My wife, daughter and son-in-law encountered the manticore at Umbrage Hill (one of the quests in the Essentials Kit Adventure, "Dragon of Icespire Peak"). The battle quickly turned against them as my wife's character, a 2nd-level halfling rogue, got separated from the group, which had holed-up in Adabra's windmill. Her character was soon knocked unconscious, but the other two were unable to get to her character and stabilize her. She began rolling Death Saves. First roll: fail. Second roll: fail. Everyone held their breath (including me, the DM!) as she rolled her third roll…natural 20! She came to consciousness with a sharp intake of breath and managed to skirt around the side of the hill and into the windmill, where her team (and Adabra) were waiting with a healing potion.
My wife had gotten really excited about her new character, and she was one roll away from losing her! I love this game.
I was DMing a Homebrew Oneshot, basically just a little heist. The party managed to roll 10 nat20 in round about five hours, but also landing on of them on one of the two bosses. So the Paladin got a crit with divine smite (while stealthing) as the first attack on the boss. That hit nearly killed him and there for ended half of the bossfight in a single attack. But that's not enoght the dice decided and in a response to that the boss also rolled a nat20. Problem with that was, when creating that boss I felt funny and gave him the "Longsword of Sharpness", so I rolled again and he nat20 again. And flying of went the Paladins left arm.
At the end the Party succeeded and non of them died but that first to combat rounds were one hell of a rollercoaster. #DDBStyle
For me it was the first time I ever DMed. We were playing Curse of Strahd. My players were on their way to the first village and they kept rolling checks that had wolves appearing every five minutes. The entire time my dice decided that they didn't like my players and kept rolling high that I had to fudge about 90% of them. In the end, I just had them arrive at the village before I had my first TPK since all four of them were so low on health that I could hear the "Zelda one heart left beep". #DDBStyle
Yeah I remember being a barbarian dwarf, dumb as a stump, in a CoS campaign. Strahd showed up like Strahd does when we were level 3 or 4. I raged and went in swingin' my big ol' +1 maul at him. NATURAL 20!!! I swing again with a bonus action. ANOTHER NATURAL 20!!! I was so hyped! I did like 40 points of damage to the guy. He knocked me out right after that, but I went down smiling. #DDBStyle
An epic moment where my Druid ended the session boss with a single spell.
Our 8th level party was shipwrecked on the private island of a Blue Dragonborn. This Dragonborn was both a hunter and was insane, and decided to test his skills against ours, by giving us 48 hours to survive being hunted by him and his animal companions, two Saber-Tooth Tigers. Just 2 in-game hours in, and a brief battle on top of the hunter's mansion left my Water Genasi Druid hiding in the ocean, the hunter at full health, the bard invisible, one of the tigers blinded, and the fighter on his death saves. I knew that our bard could save the fighter, but only if I drew the hunter and his pets away from them. So I not-so-stealthily swam from the edge of mansion towards the other end of the island. The Dragonborn naturally tracked me, and the two of us ended up in the forest playing cat-and-mouse. (The bard used a healing spell followed by dimension door to get the fighter to safety BTW)
Before this session, DDB posted the Spell Spotlight: Polymorph article. It gave me the exact information I needed to win this battle. My druid hid among the trees, waiting. The Dragonborn slowly approached, getting closer, and closer, and closer. I leapt out of the tree, ran towards the Dragonborn, and cast polymorph.
Only after I ran out did I realize my mistake. I ran closer to get in range of the Dragonborn, but in doing so I exposed myself to him. I only had a single 4th level slot left, and I also knew that the Dragonborn was quite good at saves. If this spell didn't land, I'd be done for. But despite the odds, the hunter failed his WIS save. The great hunter turned into a fish flopping on the ground. And because I was now 8th level? I turned myself into an eagle and carried the fish 200 ft. in the sky, before dropping the fish.
This was a "lets split the party" moment. Stuff went wrong around the city and we had to split up in order to try and fix everything in time (and real life scheduling conflicts). My wood elf ranger (UA beastmaster) ended up with the wizard and we got in a fight with a sorcerer and his sidekick. My character was able to attack the enemies once and was immediatly mindcontroled with a "dominate person" spell. Even with advantage I rolled low on my wis saves. The wizard attacked my ranger to snap her out of it. I rolled 2 NAT 1's...... my rangers pet saw this happen and attacked the wizard. The wizard, getting low on health, turned himself invisible and ran away. Because the wizard ran, and because my pet has the keen senses feat, the DM allowed my pet to make an opportunity attack at disadvantage. You guessed it, 2 NAT 20's....
This fight ended a minute later when the spell wore off, the enemies were long gone, my elf had no idea what happened and the wizard was lying on the ground with 1 HP left and an angry animal on top of him #DDBStyle
Started Lost Mines of Phandelver last year as a first time DM. My party, through the Bard’s high D20 rolls, befriended Klarg the Bugbear in the 1st dungeon and eventually made him an ally using persuasion, song & drink. He’s kinda become the group’s Chewie. #DDBStyle
Our group had decided to try dnd for one of our birthdays, so all 6 of us teenagers had no idea what we were doing, but we had the spirit. The party had attempted to sneak past a few guards, but one bad stealth check later we were fighting the captain. He threw an ice bomb at my character (a homebrew concoction) and when I made a DEX check there it was: my very first Nat 20! Our DM smiled as she described the incredible skill and grace with which my character dodged the ice bomb, even giving me a little flourish. Three years later we’re still running that homebrew campaign, and that perfectly timed Nat 20 is my favorite I’ve ever rolled. #DDBstyle
So I am playing a Bear Totem Barbarian. We were in a giant stronghold, and as the battle was going badly for us we started to retreat. I was trying to hold the line as my comrades escaped.
Our Wild Magic Sorcerer cast something and the wild magic surge had him shooting bubbles out of his mouth so he ended up being useless. As my party made it to the door I was on my last leg and finally dropped. They tried getting me up a couple of times and I looked like a puppet going up and down. When they finally couldn't do anything else and vowed to come back for me to save or avenge me our Wizard cast Sleet Storm to cover their escape.
My body was on the edge of the storm. Things were looking grim and I'm expecting to be giant chow and consigning myself to rolling a new character (at least I went down saving my party), and it was time to roll my first death save. Sigh....
Rolled a 20! Suddenly I'm at 1hp, and stumbling out the door. We finally made our escape and were much better prepared when we finally went back.
That was about 10 levels ago and the campaign is still going and Rend Agustus Sunder is doing well 😃
It was my first campaign, on the last session, we where fighting the BBEG and I took the final move, I went to flip over to land next to him (I was a circus memeber and had been my entire life, along with the other party member), I rolled a natural 20 and was ready to stab him threw the heart, when I rolled a critical fail to stab him, and the BBEG used his reaction, to turn my blade on me, and hut through me infront of my party member (his oldest friend). I died on the floor next to the person I grew up with, whispering how I wanted to live in the kingdom with him after the BBEG was killed. He took me in his arms and layed me on a boat and pushed me out to sea as an army set me ablaze as I drifted into he distance. #DDBstyle
It has been a while but this was during a homebrew Lost Mines campaign.
We befriended a goblin in a cave thinking that it would just be a weak tag-along NPC (you know one of those NPCs). The goblin later turned into a badass rogue fighter that landed a Nat 20 on a freakin' dragon during a clutch moment when we were almost down and became a freakin' Dragon Slayer. Hype as fuuuuuuuu 🔥 🔥 #DDBStyle
Last night my party was facing off against an Alkilith. Only one of the rogues was in range so she was the target of all 3 tentacle attacks. I rolled 2 nat 20s and 18. She was down before I even rolled damage. On her first save, she rolled a nat 20 and 17 on her second! #ddbstyle
Goblins? They're not so tough! One natural 20 and critical damage later, and I make a mental note that my new character will have a healthy respect for goblins. #DDBStyle
I think any time you're rolling Persuasion to get a devil to agree to the deal you *think* you want to strike with them... your heart pretty much stops until you see those numbers. #DDBStyle
We were battling a dragon and my dragonborn bard missed everything. If I had to roll dice it wasn't happening. By the end I was so furious in character that I announced that my bard was just going to bash the dragon over the head with his lute. Of course, I nat 20 crit and lethal dragon. My bard smashes the lute to pieces over the dragon's head. The sheer force and shock of what happened caused the dragon to swallow its own tongue and die. From then forward he had gained the title of Dragontongue, though the song he sings gives a more golified take on what happened.
DM'ing a combat for my party, and their tank went down after holding off a lot of bandits, with two failed death saves. The captain they were fighting decides to finish her off... and I roll two natural 1s. Then she rolls a nat 20 for her next death save and gets up! #DDBStyle
DMing is a blast and only gets easier each session. I am at the end of a 3 year long campaign with my group and look forward to the next story I can present to them. #DDBStyle
I remember when we were playing a homebrew module and we were stuck inside of a mansion full of giant orcs. We were sneaking around like usual, but our cleric was almost stolen by one of the orcs! He rolled a nat 20 on strength and threw the orc down the ground, and then ran for it. That was a scary day #ddbstyle
I was DMing Curse of Strahd with friends and the group made it to the village of Barovia. They thought it safe to spend the night in an abandoned house, but Strahd decided to come greet the newcomers personally. Ismark was with them as well when they all heard a knock at the door. One of the heroes answered and saw a tall figure standing in shadow with glowing red eyes. He stepped into the lantern light and asked, "Hello, may I come in?" All of the heroes immediately shouted, "NO!" but Strahd proceeded to charm Ismark who graciously invited him inside. After a few rounds of conversation, the party Cleric decided it would be a good idea to insult Strahd, who then polymorphed him into a rat. Strahd then left and the house was soon swarmed with Zombies. The rest of party was trying to keep Zombies from bursting through every door and window and it was the Cleric's turn to act. The player turns to me and says, "Ok, so this is what I'm going to do. As a rat, I'm going to crawl over to my armor and find one of the many prayer seals attached to it. I'm going to roll up inside it like a Rat-Cleric-Burrito and pray my little heart out to Helm that he would heal me of this affliction." I laugh at the absurdity of it and ask for a Religion check. Lo and behold, a natural 20. I say, "Across the planes Helm hears your prayer.... And laughs." The player looks disappointed, I then continue, "And turns you back to human. Albeit, a now naked human." Everyone cheers and the Zombies are successfully driven away. #DDBStyle
I already have the Legendary Bundle so if my entry is chosen, please donate it to a DM in need. Thanks.
My wife, daughter and son-in-law encountered the manticore at Umbrage Hill (one of the quests in the Essentials Kit Adventure, "Dragon of Icespire Peak"). The battle quickly turned against them as my wife's character, a 2nd-level halfling rogue, got separated from the group, which had holed-up in Adabra's windmill. Her character was soon knocked unconscious, but the other two were unable to get to her character and stabilize her. She began rolling Death Saves. First roll: fail. Second roll: fail. Everyone held their breath (including me, the DM!) as she rolled her third roll…natural 20! She came to consciousness with a sharp intake of breath and managed to skirt around the side of the hill and into the windmill, where her team (and Adabra) were waiting with a healing potion.
My wife had gotten really excited about her new character, and she was one roll away from losing her! I love this game.
#DDBStyle
I was DMing a Homebrew Oneshot, basically just a little heist. The party managed to roll 10 nat20 in round about five hours, but also landing on of them on one of the two bosses. So the Paladin got a crit with divine smite (while stealthing) as the first attack on the boss. That hit nearly killed him and there for ended half of the bossfight in a single attack. But that's not enoght the dice decided and in a response to that the boss also rolled a nat20. Problem with that was, when creating that boss I felt funny and gave him the "Longsword of Sharpness", so I rolled again and he nat20 again. And flying of went the Paladins left arm.
At the end the Party succeeded and non of them died but that first to combat rounds were one hell of a rollercoaster. #DDBStyle
My first ever roll as a completely new player - I was so terrified I wouldn't find the right modifier to add to the roll! #DDBStyle
For me it was the first time I ever DMed. We were playing Curse of Strahd. My players were on their way to the first village and they kept rolling checks that had wolves appearing every five minutes. The entire time my dice decided that they didn't like my players and kept rolling high that I had to fudge about 90% of them. In the end, I just had them arrive at the village before I had my first TPK since all four of them were so low on health that I could hear the "Zelda one heart left beep". #DDBStyle
Yeah I remember being a barbarian dwarf, dumb as a stump, in a CoS campaign. Strahd showed up like Strahd does when we were level 3 or 4. I raged and went in swingin' my big ol' +1 maul at him. NATURAL 20!!! I swing again with a bonus action. ANOTHER NATURAL 20!!! I was so hyped! I did like 40 points of damage to the guy. He knocked me out right after that, but I went down smiling. #DDBStyle
An epic moment where my Druid ended the session boss with a single spell.
Our 8th level party was shipwrecked on the private island of a Blue Dragonborn. This Dragonborn was both a hunter and was insane, and decided to test his skills against ours, by giving us 48 hours to survive being hunted by him and his animal companions, two Saber-Tooth Tigers. Just 2 in-game hours in, and a brief battle on top of the hunter's mansion left my Water Genasi Druid hiding in the ocean, the hunter at full health, the bard invisible, one of the tigers blinded, and the fighter on his death saves. I knew that our bard could save the fighter, but only if I drew the hunter and his pets away from them. So I not-so-stealthily swam from the edge of mansion towards the other end of the island. The Dragonborn naturally tracked me, and the two of us ended up in the forest playing cat-and-mouse. (The bard used a healing spell followed by dimension door to get the fighter to safety BTW)
Before this session, DDB posted the Spell Spotlight: Polymorph article. It gave me the exact information I needed to win this battle. My druid hid among the trees, waiting. The Dragonborn slowly approached, getting closer, and closer, and closer. I leapt out of the tree, ran towards the Dragonborn, and cast polymorph.
Only after I ran out did I realize my mistake. I ran closer to get in range of the Dragonborn, but in doing so I exposed myself to him. I only had a single 4th level slot left, and I also knew that the Dragonborn was quite good at saves. If this spell didn't land, I'd be done for. But despite the odds, the hunter failed his WIS save. The great hunter turned into a fish flopping on the ground. And because I was now 8th level? I turned myself into an eagle and carried the fish 200 ft. in the sky, before dropping the fish.
20d6 damage, completely obliterated the hunter.
*Mic drop* #DDBStyle
I almost killed the wizard in our party.....
This was a "lets split the party" moment. Stuff went wrong around the city and we had to split up in order to try and fix everything in time (and real life scheduling conflicts). My wood elf ranger (UA beastmaster) ended up with the wizard and we got in a fight with a sorcerer and his sidekick.
My character was able to attack the enemies once and was immediatly mindcontroled with a "dominate person" spell. Even with advantage I rolled low on my wis saves.
The wizard attacked my ranger to snap her out of it. I rolled 2 NAT 1's...... my rangers pet saw this happen and attacked the wizard.
The wizard, getting low on health, turned himself invisible and ran away. Because the wizard ran, and because my pet has the keen senses feat, the DM allowed my pet to make an opportunity attack at disadvantage. You guessed it, 2 NAT 20's....
This fight ended a minute later when the spell wore off, the enemies were long gone, my elf had no idea what happened and the wizard was lying on the ground with 1 HP left and an angry animal on top of him
#DDBStyle
Started Lost Mines of Phandelver last year as a first time DM. My party, through the Bard’s high D20 rolls, befriended Klarg the Bugbear in the 1st dungeon and eventually made him an ally using persuasion, song & drink. He’s kinda become the group’s Chewie. #DDBStyle
Our group had decided to try dnd for one of our birthdays, so all 6 of us teenagers had no idea what we were doing, but we had the spirit. The party had attempted to sneak past a few guards, but one bad stealth check later we were fighting the captain. He threw an ice bomb at my character (a homebrew concoction) and when I made a DEX check there it was: my very first Nat 20! Our DM smiled as she described the incredible skill and grace with which my character dodged the ice bomb, even giving me a little flourish. Three years later we’re still running that homebrew campaign, and that perfectly timed Nat 20 is my favorite I’ve ever rolled. #DDBstyle
So I am playing a Bear Totem Barbarian. We were in a giant stronghold, and as the battle was going badly for us we started to retreat. I was trying to hold the line as my comrades escaped.
Our Wild Magic Sorcerer cast something and the wild magic surge had him shooting bubbles out of his mouth so he ended up being useless. As my party made it to the door I was on my last leg and finally dropped. They tried getting me up a couple of times and I looked like a puppet going up and down. When they finally couldn't do anything else and vowed to come back for me to save or avenge me our Wizard cast Sleet Storm to cover their escape.
My body was on the edge of the storm. Things were looking grim and I'm expecting to be giant chow and consigning myself to rolling a new character (at least I went down saving my party), and it was time to roll my first death save. Sigh....
Rolled a 20! Suddenly I'm at 1hp, and stumbling out the door. We finally made our escape and were much better prepared when we finally went back.
That was about 10 levels ago and the campaign is still going and Rend Agustus Sunder is doing well 😃
#DDBStyle
It was my first campaign, on the last session, we where fighting the BBEG and I took the final move, I went to flip over to land next to him (I was a circus memeber and had been my entire life, along with the other party member), I rolled a natural 20 and was ready to stab him threw the heart, when I rolled a critical fail to stab him, and the BBEG used his reaction, to turn my blade on me, and hut through me infront of my party member (his oldest friend). I died on the floor next to the person I grew up with, whispering how I wanted to live in the kingdom with him after the BBEG was killed. He took me in his arms and layed me on a boat and pushed me out to sea as an army set me ablaze as I drifted into he distance. #DDBstyle
It has been a while but this was during a homebrew Lost Mines campaign.
We befriended a goblin in a cave thinking that it would just be a weak tag-along NPC (you know one of those NPCs). The goblin later turned into a badass rogue fighter that landed a Nat 20 on a freakin' dragon during a clutch moment when we were almost down and became a freakin' Dragon Slayer. Hype as fuuuuuuuu 🔥 🔥 #DDBStyle
Last night my party was facing off against an Alkilith. Only one of the rogues was in range so she was the target of all 3 tentacle attacks. I rolled 2 nat 20s and 18. She was down before I even rolled damage. On her first save, she rolled a nat 20 and 17 on her second! #ddbstyle
Goblins? They're not so tough!
One natural 20 and critical damage later, and I make a mental note that my new character will have a healthy respect for goblins.
#DDBStyle
I think any time you're rolling Persuasion to get a devil to agree to the deal you *think* you want to strike with them... your heart pretty much stops until you see those numbers. #DDBStyle
We were battling a dragon and my dragonborn bard missed everything. If I had to roll dice it wasn't happening. By the end I was so furious in character that I announced that my bard was just going to bash the dragon over the head with his lute. Of course, I nat 20 crit and lethal dragon. My bard smashes the lute to pieces over the dragon's head. The sheer force and shock of what happened caused the dragon to swallow its own tongue and die. From then forward he had gained the title of Dragontongue, though the song he sings gives a more golified take on what happened.
#DDBStyle
DM'ing a combat for my party, and their tank went down after holding off a lot of bandits, with two failed death saves. The captain they were fighting decides to finish her off... and I roll two natural 1s. Then she rolls a nat 20 for her next death save and gets up! #DDBStyle
DMing is a blast and only gets easier each session. I am at the end of a 3 year long campaign with my group and look forward to the next story I can present to them. #DDBStyle
I remember when we were playing a homebrew module and we were stuck inside of a mansion full of giant orcs. We were sneaking around like usual, but our cleric was almost stolen by one of the orcs! He rolled a nat 20 on strength and threw the orc down the ground, and then ran for it. That was a scary day #ddbstyle
I was DMing Curse of Strahd with friends and the group made it to the village of Barovia. They thought it safe to spend the night in an abandoned house, but Strahd decided to come greet the newcomers personally. Ismark was with them as well when they all heard a knock at the door. One of the heroes answered and saw a tall figure standing in shadow with glowing red eyes. He stepped into the lantern light and asked, "Hello, may I come in?" All of the heroes immediately shouted, "NO!" but Strahd proceeded to charm Ismark who graciously invited him inside. After a few rounds of conversation, the party Cleric decided it would be a good idea to insult Strahd, who then polymorphed him into a rat. Strahd then left and the house was soon swarmed with Zombies. The rest of party was trying to keep Zombies from bursting through every door and window and it was the Cleric's turn to act. The player turns to me and says, "Ok, so this is what I'm going to do. As a rat, I'm going to crawl over to my armor and find one of the many prayer seals attached to it. I'm going to roll up inside it like a Rat-Cleric-Burrito and pray my little heart out to Helm that he would heal me of this affliction." I laugh at the absurdity of it and ask for a Religion check. Lo and behold, a natural 20. I say, "Across the planes Helm hears your prayer.... And laughs." The player looks disappointed, I then continue, "And turns you back to human. Albeit, a now naked human." Everyone cheers and the Zombies are successfully driven away. #DDBStyle
I already have the Legendary Bundle so if my entry is chosen, please donate it to a DM in need. Thanks.