Worst luck

[Dumbledore lives]

So I'm wondering what the worst streak of bad rolls or the worst luck that has happened to a person. Mine is actually my friend, who was playing a warblade in a recent 3.5 campaign. With one maneuver his rolls where 1,1,1,1,1,1. Those last three were consecutively, whereas before he had at least had intervening attacks which hit, the last three actually caused him to lose his arm because of his horrible failures. The guy just could not catch a break, I think his average on the D20 that session must have been like 5.

So what's the worst luck you've ever had in a roleplaying game?

[Bagelson]

A fumble on a high-level spell and an unfortunate roll on the magical fumble table made my dwarven wizard a blathering fool for a week and gave him a phobia for plants as we were just about to travel back through an enormous forest.

[Guran]

There was this one evening that ALL of my spells missed, while goblins swarmed all over us. To make it worse, our archer - who was standing right behind me - fumbled and shot me in the back. When he rolled his damage, it was enough to bring me down.

[Jay R]

The worst string of role-playing luck I ever had was a seven-year stretch when I had nobody to play role-playing games with.

[Lord Loss]

Well my player was unlucky in that I (the DM) rolled extremely well and got three Nat twenties in a row on three different attacks, killing his third-level ranger with a cr 1/2 orc mook.

[Krazzman]

First session in our All Dwarves Party (still level 1, we are preparing for our third session so far...)

Best rolls for stats, best rolls to hit...damage.... 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. So I used 6 of my 7 acid darts to deal 6 Damage... the bad thing, one of the goblins (on which I just needed to get a 2 in damage to kill him...) shot me critically for 12...I had 12 HP...

[Kol Korran]

in one of our campaigns a guy played a simple dwarf fighter, Fort save through the roof. yet still, every time he needed to make a crucial fort save, he rolled a 1.

Gorgon? 1
massive damage roll? 1
basilisk? 1
2nd massive damage roll? 1

and the list goes on and on

finally he decded this was because his character denied the gods in Faerun. so he decided to worship som god and make a holy symbol for him (he was a blacksmith, yes, cliche, sue us).

problem was, we were in an occupied. so we made some bluff that he was a mercenery that asked to work the forge. in order to make it easier for him to play the roll, we said he was a MUTE dwarf.

"so what's the DC for this bluff check?"
"lets see with your charisma, and no ranks..."
"the DC please?"
" oh, just don't roll a..."
(dice roll... you guessed it)
"caught in religious fervor, you break into fevered high pitched song for your dwarven god. after a verse or two you catch the stunned looks of the soldiers, as they draw their weapons"

we still make fun of him to this day.

[TuggyNE]

I'm going to predict right here that fully half the replies are going to involve critical fumbles (as opposed to mere critical misses).

[Pie Guy]

One time, my party was captured by some soldiers and put in the back of wagon for transport. My character was a wildshape ranger, so I tried to turn into an eagle and fly away. My DM said ok, that was a legitimate strategy, so let's say a fifty percent chance he sees you, and then he gets an attack. Alright, he sees you. 20, 20, 20. Ok, you're dead.

We decided the guard held out his crossbow shot backwards and that my ranger exploded into a cloud of feathers.

[tedthehunter]

The worst string of role-playing luck I ever had was a seven-year stretch when I had nobody to play role-playing games with.

I know that feel, brother. Luckily, I'm currently with a semi-stable group. Hope you are too fellow RPG fan!

As for worst luck stories, hmm, let's see. Well I have a story about MY worst luck as the DM.

I was running 4e Keep on the Shadowfell for my buddies, and the session before the final battle, I decide it would be tons of fun to make a critical hit chart. I busted one out, complete with hitzones, severity rolls, kill conditions, and descriptions for 4 different damage types, (slashing, piercing, blunt, and magic). Now, this was my masterpiece. Loved this thing and was very proud of it.

So, we get to the final encounter, and it's giving my PC's some trouble at first as it includes multiple baddies and a high risk skill challenge. Well, the first attack that ANY of the PC's had landed on the BBEG was a crit.

Oh, no big deal, he'll be fine, it's like a .1 percent chance to roll a kill condition, and it'll be cool to see what happens. Roll it up.

Damage: Slashing
Hitzone: left leg
Severity:... 30 on the d30. You've cut his leg off, and he bleeds to death in 1d4 rounds.

My players actually spent the rest of the fight talking to him and making peg leg jokes while they watched him exsanguinate.

Sure learned my lesson. Crit rules run RAW in my games, now and forever, Amen.

[erikun]

I remember one D&D game I played. First roll of the session, on a balance check? Natural 1. Second roll of the session, an attack against a zombie? Natural 1. Third roll of the session, a Fortitude save to resist whatever the zombie bit me with? Natural 1.

The first time I played D&D 4e, I did not make one single roll above a 5 on my d20. Not. One. Single. Time.

I've rolled AD&D characters that could not qualify for any class.

For my current D&D 3e character, in the last "boss" fight, took a natural 20-critical and maximum damage roll hit, dropping him from full HP to negatives immediately. (Everyone else in the party was grappled or under fear effects, so he died.) After being resurrected, for the next "boss" fight, I buffed him up and spend the entire time fighting defensively... which turned out to be a good idea, because my DM rolled two 19's in a row on something with rend. Good think my AC was just high enough that those rolls missed by one point.

[Kesnit]

Vampire: the Requiem LARP. I was playing a Nos who had set up his haven in a rarely used utility closet in an office building. In what the ST thought would be funny (and in other circumstances would have been), the night custodian walked in on me as I was waking up. My Nos had a creep that wasn't an overt breech of the Masquerade, so I was OK there.

First I tried to bluff the custodian that I worked in the building and had gotten lost. (The character had pretty good social skills.) Critical fail

I tried to slip into the shadows and disappear. Critical fail and I fell to the floor.

The custodian decides I "have a purdy mouth" and attacks me. He manages to rip my pants off.

I try to fight him off. Critical fail.

I finally get away by activating Nightmare and scaring him off me. I didn't critically fail that one.

[kenjigoku]

One of may players has an average of 6.3 on d20 rolls. This is up since he finally rolls a 20 from time to time now.

[DigoDragon]

One of my players holds the record for most 1s rolled consecutively in a D&D adventure-- Eight.
A former player holds second place at Seven 1s in a row.

Both of these happened within a session of each other. I tried to calmly remind their dice that this isn't a game of "GURPS"

[Jay R]

I once had a 3rd level thief climbing up ten feet of rubble, to examine a hole in the wall. Pretty near automatic, right?

I rolled a 00. OK, a ten foot fall doesn't do much damage, so I rolled again. 00 again. It took me three tries to roll a 95-.

(Turns out, though, my dice were trying to save me. There was a Grey Ooze in that hole.)

[FireEyes]

The worst string of role-playing luck I ever had was a seven-year stretch when I had nobody to play role-playing games with.

This, sadly.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

My group gas had a 12 1's streak during a social encounter, interrupted by a single x2 20 when my Orc barbarian tried to jog a prisoner's memory, knocking him out cold for 6 hours.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I don't have any experiences myself, but this is the story of how your worst luck can also be your best luck.

Short version

Spoiler

Show

Player: "I, the low-level paladin, attack the epic-level fighter/cleric half-fiend orc who just buffed himself!"
DM: "Alright, roll."
*1*
DM: "I'll give you a reroll."
*1*
*1*
*throws die into garbage*
*DM rolls on fumble table*
*DM stiffens*
Player: "I decapitated myself, didn't I."
DM: "Character and adjacent target die."

[Opperhapsen]

We had one session of D&D where I consistently (And by consistently I mean every single time) rolled 1 or 2 less than what I required to succeed at anything.

So many rolls, so many failures, so close.
I actually went down to -3 HP against a random mook while the rest of the group were happily slaughtering their way across the battlefield.