Your most memorable crit shenanigans

[Sindal]

Hi yall

Time for a fluff topic!

Q: Recount the most memorable event of a crit or a crit fail at your table.

Mine:
After someone had been turned into an animal, they had asked us to retrieve his wand and turn him back into his wizardry self.

However. None of us knew the spell and at best we would only get one attempt. If we failed, the wand would malfunction and turn him into 'something else unpleasant'

It was the final roll of the session. Our druid rolled. 20. It was beautiful.

[Delph]

Hi yall

Time for a fluff topic!

Q: recound the most memorable event of a crit or a crit fail at your table.

Mine:
After someone had been turned into an animal, they had asked us to retrieve his wand and turn him back into his wizardry self.

However. None of us knew the spell and at best we would only get one attempt. If we failed, the wand would malfunction and turn him into 'something else unpleasant'

It was the final roll of the session. Our druid rolled. 20. It was beautiful.


Not Crit, but really good steps by steps:
party meet local Boss (Feather King in Chult). In those time he was high on us and we should escape, with some dead NPC behind...

MisterMind rogue give advance to Druid shaped in Giant Elk. Giant Elk Knock prone him. Monk stuned him, Ranger-Rogue hit him with big sneak attack,... Boss lost 1/2 HP in first round. In second next 1/3 and trying to escape rogue ranger sneak him down by bow.

[intregus]

It was in 3.5, we used a crit deck and it was a series of 2 crit fails and 1 crit hit over 2 rounds.

The party, a barbarian, a cleric(me) a sorcerer(my wife) and a ranger.

We had just leveled up to 8 and I got a feat to become proficient in the magical bastard sword we just found ditching my mace. We encountered a pit fiend...

I beat out the pit fiend in initiative and cast blindness/deafness. The pit fiend crit failed and was permanently blinded. My wife casts the same spell....he crit fails AGAIN and is now permanently deaf as well.

I think according to the rules every hit is now a crit against a creature who can't perceive you so I hit, it crits and the DM pulled out the 1 card that decapitates your target IF you're using a slashing weapon....

Cut the pit fiends head clean off. It was so satisfying.

[Catullus64]

Perhaps a bit bland by comparison to some of the other stories, but in the Act I final boss fight of one of my more recent campaigns, an unholy Half-Dragon knight, the party was losing. One party member was dead, one was bleeding out, and the other two were both below 1/4 HP, and almost out of heals. The boss still has upwards of 100 HP. The paladin makes a final desperate charge against the Dragon Knight. Natural 20. Smite. This triggers his Bonus-Action Great Weapon Master Attack. Natural 20. Smite. Second normal attack. Natural 20. Smite. The boss is now dead. The paladin had the role-play savvy to describe tears streaking down his face for his dead comrade, as he furiously beat the unholy warrior into the ground with his maul.

[Keravath]

Fighting Acerak in the final battle of Tomb of Annihilation. Both the paladin and warlock roll crits in the same round and use Smite and an Eldritch Smite. I'm not sure I have seen so many dice rolled. It happened at the perfect time and made the final fight much easier than it might otherwise have been.

[Krobar]

It was just some random fight. I rolled a natural 1 to hit for my assassin and cursed. Then I said "oh wait... I have advantage..." rolled again... "NATURAL 20!"

Not really a shenanigan, but it happened.

[dragoeniex]

We were traveling by submarine to an arch mage's deepsea tomb when we were attacked by a territorial leviathan. It rammed into the sub a few times to send us spinning, causing a leak and threatening to break the vessel entirely. All our other players were melee fighters and couldn't directly attack it outside of firing the sub's cannon once a round.

And then the leviathan swallowed us.

Panicking, my necromancer cast Bigby's Hand at the highest level she could- 7th- and punched at the back of the thing's throat. Natural 20. Roll 16d8.

The DM described the leviathan roaring as the spectral hand punched straight through the back of its head, creating a break in its current we could escape through. The fight wasn't over, but now, we wouldn't be spending the rest of it inside the beast.

[Monster Manuel]

Contest of champions sort of thing, where the Paladin in my group had a personal grudge against the enemy champion (back-story thing).

First attack out of the gate, the Grave cleric had already hit the boss with Path to the Grave. Big Bad gets in a powerful hit, the Paladin plays it as "I just take it, without budging or flinching and reply 'OK, your turn'". Makes his attack, it's a natural 20. Then, 2nd level spell smite. Doubled for PttG. BBeG goes down in one hit.

Stunned silence, until the assembled bad guys start to grumble. "You cheated. The cleric helped..."

Rogue makes an intimidate check, puts one foot on the prone body of their great champion and says "Fine. Which of you jerks wants to go next, then?" Rolls a nat20 on the intimidate. No one volunteers.

[NecessaryWeevil]

[Minor Dragon Heist Spoilers]




We were on the Gralhund estate attempting a smash and grab. We burst into the bedroom which contained the bodyguard and the McGuffin. First in was our arcane trickster rogue. He shrugs off her colour spray and wallops her. Our bladesinger is next. He pops up an illusory smoke cloud and calls out that he can sense the Stone with detect magic in a chest at the foot of the bed. I (Shepherd Druid) run into the room and try to open the chest. It's locked. I call for the rogue. The rogue runs out of the smoke, unlocks the chest and starts going through it. I try to distract the bodyguard. He lays me out with one hit. Our bladesinger likewise tries to get in the way. The bodyguard runs out of the smoke, sees the rogue going through the chest, and crushes her skull, killing her outright. I fail a death save.

Not good.

The bladesinger throws open the bedroom door with mage hand. A bunch of Zhents and Gralhund guards spill into the room, fighting. The bodyguard is a bit confused by the opening door.

I pick up the dice again...Natural 20! I cast Fog Cloud, feel my way through the smoke to the rogue's body, and throw her over my shoulder. As two drow burst in through the balcony, I inch my way around the edge of the room. The drow drop the bodyguard and grab the stone, I escape with the rogue's body, the bladesinger goes invisible and tails the drow.

Way too close!

[Phhase]

Context: The party was fighting a biomechanical lizard-experiment-thing with control over gravity.

My barbarian. Poor, poor girl. She rolled no less than FIVE natural ones that session, and here's the worst part...

The room was tilted, creating a pool of nasty broken glass and formaldehyde from broken test chambers in the back. The beast had first negated gravity, and kicked the barbarian and gnome illusionist over the pool. The barbarian rolled a natural 1 trying to control her trajectory, and lost grip on her greataxe. Then, the beast changed over to tripled gravity, slamming them both down into the nasty pool, causing necrotic and slashing damage over time. The gnome, already pretty hurt, had to start making death saves. The barbarian then stood up...

B: "I'm gonna lift up the gnome and toss him out of the pool!"

Me: "K. Roll Athletics."

B: (Natural 1)

Table: (Panicked screams)

Me: "Uhh, it's ok...you have advantage from rage, remember?"

B: (ROLLS A SECOND NATURAL 1)

Table: (Goes berserk)

Me (head in hands): "....oh no..."

Me: "You slip in the vile pool and all 6 foot of muscly dragonborn of you falls face-first on top of the gnome. Gnone, you are now pinned, and ground deeper into the pool, drowning in the goop."

By some miracle, nobody died that day. The gnome got as close as it is gnomishly possible to get to death, but their NPC companion (who had been doing little more than flailing around angrily in midair the whole fight) managed drag himself over and heal the gnome at the eleventh hour. It was hair-raising.

[crustacean]

As expected, our level 5 party failed to sneak past the (homebrew) dragon. It appeared in front of us, and we decided to flee (we were in pretty bad shape from an earlier fight).

"Roll for initiative".
My bear totem barbarian had an item which granted advantage to initiative. Rolled a 1 and a 4.
So the dragon took his turn before me, so I didn't have time to rage and get resistance to its breath weapon damage.

"Roll a dex save".
Danger Sense grants advantage to dex saves against stuff you can see coming. Rolled a 1 and a 3.
Took a full blast straight to my face and fell unconscious.

"Roll a death save"
Rolled a 2.
On my next turn, I announced "If this is a 1, I'm toast."
Rolled a 1, obviously.

So my strong and proud barbarian didn't even get to die fighting. He just stood there for a while, got blasted into unconsiousness and then died. Thanks to 6 lousy rolls, 3 of which were 1s.

[Spo]

My table decided to use the crit tables to make things more interesting. Actually, when I voted for it I didn’t think it would apply to us if a monster crit’ed (duh).

Sure enough, one time my full health fighter ran into a tent to rescue someone only to be crit’ed by some little demon slashy thing. My dm has me roll on the crit chart to see how bad the crit I received was. I rolled a 20. Decapitation. All my party saw was me running into a tent and my head rolling out of it.

Fun times. Despite that though, I do recommend using the crit chart. It does make things more interesting.

[Unknown Artist]

One time when I was DMing a homebrew campaign, one of the players got ripped off in a magic item store after the shopkeeper decided to sell him a common magical item, but pretend it was a very rare one being sold for cheap.

The rest of the party wasn't there, so it was just one very angry chaotic evil halfling. The player scared off the shopkeeper with a 18 for intimidation, before trying to chase him through the magical door that led to plot stuff. i mentally decided that he would have to roll a nat 20 to get through without breaking the magic.

He was level 2 at the time, all alone, and the shopkeeper was a 4th level sorcerer. Even worse for him, the secret behind that door was a gigantic base in a demiplane connected to a 3 million year old dragon's lair. he rolled to break down the door.

Nat 20.

the magic activated and he found his way into a humungous library before, with another nat 20, uncovering the legendary and ridiculously powerful artefact of the Encyclopedia of All Things1 and using it to figure out how to find and kill the shopkeeper. 19 for arcana.

he followed many pathways to find the shopkeeper, and as soon as they found each other, he immediately started the fight. action surge, attack, nat 20, attack, 17, and the shopkeeper was dead before even being able to cast a single spell. He had singlehandedly, with many high rolls, uncovered the majority of what was meant to happen quite a few sessions later.

[stoutstien]

Not mine but I was DMing a game about 6 months back where a party of three lv 4 players where squared off vs 6 scorchbringer guards. Was looking pretty bleak until the halfling bard rerolled a Nat 1 into a 20 on throwing a dagger at one causing it to explode. I rolled max damage that blew up two more that took out the last 2. It also set fire to half the town.
To date it's been the most destructive dagger attack to date.

[Laserlight]

Our job was to recover some exotic circus animals that had run wild, where "exotic" included a T Rex. Junior, paladin of St Dale the Intimidator, didn't want to hurt the poor confused beast, so he strode up to it, stuck a finger in its face (as best he could, considering the height difference) and yelled "Sit!" Critted his Intimidate roll. T Rex sat. Junior mounted up and rode that critter back to the zoo.

Second incident:
The party was investigating a wrecked gnomish ship trapped in ice, when they found new character Thomas the Artificer. Seconds later, Thomas, Jesse the heavy armored cleric and Kris the paladin dropped into the ship's hold and awakened an unknown horror.
Jesse cast Banish and fled (crawling, because gnomes built the ship) toward the stern, hoping to find a ladder up to the topside before Banish wore off. Thomas followed. Kris tried to chop his way out through the hull, not realizing that he's below the water line. Sudden gush of icy water poured in, ran down the deck towards the stern. Jesse, who is on his belly groping in pitch blackness for a ladder, feels the rush of cold water and curses--in Deep Speech, because Common isn't sufficiently vile to express his emotions.
Thomas, who literally met Jesse thirty seconds before, does not recognize the voice but does recognize Deep Speech. Prone and firing blindly down the passageway, he points his rifle towards the sound of Deep Speech and fires at Disadvantage.
Double 20.
Jesse, astonished, aggrieved: "You SHOT me!"
Thomas "I thought you were a Mind Flayer!"
Jesse: "I'm never healing you again! "

[BloodSnake'sCha]

In a game I am running right now I have a new player playing a unicorn that was polymorphed into a human and here parents give her power in order to help her come back to her form(she is a warlock).

She play a character that only want to do good but she get so much critical hits and roll max damage on most of them. She try to help people but always brutally kill them with Eldrich Blast(I describe it as a hole in the chest and a small cloud of blood).


In Friday I run the same party(level 2) an undead mission (a very old past adventurer gave them some minor magic items he saved and ask them to clean a cult from his friend temple.

A single zombie was the longest fight as I never rolled less then 17 on his con save for dieing.

The funniest part was that he died from the same warlock crit.

[Aussiehams]

Some fun stories, but what I'm noticing most is how many people play with firearms. I didn't think it was very common.

[Misterwhisper]

In a pathfinder game, I was playing a Warrior of the holy light paladin super tank. Plot revolved around us returning a very powerful artifact to a high priest. However, anyone who looks directly at the artifact, must becomes entranced by the god trapped inside and obsessed with taking it to a hidden shrine somewhere else.

The group finally finds the artifact but someone beat us there and he pulls it out of his back and holds it above his head.

Dm: Ok, you are now all obsessed with taking it to the hissed temple.

Group: wait, no roll or anything.

Dm: it is the power of a god, so no.

Me: well no save is automatic, rolls die, nat 20 on the save. “I walk over and clock the their with my shield and put the artifact in my pack.”

Group is totally shocked as I suck at rolling dice, I had a long sword of keenness for 22 sessions and never crit once.

“Meh, my God is better”

And I walk back to town with the rest of the group trying to kill me but they just can’t hammer through my defense.

[Sindal]

Some fun stories, but what I'm noticing most is how many people play with firearms. I didn't think it was very common.

People like guns. Guns make people feel cool and powerful.

[Veldrenor]

I've got two from a campaign I'm DMing that'll be wrapping up next week. The party composition fluctuates a little bit, but the core 4 of our 6 players consists of a Paladin 2/Storm Sorcerer X, an Oathbreaker Paladin, a Hunter Ranger, and a Totem Barbarian/Battlemaster Fighter. The first moment comes from the Sorcadin:

The party had launched a full-on assault against the keep of one of the most powerful vampire families in the world. They were in the keep's throne room, doing battle with one of the current heads of the family. It had been a long fight, the vampire lord using a trick with Darkness cast on a ring to keep the party disoriented as he fed on them. He'd retreated up to the balcony overlooking the throne room to let his natural regen help for a round or two while they floundered in the dark. The ranger, finally figuring out the ring trick, summoned bats to grab it and carry it away so that the vampire lord couldn't make further use of it. Able to see the vampire lord for the first time since combat began, the Sorcadin cast Misty Step to get up above him, and brought his greatsword down in a Booming Blade. Nat 20, pumped his strongest remaining spell slot into it, and cleaved the vampire lord in two.

My other favorite crit moment came from the Barbarian. Before we get into it, the Barbarian has a magic dagger that does 2 things: it lets him cast Misty Step 1/short rest, and if he throws it he can use a bonus action to return it to his hand. So, the story:

The party had infiltrated a fancy gala celebrating the opening of a new exhibit at the Seafarer's Museum. The exhibit featured all manner of newly-unearthed artifacts, one of which was a magic whip that the Oathbreaker wanted. The items in the museum were protected by several enchantments: moving or damaging the glass would Mass Suggest that those nearby sit and wait to be manacled by the guards, touching or moving an artifact would set off a Symbol of Insanity, and doing either would alert the guards with an Alarm spell.

The Barbarian was not at the gala: he'd snuck off to one of the other wings of the museum. He owed a lot of money to a local crime boss, but his debt would be forgiven if he could steal a particular painting. He had gotten his hands on the painting but their team was not the only one working the gala: another thief set off one of the Mass Suggestion traps, using the Barbarian to distract the guards. The guards slapped the manacles on the Barbarian. His will was once again his own but fighting was out of the question: he only had his dagger, the manacles would put his attacks at disadvantage, and there was a good chance that some of the guards were supplied by the local vampire family. He cast Misty Step and took off running with the guards hot on his heels. Looking back, he threw the dagger with disadvantage at one of the exhibits as the guards ran past it. Both dice were nat 20s: the dagger shattered the glass and knock over the object inside. All the guards succumbed to either the Suggestion or the Glyph, the Barbarian called back his dagger, and he managed to escape before more guards could reach him.

[Finback]

me: 4e warforged knight, l2 or so
team mate: 4e changeling wizard, same level

Our other teammate was abducted by basically a vampire (a wizard corrupted by magical energy); Changeling casts a spell that takes localised debris, and turns it into shards, firing it into the vampzard's chest (doing small damage).
Vampzard decides to try to run past us all.
DM fails to realise I have a reaction for when an enemy moves into my range.
"I attack with my warhammer, aiming for the shards sticking from his chest"
*nat 20*

So that's how we took down the BBEG from our introductory adventure in the first round of combat.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Group: wait, no roll or anything.

Dm: it is the power of a god, so no.

Me: well no save is automatic, rolls die, nat 20 on the save.

Wait, what?

[Hruken]

Playing Tomb of Annihilation. We had saved a goblin from a trap (cut his arm off and healed him), and he was pressed into service as a porter for our noble paladin.

A session or two later, we hear a large creature coming our way. We decide to climb the trees to get out of the way. My arcana cleric, with his 8 str and no athletics, rolled a 1 to climb, then next round a 3. Everyone else gets into the trees no problem. The creature comes out and it's a zombie ankylosaur, combat ensues. We are hammering this thing, but it keeps saving versus my sacred flame and it won't fail its undead fortitude. Until the goblin's turn. He had thrown all of his throwing weapons already, and decided to throw his scimitar from the tree. No proficiency, and disadvantage from the distance. Two 20s, ankylosaur finally stays down.

[BullyWog]

Surrounded by enemies our Paladin challenged their boss to a duel. Their boss was a half dragon and things looked bleak. Pally gets initative and rolls really well. Now it looks better than impossible. Boss rolls fairly well and Pally is down to one hit point. He says"well, I'd better use my crit dice." He picks up a D20 that he hadn't used yet. Rolls a 20, rolls near max damage, with smite. Duel over!!!

[Misterwhisper]

Wait, what?

In pathfinder you automatically make a save on a 20, and auto fail on a 1.

You can crit make or fail a save.

[Mr. Crowbar]

Playing a GWM Paladin in a vampire-hunting campaign. With Full Plate and the spell Shield, I am hard to hit.

Vampire: [finally hit me for 9 damage] "HAH! Get on my level!"
Me: [power attacks with greatsword twice, critting once, bonus attacks for another critical with a combined 88 damage]
Me: "Get on WHOSE level???"

[NecessaryWeevil]

In pathfinder you automatically make a save on a 20, and auto fail on a 1.

You can crit make or fail a save.

Ah. What puzzled me, though, was the DM said there was no roll, and you responded by picking up the dice.

...not really my business, though. Sorry.

[sithlordnergal]

I was in an Epic for AL. In swoops this massive green dragon, and all of us get a single round of attacks on it. So up steps my paladin, who happened to have Haste cast on them, had Quicken Spell+Booming Blade, and was wielding a Flame Tongue Longsword. I use Quicken Spell for the Bonus Action Booming Blade...and managed to crit it. I then made my other three attacks, and got a second crit. As a result of these two crits, my paladin rolled a total of 40d8 radiant/slashing+12d6 fire+24 due to str mod*4.

Sadly the dragon did manage to survive my attacks, and proceeded to kill me because I had gotten its attention, but my team mates finished it off. We sadly did not get the most points from the Epic, but we were the table that killed the Dragon in the end

[Misterwhisper]

Ah. What puzzled me, though, was the DM said there was no roll, and you responded by picking up the dice.

...not really my business, though. Sorry.

Because he assumed it was too high to be made, in pathfinder that is not a rule.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Oh, got it.