Screwed by Bad Luck

[AslanCross]

I'm sure such a thread has been done before, but instead of resorting to the forbidden art of thread necromancy, I'll post a new one.

Earlier today, my group was going up against a Rakshasa. The party had entered a manor where the Lord Mayor of the city was being held hostage by "bandits."

Before they entered the foyer, the paladin decided to detect evil (he does before entering any room, anyway). Ping. Strong aura of evil.

Opening the door, they found a maid lying unconscious on the floor. The wizard, being a Batman-type, had cast greater invisibility on the rogue as she opened the door. The party moved forward, and the girl woke up, telling the group that she'd passed out during the attacks and was wondering what was going on. (Her bluff modifier was just too high for the party to properly match it with a sense motive check).

The girl tells the party that before she goes out to escape, she'll show them a secret door in the side of the hall. The party follows, then she morphs into her natural form (I seriously should've kept her in her maid form), and thanks the party for saving her life and being so noble, because they're about to die. The Rakshasa casts invisibility.

The party is in a tight spot---they have no good-aligned piercing weapons save for the paladin casting bless weapon on his lance. Batman wizard gets an idea: He has a prepared orb of frost, which will bypass the beastie's SR. He casts true strike, ensuring that he'll be able to land that orb of freezing pwnage.

The Rakshasa reappears on a balcony above the hall and nails the Paladin with icelance. The icelance hits, but the paladin saves versus the stunning. Then the wizard lets loose his true striked-orb of frost.

And rolls a natural 1.

Batman wizard is so utterly devastated by his bad luck that he rolls the damage dice anyway, just to feel better. It isn't a bad damage roll, but the orb missed anyway, smashing a beautiful geometric pattern of ice and frozen glass into the window behind the Rakshasa.

Any other stories of preparation being completely wasted by a single bad roll? (Or worse, a string of them?)

[Swordguy]

My party (8-9th-ish level) wanted my to run a module for them, but couldn't decide on which one, so they rolled randomly between every module I owned (about 40).

They got the Tomb of Horrors.

[Farmer42]

We once had a game where the questions "What would happen to a Death Delver with a ring of nine lives if he got caught by an illithid? Would he be like a living Pez dispenser?" were not purely theoretical. Even our non-gaming friends ask us after a session if Mark survived, now. Unfortunately, His Death Delver died before we reached the illithid, so we never found out the answer to that question.

[Newtkeeper]

My party (8-9th-ish level) wanted my to run a module for them, but couldn't decide on which one, so they rolled randomly between every module I owned (about 40).

They got the Tomb of Horrors.

Dear (Thor/Athena/Flying Spaghetti Monster), I have never had luck *that* bad.

On the other hand, I did once have a level 12 character killed by a kobold. The kobold was the minion of the dragon we were fighting, and the dragon did most of the damage, but the kobold landed the killing blow. Talk about an awful way to go! I think it was put on my tombstone, too- the *insertbadwordhere*s.

[Dr Bwaa]

Just the other night I was DMing a game for a bunch of my friends and they were doing a dungeon crawl I'd drawn up. They came to a room full of Flail Snails and rather than wait for the party to decide what to do, the Drow puts on her ring of invisibility and starts walking right through the room. Move Silently check result: 2. So a pair of them full attack her.

One of them misses horribly, but the second one, I kid you not, crits with all four flails, bringing her to -4, bleeding out (did I mention she's the cleric?), and invisible.

When the party got around to engaging them (they spotted the pool of blood after a round or two), they (ECL 7 all) were completely flummoxed by the CR3 Flail Snails due to something like 5 botches over the course of two rounds. And of course, the wizard was almost out of spells, so he was resorting to magic missiles, which kept retargeting new snails at random and flying around the room for nearly a full round before hitting...

It was an exciting time.

(There was also the time the wizard botched an int check while carrying a potion of Wish and ended up inadvertently raising about 3000 undead soldiers and sending them all to the capital of the Theocracy of Heironeous...)

[Jerthanis]

We were fighting some wizardly foes in a game we were playing recently. Our Cleric knows the wizard is going to teleport to safety on his initiative, so readies an action to counterspell with Greater Dispel Magic. She rolls a 1. A perfectly good plan and 6th level spell wasted on a bad roll. The wizard being lower level than us meant she had a really good chance too. It was a particularly disappointing poor roll for us all.

We also recently ended a campaign where I was a Swordsage. At one point I hit with a +6d6 strike on a weapon enchanted with two elemental types against one of the last villains, and rolled seven 1s and a 2 for damage. As a TWF swordsage in that game, I really felt the pain of a 3/4ths base attack melee build, especially in conjunction with Iron Kingdoms foes having unreasonably good ACs, and using Two Weapon Fighting. So I already had some factors against me in this campaign, and I managed to roll terribly the whole game on top of that.

[MrScary]

nerf bad luck! it's overpowered!

[PlatinumJester]

My friend had a Duskblade who had just cast a quickened True Strike and was trying to kill someone with Shocking Grasping channeled through his blade. Unfortunately he rolled a natural one.

The worst part is he forgot about an invisible enemy in the area so when everyone else was dead he stopped to tie up a knocked out enemy and was sneak attack to -10.

[Saph]

I think my story's worse than any of these (except maybe the Tomb of Horrors one).

Our 12th-level party was in the closing stages of a fight that was going really, really badly. Two advanced Bluespawn Godslayers had killed three of the PCs and put two more into negatives. There was also a redspawn arcaniss sorcerer who was blasting the remaining PCs with fireballs and scorching rays. The only one still up, still conscious, and still able to fight was me.

The redspawn arcaniss shoots a fireball. It hits me and the ranger, who's currently at -5 HP. An argument breaks out as to whether the ranger should get a Reflex save despite being unconscious (being a straight-classed and well-equipped ranger, she has an excellent Reflex save as well as Evasion). The argument goes on for several minutes before I have a brilliant idea. In response to the casting of the fireball, I use my amulet of emergency healing on the ranger. It heals her up to 2 HP, and now she's conscious and able to use evasion! The fireball's only DC 16, and her Reflex save is +17 or so.

The ranger's player picks up the dice and rolls.

She gets a 1.

Dead.

Unbelievably annoying. Just to make it worse, the ranger was a long-running PC, she and my character were friends, and the whole reason we were on the quest in the first place was to keep her alive.

- Saph

[Sstoopidtallkid]

We're on a quest to save an alternate-timeline version of the party tank, Alethar. (warped time, long story) Our cleric was just read a prophecy that mentions Alethar by name as instrumental to saving the world from undead. He is headed into his room alone, gets attacked from behind. Several rounds go by where Alethar rolls minimum damage (2 or 3 on d12s), and the bad guy misses with multiple 19s. Then, crit. Nat 20, auto-hit despite Alethar's AC. Roll percentile, 99. Look at chart, "Cleaved in Twain." He was not happy. Nor was the GM, who now had to re-write so we could pull off the rescue and not screw his prophecy.

Best line, though? "I'm wearing a helmet, doesn't that matter?!"

[Hal]

Heh, all right, I have some whining to do.

My 4th level paladin was investigating a wizard who was turning people into statues. The wizard got the drop on us, though, and turned him into a statue before he got caught. So, Flesh-to-Stone save is 15, I roll 12. To be restored, the Stone-to-Flesh save is 15 again, I roll 14. So now he's dead.

Though my thoroughly ungrateful teammates didn't see fit to donate any of their gold, but at least they sold off what little gear I had to pay for a Reincarnation. Which brings me back at level 3, only minus my good weapon and my full plate armor.

Our employer, a rather sultry ambassador, is willing to reclaim my pawned equipment if I'll "service" her. Stupidly I agree, only to learn (meta-game) that she's a succubus and my Paladin has lost yet another level since I just missed my Will save as well. So that armor she bought back for me? Yeah, sold it again so I could restore my drained level.

As if this wasn't bad enough luck, at our next session we get a new PC, a kobold sorcerer who starts off as a beggar being shaken down by a street gang. So, being the gung-ho goody-two-shoes I am, I tell the mob to back off and leave the guy alone, instantly resulting in a severe beatdown from their lizardman barbarian. I could possibly have survived, except for the entirety of the fight the DM was rolling high teens while I rolled under 5 everytime. When I ended up at -7 health, he declares that the raging barbarian would just keep wailing on the corpse until I was a fine red paste.

"But!" He says. "Their cleric would use Calm Emotions to call him off, so I'll roll him into the initiative. If he's higher than the barbarian, he saves your life." Yeah, NOW my DM rolls a 1.

So, I'm dead, my total belongings won't sell for another Reincarnation, and my teammates would rather see their Paladin friend be buried than spare 100gp.

The cleric, sorcerer, and two rogues are going to regret losing their meatshield.
*Grumble, grumble*

[AslanCross]

Heh, all right, I have some whining to do.

My 4th level paladin was investigating a wizard who was turning people into statues. The wizard got the drop on us, though, and turned him into a statue before he got caught. So, Flesh-to-Stone save is 15, I roll 12. To be restored, the Stone-to-Flesh save is 15 again, I roll 14. So now he's dead.

Though my thoroughly ungrateful teammates didn't see fit to donate any of their gold, but at least they sold off what little gear I had to pay for a Reincarnation. Which brings me back at level 3, only minus my good weapon and my full plate armor.

Our employer, a rather sultry ambassador, is willing to reclaim my pawned equipment if I'll "service" her. Stupidly I agree, only to learn (meta-game) that she's a succubus and my Paladin has lost yet another level since I just missed my Will save as well. So that armor she bought back for me? Yeah, sold it again so I could restore my drained level.

As if this wasn't bad enough luck, at our next session we get a new PC, a kobold sorcerer who starts off as a beggar being shaken down by a street gang. So, being the gung-ho goody-two-shoes I am, I tell the mob to back off and leave the guy alone, instantly resulting in a severe beatdown from their lizardman barbarian. I could possibly have survived, except for the entirety of the fight the DM was rolling high teens while I rolled under 5 everytime. When I ended up at -7 health, he declares that the raging barbarian would just keep wailing on the corpse until I was a fine red paste.

"But!" He says. "Their cleric would use Calm Emotions to call him off, so I'll roll him into the initiative. If he's higher than the barbarian, he saves your life." Yeah, NOW my DM rolls a 1.

So, I'm dead, my total belongings won't sell for another Reincarnation, and my teammates would rather see their Paladin friend be buried than spare 100gp.

The cleric, sorcerer, and two rogues are going to regret losing their meatshield.
*Grumble, grumble*

Dude, that's rough. Probably not as rough as the Tomb of Horrors one, but still. o_o

[Da King]

In our campaign, we had barricaded ourselves in a building that undead were attacking, and the party's fighter decided to stand behind a door and attack them as they came in. At least 20 skeletons came through the door during that battle, and the fighter missed EVERY SINGLE TIME. After that, he decided to get a keen enchantment on his weapon. I swear the player of that fighter has cursed dice, He can never roll good with any of the set.

[BRC]

In our campaign, we had barricaded ourselves in a building that undead were attacking, and the party's fighter decided to stand behind a door and attack them as they came in. At least 20 skeletons came through the door during that battle, and the fighter missed EVERY SINGLE TIME. After that, he decided to get a keen enchantment on his weapon. I swear the player of that fighter has cursed dice, He can never roll good with any of the set.

Somebody on this board had advice for that situation
Take the dice that rolls lowest for you and melt it in the microwave until it is a pile of mush
Make all your other dice watch.

[Kilroy]

I was DM of a game where the players really wanted the instant death crit variant. (Though I stated it worked in my favor more.) Six sessions in ,well known, BBEG comes in for a cameo/good scare then flys away. After multiple shots with his longbow a Cohort!!! kills him at his almost his Max range. Strangely enough the cohort died at the end of the session.

[Crazy Scot]

I have been playing with a group now for the past year or so, and the most spectacular deaths came from the DM (at least that was who we blamed). See, his first mistake was to introduce gunpowder to a D&D world. Okay, not too bad since there are a few short references to it in certain books. But then he makes a house rule that says if someone is holding gunpowder and happens to be hit by fire or lightning that the gunpowder goes off. In the real world, this wouldn't be too bad, but in D&D ... well I think you get the point. The group decided to sneak into the BBEG's main chamber when he was surrounded by several of his top henchmen. Enter Fireball from our friendly wizard PC. What we didn't know was that the BBEG and his 6 henchmen were all carrying gunpowder. The DM does some math and determines that the gunpowder creates a 1/2 mile radius explosion doing so much damage that it was a TPK.

Then it gets better. Since we still have time to play, he tells us all to create new characters, and I forget how he tied us in, but we were near where our other characters died. Apparently he forgot about what happened the last time gunpowder was introduced, and gave it to us once again. The good news is that this time we didn't die because of our wizard. This time we died at the hands of the NPC wizard who hit three of us with a lightning bolt (and yes we were all carrying gunpowder). *Poof*. The best news that we could come up with after the second barbecue was that at least one character survived. We had a ranger with evasion who managed to roll a 20 on his save and with his evasion, managed not to take any damage from the blast.

On a different note, when I was in school (many years ago) my friends and I played pretty often. One day, I was watching a different game that one of my friends played in and his brother was just having terrible luck. He failed every roll time after time after time. He got so frustrated that he picked up his d20 and slammed it into the board. After it bounced around a bit, it landed in front of my friend (his brother). My friend picked it up and was handing it back to him when something caught his eye. He took a closer look at the die and started laughing. When he could finally get his breath back, he pointed out why his brother was doing so terribly. The d20 was not a d20. It was a double d10 (numbered 1-10 twice, on a d20 shaped die). Note to all: next time you aren't rolling too well on your d20 and they keep coming up 10 and below, you might just want to check which die you are using.