As the icosahedron turns.....

[Ferox4]

A legend has been borne out of the capricious dice:

I was DM. The PCs range from 8th-10th level. In an effort to humble them (they were geting way too salty) I thought I'd give them a "sneak preview" of the big bad ass they were pursuing -- a 16th level Druid human female, Hlif. First she counterspelled the Clerics healing spell, then she cast Harm on the 97 HP dwarf, reducing him to 3 HP. Just as she was going to finish the dwarf the 9th level Rogue/Fighter tumbled in and rolled a natural 20 for a possible critical, He then rolled another natural 20, boom, critical hit to her left leg. You know what I'm going to tell you next, don't you? We play with the instant death variant, so if the Rogue rolls high enough on his 3rd roll to score a regular hit he subsequently kills the creature. I swear he called it out.......and he rolled another 20!

Anyone else ever seen three natural 20's in a row like this?

Chalk one up to the PCs (the bastards.....Oh, how they shall pay for this)

F4

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Yes I have. It was beatiful too! My wife playing her monk Lielah tumbled in and took a swipe at a creature doing subdual damage as she wanted to capture it and do some interrogations.

She rolls and up pops the twenty. Next comes the confirm and up comes another. Final one comes up again and up pops another twenty. Instant death. DM (me) ruled it held even doing the subdual damage. And of of this mighty and imposing monkly death dealing damage was done to......(wait for it).....

a kobold.

I loved it. Poor little dog faced dude never saw it coming!

 

[Berandor]

not three twenties, but similar:

We encounter a big dragon, and the DM describes his prowess. Our cavalir rides on and scores a 20.
Roll for location - head
Roll for damage - instakill.

Damn, that was great.

Berandor

 

[Henry]

That's one reason why instant kill variants rankle my nose a little. Imagine if this was the DM getting this on a player!

Lesson learned: Parties never face the big bad evil until the DM is ready for him to die - because somehow, somewhere, they will pull it out of their petushkas and kill him.

Even still, they weren't that overmatched - 4 9th levels against a 16th level? that's - what - EL 13 vs. an EL 16?

 

[ninthcouncil]

Not D&D and not damage-related, but...

We are playing Pendragon. A small group of British knights (us, pretty experienced, Round Tablers and all) arrives at the siege of Jerusalem to find the relief column arguing about who is in charge. While the French and German knights hurl disdainful insults at each other (OK, no Monty Python please), the Moors are rampaging throught he city. The opportunity to save it is slipping away.

Forward rides Sir Ronan (yours truly). He attempts to talk sense into the Christians. In Latin, since he can't speak French or German. He has a Latin of 5 (out of 20), and can Orate at, er, 5. In Pendragon, an exact roll of your skill is a critical. He rolls. 5. And 5. A fantastic speech, and they even understood it. Uh, I think you're in command, Ronan, whether that was the intention or not. Roll your Battle skill - that's a bit easier, he's pretty good at that (17). Roll .... 17.

Thankyou, Jerusalem and goodnight! We were speechless.

 

[Gez]

Not three twenties in a row, but 20, 20, 17. Instant death. It was an arrow shot by a NPC that did that to our proud fighter Sageric.

Later, we raised him, but the fighter didn't wanted to continue adventuring...

 

[Zappo]

A friend of mine told me that he played in a campaign where the DM used extensive rules for critical misses, where a critical miss could mean death for the character attempting the action, if he was unlucky enough.

Well, the party had reached the big badass, a death knight mounted on a skeletal horse. The DM gave a detailed description of the scene, the unholy glow in the rider's eyes, the hellish steam coming out of the mount's nostrils, and all. Well, one of the PCs, a kender, stated that he was pulling out an apple, walking to the horse, and offering it to the creature.

The DM, after a moment of puzzlement, rolled for the knight to attack. Behind the screen - but my friend told me that he never saw such a horror growing slowly on the face of the DM as he rolled the greatest fumble in history.

Basically, the death knight and the horse, upon seeing a kender with an apple, immediately crumbled to the ground in a lifeless heap of bones.

 

[G.A. Donis]

In a campaign I'm playing in, the DM announced he was goin to use the "instant kill" rule. Everybody seemed very excited about it when one of our adventuring crew almost pulled this off......until it was pointed out that the instant death works both for PCs and NPCs! Kinda scary when you think that your character can die with a little luck (or lack thereof, depending on your viewpoint). It will be interesting to see how often the situation presents itself.

 

[Umbran]

I've seen similar luck as well. We all do, eventually. We roll enough dice that it becomes a statistical certainty, I expect.

The lesson to be learned - it was your own dumb fault. Any pure spellcaster who gets into melee range as anything other than a last resort is asking to die. Just as players who are stupid get what they deserve, same goes for the DM.

 

[Talaysen]

Yes I have. It was beatiful too! My wife playing her monk Lielah tumbled in and took a swipe at a creature doing subdual damage as she wanted to capture it and do some interrogations.

She rolls and up pops the twenty. Next comes the confirm and up comes another. Final one comes up again and up pops another twenty. Instant death. DM (me) ruled it held even doing the subdual damage. And of of this mighty and imposing monkly death dealing damage was done to......(wait for it).....

a kobold.

I loved it. Poor little dog faced dude never saw it coming!

Hmmm...given that she's a monk, and was trying to deal subdual damage, I think I would have ruled that instant death didn't apply; rather, the critical would have just knocked the kobold out instantly. At the very least I would've allowed her to make a Reflex saving throw to avoid killing the thing.

But that's just me. Your DM's mileage may vary.