Most cinematic moment?

[On Puget Sound]

Tonight we had the most cinematinc single round so far in either of the two 4E groups I'm running. It happened in Kobold Hall:
In the skull-skull room, the dwarven cleric ran to the platform the kobolds were on and readied to Aid Another to climb up: "Here's a boost!" The dragonborn fighter ran up, vaulted to the ledge using the dwarf's hands, shoulder and head as a staircase, breathed fire on the kobolds and guard drakes (killing two minions), charged down the stairs and hit a drake (basic attack), then used an action point to hit the drake again and critted, bloodying and marking it.

There was a moment of silence as everyone visualized the action that had just transpired, followed by a round of applause.

Of course, the fighter was now surrounded by two guard drakes who rolled quite well, and there was a locked door between him and the healer, so he had a rough few rounds.

What high-drama moments have you enjoyed, as DM or player?

 

[Enaloindir]

That small piece of game-play sounds just awesome! It reminds me of the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, where Gimli says "Toss me" to Aragorn...

- Enaloindir

 

[dreadon]

Well this last weekend my party had what i would call a cinematic fight.

The party had just left the local tavern after celebrating a victory in clearing out the first level of the keep in KotS. On their way out they noticed a strange green light coming from the local grave yard of course the party being half drunk and flush with victory and new levels goes to investigate. As they make their way to the outskirts of town from the shadows what they think is a drunk man stumbles out and grabs the party drunk. After patting the "drunk" on the back and trying to help him up the truth of the situation is revealed as the zombie bites the grabs warlord for near max damage. At this time zombies start to fill the streets. The party consists primarily of ranged characters so not wanting to be swarmed half the party climbs up onto the roofs on the near by buildings leaving the paladin and warlord on the ground. At this point the true scale of the battle is revealed to them as over 20 zombies surround the few buildings the party has taken roost on. over the next few turns the party rains arrows and spells down on the zombies hoping to keep them off the melee characters. It was like watching a seen from dawn of the dead.

 

[dreadon]

Double post

 

[Najo]

Tonight our party moved down to the second level of Shadowfell Keep, the three hobgoblin rooms (guardroom, barracks and warchief's war room). The party had the pass phrase wrong, which alerted the hobgoblins and sent one of the gaurds running to warn the warchief. Then the two soldiers at the well moved to hold off the party on the stairs. The remaining gaurd went to warn the hobgoblins in the ajoining room and then attempted to let the deathjump spider out of the cage.

The fight became intense as they fought the the soliders and killed off the gaurds trying to let the spider out. The hobgoblin patrol was alerted and moved its way into the room, causing the fight to move through the hall up to the second well.

The warcaster moved into the melee using his force push to deal with the group's paladin and cleric. The fight at this point ended up with the group fighting the soilders and hobgoblin patrol, ending with the cleric being dropped to -3 hp by the archers shots. The paladin moved up to her and used lay on hands to bring her to 1 hp. Then the paladin pushed forward and backed the archers into the end of the tunnel. The group's wizard moved up, triggered the cleric's second wind and then she healed herself some more.

While this happend, the archers yelled out for help from the warchief, his 3 soldiers and 4 grunts. Who hurried up into the fight and joined the fray. As the fighting ensued, the dragonborn paladin was dropped to -5 hitpoints and the cleric rived him with healing and then he used his second wind. With the wizard's area effects and good tactics they pulled it back from two near TPK and made it through the entire hobgoblin chambers and kept any gaurds from going down and warning the cultists of Shadowfell.

The party consisted of 3 characters, a dragonborn paladin, elf cleric and human wizard all level 4. I never fudged a single die roll. They successfully took all three encounters without resting as they kept letting a hobgoblin slip into the next encounter, which then alerted the next group of monsters.

The fights were awesome. Two of the party dropped to dying and were saved by their allies. The action and the battle swung back and forth, with it looking very bad for the heroes at multiple points. I used the hobgoblins effectively, making sure they used their tactics and class powers well. The fights were complicated and easy to run with 4e rules.

4e is an amazing system. Very gritty, tons of tactical action and tense heroic moments. Very great game tonight and all in about 3.5 - 4 hours to do those 3 encounters.

 

[pogminky]

These are good.
More, more!

 

[Joshua Randall]

KotS... the party had dealt with the first goblin room, and the rogue snuck ahead to the nearby area where there are two goblin guards sitting at a table near the door. Rogue rolled a 20 on his Stealth check, so he was really, really sneaky.

He motioned for the party to move forward, then attacked, using his surprise round to critically (yes, another 20) injure one of the guards. The PCs rolled well on init, so the dwarf fighter acted next. He moved into the room, Jumped up on the table (I had him make a skill check, which he made easily), then used an Action Point for another standard action to attack the wounded goblin... which he hit for close to max damage, dropping it.

It was just such a sweet visual: the rogue fading out of the shadows, planting a dagger in a goblin -- its mouth opens to scream, but before it can, the dwarf comes barreling into the room, axe held horizontally as he leaps onto the table, using his momentum to bring the axe around -- decapitating the goblin before its vocal cords can complete the scream!

= = =

Later, the party was in the goblin excavation room. They were bottled up near the entrance by the guard drakes while the goblin archers were sniping. The rogue surveyed the map, then said, "Positioning strike on this guard drake" -- moving it 3 squares so that it fell off the ledge -- the falling damage killed it! (It was already pretty beaten up.)

In that same fight, the rogue used Jump + Acrobatics to leap down upon a goblin archer that had descended a ladder. He didn't quite kill it, but the fighter did when he arrived.

The rogue and the fighter made a great team in these encounters.

 

[Najo]

I edited my post for grammar and clarity. I wrote it after our game and it was late so a couple of minor errors in there.

Still loving 4e. We are playing again tonight