Have you ever witnessed a fellow player’s quick thinking save the entire party?

[@soranak4764]

Dm here, One of my monks was scouting ahead and the barbarian heard something from a nearby Bush, immediately he rushed over and tackled the monk, putting up a shield with a magic item. It saved the monks life as the two were ingulfed by flames black as pitch. These flames are from a powerful monster which can kill low health players if reduced to 0 hp. The barbarians quick thinking saved the monk, also. This barbarian was never a team player before. It completely caught me by surprise

[@nucleargoofball8043]

GET DOWN, MR. PRESIDENT!!

[@kabukiblooki]

Character development

[@jaimeruiz7837]

DANGER SENSE!

[@nickcampbell5626]

One time a player suggested we split the party. Another player replied, "Nah." His quick thinking may have saved the entire campaign, and maybe our friendships.

[@RiskierGoose340]

Context would be appreciated

[@CosmicPlatonix]

Honestly, context would be redundant. There is literally a whole song about how you never, EVER split the party.

[@kaminaridenki._.]

@@CosmicPlatonix but in this video we saw examples of splitting the party being the way to go :v

[@benjaminblackdeath5727]

@@CosmicPlatonix i think scooby doo was the first one to ever teach that you dont split a party

[@jaimeruiz7837]

I always split the part or try to because it’s more fun that way.

[@chrispbacon1763]

I was playing in a pirate campaign, and rolled a nat 1 on a navigation check threw iceberg filled waters. The ship was quickly sinking but we had just enough time to get to shore before it went down. The DM is excited about the big encounter with the navy in town once we wander to the docks, exhausted from a night of travel in the snow. I point out that wouldnt the navy still be looking for our boat sense no one knows we crashed. DM gets a blank stare on his face and starts flipping through their notes. Comes back 2 minutes later and lets us know the navy is not waiting for us. Avoided a deadly encounter because of this small detail.

[@shrimpy_nazeem]

I love your dm for that. He could’ve said a (ship class) or 2 were there for repairs or restocking just for a small encounter.

[@xboxoneyes7734]

You killed the dudes entire mood lol

[@LokiHades]

My DM is very similar. He’s a top tier bro because if we point out logical faults or keep track of things he misses he will course correct every time. He still makes the scariest encounters ever as a true grognard that being said, hahaha

[@Wertercat]

@@LokiHades[DM Voice] 'Sweet, I managed to get you into actually caring about the world and the story. Now, need to remember to take your observations and conclusions into account so you stay engaged.'

[@ShadowAzriel0110]

*rolls perception* Guys, that rock isnt a rock

[@notcashmoney205]

One time at level 3 we had an avalanche headed right towards the party. As a scribes wizard who had just taken rope trick, we simply all went up into the rope trick room and waited out the avalanche. The DM told me after the campaign that he planned for the avalanche to hit us head on, and we'd have to recover and survive in the mountains, and I had completely ruined his plans haha

[@JP-eh4ee]

Nice, I did the same, I was a sorcerer with izzet engineer background in Icewind Dale adventure module.

[@terrafirma5327]

My sister once used conjure animals to make 8 Giant Owls (size: large) to make an ACTUAL WALL OF OWLS to block a hallway so the party could escape.

[@shadowwhogames6063]

Duolingo

[@redwitch12]

If that's not her signature spell, I will be very sad. Who doesn't want the opportunity to say "I cast Wall of Owls" :D

[@terrafirma5327]

@@redwitch12 The owls have become a signature spell for boxing in enemies, being used as a wall, and emergency escape method being as they can carry medium sized players.

[@tatersalad76]

I love casting Wall spells in the middle of a hallway to slow/screw over enemies

[@brib4911]

Oh you're chasing me? OWL WALL MOTHER FUCKER!!!!

[@brieoconnor9824]

I was dming this one, but one player noticed something I hadn't even thought of. They had just rescued a gnome artificer, who gave them a bag of holding he made in return. They needed to get out quickly, so they said would put him in the bag of holding as he was injured. I explained how he'd only be able to breathe in there for 10 minutes, but that should be plenty of time for them to get out. They were just about to scoop him up and drop him in the bag when one player quickly went. 'Wait a sec. What if he has more bags of holding on him?' he did, he had half a dozen in various pockets. That players quick thinking prevented them all from being sent to the astral plane

[@Zeandico]

My quick thinking once "saved" the world, by taking the ultimate power instead of the BBEG, at the cost of reality itself. My character (and I) didn't know she was doing it, she was simply trying to stop his "doomsday device" from activating, and instead made herself the focus of the entire shebang. She was a trusting, young and Naive Elven Monk, who then spent an eternity trying to figure out how to bring the old world back as the god of the new reality the BBEG had planned to rule as a god. It was a bittersweet ending to a campaign.

[@KW-de9sc]

Jesus. Did she ever “fix” the world in any way?

[@Zeandico]

@@KW-de9sc She tried to reverse it all, but didn't have the knowledge necessary. All she could do was go forward with the prepared plans left by the BBEG to remake the world by his design. Which, mercifully had everyone from the old world recreated in a sort of afterlife. The absolutely worst part is, the BBEG motivation to delete the old worl was to get rid of an eldritch horror that had latched onto it. Our party was oblivious about this when we fought him and tried to stop the world-ending doomsday devise. We managed to damage it in the worst way possible. It still could do everything it was meant to do, except delete the eldritch abomination, meaning it existed in the next world as well.

[@nikkiofthevalley]

​@@ZeandicoAt that point I'm pretty sure your DM is evil.

[@Zeandico]

@@nikkiofthevalley Nah, it was our fault. We triggered the BBEG fight unintentionally, and broke the one thing we shouldn't of the machine. We didn't know much more than that we had to stop him. The DM confirmed that the fight could have ended in many different ways, and he was prepared for all of them. He hadn't expected us to trigger this particular one, but it is what we got.

[@p2jnyoom]

In a Curse of Strahd game, Strahd was ambitious and pushing for his goals rather quickly, and thus we were on the back foot near constantly. However, the most notable moment of quick-thinking, and the moment which put us on equal footing, was performed by myself. While in the Amber Temple, Strahd and Rahadin found the Sunsword before we did (it was in one of those treasure piles). I, an Ascendant Dragon Monk Amethyst Dragonborn, remained outside of the room to watch our backs while people investigated the room. When I heard the voices of Rahadin and Strahd (who teleported in), I activated my Gem Flight feature, charged into the room, and went to wrestle the Sunsword out of Rahadin's hands before passing it to Strahd. First attempt failed, I reminded the DM I had a second attempt, and then succeeded the second time. Having wrestled the sword from Rahadin, my immediate next course of action was to run away, and within 2 turns I was out of the Amber Temple, and kept running for 10 minutes. At this time, Strahd teleported to me, and asked me kindly to yield the sword to him, and by helping him in this way, he would spare us. Keep in mind, this is not the first time he asked us to help him, but at no point has Strahd clarified what he was doing. And, with this in mind, I would obstinately refuse to do anything without learning what Strahd needed the sword for (TL;DR, Strahd was trying to invade the world, and to cleave through the veil to unleash his army, he needed the Sunsword to temporarily end his curse of vampirism). And me, being the non-good aligned character I was, told Strahd that I and my party were willing to help under certain circumstances. This led to the DM and I stepping aside and making a contract of terms on which we would agree, upheld by a Marut from Mechanus. And here, for everything Strahd was asking for, I was able to make a constraint that allowed us to ignore Strahd's rules, essentially turning this into a non-agression pact from Strahd's side while we could continue about as normal. The DM did not notice this, I spoke to the other players on whether this contract is fine or not, and we agreed and shook on it when the contract was done. With the contract set in stone, I then told the DM and other players the full extent of what he agreed to (TL;DR, Strahd could not kill us or intentionally harm us, while we had to listen to and work for and not bother Strahd UNLESS we were chasing alternate ends to end Strahd's vampirism (amongst other things)). While grand in effect, it would be subverted when Rahadin usurped Strahd and became Vampire Lord of Barovia. This ended up subverting a plan I had intent to capitalize on, but nonetheless resulted in Strahd becoming an ally to the party. It's a very weird game of Curse of Strahd, if you can't tell.

[@brib4911]

Quite the tale!

[@AntonioHachi]

In a game a long time ago, our party bore witness to the actual demogorgon. Nearly the whole group went instantly insane except for me. Luckily the majority of the insanity rolls were for just running in fear. Unfortunately the cleric started running in the opposite direction of everyone else. The only way I could think to keep the whole party unseperated was to spam minor illusions of the demogorgon. Normally they'd never believe that the demon was 5 ft tall, but luckily the insanity allowed me to sheep dog most of us to safety

[@domchappell4775]

That’s big brain

[@BlueTressym]

Good job! If it's the encounter I'm thinking of, we had a similar thing in my group except luckily, only about half failed and we were bunched tightly together at the time. My character had an unspent Inspiration so I used it to pass the save, dropped *Calm Emotions* and we ran TF away in a calm and orderly fashion until we were out of sight and could regroup and deal with the ones who'd gone a bit doolally.

[@izanagino-okami8221]

Once on our first sessions of a campaign, our homebrew strength Rogue nailed a Nat 20 perception roll to see if anyone followed our tracks, successfully noticing a really odd rat. In order to be sure, he immediately attacked, nailing another nat 20 and dropping the transformed druid out of wildshape

[@Hex_the_Warlock]

Years ago I was part of a stream dnd party that my first character stayed behind from (due to them being murder hobos and he was lawful good.) We did a side story where our previous characters came around to save a main characters sister after he died and was unable to. After we saved her, it was found the person that tipped us off was an ancient green dragon. She had us save her to then use them as leverage against the party. My character, at the start of the campaign, had found a book that if you read to the end would show you your death. There was no way the dm could really tell the future so he left it ambiguous. So in that moment, my gunslinger said "so that is how it happened" as he had skipped to the end of the book. He pulled out his rifle and fired on the dragon, buying time for everyone to get away. He could never hope to kill the dragon on his own. But as it went to bite down on him and bisect him he threw his last smoke into his gunpowder supply, he was able to slow it down enough for the party to get. away.

[@VinnValor]

Ooooohhhh this is a funny little one. I saved the party. But it wasn't because of an encounter. For context, are party had to destroy a dracolich but it escaped leaving the barbarians tribe alone, a few sessions later a necromancer saved my vampire samurai from other vampires in exchange to follow and study me. So the necromancer had been talking with us keeping that suspicious vibe to him as everyone was at the bar, when suddenly are barbarian Bethra narrowly blurted out "You could help us get rid of this dracolich that escaped." My character clasped his hand onto her mouth and said "can I speak with you for a second?". As I am talking to Bethra about how stupid bringing a really evil looking necromancer to a dracolich fight would be, my DM aboveboard screamed WHY?! I HAD SO MANY PLANS FOR THIS PARTICULAR SITUATION!! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GET SMART NOW?! I was so proud of my quick thinking and we all had a good laugh about it.

[@QuillStroke]

Best part? Totally in Bethra's character.

[@joelsalscheider1205]

During one of my friends campaigns I was playing a Elvish Cleric with the life domain. He tried to avoid hurting anyone or anything if he could help it, and focused his time during combat to keep the party healthy. One night the party decided to make camp in between two boulders to keep ourselves hidden from view of the road, but what our Ranger didn't realize from their Nat 1 survival check is that these boulders where actually Stone Toads! As we all bedded down for the night our Ranger decided that they would take first watch, and of course they rolled their seconded Nat 1 in a row to make a perception check. Needles to say, he was swallowed during his watch by the large Stone Toad and failed on a reaction check to scream for help. I can still see my DM's look of hoarer as he realized that he may have accidentally killed a player before we even got very far into the campaign. Our DM then sighed and rolled in the open to see who was the other person to be swallowed next, and my number came up. Being that I was asleep, I didn't even have a chance to yell understandably, and two Stone Toads were hopping away happily with their night time snack. My friend spent his rounds trying to make athletic checks to climb out of the Stone Toads Stomach and the poor guy couldn't roll above a seven. I had to make a successful intelligence check just to try to figure out what was going on. That round as I felt my body starting to be consumed by acid, I successfully realized what must have happened. Then I was suddenly struck with inspiration to cast Create Food and Water, in which "You create 45 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water". Well this did the trick! With myself along with the extra food and water, it was to much for the Stone Toad to hold in, and I was immediately vomited out from the the creatures mouth, it then decided that it didn't want to eat me and continued to hop towards the forest. Covered in food, water, and toad goo, I then saw where my fellow companions where laying sixty feet away and noticed that the stones where gone and we were one companion short, so I quickly roused the others, and we were than able to catch up to the other Stone Toad heading towards the forest and save our friend. We will now never leave a stone unturned.

[@strongestcardaceofspades]

I was in a party (we were around 4th or 5th level? This was half a year ago or so) with a barbarian/sorcerer, cleric/fighter, rogue, paladin, and myself playing a monk. We were in a circus that had a gladiator combat with lots of people and monsters, battle royale style. There were two or three fire beetles bumbling their way towards us, and we didn't wanna exert ourselves on too many fights. The DM described how their feelers were guiding them and they were slowly creeping near, which made me realize they didn't see like normal things (I didn't know this Out Of Character until just then that they didn't have normal sight) so I had an idea. I asked them "what kind of roll would it be to throw something near but not directly at the beetles?" And they responded with an athletics check. I realized our barbarian/sorcerer had a really high athletics mod, so I described as my monk pulled out copper coins, turned to the barb/sorc and asked "Hey, [name], how good's your throwing arm?" They naturally said they were good at it, and my monk suggested to them to throw coins at the beetles in a trail, leading them into another group so the two would fight each other instead of us, bread crumb style. A few good rolls later and we avoided two potential fights at once for the low low price of like, 10 copper. Remember boys and girls: there's a thousand uses for your coins, and money is only one of them. Facing lycans? Chuck your silver coins. Need to check for traps? Lob some copper at the hallway and see what happens. Gotta divert attention while sneaking? Throw a copper to somewhere distant so the clang distracts whoever is on watch!

[@StormyTh115]

We were playing a custom dnd-like game made by our DM and another friend of ours. The setting was kinda steampunk with some modern day stuff mixed in. We had been fighting to steal a mission critical submarine type vehicle from the local military. Our plan was to airlift it out via our airship. What we didn't account for, was this base was powered by an extremely volatile reactor. So volatile in fact, that if even a single drop of water were to get on it, it would go critical, and destroy the entire base, and us along with it. Our DM has a knack for giving us ways to easily destroy ourselves if things go wrong. We realize as soon as we begin lifting this sub out of the water, that it's going to drip a ton of water on the reactor. A course correction was made, but we still would have dropped a little water on the reactor. Sir Hermann III had a lightbulb moment and Nat20'd a dex check for throwing his hat to catch the water before it landed. TLDR: Player somehow managed to save our lives by throwing his hat.

[@chadnorris8257]

I have an example of quick thinking that kept the party from being barred on the outside of a Dwarven fort that had been taken by Orcs. There was a large stone door that an Orc had managed to swing shut, and it was going to take him a round to get it locked. The fighter of the group charged the door, but didn't succeed at the strength check to force it open. I decided to use thaumaturgy to force the door open, as there's no save against doing so. I think the DM did make me roll to succeed, just so I wouldn't auto cheese the situation, but I succeeded, and we managed to get in through the front gate. Failing wouldn't have resulted in us dying, but it could have made it very hard, if not impossible, to get in and complete the quest.

[@ZabKlamn]

Starfinder. An antihero group I was in fought a crime boss early on with only 2 of 5 players present. After accidentally avoiding his abilities and killing him, the police barged in and the building's dead man's trigger was about to detonate the skyscraper. Our small-sized, strength-based gladiator soldier Skittermander named Skawaat Zapapple picked up my space pirate technomancer Ysoki's unconscious body, threw the crime boss' body out of a damaged window and surfed him down the side of the building as it exploded behind him. I asked how much experience we got for all those 'kills.'

[@flibbernodgets7018]

Our high level mythic pathfinder game saw us fighting Queen Abrogail of Cheliax, a diabolical sorcerer whose ancestors signed the souls of their subjects to Azmodeus in order to stay in power. She was attended by a pit fiend and an erinyes with class levels, and a squadron of mages casting buffs on her round the clock. She was sequestered away from us inside a force bubble that we managed to destroy once, but she raised it again. No spells could pass through the bubble from either side, but she had gained access to a form of psychic magic where she could draw people's spirits out of their bodies and trap them in a mindscape with her, where she would use her force of personality to smother them. This left both her body and the target's bodies inert and vulnerable, but with the force bubble that was not as much of a concern for Queen Abrogail as it was for our witch, who was now unable to cast disintegrate on the barrier any more. I and another character battled the devils, who were only trying to delay us really. We had done work for the pit fiend before and he had an odd fondness for us, and hinted that if we could release Abrogail from her contract early (aka kill her), he would take her soul and have no reason to fight us anymore. The final piece of the puzzle was the barbarian, whose people had been driven nearly to extinction by the Chelish crown and he had vowed revenge. He had recently gotten an item that allowed him to declare one square within a decent range as being threatened by him, regardless of distance or barriers. He picked this because he didn't want to bother with a ranged weapon, but here he realized there was nothing saying the space he chose couldn't be INSIDE the queen's force bubble. Unable to defend her inert body, the queen turned into a smoothie under his scathing fury. The devils packed up her soul gem and teleported away, and we dusted ourselves off, having killed one of the most powerful political figures of the Inner Sea in only three rounds. We later found out that, because of the queen's paranoia and pressure to further her own agenda, she had drawn up additional contracts with her hellish master binding her subjects closer to her for more power. Upon her death, those contracts had been fulfilled and about a tenth of her country's population got dragged immediately to hell. By an estimate I found on a forum, that's 160,000 people that we doomed to torment. We're not exactly beacons of righteousness, but we've never been responsible for harm on that scale before, and it was quite a shock. Still, quick thinking saved the party, so it fits the prompt.

[@voidinkstudios8753]

This actually just happened in the campaign I'm playing in! Party was investigating a cursed tower due to bad vibes and zombies. The door was crumbling, so the fire Genasi sorcerer took the door and used it as a makeshift shield because the place was sketchy as hell. It was the right call, because as we were investigating some corpses who were very much old, with new stab wounds, the knives in their backs exploded into magical glass and darkness. We would've all taken damage had it not been for the door shield.

[@ghetoknight7801]

That first story, I'd like to imagine in a fit of panic the all powerful party members using binding spells and the such just to restrain the warrior, and consequently their lifeline

[@auburnkeyblade2491]

This happened a few sessions ago. Party of five. My Bard/Paladin Paladin Warlock/Pirate Wild Magic Sorcerer And a Sidekick (child npc with a magic mcguffin we adopted) We had gotten into a fight with a group of sirens, and the party all failed the save against their song save for the Warlock and the Child. Our Sorcerer, in a panic, asked if he could use bend luck on my roll (I had rolled an 18 when the Paladin rolled an 8 and the Sorcerer rolled a 10). That single use of Bend luck turned what would have been a TPK into a doable fight. The sirens were still a tough crowd, and I ended up convincing them to leave after some pleading with them

[@shawnmorgan7834]

I really wanna thank you guys again. These videos got me into running my first game and it’s been going fantastic and even got some of my friends to think up some of their own games. We’ve been having an awesome time and it’s these stories that really inspired me to start in the first place. So thank you

[@Wolfsbane909]

during an custom game, the party would have been slayed but the rogue was tasked with sabotage of rigging the weapons in the town armory. so when the town was alerted of our presence, their spears, halberd. the sabotage was to simply loosen the spear heads, urinate on the gun powder...etc etc. we made our escape when the town guards weapons failed, wet gun powder tends not work, loosened spears tend to break easily as with fractured halberds that break after one strike.

[@hakael5661]

10 players on a group? I almost throw up a little, what absolute nightmae

[@100dfrost]

Once, when I was in the Army years ago, we played a 2 shot 2nd Edition module "The Destiny of Kings". We had been hired to find a prince on a pilgrimage in this province. When we got to this citadel I bribed the gate sergeant to let me look at the sign in / sign out book he had and saw that the prince had left this place 2 days ago. My actual squad leader had assumed the role of party leader, and at our quick player conference had put forth a plan to raid the keep of the citadel that night. All the players loved this plan, and no one listened when I pointed out that the one place we knew that the prince we had been hired to find wasn't it was here. I took all the party horses and travel gear and camped outside the citadel that night. The next morning I found out that the rest of the party had been captured breaking into the keep, except for the Elf wizard whom they had killed. I unloaded all the party horses and traded them to release the surviving party members to cover any fines or damages. We walked on down the road, only now in had become a three shot rather than a two shot.

[@celestrius9197]

One time a fellow player suggested we order pizza when a our last member was running late saying the drive thru line was insane. We told him to just come over we'd order pizza instead of drive thru. That certainly saved the party

[@pidbul530]

there was one time, when my pestering of DM about herbs gave me paralytic berries and furthermore paralytic poison... A bit later we've entered a village terrorized by young red. Fight lasted for a bit already and our frontliners were quite badly bruised before breath attack even came (would most likely do next round). Guess who succeeded saving throws of a bottle into whose ugly mouth. Really greatest moment I've ever come to have...

[@SonicLoverDS]

As if such a small amount of poison would have a noticeable effect on such a huge dragon.

[@Donshades4404]

@@SonicLoverDS potency is key. Also, bottle of poison. Basically imagine a NyQuil bottle, but filled with a fairly potent paralysis poison and the entire thing is thrown into the mouth of the dragon. A YOUNG dragon. Due to it being young it is big, but not too big to make this outside of the realms of possibility. If this is still sketchy, make the poison take several turns to take effect, with the effect being a chance to fail on any action. Basically instead of immediately failing the action due to paralysis, the dragon is having a case of partial paralysis, having to fight through it to perform any actions. Imagine failing a breath attack due to half the face muscles not responding, like a person coming home from the dentist’s after using anesthesia. Movement can fail due to the legs giving out after they ‘fell asleep’. Dragon tries to swipe but gets a massive accuracy debuff after its arm falls asleep. You get the picture.

[@chrisgoddard3411]

Final battle, not for the campaign, but for this entire world. Disgruntled Grim Reaper-esque woman took the power of life and death from the Raven Queen, so is assaulting the last city she hasn't yet taken for her armies. Entire world's population vs say, 10,000 people. My players had raised the 12 Clockwork Giants, ten story tall guardians, and only two remained to face her Airship Fleet she was using. My brother, a Warforged Artificer, flew over to the foot of one of the giants and cast "Enlarge." Since it was considered friendly, it doubled in all dimensions- and was suddenly in reach of all the ships who'd been bombarding it. It began to snatch the ships from the sky, effectively eliminating the enemy air superiority with one spell.

[@TextualDeviant]

When in doubt, cast Enlarge on the fuggin Goliath

[@remingtonwright6796]

closest I had was at the end of a boss fight in a campaign I was running, the bbeg was using Attack on Titan style mobility gear and he pulled the pin on an entire belt of grenades hidden behind his back and yeet'ed himself at the party. The party tank and my dmpc who has a magic force shield spell formed an impromptu phalanx, and the knock back effect on the concussive shield threw the enemy back far enough that the party was outside the blast radius.

[@zephyrartemis9633]

I’m the dm for a complete homebrew campaign for context, there are 4 main cities with 4 elemental tribes and multitude of different locations. One of the areas is sort of like Tartarus form Greek mythology so my players have decided to try to recruit every npc(even their butler and gardener) to join them on the adventure which is going to be chaotic for balancing encounters but extremely fun to narrate. Anyway hope everyone has a good day today and good luck with the hunt.

[@o.d.d.792]

We were a lvl 2 party of 5 and we were in combat with 2 mini-bosses called Frosh which were 15ft. tall artic emus with a craving for flesh. The two martial characters were struggling to hit and they were barbarians so they were taking some damage from a single emu and I basically told everyone to focus on that emu the barbarians are struggling with while I, the artificer would hold back the other emu by preparing some rope to wrap around its beak and hold onto its neck and I rolled well with athletics while the Frosh rolled low. This lasted for 2 turns which during that time the Wizard crit some firebolts which they were vulnerable to fire and the rest of the party was able to kill the second one with ease, although I took a crit while holding it back with rope.

[@willmcalister125]

Got two for this topic! First one was the closest call. We were after a leader of the obligatory evil cult of the BBEG in a mine. A real slog to get to her, lots of fights that slowly dwindled down our resources, leaving us scraping the bottom of the barrel when we finally got to the target. She was a fresh as daisies wizard, higher level than us, with all those spell slots and a batch of unscratched minions. I was playing a paladin, alongside a wizard of our own and a cleric, but the hero of the story was our Circle of Storms Druid named Skura (it's an unofficial subclass, can't recall the source). Her main class ability is to storm shape, which lets her levitate, do some other things, but of particular note, once a turn shove an enemy 5-10 feet with a rush of gale winds. When we were on the ropes, it was the druid who had the clever idea to exploit some poor footing, and blast the target down a hole made by some purple worms infesting the mine. We found out a day later by scrying that she managed to survive, but was bloodied and trapped. The second outing to catch her went decidedly more in our favor. Second one was something of a similar situation in a different campaign under the same DM. We were late game, pretty high level, but once again, found ourselves low on resources after a tough fight and were staring down the barrel of another big encounter. Iirc we were fleeing a castle after killing the puppet king controlled by the BBEG, and the local law enforcement took some issue with that. Coming down a hallway, some good perception rolls caught sight of another chokepoint of guards waiting to intercept us, and while I, a water genasi drunken master monk named Guy Zurr, had a decent bit left in the tank, most of us were wiped. Solution, our wizard, Rolland, could hide us for a short rest using the Rope Trick spell. Wrinkle, we needed a distraction. Guy, perhaps a bit too confidently, took the job, walked into the hall with the checkpoint, took a chair, and sat down in front of the assembled guards. Distraction accomplished. As for why I mentioned our level, it's thanks to the 14th level feature Diamond Soul, which gives monks proficiency in ALL saving throws, and allows rerolls using a Ki point. Along with spending most of the Ki points I had left on the occasional reroll, I went on to tank a flurry of Hold Person, AoEs, and variety of other spells, to the chagrin of the guards and the DM alike. When the smoke cleared, there was the drunken Guy, still sitting cozily in his chair, smiling and unscratched. A quippy line and a mad dash backwards later, we were all safely tucked away in the wizards Rope Trick for an hour of much needed recharging. Between the two, Skura's was definitely more clutch, but "The Chair Incident" is still one of my fav legendary moments among our group.

[@Blind_Prime]

home brew game close to publication: So I was playing as this Wolf named Wally. TLDR He was a loner, fast and a thief basically. I was pushing the game testing its limits by making the fastest theif I could while not min-maxing. The party was chasing a BBEG whom had a mcguffin. Now in this game my friends and I are creating Wolf's have a unique ability. They can transport themselves through certain types of trees. We were camping one night while chasing this guy across the countryside. On a whim I crept silently away from the camp and being the best tracker in the party I quickly found our quarry a few miles away. We could not directly attack this guy because he was far more powerful than us at the time. (the DM wanted us to be led to a place by this guy, I found out later) Being a thief and an enjoyer of shiny things I saw and stole the mcguffin from the bbeg. Now came the chase because this guy slept lightly and I only was able to steal it because I had very high points in athletics and stealing. The bbeg only awoke once the item was no longer touching him and that was when my character had to run. Run he did, being chased by this powerful bbeg throwing every spell he had at me. My reflex and dodging saves being high came in real handy here. Where was I running to? you might ask. Well I wasn't running back to my sleeping party, that was for sure. As a Wolf I could sense where a transport tree was and I was running full tilt towards one. I had made sure it was no where near the party or even in the direction the bbeg was going. I ran him in circles until I knew he would be lost in the deep woods for a good while and teleported away using the transport tree. Now not only did my character have the crazy awsome powerful mcguffin but our antagonist at the moment was tired and lost in the woods. That was when our quest changed from getting the thing to delivering the mcguffin back to the king it was stolen from. Did the BBEG ever find his way out of that forest? Yes. Did he chase us and try to get the Mcguffin back? Yes but those are stories for another time. thanks for reading one of my tales about Wally the Packless Wolf.

[@brib4911]

When is this "Another time"

[@maniacalmurderer4123]

My guy the warrior really left the fight to get some martial arts training then came back to actually fight. Now that’s some time management right there

[@BootaoHutao]

I was playing my first campaign, and we encounter a mantacour, we talk to it for a bit, feed it some orc meat and a spider leg (don’t ask) and one of the party members tries to get it to come with us. Something around a NAT 20. Needless to say the mantacour came with us and we successfully kind of befriended it. (We were all level 1)

[@ritbow8596]

I prepared a blood circle in the back because I knew the party was going to trigger the floor boss, so I just waited and then got everyone to run back into the circle so I can summon demons to handle the job. I guess not in the moment thinking but it saved the party.

[@mangaartist303]

Had a hilarious situation where my characters kept screwing over a particular recurring villain. The most notable was when we were trying to run from what my DM had intended as sort of a horror movie entity. Our attempts to identify it were ineffective, and, frustrated with my paladin's low Int foiling them, used her paladin detection abilities. DM stops and asks what the range is. Turns out one of the NPCs we'd rescued was a demonic recurring villain and was thus detected by my ability. Paladin fought him off alongside the ranger and another NPC while the cleric used a clever argument about the wording of a spell to blast the horror creature outside with massive amounts of radiant damage.

[@Acatia2]

Sorry, I'll try to cut as much fluff as possible. Once upon a time, in a One Shot, I was playing an Oath of Vengence Paladin. She was a former Knight from a religious order that actually turned out being a cult and was left for dead after a blood ritual, swore retribution on them. Anyway I'm exploring some ancient ruins with a questionable moral compas Echo Knight (liked to toss his echo at literally anything dangerous), a spazy Rogue and an archeologist Druid (forgot the subclasses of the last 2 as they were much more subdued). We're level 10. After some threading along, and not wanting Echo #59 to potentially alert whatever we thought might be making shambly scratchy noises again (it was indeed a few zombies in the end), I used my Divine Sense in hope of at least confirming if it wasn't some large rabid rats again. I could confirm the zombies, but also pinged on a strong presence nearby. Rogue reveals a hidden door in that direction and we find a sealed crypt with a bunch of miscellaneous items and a large stone slab. Druid starts reading runes as they do, Fighter and Rogue beeline for what's essentially a sarcophagus, figures I'll keep an eye out for what's likely what registered on my Divine Sense, you know. The DM starts describing in great detail the grim attire of the body inside as well as various items contained including an ornate urn, which they immediately follow with the corpse starting to awaken and roll for Initiative. I forget the turn order, I think they Rogue tried to stab the thing for barely any effect. I do know my turn was before the undead thing though, so I ask the DM: "remember how my character was from a holy order right?", "of course" says the DM. "You spend a lot of time detailing the content of this sarcophagus, so as a former religious person I might have some knowledge on undead types", the DM confirms that would make sense. So I swing my first attack at that urn, revealing a blackened heart and 3rd level Smite that thing with my 2nd attack, killing what turned out to be the end boss kind of lich thing before it got its turn. Apparently the main entrance was meant to be accessed much later down the line and we'd learn of the lich through runic messages and gather holy weapons... but apparently being immune to fear and a swing from a Smite infused maul squashes undead hearts REALLY good.

[@RlKrav]

Rogue here with the paladin, barbarian, wizard, and fighter are planning out an attack plan to take out two bandit guards outside a cave hideout without alerting the other bandits inside. While talking it out we took our eyes off the barbarian who proceeded to climb the cliff above the entrance jump down and take out both guards at once with double nat 20's. The rest of us looked at eachother and shrugged like, or that works too.

[@Asmodean1111]

It's wasn't so much another player's quick thinking, but more of my own when he used a spell to help our group avoid poisoned water that coming down a ladder from a deeper chamber. We wore in a underground fortress made like a maze with a single path out, and the pathways wore thin to the point most people who wore not dwarf or smaller had to lean down a bit and walk a bit sideways. At this point the BBEG (Mind flayer) decided it was a smart idea to let us know his forces wore closing in on us. Lightbulb moment, friend used control water to help us avoid the falling water to not poison us... So what if we decided to have him use the spell to fill most of the room with that water (saving space for us to not be in said water) and then just shotgun the down the thin pathways, flushing every single other person in the paths out letting us escape, while the enemies wore trying to recover. Doesn't help being a high Int BBEG, when all your underlings are in fact crazy. (Derro)

[@mooseygoosey9720]

My first Dnd session was when I was 8, made by my older sibling. I was a human thief-rouge kind of character. My sibling purposely made me kind of starring role. (8 year old) and when we went to go rescue a bunch of people from mining evil stones, I eagerly used my lockpick skills to rescue all of them. I felt so happy.

[@KieranH612]

In my first session playing with a new group, I managed to save a party member from falling to their death in an icy cavern... twice. The first time another player had to catch two other characters from falling, and my halfling/goblin ranger barely managed to save our cleric by tossing a rope, thankfully giving them advantage by remembering to call out to them first. Then they came up with the ideo to have the whole party hold onto the rope, and the player they saved slipped on the ice again, but managed to stay upright thanks to the rest of the party succeeding their rolls. I'm still really proud of that first session, and our characters have been good friends ever since!

[@shaynewalker3248]

Not to toot my own horn, but I had a big brain move. Minor spoilers for The Wild Beyond the Witchlight ahead We are currently running TWBTW and my character is a Harengon Artificer with a robotic homunculus crow named Lucy. We were in the fight against Agnon Longscarf and his brigands and were getting the absolute tar beat out of us. I was tanking as much damage as I could, but our dm had assured us this campaign could be completed without combat so we had all come in packing light. After a few rounds of constantly getting gut punched, I was 6 hp from going down and the rest weren't looking great either. Earlier in the game, I had asked the dm if I could make a "Hat of Holding" (essentially I took a over sized hat and made a bag of holding out of it) purely so I could make a "pull a rabbit out of a hat" joke since I was a Harengon. Our dwarf cleric was before me, and we were both withing melee range of Agnon and a couple of his brigands. He looked to me, asking what we should do and I had an idea. I said "hold him in place". He cast hold person, and Agnon failed the check. On my turn, I approached Agnon, shoved the hat down over his head and turned to the brigands, telling them "I am the captain now". The DM went to ask me for a grapple, but realized Agnon was paralyzed so he decided no check was required. Since I didn't have Fast Hands, that's all the item interaction I could do. I told the dm "that's the end of my turn. Now for Lucy's turn. She attacks the hat with the intention of tearing a tiny hole in the hat." The DM was confused and said "alright, she does it". I pulled up the DMs guide (I believe page 142-143) and read aloud how a bag of holding is considered ruptured when torn. Any items within are immediately scattered across the astral plane. The DMs jaw dropped and he said "uh...alright. Agnon's now headless body drops dead on the ground". This caused a general panic amongst the brigands and most of them ran for it. Unfortunately, I lost literally all of my stuff besides Lucy, the weapons I was wielding and the clothes on my back, but it was totally worth it to have one of my most awesome kills.

[@robob2968]

Sorry for the book but I’m quite proud of this one. My quick thinking saved myself and another player. I was part of a home brew campaign in 4e in which I was a half-orc fighter among a party of various talents. We were on our way to retrieve a gem of strength, one of the legendary magical gemstones, which had us make our way up to the peaks of the giants. After some treacherous platforming and problem solving we arrived at the lair of a sleeping Hill Giant who had the gem. Quick setting: it’s a big room compared to the party with shelves on the left wall in a staircase arrangement leading to the gem with some items in rather precarious positions. On the floor on the other end of the room was a massive pile of hay and straw that the party unanimously decided should be put under the precarious items should they happen to fall to cushion the fall and prevent the Giant from waking up. The party member, a halfling cleric, decided to try and go up the shelves but she was too small to reach the next shelf so I went with her. We had some close calls with knocking items over going up the shelves but we made it to the gem in its case relatively easily. However once I had the gem in my possession, the Giant woke up, looked towards the gem , noticed it was missing, and started to panic and become angry. The cleric and I were right behind the case when it woke up since we didn’t really have any time to move. In a moment of quick thinking and action I saw the giant’s broom propped up against the wall right beside the shelf and decided to ride the broom down to the ground, jumping in a nearby hay stack we made for the items on the shelf and ran towards the entrance. Had the cleric and I stayed there, we would have probably been crushed by an angry Giant.

[@Legendi-chan]

I got shalaylayed to my ribs for 12 damage vecause i walked next to a warlock who was in a mimics mouth that was a random woman Yeah so our tribal healer lizard man healed me and the pacifier of THE thing. Just few seconds ago i erased a bandit chief with my cursed nokia and shouted "TAME THE WOLF" because its a big wolf and i was the main tank in the combat encounter as the lowest HP party member as Bard.

[@liondovegm]

Recently. Wizard has tattood some of the party members. One that they all have is the ritual for Arcane Eye, Alarm (if any of them are bloodied My Wizard would know). On an infiltration mission out lower level member was found out and the bbeg impaled them, triggering my alarm. I scry'd them from the arcane eye to see what was going on. I used my scribe feature to ritual cast as an action teleportation Circle under their feet (bbeg was holding paladin by throat) to my characters original home. As a Sea Elf, the place was inside a temple at the bottom of the ocean. Changed output of the portal behind them. Bbeg cannot breath underwater and the pressure is immense. Use control water, force the 100 cubic feet of water in between the two to end the grapple and push bbeg into the floor of the temple, force party member up through the portal, now linked to my current temple, then I close the portals. Later I scryed on one of my worshipers in the BBEG's temple to see if he returned, he did, his dad used miracle to conjure him back to the temple, but he had to walk of shame back.

[@TextualDeviant]

>"His dad" Great to see the DM finally taking responsibility for his errant son.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@bryantmccall6967]

I'm glad PANR is still healthy, I don't know what I would do without you tuning in.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

@@bryantmccall6967 thank you, I'm doing my best. Not easy though. Hospital is dragging its feet with my medicine. But hey, we all need a little red tape, right? Ah, but how ya been man? Holding up ok?

[@stevengrass6800]

Our DM trapped our 2nd level party in a room with a shambling mound. My cleric hid behind his shield and the paladin cast shield of faith on him. The cleric could then repeatedly dodge, imposing disadvantage on it's attacks, until the barbarian, warlock, and paladin could whittle away it's HP.

[@UrbitheTabaxi]

(This is played on what my brother called "Basically ad&d2e with 5e elements and homebrew stuff") (its also a BLAST) One what was our second/third session we had to go to an island, on that island was a huge basically swamp of black goo that caused our party members to become depressed, and was slowly swallowing them up. We were all Tabaxis as well, after some time and as we got closer to the center of the island, we saw ruins of some ancient city or something that we jumped to, after of course a few of our party members getting lucky rolls and coming back to a somewhat normal state, after jumping from building to building we saw a massive mound of the goop, and slowly the buildings we landed onto were being swallowed whole by the goop. I had the idea of tying us all together with a rope, in case any of us were to fall/slip, we would be able to still make it to the top of the mound. So we all jump onto the mound, and using climbing we make it about 2/5ths the way there, we had to make d10 rolls within 90% suddenly the bottom two fail their rolls and we get pulled down slightly, they both way around 90-ish pounds, okay not too bad we can still make it now the % is within 80, then down goes our cleric, another 110 pounds now its 75%, all the while i'm still making my rolls, as is our biggest guy, a 7'1" tiger guy who weighs like 300-400 pounds then he fails as we are about to make it, about 2 more rounds and we would've We get pulled down almost all the way, only leaving me to pull the rest of us up, I know need to get under SIXTY FIVE PERCENT and I make it about halfway and then I get a FOUR PERCENT and only need one more round to make it, I do and save our entire party, easily the most hyped i've been in a DND session ever

[@gibosgibnon7909]

7:30 I’m actually the DM for this game, the party has escaped the Shadowfell due to them realising where they should go. This led to the ranger having another stroke of genius where he cast light on one of his arrows and shot it as far away as he could luring the undead away from the party. Due to him getting a very high roll it went for miles. However this did lead to the corpse of a Balrog from the roof of the castle to fall onto the ground and soon be corrupted by the evil magic of the shadowfell (definitely not a necromancer bbeg) turning it from an extinguished corpse to a balrog in blue flames. And due to the only signs of life being in the castle it busted through the gate and went on a little hunting spree. This means that they had to run for the hills (literally) and after following that river! They escaped the castle and found an old canal towards the mountain where the portal was, after a few skill challenges, a tense a hell reappearance of the undead balrog and the ranger getting a nat 20 on the rocks the beast was standing on and the balrog getting a nat 1 on the saving throw, to stay on said rocks (leading to it to take over 250+ fall damage cause I don’t run limits to it) the group escaped to the real world and they could finally sigh a breath of relief as they stared at the mountains and scenery on the roll20. Honestly a brilliant session from my players with quick thinking from all members and some other crazy rolls of the dice, if my players are reading this love you guys!

[@yennyrus4798]

I wasn't a player in this, but due to the westmarch nature of the game I got to spectate in it. Was absolutely crazy to see them sprint to the portal, going down a snowy ashy mountain with the balrog close behind. Maria, the cleric (Life domain, goddess of love) stop running, turned around, and in her best mom voice commanded the balrog to Leave. This hulking beast with magic resistance then proceeds to roll a saving throw, only to get a Nat 1 and storm back up the mountain, only to get shot clean off the other side. From my PoV they shouldve all been dead! But the dice told a different story.

[@baku_716]

omg gerbo 😍😍😍😍

[@ceylonwilliams8353]

This didn't save the party but it did save a lot of time. So me and the party, after climbing a tower flint Ryder style, there was a hallway with blood trailing to 3 different rooms. Party was arguing about what to do for like 5 minutes straight And while I was metagaming a tiny bit IRL we only have like half an hour of the session left and this would be a last session for a while due to scheduling issues. So I walked right up to the nearest door knocked and nearly got eaten by a hag. It was worth it to get the ball rolling

[@tyleratherton1087]

Starfinder post was mine!! Let’s goooooo

[@jettblade]

We were playing RoleMaster and had a friend playing a rogue-type that was snarky, paranoid, and always looking for the easy way out. This one time we were going through this swamp and this hyrda came out of no where, GM loved random encounters. As we were about to throw down the rogue ran up to it and started to praise it asking for its name. It being a dragon-like creature it was intelligent and flattered. After things chilled out I, being an evil ranger, summoned some wild boars for the hyrda to snack on instead of us. As we left that encounter the player actually wrote the hyrda's name under the deity section of the character sheet.

[@brunosilva5652]

I have one interesting one. Lvl 5 party on a homebrew setting, the fighter had ran of due to something related to her backstory in the dungeon. We opened the dor to what was supposed to be the treasury and we found weapons in there alongside Cocatrices (enemies with resistance to non magical weapons) the only magical one we had at the time was with the fighter so we were in a bad spot. My wizard then on his turn used detect magic and focused on pointing out the loot of the room. At the start of each players turn he’d yell “The sword on your right!” this basically doubled the party damage (other then smite) and made a very hard encounter into a mild one

[@MagicBlades]

In a campaign I was doing with two other friends where one of us was the DM, meaning two players. Me and my friend took a sneak attack on Bandits with my Dragonborn Wizards Fireball to start. We succeeded in that fight with minor damage, but soon after got raided by a LOT of Orcs. About 20 from memory. Me and him went to the top of two towers and we took separate ones. After we took down 5 or so Orcs I had taken a lot of damage and Misty Stepped to the other Tower, which also delayed the other 5 orcs in my towers advance. Eventually they all started climbing the towers instead of taking the stairs. When I saw this, I believe the spell I used was Earthbind, which shot all of them too the ground and killed most of them. Elves showed up shortly after we cleaned up, which was how it was intended to end, but we would not have survived if we weren’t on separate towers and I didn’t have that spell.

[@CaciqueVanGuard]

Pathfinder first edition, Rise of the Rune Lords we were fighting Arkryst the Ancient White Dragon. We had a relatively fluid roster throughout this campaign but in this particular fight was a Bard, Barbarian, Chosen One, and a Ranger. The Chosen one could fly and was fire focused, the Barbarian and Ranger managed to mount the dragon to pummel it while it fly through the sky, the bard cast invisibility and ventriloquism to stay out of the fight while still buffing the party. The fight did not go well. The Chosen One quickly drew aggro given the fire damage and nobody could stop the drain from chewing on him. The ranger got thrown and collapsed from the fall damage. The Barbarian realized this was a lost cause and remembered he had a scroll of mass teleportation, gathered his fallen companions humored off the dragon and landed with enough hit points to stay standing while raging, but not enough to stay conscious if he stopped raging. He handed the bard the scroll in his last turn of rage and collapsed as the bard read the scroll with Arkryst heading right toward them. The Bard managed to get everyone out just in time thanks to the quick thinking of our dwarf Barbarian.

[@RobCrowley85]

We were on the elemental plane of water and were fighting a hydra. All the heads but one were taken off and cauterised to stop them growing back. Most of us had to duck out of the cave it was in, due to low hit points, with one holdout grappling its head and being battered off the walls. My dwarven fighter ran back in with the arm of a giant crab we had killed as it was quite long and had sharp pincers. One swing later and the hydra was done.

[@maniacalmurderer4123]

The monk: “I AM AL’KATHA-“ * is instantly knocked out *

[@shockeye3863]

5:35 She didn't run away. It was a strategic retreat.

[@arokard9903]

Our artificer used A tent as a parachute to glide to the back of a train and drop kick a big bad bandit of the fight that was wrecking us off the train

[@synashilp]

In a 5e campaign, I was playing a bladesinger. The rest of the party consisted of a berserker, an illusion wizard, and a lore bard. While the thought to be greedy and cast haste on myself did cross my mind, I instead chose to cast it on the berserker. That emboldened the berserker's player to charge at the biggest threat there was and tank it, leaving us to pick off any smaller monsters. The AC boost from Haste saved the berserker's bacon more than a few times, and his four attacks per round allowed him to clean house. We all ended the fight quite bloodied, but alive, and it was all thanks to cooperation.

[@zackarychristian9489]

Thank you so much for voicing this. I don't watch if you don't.

[@BrianVaughnVA]

And thank you for listening in Zack!

[@robertsilvermyst7325]

My party ended up in a fight with a lich. I was playing as a lv 8 Battle Master Fighter/lv 8 Shadow Sorcerer Khenra (jackal beastfolk race), and our Wizard teleported to the lich to 1v1 him. I provided assistance with Subtle Spell Counterspells to keep myself from being countered as I interrupted the lich's castings while fighting off the minions. Our Wizard had taken inspiration from my build sessions earlier and picked up Metamagic Initiate for a feat, having initially wanted to grab Tough up until he saw how I was using my sorcery. When it seemed the lich might be in that sweet spot, he used a Subtle Spell and cast Power Word Kill on the lich.

[@skeletor4062]

I had a DM once who went through a "it's time to kill the party" mode every 5 -7 levels and was most often successful. In the one campaign we had which went beyond level 20 the following things happened. 1. The BBEG was an anti-paladin who was given a black unicorn as a mount. Advanced hit dice and it was dimension dooring in and out of melee to heal the blackguard when he dipped below health. The DM made it a war of attrition and we were losing until I dimensionally anchored the unicorn. Our fighter & rogue combo promptly murdered it and the BBEG fled. 2. The next time we saw the BBEG he was in the company of a Death Slaad who started summoning lesser slaad and trying to overwhelm us with numbers. Once we were outnumbered it proceeded to do the finger of death once per round until I got off a feeblemind. In a mini-fit the BBEG realized his slaad had his intelligence permanently reduced to 1 and immediately killed it. I thanked him and proceeded to explain to him that since the slaad was now dead, all the ones he'd summoned disappeared also. 3. The third time he sent a prismatic dragon after us. By then I had the spell "imprisonment" You can guess how that went. 4. After that he sent Bahamut after us. Like, right after. We retreated into the prismatic dragons mountain lair which was protected from teleportation spells and effects and barricaded the entrance. While the dragon god began casually smashing through our defenses I identified load bearing walls and columns and used a stash of glyph of warding scrolls I'd been creating and we scurried out the back in time to collapse the mountain on bahamuts avatar, effectively trapping him. 5. We made it to level 25 when the DM finally just cheesed my wizard away from the party and then sent Elminster with a hit squad of 2 psions and 2 psychic warriors. I finally died and then shortly thereafter, so did the party.

[@jamesbaker3957]

Often my quick thinking gets us out of bad situations....because often my other thinking got us into it

[@eraphtasofstet8645]

When I was a wizard PC, we were cornered by a high level Druid with a fire elemental, and low on HP and spells. We had a joke Spellbook, a bag of colding, one spell scroll of banishment and a single inspiration point. Over our dinner break, I came up with a plan. Our Druid went first, and she cast banish on the fire elemental, getting rid of it. I opened the joke spell book and cast a prank spell that turns the target into a sock for one round, and used the inspiration point to ensure the evil Druid failed her check. I yelled to the fighter to put the sock in the bag of colding, getting her in before the round was up. Inside, she froze instantly, turning a potential TPK into one of the most memorable moments in that game.

[@wereking69]

i could say my own, we're doing a Tower crawl. but i'm a noob and took a druid (a class i played somewhere familiar with) and had taken some spells that might not suit a Tower crawl conventionally (or maybe like not "meta" to take) we got to a new lvl and our barbarian just ran into 2 catsers. OOC we didnt know he was Sort of getting his ass kicked by hold person. By attacking them he set off a trap cutting us of from him by spawning 8 werewolve skeletons. spike growth helpen us get the initial dmg in and we took them down 1by1. but then 1 of the casters casted firewall on our grouped up party. everyone took a loopt of fire dmg. i had creatie and destroy water for some reason in my spell list, since it might be useful, and that was it's time to shine. fire wall gone but it toon a lot of Hp and saved is from a TPK. we finishers the lvl all on low Hp and nog long rest on sight, pray for us 😅

[@shanecollett819]

Dragonheist. They are are the Gralhund villa and because of earlier shenanigans the Zhentarim and Gralhund forces are fighting each other (Basically the party got their hands on the stone way before they were supposed to). One of my wizards walks in on this fighting, and just goes "Nope fireball". Kills every single npc. Lady Gralhund and her body guard come out. She makes a subtle threat after some RP and the rogue lets lose his bow. Nat 20 kills her instantly. Now my group tends to make optimal characters so I slighty tweaked the body guard to be a barbarian. He rages and hits the rogue for another nat 20 nearly taking all his hp in one go. They all shit bricks and start to run. The strategist of our group was also playing a wizard who slapped disguised himself as the rogue but not before he cast grease on the stairs. In this time the other rogue / cleric multiclass tried to take him on and got ko'd, the fireball wizard was already out in the grounds and the groups melee wasn't in the session. So when the body guard came to the top of the stairs, the strategist taunted him about his master dying. Leading to him falling down the stairs. They'd already got some damage on him + damage he received from the fight before. So I rolled that one with him breaking his neck on the landing.

[@YearoftheKitsune]

I was playing a druid kobold who had happened to pick up a a laser rifle and a bunch of charge cells from a crashed nautilloid from an earlier sidequest. We ended up later going up against some kind of mechanical dragon that was attacking a city, but it was wiping the floor with us just a few turns in. I had Call Lightning up, and a real hail mary of a plan to toss the cells under the dragon and Call Lightning them to make them explode, but it'd take two turns to pull off and people might die before then so I made the call and asked if I could slide in under the dragon and Call Lightning on the same square to blow the pack while it was still attached to my Kobold. The DM let me, the pack blew, the dragon was destroyed and Dakko was vaporized. RIP Dakko

[@RebelShardAleph]

My first ever campaign of DND I was a level 3 Storm Domain Cleric cosplaying as Solaire of Astora from Dark Souls. All my spells related to either character or the game in some way with one of them being Fog Bank so I could recreate the fogs in the game. (Yes this was kinda cringe but it was my first time and years ago.) Anyway, on the second session of the Campaign Our two ranged fighters. (A rouge and ranger who were married in real life) were both absent leaving only the spell casters and melee martials. We were going through a forest but there was a stone outcropping going over the road which we soon learned was full of bandits armed with bows. This was the Worst case scenario as they were high enough that they got advantage on hitting us but we got disadvantage on hitting them. The DM hadn't expected the ranged players to be gone so he fully expected a TPK but after a moment of looking at my sheet I asked if I could caset Fog bank above our heads but below the archers and just like that the bandits lost the advantage and we eventually beat the encounter.

[@penguinmaster7]

there were about 6 of us and we were escorting a few kobold nobles back home. there were about 12 spellcasters with the high ground advantage, a necromancer, and a giant undead beast that he had under his control. The tabaxi rogue used some insane movement speed (feline agility + dash action) to get around the big beast and use cunning action to hide. next turn, after everybody else (except the kobolds) died due to several AOE attacks from the spellcasters and a stun attack from the behemoth, they took a steady aim sharpshooter powershot and took out the necromancer in a single attack. the undead behemoth then turned on the spellcasters, which whittled the big monster down to nothing. the DM was shocked that the rogue saved the party like that. best part is that one of the kobolds was a healer and managed to bring back the rest of the party.

[@xdieselxdemonx4652]

Once we were running from Fraz-Urbluu, and we called for help from a black dragon we had met previously and we told him we would give him all of our loot if he gave us a ride on his back. Once we landed I'm pretty sure our loot wasn't sufficient enough and as he was about to annihilate us with its flame breath, but right as it attacked I casted windfall which sent the flames flying in the air. Our party and some npcs we had with us was enough to kill it aswell

[@davidrose7938]

I normally DM but got to play in a Frostmaiden campaign last year. There was an avalanche and my cleric cast Water Walk which can be cast on up to 10 willing creatures, lists snow as a liquid, and also states in the description that a submerged creature ascends at 60 ft per round. Saved the party and the DM was relieved because they thought it was going to be an accidental tpk. Same campaign, my character had a secret that it had a relationship with an npc of my choice. Half the party was on some Wanted posters including my character. We had approached the leader woman of Ten Towns whom I addressed as “Buttercup” and the room exploded as I revealed the secret and saved the party from being outlaws for the rest of the campaign.

[@TheTolnoc]

I don't know if I'd call it 'Quick Thinking', but our Ranger in the Pathfinder 2 game I'm in just passed a half dozen secret will saves against a Satyr's pipes, trying to make him open a manticore's cage. The Manticore alone is a challenge for a party of 5 level 9 characters (which we were) so not having to deal with that and ALSO a Satyr, was really nice. I suppose, I could toot my own horn for destroying the Satyr's pipes with a lethal playing card when we realized what was happening, but considering he bolted as soon as the actual fight broke out, I think the Ranger deserves most of the credit. As a bonus, this Ranger had previously worked with that Satyr as an animal tamer in the circus. The Satyr turned out to be an animal abusing bastard who captured sentient magical creatures for the circus, and the Ranger had left them to join *our* circus, so he got to stick it to his former dick head co-worker, while we freed a Dryad and convinced a Pegasus to join our circus instead! All in all, a great scene.

[@jcmohr]

(TL,DR at the bottom) If my DM didn't allow for homebrewy/out-of-the-box uses of abilities or spells, this probably would've never worked. I was playing a Storm Sorcerer, which has awesome flavor but sometimes it's abilities leave something to be desired. One of it's abilities nearly useless, "Storm Guide", which allows me to stop rainfall within 20 ft. of me or change the direction of the winds in a 100 ft. radius of me (the only time it has actual use is in a seafaring campaign, which we were not in). Some clueless decisions one session lead us unknowingly, into the lair of a massive, super-powered Red Dragon that we had heard about a few sessions back. "Roll for Initiative". We managed to just barely keep alive throughout the fight as we darted around the cavern, split up into different groups to flank him, but he had a magic item that allowed him to send us flying 20 ft. any direction (except up or down) with every melee attack. Eventually he beat us around and knocked us down so many times, that we all ended up being forced together. I was all out of spellslots except for one 2nd & 3rd level slot, and decided to use my turn (I was right before the dragon) to hold an action and stated "I'ma try something reeaaaallly unorthodox & outside-the-rules if you'll allow me". Our DM being the fun-loving, rule-of-cool guy he was, said I could give it a shot. The dragon hadn't used its breath weapon yet since it costed more actions than usual, but was far far stronger than normal (Think Godzilla levels of breath weapon), but now that we were all together it unleashed hell upon us. That's when I casted a reactionary Wind Wall, and said I was gonna try to combine it with my Storm Guide ability, and draw in all the wind & air from around us to make it far larger and stronger - hopefully strong enough to withstand the blast - than Wind Wall could normally be. I was told that he really wanted to see this work, and said I'd have to roll a Charisma check to meet-or-beat the DC of the breath weapon. I just barely made the DC. The breath weapon couldn't get through the giant shielding winds and instead got swept up in the winds and surrounded us in fire. This did give one party member the opportunity to drop a scroll down that instantly created a Circle of Teleportation. Before I stepped through I casted one more "Screw you" Shatter spell in it's face. The DM awarded my quick thinking that day and said that the winds slammed into him as the shatter caused the wind shield to explode in his face, dealing massive damage. He also awarded me a magic item from the hoard of the dragon that day saying an interesting wing-like cloak was within reach and I could grab it as I stepped into the circle to escape. TL/DR; I used a very rule-bending idea and out-of-the-box solutions and turned one of the most Useless Sorcerer abilities into a powerful defense, preventing a TPK, and was awarded with Wings of Flying for it.

[@lmw11661]

I played a moon circle druid. I had just seen a trex in the previous session. I usually like to be a bear or sabretooth but decided to wildshape on a walk into a new town. We were supposed to be ambushed by assassins just outside of town but i had let the party climb on my back to relax while we walked toward the town. The assassins didnt call off the ambush but couldn't stop me before i put my head on the wall surrounding the town to allow the party to get inside and get the guards. I ended up dying but the group plus guards managed to thwart off or kill the rest of the assassins. I was resurrected a few sessions later but based on the damage from the sneak attacks i took, it would have been a tpk bc my trex went back to genasi on the second round of combat and died the same turn

[@yoface2537]

I was an artificer, I blew a lot of stuff up, I was rather knowledgeable in mythology and science irl, first battle ever (this was a one shot intro to teach me and my friend how to play) immediately asked the first mate of my friends ship for Greek fire when attacked by pirates, 3 rounds later pirate ship in flames with pirate captain taken prisoner and the only survivor, now at the opposite end, last part of the campaign, we were fighting a crew of skeleton space pirates, I rolled for perception to find rust and aluminum, made thermite and in a repeat of the first adventure we set a ship on fire and left

[@ianbonner2595]

Playing a homebrew 1-shot starfinder game with 5e rules and characters. We had escaped a port in a stolen ship and were trying to figure out our next move. As we were sitting there a pirate craft appeared and began approaching us. As the only arcane caster I was forced to be the pilot for the ship but at the rear was a mechanism that amplified arcane energy. I abandoned the pilot's seat and ran to the mechanism (to the dismay of the rest of the party) and cast Minor Illusion into it. I created the image of a police equivalent dreadnaught coming out of the shadow of a planet. The pirates ran and left us to finish planning. Finished a tough encounter with nothing but a cantrip

[@iron5050]

Lol the Warrior from the first story reminds me of Senior White from the story Cultivation Chat Group. He’s known for his insane luck (and he’s also fairly impulsive) and the MC noticed that whenever Senior White suddenly decides to wander off there’s immense danger right after, so he always tries to hang near him. Unfortunately it never works. While Senior White is known for being a luck charm that brings opportunity and danger in equal measure, the MC is know for being a luck charm that brings opportunity but faces an equal amount of danger himself.

[@rodrigohinke3477]

We once encountered an umbral blot. The ranger’s artifact mace of smiting was nearly broken and my illusionist was being useless…until he cast Gate to creat a portal to A city of demons in the abyss. He and the ranger fled…the ranger was perplexed until the umbral blot followed us and we turned right around and re-entered the prime through the same gate…with it now shut we proceeded to loot the place.

[@DayofRaptors]

tl;dr I got my entire team into near-TPK trouble, but turned the tides back to my favor in such a massive way that I now have the potential to completely derail the campaign. I'm playing a Chaotic Neutral Bard in my friend's first real DMing experience, but I'm not your typical Bard; I also took a level in Rogue, I like doing disruptive things, and I'm a big fan of death metal. Think Eddie Riggs from Brutal Legend if he traded in his axe for Loki's dagger. Haven't tried to seduce anyone just yet; on the contrary, I've been using my bardic skills to study the townsfolk. Also haven't gotten a whole lot of opportunities to use my Rogue skills, until this moment. For pretext, we have a rule about Unseen Servant. To a certain extent, as long as you are within range, you can choose its commands once per round as a bonus action. The Servant can also do pretty much anything you can do, with the exception of attacking. From the very beginning of the game, I planned to take this ability so I could have another instrument in what I intended to be a traveling show, but today, it was doing something completely different. In the process of freeing some enslaved elves and rescuing our Fighter's Direwolf, we stumbled across an animal fighting ring. I, being an acolyte of the god of freedom, pranks, and mirth, do not like any of this business. I didn't need to be convinced to help these animals escape. It... just hadn't occurred to me that these animals had slave collars around their necks, which were controlled by a Ring of Command around the BBEG's finger. The battle starts off fairly badly. The cage room was shaped sort of like a tic-tac-toe board, three cages across the top, two in the middle of either side, and a massive cage at the bottom. It was a menagerie in there. We're talking an entire family of direwolves, a few centaurs, Krenshar, griffins, giant eagles, hellhounds, wargs, and perhaps most unsettling of all, a pair of five-headed hydras in the biggest cage. We entered through the opening in the bottom right side of the map. Because of how narrow this doorway was, I got bottlenecked into the corner for a few turns. I made my first kill of the game against a pit guard with a critical hit after he broke my longsword, but I ended up getting bottlenecked behind everyone else because I rolled pretty badly on initiative. It also helped that I took the Sun Blade from the guard, but the scuffle cost me half of my HP. We were winning, but becoming encircled. I got the bright idea to use my Unseen Servant to unlock some of the cells containing the more intelligent creatures. It worked brilliantly, at first; I used my Bardic Music to convince the giant eagles and direwolves to fight alongside us. The pit guards were now pinned between our party and the newly freed animals, until the BBEG entered the room... and used the Ring of Command to turn all my newly allied creatures against us. I immediately started apologizing to my party, realizing that I'd accidentally just set us up for a TPK. We went from pretty easily encircling the guards to being surrounded on all sides. I'd just moved up toward the direwolf cages to get my Servant into range of the griffins, and one of the direwolves I'd just freed was right behind me. If I moved, I was dead. If I attacked, I was dead. The only thing I could do now was prepare for my final show. In desperation, our Cleric, who had two blink dogs, grappled the BBEG. And that's when it occurred to me: my Unseen Servant was right there. The BBEG entered from right behind him, passed him, and never suspected a thing. It was at this moment that I announced my intention, rolled a Sleight of Hand check, held my breath... and, thanks to the grapple disadvantage, slipped the Ring of Command right off his finger. My Unseen Servant comes rushing back to me, ring in hand. Every animal in the room was now under my control. After a round of combat miraculously didn't kill him, I managed to talk the BBEG into surrendering, but unfortunately wasn't able to extract information out of him before he bled out and died. The DM thanked me for preventing a TPK; I got a level up, exactly the loot I wanted, and a brand new master plan. I've since given the Ring and all associated animals that could not be freed, lest they destroy everything in their path, to the Adventurer's Guild, with one little caveat: They don't know it's not truly theirs. The ring has been secretly bound to my new Belt of Returning Items, and technically it therefore has never left my possession. The DM now knows I've chosen to give them a test of power. They'd better do the right thing, or it won't be the slavers they have to fear anymore... I don't intend to break the campaign; I just like having the option.

[@Craig-te9iv]

@Sparkyt3hMadman By any chance do you still have the stats & description for the Ring? i would love to add this into my game!

[@nicolasv6031]

Yes; I was running a homebrew campaign of Apocalypse World, and my players had decided that, rather than staying in town and doing some favors for the local leadership for supplies and lodging, they would raid the entire town itself. So, they drove their armored car straight to the armory/storage facility. They were ambushed by several men armed with guns/bats, and a sniper in the distance. The sniper shot out one of the car's wheels, causing them to crash after swerving away from the bullet hail. The Battlebabe (aka sexy fighter) and Angel (aka medic) were knocked unconscious, and the Driver and Gunlugger (aka brought the big guns) were both wounded, with the former soon passing out. After mowing down the men surrounding them and sniping the sniper, the Gunlugger quickly replaced the tire, and drove again towards the center supply depot. However, he could see more guards, so instead of stopping and getting out to fight, he rammed straight through the building and out the other side, directly into the guards, decimating them. He also passed out, but the Angel and Battlebabe finally woke up, and quickly drove off into the distance. All in one session!

[@benjaminpatrickpatrickgarr9291]

GM Here, players were playing the Blue Alley (Spoilers ahead). It's a 5E module I adapted for Pathfinder, and it's advertised as a 4 hour dungeon but it took my party like 6 4-hour sessions to get to the end, without finding all the riddle pieces (optional objective) but doing most of everything else. Two things of note they didn't do: they did not kill the minotaur that got summoned by holding the stone horns of two bull statues and un-summoned by letting go of them (they stopped after a few attempts after quickly realizing it came back at full health each time they let go). Notably, they also killed all but 1 of the wandering Boggle creatures. These Boggles are short humanoid creatures with big heads, capable of covering themselves and everything else with a slick or sticky oil, and could also could turn any doorway into a portal leading to another doorway in the Blue Alley. With his friends dead, the remaining Boggle began harassing the players using hit and run tactics, and changing doorways on them to confound them further when they tried to chase him. Near the end, when the players were just deciding whether to leave (having already achieved their primary objective), they heard a stomping sound coming from down the hall, in the direction of the exit. As it turns out, the last Boggle had decided to team up with the Minotaur, and to keep the Minotaur summoned he held the bull statue horns (sawed off from their statues), while riding on the back of the Minotaur. The adventurers ran into an adjacent room to make their last stand, feeling certain that they were not ready for this fight and just needed to escape. They only had one magic user among them, a cleric. After a tense round of one Brawler trying to take cover behind the opened door, the minotaur's axe then shredding the wooden door in one hit, and the Barbarian and Rogue trying to hit at a range, the dwarf Cleric got a brain storm and cast "Command" on the Boggle, and commanded him to drop the stone horns. The Boggle let go of the horns on his turn which was right after, at which point the minotaur faded away and the Boggle fell prone. The Brawler then finished off the prone Boggle (who still wasn't fully healed after the initial fight). TBH I think the party could have handled the fight head on, but they were low on health and resources, under the impression that they were boned, so they praised the quick thinking of the cleric for essentially deleting the minotaur from the fight, and I was definitely surprised by the cleric's solution to the challenge.

[@wisperton]

My group planned the Infamous "Phil Blimp" but it sadly never got to see the light of day. My character, Phil landworthy, was a half-orc rune knight, and a failed pirate. He snuck on board a ship, (dumping a fortunes worth of gems into the sea so he could fit in a barrel), and found a magic tome inside imbued with Giants magic. And he got the ability to grow to large. Well during the campaign my group found themselves in the airship of the BBEG, A mechanical Lich named "Avalon". We planned our escape with my party making our way to the deck outside. I would use giants might and grow to large, and then grow again with a potion of Enlarge I had bought previously. (I had two but we gave one to a street performer to cause a diversion) Everyone would hop on my back and our druid would cast earthbind on me so we could float down safely, while the people on Phil's back protected their jolly green parade balloon. This plan was made between sessions so it's not really quick thinking. But next session the BBEG derailed this completely by simply saying "let's take this to the top" and walking right past us, up onto the deck. Phil was a failed pirate that wasn't worthy of much, and he was never the smartest, but in the end he got a flying ship and mjulnir. He sores through the skies for real these days. He was my first dnd character to see the end of a campaign and I'm happy with that.

[@dylanmoore9042]

Im a player on this occasion. I was playing as a druid in a fight against the bbeg, who was kicking everyone's butts. A bit of context first. The bbeg was a kind of death knight/interdimensional being of sorts. We were tasked by him at the start of the campaign to collect his "missing children" and store each inside their own unique marble. We did this knowing that he was up to no good and interviewed each of the children before getting them to voluntarily go in the marble in the promise that we would not give them to him. Anyway, during the fight I was the last person left alive, and I remembered a clue the GM gave me a few sessions back, which lead me to believe that if these marbles were destroyed, the spirits of the children would help us. So not wanting to be interrupted by the deathknight while destroying these marbles, I cast the most seemingly useless spell... minor illusion. I cast this in the form of a boulder (since we were in a cave) just to block his line of sight long enough to destroy the marbles. The spirits then healed EVERYONE to 1 hp before transcending to wherever they ended up. The party and I were able to escape and come back to fight another day.

[@Foxbate]

I was playing at the local convention. We were a party of six players. The company was two fifteenth level barbarians, a fifteenth level ranger, a fourteenth level druid, I think a cleric, and finally my tenth level tabaxi rogue. The DM ruled that since I was a cat I had to be size small could not have bows or crossbows or anything larger than a dagger. Despite the fact that I was a snow leopard. " Tabaxi are little girl pets. Not a valid PC. " The hole table was on my side, but we didn't have time for the jug table to rule, because this was a timed game. I helped , giving advantage picking locks. The other players noted that they were hitting with a sixteen on the die but I had to roll eighteen or better to hit. Still timed mach. We get to the big bad

[@adammoore3703]

The Barbarian wanted to try to eat a random "Slime"... my rogue recognized the slime as a (small) Gibbering Mouther...

[@garyphillip1777]

I actually had a moment like this. I was playing an elemental homebrew 5e based world as an Artificer Goblin. (I was given a power to turn something like a rock in a cannon. So turning anything into anything. ) I was trapped under a wagon for a while until I had my first interaction with my new teammates. I was freed but very thirsty. I go to a lake with our druid and get a drink using a cup. The druid immediately just went into the lake and I made a boat and began to fish. The lake was not safe and had a false hydra within and hypnotized the druid. I fished but got pulled in and also got kinda hypnotized not completely because my intelligence and wisdom were 18 and 16. It said, "BARGAIN..." also I'm what the group considered bat-shit crazy. I in my best goblin voice asked, "What you want"? It responded, "A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION..." I gave it just what it wanted by turning a rock into a capsule and sand into gunpowder I made one of those underwater contact mines, made a roll to throw, (15) and killed it immediately as well as draining the lake. Nearby my teammates were about to be attacked my tree people when the lake water tsunami'd and because one of the elements my teammate had ice powers used it to his advantage. Killing them trees. | TL:DR, Saved my druid from a false hydra with a bomb and somehow saved other teammates.

[@MinatheRaichu]

My party and I were playing a halloween one shot. I was a little witch with a skeleton body and a pumpkin head, and we had entered some sort of library. We were then alerted to a fleshy monster just vibin above us, asleep and we had to make a stealth check to get out without a fight. I rolled low because I rattle when I walk, so I asked my dm if anyone was near me. When he responded affirmatively, I asked if they could pick me up so I wouldn't rattle and that's how we got out of a planned party wipe.

[@samzilla1281]

In our current campaign, my bard is the Bardiest Bard that ever Barded. I had to miss a month of sessions. The DM has me roll to see if I've slept with someone in every location. This time was in a Yuan-Ti temple. We were there to rescue someone from them. DM decided that the leader of the temple and I avoided the fight by saying "Hi honey, I'm home." She complained that I disappeared and the party's Artificer just piped up, "That happens to him all the time." That saved us from the fight I initially avoided.

[@anonbefallen4807]

We started a time/dimension travel campaign and we got transported into a train in an old west type world. We found a dead body and immediately decided we should investigate the murder. We get to the next car and it's a mini bar/casino in a train car type deal. A particular party member gets in trouble with the bouncers and we all end up fighting them this guy was close range when the fight started and realized he was in trouble, so he used Thunderwave followed by Wall of Fire, in a train car. The train car was completely destroyed, the enemies fell out as well as several of our own party members who end up being revived by literal God since the game just started. I was the only one who survived because I was playing a tiefling and had fire immunity.

[@bouncycomix]

I was playing a wizard in a campaign where we were gearing up to fight a vampire. Our blood hunter was temporarily given a sunblade so that we could take the vampire down for good. When the fight broke out, though, she got hit by the vampire's charm and was turned against us and leaving us with no way to permanently kill the vampire. I then cast Phantasmal Force on her, making her believe that one of the vamp's minions was attacking her so that she could reroll her saving throw. After a few rounds, she broke the charm and proceeded to dust the vamp with extreme prejudice. I've loved Phantasmal Force ever since.

[@euplexia8674]

Convinced some giant monster boss that had all of us very low that its children were waiting in the sea as we were on a ship with minor illusion, we ended up escaping with no more fighting after that

[@HockeyRiveNord]

not D&D but Star Wars RPG - we were ambushed while escorting a Nemodian post TPM back to his planet for 'trial'. As the thugs were shooting down transports, our party and query needed a 5 seater to leave. DM rolled which of the 3 speeders left - one 5-seats and two 2 seaters - was taking off. Unlucky for us, the 5-seater was taking off. The aspect of SWRPG is that there are destiny points that players and DM can use to change events. Usually, the Players use them to get out of a jam, while DM uses it to hinder the players' progress in some form. I called out that I wanted to use the DP to change which Speeder took off - DM asked to RP it - so as the first speeder, the 5-seater, took off, the one behind it rose as well, and cut him off to the exit, making the big one stall and fall back down. Amidst the chaos, our party of two Jedi and two 'rogues' comandeered the transport to safety.

[@bluefenix5304]

This one was a week ago. Our party was fighting a huge spider in her lair in a cave, she apear from holes to shot us with acid webs, our cleric was down, our two barbarians couldnt reach her and the ranger was missing every arrow. But i was playing Balwin, my dwarven wizard. Since Balwin was a miner i asked the DM if the cave was solid enough, and after confirm it i casted the Shatter spell that hit the spider and the cealing were she mas moving, making her also fall from the crumbling cealing and hit the ground, geting proned, and adding an extra damage for rocks falling on top of her... she didn't had a chance after that, since the two barbarians could reach her and the ranger finaly managed to kill her with the first and only arrow that hit an enemy that day.

[@Jessie_Helms]

I’ve got the opposite: times a player realized the party royally screwed up. I’ll start: (Spoilers for chapters 3 & 4 of Icewind Dale). So the party were working their way through the Duergar fortress and were on the very top. I showed them the map and explained how it was laid out- they’re on the top floor and the levers they’re tinkering with opened up a giant gate in the roof of the fortress. They essentially said, “cool” and went back down stairs. The next session they were in the basement fighting Xardorok and the Chardalyn dragon. After they finally killed the duergar ruler the dragon feel back and started to gain altitude. I was mid sentence saying, “hey Grunt, roll a hi-“ when he interrupted and said, “uh oh… guys… I think we done fucked up.” The wizard, who was absent the previous session, asked what was going on and I explained that Grunt just realized, “hey, ya know that ice gate on the roof we left propped open? The one that lead so far down we couldn’t see the bottom? That’s almost perfectly in line with the forge? Yeah, the dragon’s only barrier to exit was left open.” The wizard flipped out and I barely held in my laughter as the whole party started justifying how it didn’t seem important at the time lol. The dragon escaped and destroyed 3 of the 10 towns in Icewind Dale before being stopped.

[@minimishapsgames894]

4 Dragonborn monks and a Halfling wizard inadvertently opened a seal/gate and allowed a demon prince and his army to pour out. We were in an abandoned city under a normal city and above an even older city. We had only a round to decide before we would be overrun, and the idea most favored was to cast Magic Circle around the demon leader and hope that we could survive the army. The spell lasts for an hour, so in theory we could dispatch a lot of the enemies while the leader was trapped. In reality we wouldn't have stood a chance, and in a moment of trusting her party and self sacrifice, the wizard cast the Magic Circle around herself and us monks, with the circle set to repel rather than trap. At first the monks groaned that we were trapped for sure, but then she said, "DIG!" The group dug down into the tunnels below (still a debate for the DMs, but it was allowed). After an hour, the circle dissipated and the Demon prince looked down into the hole to see that the wizard had not run away. "Why waste an hour and not try to run?" The Wizard just smiled and said, "We are not very high level, and Halflings don't move very fast. But even at 6th level my monastic friends will have dashed 54,000ft. or a little more than 10 miles. I, on the other hand, have spent the last 600 rounds casting the cantrip Mold Earth on these stone columns supporting the floor you are standing on and am about to defeat a Demon Prince and his army with a cantrip." She removed the last supporting 5ft cube of stone from the column and caved in the whole place. With all the demons being crushed and spirited away to the Nine Hells, it was very easy for the returning monks to find the only body, which was the wizard, to have her resurrected.

[@glaedrludos]

ok this was one of my first campaigns i have ever run, i didnt use a rule system, i didnt have many campaign notes. and it was a VERY basic quirky one shot. and my brother who decided he wanted to play somewhat of a joke character, asked if he could have a finger gun ability, where if he aimed his hand with his index finger pointed out, and his thumb raised, if he lowered his thumb a unspecified projectile would shoot out of nowhere. and i thought "that sounds quirky and fun, why not!" but i told him that in order to keep it somewhat balanced, i would create a sort of, balancing condition that he would have to figure out throughout the session. he agreed thinking it would be a fun deductive challenge. well near the start they come across a talking squirrel, and my brother (being the chaotic individual he is) tried to use his finger guns to shoot it, so he raised his hand into a finger gun motion, lowered his thumb expecting the small animal to be obliterated. but... i told him nothing happened. confused, he kept aiming in other directions and firing, some of which would go off and a projectile was sent straight through any nearby trees. well later on, he finally figured out that his finger guns could only fire when aimed at something that was not living (living in the sense of something with the ability to think, react, etc.) well at the end of the session the party was going against the BBEG and my brother started talking privately with one of the other party members (who also happened to be my other brother) they came back and he said "i aim my finger gun at the BBEG" i reminded him that it would have no effect, simply trying to spare him a waste of a turn. but he assured me thats what he wanted to do. and on the next players tern (the player he had plotted with) he slammed the debris of a nearby burning building sending massive chunks of wood flying into the air. (bare in mind all turns were "technically in game time were going at the time) so when it got back to my brothers turn, he asked if he could roll a performance check for something VERY difficult. seeing as he himself put an INSANELY high DC on it, i figured "eh its a joke campaign anyway and we're at the end, why not have some fun with it" so i told him to go for it! man rolled a nat 20... he then asks me "with that nat 20, would i be able to line up myself with one of the pieces of wood flying through the air to where it was in-between him and the BBEG standing in the center of the field?" and i said "dude with a nat 20 in this situation you get it no problem" he looks at me and says "i lower my thumb aiming dead at the piece of wood. the wood isnt alive, im not aiming at the BBEG, i am aiming for the wood. BUT! if the shot just so happens to go through then thats just a happy accident..." in the moment i was at an odd in-between of anger, and utter pride in my players XP, to sum it up, what happened was; my brothers character aimed at the BBEG, called out to his fellow party member to hit the wall of a burning building, and as MASSIVE chunks of wood flew past his face, he landed a PERFECT shot on a piece of wood between his fingertip, and the BBEG, shooting and killing him... to this day this is one of my favorite ingenuitive things my players have ever done! and i will never forget it (sorry for such a long read, but i hope you enjoyed the story XD)

[@seanturner5467]

DM. Running Curse of Strahd the party get to Tsolenka Pass quite late on so I decide to throw the Roc encounter at them. They left their horse in Krezk so were on foot so the Roc going for the biggest meal was gonna grapple the Goliath of the party. As it approached they ran to the bridge, and when in range the Bard polymorphed it into a Mammoth so it would (hopefully) survive the fall. It did and what could've proven a party death was turned into a group laugh.