We were exploring a cave system full of elementals, demons, cultists and these strange ant-like creatures. I forget the name of the creatures now, but Pomek was having a rough time hitting the various Bad Guys in the cavern. He came to call it the Cursed Cavern because of this. As a player, I knew it was simply bad die rolling and I knew my luck would eventually turn for the better.

It did.

When we first encountered the ant-creatures, I was taking up the rear guard. The rest of the party charged into combat against the Bad Guys after they had thrown some stone spears in our general direction. I had quite a bit of distance to cover to enter combat, so I pulled out my extra monk movement and charged. I managed to, in addition to the charge, hit for critical damage and destroyed the thing I had hit. It was a glorious moment for Pomek. The rest of the fight went just the same way. I rolled 19s and 20s for my to hit rolls and managed to roll out near max damage for each strike. I unleashed my Flurry of Blows time and time again and hit with them all. The fight was very brief and in the end, I had killed 90% of the Bad Guys all on my own.

It was wonderful. It was exhilarating. It was a great time!

We ran into more of the ant-creatures in the Cursed Cavern, and my dice remained hotter than ever. I flew right through them, and we started making running jokes that my thunderous blows would tear right through anything with a chitinous covering. I really wanted to make my way to a sea short and track down some mutated, gigantic crabs and lobsters to make a living as a fisherman.

The moral of the story: When your dice are sucking for you, just stick it out. Eventually, they will turn in your favor and make for a great story.

While roaming through goblinoid-infested woods, we were ambushed by some hobgoblins. The leader had some boots of speed on and used them to great effect during the fight. We ended up killing all but the leader, and he cowardly (and intelligently) ran away. Even with his boots of speed, he couldn’t out pace Pomek. My unlucky Monk caught up to the vile creature and the one-on-one fight ensued along with lots and lots of bad die rolling. I had hasted myself through a potion, and the hobgoblin used the haste power from his boots. Between his dual wielding and my flurry of blows, we were throwing enough attacks to bring down a small village in seconds… if we could only hit!

The fight drew to a close when I fumbled, rolled on the fumble chart, and critically hit myself in the head, knocking myself out. About that time the rest of the party closed in on the scene of the fight and the hobgoblin ran off into the woods to never be seen again. I finally came to with the comment, “Damn, that hobgob was good!” After that fight, Pomek decided hastes threw off his perfectly timed and well trained attacks. He forwent hastes from that point on… to much greater success.