Times You (Or Someone) Saved the Party

[crunchykoolaid]

So story time about today's DnD session.

My older friend was DMing, and the players were an Urban Ranger new to the game, a Psychic Warrior who was my friend IRL, and myself, a Wizard. The Psychic and I are level 7, while the Ranger is only a level 4.

We're going along pretty well, until we find something called a tomb spider. I pass my knowledge check enough to know it will screw us over (CR 8), so I pull out my cheesiest spells and use Ray of Stupidity, 1d4+1 Intelligence damage. This thing has intelligence 3, and I roll a 5, so it's suddenly in a coma for at least an entire day. I'm feeling like I dodged a bullet, when it's mate comes around the corner and starts messing with the Psychic with stupid negative energy poison that reverses healing and such.

I try and let them handle it as I'm kinda low on spells, but then he goes down and the Ranger can't hit worth crap because the DM keeps recommending bad feats for her, so it's suddenly me versus a large spider that could eat me. I say screw this noise and unload the rest of my cheesy spells.

First I Mage armor, Mirror Image, and Alter Self to a Tren, a form with +8 natural armor (25 total AC and 20% chance of hitting the real me) then I run up and slap it with Shivering Touch (3d6 dex damage, no save) so it's now clumsy as all get out, then I cast Grease and it trips and falls, I use this time to use my last healing potion on the Psychic who's now at 2 HP, who promptly finished off the spider while it stumbled around unable to stand up like the spider on roller skates from Harry Potter 4.

The DM was upset I trivialized his overpowered monsters, the Psychic was amazed, the Ranger was confused, and I felt like a real Wizard.

So, times you saved the party, or just generally performed exceptionally well?

Edit: Split it up as per Bad Wolf's suggestion, plus some spelling and grammar

[Bad Wolf]

You might want to Great Cleave that into smaller chunks.

[Hexblade]

I was a cleric, cast Sanctuary on the entrance of the BBEG's lair, so my party hit him, ran back, got healed and buffed, and went out again. We beat him in 15 turns, tops.

[BowStreetRunner]

I was a scout and ran through a door that caused me to disintegrated. The rest of the party decided not to go through that door. I got to roll up a new character.

[Dormammu]

I think we were something like level 3. I was a little halfling wizard.
We had just gone through 2-3 fights and were low on hitpoints, and resources and I was out of spells. But, "let's just see what's on the lower level before we rest!" I decided to stay at the top of the stairs, "Let me know how it goes!"

Then an ogre came around the corner and in 3 rounds it took out the fighter, ranger, and cleric. Then it double moved to the top of the stairs. Did I mention I was out of spells?

Me: "5 Foot step to get out of AoO rang, wand of Color spray!"

Thank goodness it failed its save, tumbled down the stairs and gave me a few rounds to revive the party!

[DarkEternal]

Played a modified version of....tomb of horrors I think it was. Anyway, near the end, half the party died by picking up some crystal thing that blew up and did over a hundred hp of damage to pretty much everyone. Left alive was the warblade, the samurai homebrew guy and me, factotum-chameleon. Anyway, we didn't know what to do. Warblade and samurai entered some gaping mouth or something, appeared at the begining of the dungeon, naked without their gear. They tried entering the same way, only to end up dead. Both of them, since it was some kind of a death trap thing.

So, I was alone. In the damn dungeon. The last tomb thing was just around the corner, though. And in there the arch lich an. My hide skill was awesome as was my invisibility spell which I had on. The lich didn't see me. The party's weapons and armor was all there as well. I rolled an awesome nineteen or something on knowledge check to identify the enemy. Saw he had all nasty stuff, but adamantine weapons went right through his defenses...which was exactly the kind of weapon that our samura's katana was made of. So, i nicked it, went out of the room and slept there for a night.

Went into fighter focus. I had, from a previous party member, who left the party, that dust of disappearance or something. Used my floating feat to get exotic weapon proficiency, cast a few more buffs that I don't really remember now and had my trusty buckler of deathward on me just in good case. Entered the last tomb with dust on, without knowing how many rounds I'll have. Sneaked up to him, and cleaved the hell out of that skull thing, using all the bonus actions and inspiration bonuses I could have on the bloody thing. Killed it. Killed it good.

And got enough gold and stuff that the party was back to it's feet after I got out.

[crunchykoolaid]

I was a scout and ran through a door that caused me to disintegrated. The rest of the party decided not to go through that door. I got to roll up a new character.

Hah! Nice one, never underestimate the power of deciding "Well if something happens to me, the rest of the party will know not to do it."

Also, dang DarkEternal, never thought I would see someone solo a Demilich. But I guess if it had to be done, it would be a Factotum :smallbiggrin:

[Thealtruistorc]

One of the greatest moments that I can recall in my gaming life revolves around a player of mine winning what was intended to be a brutal encounter without drawing a single weapon.

The characters were planning to storm a city, and the head of the city contacted them via telepathy to warn them of the forces he was amassing and advising them to turn back. Being the highly willful players that they are, I expected at least one of them to formulate some twisted strategy and run headlong into the fray. At least one character was likely to perish in the ensuing fight if they got careless, and if the party and their forces took the city it would mean taking heavy losses. Instead of the obligatory smack-talk that defines such discussions, however, our alchemist responded with this Oscar-worthy speech:

"Look, both of us are fighting for the same purpose, and that purpose is the well-being of this city, this country, and its people. You're a sensible person, and I doubt you have any more interest in taking hundreds if not thousands of lives than I do. Our methods certainly don't agree all of the time, but we both want what's best for everyone. If this battle goes on, it will leave far too many people dead and cause far too much damage, as if our conflict hasn't already done enough of that. I value my comrades just as much as you do yours, so shouldn't we try and reach a solution in which they wouldn't have to die needlessly? I trust your judgement, and think that if we were to meet peacefully we could find some resolution that would mean the best for our country and would make it so its people could finally rebuild after all of this chaos. Neither of us want this battle to play out, so what say you that I travel to the city personally so that we could finally put an end to this mess?" (He offers his hand out despite the fact that his partner isn't physically there. The man meets it with a mage hand and the two shake, agreeing to a diplomatic resolution).

The party was spared an outright brutal fight, and the two factions ended up with a much better relationship than they would have otherwise. This is what can truly happen when a player is willing to emphasize reason and understanding in a world where both of those things are in short supply.

[Story]

In one campaign, I played a Cleric and saved the day twice, which was probably surprising since everyone assumed I was just a healbot (and kept complaining when I didn't heal people immediately, even in suicidal circumstances). The first time we ran into a room full of Kobolds that we weren't prepared to fight, so I cast Enthrall to let everyone get away. The second time, we were in a fight where I was the last one standing, but I used a spontaneously cast Ayailla's Radiant Burst to finish the monsters off, thus preventing a likely TPK.

[Pex]

Last game session before we fought against the unknown BBEG of the dungeon we had time to buff. My Oracle of Dark Tapestry spammed Protection From Evil on everyone. Turns out the BBEG was a vampire whose domination ability became useless. DM had us roll saving throws anyway because the vampire didn't know we were protected. She monologued before we fought. A third of our party would have been dominated. It was a tough fight, but no one being dominated made it a lot easier than it could have been.

Old group. 3E game of a small party, my cleric, a fighter, and a rogue. First round of combat I cast Bless. While naturally I'd do other things as the combat happened, I literally could have done nothing else and still be MVP of the combat because I cast that spell. The fighter and rogue players tend to forget all the bonuses they get from various things. Almost every round of the combat when they attacked at least one of them would announce the AC they they reach and the DM would say they missed. All I had to say was "Did you remember the +1 from Bless?" and that miss became a hit. They had multiple attacks, would flank, etc., so it's not like their dice were rolling the same number all the time. It's just that whatever the circumstances for their total to hit modifier for a particular swing they managed to miss by one until they remembered the Bless. For the perfect ending to this combat in a desperate action the bad guy cleric had cast Cause Fear on the fighter to make him run away. The player rolled and failed the save. I said "Did you remember that Bless gives you a +1 to will saves vs fear?" He made the save. The bad guy cleric was dead next round.

[IZ42]

In my RL 3.PF game, our group is running a Shipping Company with some... other areas of expertise. The party at this time consisted of me, a Goliath Brawler//Homebrew Iron Man class, a Druid//Rogue, a Gramarist//Tactician, a Fighter//Cavalier, and a Gunslinger//Ranger, who's the hero of this story.

We ended up checking out this underground auction house that was run to screw with our current employers, and our Rogue got caught sneaking around by the owner of the establishment, and we busted in to save her.

The fight quickly got messy, as the owner was 3 levels higher than us and was a Factotum//Wizard. We were nearly all incapacitated and trapped, with two people remaining conscious. One was the Gunslinger, who was trapped in a pit he couldn't climb out of, and the Gramarist, who was trying very hard not to die.

We'd barely been hitting even the enemy's touch AC, and then the gunslinger got lucky. He rolled a 20 with his musket. He confirmed it. For those of you who don't know, muskets have a *4 crit modifier. He rolls damage and rolls two 1s, and our GM looks at the enemy's statblock. He tells the gunslinger that he can permanently burn a point of grit to reroll the ones. He does so, and it still isn't quite enough. The GM tells him he can permanently burn ALL of his grit to reroll, the gunslinger does so, and kills the person, blowing his head off.

The gunslinger then retired from adventuring, and now works at our office.

[crunchykoolaid]

Awesome stories guys! I love the feeling that you accomplished something, not through random chance or luck, but the exact way you built your character, the RP choices you made, or even an old piece of equipment you forgot about.

To me, this is what truly makes DnD such a wonderful game :smallsmile:

[Twilightwyrm]

This was actually fairly recent, and might have only given us a temporary reprieve, but I'll share it anyways: I'm in a two person party with a friend of mine attempting to tackle the Savage Tide adventure module. We've actually managed fairly well so far with just the two of us (plus an occasional significantly underleveld npc or two, and eventually a cohort I got at 6th level), due mostly to good team composition. Anyways, we get to the part on the Isle of Dread with the fiendish dungeon (the one with the teleport/fireball trap for those who are familiar). We bypass the trap, and teleport to the pit, which we get out of, only to be confronted by the damned Bar-Igura (teleporting gorilla demons, for those unfamiliar). We, not initiaolly knowing what is confronting us, take refuge in a small hall area, trying to set up a choke point. Instead, the things teleport in around us and start fighting. Not it is us, at around 9th level, and two npcs (6th level tops). I fire off a glitterdust (they all pass their saves), start up my buffs (I am a Bard), and the fight commences, but none of us can seem roll to hit worth a crap, and my friend (a warlock) cannot seem to pass their SR to save his life (rather more literally they I'd like). Even when we do hit, the demon's fire resistance ends up negating most of the extra fire damage I'm giving everyone (I correctly identified the demons, but the character didn't know about their fire resistance), and without the warlock's eldritch blast actually hurting these guys, things just go from bad to worse. We put up a fight, but eventually the first NPC, then the second, goes down, and the warlock is grappled and about to follow suit.
At this point I say screw it, while I don't normally like "I'm taking my ball and going home" abilities, I figure if I don't get us the hell out of here we are all going to die, or worse (http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=47532111) (these are demons after all). So I expend one of my last remaining uses of bardic music and hit all of the Bar-Igura with Soothing Voice. Soothing Voice is a Bardic ACF which, when employed, hits everyone within 30ft. with a Calm Emotions effect, but with a DC equal to your rolled Diplomacy Check. It is Su so it bypassed SR, and I roll a 16 or 17, with a +25 to Diplomacy, so none of these bastards are passing this saving throw. And Calm Emotions, interestingly enough, has this line included "Creatures so affected cannot take violent actions (although they can defend themselves) or do anything destructive". The demons fail, and suddenly stop fighting. My friend is released and takes the opportunity to use our wand to heal the npcs. We have just enough time to head back through the teleportation trap, so with my continuing to monologue at the Bar-Igura, and the demons both failing to comprehend what is going on and uselessly attempting to bring themselves to do anything to us, we basically turn around and walk out of the dungeon. Once we go out we were blessedly able to elude any attempts the demons might have made to follow us and find safe shelter for the night. I have no idea how we are going to take them on when we return (they ostensibly kidnapped a companion of ours), but for the time being I saved both of our characters, and the two npcs, from a horrible horrible fate.

[Vhaidara]

Gnome bard. We just cleared a dungeon and got dropped into a forest. The beatsticks are still beat up from the boss fight. Two trolls show up. I step up, and yell in Giant "Hey dullfangs! Come and get some!"

I proceed to tank the fight by pissing them off. Yay for gnome dodge bonus vs giants. I do believe I implied having had relations with one of their mothers at one point.

[LoyalPaladin]

Dragonlance. I was playing a Silvanesti Ranger that had max ranks in survival and had a Giant Owl to ride on.

Now, I was routinely mocked for maxing survival and noting having great damage output. (Bow & Arrow vs DR is no fun.) However, it was my time to shine here. Not only did I take out three owlbears alone while on watch duty, I also managed to feed the thousands of refugees alone.

No one mocked my survival skill after that. No one.

[Dormammu]

tomb of horrors I think it was... it was some kind of a death trap thing.


This was absolutely Tomb of Horrors.

[GreatDane]

This was my first D&D group. We were all pretty inexperienced with 3.5 - zero optimization, etc. The party was around 4th level, and consisted of a monk, a cleric, a wizard, and a rogue. The encounter in question was a showdown with the ogre mage whose mutated ogre underlings had been harassing the nearby town.

As a first-time DM, I didn't recognize the ogre mage's design flaws (made the same mistake with the cockatrice earlier in the campaign) and ran it straight out of the SRD. The battle took place in the corridors of the ogre mage's lair. Initiative is rolled when the PCs hear the ogre mage chuckling while invisible. The monk readies an action to charge the ogre mage (should he become visible).

The ogre mage drops out of invisibility and the monk makes his charge, misses. The ogre mage fires off his cone of cold, hitting everyone. The wizard is down, the monk is down, the cleric is down, and the rogue is under ten hit points with no practical way of healing the party members who went to negatives instead of dead. Everyone sits back in their chairs, looking dumbfounded at each other: "Did we just have a TPK?"

Then the monk player looks up and says, "Wait...was that a spell-like ability? Don't I get an attack of opportunity? "

We check, and yes, SLAs provoke! I rule that the ogre mage didn't expect the monk's charge and therefore didn't cast defensively. The table looks on with bated breath as the monk rolls his attack...for a hit! I roll the ogre mage's Concentration check, and he fails! The monk's attack of opportunity single-handedly saved the party (which dog-piled on the ogre mage in the next round for enough damage to send him scurrying away in gaseous form).

[Nibbens]

There was a total wipe scenario about to happen. This demon had just annihilated the fighter, the cleric and the mage who are bleeding out and the sorcerer was the only one left with maybe 10 HP left.

The demon - being out of her heal and harm spell like abilities after using them in the fight, was also down to even fewer HP than the sorcerer. We're talking 2 or 3 HP (i don't remember which).

The sorcerer is standing above the demon on a ledge, looking down at the remains of her party, and the demon wants no more of the fight. So, the demon assumes a Gaseous Form and begins floating up and away.

The Sorcerer succeeds on her Spellcraft check, so she casts antimagic sphere and jumps off the cliff. It's a 20 foot fall - and she passes through the GFed demon. The spell short circuits and the demon falls with the Sorcerer.

The sorcerer survives the fall, the demon fails it's acrobatics check and dies on impact.

The sorcerer is then able to force potions of cure down everyone's throat just in time to save the day.

[Thomastwobit]

My first ever Campaign.

About halfway through the campaign we were fighting a boss, as for what the boss was I don't particularly remember as it was years ago. The party was mostly first time players except for the DM and one PC. This fight was going well and we were not heavily damaged by the time we took the boss down to the halfway point. This was where things went downhill. My friend had recently acquired the spell weird ( mass kill through fear effect spell). He pops this spell and as a Paladin I was not affected but the other members of the party fail both the will and fort saves. Now its the two of us fighting a boss and ended up being a fight where we were dropped several times each and only survived by me popping heal spells on my friend and him popping cure mods pots on me. We then spent the gold from the boss on reviving our party who was now broke, but whole. So yeah technically saved the party there.

[Pex]

In a 15th level adventure, the party came upon the base of an ice cliff. We needed to get to the top. We had the flying means, but I insisted we find out what is on top before we go. As an Oracle of Life, I cast Summon Monster V for an air elemental to fly up, look around, and report back. The Inquisitor assisted with a spell enabling me to speak with the air elemental to do this. Up went the air elemental who was immediately attacked by dozens of wraiths coming from the cliff. Being so forewarned that we reached the undead part of the adventure, I took out my wand of Deathward which I conveniently decided to purchase before the adventure, not knowing what would happen in it, as a "just in case" measure. Spamming the party with Deathward, we flew up the cliff unharmed by the wraiths. On top we faced more undead. I don't know what they were but their attack was to drain dexterity. Since the party was now immune, the combat was a cake walk.

[Scheming Wizard]

There was a total wipe scenario about to happen. This demon had just annihilated the fighter, the cleric and the mage who are bleeding out and the sorcerer was the only one left with maybe 10 HP left.

The demon - being out of her heal and harm spell like abilities after using them in the fight, was also down to even fewer HP than the sorcerer. We're talking 2 or 3 HP (i don't remember which).

The sorcerer is standing above the demon on a ledge, looking down at the remains of her party, and the demon wants no more of the fight. So, the demon assumes a Gaseous Form and begins floating up and away.

The Sorcerer succeeds on her Spellcraft check, so she casts antimagic sphere and jumps off the cliff. It's a 20 foot fall - and she passes through the GFed demon. The spell short circuits and the demon falls with the Sorcerer.

The sorcerer survives the fall, the demon fails it's acrobatics check and dies on impact.

The sorcerer is then able to force potions of cure down everyone's throat just in time to save the day.
That was as incredibly awesome as it was incredibly ballsy.

[Scheming Wizard]

We were in epic levels and the DM was starting to make his own monsters which led to some pretty random difficulty spikes. Most of the time we would walk through his monsters, but sometimes it was the other way around. Anyway our party is pretty kick in the door, because most of the group is rangers, barbarians and fighters with a rogue/ninja. I am playing a wizard and I am hanging back, but our barbarian breaks down the door and these medium zombie humanoid things pour into the room. I don't know what they were exactly, because the DM made them. The barbarian spends one round fighting them and decides they hit too hard and runs for it along with the rest of the party and they manage to outrun me even though I was behind them. I'm trying to get away from them too, but I end up provoking an attack of opportunity and I get hit wounding me.

The party takes a minute to breathe and talk strategy. At first I tried to get them to come back and fight, but they were almost to a door to escape and they didn't want to come back into the room, and since I wasn't going to make it to the door "we" decided I should cast time stop and give them a chance to get away. (In our campaign the DM had ruled that a belt of freedom of movement granted immunity to time stop so everyone had one except me). So I cast time stop taking another attack of opportunity and I'm below half health. The party runs out the door and seals it behind them.

At this point I am in a narrow hallway with one monster next to me and about 7 more behind him coming through the door. Time is stopped so I have a few rounds to think about what I want to do. I have the epic spell lord of nightmares prepared that I want to cast, but I'm worried about dying from the backlash damage. I can't run away, because my party has barricaded the only door, and the monsters will catch me anyway. I decide to cast the spell and thankfully roll low on the backlash damage surviving with 7 hp. So the dream larva possesses me and I don't know a lot about the things I am about to fight, but I hope he will be able to win.

First thing that happens is they all need to make will saves against his worst nightmare ability and 6 of them fail and instantly die. The DM hadn't given them stellar will saves. Then he goes into combat and he has 8 attacks so he finishes off the other two. He is stuck in the room, so he thankfully didn't go and kill the party. Eventually the spell wears off and I return to my body with 7 hp and I have to cast passwall to get through the door now barricaded with practically everything in the previous room to get back to my party. To this day they insist I summoned Cthulhu.

[Arc_knight25]

Nothing to epic. Can't remember what we were fighting, but it hit like a truck. So our Life Oracle healer was spamming heal on whoever needed it. Until the creature we were fighting got smart and used its petrify attack on the Oracle. So the Oracle turns to stone, looking pretty grim for the party, Luckily me playing a Magus that was more utility then damage had Stone to Flesh prepared. Brought the oracle back into the fight and we finished the encounter with the Oracle severely wishing she had more spells per day.

[Ferronach]

I have a few so will use spoiler boxes....


My party and I were doing a good old "save the princess" gig with me as a half ogre/half giant barbarian, and three or four more players playing other low op characters.
long story short, the BBEG wizard dude managed to trap us all and chained us to the walls of his laboratory so we could watch him experiment on the princess a-la Frankenstein style.
everyone but me was chained to various walls with magically enhanced chains that prevented casters from casting. I was clamped to the wall by magical bands. The bbeg was monologuing about how stupid we were for falling for his trap and such - typical bbeg monologue. Well Urp (my big ugly barbarian with a very low Int/Wis) hated being called stupid to the point that he would rage if called stupid. The DM laughed when I asked what the DC to break the magical iron bands was. He stopped laughing when I asked what the DC to break the wall was... Urp decided to flex and pulled so hard that the entire wall he was pinned to gave out, effectively crushing a large portion of the lab and equipment. Flying hunks of wall from near my wrists killed the bbeg.
The DM was mad because we were all supposed to pretty much TPK then be saved by some mucky-muck or other. Whoops...



I was playing a dungeon crashing warforged juggernaut in a low OP party. I made the guy tough to help out new players in the group but played him at about 25% to keep the balance.
We were trapped by a bunch of undead and the party was looking very ragged (1 dead, 2 incapacitated, 1 almost dead and me at about 1/2 health) so i declared "its OK, I have got this, I just have to actually use my character" which received laughs from everyone including the DM who was fairly new...
Lets just say that I crushed the encounter, carried the dead and incapacitated players for 12 hours (distance back to town) and then got the local clerical services to rez the three dead (the two incapacitated died on the way there and myself and the other guy had no way to stabilise them).



I once started a game and the party almost wiped in the first session.... Instead of starting in a tavern, they started in a shiny metal room 100*100*100. No it was not filled with 1000 gelatinous cubes! I may be cruel but I am not that cruel XD am i?

Anyways. They had no idea how they got there, who the other people were or why they were there. They all had their gear (seemingly untouched). They all woke up with a DC10 unskilled check to a low humming sound and a faint vibration in the floor.
If they moved within 5 feet of a wall, the wall became the new floor (think of the gravity shifting to that wall). The humming and vibration was the result of the room shrinking by 5 feet a minute.
There were no visible doors or secret ones. Each wall (including the current roof and floor) had "Waste Disposal" written in big easy to read letters on it.

To solve the room all they had to do was jump higher than 5 feet, causing them to slowly float to the centre of the cube (the centre does not move but all six walls do to create the shrinking effect). Once no weight was detected on any of the "floors" the disposal system would reset by teleporting everything in it to a "land fill." This works because the room would compact anything until all walls were within 4 feet of eachother (depending on the compressibility of whatever is in the cube at that time) causing whatever was in it to be pulled in all directions at once by gravity, thus compacting it and causing it to no longer touch any of the walls (can happen with any size of cube provided the substance in it is no longer compressible).

The party finally figured it out with 3 minutes to spare when one of the charcters tried to throw something to another one on a different wall.
It actually turned out to be a very fun room, especially when everyone was running around on different walls looking for a door of some sort.


I am sure there are some good ones that I am forgetting but these are all that I can remember right now.