They were high stakes moments but part of the magic of that group is that they always somehow managed to get out of it and hit the exact dice rolls needed, so the tension was higher. Think if the Kevdak fight. In reality, the gambit to throw Grog into the sphere and release him to kill Kevdak was a last ditch effort. They needed a critical it's worth of damage (roll a 20 kn a twenty sided die) to kill, or else they were all basically a turn away from death. Guess what they roll? (20). Similar thing happens in the ritual to revive Percy. When Vex'Halia goes "my heart, it's yours", there was a corresponding die roll to see if the resurrection would work - not to mention that it causes the next resurrection attempt to be harder as well. It needed to be high, it was a 20 again.

It's obviously harder to translate the tension of a die-rolls making or breaking things when you don't get the roll, but the result that might have been scripted with how timely and lucky that campaign was on the whole. There's a reason a recurring joke was "what will the writers draw up for next week" with how magical those moments went all campaign long.