I rolled a what? (Natural 1 stories!)

[Santanya]

So, lets hear some stories of valor where you scored a natural one with comical results!

In a game, I (an elf at the time) was riding in the back of a wagon when it and the party came upon a giant snake. The horses were spooked, but not running, so in order to get a better shot with my crossbow tried to jump down. Roll the skill check (Its a DC 5, what's the worst that could happen). Hmm... 4. Crap... oh wait... that's with a +3 modifier. I know a skill check doesn't necessarily fail on a 1, but it did reguardless.

The beautiful, graceful elf leaps over the side of the wagon, crossbow at the ready to fire after she lands... only to have the heel of her boot catch on the wagons side, sending her face first into the dirt. From beside the wagon up floats slightly wavering words. "I hate wagons...." (She's held a grudge ever since.)

[Black Hand]

I remember in the 2E days I was running a group of 20 kobold archers vs the PC's.

I was using the "group of 5 roll" from Spelljammer for large group rolls. So I had to roll 4 times for the 20 kobolds, and wouldn't you know it, I didn't roll a 1, but 3 bloody ones (yes I did go buy a lotto ticket after the game). And I even had a fumble table and rolled once for all 3 ones, which resulted in the loss of their weapons.

So the PC's were suprised on the initial ambush when a few arrows came whizzing by before they were pelted by 15 bows.

Ahhh, funny moments.

[the_tick_rules]

well my dm had a rule if you rolled a 1 you had to make a dex check to avoid dropping your weapon. an orc i was fighting was doing a power attack, rolled 1 one on both. the dm rolled to see which square tha axe fell in, it was a square occupied by an opponet. he rolled to he if the axe hit him, it did and killed him. then i killed the disarmed orc, pretty easy 2-kill.

[volrathxp]

We had one last night, my players come across a Spellwarped Ettin, which rushes up to the Warforged fighter and attacks, and rolls a 1.

So I go to the fumble chart... Hit Self for Critical damage, roll on critical table.

So I roll on the Critical chart.... +1 to Crit Multiplier... so he hits himself with his morningstar for x3 his normal crit damage.

Suffice to say, he also rolled a nat1 later on in the fight, and managed to knock himself prone.

It was quite funny.

[Belteshazzar]

A third level Thri-Keen Fighter using four scimitars engaged an eighth level adept with ranks in use device. While standing next to a huge pool of mercury (a planar monitoring device) the adept had just shoved his former elderly master into before the master was able to reveal anything important. On the Thri-Keen's third attack in the opening round he fumbles... critically! Being the Dm I decided that the adept was a fairly clever sort of man despite his lack of combat training and when the Thri-Keen was off balance he simply flipped him into the mercury pool with a simple push. Then comes the Adept's turn. The Adept took a five foot step back and used a wand of lighting on the pool. Everyone standing next to the pool had to make a reflex save but the poor Thri-Keen fried like a bug and began drowning... while in negative hitpoints and while making a fortitude save every round to avoid heavy metal poisoning.

[DaMullet]

Here's a good one.

I was the DM the other night, working with a fairly ineffectual party (Bard8, Ranger8, Cleric6/Rogue2). They were up against a troll with Barbarian levels, and the Bard decides to Fascinate the jerk. He rolls a natural one on his perform check, for a total DC of 11. Ordinarily I wouldn't even bother rolling against so low a DC, but I do.

The troll botches. He sat there in a daze for all of four rounds while the party dispatched his White Dragon buddies.

[Toric]

Two very similar occasions with my dwarven gestalt fighter/rogue in an Eberron campaign.

First occasion: My dwarf has very recently joined up, and the party has found some underground ruins beneath Sharn with House Cannith insignias everywhere. A few vermin fights into the place, we find a rest area with a fountain in the center. My dwarf has second watch. Good spot checks but the watch is uneventful, so he decides to have a look at an old book that's been used earlier with a rune on the cover. The book is currently on the party's scantily-clad, man-hating female nymph Healer, so since she's a vital spellcaster he decides to just take the book without waking her up with a Sleight of Hand check. Natural 1. He trips and places one hand firmly on her... endowments. She wakes up to see this, and since she can't use Blinding Beauty yet I get an Orb of Fire right to the face. Next thing anybody else knows there's a dwarf with a flaming beard running straight for the fountain, shouting and swearing enough to wake up some of the ruin's nastier inhabitants before he dunks his entire head into the fountain. He only salvaged two thirds of his beard, but nobody died and I came up with a new beard style for him once he got back to civilization so it worked out in the end.

Second occasion: The party's on the road chasing down some guy who stole some sword blah blah, and during the night my dwarf gets third watch. Eventually he sees something moving over by the horses, with a Spot check good enough to tell that it's definitely not a horse. He decides to Move Silently to wake up another party member before making a Hide check and sneaking closer to whatever's with the horses. He never gets that far. Natural 1 on the Move Silently check. The nearest party member, a female human Psion/Sorcerer, is sleeping in a tent. The dwarf trips on a tent stake, falls on top of the tent directly onto the woman, and starts cursing up a storm while the woman crawls out of the tent screaming about badgers from the nightmare she'd been having. Whatever was by the horses didn't run away, but the session ended before we could find out what it was. At least the whole party's awake now to see what it is.

He really needs to just stay away from sleeping women from now on.

[goat]

Playing L5R, I rolled 4 D10s, keeping three, to see if I could stay on my horse after we'd been ambushed (DC15). I rolled three 1's and a 2.

It was ruled that I'd fallen off my horse and got my foot caught in the stirrup, meaning my very proud Samurai warrior had to spend his next round getting himself free without his horse trampling him.

Still I did one hit kill one of our attackers after he stabbed my horse.

[Shoemaker]

My funniest Natural 1 story would have to be the one in my sig. But I'll expound on it!

I was in a party of 6 (Barbarian, Monk, Cleric, Druid, Rogue, and me, a Wizard), and were were around level 9, doing the standard dungeon crawl thing.

It was pretty much an underground maze of passages with every odd monster from 3 Monster Manuals thrown in there. Not much as far as roleplaying goes, but fun stuff!

Anywho, after nearly 6 straight fairly-taxing encounters, we were pretty much swaggering aroudn the place. We were rolling well that night, and so we arrogantly decided to press on instead of stop for a rest like we should have.

Long story short, we ended up going one room too far, and the ensuing horde of mismatched monsters was effectively dividing and mauling our party. The cleric and I ended up in a room by ourselves fighting a fleshraker and a monster that sucked wisdom. (I'm PRETTY sure it was a reason stealer).

And this Reason Stealer was beating the crap out of me, but eventually I managed to drop it and the dinosaur. But then, I look over and see the cleric lying unconcious and bleeding on the floor. Not knowing what else to do, I run over and make a Heal check, trying desperately to at least stop the bleeding.

Now, my wizard had no ranks in Heal. And the Wisdom mauling he had recieved had made his modifier to the score as low as it could possibly be.

Still, I figured I could at LEAST roll well enough to keep him from bleeding to death. Right?

Wrong. Natural 1, all the way. The rest of the exchange is in my profile.

Luckily, he had a healing potion. So I saved him barely.

I think the DM felt we deserved it, for being so darn arrogant. Still, we laughed about the concept of "antihealing" for a while, and the other party members begged my wizard to never ever try to heal them, even if they were in the negatives.

[Quietus]

I think my favorite nat-1 story comes from a game with my blind human monk and my friend's half-elf ranger. They were getting ready to head off in search of riches, glory, and ... wait, they just wanted revenge... and about to leave the tavern they were in. A couple of halflings were making nuisances of themselves, wanting her to stay, and were doing everything in their power to do so. I'll spare a whole unnecessary description of the background of this portion.

Long story short, she convinced them to go get something for her, and the two halflings both tried to run out the door, getting caught side-by-side in it. When the doors swung back, they knocked both halflings flying into the room. I rolled a total of 35 or so to hear the screams of one of them and locate him by that, then a nat 20 to grab him from midair, and confirmed my attack roll. One halfling was successfully saved.

The other, on the other hand, flew past and hit the wall, falling unconscious. My partner decided to heal him, went over, and rolled a natural one... in our games, a natural one on a heal check represents attempting to fix the bleeding with broken glass. So she proceeds to rub glass in the halfling's wounds, damaging him but not so badly he wouldn't survive. But he's still bleeding, which she notices... now, the PLAYER kept rolling the dice without purpose, then it came up a natural 20 and she wanted to use that for the next heal check. Rather, she declared that she was, and the DM told her she couldn't, and had her reroll. And she got another natural one.

So this time, she snatches a bottle off of a nearby table, shatters it, takes a large chunk and tries to hack off the goosebump on the halfling's head- after all, if the goosebump's the problem, removing it should fix it right? The halfling was now in negative hit points from her brutal Heal check mauling, and she could clearly see the blood running down the halfling's face. The entire bar is silent, watching in horror, while my character, being blind, is blissfully unaware of what was happening. He feels pretty good about himself, after saving the one halfling.

But of course, my partner hasn't learned her lesson yet... and keeps rolling, and when it comes up a 19, she declares, "Hah! Now I'll fix the problem!" ... and the DM asks her to roll again. And she gets another natural one. She takes the broken neck of the shattered bottle, and is about to try and perform surgery with it, when the barmaid physically comes over and stops her - that third natural one would have outright killed the halfling. My partner learned that day the importance of NOT trying to preroll things.

[Ravyn]

One of the players in my game is a walking botch. Despite the fact that his character is supposed to know things, the dice pools do nothing, and we find him botching almost every time the group's prompted to roll to think of something. Which means that in the time he's been active, he's done everything from seriously misremember his teammates' abilities through identify a charm against the plague as a mass summoning of an ultrapowerful demon, and right the way up to knock himself out misusing a stone that let him read people's surface thoughts.

And then there was the tapestry incident--my personal favorite because it stayed secret for so long. The group had recently been introduced to and greatly offended one of the scariest individuals in the setting, and were most definitely trying to steer clear of him... and then I give one of the other PCs a vision which includes a magic circle meant to create a gateway between two worlds. He brings this information back to the group, sketches the diagram in question, and our poor bad-luck scholar takes a look at it.... and botches. Badly. So I end up giving him something close to the truth. "You know back when you were in that office? There was this one tapestry that looked kinda like that..." And someone else had ID'd it the diagram as a gate to the demon realm. (This was an insidious botch, something I'm rather fond of. After all.... it was almost true. The man did have a gate between worlds in his office, it just didn't go there.) The amusing part? Despite my constant attempts to get someone to ask the right question to clear this up, it took the group half a year to figure out that this was yet another of the infamous Luath-botches. And midway through the half year, we're in another game, pretty much the same people, and someone comments on how lucky everyone is that the guy isn't too convincing. With both the player and me involved. If it hadn't been an online game, the laughter would've given us away.

Similarly, I've just fallen into a nice one. The group left me alone too long, and we'd been having difficulties with staining on our auras and the like... and I got access to the artifact collection. Which includes a nice little jobbie that keeps out outside influences. I don't know if the GM meant for it to happen or not, but it gave me ideas.... what happens if I activate this thing. So I decide to experiment with it, have to roll Essence... double-botch.... I'm still not sure what it did, because that was the point at which I realized that this is something that really shouldn't happen in sidechat, so we ret-conned a little way back. Should be finding out in a couple of days, though.

[Gungnir]

Heal checks make for fun botches.

Rogue jumps across a small ravine. Just barely meets the DC, then fails a balance check to land on his feet, so the DM has him fall on his face in a pile of dust. He needs to make a DC 5 heal check to get it out of his eyes. Critical failure. We spend a minute trying to figure out just exactly how one can botch getting dust out of their eyes.

DM: "You pull out your dagger to aid you in getting the dust out of your eyes..."

[Soniku]

Ah! Rolling horribly, my forte!

While there are hundreds of stories I could throw at you, I'll pick this one for sheer "natural 1" factor.

I was coming in a few sessions into a campaign and the characters so far were mostly casters. I was allowed a cool one use stat boosting item for my "cool fighter with a high charisma saves the day" entrance into the campaign which would make it horrifically easy to chop down the opponents that the spellcasters would have trouble with due to SR.

Well, battle starts, I use my homebrew "plot" buff and charge. In my first round I roll no less than two natural ones (I had two attacks per round) and following that I rolled a one and a four. Yeah, my character got butchered even when he needed as little as a six to hit the enemy.

This might be one of the reasons I'm a fan of the GM fudging enemy dice rolls if things are going against how things were supposed to go. Thanks to my amazing array of bad luck and the GMs open rolls the entire party (casters against SR enemies, remember) was slaughtered and we all had to make new characters.

[manda_babylon]

I played a BESM game once where a friend's character suffered from a flaw called "Klutz." Each time she was faced with a stressful or unusual situation, she would be asked to roll a balance check. Once, she took it upon herself to distract the school's librarian so that her friend could break a lock to an office. She tried to pull the woman's arm in order to prevent her from turning around.

GM: "You're on some stairs, though, so this might be tricky for you. Roll me a balance check."
Jack: "Okay."
He then proceeds to roll a natural 1, which we always consider a botch.
Jack: "Oh, ****."
GM: "You knock her down the stairs. Your feet end up wrapped around her ankles, and she topples backwards. You both tumble down, and you land on top of her."

Then, she recovers and rushes to find help. The Librarian is badly injured, and Carah finds some paramedics. She decides in her panic to help the paramedics perform first aid. Jack rolled again to have the character help, and he botched a second time.

GM: "When you rush forward, you trip a second time. You fall on the male paramedic, knocking him backwards into the female one. She falls forward, losing her grip on the medical equipment, and it falls onto the Librarian, crushing her chest.
Jack: "Is she... Is she dead?"
GM: "Her chest has been crushed."

Eventually, the Librarian was mysteriously resurrected, though she eventually committed suicide later on when an even more annoying character tried to involve her in her wedding plans, which led to the much-beloved exclamation, "Thank you for leaving us with this corpse!"

I myself roll a fair amount of natural 20s when it comes to physical attacks. Unfortunately, when it comes to Fort Saves and self-defense, I roll dreadfully. In a D20 Modern game, I played a priest who could take out anything with a sniper rifle. Unfortunately, when it came to brute strength, he was somewhat lacking, with his 10 strength. He got in a physical fight once with a friend's character, who was both a Satanist, hated him extraordinarily, and had a 17 in strength. Katey, the Satanist, rolled a 15 to punch my character, Lex. Lex retaliated, and rolled an 18 to hit him back, winning the altercation.

A few days later, Katey rolled to grapple Lex, with the intent to sexually assault him. In Lex's defense, I rolled a 2. Another time, a female character rolled to poison Lex in order to seduce him, and I rolled a resist poison check that also came out to a 2. Catherine, the woman, would up having to use her medical skills in order to stabilize him, since the poison nearly killed him.

[Seffbasilisk]

I just came from a session. Level 3 characters, Human TWF Ranger, Half-Elf TWF Rogue, Dwarven 1H Fighter (looking for a shield), Human Cleric with domains of Fire and War.

We were trying to get across a rope bridge over a chasm in a mountain trail. Both the Cleric (my character) and the Dwarven fighter wear Masterwork Fullplate. Thankfully the Rogue and Ranger listened to me at character creation and are both wearing Masterwork Studded Leather armor. My cleric decides to try the chasm first, because hell, if we fall? We're dead. If not, then we can have someone solid on the other side to anchor a rope, and I think I have better luck then the fighter.

I go to cross it. Forget about my fullplate. Balance check. No ranks, Dex of 13, and a -5 Armor Check Penalty. I roll a 4. So I tell the DM "I got a Zero." After a second or two of utmost confusion, he says "...ok...roll reflex." I manage to get 22 for that, so I grab the rope. "Climb check to get back up on the bridge." 17. So I'm doing pretty well, recovering, my dice are loving me again...."Balance Check." "...-3." "Reflex Save." "22." And so began the cleric-whirling bridge.

I finally got over it, anchored in a rope with pitons and managed to hurl a grappling hook over to give the bridge some more stability, but even with that, and even with the fighter taking off his fullplate and putting it in his backpack, he still ended up whirling around the bridge as well. When the Rogue and Ranger went to go accross? No issues.

DC 10 balance check.

[The Mormegil]

Hear this: a vampire wizard tries to cast a Finger of Death spell on me while my kobold buddy is nearby him. He does the Concentration check and doesn't fail. The kobold's player is shouting the hell out of the DM, 'cause we're still at lvl5 and I can't attempt a save against a Finger of Death. The DM, whatsoever continues and tries his Spellcraft check to use a damn difficult scroll, and rolls a natural 1. The DM decides that the kobold's shouts are so loud that the vampire himself stops the casting to say "Stop shouting like that, you little green thing!" and ruins the spell.

[Mkall]

The party was attempting to take over a Githyanki airship when the captain decides to make himself known to the party. The bard cast blindness on him and succeeded (missed the DC by one). So the captain, decided not to stand still decides to attack anyways. I roll a listen to determine if he knows where the enemies are in the fight: 1 (+some insignificant modifier). I decided that he runs in such a direction, then I roll again to see if, by some fluke chance he can actually do anything: 1 again.

He charged right off the airship. Mopping up the Githyanki had never been so easy.

[dungeon_munky]

We're playing the "fumble drops weapon if you fail to hit again" rules.
So we are in some trippy elf medicine fantasy, and I'm fighting a shadow mastiff. I'm a level 2 ranger. I managed to score a +1 longsword earlier, but alas, I roll a one on my first attack. But no big deal, I have quickdraw and another longsword. So, I pull that out, and next turn, another natural one, another longsword bites the dirt. My friends are laughing hysterically, but I have a shortsword, 10 daggers, and my improved unarmed fists left. I ended up killing the thing eventually, so happy ending.

[HeinleinFan]

Last Sunday my group was playing a zombie game, All Flesh Must Be Eaten. It's developed that it is mid-April of this year and we've been going around trying to be useful to the army, which needs to take care of the zombies in the area in addition to the invading armies (Note: the events are politically impossible, like for instance the one where Mexico and Venezuela team up with China to attack the U.S. as the zombies attack). In this instance, we're trying to take out a tank from afar, since the tank is behind the walls of a hastily-thrown-together enemy base.

The idea is for Anton to sneak over the bridge, set the mine that he's been taught how to use, and sneak back. Then we would use a rocket-propelled grenade to get the tank and leave, while any pursuing forces would go across the bridge and set off the mine, weakening the bridge and demoralizing the enemy. A good plan, right?

Anton gets to the middle of the bridge, to the point where the enemy (China, I think) might be able to see and hear him.

DM: "Roll your sneaking skill."
Anton: "Aw, nuts."
DM: "Roll again to see how badly you do."
Anton: "I rolled a three."
DM (pauses.) "Roll a refexive action to see whether you successfully prevent the explosive mine from dropping as you slip on the wet ground and skid down the bridge."

He made it. So he wasn't dead, he just brought the anger of the Chinese military down upon us, which is considerable given that we've been spying on them for several days now and radioing our information to the U.S. Army for airstrikes and suchlike.

[Theodora]

Usually I am not lucky at all with my rolls. Recently I almost died from cold because I could not roll a 10 for fortitude save! We were crossing a mountain path, full of snow. Later, we were trying to pass an icy bridge, and almost nobody could roll enough for balance. One character died eventually, because he fell from the bridge...

[MaxKaladin]

This happened in the first session of the first 3e game I ever ran.

The party was in a city and had discovered that someone had kidnapped a woman and child. The bard and the cleric discovered where they were being held, but there was a half-orc with a big axe inside guarding them. I forget what happened, but the half-orc heard noises in the alley and came out to investigate. The bard decided to slip out of the shadows and club him over the head to knock him out. The bard rolled a 1 on his move silently and the half-orc...didn't. He spun around to see the bard sneaking up behind him with a club raised to strike. He roared, charged, swung his axe, critted, did near max damage and reduced the bard to negative dead. Oops.

[02youeng]

Funniest one I ever saw:

Me [lvl 13 wizard]: I cast baleful polymorph on the black dragon
[DM rolls a 1 on the fort save]
[DM rolls a 19 on the will save]
DM: The dragon turns into a sparrow
[Rouge moves up to wizard, fire repeater xbow at it, missing lots]
DM: My sparrow breathes acid on the wizard and rogue
[wizard gets a 1 on the reflex save, -8 hp]

Cleric used cure serious wounds though, instead of a heal check,

[iceman]

It was the first encounter of the campaign, during the night, and my halfling rogue was on watch. I botched both my spot and listen checks to find out that there was a medium sized snake slithering up behind me. It crit on me knocking me unconscious. Whereupon, it devoured me while the rest of my party slept. Rolled a new character.

[Holocron Coder]

This wasn't myself, but rather a story my uncle told me back during his 1e games.

He was playing a Barbarian that didn't trust magic. Would have nothing to do with it. The party often had to knock him out or get him drunk in order to cast a teleportation spell. This was very much in character and encouraged, so it was allowed. Eventually, my uncle noticed that his damage was lagging far behind because he was still using a nonmagical weapon at a high level. To remedy this, the DM created a nonmagical but definitely powerful sword to be found in a dungeon. After much work and horror, they found the sword and the barbarian equipped it.

The next encounter, the Barbarian rushes in and... rolls a 1 on his attack. Rolls a d6 to find what kind of fumble it was and... gets the result that breaks his weapon.

[Gitman00]

My party consists of an elven swashbuckler, an elven ranger (archery combat focus), a tiny Petal (fey) rogue, and my character is a drow cleric. All ECL 3, although my character has a +2 level adjustment, so she's a first-level cleric. We've got two NPC human Shugenja with us as well. We're fighting orcs on both sides of a chasm 30 feet across, in a dungeon. The two orcs on the far side are shooting at us with bows, and those on the near side are attacking us with falchions. While the rest of us deal with the melee attackers, the swashbuckler pulls an Indiana Jones and uses his whip (15 feet long) to get across the chasm. Keep in mind, we have two decent archers in the party, and the Petal can fly. The swashbuckler rolls extremely well and makes it across, despite heavy penalties for his whip being too short.

DM: You make it across the chasm. The orcs both drop their bows and pull out falchions.
Swashbuckler: Crap. I pull out my rapier.
DM: They both attack. [rolls] 8 damage from a falchion. [rolls] 7 damage from a falchion.
Swashbuckler: Dammit! I'm down. At least tell me I didn't fall into the chasm.
DM: [rolls] no, you managed to get away from the edge before they attacked you.
Me: Idiot! I attack the last orc near me. [rolls 19 to hit, 6 damage]
DM: You stab him through the throat. He's dead.

We then plunk away at the orcs across the chasm with bows for 2 more rounds until they fall.

Swashbuckler: Guys? -5 HP and falling.
Me: Okay. I pull out my 50-foot rope and grappling hook. I'm gonna try the same stunt he did and get over to him. [rolls 18]
DM: The grappling hook is attached.
Me: [tests rope]
DM: [rolls] It seems secure.
NPC Shugenja: [hands Me two scrolls] Take these.
Me: Healing scrolls?
NPC Shugenja: [nods] Good luck.
Me: Thanks. [stuffs scrolls into belt] I swing across.
DM: Balance check.
Me: 4.
DM: [raises eyebrows] Hmmm. Strength check.
Me: ...[mutters under breath] Natural 1.
DM: You land on the very corner of the far edge and fall backwards into the chasm. You try to grab the rope again, but it slips through your fingers. You plummet to the bottom.
Me: God call! God call!
DM: [rolls] No response.
Me: [gapes openmouthed] How much damage is that?
DM: It's 20d6 falling damage and there's a rushing underground river at the bottom. You have 9 HP. Do you really want me to roll it?
Me: [to Swashbuckler] I hate you.


The irony is, immediately afterwards, the NPC Shugenja grabs the still-swinging rope, makes the leap, and heals the frigging swashbuckler.

[Winterking]

Sigh. My DM dice have, on occasion, been quite unkind towards me.

The best example:
The PCs are in Mumbali, a big port city in the Mysterious South (insert sound effect), and they've been warned about some unusual deaths in the last day or two in the warehouse district. Late at night, they hear a couple of screams. So, some of the good-hearted ones go looking to solve the mystery, and the others tag along behind. Turns out some idiot of a merchant had brought a shipload of various dinosaurs to town, and the deinonychuses (deinonychi?) had escaped and were skulking around in the dark alleys, only to ambush the PCs. Three of them charge the party's 2 best melee fighters, just inside the door to a warehouse. On their first claw attack roll, 2 of the dinos get 1's. I decide that, okay, they've misjudged their leaping attack, and the PCs instead take bludgeoning damage from the dinosaurs crashing into them and falling prone. The PCs butcher the sole successful raptor quite handily. The other two try to stand up quickly (DC 5 dexterity check), one manages, the other gets a 1. The stand-up one is promptly sliced into ribbons. The other hangs out on the floor.
Next round, the ranger (one of the two fighters) casts "Charm Animal" on the inept dinosaur, thinking to replace his animal companion. The will save result? Natural 1.

I ruled that the poor dinosaur suffered a catastrophic stroke, and lay foaming gently at the mouth while whimpering softly.

Of course, the other 2 dinosaurs in that pack were equally ineffective: one slashed up the party's stealth-rogue before being magicked to bits, while the other's damage was overshadowed by the combat-monkey-rogue, whose crit-fail on a ranged sneak attack dropped the party wizard into negative hit points...

[silentknight]

Okay, here is mine...
Party is on a mysterious island covered by perpetual shadows and clouds. (Cue spooky music...) There is a lake at the island's center, and an old crumbling castle on an isle in the center of the lake. A battered and ravaged stone bridge connects castle to solid ground. As the party advances, the statues lining the bridge edges animate and are soundly defeated (actually aquatic gargoyles, kapoacinth).

Well, the big baddie defending the bridge against intruders is a dragon turtle dracolich. Dracolich surfaces, breathes steam all over the party. Party reels back, especially the fighters with heavy armor.

Then the gnome illusionist casts Disintegrate.
Dracolich rolls save. Natural 1.

It didn't actually "die" because it was to big to be completely consumed by the spell and the damage dealt was less than its hit points. But it was extremely ineffective because it was missing a head, both front legs, and half of the rest of its body.

That was just the first time that gnome made a battle too easy with a well placed Disintegrate.

[martyboy74]

A group of my friends were running a Star Wars d20 game (I was watching). One of the players had been separated from the group, and was fighting a Bantha. On its attack roll, it got a natural one. The result? While charging, it stepped on its foot, doing enough damage to kill itself.

[Maxymiuk]

My players actually take initiative on describing the results of rolling 1 on skill checks. And they're amusing enough that I have yet to tell them that you can't botch a skill check.

Some examples:

Caedmon Thaal: Listen roll if necessary: [1d20+6] => [1,6] = (7)
** Caedmon Thaal suddenly finds himself DEAF for a brief moment! **

Crowid: Move Silently [1d20+5] -> [1,5] = (6)
Kelsrod: ((LEEEEROOOOOOOY JEEEENKIIIIINNNNS!))

Morgan Seafood: Spot [1d20 => [1] = (1)
Caedmon Thaal: (( He sees but he does not observe. Whereas I see AND observe, and thus bring many criminals to justice.))

** Morgan Seafood turns to his horse and takes out a thick red leather book. Knowledge: Arcana [1d20+01 => [1,1] = (2) And starts looking if he has anything about red dragons or dragons in general and moral code or similar **
Morgan Seafood: (( thats +10 so its 11 although a natural 1 ))
Narrator: ((I was about to say that someone used those pages for toilet paper...))

Saldazar: Grapple Attempt [1d20+24] -> [1,24] = (25)
Saldazar: ((bugger))

(said to a character mauled by a zombie bear)
Kumbrin Deepdelve: examine wound: Heal [1d20+0] -> [1,0] = (1)
Kumbrin Deepdelve: "Hah, yer fine, barely a fleshwound!"

** Caedmon Thaal keeps an eye out for signs of other animals in the victinity -- what kind, how dangerous, whether they show signs of being actually ALIVE, etc. **
Caedmon Thaal: Survival if necessary: [1d20+6] => [1,6] = (7)
** Caedmon Thaal trips and falls over an outstretched tree root **

** Caedmon Thaal wonders if this is a certain subspecies of horse, perhaps some other kind of mount altogether. Knowledge: Nature [1d20+6] => [1,6] = (7) **
Caedmon Thaal: Your guest rides a bald eagle?


Wish I had more, but I rarely make my group roll for anything - most of these were their own idea.

[Rainspattered]

Best time I ever rolled a 1:
In a powerful, epic campaign, the party was a group of old, has-been adventurers who had to defend the city they loved from a literally army of powerful demons where the corrupted government, bloated in power and wealth from our own exploits, waited for us to die and offered literally no help, preferring to deal with the demons. So it was four heroes (our fifth was killed before the battle even began, disintegrated as we ran to the walls, so he doesn't count).
I was playing the old, alcoholic, caster. (Think Oscar Wilde, or an alcoholic Phauran Mizzyrim, et ceteras.) The battle around me was going badly, though I was able to protect myself and our fighter with magic, and the bard was extremely lucky with his saves, we'd still lost our paladin to an ill-advised duel with the demon king. Then, the fighter's AC failed to hold up, even with my magical aid, and a vorpal sword took his head. I was protected by a telekinetic sphere, and the bard was holding up alarmingly well for such an oft-maligned class.
Then, he began to wear down slowly, in HP and spells. The demons were inherently fire based, in the setting, and putting out their fires was incredibly devastating to them. As a matter of fact, it reduced them to 1d20 hp. Irony of ironies, we said, that we didn't have a cleric to create water. I was looking through my book of spells to see what could get us past an army of epic demons, when I came upon one spell that might give us a chance; Control Weather.
I told the bard to protect me, that I had one last hope to save the city. He held out for almost the entire casting time before he dropped to dying condition. He stabilized, but he still couldn't get up an act without starting to die again. A demon charged me, cutting me terribly with his sword. I made my concentration check and kept casting. I was hit with a fireball, but made the check again and kept casting. Then, I finished the spell.
Rain such that the city was flooding within minutes and the air was nearly water with its thickness. Because we faced such a large number of the demons, some sixty or seventy remained in the force, along with a bunch of constructs they commanded, it was agreed to roll one die for the totality of the d20s to determine HP. Since it was my spell, I was given my "damage roll" in reverse.
As the thread title might suggest, I rolled a one.