Similar situation on a larger scale, party was gathering Macguffins to stop the impending abberant-based apocalypse. One of them allowed us a roll on the d10000 Wild Magic table once/week. Some party betrayal happened, and a fight broke out over the artifact. The betrayer finally grabbed it and activated it.
DM rolls. DM gets a 10000. The result is "the stars were right!" which apparently is a reference to the Cthulu mythos about the apocalypse beginning. Cue table meltdown as the DM has to improv the sky opening and the horrors descending an IRL month ahead of schedule.
spoiler
Turns out he punched in "roll 10000" into the dice bot by accident instead of "roll d10000" which gave a fixed result, but we didnt realize that till next week.
When your DM is ready to start his new homebrew halfway through the current campaign lol
"Sorry, friend."
Well, I know that look….
…time for a new character.
My group consults an ancient relic we refer to as the Device Ex Machina. If it deems you worthy, you can have 1 Deus ex machina event per session, pending a vote from the other players.
(If everyone agrees to it, we shake a magic 8 ball and ask if the action or event that's about to happen according to the rules as they stand should or should not be allowed to happen)
I play using a VTT so everybody sees what the results are immediately. No telling it to them gently when the troll crits three times during the fight.
But then how do you chuck d20s at your players when they misbehave
Well, you DID say you had a character idea...
Had that moment multiple times last night. My Wednesday group does a sorta-not-AL thing where we play AL adventures plus a few house rules.
The adventure last night pitted us against a Winter Wolf and 4 Dire Wolves. We are a large party (6 characters) that's a bit more powerful than average (everyone got a free Feat at level 1, but otherwise it was standard 27 point buy.) But even then, that encounter had me and the rogue being whack-a-moles for the Winter Wolf and 2 of the Dire Wolves, and the party's fighter, barbarian, and wizard barely survived.
Guys, I have never played or seen anyone play D&D in my life, but I still enjoy the memes for some reason. I've seen people name powers, roll a dice and then scream in agony or joy... But I never know what the hell is going on. I know a higher number is better but I don't know what is done with the number. Can someone explain?
Like, I say "ice shield" and I roll a 15. Then what?
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules
There’s a link to the basic rules. At the most basic example, let’s say you swing your sword at a goblin. The goblin has an Armor Class, or AC, of 15, thanks to his leather armor and shield. So in order for your swing to hit, you have to get higher than 15. So you roll a d20, and it lands on 13. However, since you’re good at swinging swords and very strong, you can add those bonuses to your roll. Let’s say +3. So your roll ends up being a 16, which beats 15. So then you roll a couple dice to see how much damage you do based on the type of weapon and how good you swing swords again. For a long sword you would roll a d8 and add any relevant modifiers to your roll. Then you subtract that number from the enemy’s go. When it’s the goblin’s turn, the DM rolls against your AC to do damage to you.
Those are the basics to all of the rolling. Someone rolls a d20 and adds modifiers to determine if they are successful at something against a target number, and the other dice are mostly for damage, healing, or to choose something random on a table.
It sounds complicated as a comment but when you play you have your character sheet which shows what all the numbers are supposed to be.
Edit: for your given example, there isn’t an ice shield spell, but there is a spell called Armor of Agathys that covers your character in frost. It gives you 5 temporary hp, and if a creature hits you in melee range (they roll higher than your AC) they take 5 damage.
Each spell has a specific description of its effects. You can cast spells at different levels depending on how strong they are, and it costs spell slots (resource points) to cast them.
My character is likely getting this next weekend. She's got 1 hp and is stuck in a fight that should have been a flee rather than fight situation. A party member tried to sacrifice himself to save the rest of the group and my dumbass character is far too good to allow that to happen. We ended the session before the fight was complete. Her only hope is that we have more players actually show up for the next session.
Good luck! Good way to go down if the dice send it that way, though.
Boy, I hope not. I've always wanted to play this character and only had 5 sessions with her. I recently joined an established table.
Just experienced this a couple sessions back… right before a Finger of Death hit
HEY EVERYONE! This guy getting fingered to death!
Me when I kill a PC for the second session in a row (these cyclops are no joke).
"what's your maximum hp again...?"
I did this once. Lost Mine of Phandelver, the dragon encounter.
I did a pretty dramatic bit of roleplay with the dragon beforehand where he tried to bunch them all up before opening with his breath attack.
They were level 3. They never stood a chance. I read out the number and it would have been an insta-death (no death saves) for multiple members of the party, with everyone else unconcious. Luckily, they didn't hear me well, and when asked to repeat it I lowered the damage considerably. No insta-deaths, one stayed conscious, along with the powerful NPC they had recruited to help.
When I ran Thundertree, I had a backup plan where if my party all died I’d have them wake up jailed somewhere else in the tower with none of their gear or magic items. Venomfang would be sleeping and they’d have to escape from their cells somehow and sneak out of the tower. Maybe Venomfang would wake up while they were escaping and there’d be a tense escape sequence.
Instead, my party managed to somehow kill the young green dragon at level 3 before he could escape. They rolled multiple crits in a row and the only casualty was a weak npc. They rode that high for a while.
Then I introduced them to Strahd.
