I've almost decaptated myself riding a horse. I've beat, stabbed and other wise injured myself and party members with my critical failures. And so on and so forth.
But there are times that things just go right.
Thursday, my 4e game for example, I've manged to crit two times in a row. (shortly after saying that I'm lucky to crit once in a session.)
Friday, my 3.5 game, I didn't really do anything too much, but I never rolled a fumble on anything. Heck, I rolled critical initive instead.
But on saturday.. My 2.0 edition game, I picked up a random grab bag of abilities using the black book of skills and powers. This allowed me to make a fighter with a spell resistance of 2% per level. I'm level 3 fighter, so i have 6%. We start fighting a Lich, who bravely casts fireball in an enclosed space. most people either succeed thier saves or have other means of fire protection. For me, I roll a 1 on the percentail die.. In otherwords.. My SR goes off and protects me from the spell.
Then our fighter critically fumbles and hurls his weapon at another fighter, sailing for a straight coarse to impale him in the head. I was able to use Juggling to prevent it by catching the blade in mid-air with my bare hands. (Gloved of course but still. )
So I managed to beat out near impossible odds both times.
What are your guy's stories of being able to FINALLY pull of something good. (Even if you never could actually hit the lich.)
Then I have streaks of 2-3 sessions where my dice seem stuck in the 15-20 area. One example would be a few weeks ago where I rolled 20,20,19 on an attack roll, pretty much as close as you can get to instant kill without it actually happening. Or yesterday I passed a DC 20 diplomacy check... without having a single rank in diplomacy. (Other than my CHA ofcourse and the +2 synergy bonus from sense motive.) This meant that instead of having to hack our way through an intire village of monsters we got an escort through their territory and a little insight in their daily life. Not to mention we got to rest there for the night on our way back after one of us damn near got killed and was out cold. (Obviously wouldn't have happened if we had had to carve a bloody path through the place.)
But yhea, I generally don't have "average" rolls... either they suck enough to make me seriously wonder if my dice are consious and out to get me or they're awesome enough to make even me wonder if someone messed with them. (Got one dice I've stopped using cause it rolls an absurd amount of 18-20's.. and I got a crit range of 19-20 and dual wield...)
Fighting a green dragon, I opened up with icy rays to immobilise him, and then on a whim, spent an action point to follow up with Sleep, knowing full well that he was almost guaranteed to pass his saving throw.
Well, his turn came around, and... He rolled a 3. Went from almost full on HP's to dead in the next round, thanks to all the Coup de Graces he took. I might as well have one shotted him.
Once I was runnning a demo adeventure with some friends at the opening of a game shop. Since it was a one shot we all decided to roll stats. I ended up with 18 18 17 14 13 9. My 4th level dwarf cleric with 18 str 18 wis and 20 con proceeded to steamroll prety much eveything. Then the DM introduced a pair of gauths to spice things up....and I stll managed to take one down.
Second time was in my last completed 3.5 campaign. Encounter consisted of some kobolds with class levels and an Ice Drake. We managed to get surprise round and my 7th level raptoran cleric opens up with fleshripper. Critical. 14d8 damage. Then we roll initiative, and I get to go first. Charge with longspear and full Power Attack&Shock Trooper. Another crit. That's 1d8+20x4(x3 from weapon and double damage on a charge from raptoran). The main threat of the encounter was down before even getting to act
DUM
DUM
DUUUUUUUMMMMM
I DM!
I am the freaking crit master when i DM - sometimes i will throw these lvl5 adventurers a lvl3 encounter and it will almost murder them. I'm not sure if it's just because I roll more when i DM but I swear that my last character (lvl1-5 shaman) NEVER saw a 20 not for initiative, skill or attack - my last encounter i DM'd had two crits in it.
don't know what to tell ya.
Next, the tiefling spellcaster baddie hurls a ball of fire against my Battlerager's Reflex defense...and misses. Two rounds later, the Rogue and I have him cornered and we eviscerate him.
Oh, and on the second round, the Assassin pulled the dwarf off of the ladder he was trying to climb and back down another 20-foot drop, which killed him. Turns out, that dwarf was supposed to be the hair-pullingly hard enemy of that encounter, and we killed him with gravity.
Although Ferg was a peaceful soul, he was, on paper, a total badass. I rolled very well when I statted him up. The build was well thought-out without being too munchkin-y. He had some nice gear, to boot. Ferg should have been a beast. Ferg should have slaughtered everything the DM threw at him.
The dice disagreed.
Ferg's luck in combat was terrible for most of the campaign (which lasted for one summer). If he wasn't dying or almost dying, he was nearly killing party members (or actually killing them, on one occasion) with his spectacular fumbles.
One evening we found ourselves in a massive battle aboard a pirate ship, captained by a Minotaur Bard. Weird combo, maybe, but this guy was almost impossible to kill. Anyway, this battle was going horribly. A few of the pirate cronies were dead or incapacitated, but the captain and like three other big guys were still alive and kicking. None of our characters was in immediate danger of dying, but we just weren't getting anywhere and there was no way to retreat. A TPK seemed like an eventuality.
Remember that bear? The one I almost never summoned? Well, in a last ditch effort, I summoned it.
From that moment on, it was a massacre. The bear's attack rolls were incredible! Nothing but critical hits and bodyparts as far as the eye could see. None of our rolls really got much better, but the bear just destroyed everything that got in its way. We never found any logical reason why the bear should have been such a powerhouse. None of the enemies had any weird resistances that we just couldn't get through; It was ALL the dice.
Ever since then, everyone I game with views bears with total respect, and abject terror.
Of course, this can lead to miscommunications....when i say, "uh-oh" the players are never sure if i rolled a 20 and I'm uh-ohing 'cause a PC is gonna get hammered, or uh-ohing because a mook rolled a 1 and is about to light a friend on fire.
Koed the dwarf that the party couldnt get to, a challenge for the entire party with luck rolls. Down to 4 hp- and im raging. Then some smarta** drops a high level sleep effect in there 'to keep the dwarf asleep'
Hp drop to -15 or soemthing... as i fall asleep.
It was going so right up to that the one time I got to be the big hero.
Another time I played a halfling monk with the outsider setup. Hid it until the last moment fearing the party would (ic) lynch me for being spawn of cthulhu... we were locked behind magic bars that electrified on touch ina cell, stripped.
Electricity resisting ooze form saves the day!
Turns out, that dwarf was supposed to be the hair-pullingly hard enemy of that encounter, and we killed him with gravity.
We had an encounter where we waited until the head bad guy went into the outhouse (our DM was a hardcore wargamer and almost always put an outhouse or latrine in every camp) and then snuck up on him, wrapped 50 feet of rope around the whole thing, and then tied it off so he couldn't get out. He started yelling, thinking that his buddies had played a prank on him...
After wiping the rest of the encounter, we all packed in close to the door and readied actions to attack when the guy stepped into the square in front of the door. One of us undid the knot in the rope. He comes charging out, all pissed off, and got as far as, "You stupid sonsabit - oh, sh - "...
Back in second edition I was playing a thief in a party that was hunting trolls in a cavern system. The plan was for me to get a troll to chase me down the corridor to the first cave, where I'd climb the wall and hide on this ledge over the entrance while the troll ran past into the second cave where the party was set up to ambush it. I'd then sneak in behind the troll and backstab it - because you actually had to be behind people to backstab them back in the day.
Unfortunately, I was hiding up on the ledge in the first cave when the troll runs in... And stops directly beneath me, looking around and sniffing the air suspiciously.
Knowing I only had a round or two to pull something hardcore impressive out of my butt - oldschool thieves were notoriously squishy - I came to a decision. I had borrowed the fighter's +1 flametongue bastard sword, so I stood up, reversed grip on the blade, and threw myself out into thin air, attempting to perform a death-from-above brainstab on the troll.
2nd Ed rules...
- Critical hit with the bastard sword = x2 weapon damage
- Backstab damage for a thief of my level = x3 weapon damage
(multipliers add together, 2x + 3x = 5x)
- Bastard sword damage = 2d4 when used 2-handed, or 2d8 vs.. Large creatures (i.e., trolls)
Rolled MAX DAMAGE....
x5...
+ 1d6 falling damage (just for giggles)...
I one-hitted a freaking TROLL!!!
Turns out, that dwarf was supposed to be the hair-pullingly hard enemy of that encounter, and we killed him with gravity.
We had an encounter where we waited until the head bad guy went into the outhouse (our DM was a hardcore wargamer and almost always put an outhouse or latrine in every camp) and then snuck up on him, wrapped 50 feet of rope around the whole thing, and then tied it off so he couldn't get out. He started yelling, thinking that his buddies had played a prank on him...
After wiping the rest of the encounter,
Perhaps not the best choice of words.
Our fighter and warlock distracted the enemy while the rest of the party snuck around, I went up the gaurd tower Stealthed on the Surprise round hit the Gnoll Archer with Open the Gate of Battle and did over 50 points of damage. They knew we were there when that Gnoll's body fell limply over the side of his watchtower.
2nd
Well if we wanna talk 2e there was this one time I was playing my paladin who had, through the luck of the gods, aquired a Saber Toothed Tiger for a mount. I wanted to armor him, but no one in the area could get the materials in such short notice, what with the war on. I wasnt gonna take him to the killing fields unprotected (long story, he used to be a Halfling) so I looked for a good source of metal and stumbled, alone, upon a Frost Giant armored head to toe in giant sized chain mail.
I take stock of my quipment. +2 longsword, +2 full plate, +3 shield... oh and a silver lance our Dwarven Fighter/Cleric made me that I never use.
I shrug and prepare for a tough fight when all of the sudden I see the weapon chart on the DM's screen and notic the Lance: 3d8 against Large, x3 damage from the back of a charging mount.
I grin ear to ear, in and out of character, mount up and charge down the hill, shouting out a challange as I go. I leap off the cliffside, roll to hit.
20.
I look at the chart again: , x3 critical (I may be remembering this wrong, but thats what springs to mind).
3d8 + 7 (18/96 strength) x6. The thing dropped to a knee and nearly died from that alone (passed its massive damage roll by the skin of its teeth). It was awesome.
Of course the Giant proceeded to crit me 2 or 3 times himself thereafter. All those ones I rolled on my hps REALLY hurt there. IIRC my mount finished him off. That was where my paladin lost his eye, always said it just brought him a step closer to Tyr.
A friend and I were raiding what amounted to a gnoll den, and were freeing prisoners that had been captured. I was chasing a gnoll through these dark ruby mines, and when I finally caught up to it, I landed a killing blow. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that it threw a 12 year old boy who was mining there in my way, so I one shotted the kid. I finally caught up to the gnoll and killed it.
I decided to try my hand at roleplaying here, and stormed off down an adjacent hall in a rage, and kicked down a door. I had to roll a strength check to kick down the door. I rolled a twenty. So my ranger kicks the door, effectively turning it into kindling. So now I have before me a gnoll that's just been awakened. I bum rush it and roll my attack (since the DM was counting it as a surprise attack). I rolled a 20, an 18, and 17 (keen longsword). I decapitated it. We then moved on to a crude forge that had a single gnoll in it, hammering away on some armor. Wanting to use my crossbow for once, I decided to try and snipe it around a corner. I rolled a 20. Unfortunately, my next roll was a four.
So in the space of five minutes, I rolled 5 criticals (botching the last, but still one shotted it)