Memorable Moments in D&D

[RumoCrytuf]

Pretty much what the title says. Share memorable moments in D&D as a DM, Player, or Otherwise! No rules, no restrictions. Have fun!

Personally, one of my favorites moments was in POTA. I was DMing a party of 3, all were different Genasi. An Air Monk, Earth Fighter, and a Fire Sorcerer. The players had just helped the Air Cultists kill the manticore (Still unaware of their true nature) and were attacked by the ankhegs from the Earth Cult. They lost initiative to the ankhegs, and the Sorcerer gets one hit KO'd from one of the ankhegs. These players had never seen such an awful monster before, and were debating on whether or not to run. I told them that if they ran and left the Sorcerer behind, the ankhegs would eat him. Keep in mind these are level 3 players. They decide to fight. I laughed to myself as I ankhegs had a CR of 4, AND there were 2 of them. These Players were dead. D-E-D dead. About midway through the fight, I have one of the ankhegs (whose around 1/2 health right now with the other one almost dead and no longer fighting) spit acid. It lands full on the Monk, burning him down to 1. The players panic, and start pounding on the ankhegs. The best part, they landed not 1, not 2, not 3, but FIVE critical hits in a row. That's right. These two players landed 5 critical hits in a row together. They actually managed to kill two ankhegs (An encounter that should have killed them). I was stunned and proud. I told them flat out I did not plan for them to survive the encounter, and had hoped they would run.

Anyway, that's my story, what about yours?

[Ralanr]

I attacked a fire giant as a level 5 fighter. I was basically out of options as I lost a game against him and was going to be eaten. So instead of waiting for everyone else to play their challenge (in hindsight it was a **** move) I decided to attack the fire giant in the hopes of tripping it (stabbing the toes or smashing the knee off balance was how I described it to my DM) so we could all escape.

Now normally my DM was lenient and didn't actively try to kill us. She later told me however that she intended to hold nothing back because of my rash action. If not for the natural 20 I rolled to trip that giant, the entire party would have died (or just me).

Not the most selfless play.

[gfishfunk]

I had an illusionist dwarf wizard in a fight with a lich. I had cast Mirror Image earlier, and all my mirror images were still hanging around.

The Lich got off a fear affect on my character, who was hanging out next to a couple of unopened treasure chests. Forced to flee (out of eyeshot), I cast Minor Illusion to create an image of a treasure chest around the dwarf wizard. The Lich comes up looking for me, and sees three cowering dwarves all grouped around a treasure chest.

Totally non-functional, but an amusing picture.

[Laserlight]

A party in the depths of a Mayaztecan temple broke up the sacrifice and rescued the victims. In the next chamber was a powerful elf warlock who had ordered the sacrifices; he was squatting next to the sacrificial well, eating parts of the victims before the bodies were thrown down the well.
The party quickly organized the warriors they'd just rescued, then charged in to attack. They and the rescued warriors pounded on him and did basically nothing--he Resisted everything they tried, regenerated almost all the damage they'd done (were-jaguar). The party's one caster went down to a single Hellish Rebuke. The warlock used Vampire's Touch to drain one of the NPC warriors dead and heal himself to full.
The party's two leaders looked at each other and nodded. The barbarian scooped up the unconscious-and-making-death-saves caster, yelled "follow me", and led the warriors back through the altar room and away. The fighter grappled the warlock and started dragging him away from the direction the party was running--he's obviously chosen to sacrifice himself to save the party, and will be the first PC to die in the campaign. I tell him I'll give his new character a bonus for his heroism.
The warlock doesn't bother to try to escape--a couple of turns of Vampire's Touch and the fighter will go down anyway, and he can easily run down the rest of the party after he eats the fighter's liver. The fighter drags him a few more feet, past the sacrificial well...and says "Hey! Can I throw him down the well?" "Um...well, you can try. He's holding onto you and he's almost as strong as you. Make an Athletics check. If you succeed, you both go in. Or--what the heck-- if you get really lucky, you can Spartan kick him in." The fighter's player sorted through his selection of d20s, trying to decide which one sucked least that session, and picked one. Nat twenty.

[arrowed]

I once played a not-very-serious one-shot, where we all made up level 20 characters and tried to stop a premature apocalypse. So I started with a life cleric, a half-elf I think, and me and the rest of the party made our way to the surface (we started underground). We ran into 2 liches and a lot of banshees. The rest of the party closed with the liches, I hung back bashing banshees and killed the closest ones. Then one of the liches paralysed the paladin and came over to me, and after a couple of hits I was paralysed to. Then it Plane Shifted me to the Elemental Plane of Fire. A few terrible saving throws later, I burned to death, still paralysed. So since it was a casual thing the DM let me write up a new character, an Abjurer wizard who caught up with the party in a weird demiplane full of water (they finished off the liches without me). We encountered a kraken, and it grappled me. And I said 'I'm in melee range... so I can cast a touch spell... like Plane Shift... and send him to, say, the elemental plane of fire?' I hit the kraken. It failed it's charisma save. The irony was delicious, as was killing a CR23 creature with one spell.