Your Luckiest Moment

[Avonar]

A recent Out of the Abyss session I was in inspired me to ask about this, as what happened was frankly ridiculous.

We ended up in a building where magic was crazy and every spell caused a Wild Magic surge. We fought some spectres, who thanks to a crit and an ambush immediately dropped one character to 7 max HP.

Now the very next spell cast triggers the "summon a unicorn" surge. Turns out, unicorns have a healing ability that specifically says it can cure reduced HP, for example from spectres. That unicorn saved his life.

But of course that wasn't all. The wizard rolls the see invisibility surge. Turns out, there is an invisible chest that without seeing invisible things, can only be seen with a DC19 perception check by a character with Detect Magic active. None of us actually had Detect Magic so without that particular surge, we would never have gotten the chest.

To top things off, my warlock started emitting a blinding light and then turned into a potted plant in the middle of the room.

I can see how it was designed for the surges to help, but for us to get the two surges allowing us all to survive and get the big loot, that was something.

What other times have things come together for you guys in extremely fortunate ways?

[Hrugner]

My DM looked at my character sheet and said "yeah, that looks fine" but it really wasn't fine at all.

More seriously. Back in 3rd ed our party had gone to the bottom of this temple and the DM had this giant golden sarcophagus set piece that couldn't be removed through any of the doors. The DM was confident that we couldn't cash in on it and happily made it gigantic, very elaborate and gave an enormous price for it. When he was done explaining how much wealth we would have to leave behind, I promptly cast the secret chest spell on the sarcophagus and we left with unimaginable wealth.

Out of respect for the game and the DM, I just kept it as my secret chest and pulled it out when I needed to convince someone that I was an unbelievably wealthy necromancer.

[Coffee_Dragon]

When we played Lost Mines, we got two vials of holy water in town for tossing at the wraith, and used one of them in the battle (I think it wasn't more effective than just whacking it would be). Later, as the last stop in the dungeon, we went to kill the flameskull that had singed us badly at level 3. At level 5, fully prepared and attacking from ambush we had much less trouble with it than we'd feared. Then, after we'd knocked it out of the air, I remembered the surplus holy water I was carrying around and goofily poured it on the skull to, you know, make sure it's dead. Turns out that's one of the three things that actually do make a flameskull stay dead. I had absolutely no idea.

Also, being cornered by a black pudding, alone, no way out, no possible way to fight it, no useful spell slots remaining. DM lets me roll Acrobatics to move through its space. Roll 20 and wall-run past it like the Prince of Persia.

[LeonBH]

My luckiest moment playing a player character in DnD. It has to be when I used Detect Thoughts on an ancient Eldritch God but rolled a Nat 20 on the save. DM was fully ready to kill me otherwise.

[The Shadowdove]

3.5.

BBEG is riding a giant dragon. We made the mistake of targeting him and ignoring the mount mostly.
3 of 4 players unconscious. Gnomish knight standing his ground against a dragon charge with single digits hp.

Rolls 3 natural 20's in a row with his lance. Auto kills dragon. BBEG had single digits hp too.

End of campaign.

[GreyBlack]

Just a moment of curiosity. Can this question be for all editions or just from 5e? Have different answers based on the response.

[2D8HP]

My luckiest moment in D&D?

1979, when I brought the "bluebook" to 6th grade, a classmate saw it and invited me to his house to play in a game with his oldest brother as DM.

It was the first time I got to be a player instead of a DM (of my little brother), and my classmate became my best friend.

R.I. P. Derek Whaley Lindstrom

[Kane0]

Thats pretty touching. Kudos bro.

[GreyBlack]

Well if we're doing all editions....

I was playing a Barbarian/Ranger who actually believed that he was a bear. This was a 2 player game and we were level 3 at the time. The DM sent the boss monster in against us, a Drake. My character reveled at the challenge and ran right up to it and jumped to attack it.

First roll, natural 20. So the DM asks me to roll again to confirm.

Natural 20.

Now, I would like to just inform you that my character, VERY rarely, used a weapon. Again, he believed himself to be a bear (he was a half-orc and very soft spoken unless challenged). So you have this half orc, naked barbarian woodsman leaping at this drake to punch him. We were playing with a variant rule that if there were 3 natural 20s in a row on critical hit you would auto-kill. So I rolled again.

Natural 20.

The rest of the camp we had infiltrated just kinda stood slack jawed as this naked half-orc punched a drake in the face so hard the neck broke followed by him saying, "this is my forest now. You are all in my clan now. You will follow me." So they did.

Watching a DM walk away in shock like that is kind of a beautiful thing.

[Mith]

My luckiest moment in D&D?

1979, when I brought the "bluebook" to 6th grade, a classmate saw it and invited me to his house to play in a game with his oldest brother as DM.

It was the first time I got to be a player instead of a DM (of my little brother), and my classmate became my best friend.

R.I. P. Derek Whaley Lindstrom



That is the best way to look at it, I think. I'll have to take 2D8HP's perspective and say that being invited over to play D&D with which started to be about 90% of my closest and oldest friendships

I can't think of luckiest moments, since the most memorable moment involved drawing Death from the Deck of Many Things on my Birthday and losing the fight. I think I was 1 hit off from actually winning. Death may always hit, but his damage was rolling low, and I was giving good hits. One crit on my end and I could have won!

Interesting fact: Death was represented by the Jack of Clubs in the deck. Now my friends and I would play a lot of cards. Every lunch hour at school as well as social events was card games. And every time the decks started losing cards, the first card to go would be the Jack of Clubs. Since we would count out the cards as soon as it was obvious that we were missing a card (and we played a lot of games that used the entire deck, so it wouldn't take long), we are pretty sure that the Jack of Club would either be the first card to go, or would be one of a couple of cards to disappear before we caught on that we were missing cards. Ended up using the joker cards marked up with sharpie as a substitute to keep the card backs the same and not steal from an identical deck and shift the problem.

[mr-mercer]

My luckiest moment came a few weeks ago, in a campaign that I've been a guest in for a while now (though my time there is almost up, whether our next foray into the world goes well or not). 5e, my character's an 8th-level vengeance paladin with GWM (and a gold dragonborn, but that's neither here nor there for this story). The scenario that the party is currently involved in is a siege against an army of Yuan-Ti that have emerged from beneath a city and taken it over.

During one journey into the city (and to the underground) we come across some kind of tomb-ish room. We'd been in a fight moments prior so we weren't at 100%. There is a statue at the far wall of a Yuan-Ti Anathema with a longsword stuck into it (a sword of Yuan-Ti slaying). As we approach the statue a Spirit Naga emerges from it and a pair of Yuan-Ti Pitmaster corpses animate to attack us (for reasons of story all of these enemies are classed as undead). The following is a round-by-round description of the things that happened in the ensuing fight that I can remember:

Round 1: Pitmaster puts me and party fighter to sleep. I am woken by the naga biting me and bringing me down to 7 HP, while the party druid wakes our fighter.

Round 2: I stand up and use all of my remaining Lay On Hands to heal myself, while also using Vow of Enmity on the naga. Fighter gets a good hit in on the naga, but then gets dominated by it. The fighter's kind of a beast, so this is looking pretty grim.

Round 3: I cast Hunter's Mark on the naga and make two GWM attacks. Both of these crit, and I choose to pour two second-level Divine Smites into it. The resulting damage dice are 12d6+16d8+30, for a total of 132 damage. I checked later, the spirit naga has a maximum of 75 HP if you use the average number. The naga goes down for the count, the fighter's reaction attack against me (Sentinel ftw) fails and he comes to his senses, and then pretty much everyone but me proceeded to wipe the floor with the pitmasters.

I'm still reeling from that one, honestly. I'm not exactly the most strategic thinker, but sometimes I'm so lucky that it really doesn't matter.

[RedMage125]

Had a 3.5e game where I was playing a "savage progression" weretiger.

We pissed off this cabal of very powerful wizards, and one of them tracked us down to the town we were staying in. At one point, I assumed my hybrid form (Large) and my sorcerer party member cast Enlarge Person on me (fun fact, lycanthropes are the only "Humanoids" of a size category larger than Medium), so now I was Huge.

I decided to tackle this human wizard. I charge up, Natural 20 for the check. DM rolls to oppose...natural 1. He looks down at the dice, looks at the minis on the board (I'd already placed a Huge one for my character, and it's looming over this puny wizard), looks at the dice and says "yeah, you Bull Rush him". I cute in with "I wanted to tackle him to the ground". DM says "Nat 20 vs Nat 1, whatever you were trying to do, you succeeded admirably".

[Mr. Crowbar]

We were fighting a sorcerer she was about to Immolate my Bard, who had like.... 7/38 HP or so. Our Abjurer had one spell slot, 3rd level, left for Counterspell. She rolled poorly, but with the Bardic Inspiration and Guidance I had given her, she managed to pass the check by 1 and saved my ass.

[mgshamster]

Back in 2e, I had a bard. He carried around several rapiers so he could toss one to an enemy for a duel, or to use during impromptu stage performances.

In that game, the DM had a critical failure chart. Roll a natural 1 on am attack, and then roll on the chart to see what happened.

A year or so into the game, and we're in a combat seriously outnumbered. At least 2-3 enemies per PC (and I think we had 8-9 players back then).

My bard attacks. Natural 1. Roll on the chart: "Throw weapon, randomly hit one combatant." Roll to see who was hit. Turns out, it was the bad guy who was fighting the PC who most seriously needed help right at that moment. Dealt the killing blow.

Repeat *three* times during that fight. Roll a Natural 1, roll on chart and again get "throw weapon, randomly hit one combatant." And again I'd hit an enemy and deal the killing blow, and it just happened to be the guy fighting a PC who seriously needed help right at that moment.

Bard ended up being known as master rapier thrower.

Of course, that never happened again, and whenever I actually tried to throw one, I'd miss horribly. Fortunately, every time I tried to actually throw one, no one witnessed it. Either I was the only one around a corner, or I was the last one standing, or something.

My legend lived on. :)

[Ixidor92]

Didn't happen to me personally but this is too funny not to share:

3.5ed, our DM had set up a heist campaign for around 8 or 9 people, and each of us had a specialized job: Infiltrator, trap master, thief, con-man, getaway driver (with an airship), etc. (If you've seen "Ocean's Eleven" it was very similar) So most of the way through this session, our rogue has managed to safely make it to the massive vault in the center of this Duke's mansion that we are stealing from. He managed to unlock it and bypass the 20+ traps that are inside and get to all the loot. Unfortunately, he also unleashes demonic power from it that starts attacking everyone in the mansion. For him personally, there is now a Marilith threatening him. He is a 13th level rogue with no backup, in a straight up fight he is screwed. His next two actions are as follows:
-Talk to the marilith and barter with it to not kill him long enough to have an opening, and he rolled high enough to actually enable this against what was essentially the leader of a devil horde.
-Toss a dagger at the open vault, triggering EVERY SINGLE TRAP that is inside. He rolls a nat 20 on his reflex save, sending him flying back down the stairwell he came from with only around 3 HP left, but the Marilith is dead.

The clever SOB realistically had no chance of surviving that encounter

[RedMage125]

Oh, well if we can share stuff that happened to others, then I have another one, Ixidor's story reminded me of it tangentially.

Way back in 2e, my buddy's group was exploring a dungeon, found some Brown Mold, decided to bottle some of it, for later study/use. Fast forward to the end of a later dungeon, the party finds a devil cult, and a portal to the Nine Hells that the party was supposed to close. Right before they did, they decided to toss in the brown mold. If you recall, the first 4 layers of Baator are burning hot, until the 5th, which is icy. Brown Mold + Heat, anyone?

[Laserlight]

Are we limiting this to good luck? Because if not....
The rogue had just multiclassed into paladin, and the party was attempting to rescue Sacrificial Maidens who were being dangled over a pit, with an enormous serpent rising out of the pit every few rounds to swallow a victim in one gulp. Our Hero grabbed a rope, swung over the pit, grabbed a girl's rope and cut it, and tried to bring them down on one of the rope bridges crossing the pit, where he didn't stick the landing. Missed the bridge, missed grabbing a rope, couldn't pull himself up, couldn't pull the girl up. After a succession of nine failed ability checks and saving throws--none rollng higher than a 4, and that includes the five or six that had Advantage from the whole party cashing in their Inspiration points--he was dangling upside down, suspended by one of the bridge ropes that had accidentally gotten wrapped around his ankle, with his irreplacable magic rapier lost in the bottomless pit, and the rescuee's rope sliding through his grip.
Fortunately one of the other PCs took a moment out from fighting the Dead Lord's mooks and pulled the girl up, and (eventually, reluctantly) pulled him up too.

[sky red hunter]

I've had a few but the easiest to explain is as follows;

I'm a half-orc battle master in the elemental evil campaign.

I wield an admantium maul that has had the energy of a devastation orb trapped inside by a lich...the result is on a nat 20 for an attack my maul generates a fireball centered on me ( incidentally on a crit fail, I suffer 8d6 psychic damage as the energy backlashes into my mind)

Anyway a fairly routine session saw us holed up for the night in a small town, I had some personal business to attend to with a zent agent and on my way back to the party all alone I was ambushed in an alley by several thugs!!

The first ambusher missed his attack so I riposte and roll a nat 20.....BOOM!! I roll damage, wait a couple of seconds in the alley....and then continue on my way unmolested as people run to put out the flames.

DM said I took out 6 guys with one reaction. Felt epic.

[sky red hunter]

Same campaign, same half-orc, same maul.

A real sneaky piece of work gnome robbed us after we refused to grant him aid immediately on an expedition he was organising.

This theft also resulted directly in one of our keep soldiers dying, another getting turned to stone and another losing an arm.

To say we didn't like this guy is a major understatement....

having finally tracked him down, we found him in a mechanical tank-like device, throwing all sorts of nasty spells and stuff our way.

Long story short, when I got close enough to him he cast hold person on me and I was screwed. Luckily our paladin managed to get into the tank but before he could do anything the gnome cast telekinesis on him and hurled him from the opening.

Unfortunately for our little thief both spells are concentration and this freed me up to climb slowly into the cockpit and very purposefully spell out his doom to him.

I rolled to hit and got a nat 20.....BOOM! the fireball incinerated him, blew up the tank and near about killed anyone else in range including his remaining lack that was controlling the tank with him.

Job done, revenge had.

[mr-mercer]

Can I just say that I really like that exploding hammer of yours? Custom magic items can be the coolest.

[sky red hunter]

Final one is a bit of a stretch to explain the significance of but i'll try.

Out of the Abyss campaign, three man party, races and classes don't matter for the story.

After a particularly gruesome fight we all found ourselves in a condensed reality, all time flowed together and somehow we were still aware. After initial investigations and fruitful conversations it became apparent that time itself was in danger, and we were the only ones who could do anything.

What resulted was our characters doing a kind of groundhog day revisit of the same time loop over and over until we were powerful enough to take care of the demon lord responsible. This was done narratively and with a time skip that saw us get versions of our characters that were double the level we were briefly.

Needless to say we succeeded but at the cost of remembering the whole thing. We awoke thinking it was just after our previous battle not knowing what we had endured for years, the camaraderie we had fostered and the lives we had saved.

A little while later and my character just happened to be in a very familiar situation to one he was in in the time loop. The DM asked me for a wisdom saving throw to see if i remembered anything, I had only a +1. . .

I rolled a nat 20.

To say this one roll changed the entire course of the campaign would be putting it mildly.

It resulted in the demon we had stopped becoming trapped in my mind.

We had to rescue a god who had forgotten who he was but who was our oldest friend.

We are currently been chased by extra dimensional beings because that one roll made me remember stuff I shouldn't have. I am now an anomaly in time that must be erased.

Time and time travel has influenced the campaign ever since and has made one of the most memorable stories I've ever had the pleasure of participating in.

One roll.

Warbis Sinbar-Berencloak Nissa Turen, The Time-scarred.

[samcifer]

mine was last Saturday during our homebrewed campaign. We had to make 3 strength checks to climb a big tree to escape from a zombified t-rex and my sroc/warlock had sTR . I fail the third roll and it grabs me, then tries to squeeze me to death in an insta-kill move. I have to make a str check to avoid being crushed and roll a 3. Pissed that my character is going to die, I toss my glasses on the table in frustration and the dm rolls for the t-rex to squeeze me and gets...

a 2.

I barely survived the encounter, but I'm alive (made a war domain firbolg cleric to replace him if it happens again, tho). :P

[Dudewithknives]

In 3.5:

We were in a game from level 1 to 18, I was the only noncaster, and we'll as such, I was just ignored 99% of the time, to the point that the DM even forgot what I was playing other than it was not a caster.

Last game of the campaign, we are stopping a cult from casting a ritual to summon the old gods. We knew we were going to have to stop the ritual or we were going to have to buy time for our backup to arrive, our backup was Moradin, and Correllian, because only a god could kill an old god.

The wizard/encantatrix/chosen of mystra, was standing right in front of me, and he was playing captain broken, and he was not shy about bragging about it.

The first thing that happened when the old god was summoned, which was plot that we were going to be too late, was that he use an irrisistable finger of death. Using the kingdoms of Kalamar feat where you could make 1 spell that was impossible to save against.

He fires it at captain broken wizard. To which the wizard was supposed to die from, however due to various was to make sure he went first the wizard had blink on, the wizard rolled and was blinked out of the way.

The DM was pissed and said that because the wizard was blinked, and I was behind him, it hit and killed me, and was ready to move on, he usually ignored me anyway.

To which I pointed out that finger of death is a ranged touch, he still had to roll.

He rolled the dice and I told him I would relent and let it hit me.

He just looked shocked at me.

Now was my one shining momement. The DM forgot I was playing a fighter 12, barbarian 1, and occult slayer 5.

I used spell reflect to fire the spell that passed through the blinked wizard, back through the same wizard and because only a god can kill a god, I one shot him with his own spell.

[Danielqueue1]

Playing a Lizardfolk fighter. ended up growing wings as part of a side thing, but the wings only gave me a flying speed until the end of a round so I couldn't go very far using a dash action I could go 60 ft before falling. my character was focused on dexterity. had drunk plot potion from a module that I wont spoil here. so my character was huge. Dragon was strafing us from the air and the party was mostly melee focused. I insulted the dragon and got it to turn and face swooping down to murder me. it was 60 feet off the ground. I could only fly 30 feet. the dM forgot I was on a 30 foot platform (Or he was awesome and did a good job hiding that he knew) I cast my magic bow aside and leaped into the air, and grappled the dragon. it fell prone and grappled. the whole party had advantage on their melee attacks. and we burned through its legendary resistance in a single round. the dragon focused on my character, to try and get me off so it could escape. but the dice were HOT the dragon had a get out of jail free card in a teleportation spell, but once we got everyone in melee range, the monk started unloading stunning strikes and the DM's dice were cold. It was suppose to be a climactic multi-stage fight inside its lair. we killed it outside its front door.