Share a ridiculous story

[shad0w]

So there's a halfling rogue, a dragonbourne cleric, a dragonbourne paladin, an orc barbarian, and me a human warlock. We're doing the princes of the apocalypse module and we've done some ridiculous stuff, such as using a mobile fortress to knock over an actual fortress. There's also a tavern known as the swinging sword that the orc and I ended up being a huge euphemism for what we keep trying to do. I am the proud owner of one wand of wonder, which leads to me one hitting a room of enemies or filling the room with butterflies. at one point there were archers firing through arrow slits which i dubbed my glory holes. I did what any warlock who made a pact with Cthulhu would do, I poked my wand through and released an elephant.

[MightyDog16]

In PotA we found the Bargewright Inn. We lost it lol.

[Zman]

Well, my group met a naive young town guard, 15year old kid who lost his family to raiding Orcs, had nothing, so joined the town guard for a hot meal. Well, the group decided to have this kid tag along, as they could use someone with the Survival skill for some tracking and as a guide the area. Well, they get into a hard fight and the kid just wrecks shop, never misses an attack, gets two kills, is never hit in combat. Everyone else did and was hurting, one character needed a heal check to not die. The party had to turn back. He did so well, I gave him a share of the xp and said he became a 1st Level Fighter.

Well, they decide to go at it again and end up in effectively four encounters, one of them hard nearing deadly and the 15 year old kid Ryle Ward has yet to miss an attack or be hit in combat. Hell, he has rolled max damage far more than he should have as well. He has been the major damage contributor outshining even the higher level paladin. The kid is now level 2 and the party want to keep having him tag along, haha!

It has just been an incredible string of rolls, the only two D20 rolls he has made that were below average was on a heal check to save a dieing party member and on a Surival for tracking, otherwise the kid has been gold on every single roll. Need max damage to kill that Orc, sure, easy. Oh, disadvantage on that Crossbow shot, no worries, hell I'll make three of them with disadvantage three turns in a row.

[CantigThimble]

I once rolled three consecutive natural twenties on persuasion to convert a cultist army mid-battle. I got the kobold half of the army working for me for about a minute. I lead the charge against the human half then detonated the halfling riding me. There was about a 90% casualty rate. That was a fun level 1.

[Felvion]

It's not exactly ridiculous but it was definately a unique story to be part of.
It was the first great 3.5 campaing of our group, back when we were 17-18 years old. There was a party member, lets call him Jim, who was playing the wizard. We used to play every Saturday but there was that day that Jim had "some family stuff" and we re-arranged for Sunday. When we finally met on Sunday noon, Jim showed up about an hour late and in obvious very, very bad mood. We were really worried cause he hadn't answered our calls all day but he said he didn't want to talk about it and we should better just play.
The session started and after a while we were all so absorbed in the story that even Jim seemed quite cool. The party was in a dungeon and we were 4-5 level. We were in a cage-like elevator when a manticore ambushed us. It was launching some spike attacks from its tail and some of them critted. The dm said they all aimed one random target who would be decided by dice. He rolled and then looked straight to Jim the wizard. We all kinda froze as we knew this damage was far beyond his HP total. Jim was mad at the dm (he kept saying "are you serious? Did you just kill me?") cause it was too weird to have all the attacks aim to only one target. The dm took a moment to think and just announced "That's the way i had planned the ambush. You're totally dead"! We all tried to talk the dm to fudge a bit and just leave him unconcious or something like that but in vain. Jim was the first to accept the fact his character had died (the first death in our dnd experience), smoked and cigarette and then left the session without a word.
Next day we found out that Jim's father died the night before. He came to play dnd in order to forget the tragic event.

[gfishfunk]

It's not exactly ridiculous but it was definately a unique story to be part of.
It was the first great 3.5 campaing of our group, back when we were 17-18 years old. There was a party member, lets call him Jim, who was playing the wizard. We used to play every Saturday but there was that day that Jim had "some family stuff" and we re-arranged for Sunday. When we finally met on Sunday noon, Jim showed up about an hour late and in obvious very, very bad mood. We were really worried cause he hadn't answered our calls all day but he said he didn't want to talk about it and we should better just play.
The session started and after a while we were all so absorbed in the story that even Jim seemed quite cool. The party was in a dungeon and we were 4-5 level. We were in a cage-like elevator when a manticore ambushed us. It was launching some spike attacks from its tail and some of them critted. The dm said they all aimed one random target who would be decided by dice. He rolled and then looked straight to Jim the wizard. We all kinda froze as we knew this damage was far beyond his HP total. Jim was mad at the dm (he kept saying "are you serious? Did you just kill me?") cause it was too weird to have all the attacks aim to only one target. The dm took a moment to think and just announced "That's the way i had planned the ambush. You're totally dead"! We all tried to talk the dm to fudge a bit and just leave him unconcious or something like that but in vain. Jim was the first to accept the fact his character had died (the first death in our dnd experience), smoked and cigarette and then left the session without a word.
Next day we found out that Jim's father died the night before. He came to play dnd in order to forget the tragic event.

Very, very harsh. There is a line between authentic and enjoyable.

[UrsusArctos]

At the start of the adventure, here was the party layout:

Human Paladin
Aaracokra Monk
Half-Elf Fey Warlock
Elf Druid (Me)


When we reached level 3, I decided to play a different class and talked with the player of the Warlock. We agreed to each switch out our characters for new ones. (We just wanted to try out different classes)

Now earlier in the campaign, we suffered a TPK and our new PCs picked up their mission. My new character was going to be the sorcerer brother of the old one, and would be trying to bring his remains back to their hometown for a resurrection.

The Warlock was a member of a secret society and received a new mission, and left to complete that. My druid decided to go out into the wild to get attuned and whatever.

The Warlock's new PC was a Chaos Sorc 1/Bard 2. The DM let the guy roll on the Wild Magic Surge table with any spell.

So the new party goes off on their adventure and gets into a fight. During the fight, the Sorc/Bard crit misses with an attack and hits me with it. (The DM likes fumbles and knows they aren't in the rules. I don't, whatever.) After the fight, I demand that he heals me, as he was the one that damaged me. He goes up and casts Cure Light Wounds, and then rolls a 1 for WMS. He rolls on the table and gets 08. Fireball. He rolls, along with the Monk and me. The paladin was luckily out of range.

I fail, the other two save. 41 damage total. I had 20 max hp and was at full. Dead instantly. The other two ended up slightly better, and could be brought back. It was his first session and the second in the family to die.

[MadBear]

My group played the Legend of the 5 Rings RPG.

As a member of the scorpion clan (backstabbers), I was challenged to an honorable duel against a member of the Lion clan (very honorable clan) who was way more powerful then my character.

That night, I snuck into his room and poured a vial of poison over his blade, before sneaking off to a tea house. At the tea house I made sure to loudly brag about how I would beat the Lion Clan member due to the toxic poison I had acquired to put on my blade.

The next day during the duel, before we took our position, one of the peasants called out that the scorpion clan member had poisoned his weapon. The Lion clan member in anger demanded that I turn my weapon over for inspection. I acting highly offended stated I would only do so if he also turned his weapon over (that I had poisoned from the night before).

Long story short, he was disbanded from his clan in complete disgrace, and I technically "won" the duel without ever having to swing my sword.

[krugaan]

At the start of the adventure, here was the party layout:

Human Paladin
Aaracokra Monk
Half-Elf Fey Warlock
Elf Druid (Me)


When we reached level 3, I decided to play a different class and talked with the player of the Warlock. We agreed to each switch out our characters for new ones. (We just wanted to try out different classes)

Now earlier in the campaign, we suffered a TPK and our new PCs picked up their mission. My new character was going to be the sorcerer brother of the old one, and would be trying to bring his remains back to their hometown for a resurrection.

The Warlock was a member of a secret society and received a new mission, and left to complete that. My druid decided to go out into the wild to get attuned and whatever.

The Warlock's new PC was a Chaos Sorc 1/Bard 2. The DM let the guy roll on the Wild Magic Surge table with any spell.

So the new party goes off on their adventure and gets into a fight. During the fight, the Sorc/Bard crit misses with an attack and hits me with it. (The DM likes fumbles and knows they aren't in the rules. I don't, whatever.) After the fight, I demand that he heals me, as he was the one that damaged me. He goes up and casts Cure Light Wounds, and then rolls a 1 for WMS. He rolls on the table and gets 08. Fireball. He rolls, along with the Monk and me. The paladin was luckily out of range.

I fail, the other two save. 41 damage total. I had 20 max hp and was at full. Dead instantly. The other two ended up slightly better, and could be brought back. It was his first session and the second in the family to die.

haha, classic. Your next adventure is going to be a Saving Private Ryan style mission to find your third brother and bring him back home safely to your mother.

PS: don't you only roll wild surge when using sorc spells? Cure Wounds definitely isn't.

[Guran]

So you want a story? Fine with me. Two weeks ago I was Dm'ing one of my 5th edition games on a friday night. The party arrived in a port city by boat. (It was actually a pirate ship, because out of all the transport they could charter, they chose the one that screamed pirate.) When attempting to leave the city they found out they were not allowed to. The guards told them that due to an ongoing civil war the citiy steward had demanded that all unauthorized civillians were to stay within the walls for their own safety until the imperial army had restored order. Of course they immidiatly went to get an audience with this city steward. Maybe they could bribe him or convince him that they were capable warriors that could run an errand beyond the walls. Oh, wait, I'm confused. They did not do that at all. No, they decided to go and get a small boat , snuck out of the port at night and peddled to the mainland right? ...Right? No? So they went to look for another decent solution, maybe there was a smugglers route they could try to find or another way. Maybe there were people able to help them. But they did not do ANY of that.

The party fighter said to me: "I am going to look for the tallest building that is near the city wall."
Me: "sure. You find a tall building with a small tower on top."
Fighter: "Can I climb it?"
Me: "You can always try."
After a few attempts most of the party made it to the top of the building. There they decided to make the jump to the wall. The first two jumpers rolled horribly and ended face first on the floor with the necessary falling damage. They tried again. and again. And again. Eventually I just decided to roll with it and let them get over the damn wall. Half an hour later the party got itself captured by a raiding party led by the very person they were warned about.

(Don't worry they escaped last week.)

[Lindonius]

In our last session the BBEG was an archmage who got gobbled up by the druid as a giant toad in 2 turns. Our mage neutralised him with silence and counterspell to allow the toad to get at him. Now, the archmage would have survived at least a turn in the toad's stomach if it wasn't for the fact that my rogue fired a crossbow bolt (crit) into his rump and our whip wielding Paladin gave his feet a good thrashing on the way down. Really funny imagery on that fight!

The whole process of swallowing someone as a giant toad is hilarious as the victim has to spend a turn in the toads mouth before he can be swallowed. Allowing the rest of your team to wail on the other half of the toad's victim that's sticking out of his mouth.

[UrsusArctos]

PS: don't you only roll wild surge when using sorc spells? Cure Wounds definitely isn't.

I mentioned that the DM let him WMS on any spell, because the guy wanted to A) Use WMS and B) Play the healer. The DM was nice and let him use it for bard cells.

[krugaan]

I mentioned that the DM let him WMS on any spell, because the guy wanted to A) Use WMS and B) Play the healer. The DM was nice and let him use it for bard cells.

ah, my bad, missed it.

[Shining Wrath]

At level 1 the party was crossing a gully with the bridge out and a band of kobolds (who had cut the bridge in hopes travelers would just camp on their side for the night at a spot suitable for ambush), came pouring out of the hills.

While the fighter jumped back and forth across the gully with the wizard and the gnome druid, my ranger lit up the kobolds. Shooting with disadvantage at 500' range as the kobolds ran through the brush, she landed 3 hits in a row, and the kobolds turned around.

[Kane0]

DM: "Alright guys, i'm thinking of running a one shot sometime. You'll be playing as kids/teens in a frontier town."

Player 1: "Shotgun Aarakocra!"
Player 2: "Half-orcs age faster than most, I guess i'll be fully grown"
Me: "Aww, I was really looking forward to trying out a warforged"
DM: "In order gliding not flying, yes and sure, they'll find you half buried in the forest."
Player 3: "Can I be a normal teen?"
The rest of us: "Not a chance. You're the designated mage that screwed up and got stuck in a child's body. Probably a gnome too."
DM: "its settled then! Next saturday, we'll knock it over before 10."

That day was all kinds of weird.

[Corran]

Right, I've got two stories that I heard quite a long time ago.

The first one is about a paladin who wanted to go to the moon. Well, the player who played the paladin, wanted for some weird reason that his paladin would somehow manage to get to the moon. Now, it is worth saying, that the DM of that group (who was the friend of a friend) was known for having a bad reputation, regarding how he used to treat his players' characters (yeah, we had heard some horrible stories from his campaigns and we were really nervous that one time he came to co-dm one of our games). Anyway, the paladin wanted to land on the moon, and surprisingly the wicked DM agreed to work with him on that. So the paladin finally manages to find a gnome engineer NPC, who is so fascinated by the unusual request that agrees to work on this project, and goes on to swear all kind of oaths that from now on it is his life purpose (the gnome's) to create such a device (at which point the DM makes a slight hint about a rocket). The paladin is ecstatic, and hapilly provides the necessary gold, for this engineering miracle to begin. The gnome warns him that it will take quite a long time for the device to be built, and that over that time a lot more resources will need to be provided. The paladin says he understands, and continues along with the rest of the group his journey on the campaign train. Every so often, he receives letters from the gnome to find out how the work is proceeding (all kind of hints, yet ever so subtle, about a space rocket being constructed are tossed towards the paladin), and ofc he spends every single piece of gold he acquires throughout the campaign for the gnome's project. Long story short, after I dont know how many sessions (this thing went on for months irl), the gnome sends for the paladin, telling him that he finished his work and it is a great success. The paladin drops the quest at hand, splits from the party, and returns to the city the gnome was working on. In the next session, as he had to wait for the rest of the players to finish the quest during the session he splitted the party, he gets to visit the gnome's workshop. Th gnome is ecstatic, speaking about a great success and a mirale of engineering, the paladin is ecstatic as well, thinking he will put on an austronaut suit and fly to the moon, when the gnome finally leads him through his shop to a back yard, where there is a magnificent, brand new, innovatively designed, giant trebuchet.... You may have seen this coming, but you have to give it to the DM for keeping this going for such a long time. And I am sure the paladin learnt along with the rest of you the moral of this story, which is not to trust gnomes!!!

Second story. This goes way back, and again, it is a story I was told. DM has set up a pretty straightforward story, where the players after doing some rp stuff, will find information about the lair of a dragon, and will go there to fight him and kill him. The group consists of 3 players, I dont recall any information about their characters, except for only one of them, who was playing a multiclassed rogue/wizard (I think it was 3rd edition). While the group is in the inn, where they are supposed to find the information about the whereabouts of the dragon's lair, the rogue uses his read lips ability among other things to find out the information they needed, without letting any of the other characters about it. Then, during the night, he slips away from the inn, and heads to the dragon's lair, to kill the dragon and keep the loot all to himself. He manages to approach the dragon stealthily, and finds himself on top of some rock formations, very close to where the dragon sleeps. He jumps on the dragon's back and starts backstabbing the dragon, dealing some very serious damage. The dragon screams, takes up to the air, starts flying inside the cave (his lair was a huge cave), and tries to knock off the rogue who is managing to keep himelf on the flying dragon's back and is stabbing like there is no tomorrow. Some rounds later, the dragon (who is severely injured by then), finally maages to knock off the rogue, who slams in the ground breaking his leg, and prone. The DM then describes the dragon's movement. The flying dragon starts making a turn, to face back into the rogue who got slammed into the ground (just picture a 747 turning and starting to come straight at you). Now it's the rogue's turn, who is in the ground, his blade next to him, with a broken leg, and at very low hit points. Remember how I said he had multiclassed? He lightning bolts the dragon who is coming straight at him, and rolls enough damage to kill him. The player playing the rogue starts celebrating, when the DM informs him that the dead dragon is still in collision course. The rogue with the broken foot, unable to run, starts crawling as fast as he can away from where he is. The DM takes over and describes what happens. The rogue starts painfully crawling as fast as he can, the dead dragon crashes some feets away but is still headed for the rogue, sliding through the ground towards the rogue's direction, and the dead dragon's rotating spinning corpse stops one inch or two away from the rogue (Holywood style). Phew...... goes the player who is playing the rogue. The DM starts describing the exact pose of the dragon's dead body. After all that dragging, tumbling, whatever is is called anyway, that the dragon's body did after crashing in the ground, it finally stopped sideways, with one of the wings forming a 90 degrees angle with the floor. So, as the rogue tries to use his sword as a stick and get up, the DM describes how the dead dragon's wing, after managing to balance in a 90 degrees angle for a few seconds, finally comes down to the ground, making one last wing attack against the rogue, that resulted in killing him. Moral of the story? Do not split the party kids!

[Fri]

It's not exactly ridiculous but it was definately a unique story to be part of.
It was the first great 3.5 campaing of our group, back when we were 17-18 years old. There was a party member, lets call him Jim, who was playing the wizard. We used to play every Saturday but there was that day that Jim had "some family stuff" and we re-arranged for Sunday. When we finally met on Sunday noon, Jim showed up about an hour late and in obvious very, very bad mood. We were really worried cause he hadn't answered our calls all day but he said he didn't want to talk about it and we should better just play.
The session started and after a while we were all so absorbed in the story that even Jim seemed quite cool. The party was in a dungeon and we were 4-5 level. We were in a cage-like elevator when a manticore ambushed us. It was launching some spike attacks from its tail and some of them critted. The dm said they all aimed one random target who would be decided by dice. He rolled and then looked straight to Jim the wizard. We all kinda froze as we knew this damage was far beyond his HP total. Jim was mad at the dm (he kept saying "are you serious? Did you just kill me?") cause it was too weird to have all the attacks aim to only one target. The dm took a moment to think and just announced "That's the way i had planned the ambush. You're totally dead"! We all tried to talk the dm to fudge a bit and just leave him unconcious or something like that but in vain. Jim was the first to accept the fact his character had died (the first death in our dnd experience), smoked and cigarette and then left the session without a word.
Next day we found out that Jim's father died the night before. He came to play dnd in order to forget the tragic event.

Oh god, that's harsh.

[McNinja]

In the PotA campaign, my players got pissed at Rivergard Keep and snuck in. They climbed up the wall with some pretty good rolls, and within 6 seconds of getting onto the guardway the monk let out a battle yell that attracted every cultist in the fort. They didn't die, but almost, and Grimjaw works for them now.

[Theodoxus]

Eventually I just decided to roll with it and let them get over the damn wall.

Too bad it wasn't a dam wall, into an acid lake - that'll learn 'em :smallbiggrin:

My funny stories are all of the 'no sh!t, there I was' variety that don't translate well to those not 'in' on the joke. But i enjoy y'alls tall tales :smallsmile:

[McNinja]

It's not exactly ridiculous but it was definately a unique story to be part of.
It was the first great 3.5 campaing of our group, back when we were 17-18 years old. There was a party member, lets call him Jim, who was playing the wizard. We used to play every Saturday but there was that day that Jim had "some family stuff" and we re-arranged for Sunday. When we finally met on Sunday noon, Jim showed up about an hour late and in obvious very, very bad mood. We were really worried cause he hadn't answered our calls all day but he said he didn't want to talk about it and we should better just play.
The session started and after a while we were all so absorbed in the story that even Jim seemed quite cool. The party was in a dungeon and we were 4-5 level. We were in a cage-like elevator when a manticore ambushed us. It was launching some spike attacks from its tail and some of them critted. The dm said they all aimed one random target who would be decided by dice. He rolled and then looked straight to Jim the wizard. We all kinda froze as we knew this damage was far beyond his HP total. Jim was mad at the dm (he kept saying "are you serious? Did you just kill me?") cause it was too weird to have all the attacks aim to only one target. The dm took a moment to think and just announced "That's the way i had planned the ambush. You're totally dead"! We all tried to talk the dm to fudge a bit and just leave him unconcious or something like that but in vain. Jim was the first to accept the fact his character had died (the first death in our dnd experience), smoked and cigarette and then left the session without a word.
Next day we found out that Jim's father died the night before. He came to play dnd in order to forget the tragic event.Please tell us the DM felt like **** afterwards and tried to make it up to him.

[Inevitability]

OotA spoilers:



The party (ghostwise halfling monk, rock gnome wizard, svirfneblin 'pirate' and me, a wood elf druid), as well as some random NPC's, had arrived at the Darklake. For those who don't know what that is; it's a giant underground lake that has been tainted by pure Evil and is inhabited by all kinds of nasty monsters. The town we were traveling to was on the other side of the lake.

Reasonable PC's might have created a boat, or tried to find a way over land. Heck, they might just have swam and faced the consequences of taken a dip in what amounted to demon sweat. We were no reasonable PC's, though.

I wildshaped into a female steeder (giant tarantula), walked on the cave's ceiling, tried to create as much distance between myself and the stone, then carried the others across one by one, having them sit on my belly. I even got everyone across before my wild shape ran out.

[Tallis]

a few stories from old campaigns:

First goes way back to maybe 1e? 2e at the most. I was playing with an inexperienced DM. He decided he wanted to use spell points. 1 point equals 1 spell level and he gave us points equal to our casting ability times our level. I played a drow magic-user/cleric (separate pools for each class). High scores in wisdom and intelligence. He pretty quickly realized that he had given us too much power I think because after playing for a while he told us that our sp would max out at 50. So by 4th level I had 100 spell points and had also been turned into a werewolf. Somehow I managed to retain control in animal form so I was also walking around with 19 strength along with full casting ability. Our quest was to get a magic sword for some god of magic. It was a 2-handed sword (greatsword) that gave the wielder proficiency, immunity to magic (and I think flight). We did manage to get hold of the sword but then I figured why hand it over? This was a god of magic. The sword made me immune to magic. So at level 4 or 5 I was telling a god to get lost. He ended up having to bribe me to get the sword away and teaching me another kind of magic (illusion). It was a ridiculously overpowered campaign and ended pretty much immediately after that.

In another game I was DMing (2e I think). My players came upon some bandits. The PCs were level 2 or 3 and the bandits were 0 level with a leader that was level 4 or 5. The PCs managed to defeat the leader and easily handled all his minions except 1. The y just couldn't land a hit on this nameless level 0 minion. He ran away. They pursued. He stopped and tried to ambush them several times inflicting damage and running away. They finally managed to hit him once but didn't kill him and this time he stopped his harassing attacks and finally managed to elude them. He was never meant to be anything but cannon fodder but I ended up giving him a level from his experience and he became a recurring npc, continuing to gains levels until they finally managed to kill h when they were around level 7.

Another story from the same campaign: The PCs were in a fortress floating in the Plane of Fire. They were exploring and fighting elemental baddies, then they encountered a raccoon wandering the corridors. Raccoons are perfectly normal in fortresses on the plane of Fire right? Apparently they thought so. One of the PCs decided to pick they little guy up and put it on his shoulder. At which point it took it's true form of an efreet and crushed him. The party did manage to defeat the efreet but to late to save their friend. They found an opening in the floor and gathered round to say a few words before giving him a "burial" in the sea of fire. "Death should be greeted with a certain awe. Awwww..." and then they booted the body over the edge.

[Velociraptor]

Our DnD group frequently jokes how the npc enemies aren't the greatest threat to us- the environment is. But we have good reasons. Just one of the stories that led to that assumption.

So we were starting our first campaign together, entering our very first dungeon. Exciting! It was a cave with some goblins, led by a bugbear, they were holding an NPC captive that we had to rescue. Sounds simple, eh? Well, we ended up somehow entering the dungeon from the wrong side and engaged the bugbear and his bodyguards first- which wouldn't have been a problem, only one of them ran away and called in reinforcements. We did manage to survive that fight- barely, but were all low on HP, out of heals and just about out of anything. But the cave was clear.

So, while the rest of the party (a barbarian, a cleric and a wizard) were busy untying the NPC and talking to him, a ranger wandered off to check a passage we hadn't checked yet. Turned out it was an unstable ground of some sort which gave out under his feet. He failed his dexterity roll and ended up taking 2 damage. Still enough to down him. The terrain was a steep downhill descent and below an underground river avaited- which his unconscious body fell right into.

The rest of the party heard the commotion and the barbarian (me) went to check up on him. 'Course, since metagaming is lame, while I knew of the unstable ground, my character did not- so I had him step right on it. Naturally, I failed my dexterity saving throw as well. Took 3 damage. Enough to down me. I ended up going into the same river. So now we have two unconscious bodies being rapidly carried away by the current.

Then followed our wizard- a dexterous little gnome and he had slightly more HP left from combat. He succeeded on his throw and swam after us- but the cleric did not. He decided to take no chances with the trap and instead went around, opting to jump into the river from another spot. Too bad for him, water was shallow there, so he took damage from a 10 ft fall. Did it down him? Sure did! And thus, a third unconscious body joined in the river.

The wizard managed to drag the former two out on the shore. But, as said before, we had no more healing spells available- or items for that matter. Everyone was rolling their death saves, while the wizard was rolling medicine on us in turns trying to revive us. He ended up reviving the barbarian just barely, when he already had 2 fails, the ranger managed to save himself with a natural 20, but the cleric... the cleric rolled a critical failure on his second roll and died. That was our first casualty of the campaign.

Wonder what the NPC we rescued was thinking. We fought our way through a band of goblins to rescue him and then nearly had a full party wipe with no enemies around. Thus we learned not to triffle with the environment.

[Ouranos]

Mine wasn't from 5th, it's from 3.5. But there was a time our party was captured when we entered a new town, the local lord was under the influence of a black dragon. Can't remember what category, but it was supposed to be the right challenge for our group. Our gear was taken, we were in a dungeon prison with nothing but our clothing. Dragon comes down to interrogate us, decides to start with my Paladin. Paladin doesn't hesitate, attacks the dragon bare handed. When he takes his dragon form (he had something that let him shapeshift) Paladin not only tries to grapple him, but thanks to a series of great rolls for me and 1's for the DM, the Paladin wrestles a dragon to the ground, pins him, and kills him. It was amazing.

[Felvion]

Please tell us the DM felt like **** afterwards and tried to make it up to him.

He did. In fact we all felt like **** cause of this. They made a secret deal and his character was resurrected.The party didnt ask any questions and we never found out how that actually happened. IIRC he also got some white dragon kind of minor abilities and his eternal glory plan was to achieve both archmage and a true form of white dragon. I'm sure he made it to first one, definately not the dragon though.
The reason i shared this at the "ridiculous story" thread is that, after all these years (~10), our old-school dnd nostalgia brings up stories like this one. Every time we recall this one in particular, we are like "man, you were such an @$$hole dm that time" and we all laugh our @$$es...

[Tenmujiin]

So this one definately ranks on the higher end of rediculous.

The other member of my group that DMs runs that natural 20s will always succeed if success is at all possible. He was running a 5e 1 shot that saw the party exploring a forested crater populated by dinosaurs and being chased by canibals.
We had a number of "interesting" characters including a pyromaniac wild sorcerer, a scarecrow (on the spot homebrew since it was a 1 shot) warlock, a bard named Dio (after the singer AND the anime vampire) a battlemaster/thief based on Indiana Jones (me), a monk and some kind of barbarian/fighte BSF type based off the tree hating logger comidic relief orcs from the recent WoW expansion.

Now this crater had fairly thin forest towards the endges but it got thicker towards the center to the point where you could only get through with game trails and early on it was established the trees were highly explosive (any attack would cause an explosion much like a fat man in fallout). The sorcerer decided he needed to burn the place to the ground, the warlock just wanted to break/kill things, the rogue, bard and monk wanted to explore and survive and the orc...was a tree hating, axe swinging maniac, what do you think he wanted to do?

After running through this forest and encountering some raptors who kill the sorcerer and get either killed or wrestled into submission by the orc we finally make it to the part of the forest that is passable only by game trails. At this point the party has split into two factions, one wants to destroy the forest and the other wants to protect it since it it so unique (the adventure was based of the generic pathfinder fluff so were meant to be explorers). The party splits up but eventually reach the center at the same time.

At the center of the forest is a giant, sentient tree and the sorcerer who has be reformed by the forest out of wood and leaves. There are also a large number of docile dinosaurs and the sorcerer says something about protecting the forest from the canibal tribe (he is basically mind controled by the forest though he is still under his players direct control).

PvP immediately ensues as the warlock and orc try to destroy the center tree while the rogue, bard, sorcerer and monk try to stop them., the warlock and orc are losing badly when the sorcerer rolls a 1 on his wild magic check.

He rolls the percentile die and gets the fireball...

Since his is standing next to the central tree this begins a chain reaction and the DM informs us that the tree will explode in a few rounds since it is so big (and trigger the rest of the forest). The rogue and monk use their bonus action dashes to triple move to the only two flying dinos and the DM lets us use the same abilities to have the dinos triple move.

In the end we get far enough that we will survive if we pass a dex save and an acrobatics check before the tree explodes (acrobatics to stay on the mount). The bard back on the ground gets a natural 20 on his save so the DM says he might survive if he can get a high enough acrobatics check.

Nat 20 again. The bard rides the explosion past the two of us on mounts who both pass the save but fail the check and fall to our deaths.

The sorcerer brags that he managed to destroy the forest after all...

TL:DR one shots get wierd FAST