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CrowningMoment: Dungeons And Dragons
  • This troper played a 8 or 9-ish level Druid with a serious grudge against evil. We're just sailing to our next plot hook, when we spot a ship which we identify as the Royal Armada gone rogue. We're talking HUGE ship, around 5 or 6 times larger than our own hired ship. So the group cleric sets their sails on fire, while I dive into the water, Wild Shape myself into a damned DOLPHIN (unlike most other sea-dwelling animals, they can produce sounds, therefore able to complete the vocal component of spells while shaped), dive under their ship and use Crumble (6th level Druid spell used to cause massive damage to constructs) to make a HUGE hole in their ship which starts sinking. We soon lose them, I dive out of the water, transform back into a human in mid-jump and, being the goody-two-shoes... Persuade the captain of our hired ship to go back and help any survivors to the nearest port. (he was reluctant at first, but an "If I did that to the Royal Armada, imagine what I'm going to do to your ship if you do not save them." set him straight)
  • On the Wizards.com D&D boards, Raz the Rogue mage (played by Rickel) is generally considered purified awesome. He got so popular that Rickel wrote an original story starring Raz here
  • I don't know how well this compares to other CMoA, but I played a monk, and when our party was confronted by an iron golem, he ran up to the golem, and tripped him. I didn't have Improved Trip or anything, I just tripped this huge thing made of freaking iron.
  • This troper once played a single-classed Fighter who had a feat that gave him a free attack whenever he was hit with a critical. A shadow dragon on it's last legs proceeded to critical the fighter to negative HP, and with my last attack, I rolled a natural 20. Not a single player would refer to me killing the dragon by any other means than hitting it in the nuts. The fighter's name? "Lord Kittensquisher", due to the DM's fondness for cat-like enemies, and unfortunate tendency to walk them into melee range. This troper took down a displacer beast Packlord with one round of hits. Ah, good times.
  • This editor DMed a session of D&D which ended with a Viking taking a running leap off a ship onto a Giant Enemy Crab and bring his axe down on its face with all his strength. In response, the crab calmly reached up and chopped the Viking in half... along with its own head.
  • This editor ran a D&D game where the players fought a group of neogi (spider-people) and one ran for their ornithopter to escape. It lifted off... and one of the players caught a hold of the landing leg. Beat the hell out of the door with his adamantine mace. Climbed in and used a spell to reveal the invisible neogi. Followed it back out, catching hold of the landing leg again when it climbed under the ship. And followed it back up, this time onto the ship's roof. Meanwhile, the ship is getting pummeled with psychic powers, and starts going down. The neogi runs off the back of the ship, jumps with a spell just before it crashes, and begins running. The player survives, draws his back-up weapon, a sword, and uses a spell to fling it across thirty feet, nailing the neogi for its last hit points. And he was a bard.
  • This troper fondly remembers an impromptu D&D campaign he got involved with, where his first task was to take out not one but two cyclopes. He did, just barely, in no small part to flicking green sparks into their eyes to blind them.
  • This troper was once playing a game of D&D as my signature Half-Elf rogue/bard, Tobac, and was running away from a balor, along with my band of NPC rogues and 2 lower level PC companions. My friend, who played Davror, my high level Half-Orc half brother who had been killed, was, through months of pestering of the DM, just brought back as an even higher level angel. He was my guardian angel, and if I were to die, he would be banished from the material plane. He was rushing to our location to save me, and had just a few turns to go. The balor caught up with us when we were trapped on a cliff, and killed most of the NP Cs. The gnome druid, Ted, tried to cast a few of the spells he liked to brag about, but failed miserably. The balor was heading straight for me at this point, and would've easily killed me, but the other PC, a human barbarian named Kylor the Harlander, pushed my 126 lb frame out of the way, and charged at the balor (He happened to have 8 intelligence, and 7 wisdom). He actually managed to last a couple of turns through sheer luck, until he was thrown over the edge. I could see Davror speeding towards us in the distance, just as the balor was walking over to me. I threw Ted at him. His player, Myles, found this hilarious. He held on to the balor's head, and bit him in the face. He was also thrown off the edge. Davror finally arrived, and got a critical hit right away. After a couple of rounds, Davror held the balor over the cliff by the neck, and gutted him. Tobac kissed his Coin of Tymora, and went off to recruit more NP Cs, with a new, crazy powerful guardian not far behind.
  • This troper was DMing a D&D game several years back. The party came upon a Lich's tomb. The lich turned himself invisible. The Paladin charged and grappled the invisible Lich and used Lay On Hands. The Paladin took an insane amount of damage from Energy Drain but stayed alive long enough for the rest of the party to beat the Lich to smithereens.
  • This troper had his own Crowning Moment of Awesome from doing very little himself. It was my first real game of Dn D, and the GM knew this. Deciding to mess with the group, he created a Half-Orc Barbarian that was five levels higher then any of us. Obviously, it could have killed us all in one fell swoop. However, the DM managed to roll a 1 on his attack, causing the Half-Orc to attempt to leap over a treasure chest at us, but getting his pants stuck on the lock, stripping him down to nothing as he slid face first across the floor towards us. Making an attack of oppertunity, I rolled to attack. Natural 20; his head blew up like a melon, and what was left was impaled on the tip of my sword.
  • In a Heroes Unlimited game, this troper experienced his own Crowning Moment when his low-leveled Colossus "homage" succeeded where his far stronger allies had failed by simply taking on the supervillain in hand-to-hand combat - the supervillain could turn himself to stone and became resistant to a huge number of attacks...just not being pulverized by a giant metal man with super-strength.
  • It's beyond this troper how this entire site's been able to go on for such a long time without a mention of Tucker's Kobolds. Because I think that a bunch of pretty much the weakest monsters in the game, yet cunning and vicious enough to beat some quite high-level characters and drive them into an extremely humiliating defeat and escape, is quite worth mentioning.
  • This troper has two examples. The first was his own Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
    DM: There' a large pool in the center of the room. The water is clouded and dirty. Looks like an old bath house.
    Krieg: 20 Gold says there's a monster in the pool.
    PC Dwarf: Deal.
    Krieg: I cast Shocking Grasp, and touch the water.
    DM: *dirty look*
    • The second example was the Dwarf's, a friend of mine named James who is a hell of a good actor of a drunken dwarf.
      PC Dwarf (James): *drunken raving*
      Krieg: I cast prestidigitation and turn the Dwarf's armor pink.
      DM: James, your armor is now pink.
      James: You turned my armor green!!! ...Green is a good color!
  • In the final battle of a D&D campaign this troper was in, his character (a sorcerer with a magic glove loaded with a rod of disintegration) had the misfortune of being resurrected as an undead under the Big Bad's command. Paladin, on the turn after the character is reanimated, readies an action. Thinking nothing of it, the reanimated sorcerer casts disintegrate on him only to have him pull a Yugi and activate his "trap card" - a buckler of reflecting which even the DM forgot he had. Of course, that entire battle could probably qualify for this. Other events in said battle included a vampire dervish getting pounded to dust by the Hammer of Thunderbolts, the group bard killing the Big Bad with a single arrow, and the Big Bad snapping a Staff of the Magi in his dying breath to release a retributive strike. Only the paladin and the bard survived out of a six member party.
  • This Troper had a half-elf ranger who, through variants and ability switching, had a base land speed of 60 ft. Combined with a Str of 18, his total Jump modifier was +40. So, because I could, my character leaped 60 ft horizontally from one tower to another. Anything less than 20 was failure. Leap of faith, indeed.
  • D&D. Twenty-three cultists. My gnome sorcerer. One fireball. Damage roll, and...twenty-three dead cultists. How many people can say they're made their own jaw drop?
  • This Troper was once part of a just-beginning, low-level D&D group fighting against a small army of mooks. He was the cleric, and a fellow player was taking the part of a slightly-deranged barbarian who believed his ferret, Sir Denis, was a god. We ask the DM to let the ferret fight, since the odds are so stacked against us and every HP of damage will help. Amused, he agrees, but only as long as he himself gets to roll for him. Sir Denis's turn comes up, the DM rolls...natural 20. After a moment of tablewide silence, the DM bursts into laughter, and says Sir Denis burrows through an enemy's eye directly into his brain, killing him instantly.
    • Another example from the second campaign, which took place 100 years after the one described above, and also animal related. Another player had a monkey, and during combat, the monkey would usually hide in his backpack. This eventually changed when we found a chest of holding; whatever the chest of holding rules were, the DM (same guy as before) was cool enough to bend them so the monkey could survive in there for extended periods. He ended up spending so long in there that his desires influenced the chest, turning its interior into a sandy demiplane of coconut trees. Well, after we killed the Big Bad of the campaign, we're running to escape his collapsing underground temple. We make it to the top floor but realize we don't have enough time to reach the exit before we're crushed. We all climb into the chest and live on coconuts for several days until the inhabitants of the nearby village find us in the ruins.
  • This Troper runs a Deadlands: The Weird West campaign, and things have been... different... for quite some time in this campaign. It's not because the heroes are incredibly powerful; they are, but that's not the point. The thing is, they keep making insane rolls, in the area of the fifties/sixties... for absolutely mundane things. One of the players rolled a fifty-four while involved in a mild conversation with a mayor about the virtues of law. The man turned right around and became psychotic law fanatics who run around the Weird West instilling law and order in violent ways.
  • In a 3.5 Edition this troper was running, the party was facing off vs a large number of Mariliths. The Frenzied Berserker proceeded to charge them in order to deal craploads of damage. I smiled and announced that the Marilths activate their Blade Barrier Spell-Like-Abilities. The FB charged through about 5 rings worth of Blade Barriers, knocking him down to -212 HP. The kicker? FB's have an ability that allows them to survive any damage below 0 and still be around and kicking. I realized my carefully plotted trap just backfired. The FB massacred most of the Mariliths in the ensuing rounds. And it was AWESOME.
    • If your group had a rules lawyer, he would have pointed out that at -10 or below, you're dead dead. the ability in question operates from 0 through to -9, otherwise that class would be literally impossible to kill.
      • your forgetting the number one rule of D&D D Ming. DM's word is LAW so if the DM says he keeps going, he keeps going.
      • Actually I think you will find that the FB's ability makes him COMPLETELY unkillable. he can go down as far as he wants into Negative HP, but it is only temporary. If the Bezerker is wounded sufficiently to kill him when it wears off, he will die.
      • Complete Warrior: Page 35 - Deathless Frenzy (Ex): At 4th level and higher, a Frenzied Berserker can scorn death and unconsciousness while in a Frenzy. As long as her Frenzy continues, she is not treated as disabled at 0 hit points, nor is she treated as dying at –1 to –9 hit points. Even if reduced to –10 hit points or less, she continues to fight normally until her frenzy ends. At that point, the effects of her wounds apply normally if they have not been healed.
      • Fun fact: If anyone cast Disintegrate on the guy, he'd actually be screwed anyway, since anyone reduced to 0 HP or less by Disintegrate is reduced to a pile of dust, rather than dying by virtue of HP damage. Too bad Mariliths don't know that spell.
      • This reminds This Troper of a Epic Level Tournament a friend held within a club at college. One of my other friends, a guy in our normal campaign, joined as an Epic-Level Frenzied Berserker, or simply had the Deathless Frenzy ability. Anyway, when his battle came up, he immediately launched into his Deathless Frenzy. Mind you, his starting HP is something like 100 or 200-ish. He gets to the other player and starts attacking. His opponent hits him for about 80 HP damage with each hit, becomes incorporeal, and disappears into the wall, attacking moments later. My buddy the Berserker keeps attacking the incorporeal opponent, even as his HP was descending into the -800s. The opponent finally fell after a dozen rounds of opposing grapple checks. The Berserker's ending HP was somewhere around -1500.
  • This troper's D&D campaigns tend to be chock-full of Crowning Moments of Awesome, since he DMs with the Rule Of Cool in the place of Rule Zero. However, his Crowning as a player came when his level 6 evil druid, against the rest of the party - remember, evil campaign - went to rescue a teammate from a local mob because "he may be an utter idiot" (it should be noted that said druid had threatened said teammate with drowning, tentacle-rape by means of spined briars, or convincing a god to erase him from existence, among others, for his utter idiocy) "but he is part of my pack". He then proceeded to use scrolls of Control Weather and his own ability to call lightning to start making their main hideout explode while on his way, calmly gut the two guards at the door, and go straight for the boss room without even breaking pace to eviscerate the mooks coming at him. Then, when the boss in question, surrounded by about 30 mooks, offered him a job due to his demonstrated lethality, he just replied "You may be a Queen, but you're still but an ant trying to speak to a wolf", Quillblasted the bastard in the face, activated his magical staff, and as all the mooks charged, he just smiled and said "Bring it on, little ants". There were no survivors. Then the druid, with just 2 HP left, went to the dungeon, killed the guard in there, freed his companion, exited the place, and used Control Winds localized on the building general area to cause a tornado with enough force to make it so that "not even memory of the anthill remains". The City watch didn't even have the guts to try to arrest my character despite his wounded status while we got back to the inn.
  • In a particular D&D game, my second character was a human wizard (who initially joined the party after being extracted from a gnomish insane asylum) He piloted the gnomish submersible we stole to get out of town during a dwarf siege next.(it was a nutty campaign) The CMOA happened sometime later as we hunted down a pack of vampires. The party was attacked by a pair of homebrewed flying stone monsters and we got off to an awful start as our normally decent teamwork was undone horribly by the fight being ruled as being all difficult terrain, limiting our mobility immensely. We'd mostly concentrated on one of them to start, then the other one landed next to the cleric, tripping and stunning her. With an(in character and IRL) yell of "Step AWAY from the healer!" I hit the as-yet-untouched stone beastie with a Scorching Ray(for those who don't play D&D 3.5, a fairly mundane single target damage spell)... and proceed to roll a legitimate, almost-max damage critical hit, doing a little over 100 damage and obliterating the stone monster. It can also be considered a subversion, as about three rounds later, the other one tore my poor, squishie wizard to shreds with a pair of critical claw attacks. Then died the next round to an arrow that did one point of damage.
  • This editor ran a low level Dn D game that was significantly less serious than most on this page, so CMOAs were understandably less frequent. The party was investigating a rebellion located in a prison. All involved were second level. The party's Bard, who had spent most play sessions up to that point being rather useless, stunned all at the table by donning a suit made of Bugbear skin, rolling a natural 20 on his bluff check, and convincing a room full of angry, bloodthirsty fighters, clerics, rouges, and wizards that he was the King of Bugbearia, causing them to drop their weapons and swear undying loyalty to their new majesty. It should be noted that this new entourage was literally the only thing that saved the party when a large battalion of orcs showed up. It should also be noted that the bard in question now refuses to take the Bugbear suit off, even when going into town. He has yet to be called on the fact that he is a nymph in a bugbear suit.
    • On a later date, this same party found themselves being attacked by an Arrowhawk, a pesky flying monster that could attack from a distance. The party had virtually no way to hit the thing, at least not for anything more than superficial damage. When things started looking grim, the party's cleric, who had been sleeping in the middle of the battle up until then, woke up, climbed a nearby building, jumped on top of the Arrowhawk, cast Inflict Light Wounds, killed it, and rode its corpse down to the ground to avoid falling damage. He gracefully dismounted in front of the stunned party and prompty went back to sleep.
  • Alright, so, in this one Dn D game, the villain successfully merged himself into a dormant elder god and was quickly awakening to eat the world. We where fighting it off, but it came down to two characters. A misanthropic ex-solider priest and a (more than a little insane) dragon man. The two of us poured every single thing we had into one shot and charged straight at him. We hit him so hard he EXPLODED.
    • Other choice moments:
      • Previously, that same villain had his eye shot out by the Rogue....with an exploding arrow. That same bow also severed his left arm. He's really starting to hate that bloody bow.
      • In the very first session, the group was trying to sneak into a factory. This was a bit hard since the party included said big, crazy dragon man, Cyprus. Now, our clever little bard spun a quick spiel about him being the group's slave. Now, as Cyprus was once enslaved as a sideshow freak, he didn't take this well. He quickly interrupted the bard and made his point clear with a headbutt and one line "Don't ever call me a slave again."
      • The same dragon man also killed a demonic dryad like creature by crushing them with their own sacred tree.
      • The party's mage slew a Beholder going on a genocidal rampage in a farming village by levitating the remains of a building a steeple and skewering it through the eye with it.
      • The party Paladin did enough NON-LETHAL damage to not only knock out an archnemesis black guard in one hit, but also permanently disfigure their face
      • Dabbling a bit into the horror genre the DM accidenlty went too far and created a scenario that caused both a player and his character to BSOD. Hint, Necormancer+child's cemetery=crossing the line.
      • The party cleric slew his own evil mirror universe doppleganger after a battle of wills due to fearful symmetry death touch.
      • ... Too bad This troper's Dual-wielding angry grey dwarf spent most of his time drunk, sleeping in Cyprus' backpack(Due to my busy schedule keeping me from attending games), or impersonating an old woman, much to his displeasure. He had his moments too! He helped the make that first Big Bad blow into tiny bits! Also his mirror double was an unstoppable zombie. I think he retired in the Mirror-verse due to this troper's busy schedule at the time.
  • The sequel to this game has had more than a few...
  • This troper recently played a Dn D campaign where his barbarian began to talk in stereotypical barbarian-speak because this troper had frankly ran out of clever things to say. When he was mocked for this, this troper simply said "Screw y'all", and the character began to talk in power metal lyrics. Nothing ruins a lich's day quite like having Kelgor Thundershield shout "Face me evil bastards! Smell the hate of angels! Glory, pride, and bloodshed! Cowards and beholders! Rapers of my wisdom! Pile of dust and bones!" in a very fake Swedish accent (bork bork bork) into his undead ear.
  • This troper once killed a bugbear with a cloak of many things.
  • At the end of This Troper's first semester of college, a bunch of friends and I decided to pull an allnighter and play through the original Tomb Of Horrors... using the Paranoia system to both simplify thigns and make things a bit more over the top. And so the group could have 5 clones a pop to actually survive the entire thing. The group encountered the Lich at the end, and This Troper, having just read through all of Transmetropolitan, decided to grab a nearby chair leg, yell out "Listen to the the Chairleg of Truth! It does not lie! It is wise and terrible!" and strike the Lich with it. GM said to roll it, I rolled a 1. Note, however, that this is a Critical Success in Paranoia, to which was quipped "See? The dice listen to the chairleg of truth." Between the awesome of the scene and the 1, the GM decided to have the Lich be destroyed by the Holy Power of the Chairleg of Truth.
  • The finale of the D&D 3.5 Living Greyhawk campaign, where you can, if you succeed, finally take down Iuz. Especially considering this troper was playing at APL 12, and the final encounter was EL 20
  • This troper, playing with his Wizard with an STR of 7 that got jailed, proceeded to bend the bars with a natural 20, take a 20 to break down the door, and TALK the warden into letting him go.
    • Also mine, playing Mage: The Ascension. My Daughter of the Aether had two Nephandi women wanting her head in an anime convention full of people, and lots of Technocrats wanting the same, also there. She thought she would be safe with the great amounts of people around, that is until another character's Virtual Adept lackey botched a magick roll he had made without a focus and put every Sleeper there to... sleep. Cue both the Technocrats and the Nephandi walking towards her. My response? "I'm rolling my Manipulation 3 to tell the Technocrats that the Nephandis are the ones responsible for the problems I created.". 0, 0, 9, and the Technocrats took the Nephandi in while my character went home to sleep the stress off.
      • And a third one, in D&D. My party was thinking about whether or not to ambush a tribe of Goblins their (evil) employer wanted killed. After the monk tried to argue "But they aren't being hostile!", my character went on to fire a bolt on a goblin, killing him and, obviously, starting the fight. His line right after he did so: "Now they are."
  • This troper DMed a game of D&D last weekend that had a CMOA for each player. The ninja got his in the first round of the first combat, getting a critical hit and sudden strike on a bandit, instantly killing him... with a shuriken. The druid used an entangle spell to lock down four zombies, making them all but helpless. But the paladin got the best one. While the ninja and druid were climbing out of a pit trap, the paladin was climbing a cable to reach the kobolds who had ambushed the party. After reaching the top, having barely survived a total of 18 crossbows fired at him, he leapt onto the ledge, and rolled a natural twenty on his intimidate check. I ruled that not only did the kobolds immediately surrender, but that they also needed new underwear.
  • This Troper's Dn D CMOA came in the form of rolling a natural 1 one a spot check (thus not notice the arrival of threats), then a natural 20 on initiative (thus getting a surprise round), then, to end the fight against two vampire-monks and a vampire-sorcerer, after killing both vampire monks in one turn, on his next turn, ran up a tree to the branch the vampire sorc was on (30 feet up), sliced the vampire sorcerer in half. Then he landed on the ground, his sheer awesomeness from getting another natural 20 (on a Badass check) causing the ground to ripple and the tree to explode. (Edit of the DM: As DM, I found this to be the most impressive combo of rolls ever, simply because I thought he was screwed with the 1)
  • At least three in a level 7 3.5 game. For the first this troper's party was accompanied by a level 1 Bard NPC named Rick. When a fight broke out, the party monk insisted Rick contribute to the fight, and wasted a round handing him a repeating crossbow. Being an idiot, he neglected to supply him with any bolts. Rick looked at the strange device (with which he wasn't proficient), shrugged, and threw it at the nearest enemy. Natural 20, and we were using special uber-crit charts. So, the crossbow smashes the poor thug in the genitals, crippling them, and reducing him to a twitching, drooling mess on the floor. The fight stopped for a round, as everyone gasped, shivered and crossed themselves.
    • In the same encounter, this troper's character (a Heroic Sociopath with a BFS) decided the party was taking too long, and ran ahead to solo the next two encounters. After the five of them finally finished off the three guards, the party followed up the tower past seven dead guards and five vicious attack dogs cowed and whimpering in the corner while I enjoyed a brisk drink on the opposite stairs.
      • A few encounters later, while fleeing from the entire royal army through an escape tunnel, the party came upon a bedraggled hobo commanding a small army of rats and bats (air rats). After quickly slaying him and looting his corpse, we received a bag of holding, which the DM offhandedly mentioned was full of dead vermin, for comedic effect. Full, we ask? To the brim, she responds. Doing the math, we realized the bag contained several dozen cubic feet of rat-matter, and by turning it inside-out, instantly created a wall of dead rat several feet thick between us and our pursuers, effectively ending the chase. DM headdesks.
  • This troper had a memorable example in Dn D a while back. We were playing with a house rule-if you are rolling to confirm a critical hit, and roll a natural twenty on the confirm, you are allowed to roll again to increase your critical damage die by another factor (i.e. x2 damage to x3, x3 to x4). During the start of a new adventure, the party was enjoying a nice banquet in their honor for decapitating a tribe of orcs and stopping their attacks on the town. Cue the arrival of a homebrew critter (not quite a Hopeless Boss Fight, but close enough) looking for revenge. This troper's character, a goliath psionic warrior, decided to throw the party's elf wizard as an improvised weapon. Damage roll was 4, but he threatened to critical. Rolled to confirm, and got another 20. Then another. Ended up doing x8 damage with the thrown elf-and the rest of the party pitched in and took down the creature in short order.
  • This troper has a friend who was part of what might be considered a kind of opposite to the example directly above: the party was attacked by skeleton warriors while they were travelling down a road in the middle of the night. They were completely surrounded and the party wizard (the friend in question) had run out of spells earlier and did not have the opportunity to regain them. The party barbarian was dealing out damage left and right with a two-handed warhammer and the other party memebers helped but it was pretty obvious they were in the danger of being swarmed. The party wizard was riding in an open carriage, surrounded by pots and pans and similar items, so he decided to fight back the only way he could at the moment. Yes, he threw pots at the undead. This would be a crowning moment of funny had he not scored a natural 20 on his third throw and blew the skeleton's head clean off. At this point the barbarian was lying a few feet away, unconscious and bleeding so the wizard decided to make a hail Mary pass: he grabbed the warhammer and started swinging wildly. The DM rolled percentage after his every attack to see how much and in which direction would the inertia from the attack pull the wizard but the point is this: the wizard kept scoring hits and even a few criticals. And the cherry on top? After the fight was done, he was THE ONLY ONE LEFT STANDING AND UNINJURED.
  • This troper is not an avid D&D player, however he did have a moment where his character leaped fifteen feet into the air and then landed, embedding his dagger into a bugbear's skull, and then hung there for the next round, where he proceed to twist it further in. The fact that he was playing as what was essentially a midget pirate only aided in the amusement.
  • Also D&D, in my first campaign, I played an "undead warforged human", basically a suit of armor animated by the power of my restless spirit. Naturally, I'm hollow inside, though most people just think I'm a human who prefers to keep my armor on. During the prologue to my campaign, I spend some time breaking out of a manor, and wind up walking away with a large rug shoved down my leg. In the first session of the campaign, we have to plug a hole in the side of a boat, which we use that rug for. After a massive success, we vote that I'm keeping that damned rug with me because it's so awesome. Shortly afterwards, our party is joined by a gnomish rogue, and a miniature/chibi illithid psion. We realize that the illithid can sit in my skull and fire powers through the helm, but the gnome is going to have some issues. On the other hand, since we're going to persuade a blacksmith to install some shelving in my torso anyway, why not get a gnome-launching springboard installed as well? Since the illithid would take up the head and most of the torso, the gnome would have to sit...lower down. Ladies and gentlemen, your campaign is not officially cool until one of the P Cs can launch a gnome from his codpiece.
    • If you ask me, the only thing that could make it better is if one of your nakama was a mage with Edward Elric's stature and temper.
  • In an old 3.5 D&D campaign, the DM had a habit of creating odd Elemental Planes and throwing their contents at us. Eventually, we were attacked by a Wheat Elemental. That's right, a being made entirely of wheat. We laughed, until it nearly killed us all. To make sure we never ran into one again we opened a portal to the Elemental Plane of Wheat (an infinite space, again, made of wheat) and LIT THE ENTIRE PLANE OF EXISTENCE ON FIRE.
    * Toasted wheat, anyone?
    ** Pity it wasn't corn. Then you'd have an entire plane full of popcorn!
  • This Troper once had a high-level (16 or so) druid. Fun, of course, but in the run-up to our confrontation with the campaign's Big Bad, we were called upon to break a siege, in which we would have to fight an invasion force of goblinoids OVER A MILLION STRONG. Being a quite pillage-happy party, we had acquired over the course of our game numerous magical items- including about forty necklaces of fireball and a helm of brilliance. Fun enough on their own. Being a druid, I was fond of wild shaping, and had purchased a wilding clasp, which lets you retain your equipment in wild shape. My druid, upon hearing the task before the party, had only this to say: "Fetch me a catapult, and aim deep." I strapped on all forty necklaces of fireball, donned the helm of brilliance, and attached my wilding clasp- then had myself launched right into the middle of the goblinoid hordes. Quoth the DM: "So... you're in single-digit HP, stranded in the middle of millions of enemies, and you have probably one action left before they take it in turns to sodomize you with halberds. Any last words?" My response: "Wild Shape. Fire Elemental." Anyone who knows 3.5 can guess exactly how it went down, but for the rest of you, I'll spell it out: 200 Fireballs, 50 Prismatic Sprays, 100 Walls of Fire. This is the high-fantasy equivalent of A NUCLEAR STRIKE- and being made of fire, I was *immune* to all the damage I threw. It's well and truly gratifying to have a seasoned DM- and then make his jaw hit the table. To top it all off, that single shot caused the remnants of the million-strong siege army to *scatter like roaches.*
    • A similar incident at level five lead to This Troper having the catchphrase "Scrubbing bubble!". Because of the similarity to Trinity.
  • This Troper has seen an example that also qualifies for a Magnificent Bastard award; after painstakingly deducing where a rival PC's home base was located, the Epic level Wizard PC teleported into the middle of the fortified encampment and immediately cast Time Stop. He then cast a full day's spell roster of fireballs, sunbursts and a couple of prismatic sprays for kicks, then teleported back to his own base before the timestop ends. He then sat back in his big comfy chair with a glass of wine and used a large mirror of Scrying to watch the mushroom cloud.
  • Okay, I've seen a few of these. One of them was when a player was a Half-Orc Barbarian, and he was up against an army of 20 goblins, and was only about Level 1. So he was in trouble. The party diplomat tried to solve things, by appeasing the 20 goblins that were pointing arrows directly at them. Problem: Aggressive negotiation against people with a prepared action. 20 goblins fired. 10 on diplomat, 10 on barbarian. The diplomat is reduced to zero instantly. The barbarian? Is still standing. He then charges at the lead goblin, smashes him with a natural 20, and then rolls an uber-success on an intimidate check. End Result? Goblins decide he's the new boss. Well, okay, as soon as he kills the Big Bad, alias the 'old boss'.
    • Also, in a skill challenge in 4th edition, the party managed to successfully create a ritual to seal away a primordial. This involved putting together ALL the information. End result: "I just called upon the power of the Feywild using my elven blood, empowering a ritual to use Melora's abilities to reverse a summon, dispelling instead of unsealing a primordial, with the help of a pyromaniac gensai and a warlock of Asmodeus. I'm going to sleep now."
    • This troper, who was the pyromaniac genasi in question, still holds that we should've just set the damn thing on fire.
  • Then there is Tas. A Twi'lek, in the first module, he managed, through sheer incredible bluff rolls, to convince a group of stormtroopers that he, an ALIEN, was sent by an IMPERIAL INQUISTOR, and was their boss. Then, upon this inquisitor ACTUALLY ARRIVING, he managed to flee, with the hostages the Inquisitor was going to torture, and detonate a bomb IN THE INQUISITOR'S FACE. He then, to top it all off, successfully got himself elected third in command of a crime syndicate. Problem is...The second in command of said crime syndicate was a spy for the imperial inquisitor.
    • That's when the rest of the party...First, Jedi 1 used Mind Trick to turn the gammorean guards against the ruler. Command? "He stole your food! Get him!" Then, Jedi 2 ran up to point-blank range and unleased a Force Slam, knocking the last two loyal guards back and PWNing the second in command's HP. Second in Command attacked Jedi 2, rolling a critical on force grip. Jedi 2 is choking to death. Then, a droid who think he's a Jedi decided to TOSS HIS LIGHTSABER AS A SPEAR...natural 20 on attack roll. Since evil second in command was lying down...There's now a corpse cleanly split in half.
    • Meanwhile, Tas then leveraged his previous connections into entering a casino, along with two other P Cs. HOWEVER, Tas lost in the first round. The other two P Cs made it into the final. However, being that one of the 'finale' P Cs was absent in the last round, Tas, as an ally, was allowed to substitue. Both P Cs made natural 20s, as Tas won by a single point. All the enemies rolled nil. Tas now wins 500,000+ credits.
    • Next, the P Cs face a crimelord, and beat him in ONE ROUND thanks to a critical hit on Force Slam. Jedi 2, as the crimelord moves to surrender, decides to be a bit evil and shoots the crimelord and knocks him to zero. Jedi 1 from above doesn't like that, and casts Vital Transfer. Risking her own life to save the bad guy, and brings him up to positive. Barely survives.
    • Imperial forces, angry try to have a ship full of slaves crash into a gas hauler. One of the heroes, named Jaden, decides to hell with that, and hijacks the gas hauler, (Outrunning a squad of 8 tie fighters, taking incredible damage to his ship), and then CRASHES THE GAS HAULER INTO THE STAR DESTROYER! And he lives, too! (Through a well-positioned escape fighter.) And that's not counting how they have intimidated quite a few enemies into giving up, including intimidating a squad of stormtroopers into GIVING UP guarding an Imperial Baron, instead simply executing said baron with the kill code. Jaden then took the Baron's two slaves, hacked into the baron's accounts, and gave the slaves all the baron's money.
  • In a DND game, the heroes managed to surround Irontooth from Keep on Shadowfell, and blind him, stun him, and stab him to death. Then Irontooth revealed that worshipping Orcus means you can become an undead. Right then. Irontooth attacked the rouge who killed him, managed to reduce this minotaur to near True Death Negative Hp. exactly. Minotuar rogue then pointed out that he gets one last attack...but so does Irontooth, an attack that had damage prerolled, to "True Death". Minotaur rolls the attack, kills Irontooth first. So, basically, he killed the guy who KOed him, SECONDS before the guy who KOed him could coup-de-grace.
    • This minotaur then managed to infiltrate a Cult of Shar, as he is Chaotic Neutral, borderline evil, and a TRAINED ASSASSIN. Said cult recruits him, and even forces him to perform the ritualistic sacrifice of an innocent. They offer him immortality and NOT as an undead, along with a ridiculous sum of gold and custom magic items. All he has to do is kill a PC. His response? Through sheer diplomacy manage to convince them AND THE GM that he is going to do it, go to the PC he was hired to kill, explain the situation, go back to the cult, and beat them down. Oh, and he managed to do this WITHOUT swearing a magically binding vow to Shar. (Other PC who swore said vow...went blind and died during the cure disease.) His sheer honesty and wordplay made the HIGH PRIEST impressed, (it used elements of the High Priest's sermon)and sure he would join. (Without a roll, it was good RP.) End result: Cult went poof.
    • Oh, as for the PC he was hired to kill? That PC was a half-dragon fighter. Loosely worshipped Bahamut. Against a white dragon, he fought said dragon by STRANGLING IT TO DEATH WITH HIS FLAIL'S CHAIN! Dragon casts Aura of Fear, which will stun anyone who it hits. I roll to hit on entire party, only half-dragon's roll is left. Everyone in the party: "Roll a 1, it'll be dramatic!" "Aw, come on, roll a 1. Roll a 1." I smile, roll it in full view as a joke...IT ROLLS A ONE! My RP? BAHAMUT HIMSELF, BY DIVINE MIRACLE, SHIELDS PC WITH HIS WINGS! (Character ends up multi-classing to paladin based on this incident.)
    • As for the cult? On the way to the cult, one PC, mage, rolls a series of 30+ checks, along with a natural 20 on Religion, to devise how to use a certain mirror for a ritual. Thus, said PC knows how to use light reflecting from the sun to form a beam that can close rifts to the Plane of Shadows/Shadowfell. Then they fight the cult, and cult leader mutates into a being of shadows, blinds fighters. Dragonborn fighter's response? Pulls out a sunrod, not 100% effective. Mage then pulls out the mirror, and rolls very high on invoking said ritual. Cult Leader is stunned, but claims that Shar protects him. Figher invokes prayer to Bahamut, rolls it...Natural 20. Light from sunrod becomes holy fire. Cult leader pile of ashes.
    • Also, don't forget that our P Cs managed to succeed in breaking the will of the Big Bads of TWO Adventures. Kalarel of Keep on Shadowfell, and Palamar of Thunderspire Labyrinth. Kalarel by a CLERIC OF BAHAMUT cheating in a fight, and Palamar by 12 Success skill challenge. (Involving tricking Palamar and friends to fighting amongst EACH OTHER over the possibility that the P Cs had the EYE OF VECNA!)
  • CMOA for my primary Living Greyhawk character: fighting an (invisible) assassin. "In the surprise round, the assassin casts True Strike." "I pull out my rapier and stand ready, shouting 'spellcaster!'" "The assassin stabs you in the back, doing 1d4 +6d6 damage." "Why the sneak dice? I'm not flatfooted." "He's invisible." "Yeah, but I've got blind-fight." "Hmph. Well, you've still got to save against the death attack." "No, that only kicks in if he gets his sneak dice." "*flipping of pages* Hmph. Well, you've still got to save against the poison on his blade." "OK, what's the DC?" "13" "Well, with my +11 that means I have to roll a not-one. Hey, look at that, a not-one. Oh, and now that it's my turn, disarm! You could hurt somebody with that thing!" "He steps back, grabs a potion from his belt, and drinks it. He disappears from view." "Well, since dim door doesn't fit into a potion, it must be invisibility and he's still standing there, so... I step up and grapple. *gesturing like I've got somebody in a full nelson* Aim for the hands, boys!"
  • This individual once participated in a Dark Sun campaign (run with 3.5 rules) with a character that had so many CMOAs that he almost qualifies as a Magnificent Bastard.
    • It started with first session. The character, a rogue who was basically a hired gun for one of the merchant houses (i.e. mafia), was assigned to a diplomatic mission that involved a trade contract between a foreign city and a rival house. The rogue was informed by a fellow agent of his house that the contract should obviously not be allowed to go through. He successfully altered the contract and made such a convincing forgery that the leader of the foreign city did not notice. It helped that the rest of the party consisted of an elf modeled after the fremen from Dune, a halfling druid who hated civilization, and a psion who thought it was hiliarious. For the record, the DM had been planning for the rogue to fail, setting up an ongoing plot of him breaking ties with his merchant house and having to fight off hitmen. Instead, he made himself a made man and wrapped up his whole plot in the first session.
    • Then there was a moment where there was fighting along this spiral staircase inside a tower, with the party flanked by a number of guards. The rogue was hit with a paralyzing spell, then entangled in vines by a pair of wizards. Then, as one of the wizards cast a fireball directly at the rogue, he broke the paralysis, shrugged off the vines, and ducked into an alcove, avoiding all damage. The psion himself, who was having his powers suppressed, got a CMOA by firing a crossbow bolt, missing the druid, her wolverine companion, and two guards and hitting one of the wizards in the eye, disrupting the spell he was casting. The party was eventually captured, but the rogue managed to successfully disguise everyone in the party (he multiclassed into a Spymaster) so the escape attempt involved no combat.
    • Much later in the campaign, the party struck a bargain with a dragon in order to help it with its own agenda. In exchange, each member of the party was given a dragon power. This player, for his rogue/spymaster (and who at this point had also multiclassed into Assassin) selected the black dragon power Acid Breath, then convinced the DM that since a dragon's acid breath would logically be produced by the dragon's digestive system, then this dragon power would give the rogue a semi-draconic digestive system, and so he should be able to expend his daily usage in order to bottle the acid and make a couple doses of Dragon Bile, a poison that does 3d6 points of strength damage and is arguably one of the most powerful poisons in D&D.
    • All in all, the rogue/spymaster/assassin ended up taking almost no damage throughout the entire campaign (just non-lethal damage during the aforementioned fight in the tower and some drowning damage during an unexpected flash flood). In the epilogue, it was decided by unanimous vote of the players and the DM that the character was so badass that he teamed up with the psion, usurped all power from his merchant house, and the two of them together now comprised all 7 members of the house's board of directors (psionic powers coupled with a spymaster's multiple identities).
  • This troper's first experience with D&D went like this:
    I came in on the tail end of a long-running campaign. The party members were trying to rally wildly disparate and distant elements (elves, humans, what have you) against the oncoming onslaught of a gnomish-mechanical-wizard-tyrant, hell-bent on world domination. The chips were down, the odds were high, and desperate measures had to be taken. One of our clerics asked his god for a scroll that would allow him to change into anything. The god granted this, probably not knowing exactly what was about to be unleashed. The cleric then scryed the location of the gnome's stronghold, and teleported to a point a mile above it, in mid-air, and transformed into an iron colossus. A 64-foot, 125 ton, anti-magic field possessing iron colossus. The impact was akin to an atom bomb (trust us, we did the calculations). The cleric/colossus was destroyed instantly, the gnomish stronghold was a smoking hole in the earth.
    The kicker? The gnome was holding a goddess, trapped in human form, hostage. When she died, the universe went with her. How's that for an ending, eh?
  • This troper has four CMOAs, three he actually comitted, another that he DM'd.
    • In a Forgotten Realms game, my character was playing a specialty priest of Tymora who was placed, unceremoniously, in the middle of Halaster Blackcloak's Undermountain. Well, he happened to have a mace that would turn any target to stone on a critical hit if the target failed its save. Well, we were faced off against a Elder Orb Beholder and two Death Tyrants (zombie beholders). My character's response? "I pray to Tymora to give us fortune, and I face off against the Elder Orb!" The other players thougth this an interesting suicide attempt, except that I swung, rolled a natural 20, AND the Elder Orb failed its save. Suddenly, the heaviest hitter had been taken out, thanks to Tymora!
    • Then there was the time in a D&D tourney that saw my character equipped with a Coat of Many Things that included two iron doors. The DM had set up a complicated puzzle on a door that involved positining of levers — we never did get a chance to solve it, as my charater ripped an iron door patch off of his coat and threw it on the door puzzle, letting he P Cs through easily. The DM's face turned a shade of red I never thought possible in nature...
    • The last of my own CMOAs came in Greyhawk, when my character, a good-natured Oerdian fighter in the company of Suels (After this, my character decided he hated only two things on the Oerth -- people who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Suels) who had come across some slaves of the Scarlet Brotherhood. The Suels were perfectly willing to let the Brotherhood keep their "rightful property". But Olag wasn't. He cut the chains of the Olman slaves, walked calmly over to the boat, put his foot on it as if to push it out to sea, and said "Either they come with us, or we ALL stay here." This could have ended up a Leeroy Jenkins or Lawful Stupid (even though Olag's Chaotic Good), but the incident was such a CMOA that the Suels decided "sure, why not..." Olag was the only PC to get the good will of the Olmans for that.
    • In another game that I was DMing, I'd toyed around with the idea of exploding crits, an experiment that ended with a CMOA that also ended up showing how ridiculous that could be. A ChaoticStupid PC had taken the skull of one of the major baddies, and kept it on his person. Hanging from a chain around his neck. Little did he know that I'd written into the baddie that as he regenerated, he could posess others. Well, he possessed the PC, and he starte to atack the other characters. One of them decided to cold-cock him with the butt of her spear. I said "roll to hit," and her player got a natural 20. I said "roll to confirm." Another 20. "Roll to confirm that one." Another natural 20, and so on, until a total of 7 natural 20s had been rolled. At that time, I said "stop— you've done enough damage to put him out cold just there!"
  • This Troper DMed a game where the party Paladin fought Tiamat (The Five Headed Goddess of Evil Dragons) and took out 3 of her heads before finally biting the dust. The kicker: He was naked the whole fight (With the exception of his sword).
    • Added Note: His monologue was badass as well.
    "I know what you're thinking; 'He's insane, he's charging at me with a sword and no armor!'. Well no, it's not insanity, it's faith. I believe that with the strength of Bahamut to guide me, and this sword, I can defeat you. I believe that even if I fail here, my death will have a purpose. You won't win; even if you kill me another will come, and one day this sword will be rammed down your throat!"
  • This Troper got a CMOA that is somewhat less awesome than the one above me, but still counts. Having been trapped into a session of "Hunt the party" on an island against a band of evil druids, my character, a 6th level Raptoran ranger (meaning I had wings), had left his equipment on the boat, so I was running without armor and using borrowed equipment. After generally running away for a time and having a small skirmish with the druids, our party was walking down a ravine, heading for where our ship was being held. A lone enemy druid collapsed part of the wall down on us. As the rest of the party scrambled to get out of the way, I jumped up, flew out of the ravine, and started chasing the druid as he ran. Taking aim with my crossbow, I nailed him with a critical hit and landed in front of him, pulling out my sword. He then transformed into a Bear. Unfazed, I called in my dire hawk of an animal companion and, flanking, we proceeded to eviscerate the bear with a series of incredible rolls coupled with the bear's inability to hit me (despite my lack of armor). I killed it without taking any damage at all.
    • Oh, and to top it off? As I began, the Halo theme kicked in.
    • A friend of mine just had another one. We're playing a Dark Sun arena fight, basically an excuse for some hack-and-slash action. On a whim, the DM puts us up against a T. Rex. Its first action is to chew on my friend's harpoon fighter. As we are beating it up outside while it's chewing, it proceeds to swallow him. Inside the thing's stomach, he proceeds to pull out a pair of kukris, do enough damage to carve open a hole and drop out, which put him in position to flank with our party's monk. He then proceeded to Power Attack, roll full damage, and kill the thing, all the while still dripping in acid with a savage look on his face. Awesome.
  • This troper DM'd a game for a party of three — a rogue, a sorcerer and an (orc) cleric (of Gruumsh). They were attacked by some strange tunneling spider (a homebrew creature I put together just to annoy them) in a cavern (with holes in the floor) located ~50ft above a river. After a few rounds, the cleric was dangling from a rope through a hole in the floor (the rope having been tied to something secure by the rogue), and the sorcerer was frantically hanging on to the rope as the spider tried to pull him down by the legs. Then, the rogue tied another rope TO ONE OF THE SPIDER'S LEGS and tied the other end to a load of rocks (rolling an 18 and a 19 for her Use Rope checks) and the cleric enlarged himself, GRABBED THE SPIDER and LET GO. I worked it out. Enlarged, he weighed almost exactly a ton (x8 weight). The spider was unceremoniously jerked from its perch and came tumbling down. Between the cleric and the spider, they weighed almost 2 tons. The knot didn't break. The rope didn't break. The spider's leg did. Specifically, half of it was ripped off as the rope caught. The cleric then screamed "CANNONBALL" as he fell into the water (taking a bunch of non-lethal damage) and the spider fell on top of him (inflicting a bunch more damage to both of them). The spider died. The cleric (somehow) didn't. WOW!
  • This troper was accidentally playing an over-powered character due to a miscalculation resulting in a character with EL 17 instead of a character with EL 10. After admitting his mistake a few sessions after the character was introduced, he made a new character. The new character was sorta retconned into the campaign, and all was well. An hour into the session, we were on an island, being attacked by invisible mushroom things. Total invisibility works out to a 50% chance of missing in D&D 3.5 (assuming you know where they are in the first place). This troper calmly summoned his razor boar animal companion. Razor boars have the ability scent, which eliminates concealment penalties.
  • This Troper managed THREE separate C Mo A in his first 4E campaign. The first was a group of marauding Kobolds attacking the Troper and his party, with the Tropers Paladin up front, of course. In a joke moment that the GM used to remind us that, while fun, we had to have a "game face", I jokingly said I yelled "I AM GOING TO EAT THE NEXT KOBOLD THAT HITS ME!" The GM took it seriously and rolled an Intimidation check. All but two of the Kobolds began fleeing in terror that I would actually eat them.
    • The SECOND C Mo A came in the actual location of our campaign, an abandoned keep filled with mysterious acidic ooze. Another and of Kobolds attack, this time with me rolling a Grapple check and succeeding wonderfully, and then a "Shift"/Throw check to chuck a Kobold into the acidic slime, killing it almost instantly. A later attempt at this discovered just sticky ooze but no acid, so not nearly as awesome.
    • The third and final C Mo A was at the end of this all. A White dragon whelp was commanding Drakes and Kobolds (4E Kobolds are very reptilian) to attack the nearby Abbey. After failing to discuss it like reasonable beings, this Tropers Paladin turned to warnings of his Deity (Bahamut) being angered by the white whelps actions. The whelp, clearly unimpressed (as I failed to beat the DC for both my Diplomacy AND Religion checks) had one last option. Threatening the beast that if he did not leave, he would be slain. This time, though failing the DC (though just barely), the dragon was taken aback and a bit worried, forcing it to attempt to bargain. Proving my Paladin had the balls to THREATEN A DRAGON.
  • This troper had several, not all by me, just the other day, in the same game. I was playing a warforged, navigating abandoned dungeons and such for a job. We were searching through a particularly trap infested prison, I'm talking about you can't even go down two sets of stairs without a snare trap grabbing you. As we cleared the first staircase, we ran into a pack of giant bats. A halfling rogue, who was leading the way and trap searching, immediately ran behind me. As I was fighting the first two bats, one went past me to attack the rogue, where I got an attack of opportunity, rolled a double crit, and sliced the damn thing in half. The halfling got two chunks of bat in his face. The next one came just around the corner, we came across three goblins and an orc, trying to pull another goblin down from from a noose trap. As the halfling sneaks up to get a sneak attack, he notices that there is a pressure plate right behind the lead goblin. In a rare moment of cleverness, he triggers the trap, a set of spikes that burst out of the ceiling, makes his reflex save and gets us a free round. The last one came during the same fight, after a few other characters take their turn, I charge ahead, slam the lead goblin into the wall, triggering another set of spikes behind the wall, impaling the goblin. Unfortunately due to unforseen circumstances, the game had to end there. I plan on rolling an intimidate check for that one next time.
  • Our party represented one of thirteen states in the kingdom, and had to fight in a tournament for the throne. In the grand final, three of our party were taken down in half-a-dozen rounds, leaving only the ninja against four NPCs who were on full health, or near enough as made no difference. The ninja was on twenty-odd hit points and had about eight uses of Turn Invisible left. He slaughtered the entire enemy party in another half-a-dozen rounds, notably eviscerating the wizard with one blow and decapitating the fighter so violently that he was able to catch the fighter's head on the point of his sword as it fell back down to earth.
  • One of our players, whose character was a Raptoran, was running late to a session, so we began without him, and the DM said that he was following further behind us to make sure trouble wasn't sneaking up on us. We came across a tree infested with giant spiders, and, while we were dealing respectable amounts of damage, we were outnumbered. As things started looking grim, our missing player walked through the door. The timely appearance of both he and his character were praised vehemently by his fellow players and party members respectively, especially when he swooped in (literally) and dealt two critical hits in a row.
  • This Troper's games tend to have a lot of these, as he is far too lazy a DM to ever roll out any monster that won't take up at least half of a five-hour game session. But two particularly Bad Ass examples spring to mind.
    • A 10th level party of five fighting a Black Dragon at least four CR's above them. After the Paladin manages to CUT ITS WINGS OFF, and a half-dead Cleric hits it in the eye with a flaming arrow, The Ditz ranger throws his Rat Familiar onto the back of its neck where it proceeds to roll a natural 20. The dragon was already at low HP, so I inform the players that the Rat just killed the Dragon by ripping out a section of its spine. Cue shocked silence.
    • Many levels later, the party encounters five Elder Fire Elementals. The Swashbuckler-Bard uses a spiderclimb potion to run up the wall of the dungeon, onto the celling, and makes a DC 25 tumble check to drive his Rapier of Icy Burst into ones freaking HEAD, and proceeds to stab it repeatedly in this manner.
  • In a D&D game, taking place in the Dark Sun campaign setting, this troper was playing a dwarf druid. We found the Black Lens (read: item of awesome power holding the soul of an evil uber-halfing). A Big Bad had cornered the party in the room with the lens, and was going to kill us and take it for himself. Dwarf druid casts meld with stone to place his hands in the Lens, then Stone Shape to crack the physical stone of the lens from the inside. Said uber-halfling takes over dwarf, and causes Big Bad to run away. Dwarf rolls a 20 on Will Save, and takes control long enough to reform the Lens, climb back inside with halfling, and save the world.
  • One time in a Dn D campaign I was playing in, we wound up fighting a very powerful dragon. The bard decided to do something utterly insane. He took out his bag of holding, stuffed it onto the dragons head rolling a 20, rolled two 20's to dodge during the attempt, a 20 to dodge after the bag was on the dragons head, and then turned it inside out. The dragon's head was gone. The DM checked if the dice were weighted... and proceeded to roll three ones.
  • D&D 4th edition. Keep on the Shadowfell. In the final battle, there's a wight standing near a pit. My group's ranger duly charges in and shoves it off the edge, killing it. Of course, referring to a priest of Orcus as "altar boy" throughout the encounter takes second place.
  • This troper has been DMing a 4th Edition D&D campaign for several months now, and there have been Crowning Moments by the bucketful.
    • While hunting down a cult of Vecna in the sewers of their home city, the party learned to be mindful of where they walked. The cleric of the Raven Queen in the party ran across some rusty metal grating that gave way beneath him, and he barely managed to stop himself from falling into the water below. Sadly enough, the two Otyughs (large, carrion eating tentacle monsters) beneath him managed to pluck him from where he hung and dragged him under the sewer water. Now we have a cleric fighting these two beasties underwater with nothing but a sickle as he holds his breath. That's awesome. But what was even more awesome was the elven rogue drawing his rapier and leaping headfirst into the water to help him.
    • Deeper in the sewer, the party sets off a trap, which unleashes roughly 100 zombies in close quarters all around them. Never fear, however, for there is an eladrin wizard. She damn near brings the sewer down on everyone's heads as she unleashes ten different kinds of hell, easily killing 80 of the undead buggers before 3 turns had passed. Later, when the cult leader and the rest of the party accidently left her behind with several much more dangerous zombies, she used her magic to make the undead think she was the cult leader, temporarily giving herself several undead thralls.
    • Later, sneaking around an enemy camp at night, the party engaged and defeated a group of about thirty orcs. Upon hearing more orcs coming, stealth checks were rolled. Everyone but the larger than usual dragonborn fighter succeeded. So, fifty orcs come around the bend to see about thrity of their fellows dead on the ground around a single dragonborn. The dragonborn goes for an intimidate check and manages to scare every single orc away simply by roaring for more victims to come to his axe.
    • Fleeing that same camp later, an eladrin mercenary (long story), some human minions, and an owlbear cut off their escape. The half-elf swordmage/rogue promptly leaps atop the owlbear and proceeds to ride until he kills it, cloning himself along the way so that TWO swordmages were riding the owlbear.
  • The fight concluding the previous session of a campaign in which this troper participates was a whole series of CMoAs, including:
    • The fighter using various attack-of-opportunity-related feats to more than triple his number of attacks per round and inflict double damage on each hit.
    • The wizard turning his familiar into a dragon and dropping it on a dozen enemy elves. Indoors.
    • The cleric and the archivist each using a miracle to create a tsunami and trapping our enemies between them. Still indoors.
    • The factotum burning some inspiration points to fire a lightning bolt down the line of enemies, electrifying the tsunamis.
    • The swordsage, currently a seventy-foot-tall devil on fire (and a devil on fire the rest of the time), killing all electric-tsunami-trapped enemies who were still alive with a whirlwind attack described as making the explode.
    • The wizard, swordsage, and fighter (now covered in buffs to the point of near-invincibility) each deciding independently to hold off a few thousand demonic hybrids so the rest of the party could make their escape via airship.
    • The aforementioned three recreating the "Our arrows will blot out the sun!" moment from Three Hundred, complete with breaking the arrows off of their shields...without shields.
    • The fighter rolling his first and only critical hit of the campaign with a Weapon Supremacied pick and pulling a Sauron.
    • The wizard polymorphing himself into a thirty-foot-wide bag of gunpowder in order for a Reaving Dispel caster in the horde to intercept it, which was promptly detonated by flasks of alchemist's fire thrown by the swordsage.
  • I was playing a pacifistic Bard/Shaman; I healed, but I had very little firepower. We were fighting a golem made entirely of rotting food, and no one had been injured yet. So I looked over my spell list, walked up to the golem, and cast the cantrip 'Purify Food and Drink' on it. The DM decided that Rule of Cool applied, and it took the golem's arm off as the food that made up its shoulder turned fresh. First— and only— time I've ever seen a cantrip do anything significant in combat.
  • I can beat that - or rather, a guy I gamed with can beat that. Have you ever stopped a Cosmic Horror with a cantrip? By changing the colour of its summoning circle?
    • That campaign on the whole is several kinds of awesome. Our characters have a Firefly theme (which was initially coincidental... like the other game where, completely independently, every single character ended up a female redhead) - gnome illusionist from the mafia (Mal - yes, this is the one who stopped a cosmic horror with prestidigitation), ex-military warmage (Jayne - be afraid of Jayne with the ability to make his own grenades... he doesn't take much care about 'area effects' and 'party collateral damage', either, though he seems to have mostly stopped after my character threatened to stab him in the balls with a spade if he did it again), ninja working for another mafia family (Zoe), and my character, a somewhat loopy telepathic assassin who loosely worships the one god above all others, who she has called 'The DM' (River - this is me). Our DM made us fight the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man at one point (he'd been playing the Ghostbusters game recently).
      • For one thing, there's how my character gained the additional gift of foresight. A... semi-antagonist (read: he's an annoying ass, but he's mostly an ally right now - apparently he's our universe's equivalent of Xellos) was apparently going to kill a little kid with said gift of prophecy, cast a spell that yanked something out... my girl figured, she really hadn't a clue what he was doing, but getting in the way was probably a good idea, so she caught the spark before it flew over to him. He shrugged and figured she'd deal with it well enough, and left. "Wait... what?"
      • That entire sequence was awesome - said little kid and my character had been kidnapped by drow, and let's just say my character was an extraordinarily annoying prisoner ("Or were you planning on stealing my youth? You do seem to be sagging at the corners a little bit, there."). Our escape/rescue was aided by the assault of the previously mentioned cosmic horror's forces - apparently, Lloth (Lloth? Lolth? Llolth? Whatever her name was) was there, and our little cosmic horror wanted one of its subordinates to replace said goddess via killing her. So the party kind of needed to try and save a goddess of evil. (Well, the plan was more along the lines of 'keep the fight close enough that whoever wins, we can then kill them') Mal caught the attention of said cosmic horror subordinate - it was either amused, or pissed off, hard to tell given it lacked a face (and head). So he started praying: "Baravar Cloakshadow, if ever I needed your help? Now would be the time. ... Please?" Lloth bites it while it's distracted. "That's... better than nothing, I guess." I arrive and plow into the monster. "Baravar Cloakshadow, you work in really mysterious ways, but are undoubtedly the greatest god ever."
      • Ah, and killing an Eldritch Abomination with a critical headbutt. "I killed it with my brain." ^_^
      • And then there was one point in a dungeon. We had a statue that was holding the key to the next door down. But, said statue animated and attacked anyone who tried to take the key. Now bear in mind, River did know how to circumvent it, but she was in a bit of a twitchy mood at the people who'd made the dungeon, so she just smashed the statue... which proceeded to make the floor collapse under us (killing a near-armada of monsters), and then collapse the next floor as well. Dungeon Bypass, by accident.
    • Also had a fairly cool moment in the first fight, first session of a new campaign. Female half-fae fighter with a BFS. We were facing off against a dryad and a harpy. I was tangling with the dryad, but neither of us had scored a hit yet. Harpy had been focused on by the party, so it was hurt... then flew up into the air and used its song to disable the entire party, except me. So my girl turned, and tossed her dagger at the harpy. Miss. Dryad still couldn't really catch her, so next round she shrugged, turned, and chopped the dryad down, snagged the dryad's dagger, and killed the harpy with it.
    • Then there was that Sailor Moon Crystal Tokyo (a thousand years after nuclear apocalypse) campaign of ours. The climactic battle was against the Hand of God - the ruler of the United States of Texas, and a cleric of Khorne. At a nuclear silo, that had just been set off (after firing the few missiles that were still flyable - which we had shot down).
      • My personal crowning moment in that one was probably in a losing fight against a freakishly dangerous mercenary from another dimension who'd ambushed Sailor Mercury with something like a regiment's worth of fellow mercenaries. We and Venus were the rescue squad, and Venus split off to bail out Merc from the above-mentioned regiment, leaving us to take down the ward (which turned out to be guarded by said extradimensional merc). Bear in mind, the DM did not intend for us to fight this guy. We tangled, he took a criticalled Starlight Breaker to the face and that just pissed him off to the point where he downed pretty much every member of the party, including one death (the one who'd Breakered him). What was left was... well. My character (Reis, a tech nerd who'd been getting into Velkan style magic), and Yuuno Scrya (who was presently in his Jusenkyo cursed form, that of a hot elf chick - it was that kind of campaign). Thankfully, Mercury arrives around that point, and starts taking on the mercenary leader (note: this is just a delaying action, she's losing, and the Senshi were ridiculously high-level by this point). Reis and Yuuno grab one of the survivors each, and start running to a clear area where everyone can assemble. Now, we're lucky in that the big guy's focusing on Mercury, but there are still a number of other mercs we have to get through, and we're low on energy and HP at this point. Reis pretty much kills them all with their own guns while guarding Yuuno (Reflection, in BESM d20, is an awesome feat for those who feel like being Jedi-ish), lands with Yuuno at the assembly point... Venus lands right there, Merc jumps in, and while the bad guy of doom is right in our faces, Reis dimension-shifts everyone out of there. I regret to inform you, but Reis neglected to flip him the finger.
    • Our other C Mo A-factory game is a Super Robot Wars mecha game. At one point, one of our party members was kidnapped - I found the ship that was taking her, so we pursued. My character then proceeded to dock and land aboard a space transport that was in the process of making orbital re-entry (was not possible without a natural 20 - I got one), get out of her mecha, and kill every single soldier that considered getting between her and the kidnapped character. Note that she's stuck in the body of a twelve-year-old girl.
  • In a recent D&D session, a Barbarian (4th ed) was riding the shoulders of an ogre, the ogre rolling a 20 to get the PC off threw said PC 45 feet, into the Big Bad Hobgoblin mage, dealing the last Hit point of damage need to off the bastard, note Hobgoblin Mage Level 7, Barbarian Level 5.
    • About two days afterwards, said barbarian took out 2 Bronze Warders at the same time(taken from H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth) dying 9 times in the process.
  • This troper recalls his Crowning Moment in D&D Gaming: fighting an ogre; going the distance; winning by attrition; as a dread necromancer; with the necropolitan template. I couldn't overcome his damage resistance, and we couldn't inflict lethal damage. We basically traded blows until he collapsed from exhaustion. In the follow-up party to celebrate the party's inauguration into his orc tribe, I consumed every drink they thrust in my hands (no Constitution, so I couldn't get drunk) and punched a tribal piercing into my nose. When offered another piercing, I calmly stated, "I put it in my other nose."
  • Another chapter of Chaotic Stupid Ranger Does Something Cool: in the Keep on the Shadowfell, there's a snivelling goblin prisoner you can encounter, as well as a pit trap in the entrance to the main dungeon. After wiping out the goblin prisoner's guards, the party settles down to grill him. As DM, this troper promptly had the little git reveal the existence of a pit trap in the entrance, prompting the Ranger to just lean over and scimitar him in the head for being unhelpful. This group being extremely designated, he has yet to even get any comeuppance for this, and since the player has since left, it's unlikely he ever will.
  • This troper's first experience of D&D featured another first-timer playing a warforged psion who was pretty much a high-grade Bad Ass. In his first fight at level 1, he asploded a couple of goblins' heads, before making a couple of fights far easier by creating boxes of pitch darkness around people's heads and using an illusion-based manifestation to produce a dog whistle sound in the distance, to lure away the giant wolf helping the goblin gate guards. This may have been against the rules, but frankly, nobody was particularly keen to check.
  • This troper and his party were facing two lizardfolk and a black dragon, neither of which were really on our side at the time. The kobold sorcerer aimed his wand of Color Spray at the ceiling, spread his wings (gained from a paragon feat) and shouted "Behold the Great Kobold God!" Bluff check result: natural 20. He keeps this going, getting a 19 and 20 on his next two Bluff rolls, and gets the dragon to lead us to the exit (which we'd spent three sessions trying to find) without skipping a beat.
  • This Troper and the rest of his party were infiltrating a Neogi slaver airship. However, they got caught and were taken to the leader, an Adult Neogi riding a Truly Horrid Umber Hulk. We were surrounded by the other neogis so we couldn't get away. The DM decided we were cornered and started a monologue for the Neogi. While this was going on, This Troper's character, Jin, pulled out his crossbow and tied one of the druid's acorns to a bolt. Jin made a Hide check to make sure no one would notice. Only the druid noticed him, but he figured out what Jin was doing. Then, right in the middle of the neogi's speech, Jin shot him. Attack roll: Natural 20. Full double damage, Full Sneak Attack damage, plus -this is the best part- Full Fire Seeds damage. In summary: When all hope seemed lost, Jin turned his crossbow into a Magic Nuke Gun, and Blew Up A Neogi Slaver Boss (and his Little Umber Hulk too). All during the obligatory Big Bad Monologue. Moral of the story: Fire Seeds is on five (counting the Sorcerer spell list separate) spell lists for a reason, people. USE IT.
  • "Player and Adjacent Target Die."
  • This Troper's DM implements an interesting rule: The Awesome Check.
  • Example from an Eberron novel (not really Literature CMOA material, because the book is just a tie-in to the setting): a human has been enslaved by one of the less pleasant Valenar clans. Because the clan is being called back to the service of the Darkwood Crown, and the king wearing said crown doesn't approve of slavery, said human began suspecting he was about to get deaded. So he immediately calls the leader of the clan a disgracer of the blood (Vadis nia). This is literally the worst insult in the culture of the Valaes Tairn. As a result, the clan leader goes apeshit berzerk and begins attempting to dismember the slave with a knife in each hand...our plucky slave, Cutter, because he served as a woodcutter, duly grabs hold of the clan leader's wrists and forces him to slit his own throat. Beating the leader of a clan of elves who are feared all over Khorvaire as its scariest combatants.
  • This troper's currently-on-hold group, also featuring the Chaotic Stupid ranger but not starring him: the party dragonborn, who is apparently attempting to taste-test every sentient species in the universe, has begun manufacturing acid grenades by putting his Acid Breath into vials. It'll be interesting to see his face when he learns his acid breath is actually vomit...
  • Our party was fighting a projection of a fallen Celestial in what our DM swore wasn't an encounter intended to 'kill' us, just to alarm us until a [1] turned up. (I'm really not sure why he was doing it, actually, other than that we needed to learn the things she was gloating at us about, and combat was then inevitable.) It was supposed to last for hours in real life, probably long enough in combat that the lesser buffs would have worn off the party; at least one person was probably supposed to die. The wizard and the sorcerer couldn't beat her spell resistance; the cleric was occupied healing damage and couldn't attack; the melee fighters couldn't flank her and, for the most part, couldn't beat her AC. Then the chaotic stupid (occasionally verging on stupid evil) monk/barbarian started critting. And critting. And critting. He rolled at least seven or eight nat 20s in three rounds and didn't roll below a fifteen or so even once. The rest of us were just gaping in awe, and the DM was looking more and more stunned.
  • Another canonical Eberron example: the initial response of the Elves of Valenar when a group was hired by Cyre. Rather than sending a note saying "OK, we'll go hurt people for cash on your behalf", they kill a Karrnathi general, engrave "We accept" onto his skull in Elven, and send it to the Cyran queen. Eberron has the greatest spin on Our Elves Are Better in the history of the universe.
  • This troper DM's several campaigns, but also plays a character or two from time to time. His 7th level paladin has had several CMOA's (including killing an entire 100+ tribe or orcs attacking a village using a horn of Valhalla), but has the unfortunate tendency to kill all of the other characters around him. So far, it is up to five. But when Dalem'nar, his elvish bard friend, was killed by a raging troglodyte barbarian, my paladin lost it. There were two trogs left, one with full hitpoints right in front of him and the second nearly dead but about to move in on the unconscious wizard. The paladin then using his last smite evil for the day and crits the trog in front of it, doing 60+ damage and beheading it. Then, using his second attack, in a roar of rage over his friend's death he threw his sword at the last remaining enemy...and rolled a 20.
  • This Troper's C Mo A in Dn D came in a Thursday gaming session. He played a tiefling paladin of Hieroneous, and, exploiting a few of 3.5's feats, was able to use two-weapon fighting to apply to his SHIELD and sword. His party had encountered a large band of mixed goblins and hobgoblins that had been raiding local towns, including his hometown, and had killed the party rogue (who he had fallen in love with). Rolling an intimidate and bluff check with his attack rolls, he managed to not only slice the hobgoblin chief in HALF but squish the goblin cleric of Bane into orange and red goop with his shield, roaring that he was Asmodeus incarnate. Natural 20 on the bluff, 18 on the intimidate. He scared his own PARTY.
  • We had a few C Mo A's in our campain (4E), all at level one.First off, we all started in prison, and staged a total outbreak as a diversion to OUR escape.Next, we were in a cave, and there were many explosives in an area of it-to intimidate us, traps and such. I proceed to cast Chaos bolt on the explosives, ignoring my partys anger, and reveal a room filled with 16,000 gold. But since we took a break and didnt get back, this didnt count. Our final C Mo A happened when we had an NPC deva get decapitated by a trap. We wre mainly neutral/borderline evil, and our cleric speaks up "RALTHOR THE MAD DECLARES WE SHALL SEARCH THE BODY FOR ANYTHING USEFULL!!" After this, the DM is taken aback, and quickly creates an inventory to scavange.
  • This troper stole his own pants. Also, in a much earlier, slightly more serious game, coming upon drunk goblins and partying it up with them. Lastly, this, while in a dungeon or a castle or something along those lines:
    DM: You come upon a door. Behind the door you can hear voices.
    Player: (Jokingly.) I knock on the door. (Laughs.)
    DM: The voices stop.
    Player: You. Mother. Fucker.
  • In one battle in a Eberron campaing, there was a civil war on a big city. It's was a 5 vs. 5 plus the pc's. In one moment, some enemies npc broke in the barricades were the archer were. just one was able to survive the first strike. He sweared in a big manner that would not die in vain. And you know what? He was able to finish off 3 guys who were surronding him. The kicker? it was a group of level 1 warriors against level 1 warriors. All my group was amazed of the great fight a bunch a guys of cr 0.5 could do and one of them said "A epic level guy watched this fight and said 'that one has potential'". Cue to a bunch of "hell yeah!"
  • The party consists of a (somewhat portly) Human Warlock, an Elven Scout, and a Human Healer, all second-level. Well, they're participating in this three-day festival, containing, among many other things, bloodsports, an archery tournament, and a jousting tournament. Of all people, the Warlock decides to sign himself up for the arena battles. The premise was explained to him: it's a fight to the death. The participant is pitted against three of the more violent criminals in the Imperial prisons, who start out unarmed (but there are weapons dropped into the center of the Arena at the beginning of the match). The participant is allowed to bring in whatever equipment he desires, but there's no healing magic allowed during the matches (or afterward, if he wishes to participate in another bout after the first). Of course, since this event panders to the lowest common denominator, extra payment will be awarded to the participant if the match is particularly impressive and/or gory. In order to keep things fresh for the spectators, the officials have some surprises thrown in. For instance, the prisoners might get replaced by nasty beasties (such as giant scorpions, skeletons, bears, or even a chimera). If the participant ends up pitted against these creatures, he is paid double... if he survives. Another entertaining bit is the heavy square metal grate resting on the ground at the center of the arena. At the whim of the officials, it will be hoisted fifteen feet into the air by the pillars at each of its corners. If a person is under it when it falls again... well, it won't be pretty. Anyway, the Warlock borrowed the Scout's magic sword (it lights up with electricity when you say the Abyssal word for "shock"), rented a chain shirt, and entered the arena. The gates opened up, and in came an ogre and two orcs. The ogre ran in, standing on the platform and grabbing a warhammer. The Warlock didn't realize how far the ogre could reach, and provoked an attack of opportunity from the ogre when he approached. The ogre dropped him dwn to 2 HP with that one attack, so the Warlock, with his magical talent for wall-crawling, decided to beat a hasty retreat, climbing up the pillar as fast as he could. The two orcs make their way to the platform and pick up the remaining weapons, a dagger and a heavy pick. The ogre starts trying to climb the pillar to attack the Warlock, but he keeps failing his Climb check to get up the pillar. The Warlock remembers a wand he had taken from a fallen opponent, and activates it. Suddenly his hands start sparking with electricity, much like the sword. One orc starts to climb the pillar, and attempts to push the Warlock off. The Warlock, however, manages to push the orc off, electrifying him in the process. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when the platform begins to rise. Thinking quickly, the Warlock climbs under the platform as it rises. He fires off an Eldritch Blast through the grate... well, the Warlock's player got a 20. I asked him to roll again, to confirm a critical hit. He rolls again... 20. I ask him to roll one more time, "to confirm." He doesn't get a 20, but he rolls high enough to break the ogre's AC, so I tell him, "Your Eldritch Blast suddenly flares as it emerges from your fingertips, violently bisecting the ogre in a shower of gore." The remaining orc is utterly terrified, and starts scrambling up the far wall of the arena, pleading for his life all the while. The Warlock fires off another Eldritch Blast... 20. Seriously. I ask him to roll to confirm the critical hit... 20. He rolls one more time... and again, doesn't get a 20, but broke the orc's AC, so I tell him that the orc was decapitated by the Eldritch blast. The Warlock's player is looking at the d20 with awe, and he picks it up. "I just want to see..." he says, and rolls the d20 again. Bam! 20. We decided that he got a new nickname amongst the spectators; they started calling him "The Lightning Blood."
  • This troper once played a campaign in which his character, a Human Warlock/Wizard/Eldritch Theurge, survived from level 1 to level 24 over a two-year campaign. As if that weren't awesome enough, his avowed purpose in this campaign was to defeat the Big Bad to redeem his bloodline in the eyes of the gods. Well, we beat the big bad—at which point I made a small change to the character sheet. He was now Wizard 5 (Undefined 19)...so he is now a 5th level wizard with the HP of a 24th level character...and the Dragon comes up and says he will challenge one among us to single combat. Aramil (the character), just adopts a "Bring It" pose, thinking the DM is going to try to kill him.
    • The Dragon took on one of the meatshields instead, fortunately.
    • I should also mention that Aramil was the sole surviving original party memeber. Hence why I thought the DM would try to kill him off, just so he could justifiably claim a TPK.
    • Campaign was The Age of Wyrms transplanted into Eberron.
  • An epic battle ensued in a session of a still-going D+D campaign. We had spent the entire previous session beforehand making ourselves ready. We had to stop the coronation of the Princess because the Queen was still alive and the prime minister wanted to marry the Princess off to an enemy nation and force the two nations together. Said Princess had sent us to make sure the Queen was actually dead, but we had found her alive and spent some time making our way back to the capital. Now the Princess is dominated, and we have to stop the ceremony. We get together with the elite forces of the nation who are still loyal to the Queen, and who happen to either be badass paladins or people who ride giant eagles into combat, and storm the chapel. This is step one. We had theme music ready on a laptop for everyone. We knew this would be awesome.
    • First, there's the main party, consisting of our druid healer, cleric of the goddess of magic, killer catgirl with a pair of wicked scimitars, our own paladin and the force of paladins we had freed from the prison. They're escorting the Queen right down the main hall into the chapel the whole time, fighting off the traitorous guards in the hallway.
    • All around the chapel, the flying special forces assault the cavalry that was stationed around the chapel. They're NP Cs, but they do their share of damage.
    • But the most awesome part, was reserved for my character. An Ax Crazy sixteen year old girl in heavy armor with a pair of wicked axes who's a twisted cross between Excellen and Sanger Zonvolt has herself thrown through one of the windows of the chapel by one of the giant eagles right at the moment where the high priest asks if anyone objects, and proceeds to do so very loudly, rolling a massive Intimidate check and rendering the entire room guards and guests, shaken. She then proceeds to charge at the Princess, who is still dominated, to save her. My character quite literally takes out the guards who are nearby and proceed to rush her effortlessly, with Excellen's theme music playing on her turns because it's totally appropriate. After a couple rounds, as she's mowing down guards and the minister has fallen back behind his Dragon, an angry dwarf with an axe, he cries out "Who the hell are you?!", to which my character has no choice but to answer in the following manner, complete with a musical upgrade to Sanger Zonvolt's theme music. "I am Saya Saeron! The axe that smites evil! The Princess is coming with me!" Then, she proceeds to act on her words. The dwarf, who is twice her level, steps up and hits her solidly. She laughs, because she gets more attacks this way. And then she proceeds to roll enough damage on critical hits to force a save versus massive damage. The GM rolls a 1. Saya gained two levels from defeating an opponent twice her level in a single bloody flurry of axes. And she topped that off by running to the Princess and kissing her full on the lips to shake her out of the spell.
  • This troper is in an awesome campaign, currently second level, that experienced a C Mo A for most of the entire party over the course of the last few sessions. The CMOA's included:
    • Our half-orc fighter rolling a high intimidate check when we were ambushed by goblins in the inn we appeared in. He roared and caused all the goblins to require a new set of underwear and even their wererat leader to step back in fear.
    • The DM got one when he had us all dying in dream sequences and with the half-orc, he had him dealing with a wave of water. When the fighter tried to endure it, he said every drop felt like a tiny blade and then proceeded to take every single die and roll it. Then he said that all those numbers added up was how much damage he took.
    • The dwarven druid/barbarian, in his dream sequence, got jumped by a bunch of wild elves. The leader makes a remark about his parentage. His response is to draw his waraxe, charge him, and roll a 20 to hit and such high damage that he cut the elf in half almost and broke his spine.
    • This troper's cleric character got one when they were all ambushed by zombies and shadows while they were sleeping and the half-orc was brought down to five health the first turn and the party was scattered. The cleric, not knowing he was in range of other undead, proceeded to use turn undead. He was successful and rolled for enemy hit die. He got over 16 hit die, which caused every single one to run to the back wall in fear. Two even fled through the wall, trying to escape from the cleric. The fight didn't last long after that.
    • DM got another one when one of the PC's had to leave and so he asked him to make a spot check. He failed it quite bad and asked him to do a listen check. He failed again, and after he failed another spot check, a meaty fist came out of nowhere and clocked his ranger character, knocking him out cold. This was just after he had woken up and started his character in the campaign, mind you.
    • The cleric got another one when the party was battling a vampire spawn. They were pounding on the creature, which had formerly been a city council member of the city they were in, and it's regeneration plus its damage reduction kept us from killing it. The cleric proceeds to cast Bless, upping everyone's rolls, and then cast magic weapon on the dwarven barbarian/druid's waraxe, allowing him to hurt the vampire more than anyone. As he did so, he told the dwarf to kill the thing as it was a sin against Pelor and nature itself. This set off this PC character and caused him to go into a barbarian rage, wailing on the vamp spawn. As they began to whittle it down, the cleric, after several bad rolls on turning it and failing, decided to risk a touch attack to do a Cure Light Wounds spell. He hits, and rolls eight damage with it. The DM checks his chart and gives the player a look. When the player asks what's wrong, the DM simply makes a roll for the sorcerer PC to use magic missile. This killed the vampire spawn, which was a challenge rating of four to our level rating of two. It was explained afterwards that the cleric had dropped it's health down to one and since magic missile never missed, it was doomed to die.
    • The aftermath is the best, since the DM had never expected us to kill the thing, which had scared the city's powerful mage and leaders away with a simple hiss. We also, to kill it, dumped its body outside in the sun at the behest of the mage NPC.
  • This troper's 4th Edition game has had a couple of good ones for the whole party, most during an elaborate prison break sequence.
    • Firstly was this troper's realisation that the prison guards had neglected to give my Dragonborn Fighter a muzzle when the party was chained to the dungeon wall, so a quick use of acid breath was enough to free one arm, grab the guard that had been taunting us, ram his head against the wall and swipe his keys to unlock the rest of the chains all in the same movement.
    • Then was the Paladin's not long afterwards; while we were looking for our weapons and armour (having to make to with only a quarterstaff for the wizard and a sword I stole from the guard) when we were spotted by a group of ten mooks. All of them were armed to the teeth, he managed to take down four unarmed, before the wizard threw him the quarterstaff and he proceeded to beat the crap out of the rest of them solo.
    • After finding our gear (the paladin keeping the quarterstaff because he believed Avandra had given it her blessing.) and busting our way up to the surface, the warden of the place caught us in an ambush. The Cleric was knocked out, the Paladin was backed into a corner and I was down to my last few hitpoints after smashing my way through to the warden. Who had managed to survive everything our wizard threw at him and was about to finish me off when he made the mistake of boasting that he was a royal wizard; far superior that of our "peasant conjurer"
      • The Wizard had a readied action and decided that if he was inferior in terms of magic, then he'd go the brute force route. He proceeded to Bull Charge (taking an Axe to the back from the guard he ran past in the process) and proceeded to roll a nat 20. Clothelined the Warden over the railings of the execution pit, where several Dire Rats were waiting. He then proceeded to turn back to the remaining guards and asked if anyone else would like to say that he was weak. They all backed down. Best Squishy Wizard ever.
    • The elf Cleric has managed to sneak into the middle of a bandit camp, set their leaders tent on fire using their own campfire and get out again completely unseen. We got the bounty for taking the group out without a single confrontation.
  • In a 3.5 D&D game, we had just come off a campaign where we failed to save the world from the golem-supremacist terrorist Lord of Blades. This one went much better. There are many C Mo A moments from the campaign, which are rehashed endlessly during sessions even years afterwards.
    • My character, a six-year-old kobold warlock entered in the second session locked in a cage in the mad mage tower the party was invading. He demanded rescue, and respect, and acknowledgement of his dragon status in the literal shadow of a Shadow Dragon that was rapidly growing larger and destroying the tower. Human fighter scoffs, kobold rolls a 20 on intimidate. "Okay, I guess he's a dragon."
    • Said fighter, months of realtime and levels of Mageslayer later, becomes the only available target for a Beholder's disintegrate ray. He promptly reflects the spell, Beholder fails his own save, and the encounter is over in less than the six seconds estimated for D&D combat rounds.
    • Chasing a lich through the Underdark to a fortress holding down an Eldritch Abomination. Aside from the massed advance of fire elementals and the druid's tiny sunrise that dusted the vampire dragon, the above kobold and fighter reacting to the fortress' description. "It seems to be made mostly of eyes, and tendons, instead of stone. All of the eyes regard you, and you hear the lich taunting you from the throne that controls the place." A matched pair of 20s on intimidate, and all of the eyes of the Castle of Evil and Scary roll away in terror of the eight-year-old kobold riding on a human's shoulders, and the lich loses control over the castle for a few minutes.
    • Later yet, when the lich had discovered epic spellcasting and started a rain of fire that would burn everything to the bedrock for miles around, the kobold became ANGRY. Raising armies of the dead and enslaving the mate of our draconic patron was one thing, but destroying innocents to show off his new talents? Unforgivable! The dice agreed with me as I attempted to use the warlock's puny Dispel Magic on the storm with another natural 20, making the DM hem and haw a bit and eventually allow the awesome that was clearly predestined. A rolling expanse of night sky replaced the fire, and a significant chunk of the world was saved by a creature that was still younger than humans discovering why kissing girls is interesting.
  • So, this troper wishes he could have seen this event unfold firsthand but knows the firsthand account all too well. A friend of mine was just starting in a new campaign of D&D 3rd as a Paladin and some other player decided to make an evil character who lasted all of 3 seconds before the Paladin's Detect Evil prompted him to sheath his sword into the evil one.
    • "Let's jump Imhotep!" became a catch phrase of our group because of an old campaign where the villain was giaining Divine Rank by killing off gods so the players had to do the same but they needed to start somewhere so who better than the Egyptian Medicine God to ambush?
    • And I'll never forget the time I destroyed Greyhawk for about the 3rd time: I was running from a buffed up Terrasque that had Wings and Gills. The Awesome part? It was guarding the Black Dragon Orb and thats why it followed me specifically, and I led it through Greyhawk because I needed a way into the building housing I think the Copper Dragon Orb.
  • A friend of mine has created a character which has made appearances in two campaigns, nearly overloading both of their awesomeness quotas. Captain Cole Strutter, a pirate ('pre-emptive nautical salvage expert', he says) half-elf bard who has multiclassed into swordmage, druid, and rogue (he plans to multiclass into wizard as well). This version of Cole is played in an ongoing 4E game, and he has had several moments of awesome.
    • While attempting to assasinate the leaders of an enemy army the four-man party was ambushed by a crack team of nine bodyguards, who began wailing on the party like no tomorrow. When the eladrin wizard and the dragonborn fighter became surrounded, Cole single-handedly held off four of the bodyguards, allowing the cleric enough to time to break the encirclement. It took the other three's efforts to take down the other five, but Cole managed his four by himself with great skill, no doubt preventing a TPK.
    • Upon being faced with an enemy eladrin and his dreaded owlbear pet, Cole promptly leapt upon the owlbear, riding it around and stubbornly clinging to it until he could cut off its head.
    • Later, while fighting off assassins in the king's castle, the team is fighting their way through narrow corridors against heavily armed mercenaries. When a halfing assassin ambushes the party from behind, Cole turns to attack him. It's a relatively normal fight, until the finishing move, when Cole Wild Shapes into a large platypus and kills the halfing with an attack the pirate names 'The Platypile'.
    • While that campaign is ongoing, an older version of Cole appears in another campaign as an NPC. Apparently having reached epic level and living his years wandering through time and across planes of existence, Cole becomes the Captain of the new party's airship, now working as an air pirate ('pre-emptive aeronautical salvage expert', he says). His crowning moment so far comes earlier, when the party was still on a seafaring vessel, and involves hopping upon a harpoon, striking a dramatic pose, and allowing himself to be fired at a blue dragon. The harpoon misses . . . and Cole still holds the dramatic pose until he crashes into the sea. After the battle, when the ship raises anchor, Cole is revealed, striking a dramatic pose as he stands upon the anchor itself . . . and he's completely covered in seaweed.
  • This Troper had just finished his very first Dn D dungeon, a rather-cliche evil temple to the war god Hextar, when a C Mo A occurred. The final 'boss', a soul-drinking dark cleric with the ability to teleport, twin blades, and multiple Full-Heal potions, was a rather pain in the arse. Seeing as we were only 3rd Level at the time, our DM put a 'high-security' rest room right before the fight - a room with several beds and a sealable, sliding steel door (operated via crank), for use during the fight when our casters, which consisted of myself, a human sorcerer, and my friend, a human wizard, ran out of mana. He had just healed to full for the second time (after being pushed into a bottomless pit, but it's Not The Fall That Kills You), and we had escaped as he absorbed some souls for more power. We ran into the room and sealed the door. We rested just long enough for our spells to return (thanks to our benevolent DM) when the boss started knocking on the door. I believe the exchange following this went something like so:
    DM: The cleric's arm smashes through the door and flails about, trying to grab something. Unsuccessfully, he-
    Me: Hold on! I open the door!
    DM: *Insert Slow Motion Revelation Here* Alright, you turn the crank, opening the door. The cleric begins to flail about as his arm is dragged. Take an attack of opportunity.
    *Insert two awesome critical hits here*
    DM: Alright, it's your turn now. What do you do?
    Me: I KEEP OPENING THE DOOR!
    DM: Okay, his arm is trapped next to the wall. Now what?
    Me: KEEP OPENING!
    DM: His arm cracks and is at an unnatural angle. Now what?
    Me: KEEP OPENING!
    DM: His arm is severed! He pulls back, looking at the remains of his arm. He focuses his energy, and you see him form a new skeleton; muscle system; arm.
The fight continued for a while longer, until he had only a few Hit Points H Ps left.
DM: The cleric looks panicked, and he glances behind him. You think he might want to run...
Me: I CLOSE THE DOOR!!
  • In a more recent campaign, we had collected Gems of Power and were returning to town when we were beset my mercenaries (later revealed by the DM to be a Hopeless Boss Fight) who wanted the gems. With some quick diplomacy skills and lucky rolls, we convinced them that we hid the gem in the ruined fort we just left, and that we would escort them there. Sending our fastest man ahead "for scouting purposes", he resets most of the traps and makes them even deadlier: a pit trap was Mac Guyvered to be activated by pressure pad and filled with flammable oil, and a booby-trapped chest was moved, reset, and altered to hold many more times its original payload (from a single arrow to something like 3 arrows and 5 throwing knives). To buy our scout time to do this, our Ranger rolled extremely high on an Animal Empathy (or similar, I can't recall) roll, causing him to remember the mating call for Owlbears. This resulted in a fierce fight that wounded the mercs heavily. After they finally arrived, the trap was sprung: the chest nearly killed the leader of the group, their swordsman fell into the pit trap and got promptly incinerated, and the remaining mercenary, a halfling rogue one level below us, was easy to deal with. After defeating them, we got the equivalent of 10,000gp in loot, and a memorable quote from our DM after he re-examined the loot list from the mercs:
DM: These guys should have chopped you into bits in less than a turn!
  • In another game session, we held a proletariat revolution and burnt down half of a city. This sort of stuff tends to happen in our games.
  • This troper played an epic campaign in version 3.5 as an Aquatic Half-Elf Scout 20/Fighter 5/Barbarian 1, and used initial funds to purchase a casting glove, a gate key, boots of swiftness, and about 8 sets of Nolzur's Marvelous pigments. One of the first things the party stumbled upon was a cult of mindflayer sorcerers led by 4 mindflayer paragons. They had several prisoners which they used as meals every now and then. When we stumbled in on them en masse, the party was quickly overwhelmed. The druid in the group began summoning various things, but they served to be little more than fodder. The scout, who was specced for speed, having a move rate of 190 a round used the pillars in the room as makeshift portals with the gatekey, proceeding to create a complicated maze which the DM was unable to counter. One gate led back to the prisoners, whom were handed 4 sets of pigments. The scout brought them out to a large open room that the party had visited earlier and instructed them to paint a large lava pit. When the initial circle was finished, the scout touched it with the glove to establish a link. Meanwhile, the party was being beaten quite severely by the paragons. The scout returned and led the paragons between two pillars, which he gated attuning it solely to their race. They walked right into the center of the lava pit, which was also attuned to itself, so whenever they tried to walk to the edge, they were teleported back into the center. Their spell resistance failed each time, as the caster check was actually a critical success. In addition, later on, the party took a mindflayer sorcerer prisoner, binding him in adamantine cable. He pissed the scout off and was summarily killed by him ramming a pen into the center of the mindflayer's brain as a coup de grace.
  • This Troper was playing his first 4th edition D&D game as a Halfling Paladin of Tymora, a goddess of luck, in a party of about six players, all relatively new to each other. I decided to roleplay a little, rolling dice to decide things and the like. Everyone else thought I was going to take it in a Chaotic Stupid direction until I charged a group of troglodytes. The other fighter(a dwarf warlord) went into a defensive stance, and everyone else was reading actions, advancing cautiously, etc. The Trogs were far enough away that a charge would not get me to them in one round, so the shaman with them got to cast darkness on the rest of my party. I continued to charge, avoiding two attacks of opportunity from the shaman's bodyguards, forcing a reroll on one critical, and hitting the shaman. All while the rest of my party flailed around in the darkness. Chaotic stupid, my ass.
  • Only vaguely a CMOA, but still hilarious. My party (lvl 10) had gotten a tip-off that an infamous thief was going to try to steal some diadem from the royal palace, and that he would be coming in by the sewers. He had already beaten us in a full-on fight, so we decided to be cunning. We planted some barrels of explosives (magical dwarven gunpowder) at either end of one tunnel, and timed a tip to the city guard to be down there a couple minutes after we knew he would be there. We figured we'd blow the tunnels, trap him in there, wait for the guards and take him out (and get in the king's good books). There was just one difficulty. We needed to work out how much explosive to use. My wizard rolled an INT check. Natural 1. The resulting explosion killed the thief instantly, knocked out my wizard, the rogue, and the cleric, and left the fighter on 3HP. He fed a potion to the cleric, who healed us up...then the guards arrived. It emerged (from what the guards were shouting) that we hadn't just killed the thief, we had also BLOWN UP ABOUT HALF THE ROYAL PALACE, within which was the king's firstborn son and several hundred innocents. We ran away. Very fast. My wizard was quite unpopular with the party for a while (even though he saved us by putting a Wall of Force between us and pursuit...ingrates!)
  • This troper's D&D character got a very cool Crowning Moment Of Awesome when the group was trapped in a dream land. Our leader — a brooding blind half-demon ranger who was also the Big Guy, class 1 — had just been kidnapped, and my character — a Loveable Sex Maniac and The Twink — was freaking out because he was going to die due to the fact that, even though he had immense sneak attack damage, all the enemies were constructs and zombies. Turns out, everyone else in the party ended up dying before him. Then there was the time when we finally fought something that could be sneak attacked, and I rolled 10d6s. Yeah, I'm awesome.
  • In one of this troper's games, the group was fighting a Medium White Dragon in a room with ice floors. Being really low level, in a few rounds the Dragon hada done with most of the party except by my Warlock, who was sniping from outside the room, and the Incarnate/Warblade who was crawling on the floor. Facing certain doom, my character closed the rooms door ande retreated to take a shot when if the dragon opened the door. He couldn't see what was happening inside, but he got to hear both his companion and the Dragon scream in pain and the sound of burst of fire. The next thing he knew, the door opened to reveal his friend holding an unconscious (but still breathing) Dragon. Without a word, he just tossed it on the floor, pulled a dagger and dropped it next to the Dragon. To my character's incredulous look he just said "Tenia un arma." ("He was armed."). What really happened is that the Dragon had taken quite a beating before taking out the party, and one of the Incarnate soulmelds was a cloak of fire that burned everyone who damaged him. So, he crawled next to the Dragon and stood up, provoking an attack of opportunity which landed on him, triggering his cloak. He got a high damage roll, which was doubled because it was fire damage. And to make things even more awesome, he proceeded to stabilize the dying dragon. Later in the game, he convinced the Dragon to join the party.
  • This troper recently DM'ed a game where a Cloud Cukoolander Barbarian has had a series of CMO As. First, the party (being somewhat new to Dn D) hadn't brought any torches with them into a mansion where The Dragon was hiding out. Cue their despair when they enter a room where it's completely dark (and none of them could make light magically). Normally, this would get chalked up to Too Dumb To Live, but this troper allows what he calls a "God Pities You Present" bestowed in character creation, where a PC can ask for a powerful item or even make one up. The Barbarian's player said he chose "Endcat". He never specified what it did, but he decided now was the time, and used it. Getting a Natural 20 on a roll I asked, the cat shone brightly, illuminated the room, showing the party two Mooks that had nearly killed an NPC paladin thanks to Darkvision. Next, during a battle which was 4 PCs vs. 15 Mooks, he successfully grappled a Mook, then USED IT AS A MACE TO PUMMEL ANOTHER Mook. His attack roll? A natural 20. Both Mooks died from the injuries. The final one (thus far) was actually out of combat. The party was discussing a past battle(against a group of Ax Crazy cat girls) and how The Hero had failed spectacularly to woo one into helping them through a trap.
    The Hero: "Well, have YOU ever seduced a Cat Girl before?"
    Barbarian: "...All you need is a fish."
  • After serving as the party's Butt Monkey for a while, this troper's fighter finally got his own CMoA in the latest mission. The party was trying to find out who murdered a local priest, and a bit of evidence (a mysterious religious symbol) had lead them to the town blacksmith. Now, bear in mind that my fighter has an Intelligence score of 9 and a Wisdom score of 11, so while he's not stupid per se, he isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. As we make small talk with the blacksmith, we roll Spot checks. The Rogue gets a high (modified) roll, but the slow-witted fighter rolls a natural 20, noticing the same symbol caked under ash and soot on the forge. As he notices this, the Rogue attempts to flash a copy of the symbol (found earlier) to the blacksmith, in an attempt to gain access to...whatever this group was. At that point, the following exchange took place.
    Blacksmith: "What's that?"
    Rogue: *winks* "Oh, you know..."
    Blacksmith: "No, I honestly have never seen that symbol before."
    Fighter: *sounding utterly clueless* "But it's right over there!" *points to symbol on forge*
    Blacksmith: "Well, you see, ah..."
  • This editor saw not one, but two CMOA's in one campaign he was in. The group was high level, and included eight of us, all a very well mixed bag. We stumbled into the lair of a red dragon, conveniently furnished with a few pools of molten lava. The first Crowning Moment came when the rogue, who had been stealthing along, jumped UP on the dragon's head from behind and stabbed it in the brain, finishing it off. The next came in the next session, where we found out the red dragon was only a PET for an elder dragon. This time the drunken master had the CMOA when he jumped up OVER a force barrier, right at the dragon, and smashed an everful tankard of acid in its FACE. Needless to say, this editor was impressed.
    *On second consideration, this same editor has seen several Crowning Moments. In another campaign (where this editor played his favorite elf ranger) there was a Kobold Ninja named "Chuck." In the first session the party was at a taven, staffed by a Gnome bartender. Chuck actually snuck past four other patrons, jumped up on the bar, introduced himself as another player's favorite human fighter (forget the name, but he wasn't in this campaign) and rolled a 20 to stab the gnome in the FACE! He then successfully hid from the others AND the Gnome's sufficiently high pally friend. Later on, after things have settled down, Chuck comes back and slits the Gnome's throat AGAIN hiding successfully. But Chuck's true Crowning Moment was after he had successfully crit'ed against a goblin, and decided to skin the goblin and make a hammock out of the skin. He rolled a NAT TWENTY to skin the creature, and then ANOTHER 20 to craft the hammock.
  • This Troper is typically the DM for his gaming group, and tends to take notes of the more amusing or awesome quotes and events. Easily the most amusing ones came from a Chaotic Neutral Binder in a campaign centered around the Dragon-Fall War. The group didn't have access to Cold magic yet, and found themselves pitted against a Blazewyrm - a dragon-like creature literally made of fire. The Binder solves the problem by gulping down a potion of Vigor (short-term Fast Healing) and hugging the creature to death after inflicting it with Dahlver-Nar's Shield Self ability - dealing half the damage it did to him back to it as untyped damage. This also incapacitated the critter so that the rest of the party can beat on it without it fleeing.
    F Half-Elf Knight: You are MAD.
    M Human Binder: If I wasn't that probably wouldn't have worked...
    • This exchange from an Evil-aligned campaign where I was a player, though, is nigh-legendary for us:
      M Human Assassin: I have plan for when we reach village. What we need to do is combine our skills. I am good at killing people. You are good at making jerky.
      F Human Barbarian: Bring me the meat, I don't care where it comes from.
      M Human Assassin: We'll make a killing! We'll sell the villagers back to the villagers!
      M Shadowtouched Sorcerer: I hate to say it but I like this plan.
      DM: I'm going to enjoy your deaths.
    • In a Dragon Lance campaign, our group was captured by the Wizards of High Sorcery to be interrogated regarding our strange abilities - we had accidentally portaled in from other settings at the beginning of the campaign, making an Archivist (a priestlike class with a spellbook), a Swordsage (Monklike melee fighter who can produce magiclike effects) and a Shadowcaster (Exactly What It Says On The Tin) extremely out of place on Krynn. Part of the interrogation involved being tortured by Raistlin Majere. My Archivist was a Killoren, a race of human-like Fey who can channel three different aspects of nature; normally being a caster and party Knowledge bank she tended to use Aspect of the Ancient, but in the middle of the interrogation switched to Aspect of the Destroyer - changing her white hair to black, her gold eyes to red, and giving her a Smite attack against unnatural entities and Humanoids. Which she proceeded to use with the only part of her body that was not tied down during the interrogation. Yes, you heard me right. My Squishy Priest headbutted Raistlin Majere in the face. And lived to tell the tale.
    • The final one I'll post - I could technically go on for a good page - involved another Evil campaign. My character was Alu'Vien (a Tiefling Cleric of the goddess of Winter) and was partnered with Cheel (Kobold Sorcerer) and Frostwillow (Ice Fey Wizard). The three of us walked into a northern village and through stealth, guile, and plain old good luck managed to kill off the weapons and armor shop's owner and take over his business. We decided we liked this tactic and started slowly exterminating other shopkeepers, essentially bringing the whole town under our control. Eventually of course the forces of Good find out what's going on and send a Paladin and some soldiers to deal with the problem. The Goodies corner us in an old-fashioned "standoff at High Noon" and basically tell us to surrender or die. My response? "I don't think so." Cast my Darkness spell-like ability then attack the shiny bastage with my battleaxe... critical and confirm. The Heroic Paladin was decapitated, in the dark, on the first round of the battle. The whole militia just stared... then ran screaming.
  • One this troper participated in where we had to Bluff our way through an inspection checkpoint with a wagon filled with magically sealed boxes with probably illegal contents, and is just as much a C Mo F as it is C Mo A. We had this troper's character, a Tiefling Rogue, a homebrew made Skeleton Cleric, a Human Wizard, A Drow Ranger that's become the Butt Monkey, an Elven Druid(Yes, both of them insult eachother at every opportunity), a Watersoul Gensai Swordmage, and a Dragonborn Fighter. It went along these lines:
    Rogue: We're carrying a paranoid wizard's equipment to a new tower of his, roughly a months trip from here. He sealed it all so the more delicate things don't explode during the trip, so we can't get into the cargo itself, nor do we want to. He told us that if we opened them that it might explode in our faces, and considering his paranoia, he's probably got them trapped as well. Frankly, I think the only reason he hired us was because the same thing would've happened if he had tried using his magic to take care of the transportation.
    Inspector: Magi-Sealed cargo usually requires a permit. But you seem honest enough, so I'm sure you have one. May I see it please?
    Skeleton Cleric: *Pulls off his right arm and hands it to the Wizard.* Say that it's the Arm of Truth, some mystical artifact that senses truth in a persons words or some crap like that.
    Wizard: *pretending to be a stressed out and nervous apprentice.* Oh... hello, G-Gentlemen. I believe you wish to talk to m-me. The wizard they speak of is my Mentor. Now, I have something that might interest y-you.
    Wizard: *pulls out Skeleton Cleric's arm.* T-T-THIS is the E- ARM of Truth. With this artifact, My mentor and myself can see the truth of people's words! V-Very magical, only a few around, you s-see. For example! Great Arm of Truth! Is my name [Name Removed]?
    Cleric: *His dislocated right arm makes a thumbs-up gesture.*
    Wizard: B-But what's that? ANOTHER example? Well, is the Drow that travels with us the kindest soul in the land?
    Cleric: *The dislocated arm gives a very rude thumbs-down.*
    Wizard: Oh dear, someone needs to change their attitude. *chuckles a little.*
    Inspector: Whoaa... that's pretty neat o.o Where'd you get such a fascinating object?
    Wizard: I apologize, but I can't tell you! D-Do you realize what my m-master would do to me if I divulged the origins of this artifiact?!
    Inspector: Although I'm sorry to say that I'm still gonna need those permits if I'm going to let you pass.*Wizard hands the Arm to the Swordmage, who says the following*
    Swordmage: Arm of Truth, do we have the permits?
    Cleric: *The arm excitedly gives a thumbs-up.*
    Swordmage: Do we need to show the permits?
    Cleric: *The arm gives a solid thumbs-down.*
    Swordmage: I believe that is all that needs to be said.
    Inspector: ...........these aren't the droids I'm looking for?
    • Sure, in the end it turned out that the last of those didn't work, but we got past him after it anyway. It was completely worth it.
  • This troper has a 4e Half-elf wizard who specailizes in fire. All of his spells, save Magic Missile, are fire-based in some way, shape or form. His first adventure pitted him against a bunch of Fire-resistant monsters. Despite this, He slinged a fireball at the boss, scored a critical hit on everyone in the blast (overcoming the fire resistance and scoring maximum damage on the boss), and spent an action point to sling a critical maximum damage magic missile at the boss. This troper was just as stunned as the DM when the boss dropped dead on the first turn, by spells that shouldn't have worked at all.
  • This troper recently played in an epic-level campaign involving what was likely the most dangerous villain any of us had ever faced. We were asked to find a powerful Forgotten Superweapon that, according to some prophecy, would be the only way to defeat "the great hatred" that was supposedly responsible for an invasion of a powerful psionic race that lived in the caves beneath the mountains to the north of the rest of the campaign setting. We managed to infiltrate our way to the supreme overlord's chamber, and he was easily the most powerful psionic that any of us had ever witnessed. After dealing considerable damage, he stopped attacking and warned us that we were in great danger, and acted as though he were a completely different character. He went back to his hatred-fueled psionics shortly after, and revealed that the caves were actually a Genius Loci, and that they were taking control of his body. Apparently lacking intellegence of its own, the Genius Loci borrowed the intelligence of the supreme overlord, and formulated a plan. Angered by spending countless eons with no true sentience and driven insane by having emotions but no thought, the Genius Loci-possesed-overlord wished to use his army of psionic humanoids to erase all consciousness and thought out of a twisted sense of fairness. Our party now had to fight the overlord, a godlike psionic with a caster level of at least thirty, as well as animated portions of the cave structures that were part of the Genius Loci's body. After activating the Forgotten Superweapon, we were able to use it to cast an epic spell that not only killed the Genius Loci, but blew up everything within a 5-mile radius of its body, including the party. To clarify: The campaign ended with everybody getting blown up.
    • All together now, "Thought bomb"
  • This troper's friends and him had just started a campaign with a mission to save an old man's (at least we thought he was an old man at the time) daughter from an evil baron's tower. ,I was a ranger variant called a gunslinger who specialized in black powder guns. friend one had decided to go as a dragonknight (he has since become the party's tank with nearly twice as many HP as any of us) friend two went as a paladin (he is without a doubt the worst. paladin. ever.) but back to the point. We level one characters were walking down one of the creepy corridors when something small, fast and red flies out of the doorway towards us. The dragonknight passes the reflex save and even manages (to the ire of the DM) to win the initiative roll with a natural twenty. He then rolled a natural twenty to hit, then did max damage with his halberd. Result? The imp (for that's what it was) is bisected by the halberd's blade and continues down the hallway. Both pieces doing minor damage to the tieflings following us.
    • A C MO F came later as my character snuck down the corridor and successfully passed two guards, I did not pass by their guard animal, a mastiff sized spiky thing, I tried handle animal, failed miserably and it attacked me, it naturally crit'd and then did fourty-seven points of damage, I had seven hit points of health, the DM said it didn't even touch me, it moved and I died of a heart attack. The DM took pity and later had a god resurrect me, but, yeah.
  • This troper just recently D Med a session where the P Cs were facing off against an invisible army of over two thousand soldiers across a river. (They were camouflaged by a spell) One of the P Cs (a half-dragon, half-giant) threw another PC (a Gloaming) INTO the mass of enemies on the other side of the river. The Gloaming landed on top a group of enemies, was immediately hit in the face by three Magic Missile volleys (which he laughed off, as he had a Brooch of Shielding). Then proceeded to use the psionic power Energy Burst. All the enemies, which were tightly packed around the Gloaming, within 40 feet were immediately shocked to death by the ensuing lightning damage (this totaling up to about 5% of the army). This PC then took a hail of arrows and remained barely alive. His laughter after completing this task (accompanied by an Intimidate check) routed another 20% of the army. Then, another PC, who had an army of undead under his command, sent the skeletal black dragon under his command out into the army. The Frightful Presence of the dragon sent another quarter of the army scurrying. At this point, the wizards in the army began to flee. Then the half-dragon who had thrown the gloaming flew over, was promptly hit by a dozen arrows, two lightning bolts and a scorching ray, and laughed it off. To make things better, the Gloaming then summoned a large, gleaming, silver, winged Astral Construct with arcs of lightning streaking across it. The construct roared, made another Intimidate check, and routed another 20% of the army. With now more than two thirds of the army in full retreat, the morale of the remaining soldiers faltered. This whole process took less than five rounds, coming out to a total of just under 30 seconds. To summarize, the P Cs (who numbered less than five), routed an entire army of 2000 soldiers in less than 30 seconds. This battle has been nicknamed the "Nuclear Gloaming Incident".
  • Last night, (6/26-27/09) this troper dmed a 3.5 campaign set around finding and killing a great warlock bent on sapping the world of magic. On one adventure during the campaign, I had set the party off to finding and killing a large snake-like creature, so that the king of the dwarves within the city would give them passage through to the underground cave that was normally fit for royals to exit in case of immenant evacuation. Well, the party headed off to gain supplies at a store selling most everything needed for a good adventuring trip. It was properally dubbed "Dwarf-Mart". After picking up supplies, the party headed down the cave, which was very dark, making it almost impossible for the humans and elves to see. They began to head down the path, ending up at a dead end where many gems were stacked. They found an entryway upwards which was blocked. The Orc of the group, which barely made it into the Dwarven city alive, jumped up mightily, and smashed a hole out from the cieling, allowing the dwarf cleric within the group to throw a grappling hook to get up on top...which is what he was supposed to do, but ended up hitting the dragonborn paladin, in the very back of the group. The palidan nicely asked for him to be more careful, and tossed the grappling hook to the dwarf. He tried again, failing miserably, and once again, by sheer luck, hit the dragonborn once again. The dragonborn who was already annoyed at being in the back of the party threw the grappling hook back in earnest, it latching to the top of his head, pulling the skin as well as the root of his hair out. After removing the grappling hook, and healing his own cranium, he was left with a reverse mohawk to call his own. After a third attempt, and fail, the Samurai within the group tried also to throw the hook, but failed just as miserably, albeit the hurting of his fellow comrades. The Dwarf was about to try once more when, Kylin, the ninja becomes even more annoyed, grabs the still spinning grappling hook and heaves it effortlessly up the hole, saying "That's how it's done". The Dwarf and the rest of the party came up the hole, scared some smaller snake like creatures from the dying body of a dwarven miner, and healed him. As they were trying to find out how this had happened, a large (classified as a huge monster) snake creature came from the ceiling, spitting acid and biting at the characters. The ninja, preparing to throw a exploding kunai, threw the kunai upwards but it slipped from his fingertips just as the throw as made, and it fell directly on his head, exploding half of his face off. Additionally, making matters worse, the explosion set off the other exposed exploding kunai on him, removing his upper half from his lower half, killing him. He was quickly raised by the dwarf, albeit stiff and more knowledgeable of throwing kunai upwards. After a few rounds, the snake like creature fell to the ground, failed its Fortitude save and was knocked unconscious and prone. All of the pc's (including the palidan dragonborn which was holding the thing up with his shields (he wields 2 sharpened shield blades made from gnomish technology, something I thought up myself)) began to take the full round to make a Coup de grâce on the creature, finishing it off in a-
    • This troper had a personal CMOA by deleting a hemorrhage-inducing bout of stupidity in the above statement.
      • This troper has just absorbed some awesome from the previous poster and leveled up in snark just by reading his comment.
  • So, there we were in a town full to bursting with monsters.
    • First there was the old woman...
      • Apparently, the party had been to this town, before I joined. This was where the first thief died. He was taken by an ancient woman, known and feared in the town as "Grandmother", and her two sons, to participate in a ritual that ended with his death. She recognized us, told us to leave, and was met with defiance. The sons challenged two of us to one-on-one fistfights, and we accepted. I, a fighter who wore an ogre's skull as a helmet, somehow managed to lose my fight with the older brother, while the monk landed a Stunning Fist on the younger brother and proceeded to beat him mercilessly. A few days later, the three of them met us in the streets, and we had a rematch. This time, however, I was armed, and easily brought down the older brother, which I followed up by spitting on the corpse. Another ally bested the younger brother, leaving only the woman - a cleric of evil gods who had extended her life well beyond nature. The ranger called his celestial cat, and through a mixture of poor communication and bad luck, it was caught in the wizard's Web, which Grandmother easily escaped. She then put up a Blade Barrier and began hurling spells at us. The casters couldn't get her because they didn't have line of sight; I rolled a critical to shoot an arrow over the barrier, only to have it blocked by Protection from Arrows. After a round or two of this, the ranger dismissed the cat - then called it back, having it appear inside the barrier. It appeared behind Grandmother and snapped her neck.
    • Not impressed? The great part was the vampire.
      • A death knight had been committing a series of murders. It was killing people informed of a certain secret. We had identified a noblewoman as the one who had some stake in this secret. Meanwhile, a local duke had taken an interest in our female party member. He visited us at the inn we were staying in, and I discreetly used a silver hand mirror we had picked up in a dungeon to take a peek revealing, as we suspected, no reflection. The duke's retainer, however, noticed, and the next night, we were investigating another series of murders. We shot the killer - the Hyde personality of a local scientist who was simultaneously playing the roles of both Doctor Jekyll and Doctor Frankenstein - in the leg, and as I went to apprehend him, I was interrupted by a very unhappy vampire who demanded I deliver the girl to him. But that's enough of the vampire for now - let's talk about the noblewoman. Her husband was killed, you see - in a manner similar to a vampire attack. We knew better than that, though, and the dwarf basically told her so. Long story short, we were now targets of not one, but two creatures of nightmare. Faced with certain death, inspiration struck. We wrote two letters. I wrote a letter to the vampire, telling him that I would meet him in the graveyard at midnight on a certain day, with "the elf". The other letter was to the noblewoman, telling her we were leaving town and her secret was safe, but that we were certain the duke knew of it, and that he would be most vulnerable at midnight on the appropriate day. The result: Every building in the town was set on fire, Frankenstein's Monster was blown up, a sorceress and a death knight were dumped into a lake of lava that was apparently beneath the town, and the vampire was exposed and fled, after swearing revenge on the party as a whole and myself personally. It was Worth It.
  • So there we were, a group of evil 9th-level P Cs, with a clay golem trying to smash its way in. If it wasn't guarding the relic we needed to become gods, we'd never have bothered it, because frankly, we were not equipped to face a golem (our party consisted of three spellcasters and a monk), and the DM knew it. My necromancer, who had been considered "mostly harmless" thanks to his child-like mindset and lack of an undead army, stated he was using Silent Image to make an illusory hole in the floor, with an obvious path off to the side, going along the corner of the room. The party considered it mere nonsense as they got into position for what was to be a very difficult fight. I informed the DM that my necromancer was holding my action so that he wouldn't have to roll for initiative. Soon, the Golem smashed its way in, and lumbered along the obvious path towards its first target. But just as the DM was going to roll for an attack, I shouted out "HOLD IT!" and told the DM that my necromancer was casting Wall of Stone around the corner of the room just as the Golem was rounding it. I informed the DM of the reflex save the golem needed to avoid being entombed, knowing that it had to roll high. The players were silent as the DM rolled the save. The DM was silent as he looked at the result. I was silent as I prayed the Golem didn't roll a 20. Next round, init round was over, and the relic was in our hands. And the PCs learned that they should NEVER mess with the necromancer.
  • Faced with the final combat in a 'Dave Arneson's Blackmoor' module, the characters stood across a field from a massive candy castle with a stack of random powerups shaped like pink cupcakes. The castle itself sports catapults armed with flaming marshmallows, literal 'Brownies' and sugary pixies for guards, taffy ropes, candy cane spires, etc - as you can tell, a very silly setting. My no-nonsense elf rogue, having been covered in chocolate, humiliated with compulsions, and nearly turned permanently into candy in the course of the last few hours, is no longer amused. After casting Haste on herself, she grabs the first cupcake that comes to hand and angrily downs it, finds she now has Spider Climb, and takes off across the field. Drawing her sword, chocolate chipping off her armor as she goes, she takes the field in seconds, mounts the wall and finishes the round poised in the air above a guard, sword ready. Turn rolls to her again and she skewers the guard, lands on the wall, takes a firing mechanism from the catapults in each hand and pulls, finishing the Big Bad with an almighty flaming marshmallowy 'splut'. Each of the party members had their own C Mo A in that combat, I just include my own.
  • Ok, so there's these demons right? Where to begin...
    • First up, typical non caster enemy, aka bag of Hit Points and not much else going for it. Naturally, it got dismantled in under a round for being weak.
    • Turns out there was another foe there, who represents the other half of that trope. And was invisible. He proves to be more of a Goddamned Bats than a real threat though, because while Wizards do have the best defenses in the game, the party was well prepared and had a 95% chance of passing the saves to not get taken out in one shot. The first moment came when a coordinated effort between character and cohort dismantled key parts of his defensive apparatus and cut through much of his four lives, setting it up so that just as his familiar was about to help him escape via a telekinetic push combined with a spell to walk through ground as if it were air he gets killed by an attack of opportunity... instant burial of annoying mage. It helps the first attempt would have succeeded easily due to DM oversight, had it not been thwarted. Speaking of which...
    • While this is going on, another demon clearly built for taking a stealthy approach is apparently not too far away, and attempting to talk another PC into betraying the others via coercion. Just normal talking, no mental influence. It almost seems to work, and even though she's not actually interested in the demon's offer it does introduce JUST enough uncertainty so the aforementioned mage is not finished off in time due to a risky tactic employed by the party mage, thereby allowing this guy to take advantage of the sudden opening and kill the PC Wizard very easily. Anti Magic Field is not a good spell to cast, even if you can actually make it work for you.
    • While this is going on (multi wave battle) another demon shows up, who can basically be described as 'living seige engine'. Well, since this is D&D, death is not a big deal and he was revived next round with no real penalty and the problematic spell no longer in effect. Naturally, he also knew the exact weakness of this newcomer, namely a low Intelligence score. Turns out there's a low level spell that does a small amount of Intelligence damage, and having a stat drop to 0 either means you die, or you are effectively dead. Cue Mr. Boulder Hurler being taken out by this rather weak magic in one shot.
    • And then the real fun started. A Balor and another demon. The Balor actually made use of the resources and intelligence available to it. It was also the subordinate here, which should give you an idea of how many levels of Bad Ass the Big Bad took. That should give you an idea of how epic this scene was. Balor promptly gets bitch slapped into the wall over and over by my cohort. Yes. Bitch. Slapped. Into. The. Wall. Granted, Balors are fairly weak but still. Turns out that a combination of these guys not liking my character very much because they correctly deduced that the person who regarded assassin attacks as rote and was honestly bored by them combined with the fact she backed that up with her actions and her buddy established them quite strongly as priority targets, right along with the aforementioned Wizard who is a Badass Grandpa. Big Bad decides it's a good idea to kill my character now. Too bad between her defenses, and her buddy who has a class feature so he can actually protect her this only resulted in the loss of about 90% health. Seeing as it could have been far worse and the Critical Existence Failure is strong here, that actually went well. Next move? Disable nearly every single one of his defenses, reducing his stats from incredibly high to lower than most of the party in one fell swoop. Then more wall beatings ensued. He (the demon) didn't get better.
  • After all those combat stories, this one might be a bit refreshing - This Troper has a character named Alex, a half-elf rogue of impressive skill and unimpressive height. He's a secretive fellow, and often avoided staying with the same group of adventurers for long periods of time - mostly because he had a secret that nobody else knew (not even the players - they knew there was a secret, but had no clue what it was). The only clue they had is that the hound archon in the group remarked that he smelled like blood when they first met. After some time (three sessions and a month in game-time), Alex grew close to his group, even becoming best friends with one of his compatriots - and after an armor-breaking incident, he decided to reveal to them his secret - "he" is actually a "she", the name "Alex" being short for "Alexandra". The whole party's mind was blown (including the players!) - especially the poor Scout, who found out his best guy-pal is actually a chick.
  • A group of level one adventurers exploring their first dungeon found themselves faced with a small Death Course in the form of a dangerously narrow walkway across which pendulum blades swung at intervals. The intent was clearly for the party to try a fast run across and dodge the blades, but with only one or two exceptions - being a bunch of level one characters - nobody was confident in their ability to try it, especially not after the first character across nearly got cut in half. Instead, the party's paladin-in-training got the dwarf cleric, the only character in the party with any skill in Dungeoneering, to call out to her when and where to expect the blades so that she could attack them with her sword as they swung. Repeatedly. For hours. Until finally all of the blades had been broken off and the way was safe to cross. It may not have been an exciting feat of badassery (and would have no doubt taken an obnoxiously long amount of gameplay time had the DM not handwaved the rest of the rolls once he realized the players were serious about it and let them fast-forward to the other side of the walkway), but it was a triumph of patience and stubbornness on the parts of the characters.
  • Imagine if you will, this as the best round ever - non-combat. The party was watching a speech being delivered by the local mayor, when he suddenly falls with a crossbow bolt in his heart. All off us make our Spot checks and see the assassin fleeing on the rooftops. The four-person party then leaps into action:
    • The Cloud Cukoo Lander linguist rogue (my character) runs forward, says the command word on her [[BFS magically-expanding fullblade]] to have it jut out and impale the side of a building. She then used that as a bar to flip herself around on, fly onto the building's roof, and take off running, fullblade in her hand.
    • The paladin jumps onto her riding horse, stands up off the saddle, and leaps onto the rooftop, doing a flip along the way to amuse the crowd.
    • The Favored Soul (who was basically Indiana Jones) rolled a nat 20 on his "use whip" check, latching onto a nearby post and swinging over onto the rooftops.
    • The monk made a nat 20 on his check, so he used the extended whip as a tight rope to run over and jump across onto the rooftops.
      • We then all struck a dramatic pose by rolling Charisma checks - and we all rolled high, so the thief was caught mere second later as the monk tackled him. Basically, the town's "heroes" really looked the part.
  • So skipping alot, The party is in a heavily armed airship that's inbound to attack a city(They're at war, So Yeah). If it could successfully pull off the attack, the war would be over. The general of the opposing army (along with a few lackeys) manages to break into the airship and slaughters the majority of the crew, with his goal to take over the airship and use it to win the war. The party and the last few crew members (5 left out of 100 or so) are in the bridge, with the door locked and sealed with a spell, but the general carving through it easily. One party member sets the ship to crash into the city and then destroys the controls. Someone points out that they could use a escape hatch that leads to the cargo bay and use the last flying mounts to get out of the airship, but theres no way they'd make it from how fast the general is breaking through the door. One party member (an elf) tells them to go on ahead and that he'll take care of this. They start rushing into the escape hatch just as the door is cut in half. The elf charges at the door and attacks the general just as he gets through. They start to fight and the elf can barely survive against him, the general being literally twice his level. He lasts a few rounds, and it ends with him thrown across the room and barely conscious. The general closes in on him preparing to finish him off, and asks him for his last words. "Might want to close your eyes for this one". He stabs his sword into the ground and blasts the windshield (or equivalent to it) apart, sending glass flying through the room, at the general and his lackeys and blowing them to the back of the room. One ally contacts him via telepathy and explains to him that they got to the mounts safely and took off. As the general is closing in on him (by stabbing his blades into the floor), he throws himself out the window and is caught by one of the mounts, and just in time to see the airship crash and its payload explode, taking out a notable portion of the city.
  • In a double Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Awesome Moment Of Crowning one character in our group was being crowned as the new King of a realm when three assassins who had been harassing the group for the whole game burst in. The bishop had just placed the crown on the character, and without missing a beat he strode down from the dais calmly, pulling out his sword. He slew one assassin before the rest of us could react, even my usually fast elf. We quickly took down another, and subdued the last one. The king calmly then declared, "You made this personal, you interrupted my crowning." He then impaled the poor sod on his broadsword, wiped the blade off on the assassin's shirt, and calmly went back to finish the ceremony.
  • This editor once DM'd a game the cleric who was playing a telepathic character mannaged to beat a hard DC diplomacy check 3 times in a row verses 4 different opponents (a total of 12 DC 25 role) to get the opponents to turn against there allies.
  • This troper, in a heavily modified Avatar based Dungeons and Dragons game pulled off a legitimate fight against multiple higher level opponents, winning with only minor injuries. This was in the middle of a prison break. During a civil war, incited by my own family. The only weapns used were three throwing knives and basic water bending. I iced their feet so they had to take a movement penalty every turn. Another example, from a friends character, was when a tidal was bearing down on the party. The character at the lowest elevation and in the most direct path for it was a barbarian who was chained to some prisoners, having been wrongfully accused of a crime. He didn't survive this, but as a joke, the DM stated that if he punched the tidal wave and rolled a natural twenty, he would succesfully beat back the tidal wave. He did it for ten rounds out of the twenty he was allowed.
  • This Troper, in a fit of stupidity, allowed his human rogue/streetfighter get caught by a group of drow bandits and separated from the rest of the party. After being escorted back to the drows' hideout, they sent a guard to watch me. While the guard was coming in, I decided to Hide next to the door to my "cell" (and by cell, I mean storage closet) as it was opening, mostly just be a jerk. When I realized that it had worked out, I thought about trying to hide again. The exchange with the DM went somewhat like:
    Me: Can I try Hiding again?
    DM: There's nothing to hide behind.
    Me: But he hasn't seen me yet?
    DM: Nope.
    Me: Can I try anyway?
    DM: Sure, why not?
    Me: *Rolls a natural 20*
    DM: *Sigh* You hide behind the drow as he enters. He doesn't notice you...
    Me: I think I'll leave through the door before it closes.
    DM: ...
  • This DM just ran a session in which, thanks to the Rule of Cool, the rogue delivered a Sneak Attack to the party cleric. With a potion. I allowed her to add her Sneak Attack damage to the healing, but only after she declared that because it was a Sneak Attack, it was a suppository.
  • In the final game of our Viking adventure the Troll-Born Barbarian got butchered by a Treant Prince Nuada had brought to life. We were using the Pathfinder rules which gave Troll-Born (Half-Orc) one last full attack against his enemy when killed. Cue him tying his sack full of greek fire orbs to his axe and taking the damn tree with him.
  • In a 4rth Ed D&D campaign being run by this troper, two of his players had been captured by an enemy and sentenced to death. The day of the execution, they were brought out to the chopping blocks on the militia training grounds where a good deal of the town's freshly trained militia was, including a number of archers. After the first player was beheaded, the second player, an eladrin warlord/warlock, was asked if he had any last words. In response, he used his racial ability to teleport off of the chopping block as far back as it would carry him, dodged the guards who tried to grab him, and began running away yelling in response, "I'm not going to make this easy for you!" He continued to expend every action on a full-run, taking hits from arrows but eventually outrunning archers until he started to hear horse hooves behind him. The militiamen, being amateur riders, didn't want to risk riding him over with their horses for fear of breaking their horses legs and toppling them all, so they settled for attacking him from horseback. He ducked, weaved, took blows, but did not stop running making his way out to the adjacent farmlands and then towards the first farm house he saw, the window to which he then jumped in. He landed in the middle of a startled family whom he used his high diplomacy with to convince them to help by undoing his bonds (Yes, his hands had been tied behind his back this entire time) and pointing him to the kitchen and back door. He ran to the kitchen, grabbed the biggest kitchen knife he could find an looked out the back window to see two riders who had circled around the back as the militia knocked on the front door. He charged. They charged to meet him. Two passes later, on his last legs, he targeted the militiaman he'd been attacking with his one multi-class power: Eyebite. The rider dropped. He ran and took the rider's horse, taking a moment to calculate the direction of the town (east) and riding directly away from it. The other rider followed and they ended up in an endurance race, which the player won. The pursuing rider fell back as the player continued off west, literally riding off into the sunset towards his freedom. He was third level at the time. He currently keeps the knife, waiting for the day when he can use it to kill the man who sentenced him to death.
  • This troper watched one of his players in a 3.5 ed campaign, a ranger/sorceror, size up his situation from the safety of being spiritformed and invisible. He was unarmed, beneath the earth in a sunken temple to a dead god of evil. His friends and allies were in the next room over, unconscious on stone slabs, their souls stolen. In front of him were three high priests to the fallen diety who were preparing a ceremony to revive their dead god using the wealth of souls they had stolen and collected into an orb placed before them on a table with dusty manuscripts and ceremonial daggers. His response: He moved to the table, grabbed two of the ceremonial daggers, and started dual-weilding them in a fight against the high-priests. He won. He won by shattering the soul prison and holding the priests back, betting the lost souls would gravitate to their respective body's, which would then wake up and join the fight, and being right. This does not subtract from his awesome points any, though. If anything, it adds to them.
  • This troper was playing an improvised D&D game as a two-blade ranger, level 3. His group had been awakened in their multi-story hotel by a woman who was running around with her face on fire, screaming. Before leaping out the window, she informed them of the horrible threat in the basement. Making their way down, they came upon a strong wooden door leading into a cellar, with terrible screams coming from inside. Our barbarian wound up a kick and smashed the door across the room, taking out a few minor demons. We all dashed inside, hacking and slashing our way through the multitudes of hellish spawn. Our cleric, in a misguided furor, attempted to use his holy symbol on one of the more powerful demons. He rolled a 01, a critical failure, and ended up summoning a greater winged demon covered in spikes. We wasted all our crossbow bolts on him, bringing him down to low health. Since he was flying, however, we couldn't hit him. He was about 20 feet off the ground (Big cellar, I know). Deducing a plan, my ranger grabbed one of his scimitars, dashed over to our 10 foot tall Giant barbarian, ran up his back, and, rolling a perfect 20 on his acrobatics check, leapt up the 10 feet necessary to reach the demon. Screaming, he impaled his scimitar directly into the demon's face, killing it. He then rode it's body down the twenty feet, leaping off of it at the last second and landing gracefully on the ground. Cut to a look of complete shock on the DM's face.
  • Spending a few night in town, the Dwarf fighter decided to hustle at the bar with the typical drinking boast. over the course of three night he lost progressively more money (totaling a hundred copper) losing just to set up the fourth night, where he bet ten gold (about a week's wages in the port town we were in) he could drink anyone under the table. Three men went up. All told, he downed more shots than the three of them combined, making up for his indiscriminate spending earlier. The next night, stone sober, the three men came to get their gold back. Having watched the spectacle, my Elf Drunken Master downs his bottle of fire whiskey (making the DC to only have a strong buzz), took the bottle, and rolled an 18 crit because of a homebrew feat that gave a high crit to any improvised weapon to hit the biggest guy in the face. This gave me a surprise round as the bottle broke stunning the other two guys. A flurry of blows with three nat 20's brought down the second guy, and the Dwarf finished off the third. My drunken master didn't say a word and sat down and just held up two fingers for two beers.
  • My bard-barbarian has somehow managed to annoy her god (think Kord by any other name) and said god has sent a minor angel down to glare at her and make sure she doesn't screw up any more. Anyway, we're now in the middle of the desert searching for a Mac Guffin of Plot Importance. . . which we find inside a dragon skeleton, near a giant hole in the air sucking everything into the Elemental Plane of Nothingness like a giant vacuum cleaner. Tying ourselves off with ropes, we slowly inch towards the Mac Guffin, pick it up. . . and, as expected, the dragon skeleton gets up. My bard, figuring that The Mission Comes first, tosses the Mac Guffin to one of the other player characters, yells for them to run, cuts herself loose, and leaps towards the skeleton trying to knock it into the vortex. . . and, as she is about to plunge into nothingness, feels a hand grab her wrist, as the angel saves her at the last moment. The angel smiles, says something like, "Consider yourself atoned," and hands her a gift from her god. . . a six-string guitar with an axe head for a body. Said bard then proceeds to bash the dragon's knees in, run up it's back, and go Pete Townsend on its skull. All while the DM is blasting "Cliffs of Dover" by Eric Johnson. Badass. :3
  • Our party was being attacked by a huge Red Dragon with a cleric of some evil deity as a rider. After a few well placed critical hits the dragon goes down, and the cleric casts Miracle to turn it into a zombie. My cleric, who was next in line, simply grabs his holy symbol and proceeds to turn it into dust, courtesy of Greater Turn Undead, after which my half-celestial unicorn bull rushed the rider into the ground.
  • Another story of Alex, cross-dressing half-elf rogue: Noting an interesting looking door nearby that's locked, Alex stops our 6'7" human fighter from simply breaking it down - she's a rogue, after all, and unlocking things was her job. Unfortunately, she catastrophically fails, breaking her lockpick. Dejected, she steps aside and assesses the damage as the fighter slams a head-sized fist into the door... hurting his fist. Cursing, he slams another fist into the wall, hurting that one as well. Annoyed, the 4'10" half-elf rogue steps up to the door, and with one shot, kicks it off its hinges; with an exasperated, deadpan look, she steps aside, extending her hands in an "after you" gesture.
  • Rogues have become utterly awesome in fourth edition, to the point where a proper build can single-handedly take on a dragon of the same level. In This Troper's game, the group's Rogue/Barbarian managed to out initiative everyone else (including the black dragon) by a good ten points, run up to the dragon with the use of an AP, several free action moves, riposte type attacks, severely cut down the dragon, only to do it again when the dragon attacked on its turn (Riposte attacks hit again if an enemy strikes back). He was then able to sneak attack damage off again thanks to Flashy Riposte which grants combat advantage. By the time the rest of the party got there, the dragon was three quarters dead.
  • Rogues really are pretty awesome. The rogue in last night's game had the Catch Phrase :You got Ganked!" for any time he successfully sneak attacked someone. Our party had just confronted the Big Bad in his lair, and he proceeds to give a long-winded speech incorporating Motive Rant, The Reason You Suck, Evil Gloating, and a Hannibal Lecture. During this time the rogue snuck up on him, and the ending went something like this:
    Big Bad: You cannot defeat me, for I am...
    Rogue: *Sneak attack plus Coup de Grace and a nat 20 to hit with a called shot) Officially Ganked.
  • this troper is a halfing Rogue, specialty: giants' legs
  • This one belongs to a friend of mine.:
    Right, so this is a oneshot in Dn D 4E. We're a party that basically raids slavers' homes. This time, it's a fortress of a guy who's scary as HECK. Right, so the gnome bard (ripped out of 3.5e) has infiltrated the facility with a ranger while my character, a paladin, and a cleric, cause as much havoc as possible. Gnome bard uses ghost sound to imitate the fortress's lord, ordering all minions to get the heck OUT. All of a sudden, castle is empty except for Big Bad and slaves.
  • This Troper was playing a Star Wars themed D&D game and got three CMO As. I was a Wookie soldier with sensitivity to the force. In the very first fight of the game, a group of civilians on Courasant (our party was in said group) was attacked by some terrorists. I won initiative and did a forward somersault attack (I jumped forward, spun forward once in the air, and attacked) into the closest attacker, scored a x4 critical, and rolled maximum possible damage (48 hp). The DM ruled that I'd chopped the guy in half vertically. Said enemy was wearing strong armor (I don't know if we were supposed to win this fight).
    • Later, my Wookie made a bet against a Toydarian (think Watto) on Tattoine. I wagered that a certain NPC (turned out to be a powerful Sith later) would win the starpod race while performing the "Thread the Needle" (basically an impossible trick). The Toydarian wagered his entire business (he was a weapons dealer), and I wagered my freedom. During the race, the NPC did indeed thread the needle during the first lap. The Toydarian was stunned, and I suddenly made a lot of friends (PC and NPC alike). The next lap, and the NPC threaded the needle AGAIN! The Toydarian was reaching for his blaster. The NPC threaded the needle a third time, but my character wasn't watching. He was choking the Toydarian with one hand, and the wookie's new fans were cheering me on. My wookie became a very rich wookie.
    • Very soon after that, I succeeded an intimidate check with a -10 penalty against a shopkeeper just by glaring at the shopkeeper. I got my stuff for free, and the shopkeeper PAID me so I'd leave.
  • Our party rogue recently received a pair of magic gloves that would allow him to steal things that aren't really there, abstract concepts and other such things. The DM gave it to him primarily as a source of humor, figuring that Hilarity would Ensue. DM's outlook quickly changed when he gave the party a complex riddle that was supposed to keep us occupied for several hours. Rogue's player revealed he was NOT merely the comic relief, but rather a Magnificent Bastard in the making. The Rogue made a check to steal the knowledge of the answer to the riddle from the universe itself and promptly rolled a Nat 20. The DM retreated into the back room to cry.
    • A few sessions later, the party bard was gifted with a magic guitar that could be used as an implement. The guitar's power was that its wielder could substitute an Arcana check to force open a door/break through a wall, as opposed to an Athletics check. The party Ranger was being pissy and reclusive, hiding behind a several-feet-thick stone wall, effectively indestructible for anything not of epic level. Bard attempted to break it down and Nat-20'd.
      • Bard: "Open this fuckin' DOOR!" <very harsh strum across strings>
      • Door: <Vaporizes>
      • Rest of Party: Daaaaamn.
  • In our last game my Soulknife got a perfect intro. The party was fighting a necromancer and his minions inside a ruined castle, and losing badly. Just has the bad guy is about to deliver the final blow, a door on the near by wall is kicked open with a shout of "HOLD IT!" A few seconds pass before he angrly demands to know just what is going on. (The rather gloomy music that the DM was playing all night cuts out and Sangers theme kicks in.) "Listen! For I am Vice Wil Zonvolt!" I spend an action to reshape my mind-blade into a large greatsword. "The sword that cleaves evil!" Natural 20 Intimidate check.

  • The Epic Moment of the Week: Friday, November 13. Our rogue has been knocked to 0 HP in one hit, and our tank is trying to deal with the zombie that just knocked the rogue cold. The rest of the team is prone on the floor after an attack from another monster. A Wight appears and begins to threaten and brood and there is a swirling mist of blood coming from the middle of the room that is looking very foreboding. My turn comes around and I heal the dead rogue (I'm a cleric ... it's what I do.) then I turn and attack the Wight with my daily attack, Astral Condemnation. I hit, but the epicness occurs after that. The attack deals 3d6 of damage + my wis modifier (5) + radiant damage. I roll the 3d6 and hit 6 then 6 then 6 + my wis modifier + radiant damage killing the Wight in one hit. I crit on the attack without critting which has been done before. The epic moment is this: My name is Jason. I just rolled 666 on Friday the 13th. Cleric had had enough! RAWR!!

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