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AslanCross
2008-09-21, 05:55 PM
We all have our awesome stories, as the Epic Deaths and Crowning Moments of Awesome threads show. However, sometimes, there are just those times that through sheer stupidity or misfortune we end up in a situation that is just disappointing. Our brain refuses to register just how much of a failure the outcome is.

This may overlap with PC deaths, but it also includes DM stupidity. (Which I will admit in my case.)

First story: Batman Fail
The PCs are up against a Rakshasa. Knowing that it has spell resistance, the wizard is forced to use conjuration spells against it. The rest of the party has a lot of difficulty hurting it due to its damage reduction. Now the wizard is being played by an alternate player who has a head for optimization. As such, he knows how Batman works. He prepared the Wizard's spells accordingly.

Unfortunately, even Logic Ninja's guide couldn't help him. He cast true strike to ensure his chances of planting an orb of cold firmly in the Rakshasa's backside. He then casts orb of cold on his next turn while the other PCs struggle to subdue the beast.

And he rolls a natural 1.

The expression on his face was one of such utter horror. His universe, where Wizards reign supreme, shattered into tiny little bits, much like the window he just froze a giant snowflake pattern into with the orb. He saw the horror of the great beyond---the horror of Murphy and his iron grip on the most important gaming variable of all: Luck.

Pirate Fail

In the other thread I posted about the PCs tearing up the pirates. Unfortunately for the pirates, their swashbuckling really wasn't up to par, and they'd contributed heavily to their own demise. Their captain was daring---but was just pathetic.

The pirate ship rammed the PC ship, and the pirate captain climbed to the top of their rear mast, directing his minions from below. When his next turn came about, he cut one of his ropes and swung to the PC ship.

Now the ramming had locked the PC ship into a permanent 45 degree angle (the ships were stuck together). As the captain swung straight into the middle of the fray. Since he has to make a Reflex save to land properly, I roll.
And he rolls badly, slipping as he hits the tilted deck, and slips over the edge of the ship. Thankfully he successfully grabs the edge on his second reflex save, and hangs precariously.

The PC ranger, with a smirk on her face, walks over to the captain and begins stabbing him. The captain manages to pull himself up, however, (getting stabbed in the process again), and then ends up on the deck. In vain, he tries to duel the ranger, but she's just way out of his league and wounds him significantly.

The PC Wizard sees the scuffle, and decides to take out the captain once and for all. He casts baleful polymorph.

Pirate captain rolls a natural 1.

In a "rainbow of biology" (Wizard's actual words of how his spell acted), the captain shrank rather painfully into a snail.

The pirate gunner, a hobgoblin, was wearing chainmail when he waded into the melee. Since he was a warblade, I didn't bother putting ranks in Swim.
The ranger (multiclassed to Swordsage) later threw him off the ship with Mighty Throw.

He sank like a stone.

So, do you have your own Epic Fail stories?

Lycan 01
2008-09-21, 06:18 PM
Wow, did I start a trend? :smallbiggrin:

Nice stories... XD


Ya'll know that Silent Hill CoC campaign I was thinkin' about? Well... we started it yesterday. :smallamused:

And BOY, did it have its moments...

One guy's gun jammed while fighting Pyramid Head. Luckily, it was just a stovepipe jam, and he removed it with a Mech. Repair roll.

One guy was stuck in a trash can where he'd tried to hide from some monsters that spit acid. They spotted him, and began puking acid on the trash can. He rolled to escape (I forgot what skill), and barely failed. I ruled that he managed to knock over the can - and discovered that he was stuck. So just imagine a large African-American Iraq War veteran named Eagle squirming around in a metal trash can while freaky creatures puke acid on said trash can. Sad, isn't it? Thankfully, another player appeared out of nowhere and yanked him free seconds later...


We had two extreme failures though. The first:

A 00-0 on a kick roll.

I said her character tried to drop kick the monster, but it turned its head away at the last second. She suddenly found herself flying at nothing, and upon landing twisted her ankle. The result? A loss of 1 HP, and her speed was reduced... somebody first-aided her though, so I said they massaged her ankle to where she could move somewhat faster...

But the best failure yesterday?

Somebody tried to punch Pyramid Head. But they forgot that there was a metal door between them.

Ol' Pyramid Head had his sword through the door, and was swinging it around a la the Silent Hill movie in an attempt to kill the 4 PCs he'd stumbled across. So Eagle (Yep, the guy from the trash can incident) in question succeeded at a Dodge roll to avoid the sword, and succeeded at his Fist roll.

Too bad there was a door in the way.

Also, its too bad that Pyramid Head succeeded at his Grapple roll.

Pyramid Head let go of his sword with one hand, reached through the gap he'd created, and grabbed Eagle by the shirt. He then began to yank him against the door repeatedly. Five smashes later, he hurled Eagle backwards, and went back to swinging the sword.

Eagle's "success" cost him 5 HP and 1 Appearance point from the broken nose he recieved.



I can't wait for next Saturday. :smallamused:

Hal
2008-09-21, 06:27 PM
I'll leave my story at this: Never allow your players to have a vorpal blade. It absolutely guarantees that they will behead all of the most inappropriate creatures. High level encounters, important NPCs, the BBEG . . . your players will suddenly start rolling like they had fixed dice.

Everyone knows this. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html)

Brauron
2008-09-21, 09:12 PM
I've already told the story of the Epic Fall...So here's one from a one-shot Pulp game I ran last year:

The PCs are a group of, well, basically super heroes working for the US Government (think a 1930s version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and had infiltrated a Nazi base to rescue a kidnapped rocket scientist and said scientist's gorgeous daughter.

Listen checks told them that there was a room full of Nazis on the other side of a door. Sergeant Chuck Stake, a Great War vet of tremendous physical strength and endurance, declares that he is going to kick in the door and strafe the room with his Tommy gun.

Nat 20 Strength check. Door flies inward as if it were blasted in with dynamite. Chuck Stake steps into the room, screams, "DIE, FRITZ!" and swings his Thompson submachine gun back and forth, holding the trigger down.

Nat 1 on the attack roll. Nat 3 on the confirm roll.

The gun has jammed, and 20 Nazis are staring at Sgt. Chuck Stake.

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 09:32 PM
So I was DMing this one game, like right? The PCs notice some undead building an unholy shrine far off of the road they're on and go to investigate. They follow a few of the fleeing ones back to a cave where a druid and a warlock tag team them into critical hp. And I didn't realize it. One casting of Arc Lightning later and the PC with the +3 LA is down and smoking (she was a tree fey thing.) She accepts this well enough and since it's early in the evening, I tell her to roll up a new character.

The remaining PCs investigate the cave, finding all manner of evil things and clear them out well enough. For some reason, I thought that reintroducing the other PC at this time would be a good idea. To add to my obliviousness, one of the other PCs is a known jackass about roleplaying, playing his character "realistically" and reacting as most normal people do, which is not conducive to intro'ing new PCs. So what happens? New PC finds her way to the cave entrance and JPC treats her as immediately hostile. This in and of itself is not bad, but a) he knew it was PCB and b) he took all of her gear and used her as a human shield when fighting a blue dragon later on, going so far as to throw her in the path of the rampaging beast.

She was pissed at me for a good while afterward. (Less so for him; she kind of expected that kind of behavior from him at that point.)

This reminds me of another moment which thankfully wasn't my fault. I'm DMing another game with these same two PCs. One makes a character with a backstory involving her romantic history and how every man she's met has abused her somehow except for her best friend and her family. Now she despises most men on sight and rarely talks to strangers unless her paladin friend is close by. The other PC made a sorcerer and asked me how to roleplay a high charisma effectively. He took my definition of "confident and assertive" to mean high school jock stereotype.

Guess. Just freaking guess.

EDIT:
Oops. Forgot one.

Same fricking JPC and moron-DM, right? Well, JPC's race hates centaurs and, after taking him aside and begging him to hold back on racial prejudices in game (which he agreed to,) I introduced another PC in as a centaur. This goes well enough for the initial session. The centaur's the prisoner of some evil orcish supremacist cult and we end there. When we come back, the JPC has pilfered through the cult's gear closet and taken possession of all of the centaur's stuff including his spell book. Nothing any one says convinces him to give it back and so, everyone (centaur in reluctant tow) travels onward hoping this thing will eventually resolve itself.

Nope. JPC tries to sell the spellbook (hoping the DM will DM-fiat the thing back into the centaur's hands via black market channels) and a bunch of real-world conflicts between several of the PCs come to a head. campaign disintegrated on the spot.

EPIC COHESION FAIL FOR EVARYBUDDY!!!!

drengnikrafe
2008-09-21, 09:46 PM
I don't have any good stories, but I feel a strong urge to post anyway...

So I'll tell the closest thing I have. I hope you guys don't mind that it's only mild fail.

Our level 1 party's first encounter. We were in the middle of a forest when a wolf attacks us. Most of us charge at it, and, a couple of failed spot checks later, have 2 more wolves at our back.
You know how Wolves get a Trip of Opportunity because they can drag people down when they bite them? Guess who wasn't able to run away when his health dropped to critical because he was prone. I'll give you a hint. It starts with a "m", and it ends with a "eandI'mstillsortofannoyedatit".

Lycan 01
2008-09-21, 09:52 PM
Guru, I would "Rock falls, everyone dies" your group in a heartbeat. XD

(I actually did that Saturday. It was more of a joke, though, since we were only 2 minutes into my new campaign. Everyone stopped messin' around, though, and we continued on from that point with ease.)


Oh, right. A week ago, a failed Luck roll resulted in one of my players deepthroating a stalagtite. Another failed luck roll later, and 3 grenades on his belt exploded from the impact, reducing him to ash. More of an Epic Death than an Epic Fail, really...

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 10:17 PM
Guru, I would "Rock falls, everyone dies" your group in a heartbeat. XD

(I actually did that Saturday. It was more of a joke, though, since we were only 2 minutes into my new campaign. Everyone stopped messin' around, though, and we continued on from that point with ease.)


Oh, right. A week ago, a failed Luck roll resulted in one of my players deepthroating a stalagtite. Another failed luck roll later, and 3 grenades on his belt exploded from the impact, reducing him to ash. More of an Epic Death than an Epic Fail, really...

That large crab must have been vaporized. Wait, would that maybe cause a cave collapse? Three grenades underneath a roof with suddenly falling stalactites?

Thanks for the e-support on the group (unless I'm included, in which case you can go take a flying fail. :smallbiggrin:) I might have eventually done that because the conflicts were getting on everyones' nerves. Too bad it busted prematurely. I have dysfunctional friends. Or at least used to. I grajima-ayted. :smallfrown:

Lycan 01
2008-09-21, 10:22 PM
Actually, it did cause a cave-in. The crab-thing (I guess you read about that detail in another thread...) was impaled by the stalagtite (I'm talkin' semi-trailer sized chunk of rock, here...), which caused its death... the explosions didn't really effect it that much. But moments later, the roof started falling, and the players had to high-tail it out of there.


Oh, one guy fainted from seeing his buddy get smooshed/obliterated, so they dragged him out. They pulled him over a few rock piles, though, so he lost HP and 1 Appearance point from having a sharp rock gouge out a large gash from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his jaw. (It followed his laugh line all the way down, essentially...) I'm suprised he didn't die from being saved, actually... XD


And no, you would not have been included in that avalanche of DM rage. :P

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 10:45 PM
Actually, it did cause a cave-in. The crab-thing (I guess you read about that detail in another thread...) was impaled by the stalagtite (I'm talkin' semi-trailer sized chunk of rock, here...), which caused its death... the explosions didn't really effect it that much. But moments later, the roof started falling, and the players had to high-tail it out of there.

Yeah, I read the other thread's story and I remembered that avatar. (So, no, not a stalker or a RL acquaintance. Just a random Internet dude. With omniscience. Yeah, you think on that one for a second.)

I forget, what caused that semi-trailer-seized thing to fall again?

Lycan 01
2008-09-21, 11:19 PM
A critical hit with an elephant gun, IIRC...

And it was only fitting that the shooter and the dead guy had a rivalry going up until that point...

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 11:27 PM
A critical hit with an elephant gun, IIRC...

And it was only fitting that the shooter and the dead guy had a rivalry going up until that point...

I remember reading about that rivalry. A fitting end to any rivalry if I may say so. I'd almost cry unrealistic except I've seen an elephant gun at work and I nearly died of fright. That, miniguns and seeing the aftermath of a bomb are all far more frightening than most people think. (On the lighter side, ever play GC's Eternal Darkness? Their handling of elephant gun mechanics is hilarious.)

Lycan 01
2008-09-21, 11:33 PM
I'm waiting for the day somebody finds a 50 cal. rifle and tries to use it... without bracing. :D


Hm. Mental note: Hide a 50 cal. rifle in a random house in the Silent Hill campaign. I'll say its some gun afficianados or a crazy survivalist's house... The catch? Its only got one bullet... and if it isn't bolted down, it'll break both of the shooter's arms.

I'm a sick, sick Keeper...


And no, I haven't played Eternal Darkness. But dangit, I want to! >.<

thegurullamen
2008-09-21, 11:51 PM
And no, I haven't played Eternal Darkness. But dangit, I want to! >.<

It would give you the most wonderful ideas! Cthulu and Xel'lo'tath are bosom buddies. And you can invoke the latter's madness to save the world! Heeheehee! Everybody wants to save the world!! Whee!! Lalalalalalalalalala.... What Corpse God? Wheeeeee!!!!

That game messes you up.

Speaking of Epic Fail, this epic digression might almost qualify. Derail fail. Sorry OP.

monty
2008-09-21, 11:54 PM
We're in the middle of a Tomb of Horrors game right now (only one death so far!) and the now-former paladin hit a bit of a streak of bad luck.

Possible minor spoilers follow.

The party consisted of a wizard (me), sorcerer, warmage, cleric, archivist (with a level of Contemplative for the Kobold domain, so he's the trapmonkey), knight, and paladin. We were approaching a hallway with a red path and uncolored stone tiles. Before we could search for traps, the paladin took off on the stone tiles and promptly fell into a pit trap. I flew in and pulled him out, and after a bit of healing, he took off again - and hit a second pit trap. I saved him again, and he continued to fall into a third trap (the archivist saved him this time). He seemed to have learned his lesson, so he went onto the red path and continued on. You can guess where the fourth trap was. He finally managed to make a save, though, so no rescuing was required.

Once we finally got through that room, the paladin walked through the gender/alignment reversal door.

Beleriphon
2008-09-22, 12:58 AM
The adventure in the back of the Eberron Campaign setting book. Four character, one warforged. Four characters end at the bottom of Sharn's towers. Thats right, all four of them died in the first encounter, because of eight critical hits in a row.

AslanCross
2008-09-22, 03:35 AM
The adventure in the back of the Eberron Campaign setting book. Four character, one warforged. Four characters end at the bottom of Sharn's towers. Thats right, all four of them died in the first encounter, because of eight critical hits in a row.

...ouch. :smalleek: I'd feel that. Physically.

SoD
2008-09-22, 04:07 AM
I remember one lot I know of. You know who you are. They'd managed to capture a villian who was a known vampire. So, what do they do? Do they kill him? No, they knock him into submission, and drag him with them to the next town, where they leave him in a cell, and then went on a quest for the major.

They left. A vampire. In a town cell. And then returned to the small town...oh dear, that did not end well.

Justin_Bacon
2008-09-22, 04:29 AM
I'll leave my story at this: Never allow your players to have a vorpal blade. It absolutely guarantees that they will behead all of the most inappropriate creatures. High level encounters, important NPCs, the BBEG . . . your players will suddenly start rolling like they had fixed dice.

See, I call that epic awesome (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/talesfromthetable/khunbaral.html), not epic fail. YMMV.

This (http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2008-07c.html#20080723) was very close to an epic fail. The short version: The PCs run into a powerful spellcaster. Half the party tries to close the heavy iron door between them and the caster; but one of the PCs keeps opening the door because she's sent her animal companion through the door and he's not coming back up.

Every time she opens the door, the spellcaster unloads another spell. Everyone else figures out pretty quickly that the reason her animal companion isn't coming back is because he's already dead, but despite best efforts she keeps opening the door again and allowing the spellcaster to unload.

By the time the spellcaster runs out of spells, most of the party is either dead or dying.

...

In a completely different campaign, there was a priest who went on a three session run of getting killed by rats -- some times rat swarms and sometimes dire rats, but always rats.

But this worked out in the long run, too, becoming a very funny running joke for the rest of the campaign.

potatocubed
2008-09-22, 06:46 AM
Some failure stories from a campaign that was pretty much entirely fail from beginning to end...
Jumping Fail I
I am playing a TWF human ranger named Argus. The party enters a room. There is a (clearly evil) gnome wizard behind a table who immediately tells us to throw down our weapons and surrender. My response is to charge him, gaining a surprise round. Argus leaps over the table - and scores a natural 1 on his jump check. The only saving grace was that because he was flat on his face (on the same side of the table he started on) when the wizard fired burning hands he avoided any damage. By the end of that fight, Argus was dead and the party knight was blind.

Jumping Fail II
Same group, different campaign. I was GM. The party are fighting a selection of oozes and ooze cultists, including a gibbering mouther that had just manifested in the middle of the room. Randy, the Rogue in the Hat, needs to get past the mouther but doesn't have room. "I'll jump it!" he says. He rolls... poorly. We use the formula to work out how far he travels, and he lands smack dab in the middle of the mouther. *glomp* Not even his hat was left.

Jumping Fail III
Same group, same campaign. The party are smashing their way into a ghoul-infested building (from two different directions). There is a perfectly good (unlocked) door, but the halfling barbarian wants to leap in through the window. Jump check!

Natural 1. Missed the window. *smack* "I try again!"
Natural 1. Missed the window. *smack* "I try again!"

On the third time, he gets through. Meanwhile, the other half of the party is being eaten by ghouls.

Jumping Just General Fail IV
Same group, same campaign. The party have stolen an airship and are trying to persuade the bound elemental to take them to a flying stone ziggurat hovering over the city. Since they all used Cha as a dump stat, this is very difficult (DC 13 Charisma check), and they've already caused major property damage and knackered the ship by clipping buildings and suchlike. Finally, they persuade the elemental to pull the ship alongside the ziggurat.

"Wait!" says the (sort-of) paladin. "I want to turn the ship around so that it's backed up to the ziggurat." I have no idea why this is a good idea, but the player is determined, so. The Charisma check is single digits. The elemental grinds the airship to matchsticks against the ziggurat, forcing jump checks from the people who didn't flee onto the ziggurat the moment they saw the paladin heading for the control room again.

The dwarf cleric managed to make it, barely, and ended up clinging to the edge of the bottom step of the flying ziggurat by his fingernails. The paladin's jump check? Natural 1. Together with a colossal armour check penalty, that sent her plummeting to the town below. *splat*

To add injury to... well, further injury, the other frontline fighter was knocked down to something like nine hp due to inadvisably standing where the airship smashed itself against the ziggurat. Without fighters or healing (since the dwarf was busy climbing the ziggurat to where the door was) the party were absolutely savaged by the demonic inhabitants - helpfully alerted by the sound of splintering airship - and had to flee.

I could go on. About the sleep spell that took out most of the party but none of the enemies. About the accidental murder of an innocent priest and the aiding and abetting of a giant conspiracy. About "Look, your house is on fire!". About leaving the doors open so the zombies could get in. And on, and on...

Saph
2008-09-22, 06:46 AM
This was from an old Star Wars d6 campaign. Two things you should know about Star Wars d6 to understand the story:

The way damage is handled in Star Wars d6 is that the attacker rolls a number of dice equal to the weapon's damage rating, and the defender rolls a number of dice equal to his Strength. The more the attacker beats the defender's roll by, the worse the consequences. If the damage roll is 16+ points higher than the Strength roll, the defender dies instantly.
When you roll dice in Star Wars, you nominate one of your dice to be your 'wild die'. If it rolls a 6, you roll it again and add it on again, and keep adding it until you stop rolling sixes. If it rolls a 1, you remove it from your roll - along with the die that's showing the highest number, and every other die showing that number. So if you rolled a 2, a 5, a 5, a 5, and a 1 on your wild die, you'd remove everything except the 2, and your total score would be 2.

You can see it coming, can't you?

The group's resident death-prone player (every group has one) was playing a Trianni - basically, a catgirl. We're hurrying through a forest.

DM: "Make me a Perception check."
Catgirl: "OK . . ." *fails*
DM: "Would you say you were walking or running?"
Catgirl: "Uh, running."
DM: "Cool! You take 8D damage?"
Catgirl: "WTF?"
DM: "The guys you're chasing strung a length of razorwire between two trees. You just ran into it. Let's see . . ." *rolls damage*

The DM rolls a highish but not spectacular result for his 8D, something like 30. The catgirl throws in some character points and ends up rolling 6D for his Strength roll. He rolls a bunch of sixes . . . and a 1 on his wild die. Total result, 5 or so.

Instant death.

The rest of the party just saw the catgirl's head seem to come apart from her body, which collapsed in a shower of blood. Most anticlimactic death ever.

The player made a new character who was a clone of Neo from the Matrix, and proceeded to die in the very next session when he tried to hang on to an escaping spacecraft.

- Saph

Saph
2008-09-23, 06:14 AM
Aw, c'mon. I was enjoying this thread. :) I'm sure there must be more . . .

- Saph

Smeggedoff
2008-09-23, 06:41 AM
First campaign I ever ran the party come across a castle. In the middle of the main hall there's a huge well shaft with a staircase and rooms built around the outside(not accessible via the courtyard) leading down 200 feet or so into an underground cavern with a river in it.
On of the characters is playing a half dragon fighter who peers into this dark pit and asks what he can see, he has darkvision so I tell him he can see 60 feet into the shaft and describe hit.
his response is to say "great" and proceed to leap into the shaft.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-splat-
20d6 falling damage
lvl 3 character with a +2 LA template
do the math

his response? "you said it was only 60 feet deep!"

AslanCross
2008-09-23, 06:56 AM
Metagaming Fail

Last Christmas break I visited family in Singapore, and since some of my players also went to visit a friend who was migrating, we decided to run a short adventure in Eberron.

I settled on Hell's Heart, sequel to Chimes at Midnight and Quoth the Raven. The PCs were excited since they found Eberron interesting, and also welcomed the change to horror.

Anyway, the gist is that an Inquisitive whom the PCs had made an enemy of took over an insane asylum in the middle of Sharn. He'd already set loose the inmates and also ambushed and abducted a dragonmarked baron whom the PCs were associated with.

The PCs are eventually gassed and imprisoned, although they escape their bonds quickly. As they go down the hallway, they begin hearing muffled screams from behind a closed door. Freaked out, they open the door and see it's some kind of pottery studio used as "therapy" for the inmates.

One of the works in progress, a statue, moves out of the corner of the ranger's eye, dropping some chips of material and dust. The ranger alerts the party, and they also spot tracks and dust leading up to the statue.

They panic, guessing it's a gargoyle, and convince the ranger to shoot it.

He does.

He hits.

From where the quivering arrow hit the statue, blood begins to flow.

I break down and tell them they just shot one of the baron's guards, who'd been sealed into a plaster statue. The place his statue was standing on was actually rigged to fling the statue (and any PC examining it) into the open, lit furnace. The warforged scout rogue, of all people, eventually triggers it and gets flung into the furnace along with the dead guard.

He was lucky the party managed to pull him out before he burned to death.

Jack_Simth
2008-09-23, 07:30 AM
From my Dragon-PC campaign.

PC's kidnapped an Orcish healer, to get some healing. When they first scouted the village, they noted that the orcs were eating dragon meat. To identify the healer, they went in, attacked a few orcish farmers, then hid to see who'd heal them. They then violently kidnapped the healer. Knowing there were bounties on their heads, knowing they were much, much closer to the source of the bounties than when the started the game, they cut a deal with the kidnapped orc that was the village healer while they had him in their care: they'd clear out a den of wolves that was giving them trouble, he'd heal them up. The orc even healed them up to half-full in advance (orc Cleric-3 with the touch of healing reserve feat).

They ran away from the den of Dire Wolves when they were led into tunnels... to a point where they were being attacked on three sides. Wolves have some tactics in their description - yeah, it was a trap (by the wolves, not the orcs). They escaped.

One of the players (a gold dragon beguiler), having been told not to do so by the silver rogue that did most of the work of the kidnapping, and having about 10 hp left, went into the orcish village to get sanctuary for the night and possibly a bit of healing. He was met by the healer, surrounded by armed guards. The healer asked if he'd finished off the den of wolves - he said no. Healer said he was welcome to stay for the night, and I called for a sense-motive check. The Cleric-3's Bluff score (god of trickery, a small amount of Charisma) beat the Gold Dragon Beguiler's Sense Motive. Because the dragon failed the Sense Motive, I simply didn't mention the Cleric's motives or that he was lying. Said nothing at all about it.

The dragon came in, and the healer came up to heal him. I gave the dragon a spellcraft check to identify the Inflict spell the "healer" was using. Failed Spellcraft DC 17 check to notice the Inflict Moderate Wounds wasn't Cure Moderate Wounds. So the "healer" touched him with it.

Dragon failed his Will save, and damage brought him to -9 hp and unconsciousness.

Nobody was around to save him from the Coup de Grace poke of doom that followed.

Eldariel
2008-09-23, 09:44 AM
Our 2-character party consisting of a Dervish (me) and a Warlock were sleeping in an inn (this is around level 9). In the darkness of the night, a Fighter in heavy armor sneaks into the Warlock's room (him failing his Listen-checks and not waking up), but being awoken by DM fiat to avoid Coup de Grace. Basically, the said Fighter (level 5 or something) had had his family killed by a Warlock and was seeking for vengeance.

So he attacks the Warlock. Critical. The Warlock is infuriated! 5' step, Eldritch Blast. Natural 1! Fighter closes in and makes another attack and lands a critical threat, but fails to confirm. Warlock? Eldritch Blast, nat. 1! Fighter connects again and the Warlock faces the grim reality that if he doesn't roll non-1s soon, he may very well be meeting his masters very soon. He manages a third consecutive natural 1 and the player is visibly frustrated to say the least. Fighter connects once more. Luckily my Elven Dervish has much better ears than the Warlock and I was up and moving by this point (hearing the fight through some thick walls). I enter the combat, slice'n'dice the Fighter low and interpose myself between the Warlock and the Fighter (my character didn't especially like the Warlock, but had the unfortunate character flaw of loyalty), and the Warlock finally manages to connect for the kill. That seriously was probably the toughest fight we had the whole game. Against a CR5 encounter (it was straight the NPC Level 5 Fighter from DMG). As level 9 characters.


The Warlock also managed to epic fail in a fight at a portal site. There was an evil Cleric, a Blackguard and a Vrock present. I'm still the same Dervish and don't have means to fly. I tell the Warlock to kill the damn Vrock. The Warlock decides that since the Vrock has Spell Resistance, he'd rather target the Blackguard instead. I tell him to screw that - the Blackguard can't even catch me, getting max. of 1 attack per round and isn't a real threat of any kind, and I've got the Cleric (although I Nat. 1 one save, which wasn't nice - it was vs. Flame Strike and I lost a bunch of equipment to that one). So what happens is, I evinscerate the Cleric and he decides to blast the Blackguard to death.

He's like "Woohoo, I got him!" or something, not getting that the real issue is the Vrock. And indeed, after few slices, the Vrock just gets out of reach and rapes the Warlock who was also flying for the encounter. And summons another Vrock. The Warlock falls unconscious, but I feed him Invisibility-potion and distract the Vrocks while Fiendish Resilience gets the Warlock back and running and we get the **** out of there. In the end, we (and the portal) are saved by an NPC Cleric who comes up, buffs the living out of us (me) and comes to kick some ass along our side. Really though, you have one target of minimal mobility (something like 20' of movement), no flight and no ranged weapon of real power, a spellcaster and a flying, summoning, casting demon and your party is composed of one super-mobile warrior and a flying caster, which do you target? I think this was an epic tactical fail on his part - Spell Resistance is annoying and all, but at least he can hurt the damn thing.

arguskos
2008-09-23, 11:14 AM
Let's see, I have a number of them.

The Fall of Doom
So, we're playing in the Forgotten Realms, and the party is crossing this giant plain in the southern part of the continent. There is a large cliff (300 feet) seperating the Sharr into two parts, just for your reference. The party, having pissed off no less than FOUR native tribes of thri-kreen, wemics, centaurs, and loxos is running for their lives for this wall (they're on the top part of the cliff). When they reach it, everyone starts climbing down... except the bard, who has a flair for the dramatic. He decides to take a rope and hook, leap off the cliff, and swing the rope back, to try and catch himself on the cliff face before he splats and dies.

Well, he takes a running leap off. Good check, so he flies a nice far distance. Next, I tell him to make a Use Rope check (I couldn't think of anything else) to try and hook the rope on the cliff. Natural 1. The warforged (don't ask) juggernaut asks if he can try grabbing the rope, to save the bard from dying horribly. I give him a Dex check to grab it, along with a Climb check if he makes it to stay on the cliff face. He makes the Dex check, but nat fails the Climb check.

So, the bard and the warforged die horribly by falling 300 feet off a cliff face. I told the other party member who was there (two others were not in the Sharr, for useful reasons) that the bard and the warforged created a pair of matching craters, one was spattered with blood, and the other was spattered with gears and stuff.

The Ultimate Diplomatic Failure
So, later in that session (the dual deaths was early on, so they broke out their back-up characters), the party was facing down the BBEG on top of a golden ziggurat deep in a desert. The BBEG was a half-shadow dragon sorcerer with a penchant for entropic reapers, of which he had two with him. So, the PC's make it to the bottom of the ziggurat, when the paladin decides it's a good idea to charge at full speed up the damn thing, not waiting for the others. He sees the sorcerer, and charge-attacks him... forgetting that the entropic reapers have REACH and bad-ass crit ranges. One crits him, dealing insane damage (102 damage total, putting the paladin at 4 hp). When the rest of the party reaches him, they begin to try and bargain for the paladin's life. Their "negotiation" tends to work like this:
PC: "Give us our paladin."
Sorcerer: "I will, if you surrender."
PC: "You'll just kill us, so no."
Sorcerer: "Then I'll kill him, and then you all."
PC: "But if he dies, his divine geas will go off, and we'll all die."
Sorcerer: "...you're bluffing."
PC: "No, really!"
Sorcerer: "Well, then you better surrender!"
PC: "Damnit, we're not surrendering! Give us the paladin!"

This went on for a while, and eventually, they just attacked. The paladin got scythed in half by a reaper, just like the sorcerer promised, and his divine geas of doom (long story as to how he has one) went off, killing everyone in a 1-mile radius. :smallannoyed:

-argus

Lycan 01
2008-09-23, 11:23 AM
^ Heh heh hah hah! I laughed at that... It was like a scene from a tv show or anime... I could just see the BBEG standing there, scratching his chin, trying to figure out if ya'll were bluffing. And then everyone dying within a 1-mile radius... nice. :smallamused:

Thane of Fife
2008-09-23, 11:39 AM
First encounter of the first adventure of my most recent campaign:

The PCs are invading the lair of some bugbears. They enter a room and confront two of the beasts. The fighter and the cleric rush forwards to engage, while the illusionist and the fighter/cleric sit in the back to provide support. The fighter/cleric decides to use his bow (this is a 2e game, but he's using a specialty priest which gives him lots of weapon choices).

He puts his first shot into the back of the cleric and knocks him unconscious. The party survived the encounter, but they pretty much never let him use a bow again.

Kurald Galain
2008-09-23, 11:45 AM
I have a story of a somewhat different kind of Epic Failure...

This was a character in a campaign I GM'ed a couple of years back. Tserok was a proud and brave warrior type, who swore to protect and aid a number of people, most notably his family. The city the campaign started in was under attack by an enemy army, and they traveled to a nearby city in search for aid.

Upon arriving there, it turns out that his uncle (who lived there) had gone missing. He failed to locate the uncle, but his favorite cousin did. He was caught while stealing a powerful magic item, the Staff of the Seven Seas; while helping him escape, the cousin died. Since the party was incapable of resurrecting her, Tserok asked a number of temples for aid. After failing to impress the priests of the Death God, he begged aid from the Temple of Honor. However, since he had exhibited cowardice in the past, he had to prove his honor before they would help him.

Meanwhile the Staff fell into the hands of a powerful wizard, who drew power from it to turn back the invading army. It was then stolen from him by a rogue, the former character of one of the players. What the wizard failed to realize was that the magical surge he created caused an ancient monster to awaken. Taking the shape of a dragon, this monster assaulted the city.

In a skirmish in the harbor, the party's archery and sorcery managed to drive off the dragon. A day later, riding a rainbow high in the sky, the party meleed the dragon and ultimately defeated it, causing it to fall into a river deep below. This came at the cost of their druid, who fell with the dragon and was never found again.

However, it turns out the monster would rise again unless sealed. After being assaulted by an enemy with the Staff of the Seven Seas, the party eventually got their hands on the Staff, and decided to use it to travel to an underseas temple where they could accomplish the sealing.

Only it turns out that controlling an artifact isn't all that easy for mere mortals. The Staff was reactive to emotion; that is to say if you became upset or angry while holding it, it would cause upheaval in nearby water. Needless to say this can be nasty if you're under water at the time. During their trip to the temple, the party came to blows, and when they made it inside, their teamwork disintegrated. After being attacked by temple guardians, they panicked and fought over the Staff, causing violent maelstroms of water. Eventually, the party wizard drew Tserok's sword and used it to slay their archer, who was the only one with enough willpower to do anything useful with the Staff; Tserok then slew him in revenge.

His friends dead through what he believes was his fault, his mission aborted, he fled from the temple alone, still clutching the Staff. The Goddess of Honor appeared to him in a dream, explaining to him how he failed to live up to his word, to his courage, and to his friends. This broke his morale to the point where he became addicted to the powers of the Staff and could no longer muster the willpower to leave the sea.

Eventually driven insane through loneliness and misery, he lives on beneath the waves, sustained by the power of the Staff. In local taverns, people whisper of the Drowned Sailor, a ghastly seaweed-covered presence that assaults boats with mighty waves and drags down whomever he gets in his clutch. Thus Tserok became a failure, and yet, a legend...

arguskos
2008-09-23, 12:06 PM
Yeah... they were all like, "wtf man??" I just stared at the party, and said, "Guys, he thought you were bluffing poorly!! *sigh*"

My group just fails EPICALLY hard some days.

Oh, yeah, here's another one (this is one session, btw):

The Ultimate TPK Session
So, this is the first session of what I warned them was going to be a very lethal campaign. I asked everyone to bring 2 characters, just in case of deaths. We used them all, and more. I also informed them it was a dungeon crawl campaign, since they all wanted one really badly.

Party #1
So, the party began as a ranger, a monk, a wizard, a cleric, and a barbarian, at level 1. Within twenty minutes, the ranger had died to jumping over a low-wall that turned out to be a 40 foot drop to another level of the room. He broke both legs on impact, and was shortly decapitated by a githzerai. Another few minutes later, the monk got stuck inside a pit trap that had some non-combat ooze in it. The party debated for a minute, and decided to leave the monk there, after closing the trap again. :smalleek:

So, we're down to the wizard, cleric, and barbarian. At this point, they enter a maze area, with a special darkness trap in it, limiting everyones vision to 5 feet (just enough for the toned-down CR 2 minotaur to whack them from beyond their vision). Said minotaur crits, and cuts the cleric in HALF. The barbarian and wizard actually kill it though, thanks to some good rolls and clever tactics. However, it doesn't help when they find the way out, and begin arguing over who gets the wand they find in the minotaurs treasure. The barbarian wants it, so he kills the wizard and takes it. It doesn't help though, since on the next level on the dungeon he gets completely annihilated by a wall scythe trap (yay crits on scythes?).

Party #2
So, next round of characters! This time, they are all level 2. There is a psion, a soulknife, a ninja, an archivist, and a dread necromancer. *sigh* This party ends up self-destructing inside of a hour. See, the archivist and dread necro come to loggerheads about what to do when confronted with a different labyrinth they find in the dungeon. One, the archivist, wants to blast it apart, wall by wall. The d. necro wants to simply avoid it. They can't come to an agreement, and so the party splits up into two parties: the archivist and the soulknife decide to brave the labyrinth, and the d. necromancer, psion, and ninja say **** this, we're going around!

Archivist+Soulknife: they enter the labyrinth, and end up on the run from some low level demons that are roaming the maze (3 dretches). They are finally cornered by them, for failing to map at all (seriously, who DOESN'T map a maze??), and stand to fight. They die horrible deaths after killing one of the dretches.

D. Necro+Psion+Ninja: Unbeknownst to everyone but me and the ninja, the ninja was actually here to assassinate the other party members (character backstory reasons, I was letting anything fly this game... BAD idea). So, after overcoming some challenges with little difficulty, the three-man party settles down to rest for the night. The ninja stabs the psion in the heart, automatically killing him. He then sleeps. The d. necro wakes up early, looks over, and sees the psion dead, with a gaping hole in his chest where the ninja cut his heart out. He thinks for a minute, and decides to cast a summon undead 1 spell, and have his skeleton savage the ninja, in return for the murder. Now, with two members dead, and the other two off dying at this very moment to dretches, the d. necro is quietly retired (we met him later in the campaign, actually).

Party #3
Now, everyone is out of characters. So, what do we do? IMPROVISE!! All the players were having a blast, since we run games like this very rarely, but they are DAMN fun when they happen.

The NEXT party was level 5 (we wanted more chances to kill each other). This one was pretty interesting. There was an elven wizard, a warforged barbarian/fighter, an elven bard/ranger chef (was hunting dragon-meat), a chaotic evil cleric who didn't cast cure spells, and a half-orc druid. They were hired by a lich to clear out his old home of monsters, since he didn't want to do it himself (the PC's were of questionable morality). So, they end up taking on some seriously hard fights, like the greathorn minotaur (CR 7, MM4) who manages to pulp the cleric under his greathammer in one hit (I crit! On a x4 weapon! That does 3d8+12!!). They retreat back to the lich, who summons a random new character to aid them. He ends up getting anothe chaotic evil cleric, but this time, it's a gnome cleric of Urdlen (gnomish god of death and destruction) in the middle of a blood sacrifice to his god. Basically, they met this character when he cut out the heart of an innocent, showered in his fresh blood, then ate his still-beating heart. Yeah... that was pretty different. The party then goes back to kill that damned minotaur (minotaurs were severely brutal in this session), which proceeds to crit AGAIN... on the gnome cleric. :smalleek::smalleek: He is put to negatives this time, and the party kills the minotaur. They then decide the gnome needs to die, and cut his head off. Needless to say, the gnome's player wasn't pleased with that. Anyway, he makes up another character, an exalted Vow of Poverty half-celestial monk. O.o??

Anyway, this party survived itself for a few hours, but eventually picked up a magic axe, the Axe of the Unyielding Death:

The Axe of the Unyielding Death
+1 vorpal battleaxe
When used in a threatening manner against a living being, the wielder of the axe flies into a deathless frenzy, as per the Frenzied Berserker class feature. This frenzy lasts for a number of rounds equal to the wielder's constitution modifier.

So, they gave this axe (not realizing yet what it does) to the warforged (a solid choice, he's the fighter after all). Later, they are fighting some rust monsters, and the warforged, in a moment of panic, grabs the Axe of the Unyielding Death. Now, this was a VERY small room (10 foot radius circle), and there are no exits from it. The warforged flies into a frenzy, and slaughters the rust monsters, then turns on the party (like frenzy can do). He kills the wizard, the bard/ranger, the monk, and chases the druid (who is in raven form at the moment) around the room for a few rounds. Note that the party dealt him enough damage during his frenzy in self-defense to knock him to -37. The druid, realizing his frenzy was going to end soon, tried a last-ditch Cure Medium Wounds spell... but he forgot it didn't affect warforged fully. Frenzy ends, the warforged dies. We simply ruled the druid was eventually eaten by a grue.



There you have it, the most blood soaked D&D session I have EVER DM'd. At final count, 17 characters died. Anyone can feel free to attempt to top that for title of "Most Brutal Meatgrinding Session Ever". :smallamused:

-argus

evisiron
2008-09-23, 01:10 PM
Vampire the Masquerade with new-ish players.

The two characters involved in this story include:
-The muscle bound Brujah
-The tiny ex-nurse Gangrel

Anyway, this fight starts in a locals gangs HQ, and several of them are training on the door with various guns. The Brujah has a decent idea, jump through the rickety wall! He maxes out his strength and takes a running jump at the (extremely, extremely weak) wall. *rolls* Fail. A thump and round of cursing is heard by the people in the room. The Gangrel nimbly jumps through without any trouble. :smallamused:

Also worth noting is the fact this fight started with the Mal sneaking up while stealthed and deciding to off the sentry with a sawn off shotgun. :smalleek:

The rest of that fight was interesting, the the Gangrel really kicking ass and taking names, which was awesome because the player was so quiet and timid.
The Brujah frenzied and never realised how much he was injured, until he ran and grabbed the guy with an uzi. "One of the last sounds you hear is the uzi being clicked into fully automatic. The next sound is much, much louder."

kbk
2008-09-23, 02:16 PM
I can't remember much about this character, because it was long ago, and it was one of those dreaded 1st session deaths.

We had decided to use the optional rule, where if you roll a 20, and confirm with a 20, you can roll again and on a 20, you get an instant kill. We added the caveat that you could keep rolling, and the more 20's would make it even more epic. Furthermore, we decided to include critical fumbles.

1 in 8,000 chance of getting 3 of the same number in a row, we figured we'd never see it.

I managed four 1s in a row while shooting a crossbow. My bolt backfired, and shot me clean through the eye, with the bolt coming out the other side and getting embedded in the stone wall.

cough cough: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0584.html

Maybe this is why we decided to stop using the 1d10,000 wild surge table that someone had pieced together from other wild surges tables, and way too much free time. 10,000 would have caused the sun to go supernova.

Xavion&Pavion
2008-10-12, 08:17 PM
We had just gotten out of a dungeon with a hog-tied goblin i was carrying, when a rich looking man came walking down the road. I set the goblin down and undid the bonds and gags i put him in. He ran right over to the guy and told him what we had done. The man looked up at us in shear horror as he learnded how we killed everything inside there. He then angerly walked over to us (with his cat hissing) and said "YOU KILLED THEM YOU KILLED THEM! I had rented out that area for them to live in peacefully and YOU KILLED THEM!" his hands were glowing with magic (and so was his cat) and I, being the cleric, tried to calm him down with diplomacy. Everyone else at the table was cheering me on and telling me i could do it and they needed me to roll well on this. I rolled a one.
The DM enacted it out as I just twitched a little before shout "blLLAAAAAARRRGGG!!!!!!" In the man's face. However, right afterward, i had an awesome and win moment. His cat had just finished mauling our bard, And then attacked me. I bashed it with my sheild as it jumped for me, i rolled two natural twenties and an 18. I sent the little kitty fying into the distance. That redeemed me... somewhat...

Calinero
2008-10-12, 09:49 PM
I was playing as an alcoholic priest during a zombie invasion, armed with only a baseball bat and virtually no blunt weapons skills. The thing is biting my ally's foot, and it's on the ground--basically immobile. No way to miss, right? Wrong. I swing at a stationary target lying flat on the ground, and miss three times. Then I trip and fall down. The guy who got bitten stands up, and hits the thing in the head so hard that its skull basically exploded. My priest very soon came to dislike being upstaged by his Native American teammate who got all the awesome moments.

Lycan 01
2008-10-12, 09:52 PM
Wait, was this the same Native American who rode the bike and jumped a road divider so the toothy thing could get hit by a semi?

I don't even know who told that story... XD

JaxGaret
2008-10-13, 01:58 AM
Maybe this is why we decided to stop using the 1d10,000 wild surge table that someone had pieced together from other wild surges tables, and way too much free time. 10,000 would have caused the sun to go supernova.

Hey, do you happen to have a copy of that? I'd like to see it :smallsmile:

Doomsy
2008-10-13, 02:24 AM
At one point, a PC in my game attempted to use a chandelier to swing across a crowded ballroom. This was a 1920s CoC game. What happened the moment the PC tried this is pretty much pure hilarity and horror. The chandelier in question was an old school, huge type - a mass of metal bars and glass. It was also suspended above the main hall itself.

While chasing a vile cultist, the dashing investigator decided he was going to leap the ballroom, grab the chandelier, and swing as a shortcut to the other side.

You can completely guess what happened next. But my God, was it glorious. I secretly rolled some dice to see if the chandelier would hold.
It got the worst roll possible in CoC - a complete, utter flub.

I asked him to make a jump roll to see if he could get off it in time. He flubbed, got his leg caught in a protrusion.

The entire ballroom heard an ominous creaking noise along with a panicked scream, and looked up just in time to see that 10 foot monstrosity plummeting downwards like a meteor towards the little ice sculpture used as the centerpiece, with the investigator clinging to it and screaming.

It hit like a bomb. I rolled damage and the damn thing maxed out on me, for the chandelier - the falling damage was almost incidental. He was impaled multiple times by the light fixtures, the support bars, and lacerated a few hundred times by the broken glass. I ruled the damage was so severe it cost everyone watching 1d6 San. A few bystanders were hit by the shrapnel as well, including pieces of the ice sculpture.

And in the wake of that incident, as guests were in shock, fainting, or outright puking in the corners, the dignified and stately businessmen who had hosted the party turned to face the PCs. Before he could even speak three of them simultaneously blurted out, "He wasn't with us."

The sad part was that was not the PCs last run in with a chandelier. About six months later in a Delta Green modern campaign another PC tried leaping off a balcony in an old abandoned theater to a chandelier while his friends supplied some cover fire. The man in question was a massive US Marshall. The theater dated from 1920 and did not have maintenance in years, and it was yet another twenty foot drop. He had just enough time to hear the screws creak before it gave out and dropped him and the chandelier on top of one Victoria Lee, a barely five foot buck ten special agent. He was crippled, she was killed, and only two people from the six man party ended up making it out of there alive after they tried to cut him free and drag him out with a broken back. The deadly blade-limbed mannequins hunting them got almost all of them.

Lycan 01
2008-10-13, 02:43 AM
Oh yeah. Definitely stressing the existance of chandeliers in every possible area during my next Cthulhu session(s). :smallamused:

Calinero
2008-10-13, 05:24 AM
Wait, was this the same Native American who rode the bike and jumped a road divider so the toothy thing could get hit by a semi?

I don't even know who told that story... XD

Yeah, same guy. That was my story in one of the epic story threads. My lowly priest was hard pressed to keep up with such awesome.

Jalor
2008-10-13, 07:28 AM
Had a pretty crappy one last session.

We were playing our DM's awesome redesigned version of Keep on the Shadowfell. Party was my 3rd level Halfling archer ranger, a 4th level human wizard, 4th level tiefling Rogue, and a 1st level eladrin warlord (his other character died the previous session).

We had just finished vanquishing some goblins, and the warlord had already failed during that fight when he charged across the room and fell in a pit trap. At the end of the room were two doors. The warlord and wizard had the brilliant idea to open both doors at the same time.

These doors led to the dungeon's only hard fights. One had two hobgoblin soldiers and two priests of Harmakhis, god of death. The other had two ghouls and two stronger priests. The rogue ended up ghoul food.

Triaxx
2008-10-13, 08:29 AM
The Ultimate Diplomatic Failure
So, later in that session (the dual deaths was early on, so they broke out their back-up characters), the party was facing down the BBEG on top of a golden ziggurat deep in a desert. The BBEG was a half-shadow dragon sorcerer with a penchant for entropic reapers, of which he had two with him. So, the PC's make it to the bottom of the ziggurat, when the paladin decides it's a good idea to charge at full speed up the damn thing, not waiting for the others. He sees the sorcerer, and charge-attacks him... forgetting that the entropic reapers have REACH and bad-ass crit ranges. One crits him, dealing insane damage (102 damage total, putting the paladin at 4 hp). When the rest of the party reaches him, they begin to try and bargain for the paladin's life. Their "negotiation" tends to work like this:
PC: "Give us our paladin."
Sorcerer: "I will, if you surrender."
PC: "You'll just kill us, so no."
Sorcerer: "Then I'll kill him, and then you all."
PC: "But if he dies, his divine geas will go off, and we'll all die."
Sorcerer: "...you're bluffing."
PC: "No, really!"
Sorcerer: "Well, then you better surrender!"
PC: "Damnit, we're not surrendering! Give us the paladin!"

This went on for a while, and eventually, they just attacked. The paladin got scythed in half by a reaper, just like the sorcerer promised, and his divine geas of doom (long story as to how he has one) went off, killing everyone in a 1-mile radius. :smallannoyed:

-argus

I'd have to call this Epic Awesome as well. 'Because sometimes, they aren't bluffing.'

I suppose I should mention that. It does pain me to do so though.

The world of this game has giant airships, cannons, radios, and lots of magic. Instead of artillery, we have wizards. SRD-only for the most part. So the party consists of three Fighter 10/Barbarian 10s, two Wizard 20, and a WarMage 20 (Think Battle Sorceror, but less awful.) They've spent six game months beating back the enemy forces, they've finally reached the last stronghold, the capital city of the attacking country. They have an army with them, so naturally it's siege time. The fighter's all decide to take a ram and try to knock down the gates. The wizards take to the air, and begin engaging the enemy airships.

The Warmage begins a casting ritual, without telling the rest of the party what she's up to. Naturally they are all surprised when meteors begin raining down. On the city. On the army. On the party members. Each meteor had a chance to hit and a randomly rolled target. With a cumulative falling damage rule, and an AOE on each meteor, the destruction was horrendous. Both Wizards went down to confirmed Criticals. Meteors having a threat range of 16-20, and an x6 critical multiplier, in addition to the damage done from falling out of the sky. One of the fighters managed to survive, but only by hiding in the moat. He decided to fight off alligators instead of meteors.

By the end of the spell, the Warmage, and fighter were the only members alive, and most of the army had been wiped out. They decided to retreat, taking the only remaining airship. Nothing like forgetting to tell your allies you're going to rain down fire from the sky.