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Message: <blockquote data-quote="youspoonybard" data-source="post: 2222357" data-attributes="member: 12242">I roll in the open, and it has paid off big for me, twice.In the final encounters of two separate campaigns, I've had very close encounters where the PC's were only able to pull stuff off with lucky ones and twenties.  While I don't remember the specifics of the first one too much (it was a while ago), the party Sorceror had to close a portal, which took a special spell that had a casting time of one minute.  With all of the other party members down, it fell to the party's Dragon Disciple (temporarily turned into a real dragon) to try and keep her focused on the spell.  An enemy mage pounded her over and over again, and the dragon was desperately trying to keep her from being damaged (Resist Energy spells and the like), and both were down to single-digit hit points before they were able to close the thing (all those d6's from those spells were this close from sealing their fates).More intense, however, was the showdown another group of mine had.  It involved a Balor that the PC's had accidentaly set forth into the world.  Things were looking rather poor for the PC's - the Sorceror had been killed by the initial Fire Storm, and even the Monk and the Rogue had failed their Reflex saves, so the whole party was hurting.  The Balor was having fun with Power Word: Stun (hit the Fighter and the Monk), and Confused the Rogue.  Needless to say, things were looking poor.That's when the crazyness started.I rolled high on the percentile first, which caused the Rogue to go after the stunned Monk.  Sneak attack would have wasted him, but he miraculously rolled low on his attack roll, and missed the guy.  Balor stunned the Fighter again, and the next round, the Rogue rolls an Act Normally (10% chance).  Desperate, he whips out a scroll he has and makes a quick UMD check.Rolling a natural 20, he *barely* penetrates the SR check, and tries to Baleful Polymorph the Balor into a frog.  Okay, I thought.  It will only fail on a natural 1.Out in the open, my players shouted with glee, as the dice comes up 1.  The Balor is frogged.  Unfortunately for the players, he passes his will save, and dispels the frogging next turn, but not after the Monk has recovered from the Power Word: Stun.The Monk tumbled over to the far side of the demon, and then it's the Rogue's turn again.  Confusion roll - Attack the nearest creature - now the Balor (30% chance).  He now flanks with the Monk, and gets his sneak damage.  The Balor decides to take a more direct approach, and starts attacking furiously with his weaponry.  Instead of gasps of defeat, though, each roll brings a hearty cheer from my players, and the Balor fails to hit the Monk (who is not an AC monk - it was very poor rolling).Several rounds of combat later, the Rogue never hits an ally while under the confusion effect - even though he rolled to do so a couple times, he always rolls low on the attack rolls.  The Monk gets in a few hits on the Balor, including one lucky crit.  And just when the Balor has mopped up the two vailant heroes, the Fighter is freed from the stunning effect.Grabbing the Holy Cold-Iron javelin that was the party's only hope against the beast, the Warrior described his action - "I charge at the Balor and stab him with the Javelin".  Well, the Demon got an attack of opportunity from the charge - and missed with another natural one.  With this one last chance, the Dwarven fighter thrust the weapon into the Balor's body...and rolled a natural 20, followed by a confirmation.Even though the Fighter and the rest of the party was killed in the death throws of the mighty outsider, I have never heard such cheering and enthusiasm in a game session before.  It had been an incredible sequence of lucky rolls for the party - and they knew that I wasn't fudging anything to help them out.After a game like that, you could not convince me to roll behind a screen.</blockquote>

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