Greatest roll ever

[Doctor DM]

We were playing our Slaughtergarde campaign, and the party is in the Temple. They'd allready killed the High Priestess and even the other clerics. Normally all the drow follow the orders of the Priestess because they're so scared of her, and stay at their posts. However, since she died, they all decided to make a last stand together. There's 3 half-drow, 3 arcane guards, and 3 Lolth's Stings. The party enters, and it's on.

Very early, one of the Arcane Guards uses his scroll of deep slumber, putting the monk and party apprentice fast asleep. On that same round, one of the half-drow sees the helpless monk, takes a 5-foot step, and goes for the coup de grace. There's only one chance to save the monk: the adjacent invisible ninja gets an AOO... and rolls a 2.

The monks player and everyone at the table is just like "Aw no, he's dead." I roll the critical damage, get an 18, and say "Tom I'm really sorry, roll a DC 28 fort save..." He half heartedly rolls... and get's a NAT 20! He has a +8 fort, barely making it! We all went nuts.

The monk then wakes up, tumbles away, and next turn hit's the half drow with a stunning fist, then coup de grace's HIM. The rest of the battle was great, and the PC's barely manage to take the win. Definitly an instant classic for our group.

Most epic, well timed roll I've ever seen. So I'm wondering... what's the best roll you guys have ever encountered?

 

[JVisgaitis]

That's a great story!

Best roll that I can remember wasn't in D&D, but was in a huge Warhammer game we were playing at Games Day a few years back. I was on the Bretonnian side playing with a bunch of other guys from the Inner Circle against a Chaos army.

A few hours into the game we were getting crushed as they had a couple units of Minotaurs that killed whatever we threw at them. They wrecked our entire line and most of our army had fled. It was near the end of the game and they are on clean up crushing us a unit at a time.

We had two units of Bretonnian Knights we were keeping in reserve so we charge in at the end to at least kill something before the game is over. We put a big hurting on the minotaurs and cut them down though we lose one of the units of knights. The next round we get charged by 5 units of Chaos Warriors and we have enemies on all sides.

During the charge we lose a bunch of knights, our rank bonus, and pretty much the game (so everyone, myself included, thought). Everyone on the Chaos side and a huge group of people that were gathered to watch us (we were the last game at the time) are high fiving, cheering, and laughing as we were pretty much routed to put it mildly.

While everyone is going crazy, I know I still get a morale roll to see if my knights fight or flee, so I ask the referee what I need to roll to avoid running and being summarily destroyed. With all the damage we've taken, being flanked on all sides, and losing our rank bonus, it turns out we need snake eyes on 2d6. I say no problem and throw the dice: snake eyes.

Everyone gets really quiet as they look at the dice. The 9 knights we have left managed to fight off 5 units of Chaos Warriors, rally some other straggling units, and rout most of their army in the craziest turn of events I've ever seen. We didn't win the game, but we fought back to a draw. I'll never forget the ref coming over to me later that night at a bar and asking to shake my hand. He said he never saw anything like that in the 25 years he's been playing.

Nothing gives me better joy then the looks on the faces of the other team as we crushed the rest of their army. Normally a game is a game, but the other team was a bunch of arrogant french people that talked trash the whole time. We had great joy in beating them down. A great morale victory and a game I'll never forget.

 

[Doctor DM]

Ha! As a fellow Warhammer player, I can really appreciate that. Nothing is cooler than making that impossible leadership test when you really need it.

 

[Chairman7w]

Awesome story JV.

We had a D&D session once where the party was just getting their butts handed to them by a Green Dragon. The Dragon's hurt pretty bad, but we've got two members down, another at 6hp left, the party Rogue is holding on for dear life on the Dragon's back (at about 5hp left) and the Init gets to the party Cleric (who is a pure caster, no combat skills to speak of), who's out of meaningful spells.

Party Cleric: "I charge the Dragon."

DM (me): "Excuse me?"

Party Cleric: "I charge the Dragon."

DM (me): "You can't even hit this thing without a Crit, you know that, right?"

Party Cleric: "I have Faith in my God, Valkur (God of the Sea)"

DM (me): "(sigh) OKay, go ahead. "

He rolls, Nat 20.

DM (me): "Holy crap! - Roll the confirmation!"

He rolls again, Nat 20.

Dragon=Dead. Three years later, we still talk about it.

 

[Galethorn]

So, my character, one of three Jedi Knights sent on a mission to find a missing Padawan, fought his way into an enemy installation.

We made it to the hangar on the far side of the base, where we met the BBEG for the first time. He's in the doorway of his ship, with a bomb. He throws the bomb down, laughs at us, and lets a Droideka roll in as he flies away.

My character walks up to the Droideka and attacks. I rolled a 20. I rolled to confirm. 20. I rolled a third time. 20.

I stabbed my saber right through its shield and made it explode right then and there.

The more technically inclined Jedi party member decides he can't defuse the bomb. I declare that I'm going to throw it out the hangar door with Move Object.

I rolled another 20.

Yes, I rolled four twenties. In a row. That can only happen, statistically, one in 160,000 times. That's right, 1:160,000 odds.

It was so staggeringly fortuitous an event that the GM didn't seem to mind me one-hitting the boss enemy.

ADDENDUM
After doing a little more math, I've concluded that there was only a 1:16 chance, very roughly, of four twenties in a row occurring in my (so far) 5 year gaming career.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I cast a Maximized Lightning Bolt once... the hard way.

To be fair, it was at caster level 5. But even so!

-Hyp.

 

[Nyaricus]

Great stories thus far guys

Playing a group of monsters in one campaign back in the day. There was a Xill Ranger, a Half-Red Dragon Fighter, Death Slaad caster of some sort, and me. a Doppleganger Rogue with a warhammer.

We were all evil badasses and were going into this city. We get stopped at the gates by the town guard.

The DM describes a "regal figure, the head of the town guard, come out the front gate. He asks you, "why do you beasts wish to enter this fair city?"."

The Half-Red Dragon then reveales his true form. The player was the DM's best friend, and it turns out he's actually no a half-dragon, but a full-blooded dragon. He yells out as he's morphing back into his form, "to burn your city to the ground!"

Then there's me. I'm pretty close to this Guard Captain fellow, so I roll for init, win (over everyone) and run over, yelling out that I'm hefting my warhammer two-handed for a mighty overhead blow!

DM: roll to hit.

Me: 20!

other players: awesome!

DM: roll to confirm!

Me: Another Frexing 20! Hells yeah!

other players: *cheer*

DM, slying: roll another 20,and I'll give you the auto-kill.

other players: naw, it'll never happen...

Me: Time to brain this guy!

another nat 20 follows


Best part was the DM describing me utter pulverizing this guy with my warhammer. Man, that city was a carpenter's dream after that - flat as a baord


I still talk about that one

cheers,
--N

 

[sckeener]

I rarely remember rolls...but there is one from Ars Magica that I remember...it was the worst roll ever.

Our troupe was fighting some infernal nasties in an infernal regio and our only mage with us at the time botches using some vis.....he had to roll again to see how bad a botch...and kept botching...for 11 times. Basically instant wizard twlight.

The GM was nice enough to describe the scene in a way that the rest of us could escape...but we were minus one mage, forever stuck in a wizard twilight in an infernal regio.

 

[Desdichado]

We were up against a demonic avatar of some crazy god or other in the Age of Worms campaign. I mean, a really nasty sucker; it was a potential TPK for us, and we were in the lower teens levels already.

But, we got the jump on it initiative wise. I went first with my shifted and raged shifter barbarian and smacked it hard for something like 120 hps of damage; a good 1/3 of it's total. So much for TPK, although it still could have mauled us pretty good before we finished it off.

Then the sorcerer went. He used Limited Wish to cast Banishment and had an ungodly abysmal chance of succeeding; essentially the thing would have had to roll a natural 1 on it's saving through.

Which it did.

Fight over. Big nasty guy hadn't even had a chance to move. For that matter, neither had half our party.

 

[Schmoe]

I cast a Maximized Lightning Bolt once... the hard way.

To be fair, it was at caster level 5. But even so!

-Hyp.

Yahtzee!