You didn't die?

[Johel]

The players were still pretty green about D&D 3.5
For them, most animals HAD to be weak walking meals while THEY were invincible heroes.

The party wanted some information from some crazy gnome druid (yoda-style) and so, they agreed to do several "domestic" tasks.
1st level LN Cleric got sent to the river by the druid to do his laundry. As he's grumbling at his goddess about how hard and humiliating Her service can be sometime, he spot a boar on the other side of the river.

Now, it's more of a pound that a true river and one could easily cross it, with water up to the knee. The boar isn't a dire boar but those creatures are kinda agressive and terrirorial anyway.

Feeling confident, the cleric just shout at him and wave a hand while reaching for his mace (just in case...or maybe he wanted some meat).
Well, boars can't understand common but this one might have get the general idea. One piercing scream and a charge later, the priest is down into negative, not having hit a single blow at the boar. This is actually what saved him, since the beast just past its way, branding him as harmless and letting him for dead.

With a big "WTF ?!", he healed himself and went back to the cavern of the druid, who complained about how still dirty his clothes were and how useless the sissy priests of the city are. The party's rogue, sent to pick up mushrooms, encountered the very same boar but, using his newly acquired metaknowledge, climb the nearest tree and let the boar eat the mushrooms.

[Nai_Calus]

I haven't done anything epic to haul myself out of death, but there was the time I only survived due to the fighter rolling a one on his damage roll, and only knocking me to -6 instead of -9 to immediately fail a stabilization roll or just plain dead.

(We didn't know we were fighting each other due to a lame metagamey 'puzzle' where we looked like golems to each other. He had all this random extra damage to his spear because the DM was apparently trying to kill me, which would have been stupid since it would have ended his campaign with me gone due to not having enough people, and I was already blah on that campaign and nearly quit even NOT dying there because it was such ridiculous crap.)

[Alejandro]

My swashbuckler was stunned and grappled by a mind flayer, and it had inserted its tentacles and was ready to eat my brain, only needing to make that last grapple check to do so.

It rolled a 1 on the grapple check, failing to eat my brain.

It was driven off in that same round by a ranger, who was throwing jars containing other brains the mind flayer had stored, at it.

[Woodsman]

God, my Yuan-ti story seems to keep coming up.

Here it is:
My DM did pull something on me, but it was mostly my fault (It being my first character, I couldn't think of a history, so the DM wrote one up, we both agreed I'd be amnesiac, and I have barely any clue as to his history still).

So, we're fighting this big battle against Deadly Dancers (ToM), and my character gets split off and brutally sliced to pieces. My DM PM's me (it's PbP) and asks for a Will save. I hand him one, and he responds in the actual topic with my characters longsword getting shoved into a stone wall and some sort of frightful presence.

Well, as it soon turns out, my character is apparently a Yuan-ti. The rest of my group proceeds to "kill" me (And by that I mean kill the Yuan-ti, which reverts back into my character, who comes back asleep), and then tie me up and question me after the battle is over.

So the group decides to turn me in to the authorities, in which case I am tried (with the party gnome bard/rouge/chameleon (house-ruled in) as my lawyer) and it's decided I am to wear a "kill collar," set to the conditions that if I turn into a Yuan-ti again or I perform any sort of hostile act towards my group, it blows and separates my head from my neck.

We're currently on a quest to turn my character into a full human. After we attempt to negotiate with the Dancers, though, as insane as that seems.

So, yeah, I though my DM was a jerk at that point, but I'm alive (Much to my and think his) surprise. And as I said, it was my fault for not writing a history.

[Lycan 01]

Things Y'Golonac, a Great Old One did to a newbie player during the first game of Call of Cthulhu I hosted for him:

-Scared him into hysterics
-Grabbed him by the throat and slammed him twice against a wall
-Hurled him down a flight of stairs
-IIRC, Y'Golonac also landed a punch at the foot of the stairs
-Grabbed him by the head and slammed his face against a dresser drawer
-Punched through the floor where the player's head should have been, only to get his fist stuck in the floor.

I couldn't believe it. Almost every attack had the potention to kill the guy, but somehow he kept getting low injury rolls. He somehow managed to limp away with only 3 HP left, while carrying his friend who'd been shot twice out of the house.


Pretty good for a guy who'd never played an RPG before.

[Mystic Muse]

I saved two members of my team from death by boiling hot water by saying at the beginning of the session we all had around 50 feet of rope.

I'm awesome.

[Wraith]

I've been playing a lot of WFRP lately, a game in which it's very easy to be horribly maimed or just killed outright, and yet we have only lost 1 PC so far despite a number of frightening encounters.

The most recent, and impressive, case would be a narrowly-averted TPK which occurred only by the grace of Nuffle the Dice God.
The party contains a fledgling Vampire Hunter, a Journeyman ("Level 3 out of 5") Wizard who specializes in fire spells, his Apprentice who has yet to choose a discipline, and another melee-based class which I can't remember, possibly a Highwayman. I play a human Cat Burglar - my combat skills are nothing to write home about, but I'm ridiculously agile and have aquired a few useful magical items that seem to be much better than everyone first assumed.

I should also mention that, in the process of gathering these items, I've been inflicted with lycanthropy - whenever I lose a certain number of wounds or fail a DM-requested willpower roll under stressful circumstances, I turn into a feral monster that is nominally under my control so long as I try to rip my antagonist apart first and foremost. That was a painful story in and of itself, but...

We had awoken in the night by a crowd of zombies running riot shambling aimlessly through our town, and after killing a lot of them we traced them back to their source: an imposing Tower hidden from view by illusionary magic. We crept inside and, after battling a number of guardians and solving a few puzzles we made it to the top floor where the Master of the tower was awaiting us: A Vampire and a pair of Wight bodyguards.

If you don't know WFRP very well, I should like to take this oppurtunity to point out that Vampires are absolutely brutal opponents, even for a skilled party. They have extremely good stats, are highly intelligent (and therefore can use extremely nasty magic as well as being allowed to 'plan ahead' where lesser creatures would simply lunge into battle) and a list of immunities and damage reductions as long as your arm. We were in no state to battle one in it's sanctum, let alone one as obviously powerful as this.
The party, however, were having a great time and decided to go for Death or Glory approach. As soon as we saw the pale loking man in the evening dress try to speak, the Pyromancer lets rip with a spell to set most of the room on fire, and the Witch Hunter charges into the fray as heroically as you would expect.

Two or three rounds later, the Witch Hunter is unconscious on the floor, the Highwayman is a mangled pile of flesh stewing gently in his own gore, the Apprentice is gibbering in a corner under the effects of a Fear-causing ability, and the Wizard is slowly suffocating for the next dozen-or-so rounds after miscasting a spell and it backfiring on him. I am alone, and so far my efforts have been for naught - I have no magical weapon, and therefore am little threat to the Vampire and no threat at all to the Wights, and the windows are very solidly boarded up so that the famous Hollywood tactic of smashing the windows and letting sunlight do the job for me isn't possible without somehow finding a sledgehammer to get the job done....

Cue a stress-test to see if I 'Were Out'... which I 'failed'!
It's a curse, albeit an awesome one, which means that I have no option to transform voluntarily. So instead, I just stand there while the Vampire strides forward and casually rips a chunk of flesh out of my torso. Death was imminent - I couldn't hit hard enough to kill my enemy, and he couldn't fail to finish me off even without his friends backing him up.
Luckily that did the trick and I went Wolfen on the spot, finally having a chance to fight back. Or so I thought....
Several tragic dice-rolls later, and I have ANOTHER big hole where my flesh should be. Even in my new form, grappling a Vampire is a fools' errand and no amount of rerolls was going to let me hurl it through the windows and solve my problems.
In sheer desperation, and determined to die valiantly (or in a suitably blood-crazy frenzy, depending on which side of the character you were asking...), I made on desperate attack with my bare claws to try and buy enough time for the Mages to recover before they too were consumed.

The first attack misses by a country mile. Resolutely rolling the second, I was painfully aware that the odds of me even hurting the thing were remote, let alone dealing a substantial wound.
Ulric be praised! My damage dice explode repeatedly and the last one also rolls high, tallied up to cause a mighty 30 points of damage to the creature of the night before me! (For reference, I am well into my second career at this point and can only sustain 12 wounds before I am maimed or killed - I rolled more than enough to kill any 2 of our PC's added together!)

The DM ruled that, in an adrenaline-fueled final attack, I made an uppercut that had plunged my arm right through the Vampire's chest, removing his heart before I tore his head off with the upswing.
It was a geniune 'Mortal Kombat' moment, due to the fickle dice finally returning me into their favour and thus rescuing the entire party from horrible exsanguinatory demise. One round later, and I'd be a fur rug in front of the fire and everyone else would be... well... lunch!

[Crow]

We had three characters stabilize naturally (the percentile roll) in the same game (same TPK actually). I thought that was pretty crazy!

[sadi]

Many editions ago, in a game I was running, the players were trying to acquire this magic gem for some reason or other, they finally found it in a triangluar shaped room, suspended in mid air in a crystal force field. They knew if it was destroyed bad things were going to happen to them, and everything in a 2 mile radius. So the party manages to figure out the traps and puzzles to get the 3 keys to turn the force field off. Three of them go to the corners of the room and simultaneously turn off the force field while the other 4 members hide outside the room scared that something bad was going to happen.... They turn it off, the gem drops.... I put up my hand with 5 fingers held out and slowly close them. on the count of 1 second before their death, the dwarf wearing full plate says I dive for the gem. I calculate size of the room, where the dwarf is at, the fact hes slow and wearing full plate and say, ok roll me roll me a 1 twice in a row on a d20. The player is sitting right besides me, picks up one of my dice, and proceeds to roll 1 and 1 on it.

[EnnPeeCee]

One time in my group, one of players set off a trap that we had failed to find. He was crushed under a spiked ceiling. The damage put him at something like, -11. Grumpily he scratched a big x onto his character sheet. Feeling generous (since we were still low level and resing was too expensive for us), the DM decided to add up the xp gained from "defeating" the trap. Sure enough, the little bit of xp put the dead character up a level, earning him enough hp to live. Negative and bleeding, but alive.

[KuReshtin]

I used to have a rogue that had a tendency to get reduced to -HP every game session, and always got saved by the party cleric. Mostly, this was because of the brashness and impulsiveness of the character, so it was usually self-inflicted by doing stupid stuff.


Two notable instances in the game was the encounter with the dragon, where the party came into a cavern with an altar at the far end filled with precious gems and gold and stuff. The party finds the cavern empty and heads up towards the altar to pick up the shiny stuff.
The rogue has previously shown that he likes shinies and he starts grabbing stuff from the altar, at which point we hear a grinding noise from behind us.
A part of the wall of the cavern slides open, and reveals a dragon that heads towards us.
My rogue rolls highest initiative and decides that he'll go up to the dragon and slap him over the nose with his rapier. Roll is good, and does some minor damage to the dragon, which only means that the dragon gets annoyed and attacks the rogue with a bite attack.
Attack hits and the rogue is reduced to -6HP in the very first round.
It takes another few rounds of fighting for the rest of the party to maneuver around enough s that the cleric can get a heal on the rogue to stabilise him.
With some help from a Bag of Tricks, the group manages to slay the dragon, and revive the rogue.
Much merriment was had by everyone in the party about my getting in the first strike on the dragon, and then almost getting killed.

The second instance, my character actually died. Same group, and we were in some dungeon that we had to clear out to gain our freedom for 'trespassing' or something like that.
Anyways, we get to the BBEG at the end of the dungeon and it mind controls the ranger and turns him against the party. Since my rogue was the closest one to the ranger, he gets targeted first, and since the ranger had some magic gloves or whatever, he manages to get three arrows off in a single round, all three hitting the surprised rogue, bringing him down to about -36HP. Instantly dead. Out of the fight.
Again, the group manages to defeat the bad guy and gets a magic item by the GM.
To be nice to us, he lets us roll the D% to decide what type of magical item, and since no one in the group has a ressurect spell, we all make a joke about how cool it would be to get a 'staff of life' to ressurect my rogue again.
Well, the party decides to let me roll the dice, because that way it's my own fault if I don't roll up a staff of life. Well, I roll the D% and the GM consults the magic items table, looks at me, shows me the magic items table and we both start laughing. Needless to say, I got the staff of life, and my party got to ressurect me... AGAIN..

I liked that rogue.

[ericgrau]

I remember a fight against a young adult blue dragon and 6 drow slaves. Our party was about 4th level and definitely out classed. However I took leadership position (I was playing an elf cleric of Tamara) and with some team work (and a few lucky rolls) we were winning the fight. The blue dragon was getting torqued off that he was losing minions.

Blue: "Surrender!"
Me: "What, you wish to surrender to us? Very well, we'll gladly accept!"
GM: "Do you actually say that?"
Me: "Yeah well he offered."

This obviously insulted the blue dragon and he dove at me, pinning me to the ground with only 3 hit points to my name. I was pretty sure next round I'd be dragon kibble so on my "last" turn I tried casting a spell (while pinned) called Balor's Nimbus (I think). Succeeded the Concentration check and the spell gave me an aura of fire, causing fire damage to anything in graple with me. Well I maxed out the damage dice and brought the young blue dragon to single digit hit points as well. He was about to bite my head off when he realized that all his drow slaves were defeated and he was surrounded by the remaining party, weapons drawn on him.

The dragon took a double move to make a hastey retreat
And I lived to heal another day.

Regardless of the concentration check you can't cast spells with somatic components while grappled or pinned. Furthermore when the dragon pins you he has the option to prevent you from speaking. Balor's Nimbus has a somatic component unless you used still spell.

[Lycan 01]

I've been playing a lot of WFRP lately, a game in which it's very easy to be horribly maimed or just killed outright, and yet we have only lost 1 PC so far despite a number of frightening encounters.

The most recent, and impressive, case would be a narrowly-averted TPK which occurred only by the grace of Nuffle the Dice God.
The party contains a fledgling Vampire Hunter, a Journeyman ("Level 3 out of 5") Wizard who specializes in fire spells, his Apprentice who has yet to choose a discipline, and another melee-based class which I can't remember, possibly a Highwayman. I play a human Cat Burglar - my combat skills are nothing to write home about, but I'm ridiculously agile and have aquired a few useful magical items that seem to be much better than everyone first assumed.

I should also mention that, in the process of gathering these items, I've been inflicted with lycanthropy - whenever I lose a certain number of wounds or fail a DM-requested willpower roll under stressful circumstances, I turn into a feral monster that is nominally under my control so long as I try to rip my antagonist apart first and foremost. That was a painful story in and of itself, but...

We had awoken in the night by a crowd of zombies running riot shambling aimlessly through our town, and after killing a lot of them we traced them back to their source: an imposing Tower hidden from view by illusionary magic. We crept inside and, after battling a number of guardians and solving a few puzzles we made it to the top floor where the Master of the tower was awaiting us: A Vampire and a pair of Wight bodyguards.

If you don't know WFRP very well, I should like to take this oppurtunity to point out that Vampires are absolutely brutal opponents, even for a skilled party. They have extremely good stats, are highly intelligent (and therefore can use extremely nasty magic as well as being allowed to 'plan ahead' where lesser creatures would simply lunge into battle) and a list of immunities and damage reductions as long as your arm. We were in no state to battle one in it's sanctum, let alone one as obviously powerful as this.
The party, however, were having a great time and decided to go for Death or Glory approach. As soon as we saw the pale loking man in the evening dress try to speak, the Pyromancer lets rip with a spell to set most of the room on fire, and the Witch Hunter charges into the fray as heroically as you would expect.

Two or three rounds later, the Witch Hunter is unconscious on the floor, the Highwayman is a mangled pile of flesh stewing gently in his own gore, the Apprentice is gibbering in a corner under the effects of a Fear-causing ability, and the Wizard is slowly suffocating for the next dozen-or-so rounds after miscasting a spell and it backfiring on him. I am alone, and so far my efforts have been for naught - I have no magical weapon, and therefore am little threat to the Vampire and no threat at all to the Wights, and the windows are very solidly boarded up so that the famous Hollywood tactic of smashing the windows and letting sunlight do the job for me isn't possible without somehow finding a sledgehammer to get the job done....

Cue a stress-test to see if I 'Were Out'... which I 'failed'!
It's a curse, albeit an awesome one, which means that I have no option to transform voluntarily. So instead, I just stand there while the Vampire strides forward and casually rips a chunk of flesh out of my torso. Death was imminent - I couldn't hit hard enough to kill my enemy, and he couldn't fail to finish me off even without his friends backing him up.
Luckily that did the trick and I went Wolfen on the spot, finally having a chance to fight back. Or so I thought....
Several tragic dice-rolls later, and I have ANOTHER big hole where my flesh should be. Even in my new form, grappling a Vampire is a fools' errand and no amount of rerolls was going to let me hurl it through the windows and solve my problems.
In sheer desperation, and determined to die valiantly (or in a suitably blood-crazy frenzy, depending on which side of the character you were asking...), I made on desperate attack with my bare claws to try and buy enough time for the Mages to recover before they too were consumed.

The first attack misses by a country mile. Resolutely rolling the second, I was painfully aware that the odds of me even hurting the thing were remote, let alone dealing a substantial wound.
Ulric be praised! My damage dice explode repeatedly and the last one also rolls high, tallied up to cause a mighty 30 points of damage to the creature of the night before me! (For reference, I am well into my second career at this point and can only sustain 12 wounds before I am maimed or killed - I rolled more than enough to kill any 2 of our PC's added together!)

The DM ruled that, in an adrenaline-fueled final attack, I made an uppercut that had plunged my arm right through the Vampire's chest, removing his heart before I tore his head off with the upswing.
It was a geniune 'Mortal Kombat' moment, due to the fickle dice finally returning me into their favour and thus rescuing the entire party from horrible exsanguinatory demise. One round later, and I'd be a fur rug in front of the fire and everyone else would be... well... lunch!

This... This is epic. What is the name of the game you were playing? I must find a copy...

[Yukitsu]

Yesterday, my character wanted to try killing as many militants as she could before the rest of the party arrived. This is because I was killing lawful "good" clerics/warriors who, in my opinion were unjust in their dealing with lycanthropes, whom they were killing. During my raid in there, I learned that not only were there 600 enemy troops, but there were also several who were level 15-18. I'm level 9.

Anyway, I use hit and run to wittle down a few dozen of the level 5s, resulting in the big, heavy bruisers coming out. The conversation went like this.

DM: He waits for your bubble to drop down, and he casts holy word. Any SR?
Me: Nope, I'm paralyzed, stunned and deafened. Their round again.
DM: You're hit with dimensional anchor and dimensional locks, just to make sure you stay in place. You have 7 rounds before the binding spell finishes, and locks you in a gem.
Me: I manifest a construct outside the locks range, and have it drag me away.
DM: They dismiss the construct.
Me: I fall off the parapets then, as I was at the edge.
DM: Blast, that means you're out of line of effect for the binding.
Me: I call another construct and it drags me off. Since I sovereign glued the gate shut, they likely won't catch up to me.
Other player: Doesn't holy word auto plane shift evil outsiders?
DM: ...
Me: ...
DM: I guess those last 3 rounds didn't happen.
Me: I guess I live anyway.
DM: Where were you from again?
Me: Faerun. (In his version of planescape, that makes it an alternate material, making me an outsider.)
Other player: That's awesome.

[Elfin]

I'm sorry? What was that?

I couldn't hear you over the sound of us saving the world at great personal cost.



I don't have THAT many stories

But since you're interested, here's the revenge I brought on their heads:

Spoiler

Show

So I got my revenge tonight, and it was sweet and tasty.

One common trait of our games is that we leave a MOUNTAIN of notes after each session. We all carry a small notepad, and anything we need to discuss in private, we scribble on the notepad. Helps keeping out-of-character knowledge from becmoing an issue, because you didn't hear that information in the first place. The most common notes are between the DM and players, but if characters decide to head off to discuss something alone, we can actually plot without the DMs fore-knowledge of our plan. Makes things interesting.
And we recycle the massive amounts of paper we tear through, don't worry.
Anyway, the end result is that we don't really raise eyebrows when secret notes are being passed. It's a given, and it's not necessarily something sinister, just a roleplaying aide.

So my party (now level 5, the last level before we become engines of superheroic destruction), finds a relatively quiet out-of-the-way corner of the world to crash in for a few days and collect our bearings after some particularily BAD planning went south. We had a mini quest in the town helping out a gnome stage magician (this was NOT something I set up, the DM dropped it on us as randomly as anything else, I had no prior knowledge about it).
Then we planned on relaxing for the evening. While the party started a brawl in a bar for entertainment (really.) I headed out for a shopping excursion. Since this was all out-of-character stuff for the other players, it consisted of me and the DM passing notes about what I was hoping to accomplish, while he DMed a random bar fight.
As a side note, the vestige I had bound gave me a number of random abilities, one of which included being treated as a wizard of my level when it came to using spell trigger items like wands, so I could use em freely same as a 5th level wizard.

Now, what I did, and the DM approved readily, was find the gnomish stage magician we'd helped earlier, and talk to him about buying some of his stage magic stuff, which the gnome was fine with (he was a real spellcaster who just happened to use it in theatrics instead of adventuring, putting on a 'brilliant' show for entertainment purposes).
So I came back to my party with
- A number of wands that did various useless magical tricks
- A few pints of flammable oil

The local authorities (with a semi-southern sherrif twang, which was a ncie touch) were berrating my party for causing such a ruckus. He let them go with a slap on the wrist cause he could tell 'they didn't mean no real harm', along with a warning to keep their noses clean until they passed to the next town. My party sheepishly agreed that the fun was over, and we headed to a nearby inn for the night.
We were going to get seperate rooms, but I suggested we'd probably feel fine with crashing in a room together (we did it in dungeons and the wilderness anyway) and it'd keep our cost down, which in the long run could give us more cash for crucial gear, so my party agreed that we'd just rent a sizeable room and work out some sleeping arrangements there. We roleplayed it, arguing over who was gonna sleep where without letting it get too heated, with people arguing that they weren't sleeping on the floor until the party wizard reminded everyone (me included) that we all have bedrolls and blankets and sleeping gear in our packs, like always. Having a pillow makes sleeping on the floor more bearable, and we let the fighter (swashbuckler, actually) sleep in the bed cause all the extra physical stress was worse on the joints and back ect.

So the Dm tells us we all fall asleep while I'm handing him a note. The party starts describing waking up, and he gives us the always ominous "Oh no, wait." Which means he's being the devil.
Or in this case, that I'm being the devil.

And he starts making them roll listen checks over the swashbucklers snoring, which they fail, and are very freaked out about.

Especially when they realize, the DM didn't make ME roll a listen check.

The DM makes them roll a few more, which made me nervous, but none of them passed. They were starting to get nerve wracked, with the rogue actually grabbing his character sheet and yelling "WAKE UP MAN, WAKE UP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" but it was too late. I abandon the notes and say aloud to the dm "I splash the rest of the oil in the swashbucklers face".

Jaws drop.

DM: You wake up with a cough and a snort, immediately assaulted by the overpowering smell of violatile, COMBUSTIBLE chemicals.
Swashbuckler: I shout "What in the hells are you doing?!" loud enough to wake the party.
DM: Sure, I'll give you that. Everyone stirs, the smell of flammable oil permeating the room.
Me: I wave my crossbow pistol around and say "No no one move, or this is liable to get very messy very quickly" with a sweet smile.
DM: Nate roll a spot check (Nate's our wizard, and he passed the check). You notice the bolt loaded into the crossbow pistol is glowing faintly, a dull red tip that, even in your groggy state, realize is probably ripe with magical fire.
Nate: I say aloud "For the love of god no one move"
Swashbuckler: Screw that! Roll initiative, I jump out of bed at top speed and attack with my fists!
DM: Jump out of bed at top speed?
Swashbuckler: Yeah
DM: what's your Dex? *rolls a secret dice* take 5 bludgeoning damage from smashing your face into the wall of force over your bed
Swashbuckler: you've gotta be KIDDING me. Where the hell did THAT come from.
Me: Out of character (which we just say out loud) The gnome uses moveable walls of force to roll marbles over the tops of the audience
Swashbuckler: What the hell? what's that mean?
Me: I'll explain later. Back in character now though. I figured you'd be the one to try something like that. Aren't swashbucklers supposed to be INTELLIGENT?
Swashbuckler: Fine, back in character, what do you want from us?

So I went on to explain that I'd gotten some unique magical gear while they were all wasting their time peaking under waitresses skirts and smashing mugs of ale on random passers heads. I tell them that they're all allready under the effect of one of the spells. Which is controlled by me. And that if I decide, they will immediately take 1d2 points of fire damage any round I decide I'm unhappy with them. A weak effect... except that they are all soaked, along with the room, in torch oil.
I also tell them that, while they get will saves against the second effect, I can try to force any of them to freeze, or pick the direction they run in (which will be away from me, requiring them to close the distance if they want to attack, if they get a chance to).

Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"
DM: everyone flip a coin for damage, and then roll 1d6 for fire damage as the entire room flares up like the pits of hell themselves.
Rogue: Oh *EXPLETIVE* Oh *EXPLETIVE* THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
DM: No, it is, you're very much on fire.
Swashbuckler: I roll off the bed, avoiding the wall of force, and ATTACK.
Me: Not really.
Swash: huh?
DM: Roll a will save.
Swash: Oh you've gotta be *expletive* kidding me. *rolls and fails, by a wide margin*
Me: He runs out of the room
Swash: Runs out of the room screaming "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE"

The DM goes on to explain that everyone in the inn goes into panic mode as the flames spread out of our room and a group of random people run by FULLY engulfed in flame. Along with making them roll 1d6 for fire damage randomly (about once a round). All while I run behind them, laughing maniacally, making them run in random directions and freezing occasionally, while on fire, screaming "DANCE MY PUPPETS, BURN BURN BURN. BURN AND DANCE! HAHAHAHA"

Then I cast invisibility on myself and dissapear into the alleyway (we're outside at this point, along with the evacuated inn).

DM keeps making them roll 1d6s while they dance for me unable to put out the flames, and freezing anytime they try to stop drop and roll or go for something that might help. when the wizard is at about 1/5th of his hitpoint total, the DM gives them this.

DM: Suddenly, the illusory flames wink out of existance, and you're left standing, panting in terror, under the night sky. In your skivvies.
Rogue: WHAT?!?!?!
DM: Good question, I'm sure you'd be wondering what the hell that was about in character too. But there's no time for that, the local authorities show up, and immediately place you all under arrest, dragging your protesting forms into the night, saying he knew you were trouble and that he shoulda locked you up after the barfight.

Jaws still dropped.

Me: I watch and wait while everyone tries to figure out what happened, until the crowd starts shuffling nervously back into the inn or leaving as warranted, and sneak back to my room, locking the door and curling up in the bed.

I slept soundly (though the room did still smell of oil) and got up bright and early to wait by the jailhouse for my party.

The local lawman and his goons escorted them to the front, and told them he wanted them out of town by nightfall, or they'd spend a lot longer than one night in the pokey.
I asked them if they slept well, with a huge grin.

I explained to them that the ILLUSIONIST I'd gotten all my magical gear from assured me that none of it would cause any real damage, but that it still felt "hot enough to make the front row break a sweat when it flares up on stage".
Swash: I guess I don't really need to ask WHY...
Me: No. You DON'T. back in character. I lean in to the party and look the rogue dead in the eye, and say in a small, friendly whisper, "don't *expletive* with me." and walk away.

Jaws are still mostly dropped here. Rubbing forheads and eyes in great annoyance/recovery.

Me: I shout out "Are we gonna have any more problems? Or do we know who's the baddest dog on the block now?" (I'm a shifter and all).
Rogue: We'll be good.

And there was much rejoicing. By me. I've got my eyes peeled for them trying to turn this into something more, but I'm confident I can stay one step ahead of them if they try to. Hopefully they'll realize they had this coming, and that I didn't have to use FAKE fire, and was being very generous to them in how I got my revenge. Afterall, it wasn't FAKE fire that was burning me. Or my clothes at least.

Good times, good times.

Sheer awesomeness.

[pseudodragon]

just today, we were fighting this dragon-horse thing. me and the NPC mage were floating and a PC and a NPC were on the ground. the enimie used a breath weapon, and nearly killed the NPC and i chanelled all my healing magic into him, and made him have 1 HP.

[J.Gellert]

A long time ago, we were in a cave, fighting trolls.

Fighter and rogue are on the front line mopping up after I (the mage) laid some smack-down.

Then the DM says that a troll sneaks up on from behind (a tunnel coming from the cave's entrance), attacks twice, rend, and I'm somewhere between -15 and -20 in one round.



I was a little confused. First of all, what kind of messed up action is that, where it moves and attacks twice? Or did it sneak as close as 10 feet from my position? How does a troll sneak up on anyone, anyway? You need to be blind and deaf... and insensitive to the tremor of giant feet on the ground

Then I reminded the DM that I had in fact left three animated troll skeletons at the entrance to "watch our backs" (was doing him a favor because he says he doesn't enjoy running fights with too many summons/allies, so my undead usually lag behind). Of course another troll would be either torn to bits, or it would have at least made some noise.

So that didn't happen after all.

I am not unhappy that this particular DM isn't running games any more

[Foryn Gilnith]

Troll Rogue or somesuch, maxed ranks in Hide/Move Silently and probably some items too. Got the Pounce ability from somewhere, probably a barbarian dip. Got lucky rolls, and on the surprise round, charged you as a standard. Got its two attacks from Pounce, plus sneak attack, and would have got you. The skeletons might have done it a number, though.

[Rixx]

Terrance Walker, the reckless ranger, decided to poke his head out from cover to take pot-shots at a sorcerer with several Scorching Rays still left in him. When he (that is, Terrance) was in low single digit HP.

The sorcerer also had a hostage, with a 20% chance to hit her instead.

Everything turned out all right.

[woodenbandman]

I made a deal with a CR 40 devil and lived through it. He wanted a specific soul, I offered to get him a soul like it, offering my soul as collateral. I had to awaken a bunny, turn it undead, and then give it to him. That was pretty odd. But in the end it got me the map to the center of (this world's version of) the temple of elemental evil. Yay, I win.

That character turned evil and, if we ever do a campaign in that world again, will be the badguy of the campaign.

[lyko555]

I had a lovely lvl 8 dread necromancer that i had grown very fond of. It was in a forgotten realms campaign and for some reason the dm hated me. The campain had a lot of undead in it that were way op for their hit dice and I was grabbing them left right and center. The clutch finally came we were following the railroad the gm had for us when we encountered a 28 hd skeletal red dragon. Our fealess bleader the barbarian charged and got combod for half of his hp. I walk up and cast control undead only to bounce of the things horribly high sr. It turns and pops me for my entire health pool. so im sitting at -8 bleeding out when my 3 super deadites jump it. The dragon obliterates them with 1 hit a piece. with the gm grinning maniachly. but 1 of the deadites landed close enough to me when it died that the negative energy burst healed me. so i lay there at -1 and cast control undead. The gm tells me to roll an 18. I roll a 19 and laugh.
Ancient skele dragon 0 second lvl spell 1

[B0nd07]

I once had a Rilkan Incarnate that survived many near-death experiences. I can't remember them all, but a few I can include being almost eaten by a T-Rex, being rended by a girallon (twice I think), and a spell induced heart attack. What finally killed her was a suicide attack on an ogre mage (iirc). She almost killed it with that attack.

[Saintjebus]

This was in a low level Living Forgotten Realms game(4e). I was playing a 2nd level drow sorceror- who was insane. We were in the first Baldur's Gate Module, in which we had to go into a sewer cave and fight, essentially, poo monsters. I was fairly low in initiative, and so one poo monster was already engaged. I decided to jump into the filthy water to try and flank with one of our tanks on the other side. I went under the water- face to face with another poo monster. I said the first thing that came into my head-"I bite him."
DM- "You what?"
Me-"I have Vampiric Heritage. I bite him."
DM-"Attack roll"

I rolled a nat 1. The monster then bit me. And then started chewing. By the time my initiative came up again, I was at 0 HP. I made my death saving throw with 20; so I get to spend a healing surge. Next turn, I am still grappled(in its mouth!) so I spend a move action to get out. Nothing. So I look at my skills and realize-
Me-"I intimidate"
DM-"You what?"
Me-"I have a lot of ranks in intimidate. I intimidate him!"
DM- "roll it"

I rolled close to a nat 20 on that one. Scared the monster so bad it ran into the arms of both of our defenders. I intimidated the monster into running away while I was in his mouth.

[Wizzardman]

Oh, god. I wish I still had my original notes from this game. Unfortunately, I lost them in a computer transfer. It also partially doesn't count, as I did die, but there was some miraculous survival involved, so I'm including it anyway.

Here goes nothing:
---------------------------------
Game: Dark Heresy

So, final session of the game. The PCs (our Priestess and fearless leader, lovely both in and out of game, who constantly lusted after the God-Emperor (only in-game, I hope); our crazy Psyker, Pierin, the Cleric's best friend, and amazingly entertaining in and of himself; our Techpriest, Xerxes, who'd gone a bit corrupt over the years, and had this tendency to eat the flesh of his enemies; our Guardsman, Bojangles, whose amazing luck and ability to hit things with a rocket launcher never ceased to amaze me; and myself, Nihilius "Bones" Guilliman (thank you, random name generator), a grizzled old (and rather dumb) Arbiter with a love of filling things with many, many bullets) had just absolutely failed (through only some fault of our own) our mission to recover Eldar thing-gummies from a mining site, resulting in the deaths-by-psyker-powers-and-hallucinogen-grenades of dozens of workers and loyal cops, and had returned to our Inquisitor to receive reprimand.

So, being the Arbitor, the second in command, and the man officially in command of the part of the mission that led to all those deaths, I returned to the Inquisitor in disgrace. He stripped me of my acolyte position, officially "retired" me, and ordered the rest of them on unpaid leave until he had calmed down some.

The Priestess, the Psyker, and I all left the briefing room, as ordered, and began marching back to our tiny little ship, the better to drop me off at the nearest planet. The Guardsman and the Techpriest stayed behind, saying that they had important information to discuss with the Inquisitor. Since they had been communicating a lot in the last mission, and they had always been our loyal companions (even with the flesh eating), we paid no heed to it.

We got about thirty feet down the hallway before the shooting started.

We rushed back to the briefing room. The security systems had gone on lockdown. Sirens were blaring throughout the ship. We could hear yelling in the compartment beyond. Our Priestess, ever the melee-specialist, pulled forth her monofilament chainsword, and began hacking her way into the room, cutting carefully through the Inquisitor's massive door.

And then the ship's intercom activated. We could hear screaming in the background--the Inquisitor's voice, howling in rage, and the sound of the Techpriest's various weaponry. And then Bojangles started talking.

"[Priestess character's] acolyte team has attacked the Inquisitor! Kill them at any cost!"

The Psyker twitched at every word. Some sort of foul Warp-power had accompanied Bojangle's speech; though we were scarcely affected, our Psyker immediately reported that this speech would have some foul influence on the unprotected crew, corrupting their righteous fury, and making negotiation or surrender suicidal.

Seconds later, our Priestess cut the door the rest of the way down, revealing the grizzly scene inside. We were too late; as we watched, Techpriest Xerxes pulled two krak (anti-armor) grenades forth from his robes, and, using his augmented bits, slammed them hard onto the Inquisitor's face, killing him instantly. Bojangles stood, facing the door, weapon ready and waiting for us. Both Xerxes and Bojangles were marked with symbols of the warp; we could practically feel the power of Chaos they now represented.

Fortunately, by the God-Emperor, we were ready for them, too. Psyker Pierin slammed Bojangles hard with a force-choke equivalent power, while our lovely Priestess ripped him to shreds with her chainsword. I pulled free both of my autopistols, and emptied two clips of manstopper rounds straight into Xerxes face. We were rolling like we were on fire that night.

The fight was over in seconds, but the damage had been done. There was no way we could get out of their peacefully, so we grabbed the Inquisitor's rosette (which he used to control the ship), and bid a hasty retreat, running for our ship.

We got about five feet before a squad of twenty Inquisitorial Stormtroopers in Carapace armor came flying around the corner.

And this is where our survival became truly amazing.

An important thing to remember about Dark Heresy is that it has a very strict jamming system. Now, naturally, some weapons are better about not jamming than others; lasweapons, for example, rarely ever jam. Even seeing one out of twenty jam is unusual. And, as befits Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, they were each carrying Hellguns, a form of suped-up lasgun.

And fully half of their guns jammed in the first round. The rest just plain missed.

Naturally, we shot down enough of them to clear a path, and then split, again running for the ship. They chased us, still missing on all but a scant few shots. We ran into more enemies--ship's security and midshipmen, all wielding lasguns, and all after us due to Bojangles' sorcerous command. And still more jammings occurred. We were watching our GM's dice; it was amazing. If they weren't the same dice he always used, we would have sworn they were loaded. Truly, the God-Emperor himself was with us on this day.

We make it to the hanger bay, bust our way through, and charge towards our ship, with dozens of men hot on our heels. Naturally, our ship is guarded. Thanks to the power of our psyker, and a few good shots from my autopistols, both guards are easily taken care of.

Unfortunately, while choking out the guards, our Psyker rolls Perils of the Warp. For those unfamiliar with Dark Heresy, Perils of the Warp indicates that a random unnatural event or effect occurs in the area surrounding the psychic power just used. Most of these Warp Effects are fairly minor, involving temperature drops or floating bubbles; a good quarter of them, however, are incredibly dangerous, ranging from chaos effects to the Psyker being pulled into the Warp and devoured by demons. And, since the Perils only affect a small area, the only people to be affected by his roll would be the Psyker, the Priestess, and myself.

Our Psyker rolls on the Perils table. We get a rage effect, where all people in the area must make a willpower test or immediately spend the next round charging into melee against the nearest enemy. Our Psyker made the willpower save; both the Priestess and myself failed it.

We all knew what would happen if we charged back, even for a single turn; the hordes behind us would catch up, and, no matter what we did, we would eventually be torn to pieces by our former comrades and shipmates. Nevertheless, as by the rules, the Priestess and I turned around, and started to charge towards the enrushing foes.

Psyker Perin, in desperation, turned to the one psychic power that had never failed us (except on the last mission, where it led to most of the deaths, but that's another problem): Fear. He figured it might knock our opponents off their game, or scare them enough to give us a chance to run.

He rolled on the Fear power table, to see how much effect it would have. And, by sheer luck, rolled as high as he could roll--to the exact power level that had killed so many people in our final real mission. The point where whoever sees the Psyker's face is driven so far into insanity that they immediately start shooting at the nearest person, friend or foe, and continue for quite a long time indeed.

And, because of Perils of the Warp, the Priestess and I were facing away from the Psyker, and were just a scant thirty feet from the crowd. Just far enough away that all aforementioned crewmembers started shooting each other, and not us. Truly, the God-Emperor was with us on this day.

The Priestess and I snapped out of our rage. We turned back around, safe in the knowledge that the Psyker's power only lasted for a single turn, and then immediately jumped aboard our ship, and blasted off. We made it.

And then the ship's batteries came online, and blew us to kingdom come.

But it doesn't end there. Naturally, we remaining players started packing up, sighing, and staring forlornly at our character sheets.

And then I noticed something. An item, on my sheet, that I had never used before. A Talisman (I forget the proper name)--an article of faith, in this case a bolter shell casing from a DeathWatch boltgun, that would, on GM's permission, allow a character to be exempt from an unfortunate fate that befell his fellows. Naturally, as I'd rather risk death by space than guaranteed death by laser, I immediately pointed this out to the GM, and after some rules clarification, he said he would allow me to be saved by this item.

The Priestess' player, seeing a chance, immediately looked at her character sheet. She had one, too. Psyker Pieren's player looked down at the sheet for her character, but Pieren, the poor Psyker, did not.

The GM grinned his foulest grin. He gazed at us for a few seconds, and then, laughing, told us that, fine, we had earned the Emperor's favor. We deserved something from the Talismans we carried. And, he promised, we would survive. Two of us would, that is; after all, there were only two Talismans, and some kind of price had to be paid. And it would be up to us, the players, to decide amongst ourselves who would live and who would die.

I looked back at the GM, and grinned. I knew the heart of "Bones" Guilliman. I knew exactly what he would do.

"Bones stands up, inside the ship, and, screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR," dives headfirst into the laser beam... or whatever he needs to do to save the other two."

The players of Pieren and the Priestess cheered.

Now, of course, the GM couldn't let me get away that easy. He insisted that the other two had survived purely through luck, and that, given the nasty warp-sorcery going on in the ship behind us, my soul was immediately sucked into the warp and eaten by a demon. Pieren and the Priestess snuck off and retired on a Pleasure World, using my old autogun (machine gun) to mark my empty gravesite, and my old autopistols as ways to remember me.

But I don't care what he said. I know, in my heart, that this is what Bones would have wanted. That this is exactly how Bones deserved to die.


And, one final, only somewhat related note: not long before this writing, my GM talked to me by GTalk, and informed me that, for the lulz, he'd decided to replicate our Dark Heresy characters in Sims 3. And that, as befitting poor, unlucky old Bones, my character's replicant had been the first to find one of the many myriad ways to die horrible.

And Death, in game, refused to take him. Death, in fact, insisted that his antics were too funny to end, and that the world deserved for Bones to live.

Apparently, even other games seem to be on Bones' side.

[Alysar]

I don't know if this counts, but my halfling was swallowed on two different occasions. Once by a Quetzalcoatlus (winged dinosaur) and once by a demon morphed into a hydra.

[Galileo]

One of my characters once ended up bearing witness to a massive, all-out showdown between Tiamat and Bahumet. Rather than staying far away - the sensible thing that my GM presumed we do - my character couldn't just *sit* there. So he pulled out a scroll of teleport, summoned a flying mount, and ported himself into the fray... the fray between gods.

(I know, I know, okay? But my character was lawful good-ish -- well, except for being a necromancer, long story that -- and an overachiever to boot. And it seemed like the heroic sort of thing to do, okay? You don't just sit around and let a freaking god of goodness and light die right in front of you - not without at least trying to do something.)

Basically, the GM had mercy on me; when I (naturally) failed against Tiamat's Fear DC, he had me pass out, and a passing paladin managed to save me.

Strange. My campaign is just getting ready for its last battle, and Tiamat and Bahamut are going to be duking it out above us. I'm a paladin.

[Lilienthal]

What I want is a post with links to all your cool stories . I'd missed this one somehow, and it's great.

Link.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

[boomwolf]

Level 4 fighter, got into a fight with 3 ghouls, the entire party unable to reach him or give any help.
We were using a fumble table that may it possible to injure yourself or nearby allies.

Lost initiative, all 3 ghouls were first.
Ghoul 1 fumbles, hit ghoul 3.
Ghoul 2 fumbles, hit ghoul 1.
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hits ghoul 1, killing him.
Fighter hits ghoul 2.
Ghoul 2 misses
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hit himself and dies.
Fighter crit-hit ghoul 2, killing him.

The fight was made outside the eyes of the other players (that how we did it, you don't see things if your character isn't there.)
When they finally got to him, thinking he is dead and to be looted, they were very surprised to see him sitting on three dead ghouls, claiming him killed them all.

[Milskidasith]

Level 4 fighter, got into a fight with 3 ghouls, the entire party unable to reach him or give any help.
We were using a fumble table that may it possible to injure yourself or nearby allies.

Lost initiative, all 3 ghouls were first.
Ghoul 1 fumbles, hit ghoul 3.
Ghoul 2 fumbles, hit ghoul 1.
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hits ghoul 1, killing him.
Fighter hits ghoul 2.
Ghoul 2 misses
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hit himself and dies.
Fighter crit-hit ghoul 2, killing him.

The fight was made outside the eyes of the other players (that how we did it, you don't see things if your character isn't there.)
When they finally got to him, thinking he is dead and to be looted, they were very surprised to see him sitting on three dead ghouls, claiming him killed them all.

How is this a story of "not dying against near impossible odds?"

A level four fighter against three ghouls isn't particularly amazing; he can one shot each of them (if built decently), and the fortitude saves aren't hard to make (It's still mostly luck, but he should be fine with a good con stat).

I'm also confused as to why you were using fumble rolls, but to each his own. What's really weird is that you were critting undead. That just doesn't make sense.

[boomwolf]

How is this a story of "not dying against near impossible odds?"

A level four fighter against three ghouls isn't particularly amazing; he can one shot each of them (if built decently), and the fortitude saves aren't hard to make (It's still mostly luck, but he should be fine with a good con stat).

I'm also confused as to why you were using fumble rolls, but to each his own. What's really weird is that you were critting undead. That just doesn't make sense.

It was our second game, we had no clue how things worked back then.

We had no idea about optimizing then too. (a fighter with 14 charisma....)