Most awesome moments.

[Enlong]

So, anyone have any stories about times in their games when something happened, be it an encounter, a trap, or something else, that could only be described as freaking awesome?! If so, please tell.

I got my first big one just last week.

So I'm DMing a desert campaign, and the PCs are delving for a magic gem locked deep inside a mysterious cavern inside a mesa. The group consists of a kobold sorcerer, an Elf Ranger with a hippo for his animal companion, a cleric, a rogue, and an Elemental Champion (homebrew PRC focusing around one element for armor and weapons). When they make it to the bottom and take the gem from its plinth, the entire dungeon turns to sand and begins a slow collapse. So the PCs run. The Kobold flies and the ranger runs. The other 3 PCS? They pile onto the Ranger's hippo, who carries them crazy fast. So they charge down the hall and back to the stairs. They make it back to the labyrinth room with a wall of sand following close behind. With the magic holding the walls together gone, the PCs take the most awesome use of the brute force method ever. They have the hippo charge at the walls and bust through the sand (strong hippo). So what did we have? The PCs busting through wall after wall of the labyrinth on a hippo, with a wall of sand chasing them.
And I count that as the single most awesome thing my group has done in-game. It doesn't sound like much mechanically, but the mental image is just amazing.

[Szilard]

I remember you mentioning that you were making that dungeon...

One of my awesomeist times is when I, with the help of the other PC's, blew off the top of the dungeon as well as hill it was on. This was made possible by a bowling ball sized bomb, a wand of enlarge, a gargantuan slingshot, and a fireball spell. We were level one.:smalltongue:

Then again, the DM changed almost every rule in the book. Another time, still level one, this etheral filcher grab's our sorcerer. I send a scorching ray, which is really 4 smaller scorching rays, and roll three criticals, in this game, we didn't have to confirm them, so I incinerated the filcher.

[Hadessniper]

I was playing an in an epic lvl game and we just got to the big boss fight against an elder titan. I roll my first attack and I get a nat 20, I had just taken devastating critical for my last feat, but with a +47 to fort the dm didn't think I had a chance of an instant kill but the dm rolls his save and got a nat 1. I still can't believe I 1 hit an elder titan it was so sweet.

[themocaw]

Not D&D, this was Mekton Zeta (Jovian Chronciles Setting), but still awesome.

The PCs were Jovian Confederation pilots attending a formal dinner on board a passenger liner, when the liner was attacked by pirates. In a running, two hour battle, the PCs managed to fight back the pirates, retake the ship's bridge, then board their exo-Armors and fight off, then destroy, the Pirate ship.

At the end of that battle, everyone realized that they hadn't bothered to change their clothes. So they had basically beaten down an entire ship of pirates while wearing tuxedoes and evening dresses.

Much humming of the James Bond theme ensued. :)

[horngeek]

Not D&D, this was Mekton Zeta (Jovian Chronciles Setting), but still awesome.

The PCs were Jovian Confederation pilots attending a formal dinner on board a passenger liner, when the liner was attacked by pirates. In a running, two hour battle, the PCs managed to fight back the pirates, retake the ship's bridge, then board their exo-Armors and fight off, then destroy, the Pirate ship.

At the end of that battle, everyone realized that they hadn't bothered to change their clothes. So they had basically beaten down an entire ship of pirates while wearing tuxedoes and evening dresses.

Much humming of the James Bond theme ensued. :)

THAT! IS! AWESOME!

[kc0bbq]

Over the Edge:

The group were all Ares gangmembers (think hard partying Odinist bikers with a rather large interest in astrology). We were investigating some satanists who were invading Flowers Barrio, and came across a safehouse that held a lot of drugs they were selling to finance their activities.

My friend decided to try the stuff out to see if it was any good. Dedicated to partying and always trying to one-up the universe he started with Blue Shock. Blue Shock essentially heightens your senses - to an absurd degree. Street rumors claim it can cause spontaneous human combustion.

Then he took Nightmare. Nightmare comes from something called a Tulpa. Tulpas are a psychic copy of a living creature, or more accurately, a copy of what people around the Tulpa think the person they are copying is like. So if a Tulpa is around a person who thinks the Tulpa is a mass murderer, they take on those characteristics. Nightmare is a refinement of their waste products - bluntly, psychic poop. It causes the user to experience the worst that their brain can come up with. Your mind lives out it's worst nightmares.

He did die in battle, at least with his own demons, which didn't last too long. He lost. They pretty much just snuck up behind him and fired off a nuke. Wasn't much to do but bring the body down to Ahmed's Kwik-Klinik for a finder's fee on whatever organs were salvageable. Bought a few rounds of beer in his honor at least.

The only thing that could have made this "I've got to play my character" suicide better was if there had been some Slo-Mo to go with the drug cocktail, but since the drug laws are actually enforced on that one it's a little tough to find. You tend to end up a medical experment if you are suspected of having some Slo-Mo. I've never even had to think about what would happen when you mix the effects of Slo-Mo (massive increase in the rate at which nerve cells fire) with either of those other drugs.

I love that game.

[Revanmal]

One particular moment stands out ATM. A party consisting of a Thri-Kreen barbarian, a gnome wizard, human fighter/PrC-of-some-kind, and a Tiefling rogue. The party had just realized they'd been double-crossed by a treacherous king who had hired them to steal the MacGuffin for his own purposes. The party hand managed to take him down as well as his throne guards, 4 of them, each using a double bladed sword.

Unfortunately, a small army was headed their way and the only way out was a window drop 200 ft. to the bay below. To stall for time, the Barbarian picks up the four swords, one in each hand, and stands in the guards' way. He initiated an Intimidate check - natural 20.

The Thri-Kreen becomes a whirling typhoon of blades, slicing gouges in the floor, spinning the blades so fast they hum. He plants two into the floor straight up in the air while the other two spin in his hands.

"Run, you maggots. Run..."

They ran.

[kladams707]

There's a select few. In a 2e game, I played a gnome illusionist based off of the actual ruler of the universe (from ultimate hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy). Being confused, he joined w/ the party's other gnome illusionist to beat on the party's misbehaving, thief (that also poisoned himself).

In a practice 2e session, I played a thief and teamed up w/ the wizard for a sneak attack/shocking grasp combo. We killed an old witch, her 5 year old daughter (she threatened to tell the authorities), and I ran down little timmy b/c he tried to steal from us.

In a Gurps game, I played a superspy who could change his appearance. I stole from another party member by convincing him to hold onto his money (the character gave himself a 7 intelligence and named himself Matt Damon), aka Apples. He also died by my hands b/c a T800 tried to use him as a meat shield and I shot him (one of my disadvantages was callous), after I told the T800 the only reason I hadn't fired was b/c Apples wasn't worth the bullet.

FInally, in a 3.5 game, I was playing a rogue/cleric. Why, I have no idea. I just wanted to see if I could rise to the challenge (and I did decent for a non-optimized character). At one point in the game, we were walking at night and we saw a silhouette in the distance. Thinking it was a bandit waiting for an ambush, I used create water in an attempt to flush him out. Turns out it was some sort of genie trapped in stone. The DM's plan was for us to come to the "statue" and read a riddle, to which the answer would be "water". It offered us one wish, and since our fighter took our money and disappeared, what better wish than for him to bring our fighter back to us on a pike.

[THAC0]

We were going through this dungeon that consisted of fighting dragons on their own ground sort of thing. We had two DMs at the time and they tested the dungeon ahead of time to make sure that it was (mostly) beatable, but there was this one encounter that they absolutely could not figure out how to beat - TPK every time. Of course, they decided to run it anyway and see what we would do.

The set up was that there were several baby dragons in a room with a bell - when the adventurers showed up, they'd ring the bell a number of times equal to the number of adventurers. The way to the big dragon's lair was through a narrow tunnel half filled with water (conveniently, exactly the length of the dragons electrical breath weapon).

Through sheer luck we managed to kill the baby dragons when they had only had a chance to ring the bell once. Again, through sheer luck (we thought the bell was just a general alarm, not a number specific one!), we sent the thief to scout out the tunnel alone. The dragon, thinking that there was only one adventurer, BBQed her like no one's business, but then we were able to surprise it in a huge moment of Awesome.

[Sanzh]

This was Star Wars d20, but our DM mixed in a lot of other stuff. I'm a 6th level warblade (please don't ask how it makes sense-- it doesn't), accompanied by a psion and an assassin. We're on Tatooine, when a squadron of TIE fighters comes down, trying to strafe us.
Our Psion knows telekinesis (which is insanely powerful because our DM doesn't interpret it well). So we end up flinging my character at one of the TIE fighters.
I proceed to dislodge the pilot and start firing on the other fighters. I fail pretty much every attack roll, but we manage to win thanks to long-range death attacks. Still, leaping into a TIE fighter is fairly awesome.

[Scaboroth]

This was in an old 2nd-Ed D&D game, way way way back in the day. We had just got a hold of the new Psionics book, and were itching to test out the powers. So I had my two players each make some ridiculously-powerful characters, 20th level each. Just to test them out, as the first random encounter I had a Great Wyrm Red Dragon fly by and decide to strafe them. As it was approaching, the psychokineticist reached out with his telekinesis, blew a wad of power points, and crushed the dragon's head in his psychic fist like an overripe tomato.

I knew they would be scary characters, but I had no idea how much potential abuse was really to be found in psionics.

[DeathBD]

These are really just the best of my first session... Which was really this morning. The DM was Lycan01, who hasn't posted in a long time 'cause his computers busted. Anyway...

Me - a level 1 half-elf ranger
K - level 1 eladrin rogue

Me - I'll explore the rest of the cave
DM - you see a spear sticking out of a skeleton at the end of the cave.
Me - Alright, I'll take the spear.
DM - Ok, K, you look into the pool of water and see a small fish that lives in the cave.
K - Oh! I spear it with my dagger! *rolls a 2* Damn.
Me - Hmm... I wanna throw the dagger all the way down the cave and spear the fish.
DM - What? Really?
Me - Yeah. *rolls a nat 20* HAH!
DM - ...You throw the spear towards the pool of water, spearing the fish and pinning it to the dirt in the side of the pool.


*Fighting a Kobold Skirmisher with seven HP left*
Me - I cast Magic Missile. (Took it as the skill for the Delattante racial trait) *proceeds to cast magic missile point-blank at the skirmisher that would cause 12 damage*
DM - You put your hands on the Kobold's chest and your magic missile shreds straight through it's body, bits and pieces of kobold rain down on K and the remaining Kobold, leaving two wholes in the Skirmishes chest. The Skirmisher looks at you in it final second of life, clinging to you until its eyes finally roll back into its head and its grasp weakens. It falls down to the ground.
Us - O_o

We then proceeded to go to the nearest town where, for lack of money, I held up an old store owner. I bluffed and intimidated my way into causing him a heart attack. We then looted the store. Hah!

[The_Werebear]

The Elf Bomb.

The situation- The BBEG, a mage of near deific proportions, is hovering over a battle, aiding his army and blasting ours. The PC's for this story consist of a Elf Barbarian (TWF), Dwarven Transmuter (Me), Bard/Sublime Chord), Human Sorcerer, Elf Rogue/Scout, and I believe a human Knight. We don't know what to do about this mage. He is about 40 feet off the ground, I am out of ranged attack spells and dispels, he is warded against everything the sorcerer can throw at him, and half our party can't reach him. Desperate for ideas, I look at my spell list and see I have Telekinesis prepped.

While our army blows up around us, I explain my idea- I hurl the elf at the mage, who attempts to overload his flight spell and drag him to the ground. The elf has already been buffed into living blender by me, so he should present a credible enough threat to the mage, especially since psychotic flying elves are probably not something he has a contingency for. Then the rest of the party gets in on the act. The sorcerer fills the elf's pockets with sequential delayed blast (energy subbed to sonic) fireballs. The bard tosses on a few extra boosts. The Knight charges off, creating a huge distraction for the BBEG. The rogue climbs onto the Barbarian's back and readies tanglefoot bags. The Barbarian Rages. Then, I launch him.

I somehow manage to not flub the attack (and it helped that the mage was distracted by the knight rampaging through his troops), and get the elf barbarian to the hovering mage. The Rogue leaps off, hitting the enemy mage with a tanglefoot, but sticking herself to him with a truly epic failure of a roll. The Barbarian opens up with his readied full attack. He is so magicked up at this point that his sheer volume of attacks and damage punctures the mage's protections and DR and knocks him down past his contingency point (1/4 of his HP left), at which point he poofs back to his citadel, dragging the rogue. Meanwhile, the blast goes off on the now falling elf, destroying the rest of the BBEG's magical bodyguard and breaking the back of his army (seven 17d6 sonic balls will do that) The elf somehow survives this and the fall, landing in the crater left by the blast. Before the army can surge over him, I teleport in with the Sublime Chord, who slaps a healing song on him.

At the Citadel, the Rogue is still glued to the BBEG. The DM rules that she can make a sneak attack, then they roll initiative. She manages to hit and wound badly, since his defenses were shredded by the barb. She then manages to win initiative by one point and make a full round of sneak attacks, which take the BBEG down by somewhere in the range of two points of damage.

ON the battlefield, we are mopping up when the BBEG's spells all fade at once. Making a guess as to what happened, I try to teleport to the citadel of the enemy to find the rogue cutting her hands off the mage's dead body. I grab her before the tower goes Mordor, and we flee scot free.

Safe to say, the DM was not expecting that one. Sometimes, the crazy stupid tactics are the real winners.

[DemonSlayer]

As a player: In SW RPG, I was playing the role of an intelligent droideka (don't ask), the GM was playing the role of a jedi master.

Jedi master: To put it bluntly, you're a threat.
Droideka: To put it bluntly, you're not.

After the abuse my previous character had been getting (a computer expert among jedi-masters and bounty hunters who could stand up to said jedi masters), that's the award-winning moment.

As a DM: In D&D 3.5, two players insisted on playing the roles of Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth Swann (again, don't ask). At some point Jack died. At the hands of a Kraken, I might add (an encounter I had prepared long before the players even knew I was going to do a campaign). In a one-on-one with the player, I describe Jack's experience in the afterlife.

He gets to meet Davy Jones. On the Flying Dutchman. I made Jack literally bargain for his life with Davy Jones. It was tense.

[Quirinus_Obsidian]

Simple, yet effective.

One of my more interesting characters was a Sidewinder monk (Dragon 331) with the Vow of Poverty, and the Decisive Strike variant from PHB2 (basically trades Flurry for a single strike that does double damage).

Fighting this random set of enemies, when their wizard decides to come out of hiding. See, we have a traditional Barbarian Tank, a Wilder (psionic blaster), a "rouge-ish" character that was unconscious, and myself. The Tank is down for the count, the Wilder is hiding. I am outside in the battle with some mooks and then the wizard shows up. I am able to spot him, he does not spot me. See, the Sidewinder monk has Sneak Attack like a rogue. So, this is essentially a surprise round for him. I am able to sneak up behind him (he was around the corner within 5 ft), and Decisive Strike him in the back of the head. I crit (and the multiplers stack) with Sneak Attack. basically, his head exploded from the strike (which ended up doing almost twice his max HP).

[RebelRogue]

I was running Tomb of Horrors with my friends, and after having found the right entrance, the fighter/rogue spends a fair amount of time looking for traps. After finding and neutralizing two or so, the party orc druid decides to summon a rhinoceros and make it charge into the corridor. Miraculously, the rhino somehow makes all of its Reflex saves to avoid the numerous trap doors in the hall until it finally plunges into the last one, right in front of the infamous devil face. Screams of pain are heard as the druid dismisses the spell! That just had us laughing for a while :smallsmile:

[KazilDarkeye]

My group was trekking through Yuan-Ti Forest and had split into 2 parties. This story consists of one party:
NPC: Human (Archery) Ranger
My Friend: Duergar Barbarian
My Sister: Aasimar Bard.

They were walking along when they heard two voices calling out to them

Yuan-Ti: Tresspasserssssss will be killed...
Bard: Hey, they are about 180 f.t away, right?
Me (DM): Yeah, about.
Bard: So we can do stuff before they get here?
Me: Yeah, you could hide.
Barbarian: Not a bad idea.
Bard: I'm gonna cast some spells.
Me: Sure
Bard: First I'll cast Light on my headband.
Me: Right...
Bard: Next I'll cast Summon Monster to summon a Celestial Owl, and cast Light on it as well.
Me: Right....
Bard: I'll tell it to hold on to my back.
Me:O.K.....
Bard: Now I'm gonna use Bardic Knowledge. What's the name of a REALLY powerful angel?
Me: I dunno.....Celestius?
Bard: That's a boy's name.
Me: Fine.......Celestia?
Bard: Great. Now Bluff check (natural 20)
STOP! I AM CELESTIA!

.................................................. ...................................
:smalleek:
<Yuan-Ti start bowing>

Posted this on a different thread, but it was pretty awesome. That same bard also managed to give a troll diorrhea earlier.

[HardboiledJJ]

In pure melodrama/cheese fashion, the BBEG was going to sacrifice an NPC "chosen one" as the stars reached their zenith to gain big new nasty powers.

We fight our way up through BBEG's temple, all the while the DM is giving hints at how time is fleeting. Unfortunately I'm the rogue, and let's just say my dice hate me. In four consecutive trap/disable device scenarios I not only failed but fumbled. Needless to say we wasted ALOT of time.

We reach the top-the chosen is magically bound and helpless on a sacrificial table and rays of light are already shining down onto her from a maelstrom above. We've totally botched things, but the DM gives us the benefit of 5 rounds before the stars are fully in place.

BBEG and his elite mooks start tearing us a new one. Our cleric is already dead, and BBEG kills the wizard in round 2. I die in round 4. Come round 5 all that's left standing is BBEG, "chosen one" and Okk-our half-orc barbarian. He looks at the BBEG, he looks at the maelstrom, he looks at the "chosen one".

He coup de gras the "chosen one"

Everyone around the table gives the exact same confused look BBEG must be giving. Okk gives BBEG the finger and says "No power for you."

Our table laughs for 5 minutes, and then the DM interjects "Yeah, but he totally kills you. Like. . .really hard. . ."

[RebelRogue]

In pure melodrama/cheese fashion, the BBEG was going to sacrifice an NPC "chosen one" as the stars reached their zenith to gain big new nasty powers.

We fight our way up through BBEG's temple, all the while the DM is giving hints at how time is fleeting. Unfortunately I'm the rogue, and let's just say my dice hate me. In four consecutive trap/disable device scenarios I not only failed but fumbled. Needless to say we wasted ALOT of time.

We reach the top-the chosen is magically bound and helpless on a sacrificial table and rays of light are already shining down onto her from a maelstrom above. We've totally botched things, but the DM gives us the benefit of 5 rounds before the stars are fully in place.

BBEG and his elite mooks start tearing us a new one. Our cleric is already dead, and BBEG kills the wizard in round 2. I die in round 4. Come round 5 all that's left standing is BBEG, "chosen one" and Okk-our half-orc barbarian. He looks at the BBEG, he looks at the maelstrom, he looks at the "chosen one".

He coup de gras the "chosen one"

Everyone around the table gives the exact same confused look BBEG must be giving. Okk gives BBEG the finger and says "No power for you."

Our table laughs for 5 minutes, and then the DM interjects "Yeah, but he totally kills you. Like. . .really hard. . ."
That was made of pure awesome! :smallbiggrin:

[LibraryOgre]

A few selected ones...

In a Rifts game, I was playing a Shifter turned Witch turned Techno-wizard (he'd made a pact with a demon lord, then reneged on it). When the demon lord came to collect his due (he wanted the life of someone we'd just saved), I opened a Rift for the rest of the party to escape through, then stood up to him. The GM did a fade to black as my character shouted a battle cry and charged... we knew he was dead, but he died cool.

In one game, we were in a Gatetown in the Outlands. They had just about reached the point of sliding into Arcadia when a Baatezu attacked, possessed the corpse of a noted Paladin, and started a panic which was keeping them from sliding by encouraging chaotic action. My bard stood up and gave a speech, reminding them to remain true to their conviction and to lawful actions. Combined with the party putting down the baatezu, my bard was able to force them to shift to Arcadia.

[Drammel]

So our party of an Orc Cleric, Dwarf Wizard, and a Halfling Druid (me) are wandering around the dungeon and come across a sleeping Elf on a bed. A few divination spells and detect magic reveals that the elf is heavily cursed and we should keep far away from her. The DM actually states, 'really you don't want to mess with this'.

However, I'm not playing a particularly intelligent character. I am also familiar with the 'enchanted sleeping maiden' trope of the fantasy genre, and decide to break the curse by kissing the elf. My halfling instantly falls asleep, the elf wakes up, sees the orc and runs away screaming.

At this point our spellcasters have no way of even coming close to breaking this curse so they get inventive. They take my animal companion, a boar, and after a little struggle holding onto it press its lips against mine. Boar falls asleep, I wake up. Our orc is left carrying around a large chunk of sleeping bacon since my character insists that he cannot live without his best friend.

A short walk down the corridor (in search of the elf) later and we discover another reason that messing with the curse was a bad idea. A manticore was guarding the cursed elf and is now barreling down the corridor at us. Apparently we set off an encounter we weren't supposed to be having for another few levels.

The orc then asks a simple question: "Can I make a touch attack with an improvised weapon"? The DM says "uh sure" and the orc says "Excellent I attack the manticore with the pig."

After looking up some rules on spell resistance and making an attack of opportunity on the boar, our orc successfully makes a touch attack against the manticore's lips. The manticore drops and we coup de gras the living daylights out of it. Curse broken.

[Vorpal Soda]

Playing in a rather silly campaign where normal vehicles and jet cars co-exist, and the world is filled with robot mercenary groups and street racers who bind demons to their cars to give them an edge in racing. The BBEG was a former street racer who decided to use the demon power to gain untold amounts of power and effectively become a god among mortals.

After erasing most vehicles, equipment, locations and people in a large amount of explosions, gunfire, and the occasional high speed pursuit, the BBEG was eventually slain. The BBEG had lots of friends among the cultural elite, and so had a respectful funeral, with a special song chosen to be played at the event. I secretly swapped the CD with one that had this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6iT-lMgfAI) song on it instead.