in a Wild Zone (Auto Wild Surge) got every thing he was aiming for. This did screw up a minor NPC though, however in a way which wasn't obvious: The NPC had his soul swapped with a random pig and then failed his save and so became a pig; the NPC's body (with the Pig's soul) ended up in the card.

The second wish aimed at rescuing the NPC from the Deck (yeah, he didn't do his homework) didn't work out quite so well though — well the PC got turned into a magical helmet.

[BWR]

I have an example of the complete opposite of the point of this thread.
In Ars Magica I rolled 128 on a perception roll (which is roughly a 1/10 000 chance to get) only to notice something that everyone else auto-noticed on the following round. It had no effect whatsoever. Had I use that roll to throw a knife in a random direction, I would have one-shotted the demon we were chasing.

[supermonkeyjoe]

A non-stealthy person rolling a terrible stealth check resulted in him opening a door into a room full of people, all of who stopped what they were doing resulting in several seconds of uncomfortable silence before one of the staff saying "I think you have the wrong room sir".

Still rated as one of the funnier moments of the campaign by the players.

[NichG]

I was running a Planescape game where one of the characters had a thing that sometimes made their spells get extra effects from the 'd10000 random magical effects' table. They were in Hades' divine realm to get a special kind of obsidian for a magical working, the character cast a spell to try to make a bridge across the Styx for them to pass, and the result 'nearest church/temple is destroyed' came up... Lets just say the Greek pantheon as a whole got royally pissed that some upstart mortal dared to collapse a significant portion of a divine realm.

[DigoDragon]

Shadowrun-- The team failed to steal the goods off a big-rig before it drove off towards SeaTac airport. The party split off into groups to try and intercept it. The truck driver (the BBEG for this adventure) figured out he was being followed and wouldn't stop for anything.

The team's technomancer and mage (neither who were very skilled in driving or navigating, but were driving the team's armored van) attempted to find a short cut to cut off the big-rig. The mage is driving and the GM calls for a driving test, while asking the techno to do a nav test as an assist. They both get some hits, but they both glitch as well.

So what happens is they take a "Short cut" and come out of a side street onto the wrong way of a one-way street. They hit the big-rig head on. The mage and techno are badly injured but just barely survive the crash.

The BBEG (a troll with tons of BOD and impact armor)... well he rolled ALL 1s to soak the impact.
That was improbable.

GM rolled with it, even though it meant no final boss fight at SeaTac. Basically the BBEG was torn to shreds and the team got the (now damaged) goods. :smalltongue:

[BWR]

I was running a Planescape game where one of the characters had a thing that sometimes made their spells get extra effects from the 'd10000 random magical effects' table. They were in Hades' divine realm to get a special kind of obsidian for a magical working, the character cast a spell to try to make a bridge across the Styx for them to pass, and the result 'nearest church/temple is destroyed' came up... Lets just say the Greek pantheon as a whole got royally pissed that some upstart mortal dared to collapse a significant portion of a divine realm.

I hear your pain. In an Ars Magica game I managed to botch a spellcasting roll and piss of Poseidon.
*shudder*

[Jay R]

It was near the end of a timed D&D tournament, and our team had not yet found the quest item. (This was original D&D, in 1978.)

The tourney designers had added a very basic critical kill rule. If you rolled a natural twenty, you then rolled a d8. If it came up 8, the blow was an instant kill.

We were hurrying, attempting to play with extreme precision and discipline.

A balrog appeared in the hall in front of us. (In original D&D, this wasn't a demon. It was a generic 10 HD monster.)

Don, running our fighter, said, "I slice through him, and we keep going, running between the two falling halves of balrog." He rolled a d20 and a d8 six feet down the table, where they stopped in front of the DM.

The DM stopped, looked at them, paused for a moment, and quietly said, "You keep going, running between the two falling halves of balrog."

We managed two or three encounters after that, in the last three or four minutes.

[Incidentally, my hobbit thief stopped to pick up the balrog's whip. The 2 copper pieces it was worth put us over the top in total experience points, so we won the tourney.]

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Burning Wheel, my players are in the courtyard of a castle facing down the Lady of the castle. She's a major NPC whom I just created in half an hour earlier that day. Currently, she's a bit sore at them because one of them is threatening to expose her non-noble heritage and manipulate her out. Understandable attitude.

One of the player characters, Tomar, (this was a game I ran for a duo) accuses her of dabbling in sorcery.

The other player character, Kiriel, has had a streak of witch-hunting. A bit of brief explanation: she's an archer who has an odd magical aura, which lets her blend into the crowd with unusual alacrity. (In game terms, it causes the Inconspicuous skill to get powered up a notch. Burning Wheel uses a d6 dice pool system, where 4-6 on a d6 is a success. Kiriel's trait made that a 3-6 for Inconspicuous.)

So, back to the scene: when Kiriel hears that Lady Jain allegedly dabbled in sorcery, her player declared that she shot Lady Jain in the courtyard, blending into the crowd. Her magic aura was the only reason I let it slide.

So I called for an Inconspicuous roll and set the difficulty at Obstacle 7: it needed seven successes to work. For reference, an Obstacle 10 is something generally considered to be "impossible without a lot of help and leverage". Between Kiriel's Inconspicuous skill and getting bonus dice from tying in other skills, I think the player was able to muster up 8 dice.

It worked.

So I had the player roll the damage die.

It turned up as the maximum damage for the bow. Significantly more than enough to outright kill someone. So Kiriel whipped out a bow, murderated the NPC, and blended back into the crowd. Naturally, the blame fell on Tomar.

Then they proceeded to make a run for it, and are now wanted criminals.

[TheThan]

Ok so spirit of the century game:
The players are supposed to climb the steps to the pyramid and have an epic fight at the top with the villain and his goons that had been chasing them the whole time.

Players decide to take a different route and set up an ambush outside in the lost city. One character, Lord Christopher Fitzpatrick, a great white African hunter, armed with an ELEPHANT GUN! One shotted the big bad guy with his rile from the window on the second story of a generic building. He even made sure to spend his last fate point on the shot just to make sure (aspect: “sharpshooter”, though I suppose it should be renamed sniper now). Thusly ending my adventure before the epic clash I had planned up on top of the pyramid.

Later they climbed the pyramid and received the treasure they were after. Fortunately, the climatic sniper shot was at the end of the adventure, so I was not as miffed about it as I could have been.

[nedz]

The generic building wasn't a book repository by any chance ?

[Ravens_cry]

The generic building wasn't a book repository by any chance ?
No, that was the game where he was shot by a humanoid hyena/plant hybrid.
A grassy gnoll

[TheThan]

Hah! No, it was a small apartment building only two stories tall.

I blame myself actually, I made the characters for the players, and well I guess I made a couple of them a little too good at combat, but then it fit the character. A great white African hunter that was terrible with guns just doesn’t seem right.

I also rolled on the wrong skill to see if how badly the big bad was hurt. For some reason I was rolling off of his (not so great) guns skills, instead of his Athletics skill, which he had a fair amount of, meaning there was a greater chance for him to survive if I hadn’t messed that up. I realized this after the fact.

Oh well, Live and learn I guess.

[ReaderAt2046]

In a D&D 4e game, I was playing a star pact warlock (for those not familiar, star pacts draw power from the beings of the Far Realms, basically the D&D equivalent of Cthulhu). So we've acquired a Spelljammer ship and accidentally traveled to the Elemental Chaos, where we discover that we need a major power source to jumpstart our Spelljammer's Plane Shift function. After adventures involving penguins, chocolate pudding, and slaadi, we managed to acquire a power source for the jump-start. So I attempt to activate the Plane Shift to get us out of the Chaos before we die to a rain of carrots or something like that.

Natural 1.

We do succeed in shifting out, but then discover that we've rematerialized right on top of a giant fortress which exists for the sole purpose of killing far realms beings, including star pact warlocks. That's where the session ended.

[Angel Bob]

Our group has quite a history with natural 1s and 20s.

I played a D&D 4e wild mage once -- one of the most entertaining characters I've every played. Whenever he rolled a natural 1, he would roll a d6 and consult a table to see what sort of bizarre effect he accidentally created.

While moving through a dungeon, we came across a room of drow in an alchemist's laboratory, with a few prison cells lining the walls and a table of potions in the middle of the room. Negotiations went poorly (never let the low-Cha wizard do the talking, BTW), and before you knew it the drow had cloaked the entire room in a cloud of magical darkness. Roll initiative while you can't see anything!

My sorcerer, Thom, decided to throw caution to the wind and, more specifically, throw a chaos bolt blindly into the darkness. Of course, he rolled a natural 1, which after consulting the table resulted in him switching places with the target. Thom vanished from the field and found himself transported into... the middle of one of the prison cells. Well, crap.

Over the next round, the party wizard used light in a contest of wills with the drow leader and managed to light the room a little bit. Thom stuck his fingers out through the bars and loosed off another chaos bolt at one of the drow... natural 1. And after rolling the d6, Thom was free and a very confused drow was locked up in his place.

From the same encounter, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, was the dragonborn paladin I was also playing, named Ghesh. I'd built him to just about annihilate everything on a crit, what with his high-crit vicious greataxe +3. When the room went dark, he considered his options and decided, "Screw it." At that point, he charged blindly ahead for his full speed and swung as hard as he could through the darkness. By blind coincidence, he happened to end up charging directly into one of the drow.

Natural 20. Drow lost one-third of its HP outright, which the DM translated as "You rush blindly through the darkness and recklessly swing your greataxe. There's a sickening slice and a scream of pain, and an alarmed drow finds himself missing an arm."

The group learned from Thom's example, and in the next campaign we played, the DM houseruled that Thom's random result table applied to anyone who rolled a natural 1, with results cycling based on the day of the week. This came back to bite him, as in the first session alone, the group rolled a total of sixteen natural 1s.

One pertinent example would be the encounter in which three level 1 characters were fighting a rage drake in a small cave. The party fighter rushed forwards, rolled a natural 1, and switched positions with the drake. The drake lashed out at the cleric and rolled a second natural 1, also switching positions. In a matter of moments, the rage drake had been transported from one end of the cave to the other, leaving it in front of an alarmed wizard.

In the same encounter, the wizard noticed a fire beetle clinging to the ceiling that he had vowed to destroy (long story). Naturally, his attack was a natural 1, and he found himself clinging to the ceiling. Wizards not being an acrobatic sort, he shortly thereafter knocked himself out on the floor.

The next day (in-universe), the determined effect for a natural 1 was to be thrown back fifteen feet and fall prone. Shortly after announcing this, the DM described as we entered a room where some good dozen kobolds were gathered around a vast table. As they noticed us, they drew swords and rolled initiative...

Natural 1.

Our characters watched in amusement as a dozen kobolds rose from their chairs and hurled themselves against the walls, falling to the ground. 'Twas an easy job to fight a room full of prone kobolds. :smalltongue:

[endoperez]

Ars Magica one-shot:

A wind-mage with a flare for the dramatic has finished an adventure, and wants to make an exit. He's deep in a forest, with a group of mundane villagers, and he wants to impress them by flying his whole group away.

He walks into an open glen, raising a fog and a howling wind - check
He calls his minions and wolf-familiar to him - check
He shouts and points to the heavens, and an incredible updraft pushes the whole group up to the skies, above the tallest treetops - check
He wants to control the winds so that the group sails off to the distance, leaving panicked villagers wondering about what just happened - critical fail

The whole group ends up inside a localized cluster of storm winds that throws them around and about, causing several nasty wounds as they collide with each other. The wounded, confused wizard is desperately trying to call for even the weakest of winds so they can leave the laughing villagers behind, but the dice are not with him. Eventually he throws some clouds of fuel vapors down to the ground ("it's the farts of the damned!" call the villagers) and a slight breeze appears to ever-so-slowly push the group out of the sight.

As one of the players put it, "that's one village where no one will be able to take magic seriously".

[Jay R]

I was running a game of Flashing Blades, and one character was a Rogue, without Etiquette skill. So he decided to study it, which takes three months studying under a master. But they only had one month. He decided he would start learning it, and finish later. So he does not have the skill.

They had crashed a hunting party, and were wandering around trying to fit in. This guy saw a beautiful noble lady, surrounded by noble admirers. He decided to walk up and try to introduce himself, using his etiquette skill. I pointed out that it is bad etiquette to introduce oneself. He didn't care.

So he is trying to use a skill wrongly, in a threatened position (many rivals who are masters of the skills) when he doesn't even know the skill. I tried to point this out to him, but he decided to try anyway.

He rolls a natural 20 - critical failure.

I said, "You walk up to her and introduce yourself, as suavely as you could have hoped. She extends her hand to you, so you take it in yours. You look soulfully into her eyes for just a moment, then bend over her hand to kiss it, and f*rt."

----------------

In a game of original D&D, a character wanted to regain her virginity. So the player attempted divine intervention. The player wrote a long poem of praise to the goddess Artemis, in correct dactylic hexameter (the same meter as the Iliad and the Odyssey), opening with two lines of classical Greek (which we had both studied). The player had used her correct epithets, and there were other precise cultural references. It was very well researched and written.

There was only a 5% chance that the goddess would notice, and she did. Based on the poem, I gave the character a +8 overall, on a 2d6 reaction roll. He rolled a double six. So he's made a 20 on a 2-12. Hmmmm.

So I rolled up a standard treasure for her, to consider options. Once I saw what Artemis had to offer, the choice was clear, and a sword appeared before the character. Unsure of what to do, the player said, "I don't understand; I just wish I had my virginity back."

I said, "OK, you now do."

The player continued, "OK, I'm not going to argue with it, but that's not the way these things work." A few minutes later, the player said, "I wish I understood what happened back there."

I replied, "You suddenly realize that you were given a sword which had two Wishes on it. When you wished for your virginity back, it happened; when you wished to understand, you suddenly understood. You are left with a +1 sword with no more wishes."

[Knaight]

Fudge game, Mod-Bots homebrew campaign. The players are playing robots, which have an early actual AI, who broke out of the factory they were made in and are trying to make a run for freedom:

At one point, the PCs were all holed up in a weapon's factory, a major corporate headquarters that did research, design, manufacture, etc. all in one building. They've managed to run from the non AI robots defending the place, and have successfully hidden in a room full of experimental parts. So, they decide that they are going to make a weapon out of them, as the current ones they have simply haven't been cutting it.

There were, at this time, three players, plus the GM (Me). As the GM, I roll a -3 for the people searching for them, getting them time to work. All three players then roll +3s for the PCs work. There's a house rule in effect that 3 dice are used instead of 4, so the chance of this ideal roll happening is 1/531441. By the time the enemies get there, the PCs have what is basically a super weapon (in the context of small skirmishes), which throws out hundreds of bouncing explosives, which detonate gradually, using the explosions to propagate forward. So the entire corridor the enemies are coming through turns into a maelstrom of heat, shrapnel, pressure waves, shock waves, and other unpleasant things.

The players loved it, and the newly christened Ares Bomber was a favorite weapon through the entire campaign.

[GiantkillerJack]

We were playing with an inexperienced GM who soon decided he liked playing the game more than running it. Due to his inexperience, our party of 8 first levels ended up against a level 10 (approx.) assassin. Either the campaign never originally included that battle or we really weren't supposed to win it (I never got the chance to ask him), but as far as the GM was concerned it was a normal battle.

As you can imagine, all of our ranged attacks, spells, tactics, etc. failed miserably. At some point our "battlecaster" had the bright idea of sending his familiar (a squirrel) out to "get him." Mind you, this friend of mine is the worst person I have ever met when it comes to any random number problem. His highest roll before that battle was a 6 out of 20.

Not surprisingly this ended in the squirrel being sliced in two.

That battlecaster was next in the initiative train with no useful spells, and so he decided to lash out at the game by throwing one of the acorns he picked up (during the previous session) to feed his familiar.

The GM laughed and told him to roll for it.
Natural 20.

There was a flash of hitherto unknown magic from deep within the caster that propelled the acorn forward with such force and malice that it punched straight through his armor and embedded itself in his left lung.

We tied the wretch up to a tree and demanded answers, letting the lung do the interrogation for us.

[No brains]

One weird in joke that created itself at our table was: roll for 'pravelling.' It came from our group's contempt for butchered old English roleplay and huge obscure tables. For a while, we didn't know what it actually should mean, but it entailed rolling all the dice the player could grab and making an arbitrary ruling no matter what they rolled. Discussing it's meaninglessness, I eventually brought up that it was a way from me to blame my own lack of preparation on the players by giving them an obviously loaded chance to screw something up. Laughing, one player leaned back and kicked all their dice off the table and 'roll for pravelling' became the name for when someone blunders all their dice across the room. They rolled, and they had to 'pravel' to pick up their dice. "Upps! You rolled for pravelling! The party takes a penalty to session pace!":smallbiggrin:

[NickChaisson]

I was running a D&D 3.5 game. The party was on the roof of a stronghold and had just finished fighting an enemy osteomancer. The osteomancer jumped off the roof and threw a bone shard which was aimed for the NPC that followed the party(the party was convinced that the NPC was gonna die a dramatic death. Mustve been that red armor I gave him). I rolled a natural 1 on the attack and it ended up ricocheting and hitting him in the face. It turned a sub par encounter to an incredibly memorable moment. Glad I ran with it lol

[JW86]

Small group consisting of (my) Orc Barbarian/Fighter in heavy armour, a sneaky Goblin Rogue/Spellthief, a Dwarven Cleric/Fighter, and an Elven Druid are slinking around in the darkness behind enemy lines as armies of Elves and Dwarves march on the underground Drow Fortress.

We are in the battlements, and see a mezzanine above us, lined with Drow soldiers looking outwards at the war. As the other players decided how to sneakily throw a rope/grappling hook up so that we can stealthily climb our way up, I blurt out "I jump up."

The Rogue's player goes "No!!" DM says "Too late.. the orc moves to jump, the rogue whispers No, the orc.. jumps. Roll your jump check".

Big Crashy Orc, in Full Plate, with a 20-30ft vertical jump.

Nat 20.

"Whaa.... ok, roll a move silently/hide"

Nat 20.

"Ok, Zak makes a full 30ft jump onto the mezzanine, in full plate, landing silently and drawing nobody's attention". :smallcool:




Same Orc, much later in the campaign, arrives with the group to a new continent. The Orc detests slavery and goes into an involuntary rage whenever he is in the presence of slavers. Walking through the city, I decide he is going to stand, literally, on a soapbox, and start preaching his name and what he is about.

Nat 20.

Next session, the Orc gains the majority of the slaves in the entire city as fanatical supporters, suddenly rising in arms against their captors, overthrowing the city, burning half of it to the ground, and supporting Zak as he crowns himself Barbarian King of the New Liberated City of Khare.

[Yukitsu]

"OK, roll the scatter on that teleport."
Proceed to land in a tiny pond on the map of healing water, with approximately a one in several hundred thousand chance against landing in it.
"OK, well roll your swim check."
"I fail. I'm carrying a heavy metal staff."
"Why don't you drop it?"
"Because it's a lode stone, and an intelligent item familiar with all of my experience points."
"... An hour later, a Bralani who tends to the healing waters rescues you."

This later led to an interesting exchange about having to give up my first born child which got taken horribly out of context, resulting in time travel, memory gambits, and a lot of uncomfortable gender swapping.

[Rockphed]

"Ok, Zak makes a full 30ft jump onto the mezzanine, in full plate, landing silently and drawing nobody's attention". :smallcool:

And the next round I am sure he let out a feral yell and started bisecting Drow.





Same Orc, much later in the campaign, arrives with the group to a new continent. The Orc detests slavery and goes into an involuntary rage whenever he is in the presence of slavers. Walking through the city, I decide he is going to stand, literally, on a soapbox, and start preaching his name and what he is about.

Nat 20.

Next session, the Orc gains the majority of the slaves in the entire city as fanatical supporters, suddenly rising in arms against their captors, overthrowing the city, burning half of it to the ground, and supporting Zak as he crowns himself Barbarian King of the New Liberated City of Khare.

That is epic in a way that few games reach. I bow to Zak, Barbarian King of Khare! May his reign be long, just, and FREE!

[Sir Chuckles]

A player of mine will always, always, roll nat 20s in crutch situations.
But due to the way he plays, it's never game breaking, I simply cannot kill him.

Ever. I once had him chained to a wall, surrounded by 8 guards, on fire, and about two minutes from being executed.
He got away, killing six of the eight guards plus a party member who had come to save him.

How? I rolled three nat 1s in a row (using three different sets of dice) and he rolled nothing under 18 in a grand total of 37 witnessed rolls with 23 different d20s, including the three I used.

[The_Werebear]

I have two, neither of which I rolled.

The first was in a Martial Arts campaign, in which magic had just gone wild. The Mage's spell to shore up a wooden wall had instead resulted in rampaging wood demons. To deal with them, my dwarf hurled a molotov cocktail before running in with an axe. I threw a d6 for the fire damage, and it landed and balanced on a corner, with 4, 5, and 6 all showing. The DM stared at it for a bit, then decreed the d6 molotov had done 15 points of damage.

The second was in a campaign based in the Starcraft setting. We'd custom constructed classes for this, as the standard 3.5 setting didn't really cover everything. The pilot had bargained for a variation of the assassin's death attack, which would allow him to target and cripple subsystems of an enemy ship after a studied attack. In the first space battle of the campaign, he ended up getting the drop on a fully upgraded, modern battlecruiser in a patched together hunk of junk frigate that would have been out of date and outclassed even if it hadn't been falling apart. He took a called shot on the enemy ship's main power regulation system. Nat 20. Battlecruiser rolls Nat 1 on "save to resist." Enemy ship loses all power and starts drifting. It's at this point he gets on the com and calls for their surrender. They've got no power to actually check what hit them, and are on emergency life support. They throw in the towel. So, three sessions into the campaign, the level 2 pilot becomes captain of a hijacked Battlecruiser, which is enough of a start to begin forming an entire rebel fleet around it. This, understandably, changed the tenor of the campaign from surviving the Zerg on fringe worlds to "overthrow the Confederacy before Mengsk does"

[Ifni]

There were a few...

I was playing a very young and optimistic sorceress who was convinced that magic was sentient and On Her Side (which is why her spells worked). At L2, she encountered a random magic field. With her whole 8HP and AC 13, she went "wheeeeee!" and jumped into the field.

The GM said "Roll a Fort save". I looked at the character sheet, looked at the GM, and said, "She relinquishes her save. She thinks she's invincible and she'd want to see what would happen."

The GM rolled on a random table. The available effects were mostly bad, but there were a few good ones.

GM: "... she turns invisible."
Sorceress: "AWESOME!"
GM: "... are you staying in the field?"
Me: "Of course."
GM: "Next round, make a Fort save."
Me: "She relinquishes it. Duh."
GM: *rolls* "... she gets a breath weapon."
Sorceress: "THIS IS SO COOL!"
GM: "... you're staying in the field aren't you."
Me: "I think you should just keep rolling until something bad happens."
GM: *rolls* "She... heals 1d6 hit points."
Sorceress: "YAY, CHAOS!"
GM: *rolls* "She... gains the ability to spider climb."
Sorceress: "HEEE! UP THE WALLS!"
GM: "You do realize the rest of the party can't see where you're going and can only hear you by the roar of your breath weapon."
Me: "She's a Wisdom-8 teenager; she's having too much fun to realize that splitting the party is a bad idea, especially when you have 8 hit points."
GM: *sigh* *rolls* "She... um... can now fly."
Me: "... you don't need to fudge for my benefit you know."
GM: "I'm not! But that's every single good outcome on the table, so I have to roll a bad one next."
*rolls* "Uh... heal another 1d6 damage."
Me: "She pokes at the trapdoor in the ceiling."
GM: "Oh finally. An ooze falls on top of her."
Sorceress: "BREATH WEAPON! OF DOOM!"
GM: "... sigh."

She was so, so sad when her friends killed the homebrew chaos oozes that were generating the random-magic field. Setting up a chaos ooze farm was an ambition of hers for a long time afterwards. She eventually became a proper Wild Mage - but it all came back to a very silly series of dicerolls at L2.

Same character, somewhat later:
GM: "None of the nobles want to talk to you."
Me: "I roll Sense Motive."
GM: "Result?"
Me: "... uh. Zero."
GM: "... Zero."
Me: "Zero. I rolled a natural 1 and have a Wisdom penalty..."
GM: "I'm going to let you decide how to deal with that."
*pause*
Sorceress: "Guys, I've figured it out." *hushed voice* "The nobles have all been replaced by doppelgangers, and they won't talk to me because last week I helped hunt down some doppelgangers, and they fear my amazing doppelganger-spotting skills."
Fighter: "But the only faction that'd want to take over this city is the Evil Empire across the border, and they use undead, not doppelgangers."
Sorceress: "... oh gods." *terrified look, followed by wail* "VAMPIRE DOPPELGANGERS! THEY'RE ALL VAMPIRE DOPPELGANGERS! USING THEIR EVIL POWERS OF THE NIGHT TO SWAY THE MINDS OF THE WEAK-WILLED AND INDUCT THE INNOCENT INTO THEIR VILE RANKS!"
GM: "... roll a Bluff check to make that sound plausible."
Me: *rolls* "Um. So. Um."
GM: "Is that a natural 20?"
Me: "... yes."
GM: "And your bonus is?"
Me: *reports it in a small voice* (can't remember how high it was now, but mid-teens at least)
GM: *snickers*

And that's how the legend of the vampire doppelganger aristocrats began - and why that character is never allowed to go back to that particular city :smallwink:

[Fiery Diamond]

There were a few...

I was playing a very young and optimistic sorceress who was convinced that magic was sentient and On Her Side (which is why her spells worked). At L2, she encountered a random magic field. With her whole 8HP and AC 13, she went "wheeeeee!" and jumped into the field.

The GM said "Roll a Fort save". I looked at the character sheet, looked at the GM, and said, "She relinquishes her save. She thinks she's invincible and she'd want to see what would happen."

The GM rolled on a random table. The available effects were mostly bad, but there were a few good ones.

GM: "... she turns invisible."
Sorceress: "AWESOME!"
GM: "... are you staying in the field?"
Me: "Of course."
GM: "Next round, make a Fort save."
Me: "She relinquishes it. Duh."
GM: *rolls* "... she gets a breath weapon."
Sorceress: "THIS IS SO COOL!"
GM: "... you're staying in the field aren't you."
Me: "I think you should just keep rolling until something bad happens."
GM: *rolls* "She... heals 1d6 hit points."
Sorceress: "YAY, CHAOS!"
GM: *rolls* "She... gains the ability to spider climb."
Sorceress: "HEEE! UP THE WALLS!"
GM: "You do realize the rest of the party can't see where you're going and can only hear you by the roar of your breath weapon."
Me: "She's a Wisdom-8 teenager; she's having too much fun to realize that splitting the party is a bad idea, especially when you have 8 hit points."
GM: *sigh* *rolls* "She... um... can now fly."
Me: "... you don't need to fudge for my benefit you know."
GM: "I'm not! But that's every single good outcome on the table, so I have to roll a bad one next."
*rolls* "Uh... heal another 1d6 damage."
Me: "She pokes at the trapdoor in the ceiling."
GM: "Oh finally. An ooze falls on top of her."
Sorceress: "BREATH WEAPON! OF DOOM!"
GM: "... sigh."

She was so, so sad when her friends killed the homebrew chaos oozes that were generating the random-magic field. Setting up a chaos ooze farm was an ambition of hers for a long time afterwards. She eventually became a proper Wild Mage - but it all came back to a very silly series of dicerolls at L2.

Same character, somewhat later:
GM: "None of the nobles want to talk to you."
Me: "I roll Sense Motive."
GM: "Result?"
Me: "... uh. Zero."
GM: "... Zero."
Me: "Zero. I rolled a natural 1 and have a Wisdom penalty..."
GM: "I'm going to let you decide how to deal with that."
*pause*
Sorceress: "Guys, I've figured it out." *hushed voice* "The nobles have all been replaced by doppelgangers, and they won't talk to me because last week I helped hunt down some doppelgangers, and they fear my amazing doppelganger-spotting skills."
Fighter: "But the only faction that'd want to take over this city is the Evil Empire across the border, and they use undead, not doppelgangers."
Sorceress: "... oh gods." *terrified look, followed by wail* "VAMPIRE DOPPELGANGERS! THEY'RE ALL VAMPIRE DOPPELGANGERS! USING THEIR EVIL POWERS OF THE NIGHT TO SWAY THE MINDS OF THE WEAK-WILLED AND INDUCT THE INNOCENT INTO THEIR VILE RANKS!"
GM: "... roll a Bluff check to make that sound plausible."
Me: *rolls* "Um. So. Um."
GM: "Is that a natural 20?"
Me: "... yes."
GM: "And your bonus is?"
Me: *reports it in a small voice* (can't remember how high it was now, but mid-teens at least)
GM: *snickers*

And that's how the legend of the vampire doppelganger aristocrats began - and why that character is never allowed to go back to that particular city :smallwink:

Pure, unadulterated awesome.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

@Ifni: I'm dying right now. :smallbiggrin:

[Ifni]

Heh. Glad you both enjoyed it. I was very fond of that character.

(In later life, a certain Lawful cleric and monk made it their mission to travel along with her and stop her from destroying the universe via "I wonder what this button does?" She now wanders the planes, wearing Lurid Purple Boots that radiate overwhelming evil and planeshift her randomly when she clicks the heels. She thinks they're wonderful. Her career also included permanently shifting the balance of the planes toward Chaos, really annoying Tiamat by trying to coax her herald into an alignment change via Diplomacy abuse and sympathy, persuading an artifact intelligence that - appearances notwithstanding - she was an epic-level Int-40 necromancer, being persuaded by an artifact intelligence that she was a goddess, convincing a significant population of kobolds that she was their goddess... she was a lot of fun.)

Looking forward to more diceroll stories :smallwink:

[GrayGriffin]

In a PTU game I'm in, our characters are currently holing up in Pewter city and preparing for a bug invasion tonight. My character, Nira, who is short on cash, decides to look for a job. There's a family looking for their lost little girl, so she takes her Pokemon who can track scents and sets out looking for her. She ends up going into the forest, where the bugs are coming from.

The trail leads to a place stained with blood, and several more blood trails, before discovering the little girl's body, along with several other corpses, in a tree full of Bug Pokemon. Naturally, Nira immediately has her Silgylph burn it down with a Heat Wave. After that, she suddenly starts feeling something trying to get into her head. At first, I wanted to flee, but then I decided that it wasn't Nira's style. She's kind of a charge-first, ask-questions-later person. So I asked the DM if I could try to intimidate the presence into leaving me alone.

DM: Sure, why not.

So, I rolled 3d6+6...and got a two sixes and a three, adding up to 21. The presence immediately disappears. Unfortunately, Nira and her Pokemon then get chased by a swarm of angry Weedle. However, with a well-placed and tanky Rhyhorn, she manages to get away to tell the tale. (As well as taunt her opponents some more once out of harm's way)

Currently the game is still ongoing, so I have no idea how this is going to influence tonight's attack. We'll have to wait and see.