Critical botch

[Deathosaurus Wrecks]

havn't done much table-top RPing, but what little i have done i've enjoyed. what makes it particuarly enjoyable, are the critical failures.

was playing Aeon Trinity (back in the days where it was still alowed to be called 'Aeon') and my character was stranded, floating in space with only a bio-presure suit between him and death. so i roll my perception to see if the suit has a communicator on it. i criticaly botch. i find the communicator, but i break the antanne.

later in the same game i'm sneaking around in a star base, and a guard finds me. as i didnt have any psi left to will controll him, i attempted to pistol whip the guy. i criticaly botch. my gun accidentily fires and reduces his head to a fine red spray. most of which lands on me.

this one wasn't actualy my fualt, but a few of my freinds and i were playing Shadowrun a few weeks back; and we were caught in a gunfight and civillians were running around. my freind draws his two Preditors, and accidentily shoots this dwarf (who's crawling on the ground to safty) in the back for like 9M damage.

anyone else have amusing stories of criticaly botching?

[Hamelin]

I was playing a D&D type game a while back (my only time), I was kicking one of my friends to wake him up, and forgot to pull the blow. I rolled a critical twice and kicked his head off.

It wasn't a failure, but just as bad.

[Derek R.]

My Bodyguard PC actually slew the woman he was protecting by trying to fight off the Orcs around her.

Bodyguard:"Oh well....hmm..."
Orcs:"Guess our work here is done. Wanna get a beer or something?"
Bodyguard:"Sure"

[Neverwhere]

Yeah, I was playing a Wizard with spell shape feat and I critical botched my shape roll and blew the hell outta my teammates with my quicken,maximized,twin,empowered delayed-blast fireballs... they werent too pleased... Well, the one that survived wasnt. :D

[Dante]

Yeah, I was playing a Wizard with spell shape feat and I critical botched my shape roll and blew the hell outta my teammates with my quicken,maximized,twin,empowered delayed-blast fireballs... they werent too pleased... Well, the one that survived wasnt. :D

Word of advice to lame magi: ALWAYS make sure your spells go where they need to. Your friends will not be happy otherwise.

My greatest cock-up occured when I used a Lame Arrow and rolled a natural 1 while fighting an ice dragon inside a huge ice cave with lots of stalactites. The DM (a very sadistic friend of mine) ruled that the flame arrow ignited a methane pocket, causing a large explosion that dropped the ceiling on the party. Needless to say, nobody survived that battle.

Neverwhere, do you even need to roll for spell shaping? I don't recall reading that anywhere, but then again, I don't bother with spell shaping (if they don't want to get hit then stay the damn hell out of my way!)

[GatoFiero]

I have a friend who made a pretty bad botch. His character had a gunblade (not sure how) and a magical crystal around his neck which he used to store magical energy. When the botch happend he had somehow replicated himself 100 times in order to defend a city from an invading army. What happend? The enemy used flaming arrows, one of the arrows hit a replicant's crystal, faild the save...badly, the crystal exploded, it cooked off the gunblade ammo, a few rounds hit surrounding replicant's crystals, a chain reaction ensued. When the army finaly got into the city everyone was already dead.

[Neverwhere]

You dont need a roll for spell shaping, but we made it as sort of a lets-test-out-this-house-rule type... needless to say it didnt stick :D

[Dante]

You dont need a roll for spell shaping, but we made it as sort of a lets-test-out-this-house-rule type... needless to say it didnt stick :D

Hey, imagine if you had critically failed a concentration roll and dropped an uber fireball on your feet...

By the way, do not EVER fight in or around coal mines or bread mills with flame spells if you have a realistic DM who's been trained in physics and/or chemistry. Small combustible airborne particles + open flame = mini fuel-air bomb. Not fun.

[Neverwhere]

Damn it... you gave away one of my favourite tactics against players :( Throw some hard-ass ice thing in a Mill 1 on 1 with a mage (of delayed-blast fireball level) and watch the fun ensue! Boom. Still, testing out house rules has to be done some how... but that botch of a concentration role can (and does) happen.

[Dante]

Damn it... you gave away one of my favourite tactics against players :( Throw some hard-ass ice thing in a Mill 1 on 1 with a mage (of delayed-blast fireball level) and watch the fun ensue! Boom. Still, testing out house rules has to be done some how... but that botch of a concentration role can (and does) happen.

Oh, and there's no annoying PC party that infinite goblin hordes won't cure, unless they can teleport or erect walls of force, in which case golem armies are better.

[ElseaAskew]

the worst botch ever was by my party, and the roll didn't even matter.

the party(a ROGUE, a fighter, and a bard) was in a 20x20 cell, with a single locked door and bared windows. there was a desk out side with 2 drawers (one of whitch had the key and my bard had mage hand.)
the fighter has the great idea to piss on his shirt and try and move the bars apart. this is how that went:

fighter:i'm gonna piss on my shirt and try and pry the bars open with it.
dm:...what?!?!?...
fighter: like in that jackie chan movie, shanghai nights
dm: ok >holds dmg in front of face so that my sight is blocked< go ahead, roll
fighter: ok...>rolls<
dm:>still holding book<...you fail

they eventualy got out, here's how that went:

>20 min. later<
rogue:does the door have a lock on it?
dm:yes
rogue:hey i've got open locks!

botches don't always rely on dice!

[Neverwhere]

Umm... about that.. I dont play with idiots for that exact reason :D Know your class or get out :D

[Dante]

Has anyone here read the gazrbo story before? Asses and elbows... :sweatdrops:

[Ranson]

The most impressive critical botch I ever managed ended up not being that bad. It happened in a simple melee against a dragon. My longwsword (+3 vs dragons, of course) was dealing some serious hurt . . . then I rolled a 1. No biggy, most likely a missed shot, rolled for a dropped weapon . . . another 1. Ok, now I'm worried. the next roll . . . a natural 20. The DM's ruling went as such:

"Your underhanded swing is so forceful that your weapon flies right out of your hands, spiralling ever upward into the sky. Sunlight glints off it's eldritch blade, splitting into a million faceted streaks of light, halting the entire combat with its sheer beauty as friend and foe alike stare skyward. The blade slowly turns as gravity overtakes it, spinning lower and lower until you reach up to regrasp your weapon and hold it high above your head. The dragon is so impressed that he makes you the target of his breath weapon. Take 68 damage."

It doesn't get better than that.

[Neverwhere]

nicely done by the dm!! Give him/her my congrats on the quick thinking on that one. Must say, quite the ingenious way of dealing with it.

[Muffin Mage]

We joke around with critical misses, like so:
"His arm falls off."
"His mouth falls off."

etc. It gets rather annoying.

[ElseaAskew]

kudos to the dm on that one!