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View Full Version : Gamer Tales The Dice Gods Smile Upon You



Heliomance
2014-11-26, 04:25 AM
This is a thread to tell of those times when you have been favoured by the dice gods beyond all expectation and probability.

My most spectacular tale comes from a game of Mage: the Awakening. It was the campaign finale, we were in an abandoned missile silo trying to complete a ritual to banish a demon who had taken a personal disliking to us (totally not my fault). The demon had called in all its forces and followers to try and stop us, and we, similarly, had called in all our favours to get soldiers to defend us.

So above ground, there was a war raging between werewolves (helping us) and vampires, with some Hunters and goodness knows what all else mixed into the mess. As we were mid way through the ritual, they managed to breach the top of the missile tube. Those of our allies that were in the silo with us started running up gantries, to get to the top and defend the breach.

My mentor was a mortal PI. He was somewhat taken aback by the whole magic thing, but had managed to get his head around it by this time. Anyway, he ran up the gantries and got to the top. The werewolves had been jumping from there to the ground outside the silo. He followed.

He risked Willpower on the check, making it 8 again. The Storyteller rolled his Athletics check. Then she rolled again. Her eyes widened, and she rolled again. And again. Finally she stopped rolling, and showed us a tray full of 10s.

He'd had 9 dice on the Athletics check.

He rolled 27 successes.

He leapt from the top of the gantry for the lip of the silo, but he'd miscalculated. It was clear that he was going to miss, and plummet to his death. Then, suddenly, as his fingers grasped at empty air, he stopped falling. He ran up a staircase that no-one else could see, stepped safely onto the ground outside, turned around, and threw a lightning bolt at a nearby vampire.

With a roll like that? The Storyteller Awakened him as a mage on the spot.

I later worked out the odds of that roll. It was approximately 1 in 8,000,000. I will never again see a roll that good - but you know what? That's okay. That's okay.

Milodiah
2014-11-26, 04:48 AM
This is the lamest possible dice victory...but in a way it was great just because of that.

It was a WoD game set in the Command & Conquer universe, in which we were GDI personnel tasked with infiltrating Nod. I had went out of my way to make a non-action-hero character, who pretty much didn't care that he was a Hunter unless something literally jumped out at him...he was a slightly crooked quartermaster in the military, so he had quite a bit of nice things tucked away that would totally help a black-ops crew, as well as the paperwork shuffle-step talent to get it there.

We were dressed in rags, stumbling into a Nod barracks asking to join up. They pointed us to a table where a recruiter handed us paperwork. The guy before me, pretty violent werewolf, thought he was gaming the system with his answers, but ended up being assigned to a suicide bombing detail because he deliberately made himself out to be unhinged.

Then it was my turn. I picked up the eight dice I had for filling out paperwork...and then I broke the scenario with a Bureaucracy roll.

Twelve successes, which the fae behind me took and put a magically mind-altering spin on, and I handed it to the recruiter.

"Ah, so you're the new commander. Please, follow me, we need to get you into the situation room."

BWR
2014-11-26, 07:15 AM
I've never had anything quite like the OP's experience.
I think the closest I've come is an Ars Magica session where I rolled 135 (system: 1s on a d10 mean a reroll and doubling the result, unless another 1 is rolled, then the next roll is doubled again, and so on.). I rolled 6 1s in a row
It was used to see blood dripping from the ceiling. The next round, everyone else saw it too, no rolls needed. My best roll ever on an entirely pointless roll. Had I been allowed to throw a knife randomly into the darkness I would have likely killed the demon waiting for us.
If you don't mind the opposite of good luck and spread out over several rolls, we had the infamous Night of Botches in Ars Magica, where every player botched multiple times. I think we had more botches that one night than we had in two or three years of playing the game.

I've seen some pretty impressive rolls done by other people, however. In L5R I saw someone with a dice pool of 7k4 roll something like 140 (roll 7 d10s, keep the 4 you want. 10s mean you reroll - 7k4 has an average of about 30). Since it was an amazing roll and not particularly important situation I allowed the palyer to retroactively declare raises at double cost (a raise: increase difficulty by 5 per Raise to get a better result). His feat of strength was still so amazing it made him an instant celebrity.

lytokk
2014-11-26, 08:14 AM
It was a 3.5 Eberron game, and my halfling paladin was fighting with a dragon in the sky. The dragon was also the physical embodyment of the head god in the setting, who was dead set to stop the prophecy from coming true. Winged mount spell allowed me to fly, and with my cavalier levels my ride by attack was pretty powerful, but not powerful enough to really do enough damage. I knew it was the end, so I decided it was time to fly straight up, jump off my mount and fall straight at the dragon. The DM thought my plan was completely stupid, but this was going to be the last session of the campaign and since I was a paladin of Dol Arrah, I felt that this sacrifice would be appropriate. I also had a scroll of Phoenix Fire (something like that. From BoED, blow yourself up, cause massive damage, come back in a round) which I had intended to use. As I was about to use it, my god told me it wasn't the right time, which left me with one option, my keen sonic powered tangat.

The dragon missed on his AoO since I entered his square. And now my attack roll. Dice read 20. Roll to confirm, 19, double crit. DM has a double crit table we use. Result, 3x damage, slice off ear, gain extra attack. Roll for second attack, 17, within my threat range. Roll to confirm, another 20. Once again to the crit table, behead target. Of course the dragon got his bite attack against me, and hit. So, enter the dm fluff.

"As you're falling from the sky wielding your holy tangat, you swing downward at the dragon's head, slicing off one of the dragon's horns, the momentum causing you to spin like a wheel in the air and the impact forcing you higher. As the dragon's head moves back toward you you can feel its teeth sink in through your battle damaged darkleaf full plate. With its neck craned downward towards you, you see you're one and only opportunity and swing your sword with all your might, slicing clean through the dragons neck at its shoulder blades. You are now trapped in its jaws as you and it plummet to the ground"

After that, my god showed up, carried me back into the sky where I activated the scroll I mentioned earlier, and eliminated the entire pantheon, which allowed the dragonmarked heirs to ascend to their rightful places as gods. Yet, I wasn't allowed to come back to life, even though the spell said I should. May have something to do with the massive xp award I should have gotten for it, or may have more to do with the fact the DM had no clue what to do with my character during the epilogue, and figured if anyone was going to die, it was going to be my guy.

Braininthejar2
2014-11-26, 12:50 PM
A card rather than a dice, but made for an interesting story nonetheless.

At one point in a WoD campaign my character (the only unawakened human left in the party, and not very popular either, since I was an unexperienced player back then) got brainwashed by a jerk wizard in our party - he got his memories modified, given a new personality and ordered to enter an Nephandi sect as a sleeping agent.

So, my character thinks himself a wealthy guy who lost his direction in life and one night wanders into the night club that is the base of the sect. There is a cultist fortune-teller there, using her entropy powers to scout for potential recruits.

I walk up to her and ask her for advice about my current situation - I'm drifting aimlessly. She spreads cards in front of me, asking me to pick one (my GM is an actual fortune teller, so she had some tarot cards handy)

I take one card. It turns out to be...

Death - the card of transformation.

The_Werebear
2014-11-26, 04:26 PM
It wasn't the player rolling in this case, but it was still the luckiest series of rolls I have ever seen. Our level 6 social rogue is attempting to infiltrate us into an evil sanctuary. The two guards are undead Duskblades in the level 8 range. The social rogue biffs the bluff check to convince them that she belongs, and they take readied actions and unload power attacking greatsword swings into her.

Two things before I go on.
1) As a social rogue, this character had about 40hp and about a 16 ac. These guys hit on a two or a seven for the iterative while not power attacking.
2) Our DM rolls on the table where everyone can see

They drop her to 1 hp on the opening swings. My tanky character steps into to try and start absorbing shots, but their programming is such that they essentially fixate on targets. The DM allows me to roll aids to her AC, but the guards won't swap targets. The player is busily making peace with her impending death, when the two guards whiff out on their four attacks. I deal a bit of damage, the party cleric puts a heal into her for a few hit points, and she tries to get out of the line of fire. The guards pursue and swing again, this time while charging. Nat 1 and nat 2. I do a bit more damage, cleric heals her again, rogue continues to try and evade. The guards keep closing and swinging. They miss again.

The rogue dodges attack after attack, each one barely lower than the minimal threshold they need to tag her. When one finally manages to land another shot on her, it's six rounds later and she is nearly back to full health. The guard does amazing damage, and drops her to -9. She's next on the imitative, and will tick over to death, except (and we all forgot this until that very second) an NPC we were escorting had openly delayed action at the start of combat. And the rogue had gone down a single five foot step away.

The rogue got back up on her round and continued to evade for the next eight rounds until we finally hacked the guards apart. Each round she had no less than two attacks which had at least an 85% chance to hit, and she took only one hit after the initial shot.

And the DM rolled every single one of those dice on the table in front of all of us.

GrayGriffin
2014-11-26, 07:18 PM
Our party was traveling through a kind-of-haunted forest, and getting pummelled mentally by the aura of the trees. I asked the DM if I could try to roll to intimidate the trees into weakening their influence. He said I could try, but it would take a very high roll. I went ahead and did it.

I got 23 out of a possible maximum 24.

The aura vanished completely.

GPuzzle
2014-11-26, 10:15 PM
4e Homebrew campaign, playing an Enchantment Mage. BBEG (who is a demigod, son of the god of chaos) is going to get away by jumping on a Phoenix, and very hurt.

At the last second possible, I, the Mage with a penalty to Athletic checks, crit the roll, reach the Phoenix, crit an Hypnotism attack on the BBEG (either slide him a bunch of squares or make an attack against someone you want with +4 to-hit).

I choose to make him attack himself, he dies, falls from the Phoenix.

Phoenix starts diving to get its old master, and get it to be reborn.

I roll an Insight check. Nat 1. Another. Nat 1. Another. If I fail that one, I'm dead and it was for nothing.

I crit that check.

I manage to pull the Phoenix a bit down, and we both hit the ground. The Phoenix enters spontaneous combustion, before it stops burning. What appears in its place? My character, reborn, and with a Phoenix soul. Which meant that I had entered Super Sayajin mode, basically.

We also rolled closed to our own allies when it was not necessary (it went through Skype), so only me and me DM got to see it.

It might not have been as impressive as other rolls here, but goddamnit was it lucky.

The DM's description was amazing.

You hear an impact down there. The Phoenix has hit the ground and now is entering spontaneous combustion, the signal of its renew and renovation. Anyone inside the blast that is dead can be brought back alive, they just need to give themselves in to the Phoenix. A flash of light crosses the area you're in. A signal you've seen before - the magical tattoo on your friend's back - appears as the light beam reaches the heavens. And down there, somewhere you hear- he sent a message to me, and I could just say:

"I'M IMMORTAL!"

Braininthejar2
2014-11-27, 05:14 AM
WoD, mage campaign. The player wants to use his scrying abilities to solve a mystery.

Player: I want to know what is really going on here.

DM: Roll against the difficulty of 7

Player: *rolls 3 dice*

Dice: 6 6 6

DM: Well, now you know. :smallcool:

Smorgonoffz
2014-11-27, 08:25 AM
The game was star wars saga edition:

Characters:

Scoundrel
Droid(scoundrel)
Soldier(sniper)


Place a droid factory(who's a cover for imperial agents)

Dm: roll to hit the defensive turrets:
S:1
D:1
So:1

this series of rolls went on for a long time, after some shenanigans we enter the secret room that's the imperial forces base.
We see some half human/half robots cyborg connected to a sith Holochron(we didn't know what it was ), then from a door in the distance the imperial commander and two stormtroopers come out.

Ic: ( with the command to activate the cyborgs) drop your weapons and surrender.
S: Sure(rolls a deception/bluff check againsta the commander), surprise shot to the commander nat 20 with max damage

Roll inititative me and the droid go first:

D: i'll attack the stormtrooper, rolls nat 20 with max damage
So: D: i'll attack the stormtrooper, rolls nat 20 with max damge

Dm: This wasn't the boss fight, you should've fought the cyborgs. Anyway you got the luck you didn't get at the droid factory:

Players: victory dance