Your best fight scene in-game?

[RangerWickett]

What's the best fight scene you've had in one of your games? Whether it was just a few rounds, or lasted an entire session, sometimes you experience a truly impressive combat sequence, the likes of which you can remembe fondly and strive to repeat in future games.

For me, the singular coolest fight pitted four PCs and one NPC ghost against about 100 enemy soldiers. Through clever tactics and sheer persistence, the PCs managed to succeed.

The heroes had sneaked into the villain's cliffside stronghold, avoiding the heavily-guarded front entrance by stoneshaping airvents from the surface that led to deeper in the complex. Their goal was to rescue several dozen prisoners, including an adolescent Dragon and the dead body of one of their companions, but the prisoners were being kept in a three-story, warehouse-like room near the normal front entrance. They figured that they could sneak in the back way easily, since the attention of the guards would be focused outward instead of inward.

The layout of the warehouse was complex. The whole room was about 100 ft. x 80 ft., and 60 ft. high, with one exit on the ground floor leading outdoors into a canyon, and the other exit on the third floor balcony, leading deeper into the complex. Dozens of cages were on the first floor, holding prisoners, with several side rooms that had guard quarters, armories, and a small stable. Everything a small villainous army could want. A catwalk-balcony ran around the inside wall, 20 ft. up, and then another at 40 ft. up. Stairways led between the ground floor and each catwalk, and in the center of the room and in two corners were three freight elevators, lifted by pulleys and chains. A half dozen huge pillars, and numerous small pillars, supported the weight of the ceiling.

The PCs enter from the third floor, inadvertently tripping an alarm, so everyone in the complex knows they're there. The party consisted of:

• Rhuarc, half-Elf Rogue 4/Ranger 1/Assassin 4/Shadowdancer 1. He slinked from shadow to shadow, killing guards that never even saw him.
• Malek, human Rogue 10. A master archer, Malek sniped from behind pillars and used his mobility to evade anyone who got too close.
• Iolus "Inky" Flintflindercandle, gnome Cleric 9. Unfortunately he'd used most of his spell slots stoneshaping their way in, and he was paralyzed early in the fight.
• Stanely Deadtree, human Fighter 6/Paladin 4. Stanely bravely fought his way from the third to the first floor, aided by superemly accurate covering fire from Malek. When he reached the ground floor, he freed the prisoners and recruited the young Dragon to their side.
• Alejandra Pratt, human ghost Paladin 3/Ranger 2. Alejandra could not do much, since she was more of a free-floating spirit than an actual 'ghost' by D&D monster manual standards. She did play a crucial role in spotting an improved invisible rogue enemy who was spiderclimbing through the battlefield with hit-and-run tactics.

The battle started as several dozen guards on active duty began to rush for the intruders on the third floor. Stanely ran straight for the stairs down, fighting fearlessly through numerous guards, while Malek provided covering fire to protect Stanely from enemy spellcasters, while Rhuarc hid in the shadows, protecting Malek from those guards already on the third-floor balcony.

Taradas, the enemy rogue 12 with improved invisibility, took out Inky with paralysis poison, leaving the party with no spellcasters for assistance. Rhuarc had to break off from defending Malek to chase Taradas, aided by the ghost Alejandra, who could see the invisible enemy. Enemy spellcasters started aiming their magic at Malek, forcing him to hide and move, and Stanely began to have trouble as even more soldiers began to surround him.

Rhuarc lost track of Taradas, but managed to reach the first floor (hiding in plain sight), where he used his assassin deathstrike ability to take out the enemy wizards. Malek turned the tables on the bad guys, using some of their own defenses against them, such as when he tipped a vat of molten lead over and killed a half-dozen guards by the ground-floor exit. Stanely found his route to the ground cut off when one of the wizards stoneshaped away the stairs, so the brave holy warrior simply leapt down onto one of the cages below, then down onto the ground floor.

By this point, the more skilled guards were emerging from deeper in the complex, but Rhuarc was practically invisible, and Malek was skilled enough at hit-and-run that most attacks against him ended up hitting pillars or other bad guys. Stanely was beginning to get weak from dozens of minor wounds, but most of the guards from the ground floor had chased him onto the second floor balcony, and their own way down had been removed by their own wizard (the stoneshaping), so they had to jump after Stanely. By the time they were ready to take on the holy warrior, Stanely had released the young dragon from her cage, and the wyrm tore through the panicking guards. In the confusion, Rhuarc started ushering prisoners out through the front entrance, hoping they'd all be able to escape soon.

From his numerous flights and dodges, Malek found himself out on a spur of the catwalk on the third floor, near where the freight elevator would stop. He was about to climb down the freight chain when Taradas reappeared, his invisibility having worn off (it was a long fight). Taradas stabbed and nearly killed Malek with a sneak attack, but Malek grabbed Taradas, and the two of them tumbled from the catwalk down to the roof of the freight elevator, twenty feet down, where it hung in mid-air. On the ground floor, Stanely readied a magic item that would allow him to dimension door, so he can teleport up to the elevator and help Malek, but he didn't get the chance.

And here comes to complicated and cool part.

Taradas grabs one of the the chains to the elevator and cuts it, so that when the elevator falls, he'll be carried upward to the third-floor balcony, and Malek will fall and be crushed with the elevator. The elevator begins to fall, but the dragon swoops in and snatches Malek, rescuing him.

Meanwhile, Taradas rides the elevator chain upward toward the third-floor balcony. But before he can get off and be safe, Stanely uses his dimension door ability to teleport in mid-air, above Taradas. Stanely grabs onto the chain too, then cuts the chain below where he holds it. Thus, Stanely is carried up to safety, while Taradas flounders in mid-air just long enough for the heroes to savor his demise before the sneak-attacking bastard splatters to the ground 40-ft. below.

With most of the high-ranking soldiers and mages dead, the weaker ones flee, and the heroes, along with their new dragon companion, are able to waltz out the front door, injured and nearly unconscious, but victorious.

 

[drnuncheon]

I'd have to say that the two that stick out in my mind would be:

The climax of Madness in Freeport, which is kind of a spoiler so I'll leave it in my Story Hour.

and one from my rather loose conversion of the Isle of Dread. Our heros had laid a trap for the "dragon" (actually a half-dragon giant crocodile) which it circumvented, forcing them to actually fight it head-on. After taking several wounds, it snapped up Dru, the elven ftr/rog, and took off into the sky. Di'Fier, the ftr/wiz, pursued, but only on foot, and when he realized he'd never catch them in time, he summoned a fiendish dire bat to pursue and help.

Dru (with some lucky rolls) managed to get free of the dracodile's mouth - but had nowhere to go since they were flying through the air. Undaunted, she held onto the thing's jaws and began trying to kill it. As the dire bat swooped in, she timed her strike exactly right, allowing her to get her sneak attack, slipped her rapie rbetween the scales pierced the thing through the heart, and then they both went plummeting to the jungle floor below. I think she came out of that with about 3 hp.

Well, one more, just for the sheer anticlimacticness of it. Spoiler for as yet unwritten parts of the Freeport Story Hour, so any of my readers are warned.

I had left off with a cliffhanger as the PCs were crossing a stone bridge between two drow towers. Dodging ballista bolts, halfway across they see an armored figure step onto the end of the bridge. The runes of his sword glowed with an eerie violet radience that somehow seemed to drink in the scant light of the cavern - and that's where I lef them for a week.

Next session rolls around, and the first thing that Di'Fier does is waltz up and make a spectacular disarm roll, leaving the blade on the ground. Then, to add insult to injury, he picks it up and puts it in his glove of storing. When the drow tried to grapple him and take him over the edge (the drow had featherfall), he critted on his AoO and dropped him. Very embarassing for the drow all around.

J

 

[Henry]

My favorite fight scene from our games sort of ISN'T a fight scene - but a prevention of a fight.

Our Forgotten Realms party was cornered in the Storm Horns of Cormyr by an equivalent party of bounty hunters. Our paladin sensed that they were not evil people, and quickly putting two and two together we surmised who their employer was, and why they had done it. (Evil enemy who wanted revenge.)

Therefore, the whole fight was us trying to parley AS we were fighting defensively - the WHOLE time. I never in my life saw trips, disarms, fighting defensively, total defense, and expertise used so much in one combat. I was disarming the leader, the bard was hypnotising their barbarian, the Paladin was harrying their archer - it was the biggest dog and pony show you'll ever see.

My character (a halfling fighter who led the group at the time) was in parley the whole time with the leader as we fought, and as he cut me to ribbons, the group looked to me, with every hit, FULLY in a position to do a lot of damage to him, and I was continually gritting my teeth and shouting, "DON'T... KILL HIM!"

Powerful, tense moment. I loved it.

 

[DonAdam]

Alright, we don't have logs of my campaign yet (working on that), but the best fight by far has been one that I thought would just take half a session, but took a whole (long) session.

The party was up against some elves from the racist FR faction that were about to loose some boulders that would change a river's course to run through a human settlement.

The good guys:
Gimble- gnome rogue 5
Beldizar- elven wizard 3/monk 2
Aseid- human fighter 4/sorc 1
Darthnos- elven druid 5
Ian- human psion 4 or 5
Bjorn- human courtier (Rokugan) 5 (a total fop)

The bad guys:
Sun elf wizard 7/courtier 1
Wood elf woodsman 4/hunter 1 (both from Path of the Sword)
2 moon elves hunter 1/sorc 1

Note: the hunter class let them take favored enemy: human, for +1d6 sneak attack damage vs. humans

Before we began play I heard Darthnos and Bjorn talking about divying up potions. I don't give out many magic items, but the druid had the feat. So I asked him, "How many cure potions do you have?"

He looked at me with that sheepish look of having been caught doing something wrong. "Uhh.... 20."

"Fine then, the gloves are coming off."

When the fight starts the elven wizard casts improved invisibiliy on the woodsman and the two sorcs use scrolls of it that he had prepared for them. The wizard remained out in the open but laid a stoneskin on himself.

The two sorcs went to work picking off the party as archers. Aseid bull rushed the wizard into the river, but the wizard made a mad swim check and caught himself, dragging himself back onto shore.

Beldizar starting grappling with the woodsman (since spring attack + improved invisibility + sneak attack was tearing up the party) and they got an entangle cast on them by the druid; the vegetation was then set on fire, leaving beldizar grappling an invisible opponent when they were both entangled and burning.

The wizard used a suggestion to make Aseid his protector. The psion summoned a horde of astral constructs to grapple the wizard (who was eventually subdued).

They killed one archer (possibly with a flaming sphere) and the other fled.

Beldizar had escaped from the burning entangle for a while, but the woodsman finally got out. He began terrorizing the party with his spring attacks again, until Gimble remembered that he had chalk in his bag. He frantically crushed it for a couple round while the party was still being hacked to pieces.

He finally nailed the guy with it, who fled into the woods. At this point, Aseid was disabled, and I believe that Ian was as well. That left Beldizar, Darthnos, and Gimble to chase after the woodsman. I think the woodsman got stunned and lost his sword, because he ended up having to draw his dagger and nailed a crit on Beldizar that dropped him. He was eventually killed as well.

Meanwhile, Bjorn, the most combat inept character of all time (and a joy to game with), was alone when the archer that had been hiding in the woods began terrorizing him. One shot would have brought him down, and he was all alone. So, instead of fighting, he jumped into a box that Ian had made and used his buckler that turned into a tower shield (Song and Silence) to close off the opening until the others arrived and chased off the archer.

Final stats:
Net hit points of the whole party: I believe 8; it was less than 10
Beldizar we thought was dead, until at the beginning of the next session when we realized we had miscalculated his hit points
Aseid would have died when his Endurance ran out had they not found further healing
Ian was disabled
Gimble had the most hit points at 16 or 17
There were no spells or power points left in the party, only a handful of cantrips
ALL healing potions (yes, all 20) had been used up

Ah, good fight.

 

[d12]

Ah! I'm so pleased that Inky lives to fight abother day. 3 feet of 100% divine tomfoolery.

 

[Lord Rasputin]

My mafia hitman versus a malignant spirit in a GURPS Conspiracy X game is my best fight as of late. After a 6-6-6 result that forced my shotgun to jam, I kept fighting with a Desert Eagle ... and losing an arm and a leg. After a few more seconds (hey, this was GURPS -- that's many rounds), I managed to crit with the Desert Eagle (and I had double Recoil penalties since I was one-handed because the demon was gnoshing on my arm), bypassed his DR, and finished him the next second.

I built my hitman to take a licking and keep on ticking (HT 13, Fearlessness +3, High Pain Threshold) ... and it paid off in spades. He's not terribly sore about the regrafted arm and leg -- the stitches make him look even more fearsome. My character's cell leader wasn't too happy about having to destroy a house after this, since firing a Desert Eagle unsilenced is anything but quiet, and he was supposed to be quiet.

It had drama since I could have lost my character, but I did not. All the best fights in which I have been were ones where the outcome is unknown until the end. Most standard, group of PCs find a couple of monsters and kill them fights, lack the drama since the real question is just how many hit points and spells the PCs will lose. It's the big boss monsters that give the great fights.

 

[Pielorinho]

My favorite fight scene took place in a storm aboard a ghoul-filled ship, sort of.

With stormclouds rolling over the horizon, the PCs descended a steep path from the cliffs overlooking the sea down to the short beach. A captured mercenary earlier had told them that he was to deliver supplies to the cultists on the ship; they'd stolen his clothes and disguised themselves to look like mercenaries.

Down on the beach, they found the mercenary's rowboat, which they took over the ominous swells out to the ship, anchored some hundred yards offshore. The cultist's guard threw down a ladder to them, and as the first PC climbed, lightning flared and the wind picked up.

The guard reached his hand down to help the PC (a barbarian) onboard. "Now or never," the barbarian said; taking the hand of the guard, he yanked him overboard and tossed him into the water below.

Below, of course, was right where the rowboat was. The PCs down below pushed themselves away just in time, so that the plummeting guard barely missed them. He sank into the water without a trace.

And with that, the PCs swarmed up the ship. They knew that something very wrong had happened aboard, that the cultists knew how to turn people into ghouls.

And when they got on board, it became clear that the remaining cultist had heard the noise. Rain began to fall in sheets as the cultists fired their first crossbow bolts up from the ship's hold; two ghouls wearing sailor's clothes scuttled like spiders down the ship's rigging.

The players were frantically closing ports and hatches to belowdecks while fending off the cultists and the ghouls. One cleric got on deck, dove behind a lifeboat, and cast a spell, causing great spines to erupt from his body. He was ready to start grappling!

That is, until one of the PCs cut the lifeboat down and threw it on top of the cleric and sat down on it. The remaining PCs killed the other cultists, at which point they let Mr. Cleric out and cut him down. All the time, they were making progressively more difficult balance checks to stay on deck; a couple more cultists were thrown overboard.

When they heard scrabbling at the blockaded hatches and saw emaciated clawed fingers working around the edges of the doors, they decided it was time to go. They threw alchemist's fire into the hull, shimmied down the ladder, and made their escape.

The last thing they heard as they frantically rowed over stormy waves back to shore was the sound of the anchor chain being raised. In the morning, the ship was gone.

Daniel

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

My best fight scene was actually in a Star Wars d20 game...

The PCs were two Jedi Guardians, both around 10th level...the enemy was a single 13th level Sith Warrior, who wielded two lightsabers. The twist was, that they were on top of an airship, going at high speed, on the slippery surface of the ship...with high winds. When the fight moved to balancin on cables that connected the main body of the ship to the engines, the tension was just too good.

 

[ThorneMD]

Well we usually have a bunch of cool fights in our games, but two stick out as really great.

The first one is not really even a fight. Our party had to sneak into a castle. We climbed the wall and entered the sleeping quarters of the guards. My Halfing Rogue/Cleric/Deepwood Sniper takes out his dagger, slits the throat of one guard, hears someone coming, and when he finally sees the guard that he heard, he throws the dagger killing the guard with massive sneak attack and a great roll.

The second fight was a very stressful encounter. Our party broke up into a bunch of individual fights with our enemies. My other character, a Half-elf,Half-Gold Dragon Wizard sees his childhood rivil in a tower. We each fly up/down, he tosses walls at me. I throw Melf's Acid Arrow, Cone of Cold, Ice Knife, but it didn't stop him at all. During my attacks, he throws acid spells at me, as well as some other personal spells. Finally, I cast a personal spell, that "traps me in the sphere", drink a potion, he tries to dispel me. I smile and start casting one of my personal spells, which is a powerful force wave. In resonse, he prepares a lightning bolt. I drop my wall and let go of my force wave, as he lets go of his lightnin bolt and a spell that was pelting me a little before. Boom. My spell drops him, his spells drop me to -8. When the explosion of spells happened, we were both 110 feet in the air. He falls down and threw a wall, I flutter down.

My DM lets me guess a number on a d10 to show the 10% chance and roll. First roll, I guess 4, its a 3. Second roll, I guess 6, and it was a 6. The party find my wizard barly alive, but I won.

 

[Morpheus]

This just occurred yesterday...The Pcs are part of an expedition to a fort that is currently being attacked by the forces of Iuz. The expedition is ambushed by the Three Skull Orcs tribe (which, conveniently, is the symbol on the Dwarven Forge minis I have ). They are being attacked from the front, rear and sides. The Tarot mage (sorcerer) drops in round 1. Things look bad.

Then, out of nowhere (cue Ride of the Valkyries), comes the Paladin's mount. Striking swiftly and savagely with 2 hooves and a bite, the mount proceeds to mow through the orcs. Finally, at the end of the battle, the rogue says, "Can I take a level in war horse?"