Your most epic gaming tales

[Heliomance]

I figure it's time for a new one of these.

Probably my single most awesome experience in a game was a Mage: The Awakening game I was in last year.

Picture the scene. We're in a decomissioned nuclear bunker at the finale, trying to perform a ritual that will make the BBEG demon vulnerable so we can actually kill the bastard. Suddenly, there's a tremendous explosion, followed by another, and the roof covering the launch tube falls in. Turns out that the demon could pull strings well enough that they actually launched two nukes at us on American soil to try and break in. For this fight we've enlisted all our allies from the campaign, including but not limited to an entire werewolf pack and my mortal sleepwalker PI mentor.

So people start climbing up the infrastructure whilst we frantically try and finish the ritual. The werewolves make it to the top of the launch tube and leap out onto the surface to do battle with the demonic forces arriving. My mentor follows. He gets to the top of the scaffolding, braces himself, and makes his jump.

The Storyteller rolls his check. And keeps rolling. And keeps rolling.

The middle aged private detective hurtles out into empty space, a hundred metres or so off the ground. It's clear he's not going to make it, he's falling short. Suddenly, he stretches out a hand and grasps onto thin air. He checks himself, and starts running. Up a staircase no-one else can see. He sprints up the air, onto the surface, and launches a lightning bolt at a demon.

He'd rolled 27 successes, on 9 dice. The Storyteller ruled that he spontaneously Awakened as an Obrimos, with three dots in Forces. We sat there, stunned.

[Snake-Aes]

How epic are we talking about here? Most of my deeds near epic levels were pretty in line with what epic characters do, which feels rather bland to tell tales. Most of my particularly impressive moments involved stuff like foiling a small scale pirate raid by boarding one of their ships and stacking str bonuses enough to tear off the ship's mast and throw it like a gargantuan javelin. Or jumping a fire wall, landing foot-first on its caster, grappling him down to a pin in the next round, tieing him up and teleporting out with him on the second...

[Choco]

How epic are we talking about here?

I would guess epic relative to what your character is normally capable of doing.

[Wonton]

I like this one, though it might not be of the same caliber of epicness:

Everything takes place in the central library of an ancient civlization of wizards.

My party had just defeated a vampire, who we all had very good reason to hate (he'd set us up to basically kill a bunch of innocent people by telling us they were planning an attack on the city or something). He turned into gaseous form and fled, but Cats, our halfling rogue (who hated him the most of all of us), followed him. We'd explored the library before the fight, so we knew that there was a one-time-use, one-way teleportation circle in the area, and when it was clear that the vampire was heading for it, Cats jumped in instead, effectively killing it.

He appeared in a small room that he somehow knew (cause the DM let it slip in OOC knowledge) was in the bad guys' lair. Knowing how screwed he was, he began barricading himself in the room. The DM told him he had a couple hours before someone would check on the vampire.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party, determined to rescue Cats, ran to the nearest city (an hour away), where my 5th-level Wizard bought a 3,000-gp scroll of Discern Location. We travelled back to the library, where I used the scroll (succeeding a DC 16 CL check, by the way) to determine that Cats was somewhere very, very far away on a remote island.

At this point, I worked out a plan (with the DM's help) that involved using the magic portal generator (which was also in the library) to create a 'wormhole' of sorts, making two openings in the Material Plane, connected by a section of the Shadow Plane, effectively reducing the distance to about 2000 ft. Our DM said that travel was very dangerous though, and anyone inside the wormhole would be attacked by a shadow's touch each round (touch attack, 1d6 Str damage).

We determined our hippogriff-riding Druid was the fastest, and could make the one-way trip in 5 rounds. My Wizard would also have to make Concentration checks for both portals each round to keep them open, or the Druid would be trapped in the Shadow Plane forever. I had +12, so making DC 15 was a bit risky.

Anyway, the druid made it one way, damaged from 17 Str down to about 10. On the second round of the return trip, I roll a 20 on my Concentration check. I jokingly say "I concentrate so hard that round that I should get, like, a +2 on my next turn". To my surprise, the DM says "Sure."

Next round, I roll a natural 1. Everyone starts shouting. The Druid and the Rogue, now down to about 6 Str each, look horrified. I yell over everyone: "1 + 12 + 2! 15! I'm good! I'm still good!".

Anyway, they made it through, each with a few points of Strength left. The DM said that at some point on the return trip, they saw the portal waver and fizzle, before reappearing. All in all, one of my best gaming sessions ever.

[Drenn]

I tend to DM more than I play as a PC, so I can't claim credit for actually playing this epic moment, just over seeing it.

The party was on an airship fighting a gang of smugglers in another airship. Fortunately, for the party, they had all taken the precaution of tying themselves in at various points to their ship. One of the PCs, a ranger, jumped onto the smugglers ship into the middle of the enemy group. A round later, he was badly bloodied.

The ranger announced, "This is the day you *almost* caught Lucan the Ranger," and hurled himself over the rail.

40 feet down, the rope brought his otherwise deadly fall to an abrupt and painful halt. He hung there for a little while, getting his breath back, and then started rolling checks to climb back up. A couple rounds later, he'd almost made it back to the top. At this point, the sorcerer in the party rolled a natural one, throwing everyone around him backwards. One unfortunate smuggler wasn't roped in and flew overboard right on top of the ranger. The smuggler succeeded a check to grab the slack rope below the ranger and started clambering up after him.

At this point, the ranger kind of lost his head and yelled "Cut the rope!" *pause* "...NO! WAIT!" But it was too late. Someone else chucked a spear at the rope to cut it, and missed. On his next round, the ranger made an insane check to drive his knife into the side of the ship right before a warforge cut the rope. The smuggler plunged to his death and the ranger managed to hang on until his team mates lowered another rope for him.

It was epic.

[Snake-Aes]

I tend to DM more than I play as a PC, so I can't claim credit for actually playing this epic moment, just over seeing it.

The party was on an airship fighting a gang of smugglers in another airship. Fortunately, for the party, they had all taken the precaution of tying themselves in at various points to their ship. One of the PCs, a ranger, jumped onto the smugglers ship into the middle of the enemy group. A round later, he was badly bloodied.

The ranger announced, "This is the day you *almost* caught Lucan the Ranger," and hurled himself over the rail.

40 feet down, the rope brought his otherwise deadly fall to an abrupt and painful halt. He hung there for a little while, getting his breath back, and then started rolling checks to climb back up. A couple rounds later, he'd almost made it back to the top. At this point, the sorcerer in the party rolled a natural one, throwing everyone around him backwards. One unfortunate smuggler wasn't roped in and flew overboard right on top of the ranger. The smuggler succeeded a check to grab the slack rope below the ranger and started clambering up after him.

At this point, the ranger kind of lost his head and yelled "Cut the rope!" *pause* "...NO! WAIT!" But it was too late. Someone else chucked a spear at the rope to cut it, and missed. On his next round, the ranger made an insane check to drive his knife into the side of the ship right before a warforge cut the rope. The smuggler plunged to his death and the ranger managed to hang on until his team mates lowered another rope for him.

It was epic.

Worth of a true action movie.

[Drenn]

Next round, I roll a natural 1. Everyone starts shouting. The Druid and the Rogue, now down to about 6 Str each, look horrified. I yell over everyone: "1 + 12 + 2! 15! I'm good! I'm still good!".
[/I]

=D. Gotta love those moments. Its close calls like that that make it epic.

[Zieu]

=D. Gotta love those moments. Its close calls like that that make it epic.

But a 1 means automatic failure... :| Just like you don't throw in your adds when you get a 20 (most of the time), you don't add when you get a 1. But oh well, I liked the story :)

[Volthawk]

But a 1 means automatic failure... :| Just like you don't throw in your adds when you get a 20 (most of the time), you don't add when you get a 1. But oh well, I liked the story :)

Skill checks don't auto-fail on a 1.

[Ajadea]

I have 2.

1st: A house-rule makes a huge difference.

Spoiler

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Long long story cut short: Good Guys: 6th level sorcerer, 6th level fighter, snake familiar. Against a Lich Ranger, Vampire Rogue/Assassin with an insane amount of stacked followers, and Yuan-Ti Blackguard (our epic level evil party from a previous game, also the BBEGS). Also an army of little plant things. Like 2 airships full of them, commanded by the same thing that steers said airships.

Good party wins, without any Deus Ex Machina.

Basically when we started, our evil party was waging war against one of the last unconquered locations in the world. There was a hired Storm Giant cleric (hey, when half the enemy's army is 6 HD vampires, not a bad choice) defending the city. We were supposed to run. We didn't.

We were on the wall. I (the sorcerer) cast Invisibility and Fly on myself to check out the defenses on the ship. And it was close to empty. I was like 'wait, what?'. Then I went in, fought some vampire spawn, and found the control room.

I knew what it did, and my character made a Knowledge (arcana) check to figure it out. I took 20, not being in a big rush. Empty airship and all. So, my character figured it out, and decided to make a Spellcraft check to get control. I also said, since my character was basically putting all her hopes on this, she was going to expend all her remaining spell slots to make this thing work. I rolled a natural 20, and my character had like a +12 to spellcraft checks. BOOM. Airship. And about half an army of little plant things. That worked really well for me. Campaign ended, due to the lack of BBEGs.

2: 4th Edition.

Spoiler

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I was playing an Eladrin Warlock, and found a flesh golem in a lab. My warlock was all like 'Cool!', then I decided, ok, what the heck. Let's see what it does. Arcana check to figure out. Natural 20. So I activated the flesh golem. We were all level 4. It was pretty cool, and I kept the flesh golem after the adventure was over.