Most memorable moment in D&D

[wlmartin]

Everyone has a moment in D&D they remember that sticks out more than others.

Mine is split between either
1 : My High School D&D Group had a house rule that when a player dropped to 0 HP regardless of if they died or were revived, they would suffer a maiming. The maiming was something damaging that happened to their body that had an effect on them from that moment on. Each player (and the DM) would pick an effect and the die would roll, whereever it landed the effect stuck.

Such effects included "Lost an eye, -1 to hit" or "Now a unic, -1 charisma" .. as the PC involved you also had a stake and could have your roll be something like "Now has a terrible scar that looks like the holy symbol of his religion, +1 to all rolls to do with Cleric Spells"

I always found a way to get to 0 hp more than anyone else so it came up for me more than anything but this was always a fun moment in the session when we got to roll for maiming

2 : My wizard PC (again in High School) rolled for his familar. He did it at a time when one of the more experienced players took over from our DM as a guest DM (our DM was the German Teacher, an adult!). We encountered a baby white dragon and the guest DM decided that this white dragon was now my familiar!!

It was very funny going into to town with a white dragon as a pet, I made some extra coin by selling his poo to the local farms but ultimately since it would have been massively game breaking once it started to mature, as well as 100% unrealistic he got swapped out for a wolf. Regardless, I owned my very own White Dragon - not many people can say that.

I would have to say the 2nd one is more memorable but the 1st one was equally as fun as it really brought the group together.

What is yours?

 

[Raunalyn]

Oh, wow...there are so many. Do I have to pick one?

How about this; I'll pick one as a player and one as a DM.

As a player, I'd have to go with my favorite moment being the death of one of my characters, who only lasted one session. Yes, that's right...one of my characters dying was one of my most favorite moments as a player.

This was back in the days of 2e, and we were playing in Forgotten Realms. The DM running the game was one of those types who thinks its a game to try to kill off the players. He was also not too bright, and he was really interested in Spellfire. He asked me to make up a character who could use Spellfire and wanted to place me into one of his ongoing campaigns. During the course of the session, my character was kidnapped by the Red Wizards of Thay, and the rest of the party had to try to rescue it. Eventually, my group is able to find me, open a gate, and grab my character. The DM, incensed that the players ruined his carefully drawn plans, had 18 red wizards all cast 9th level spells at my character to kill it. For those of you familiar with Spellfire wielders, you know they have a chance to overload if they absorb too much spell energy, and they will explode.

So, while the players are all arguing over the results of the rescue attempt, I'm quietly sitting at my corner of the table calculating. The DM is smirking at his "success" when I quietly look up and say, "Anybody got 187d6?" The explosion caused by the overload of my character nearly obliterated the top of Thaymount.

My favorite moment as a DM (and there are so many) has to be when I was running a game in Dragonlance. The characters, chasing a prophecy, journey out into the Blood Sea of Istar so that they can prevent the prophecy from happening. The main villian sends his minion, a Blue Dragon, after the party. As they sail closer and closer to the Maelstrom, the dragon finds them and attacks. One player gets a great idea and attacks the dragon's wings with the ship's ballista so that he can't attack them from the air. The dragon falls into the ocean, and being an intelligent creature, casts water breathing on himself and starts attacking the boat from underwater. The fight was intense and exciting, and still sticks out in my mind after 20 years.

 

[wedgeski]

The best I can offer you is a couple of random moments.

DM'ing Dragonlance, my buddy's entomophobic rogue PC decides to escape a dangerous foe by tumbling between his legs and into a nearby open room, slamming the door shut behind him. He is very smug about this. Unfortunately for him, he hadn't noticed the gossamer webs strung over the door, and was promptly assaulted by a giant black widow and several hundred of its teeny-tiny offspring. He promptly exits the room, screaming for his friend the sorcerer to set him on fire. Ah, good times.

As a player, accidentally recreating the end of Temple of Doom as I raced with an injured colleague over a rope bridge, trying to escape an orc who was much too powerful for us to deal with. Realised I wasn't going to make it, grabbed the bridge, cut the ropes. Cue awesome vertical escape under fire from the orc's squad of archers.

DM'ing Dragonlance, same rogue infiltrates the offices of a somewhat obsessive clerk, looking for records of an old gnome whose legend he intends to uncover. Cue mishap amongst towering stacks of paper and scrolls, and the gnome actually surfing the tide of paper on a silver tray to make good his escape. Hilarious (man that player was great!).

DM'ing Dragonlance, kender rogue grabs a fallen flagpole, leaps from a towering spire onto the back of a nearby enemy dragon, critting it through the head and killing it immediately, makes a desperate lunge for safety as it plummets to the ground, rolls for random item from pockets... retrieves washed and neatly folded table-cloth, glides to safety through window into one of the lower tower levels.

Hmm, three random awesome moments all on Krynn. I really should get back there one day.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

By strictest definitions, my most memorable was actually my first adventure of all. It was 1977, after school in the library of East Middle School, Aurora, Co. To keep it short, I'll just say my injured fighter was the last man alive in the party, facing down a severely wounded Purple Worm (we both had 4HP) and it was simultaneous initiative. He hit, I missed.

Oft-told tale #2 happened in 1981, when my fighter, Bear (Str18/00, Dex18 Con 18 Int6 Wis6 Cha6), enabled his partymates' escape from the city watch by making a stand on a narrow bridge.

Moment #3:

The Battle of the Brutal Slaughter of the Harpies

We were attacked by Harpies, and the quick-thinking Druid hit them with an Entangle as they did a strafing run through some foliage- snagged them all!

That was when the dice went sour.

We only had a few PCs with ranged weaponry- a guy with a bow, a guy with a throwing hammer, one with a sling, and the Wiz had a dagger.

The guy with the Hammer is venturing into the area of the Entangle to retrieve his hammer and the Wiz' dagger.

Most of the to-hit rolls were low. When we did hit, no attack did more than 3HP damage. We finish off the first Harpy just as the Entangle is starting to expire...

So the Druid does Entangle #2...and our futility continues. The dice continue to stay as low as a soldier under fire.

The guy with the Hammer is, by now, having to venture into the area of the Entangle to retrieve arrows that have missed. The PC with the sling is now using rocks.

Harpy #2 is near death but still fighting and Harpy #3 is untouched when Entangle #2 is expiring, so the Druid pops Entangle #3.

My PC and the hammer-thrower are apologizing to the Harpies- in character- for the cruel deaths that we are inflicting upon them...especially after the hammer-thrower retrieved the Wizard's dagger out of the still-living Harpy#2 so the Wizard could throw it again. But he doesn't leave the Entangle area until after he stabs the dying Harpy with that dagger to finish it off.

By now, all of the arrows have been used, either striking the Harpies or being broken downrange. EVERYONE ELSE IS THROWING ROCKS.

The last Harpy dies just before Entangle #3 does.

All of this time, our DM has been flabbergasted- absolutely red faced and flustered- at the action. "F$%^&ing Entangle! That spell is broken!" *rant*rant*rant*

To which the Druid's player huffily responded "Well, it was either that or Create Food & Water! The Harpies could have had a meal and a bath!"

LOLs abounded.

I've got others, but I've said enough.

 

[Uller]

In a game I was running in college, in the 90s (2e...I don't remember all the game mechanics that lead to this situation..) the party was fighting a green dragon on a small tropical island. They had no flying ability and no serious ranged weapons other than a wand of lightning bolts in the hands of the party thief. The mage (a wild mage) was pretty much out of spells, the cleric out of healing. The thief was low on hitpoints as he had taken the brunt of the breath weapons. Everyone was trying to stay spread out. The dragon was circling above but was also getting low enough on HP that the wand was a real threat. It decided to crush the thief so it could take the wand and deny the party the any real ability to hurt it.

It landed on him (killing him), the wand survived so he stood on it, intending to grab it and take flight on the next round. All seemed lost. TPK was imminent. The wild mage cast some 1st level spell...got a wild surge...rolled the effect: Target becomes ethereal...Another character picked up the wand and ran back to the mage to give it to him and the dragon sensing defeat fled (and was later slain, I believe).

 

[alaria galanodel]

Most memorable...I do believe the end of my very first campaign still wins after all these years. D&D 3.5 with my rogue/noble/ninja/shadowdancer, Zarana. We've finally tracked down the priest of Tiamat and slain him, thus averting the ritual that would have sacrificed hundreds. As the paladin and I stand there on the dais, an actual head of Tiamat comes down from the sky to eat the fallen priest and breathe fire on us!

As this was the end of the campaign, we're both sitting there going "ok, we won, and if we're about to die what a way to go!" The DM winds up, rolls the attacks...and misses me! He looks at me, picks up all the d6s, and prepares to give me half damage. Not so fast, good sir, for I am a rogue with EVASION! No damage from a missed attack, Zarana lives for another day!

Meanwhile the paladin was hit. As the dice are picked up, he says "hey, what does that shield of St. George that I have do?" The DM pauses, then says "YOU have the shield?" Yup, written down on his character sheet and equipped. He puts down the massive amount of d6s, takes his glasses off, and hangs his head in defeat. The shield protects you from all dragon breath weapons. And so the ninja princess and the paladin were attacked by Tiamat and walked away unscathed. The end.

 

[On Puget Sound]

The party is riding in an enormous flying metal turtle, the size of a small town, as guests of the NPC wizard owner, a haughty and arrogant female elf. From the air, they spot a few hundred refugees on the ground, being attacked by an undead horde that pursued the human survivors after destroying their town.

Some good diplomacy persuades the elf wizard to reluctantly bring the turtle down so the party can disembark to save the refugees (she will not, of course, actually do anything; she is a transportation source and plot device only).

After defeating the undead, the party wants to bring the refugees on board. It is winter and they have no food or shelter; they've been on the run for over a week and suffering from fear, disease, exposure and hunger. They are also rather filthy.

The wizard refuses to allow these grimy, muddy peasants on her nice clean flying turtle. The diplomacy roll does not go well; she insists that these stinky people cannot board. The party knows that there are many more undead on the way; there is no time to set up a refugee camp, and no apparent way to solve the impasse (attacking the mage to steal her turtle is suicide; besides, no one else can make it fly).

Then the druid's player says, "I turn into a dire lion".
GM:" Umm, OK, you're a dire lion."
Druid: "I cast Purify Food and Drink on the peasants."
GM: " Huh? They're not food."
Druid: " Hello, LION here. Do I have to eat one to prove it?"
GM could not say no to that; the refugees were cleaned up and allowed to board.

 

[fuzzlewump]

(4E) We, including me the Halfling Fighter|Cleric, my brother the Bard, and my good friend the Minotaur Barbarian Banotis (a recurring character in many different campaigns. And there's meant to be a ~ over the n, so it's Banyotis essentially.) As we approached the final room of the sunken temple with the big bad, we pass over large pools of water that actually extend into a body of water below. As the battle begun, it was bad enough having to face the Big Bad Wizard and his minions by themselves. Of course, out from a pool of water leaps forth a Feymire Crocadile, and instantly our attentions go to that like a gun being drawn in a noir film.

We were level 6, and the beast was a level 10 elite ready to chomp our faces off, not to mention the other baddies in the room. A sure TPK was coming, or at least a drawn out running away sequence, until of course the Bard's turn comes up. With a stroke of pure luck, he actually lands his dominate daily spell on the Crocadile, which as far as we were concerned meant a little extra damage and having him off our back for a turn. That is, until the nature check. This guy can swallow you whole, and daze and restrain you while you are swallowed?

In the game world, it must have looked a bit peculiar. Right as the Crocodile leapt out of the water and the Bard met his eyes with a Song of Discord, the Crocodile snapped toward the Big Bad Wizard and grabbed him in his massive jaws. When the Croc's turn came around, since the Big Bad was grabbed by the initial attack Song of Discord grants, it was a simple task to swallow the Big Bad whole with the granted domination attack. Our hoots and cheers were the hoots and cheers of legend.

Even as the domination wore off, the Big Bad remained in the churning and squeezing acidic stomach of the Feymire Croc. The fight was certainly going in our favor until Banotis the Barbarian, renowned for his pitifully low defenses, managed to eat the bite and the swallow in one fell swoop with the use of an action point by this elite monstrosity. Finny, my Fighter|Cleric, saw the end coming, even with as much going in our favor as possible, it wasn't enough, and my halfling had to turn and flee.

Inside the stomach of the Croc, as the Barbarian slid down his throat and into the Croc's stomach, the half-digested and smashed remains of the Big Bad Wizard line the stomach of this beast. While Finny couldn't really see it, the internal damage Banotis was causing as he swung around his Executioner's Axe inside of that beast's stomach in subsequent rounds was enough to put the Croc in the realm of being killable.

Finny, during this is running like mad, then realizes that he can't just leave his team to die, and trudges back. Oh, did I mention I was at 1 HP and we were out of healing?

The end is nigh for our barbarian being digested, and the poor bard being chomped. Quite suddenly, as my partner's have been slugging it out and on the brink of destruction, the DM said I managed to make it back to the battle. Finny's broken, bloodied, and sure to die body charged forth, blinking away blood from his eyes, calling for the blessing of Avandra as he sliced his short swords forth for a Righteous Brand. A natural twenty.

Through the cheers and the hollering, I maximize my damage, roll my critical dice, and just barely place the great beast below the threshold of the living. The Feymire Croc fell limp into a pool of its own blood, as Banotis the Barbarian falls out of the stomach along with some of the remains of the Big Bad Wizard himself.

Banotis "Finny, you son of a bitch."

Finny, "You think I'd miss this party?"

 

[Riastlin]

Wow, really hard to pin this down to just one or two most memorable, but I'll give it a shot. These two moments actually came from the same encounter and are from my first adventure running as DM.

The party is pursuing the villain through a noble's manor and has come to a room with a closet. In the closet are signs of a heck of a lot of fire. The walls and floor are scorched, with some of the scorching carrying over to the bedroom. Also in the closet is a single pedestal with a box on it. Opening the box reveals a series of gems laid out neatly in the box and on the inside of the lid of the box is a grid of letters.

This was a basic word search puzzle. The puzzle contained the names of the assorted gems. If you "circled" the hidden gem names, the remaining letters spelled out a phrase: "The key is the emerald in the right column." Pressing that emerald would cause the secret door to open and the party to be able to follow after their prey. Pressing the wrong gem caused an explosion.

So the half orc looks at the lid (I had written the grid out on a sheet of paper) and sees the word "Ruby" right away. The half orc says "A-Ha! I press this ruby here! Closet and room blows up and the party kindly asks the half orc never to touch the traps or puzzles again. This was also all done completely in character.

The second moment came as the party had spent several minutes (probably about ten) examining the word search. They refused any offer of hints as they wanted to solve it themselves. Finally after about those ten minutes, the ranger jumps up, throws his hands over his head and shouts "I push THIS emerald!" (of course picking the right one).

As a DM running his first ever adventure (homebrewed at that) this was really satisfying because my players really got into it, solved it, and were thrilled at having solved it. The half orc wanted to know how he figured it out and when told the logic simply said "See, I had the right idea."

All in all, it felt like the exact right amount of challenge in the puzzle as it wasn't a given, but was definitely solvable and without too much time. Seeing the players become engrossed in a session is the best reward as a DM. Starting out well I think also helped me get through the inevitable rough patches that would follow and encouraged me to stick with it (which is good since I'm pretty much the only DM in our group).

 

[Chris Markham]

Our party encountered a dragon. We're usually ones to TALK to an intelligent foe before we proceed to murdering them, and the dragon was willing to talk too. Turns out, he had grown too large for his lair (and was fairly aging). But, our DM didn't want to give us a dragon hoard if we fought it, and made it obvious it could be a fight we wouldn't win.

So, in our talk, I (a mage) asked him what he'd want to do, be another creature, be smaller, etc.? The dragon wanted to be a Draconian, proud to be draconic, but wanted to see the changed world. In exchange, he'd give us one choice item from his hoard. I agreed. So, he lowered his resistance, and accepted the Polymorph Other spell.

I turned him into a fish.

The DM about wet himself! LOL. Man, I had to get a more powerful wizard to cast Glassteel on the aquarium in my manor home (bought with treasure from the hoard), because he kept breaking the damn glass. Was a great conversation piece though....(especially as a had a gem of True Seeing affixed there, for guests to look in and see him as the dragon he was)...