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steam_mage
2010-02-15, 02:48 PM
hi all just wanted to share a couple of deaths that happened to players during my campaigns and wanted to hear some of your stories.

i had one player who played a stone giant bard/hulking hurler who wheeled around a grand piano which he could then throw at people, because he always destroyed his pianos and got sick of buying new ones i let him research drendle's summon greater instrument which let him summon a new piano. any way at one point the party came to a mountain with a high path and a low path, the party knew both paths ended at the same place and that they were being tracked so they decided to split the party into two to hopefully confuse their trackers, the giant took the high road along with their cleric and their only tank melee character and the druid, rouge and sorcerer took the low road.
the trackers decided to take the low road and eventually caught up with the three squishes and started smaking them around like a beach ball. the bard thanks to a nat 20 on his listen check heard the ruckus coming from 200ft below and decided to throw his magical pianos at the trackers until he ran out of spells. he then without warning decided to throw their only tank character at the trackers, rolled at nat 1, missed the cliff entirely, had the job of scraping the poor character of the ground brining him to the closest church of pelor and explaining why the warrior died holding his middle finger to the sky with a very angry expression on his face.

in the night fang spire campiagn (for those of you who havent played it it's a lvl 10 featured around a 300ft tower you have to get to the top of to gain entry and then work your way down) we had quite a few deaths so i let all three of the characters who died (rather embarisingly in the first encounter with the moon calf) make new characters while those with surving characaters could stay inside while the they caught up. the three characters who had died b4 were all non casters so they had to climb (they decided to do so all tied together to minimise chance of falling) meanwhile one of the character inside the tower found a chest and as he was roleplaying a greedy SOB decided not to tell the rouge to check it for traps. when he opened it he of course trigered a trap that dropped him down a pit sliced him into tiny peices and shot the peices out of the tower. the peices happened to shoot out directly in the face of the first character climbing the tower ( i swear i didnt make that happen he really was at the EXACT place the dead player got shot out of the tower) this shock caused him to lose his grip and fall of the tower ( he rolled a 3 on concentration -_- ) as all the climbers were tied together and the player at the top was the strongest and heaviest when he fell he pulled the other two characters of the tower to their deaths (102 falling damage on a lvl 10 rouge, ranger, and monk)

Grifthin
2010-02-15, 03:02 PM
Mine was last session. All Level 1 doing the Sunless Citadel. My Chaotic Neutral VERY naive fighter who worships Kord in a way that's not entirely healthy kicks the door in, bellowing for the "evildoers to show themselves and do honorable combat". Wanting nothing to do with that the little Goblins/Kobolds Charges en masse. I took down about 4-6 of them (not to shabby for dual crossbows level 1) and then got turned into a very interesting pinata. The rogue is trapped with me in here and the rest of the party is busy piling rocks on their side of the door, unmindful of the fact that the door opens towards the enemy.

Needless to say they are in for a nasty surprise. The DM called time ending the session and I'm rather intrigued to see how he will keep the party from getting wiped. As my penance My new character is a mute Dragon Shaman who's staying quiet and the hell out of everyone's way. Mostly by party consensus. It was fun to just go balls to the wall instead of pulling peoples crap out of the fire for once.

illyrus
2010-02-15, 03:28 PM
*Edit - Another Sunless Citadel story in fact

Our first 3.0 game soon after 3.0 came out. I hadn't played in the game's first session where several of the characters had been captured and then dominated to attack the party. I was playing a fighter with some good rolls for stats that used throwing axes to melee with or throw. My character was brought in from the town nearby by the surviving party members who said they had lost some friends in the dungeon and were going back for revenge. The other players who had lost their characters brought new characters as well. At no part did anyone tell me OOC or IC what their friends looked like and the whole party was made up of humans.

Fast forward a few sessions and we're at the final fight. A dwarf wielding a battleaxe leaps out at my character trying to take off his head. My character steps back and flings 3 axes into the dwarf's head, scoring a critical hit on 2 of the attacks and instantly slaying the dwarf. The DM begins to describe the dwarf and one of the other players starts yelling that I killed his character.

me: You guys never told my character or even me what your old characters looked like.
him: Yes we did!
DM: No, you didn't, but really he should know as he was in the first game session.
me: I didn't play the first game session remember?
DM: Oh yeah, huh.
another player: We get xp for that right?

Elvenoutrider
2010-02-15, 03:34 PM
My friend's druid got mauled by a bear...

TheCountAlucard
2010-02-15, 03:51 PM
hi all just wanted to share a couple of deaths that happened to players during my campaigns and wanted to hear some of your stories.Uh-oh. I hope you did a decent enough job of burying the bodies. No witnesses, right?

Ernir
2010-02-15, 04:16 PM
My Exalted-good Unarmed Swordsage ripped a fellow party member's heart out a few sessions ago.

Dire Moose
2010-02-15, 05:04 PM
One of my players is known for doing extreme and often somewhat risky things out of game, and in-game he has had more character deaths than anyone else for similar reasons.

The first, that of his half-elf druid Naxel, actually occurred in his first game session, but this was mostly a bad dice roll-induced combat death against a zombie moose.

He subsequently created a second half-elf druid, Xanthou, as a replacement. Xanthou never died, though he did do some rather stupid things like:
-Searching a doorway for traps with a 12 Int and no ranks in Search. This resulted in him attempting to walk through the supposedly-untrapped door and being met with a portcullis to the head.
-Walking into a room and immediately grabbing the shiny blue orb hanging from one of the mounted bear heads on the wall. Luckily, the Attack of the Zombie Bears didn't result in any casualties.
-He also lost two animal companions. The first, an eagle, was eaten by a green dragon he had sent it to attack; the second, a bison, was chopped to death by frost giants and frozen by their pet winter wolves. Luckily, he didn't have enough time to give his snow leopard the gruesome death it surely would have received had he continued to play this character.

After a hiatus over last summer, this guy made a new character: Philbert Bomat, human fighter. After being moderately successful for a while, Philbert eventually died when attempting to walk down a corridor filled with knee-deep water by himself. He fell into a ten-foot dropoff while wearing full plate and proceeded to fatally drown himself.

Finally, his latest character, Philbert Bomat, Jr., the illegitimate half-elven son of his previous character, also died while trying to jump from a ledge to a suspended platform over a pool of boiling mud. Again, note that full plate is not particularly helpful in a situation like this.

It would seem that he's planning another druid at this point. I'll fill you in on this character's inevitable death when it happens.

Kaun
2010-02-15, 05:08 PM
I remember in one of our Deadlands games one of the party members, a rather full of himself dandy hex slinger got swarmed by gremlins while doing a little back ally RnD in Salt lake city.

Rather then try and pry the gremlins off him the rest of the outfit just turned on him drew there six shooters and proceded to fan the hammer untill there were no gremlins left moving.

Unfortunatly for the Hex slinger he wasnt moving either.

Rensvind
2010-02-15, 05:49 PM
We have one player in one of my groups that usually dies roughly once per session, often from silly things:

One of his Paladins met his doom when he charged 2 Trolls and 1 Winter Wolf, on lvl 5, with only 2 hp left. Before the charge we asked him how much hp he had, he answered "enough"

Another time he played a Halfling Rogue, who after killing more elven pirates than all of the others combined, met his demise when the three surviving pirates fired a small lobby of arrows in our direction from the escaping ship. Three critical hits later, and the Halfling was no more. And since our Cleric of Pelor didn't like what the Rogue did earlier (some metagaming and stolen equipment) he ran to the corpse, ripped of the Halfling's clothes and everything of value, and threw him overboard... He then said it was a classical sea burial when the DM told him that was an evil act :)

And once he didn't actually die, but he attacked the demon that was hosting the gladitorial games we had entered, so he had to spend the rest of the session in Imprisonment :)

Ravens_cry
2010-02-15, 05:56 PM
My Exalted-good Unarmed Swordsage ripped a fellow party member's heart out a few sessions ago.
*record scratch*
OK. . .first question, WHY?!
Ad infinitum
.

Brendan
2010-02-15, 06:10 PM
I tried to reason with an evil undead boss. I then was hit with several javelins.

Chaelos
2010-02-15, 06:25 PM
I think my favorite was when our Chaotic Stupid Bard unleashed Tharizdun as a favor to someone he owed money to. As expected by everyone else (who were actually trying to stop this exact thing from happening), Tharizdun promptly ate the Bard, us, and all the rest of creation.

Arcane_Secrets
2010-02-15, 07:20 PM
My first D&D character, and a somewhat cruel DM. He was a dwarf who accidentally got his arm eaten off by green slime when it dropped on him from above, but that wasn't what actually killed him. In fact, he lived through that part of the campaign and made it to the final boss along with the rest of the party (which also died in that boss fight, so he still had plenty of company).

What killed him was when the rest of the party decided to attack a pirate boat with the boss on it, he decided to stay back on the boat. During the fight, one of the henchmen falls over the side, lands in the boat, and capsizes it. My character, still wearing his armor, tries to climb one handed up the rope to the rest of the party...and fails, falling into the sea where he drowned.

Asheram
2010-02-15, 07:35 PM
We have one player in one of my groups that usually dies roughly once per session, often from silly things:

One of his Paladins met his doom when he charged 2 Trolls and 1 Winter Wolf, on lvl 5, with only 2 hp left. Before the charge we asked him how much hp he had, he answered "enough"

Another time he played a Halfling Rogue, who after killing more elven pirates than all of the others combined, met his demise when the three surviving pirates fired a small lobby of arrows in our direction from the escaping ship. Three critical hits later, and the Halfling was no more. And since our Cleric of Pelor didn't like what the Rogue did earlier (some metagaming and stolen equipment) he ran to the corpse, ripped of the Halfling's clothes and everything of value, and threw him overboard... He then said it was a classical sea burial when the DM told him that was an evil act :)

And once he didn't actually die, but he attacked the demon that was hosting the gladitorial games we had entered, so he had to spend the rest of the session in Imprisonment :)

You missed the one when he was playing a dwarven warrior and went hunting for orcs... alone... in the orc-infested forest... wearing nothing but his underware. (Or did he manage to survive that one? t'was good fun atleast)

klemdakherzbag
2010-02-15, 09:12 PM
2nd Ed AD&D my Minotaur fighter and a human cleric were trapped/locked in a room after splitting the party to search an abandonexd mansion. Door was magically locked and I had failed my open doors roll. Only other useful object in the room was a desk with many drawers, all trapped. So I proceeded to smash said desk against said door and proceed to set off every trap in the desk.(20 traps @ 1d10 each) Luckily the DM rolled lowish ~ 80 damage which I was able to survive with 10 or so HP but outright killed the cleric. It was OK with everyone else since the character was dead weight anyways - the player made the initial comment

SaintRidley
2010-02-15, 09:27 PM
My Exalted-good Unarmed Swordsage ripped a fellow party member's heart out a few sessions ago.

He's not exalted any more.

MlleRouge
2010-02-15, 09:43 PM
I had a nice TKP in a little three-session adventure that I wrote up a while back.


One of the characters decided to switch sides and PvP the other two near the end of the dungeon. The player in question was a gnome barbarian, who had spent most the adventure doing random and crazy things while singing his 'theme song'. A joke character for sure.

After randomly knocking the already-wounded rogue out with a well placed kick to the ribs, the gnome took off down the hallway to join the BBEG. The rogue was revived and the other two characters followed, eager to take him out. Now, no one in the party was optimized (at all...), something Id taken into account when writing up the encounters.

The BBEG, a two headed demon, wasn't terribly keen on actually letting the gnome join in, but it was happy to use the party's desire to kill the gnome as a distraction while it chomped away at them itself. I lowered the BBEG's power considerably to try and give the 'loyal' PCs a good fighting chance, since the player of the gnome was having a hell of a time and there was no changing his mind on the whole ordeal. I wasn't particularly pleased. I tried to go easy on them, even had the demon retreat to the water a time or two after being AoO'd to brood and try to find a different angle of attack (it was rather cowardly, hence hiding in the bottom of a dungeon!).

The problem was, the rogue was so unoptimized it was useless. The other player, a decent paladin, and the gnome slugged it out after the rogue was beaten to death with his own crowbar by the barbarian. The paladin healed a couple times, the demon attacked a couple times but ultimately withdrew, since I really didn't want to force the paladin to fight both the BBEG (albeit severely nerfed) and the barbarian at the same time. The paladin switched targets to the demon at one point and almost took it out alone before the gnome's continued attacks annoyed him so much (RP wise) that he switched targets again. Disaster then struck as I realized that after a bathroom break, some of my notes had been cleaned up and had disappeared. Then this conversation took place.

Me: Im afraid Ive...misplaced my sheet. Damn it. *Paladin*, how many hit points do you have left
Paladin: 10
Me: Okay..and *Barbarian*?
Barbarian: 10, which will run out when my rage ends
Me: How long on your rage?
Barbarian: One round


Next round, the barbarian knocked out the paladin and then passed out himself. The rogue, having been bludgeoned to death with his own crowbar, is also dead. The almost-dead demon, which attacked only a couple times over the course of the entire thing, proceeded to have dinner.

Oddly enough, everyone was laughing. I felt horrible at first, but it was hard to resist laughing when I realized how amused they all were.

Xallace
2010-02-15, 09:56 PM
Druid blew up self in a munitions factory.
Druid blew up because party sorcerer panicked while trying to kill an evil rose swarm.
Druid was mauled by own animal companion turned sour.
Wizard cast Lightning Bolt in a room filled made of precious metals.
Warmage was coerced by ferrets to jump into a pool of acid.
Sorcerer blew up via spell-storing octopus attached to face.
Wizard eaten by gibbering mouther; was carrying party's supply of healing potions.
Mayor was non-lethally punched to death; town had back-up mayor.
Choker accidentally cut in half on backswing of buster-sword sized weapon; Paladin didn't know he was there.
Dedicated Hero was eaten by 50-foot zombie leech, no save.
Barbarian was tripped to death; forgot about five-foot-steps.
Copper Piece dropped on gladiator from low-earth orbit on plane with no terminal velocity.


Any of those need further elaboration?

Szilard
2010-02-15, 09:56 PM
One person's character is an evil rogue. The Rogue tries to push his brother's character into a chasm but fails and ends up falling in himself. It turns out there's a giant spiderweb stretching across the chasm. I burn the web to get rid of the spiders and the character falls twenty feet. Then the biggest spider who survived the burning and the fall tries to eat the rogue. After killing the spider and saving the rogue and getting across the chasm, a troll skeleton falls on the rogue and he dies. We made up an excuse to bring him back, and later an animated statue falls on him.

sofawall
2010-02-15, 10:35 PM
We have a player, and he is one of those guys who doesn't always think things through. I tend to die almost as much as him, but that is mainly due to the dice hating me, although recklessness plays a fair part for me as well.

1) Jumped off a walkway on Sharn to chase some crossbowmen, but forgot to bring his own crossbow. DM showed leniency by making the crossbowmen unable to attack due to laughter.

2) Picked pocket of party barbarian, rolled a 3 on Sleight of Hand. I (the barbarian) rolled a 19. I proceeded to remove his hit points.

3) Wanted to get some xp to catch up with the rest of the party. I asked if he was sure he didn't want help, he said yes. Large sized Hell Hound proceeded to Grapple him to death.

4) Running through a forest (again, alone), a Dire Boar popped up. He decided to fight it instead of running onwards. Cue grapple.

5) Fought party. Ended up with Nauseated followed by 2 rogues using sneak attack. Didn't live.

6) Walked off alone in Xen'drik. Captured by giants.

And that's not even counting the times he didn't come close to dying.

CTLC
2010-02-15, 11:00 PM
In a campaign last year, one of the players spontaneously combusted.
Apparently the Dm rolled a d[1.0 X 10^craptonne] for each of use every hour or so. I never figured out if he was joking or not. Anywho, this player 'failed' said roll and just poofed in a small quick burning flame.
Go figure.

Edit: a revelation! it might have something to do with the fact that earlier that day the player in question had stolen the DM's milk chocolate.

Arcane_Secrets
2010-02-15, 11:06 PM
Any of those need further elaboration?

Yes. The spell-storing octopus, and the ferret incident.

Jon_Dahl
2010-02-16, 02:24 AM
Well this was ALMOST death, but I hope it still counts:
Player had just created a new character to join our group. We were supposed to meet in tavern, but the first thing this PC does is to sneak in to our rooms while other PC's are eating! Pretty nice huh? No dialogue, no nothing. Just straight to our room (picked the lock etc.)

My PC had a bag on his bed. I gave him a very subtle hint that it is a trap (this was all offgame). So he falls for my double-trap: His PC foddles the bag without opening it and gets bitten by a ridicolously poisonous snake I had in the bag. He did barely manage to save vs. poison but had he died... It would have been something. Never have I wished a PC to fail his save as I did there.

steam_mage
2010-02-16, 06:46 AM
ok so this was an npc death but im still counting it.

in one of my high level campaigns the players ( a lvl 13 cleric lich lvl 13 paladin half celestial, a lvl 13 mummy monk, a lvl 17 elf wizard and the party's pet 9th astral construct) were fighting a very annoying mindflayer with ridicolusly high spell resistance and a small army of advanced war trolls. after quite a bit of blasting FINALY getting rid of the trolls the wizard tried to blast the mind flayer and failed the spell resistance. the mind flayer realisied he was about to have his head punched inside-out by the monk so he levitated 30ft up and cast prismatic sphere. the wizard didnt have enough dispel magic spells left but with a wicked grin cast protection from fire on the monk and commanded the 49 str astral construct to throw the monk through the prismatic sphere at the mind flayer. he hit despite a -16 to attack roll for using an oversized wepon -4 attack roll no proficency and a 50% miss chance because of the sphere and the monk (who was either immune to or saved agaisnt all the effects) collided with the mind flayer made a succsessful grapple check which resulted in the combined weight of the two excedding the limit for levitate and thus pulling the mind flayer through HIS OWN prismatic sphere...he failed every save. i told them the mind flayer died in a massive explossion showering them in peices of mind flayer...some of which were on fire, some of which were steaming acid, some of which were frozen, some of which were made of stone and some of which were etheral.
the monk was covered in greenish purplish goo and when the local townsfolk saw her she simply said "sorry i fell in a mind flayer"

Grifthin
2010-02-16, 07:06 AM
@ Steam_mage

THAT IS AWESOME!

IthilanorStPete
2010-02-16, 07:30 AM
Let's see...there's my Wizard who nearly died in his first encounter. So I'm playing my first d&d, got a pseudo-Batman wizard rolled up...first encounter, we get ambushed by some hobgoblins on a trail. No biggie.
Me: Ooh, time to use Fly and laugh at the helpless monsters! *casts Fly, goes 30 ft. straight up*
Hobgoblins: "..." *have bows*
*shoot wizard*
Me: *becomes pincushion and falls into the negatives*

The Druid's wolf AC had to jump 30 ft. straight up to deliver a cure minor wounds to save me.
In the first round of my first encounter. Ever.

Not quite a death, but my own sheer idiocy makes it worth telling...and thats just the beginnings of my misadventures with flight in that campaign.

SpikeFightwicky
2010-02-16, 07:40 AM
Back in AD&D, we had a lame house rule (everyone else in the group thought it was an awesome idea) that if you roll a natural 20, you get a reroll. If you get a natural 20 again, you automatically kill whatever you were attacking. It also worked the other way around, if you roll a natural 1, you roll again and automatically kill yourself somehow if you roll a natural 1 again (I know, I know... stupid rule, but the group loved it).

Anyways, I was running one of the Ravenloft adventures (the one where the Headless Horseman kills the party, then Azalin restores them and sends them back in time to steal Barovian artifacts so he can complete his Hexad), and they were going through his castle just trying to find a way out. The party was around level 10-11 at this point. They found their way onto a rampart, and encountered a half-dozen skeleton guards (just plain ol' skeletons in chain mail). Relieved to finally be fighting something simple, after getting the best Initiative roll, the Fighter charged at the nearest one and rolls to hit... natural 1. A hush falls over the group as the player rolls again... natural 1. I describe that as the fighter charges the skeleton, he gets to close the edge of the rampart, and loose bricks give way, collapsing a small portion where the player was, and he fell off and dissapeared from view, must to the dismay of the rest of the party. I think we abolished the 'roll two natural 1s or 20s' rule after that session.

Lin Bayaseda
2010-02-16, 08:33 AM
... pulling the mind flayer through HIS OWN prismatic sphere...he failed every saveAs much as this story is made of total win, I must say that ...


You can pass into and out of the prismatic sphere and remain near it without harm.http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/prismaticSphere.htm

Iceforge
2010-02-16, 02:13 PM
Back in AD&D, we had a lame house rule (everyone else in the group thought it was an awesome idea) that if you roll a natural 20, you get a reroll. If you get a natural 20 again, you automatically kill whatever you were attacking. It also worked the other way around, if you roll a natural 1, you roll again and automatically kill yourself somehow if you roll a natural 1 again (I know, I know... stupid rule, but the group loved it).

Anyways, I was running one of the Ravenloft adventures (the one where the Headless Horseman kills the party, then Azalin restores them and sends them back in time to steal Barovian artifacts so he can complete his Hexad), and they were going through his castle just trying to find a way out. The party was around level 10-11 at this point. They found their way onto a rampart, and encountered a half-dozen skeleton guards (just plain ol' skeletons in chain mail). Relieved to finally be fighting something simple, after getting the best Initiative roll, the Fighter charged at the nearest one and rolls to hit... natural 1. A hush falls over the group as the player rolls again... natural 1. I describe that as the fighter charges the skeleton, he gets to close the edge of the rampart, and loose bricks give way, collapsing a small portion where the player was, and he fell off and dissapeared from view, must to the dismay of the rest of the party. I think we abolished the 'roll two natural 1s or 20s' rule after that session.

Oh my, must be a very peaceful place.

No fear of some random drunk slapping you because you looked at him funny.

In a world where the average number of punches you can deal out before killing yourself is 400, nobody would be getting into any fights, unless they absolutely have to.

Telonius
2010-02-16, 04:48 PM
Most memorable: We were fighting one of the recurring villains in Age of Worms. The villain hit our party Warforged Barbarian with an Implosion spell. Warforged rolls a 1. The DM described it thusly: "Imagine a can of Coke crumpling in on itself."

Iceforge
2010-02-16, 05:53 PM
Oh, forgot to share my own stories!

Some of these happened to me, some to my friends:

Holy Knight who attacked a party member (for insulting his God) ended up tied up inside a burlap bag with a spell on him which made him cough up snails for 24 hours. After the 24 hours of coughing up snails, he was untied, bag pulled off his head, only to be beheaded by the dwarf (which was the one he had attacked)

Minotaur goes first into a small tunnel, so small in fact, that he cannot turn around or even look behind him, he can only barely manage to fit. As he starts making his way forward, the evil party wizard stops the rest, explains why we should not trust the minotaur and convinces rest of the party to turn around and not follow along. Minotaur gets to end off the tunnel and spots 2 trolls in a huge cave. Not a problem, trolls are dangerous, but he got backup right behind him (he thinks) so he charges the trolls head on and right before he sinks his axe into the troll, he notices how he is alone, and then it is too late, as both trolls are engaged with him in melee.

I forgot what I played, I was a newbie at the time, and the party wizard convinced me that "alchemist fire" was a potion to increase my inner fire and make me stronger. I think I got to play that character for a total of 5 minuts. That was the same wizard who later got the minotaur killed by the way. (which was not played by me, I was busy rolling up a new character at that time)

One of my players in call of cthulhu who was so convinced his character was possessed by an evil body-stealer (he wasn't) that he hanged himself inside the cell in which he was locked up in (which was done by another player, one player actually managed to convince the players and NPCs in turn to lock people up and ended up herself being the only PC who was not locked up inside a cell. She got what was coming to her through; She was the base psychologist in charge of maintaining the mental stability of those on the station, and suicide is not really ranked as "mental stability")

My Sabbat Vampire who managed to dread gaze the 2nd in command of the city, right infront of the arch bishop. He wasn't too pleased with my "diplomatic abilities" and showed me his "diplomatic abilities"

My sire in a Vampire LARP who got killed by city collective, due to first (with my help as his child) removed the magic plates which protected the entire city from older vampires (it was done in the name of science, how else could we prove that "magic was just silly superstition"??), then when we was found out and required to stand infront of the city, ordered me to dread gaze our coterie-leader while inside a car (house rules from the LARP says you HAVE to flee if it is physically possible, and fleeing from a car going 80 miles pr. hour... ouch).
Sufficient to say, the city wasn't pleased with our behaviour and the "in the name of science" and "to prove magic is just silly" didn't work really well with Lasombra, Tremere, Giovanni and other vampires practicing magic rituals.
I was spared through, as he did free me from him with his last words and I was then deemed guilt free due to having been acting under my former sire's orders. My coterie leader still didn't like me for having send him out of that car, for some odd reason.

Gnaritas
2010-02-16, 06:01 PM
Let's see...there's my Wizard who nearly died in his first encounter. So I'm playing my first d&d, got a pseudo-Batman wizard rolled up...first encounter, we get ambushed by some hobgoblins on a trail. No biggie.
Me: Ooh, time to use Fly and laugh at the helpless monsters! *casts Fly, goes 30 ft. straight up*
Hobgoblins: "..." *have bows*
*shoot wizard*
Me: *becomes pincushion and falls into the negatives*

The Druid's wolf AC had to jump 30 ft. straight up to deliver a cure minor wounds to save me.
In the first round of my first encounter. Ever.

Not quite a death, but my own sheer idiocy makes it worth telling...and thats just the beginnings of my misadventures with flight in that campaign.

When you fall unconscious while flying you do not just float around....you fall down.

IthilanorStPete
2010-02-16, 07:16 PM
When you fall unconscious while flying you do not just float around....you fall down.

Only if the spell expires does that happen, and IIRC when you fall unconscious spells on you remain active.

Xallace
2010-02-16, 07:25 PM
Yes. The spell-storing octopus, and the ferret incident.

So the party's up against this sea witch who's keeping them shipwrecked on this island, and they need to beat him to get him to stop ('cuz he's a jerk). The sea witch has a familiar, a tiny octopus who- if I recall- is named Cedric. Well, in the middle of the fight, the sea witch takes a round to cast a couple spells on his familiar. The next turn, he hurls Cedric at the sorcerer (ranged touch attack), and his him dead in the face. Sorcerer hears a "mysterious ticking noise," and gets a couple attempts to pull the familiar off his face. Failing miserably, the octopus explodes in a Delayed Blast Fireball, obliterating the sorcerer and leaving behind only gold melted into the shape of his trousers (where he was keeping the gold). Cedric slinks away into the water, unharmed.

Skittles was a warmage known for A) being raised by ferrets in the wild, B) believing himself to be "Chosen of the Ferret God," and C) (relatedly) having a Wisdom of 4. The party was tracking a Black Dragon who was marauding across the countryside, one that was replacing various towns with craters of acid. Well, each time we got to one, Skittles would send a couple of his ferret buddies to "investigate." Apparently the DM and Skittles' player grossly underestimated Ferret intelligence, because the ferrets would jump straight into the acid each time. On the *third* town we came across, after sending his ferrets to investigate, the (horrified and disgusted) ranger turned to Skittles and said, "Why don't you go investigate the acid." Skittles replied, "OK."

Myou
2010-02-17, 05:18 AM
Only if the spell expires does that happen, and IIRC when you fall unconscious spells on you remain active.

By the rules you drift down to the ground if you fall unconcious while using Fly.

Steelblood
2010-02-17, 05:32 AM
I remember a campaign where the GM had put gun powder into the world. This turned out badly for our party when we found a store room and did the usuall entangling root+burning sphere combo.

MickJay
2010-02-17, 05:47 AM
I remember a campaign where the GM had put gun powder into the world. This turned out badly for our party when we found a store room and did the usuall entangling root+burning sphere combo.

Perhaps he was tired of your usual entangling root+burning sphere tactics and wanted you to stop using it that often :smallbiggrin:

IthilanorStPete
2010-02-17, 07:29 AM
By the rules you drift down to the ground if you fall unconcious while using Fly.

Source? Doesn't say so in the SRD description of Fly.

Lucas Pitta
2010-02-17, 07:46 AM
The first time anyone in my game group played as a gnome, three players decided use the race. At level 10, we were pretty much broke and had no means of getting money quickly, so, the mage of the group had a WONDERFUL idea.
Turn the three gnomes into stones, sell them, rogue steals them back, go to another city, change gnomes close, repeat.
The irony is, we were actually getting good money on the con, when a noble buys the gnomes and they get smashed during transport
oops

CheshireCatAW
2010-02-17, 07:49 AM
One of the first campaigns I ever ran.

My low level party had just made it through a fairly long dungeon. The casters were almost completely drained of spells and the meat shields were on their last legs. After distributing the wealth, the player running a stereotypical dwarven fighter inquires about a small bag he found at the local tavern. I, without thinking about it much, say that it's a bag of antacids. My curiosity was peaked when a smile lit up his face and he started chittering with the sorceress' player. Without consulting me, they describe how the sorceress and the fighter face against each other and how the sorceress casts Acid Splash, her last spell, at the dwarf (who has the bag hung in front of him, like a necklace). After I tell the fighter that he's now at negative hit points I anticipate his troubled thoughts and explain how antacid pills are not anti-acid pills.

KellKheraptis
2010-02-17, 07:52 AM
The party convincing my Incantatrix it was a good idea to blow up Krynn. Sadly, they failed to mention I should include them in the contingencies that whisked me away completely unharmed, and were summarily vaporized along with the majority of solid matter on the planet :D But I'd already made clones of them, so it was all good. The round of exclamations though as the spell went off was absolutely priceless, since it wasn't "This is a good idea, let's plan it out!" but "This is a good idea, do it!" To which my mad wizard eventually went, "Ok, I'll do it! -zap!-" And then they all became part of a particle spiral from a growing asteroid belt formerly known to the cosmos as Krynn.

Oh yeah, and good thing we were just post epic...boy was Bahamut (aka Paladine) PO-ed.

Myou
2010-02-17, 11:49 AM
Source? Doesn't say so in the SRD description of Fly.

It gives the ability to fly, not levitation, and even says it requires some concentration to do just like walking.
If you stop trying to fly, just as if you stop trying to stand, you fall.

Cisturn
2010-02-18, 09:58 AM
My players were captured by an evil cleric and woke up in a large dungeon. The only exit was guarded by a Huge Manticore, which i described as "Too powerful for you to face right now" with the intention being that they would have to venture deeper into the dungeon and gain a few levels. The Druid decided to split from the party and fight the thing at once.

Druid "Okay, how far am i away?"
Me "About 180 feet, you can see the Manticore in silhouette because of the light drifting in from the exit, but it cant see you yet, also you can tell your in range for it's Spike Attack"
Druid "I cast Daylight"
Me "...ok, The Manticore sees the sudden flash of light a roars at you and launched three spike in your direction dealing <rolls dice> 25 damage
Druid "I charge it!"
Me "You're five rounds from being in range! And your down to half health"
Druid "But I'm only four rounds away now right?"

Next turn he got hit with five more spikes which dropped him to -11.

bytbyt
2010-02-25, 08:40 PM
In this oneshot this gargantiaion black dragon was killed when this half-orc unleased enough of his "waste" to fill the entire cave Don't ask

Then resently this Palidan was turned into a little girl and was latter carried away by Maxamillian Pegasus and Dr. Crowler from Yugi-Oh. Once again Don't ask

the humanity
2010-02-25, 08:49 PM
So the fighter/assassin guy runs up to hit the black slaad, as he failed banish him (long story). suddenly, the guy we've been looking for (who summoned the slaad -_-) disappears, and the fighter is sitting alone with a big epic monster. the monster observes him for a few seconds, then uses power word kill on him.

Pyro_Azer
2010-02-25, 08:59 PM
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v388/technobubblegum/macrotastics/killyouwithmybrain.jpg

I felt the need to point those two out.

Mine would be a character who died in the midst of a perform comedy check. This set off 7 CONTINGENT FIREBALLS AT ONCE which killed all the enemies. The phrases "died laughing" and "got the last laugh" somehow spring to mind.

Lucas Pitta
2010-02-25, 09:12 PM
Big bad blue Slaad comes and kicks us around a bit, in two rounds we got ourselves a new frog skin belt.
Dm rolls a d20, takes a look at my character, says nothing.
Next day, make a save.
In a flash, you become a big blue hulk, returning to normal as fast as you became one.
I tell my partner, KILL ME IF I BECOME ONE (becomes one)
Partner says: Yay, XP!

Forever Curious
2010-02-25, 09:21 PM
http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Sameo
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v388/technobubblegum/macrotastics/killyouwithmybrain.jpg

I felt the need to point those two out.

Mine would be a character who died in the midst of a perform comedy check. This set off 7 CONTINGENT FIREBALLS AT ONCE which killed all the enemies. The phrases "died laughing" and "got the last laugh" somehow spring to mind.

1) That is beautiful, hands down *sheds a single tear*

2) ...really?

3) Got to love those contingent spells.

My story: I ran a PvP a while back with...humorous results. The rule was that characters could not be discussed, so no one knows what's coming. So the day the battle starts, one player bust out a Vow Monk (Monk with the vows from BoED), and the other a warlock.

You can see where this is going...

Warlock points at the Monk and launches several hundred Magic Misses through the use of Contingency Spells. Instant win.

flabort
2010-02-25, 10:05 PM
This is more of a death-to-be.

I'm planning on DMing a game (as soon as I gather enough materials AKA DMG+Player's handbook, 3.5 hopefully) against my little brother Solo in a while. He's got less knowledge of it than I do, since atleast there is the d20 SRD. which lacks the MOST IMPORTANT PART, experience tables. Otherwise, I'm almost all set.

Theme: dwarven mine, dwarves all in cages, goblins enjoying the dwarve's posesions.
Starting level: 1
time of death: level 1

He's not too keen on magic systems in any game, so I doubt he'll pull out a wizard or anything with detect magic. glowing blue orb held by a statue of the founder of the mines, if he takes it, it's instantly magicly replaced, and he proceeds. if he doesn't, mine flashes blue a ways on, lightning bursts from everywere, unavoidable amounts. should he survive that puzzle, a goblin runs past him in that spot. Zthap!
Edit: read the 1d4chan wiki one, that is EPIC. Earth shattering. also, spoilered mine because it doesn't count after that.

RandomLunatic
2010-02-26, 12:04 AM
[url]Mine would be a character who died in the midst of a perform comedy check. This set off 7 CONTINGENT FIREBALLS AT ONCE which killed all the enemies. The phrases "died laughing" and "got the last laugh" somehow spring to mind.

Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.:smallbiggrin:

Olfgar
2010-02-27, 10:33 AM
This death wast by me, but happend to a fellow party member.

While fighting assassins in a throne room, the head NPC paladin summoned a Silver Dragon to aid us in the fight, in which, one of our party members was actually working with the assassins, obviously it was the rogue/assassins.

My fighter started to pound the rogue, and when the rogues turn came up, he 2 options.

Option :1 Attack the dragon (no chance of landing a hit)
or
Option 2: Run PAST the dragon, and use an unarmed attack against our monk, while wearing his rings on the outside of his gloves. The rings had black lotus.

well the rogue chose option two, and landed the hit on the injured monk, and then was cutin half by my dwarf. Naturaly the dragon ate one of his assassin buddies, and then the monk was cheering at our victory...then dropped dead mid sentence.

Or another death by this rogue was BEFORE this throne room debacle.

he was fighting with a higher level wizard, and happend to get in a seriously damagin sneak attack WITH poison but that didnt kill him. After many spells being cast which ended up with the rogue in the air, and waiting 5 minuted for him to hit ground (feather fall is annoying), another assassin atack the wizard, which happend just as our party arrived to try and assist said wizard.

The wizard had created magical rune/tatoo type thing on his body then upon death, they would explode. this happend just as the rogue landed near him, with a sigh of relief, he looked over to see Churo, the assassin, and then at the body which exploded with lots of arcane power.

Well, the rogue was knocked unconcious, and the paladin that was with us brought him back to conciousness, at which point, the LAWFUL GOOD monk with us, rolled a nat 20 flurry of blows upon the rogue face. The paladin was less than happy.

AtopTheMountain
2010-02-27, 10:51 AM
Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.:smallbiggrin:

You, sir, win one (1) internet.

Here's mine: So we were fighting a group of enemies: two wizards, a Large demon, and a death knight. Our Doppleganger Wizard decided to shapeshift into a female clone of one of the wizards to try to seduce him. It actually worked for a few rounds, until we finished off the death knight and started attacking the wizards (while my Avenger is going toe-to-toe with the demon). So what does our Wizard do? Since he has rediculous Diplomacy, he tries to seduce the demon. You read that right: He wants to try to make the Large, elite demon in love with him. Long story short, he found out what happens when someone 4x your size hugs you.
Part 2:
Miraculously, he's still alive when he gets free. Luckily, the demon is at very low hit points, and my Avenger kills him a few rounds later, the final enemy. We're all rejoicing, when our DM rolls a few dice and says, "Does 39 hit your reflex?" to our Wizard. The demon had some ability that made a huge explosion when he died, of course. We all survived... except for our sad little Wizard.

Greenish
2010-02-27, 11:21 AM
One of the first campaigns I ever ran.

My low level party had just made it through a fairly long dungeon. The casters were almost completely drained of spells and the meat shields were on their last legs. After distributing the wealth, the player running a stereotypical dwarven fighter inquires about a small bag he found at the local tavern. I, without thinking about it much, say that it's a bag of antacids. My curiosity was peaked when a smile lit up his face and he started chittering with the sorceress' player. Without consulting me, they describe how the sorceress and the fighter face against each other and how the sorceress casts Acid Splash, her last spell, at the dwarf (who has the bag hung in front of him, like a necklace). After I tell the fighter that he's now at negative hit points I anticipate his troubled thoughts and explain how antacid pills are not anti-acid pills.Uhm, what were they expecting to happen? :smallconfused:

Itamarcu
2010-02-27, 11:34 AM
I remember my friend's dwarf fighter, asking for a Polymorph from the party's wizard, so he could listen to the enemy's plan. He chose to morph into a fly.
then he flew and landed on the archenemy's scroll. The man just squashed him to death.

Deity
2010-02-27, 02:45 PM
The party was resting in an inn, when we were awoken by the sounds of an ettin attacking the town.

Our Dwarf warrior (CG, overzealous fighter) decided he was going to jump out of the window, and run towards the noise. He forgot he was two floors up. And at low health as we were waiting for the clerics spells to prepare to heal him up.

The fall killed him.

Masaioh
2010-02-27, 03:32 PM
Both in the same campaign run by me:

A dwarf barbarian got flattened against a cave wall by an Advanced Red Dragon wielding a Great Wyrm Brass Dragon by the tail.

Any of the townsfolk of my settings former planar metropolis that got flattened by the Dire Bear that fell from the sky. An entire city block was demolished and it rained bones all day. I know this breaks the laws of physics, but it's for comedic effect.

kentma57
2010-02-27, 04:40 PM
Well I got a TPK out of a game a few months back, the BBEG had just finnished blasting his way through the parties airship(cone based disintegrate effect) when he(and the parties combat wizard who was going toe to toe in a close range caster battle with him) landed on the wall of force that protected the bottom of the airship(currently 20,000 ft in the air). He blasted the wizard with an epic version of dispel magic(turns of all spells and magic itmes for 8d8 rounds), when he was shot by the parties arcane archer(who was running an epic version of anti magic field arrows at the time) causing him that the wizards to start falling.
The BBEG was annoyed at this point and after a few good rolls had stabed the anti-magic arrow into the wizard, drifted out of it's range and procided to disspel every magic item of the airship as well as the airship its self. Luckily this was just about the time the remainder of the party decided to jump out of the ship after the wizard and the BBEG, eager to give chase.
About 10 or so(we did the math for falling from that height and how much damage you would take when you hit the ground) they came to a sudden stop.
The BBEG had been stoped and though none of them had more than 10 HP they where all alive, there was much joy around the table as they congradulated themselves for saving the day. That is of course until one of them bothered to ask what had happened to the airship...
They learned something that day, things that land on you after falling 20,000ft hurt. :smallbiggrin:

Olfgar
2010-02-27, 07:40 PM
Ah i just thought of another death my party never lets me forget.

So this is our first session, only a couple of us, before the rest of our freinds were able to join in. Me, lvl2 Dwarven Fighter, and my friends, lvl 2 Rogue and lvl 2 Wizard.

So were helping this gnomish farmer with some dire rats you see, in a cave near his fields. well after killing a couple, we happen to say outloud, wow, these things are easy. The DM, the diabolical S.O.B. he is, decided to send WAVES of them at us. Well this was before my dwarf used his beloved Dwarven War axes, so his current weapon at the time was a great sword.

We were in a tunnel, to narrow for us to pass each other, and the marching order went, Me, as meat shield, ziard to shoot over me (being shorter than the caster has advantages in that situation) and the rogue in back to defend the wizard should we get ambushed by these rats.

We soon figured out what rolling a triple 1 meant for the party. I rolled said triple one. The DM decided, for great humor, that this regular lookng dire rat actually developed momentary god like abilities, and as i swung my great sword, it caused it to partially fade out of reality, and pass through the rat, then come back up and go into me, at which point it came beack into reality, stabbing me...THEN, in surprise i jerked my hands back, stabbing the sword clean through me, through the wizard, and half into the rogue, and then the handle snapped off. here is he conversation the followed:

Wizard: So whats the damage to calculate

DM: *Fighter* Roll to beat their armor class

*rolls and beats both*

DM: Ok, now roll damage

*rolls an 8*

DM: Ok all of you add 10 plus his strength.

Wizard and rogue: Whats your strength modifier

Me: plus 5

Wizard: ...Negative 5 health
Rogue: 0 health...

After that, i decided the best course of action would be to walk forward to pull myself off the vlade and kill the rat...i did, and i proceeded to pick up my 2 party members and run with my 20 foot movement speed as i was being chased by a horde of rats ot of the cave, somehow with none of them beating my armor class or my Fort save. Once we got out, only one of them followed me, which was blinded my the earlier mentioned farmer that was a lvl 1 commoner that happend to know dazling lights (i think it was...what ever it was, dazed the rat), and he proceded to savagely bea the rat to death with his shovel, and continued hitting it a few more times than needed.

Icewraith
2010-02-27, 08:04 PM
This guy's druid has been killed by an exploding egg of abominable cold, nearly vampired, and once nearly roleplayed his way into dying. But it is his last death that is my favorite.

My second favorite (the near-roleplaying death) he was trapped in a cave in and tried shapeshifting into a bug to crawl his way out. I make a roll and determine the severity of the cave in is such that the party has basically been buried in gravel. Bug can't get out, and is in fact being crushed to death slowly by the weight.

Player transmutes stone to mud. His bug is now drowning in a large amount of mud held in by stone at the ends of the tunnel. So he transmutes mud to stone. He has entombed his character (and nearly the rest of the party, the wizards were quick with the disintegrates in their sections before the rock to mud trick) in bug form in a 10-foot cube of stone. He begins the second round of suffocation and falls unconscious. Fortunately one of the wizards disintegrates him out before the third round of death.

My favorite involves the same druid at epic level in a ridiculously overpowered campaign. This requires a large amount of backstory to explain exactly how difficult it was to kill this guy, so spoiler tags are necessary.

In our epic level gestalt spell points campaign (2 of the players are also dice gods when it comes to rolling attributes, even though everyone uses the same dice when rolling them... This was a lot of fun but a ton of work and I will never run anything that high powered again) the party is fighting the BBEG Thayan Conjuration master. The boss has complete control of teleportation in his sanctum, so once the characters are in they can't just port out.

In order to challenge this party, which consists of a cleric/fighter-paladin archer build, a wiz/fighter bladesinger (excellent in gestalt, hop levels for full wiz casting and full BAB), a barbarian/fighter with demon bloodline and racial human and half-orc levels, a druid/fighter-masterofmanyforms with extra wild shaping abilities I found out later were extremely outdated and overpowered and finally the grand master of cheese, a wiz-i7v/cleric with DMM and epic counterspell nonsense. The party is IIRC 28th level.

Fortunately the i7v wiz/cleric is an extremely aggressive player and is very insistent that no spellcasting opponents ever get spells off. I've previously swamped the party with summoned opponents and lots of lower casters so he's burned a large amount of his juice off and is now paying attention to his spell point total. So that the party takes damage, I've introduced six-armed gestalt 28hd blue dragon/fighter abominations with the ability to fire off the epic destroy seed as a breath weapon under normal limitations. The blue dragons tend to favor spiked chains.

I warned the players I would counter cheese with better cheese. The arms race was interesting to say the least.

The BBEG has been harassing the party in the final fight by hiding in a prismatic sphere while maintaining dual concentration on previously cast sphere of ultimate destruction and some other spell. He has three of the blue dragon abominations plus a powered up version wearing plate armor who is their leader.

The druid has managed to take a large amount of damage and is down to 50hp. He wisely takes the form of an earth elemental and shifts into the floor for cover.

On the next round he pops up on the other side of the boss's sphere, having forgotten to heal himself, and casts a damaging spell at the blue dragon abom. leader.

The BBEG 5-foot steps out of the sphere opposite the party counterspeller, breaking line of effect so no epic counterspell, quickens a sonic (Archmage is excellent in epic play) meteor swarm (iirc, may have been iceberg but i7v can stop that) at the druid for fatal damage, no save due to successful touch attacks, orders the Blue Dragon Abom leader to breathe on the druid's corpse, holds his action to teleport out.

Blue dragon does so, makes the caster level check to break through the double warding the i7v throws up, disintegrates the druid's corpse and all of his magic items. And yes, this druid found out about wildling clasps, so they were actually being used.

You can have the best cheese in the world, you can have the best buddies with even better cheese, you can have too many magic items for your character level, you can even have cheese that due to a group-held misunderstanding of the rules far more powerful than it's supposed to be (that druid's wildshaping was ridiculous at times, we also didn't get that natural attacks don't get iterative attacks on the primary attack so his damage output was gigantic), but if the DM pulls out all the stops and challenges the party and you don't play smart, you can still get killed.

Saint GoH
2010-02-27, 08:36 PM
My favorite death? One of two.

I was playing a crusader that was dedicated to helping others. Lawful good to a T. However, the party he was running with, (particularly the cleric and the druid) constantly belittled his help/actions. He never did anything right in their eyes. Therefore his alignment (and likely his sanity) began to change. Level 10 rolls around and we are stuck in a cave with an Ancient Brass Dragon that we are trying to bargain with. My poor character was getting belittled by the cleric for never helping, and in a burst of righteous fury, he attempted to set her straight.

Seeing the dragon was not gonna let us get away, I snatched a skull of blasting (a homebrewed item that basically functions like a wand of fireballs, however you can imbue it with various elemental powers by casting 0 level cantrips on it) from the wizards pack, and with a triumphant battle cry rushed the dragon. I criticaled my tumble check to not provoke (EVERY character takes tumble amirite?) and with a critical on my jump check, smash the skull on the dragons nose. The dragon and myself take 150d6. For a total of 507.

Second death? After slight inebriation IRL, my drow rogue thought it would be a good idea to cast darkness in a burning tavern, then jump out the 2nd story window. Unable to see the window, I ran headlong into a burning wall. After setting myself on fire, I leapt from the tavern two stories down. Did I mention I had a +1 CON mod? It was a painful fall for a level 4.

Lord Loss
2010-02-28, 06:41 AM
My friend's PC almost died yesterday. The party is composed of a cleric, a barbarian and an Avatar of Shadow (modified version of rich burlew's Champion class). The PCs are 3 level 1s fighting 4 Worgs, and the fight is going very, very well, due to a series of nat ' 20s on the part of the barbarian (He managed to pick up a worg slam it onto another worg, killing it, then jump onto the remaining worg and ride it for 2 rounds...) Now the Barbarian is at -2 and is raging when he leaps towards the worg before him. (Rolls a nat' 1) He then trips over his own axe and falls into the water (it's in a swamp). The worg continues to maul him until he falls to -7, at which poin the cleric finally heals him.