So You Rolled a 20! Great!... What happened? Tell your story ...

[Dimthar]

Heroic, funny, surprising and unthinkable things happen when you roll a 20.

Do you have any story related to such lucky event?

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One time we went into this Haunted House, it was our first campaign (AD&D) and we were still using this rule that if you don't hit the Monster, you don't get XP (To this Day I am not even sure that was an official one).

An Abishai (Devil) showed up, so we rolled initiative, the Wizard was the first to go, he used a Magic Ring he just acquired (some previous dungeon), and a lightning bolt comes out of it. The Wizard rolled a 20, and at that time we ruled a Critical as Maximum & Double Damage.

Not to make the story longer, the Abishai was vaporized out of existence. The funny thing is that the Wizard since he got the whole "Enchilada of XP" raised a level. Our dual long-sworded Ranger (Friend and Resident Munchkin) got so mad, he was banging on the table demanding a second Abishai to show up.

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[zergrusheddie]

I had found a special ring that reflected any spell that was fired on me if I made the save by more than 10. It was kind of annoying for a while because the DM made me roll a D20 and on a 1-3 a helpful spell would not affect me {I nearly have a Cure Serious bounce back to the Cleric}.

HUGE encounter with about 40 mummies, 5 Dread Wraith, 3 Greater Shadows, a grand mummie, a Vampire, and the Human Evil Cleric who leaded them. Encounter is winding down, we've killed every minion and my fighter with only like 80 HP charges the Cleric and rolls a 20 on my attack. Using a special Dwarven Waraxe {2 handed 2d8 X4 Critial with flame and shock} I managed to whip out a 101 damage. The Cleric, a little angry with that, threw a Harm on me. Thinking it's curtains for me, I rolled, you guessed, another 20 and reflected the Harm back onto the Cleric and killed him.

The next time we got into town, the DM said that a haggard old man would like to buy my ring for a huge amount of cash. After I said no, the man turned into Genie and than asked if I would like to sell the ring or eat a Disjunction. The Genie than turned the ring into dust after paying for it, and disappeared. The DM was VERY angry for ever letting that exist.

[Webhead]

...The next time we got into town, the DM said that a haggard old man would like to buy my ring for a huge amount of cash. After I said no, the man turned into Genie and than asked if I would like to sell the ring or eat a Disjunction. The Genie than turned the ring into dust after paying for it, and disappeared. The DM was VERY angry for ever letting that exist.

Just as a side note, were I the DM in that campaign and decided that the ring was just becoming too powerful to keep in the game, I would just have it not function the next time the PC tried to use it. When the player turns to me with a curious look, I would say, "How strange. It must have had a limited number of charges or something." ;)

Not in a game I was in, but a great D&D adventure I once heard about:

The party is on a ship, traveling over the sea to their next destination. The ship is attacked by pirates who board and combat ensues. A female swashbuckler PC is fighting off brigands and one of her attack rolls comes up "1". The DM describes her attack deftly parried and loses her grip on her sword which is knocked away across the deck. Upset, on her next turn she glares at the scum who disarmed her and tells the DM that she's going to kick him in the crotch as hard as she can. She makes her unarmed attack and rolls "20"! She rolls to confirm the critical and gets another "20"! Critical hit to the nuts! She picks up her crit damage dice and proceeds to roll maximum damage! All the male PCs reflexively double over, shielding their crotches in empathy of what they've just seen as the DM describes the pirate knocked backwards 10 feet across the deck and collapses into the fetal position! :)

[Stormhound]

One of the most humorous...or at least, ironic...nat-20 occurrences happened to a player in my Hackmaster campaign a few years back. Said player was playing a half-ogre berserker, who was (as might be expected) death on wheels when he really got going. Early in that PC's career, he charged into a mob of orcs, and went berserk. The party cleric, seeing his meat shield's steadily declining HPs, decided to run over and help...and got there as the berserker dropped the last orc. Having no other targets, and failing in his attempt to drop out of berserk, he immediately set upon the poor cleric, and rolled a 20. Crit! (For those not aware, HM crits can get really nasty, and the berserker tended to get big ones.)

Now...in that campaign, I was also using a fate-point sort of system that allowed players to spend chips to get rerolls. Usually, they got used to reroll bad rolls in tight spots, but this time, to quote the player of the berserker:

"I can't beleive I just had to spend chips to reroll a crit."

(And the reroll on the attack caused mere damage...still a lot, but not as bad as the crit might've been. Yours truly was one mightily amused GM.)

[Ramzei]

A few years ago I joined a new group. The first session the other 4 who had been playing together kept jabbing at each other who was going to roll the highest 20. By this point I was already not enjoying the experience. Any time I asked about their characters I could see they did no work on them at all. After I finished tweaking my character I announced I was finished. One of the other players yelled "Time to roll!" The GM yelled "STOP! Let the new guy go first." I rolled a 20 and everyone started laughing. So I asked what I had rolled. After literally 25 seconds of laughing so hard they couldn't speak...

"Dude, you have a 20 inch [penis]."

I promptly packed my belongings, wished them luck and left.

[gdmcbride]

"Dude, you have a 20 inch [penis]."

I promptly packed my belongings, wished them luck and left.

Clearly their adventures were too strong for you a hobbyist gamer. :)

And if you don't get this reference, immediately watch Fear of Girls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmgLOKRl5J0).

"When you can bend the very walls of reality with the power of your imagination, that's a gift to be respected ... and feared." -- Doug

Gary

[Thriondel Half-Elven]

Once i was running an campaign for my friends and my brother, who was a halfling druid. In one adventure they were making there way through the dungeon and finally came to the last room. Inside they found an ancient Gold Dragon, resting atop his amassed weath. Now my brothers char. (later called "The Fool") sees the dragon, draws his sword and attacks without a moments hesitation. As you can guess he rolled a natural 20.

I say: "You pull your sword back to make a mighty blow to the dragon, but to you dismay and bewilderment you weapon snaps as it hits the rock hard scales of the mighty dragon! Coins shift and the room rumbles from what you guess to be the dragon laughing."

My brother was furious.

[Law Dog]

Not a 20, but the Champions equivalent the 3 (three ones on six siders). A few sessions before, the GM had his Human Torch ripoff Pyron set my teen aged gadgeteer hero Wonder Boy on fire. Wonder Boy's best friend was Spectrum, an energy manipulation character. Womder Boy built an action figure that looked like Spectrum, that could fly and was also an explosive RKA (Ranged Killing Attack) and was heat seeking to boot. Next time Pyron showed up, Wonder Boy set the Spectrum action figure after Pyron. After a desperate chase seen with Pyron being persued through the skyline, I rolled the magic 3 and come to find out Pyron had no resistance defenses.

He went boom. If the explosion didn't kill him, he was still unconscious and then the fall finished the job. :D