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Cieyrin
2009-07-25, 07:46 PM
It's been a while since I last came out of Homebrew but I felt inspired to share and hear your stories, from whatever game system.

My two are as follows:
1) A wizard breaks a staff of power with 1 charge in a retributive strike, dealing 8 points of damage to himself and being utterly destroyed b/c he failed the "thrown to other plane" check.

2)
Time to create character, with stats and back story in Basic D&D: 3ish hours.
Time till character death, after tripping and falling down the stairs of the dungeon into a kobold nest: 30 seconds.

Post yours, so we can all share your pain!

Yukitsu
2009-07-25, 07:49 PM
I have a high survival rate. The lamest death I've had is my only one, where my wizard druid mystic theurge got caught by a huge air elemental, and was killed by the wall of fire my team mate put up beside me. Since I was level 9 at the time, I don't hold it against myself.

The Neoclassic
2009-07-25, 07:51 PM
Not death, but it nearly was...

Our party's low-level druid got knocked out (and would've died if the paladin hadn't rushed over the next round) by a lamp. Yes, a boring ol' stand-alone animated lamp. Slammed into her and spilled some flaming oil onto her, and a couple of bad rolls later she was on the floor. Highly lame, but hilarious for the rest of us.

Myiven
2009-07-25, 07:54 PM
My all-time favorite was someone else, but I had a chance to indirectly cause it.

The party member was playing a chaos mage in Unknown Armies. Basically, they gain powers by taking risk. His favorite way to take risk and gain power was to play Russian roulette.

So, he asked to borrow my gun. I gave it to him. He pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. He forgot that I used a semi-automatic.

ReluctantReaper
2009-07-25, 08:23 PM
Well i had a cleric who was currently pinned by an areanea, the spider people whatever. We had just defeated the mini villian and all his associates except two of these spiders. So my pal the barbarian who plays a barbarian like a pro (intelligence wise that is) picks up the +4 mighty composite longbow then shoots the arrow rolling a nat 1. We allow fudges like that so a roll to hit me he of course rolls the 20 and i get crit. So he ends up doing around 27 damage total and i died. Luckily my cleric was a friend of a 15th level cleric and had a ring of sending or messege to him and quickly called out that i needed his help.

I got ressurected and have not played as the character since but i feel confused on how to act towards the barb. Any suggestions

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-25, 08:35 PM
Two Words: Snake. Napalm.


The full story is long and complicated, so I'll try to be brief:

A very poor DM once ran a campaign. After much talk, I managed to get him to allow me to play a Warforged Paladin.

Ignoring the fact that he thought DR 2/Adamantine was overpowered, I rather enjoyed that character. At least, until one session.

A trap let roughly 400 snakes down on me. I was the only one in the party to even carry a lantern, and had the common sense to buy oil for it. One of the players (a Wizard/Cleric aiming for True Necromancer) happened to remember it. He casts Flare, a 0 level spell, while I am buried under the snakes.

The entire pile goes up in flames. Now, this wouldn't be a problem for me, as I'm a Paladin with a good Con score and a decent Cha score and being on fire deals 1d6/round.



Not with this DM. He makes me roll percentiles to see how much of my body is on fire. First 100% of that entire campaign, and the DM rules that I have 2 rounds left to live. I do the smart thing: Get out of the fire and try to put myself out. Oh, but the DM limits me to a single Move action by saying that my Adamantine body is partially melting. For those who don't know, an open bonfire does not approach the temperature required to melt Steel, much less a metal that can only be forged by magical flames.

So the party's Spontaneous Cleric decides to cast Create Water. You would think 15 gallons of water would be enough to put out a small fire like this, especially when the water is created from thin air and then poured in gratuitous amounts over the flaming object, but no. At this point, it becomes abundantly clear that the DM is trying to take this character out.

So I drop. Before the other players even start "mourning", I decide to look up the spell Flare.
















It's heatless. I got killed by a cantrip that couldn't even light a fraggin cigar.

Gorbash
2009-07-25, 08:38 PM
my pal the barbarian who plays a barbarian like a pro (intelligence wise that is) picks up the +4 mighty composite longbow

He plays like a pro, yet he shoots into grapple without Improved Precise Shot?

:smallconfused:

golentan
2009-07-25, 08:51 PM
This was an NPC, but I think he bears mentioning.

Killed by a 12 year old hostage. The NPC was holding a knife at the hostage's throat, the hostage figured "I'm a gonner anyway, I'll take him with me," and sets off an explosive. The Hostage makes his save and takes 1 point of damage, but the NPC failed and lost an arm, bleeding to death before he could be saved.

Kylarra
2009-07-25, 08:55 PM
Not me, but a campaign I was in.

Player charges into spider's nest and gets trapped in web, commence battle with spiders that leaves him alive. but in negatives, unfortunately the party decides to burn him free... doing exactly enough to kill him.

erikun
2009-07-25, 09:14 PM
Not a death, but a AD&D 2nd edition "straight up" campaign.

For those who don't know, "straight up" character creation means rolling 3d6 six times, keeping the stats rolled. In order. My luck with characters tends to fall into either "awesome" or "terrible", and this roll ended up in the latter.

My highest stat was a 13, and was in Constitution. My second highest was a 9, and was in Wisdom. All other stats were lower than that. (I think Intelligence was next, at 8.) Now, for people not familiar with AD&D 2nd ed., you needed a minimum score to qualify for a class. Needless to say, my character couldn't qualify for any class. Heck, the lowest class minimums were 9 in one relevant stat - certainly not making it in this case! Much like D&D 3.x, you needed 10 + spell level to cast spells, meaning I couldn't even play a caster.

Feeling sorry (or perhaps amused) for me, the DM let be exchange ability points in a 2:1 ratio - loose two from one stat, and one to another. I believe I took a hit on Con and perhaps Int to get up to 12 Wis - it was my best stat after all, and a lot more survivable than a first level mage! With that out of the way, our little group rolled up our hit points. I don't remember what everyone else's stats were like, but I do remember our HP values.

The fighter rolled 2 HP.

The mage rolled 3 HP.

I rolled 1 HP.

Yep. My first level cleric was just a papercut from unconciousness. Our heartiest warrior was the guy in robes. My opinion?

"Well, at least I won't need to waste healing on myself." :smallbiggrin:

(Sadly, we never got to play the first session with these characters - which is about the only reason I'm not talking about their deaths. A stiff breeze would probably knock this party out.)

penbed400
2009-07-25, 09:20 PM
I was DMing my first RuneQuest adventure, it was on Griffin Island for anybody who plays. So they went down south of the island in order to deliver this message to some random guy and went through this huge adventure that I had planned out including an orc camp and some assassinations.

They were on their way back to the port where they started to rest up and find something else to do and I thought, "Hey! Let's spice things up a little bit." And rolled on the random encounter table for while they were travelling. It landed on the cherry bomb tree. I thought that was cool because they could use the cherries as they saw fit for a acouple of days, maybe they'll pop maybe they won't, great fun all around. So they find the tree, pick some cherries, one bites one and takes the damage. That's when they got the idea, I don't know why but they decided to chop the tree down together.....TPK....bastards.

Xallace
2009-07-25, 09:46 PM
Giant zombie leech fell on me. Worst part was the set-up:

DM: "You make it to the lift just in time as the manor comes crashing down around you. Suddenly, there is ignition; the entire building explodes into flames just behind you. The lift just barely out-paces the explosion... but then (!), rising from the inferno, horrible acid dripping from its circular mouth, the Leech Queen rises above you and... falls on [Xallace]."

PCs: "...WHAT."

Tohron
2009-07-25, 10:05 PM
My all-time favorite was someone else, but I had a chance to indirectly cause it.

The party member was playing a chaos mage in Unknown Armies. Basically, they gain powers by taking risk. His favorite way to take risk and gain power was to play Russian roulette.

So, he asked to borrow my gun. I gave it to him. He pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. He forgot that I used a semi-automatic.

Something like that has actually happened in real life.

http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2000-04.html

waterpenguin43
2009-07-25, 10:10 PM
Two Words: Snake. Napalm.


The full story is long and complicated, so I'll try to be brief:

A very poor DM once ran a campaign. After much talk, I managed to get him to allow me to play a Warforged Paladin.

Ignoring the fact that he thought DR 2/Adamantine was overpowered, I rather enjoyed that character. At least, until one session.

A trap let roughly 400 snakes down on me. I was the only one in the party to even carry a lantern, and had the common sense to buy oil for it. One of the players (a Wizard/Cleric aiming for True Necromancer) happened to remember it. He casts Flare, a 0 level spell, while I am buried under the snakes.

The entire pile goes up in flames. Now, this wouldn't be a problem for me, as I'm a Paladin with a good Con score and a decent Cha score and being on fire deals 1d6/round.



Not with this DM. He makes me roll percentiles to see how much of my body is on fire. First 100% of that entire campaign, and the DM rules that I have 2 rounds left to live. I do the smart thing: Get out of the fire and try to put myself out. Oh, but the DM limits me to a single Move action by saying that my Adamantine body is partially melting. For those who don't know, an open bonfire does not approach the temperature required to melt Steel, much less a metal that can only be forged by magical flames.

So the party's Spontaneous Cleric decides to cast Create Water. You would think 15 gallons of water would be enough to put out a small fire like this, especially when the water is created from thin air and then poured in gratuitous amounts over the flaming object, but no. At this point, it becomes abundantly clear that the DM is trying to take this character out.

So I drop. Before the other players even start "mourning", I decide to look up the spell Flare.
















It's heatless. I got killed by a cantrip that couldn't even light a fraggin cigar.

Ouch, what an idiot DM, flare can't even start fires and he made like, 50 rules to kill you with.

Civil War Man
2009-07-25, 10:24 PM
Let's see...Lamest death.

Technocracy one shot. The interdimensional ship we were on crashes in the arctic. Turns out we were being targetted for death by rivals in the Technocracy for some reason. We manage to slaughter the vat-grown supersoldier death squad sent to kill us (something about a Void Engineer with dots in Time with my very high-level Progenitor pumping her full of Life magic). We steal the vehicle the death squad came in, and make a run for it. Unfortunately the rivals send a space bomber after us.

For the record, these bombers basically take no damage ever. The only way to defeat them is to lure them to Earth and bombard them with missiles until the bomber accrues too much Paradox from not taking any damage. Our driver (Iteration X agent) ends up crashing our vehicle into a snowbank or something. Then the bomber explodes from the Paradox and crashes right on top of us.

Everyone except the previously mentioned Void Engineer dies instantly, and she slowly freezes to death.

Granted, that all sounds pretty awesome, but we were doing so great up to that point that it was disappointing when the dice suddenly declared "Rocks fall, you all die"

Random832
2009-07-25, 10:41 PM
[snip]
...

The Leech Queen?

:smallbiggrin:

Was there an eye (or perhaps an "i") for the macguffin?

Dyllan
2009-07-25, 11:30 PM
First level characters, and I'm DM'ing the Sunless Citadel. Fairly early in, you have to climb 20 feet down some vines. It's a DC 0 climb check. I describe it as looking like it would be easy to climb. So the fighter decides to climb down in his armor... his total climb mod is only a -2.

He rolls a 1, and falls 20 feet... I roll high on the 2d6 damage, and he goes into negatives. Then the single enemy at the bottom of the hole does a coup de gras.

Death by failing a DC 0 climb check.

horus42
2009-07-25, 11:33 PM
My lamest character death:

We were playing a nWoD mortal chronicle. Most of us had loved ones who had been killed by this vampire, blah blah blah, and we went off to kill him. We managed to defeat all his minions, and then it came down to the final fight with the BBEG.

We -should have- won. But the GM decided that the vampire somehow magically healed all his damage, and we all suddenly had heart attacks and died.

Actually, one of us survived. The character who eventually became suicidal after his daughter died was made immortal, just as a "the GM screws you over" thing.

Yeah. That ending sucked. It wasn't even an avoidable thing, it was pretty much literally "rocks fall, everyone dies."

kyuubigan
2009-07-25, 11:40 PM
Not mine but still pretty funny.

Our party was adventuring in an active volcano. Next to a pool of lava, there is a magical trap that attacks the lead member of the party. The trap 'suggests' that it would be a good idea to take a dip in the nice refreshing pool of magma.

Guess what.

The lead character at the time (a Half-Orc grappler build) fails his Will save spectacularly, and hops right in. The rest of the party tried to pull him out (he survived the first round of damage by the skin of his teeth) but his Grapple Modifier was so high none of us could drag him out.

And that was the tragic end of Barry the Half-Orc.

Wind d8/d12
2009-07-25, 11:42 PM
In a 2nd edition Earth-based game, I called a kids barmaid mom a guy and got critted from behind with a hot fire poker. We weren't very high level but the high level Rabbi we were meeting resurrected me and gaved me a stern talking to about manners. And he took all of my armor and weapons until we did a long boring fetch quest for him to teach me a lesson.

A few years down the road the boy had grown into a barkeeper and he recognized me. By then the game had become 3.5 and my rogue was now a rogue/ninja so I soaked a coin in poison and convinced him it was an unconvincing fake, so he bit it to see if it dented.

Revenge is a dish best served subtley.

GoatToucher
2009-07-26, 12:03 AM
Our first game of 3.0. I make a sorcerer (three spells at lvl 1? Sweet!) and the campaign gets under way.

In the second battle, I expended all three of my spells from the back of the wagon. I then pull out my short spear and take a poke at the neatest baddie.

Natural one.

Reflex save? Failed.

Roll to hit myself? Natural 20.

Roll damage? Boxcars.

I had 2 hitpoints at the time. Took me down exactly to -10.

The description was that I tripped and fell out of the wagon, impaling myself on the spear.

Lucky for me, char gen is my favorite part of the process.

Xenogears
2009-07-26, 12:23 AM
Made a rather nice Frenzied Beserker who managed to one hit every enemy the DM threw at me (I was the only character since it was just me and the DM. Then he threw a flying enemy with a bow at me and i realised I forgot to buy a ranged weapon.....

ghost_warlock
2009-07-26, 12:37 AM
Fallout-style game played with the Alternity ruleset. Apparently, there were also Predators (as in the move Predator).

The party was climbing out of their bus about to go about their business when out of nowhere (with no dice being rolled) the DM says to one of us:

"A predator spear materializes in your chest. You take...50 mortal."

The average Alternity PC can take about 4-5 mortal damage before being killed. And never mind that the base damage for a predator spear in the hands of a PC is something like 2d4 mortal + Str mod (no such thing as Sneak Attack or similar types of precision damage in the system).

Of course, this particular GM is (in)famous for "rocks fall - you're the only one that dies" situations.

maniakmastah
2009-07-26, 01:04 AM
I was DM'ing a game and one of my players had to chase one of the BBEG's minions, a psychopathic killer who was actually a Daemonette, and keep her from killing an NPC they were looking for. After she beat them to him, she killed him (but not before making her and the PCs go through a trapped theatre) then decided she wanted to play with the PCs. Now one of her deadliest attacks is a venomous kiss, and she decided she was gonna kiss the Wild Elf Fighter, so she makes a grapple check. Now he's a pretty strong guy at a 20 strength, so i have no doubt he can get free, i roll for her, 19 + her grapple, which was altogether 28. OK so she got pretty high, now he rolls, gets a 2 for a total of 17. Somehow she over powers him and kisses him on the lips, so he makes a Fort save. Now i trust my players enough not to check or do their stats for them, so i ask what his Fortitude was, he says it was a 7......a 10th level fighter with a 7 Fort. I ask him what his Con was, he said 11. Yes, a fighter with a con of 11. Now the save DC for the poison was pretty high for the party, at DC 23, but i can't let him die like this, so i fudge it down to 19. He rolls his save, nat 1. He takes 2d6 con damage, and i roll, trying to make it low. a total of 4. so he's at -6. Now when it comes time to make another roll to save, i tell him roll high, he rolls, gets another nat 1. Now i be nice and let him reroll it, and he rolls, a 2. now the secondary damage, and i make one last ploy and lower the secondary damage to 1d6, so i'd need a six to kill him, and i roll..........a 6. His character dies from a kiss before she gets away.

But it gets worse, i made a custom reincarnation chart. I told him he can use raise dead, but he wanted to be cheap and go this route. So he comes back as a female animated doll, in other words, DESU!! So he hams it up and roleplays it funny. Then they finally track her to her lair and fight her again, ad despite trying to be nice but keep it challenging, she hit like crazy and he wouldn't retreat, even though i gave him the advantage or, not being able to be sneak'd or poisoned, a wand of Repair Moderate Damage to heal him, and small size to make it harder to hit him, he ended getting killed again, and once again gets reincarnated, this time as a physical copy of the party's Paladin. We still laugh about that.

Nerd-o-rama
2009-07-26, 01:09 AM
Took a random laser beam to the chest in CoC (****ing Mi-Go). My girlfriend almost suffered the same fate from a random Deep One claw to the chest tonight, but we were able to stabilize her and she will likely make a full recovery by the next time anything actually happens.

It's not so much the dying that bugs me (this is Call of Cthulhu we're talking about), it's the anticlimax. Is it too much to ask to be melted into a puddle of goo by the RAW POWER OF THE UNIVERSE like that NPC was? (CoC protip: befriend curious, academically-minded NPCs and send them in first).

mcv
2009-07-26, 01:11 AM
I once had a character die in a session where I wasn't present. Of course everbody else survived.

This was during a WFRP campaign where my characters had a life expectancy of about 2 sessions (which started after my first character ended up as the sacrificial victim in Shadows Over Boegenhaven. And I was the only one; the others had no problem surviving, and one was a practically immortal Free Lance with an ungodly amount of Fate Points. (Until a substitute GM decided to take him out.)

RTGoodman
2009-07-26, 01:12 AM
I've told the story several times before, so here's the gist of it.

Playing a half-orc monk, dungeon-crawling with the rest of the party. DM has a ghoul/ghast and a troglodyte cleric ambush from behind, and I'm the rear guard in marching order. One claw attack later, I'm paralyzed, and next round the troglodyte uses a coup de grace. The party couldn't even get near enough to do anything about it because of the narrow corridor and whatnot. :smallannoyed:

Next session, I'm rezzed, and we continue exploring. Rather than walking across a living floor that forces saves when you walk on it, I use my obscene Jump mod to jump across it to the wooden elevator/platform. One failed Reflex save later, the DM's rolling 12d6 falling damage. Only good part of the story? With low damage rolls, slow fall, Tumble, and all that, I only died by a few HP (I was at like -16 or something).

Callista
2009-07-26, 02:14 AM
Random pit trap. Splat.

Tengu_temp
2009-07-26, 07:44 AM
First level characters, and I'm DM'ing the Sunless Citadel. Fairly early in, you have to climb 20 feet down some vines. It's a DC 0 climb check. I describe it as looking like it would be easy to climb. So the fighter decides to climb down in his armor... his total climb mod is only a -2.

He rolls a 1, and falls 20 feet... I roll high on the 2d6 damage, and he goes into negatives. Then the single enemy at the bottom of the hole does a coup de gras.

Death by failing a DC 0 climb check.

Couldn't he take 10?

The Dark Fiddler
2009-07-26, 08:43 AM
Our party of all first time players (including me) was: a Fighter, a Ranger, and my Druid. The town we're in is in an Orc raid. The Fighter runs off. Fights an unarmed Orc. Orc attacks:

DM: Ok, he got a crit... roll for confirm... *rolls* 20... uh... make a Fortitude save.
Fighter: 1
DM: Uh, yeah. He smashes your head in. You're dead.

He later comes back (we were all level 1, so no access to any Bring Back The Dead spells) by fighting 20 Orcs. He kills them all.

Ernir
2009-07-26, 08:59 AM
A "let's split up!" followed by death by a horde of classless Goblins for half the party - a horde we could have handled had we brought the spellcasters along. :smallfrown:

Xallace
2009-07-26, 09:01 AM
...

The Leech Queen?

:smallbiggrin:

Was there an eye (or perhaps an "i") for the macguffin?

...I don't get it. :smallfrown:

Abstruse
2009-07-26, 09:08 AM
Couldn't he take 10?
Apparently the Big Dumb Fighter was particularly dumb. I know you can't take 20 on a Climb check, since there's the risk of injury from failure, but he really should've taken 10. : )

Oslecamo
2009-07-26, 09:13 AM
I had just created a lv 1 halfling rogue, and I decide to scout a small forest ahead of the party, despite it being

A freaking tyranossaurs appears and eats my character alive. The DM later said we were only suposed to enter that area when we were higher level.

Also in the same campaign, in a city we arrive after some info gathering we discover there's an area where we can test our combat skills.

We all decide try it out. I get a ranger wich after some blow trading, proceeds to crit me for max damage and drops me from 19 HP to -14. At level 5. With an arrow.



Made a rather nice Frenzied Beserker who managed to one hit every enemy the DM threw at me (I was the only character since it was just me and the DM. Then he threw a flying enemy with a bow at me and i realised I forgot to buy a ranged weapon.....

KILL IT WITH ROCKS! Or run away:smalltongue:

DiscipleofBob
2009-07-26, 09:14 AM
So the story goes like this:

I'm in an adventure in Eberron, playing a dragon shaman (ambassador from the Seren tribes). We also have a swahbuckly airship captain of House Lyrandar, an artificer of Cannith, a favored soul bodyguard from Deneith, some dwarf representative from the Mror Holds. Basic plot is we're going around with a sort of peace treaty for all the nations to sign, in exchange for various favors of course.

So the king(?) of New Cyre wants us to retrieve some lost signet ring from the Mournland. Okay, not a huge bit of trouble. We go through various obstacles including a Carcass Crab (with a hilarious bit of flaming dwarf tossing), and an undead city to sneak through.

We finally get to the former royal palace, and as soon as we get there we see two statues of bluespawn godslayers. Mind you, we're somewhere between level 6 and 10, I don't remember quite where, and the group consensus is: if one of these things attacks you, you die. Period.

Since these things are draconic in nature, and my character basically reveres dragons as gods, he sees this place as holy ground that he'd rather not trespass on. Plus, someone's got to watch the horses. For some reason, the Deneith favored soul decides that I've got to go down there so she'll watch the horses instead.

So down we go into the ruins of the Cyran palace, our artificer leading the way to disable all the traps.

But before we go to the throne room to retrieve the main goal of this quest, our artificer decides he wants to make a detour to the castle's treasure vault. Once again, BEFORE we actually get the ring we're supposed to find, our artificer wants to go to the treasure vault he knows is heavily warded. Without telling the rest of the party, and since he's the guide, we can't really object IC.

The artificer disables some basic traps at the beginning of the dungeon, we make our way to the treasure vault which consists of two rooms. The first has basic wealth and jewels and has two more of those godslayer statues guarding the entrance. There's a door in the back that leads to the magic item vault with what could be accurately called deathtraps on them.

Now, I want to stress two things at this point:

1. The artificer's player has somehow calculated about how many magic items and of what quality are still in the vault. His reasoning is that since the place still has very powerful active wards, it hasn't been accessed since the Day of Mourning. His other reasoning is that there's so many magic items down there, there's no way there CAN'T be a scroll of teleportation or something similar for immediate use should things turn for the worse (never mind that should things turn for the worse, even if he DID get into the vault he'd need to take time to search for said object)

2. This is the Mournland. No real healing to be done here. If anyone gets injured, the closest thing we have for healing is my aura of fast healing. If someone dies, there's not much chance for resurrection even if we do get out of here crippled as is carrying a teammate's corpse. The rest of the party, myself included, wants to get the ring, get out and get on with our quest. OOC no one wants to go to the treasure vault because we KNOW it's heavily guarded and that there's no way we're making out with the lost treasure of Cyre. The DM has given us ample foreshadowing and good warning with what'll probably happen should we go to the vault and screw up too much. Only the artificer, our guide, still wants to go despite the warnings, and refuses to even tell us this information IC. I stress these two points to make it perfectly clear that this wasn't a jack-ass DM, this was one person's fault and one person's alone.

So the artificer goes to unlock the door to get at those magic items, and there's two. So far, the artificer disabled the basic traps, including some now-useless alarms and almost harmless traps, with flying colors, bragging about his high skill checks. He goes to disable the first trap on the door. Natural 1.

Meanwhile, outside, the favored soul with the horses fails a Spot and Listen check, and sees a brief shadow before she dies. Just... dies.

We all know about this OOC. I mourn for the horses.

Back in the vault, our artificer remains undaunted. The first trap is sprung and we're all right. So he goes for the second ward. Natural 1. A lightning bolt shoots out from the ward. Artificer rolls a natural 20 on his reflex save. The lightning bolt forks mid-way through the room and hits the two godslayer statues. The dwarf falls before anyone can react. The artificer immediately runs into the vault to see if he can find that teleport item that must exist and immediately be available because the artificer's player says so. Our swashbuckly airship captain tries to tumble past the godslayers to survive and hopefully come back for our corpses. She gets one foot out the door before she gets killed. Seeing the situation, my character decides he better go out with honor, draws his sword and charges. I'm the first to actually ask for numbers, just to see if I can last more than one round. For the record, I don't. The artificer is now huddled in a corner as the godslayers menacingly approach, raise their weapons...

...and we are all teleported to some interdimensional home with two very powerful NPC's. Everyone who died is alive with no real memory of what happened since it all happened so quickly, the artificer the only one IC who realized he just caused a TPK.

So IC we can't do anything to retaliate because we don't know anything.

And that's the lamest way I've ever died.

Gorbash
2009-07-26, 09:15 AM
we could have handled had we brought the spellcasters along.

A solution for every situation! :smallbiggrin:

Cieyrin
2009-07-26, 11:02 AM
He plays like a pro, yet he shoots into grapple without Improved Precise Shot?

:smallconfused:

Notice he said "played like a pro, intelligence-wise". Barbarian crushes his enemies without regard for tactics or common sense (though that's more a function of wisdom, which he probably didn't have as a second dump stat). Barbarian shoots into grapple to help his friend. His friend wiggles wrong way.

Reminds me of another lame character death I had (there are so many, I'm beginning to realize. I must be getting used by the DMs as examples for the rest of the party or something. :smallbiggrin:), with a similar setup, with my half-elven noble swashbuckler in a grapple with two trogs and the archer scout decides to help me by shooting into said grapple. Despite the fact that the trogs are bigger and outnumber me, the scout shoots me, crits and rolls max damage on his bow and skirmish. I go from full to dead, the trogs look up at him with a confused look from the now dead corpse in their claws and say a garbled thank you before proceeding to attempt to rip the face off of the rest of the party (which didn't occur).

After melee is over, they loot my body of my finery and leave my corpse lying there while they continue adventuring (we're level 2, we gots none of this 'raise dead' type magic, let alone can afford it). I get my revenge on the scout a bit later w/ my 2nd character, a gnome ninja, who works as a retainer for the former half-elf noble's house, and is a bit upset to find that his master's son has been murdered and left stripped of all belongings. Party Drama Occurs. :smalltongue:

SilverClawShift
2009-07-26, 11:11 AM
I had a sorceress who was killed by a pack of 5 wolves.

That doesn't sound lame, until you factor in that I was level 9 at the time. Our party were all wanted for various crimes against an evil nation we'd spent the better part of the campaign working against, and they sent some high level bounty hunters after us.
Long story short, I wound up sneaking alone through the woods to meet up with any surviving teammates at a cave we knew about when i ran into aforementioned wolves, and nothing but cantrips and one 1st level spell slot left. The wolves were faster, I couldn't connect with any of my improvised weapons (I wasn't in the habit of carrying emergency weapons by that point in my gaming career :smalltongue: I figured being a spellcaster meant I didn't need to bother carrying a dagger or anything). They just tore me down.

Not very epic.

After they killed me, the DM face palmed and said "I thought you would climb a tree." Apparently he'd had something in mind, and I was too inept to see it :smalltongue:

Drakyn
2009-07-26, 11:16 AM
Silverclawshift: comes back from the dead with free will, escapes from mental hospitals with willpower and demons, lives without legs inside giant skeletons as exoskeletal suits, battles two separate apocalypses, is eaten by wolves in the woods while flailing at them ineffectively with tree bark and pebbles.
One of these things is slightly out of place. And yet they all remain awesome.

woodenbandman
2009-07-26, 12:13 PM
The DM decided that it would be a good idea if we died as a reward for completing our adventure. So we fell off a waterfall, which we apparently didn't hear while approaching. Yeah.

Aricandor
2009-07-26, 12:25 PM
Not D&D bears mentioning.

Hit in the elbow with a crossbow bolt sprung from a trap on a small chest for minimum damage to cause any sort of significant injury, causing me to bleed to death over about half a minute.
The part that makes it lamest of all my deaths was that it was only on my elbows I had no armour (don't ask) which would have saved me had I been hit anywhere else.

Of course, one can just as easily blame the atrociously bad rule system of the game in question. :smallfurious:

Eon
2009-07-26, 12:48 PM
2.0 dnd not me. this more or less what happened after he died but anyway.

Well I was playing a elven ranger. The other party members were a human paladin, human fighter, human cleric, not sure mage that liked fireballs, and a halfling rogue. we were in a frost giant glacier thing. So the rogue to scout ahead and we are just kinda hanging out. suddenly, we hear the halfling yell and come running through the passageway with a dragon chasing him. the paladin and the cleric heal him as they pass and we kill the dragon. The halfling tells us that there was another dragon. he's at 4 hp. The cleric uses the spell that lets you ask gods questions and he gets a 80 or 90% chance the dragon lair is safe. so we go to kill the dragon. when we go in. no dragon. we approach the hill in the center of the room. me, the paladin and the halfling discover that the dragon was invisible. It used frost breath. me and the paladin take 40+ damage and fall unconcious and the halfling just dies. they kill the dragon and we continue on carrying his corpse. we find a collapsed section of ice and we make little hidey holes inside slowly healing. after we rested the first time a frost giant and one of those evil frost hound guys walks up. the paladin puts the corpse on top to make them think everybody there is dead. The giant takes the corpse. I am pretty sure we could have ressurected him after the priest rested. we later fought 40 frost giants with the help of a storm giant.

and then try explaining to him that we lost his corpse.

ashmanonar
2009-07-26, 01:02 PM
Well i had a cleric who was currently pinned by an areanea, the spider people whatever. We had just defeated the mini villian and all his associates except two of these spiders. So my pal the barbarian who plays a barbarian like a pro (intelligence wise that is) picks up the +4 mighty composite longbow then shoots the arrow rolling a nat 1. We allow fudges like that so a roll to hit me he of course rolls the 20 and i get crit. So he ends up doing around 27 damage total and i died. Luckily my cleric was a friend of a 15th level cleric and had a ring of sending or messege to him and quickly called out that i needed his help.

I got ressurected and have not played as the character since but i feel confused on how to act towards the barb. Any suggestions

I wouldn't feel anything towards the barb, because you were using a stupid critical failure roll. The fault was everyone's that his roll of 1 actually affected you at all.

dethkruzer
2009-07-26, 03:04 PM
I can't say which one was more lame, both cases were in pathfinder, first one was my LVL 1 gnome bard who had no ranks in perception and died because he walked inside a gelatinous cube, or then when i was playing a LVL 8 dwarf druid, shortly after the rest of the adventuring party found him, he participated in slaying a white dragon, roughly twelve hours later the party encountered a barded devil, who then summoned three bearded devils, two combat rounds later i was dead.

Darcand
2009-07-26, 03:45 PM
My level 2 barbarian who went charging across the battlefield the chop down some kobolds. He died halfway with a chest full of crossbow bolts. It was is first time in combat.

BloodyAngel
2009-07-26, 04:41 PM
The only thing I can add here, is one of my boyfriend's stories.

They're playing the Wheel of Time game, mostly because his friends like the books... and he's playing the rogue class. I forget what it's called. I DO recall him saying that they were terrible, as they barely had sneak attack.

In either case, the group gets beat down by a bunch of villains who've taken over a town, because they fought instead of cowing and submitting to the invaders. Considering half the party completely and utterly HATED the group involved, the DM shouldn't have been shocked. (We later found out that she was running from a module, and in the module you weren't supposed to fight. You HAD to talk it out.) So we pick a fight with a good six of these guys, only for unending hordes of them to emerge from the town's inn, until we're all bent-over and spanked. This, oddly, is not the part that kills him.

The group is all tied up and locked in a barn-type thing. My bf's rogue slips free, and climbs out the back window. Another character manages as well... some setting-specific thing called an Aiel? Apparently in the setting they're twelve shades of amazing. They sneak out, and head for the inn, where all their stuff is being kept. It's also where ALL the soldiers are. What's more, the DM tells them that their stuff is upstairs, but the only way in there is through the common room, which is packed with soldiers. The Aiel is amazing at EVERYTHING but disguise, so mY bf's rogue slips in the back and steals clothes from the maid's chambers... then dresses up like a woman, complete with apples in the shirt, and slips past them. Other than getting his butt pinched, and some hilariousness from the other players... no problem.

He steals the gear, and slips it down to the kitchen... and they head back, climb into the barn, and give it to the party, and help them climb outside. As the group does though, someone rolls a 1 on move silently, and clanks like mad... alerting the soldiers. The group rushes to put on their armor and grab their weapons, and it's ANOTHER battle to end all battles!

The Aiel squares off with the enemy commander inside the inn (The aiel's wife was slain when they were captured the first time, so he's understandable miffed), while the rest of the group splits off to deal with this or that. The rogue ends up fighting an ordinary soldier on the steps to the inn, trying to get inside to help the Aiel. But, as rogues are miserable in one-on-one fights... and due to lack of sneak attack in the setting... he's losing. Perhaps because he didn't have the time to put on his armor (He's still wearing the dress and apples), the rogue goes down. The random mook soldier knocks him to 0 exact... then assumes he's down when he plays dead, and rushes into help against the Aiel.

Our group's mage-sort sees this, and for reasons we STILL do not understand... decided that hurling a fireball into the inn will help things. He does so. The Aiel makes his save. The rogue is prone and close enough to catch the blast as well. But he's at zero! He can make his save, and thanks to evasion, he'll take no damage if he does... then fall to -1! He rolls... a 2. He sighs, until he realizes he has a luck power that lets him re-roll something once per day! He rolls again. Nat 1. At that point, it was fate. My bf's rogue was burned to death by friendly fire, while cross-dressing.

Even more depressing was the fact that the fireball didn't take out ANYONE else. The Aiel was the one who put down the two soldiers... and my bf re-rolled as a fighter with maxed con and HP. :smalltongue:

Korivan
2009-07-26, 04:52 PM
Lets see...

1. I was playing a wizard and I was standing a small distance behind a fighter. A minitor came charging and the fighter (10th level with starting 18 CON) sidsteped and the Minitor charged in and slaughtered my 7th level starting CON 10 wizard. I reminded him what his purpose in the group was.

2. Playing a raging barbarion on a navel heavy campaign, our boat ant the enemy's boat neared each other and I, in a heroic manner, leaped from our boat onto thiers. In the middle of the jump, I was struck by a lightning bolt and thrown into the water...drowned. Stupid on my part. But I was only level 2 so no biggie.

The lamest deaths however always for me to stem from a party member TKing, or the Dm not reading creature descriptions right, then reading them in the middle of the fight and then adding in what he left out. i.e. Oh wait, you guys need magic weapons to really harm this thing, oh well, you can still handle it.

3. My character was sleeping and had his throat slit...no check, no save, no notice. Only reason he did it? Bored with his character, wanted to kill off enough of the group to start over with a new character.

4. Elder elemental against a party of 5, each of us were 3rd level with one 5th level.....it wasnt pretty.

BenTheJester
2009-07-26, 05:07 PM
Minotaur
Barbarian
Naval

Jalor
2009-07-26, 05:36 PM
My 2nd level Wizard had climbed a tree with the Scout to get out of melee range of several skeletons. I was using Grease spells to ensure that only a few enemies could engage us at once. The Paladin, on the ground, goes to negatives after a wolf skele crits him. I send my owl familiar to distract the wolf, who crits again and drops it. It's at -8, and I try to climb down and retrieve it. Natural 1 on the Climb check, I fall prone and take 1d6 damage. Naturally, it's a 6.

I have Mage Armor and an 18 DEX, so I figure standing up from prone and hustling away is safe, especially because the only creature threatening me is a human warrior skele. It crits me-making this the third critical hit in one round-and drops me to 2. It smacks me again when I run away, dropping me to -4. The Paladin bleeds out. The Scout tries to escape, and another Troglodyte skele drops him. My familiar bleeds out. The skeles gang up on the cleric and kill him. I bleed out.

TPKed at 2nd level by 2 wolf skeles and 3 human warrior skeles.

Zadus
2009-07-26, 05:48 PM
One shot by a shadow in a pitched black room. That sucked.

Deepblue706
2009-07-26, 06:35 PM
DM: "The psycho grapples your gnome to the ground, pins you, grabs his knife out and slices you from your belly up to your neck. You're dead."

Me: Wait, he didn't provoke an attack of opportunity for trying to grapple, he didn't have to make an opposed check, he didn't have to make an attack roll, or damage roll? I'm just dead?

DM: "Yeah, you're just a little gnome wizard. And you only had 4 hp to begin with."

Me: I still think you've missed some rules.

DM: "Oh my god! Do you ever stop whining? Too bad, the Heroes can't win every single time. Stop being such a baby."

Laurellien
2009-07-26, 06:37 PM
1) A cleric in a naval campaign. The ship suddenly comes to a halt and lists to the side. He leans over the side and is grabbed by a flotsam ooze, which proceeds to drag him underwater and drown him.

2) Same player, same cleric, same campaign. Getting water in a rowing boat when an aquatic hydra slams the boat. He fails his reflex save, falls overboard and drowns.

3) WFRP. My halfling archer tries to roll under an enemy's legs and is hit and killed in one. Fate point to the rescue. Less than ten minutes later I claim a ring from a dead man's finger and contract Nurgle's Rot.

The Dark Fiddler
2009-07-26, 07:20 PM
I can't say which one was more lame, both cases were in pathfinder, first one was my LVL 1 gnome bard who had no ranks in perception and died because he walked inside a gelatinous cube, or then when i was playing a LVL 8 dwarf druid, shortly after the rest of the adventuring party found him, he participated in slaying a white dragon, roughly twelve hours later the party encountered a barded devil, who then summoned three bearded devils, two combat rounds later i was dead.

You encountered a CR 3 creature at level 1?

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-26, 07:24 PM
You encountered a CR 3 creature at level 1?

That isn't too uncommon for some groups. I myself run encounters at 3-4 levels higher than the party's APL. I throw CR 7's and 8's at an APL 3, 3-person party every encounter. Granted, these characters are always optimized and the encounters are never solo enemies, but I'm still throwing large groups at small parties.

Mr.Moron
2009-07-26, 07:27 PM
You encountered a CR 3 creature at level 1?

It's not uncalled for according to the rules. CR + whatever can be fine in most circumstances.

I'd be wary trying it with level 1 3.5 characters though as they die when you so much as sneeze in their general direction. Part of the reason I wouldn't want to run anything that didn't start at least level 3. I'm no good at wearing kid gloves.

Cieyrin
2009-07-27, 12:56 AM
It's not uncalled for according to the rules. CR + whatever can be fine in most circumstances.

I'd be wary trying it with level 1 3.5 characters though as they die when you so much as sneeze in their general direction. Part of the reason I wouldn't want to run anything that didn't start at least level 3. I'm no good at wearing kid gloves.

But that's half the fun of it, though. Plus, 1st level characters in their first adventure never really die; there's always some other mook with a different name and back story but exact same stats to have fall out of some tavern into the fight in question or shortly there after. That scenario en-masse is what gives Gencon's Killer Breakfast such an appeal, especially if you die memorably, such as my dad literally jumping into the Batmobile represented by the Barbie Dreamhouse and then getting killed off b/c Tracy Hickman forgot he was there and replaced him with a new hot chick who'd just walked on stage. Death by sexist DM. XD

ericgrau
2009-07-27, 01:09 AM
Couldn't he take 10?

Not to mention you have to fail a climb check by 5 or more to actually fall, so even if he rolled a 1 he actually had no chance of falling. No need to take a 10, even. This is why skillmonkeys tend to get shafted so badly. Because DMs allow a chance to fail on trivial checks to accomplish minor things and the results of failure are often deadly.

Reminds me of a joke we had in one group where every time you use a toilet you need to make a poop check. And 1 in 20 times you critically miss.

Draz74
2009-07-27, 01:23 AM
Here's the short version of the ending of one of my first campaigns:

- Work hard to level up to Level 3 as a party over the course of an adventure
- Fight some bird-monsters on the side of a cliff
- None of our attacks seem to harm the birds
- Birds kill everybody, except one character who runs away
- Runaway does some research to find out what the birds were: "Illusions cast by the local druids."
- What were we supposed to do to combat them? Disbelieve them, of course. :smallannoyed:


Not to mention you have to fail a climb check by 5 or more to actually fall, so even if he rolled a 1 he actually had no chance of falling. No need to take a 10, even. This is why skillmonkeys tend to get shafted so badly. Because DMs allow a chance to fail on trivial checks to accomplish minor things and the results of failure are often deadly.

Reminds me of a joke we had in one group where every time you use a toilet you need to make a poop check. And 1 in 20 times you critically miss.

Well, this is all precisely one of the main reasons for having the "Take 10" rules. They're a perfectly fine solution to this problem.

Forbiddenwar
2009-07-27, 02:17 AM
How about a Lame nearly TPK:
1st level Party in underground tomb.
The druid has the lamp trips and drops it and the lamp goes out.
2 small spiders decide to chew on the monk. the monk swings and hits the rogue. the rogue hits back shouting "There is something in front of me hitting me." then they all start shouting about being attack by an army of undead in the tomb and start swinging widely (due to poor listen checks) Monk knocks out the rogue and starts hitting the druid. before the druid was knocked unconcious, I, as the DM not wanting to see our 2nd night end in a tpk by the monk, mentioned to the druid that she does have light spell prepared.
Her reaction: Oh!:smallredface:
The monk almost took out the whole party in the dark by accident. The spiders were squished in the 2nd round, but no one realized that until the druid casted light.
Does this make me a bad DM? the monk kept rolling 1s on his listening checks and wasn't able to distinguish friend from foe.
Great roleplaying though, talk about distinguishing from OOC and IC.

The New Bruceski
2009-07-27, 02:18 AM
Giant zombie leech fell on me. Worst part was the set-up:

DM: "You make it to the lift just in time as the manor comes crashing down around you. Suddenly, there is ignition; the entire building explodes into flames just behind you. The lift just barely out-paces the explosion... but then (!), rising from the inferno, horrible acid dripping from its circular mouth, the Leech Queen rises above you and... falls on [Xallace]."

PCs: "...WHAT."

Please tell me you KNEW your DM was running you through Resident Evil 0. If you didn't, well, your DM was running you through a Resident Evil game.

As for mine, our healer went down and I -- only standing guy trained in Heal -- had run over to the other side of the room chasing some goblins (I was the tank, so bad idea). The other party members failed to bring him 'round, and I charge back there, getting hit along the way. I save him, but a goblin knocks me unconscious and he was out of healing.

So everyone's there, including a cleric who lets me take a healing surge on a roll of 2 or higher, no problem, right? Two guys hold off the goblins, and the cleric proceeds to roll three ones as I fail my saving throws and die.

Thus began the saga of the Death's Door Fighter. I was on a first name basis with the Raven Queen by the time I just gave up and rolled another guy. The fun part was that I always died just after getting past enough milestones to get rid of the -1 to everything. It was always from poor tactics, we'd let ourselves get split up and I'd die trying to fix it.

The Orange Zergling
2009-07-27, 02:34 AM
It wasn't an actual session but rather a PbP arena type thing - I had a very, very underpowered character, admittedly (so much so that I refuse to go into his build :smalltongue:) and we were in the first challenge (basically we would fight a bunch of monsters one after the other) in a labyrinth. We walked around for a bit, nobody saw or heard anything...

And then out of nowhere, a tentacle descends from the ceiling, grapples me and kills me instantly. First round of combat. First action of the first round of combat. Turns out it was a lovecraftian-horror thing, the name of which I forget, that crawled around on the ceiling which I had never even heard of before.

That PbP didn't last long. :smalltongue:

osyluth
2009-07-27, 02:58 AM
Many of these seem to stem from excessive bloody-mindedness from the GM.

MickJay
2009-07-27, 06:33 AM
Bloody-mindedness, stupidity, railroading, not knowing the rules, knowing but abusing the rules, homebrewing PCs to the death... all of these really do make for lamest deaths. When the player kills himself because of his own stubbornness or stupidity, it's usually funny, or tragic, but rarely lame. When DM kills you "just because", that's lame. After reading some of the examples given here, I really start to appreciate the GMs I played with :smallbiggrin:

Jimbob
2009-07-27, 06:49 AM
It's not myself but a fellow party member.
Its only the 3rd week of this new campagin and I kid you not he is already on his 4th character. now you might think that what ever the DM is throwing against us is to toughfor him to die 3 times in 3 weeks but let em set the sceen for you.

Week 1 - Figher - We attack a small Kobold camp, noyl about 6 of them with a leader hiding away in one of the tents. We managed to sneak up to get a good look, we waited about for a few minutes whilst we decided what to do, but in this time the player in question had attached all his flasks of oil and ran into the camp and once he was surounded jumped into the fire killing himself and destroying most of the camp with it.

Week 2 - Wiz - Carrying on with the kobolds camps they had the drop on us this time and was backed into a corner but we had managed to form a shield wall and with the cleric behind we are doing ok.......... untill the wizard noticed a rock trap at the top of the hill and used his mage hand to set the trap off causing many rocks to fall on the kobolds and us. EVERY ONE but him made the reflex save and he was crushed to death.

Week 3 - Ranger - We managed to track down teh main kobold base and headed there post haste as we were spelled up at the time for him to only take us right into the middle of the camp and once again get surrounded by kobolds. 3 crits on him in the same round later and that was 3 out of 3 for him.

Next week I think he is going Monk so we shall see what happens.

Random832
2009-07-27, 07:17 AM
Does this make me a bad DM? the monk kept rolling 1s on his listening checks and wasn't able to distinguish friend from foe.

I'm confused... What exactly did you make the mechanical effect of failing the listen check?

Also, what was the monk's wisdom score and how many ranks in listen?

"rolling 1" is only one worse than "rolling 2", unless everyone agreed in advance on a horribly broken houserule.

potatocubed
2009-07-27, 07:42 AM
Reminds me of a joke we had in one group where every time you use a toilet you need to make a poop check. And 1 in 20 times you critically miss.

Sounds like you needed Point Blank Sh*t. :smallbiggrin:

Brauron
2009-07-27, 07:51 AM
"D&D" except that the DM was completely ignorant of the rules, got angry if any players who knew the rules tried to offer advice, it was a no-magic campaign except he kept throwing monsters at us which were ethereal or had ACs too high for us to hit without magic, and were 5-6 CRs above average party level. We're fairly certain he chose monsters primarily based on pictures in the Monster Manual. We actually got a few magic items, but only in such a way that they were actually detrimental to our characters -- the ranger who got a returning javelin, for instance, which contained a demon that did fire damage to the ranger every time he used it and which used mind-effecting abilities to force him to use the javelin.

My first character, a 6th level barbarian, was killed by an 11th level fighter in adamantine full plate with an adamantine bastard sword and an adamantine heavy shield. After the fight (during which I *almost* killed the fighter) the DM asks me, "So uh, NPCs don't get feats, right?"

Yeah. Killed by a fighter with no feats.

My second character, a Samurai/Marshall, was chased by FIVE PURPLE WORMS who, despite their listed move speed, were very easily gaining on the party, which were on horseback...anyway, we escape from the Purple Worms only to notice NINE SPHINXES (he called them Hieracosphinxes, but said they had human heads...) winging in. These sphinxes grabbed us (without grapple checks, attacks of opportunity, or anything), carried us off to the top of their six-mile high eyrie, where we were deposited in a nest containing an additional six Sphinxes.

The lead sphinx asks us the most convoluted riddle I've ever heard (seriously, it took the DM five minutes to recite the entire thing, and it was full of anachronisms about trains and cars), and then gave us thirty seconds to answer. We get it wrong (the answer is pregnancy) and the sphinxes attacked us.

In the final session, he declared point blank that his goal was to kill all the PCs. I replied, "All right. But my character is going to die by my terms." He looked at me and laughed. And then sabotaged me when I almost managed to make my death awesome.

Silvarelion
2009-07-27, 08:43 AM
So, I'm on a solo quest, trying to level an old character up to the point where I can join the party for a couple of sessions (I was only in town with these guys for a few weeks). I'm level 10 and I go into this burned out cultist lair that the party had just vacated a couple of days earlier. I run across a couple of minions that they hadn't cleared out. I manage to take care of 4 Steel Devils, and 4 Spined Devils, on my own. So, of course, I'm awesome!

Take some scrolls to gather evidence against the cultists, go to the nearest temple of Moradin (literally a couple blocks from the cultist lair), have the head priest translate the scrolls, bend over his translations, and wake up in the arms of Sehanine Moonbow. Turns out the priest had prepared Slay Living that day.

It was a totally epic couple of sessions, but that damn priest pretty much drove my character mad. Luckily, the elven death goddess was taking a personal interest in my quest.

Swordguy
2009-07-27, 09:11 AM
Playing Legend of the 5 Rings (fantasy samurai drama).

The GM dragged us on a plot that pissed off the Scorpion. Essentially a Clan full of ninjas. We didn't want to do it, but we got a direct order from our daimyo, and in-setting, you either do what the daimyo tells you to do, commit seppuku, or go ronin (in this game, that last meant becoming an NPC). So, we do it, and haul ass out of Scorpion territory.

We go take refuge in a friendly, nearby daimyo's castle. We're paranoid about the Scoripon coming after us, so we think about posting guards and sleeping in shifts. After an etiquette roll, though, the GM points out that we'd CLEARLY be insulting the daimyo by not trusting in his ability to guard us (which is also completely correct in-setting; if you're in somebody's house, guarding yourself when guards are available is a serious insult). So, we bed down with the daimyo's guards both outside and in the room.

The next day dawns. "You all wake up dead." Turns out said ninjas came in and slit everyone's throats while we were sleeping. Along with those of the guards. New PCs for all. :smallmad:

(If you follow my posts on these forums, I try to give GMs the benefit of the doubt when it comes to stupid stuff. But in this case, along with many others in this thread...I got nothin'. Sinfire Titan's story especially.)

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-27, 09:35 AM
*sob* I have many <T_T>

3.0e D&D -

First character - killed by a PO'd centaur because the centaur didn't like us camping in his field.

Second character - Killed by the other PCs (DM paid them xp to do it.)

Third character - DM didn't like the concept, tossed CR6s at a level 1 right out the gate.

(All of these deaths occurred in the first session the character was involved in. The second char did get a raise at least!)

3.5e D&D -

Halfling outrider on his beloved riding dog mount, strolling through a dungeon at the head of the party. Failed spot check. Failed reflex save. Both halfling and riding dog are now a combined meaty pancake on the insides of a crushing wall trap.

SR3e -

Running team is pinned down behind a collapsed pillar. Enemies are outside of optimal weapons range, target numbers are so high that I can't actually do anything with my SMGs; and no one brought a long gun.

My "plan"? "C'mon you bastards, do you want to live forever?!" Up over the top of the pillar... and right into the crossfire. *sniff* Didn't even hit anyone. (This is also player stupidity of a very high degree lol; I just wasn't thinking)


Troll rigger: Killed in a traffic accident on the way to the run. Yes, it's true, drunk drivers really will kill you - even if you're driving an armored SUV.



I'm sure if I spent enough time musing my horrific demises I could come up with more too <x.x> (Maybe I should change my name to "Dies-Horribly")

only1doug
2009-07-27, 03:09 PM
DnD 3.0: Evil GM (misinterprets everything in the worst manner possible)

10'x10' between 2 rooms is covered in blood and gore, we all worry about it being trapped but the rogue spots nothing (rolled a 2).

we decide that one person will go through at a time and say the order in whcih we will go. "Ok so 4 of you step into the hall and the ceiling smashes down, take *rolls lots of dice* 90 points of damage (reflex for half) each... My cleric and the rogue survived, rogue by evasion, my fighter/cleric by having massive amounts of Hp (I had 10 left afterwards). The GM stated that th rogue rolled back the way he came leaving me alone with 2 corpses in the new room, "what are you going to do?" - I cast heal so his monster didn't get to kill me. 2 PC died because the GM didn't 'hear' us say we were going through individually.

Same fighter/cleric got killed when we were discussing how to attack a fort (well I was discussing it, the GM said I just did it). Airwalk up to the parapet level, got hit with will save or paralysed (failed) archers filled me with arrows, druid went off fighting the enemies rather than stabalise me.

Next week I played a Wizard, he got introduced, then jumped on by a Land shark (Bullette?), killed in one round.

Xallace
2009-07-27, 03:24 PM
Please tell me you KNEW your DM was running you through Resident Evil 0. If you didn't, well, your DM was running you through a Resident Evil game.


Yeah, we were informed. The DM wanted to run through the Resident Evil games in order chronologically. This was a few years back; and my first campaign!

Funny story: at the time I had never played a Resident Evil game and had no idea what they were about. I was just told "zombies," and that a good chunk of the game would take place in a city. I played Randolph Germinas, hard-drinking private detective bent on discovering the source of the zombies and subsequently what had happened to his family.

I never got to use my Investigation skills. And I wasn't very skilled in combat compared to the other characters... it became a running gag that I roll Sense Motive against every zombie we met, because I was just about useless otherwise. Remarkable number of zombies wanted to -believe it or not- eat our brains. One wanted to be a dancer, though.

The Rose Dragon
2009-07-27, 03:36 PM
The next day dawns. "You all wake up dead." Turns out said ninjas came in and slit everyone's throats while we were sleeping. Along with those of the guards. New PCs for all. :smallmad:

This... doesn't make any sense. How do you wake up dead?

"Good morning everyone. I feel deader today for some reason. How about you?"

It's just incredibly poor game-running along with incredibly poor grasp of reality.

Choco
2009-07-27, 03:46 PM
This... doesn't make any sense. How do you wake up dead?

"Good morning everyone. I feel deader today for some reason. How about you?"

It's just incredibly poor game-running along with incredibly poor grasp of reality.

It was either a joke (we say that all the time if our chars are killed in their sleep) or they woke up in the afterlife :smalltongue:

Anyway, 18 Str half-orc fighter, first session, first fight of the campaign. Rolled a 1 to hit with his Greataxe, rolled a 1 on the reflex save to avoid hitting himself, rolled a 20 to crit, confirmed the crit, then rolled 12 for damage. Just out of spite, the DM also rolled to see if the weapon took damage (not really needed since the character was already dead, but we had to see just how far this streak would go), and the axe broke. We all just about pissed ourselves laughing.

Sinfire Titan
2009-07-27, 03:53 PM
(If you follow my posts on these forums, I try to give GMs the benefit of the doubt when it comes to stupid stuff. But in this case, along with many others in this thread...I got nothin'. Sinfire Titan's story especially.)

That particular story was the first of many with that DM. I'll see if I can find the full post that lists the BS he put me through.

Rhiannon87
2009-07-27, 04:18 PM
Bloody-mindedness, stupidity, railroading, not knowing the rules, knowing but abusing the rules, homebrewing PCs to the death... all of these really do make for lamest deaths. When the player kills himself because of his own stubbornness or stupidity, it's usually funny, or tragic, but rarely lame. When DM kills you "just because", that's lame. After reading some of the examples given here, I really start to appreciate the GMs I played with :smallbiggrin:

No kidding. I've been noticing that a lot of the worst stories on here are the ones where the DM was actively working to kill one or all the PCs. The funniest ones are the ones where someone did something stupid and kicked it because of that.

And I guess it is time for me to finally share this tale of shame. Sigh.

So I'm playing a character who's a spy, in the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft module. She's being blackmailed by the shopkeeper (who the DM made into a Zhentariam agent so my character would have some cool spy-stuff to do) into killing the BBEG (something she wanted to do anyway, so this is really just a bonus) and some other tasks. He sent her (and thus the party) off to kill one of Strahd's minions. The night before we're set to leave, I find 2 doses of black lotus poison on the table by my bed, along with a note saying basically "here's your payment/tools to kill this guy have fun!".

Black lotus, if you don't know, does 3d6 CON/3d6 CON damage. Contact poison, DC 20 fort save.

So I, in a moment of sheer, unadulterated stupidity that still haunts me both IC and OOC, I declare that, in order to keep this safe, I'm going to wrap it up and put it in my pocket. Yeah. I know. Believe me, I know.

We go off to fight this guy. There's a large chasm between him and us, and he's shooting at us with his crossbow. Off to one side are stairs leading across the chasm. On my turn, I say that I'm going to do a full run to get across the stairs, so I'll be able to attack the guy on my next turn. I get to the base of the stairs and the DM asks for a reflex save. I fail it, and fall down a trapdoor trap. Said trapdoor dumps me into a tunnel under the cavern we're in, which then dumps me out into a pool of water under a waterfall. I am in armor and carrying a greatsword at the time. The DM has me roll a couple d20s; I roll terribly. A 3 and a 6, IIRC. He facepalms, says we'll deal with me later, and wraps up combat with the others.

Once combat is done, we go into the details of me drowning and the party saving me (more terrible, terrible rolls when trying to hold my breath). The DM then rolls 3d6 CON damage, informing me that a) I failed the check to see if one or both the vials would break (only one did, apparently) and b) I was burning a mulligan (free get-out-of-death card), since I would have almost certainly drowned had I taken the CON damage in the water. So I'm hauled out of the water, start coughing up blood, get a neutralize poison cast, and then have to come up with some quick story about why I'm carrying poison on my person.

So I didn't quite die, but only via DM mercy. I really should have been dead at the bottom of a pool for my party to fish out and get brought back in some other fashion.

And now no one in or out of game will let me live it down. Sigh.

FerhagoRosewood
2009-07-27, 04:42 PM
I play & partially DM in my close friends' homebrew world.

A new campaign was being started with one small guideline: we are all childhood friends and have a symbol on our bodies to identify our connection to an order that has spanned generations. The party consists of a Hexblade (me), a Dragon Fire Adept, a Rogue, a Fighter, a Wild Mage, and a Paladin.

Through real life issues and other happenings, the Fighter & Wild Mage leave the party. And the Paladin is swapped for a Swashbuckler. Unfortunately as time dragged on we forgot the childhood friend aspect. The party began snipping either other with insults and we unknowingly went out of our way to make the DM's life hell.

So after being rezzed once after a glorious death from which the whole party went down into the Underdark to bring my guy back, we head to a forest being destroyed by three different individuals. Halfway through, my guy got cursed with an insanity charm that made everything evil funny & changed his alignment from LN to CE.

The last enemy before us was a Green Dragon. I failed my will save and began running away as did the gnome Wizard. The DM took me outside after the fear had pasted and asked me to roll. I was under the impression that meant I overcame the fear, he actually had me over power the insanity charm. So I had my guy keep running; the rest of the party saw this as a traitorous action. Meanwhile, OOC I do nothing for the rest of the day.

One long and weird stand off later, involving the Dragon using Geass on a few party members... It's dead. I come back with the ghost of our Fighter (since the player left for good). The Swashbuckler immediately took up arms against my character. Trying to stop the conflict, the ghost possesses the Swashbuckler. He tells my guy to apologize and I don't (Our DM was very good at role playing the fighter as the player did, unfortunately the fighter was an arrogant ****). The Swashbuckler is freed and kills me right in front of a group of people that nearly killed themselves to bring me back. Some even cheering.

The blame resides solely on me and the player of the Swashbuckler. No matter what he plays, he always kills "traitors" even though he's done some far more traitorous acts.

Fri
2009-07-27, 05:00 PM
Yeah, we were informed. The DM wanted to run through the Resident Evil games in order chronologically. This was a few years back; and my first campaign!

Funny story: at the time I had never played a Resident Evil game and had no idea what they were about. I was just told "zombies," and that a good chunk of the game would take place in a city. I played Randolph Germinas, hard-drinking private detective bent on discovering the source of the zombies and subsequently what had happened to his family.

I never got to use my Investigation skills. And I wasn't very skilled in combat compared to the other characters... it became a running gag that I roll Sense Motive against every zombie we met, because I was just about useless otherwise. Remarkable number of zombies wanted to -believe it or not- eat our brains. One wanted to be a dancer, though.

That character actually sounds really awesome for a resident evil game. And this.


Remarkable number of zombies wanted to -believe it or not- eat our brains. One wanted to be a dancer, though.

FlawedParadigm
2009-07-27, 05:00 PM
Long, entertaining, but ultimately sad story of why glass is bad.

Speaking as someone whose characters regularly use poison, I generally insist on my poisons being in thin metal vials (a few inches long, and about as thin as straws. I often bring a picture or a prop for illustration purposes.) whenever possible. If, for some reason, I absolutely MUST use glass, I'll roll it into my headband - at one of the sides, above an ear - carefully, or if the character wears a helmet, then I'll sew a pocket inside of a robe or cloak. A padded pocket. Stuffed with feathers whenever I next find a chicken, duck, turkey, goose, or other fowl.

I should mention this is just the kind of precaution I take for injected poisons - at least if glass breaks against my skull, the headband should get the worst of it, and there's a small chance I might not get cut or get poison in the cut if so. But unless I get some spiel about how the venom I'm using loses potency soon after exposure to oxygen or something, I'll transfer anything that comes in glass into metal if possible. I won't go anywhere near contact poison. I'll find some other way to kill things. Ingested potions are really safe to carry, but getting access to whatever your intended victim eats can be problematic; unless the intended victim is a dragon and you're just carrying loads of the stuff on your person. Actually, that could be a pretty funny way to kill a dragon, if you could come up with a sacrificial lamb to do it.

And you don't even want to hear about half the things I do if I must for some reason need to carry acid around rather than let the magic-bot handle it by making it out of thin air. No you do not.

MickJay
2009-07-27, 05:17 PM
This reminds me of a chemist (who mentioned this to me) who flew in the early '80s to US with half a dozen vials of highly concentrated sulphuric acid on his person (he was transporting solutions of various chemicals in the acid, for testing). Nothing happened, nobody ever noticed anything - he was jokingly wondering if he would manage to get that stuff to US again if there was such a need. :smallbiggrin:

One sort-of lame death happened to another player in WH fantasy campaign, he got turned to stone by touching cursed gold (which we already knew was cursed) when the events suggested that the curse might have been lifted. He didn't bother checking if that was really the case, even though we already had a 100% working and tested method for that... it cost him a fate point to survive.

Toliudar
2009-07-27, 05:26 PM
I was DM on this one. Campaign has gotten into the mid-teen-levels, and thanks to a previous monty-haul DM, a player's beloved paladin (the archetypal "no, please, let me tell you how to behave" kind of paladin) has +5 everything, and a +12 (!) strength item. In short, he's gotten used to feeling invulnerable, and it's early into the upgrade from 2nd edition to 3rd, so he hasn't quite figured out how untrue that is.

PC's are barely tolerated guests in a drow city, trying to investigate blah blah blah. Paladin decides to go out gathering info on his own. I as DM have created a set of street toughs who were to act as local connections for the PC's. They try to make furtive contact. Paladin decides that these are clearly criminals, and must be punished/smited. He takes on half a dozen drow with 5-10 class levels each, and gets his shiny metal ass handed to him. Death by street gang.

As a final touch, the BBEG later steals the body, animates it, and has it deliver a message to the PC's. Good times.

Swordguy
2009-07-27, 05:29 PM
It's just incredibly poor game-running along with incredibly poor grasp of reality.

It's actually one of the reasons I don't like L5R much anymore - the game world is explicitly built to encourage...nay, require extensive railroading on the part of the GM. As it's a semi-simulator of Sengoku Jedai-era Japan, there's a crapton of social rules that limit your behavior. Now, it's completely accurate - as a samurai, if you disobey your lord, you really do have to kill yourself, get killed, or go ronin (and thus no longer be a playable character). And many, many breaches of etiquette have similar consequences. It's built into the game fluff, and with a completely justifiable and, dare I say good, reason.

But it has the unintended side effect of letting bad GMs do what they want and hide it under the guise of the ruleset. The rulebook is very clear: your daimyo (read: GM) says "do this", and you either do it, or lose your PC. It's the most inherently railroad-y system I've ever had the misfortune to play under, and I've got loads of stories about GMs who abuse it. That's just one of the worse ones. Probably, the worst, actually. The truly perverse thing is that it's also one of the games the generates some of the truly best RP sequences in the entire game market, because of the limitations of those exact rules. It's maddening.

(Yes, the "you wake up dead" thing is a joke line.)

Froogleyboy
2009-07-27, 05:33 PM
This was D20 modern. We were severing in the military during WWIII and I we were in an underground fortress/HQ/thing when Demons started appearing in london. When we went to check it out we were attacked. I drew my sniper rifle and waited against a church wall. A water demon charged me and there was only two spaces between them. I shot it and killed it (yay!) but the DM said that the recoil knocked a hole in the wall. He made me roll a reflex (which I failed) and a cross hit me on the head

Philistine
2009-07-27, 07:08 PM
Not mine, but a game I was in. D&D 3.5E, 1st level; the party was ambushed while traveling along a road which, IC, we had every reason to expect to be safe. The party rogue was insta-gibbed by a confirmed crit from a longbow on the very first attack roll... of the surprise round... of the very first encounter of the campaign.

Rhiannon87
2009-07-27, 07:20 PM
Wise advice on how best to transport poisons.

Oh yeah, I definitely keep my poisons elsewhere now. We ended up chasing off the blackmailer, and I got his entire store of poisons, all of which are in a convenient wooden box. The box remains closed, locked, and in my handy haversack unless I need it. Poison is rarely a spur-of-the-moment thing; if I'm using it, I'm gonna be planning for it.

But I really wish that every damn NPC we run into would stop bringing it up. It's getting kind of obnoxious at this point.

Gorbash
2009-07-27, 07:39 PM
Kill everyone that mentions it. It should do the trick.

But really, that DM is being a prick by bringing that up all the time, since it's just his made up rules on possibility that something breaks while it's in your pocket.

Rhiannon87
2009-07-27, 07:45 PM
Kill everyone that mentions it. It should do the trick.

But really, that DM is being a prick by bringing that up all the time, since it's just his made up rules on possibility that something breaks while it's in your pocket.

I think it was a reflex save he was having me make, as he was looking over my shoulder at my saves at the time. And I was falling down a rough-cut stone tunnel with glass vials in my pocket; odds are decent that they'd have broken.

And I can't kill everyone who brings it up, seeing as I'm trying to shift the character from N to NG. The story is spreading as part of the general rumors about my character and our party, as we're currently being hunted by several states and organizations. So it's not really everyone bringing it up, just people who would be hearing about us. But it happens fairly often. I'm probably going to talk to the DM about it next time it comes up.

Xallace
2009-07-27, 07:47 PM
And this.

:smallbiggrin:

That was the highlight of some very fond memories of my first campaign. Also, some very stupid memories, but I guess it set the stage for stories to come.

Oh, another stupid character death, from the same campaign: We had a demolitions expert whose real name was unknown to us, but who went by the nickname "Postman," due to his catchphrase, "Special Delivery, Mutha@#$%er!"

He only showed up to two sessions over the course of the entire campaign. The DM being who he was, decided that rather than controlling the character, the Postman was struck with a very sudden narcolepsy. After a couple sessions of passing off carrying him around, the DM then decided that the character was also a sleep-walker, and wandered off on his own.

Not relevant to the story, we also usually had music playing as white noise during the sessions. It was decided that the Postman hand a tendency to sleep-sing.

Well, the session before poor Randolph gets squashed without remorse by a Kaiju Leech, we end up in a fight against a giant zombie centipede (there was also a giant zombie scorpion somewhere in there, but myself and the medic dispatched it with great gusto and much pants-wetting). It was just this session that we had been informed that Postman's player would definitely not be joining us any longer.

So, we knock the centipede into a giant pit in the floor. Suddenly, Postman comes flying out of one the air ducts, still asleep, and still singing Hammerfall at the top of his lungs. He falls into the centipede's grasp and... explodes, killing it -and him- instantly.

So, yeah. That DM was one of the more fun guys I've played with, even if many parts of his campaigns made no sense.

This is the man who came up with epic-level commoners who grew corn on the elemental plane of fire, had no problem with making us fight basilisks that spawned sapphire dragons when they died, preferred "Munchkin d20" to regular d20, and was completely capable of running a DMPC that didn't metagame or overshadow the party in any way. Good times.

Berserk Monk
2009-07-27, 09:09 PM
I once had a halfling rogue who died from an AoO. He was moving out of an enemy's range so this orc warrior crit'd on me. He was still low level so it was enough to kill me. I forgot to say I was retreating and thus avoid the AoO, but when I asked the DM if I could change my phrasing of what I do, he refused. Stupid rule lawyering.

Thurbane
2009-07-27, 09:27 PM
At the climax of RHoD:
The aspect of Tiamat pops in...at this stage, we are all looking pretty good (little damage, plenty of spells left) so we figure being good heroes, we stand and fight. Tiamat mops us all up (Cleric of St Cuthbert, Dwarf Fighter, Human Rogue, Gnome Sorcerer) in just over 2 rounds. Not so much lame, as just plain disappointing end to a great module. :smallfrown:

maniakmastah
2009-07-27, 10:38 PM
I was DM on this one. Campaign has gotten into the mid-teen-levels, and thanks to a previous monty-haul DM, a player's beloved paladin (the archetypal "no, please, let me tell you how to behave" kind of paladin) has +5 everything, and a +12 (!) strength item. In short, he's gotten used to feeling invulnerable, and it's early into the upgrade from 2nd edition to 3rd, so he hasn't quite figured out how untrue that is.

PC's are barely tolerated guests in a drow city, trying to investigate blah blah blah. Paladin decides to go out gathering info on his own. I as DM have created a set of street toughs who were to act as local connections for the PC's. They try to make furtive contact. Paladin decides that these are clearly criminals, and must be punished/smited. He takes on half a dozen drow with 5-10 class levels each, and gets his shiny metal ass handed to him. Death by street gang.

As a final touch, the BBEG later steals the body, animates it, and has it deliver a message to the PC's. Good times.

LOL!! Please tell he had the 5 seconds of shock look on his face before going into a hissy fit.

Avor
2009-07-27, 11:03 PM
Palaying an OA dual wieldong samurai.

After a fancy jump off a ship killing 4 gnolls, takes a crit hit and dies. Sad I died, angry becauase I was so badass

PrismaticPIA
2009-07-27, 11:26 PM
Dwarf Paladin was leading the party through an underground cave passage. Two failed survival checks led the party straight into the heart of a drow city. Killed the whole party.

holywhippet
2009-07-27, 11:30 PM
My all-time favorite was someone else, but I had a chance to indirectly cause it.

The party member was playing a chaos mage in Unknown Armies. Basically, they gain powers by taking risk. His favorite way to take risk and gain power was to play Russian roulette.

So, he asked to borrow my gun. I gave it to him. He pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. He forgot that I used a semi-automatic.

In roleplaying terms, how could anyone make this kind of mistake? Russian roulette requires you to pull all but one of the bullets out then spin the chambers. If you just borrow a gun arbitrarily you'd have no idea if the gun was still fully loaded. Even if it wasn't, you'd have to assume the next chamber was full since you'd empty them in order. Unless the gun was completely empty of course.

evil-frosty
2009-07-27, 11:48 PM
Dwarf Paladin was leading the party through an underground cave passage. Two failed survival checks led the party straight into the heart of a drow city. Killed the whole party.

How do you do this? I mean shouldnt you notice that your walking into a city?

tyckspoon
2009-07-28, 12:03 AM
In roleplaying terms, how could anyone make this kind of mistake? Russian roulette requires you to pull all but one of the bullets out then spin the chambers. If you just borrow a gun arbitrarily you'd have no idea if the gun was still fully loaded. Even if it wasn't, you'd have to assume the next chamber was full since you'd empty them in order. Unless the gun was completely empty of course.

Unknown Armies magic users gain power by, essentially, being completely f'in nuts. Borrowing somebody else's gun, the status of which you aren't certain, and attempting to shoot yourself in the head with it seems perfectly in-character for one whose power source is 'risk'. It could have fired the last bullet already or jammed, after all- if he'd survived the act, he'd probably be primed for a pretty big act of mojo. And he was bound to shoot himself in the head sooner or later anyway.

Jayngfet
2009-07-28, 12:55 AM
I as the DM tend to overdo challanges in 3.5, due to my focusing on "how fast will it level them" as opposed to "is it survivable". First encounter of the campane was half a dozen ghouls, homebrewed undead from my sig, and a seventh level caster.

Due to the homebrewed guy and caster being far away on the other side of a river with a broken bridge didn't do much while the PC's mmade mincemeat of the ghouls.

The bad part is what the insectile ranger does next. He attempts to jump the ten foot gap, barely makes it(only because I forgot to account for the slippery surface), and thanks to enemy position is right next to the undead(bloated mistsprayer).

The bad part is that he knew not to get too close to the thing IC and OOC, since he's the only one who knows one thing:Mistsprayers explode when dead(last character saw one take out half a dozen 5HD kobolds when stabbed. The thing hits him with an acid breath, the sorcerer casts firball, which by itself would have killed him, then came the explosion. It ended with him falling backwards into the river, corpse swept away, no one could looot him.

The same player made another mistake before hand. He REALLY doesn't like DMPC's. Half the party was away and couldn't game, we had no idea when he'd be back. So I throw some stats into a random NPC generator, and make a meek cleric NPC since everyone went crazy with templates and one character had one HD at fifth level and the other had four.

After a battle everyone is ragged, so the healer made her rounds

...and he buried his adamantine greataxe in her head before a single hit point is healed.

Next fight he was killed by one dire wollf in the first round.

Kallisti
2009-07-28, 01:02 AM
One guy I played with has a LOT of these stores, but I'll just share two.

First, he builds a monk, and names him Dave the Mighty, which is stupid because the player's name is Dave. Never name a character after you! So in the very first combat round of the very first combat of the game, he charges a giant snake and misses, then gets eaten. He dies very quickly from being in its stomach. We ask him, "The damage from being in its gullet is really low. Why did it kill you?" He tells us that monks are almost impossible to hit, so he only had 8 con. His Wisdom score? 14. His dex? 12. His AC? 13. Total. So we renamed both character and player Dave the Munchie.

Then, much later at much higher levels, our fighter is stepping out to run a myterious errand. He's actually a Scout/Rogue/Assassin, and he uses Monkey Grip to dual-wield scythes. He's like Death and a ninja in one. So as he goes, he says, "Nobody touch my bag!" And Dave does. And dies without a saving throw, and we never learned what it was...

SethFahad
2009-07-29, 12:24 AM
2nd or 3rd level team investigating a dungeon full of undead.
My son (halfling rogue) is enraged by his uncle (human barbarian) because he was calling him names (OOC and IC) for "playing cowardly".
So, entering the next room, they encounter a bunch of human zombies.
Trying to act bravely and teach the barbarian a lesson, he charges a zombie but he misses it completely.
The zombie rolls to hit a natural 20.
Roll to confirm crit= natural 20 (again)
Roll to confirm instant kill= natural 19
So the zombie rips of the intestines of the halfling and eats them as we watch in horror.
I forgot to mention that we are using the “Instant kill” variant from the DMG.

Micky Pain
2009-07-30, 02:14 AM
Usually my characters live for quite a long time, but my very first character died quite fast and memorable,albeit lame.

It was a solo "campaign", trying to level up a guy to join the rest of the group in The Dark Eye.

Rolled my guy, run-of-the-mill fighter type and set off to adventure.
First random encounter is some gigantic worm creature.
Not knowing the system and monsters too well ( I was supposed to run away...), I charge with my axe, critically miss and chop of my own arm....

Pain-stunned for a round, the worm makes a tail swipe, hits me bothin the other arm and the back, breaking both.

Three rounds later, before completely bleeding out, my guy drowned in a pool of his own blood.

If a first level falls in the woods, does it make a sound?

MickJay
2009-07-30, 05:35 AM
I guess in your case it was "thump. gurglegurgle...".

It looks a bit weird to me, though: if you didn't know the monster, your character didn't know the monster (that's what knowledge checks are for), then why were you supposed to run (unless the description of the monster was very suggestive)? Players shouldn't be encouraged to metagame. :smallconfused:

Micky Pain
2009-07-30, 10:20 PM
I guess in your case it was "thump. gurglegurgle...".

It looks a bit weird to me, though: if you didn't know the monster, your character didn't know the monster (that's what knowledge checks are for), then why were you supposed to run (unless the description of the monster was very suggestive)? Players shouldn't be encouraged to metagame. :smallconfused:

It was about 10 meters long, which should have been a dead (no pun intended) giveaway...
Anyway, as I said, this was my very first character, and my very first role-playing session and I just wanted to get started. So, there's a monster, off course I attack...

Well, since then I learned a lot and by now most of my characters retire on my own terms.

Thrawn183
2009-07-30, 11:54 PM
Reminds me of a joke we had in one group where every time you use a toilet you need to make a poop check. And 1 in 20 times you critically miss.

1 in 20!? Clearly ye' haven't had enuff of are fine dwarven ale, laddie!