Now we all know that the dice giveth, and the dice taketh away. There is another thread here about Epic Fails and I'm sure all of us have had a few. Laughing about them can be a blast sometimes.
But as players and DMs we like to hear about the great successes too. So this thread is about THAT. What are some of your biggest successes in D&D? What really cool thing did you manage to pull off, despite all odds?
Some time ago, I had the ULTIMATE turn on my Battlemaster Fighter. This was before Xanathar's had come out so there was no Samurai subclass but I was running him as one anyway. I had the Great Weapon Fighting Style, Great Weapon Feat and Resilient: Dexterity. The party had been ambushed while underground and we were surrounded. The enemy was pushing us back towards the edge of a deep crevasse. Things did NOT look good for us. We were facing down half a dozen enemies and their boss.
My turn came up first in the order and, after drawing a deep breath, managed to successfully do the following: Trip Attack on the boss, who fails his Save and falls down. Take 10' of my Move to cross over his prone body (Acrobatics roll to make it look good!) so now HE was between me and the crevasse instead of the other way around. Pushing Attack on the boss, who fails his Save again, and he hurtles out into space. Action Surge! Feinting Attack on the enemy to my right (facing off against our Wizard), Bonus Action for Advantage, take the -5 to hit/+10 damage from GWM and hit the same guy again, cutting him in two! The DM gave me a free Intimidation check...Nat 20!
The rest of the enemies threw down their weapons and begged us not to kill them. The rest of the players looked at me and just stared! I was on top of the world!
Later on, Karma bit me in the ass when I blew 2 out of 4 Stealth checks rolling at a +6 but during that one fight I was MVP!
So...what was YOUR crowning achievement? What thing did YOU manage to pull off, even though it seemed impossible?
It wasn't me, but a friend of mine told us to run while he lured the werewolf chasing us into a house that he knew was laden with black powder, then blew both of them sky high. One of the most noble and badass sacrifices I've ever seen.
It wasn't me, but a friend of mine told us to run while he lured the werewolf chasing us into a house that he knew was laden with black powder, then blew both of them sky high. One of the most noble and badass sacrifices I've ever seen.
So this is a total fail lol but I freaking love the story.
So my first time playing with a new party right? we started Curse of Straud. So our cleric Azel put his low stat in intel. (Which is alway great in a healer lol jk) We got the job posting luring us to Barovia with promise of gold per werewolf heads. So we meet the man who posted the job in a tavern (cuz um duh) and get the job and most of the party (Pallam and Azel) goes straight to bed with out even exchanging names, well Fera (my rouge) desides not to got to bed be instead to drink (as she does a lot of the time) . after about midnight she (I) wonders up to the two rooms that the quest giver rented for us. Mind you they both by this point are full. So my DM has me roll to see what room Fera enters. Palam also be female and Azel being male... so I end up rolling and opening the door to Azel's room, Fera slinks into bed with him and cuddles up. Now Azel being a gentlemen upon realizing leaves not only leaves his bed but the room too. so what does Fera do but rob him of all his gold. strike one for Azel's bad ideas.
So the following morning we head to the town the get werewolf heads which two days away. we spend this time making fun of just how dumb Azel really is. that night as we make camp Azel desides to go out and hunt for us for dinner ( BY HIM SELF) to make us like him better. Well he hears rustling in the grass... he chooses to go to the noise. GREAT IDEA.
it was a BEAR and we where level 1... instead of yelling for us to come help he chooses to take it on by himself. he does yell for us to yell till he'S PRETTY well bloodied. by the end of it Azel and Fera and prone and Palam made the bear run off.
so yeah our party almost got killed by a bear.... a normal bear....
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If i rolled for persuasion and got a 19 would you click my link?
So, not so much an epic anything related to the dice, but once we slayed a goblin leader for the town guards. They said bring his head and when they opened the door, they were met with a goblin head on a pike, held from out of view then shaken to make the mouth move and saying, "Hi. I'm Woody. Howdy howdy howdy."
That was a year ago and it is still a recurring joke.
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You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
So, I was playing as a Troll from the LOTR Universe but took some stats as an Orc and a Goliath. My DM was nice.
My whole story was discovering I was indeed a "Troll-Born" after being lied to by my Dwarven family.
I was a Barbarian and we were level 18.
Found out I was the only survivor to a Frost Giant plan to enslave my entire race, so I was determined to free them all. Found out I was one of 4 brothers and my party (a tiefling sorcerer, Dragonborn Ranger, and a Human Cleric) had agreed that the very Frost Giant threat to the city we were fond of had to be eliminated while I freed my kin. So our ranger snuck to each cage, which held 2 slaves a piece, and got each lock either on the first or second try. They used their pic axes as weapons and I lead them into battle, cutting each giant down one by one. Before we knew it, the mountain fortress (which was 10,000 ft up) was under assault by their own slaves! Then we worked our way, my party, and the reunited 4 brother, to the throne of the Frost Giant King. The fight was grueling, a constant back and fourth, our cleric was nearly tapped for spells, the ranger was nearly out of arrows, our sorcerer was bleeding out, and my brothers nearly pummeled to death.
I was at 1/2 max hp (I believe 150) and the Frost Giant laughed at the highest peak, looking down at our town. Seeing the dire consequences, I decided I would tackle him, put him on my shoulders, and run off with him.
Rolled a natural 20 to tackle AND lift.
So, Durr'Goll, the Troll Born carried the Frost Giant King to the ledge, taking half damage all the way to the ledge, he buckled several times, but his rage kept him alive at 1 HP (relentless rage). As I'm doing this, the table is full of emotion. Our Tiefling sorcerer and Human cleric are sobbing. The Ranger is telling me to pull back and heal while our DM is smiling the whole time. He looked me dead in the eye and says, "What are you going to do Durr'Goll?"
I looked him dead in the eye and tell him, "I look back at my party, and my brothers. I say "Be better than I."
And with that, the Frost Giant looks on in fear as the Troll Born topples off the ledge of the cliff side.
The party, and the troll kin were saved, but at the cost of their Barbarian.
The party found his corpse at the bottom of the cliff, directly in front of the entrance of the cave used to go to the top.
The 3 remaining brothers carried Durr'Goll to their Tribes village. Attempted an ancient form of resurrection. It didn't work, but he was buried with the highest of Honor. The party made a pact, that every year they would visit his grave.
We all went for drinks after. It was a hell of a death and when we all looked back at it, Durr'Goll would not have had it any other way.
Well seeing as he was a very angry individual who grew patient and compassionate over a 2 year campaign, it was the best send off I could think off haha
Well seeing as he was a very angry individual who grew patient and compassionate over a 2 year campaign, it was the best send off I could think off haha
To me, character growth and development is HUGE. It's part of what an epic campaign is built on.
In the first, I was playing a Circle of the Moon half-elf druid named Gwydion. We had previously defeated a quite powerful ogre warlord named Draxt and were celebrating at the castle that we'd successfully defended. There was much eating and drinking and revelry, but as the party wound down, an alarm went up - there was movement outside the gate! Calimist, a cleric of an unknown god with whom we'd butted heads many times before, was performing some sort of strange ritual over the body of the slain Draxt - and Draxt's T-rex mount. Both Draxt and dino rose again as undead fiends of some kind, and the party quickly ran off to fight them (again).
It was not going so great. We had not fully recovered from the first battle, and we would not survive a war of attrition, which is what it was shaping up to be. However, when our DM was describing Calimist's ritual to revive Draxt, he made a point of describing how Calimist implanted some sort of small, metal cylinder into Draxt's chest cavity. I figured that this was probably the source of the resurrection magic, and so I decided to take a gamble. I turned into a giant scorpion and went after Draxt with my pincer attacks - incredibly, both hit, and Draxt failed his save to avoid being grappled. Then I told the GM, "Okay, here's what I want to do - I want to grab one of Draxt's arms in each of my pincers and spread them apart, exposing his chest. Then I want to use my tail attack to go for that metal cylinder." From the look on the GM's face, I could tell he was excited that I'd figured out his puzzle for the battle. And so he had me roll my attack - and I got a nat 20! My tail barb stabbed right into the magic item, impaling it, and I ripped it out of Draxt's chest. Instantly he became a corpse again, as did the T-rex.
In the second, I was playing my human Dex-based Battle Mater fighter Eddie - he's in my user icon. We were exploring a redwood forest atop the backs of giant albatrosses, and we decided to go down to the forest floor to investigate something. However, while we were down there, we were ambushed by a roc. How were we ambushed by a roc? Well, it also had chameleon camouflage - think of the Carnotaurus from the book version of The Lost World, but with feathers. We all hopped on our albatrosses and fled, knowing we couldn't face a roc and win. My fighter was proficient with Animal Handling and made some good rolls, so I took the lead on our escape - I was also carrying our gnome bard on my bird. We tried staying low, flying between the tree trunks in the hopes the roc would be too big to follow us, but that didn't work. I rolled really well on a Perception check to spot, further ahead, a slot canyon that we could try instead, so I led the party towards it, again rolling really well on my Animal Handling. Our paladin didn't have such good luck, though - the roc chomped the back half of his albatross out from under him, and our ranger just managed to throw him a lifeline for him to hang from (though the ranger's bird could barely handle the extra weight).
Of course, the roc still managed to chase us even while we were in the slot canyon. It basically forced its way through the narrow spaces, knocking down any stone spires that were in its way. The DM had us roll one more Animal Handling... and I rolled a nat 1. My bird clipped its wing on a spire just as we reached the other end of the canyon, and both the bard and I went tumbling to the ground. I successfully used Acrobatics to reduce my falling damage, but the bard was not so lucky - and the fall alone was enough to drop him to zero.
So there I was, with a crippled bird and an unconscious bard. The slot canyon ended in a sheer cliff with a 100+ foot drop, so there wasn't anywhere to hide or escape that I could see. One of the remaining birds was already overloaded with two people, and the other remaining bird - the druid's - wouldn't be able to handle the weight of the druid and me and the bard. So I made my decision: I handed the bard off to the druid, told her to get to a safe distance, and drew my weapons. My plan - inasmuch as I had one - was to hopefully survive the first round of attacks from the roc - maybe even beat it in initiative and go first - then slip beneath/behind it and get away that way, since it wouldn't be able to turn around in that tight space. Then the roc caught up to me, we rolled init, and it won. :/ First it attacked with its beak, and I used the Parry maneuver to keep from going down in one hit. Then it attacked with its claw... and I went down.
At this point the DM took pity on me, I suppose, and a group of rival adventurers (whom we'd met multiple times before) showed up and caused a rockslide that killed the roc. Before the rest of the players could get too excited though, the DM said, "Hold on, hold on - Eddie, you still need to make your death saving throws; you might bleed out before they're able to dig you out." First roll: success. Second roll: failure. Third roll: success: Fourth roll: failure...
And then I rolled my third success. Everyone was jumping up and down with excitement. Our bard was always grateful to me for what I did; that was also the start of Eddie's alignment shift from neutral to good.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
So our party found a tent that could set it self up and compress it self to travel size. As it turns out any living thing in the tent got destroyed when we collapsed it. Our group held a circus for a small town over 3 days, and on the 3rd day we only invited the local guards (they were evil). Our group rolled very well for all 3 days, everyone who was preforming had to roll preform checks I was a barker, the guy who gets people into the tent. How well our circus was on the first 2 days determined how many guards wanted to see the show on the 3rd day. It was a packed house when the guards were there, 30 or so. So we close it on them and set it up again a few seconds later. turns out the cleaning spell couldn't work that fast, and the second group of guards started screaming and puking as soon as they walked into what is forever known as the murder tent. We then close the tent again and we fought the others that were inline making assaulting their headquarters much easier. Our circus was amazing, we had jugglers, a magic act, a zombie on a donkey; favorite role playing season ever.
Same character in two episodes: D&D 3.5. I was a ranger/scout/order of the bow initiate. I had died some time earlier when we had no access to a cleric and the party druid reincarnated me. The DM found great fun in bringing me back as a lizardfolk. Considering that the entirety of the campaign was stemming the tide of a full-scale continent-wide lizardfolk invasion, there was no end to my problems among the race (human) that I still held allegiance to.
Shortly after my reincarnation, our party was tasked with finding a lizardfolk command center. We were transported in a hot air balloon well above the battlefield. Problem was, the lizardfolk army had air support in the form of lizardfolk mounted on pteradons. We were closing in on the possible location of the command center at night when one of the air support spotted out balloon. It came by on a strafing run and slashed the balloon. The wizard was busy casting mend spells, while the rest of the party was trying to shoot the air support. The pteradon and lizardfolk came by for another run and slashed the balloon again. Now frantic, with the DM telling the party we were suddenly losing altitude and the lizardfolk and pteradon flying downwards towards what looked like it could be the command center, I leapt from the balloon after the pass. Because the pteradon was slowly ascending to the ground, I caught up with them. What happened next was a mid-air fight between my ranger and the lizardfolk while both of us were holding onto the pteradon. I decided, we couldn't have our position given up and attacked and killed the pteradon, while we were about 400 feet from the ground. The DM described to me the utter look of confusion and horror as we were plummeting to our death. Except I pushed off the dead pteradon, grabbed a potion of feather fall and watched the lizardfolk plummet to his death.
The other one wasn't quite epic, but it still brings chuckles when retold. By about the 12th level, my character had built a reputation for being quite the gourmand. I had a magic haversack specially made with multiple small pockets that I kept various spices in. It also had reinforced pockets for my small, but expensive wine collection and a field hibachi. We were tracking an old white dragon in a nearby mountain range that was a leading officer in the lizardfolk army. We finally got within about a mile of its lair, when it decided to ambush us. We roll initiative and I rolled highest. DM tells me that the white dragon is approaching from the air and about 200 feet off. He then asks me what my action is. My reply, "I'm going to take off my haversack and pull out the hibachi". The rest of the party is looking at me like, "what are you doing", knowing full-well that I can get up to three arrows into the dragon from this range if I roll decently. A couple of party spells go off, including a fireball as the dragon swoops in. Breathing, it rolls about 25 points of damage, which most of us save against and flybys to turn around. Comes back to my turn. Once again the DM asks what I am doing. I tell him, I'm pulling out my tinderbox and lighting the hibachi. Again, my party is moaning and complaining that now isn't the time for messing around. My only reply, is "I'm hungry and have never eaten white dragon before". Long story short, we kill the dragon and feast upon it that night with a mushroom-lemon cream sauce.
While running a heavily modified version of Rise of Tiamat my group of adventures went off plane to stop the Githyanki dragon riding allies of the Cult of the Dragon.
Long story short...they spelljammed to Tunarath infiltrated Vlaakith's inner sanctum and set off the magical equivalent of a nuke. The groups barbarian stayed behind to ensure detonation. It was a very Bruce Willis Armegeddon moment so of course I had to cue up some Aerosmith.
While visiting Feathergale Spire, the warning horn for the manticore hunt sounded. My (if I remember right) level 3 elf illusionist character climbed onto a giant vulture and joined the fight. While he was trained in animal handling, he had no other skills that would help in the hunt. Apart from overconfidence, that is. :-)
Through stupid risks and a flat refusal to turn back when I should have (all the Knights had turned back), combined with some really, really lucky rolls, I chased and killed the beast!
Writing on my character sheet, "Manticore Hunter" and "Approval of the Feathergale Knights" felt more epic that anything my higher level characters have done in the past.
Big shoutout to Samuel our GM for making a tiny little part of the game feel awesome.
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Now we all know that the dice giveth, and the dice taketh away. There is another thread here about Epic Fails and I'm sure all of us have had a few. Laughing about them can be a blast sometimes.
But as players and DMs we like to hear about the great successes too. So this thread is about THAT. What are some of your biggest successes in D&D? What really cool thing did you manage to pull off, despite all odds?
Some time ago, I had the ULTIMATE turn on my Battlemaster Fighter. This was before Xanathar's had come out so there was no Samurai subclass but I was running him as one anyway. I had the Great Weapon Fighting Style, Great Weapon Feat and Resilient: Dexterity. The party had been ambushed while underground and we were surrounded. The enemy was pushing us back towards the edge of a deep crevasse. Things did NOT look good for us. We were facing down half a dozen enemies and their boss.
My turn came up first in the order and, after drawing a deep breath, managed to successfully do the following: Trip Attack on the boss, who fails his Save and falls down. Take 10' of my Move to cross over his prone body (Acrobatics roll to make it look good!) so now HE was between me and the crevasse instead of the other way around. Pushing Attack on the boss, who fails his Save again, and he hurtles out into space. Action Surge! Feinting Attack on the enemy to my right (facing off against our Wizard), Bonus Action for Advantage, take the -5 to hit/+10 damage from GWM and hit the same guy again, cutting him in two! The DM gave me a free Intimidation check...Nat 20!
The rest of the enemies threw down their weapons and begged us not to kill them. The rest of the players looked at me and just stared! I was on top of the world!
Later on, Karma bit me in the ass when I blew 2 out of 4 Stealth checks rolling at a +6 but during that one fight I was MVP!
So...what was YOUR crowning achievement? What thing did YOU manage to pull off, even though it seemed impossible?
It wasn't me, but a friend of mine told us to run while he lured the werewolf chasing us into a house that he knew was laden with black powder, then blew both of them sky high. One of the most noble and badass sacrifices I've ever seen.
Yeah, that's a pretty solid death
So this is a total fail lol but I freaking love the story.
So my first time playing with a new party right? we started Curse of Straud. So our cleric Azel put his low stat in intel. (Which is alway great in a healer lol jk) We got the job posting luring us to Barovia with promise of gold per werewolf heads. So we meet the man who posted the job in a tavern (cuz um duh) and get the job and most of the party (Pallam and Azel) goes straight to bed with out even exchanging names, well Fera (my rouge) desides not to got to bed be instead to drink (as she does a lot of the time) . after about midnight she (I) wonders up to the two rooms that the quest giver rented for us. Mind you they both by this point are full. So my DM has me roll to see what room Fera enters. Palam also be female and Azel being male... so I end up rolling and opening the door to Azel's room, Fera slinks into bed with him and cuddles up. Now Azel being a gentlemen upon realizing leaves not only leaves his bed but the room too. so what does Fera do but rob him of all his gold. strike one for Azel's bad ideas.
So the following morning we head to the town the get werewolf heads which two days away. we spend this time making fun of just how dumb Azel really is. that night as we make camp Azel desides to go out and hunt for us for dinner ( BY HIM SELF) to make us like him better. Well he hears rustling in the grass... he chooses to go to the noise. GREAT IDEA.
it was a BEAR and we where level 1... instead of yelling for us to come help he chooses to take it on by himself. he does yell for us to yell till he'S PRETTY well bloodied. by the end of it Azel and Fera and prone and Palam made the bear run off.
so yeah our party almost got killed by a bear.... a normal bear....
If i rolled for persuasion and got a 19 would you click my link?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-1-smashing-cups-and-eating-fishmen/id1435737262?i=1000419411223&mt=2
So, not so much an epic anything related to the dice, but once we slayed a goblin leader for the town guards. They said bring his head and when they opened the door, they were met with a goblin head on a pike, held from out of view then shaken to make the mouth move and saying, "Hi. I'm Woody. Howdy howdy howdy."
That was a year ago and it is still a recurring joke.
You only lose if you die. Any time else, there's opportunity for a come back.
So, I was playing as a Troll from the LOTR Universe but took some stats as an Orc and a Goliath. My DM was nice.
My whole story was discovering I was indeed a "Troll-Born" after being lied to by my Dwarven family.
I was a Barbarian and we were level 18.
Found out I was the only survivor to a Frost Giant plan to enslave my entire race, so I was determined to free them all. Found out I was one of 4 brothers and my party (a tiefling sorcerer, Dragonborn Ranger, and a Human Cleric) had agreed that the very Frost Giant threat to the city we were fond of had to be eliminated while I freed my kin.
So our ranger snuck to each cage, which held 2 slaves a piece, and got each lock either on the first or second try.
They used their pic axes as weapons and I lead them into battle, cutting each giant down one by one.
Before we knew it, the mountain fortress (which was 10,000 ft up) was under assault by their own slaves!
Then we worked our way, my party, and the reunited 4 brother, to the throne of the Frost Giant King.
The fight was grueling, a constant back and fourth, our cleric was nearly tapped for spells, the ranger was nearly out of arrows, our sorcerer was bleeding out, and my brothers nearly pummeled to death.
I was at 1/2 max hp (I believe 150) and the Frost Giant laughed at the highest peak, looking down at our town.
Seeing the dire consequences, I decided I would tackle him, put him on my shoulders, and run off with him.
Rolled a natural 20 to tackle AND lift.
So, Durr'Goll, the Troll Born carried the Frost Giant King to the ledge, taking half damage all the way to the ledge, he buckled several times, but his rage kept him alive at 1 HP (relentless rage).
As I'm doing this, the table is full of emotion. Our Tiefling sorcerer and Human cleric are sobbing. The Ranger is telling me to pull back and heal while our DM is smiling the whole time.
He looked me dead in the eye and says, "What are you going to do Durr'Goll?"
I looked him dead in the eye and tell him, "I look back at my party, and my brothers. I say "Be better than I."
And with that, the Frost Giant looks on in fear as the Troll Born topples off the ledge of the cliff side.
The party, and the troll kin were saved, but at the cost of their Barbarian.
The party found his corpse at the bottom of the cliff, directly in front of the entrance of the cave used to go to the top.
The 3 remaining brothers carried Durr'Goll to their Tribes village. Attempted an ancient form of resurrection. It didn't work, but he was buried with the highest of Honor.
The party made a pact, that every year they would visit his grave.
We all went for drinks after. It was a hell of a death and when we all looked back at it, Durr'Goll would not have had it any other way.
Wow...NICE story! If you have to go out, go out BIG!
REALLY nice line there at the end too. Kudos!
Well seeing as he was a very angry individual who grew patient and compassionate over a 2 year campaign, it was the best send off I could think off haha
To me, character growth and development is HUGE. It's part of what an epic campaign is built on.
I have a couple favorites.
In the first, I was playing a Circle of the Moon half-elf druid named Gwydion. We had previously defeated a quite powerful ogre warlord named Draxt and were celebrating at the castle that we'd successfully defended. There was much eating and drinking and revelry, but as the party wound down, an alarm went up - there was movement outside the gate! Calimist, a cleric of an unknown god with whom we'd butted heads many times before, was performing some sort of strange ritual over the body of the slain Draxt - and Draxt's T-rex mount. Both Draxt and dino rose again as undead fiends of some kind, and the party quickly ran off to fight them (again).
It was not going so great. We had not fully recovered from the first battle, and we would not survive a war of attrition, which is what it was shaping up to be. However, when our DM was describing Calimist's ritual to revive Draxt, he made a point of describing how Calimist implanted some sort of small, metal cylinder into Draxt's chest cavity. I figured that this was probably the source of the resurrection magic, and so I decided to take a gamble. I turned into a giant scorpion and went after Draxt with my pincer attacks - incredibly, both hit, and Draxt failed his save to avoid being grappled. Then I told the GM, "Okay, here's what I want to do - I want to grab one of Draxt's arms in each of my pincers and spread them apart, exposing his chest. Then I want to use my tail attack to go for that metal cylinder." From the look on the GM's face, I could tell he was excited that I'd figured out his puzzle for the battle. And so he had me roll my attack - and I got a nat 20! My tail barb stabbed right into the magic item, impaling it, and I ripped it out of Draxt's chest. Instantly he became a corpse again, as did the T-rex.
In the second, I was playing my human Dex-based Battle Mater fighter Eddie - he's in my user icon. We were exploring a redwood forest atop the backs of giant albatrosses, and we decided to go down to the forest floor to investigate something. However, while we were down there, we were ambushed by a roc. How were we ambushed by a roc? Well, it also had chameleon camouflage - think of the Carnotaurus from the book version of The Lost World, but with feathers. We all hopped on our albatrosses and fled, knowing we couldn't face a roc and win. My fighter was proficient with Animal Handling and made some good rolls, so I took the lead on our escape - I was also carrying our gnome bard on my bird. We tried staying low, flying between the tree trunks in the hopes the roc would be too big to follow us, but that didn't work. I rolled really well on a Perception check to spot, further ahead, a slot canyon that we could try instead, so I led the party towards it, again rolling really well on my Animal Handling. Our paladin didn't have such good luck, though - the roc chomped the back half of his albatross out from under him, and our ranger just managed to throw him a lifeline for him to hang from (though the ranger's bird could barely handle the extra weight).
Of course, the roc still managed to chase us even while we were in the slot canyon. It basically forced its way through the narrow spaces, knocking down any stone spires that were in its way. The DM had us roll one more Animal Handling... and I rolled a nat 1. My bird clipped its wing on a spire just as we reached the other end of the canyon, and both the bard and I went tumbling to the ground. I successfully used Acrobatics to reduce my falling damage, but the bard was not so lucky - and the fall alone was enough to drop him to zero.
So there I was, with a crippled bird and an unconscious bard. The slot canyon ended in a sheer cliff with a 100+ foot drop, so there wasn't anywhere to hide or escape that I could see. One of the remaining birds was already overloaded with two people, and the other remaining bird - the druid's - wouldn't be able to handle the weight of the druid and me and the bard. So I made my decision: I handed the bard off to the druid, told her to get to a safe distance, and drew my weapons. My plan - inasmuch as I had one - was to hopefully survive the first round of attacks from the roc - maybe even beat it in initiative and go first - then slip beneath/behind it and get away that way, since it wouldn't be able to turn around in that tight space. Then the roc caught up to me, we rolled init, and it won. :/ First it attacked with its beak, and I used the Parry maneuver to keep from going down in one hit. Then it attacked with its claw... and I went down.
At this point the DM took pity on me, I suppose, and a group of rival adventurers (whom we'd met multiple times before) showed up and caused a rockslide that killed the roc. Before the rest of the players could get too excited though, the DM said, "Hold on, hold on - Eddie, you still need to make your death saving throws; you might bleed out before they're able to dig you out." First roll: success. Second roll: failure. Third roll: success: Fourth roll: failure...
And then I rolled my third success. Everyone was jumping up and down with excitement. Our bard was always grateful to me for what I did; that was also the start of Eddie's alignment shift from neutral to good.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
So our party found a tent that could set it self up and compress it self to travel size. As it turns out any living thing in the tent got destroyed when we collapsed it. Our group held a circus for a small town over 3 days, and on the 3rd day we only invited the local guards (they were evil). Our group rolled very well for all 3 days, everyone who was preforming had to roll preform checks I was a barker, the guy who gets people into the tent. How well our circus was on the first 2 days determined how many guards wanted to see the show on the 3rd day. It was a packed house when the guards were there, 30 or so. So we close it on them and set it up again a few seconds later. turns out the cleaning spell couldn't work that fast, and the second group of guards started screaming and puking as soon as they walked into what is forever known as the murder tent. We then close the tent again and we fought the others that were inline making assaulting their headquarters much easier. Our circus was amazing, we had jugglers, a magic act, a zombie on a donkey; favorite role playing season ever.
Same character in two episodes: D&D 3.5. I was a ranger/scout/order of the bow initiate. I had died some time earlier when we had no access to a cleric and the party druid reincarnated me. The DM found great fun in bringing me back as a lizardfolk. Considering that the entirety of the campaign was stemming the tide of a full-scale continent-wide lizardfolk invasion, there was no end to my problems among the race (human) that I still held allegiance to.
Shortly after my reincarnation, our party was tasked with finding a lizardfolk command center. We were transported in a hot air balloon well above the battlefield. Problem was, the lizardfolk army had air support in the form of lizardfolk mounted on pteradons. We were closing in on the possible location of the command center at night when one of the air support spotted out balloon. It came by on a strafing run and slashed the balloon. The wizard was busy casting mend spells, while the rest of the party was trying to shoot the air support. The pteradon and lizardfolk came by for another run and slashed the balloon again. Now frantic, with the DM telling the party we were suddenly losing altitude and the lizardfolk and pteradon flying downwards towards what looked like it could be the command center, I leapt from the balloon after the pass. Because the pteradon was slowly ascending to the ground, I caught up with them. What happened next was a mid-air fight between my ranger and the lizardfolk while both of us were holding onto the pteradon. I decided, we couldn't have our position given up and attacked and killed the pteradon, while we were about 400 feet from the ground. The DM described to me the utter look of confusion and horror as we were plummeting to our death. Except I pushed off the dead pteradon, grabbed a potion of feather fall and watched the lizardfolk plummet to his death.
The other one wasn't quite epic, but it still brings chuckles when retold. By about the 12th level, my character had built a reputation for being quite the gourmand. I had a magic haversack specially made with multiple small pockets that I kept various spices in. It also had reinforced pockets for my small, but expensive wine collection and a field hibachi. We were tracking an old white dragon in a nearby mountain range that was a leading officer in the lizardfolk army. We finally got within about a mile of its lair, when it decided to ambush us. We roll initiative and I rolled highest. DM tells me that the white dragon is approaching from the air and about 200 feet off. He then asks me what my action is. My reply, "I'm going to take off my haversack and pull out the hibachi". The rest of the party is looking at me like, "what are you doing", knowing full-well that I can get up to three arrows into the dragon from this range if I roll decently. A couple of party spells go off, including a fireball as the dragon swoops in. Breathing, it rolls about 25 points of damage, which most of us save against and flybys to turn around. Comes back to my turn. Once again the DM asks what I am doing. I tell him, I'm pulling out my tinderbox and lighting the hibachi. Again, my party is moaning and complaining that now isn't the time for messing around. My only reply, is "I'm hungry and have never eaten white dragon before". Long story short, we kill the dragon and feast upon it that night with a mushroom-lemon cream sauce.
@EvanM dude my last seash we did something like this... but my Bard put the werewolf to sleep.
If i rolled for persuasion and got a 19 would you click my link?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-1-smashing-cups-and-eating-fishmen/id1435737262?i=1000419411223&mt=2
While running a heavily modified version of Rise of Tiamat my group of adventures went off plane to stop the Githyanki dragon riding allies of the Cult of the Dragon.
Long story short...they spelljammed to Tunarath infiltrated Vlaakith's inner sanctum and set off the magical equivalent of a nuke. The groups barbarian stayed behind to ensure detonation. It was a very Bruce Willis Armegeddon moment so of course I had to cue up some Aerosmith.
In Princes of the Apocalypse.
While visiting Feathergale Spire, the warning horn for the manticore hunt sounded. My (if I remember right) level 3 elf illusionist character climbed onto a giant vulture and joined the fight. While he was trained in animal handling, he had no other skills that would help in the hunt. Apart from overconfidence, that is. :-)
Through stupid risks and a flat refusal to turn back when I should have (all the Knights had turned back), combined with some really, really lucky rolls, I chased and killed the beast!
Writing on my character sheet, "Manticore Hunter" and "Approval of the Feathergale Knights" felt more epic that anything my higher level characters have done in the past.
Big shoutout to Samuel our GM for making a tiny little part of the game feel awesome.