Share your jaw-dropping in-game moments...

[samcifer]

Ever had a situation that made everyone go WTF?!? Ever do something the DM/players hadn't expected then sat backa nd smiled? Feel free to share the amazing moments you have had yourself or witnessed someone else have in playing D&D. I'll go first with two encounters (1 I already shared elsewhere on here...)

So I was playing a divine soul/hexblade and dwarves attacked our sailing ship on skidoos. Several (more than 4) of them lit the fuses on handheld bombs of greek fire in preparation to throw them at the ship on their next turn. It was my turn and after clarifying that they were within 120' of me, I asked the DM if I could target the bombs in their hands. He nodded, adding "...With disadvantage." Then I pointed out that Magic Missile projectiles auto-hit and he turned his head up and to the side, finger to his smiling lips in a *Damned that's good* and *Oh c***... I hadn't thought of that* kind of expression mixed with the smile of one who was impressed. He sighed and turned to me. "Okay, go ahead." I fired 3 bolts, each to the bomb of a different dwarf and he rolled the damage on each. The third did excess damage, so he ruled that the guy swerved into a forth guy and HIS bomb detonated as well, killing all four of them before the battle continued.


The second one was from our last session. We were fighting a trio of mutated necromancy + science-created boss soldiers and with two dead, the last ninja-esque one threw down a smoke bomb that affected our barbarian, who failed his CON save and was blinded. Then the ninja threw shuriken at the barbarian, but rolled a botch. The dm offered the barb a choice: next attack against him had disadvantage or he could catch a shuriken and throw it back, so he chose the later, rolled... and got a crit. It didn't do enough damage to kill the ninja, but was definitely the play of the night.

[Aurich]

In a game of WHFRP. i obtained some books vital to the enemy. With a trick, they separated me from the other players and surrounded me on the second floor with superior numbers, so fighting my way out was neigh impossible. I asked if there was a window. Yes there was. Ok, I jump through it and i know i'm on the second floor, but iI rather take the damage then get captured. DM said, the doctor ( an anemy character) stand in the way.

i don't care i said. I take him with me though the window.

Roll for it was very favorable. Ended up outside, with only minor injury, a dead doctor the cushioned my fall and a big head start on the enemy cultists i escaped from, who had to go downstairs, though the door at the other side of the building, around the building to get back to me, and ran squealing like a pig getting butchered back to the others that there were baddies after me.

DM didn't like me throwing a wrench in his plans, as he needed the books for the story. In short, derailed a bit of the story by good fortune.

[Blood of Gaea]

My players were in a dungeon trying to unlock a magic hidden door to move on to the next area. They had some bad perceptions and investigation rolls and were stumped. I was trying to come up with a way to feed them information when the party decided to go back ways and jump into a hole, thinking it must be the path forward.

The hole was a few hundred feet deep and had nothing in it, it was just a vertical tunnel (it wasn't the first one they'd come across in that dungeon). They all died on impact.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I gave a player in my game a 1-1000 chance of getting a deck of many things.

Not only did he get the deck of many things, but since then he's drawn 2 fate cards, a star card, a vizier, a gem,a sun and a moon card. The only bad card he's drawn so far is Flames and that wasn't even that bad because it tied so well into the story.

We've had a running joke that the characters he rolls are a reincarnated demigod based off his first character who rolled 5 18's, he's the luckiest person I've ever met.

This campaign is ongoing and he draws a card every session.

I feel like this is balanced out by how that ridiculously strong character wiped the party by rolling a crit fail while we were trying out a fumble table, putting his speed to 5ft. My character died trying to drag him to safety and the rest of the party died without their two tanks.

[Unoriginal]

Ever had a situation that made everyone go WTF?!? Ever do something the DM/players hadn't expected then sat backa nd smiled? Feel free to share the amazing moments you have had yourself or witnessed someone else have in playing D&D. I'll go first with two encounters (1 I already shared elsewhere on here...)

So I was playing a divine soul/hexblade and dwarves attacked our sailing ship on skidoos. Several (more than 4) of them lit the fuses on handheld bombs of greek fire in preparation to throw them at the ship on their next turn. It was my turn and after clarifying that they were within 120' of me, I asked the DM if I could target the bombs in their hands. He nodded, adding "...With disadvantage." Then I pointed out that Magic Missile projectiles auto-hit and he turned his head up and to the side, finger to his smiling lips in a *Damned that's good* and *Oh c***... I hadn't thought of that* kind of expression mixed with the smile of one who was impressed. He sighed and turned to me. "Okay, go ahead." I fired 3 bolts, each to the bomb of a different dwarf and he rolled the damage on each. The third did excess damage, so he ruled that the guy swerved into a forth guy and HIS bomb detonated as well, killing all four of them before the battle continued.

Just to point out, I don't want to rain on your parade, but by-the-book you can't use Magic Missile to damage items.

[Avonar]

Running a game of 13th Age, it was a hard fight with the Bard having been convinced to against fight the party for the enemy.

The Wizard/Necromancer goes invisible and proceeds to start casting a ritual. A few rounds later he resurrects the Bard's wife which finally brings him to his senses.

Yeah that caught me off guard. It turned a rough fight into a very heart warning moment.

[SpamCreateWater]

Dunno about jaw-dropping, but my DM definitely got his eye roll and defeated sigh perfected by the time we finished up our campaign.

Our party faced off against a squad of knights. They were a group who was renowned for their teamwork, so we decided, when offered, that we would each fight a knight in 1v1 combat. I was hesitant to take this offer not just because my character was terrible at single combat - I was a healer/tank with AoE shenanigans and zero single target effectiveness - but also because it sounded too good to be true. I mean, the rest of my group were the old world equivalents of a nuke, rail gun, or vibranium.
Of course, it was, and the group were Knights/Cavaliers with crazy one on one combat bonuses.

Luckily, I had rolled a nice spot check and saw that, in their off time, the group played some board game similar to Go/Chess. So I faced off against my opponent and asked if they would prefer to avoid bloodshed and play a game - gesturing towards the board. I swore on my (non-existent) honour that I would be a compliant prisoner if I lost. He agreed.

I then asked if we could play one practice game as... well... I didn't know how the game worked. The look of surprise was evident, but my opponent agreed again.
I proceeded to get the gist of the game with a nice Profession roll for something I had no ranks in. A good enough roll that I got a small bonus in the next game.

And I proceeded to roll a Nat 20, while the knight rolled a 1. Our DM ran with the houserule of 1s and 20s on skill rolls work similar to attack rolls. Critical failures and successes.

The DM set the scene. My character, who was very into his looks himself, sitting on a stone and facing a knight clad as for battle. Between them was a battered board with pieces upon it; it was clear from the look of smugness on my characters face who had won. And, with any knowledge of the game, it was clear I had not just won, I had crushed him in a way that would forever mar his self-confidence.

We then proceeded to sit back and talk over the finer points of the game; or, rather, he did, while my character listened. In the background were two heavily armoured juggernauts slugging it out; one heavily armoured figure chasing after a ninja who backflipped instead of walking; and one last armoured figure that cowering behind a rock as a flying, frail albino rained hell-fire from the heavens.

Glorious.

[Cespenar]

There's a fairly large pirate band who's plaguing the Ten Towns. We botch up our stealth checks investigating their cave, so they come upon us with like 40 guys. We turn the tables quickly by saying that we want to be on the winning side for once, and have come to join.

Several days later, we're on a raid aboard one of their 3 ships, moving onto one of the smaller towns who really doesn't stand a chance against a force this big. And to make matters worse, some guys from the nearby lead ship are constantly eyeing us. So we put in play a very hastily and shoddily devised plan.

We're on the smallest ship of the 3, so there are lesser pirates on board then the lead ship. We draw the lieutenant who's in command of the ship and a couple of his bodyguards to the lower decks, where it's not directly visible from the outside. Just as they are on the stairs, we trip/sneak attack the lot, making them fall down the stairs and try to finish them off quickly.

It still takes more than a round, though, and the guys eyeing us get all shifty. They call the captain, who comes to shout/question at our ship and try to figure out what is happening. We finally emerge from the lower decks and assure him it's okay, but he's not buying it, so he's preparing a small band to board us and see what's what.

At which point we agree that it's time, so we drop the pirate who's sailing the ship, take control, and direct it straight into the side of the lead ship.

The small ship crashes into the big one, gouging its hull pretty badly. It starts to take on water. Under arrow fire, we abandon ship by utilizing a get-away rowboat. The nearby town is alerted and tries to mobilize some militia forces. The pirates are now panicking and the third ship turns tail, instead of helping their buddies.

Needless to say, there was a big feast in the town that night.



Luckily, I had rolled a nice spot check and saw that, in their off time, the group played some board game similar to Go/Chess. So I faced off against my opponent and asked if they would prefer to avoid bloodshed and play a game - gesturing towards the board. I swore on my (non-existent) honour that I would be a compliant prisoner if I lost. He agreed.

That's good thinking on both your and the GM's part. Pretty cool story.

[DarkKnightJin]

Dragonborn Fighter/Death Cleric got whammied by a Succubus. We were in a Wizard's tower. We'd found an Alchemy lab with tons of potions in it.

My guy was told to 'take care' of the rest of the party. He went for the Alchemy lab.
When the DM read the note, she had to stop the game for a bit to write up a d8 table for what sort of potion I'd throw for randomly grabbing.

We wound up with the Fighter as a black sheep under the effects of a Philter of Love, and the Warlock's skin had been turned purple.
And I was hoarse from laughing as hard as I did by the end of the day.

[Chugger]

This zombie coming at us was so yucky and deteriorated...that it's lower jaw literally came off and dropped to the ground.

[Oramac]

I was playing my Tempest Sorcerer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?493427-Tempest-Sorcerer-Tank) in an Underdark area (OotA I think), at 5th level (3 sorc, 2 tempest). The group comes up to this BBEG fight against a Mind Flayer and a minion. The DM was super excited because we weren't supposed to get there quite yet and it was supposed to be a really difficult fight. So we roll initiative and I go second. The Fighter goes and attacks the minion for some stupid reason. Cool. Whatever. My turn.

Attack the Mind Flayer.

Chromatic Orb.

At 3rd level.

Nat 20.

Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath.

80 lightning damage.

Dead Mind Flayer. Fight over. DM is pissed.

Fun times.

[NRSASD]

Dragonborn Fighter/Death Cleric got whammied by a Succubus. We were in a Wizard's tower. We'd found an Alchemy lab with tons of potions in it.

My guy was told to 'take care' of the rest of the party. He went for the Alchemy lab.
When the DM read the note, she had to stop the game for a bit to write up a d8 table for what sort of potion I'd throw for randomly grabbing.

We wound up with the Fighter as a black sheep under the effects of a Philter of Love, and the Warlock's skin had been turned purple.
And I was hoarse from laughing as hard as I did by the end of the day.

One of my older 2nd edition campaigns had a very similar incident occur. The party had just raided a wizard's villa and found his alchemy lab. After describing that several potions were still in process and how much the setup was worth, the fighter declares that he's going to take it with him.
By stuffing it all into a sack
And throwing it over his shoulder
Onto his platemail clad back.

Several rolls on a wild magic table later and once the fire and sparkles had disappeared, the golden eagle formerly known as fighter began to realize that might have been a bad idea.


Just to point out, I don't want to rain on your parade, but by-the-book you can't use Magic Missile to damage items.

To quote Pirates of the Caribbean, "They're more like guidelines anyways".

[sithlordnergal]

Where to start...ok, I know!

It was storm king's thunder, and I had recently recieved armor of vulnerability (Bludgeoning), so I resisted bludgeoning damage but too double with everything else.

The party was sneaking down a cliff to try and take one of those giant artifacts. The only way down was a single rope, and it was a deadly fall. At the bottom waited several enemies, including a chimera.

Long story short, the rope was cut near the top, leaving my Paladin stranded on top of the cliff with the party struggling to survive down below. Eventually I started chucking javelins because even though I was technically out of long range with them due to the cliff, the dm ruled that gravity does indeed work and they might hit someone. So I rolled with disadvantage and hit nothing...until the very end. Out of javelins I did the only thing left to me, I dropped a rock over the edge and got the killing blow on the chimera right as it was about to kill a friend.

---

There was also the time Flumphs killed a fire giant. I was playing a Chaos Magic Sorcerer/Bard, and my wild magic had gone off. As a result, I summoned several frightened flumphs into the fight. Being stuck with us and a fire giant, they chose to fight the fire giant at random. The giant managed to kill one of them, but the final Flumph not only managed to crit, but it managed to get the killing blow on the fire giant.

---

There's also my most recent escapade. We were playing Out of the Abyss, and were attempting to escape. In order to create a distraction, I accidentally drew the attention of demons, I made sure to set their temple of Lloth on fire, I set their web safety net on fire, and set their elevator on fire. And somehow, with all that chaos and fire, we successfully escaped!

[Slayn82]

The DM set the scene. My character, who was very into his looks himself, sitting on a stone and facing a knight clad as for battle. Between them was a battered board with pieces upon it; it was clear from the look of smugness on my characters face who had won. And, with any knowledge of the game, it was clear I had not just won, I had crushed him in a way that would forever mar his self-confidence.

We then proceeded to sit back and talk over the finer points of the game; or, rather, he did, while my character listened. In the background were two heavily armoured juggernauts slugging it out; one heavily armoured figure chasing after a ninja who backflipped instead of walking; and one last armoured figure that cowering behind a rock as a flying, frail albino rained hell-fire from the heavens.

Glorious.

Bravo! It was quite glorious indeed.

My story was on our current campaign. My characther is a Paladin 2/Hexblade 1, devote of Tempus, and we were tasked to obtain a book from a smugler. After some negotiations, we managed to arrange the trade in the local pier. The smugler seemed very nervous, and after getting his money and giving us the book, he and his bodyguards sail away like hell was after them. Turns out, a group of werewolves was after the book, and since we got the book, they came at us. We were outnumbered, 4 werewolves against an my character, and my companions, an Elf Druid and a Gnome Sorcerer,

I tried to hold the line, while my companions sniped the enemies. Unfortunately, without a magic weapon, my attack failed to deal damage to them, and 2 ignored me and went after the rest of the party. Meanwhile, I decided that my best play was to push the two werewolves coming at me off the pier into the sea.

The enemies manages to knock the Sorcerer down, and the Druid becomes a Tiger, grabs the sorcerer and run away on the pier. I drop one of the two still on the pier over another that was trying to climb to the pier again, and then jump over the the head of the other one, leaving the most hurt of them for the druid.

By insulting them and using Dodge, with water coming by my neck I distract the werewolves for a couple rounds, enough time for the Druid to heal the Sorcerer, and they finish the one that was after then. Frustrated, two decide to charge after the book, and my companions, again, while I manage to wrathful smite, and then grab the third and start drowning him.

The Sorcerer and Druid kill another werewolf while they swim on their direction, and I win 10 consecutive rolls against the one I was fighting, courtesy of Wrathful Smite, who also made the werewolf miss several attacks. So now the original 4 vs 3 has become a 3 vs 1 in our favor. The last Werewolf gets cold feet, and decides to run away in the dock.

And thus, we managed to turn a mortal encounter into a victory, with my contribution being mostly several feats of athletism, and having a good armor.

[dreast]

Catacombs stuffed with undead. The players know this going in.

Very first encounter is with three ogre mercenaries that the necromancer running the joint had hired. Said ogres are asleep and (with 8 passive perception) the party were able to get the drop on them easily.

The party wizard casts a thunder spell that everything in 300 feet can hear.

Cue me rolling a LOT of initiative rolls (wight... ghast.... ghouls... ghost...). Cue the players running out into the sunlight were most the baddies weren't going to follow them. Cue a battle outside with the angry ogres and 8 skeletons who would.

Fun times!

[Dave_1972]

Created an account just so I could tell this story...

This was years ago under either DnD 2nd or 3rd Ed rules.

We were in Dark Sun and I was playing a Cleric(Fire)/Thief halfling who was chaotic neutral. I played him as half pyro and half clepto and all crazy. Easily the most fun I've ever had playing DnD.

One night the younger brother of one of the other players showed up and demanded to play. I say demanded because he was a whiny 16 year old jerk who completely disrupted our party and irritated everyone at the table - his brother most of all.

He rolled up a Mul Thief and then proceeded to make a lucky roll and noticed my character stealing water from another party member. My character didn't need the water, he just periodically stole things because he couldn't resist it. So he then proceeds to write a note and hand it to me. Threatening to expose my character as a thief if don't start stealing things for him.

At the time, in Dark Sun lore being caught as a thief generally resulted in execution. So I decided to do the most Role-Playing thing I have ever done.

That night while alone on watch I began handing the DM a series of notes wherein I cast silence/hold person and cut the Mul's throat. Terrible, right? We're not done yet.

This was Dark Sun and I was playing a Halfling that now needed to dispose of a body. Halflings in Dark Sun lore back then were often cannibals.

So morning rolls around and the DM asks: "So, what are you guys doing?". Now the other players had seen the notes and the look on the DMs face and knew something was up. "What do we see?" they asked. The DM replied - "You see the Halfling stirring a pot of stew he has made for breakfast." One of them passed an Intelligence check and realized the Mul was missing but I had a story ready and they failed to detect that i was lying.

So they tried the stew. DM - "Your all eating the stew??? - Okay, everyone roll intelligence checks".

They failed. In character they never figured out what happened to the Mul.

The whiny 16 year old loved it, go figure.

[Hesh]

We were playing a homebrewed version of Deathwatch, based on the Horus Heresy. We all play genespliced Super Soldiers called Astartes, equipped with Ultra Cutting Edge Technology to kill Aliens, split into 18 Different Legions, each legion commanded by a Clone of a Super Future Space Jesus, embodying different aspects of his personality, called a Primarch. The general backstory is humanity has been united under him and has virtually united the entire Milky Way under an Imperium with him as command, with the concept of Gods and Devils being lies and falsehoods, simply being aliens and natural instead.

As it nearly finished, the greatest son was nearly killed by a Demon Weapon, and in a fever caused by this (they are normally immune to disease) was approached by Demons and told the Emperor is lying, and actually is trying to become a God as well. This causes a rift and civil war between those who,supported him (traitors) and those who followed the Emperor (loyalists), and 200 years of conquest is annihilated in 7 years.

The players do not know this as they are new to the setting in an intro campaign. they have been on several missions, together already murdering Xenos by the bucketload, accumulating Mastercrafted gear, prestige and becoming more veteran. One of the legionaries was an 'Emperor's Children' and had been nominated to fight in a duel against the one of the Primarch's elite Phoenix Guard Terminators, which are essentially exactly what they sound like. Yeah, he got decimated. A combination of bad rolling, but also the player knew he was in over his head. Earlier on, the players had been given numerous examples of watching the Primarchs being literal gods of war.

A few in game weeks later, the players transition into a system after being rerouted from a psychic telepathic message, missing half of the information, but suggesting that Legions had completely annihilated an Imperial World and killed legionaries in a purge.

Jumping into the world, the essentially, diplomatic Strike Force (made of a representatives from 6 different legions) insisted with being sent with the first wave. They travelled in a Drop Pod to beat any potential Anti Air, and were immediately engaged alongside the Salamanders, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard legions - which, 3 of the players had chosen.

And they had been engaged by the 4 traitor legions, including the Emperor's Children and forced to fight back to a landing zone, protecting against the more numerous enemy, calling for reinforcements, while shooting dirty looks at their bewildered EC briother in arms

As the fight back is about to begin and the first strike craft of the supporting legions arrive from low orbit, and ammunition and other supplies are beginning to fall run out. As a Stormbird, an immense Strike Lander (think flying tank, with the weaponryy of a half dozen M1 Abrams battle tanks stuck on) opens up with its rapid fire 120mm autocannons.

On the Salamanders, Raven Guard and Iron Hands, not the traitors. Bearing in mind,this is on a battle frontage many hundreds of miles across, and reports begin to flood in that the supporting legions are killing them. They too are traitors.

One of the Strike Squad, the Iron Hand is nearly killed as a fist Sized explosive shell crits against his head, but survives thanks to his augmetics, and is patched up by the EC medic when they make cover, snatching looted weaponry. Everything is in disarray, 1 unconcious loyalist marine, and 2 live ones outnumbered by supposed traitors, wondering what is going on themselves. Trust is beginning to break, but the tide of battle moves past as the Landing Pad is secured under the traitor reserves in the second wave giving them a breather, time to rearm and gather spent resources.

They determine that they are all on the same side as loyalists, and all of this is news to them as they were on their own. The squads makes their way through the ruined city, picking of odd squads of Astartes, but eventually get to an overlook, where literally thousands of Astartes are engsged, and watching the Primarchs engage in combat with one another. And watch as the Iron Hands Primarch is cut down like a child by the traitor Emperor's Children Primarch.

The player of the Emperor's Children medic is literally crying her eyes out at this in person. The Iron Hands player has his head in his hands. The room is just in silence.

And from that, we all joined playing the Tabletop game a few weeks later.

Absolutely brilliant fun.

[Silicon42]

Ooh, I've got a few of these.

The first is from 4th ed.
So the party is on a magic flying ship with no crew and I am playing Rex Farstride, the Tiefling rogue. The BBEG's shadow is also on the ship ala Peter Pan and is suitably sneaky and nigh impossible for us to beat, especially by me who has no magic weapons to harm him with. In addition, the party is split up all over the ship. I proceed to stealth my way to the hold and begin prepping the nearly fully stocked gun powder.

Before I go any further, I must mention that this ship is not only magical an flying, but sentient as well, however my character has not been told this at this point. I as a player know, but I also know that without that knowledge beforehand, this is exactly the kind of thing my character would pull.

So, using my superior bluff and thoroughly ridiculous speed, I bait the shadow into the room, light the trail of gunpowder, and book it. We somehow all survive and the shadow is destroyed along with the ship and my character is none the wiser about why some of the party is so upset. The shadow was going to attempt to kill us all after all and a ship, no matter how fancy is just not worth that.


This next one was in Pathfinder.
I was not here for this particular session, but got a recount of the story from my friends. It is the beginning of the campaign and it's set in a wild-west theme. The party is tasked with helping the Sheriff rescue his daughter from a bunch of bandits. They proceed to do so and manage to smartly get the daughter away from the combat zone in the cave that the bandits have been hiding in and the bard and rogue stay with her outside to keep her safe while the Sheriff and the rest of the party fight the bandits.

The level 1 bard decides that now is the time to woo her and fails his check. He is after all only level 1. The player of the bard has played several bards before and the rogue's player is his buddy in real life too. The player of the rogue, having heard that the bard failed a charisma roll immediately looks up and says, "I back-stab her." (He would later justify that he hadn't really been paying attention at the time)

As she is just a normal with no armor or training to speak of, she more or less instantly dies. Meanwhile the rest of the party are still fighting the bandits along with her father, the town Sheriff. After several failed attempts to resuscitate her, they decide to prop her up and puppet her when the Sheriff comes out. This, of course also fails, and the rest of the party decides to do the only logical thing that can be done. And proceeds to team up on the Sheriff.

Seeing as the only town in reasonable distance is the town that they just came from, they of course have to go back. Upon getting back, they attempt to bluff the townspeople into thinking that the bandits had managed to kill the Sheriff and his daughter. They don't believe them and lacking both the keys to the Jail and the understanding of what has really happened to their beloved Sheriff, they decide to temporarily lock the party up in the local general store while they send a runner to go find out the real story.

This being a frontier town, guess what the general store is made of. Wood, highly flammable wood, and of course there is at least one caster in the party with a fire spell. Knowing what they've done and what the townspeople will find, they decide to burn down the building to escape. And they do, having completely derailed any direction that this story could possibly have gone.

Moral of the story: We very much love our DM for being able to roll with our punches.


This last one is in a custom classless system that we were helping test.
We have the same DM as the last story and the bard is now playing a big meaty guy with nothing but strength named Dozer. The joke is that he has bricks for hands and we frequently talk about him not being able to hold things because he has no fingers. (No, there is nothing mechanically saying this, we've just all agreed that it is a fact at this point) We've just entered a dungeon recently, and at the time the party has this thing where if there is ever a split in the corridor they will always choose down in the case of stairs or left in the case of hallways.

After a bit of time and getting past some traps, we come across a dead end. When our DM asks us what we do, Dozer responds, "I go left" and proceeds to smash through the wall. On the other side we find some enemies and a couple people that said enemies were presumably using for bad stuff.

Apparently, we had missed whatever secret mechanism or other that there was that was supposed to open this room, however Dozer just managed to get lucky and smash the door down. I would later find out that the Dungeon had in fact been randomly generated (we weren't using a battle map at the time and only had descriptions to go on) and he confirmed that there was no way for Dozer to know that what he was punching was anything other than a stone wall.

[SaintRidley]

Here's the full thread for anyone interested in reading. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507647-The-Vanstermen-Ger%F0r-Hildrsget)

I was the leader of hunting parties for our people, having just begun to make a settlement on a new island after our homeland was overrun. Joining me were a handful of NPCs, including my younger sister and another player's protege. My goal was to stockpile food and train the young people in using their bows as weapons. We discovered very quickly that there were numerous packs of wolves on the island, each pack led by a dire wolf. At first, we used caution, avoiding them until we realized there simply wouldn't always be the option of avoiding them. I wasn't sure we could beat a pack in a fight, but we ambushed one to test out our capabilities. It was over in a handful of rounds with no fatalities. My sister critted and hit the dire wolf in the eye to kill it.

We take what meat we can from that fight back to the still-being-constructed village before heading back to pick up the rest, and that's where everything goes horribly wrong. As we get sorted and ready to haul the rest back, another pack ambushes us. Two of the adult hunters are killed instantly, and the third adult hunter is killed in the next round. Both kids are knocked down and try to crawl to safety under the corpse of the dire wolf we had ambushed earlier. It becomes a one woman against the pack fight, and I do not look like I have a good chance.

I start climbing a tree to get out of reach so I can plink them to death, trying to shout and keep their attention away from the kids. It works, kind of, and I slowly but surely kill all the wolves, with the dire wolf being the last. I'm bloody, out of arrows, and it's been an intense roleplaying session (if you look at the timestamps, MintyNinja and I managed to catch each other online at the same time and the whole fight is as close to real-time roleplaying as I've ever seen on this forum). I get down and try to get the kids out from under the wolf corpse, but no response so I have to pull them out. Mik (the protege) is dead. My sister's still alive, but she's at 0 and making death saves. I try, completely untrained, some version of CPR and just wind up breaking her ribs and forcing her to go back into death saves when she was probably stabilizing without my help. She survives that, and I set about the grim task of gathering every recoverable arrow, making a shelter of wolf corpses, dragging my sister inside that shelter, making a fire, and sawing off the head of the wolf that led that pack. When she wakes up, I tell her what happened and stay with her through the night before heading back to the village, looking absolutely horrid.

There was another woman, who when we first arrived on the island, lost her group to a pack of wolves the first night. This would forge a bond between us through shared experience. It also changed the course for my character, and inspired my sister's path forward as well. Pivotal moment in the story, and I wish the campaign hadn't petered out. Didn't make me stop and go WTF or anything, but I was taken aback by just how emotionally invested I was in the moment and how spent I felt after the encounter and its aftermath wrapped up. The most intense roleplaying experience I've ever had.

[sky red hunter]

Elemental evil campaign, my half-orc battle master managed to convince a Lich to empower my admantium maul with the destructive power of a devastation orb. What this did was on a Nat 20 set off a fireball centred on me, on a fail I took the equivalent damage in psychic damage as a backlash.

So anyway on one particular solo walk around a new town late at night I was accosted by robbers/assassins/bandits in an alley way, it quickly got hostile and initiative was rolled. I rolled low but as the first attack on me missed I used riposte and rolled a Nat 20.....

It turned out I killed 5-6 would be attackers in one go, on their turn. leaving only ashes as I continued on my way...

[sky red hunter]

Storm Kings Thunder: SPOILERS

Party have taken a hob goblin ship to sea to search for the king of the storm giants, and in the process have angered a pirate hoping to earn a pardon by not choosing her ship for the mission.

As they travel I rolled on the random encounters table in xanatars guide to everything, rolled up an abandoned bathysphere....had to look it up. Its a round metal submersible. Had them roll for items inside and one thing they got was a potion of storm giants strength, pretty cool and fitting.

So the pirate eventually catches up to them with a bigger ship and more crew, several plans are thrown about as to how to deal with this impending doom when the bathysphere is brought up...

Its packed with explosive powder and sharpened metal, courtesy of the alchemist, an ignition device is jerry-rigged from a tinder box by the gnome tinkerer, the tiefling monk then downs the potion of storm giants strength as he has both fly and invisibility cast on him....

The giant metal ball flies high towards the pirate ship...

Their ballista is ineffectual and crit fails on the 3rd attempt to take down the ball, exploding in a hail of splinters and throwing the two man crew into the sea ( a small mercy for whats to come)

The monk begins to swing the giant ball from the chain attached round and round and rolls his attack.......1....

To avoid killing his own party the monk used his lucky feat to roll again and done a lot better, the metal ball flew through the first mast and then smashed though the second and exploded deep in the belly of the ship destroying all on board.....

Not sure how we'll top that, may have peaked too early.

[A Fat Dragon]

I was playing a Kobold Artificer in a campaign, where of course our DM thought it would be a good idea to put lvl 10s against chromatic ancient dragons inside their lairs, and only give us a week in game or all our characters die. Fun. Not to mention the fact that he expected us to do so without using creative ideas.

However, my party blatantly ignored this, and to some rather fun results.

The first dragon we fought, I used a Tanglefoot Bag to choke the dragon. DM has me roll, and to everybody’s surprise, I succeeded, so the Dragon ended up choking to death.

The second dragon we fought, I ended up being swallowed by it. Fun. Well, our Way of The Drunken Master monk has this barrel, (Basically a bag of holding.... but for beer. Did I mention that he’s spent thousands of GP on cheap whisky?) He emptied the entire thing into the Dragon’s mouth, and as I was drowning in the beer, in the dragon’s stomach, I popped open a flask of Alchemist’s Fire.

Bye-Bye Dragon. He was not missed.

[SpamCreateWater]

That's good thinking on both your and the GM's part. Pretty cool story.
Rolling with it seems to be a common ability GMs I've played with have. Must just be lucky.

In any case, one of the latest stories reminded me of another moment.

My GM at the time had a habit of putting us in situations where we HAD to talk our way out of it, or surprise him, because there was no way on Obad-Hai's green Material Plane we were fighting and winning.

Case in point, we stumbled across an adult black dragon in an underground lake. Really bad time for us as we were still in single digit levels and our greatest strength was in preparation - even random encounters had become a test of how long we could mess the enemy around until we were prepared to engage them.
As it was a dragon and we were out of our depth, cue the smart mouth or pride of one of the other characters (definitely not me) causing the dragon to want to eat us. I, as a massive ball of HP with very little armour, managed to withstand a full round from it, but was left against a far wall after being flung there.
I healed myself up, watching as the party got decimated one at a time, I read through my terribly messy list of items in my backpack and something caught my eye. I cast message, or perhaps just yelled it out, asking the party to buy some time and when I gave the signal to execute Plan B: Every man for themselves, run like the Emperor of the Sun himself was after you, survivors meet at last camp site.
I buffed myself as well as I could, cast Cure Serious Wounds to heal 2HP, and put a Lesser Vigor on me before giving the signal - which, I think, was a stream of invectives at the dragon including how I, as a Dwarf, could swim better than it.
For whatever reason, that worked, and the dragon left my party bleeding out to come face me. I gave the party as much time as possible - which was really only 2 rounds - before I let off the in-world equivalent of a truck-load of C4.

So, the party scrambles, the dragon approaches, and it's my turn. The GM is looking at me with bewilderment, expectation, and trepidation. "So," he says, "What do you do?"
"I slowly withdraw an opaque vial from my back, uncork it, and hold it above the water menacingly."
"Okay... the dragon stops for a moment and laughs at you. If it could cry due to laughing, it would."
"I say a quick prayer and drop the potion into the water."
The GM looks at me, the look turns to panic as realisation sets in, "... wait. You dropped the crystal in, didn't you?"
I nod as most of the party, bar one, looks around in confusion. The one person who got it starts laughing and swearing.
I explain to the others that I've dropped a crystal into lake. This crystal reacts violently with water. Explosively, even. The size of the reaction is based off the amount of water, while the violence is based off the crystal.
I have a vial full of the stuff, and just some weeks ago we passed a crater where a small town used to be that was caused by a coin-sized crystal hitting their well.

The GM sighs, says, "Well, there goes that campaign arc," reaches for his dice box, takes out two handfuls of dice - not caring what size they are - and drops them onto the table. Then does it again. "You take this much damage. Roll Reflex."
I make the Reflex save, the dragon doesn't, our party is partially sheltered by the blast due to the head start and by some miracle also all make their Reflex saves.
I live 1HP off from complete death, while having successfully derailed another plot hook (or in this case, whole campaign arc), and forcing our GM to consistently look over my item list to remind himself of what I have.

[furby076]

our group was tracking some bad guys and got sent back 30 years in time to a great war. We ran into group of giants. Warlock hexed giants dex, Light cleric cast faerie fire on the giant (who failed the save_. My paladin then misty stepped into the air to be next to the giants mouth. Threw a vial of explosive (it was thermite). First attack roll missed the giants mouth, 2nd attack hit. Giant swallowed the vial. Asta la vista, giant

[afnolte]

Alright, here's a couple from me.

When my friends and I first started playing RPG's, the first full campaign we played started with the beginners game for 5th edition, but with our own characters. My friends were playing a dragonborn rogue, a dragonborn paladin, and a dwarf barbarian. I was the healer of the party: a human fighter with a healer's kit and the healer feat. About midway through the story in the box, we had to infiltrate a ruined castle populated with a goblin band. We had found a wanted poster for the paladin in the previous session, and decided to tie him up and walk up to the castle to "claim" the reward. Once we were inside and speaking with boss, Grull, my character, who was an eldritch knight at this point, cast burning hands in the middle of the negotiations. Apparently, this did give us a surprise round. Once we killed him, we were sneaking through the castle figuring out what we needed to do/kill next. The rogue overhears several goblins talking in what turned out to be their mess hall. When he sneaks back to tell us what he had discovered, I ask the paladin if I could borrow his greatsword, since I used a warhammer. With the boss's newly severed head in one hand, and a mote of fire in the other, I kicked in the door.

DM: Um, the door's unlocked.

Me: ...I kick in the door.

Me (in Goblin): Grull is dead! You work for ME now!

The DM made me roll to intimidate, but after my natural 20 decided that I now had a small tribe of goblins and hobgoblins at my beck and call.

Other shenanigans from later in this adventure, after we had moved on from the box and into our DM's own story, include, but are not limited to:

Overrunning a pirate ship and taking said pirates prisoner, to be turned over to the local authorities.

After realizing the pirates were sold into slavery, freeing the pirate captain and placing him in indentured servitude. We needed a navigator anyways.

An inventor with an alchemical iron man suit.

My fighter getting to wear the suit for a battle, and ignoring all special abilities the suit might have had in favor of just swinging my warhammer really, really hard. I later found out the DM had put a lot of effort into homebrewing those abilities.

During a naval battle, our characters being deployed to enemy ships via catapult.

Upon landing on the enemy ships, I aimed for their super cannon and used a thunderwave to clear the area around it, preventing the cannon from being used. Meanwhile, the barbarian went straight for the heavily armored captain (he was a dwarf), and shoved him overboard. He then vaulted onto a nearby enemy ship and repeated this. Meanwhile, the paladin was carving his way through anything that got within range, and the rogue snuck down into the hold and proceeds to shove every bit of treasure into his bag of holding.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was also the short Star Wars campaign I ran for my friends. They wanted to use the Force & Destiny rules to play as jedi knights. So, I set my story during the clone wars. One of their early adventures was investigating a request for assistance from a planet on the outer rim. During the course of the investigation they had to infiltrate a Hutt compound. The light side Darth Maul clone (played by the same person as the rogue above), horribly botches his stealth roll and gets captured. The other two players go to another room to plot their next move. When they return, they declare that they are both getting back on one of the speeder bikes they had used to get to the compound. They then flew full tilt at the doors of the compound, where the jedi not flying the bike used a force push to blow the doors off the hinges before jumping off and landing with lightsaber drawn. The player flying speeder bike aimed for the Hutt with his lightsaber pike lowered like a lance. It didn't end well for the Hutt. Or the bike.

During the last session, I had them return to Coruscant, where they were pulled in to investigating a bomb near the Senate building. After tracking the bomber down, they found his room. I went full on anachronistic conspiracy nut for this guy. A holo-slate about new food taxes had a piece of yarn connecting it with planetwide famines on the outer rim. An opinion article that was very critical of Palpatine's rise to chancellor and increased power was connected to the author's tragic death due to a catastrophic hyperdrive failure. Upon going over everything in the room, the chief of security that had accompanied them informed them that it appeared that Chancellor Palpatine owed them his life.
The session ended with them somehow surviving Order 66 and joining the rebel alliance. I couldn't have three very powerful jedi joining the alliance, so I did the only thing I could: I killed them off. I narrated that it had been three years since they had joined, and for reasons that they hadn't really been briefed on, the entire rebel high command was meeting. Something to do with a top secret super weapon the empire had started constructing. As the meeting started, 6 star destroyers appeared in orbit, including the Executor. Vader was here. My players began snapping out orders to the rebel soldiers around them to concentrate on evacuating the leaders while they fought the stormtroopers and Vader. As one of them said, "This is Jedi business." Ultimately, the Maul clone died riddled with blaster burns, standing on a carpet of dead stormtroopers with the bulkhead to the meeting room still sealed behind them. The player with the lightsaber pike asked if he could supercharge his force powers at some cost to him. I decided he could, but it may kill him depending on what he does. He grabs a star destroyer in orbit and rams it into the Executor. Neither ship was destroyed, but it did effectively remove them from the battle and left an opening that the rebel ships could use to escape. He slumped to ground bleeding from his ears, nose and eyes afterwards. The last player finds himself in a corridor near the landing pad where an intimidating figure in black armor was directing the battle. He bellows a challenge at the figure and charges in. After an impressive duel, where the player was able to sever one of Vader's arms, he too finally falls. Lying on the ground he hears a stormtrooper informing Vader that the rebels had escaped before everything goes black. Hey, if I'm going to kill your character off, I'll give you every chance to go out like a boss.

[SpamCreateWater]

Giant swallowed the vial. Asta la vista, giant

This reminds me of another moment.

We had to fight an incarnation of an ideal in one session. These incarnations are as close as a non-dragon could get to being a god. Our group was nearing "epic" levels for this setting, so we had around 5th level spells. The being we were going against had 8th. Normally a really, really bad idea, but we were slightly comforted in the fact that the being didn't want to get their hands dirty - the summons would kill us - and had been rampaging through cities and across countries to get to us - so, perhaps, they may be worn out?

They weren't :smalleek:

DM: The sky darkens -
Scout: You said it was sunny.
DM: - as hundreds of birds block out the sun.
Scout: ... oh... oh dear.

Our mage casts an Invisible Wall of Stone to protect us, which was a life saver. Dozens of birds died hitting the wall and we cheered. But then the birds started purposefully dive-bombing the wall. It was... sickening. These creatures were summoned by the ideal of permanence, so were actual, real birds. Their carcasses didn't disappear on death; blood and brains covered the invisible wall, and every death was accompanied by the breaking of bones. They were suiciding en masse. Creepy af.
In any case the birds continued to slowly chip away at the wall as they died. This gave us time to cast spells and sort out what we were going to do.
It also, unfortunately, gave the incarnation time to catch up to the birds. And catch up in style. First off were giant earth elementals, slow and ponderous. Keep in mind that this was a low magic setting and PCs were extremely extraordinary, let alone PC casters (of which we had 2 1/2). There was no-one we knew of - and we were in touch with 3 of the 4 most powerful government organisations in the setting - that could summon elementals, let alone giant ones. That were permanent. And real. Could not be dispelled.
Secondly were what seemed to be the hounds of hell. Demonic looking dogs with shadows that escaped from its form in whisps like fire. Bright, red eyes.

One more time - low magic setting. And, as above, dragons were the closest things to gods.
This is mentioned because the incarnation came riding in on one. An actual dragon. An actual old dragon that no one had any knowledge of. One that the incarnation had summoned and made real. The dragons in this setting are the rulers of their own domains. They play their own games with the lives of mortals and we just make do with what we have. In any case, the incarnation had just added one more old dragon to the mix that would want to carve out its own territory when it was finished being used as a taxi.

What followed was something like 20 rounds of us fighting for our lives as the incarnation watched from the air and sent in a couple of dogs at a time, or an elemental or two. It was absolute hell. And we, some of the most powerful (non-dragon) beings in the setting at the time, were being toyed with. We hadn't even touch the incarnation itself, or the dragon.

So we got crafty (read: desperate).

The Scout and I concocted a plan that probably wouldn't work, but was the best we had. See, we had picked up some poisons from a band of soldiers a while back. Think suicide pills, but potion form. Usually for the upper echelons of command, but we, uh, liberated it from a supply chain.
We jimmy-rigged a bandolier for the Scout filled with these potions and buffed him to the nines. We then used every last hero point we had (like action points, but we add the d6 to a non-damage roll or use a bunch for a "Rule of Cool" scene) to have our Scout clamber up a giant elemental, get blown skywards by a carefully aimed fireball, and then shoot an arrow at the dragon (the arrow having a rope attached to it). Our hope was that he would be quick enough to catch the incarnation off guard and shove a potion down its throat.

We were ecstatic when this happened, but then quickly realised that... well... our Scout was way too far away for us to help, and was dangling from a rope attached to a dragon.

The DM shrugged and told us that the dragon started to fly higher. We racked our brains for what to do before our mage realised they had a scroll of Teleport - it was a very important piece of magic as teleportation is almost non-existent and heavily restricted in this setting. But, what to do with it? The Teleport scroll required the caster to either be the target, or touching the target, and the mage was all but out of spells.

I looked at my spell list, frowned, and asked the DM, "Does teleportation magic stop momentum with no side effects?"
The DM shrugged again and said, "In this instance, whatever is more beneficial. I mean, if you're happy to try and time the descent of the Scout, finish casting the spell and touch them before they splat, go for it."
I looked to the mage and said, "Cast it on me and get me as close as possible."
The DM rolls his eyes, and mutters, "Here we go again."
The mage nodded and cast the spell, and suddenly I was far further from the ground than I was comfortable with. I was, incredibly enough, within arm's reach of the rope and I grabbed that and held of for dear life.
I signed to the Scout, who looked down upon the sudden weight of the rope with alarm, to continue going.

He clambered up the rope with the natural grace of a monkey, while I clawed for every inch.
We reached the top and approached the incarnation, who looked at us unconcerned. I gulped, looked to the Scout said, "You need to make sure I'm alive before we hit the ground", and then ran at the incarnation. For all of six seconds I had its attention - I was half dead from fighting summons, and could count my spells left on one hand. But those six seconds were enough. I got absolutely hammered by the incarnation, and thrown off the dragon as our Scout took advantage of the distraction, uncorked the poisons and shoved them down the throat of the incarnation.

We waited with baited breath as the DM described the incarnations eyes glazing over. The dragon they were on must have had some mind link to the incarnation as it just... stopped flying and did a solid imitation of a corpse. The Scout sprang into action and dived off the dragon in my direction. He slapped me a few times before pouring a healing potion over my face - his fine motor skills seemed to have failed him as we flew towards the earth.

I rose, groggily, asking what in the shades of darkness was going. Mute with panic at this stage the Scout gestured from me to the ground. My eyes widened and my character struggled to remember what I was to do (rolling random INT/WIS checks vs panic and return to consciousness).
The specs below turned - way too fast - into our friends, fear apparent in their eyes.
At the last second I... cast Benign Transposition (I think that's what it was called) on myself and our Scout. It swapped our places and halted our momentum due to being a teleportation effect. We fell the other dozen feat to the ground.

Much rejoicing was had at the table and added another story to our list of memories we reminisce about.

[snowman87]

We were playing a pirate campaign and I chose to play the newly released Swashbuckler Rogue class, Chaotic Neutral. He wasn't out for causing trouble just because but he would definitely take the more exciting option in any given situation.

So, we started out shanghaied and took over the boat a week into our journey. We chose our new crew positions and sailed to a Tortuga-like port, run by an infamous governess. I should mention that a particular NPC named Estoban Garcia had been annoying our group, saying he should be captain and making fun of my character's lineage, being a real jerk constantly. But, whatever. So, the new captain gives us assignments to carry out in town and mine was to procure supplies so we can set out again. No specific instructions or guidelines on how to do that. Just get the stuff.

I have no money, so obviously I'll have to get creative. Not wanting to over exert myself and not being afraid to be bold, I stroll right up to the governess' mansion, confuse the butler to get in and burst into the lady's private meeting with a military captain to announce she has a new ally. Of course she's mad but I diplomacy my way into trading favors. As the military guy leaves, I negotiate for us to do any favor she asks with no possible repurcussions to her in exchange for the supplies. She agrees.

Then, we steal the military guy's ship. It's much better than the one we took over. We tell Garcia that he can be captain and he gladly accepts. Then we sneak on board the other ship and sail off into a fog cloud.

Here's the best part. I yell out to the ship's owner "You will always remember this as the day you almost caught Captain Estoban Garcia!". Now he's got a military after him...and I never told the governess my captain's name, only the ship. Garcia is held to a bargain he has no knowledge of and will be hunted down for.

We get a cool new ship and I screw over my rival in just a few moves.