Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TwiddleStootch 11-10-06, 04:38 PM	this is a 1001 thread to tell of all those boss fights that have gone terribly, terribly wrong. I think every DM has had at least 1: 1) the party of a fighter, cleric and wizard against a human fighter. should have been a pretty good fight, except that the wizard cast blindness/deafness in 2nd round and blinded the boss. he didn't land a single hit :weep: 2) same party, plus a barbarian, Vs. a Firegiant and 3 trolls. I was going to have the giant sunder the fighter's shield(tower shield) and the barbarian's greatsword. except that the wizard(same wizard *grinds teeth*) casts hold monster in the first round. giant failed save. next round, barbarian Coup de Graces the giant with max power attack. the only attack the giant got off was a AoO against the barbarian. ok, your turn!
Lord Diggori 11-10-06, 05:46 PM	3.) Party finishes an adventure and levels up from 8th to 9th is this southern city. I write out adventure hooks for the 3-4 month trip back to their home, starting with a group of escaped bad guys -- including the second in command of the BBEG they just defeated. The PCs finish shoping and training and say they're ready to leave. The wizard casts his new 5th level spell ... Teleport, which takes them all the way home. :rolleyes: (Before you laugh Twiddle, in you're #2: Hold Person doesnt work on giants :P )
TwiddleStootch 11-10-06, 05:52 PM	sorry, I meant Hold Monster
darcdante 11-10-06, 05:54 PM	4) Party is supposed to figure out this scam that an illusionist is running. He has a tent set up where you can view a lot of exotic beasts and even duel them! They're all illusions of course, but nobody knows that and the sorcerer (Oswald) makes good money pulling this scam from town to town. Well, the PCs figure out it's a scam like I figured they would, and then go to confront Oswald. He lets lose the one real creature he has to defend him and then turns invisible and starts flying away. Turns out Duskblades get swift see invisibility, which I didn't know....the party was made up of 6 level 8 characters, who completely pwned my level 12 sorcerer illusionist. They then hired him to do some illusions for the opening of their tavern though, so it all worked out alright.
blackjackg 11-10-06, 06:10 PM	5. (2nd ed. rules) The team's cleric fights the BBEG (a mad druid) solo while the rest of the party attempts to hold back his small army of ogres and wolves. Combat lasts four rounds, in which the druid doesn't get one hit in. Lousy $#&(&% random die rolls.
Kaligrad 11-10-06, 07:30 PM	Oh, don't get me started. My players have an average fighting length of 2 rounds, irregardless of the number or quality of opponents. What's that? Continue anyway? Why certainly! 6. First and most famous boss battle. Ogre with two fighter levels versus level 3 party. First attack, barbarian charges and deals over half hp damage thanks to rage and Power Lunge (3.0). Second attack, halfling cleric walks up and crits his mace attack. Done. 7. Nightwalker. Cleric casts Heal. Nightwalker fails save. Done. 8. Ancient Red Dragon. Forcecage. Wizard uses Shapechange to turn himself and his familiar into a pair of silver dragons. Done. 9. Paragon Bone Devil. Cleric uses Holy Word, succeeds SR check. Bone devil explodes. 10. Fighting a Brachyurus on a flying ship. Barbarian bull rushes the beast over the side. Brachyurus' can't fly. Done. 11. Black Slaad. Barbarian (now with added Dire Charge) adds Haste to his pile and charges for six attacks doing over 100 dmg each. Bard finishes him off with a charge from his Staff of the Cosmos. Slaad doesn't even get one round of action. Most recently, (and this doesn't count, since it's not really a boss) the PC's found a Deck of Many Things, and the mage drew Death. Quite simply, the wizard's response was to go, "Huh?" turn around, and disintegrate it with his first attack.
malignor 11-10-06, 07:43 PM	Can't think of any of my BBEGs that did an 'oops'. But as for playing I did it three times. 1 - Playing Fiendish Orc with a joke name ("Dagh Fogkhir" - pronounce it and know why he got mad during many introductions). Behir comes at party. Round 1 DF blows a horn of fog, so it fails to hit with breath weapon and closes. Round 2 it tries and fails to grapple DF (who has close quarters fighting). Round 3 it runs away and DF crushes its spine with crit from an Orcish Shotput. No PCs were harmed in the making of this combat... all they did was buff for 3 rounds and then whine when I killed the BBEG myself. 2 - Playing heroic Goblin Jester named Doorstop (rogue/bard - raised by Kender; thinks he's an ugly Kender). PCs face off against evil high priest. Doorstop pantses the priest and runs off with his potion belt. DM decides to make an open table roll against DC 5 reflex and FAILS due to natural 1 houserules. Cleric falls prone and is killed by party while Doorstop goes through his potion belt. 3 - Again, Doorstop. Nasty Elven assassin attacks party. DM underestimated party, so his injured NPC decides to make a getaway (and be a good reoccurring villan). While the BBEG-in-training is climbing a building, Doorstop hits him with Hideous Laughter. The Elf falls to his death, laughing all the way (the 3d6 did the job).
Gendar Manyspell 11-10-06, 07:58 PM	It was in AD&D forgot the actual party compliment but it was the modual Isle of the Ape. The parties fighter charges the King Kong style ape and attacks with his vorpal long sword. Yup you guessed it twenty, and in AD&D rules it lopped off its head, encounter over.
chaos_bane 11-10-06, 08:23 PM	as dm i had created this flying devil that guards the lord to the first layer of hell within the current lord's multidemensional dungeon. The party consisted of a bunch of things, but the pc that messed everyithng up was a half celestial human monk. 1st round: monk makes highest initiative roll, charges flying devil with his ability to fly and lands a 20, then another 20, than another 20, all in one punch. yep, instant death for the monster that took me much time to create. party rumages through corpse, loots, than rescues old lord of the first to battlee the new one.
adamb0nd 11-10-06, 08:39 PM	15. This is from star wars d20. KOTOR campaign. One of the main bosses attempts to escape, leaving the party to fight a sith alchemy altered beast. The sith lord takes off using burst of speed, allowing him to out run any party member... except the mandalorian with a jet pack. The mandalorian rolls amazingly, passing every pilot check to fly around a curvy hall way. As he catches up with the sith lord who is fleeing twards his ship, the mandalorian drops a thermal detinator in the hood of his sith cloak and cuts the power from his pack. Needless to say, it wasnt pretty.
Aryxbez 11-10-06, 09:16 PM	it was a party consisting of a half orc barbarian/beserk,Dwarf Samurai, Halfling rogue/duelist,wild elf ranger they were up against a orc eye of gruumush/ravager/barbarian when we rolled initiative, the pcs went first, yah, you get the rest
dmjacques 11-10-06, 09:30 PM	8. Ancient Red Dragon. Forcecage. Wizard uses Shapechange to turn himself and his familiar into a pair of silver dragons. Done. 9. Paragon Bone Devil. Cleric uses Holy Word, succeeds SR check. Bone devil explodes. 10. Fighting a Brachyurus on a flying ship. Barbarian bull rushes the beast over the side. Brachyurus' can't fly. Done. 11. Black Slaad. Barbarian (now with added Dire Charge) adds Haste to his pile and charges for six attacks doing over 100 dmg each. Bard finishes him off with a charge from his Staff of the Cosmos. Slaad doesn't even get one round of action. Most recently, (and this doesn't count, since it's not really a boss) the PC's found a Deck of Many Things, and the mage drew Death. Quite simply, the wizard's response was to go, "Huh?" turn around, and disintegrate it with his first attack.[/QUOTE] sorry was post to be a quote, well by the sound of it you gotta throw some hard ass monsters at them just to give them something to do
Kaligrad 11-10-06, 09:55 PM	I DO. Those enemies are consistantly +3-+4 from the party level, and they still just bulldoze right over them. Oh, and we are currently up to 18. 19. Room full of bugbears. Wizard casts Evard's Black Tentacles. Only the lieutenant was out of the radius, but that just let the martial characters gang up on him. 3-4 rounds later, the last one gets the life crushed out of him. Done. Evard's has since been banned, not because of any brokeness, but because it took way too long to roll all those grapple checks. Forcecage has been banned now too, but that's because it is broken. 20. A pair of gnoll lieutenants in an army, based soley on riding feats, with both a fighter and wizard represented. Explosive fireball blasted them off their mounts, where the barbarian proceeded to knock their heads off.
Sergikins 11-10-06, 10:02 PM	reccomandtions to every one- it looks like everyone is having ganging up problems. simple - jsut make sure that the big giant and the solo BBEG has a minon - preferably one that casts spells, for the main purpose of countering. in the. maybe even two minons, can you imagine a giant with a wizard and a cleric as minon? pretty damn crazy
pyropetey9 11-11-06, 12:00 AM	21. big bad evil druid is beating down the party (fighter, druid, wizard, psion). psion decides to take a chance, manifests Psychic Crush. DM rolls a 1. dead evil druid.
White_Wizard 11-11-06, 01:35 PM	This happened to the one who DMed our group's games before me. We were playing 3.0, you'll see that this is important, and we were facing two clerics who were (dunno why) immune to critical hits and that couldn't be targeted by AoOs because (and here's what the DM actually said): "They were created using 2nd edition rules, in which AoO didn't exist, so they don't suffer AoOs because they use a different rulebook." ( :eek: ) One of the clerics casts a spell within the threat range of one of the players who almost playfully tells that he makes an AoO. And here's what happened: DM: "Yes, normally you'd do AoO, but you see that they don't..." [player continues his joke and rolls a d20 for the attack roll, scoring a natural 20] Player: "Hey, a natural 20! Let's see if the critical would have been confirmed!" DM: "Yes, but you see that..." [player rolls d20 and scores a second natural 20] Player: "Yup! Another natural 20! Let's see if it would have been instant kill!" DM: "Yeas, but..." [player rolls and -guess what- rolls the third natural 20 in a row] DM: -Pause- and [with defeat in his voice] "The cleric dies" Now that was fun, especially because the DM used to keep doing things like that. We were feeling that we weren't actually playing D&D anymore. So he deserved that.
DMRelious 11-11-06, 01:49 PM	My BBEG was in the top of a tower with a low wall (Battlements). I beefed him up to be a big bull rusher, but the party's Barbarian had a faster initiative, and basically bull rushed him in the second round out the door while the wizard used his ready action to dispel his feather fall. He was a completely cool BBEG that had a LOT of campaign lead up only to get his thoroughly black armored butt kicked in the beginning of the second round of combat. Ever seen a can of tomato soup dropped from the side of a REAAALLY tall skyscraper to the ground below? That was what it looked like. Black can of tomato soup splatter. I was very upset... and ashamed.
pita 11-11-06, 01:56 PM	A red dragon adult vs. one level 6 barbarian. Barbarian won. Rage, crit with a great axe. gets a 12. After power attacking for 5. And having 22 strength. Next turn finished the dragon off.
cog_and_taz 11-11-06, 08:12 PM	The party: level 13 warlock, wizard, cleric and bard. 25: keep in mind that I spent weeks and literally lost sleep over making this BBEG. In the first round of combat... warlock: I cast curse of despair to give him a -6 to fort saves. Me: alright, wizard, you're next. wiz:I cast finger of death, he can only make the save on a 20. me: (thinking: damn, shouldn't have made the guy an undead, his fort saves are awful enough already.) um, uhh......*rolls* 19. Can we pretend this didn't happen? Group: NO! This was a tough fight(harhar) and we want our loot NOW! For those of you who are wondering, no, I did not hand out any punishment or whatever. It was a good, if simple, straegy. Just a bit disappointing...
Kaligrad 11-11-06, 08:29 PM	wiz:I cast finger of death, he can only make the save on a 20. me: (thinking: damn, shouldn't have made the guy an undead, his fort saves are awful enough already.) Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease, and death effects. Dude, that shouldn't have worked. This one's from today, though for once I wasn't DM. 26. Illusionist (w/ greater invisibility) attacks the party. Centaur character (homebrewed +0LA centaur) attacks, deals 23 dmg. Illusionist only had 23 hp. Done.
Archaelos 11-11-06, 08:31 PM	The party: level 13 warlock, wizard, cleric and bard. wiz:I cast finger of death, he can only make the save on a 20. me: (thinking: damn, shouldn't have made the guy an undead, his fort saves are awful enough already.) um, uhh......*rolls* 19. Can we pretend this didn't happen? For those of you who are wondering, no, I did not hand out any punishment or whatever. It was a good, if simple, straegy. Just a bit disappointing... I'm curious enough to know how an undead was killed by the spell Finger of Death which specifically states it requires a living target, besides which undead in general are immune to all Fort saves except those which work also on objects...which Finger of Death does not.
cog_and_taz 11-11-06, 09:27 PM	Sorry, I meant a dread necro. Picking up bits and pieces of lich, but not all at once.
Dark Stryke 11-11-06, 11:37 PM	27. Party is level 14. I've Created a CR16 ghost elf king to be the boss of a ruined city the PCs have been travelling through. (Level 15 aristocrat, I think. CR 15 - 1 for NPC class +2 for ghost = 16? I dunno.). It went a bit like this: Ghost: *Manifests* You fiends! Leave my sacred ground! *intiative. Ghost rolls a total of 5, which leaves him behind EVERYONE* Cleric: *casts ghost touch armor* Sorcerer: *Casts Orb of Force for about 40 damage. Ghost is down to 65HP (from 105) Scout/Paladin: *Smite evil using his holy bow, succeeds against the 50% miss chance for incorporeal and deals another 30ish points of damage. Ghost drops to 35ish* Wizard: *Casts Chain Lightning, succeeds on miss chance for incorporeal, rolls over 60 damage (never seen so many 6's!), ghost gets a natural 1 on his save.* Ghost: Gwah! *dies* *silence for a few seconds* Cleric: Crap! I just wasted a spell! Scout/Paladin: Well, that was anticlimatic. Wizard: I like chain lightning. Sorcerer: He's dead, right? Cool, I start looting. Since then I've put either more encounters per day or creatures with more hit points.
Cryforge 11-12-06, 12:00 AM	(Note that my format for describing BBEG failure is lovingly ripped off of Kaligrad's format. ;) ) 28. Party is travelling through a ruined temple in a swamp. They've been fighting all sorts of high level swamp monsters and powerful demons. They exit the temple through an enormous hole in the back wall. The next area is a huge cylindrical area created by hundreds of vines and trees. Bursting through the canopy is a 13-Tentacled Chole Dragon (I forget the age category...it was at least adult...) Chole Dragons are dragons from the abyss that make no noise, have no wings, and spray insanity gas for a breath weapon. They have a certain number of writhing tentacles...and 13 is the most they can have. This was supposed to be a really challenging battle and a TPK was possible. Initiative is rolled and the dragon goes last. The druid uses some sort of spell combo with the sorcerer and next thing I know, about twenty celestial bears have been summoned into the initiative order...also before the dragon. The six party members and horde of bears all attack. Done. (The dragon didn't even get to act. :( )
RahHax 11-12-06, 12:28 AM	19. Room full of bugbears. Wizard casts Evard's Black Tentacles. Only the lieutenant was out of the radius, but that just let the martial characters gang up on him. 3-4 rounds later, the last one gets the life crushed out of him. Done. Evard's has since been banned, not because of any brokeness, but because it took way too long to roll all those grapple checks. Forcecage has been banned now too, but that's because it is broken. As much as I would agree with you on this one I'd say that forcecage is permissable and it's comming straight back at the party (That reduces the party's tresure from any given encounter and is a really nasty spell)
RahHax 11-12-06, 12:40 AM	29. Party is fighting a cotery (three members, a frontliner, a rouge and a cleric) of Which slayers (Tome of Magic) in the first round the druid pounces on the frontliner and takes off 2/3 of his HP, the warmage takes off the rest with a ligtning bolt and taking a whole heap off the rouge, and then the ranger drops the rouge with a full attack. Then the cleric is left there wetting his full plate.
MortalPlague 11-12-06, 02:02 AM	...and next thing I know, about twenty celestial bears have been summoned into the initiative order...also before the dragon. It's a common misconception, but casting a summon spell is a full round action. Thus the creature can act immediately once summoned, but only becomes manifested on the caster's next round. Not that one turn would've made a big difference in this case, but even so... I've had my share of awful BBEG encounters. For a campaign where I was running eight adventurers, I created a little side quest to slay the ogre Dando who'd been ravaging the countryside for the last few years. He was an ogre with advanced CON to give him enough hit points to slug it out with our heroes. Our group of second level adventurers were sure to have a tough time of it! First round, however, the halfling shoots a crossbow bolt dipped in carrion crawler brain juice (DC 13 paralysis poison), and Dando the Ogre rolls a 1. Paralyzed, the party simply chopped off his head. Later in the same campaign, the characters chased down the fleeing barbarian warlord who'd gone quite insane, betrayed his kingdom, killed a bunch of people, and fled into the wilderness. They found him in a field of scorched land with lava pits everywhere. He had a custom template which granted him immunity to fire, so my strategy would've been to bull rush characters into the lava pits. The archer steps up, however, with arrows poisoned with that same carrion crawler brain juice (though a more potent version), and BAM, second shot hits, barbarian rolls a 2, and becomes paralyzed. They captured my horribly tough encounter without even reaching the second person on the initiative. :( The campaign went on hold before I could use my third villain, but he was a Lich. Note that liches are immune to poison. :D
Lord Diggori 11-12-06, 02:33 AM	32. (I think, counting Plague's as two) Heroes are guarding a bunch of war refugees from a sacked village headed to the capitol city for safety. Gnoll rangers mounted on Jahenna (evil dire hyenas) skirmish the party in advance of a cavalry platoon of more -- one survives to report back. Heroes hunker the villagers down and organize their surviving militia into a perimeter. The wizard mentions readying a spell. The paladin, in an uncharacteristically appropriate role-playing move, gives a speech to embolden the npcs. I grant everyone a +1 morale bonus and forget about the wizard's spell. The Gnolls charge down a hill full bore, 200 ft. per round full run on Jahenna. Wizard casts Wall of Ice right at the bottom *SMACK* I decide a 20 degree decline hill at that speed does 5d6 to the first rank, reflex for half. The Jahenna were Strength built. :rolleyes: Half the platoon is crushed by the wall or trampled by their own packmates. The other half made it but I gave them a -1 morale penalty. They retreated after being reduced to a quarter over the next few rounds, still got some good savage NPC kills though :smirk: NOTE: This encounter was planned and run a year before I saw The Two Towers :D
Generic Fighter 11-12-06, 03:20 AM	This is one I did as a Player in Living Greyhawk. So, I'm playing a Cleric and the party is on a ship when we are attacked by Pirates. The Pirate Captain is a High level Blackguard with a Hippogriph for a Mount. As the Pirate Ship approches, the BG gets on his mount and Flys over toward our ship! At this time I tell the DM I'm Readying to cast a spell when the BG get within 40 ft. of us. Two rounds of exchanging Arrows later, the BG gets close enough for me to use my secret weapon: Sound Burst! Blackguard made his save, Hippogriph didn't:smirk: Stuuned, the Hippogriph falls to a watery grave taking the CR 7 BG with it:w00t: With its Captain drowning in his armor, the Pirates immediately turn their ship around and flee! Our entire Party did a whole 5 damage to the Pirates total, three of which were from my Sound Burst:P Not bad for a Level three Cleric;)
Leo 11-12-06, 05:15 AM	My DM always makes the bosses with anti almost everything(criticals, element immunity, huge AC, regeneration), huge saves and hp, but with a built in weak point, wich the party needs to discover in order to be able to take it down. There was even some chain wieleding samurai that wich weapon blocked ALL our attacks, untill the monk remembered to disarm him(and still the guy could call the spike back to him, so half the party went holding the chain while the remaining beat the crap out of him).
Drascin 11-12-06, 05:47 AM	My last one... two high level barbarians against the PCs. It was suposed to kill at least one of them. Well... one of them charges the warforged fighter, misses, and is grappled. Yeah, a barbarian. GRAPPLED. FOR 5 ******* TURNS ¬¬ (I didn't get higher than a roll of 5 when rolling grapple checks, while the fighter got no lower than 13). Meanwhile, the sorcerer, barbarian/brawler and lurk of the group destroyed the other via int damage.
Flushpuppie 11-12-06, 06:00 AM	my most terrible dnd experience ever!! My group doesn't fight against other partys often. The day it happens, locked up in a 2mile deep dungeon, they have a battle against a 1lvl lower party in the statue garden. What should have been a darn exiting fight became this: dread necro: I cast evards black tentacles. Me: *roll roll roll roll* aaaawkey you have your tentacles grapple every single enemy. have fun killing them of this battle was over in 2 rounds, no partymember got damage whatsoever.
Cryforge 11-12-06, 11:31 AM	:bump:
Carai_al_Caldazar 11-12-06, 11:36 AM	once I DM'd a lvl 2/3 (4 char.). they rested in a small cave, with 1 guarding. I planned to have them ambushed by 3 bullywug fighters and 1 bullywug cleric (CR: 4, bullywug are a sort of frogmen), so it was supposed to be a hard encouter, but it wasn't as it turned out.... First I rolled a 1 on the move sil. check, so the guard heart it and woke the rest. The bullywugs discovered they were heart and run to the entrance. the heroes got up and got their weapons. As the bullywug entered the cave, the wiz cast sleep.. only the bullywugcleric (go figure...) failt his save and fell to sleep. Two heroes charge the fighters and both hit (and comfirm) critical... One bullywug dead the other severly wounded. The archer shoots the 3rd bullywug, hits (and confirms) a critical... 3 out and 1 badly wounded, and the bullywugs handn't done anything usefull...
MagicMouth 11-12-06, 12:02 PM	The last time I was DM I had customized a Vampire Derro Sorcerer with CR 10 as the campaign´s final boss. The party in question was Level 5 or 6, but they were so many and so powerful that they would have a decent chance. When a few other players were allowed in (I thought it wouldn´t be a problem seeing as it was the finale) a whole bunch of the old ones decided to switch to World of Darkness instead, including the ones who had been most active in the plotline. With only 5 players by now (before they were 8 or 9) I had to quickly change the villain to a sample NPC from Libris Mortis with CR 7, because I thought they would get their a:censored: handed to them otherwise. Not so. They annihilated the dude in 1 round with one attack and a Fireball. After that, I felt like a lousy DM and decided to take a break from it. At least I now have time to plan the next campaign more properly.
Flaxxon 11-13-06, 01:31 AM	This one happend to the DM of our group for a recent 2nd addition game. We were a group of 3rd-5th level characters. Usually dungeon crawl. We wound a thief and decide to follow the blood trail all the way to the BBE guys. We'll we walk into the room. Theres a lvl 10 fighter, a lvl 12 mage, a lvl 10 cleric along with 2 thiefs of around lvl 8 or so. They were backed up by 4 large Orc cheiftains. Yeah. We all get ready to delay them and run. I cast Heat metal on the Fighter in Full plate. Causing the Mage to waist his turn to dispell it. The evil cleric is busy healing the thief we were following. Our mage casts Web to entangle all of the evil party. Before that happens the Evil Fighter drops our Knight with one hit. I cast Silence at the near the mage to cover everything on that side of the room. Mage casts Grease center on them. The BBEG fighter was just out of the web spell and was advancing. I'm prepared to sell my life so the rest of the party can escape. When the Ranger suddenly makes a shot with his longbow. Rolls a Natural 20. We were using the Crit charts. Confirmed with another 20. Backed that up by Rolling a 100 for Arrow through skull instant death. I grap the BBEG and the Ranger grabs our Knight. We proceed to run like the wind. Once we got far enough away we completely destroy the BBEG body in a fire. Later the DM said we weren't supposed to meet them until much later when they led an army to attack the town we were staying in. Needless to say we changed his entire plan for the next 3-5 games.
ressurrector 11-13-06, 03:15 AM	In the game I'm running: Set up a big encounter where the party gets to choose between two sides: Good aligned (unknown to group) Yuan-Ti led by a pseudodragon Dragonfire Adept and a hero yuan-ti Other side was a large group of Warforged and their leader. Both leaders were CR7+ and the Yuan-Ti hero was CR 6 Party was 6 lvl 5's So, I run the encounter, the party see the warforged group coming while they're ignoring the Yuan-Ti and riding through them (the Yuan-Ti attempted to talk, party ignored them) So the party ends up inbetween the two sides facing off against eachother, and the bloody elves say: I ride through them... I gave them magebred horses, which are strong, tough, and fast. The party breaks through the fight, and then procedes to outrun everyone because I forgot to give anyone else mounts :surrender I'd expected that fight to take at least 2 hours, and they ignored it inside 5 minutes.
Gahread 11-13-06, 05:38 AM	41. Party is a pitiful 1st level group approaching an old farmhouse and barn. All the players are military except for one, so they're edging up along a low stone wall, longbows out. The first party member gets within the ambush zone, and spears come flying out of the windows, followed by a level 3 hobgoblin fighter from the barn. It's the fearsome leader of this ambush. As one, the party turns and fires at it. Hit, hit for max damage, and finally, hit for max damage and a crit with a +1 strength composite longbow. Including that 27 damage crit, the hob took around 40 damage in a single round. The DM ruled that the second shot sent its spleen flying behind the hob. The follow-up just blew an entire lung through the massive hole in the hobgoblin's back. Done.
GloomoftheNight 11-13-06, 02:22 PM	43. Players are on a 5 month out of game campaign of political intrigue and betrayal, who's climatic moment is an encounter with the leader of a prominent thieves guild who has framed them for murder. At the time I had all these notes written down for why kind of questions he would answer, etc. (You know, BBEG speeches). In our houserules we use a bit more deadly critical hit chart, as well as 'exploding' action point dice (similar to Spycraft, for those in the know). Anyways, turns out I didn't consider when you put the two together. 4 lvl Theifling walks into the room, gets the surprise drop on the lvl 10 thief-guildmaster, gets a critical, rolls on chart, hits him the throat, rolls action for more damage, it explodes about 5 times, with a x8 crit mod for a total of something like 250 pts of damage -- killing the BBEG instantly.
TwiddleStootch 11-15-06, 03:16 PM	:bump: that is all.
solbergb 11-15-06, 04:08 PM	This isn't so much a fight gone BAD exactly, but... We had a L6ish party stuffed with prep casters who picked all the wrong spells for earlier encounters and my sorceress. We picked a campsite, started resting and our rest was disturbed by bad guys dropping a fireball and unholy blight on us. And then losing init to everybody in the party. By the time all the frustrated (and now low HP) casters were done casting the spells they'd been itching to use all day, the bad guys (clumped together to benefit from a prot good 10' radius buff) were subject to: sculpted grease entangle briar web glitterdust silence and a hexblade curse, just because.... The DM looked at what options the bad guys had (they couldn't move without defeating multiple effects that they had poor odds on, they could not cast spells and even if they had ranged weapons better than javelins they're at -4 to hit due to entangle, assuming they're not prone from the grease and the party could cast nearly the entire rack of spells AGAIN if any got free...) vs the options we had (a fairly effective ranged weapon contingent, plus some weak area damage spells and some reach weapon options) and had them surrender.
BigRobC101 11-15-06, 05:34 PM	when i was running a honebrewed setting, the party of dwarf cleric, human paladin, human fighter, shifter paladin, and human monk, are after a shadar-kai shade, fighter 12, wizard 6. ok so he cast all his buffs, the party fight there way thru is tower murdering everthing that moves. they get to the top. the monk disarmes him and they beat him to death. AND then have the b@lls to in form me that the whole fight from entering the tower, fighting thru 5 floors filled with monsters and the BBEG, took 5mins in IC time, even if it did take use a month or 2 to run it all. man i luagh.
Black_Puffin 11-15-06, 06:21 PM	In a homebrew half modern half fantasy setting I had two terrible mishaps with my villians. I DM the Fantasy side and my brother DMs the modern side. 1. In the fantasy side side story: I created a Predator-like half-elf beguiler backed up by a mindflayer souleater monk (BBEG#1) and his army of wights. The beguiler is discovered spying on the party, invisible and outside a window. The party's monk and swashbuckler pursue as she dives into a pool off of the roof and grapple her. She passes and fails every other grapple check vs alternating grapplers until she drowns 24 rounds later. The wights were totally wiped out by the party's healer casting mass cure moderate wounds and the Souleater planeshifted out of there. 2. The main party, fantasy side, in a crater temple where a Bronze dragon lives: There is a battle already in progress when the PCs arrive. The Main BBEG, a mute prince Elf Ranger, and his "translator" (who reads thoughts as a SLA) spot the PCs and roll out their newly aquired Abrams tank and elite soldiers. The Abrams fires a shell down the center of the temple at the party's fighter and misses, rolls deviance; the shell flys past the party's bard and kills all of the elite soldiers. That's not the half of it, when they finally take the tank down, one player notes that the armor is DEPLETED URANIUM and when it explodes the area will be nuclear. I did not know that so I had to think fast. My BBEG goes to work and uses his ring of telekenesis to get the tank out of there while the party flees the impending nuclear disaster.
TwiddleStootch 11-15-06, 06:38 PM	:rofl: that second one is great!! I can picture it: the party is running like heck away from the temple. up the side of the crater and then behind them, BOOM!! big mushroom cloud. they reach the top of the crater and turn to watch the cloud. Party member 1:"Now what!" Party member 2:"Back to the Tavern!" Rest of party: "YAHHH!!"
ressurrector 11-15-06, 08:18 PM	Just saying: it was Depleted Uranium. Which means, IIRC from chem class, that it's not nuclear material, it's not radioactive, and it cannot produce a critical mass. It's just really, really dense (and therefore good for armor and Armor Piercing projectiles)
TwiddleStootch 11-15-06, 11:07 PM	I was wondering how nuclear material that was depleted could go BOOM! meh, still makes for a fun scene :D
Black_Puffin 11-16-06, 07:09 PM	Well when you ride up behind it on a horse, pry open the hatch, drop in a gallon-size jug of whiskey rigged to blow, then as the chaos ensues (ammo explodes inside the tank, people burn, etc) you grab the Bronze "squirrel", Dimension Door group hug out of there and forget that it's not all that radioactive. Depleted uranium is still radioactive, just not to that warm and toasty version that we all know and love. The crater will just be mildly radioactive. ...not really...the evil prince was able to launch the tank into the sky far away enough to avoid any real damage...except where it landed... The party has yet to go back to check.
Black_Puffin 11-16-06, 07:17 PM	Ironically, Rez, the party went there because they needed to rez a fallen party member and heard about the dragon/old-man-of-the-temple-who-could-wish-people-back-from-the-dead.
Vecna_lord_of_Secrets 11-16-06, 10:09 PM	This is one that went horrible for both sides, thought I'd share: So, a party of four (rogue 16, Monk 18, Cleric 17, Wizard 14/archamge 3) head into the final room as the villians (lich sorceror 19 and a Mind Flayer with seven Fighter 12 minions). We were missing four people from the group so they had to go it alone. The Mindflayer went down a lot faster than I expected (read: 3 rounds) and his minions died really fast. So that leaves us with the Lich Sorc. She is just swinging her +4 acidic, wounding Katana instead of casting spells, to try and even it up. Well, the Cleric casts Harm on the lich, completely healing all the damage done (completely by accident) and the fight basically starts over. Well the monk gets the great idea to force that Katana out of her hand. Easily succeeds and sends teh Katana across the room. Well, most logical solution, is to ignore the sword and start casting spells. Finger of Death drops two memebers in two rounds and the cleric starts pounding her full of magic. Well, long story short, everyone but hte cleric dies and he's down to about 15 hit points but the lich is down to 7. Only problem, neither of them have spells left (he used his healing, she used a variant to get rid of her low level slots for stronger spells) so they start boxing. Well, the Cleric grabs one of the dead warriors axes and hurls it at her. Rolls a twenty to confrim the hit and a 7 for damage. Undead rules kick in and the fight ends in the most unlikely way possible. Everyone was shocked at how it unfolded, just waiting for someone to say it was joke. Greatest unintentially funny moment of my DnD carrer, all because I justed a variant on spell casting.
pyropetey9 11-16-06, 10:56 PM	Sorry, I meant a dread necro. Picking up bits and pieces of lich, but not all at once. That sounds like a horrible way to spend your time. Unless, you know, you're into that sort of thing, you freak. ;)
sandgriffin 11-17-06, 01:24 AM	This happened last week: Epic party (tiefling ninja/shadowdancer, tiefling binder/wizard/shadowdancer/Anima Mage, Minotaur barbarion/warhulk/sorc/ragemage) are going to a Las Vegas style city to poke around for information as to the plans of the BBEG, who frequents the area to cut loose. Eventually they do see him in the distance (spot checks in the 60's, they could see their players!) with 2 LBEG's and a handful of floozies (all catfolk, hard to miss) I casually mention that the BBEG looks like he's had a few, and the party of course asks "how many?" so being the good sport I am i roll for it, and the die comes up 20, not surprisingly. They climb up on a roof and make very high hide checks, hiding the minotaur at a -20 to the check without a problem. As soon as the BBEG and group get within 30 feet of their building (2 stories tall) they pull the "ninja javelin maneuver" in which the Minotaur grabs the ninja and chucks her at the BBEG with enough force to break the sound barrier, I’m amazed the skin stayed on the ninja's face with a to-hit in the 80's (rolled 20 of course) on the part of the minotaur (strength greater than that of Kord thanks to some Vile spells) With the BBEG as far gone as he was, and a power attack for max on the part of the barbarian, including sneak attack damage due to the thrown ninja, there wasnt much left of him or his five foot square, the ninja was brought down to less than half with a successful tumble check, but still in fighting shape. The Binder just laughed and he tore the LBEG's to bits with 3 AoE's cast in one turn (standard action, quickened spell, Vestige cast, as per Anima Mage ability). Its times like these I’m glad I found the spell Clone. The spell that makes any villain a recurring villain :D
RedTopHat 11-17-06, 11:57 PM	DM'ed tonight and had a boss which was basiclly an NPC with a CR rating of 5-6 and had a regen every coupld ounds 100 hp and a pretty nice AC. Party was level 2 pally,level 2 cleric, level 3 fighter, level 3 sorc. The pally's player constantly gets bad roles. One time she got 3 1's then a two. In the third round, the pally went, rolls a critical, rolls again for the crit and gets a 20. Rolls a third time, and instant killed. I was hoping to give them a challanging battle, it was about 10 minutes long.
Papapop 11-18-06, 12:07 AM	DM'ed tonight and had a boss which was basiclly an NPC with a CR rating of 5-6 and had a regen every coupld ounds 100 hp and a pretty nice AC. Party was level 2 pally,level 2 cleric, level 3 fighter, level 3 sorc. The pally's player constantly gets bad roles. One time she got 3 1's then a two. In the third round, the pally went, rolls a critical, rolls again for the crit and gets a 20. Rolls a third time, and instant killed. I was hoping to give them a challanging battle, it was about 10 minutes long. Not even, maybe like 5 minutes. It was pretty funny, everyone was in an uproar. There was her 15 minutes of fame.:)
ressurrector 11-18-06, 04:35 AM	These stories are a good reason why NEVER to use the instant-kill crits.
JasonOrlandoHawk 11-18-06, 05:35 PM	The Chicken shall slay them all!!! I once ran the same Divine Magic based game for over three years, and there was one member of the party that struck fear into the hearts of every BBEG in my game: The Chicken! One of my friends, named Marie, has a habit of asking those questions that make most GM's go :eek: when they think of the implications of what was asked. Well, Marie got ahold of the Book of Exalted Deeds and noticed the "Exalted Familiar" feat. She asked if I would allow a "Celestial Chicken" to be her familiar. I ok'd the request. Then she asked if there were any useful feats that the Chicken could take, other than the usual Weapon Finesse... We settled on Touch of Golden Ice... I will forever regret the chicken, named "Colonel," that would haunt my games for the next three years. Touch of Golden Ice is not a powerful feat. The Save DC is incredibly low, and it only affects evil creatures. Surely a Chicken w/ that power couldn't be that dangerous... Inside a Temple run by an Avatar of Nerull (not "Avatar," but rather a special type of Homebrew Outsider), the party of 7 adventurers almost met their match. The Monk whiffed his three attacks. The fighter couldn't touch the beast. The Paladin literally got caught trying to come in the door. The Rogue managed to lose his dagger trying to sneak attack the Avatar. And on, and on, and on... Marie's character casts a spell which fizzles... It's now the monster's turn, but Marie shouts, "Wait!! I've got the chicken!!" "What?" "Can my Chicken attack?" "Sure, but it can't do much damage." "Touch of Golden Ice!" "The creature needs a 3 or better to save vs. Touch of Golden Ice. It won't work." (I would live to eat those words.) "I want my chicken to attack. (Rolls) Natural 20. (Rolls again) Natural 20." (I don't use instant kill rules.) "My chicken deals 4 damage." "Ok, the Avatar of Nerull needs to save vs. ToGI... (Roll) 2!!! What? Fine, whatever, how much Dex. damage does the Avatar take?" "11 points." ...Long story short, the chicken managed to deal enough Dex damage over two attacks to drop the Avatar to less than a zero Dex, which I ruled flat out killed the creature. The rest of the party did not deal any damage to it, at all! As the game continued, this chicken would eventually kill several Orcs, several Neogi (Lords of Madness), several evil fighters, a Black Dragon, and (I kid you not) a Titan! The amazing twist to this story: my friend Marie is the worst roller in our gaming group. She has the lowest average rolls, period, of everyone. However, when she attacked with Colonel the Chicken, 20's always came at the exact right moment. To this day, one of my gaming group members carrys around a replica of the chicken and rubs his dice against it for luck.
TriOmegaZero 11-19-06, 12:41 AM	Touch of Golden Ice is not a powerful feat. The Save DC is incredibly low, and it only affects evil creatures. Surely a Chicken w/ that power couldn't be that dangerous... That feat is the reason our CE warlock hates my exalted monk. It's also the reason she defeated a CR 36 dragon at level 26. If anyone has the Everquest: Monsters of Norath D20 book, you should know what one I'm talking about. The thing that makes it effective is how you get it every time you make contact. They're going to roll a 1 eventually. :D
TarlSS 11-19-06, 01:51 AM	The everpresent threat of powerful minions, and lots of them are always good to compensate for BBEGS. Lately I've just sort of been making BBEGroups, instead of BBEGuys. That way if one of them gets a turn of bad luck, then there's still plenty left to challenge. Not only that, with BBEG's, it's always good to -cheat-. Say they have fortified armor, globes of invulnerability, damage reduction, what have you. The worst kind of BBEG is the 'one cool guy' really, by no reasoning should one person reasonably expect to face four or five well-prepared fighters (Assasins, essentially, since they are the target) and expect to live. I think the lesson we've learned here is that always make BBEGS immune to: Death Spells, and Critical hits. That removes the unpredictability factor. Certainly, there are still ways to screw with you. My worst moment was when I had designed an airship tower (Dungeon) full of beholders and other things. So what happened was they crawled up the outside invisibly, and used a control wind spell (Purchased from a scroll to max level) to create a hurricane, killing all the beholders floating around. Lesson? -Surveillance must counter invisibility. -Always monitor purchases and limit access to magical items. (Never, ever give blanket access to items ever.) -Always make monsters seem daunting, so when you cheat, it's not so off key.