What are your "Wait, what just happened?" moments?  

That last one was freaking amazing, so much character depth so much growth so much pain so so very much. That is the essence of D&D right there, that is the Apex the Pinnacle. To create a story that elicits that much is beautiful. I had chills half the story.

Damn, that last one was a total blown mind

I was running Curse of Strahd and the vampire was fighting the party. The monk, who had the Sunsword and had also personally killed Rahadin, was the target of Strahd’s unrestrained fury (by the end of the fight this level 7 monk had a max HP of 27 for context). However, the Paladin/Sorcerer managed to get into melee with them, pumping every smite he could into Strahd. I narrate him getting dangerously low, then remembered he’d gained like 40 HP from draining the monk, but said he still looked pretty bad. Cue a crit, 3rd level Divine Smite on a homebrew mace that dealt an extra 2d4 fire damage. So it was 2d8 for the mace, 4d4 fire damage, 7d8 radiant, for a total of something like 60-70 damage. And the monk, wielding the Sunsword, went next, landing both hits. Okay, cool, I narrate Strahd’s chest being impaled by the monk’s sword, and a mist encompassing him as he faded away….. “Uh, DM… he’s in sunlight.” _FUCK FUCK SHIT SHIT OH GOD WAIT_ About 5 minutes of frantically googling while out loud saying “wait wait wait is he is he really oh hang on a second maybe….” And then, with a sign of resignation, “He flares out into a mist, but the Sunsword radiates out, burning away the mist until all that remains are ashes. And Strahd Von Zarovich, lord of Barovia, is dead.”

That last one...... A bit of a mind bender. But still awesome

That last one hit hard!

Eating aarakocra meat isn't considered cannibalism if you're not an aarakocra as by definition you have to be the same species. It is still a really frakked up thing to do. I think we should call it Sapient-vore.

2:42 I'M WAKIN' UP! TO ASH AND DUST-

I have Adhd so every time I play dnd the entire session is a what just happened moment for me

I was running a Star Wars 5e campaign and had a mentor character everyone assumed would die, Obi-Wan style. His name was Torr. My players had just raided a vault filled with powerful dark side artifacts and treasure. While tussling with each other over a holocron, they knocked over a bunch of biological samples in jars, splattering goop and such all over the floor. One good perception check and a player noticed one of the samples, a centipede like thing, was still alive but it skittered away and failed checks meant no one could catch it. Fast forward a few sessions and Torr, a Jedi Guardian, was suddenly acting differently, and turned on the party mid battle, even killing the Revanite Shadow Jedi for Dark Side Force Lightning. He then fled, and the party was dumbfounded. But it wasn't until they tracked him down and got him into a medical scanner that they really freaked out. Torr hadn't turned to the dark side! Wrapped around his spine was the centipede they had let escape weeks before, now possessing and influencing Torr. One player, Torr's apprentice, didn't know what to do next, as the possessed Jedi Master was then able to frame them for staring a war and making them all fugitives from the Republic. In one session, everything had flipped on their heads. And the surprise for me, as the GM? It was one of many possibilities, and all came from the dice rolls, and nothing else.

PANR has tuned in.

We were a full year into an Out of the Abyss campaign and came across a strange machine in a labyrinth. Being the curious party we are, we turn the machine on and it starts doing weird things like spitting out random magical items. All the results had been positive for the party so we had no incentive to turn it off (we were also in the middle of an encounter). All of a sudden our DM rolls a result for the machine and gets wide eyed and quiet. "I'm going to have to end the session here". We were all confused, apparently he rolled a 99, 100, or a 01 on the percentile dice which resulted in our entire party being transported back in time to the beginning of the campaign. He was not aware of that being an option and was definitely not prepared for it, but it ended up being one of our best/most memorable DnD moments.

Alright, this is going to be really long so I apologize in advance. For background, this entire story takes place within the span of six irl years. Me and my old party had been running campaigns set in the same world for several IRL years at this point, and we had made very close bonds with a great many NPC’s. For the majority of our most impactful campaigns, we were in a south-western country called Ludas. (about as large as ½ of Latin America.) Our party was brought together to get to the bottom of a series of city burnings across Ludas. My character’s backstory is directly linked to this. He watched his friends and family die to the undead that started the fire of his hometown. We went to the capital city to enlist in the army and stop the culprits of the burnings once and for all, or else the entire continent would likely be burned down. For Ludas, we had stopped revolutions, fought in wars, exposed treachery, and started families with some other important NPC’s. In our first campaign, we were sent on a rescue operation by a nobleman in the capital of Ludas to help retrieve his daughter, an aristocratic diplomat who had been kidnapped by the horde of undead. Well, at the end of the campaign, we rescued her, returned to Ludas, and found the capital city on fire. Turns out, the nobleman had set up the kidnapping of his daughter and sent out squads of the most elite soldiers to make sure that there was no protection of the capital city. He did this so that he could have the undead kill the matriarch so he could take over, since he was her advisor. Luckily, we had killed him in enough time to prevent the matriarch from dying, and we were hailed as heroes. My character Thane, and our paladin Siris, settled down in Ludas in the four year timeskip between campaigns. Upon the beginning of our next campaign, we needed to go to war with another country called Cegeris. An ally from Ludas was paired with us, a mage called Vermis. Vermis was absurdly powerful and quickly rose through the ranks of military until, during a colossal battle, took the mantle of first lieutenant of the army of Ludas. After we befriended him, we learned that he used to be a citizen of a town called Lihito, which neighbored the one that my character hailed from, called Rubyshire. He had the same goal as us. My character and him bonded very quickly. We had played several more campaigns with him and our companion NPC’s, and had grown extremely attached to them. During our most climactic campaign yet, we had killed an absurdly powerful necromancer named Orlak, who had been trying to build a spire to the moon to reach the vault that held a cataclysmic evil within. At the end of the fight, Vermis was missing, and we had thought him dead. We made our way back to Ludas and had a great feast thrown in Vermis’s honor. One in-game week later, Vermis shows back up, battered and bruised, and is hailed as a war hero. He is promoted to royal advisor, and another feast is held in his honor within the throne room. During his toast, his eyes turn purple, and he annihilates the entire throne room from within. He pulls off his top, and reveals that he fused himself with the corpse of Orlak to take his power and rule the world. HE was the one behind the previous advisors betrayal, HE had been the one behind the burnings of cities across the continent, HE had been the one pulling the strings to get us to where we are now. He used his power to open portals all across the city, and let the hordes of undead within the Shadowfell enter our world. They destroyed everything. Our companions, dead. Our families, dead. Our homes, destroyed. In this event, called “The Calamity”, we had the option to either flee and not have tons of our gear permanently destroyed, or try and stop Vermis. We decided to fight, and watched the NPC’s we had come to bond with over the course of several years get torn apart in front of us, unable to save them. He dragged us through the entire city, through buildings, people, children, and churches. He used our bodies as weapons against the citizens we had made bonds with. Bleeding and collapsing on my broken bones, Thane yelled, “Vermis! How, how could you?! We’re your friends, family! We loved you, you were family to us! Were we nothing to you.” “No, you were in fact, something, Thane. All of you, in fact. You were all my pawns. It’s true that I did come from Lihito, and I was there when it was destroyed. I was also at Rubyshire, Thane. And I was at every other razing.” “You bastard! We’ll stop you!” our paladin screamed at him. “You can surely try. I’ll simply twist and contort your living corpses into weapons to kill the rest of you with. Leave and never return. Wallow in your filth and cry yourselves to sleep. Know that when you are at your point of greatest happiness, I will then return and take that happiness from you.” Most of our armor was destroyed, and many of our equipment items were lost. We had to flee to a different continent, leaving the rest of the south-western continent to die to the undead horde, since we were unable to prevent it. When we killed him several IRL years later, he turned back into a human, and had amnesia. He wasn’t himself the instant he came in touch with Orlak’s corpse, Orlak took over his mind and used his memories to hide in plain sight.

0:13 - And of course, it had to be the Bard!

A moment that had the entire table(discord call) screaming basically. Dragon Heist. We were in the final dungeon, battling the Zhentarim. Our warlock was behind a pillar with an NPC ally of ours while the rest of us were in the front line. Dm asked thr druid’s passive perception. Something haooens. The warlock’s turn arrives. He makes a death saving throw. We all screamed cuz apparently the ally was actually a ouppet assassin.

I wasn't looking and I heard it as ASMR Palladin. That would be a fun thing to play. A Palladin who creeps up on people and then, as he unexpectedly starts crincling paper whispers into their ear "In the name of Kelemvor, die!" before commencing to slowly and noisily slide his sword from the sheath, and making sure every cut is done in such a way as to make a long satisfying noise....

POV your favorite npc dies “ no no no no no no no no no no no no” in character “ TF happened and HOLY SHI-“

It would have to be the end of the battle of Leilon. The party had defeated Ebondeath and obtained the Ruinstone from the tower, with the help of my barbarian's long lost sister, who was leading the cult of Talos from an airship. We took a long rest after celebrating the victory to find my sister gone, and also found she had used the Ruinstone, an artifact that can change one moment in the past, but at great cost. Our DM made this even more powerful, as the event she changed was the death of our parents some 20 years prior. So my character woke up to the realization that the parent's death he witnessed as a child no longer happened. My character needed a mental reset after that, as did I.

This one was submitted to your Reddit, but I’m sure somebody will appreciate it without having to hunt it down: When our Ranger KO’d our Monk. We were playing an altered Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Relevant players are our chaos gremlin Kobold (the Drakewarden Ranger), Oogway (Tortle Monk), and myself the Rune Knight Fairy, but there is also a Goliath Barbarian. We just finished a combat that bloodied Oogway, and the DM asked me to make a Wisdom Saving Throw. I failed, and was told “You hear a compulsion in your mind: the monk must die.” The party immediately groaned. Tai Lung the Raishasha was back. And I was next in the same initiative. I went in, knocking Oogway prone and hitting him with my sword. The Barbarian, recognizing what was happening (he was the last one mind controlled), told my fairy he would snap me out, and made a ton of nonlethal strikes. However, -1 Wis against DC 18 wasn’t easy. Next up was the Kobold. “She can’t kill us if she’s unconscious! I activate Sharpshooter…” Barbarian: “Oh no…” Kobold: “My Dragon Companion will give me additional damage.” Monk: “Don’t…” Kobold: “And I’ll activate my magic weapon’s extra damage and a couple extra damage sources. [Rolls] Does a 17 hit for 47 total damage?” I hold up my finger, and scroll through my laptop character sheet. It was at this point the rest of the table caught on, and “oooh” echoed across the table. The DM was last to get it, added his own, and said “You have to do it!” Kobold: “Do what?” Me: “That’s over half my max HP, I have to do it anyways!” Kobold: “Do what?!” Me: I raise my infinity gauntlet, and the blue stone glows. I redirect the attack from myself to the Monk.” Kobold, over everyone‘s reactions (DM positive, everyone else glaring): “SINCE WHEN COULD YOU DO THAT?!” DM, laughing: “Since five sessions ago! He used it every combat! Me: “Remember when you were being drowned by a Water Weird, and I redirected its opportunity grappling attack to a nearby octopus?” Ranger: “Oh. … Oooooooooh…” Me: “So Oogway. Does a 17 hit you?” Monk, who was paying attention: “I’m unconscious.”

That last story... _WOW_ .

1:00 "and Zaigan, an ASMR Paladin" *listening without reading* A what now?

So the party rouge ( me ) and the party Barbarian ( my uncle ) are neutral, we dont want to see people die, but do illegal stuff often. The lvl 10 Barbarian was a pirate, that only became a pirate after he was enslaved on a pirate ship and wone his freedom in a cannon shooting challenge with the captain. Both tried to hit a bird that wa far away, only the Barbarian hit it. He now carries a cannon on his back. His name was Grimm. My character, the lvl 8 rouge and lvl 2 ranger was a child of the desert. Almost all the resudents of the desert continent, Rushgar werer Orcs. He was the only human in his clan, thus they dubbed him weak. So he knew he could not out muscle his foe, so he hid ( he got favored Terrain frome being a ranger, and it added to how well he could hide. He almost cant fail when he rolls to hide. His modifier is 14, but when his is in the desert its 18). His name was Vex. ( i started to watch Vox machina and my family thinks its funny that we made Vex befor we saw that). The adventurers Guild we were working for agreed to get a boat, grimm being fond of them, agreed to go get one for them, and told them that it would cost way more than it was, in short we lied to the gild, and they have one boat and we have 4 now. That was fun. Vex did most of the lying.

One of my players infiltrated the Royal Palace of the Dwarves in search for a way to save a prisoner who could only be released by the King. In his search for any information regarding this, he rolled a nat 20 and stumbled into a document in a very old box in the archives. The title was kinda enough to make the whole table silent. Unraveling the Origins of Races: The Genetic Manipulations of Year 3214 In our current era, the inhabitants of this planet have forgotten their past and attribute their origins to myths and legends. However, our research has revealed that the diverse races inhabiting this world are the result of genetic manipulation conducted in the year 3214 of the archaic calendar found in Lost City records, 19862 years ago. It went further in depth about the origins of elves, dwarves and beastmen as well as providing compelling answers for the fauna and flora of the world. This was the moment where it became clear that the familiar world of D&D drifted further and further away.

My GM came up with a rather impressive twist for our PF1E group. When one of our players couldn't make it to a session, we decided to try out 5E for a one-shot with pregen characters. We did the Skyrim intro, made our escape, and set up camp for the night, ending the session. Next session, our GM had the player who had been absent make a 5E character and join the continuation of the one-shot. Our characters began having strange dreams in which we felt trapped and as though we weren't ourselves. We also had to make random saves from time to time, and when players succeeded, the GM would take them aside briefly. Eventually, I made the save and finally had one whopper of a twist revealed: I suddenly woke up. AS MY PF1E CHARACTER. The dreams weren't dreams. They were the real me trying to wake up.

i'll be honest dnd sounds like a blast, and ocasionally i have a interesting idea that i put in the comments, but i do know i might not have the patience to play. great stories though.

That old PS2 game summoner is actually available on steam! (I loved it, back in the days! 😄)

Okay, I take out the ogre with a punch, and as my fist digs through their chest, I shout, “SHINEI KAKYOIN!” Unfortunately, my fist gets stuck, and I need to make a Strength save to get it out.

This was a homebrew I did years ago for some friends. There were a lot of people, but really the only one that truly matters for this particular story is the Dragonborn Bard. He was a very self righteous bard who could never do anything wrong (not even close) and yet be the first to point out everyone else doing 'wrong' things. So much so when a group used their artifact to lure out a murderous werewolf and take it captive (with a few extra getting hurt and charmed in the process) he decided to steal their artifact they used to do it. Not because he was greedy, but because it was too dangerous for anyone to have them. And yet when they were in the middle of the ocean it was not safe enough to hurl it to the bottom of the ocean. When they were in a volcano he could not throw it into the lava. This went on for nearly half of the entire campaign. Until one fateful day as some random cleric I had made up on the spot was helping out the party he turned to him and said. "Here, take this to the king." The whole table went quiet and just stared for a while. All of that leading up to "Here random NPC you have it." Players will surprise you sometimes, but this one I will just never understand.

My brother burned down phandalin in icespire peaks, enough said

The whole Tomb. The whole fuckin tomb.

Not dnd (and there multiple casters can combine recurces on spells), but what basically happened is one player cast fireball into the bossroom, upcast with almost all the partys resurces! Damm, that was a boom! All the walls were glowing white, the cealing thereatened to collapse, the boss dropped to half hp and all eight of his guards got completly incinerated... this was supposed to be a stealth mission...

The party had convinced a Dracholich and his highest cultist to join a fight against a drachimancer and another Dragon. The Dracholich "agreed" to carry them to the battle. They boarded the Dracolich, and when it was a little ways off from the battle, it jolted and attempted to dump them mid air. The cultist was thrown, the party all made saves to hang on. The Dracolich began to climb upward, and the party began discussing what their action should be, believing that the Dracolich was not able to enter the area with the drachimancer. After flying 320 feet (2 rounds) straight upward, the Dracolich turned around and flew as fast as it could toward the ground. The Dracholich was not bouncing off the drachimancer zone, it was working with the drachimancer all along. Max 20d6 falling damage, plus the bludgeoning damage of a full Dracolich meteoring the party into the ground. A couple survived, but when it came to fighting the Dracolich afterward, turns out Dracholiches are immune to non-magical damage. Like falling damage and bludgeoning damage...

our Tabaxi rogue decided that he was going to be Lactose Intolerant and drink some milk the one session was gone. I came back to everyone hating them for, from my Point of View, no fucking reason until I was told of _the occurance._

Wait... Brianva? the guy who took over Jakes channles (fakeout). Wtf, this feels serial, havent watched a MrRipper in a while so this confused the heck outta me XD

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Some of these didn't really fit the prompt