DMs, Tell about the shortest encounter ever because of players luck and actions

[Magius del Cotto]

2e game: running a module, where the DM decides to have the BBEG (a demon) port in a bunch of other demons, who, in turn, port in a heckuvalotta(tm) other demons, bringing the count to about 50 demons, one of which puts up a wall of flame, as soon as the BBFDs(big bad fighter dudes) show up. The Barbarian (40 str) gets the next initiative, leaps the wall of fire, and crits the BBEG. A couple rolls on the crit table later, the thing's determined to have had it's head smashed in; instant death. Big-old fireball dealing more HD than any of the ported demons goes off, effectively killing all 50 of the other demons that were ported in with 1 hit.
Wow.
SW game: DM's plan: smoke the PCs out of the hut they were in by filling it with gas, so the BBEG could ambush us.
What happened: Wookie rolls a nat 20 on his spot check, finds the tube that was pumping gas into the room, and ties it off. Outside, we hear a boom. BBEG got blown up when the presure in the pump he was using built up too high.

 

[Ace]

In this great moment, almost an entire thieves guild is undone.

The cleric in the party goes tromping off by himself try and get a little roleplaying done (nothing wrong with that).

What he didn't know is that he was being stalked by a very prominent rogue in the city - who saw his chance!

He snuck up invisibily and snuck attack the cleric! - which turned him visible....He knew that was going to happen.

What he didn't know was that our pal the cleric had activated a
Bead of Karma and had a searing light prepared.

After the attack (the suprise round)...the Rogue moved away 5' and drank a potion of invisibility. The Cleric knew the square he was in, and said I'll take the 50% miss chance on an invisible creature.

He did not miss.

The to hit roll: natural 20. The 5d8 (bead of karma) and +1, (Point Blank shot), was 37 points of damage. The rouge, a full 3 levels higher than the cleric, had only 36 hp. He fell down, stone dead.

And that was instant Karma

 

[drakhe]

How about the time the group encounters a blue dragon while an assasin has infiltrated the group and takes the dragons attack as an opportunity to start assasinating the party. The bard in the party decides to charm the dragon and gets the highest of results. The dragon fails to save (I didn't want to be to nasty, so I let the bard's luck stick), the party deals with the assasin and when the dragon comes out of its charme trance, the party deals with the dragon by calling upon divine intervention. I let them have their divine intervention (the backstory is of a paladin who's seeking the grace of Kord, I let Kord deal with the dragon but with a very nasty message to the paladin: "Next time I might not listen")

 

[Draxus the Tainted]

To make a long story short...Min/Max archer in the hands of a power gamer. He wins innitiative. Full attack. Dead dragon. (Was lower than normal EL, but still should have taken more than one character's full attack!)

 

[BOZ]

hmm, let's see... well, a couple weeks ago the whole party beat an aurumvorax to death in the first round. of course, it was popping out of a hole we were looking into, we had it flanked, and the DM rolled bad on initiative.

 

[Larcen]

Oo, oo, oo...please let me resurrect this thread so I can convey my favorite memory of all time in the 20 years of playing the game.

It involved the very first PC I ever created, way back in 1978. I was very proud of that PC because he had made it all the way to 16th level wizard (in 1E!) without ever dying once, unlike everyone he knew around him.

I think the DM at the time was trying to change all that when Baba Yaga promised to let us live...if we would steal the wand of Orcus for her. We agreed.

To make a long story short, we fought our way thru hell, literally, (or was that the Abyss?) until we finally came upon Orcus himself surrounded by a slew of nasty demon guards. We won initiative and the fighters all said "We'll take the demons, you go take care of Orcus." Well..I don't know why, but I agreed.

Now, let me tell you at this point that I have always lived in utter fear of the power of Orcus' wand. I had read the MM many times and was always amazed that one swat from that thing could kill, no save. I knew there was no way I could survive a long encounter with THIS guy. So what did I do to end the battle QUICK? I did this:

ME: "I cast a Wall of Iron right between me and Orcus. Since it's unsupported there is a 50/50 chance it will fall towards either him, or me."

DM: "Uh, what does the spell say happens to the guy the wall falls on?"

ME: "Is says here they die, no save."

Everyone at the table fell quiet and blinked a few times as the full realization that I was willing to take a 50/50 chance with my beloved 16th level PC sunk in.

Me: "Make the roll." (Believe me, I honestly felt it was my only chance anyway.)

DM: (Visably nervous): "I want everyone to see this roll. Low roll, it falls towards you."

He then rolled a 63. The wall fell towards Orcus, killing him. In the first round. From my first spell.

In fact, the DM was so impressed by my willingness to take such a huge chance that he didn't bother to look for loopholes or anything. He said Orcus was dead.

Someday I may convey what happened when the same character fought Lolth. Or Tiamat. But those are other stories.

 

[JohnClark]

In a dream sequence the paladin was having which we were all involved in, a nightmare beast attacked us. I won initiative and my first action was to fire off a disitegrate. DM rolled a 2, and pow, no more nightmare beast.

 

[Larcen]

In a dream sequence the paladin was having which we were all involved in, a nightmare beast attacked us. I won initiative and my first action was to fire off a disitegrate. DM rolled a 2, and pow, no more nightmare beast.

Hey! That's the same thing that happened to Tiamat. Same number rolled and everything.

 

[Shadeus]

In 2nd-edition, I was playing a 12th-level fire elementalist. The party came across a great wyrm white dragon in the mountains. We surprised the dragon. My wizard boosted his fireball and increased the level by 4 (we must have not be playing with spell level limits). Then during the normal initiative, he cast another fireball. White dragons used to take double damage from fire. After two failed saves, the battle was over.

In 3rd-edition, I had a 13th-level dwarven dwarven who's party was ambushed by a group of 15th-level characters. The ranger came up to flank him while the rogue with two weapon fighting snuck up invisibility. The rogue ended up hitting him 3 of his 5 attacks for 100+ points of damage. My dwarf turned around using the power critical feat and a flameburst warhammer did 100+ points right back to him in a single hit killing him. He proceeded to cleave into the ranger inflicting a total of 150 hp damage (including another crit) killing her.

With half their party wiped out, the rest was just a matter of cleaning up. Of course my dwarf had like 5 hit points left. He had to go into a defensive stance just so the enemy mage wouldn't kill him with a magic missile.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

About 22 years ago, I was playing in a solo campaign. My brother was the DM and I was playing a Druid. I came across a city of undead. The town gates were locked, but I could see dozens (hundreds?) of undead shambling around the town.

Call Lightning.

End of encounter (though the vampires in the cellars of some of the buildings did not actually die, almost everything else did).