You didn't die?

[Saph]

I've posted this one before, but it was almost two years ago. It's good enough to reprint. :)

D&D 3.5 campaign. We were playing through the "Children of Gruumsh" adventure in the Forgotten Realms. Six-person party, all level 8, though only five were there for the final battle.

We were stuck in a demiplane temple with a one-way entrance, and our main goal by the time we reached the top floor was just to get out of there. The dracolich who ran the place agreed, on condition that three out of the five party members would be left behind to be sacrificed. We said no, and the battle kicked off.

It started okay for our team but started to go downhill as soon as the dracolich closed to melee range and started hitting with its full attacks. The cleric and the fighter were taken down in melee, the other wizard was knocked into negatives after his fire shield failed to get through the dragon's SR, and the bard was first paralysed then finished off with a full attack.

This just left me. The character I was playing at the time was a sun elf enchantress wizard/loremaster who really didn't like fights but kept on getting dragged into them. She wasn't very strong, was nervous in battles, had very few offensive spells and even fewer that worked on undead, but in her adventuring career she'd encountered a lot of dragons and had learned a bit about what worked against them and what didn't.

So I cast two greater mirror image spells and kept running. Each round I'd fly out of the dracolich's melee range, taking an AoO in the process, and take a shot at the dracolich with my orb of force wand, the only effective weapon I had. The dracolich would move in and attack me on its turn, splintering another image, then at the start of my turn my mirror images would regenerate, restoring the two images that I'd just lost, and I'd dodge away again. This went on for round after round, the two of us flying in circles round and round the room. In between the fighting me and the dracolich were having a conversation:

Dracolich: "Stand still so I can kill you, elf."
Me: "Um, what if you let us all go instead?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "I will make you the same offer as before. You and one of your friends can go."
Me: "What'll happen to the others?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "Their essence will be absorbed to power this temple."
Me: "No. I'm not leaving my friends behind."
Dracolich: "Then die."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Me: "I don't suppose there's any chance you're getting bored of hitting me yet?"
Dracolich: "I have existed here for centuries, staring at the blizzard and meditating. You couldn't conceive of what it would take to make me bored."
Me: "So that's a no, then?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "I'm getting tired of chasing you, little elf."
Me: "Well, I'm not exactly enjoying this either."
Dracolich: "I'll give you one more chance. Stop fighting and you can leave here alive."
Me: "Not without the others."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away . . . wand runs out of charges. Uh oh.*

This was the point at which I realised I was probably dead. I had nothing left that could hurt the dracolich but my rapier, and with my 8 Strength and +3 BAB my chances of accomplishing anything with it were just about zero. I had some ranks in Use Magic Device from my Loremaster level, so instead I flew next to the cleric, grabbed his cure wand, and started trying to use it on the fallen party members, hopping from one to the other as the dragon chased me.

Dracolich: "You're wasting my time. Just give up. You can't win this."
Me: "I don't care. I won't let you hurt them.
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "Let me make you a new offer. If you surrender and let me kill you, I'll let the others go free."
Me: "You know, a lot of people tell me I'm naive . . . but even I'm not gullible enough to fall for that one."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "You're just putting off the inevitable. Stand still and let me kill you."
Me: "No."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "I'm tired of this. I'm not going to chase you anymore. But I think I've figured out what will work instead." *stops, lands, and stands over the cleric, fighter, and evoker.* "Come here by the time I reach zero, or I start killing them. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . ."

It was one of those moments where you have the feeling that your luck's finally run out. I was just about to shout "No!" when the bard appeared from behind, charging. My last use of the wand had healed him and he attacked the dracolich from behind, almost dying in the process but taking away its last few HP and killing it.

It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

- Saph

[Umael]

It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

Okay, that was epic.

Is your avatar based on that PC?

[Lycan 01]

-instert Dark Heresy story that puts all of mine and every one I will ever run to shame-

This story was made of all kinds of awesomeness.

I just remembered one cool Call of Cthulhu story, but I've got to figure out how best to tell it... It involved multiple near deaths, with one character nearly having his face pulled off, one only surviving an instant death by a lucky jump roll, and another being saved from a fate worse than death by a sucker punch. I'll post it later when I have an hour to kill, because it's gonna take me awhile to write it out...

[Saph]

Okay, that was epic.

Is your avatar based on that PC?

Pretty much! It's actually Belldandy from Ah My Goddess, but the personalities are similar enough.

I played the character from levels 2 up to 12 over several years, and she survived so many TPKs that by the end the other players were making jokes about worshipping her as a deity. :P

[Helinon]

well this really isn't a close to death story, more along the opposite. when you see us and what we're up against you'd think we'd die or at least have some sort of fight. no such luck with us. still want to hear it? or is it not appropriate for the thread?

[lostsole31]

Well, I don't know about the game ... but I've been to France.

Amazingly, I survived.

[IonDragon]

My favorite survival story to date:

Took place in a homebrew Cyberpunk style setting. I was playing a Powered Armor Heavy Weapons Specialist, and the party was hidden or disguised and trying to meet the person who had a mark on our heads. The party is ambushed so I come out of hiding and begin firing willy-nilly with explosive cannon shells at where the attacks seem to be coming from (Our attacker was wearing a futuristic invisibility cloak). Combat ensues. The party roboticist deploys seeker drones to find the attacker so I can hit him accurately. He looses a drone (one of his expensive ones) but the remaining ones find our attacker. I'm able to corner him, and the party diplomat comes up with an armed grenade for good measure. The attacker arms the explosive built into his gun, drops it and runs away. His gun sets off a chain reaction detonating not only the grenade the diplomat was holding, but the diplomat's entire arsenal (his only weapons were grenades) causing a massive explosion.

When following the ambusher, I'd used my Powered Armor's jets to get to a nearby roof to see where he'd gone. Because of the cover the roof provided me, I took 0 damage (my armor required major repairs however).

This is a close call story because if it were not for the cover the building provided, it would have doubled the damage I'd taken which would have killed me instantly.

[Shardan]

My favorite one, unfortunately, wasn't D&D but was from a D20 Star Wars game. My smuggler (scoundrel class) had reluctantly been awakened to the force and had barely had any training. (the rest of the party was Jedi from the start, of course) and we ended up in a light saber fight with three sith. The other two were beating their opponents fairly but I was losing horribly. I was another hit from death and had not landed a single hit against my opponent. In desperation, I drew my trusty old blaster with one half action and with the other, fired it on the sith, point blank..... natural 20. damage went past HP (which was just a padding) and straight to vitality (which is your actual bodily damage) and killed him in one shot. The others finished their fights while I healed myself what little i could. After their fights were over the BBEG struck me from behind to crit me and leave me almost dead. Then he gave his patented 'evil speech' to the Jedi and (due to overwhelming forces) captured them. But my little scoundrel had used an illusion to fake a 'become one with the forces' death and used force stealth to hide under a table and escape capture. :D

(for future note, I have decided that my character is invincible as long as he has a table to hide under because that was the third or fourth time he used a table to escape certain death)
Of course I also disarmed a caught and disarmed a thermal detonator thrown at me without even losing my place in my rant at the guy that threw it and escaped another BBEG's death trap before he could even finish his speech.

[KitsuneKionchi]

The two main damage dealers in our party was a sneak attacking rogue and a fire mage. We were pitted against bronze golems in a room with a gas leak and an occasional ignition that caused the entire room to explode and heal the golems.

I, the fire mage, just shapechanged into a fire elemental and floated above the gas leak to prevent the healing.

[Pika...]

The two main damage dealers in our party was a sneak attacking rogue and a fire mage. We were pitted against bronze golems in a room with a gas leak and an occasional ignition that caused the entire room to explode and heal the golems.

I, the fire mage, just shapechanged into a fire elemental and floated above the gas leak to prevent the healing.

That room was awesomely designed. Props to your DM.

Did he actually plan for you to survive that?

[Yukitsu]

Me: "The two guards around the gate are dead now right?"
DM: "Correct."
Me: "I'll get my summoned creatures to close the gates, then sovereign glue it shut."
DM: "All right."
*Hit and run combats against the people stuck in the keep.*
DM: "By now they've mobilized their bigger guns. You see a cleric cast holy word."
"Me: "My contingency goes off, and I'm encased in a bubble of force. (custom 1 round duration resilient sphere.)"
DM: "OK. your bubble wears off, and you're hit by a holy word from another cleric."
Me: "Hmm. I have 9 hit dice, and they are level 15 from what I can tell."
DM: "Correct. While you're stunned, they dimension lock your area for good measure."
Me: "I'll manifest astral construct, and have it bullrush me off the wall, then drag me out of their line of sight."
DM: "They try to pursue you, but first have to do something to unfuze the door."
Another player: "Aren't evil outsiders plane shifted to their home dimension when they are holy worded?"
DM: ...
Me: ...
Another player: Where are you from anyway?
Me: Faerun.

Everyone thought I was pretty much automatically boned when holy word came out, but the DM did admit he wasn't exactly sure he could have killed me before I got to safety, even had I not been force shifted to Faerun.

[Alysar]

Ok, this happened since my last post. I'm in a semi-regular Iron Heroes game. I play a Harrier (a fighter that relies on speed and dexterity). The inn that we were in was being attacked by a small army.

The evil wizard running the show had until midnight when the evil spirits would come to claim the 100 souls that he was supposed to have sacrificed. We just needed to hold him off until then.

The wizard decided to send in his big guns. A giant flaming wooden construct that fed off of people my sticking them in its chest.

To give you a picture, we were using standard sized miniatures and the construct was represented by a 8-inch tall Johnny Storm action figure. It was explained to us that this was to scale.

I got the idea that we might be able to trip the thing, so I had sent one of the lackey to get the longest length of chain they had in the place. When it had bashed through the front wall, I ran out and (successfully!) flung the chain around one of its legs while being attacked by one of the soldiers.

At this point the wizard cast a mind affecting spell which required us to roll a save every round or pass out. I made my first save.

I was at less than five HP at this point.

Suddenly, Johnny Storm headed into the inn through the hole in the wall (the inn was a walled courtyard with several buildings inside). I held on, and found myself dragged along behind it. We passed close enough to some more PCs for them to grab on. So there we were, being dragged behind the Wicker Man like a bunch of ewoks behind an AT-XT. We were definitely slowing it down enough so that it couldn't get to the civilians in the inn. It helped that the NPC spiritualist that we had with us speeded up time so that we didn't have to hold it off the entire 20 minutes till midnight.

It was at this point I was thrown into some crates and passed out.

Did I mention I was level 2 at the time?

[Unscrewed]

Well, my character from an Genius: The Transgression chronicle (A conspiracy theorist college student) escaped dying by the skin of his teeth on at least 4 separate occasions. Although none were as dramatic as the examples here, it gets somewhat more impressive when you take into account he A) was one of the only characters in the group who didn't use super-science weapons or armor, B) was decent (not great) at combat, and C) was the only character from the original party that made it to the end of the chronicle without dying.

Over the course of the Chronicle, he:

1) Charged a pair of highly trained ninja assassins while badly wounded...twice.

2) Went toe-to-toe with a car-sized killer robot, again while wounded.

3) Charged the main villain and his bodyguards with nothing but a sword.

[Prak]

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.

If I were dm, the dragon would have surrendered to you guys after that...

[root9125]

Well, I have a few things, I guess. My party is a bit on the Evil side, and a LOT on the Chaotic side, so you can imagine most of it is party-caused.

We're fighting an illithid, when it is a level appropriate fight (Party Level 7), and he's got our Orc Fighter (named Krusk, because who doesn't love Krusk?) dominated, because his Will is +0... So, one round later, he would full-round power-attack smack the closest person for 50 damage (which was my Warmage with 39 hit points). Not to mention our party's Assassin (NOT dominated, so god only knows why he did this) was studying ME for a death attack that would be available next round.

So we all know I've got one round to live. I intentionally fail a will save to give a fireball to our Spellthief, and shoot one at the illithid myself. He's down to ~23 hp, assuming average damage rolls (yes, metagaming. I'm sorry, I DM myself and therefore know many stats...) after my fireball. The spellthief throws his, and rolls almost max damage. So, the thing's unconscious and bleeding, floating 30 feet up. Well, dominate is, apparently, an until-death spell. So, the thing HAS to die from the 3d6 falling damage... It does. Barely.

Win.

[holywhippet]

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

I'm thinking he's talking about the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

[Merk]

It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

- Saph

That's amazing. I wish I could create encounters as dramatic as that.

[Kaun]

I have posted this else where before but i figured i would chuck it in here for those who had missed it.



So i am running my ongoing 4th ed camp last night and my 5 players (lvl 7 - 8 Wiz, Bard, 2 blade ranger, Shamy and infernal warlock) have just battled there way through a temple carved out of the side of an active volcano chock full of man eating orc fanatic nut jobs. Then onto a fast paced battle with a young red dragon on a cliff outcrop jutting over the magma core of the volcano with more of those orc crazy's springing out of the wood work just to make things difficult.

Anyway they have the dragon down to only a few hp and its decided that its "carving through the party with savage claws" tactic, tho affective may need a slight re-assessing due to its hp now being under 20 after a few especially harsh attacks recently landed on it. So it takes to the air hoping for a breath weapon recharge and makes use of its reach of 2 to keep the massive damaging ranger out of the game... but no sooner has it got air born the bard lands a vicious mockery crit and knocks it into the negative hps.
So it comes tumbling back to earth and the bard, warlock and ranger are all sitting in the prime position for a good ol' squishing. The bard and ranger both deftly roll out of the way but the Warlock is not so fortunate, and the damage received is enough to put him also onto negative hps.

So as he realizes this and starts to look a bit glum one of the other player points out to him that if the dragon died wouldn't his boon have gone off? Turns out that with boon bonus hp he was left with exactly 1hp, just enough to scrape himself of the floor (due to the party's healing being completely exhausted at this point) and beat a hasty retreat out of there.

Anyway it made me laugh so i figured it was worth sharing, some times there is no better comedy then what the randomness of the dice provides.

[Darkameoba]

okay, so this is probably my favorite "you didnt die?" story.

the setting was generic fantasy, the system was 3.5. we were making our way through a valley and my party had sent me (a dwarf fighter with 3 wisdom, yeah, thats right, 3 wisdom) to walk along the top edge of the valley and keep watch for these giant owls that kept harassing us in the night (remember, 3 wisdom) anyway, here we are walking along this valley when we get attacked by orcs, now i easily dispatch the 2 orcs that i encounter on the top of the valley and look down to see my party getting rocked by 6 other orcs. now my dwarf not being one to think things through said "i need to get down there, but how?" looked at the corpse of one of the orcs and thought "that would make a great sled". Well he took one of the orc corpses, laid it on its stomach, pulled its arms up like reigns and chugged a heroism potion (gave temp HP) and then sorta shuffled the corpse off the edge riding on its back, holding its arms.

the cliff was about 200ft tall with a pretty steep incline but to my credit i made every balance check..till the last one, i botched, fell off the corpse, rolled a nat 20 ont he tumble, rolled expertly next to 2 orcs, killed them both with a cleave, then passed out as the potion wore off. everyone was surprised that i survived a 200ft ride on the back of a orc down a steep cliff. (oh yeah, before i jumped off the cliff on the orc i had 3 hp left.)

[Helinon]

so me and my freinds are in an icy tunnel under a mountain. we are all overpowered(as in one of us is a rakshasas, one is a half dragon and the other is a were tiger) so our DM decides to mix things up and have us face a sleeping adult white dragon. even with is being overpwered, we would have a tough fight on our hands with one of us possibly dieing. However, we decinded that the were tiger, who was a rouge, should sneak up to the sleeping dragon in hybrid form and sneak attack it with a greataxe. it hit and we killed it in one hit. our Dm was like,'.........What......The.....crap?!? You can't coup de grace a dragon!' we were all just plain amazed that it worked. Then he dropped the bomb that the otherdragon would be along soo to protect the EGGS. We felt our luck ran out and left with the corpse, magic item that shrinks stuff, and the eggs, and just as we got to the desert on the other side of the mountains, the other dragon gave up, just a mile behind us.