My story:
My first level Paladin in the first session of the first game I played in rolled a 20 on his untrained ride check during a 'Rescue Scene'. The rest of the party was hit down to negatives while I was dealing with blowing up a gate that was keeping us trapped in an arena-type area. I dove away from the explosives, leapt onto a horse from the cart the explosives were unloaded off of, and barreled back to my comrades.
I asked the DM if I could attempt to pick them up as I passed and turn around on a dine to the now exploded gate-wall. He allowed the action and I rolled a natural 20 - which was ruled that I effortlessly passed by my fallen party members, tossed them up into the cart, turned around and made it back to the gate.
(Keep in mind that we did roll for AoOs, which all missed on both passes. Did I mention that was six total rolls? In the open?)
My luck continued thusly. Best first campaign ever.
Anyone else have any Epic Success Stories they would like to share?
He never played D&D before and joined a 1e game in his last year of high school. He rolled his stats...and he was super blessed by the dice gods. He got straight 18's for his stats, he even got the 00 for the str score. So his fellow players told him he would make an awesome paladin.
He then joined the rest of the party, which, was a typical high school D&D group. One of his fellow players was a 1e wererat assassin, who decided to show his class/race by killing my husband's paladin.
The DM had a rule about God shots, where, if someone died, they had a 1% chance per level with an additional 1% chance per death of being instantly rezed with no penalties by their chosen god. Which of course, my husband made...at level 1.
I personally don't have one as I am usually the DM *cry*
The three man party, Hart, Uffgart, and some forgotten NPC, charged blindly into the room. The bad guys turned out to be badder than anyone thought and the party charged back out of the room. Almost. The NPC went down and the lich was descending on him to suck out what was left of his life-force. The M-16s were proving utterly useless against the undead, so Hart, a cleric-former-coward, turned back at the door to go rescue his fallen bro. Uffgart didn't hear this and threw a frag grenade, magically enhanced as a miniature bunker-buster, into the room. It bounced off of Hart's head, leaving an Archie-like checkered pattern as it did, and came flying back directly at Uffgart. Uffgart slammed the door, catching the grenade in the doorjamb face-high. He had already cast Expeditious Retreat on himself, and so was way down the hall and around the corner as the blast went off. The worst damage he took? Minor splinters from the door as it flew past.
Okay, so it wasn't a success for Hart or the NPC. But as my husband would say in his Uffgart persona, "I got out all right. That's what's really important." (Yeah, Uffy's got an ego.)
Everyone else in the group was knocked out/neg hit points... I then picked up the vorpal axe our fighter had, rolled a double crit, and chopped off the head of the main villain.
Keep in mind, I was playing a 12th level cleric with a 6 strength in 3.0.
In a 3.5E campaign our party was aiding a town dealing with a minor dragon problem (young adult black dragons to be exact). In this world, druids were hailed as messengers of god so my character was, naturally, a druid. While my druid was aiding the town (he basically became the HMFIC with some lackeys) our party's wizard was out getting drunk and decided he needed to see my character, but he knew of only one place I could be, the former mayor's place. So he stumbles around town yelling "Druid! Druid!" and when he realizes he can't find me, he casts disintegrate on the front of the building my guy is in. Of course, the building collapses, all four floors, on me and my (now ex) lackeys. My guy is down to 1 HP. I ask the DM to make an Escape Artist roll. His response:
You have four stories of rubble on top of you, roll a nat 20 or you're basically dead
I rolled a nat 20. My DM's next words were:
The next thing you see is Liam plowing through the rubble in the style of The Hulk before collapsing from his many wounds.
DM: Ouch... critical hit.
Rest of party: Okay... all you need to do is deal this last 17 HP of damage (don't remember exact number).
The critical hit had awakened the power of my Retribution Scimitar, which I promptly used (with All Bets Are Off, which I now love) to overkill the divinely created undead.
Win.
So, our party wizard casts giant growth on the fighter, who then has the brilliant idea of grappling one of the hobgoblins to drag the wizard into melee range. He gets the grapple and ends his turn holding the chain with a hobgoblin bashing him and the wizard on the far end.
I was playing the elf rogue, who had thus far been more or less inconsequential to the party. I was aiming for thrown weapons master and wasn't doing too well, yet.
I say "Heck with it. I'm going to try to climb on top of the fighter." Nat 17 plus ranks, I make it just fine. Everyone's looking at me a little weird.
"I'm going to tumble across the chain to attack the wizard." Nat 20.
I attack the wizard with one unenchanted, basic dagger.
Nat 19, crit on a dagger in 3.5.
We were using the critial percentage chart from dragon magazine. The DM rolled a percentile.
The incident was described as follows:
"After climbing on top of the giant fighter, tumbling past three AoO's up a taught chain, you slash your dagger across his throat, nearly decapitating him with a single stroke. Gargling, the wizard thrashes in midair (fails a death save) and remains hovering, still under the influence of the flight spell."
I later attempted to leap onto the back of a green dragon. That ended...not as well.
the GM did not realy like drunken master class, think it just a class that make players play stuppet and not serius.... so he the drinking started,
first alee, no problem
Wine... Lol easy
XXXsomething, a chanalge
the drunken master brew, was lucky on that one.
Black Dragon Blood XXX, uhh hit me hard...
and in the end it was me VS the drungen grandmaster.
and two 20 litter horns full 99%alco V-kingBlood (GM realy like that stuff)
Epic way to win, GM roll and so did I,
GM - 1
Me - 20
the GM stairt at the Dices in a minnet while the party danced....
GM- Fine.... your a drunken master....
Me- Muhahaha im a legend i won agenst the drunken grandmaster Big time !!
First night wasn't spectacular, it was that awkward transition into a new group, it didn't help that it was an online game and I knew none of the people. That first night, I rolled spectacularly poorly, and my dragonborn pally couldn't hit anything. The dice roller on the game system kept screwing me so the DM allowed me to switch to a different set, my rolls improved immediately, and I'm not the cheating type, I didn't crit every time, and I still missed. Though things were much better and I managed to crit a goblin during an AoO, as did our other paladin, killing it.
The next session was a mixed bag, and I didn't have any rolls that stood out as amazingly awesome. However, the one after that got pretty good. We were fighting a demon and the two guys that had loosed it on us, the warlock had an awesome roll of his own, made a crit on his daily power and wound up doing 46 damage to the demon (evistro) bloodying it severely. A bonus I'd forgotten to add to my attack roll, which was a miss before the forgotten bonus, wound up finishing off the demon. We then proceeded to attack the other two guys, both of whom were soon bloodied after we got through with the demon. Let me clarify a little something about my paladin, he's a CHA/STR balance build, his CHA score is 18, giving him a +4, but with an additional point because I get half of my level for skills. He's got the dragonborn racial bonus to intimidate, so he winds up having a +12 bonus to his skill in it, I accidentally rolled a d12, got a 23, not enough for the guy's will save, then rolled the proper d20 and got a 31, at this point the man dropped to his knees and bowed to me. After we killed his compatriot, I had an interrogation with him ala Darth Vader's where he choked the fellow as he asked him questions, that was a fun session.
We leap into the chamber and Arista (NPC human Fighter/Barbarian, and my character's wife) goes into a rage and charges the DeathKnight. That leaves me with the Cleric lich. Now because of certain things that happened earlier in the campaign, I had a ring of Elements: Void and was a servant of the Void itself. Because of this I got a saving throw against something I normally wouldn't have. It lead to this exchange:
DM: (IC) As you enter the chamber, The Lich cleric looks at you and says one word, Die. (OOC) He just cast Power Word: Kill. Roll a will save, you need to beat a 25.
Me: *rolls* (OOC) 19 on the dice!
DM: We'll I'll be damned, you made it.
Me: *grins* (IC) I look him right in the face and say, "**** you." (OOC) I charge.
DM: You what!?!?
I charged through a wall of fire and proceeded to crit with not one but both of my +1 scimitars for max damage. Three rounds and two more crits later I had taken the thing apart. Meanwhile Arista had turned the deathknight into mush with her mace.
What was supposed to be the toughest and deadliest fight of the campaign (we were level 9 at the time) turned out to be the ass kicking of a lifetime for the baddies.
Oh, I forgot to mention, my Favored Enemy: Undead Liches.
Out
So, Xander activates an ability on his boots to gain +5 to an Acrobatics check and jumps at the Dragon. He rolls 19 and comes to a total of 34, clearing the Dragon vertically. The DM ruled that my Paladin offered him vertical flanking and he used a sneak attack to kill it.
Then it obviously fell on me, but it was worth it.
Last year, in another long running game, I played a bard/lyric thaumaturge/sublime chord. Our party was displaced in time, and ended up in a hellish future. While fighting our way to a gate our wizard was going to use to take us back to the present, a trio of balors popped in and joined the fracas. We all panicked, naturally. Except the mage, we all engaged the demons to buy him time to get the portal ready. We were losing until my bard in a desperate gamble unleashed all her "sonic might". Expending all her bardic music, she channeled a sound blast laced with song of arcane might and another spell that gave me a +10 bonus vs. SR. Balor rolled a 1 on his fortitude save, and blew apart. I remember dealing about 250 total damage. The other demons halted in their tracks in utter shock, which allowed us to escape.
The BEST success of my gaming career was when the same bard fascinated a blind, gargantuan sandworm by using her maxed out Perform (dance) skill. When we found out it was blind, but was attracted to the vibrations of our feet, she was inspired. She started stamping her feet rhythmically and danced. Rolled an 18 on the check, but I had like a +25 to the roll. Poor beastie didn't have a chance. I held back Shai-Hulud, the Old Man of the Desert.
Fun times.
This was my first 3e character, a dwarven druid. I had started it with a friend of mine who was a dwarven paladin and we were brothers Umgrim(paladin) and Thargrim(druid my character) . After playing the character up to about level 5 the DM decided that my characters race and class combination doesn't work in his world and he needs to kill me. But tells me I can remake an elvish druid of the same level with the same gear. The rest of our part consisted of a halfing rogue, gnome wizard, human "fighter" and a goblin rogue
So on to the epic portion...after escape a city that is under siege we are low on health and have only a few spells each left for the day. We are running through some mountains when we come up to a cliff with a waterfall about 10ft below us. We manage to get a rope to the cliff on the other side to get across the waterfall. While we are working our way across our pursuers catch up to us. With me being the last one across they cut the rope while I am making my way over and start firing arrows at me. While dangling from the rope and trying to climb out I had to make a save for each arrow that hit me. Eventually I failed my save and started to fall...here is where it got epic win in our minds...
The wizard hits me with feather fall as I slip and i slowly start to decend. One of the rogues pulls out his rope and throws it to me, rolling a nat. 19 to hit me with it. I happen to roll a nat. 20 on the catch. Our DM at this point in time is shaking his head in frustration that the party is expending their remaining resources to save me. So now that I am dangling from this rope making my way out the goblins in the group after us start leaping off the cliff at me at one point I had 4 or 5 of them on me...and then the fail...having so many on me stabbing at me they eventually kill me and snap the rope losing my corpse down the falls.
The whole effort was for nothing tho because the DM was going to kill me one way or another.
Well, I am normally just a read on these forums but i felt the need to share this story...that to me was an epic win that ended with a fail.
.... After playing the character up to about level 5 the DM decided that my characters race and class combination doesn't work in his world and he needs to kill me.
... The whole effort was for nothing tho because the DM was going to kill me one way or another.
Yes, fail for ur DM. What a jackarse. I hope you punched his danglers.
Im like saying what the hell are you doin, and he says dont worry about it. So i go and save the party and die.
The wizard goes to town, and the only person he can find that can bring me back is a Druid. But we didnt know that, so we said ok go ahead.
He casts Reincarnation on me. The DM had his own little table that he made for Reincarnation. He has all sorts of things on it, Trolls, Giants, Kobolds, Humans, Squirrels, Beavers, 100 different things i could get turned in to. He rolls....
A 100. I ask him if thats good or bad.. He says-
You awaken in a small field, naked but warm. You feel different somehow... And you see your party staring at you.
I ask why, and i get to a mirror and look at myself. He starts out discribing me.
DM- 'You have blonde Hair, Blue eyes, and are white.'
Me- "OMG IMA NAZI!!!"
DM- Also, you have white, feathery wings on your back.
Me-
What did i turn into?DM-A Half Celestial.
ME- I am a Half Celestial Paladin? SWEET!
Later on, we fought a bunch of guys, next battle actually, and he rolled on the weapons table to see what we got...
DM- You (Talking to me) Find a sword that is drawn to you somehow, and as you pick it up, It transforms into the fabled Holy Avenger.
Me- :OMG! Now im a Half Celestial Paladin with the Holy Avenger.
it was a fun game after that.
We are raiding a wizard school that is infested with erineys that go around dressed as giggling teenage school girls. We find the headmaster of the school who I taunt into attacking me. Here is how it goes down:
DM: The headmaster casts a spell and you are bathed in fire (burning hands or some such). Roll a reflex save.
Me: Um, I'm immune to fire. Verastrix raises an eye brow at the wizard. Does he look worried?
DM: No. The wizards says "aha! so your a red half-dragon!"
Me ooc: I'm a gold half-dragon
DM: yea, but he doesn't know the difference.
Me: OK
Next round
DM: The wizard cast another spell at you (pointing to me). This time three rays of ice shoot from his hand and hit you square in the chest. Roll a reflex save.
Me: (I look at the DM and grin shaking my head) No. I take the full blast and grin at the headmaster in an uncharacteristically evil fashion (I'm NG). Does he look worried yet?
DM: (looks down at his notes, looks up at me, looks back down at his notes, sighs) Yes he is looking very worried right now.
I still ended up dieing in the encounter, but my character actually had a chance to shine for the first time and so I was happy.
First Edition, (yes that old). We got a new player in our game. And by new I mean never played D&D before. In our first game with the guy we vanquish a group of Ogers. In their treasure they had a Dagger of Venom, the crappy IF you roll a natural 20 the Dagger inject poison and the opponent must make a save or die. He immediately latched onto this weapon. The rest of us didn't care, after all the we'd never seen the Dagger of Vemon actually kill anything.
A few session later we are in a dungeon and we enter a chamber and Beholder comes out. All of us experience players immediately do an about face and are prepared to get the hell out of there, after all we wen't prepared to fight a Beholder.
Our new friend just smiles, says: Elbow room, elbow room people. I'll save you. I throw my Dagger of Venom. (Pantomiming a throwing motion)
Me: That doesn't work unless you roll
*clunk* Nat 20
Me: Unless you roll that.
DM: Aw well it doesn't matter it only needs a four or better to save vs. poison
*clunk* 2
PC: I told you guys I'd save you!
and he never let us forget that incident.