What is the most impressive thing that you can remember another player’s character doing in a session?
In terms of raw spectacle, there was that time the blackguard climbed an ice-covered pole, holding a pig between her legs, so she could get the drop on an unkillable bug monster. But that’s really only impressive because she succeeded. If instead she’d just falled limply to the ground and gotten trampled, that wouldn’t have been a good story. I’m reluctant to give such an award to luck.
Instead, let me tell you about Slogg Sexipants. He performed the occasional task that only succeeded because he was a half-ton cleric, but his size also wasn’t what was impressive. What I really liked about him was that his AC was 7. This was an 8th-level character with no armor, a Dexterity of 6, and a Large size category. I think the player’s thought process was something like “Well, my AC’s going to be low. If I get full plate and magic items, then I can take huge mobility penalties and spend a lot of money to get my AC up to 21 or so, but at this level that’s functionally the same as AC 7. And the character I envisioned doesn’t have armor anyway. Instead I think I’ll just max out Constitution and tank hits with sheer mass.”
Not only was this an impressive dedication to character over mechanics, it freed him up to move over the battlefield with impunity. He assumed every attack was a hit and lived life accordingly, never worrying about what the attack roll actually was. This was also in an edition where healing occurred in raw hit points, not as a percentage of total, so it took a lot of his own healing to keep him running. But in exchange he got a massive character for a campaign about fighting massive monsters, and he finally got to break out the character voice he’d wanted to use for something like ten years. I can’t think of much more impressive than the tangible sacrifice he accepted and the intangible reward he got for it.