Epic Moments in Tabletop Gaming

[Ozfer]

Now, we have funny moments, scary moments, and I want epic moments! Playing dnd 3.5 recently, this moment inspired me to post this thread-

Players-
Time-Bender Half Dwarf
Human Barbarian
Human Fire Mage

Passing through an old gold rush town, the 3 players are caught in the middle of a goblin attack and are taken prisoner. They are inside an old mine, 2 players explore while the Fire Mage guards the townsfolk.

Unfortunately, the two explorers are caught by no less than twenty goblins. The Time Bender goes down after frying 7 goblins, and the barbarian rages, killing three (These are all 1st level characters).

With the Time-Benders health rapidly falling, the Barbarian picks up the fallen player, taking an attack of opportunity, and outruns all the goblins even with the speed penalty from carrying a player.

He dashes down the hallway, covered in blood, screaming, "I need a healer!". He is promptly healed by the village priest, while the Fire Mage roasts 8 other goblins.

Finally, the barbarian takes a flying leap (Even though his rage had ended), and breaks one goblins neck with an unarmed strike while stabbing the other through the spine.

[Lvl45DM!]

The High Priestess of the BBEG has this magic rock that spills black oil everywhere. This black oil corrupts and mutates anything it comes into contact with turning it into a tentacled monster bent on destruction.

Our party catches up to her just as shes about to pull off this monstrous ritual that would summon the source of the Oil. We start hammering our way through her minions when one of the mages drops an Otilukes Resilient Sphere on her just as she finishes the ritual. Oil explodes out of the Ebon stone coats the inside of the sphere and starts filling up. This, while saving us from the direct effects of the oil does not stop the summoning.

Shadowy tentacles start forming in the air around her and a giant alien face starts peering through a hole in reality. The stone is the source of the summoning and we can't get to it.

Here comes the epic bit. My paladin/former thief Allaine takes up his Holy Avenger and, using its Magic Resistance, plunges through the sphere into the sea of black oil and swings at the Ebon Stone. Its armour class -10 (1st ed btw) and I'm 10th level so I need about a 17 to hit or so.

Natural 20.

The stone shatters and the eldritch abomination begins to retreat. Allaine is horribly sick and dying, and has about 3 rounds before being mutated into a hideous monster. So I leap through the rift with the eldritch abomination scoring massive damage with my Holy Blade. The rift shuts and Allaine is lost forever in another dimension, doing battle with what later turned out to be Nyarlathotep's avatar. The party built a statue for him.

We played a campaign a few years later with a DM who was a player at the time of my epic sacrifice. We were doing a second generation kind of thing and when we went to visit Allaine's statue we notice the sword wasn't made of marble but real steel. And radiated magic. And could be taken down and wielded. And it talked. I got to roleplay my party members freakin sword. So much fun

[Erik Vale]

1. (Players Character when I DM'd)

The players had encounted a town where a High Powered (High Superhuman, Say 15-20 maybye when players where Heroes (Level 5) (Heroes balences things up)) had just conveted almost all the townspeople into weak demons (easily undone).

In the first encounter, the players found out the demons where actually humans when the fighter charged a demon (about the power of an orc, but swapping ability to do damage for potent defenses) and rolled so well that he impaled the demon through the chest, nailing him to a nearby object.


Finally, after some searching and survivor recovery in the town, the adventurers assail a largish temple known to have the preistess and around 100 demons (had 110).

Opening the door, the party fighter notices the really busy preistess and 100 of the 110 demons all wrapped up in casting a spell.

Momentarily forgetting the push rules (and letting them slide latter), the fighter decides to push his leap, rolling a 3 on his ego roll (Think 20 in d20). He then procedes to leap over 110 demons to the side of the preistess and stab her through the stomach. (Due to the sword used, it bounces off, but still)
And knocks her out cold.
He had just jumped over a horde of demons to knockout a potent wizard in the middle of a major ceromony.
A few minutes of stunned silence as the two players think 'Holy Sh*t!' and I think 'Shes supposed to be disrupted and flee!'

Cue the Wizard throwing a fireball from his wand, quickly returning a majority of demons back to humans (Amulates Destroyed), and panic.

The wizard and ranger ended up fleeing, with the warrior under a pile of 25 demons before we had to stop for time.

[Riverdance]

Spoiler

Show

The High Priestess of the BBEG has this magic rock that spills black oil everywhere. This black oil corrupts and mutates anything it comes into contact with turning it into a tentacled monster bent on destruction.

Our party catches up to her just as shes about to pull off this monstrous ritual that would summon the source of the Oil. We start hammering our way through her minions when one of the mages drops an Otilukes Resilient Sphere on her just as she finishes the ritual. Oil explodes out of the Ebon stone coats the inside of the sphere and starts filling up. This, while saving us from the direct effects of the oil does not stop the summoning.

Shadowy tentacles start forming in the air around her and a giant alien face starts peering through a hole in reality. The stone is the source of the summoning and we can't get to it.

Here comes the epic bit. My paladin/former thief Allaine takes up his Holy Avenger and, using its Magic Resistance, plunges through the sphere into the sea of black oil and swings at the Ebon Stone. Its armour class -10 (1st ed btw) and I'm 10th level so I need about a 17 to hit or so.

Natural 20.

The stone shatters and the eldritch abomination begins to retreat. Allaine is horribly sick and dying, and has about 3 rounds before being mutated into a hideous monster. So I leap through the rift with the eldritch abomination scoring massive damage with my Holy Blade. The rift shuts and Allaine is lost forever in another dimension, doing battle with what later turned out to be Nyarlathotep's avatar. The party built a statue for him.

We played a campaign a few years later with a DM who was a player at the time of my epic sacrifice. We were doing a second generation kind of thing and when we went to visit Allaine's statue we notice the sword wasn't made of marble but real steel. And radiated magic. And could be taken down and wielded. And it talked. I got to roleplay my party members freakin sword. So much fun

That is truly epic and fantastic roleplaying! You have my respect good sir.

[douglaswalkers]

If I am not wrong, then there is the high priestess of BBEG and this BBEG haves that magic rock which spills black oil every where. This stuffs makes it epic and users love to play this game.

[Hylas]

Single shot Cthulhu-based setting using WoD.

I'm not a fan of WoD and honestly don't know the minor nuances of the rules and what is and isn't house-ruled. So instead of trying to find some sort of neat set of rules or combat to go off of I just did a character based purely on a concept and what looked neat. The setting was in the 1920s in SF (we all live in the Bay Area and the DM has a degree in history and loves this time period, so very detailed and we got to go to plenty of museums) so I decided to make a strip club bouncer who had a since of chivalry and he was there to "protect the women" from overly aggressive men. So I buffed up his strength and left his mental stats pretty low. I had three specialties to choose from so I picked what fit the character: Brawling (Throws) because he has to throw people out of the club, Athletics (Sprint) to get across the room fast, and Intimidation (Stare Down) because bouncer. He had no education or occult or even the ability to use guns. His only weapon was some brass knuckles.

At the very end of the session we were in a car chase following some cultists who had captured the crazy person in our group who was prophesying with modeling clay. We arrived at a numbered pier where there was a fishing boat starting to pull away inside a warehouse. Guns are blazing everywhere and and I sprint across the warehouse, dodging bullets, and leap onto the boat as it pulls out into the bay. Now separated from the party the GM begins sending the goons on the boat after me.

"I throw him off the boat!" *rolls amazing successes*

Two more cultists jump me right afterwards and are then proceeded to be thrown off the boat.

Then three more.

Then four more.

I managed to throw everyone off the boat through an improbable series of rolls and burning through "extra effort" resources. The cult leader shows up with a gun to my friend's head, threatening to shoot us.

Intimidate: Stare Down

I manage to delay him until the rest of the party show up in another hijacked boat and we subdue him and save the world.

[Lvl45DM!]

That is truly epic and fantastic roleplaying! You have my respect good sir.

Thank you.Its always nice to hear some respect from such a fine community.

If I am not wrong, then there is the high priestess of BBEG and this BBEG haves that magic rock which spills black oil every where. This stuffs makes it epic and users love to play this game.

Well it was an amalgamation of an old adventure in a dragon magazine 'The Ebon Stone' some X-files and a dash of Lovecraft. But i suppose the tropes aren't that rare. But I might disagree with you just a tad. By themselves they are just tropes. These are the things that allow players to MAKE the game epic.

[Lentrax]

Ok. Not entirely sure it qualifies as Epic but:

I was playing a dwarf ranger. My friend was an Elf wizard. (My extremely racist dwarf never bothered to learn his name. He just kept calling him Elf. He wasn't even an elf, but an Eladrin. Close enough for him.) We tracked a group of Orcs that destroyed my characters village to a mine complex in the hills. We get there, hack through five levels of orcs, when the elf goes and gets captured. I bust him out and we head down to find the head orc.

Long story short, we are severly outgunned. We decide to retreat, but the orcs disabled the mine shaft elevator. Now we are in the 15' diameter shaft, making the Orcs funnel through the door into my axes and the elf's spells, but it isn't going well.

Thats when the Elf hits 0 hp.

What do we do?

I sling Elf over my shoulder, spit into my hands and climb 60 feet of chain to the top floor. I throw him to far side, and then ask, "So, what's the DC to jump 15 feet from this chain to the far side?"

The DM rattles off a number after the appropriate surprised facial expression. I roll. Miss it by one. But Elf makes a reflex to grab by what else? My beard. He hauls me up, I throw my last three Alchemists fires down the shaft, and we haul outta there to heal up and get some reinforcements.

Like I said, probably not that epic, but its what I've got.

[Roguenewb]

I posted this earlier in funny stories, but now, it seems obvious that the second part is also hilariously epic. Enjoy!


The cast and crew:

Mike, as the mighty Druid 20, with his T-Rex animal companion
Sam, as the crazed Warmage 20
Joe, as the mighty Cleric 15/Thaumaturgist 5
Me, the Knight 20, with my human fighter 4 squire

Besides the hilarious jokes about my much, much lower power level, here's my story:

Our newly formed team, tavern-met, learned that the nearby town of Nystulville was being besieged by a black dragon. We, as the mighty heroes that we were, took off to save the town, cause I, as Knight, insisted that we walk and go immediately. We reached the town, and learned about the nearby dragon that had been attacking, and melting into the nearby swamp every dawn. It became clear that the dragon had some sort of under-swamp home, and that we would have to go in there to get it, because only insane people fight a dragon outside.

Mike decides, quite rightly, that we don't need another big fighter, and that the T-Rex is just likely to get in the way. The T-rex is left to guard the town. We struck out into the swamp, and soon found all the landmarks that had been described, and it became clear that we would have to go into the swamp water to do so. After a ton of stupid deliberation, the Warmage gets Freedom of movement cast on him (I don't remember how), and goes swimming.

He finds an underwater cave entrance and follows it to the point where the tunnel comes back above water in a dimly lit cave and starts looking around for the Black Dragon (in retrospect, this becomes an incredibly terrible plan we had...). And what does our fine, loony as a bat, warmage see? THE TARRASQUE. In perhaps the only display of humility I've ever seen from Sam, he runs back out the tunnel, knowing well that Warmages are badly suited for tarrasque killing. He emerges from the water into the swamp where we are standing, and he simply shouts, "BIG T!"

Not a moment after he finishes his shout, the hillside off to our left explodes, and the tarrasque charges. I, as a level 20 knight, turn my horse, and charge along side my squire. The Tarrasque meets us head on, and kills my squire in a single hit, kills my horse in the second, and throws me across the swamp in the third hit.

Our party looks around, and decides that the townsfolk obviously are fools, and confused the Tarrasque with a black dragon, whatever, they look *vaguely* similar. Regardless, we start the fight. The druid picks up some Elemental Monoliths (Yay swift concentration!), the Cleric sicks his angel friend on it, and the three casters start lobbing spells galore at it. I stand in front of the beast, attacking it with my Bastard Sword for 1d10+18 damage a blow....

So, Big T does what Big T does, he kills the angel, shreds a monolith, kills me twice (Yay contingent resurrection!) and finally we bring it down. The cleric lobs out a miracle, and the mighty foe, the legendary Tarrasque, perishes.

We start rejoicing (this being the only time we'd ever fought big T). And the DM asks for a reflex save from Mike. Mike makes the save, and avoids a huge head falling on him. Mike stands up, shakes off the slime and looks at the head, and recognizes his T-Rex. That's when we look up into the sky, and find ourselves looking at a Great Wyrm Black Dragon.

What followed was the most desperate fight I've ever participated in. It lasted an hour, and every moment, we were a tenth of a second from death.

Highlights of the Epic Battle Include:
-The Dragon AMFing and slaying the warmage in a single full attack.
-The Cleric miracle-ing for infinite turn attempts today, and going Nova with DMM(Twin), and DMM(Quicken), you haven't lived until you've seen a cleric floating in mid air with angel wings cast two twinned gates in a round for 2 Planetars each.
-Me rolling a 1 on a Reflex save, and taking almost max acid breath damage (Yay proc-energy!), and my sword, shield, and armor turning to goop.
-The druid wildshaping and turning into a dragon so he could dragon-a-dragon with the beast. Only, once he got close, the dragon cast AMF again, and ate the druid when he turned back into a human.
-Me, armed with my Squire's sword and shield, charging straight at the beast while the cleric needed time to get his buffs back up, post-disjunction. I was devoured in three turns, but the cleric, now alone, was able to hit the dragon with enough force finally, to end it, once and for all