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mjames
2010-06-20, 04:56 PM
In all your play experiences, what was your most notable/rememberable death? Was it at the hands of a god? Were you facing 3,872 Orcs and cut through half before running out of healing? Was it a mere goblin who happened to triple crit you after you threatened his village? Please feel free to share all stories of death, dismemberment, and most importantly shame.


P.S.: bonus points if you are first to point out the reference I made up there?

Escheton
2010-06-20, 04:58 PM
munchkin card

I never die well. It's usually just that one time I don't buff vigor because I want to get more hits in and get critted to death.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-20, 05:01 PM
As a blooded Munchkin, I am obligated to pedantically point out that it's 3,872orcs.:smallcool:

I can't actually think of any times my characters have died - all my PbP games fizzle out before I'm in danger, and all my RL DMs have been too afraid to kill off PC's.

Daelen
2010-06-20, 05:07 PM
Best death for me by far was when I was playing an Elf Barbarian. Yes, I know, woefully unoptimized. Anyway, I was having a bad dice day (I'm sure we all have them), and something the DM threw at me just to make me laugh ended up killing me. Apparently someone had it out for me, or for elves in general, and I got hit by an Arrow of Slaying. Failed my save by rolling a 1, and died. On the upside, and what makes it memorable is that I met the Elven Pantheon, and was brought back with a new ability, when I took my first level in Bear Warrior.

lyko555
2010-06-20, 05:10 PM
My best death was as a Paladin, he started off his career as a fearless defender of the week and eneded his careere as the same. His motto was introduced in the first session as "fight on its only
(insert derogatory comment about the creature your fighting here)
first fight was Theyre only rats after fighting off a horde of wererats.

His heroic death came from being the only meleecharacter not afraid of the big red dragon. His triumphant cry Of its only a dragon was heard as he stabbed the thing in the belly taking away its final 3 hp and it fell on him with his remaining 1. (squish)

Beelzebub1111
2010-06-20, 05:16 PM
Fell out of a tree...twice.

Stompy
2010-06-20, 05:19 PM
Our party was plot-entered into a room with a (12-headed?) cryohydra, with the door disappearing. It gets a higher initiative than I do, and nukes the room. My level 8 red "3 quarter"-dragon* sorcerer manages to roll a 2, then another 2 on an action point, takes ~130 cold damage and die. Then he got revivified, and immediately proceeded to maximize fireball him :smallbiggrin:.

*I got the template for free, due to a plot Mcguffin.

Jokasti
2010-06-20, 05:26 PM
I was a Monk, level 15 right. We have to go to the next multiverse over, through the Omni-Elemental Gate of Multiversal Travel. When we get there, its a huge 100 foot high vortex of prismatic explosions. In it is a scroll and the Heart of the Warrior. They throw me in, cause I have the most Speed. I grab the two items, and run out. 5 feet, 5 FRICKIN FEET away from cool grass and dew, cold sky, I die due to Omni-Elemental Damage. They drag me out, and use the Scroll for something, I forget. Anyways, the DMPC, a lich sorcerer-necromancer, transplants the heart into me and uses Lightning Bolt to start it up. Cleric patches me up, and I have something like +50 to physical stats (I remember now, the Scroll gave +50 to Mental Stats). It was not the DMs idea, but its what he wanted to happen. Naturally, every other melee person is pissed and wants to kill me, but the Lich calmly tells the party it was a one time thing. I am now basically, the most bad-@$$ monk/melee fighter in this multiverse. The Heart also gave me some awesome abilities, like Fireball 5/day and other cool stuff.
I guess that counts as a death?

Curmudgeon
2010-06-20, 05:30 PM
Call of Cthulhu, in a late 1920s setting. After repeated exposure to horrific stuff my character was on the verge of losing his Sanity. Cultists were trying to raise some Elder God using a deep mine they'd spent years digging over his sleeping spot. They'd finished the excavation and were doing the ritual to raise the EG, and had plenty of guards around the mine. My fellow Investigators and I added some heavy sheet steel around the engine and driver's area of our Model T truck, and filled the back with TNT. With my more sane colleagues adding covering fire from rifles, I ran the truck through the board fence and (more or less, with shot-out tires) straight into the mine shaft.

The mine collapsed, and the explosion took out the ritual chanters. It was a good day to die.

Escheton
2010-06-20, 05:31 PM
you go there, you go back. thats 2x whatever move.
How are you coming 5 ft short? was it 57 and a 1/2ft away?

Snake-Aes
2010-06-20, 05:32 PM
Oddly enough, my monk's death and subsequent reincarnation into a weasel also started with "We throw the monk first".

Dracons
2010-06-20, 05:35 PM
I've rarely died in the game.

I've had two deaths.

1: Slain by the god Torm in forgotten realms, because my CG Human 4th level Ranger muttered he felt Torm was too stuffy. DM rolled a d20, got a 15, so I was struck by 15 lighting Bolts, and lost all my charisma. I learned later that Torm was that's DM's favorite God.


2: 1st level Sun Elf Wizard in solo game. Slain by a snake. Stinking con poison.

Another_Poet
2010-06-20, 05:38 PM
Miss Anna Ilona Béla, Knight2, on the lethal Northern Frontiers campaign.

Ilona came to the frontier searching for her sister, Barina (my previous character), who was missing and presumed dead. Barina in turn had come in search of her fiance Rovard (my previous previous character) who had died in a fiery holocaust fighting a Gargantuan fire being in a castle.

To gives you some sense of the lethality of the campaign, Rovard's battle-trained mule was just about the only ally who had survived more than a couple of sessions. It passed from Rovard to Barina, and wandered back to the fort to be passed to Ilona. Jacquelyne was the name of that mule.

With Jacquelyne, Bingo the dog (former animal companion of another dead character), two expendable battle-trained dogs named ONE and TWO, and two pack mules, Ilona had her own small force to command, and she was intent on finding Barina or proof of her death. She was a brave woman.

The other players had gotten cautious after 3 or 4 character deaths per person. I don't blame them. But we ended up just going on routine patrols with occasional low-XP, low-loot encounters close to the fort which was considered our safe haven. Ilona could not stand what she viewed as cowardice, and needed to go deeper into hostile territory to look for her sister.

So as the group turns back from a routine patrol to go to the fort, Ilona loads all of her valuables and gear onto one of her two pack mules and gives it to her allies. "I'm going north," she says. She points to the road that leads to a lost city completely overrun with undead. No party in the campaign has ever lived to even reach the city, let alone get there and back. The others protest that it's suidice.

"I have to do it," she says. She hobbles her remaining pack mule so that it moves slowly, and parts ways with her more careful colleagues.

Two miles later one of her dogs detects movement in a thicket of trees. She sends ONE in to investigate. ONE does not come back. She is about to order TWO to follow when a ghoul emerges from the thicket. Barina readies her lance.

Two ghasts emerge, backing up the ghoul. Already down one dog, she decides it's time for her hobbled pack mule to do its job. Striking it with her lance, she wounds it and draws blood. Hobbled, it does its best to run away from her.

"Bingo, COME! Two, COME!" she yells and takes off on Jacuqelyne the battle-mule to run away south. Her plan is to let the ghouls eat the hobbled mule, and circle widely around them to continue north.

The undead ignore the sacrificial mule and begin to chase after Ilona. Moving at mule speed, she cannot outrun them. After a few minutes the GM informs me the mule will get winded soon. She decides to turn and fight.

"Bingo, ATTACK! Two, ATTACK!" Catching her breath, she sneers at the undead, "Why wouldn't you take the freeby?" she mutters.

To her surprise they respond in common. "It will still be there after we eat you," one rasps. The GM informs me that ghasts and ghouls are intelligent. Sonova!!

The dogs charge in and flank the lead ghast, working their trip attack magic on it and effectively blocking the ghasts from charging Ilona. She charges it as well, doing good damage with her lance but not dropping it.

Next turn two of them are on her. They ignore the dogs and go for the knight.

After two turns she has made all 3 fort saves against paralysis from their successful hits. One of her dogs is holding the third undead off from surrounding her. She backs up and potions to heal. The undead move back in and decide to go for the mount.

Jacquelyne fails her save. Mule paralyzed. The GM rules the mule does not collapse, but Ilona dismounts and drops her lance to use her falchion.

TWO dies blocking the undead from her.

Jacquelyne awakens from her paralysis. Ilona orders her to melee, and she acts as a living shield against the ghoul-ghast team. One of the ghasts goes down. Then Jacquelyne is killed. The most experienced and long-lived character of the entire campaign, a simple mule trained for combat charging, with the fire of a devil in its eyes and the soul of a hero in its heart, wavers and brays. Her front legs go out, then her back legs, and she hits the ground dead.

The other players are very interested in the battle at this point - with one undead down, there is a chance Ilona could actually win! Ilona swings her falchion rolling a crit thread, which doesn't matter against undead. At near full hits she feels confident that she will vanquish these creatures and carry their heads back to the fort as proof that bravery can conquer the dangerous frontier.

Then she fails a fort save.

Paralyzed, she would have been coup de grace'd. Would have, except that the undead have a more immediate concern.

Bingo the dog snarls and leaps on them. He fights alone, risking his life to protect his mistress. Had he run he could have lived... but that is not what a war hound does. He snaps his jaws on the wretched undead flesh, filling his mouth with their maggots and taking one to the verge of its final destruction.

Everyone holds their breath as the rounds go by. One round, Bingo is up. Two rounds, Bingo is up... a couple more turns and Ilona's paralysis will wear off. She could still win!

Bite, trip. AoO, bite, trip. The ghouls give up trying to to move into flanking position around Bingo. One of them sees Ilona coming out of her paralysis....

"Oh no you don't," and it turns its attention to her. In one grisly round Ilona is torn to pieces. She dies, seeking for her sister in the afterlife, or perhaps waiting to be raised as a ghoul in her own right... another life lost on the heartless frontier.

But the fight is not over. Bingo knows his mistress is dead. But something in his purebred heart just won't give up. Growling, he commits himself to the final lunge against the undead, vengeance in his eyes...

Bingo fought on for several rounds after Ilona's death. In the end the ghouls had to kill him in straight combat, their paralysis never quite affecting him. Bingo went down as the hero of the day...

The entire traveling menagerie of the knight was wiped out, and of them all, it was mule and hound who were most effective and valiant. It was really their deaths, not Ilona's, that were the most tragic - Ilona expected to die. The animals were just doing their job.

Note: I can only vouch that this description is about 70% accurate. This happened over a year ago and I'm recounting it from memory. If fellow Northern Frontiers players see this and remember it differently, sorry if I got things wrong. But it more or less happened as described above.

Admiral Squish
2010-06-20, 05:43 PM
I has awesome story for this!

I was playing a man-hating psion (kinetecist). Me and my party killed a bunch of salamanders the day before and we got to town and had a nice nap.

Next morning, we wake up the find the city gates swamped with salamanders howling for the blood of the one who killed their patrol, promising open war. The Salamaders had a pretty sizable force, I couldn't tell you exactly HOW big, but big enough that war wasn't something we wanted. So, I, with my mysteriously high charisma, was elected as the representative.

I got sent out through the gate unarmed and walked the corridor of sneering, shouting, and mocking salamanders, all the way to the general's tent. The general was an elder salamander and there were a few more powerful elite guards around the corners of the tent. The negotiations went south almost immediately when the salamander boss says something misogynistic. This moment actually had me torn. Do I betray character and do the smart thing, or do I be really stupid and go with my character?

The latter won and she let off a maximized mind thrust into his skull and a quickened energy missile (cold) to blast his guards. Then spend a round or two buffing myself and wade out of the tent, letting off energy balls, energy bursts, everything I've got for maximizing the number of targets. The camp is chaos. I've got flying spears going for me, energy retort is blasting back as best as it can, and I'm hemorraging HP and PP as I go at it. The party notices and starts fighting their way out to come get me as fast as they can. I'm working my way to them, slowly through the hordes of salamanders that want me dead. I've got like 2 HP left, and just enough PP left for one good blast. So I do it. Fully augmented, overchanneled, widened, empowered energy burst (cold). Next thing everyone sees is a massive 80' radius crater of frozen earth engulf me. I go down to the overchannel damage and a salamander coup de graces me.

I'm not sure what the EXACT killcount was at the end, but my DM tells me my last stand basically cut their forces in half. They scatter after a few more rounds of the melee-ers hacking their way through them like a chainsaw. The party arrives at my body and due to the epic nature of my death, the DM decides I'm satisfied on the other side and un-rezzable. Kinda sucked, but you know, it WAS epic.

AslanCross
2010-06-20, 05:57 PM
My Elf Silver Pyromancer had 16 HP left and was facing a balor summoned by Acererak's Simulacrum in Prisoner of the Castle Perilous. He used a Maximized Sacred Flame (sacred damage) Orb of Fire against the balor, killing it.

The balor's death throes incinerated him.

Ranos
2010-06-20, 05:58 PM
I played a ghost, father to the BBEG and ultimately responsible for his madness (failed magic experiment, which had also resulted in my death). My reason for lingering on this plane was to atone for this, and when it had become clear that it was impossible, I did the next best thing.
We died together as I held him in my (telekinetically enhanced) arms in the middle of his collapsing throne room (the artificer could blow stuff up pretty good). In the epilogue of the campaign, it was said that whether we went to Celestia or Hell, we went together, for no force in the universe could break that last embrace.

All my other deaths were pretty lame by comparison.

Critical
2010-06-20, 06:08 PM
My halfling wizard suicided by his own raven familiar, which plucked his eyes off. That was pretty awesome. :smallbiggrin:

Analytica
2010-06-20, 06:18 PM
This was in a VtR (Sabbat) game. I was playing Friedrich, a ventrue antitribu ancilla (~200 years old vampire) modelled after "Otto" in the movie "A Fish Named Wanda". A moody, romantic fascist with a tenous grip on reality.

Friedrich had entered into a dysfunctional relationship with a young Toreador neonate with an equally tenous grip on reality, and let her convince him to use his Dominate ability (mind control) to help her blood bond the other vampires in the city to like her. Of course this was detected, and we were sentenced to death by the end of that night's gathering.

Before the night was over, we had gathered a lot of explosives. The initial idea was that we would just blow ourselves up, but then, the neonate got cold feet and ran away once the fuse had been lit (in the end, she made a farewell speech and blew herself up anyway before the other Sabbat). The very resilient Friedrich held onto the grenade as it went off, but survived, smoking and bitter. After ranting a bit on how you could never trust women, he decided to leave.

Now, several other vampires had the ability to summon someone against their will. To avoid this, Friedrich Dominated a random car driver to put a stake through his heart, put him in the trunk of the car, then leave the city.

Of course he forgot to specify what direction. They crossed into werewolf territory, the werewolves picked up the scent, and... :smallsmile:

Volos
2010-06-20, 06:35 PM
I had a player of mine die from a level 1 commoner. Commoner stats. Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1. Seriously. The commoner decided to attack the player in the defense of his farm. I was, or atleast for this campaign, rolling infront of the players. So I roll. Nat 20. Crap. Okay, so I go to confirm the crit while all the players are laughing at the barbarian for getting hit by a stupid 80 something year old commoner. Nat 20...again. Now the laughing has stopped and everyone is looking at the barbarain with very serious looks. I explain to him that the poor guy needs another 20 to even hit him, much less kill him instantly. The barbarian's player calms down a little bit, so I roll again. Another F***ing Nat 20. Now he's looking at me as if I've cheated him or something. I say that the dice must be broken or something, so I roll again for the hell of it. Nat 20.
So in the end not only was the barbarian killed by a 80 something commoner with all stats a 1, his soul was also obliderated by the awesomeness of a quad-nat-20 roll out. I don't think my players ever messed with the townsfolk ever again.

Another_Poet
2010-06-20, 07:33 PM
I had a player of mine die from a level 1 commoner. Commoner stats. Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1. Seriously. The commoner decided to attack the player in the defense of his farm. I was, or atleast for this campaign, rolling infront of the players. So I roll. Nat 20. Crap. Okay, so I go to confirm the crit while all the players are laughing at the barbarian for getting hit by a stupid 80 something year old commoner. Nat 20...again. Now the laughing has stopped and everyone is looking at the barbarain with very serious looks. I explain to him that the poor guy needs another 20 to even hit him, much less kill him instantly. The barbarian's player calms down a little bit, so I roll again. Another F***ing Nat 20. Now he's looking at me as if I've cheated him or something. I say that the dice must be broken or something, so I roll again for the hell of it. Nat 20.
So in the end not only was the barbarian killed by a 80 something commoner with all stats a 1, his soul was also obliderated by the awesomeness of a quad-nat-20 roll out. I don't think my players ever messed with the townsfolk ever again.

Just one of the reasons why "triple nat 20 = insta kill" is a bad houserule.

Still, it's a good story :)

Sc00by
2010-06-20, 07:35 PM
My best ever death was directly attributable to excess alcohol consuption on my part and thus I can't remember it... :)

It involved a Dragon and a hole of some kind. I think?

Talon Sky
2010-06-20, 07:42 PM
I was playing a half-elf bard, and my party was a human druid and a half-dragon (no class until we reached his LA).

We stumbled across an army of goblins, and we were level one (except for the half-dragon's LA, but we're talking like 10,000 goblins). We were meant to head back to the capital and warn them, but for whatever reason we decided to rest for the night. The next morning I set my bard about finding food (always put ranks in Survival). The other two, in a brazen moment of geniusness, go to spy on the army.

And promptly get captured.

So it's up to me. Instead of, you know, going to the capital....I sneak along a mountain ridge above the goblin army. The DM was nice, thinking I only meant to make sure my companions were safe, so he placed them relatively near the mountain, tied up.

My bard buffed up, and jumped down into a pack of surprised and screaming goblins.

Through some amazing good roll, he actually took down about 20 goblins before the tide started to turn. Everyone was amazed, and the druid and half-dragon started trying to get loose (Escape Artist and Str checks respectively). But by the time they got free, I was cut off by almost fifty very angry goblins, albeit my bard was standing on a rather large pile of dead ones. He got killed off by the time the dragon hacked his way there, but they got the body of my bard and managed to get away (our DM is realistic, but not too harsh).

This was actually one of my shining moments in D&D, I really loved feeling like a true hero. Yeah, there were smarter options I could have chosen, but this was the coolest and worked out in the end. I can't remember this character's first name, but since then I've used the surname Kingsbane for most of my characters in his honor.

theos911
2010-06-20, 07:59 PM
@Admiral Squish
I Remember your story from one of the other character deaths threads abouta month ago. I told the story to my player(s), and he laughed his head off.(Sorry when i told it, I said you were a wizard, but oh well). My favorite for when it gets posted, is a story I remember about a lich and a barbarian, going something like "Never let the world forget, WHO WAS STRONGER" as he smashed the lich through a wall and laughed maniacly as they fall into the swirling suicidal energy mass. Ya, it was awesome, so whoever actually owns that story, ya sorry to steal your thunder... Consider it a compliment to it's awesomeness.

Jokasti
2010-06-20, 08:03 PM
you go there, you go back. thats 2x whatever move.
How are you coming 5 ft short? was it 57 and a 1/2ft away?
Something like that. My DM was pretty cruel. But! It all worked out. I went on to dog-slap the Universe back into motion, and traveled to Earth. Took out most of South Africa with a sneeze, on accident.

Shinizak
2010-06-20, 08:06 PM
Killed by quote "two Kuo-Toa's magical gay hand holding powers"

>=[

Aeromyre
2010-06-20, 08:10 PM
It wasn't my death but my brother's (DoodlesD) I don't figure he'll post it.
This was back when we played AD&D, He was Orando the Elf Magic user 4th level at the time if i recall. He had a wand of lightning and rolled a 1 to hit then rolled percentile dice and got 0 and 00, the wand exploded doing more than enough damage to fry my elf friend.
To resurrect him we had to do a massive quest, by retrieving an evil tome and seeing to it's destruction...

Darwin
2010-06-20, 08:19 PM
I had a level 13 Beguiler/Shadowcraft Mage who had lived a long and healthy life as a very rich succesful adventurer until he ran afoul of a gruesome illusion trap.

The story begins when Seebo recieves an artifact, an untyped +2 bonus to Int is nothing to complain about, had it not been for a slight drawback: Whenever the wearer would attempt to teleport, or shift from one plane to another, he would instead be teleported to the lair of a great gold wyrm who couldn't care less about your puny little existence. Naturally I cast a teleport spell at some point, and I end up at the wyrm's mercy. After hours of begging, reasoning that I would be less of a pain if teleported back, rather than being kept around convinced the dragon to return me to the company of my party.

Later, as we're exploring a dungeon we come across a room disguised by Illusions. My True Sight spell reveals that what appeared to be a pristine water fountain is in fact a stone basin filled with the Green Slime, a flesh eating parasite. Cocky as I am I wander right up to the basin, having though I'd already beaten the trap. A compulsion effect goes off, and I am deeply compelled to have a drink from the fountain. As the parasite starts eating my face I panic, tearing open our portable hole to retrieve a remedy. What poor Seebo forgogt is that the Portable Hole is a pocket plane in itself, and as he jumps inside he's immediately teleported to the dragon's lair again.

This in itself would have been a good thing, had I not given the dragon a promise never to return to it's lair again after I had been teleported out the first time.

The last thing he heard as he lay screaming on the cavern floor was merely an annoyed grunt from a being who could've saved him with a flick of a claw had it not been for it's integrity.


Poor Seebo, I knew thee well... :smallfrown:

horus42
2010-06-20, 08:21 PM
My most epic death was in a nWoD Mage game. One part Heroic Sacrifice, one part falling out of a moving truck at 80 miles per hour, and one part being torn apart by a werewolf. But hey, at least I took the werewolf down with me.

Lord Vukodlak
2010-06-20, 08:21 PM
The party rogue was kidnapped by a fiendish assassin and my fighter ran off into the night without his armor to save her.

I fault off an NPC several levels above me, a few elementals and a crap load of goblins with the wizard and cleric at my side. It was my best death because I took on a challenge I knew would probably be fatal even if I had my armor because its what Zorr would do.

I had a near epic death when my Gnomish wizard charged at a huge white dragon carrying a bag of alien explosives planing on self sacrifice to blow the dragon up. The dragon rolled a natural 1 on its AoO, so my gnome realizing he wasn't cut down dropped the bag and kept running.

Danin
2010-06-20, 08:23 PM
I was playing a half-orc barbarian in pathfinder. You know, me big, smash stuff. Fairly standard deal.

Well as we all know will saves and barbarians don't mix, so when the yuan-ti baleful polymorphed me into a snake thanks to 2 natural 1s in a row, I was a little perturbed. The friggin thing then transforms into a snake itself, identical to me, and tries to escape. Since the others had retreated out of the room at this point, when two snakes came slithering out, one past each group, they made the same assumption.

They met up in a hallway each holding a dead snake, one with an arrow through it and the other having been chopped in half lengthwise with an axe.

Well, they don't have enough money to raise me, so whats the next best thing they figure? Reincarnate. So they find the friendly neighborhood druid (who had already brought back our previously-elf rogue as a dwarf), guess what one is right (correctly) and bring me back...

... as a gnome. I take a good long look at my squishy pink naked gnome body. Take a look at all my gear, now too big for me. Turn to the druid, hand her money for another reincarnate and tell her simply:

"This won't take long. Kwan shall pray for a swift death" and march back into the dungeon naked. I then grappled and punched a black pudding to death so I wouldn't loose a level when I came back...

Umael
2010-06-20, 08:24 PM
It was a little one.

(Oh, wait, you meant gaming deaths. Nevermind then...)

gbprime
2010-06-20, 08:33 PM
Most memorable death...

D+D 3.0 campaign, playing a fighter/rogue. We get a treasure item which apparently has charges of 10/+1 damage reduction. We are attacked while still counting the loot. The wizard throws it at me and says "here, this will make you invulnerable". that's all my character knows about the item, but I trust the wizard.

So... I charge the Glabrezu demon by myself. it's attack of opportunity was a crit, and I prompty died on it's next full attack action.

When they raised me the next morning, I prompty took off said invulnerability item and tried to make the wizard EAT it. Unsuccessfully. But I came close. :smallamused:

Hyozo
2010-06-20, 08:43 PM
None of my characters have ever died, mostly because I spend more time DMing than I do playing. As for deaths I've caused, my favorite was when a white dragon grabbed an injured PC and flew him almost a hundred feet in the air, hoping it would discourage another PC from spamming fire spells on him long enough for him to counterattack.

Needless to say, any PC spamming fire spells isn't likely to stop just because of that. Not too long afterward a red dragon abducted that same PC. The party decided not to rescue her.

Zombieboots
2010-06-20, 09:04 PM
I was a rogue standing at the edge of a room in which a some sort of blade trap was actively eviscerating everything in the room in front of us. The room of also dark so we could not see far into and there was a Bone Naga in the room which only my Rogue heard but could not see. Sounds very Gygaxian no?

So there my rogue was standing at the edge of the room hand on his chin figuring out hold to disable the trap from a far Spot/Search check. I drop my dice to roll the check-

Orc Druid: "This is taking too long"
Orc Druid Player: "I push him into the room."

Laughs abound.

Willfor
2010-06-20, 09:45 PM
*Snip*

I wasn't there for that session, but this is the first I've heard about what happened to those animals. :smallfrown:

Man, that was a pretty awesome campaign in general. And highly lethal.

mobdrazhar
2010-06-20, 09:59 PM
it was my first session in the game (4e) and i wasgetting to the point where the party was to meet me as it was in the middle of a dungeon that had already been started. Well the DM decided that the party would meet me as i was fighting a Dark Mantle. well to make a long story short when they met me all they saw was a Dark Mantle with some legs sticking out the bottom (i was alive at this stage) and so the Dwarf Fighter critted on Brute Strike with a Great Maul.The DM said that i copped as much damage as the Dark Mantle. Well there was the last of the Half-Orc Barbarian!

jenthedestroyer
2010-06-20, 10:39 PM
"toss the gnome"...a game the half-orc barbarian in our party liked to play with me (the gnome rogue), which eventually ended in my untimely death...this game had been a continuous joke throughout the campaign, and no one ever expected it to end in my death...and then he decided it would be fun to throw me into a horse stable, not taking into consideration that I had only 2 hit points left. The horse was spooked and trampled me.

then there was the time I played a half-celestial bard...the townsfolk were frightened of me for some strange reason and kicked me out of the town. Dm made me sleep outside the city gates while the rest of the party stayed at the inn...i was attacked and eaten by wolves in the night.

other favorite deaths include:
stabbed in the back by a carny
crushed under one million gold pieces
hit with orcus' wand...16 times in the same fight!

mobdrazhar
2010-06-20, 10:49 PM
hit with orcus' wand...16 times in the same fight!

He was just tying to Knight you?

Lhurgyof
2010-06-20, 11:16 PM
Well, one of my favorites was when I was playing Link. Yes, I know unoriginal, but I thought I did it well. Hit points were even written in hearts, each 1/4 was one hit point, the DM thought it was hilarious.

We're at the end of the Tomb of Horrors and there's the pile of treasure. I had previously ran the tomb of horrors, so as the party grabbed at it, I remembered something bad about the treasure, but not quite what.

And then the skull attacked us... I got sucked into one of it's soul receptacles. "Great" I thought "I just got pulled out of a bag of holding by a djinn and now I'm stuck in a gem. Just great".
Then it gets a dispel magic on it. So I charge the skull. Anyone guess what happens next? My soul gets sucked up again... Quite memorable.

Daelen
2010-06-21, 02:43 AM
I know I already posted, but I am reminded of another great story. I was in a homebrewed Drow game that a friend of mine ran. He had spent years working on the world and the story and it was a beautiful thing.

There were two parties, one of normal Underdark drow and one of the resistance. I played a resistance fighter, a male Drow Favored Soul of Elistraee (probably spelled wrong lol.) When he got to the Underdark from a nearby surface city, he had no idea how the Drow society there worked. He had only ever experienced what he knew from his goddess. So, he did exactly what he thought was best. He painted a black spider on his full plate armor and shield, and announced himself as a cleric of Lolth. I am sure you can see what would happen next...

Totally Guy
2010-06-21, 03:20 AM
My Green Star Adept was trying to break down a door. He gave it a good shoulder barge... and he smashed into a hundred pieces of green fleshy rubble...

Serpentine
2010-06-21, 04:23 AM
It was a little one.

(Oh, wait, you meant gaming deaths. Nevermind then...)Igeddit.
Commoner stats. Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1....what? :smallconfused: Unless you're talking about an entirely different game, I'm pretty sure even the shrieking fungus has bigger stats than that. "Commoner stats" are, iirc, 10-11 across the board. That's just... That's a lump of flesh. Even a lump of flesh would probably have better Con, though...

So, my story. We went up against Morndrax and his minions (see the Encounter Sharing Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8737530&postcount=3) in Homebrew. Also post in it). My DMPC, a Lawful Good dwarven (well, elf'd) Knight, was designed to be hit so that the others don't. So she was doing her thing, while the others were taking out everyone else (the minions were incapacitated within the first round or two) and chipping away at the minotaur.
So we were a fair way through the battle - Morndrax was getting low on health, Kariana (my Knight) was about halfway through. Then Morndrax got a critical hit. She was critically hit by the Large +1 Anarchic Flaming Wounding Greataxe wielded by a Raging Enlarged Heroism'd Minotaur Barbarian.
Everyone went for a cup of tea while I added up the damage.
If she had been at full hit points, she would've been at least in the negatives.
As it was, she was something like -50-odd, and cleaved vertically in two. Messy.
A round or two later, the Swashbuckler went down. The Rogue, from his vantage point on Morndrax's back, saw that, stabbed him in the neck, then leaped down to plunge his rapier into the Swashbuckler's heart to activate its healing ability as she gurgled her last breath, and so founded its next Legacy.

'twere a mighty fine death, and an excellent encounter :smallbiggrin:


Another time, long before that, when someone else (the Rogue, above) was DMing, with a different party, we were ambushed by an Illithid. My character was Charmed, but I think everyone else was doing some damage. The extremely intelligent (supposedly) Wizard was... paralyzed, I think, and was the primary target by the mindflayer for his delicious meaty brain. Close to being killed by everyone else, it grabbed the Wizard and planeshifted or something like that, maybe went etherial(sp?). Went to a different plane, anyway. As far as any of us knew, they were gone and he was dead.
The Wizard came out of his paralysis just as the Illithid was drilling into his skull. Figuring he was about to die anyway, he took his Staff of Power, and snapped it in half. The blast destroyed the Illithid. The DM rolled, and instead of dying the Wizard was sent to another plane. He rolled that randomly, too. He found himself on Mechanus... a few feet from several demons busily destroying some cogs.
That was the last we heard of Ilky, the ridiculous suspicious 18 Strength Elven Wizard who wouldn't even tell us how to destroy the Living Spell that we were very kindly helping him to defeat for his test and who once tried to disguise himself, without any skill or magic, in order to "inconspicuously" enter an orc pub called "Gruumsh's Eye".
He was... not very missed.

Matamane
2010-06-21, 04:24 AM
Jumping off the airship to try and grapple the rapidly moving holocaust disciple on an improved grab, rolling a natural 1 on the grapple check, and slamming into the ship as Newton's laws of physics had their way with me.

Sliver
2010-06-21, 04:25 AM
Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1. 80 something year old commoner.

So he was a kinda stupid animal who was hardly aware of his surroundings and couldn't even carry anything significant... But he started his life with only below average physical scores and negative mental scores (you get around +3 to mental scores by that age IIRC) so it's kinda reasonable. A stillborn that was kept alive until he was old enough to wake up from his eternal nightmare land...

AdamSmasher
2010-06-21, 04:41 AM
I had a character that was a diplomancing, lieing, cheating, sneaky rogue in a high level high power high theatrics campaign. He was killed in regular combat in the Uber encounter before the BBEG.

That's not important, this is:

He's standing over his body, and Death tries to take him. He challenges Death to a game of cards for extra time, and manages to haggle his way up from "no way in hell" to "One round, with perks.". He plays Death, bluffs him, lies, and cheats and wins.

The party is getting it's collective ass KICKED in the encounter that killed him. He gets back up, glowing black, and does one massive shadow pounce chain around the room, dropping everything.

He turns around, smiles like the smug prick he is, then promptly dies again.

Zanticor
2010-06-21, 05:08 AM
My halfling bard recently died in a most embarrassing way. We enter a room filled with devils and the BBEG cleric standing on a pentagram in the middle of the room. Every one has a fly running so my friend scatter across the room battling the devils. The evil cleric laughs and casts a righteous might. He knew we were coming and has buffed himself to high heavens. The small singing bard enters and of course the whole room has a silence going so no spells or songs for the bard. Since that makes him almost completely useless. There is only one thing left to do. The small halfling runs up to the edge of the pentagram and uses his flaming whip to trip the towering evil cleric, and succeeds! The rest of the guys think "oh that cool the bard can take on the Cleric himself", and continue beating their devils. The Cleric gets up looks around at his quickly dieing forces and buffs himself some more. Of course he gets whipped again and down he goes! The last of the devils die by the hand of the charging paladin and the warlock and then its time for the BBEG again. He gets up again and casually takes a swipe with his large heavy pick: critical, four times damage, one silent whipping halfling bard nailed to the floor.

Zanticor

Coy
2010-06-21, 05:57 AM
A rogue wizard (rogue/wizard) of mine was quite deserving of his death...

He was quite the pompous and arrogant, and overly confident in his superior intellect and arcane powers. This lead to party conflict, and this being an evil campaign, player versus player conflict. But no-body has died yet.

Shortly after some extremly good thievery of an noble houses artifact, sold to cabal of mages for magic items for the party, it pushed our wealth levels WAY above what we should of had. I think this gave our wizard a further boost in arrogance, and almost dies at the hands of our monk after refusing to help the party because of a very very tiny slight in manners.

After that, he becomes very quiet and helpful, after he swears inwardly to vengeance against the party.

He does this by being the only one with a decent knowledge check and a bluff check to boot, along with a portal that he knows has been sabotaged.

Long story short, the rest of the party gets instantly incinerated while our wizard cackles to himself at his cleverness.

He is now even more unstable thanks to his success, and at point one in the future (with the rest of the new party he had to recruit after the loss of the old one) tries to destroy a clearly very poweful NPC whose boots our wizard liked the look of.

Instant mass hold person on all of us, the wizard saved (thanks to that crazy wealth level) and one other new party memeber saves. The wizard tries to flee, but is zapped by disintegrate (which he saves), some evards black tentacles (thank god for verbal action only teleport spells), and eventually manages to cast fly and get away.

On the route of his escape, he asks the other non-paralyzed party member to help him, but he refuses out of fear. The wizard remembers this, buffs himself to armageddon levels of destruction, flies invisibly above him (once the NPC's has left and the others are now safe) and procedes to insta-kill him because of his refusal.

That night, another party member decides (a very wise decision) enough is enough, and coup d'etat's him in his sleep with a blunderbuss, and alot of explosives.

The reason it was the best death? Because the wise party member's character thought it was best to quickly kill the wizard, who he decides it was best to kill BECAUSE he was killing people too quickly.

That was alot of fun for everyone,

Nihb
2010-06-21, 06:35 AM
In our group, I believe I'm one of the few who lost the most characters. My deathes are rarely memorables. Death by plot (tortured to death), death by ice (fighting prone on ice against golems), death by critical at low-level (against a hag), death by being sneak-ganged upon when the party's ninja went in invisible mode to prepare a Death Attack, attacked by wraiths and critted...

My only memorable death was after an adventure we just had. We were a few XP from our level and the DM decided to split the party and make a random encounter. The first party got a monster, dispatched it with ease. The second, we fought a wyvern, fumbled a lot, failed my fortitude against poison (a ninja dying of poison, how sad). I didn't get my level.

The most heroic death I could have has been robbed from me. We were fighting some big red demon, I don't remember anymore. We needed to retreat, the thing being a tad too strong for us. We fled in the corridors, about as fast as the demon. Seeing as it gained ground on us, my kobold ranger decided to stay here, in the corridor, to block the demon. I thought, it'll give them time to flee, even if he overruns me.

Yeah... the demon had teleported just outside the entrance.

Greymane
2010-06-21, 06:39 AM
One of my favorite and most successful characters ever. It was an Elan Psychic Warrior, whose favorite trick was Expansion, claws, and grappling with some Hostile Empathic Transfer on the side. While his origin story is less than heroic (ran away like a coward from the war in Damara against the Witch King), he spent his Elan life trying to atone for that.

His death, sadly, was terribly anti-climactic, except for, possibly, the end.

You see, he had lived a long time in the Underdark and hated Mindflayers. So much so he dedicated himself to their destruction (Illithid Slayer PrC), and was quite talented at it. After he and his compatriots had made a nuisance in the affairs of the Illithid, they began to get hunted by them. However, my character was unable to be scryed upon, so they relied on more mundane tactics in his regard...

An Illithid Assassin with an Intelligence score in the upper forties ambushed him in his room at an inn. He paralyzed him, and attempted to probe his mind, which failed everytime. His psycrystal attempted to become a nuisance, as I manifested Expansion to make it bigger, and attempt to grapple the mindflayer. The Mindflayer responded by planshifting the psycrystal. :smallfrown:

The mindlfayer grew so irritated with my resistance to mind-probing for answers on where to find things, and how much we knew, that he ate my brain. Sadly for him, the DM ruled it tasted awful, on account of my Illithid Slayer levels, and so he vomited it back up.

I died, but I irritated and left a bad taste in the mouth of the most intelligent mindflayer in the entire realms in that campaign.

Jera
2010-06-21, 06:55 AM
I was playing my Kinder Sorcerer a few years back, and we were up against a red dragon. The dragon was kiting us, keeping us pinned down to the side of mountain and not realizing this was the DM's way of telling us to go into the mountain I cast Baleful Polymorph;

Seven natural 1's later...

The dragon fails its fort check, I failed my chaos check and am unable to determine what the dragon turns into, the DM turns to the random mundane creature table and comes up with a cow(Yes, we know by RAW cows do not classify under Baleful Polymorph, but this is Chaos we're dealing with.)

The Dragon turned cow was heading straight for us retaining it's velocity.

I fail my reflex save.

And the dragon turned cow hits me and deals 327* damage killing both the dragon and me.

*We use the Gygaxian 1d6 per 10 foot per 10 foot fallen RAI rule.

PanNarrans
2010-06-21, 07:18 AM
Not mine, but one of my players.

In this oneshot, the city was being terrorised by a Ripper (Cityscape). It was an Overwhelming encounter for the party, but I hadn't optimised it, they're all pretty good, and it's horror. The party included a quack doctor character, always extolling the virtues of the weird potions and poisons she kept on her.

After two previous encounters with it - which went badly - they found themselves bloodied and weary in the haunted cellar of an abandoned mansion. The Ripper charged through them and grabbed the quack doctor - the rest of the party flailed ineffectually at it for a round, and it tore her in half and ate her.

This meant it also ate all of the acids, poisons, potions, powders and nostrums she had on her. It died, writhing horribly and foaming at the mouth.

panaikhan
2010-06-21, 07:28 AM
The most stupid death I ever witnessed, was in a high-level campaign where the multi-classed dwarven fighter/thief (2nd Ed) was sneaking up on a regiment of orcish bowmen.
He managed to make it undetected to a nearby bush (50ft away). He then proceeded to yell his battle-cry, and take a pot-shot at one of the 20 orcs with his crossbow. The orcs responded by filling the air with arrows. After calculating the hits, Mr Dwarf was struck by 10 arrows tipped with Death/20 poison.

Player: "What do I need to save?"
DM: "It's irrelevant. You're dead."
Player: "No man, I have a good save against poisons - I'm a Dwarf. What am I rolling?"
DM: "Look. Even if you save every time, you're still taking 200 + 10D6 damage."
Player: "You're not letting me save?"

Rothen
2010-06-21, 07:35 AM
I once played a Paladin Gish in an undead campaign. (He had the serenity feat and a dip in a Cha-based casting class, IIRC)

We'd fought our way through the deserted city and into the castle that was now the home of a BBEG's lackeys, an undead Death Knight of sorts. I never got to see his statblock, but I think the DM overestimated the party a bit.

We were beaten pretty badly.

After our trapfinder (Rogue?) died, we decided to try and make a break for it, because almost none of our attacks were landing.
We retreat, but we fail to lose him in the halls, and he keeps beating us up prety badly. So my Paladin turns around.

"You cannot pass."

Everyone on the table goes quiet.

"I am a servant of Pelor, wielder of etc" - Or I would've said that, had I not burst out laughing after the first sentence.

In the end, my paladin survived about 5 rounds with defensive tactics.
All in all, a pretty nice way to die.


My 1st level wizard died in a barfight that he didn't cause. Stupid Fighter.

Inhuman Bot
2010-06-21, 10:33 AM
As a level 2 Arcane Mechanik, I died from taking 900 damage, in a 2x2 square explosion, created by myself.

big teej
2010-06-21, 12:51 PM
i have four stories to relate, 3 of which are character deaths, and the last is a story of how our group killed the baddies before the campaign got going.


*all three character deaths happened to the same playerbeing the only one of our gaming group to post on the forums, i shall relate them to you

Tavar - human dragon shaman
party: Human Barbarian, Human Rogue, Human sorcerer
for the record, no one in the group counts this towards our character deaths (as explained below) but it was TECHNCIALLY speaking (sorta) the first death of our group

my friend had agreed to DM, but was absolutly stumped to create a dungeon and i offered to do it for him (having several crazy ideas floating about) so anyways, long story short and getting to the death as quickly as pandaliy possible: we had made it all the way through the dungeon and fought the boss (a very large orc and it's kobold minions) tavar had been pummeled down to about 2 or 3 hit points. after looting the corpses, we headed back to a very large and ornate door that we had bypassed in favor of the boss room (yes we metagamed the hell out of this one, much to my chagrin). so the barbarian prys open the doors to this final room, now... me having designed the dungeon, i knew what was in there, and, me being obsessed with the symbol spells at the time (i blam varsuuvious and xykon) the room had one of each symbol on each wall.

now tavar's player had decided our group needed a cleric, and was willing to play one *insert rant* so he was going to check the room out for traps, since he was expendable. he made it almost to the treasure chest in the center before being killed off by the symbols of pain and death (he made the saves for the rest)

since this was a metagamed suicide, nobody counts this as our first death.


Kelvar - gold dragon disciple
party - dwarf knight, human druid, half giant psyker*
*player was missing this session

to avoid the temptations of spoilers, i shall only give the actual combat encounter.
we were fighting a young blue dragon (not the age category, we don't know how old it was, but it was obviously young enough for a 3 man group at 4th level to take it) after realizing that we were not easily dealt with (i threatend to turn it into a trophy mound, and dodge the ensuing lightning bolt completely) we had been fighting it for several rounds. and it had reduced the knight to about half health (it was focusing on him, given that he kept calling it unsavory things + knigth challenges) anyways, i'm going to stop rambling now. the Kelvar also told it he was going to make it a trophy rack as the beast was attempting to fly off and escape us. this enraged the dragon (who knew that Kelvar worshipped gold dragons) the dragon turned about, and hit him full on with it's lightning.... Kelvar became a crispy critter... however, due to it's enraged bloodlust, roche (the knight) was able to smack it in the belly with his axe and issue a call to battle, which the dragon was forced to meet in melee (having just used it's breath weapon) and was promptly butchered by the knight (the druid spent most of combat keeping it entangled)


last,
Trant - Human Paladin
party: none, solo campaign
DM: ME :smallbiggrin:

Trant, having defeated the Orgg and earning his spurs as a knight of the order of the fiery heart, proceeded down the mountian where the fortress monastery was located, to the town of hearth. Hearth was responsible for keeping the fortress fed, and used to stable many of their horses, and other basic needs as a 'home base' for starting out knights such as Trant.
Trant headed to the tavern/inn and encountered -gasp- AN ETTIN who was doorman/bouncer of the hearth and helm. inside he met a bard named phillip, who told Trant in exchange for a little help he'd split half of whatever they found with him in a cave just a few miles out from town, Trant agreed and off they went. inside the caveish complex, the discovered phillips last buisness partner, who had several holes in him that humans normally don't have. they contiued on until they heard a loud 'creeeek-thunk!- and a ballista bolt carreened past them, followed by several gnomish warriors. battle ensued, with trant putting two of the gnomes to flight in as many rounds with his hand-and-a-half sword and phillip trading blows with the other two gnomes (total of four) Trant then turned and dispatched one of the gnomes fighting phillip (cleaved him in half if i recall) but simultaneously phillip was struck in the knee by the gnomes morning star (crit on phillip) trant proceeded to kill the last gnome as well (another crit) and lugged phillip back to town. after taking him to the temple/hospice of shallaya, Trant headed back to the cave, he explored past where he and phillip had gone and encountered a room with 4 gnomes in it! two of the gnomes from earlier (both covered in bloody bandages) rushed him, while a third in the far corner took aim with a crossbow, and a fourth in the opposite corner began wheeling a ballista about. after tradin blows with the gnomes, Trant retreats out into the hallway to see if the gnomes will follow him, they do not. trant readies his magic shield and rushes back into the room and sees that the two injured gnomes are helping what appears to be the leader wheel the ballista about. Trant changes course and flattens the crossbow wielding gnome into the wall, the two injured gnomes rush him, in an impetous charge, Trant attempts to overrun BOTH gnomes, and does so... kinda, they all fall to the ground in a tangled heap, trant lashing about with his metal incased limbs, while the gnomes attempt to stab dirks through the joints in his armour, crushes one in a bearhug and deals a blow to the skull of the other that caves it in (unfortunately he's already been stuck with the dagger a few times, and it is still protruding from a gap in his armour) as Trant stands up to collect himself before rushing the gnome at the ballista, he hears the now all to familiar creeeeeak-thunk! of the ballista firing, followed by a cruch of crumpled metal.... he looks down and sees a ballista bolt protruding from his chest.

after the damage was calculated up, he was at negative six and fading...
the player DID stablize at - 9, but having no way to get out of his perdicerment, the player simply wanted him to die...

so Trant bled out in a crumpled heap amongst the bodies of his foes...

his gear is still there, awaiting the next PC adventuring party to discover it. the gnome leader was suspicous about equipment used to kill gnomes, so while he stripped the corpses of his henchmen bare, Trant's body is unmolested.... you know, aside from being impaled on a ballista bolt and being dead




the story of killing the baddies
*warning!* this is HUUUUUUGE, because i'm copying this over from a PM where someone asked me for the long version. (this is also the story of the barbarian from my sig)


this thing is huge you have been warned :smalleek:

I'm not even kidding DON'T read this unless you are really bored
alrighty. you asked for it ^_^

well, several months ago (real time) our group had decided we were going to start a campaign and STICK WITH IT. (our group has a history of 'sticking' to a campaign for.... an average of about 1.7 sessions, with maybe 3 campaigns lasting longer than 2 )

anyways, so this is the 'set-up' session. where the BBEG's and any minions or recurring villians are going to be introduced.

the party consists of
me and my uber barbarian:
Cog Skulltaker, barbarian of khorne! (blood for the blood god!!!)

cog's sheet
(it's big!)

Character name: Cog Skulltaker Player name: Tyler Jones
Class and level: 3rd level barbarian Race: human
Alignment: TN Deity: Khorne

Size: medium Age: 22 Gender: male Height: 6’6 Weight: 275 lbs
Eyes: storm cloud grey Hair: black Skin: white
Theme song: metal storm/face the slayer

Hit points: 35 - 4 = 31 – 1 = 30
AC: 17
BAB: +3
Strength: 18 [+ 4]
Dexterity: 17 [+4]
Constitution: 17 [+4]
Intelligence: 15 [ +3]
Wisdom: 12 [+1]
Charisma: 9

Saving throws
Will: +2
Fortitude: +7
Reflex: +4

Speed: 40ft
Vision: 70 ft
Climb: 5 ft
Listen: 60ft

Backstory feats/Special bonuses:
Low-light vision
Keen Senses: + 2 spot and listen checks
Disciple of khorne 1 of 20

Feats taken
Cleave
Power attack
Uncanny dodge
Trap sense +1
Weapon focus (great axe) + 1 to attack roles







Skills
5 ranks in spot
4 ranks in tumble
5 ranks in listen
5 ranks in move silently
5 ranks in intimidate
4 ranks in ride
4 ranks in literacy
1 rank in sense motive

Weapons in use
Great axe + 1 of multi-striking + 1: full attack d12, moving d10 crit range 20
Axe spike + 1 : full attack d4 moving d3 crit range 17 – 20 (minor lockpicking)
(4) Throwing hammer: d8

Equipment/gear:
studded leather armour
2 trophy rings
Battering ram

Items and possessions
Spare clothes
Humanoid doll
Skull goblet
3 sapphires

Languages:
Common
Bloodspeak
Demonic language – chaotic *pending infernal or abyssal

XP: 212of 3000

money

Heroic achievements:
-edited for purposes of this story-

To do list
*** disciple of khorne = chance to IGNORE magic, of all kinds (applies both to friendly magic and enemy magic)

the dm's brother JC, who was playing a.... sorcerer.. I think, yea it was a sorcerer. (human)

person who's house we meet at was playing a.... "rogue" (despite having a d6 hit die, this rogue's stats were nearly as good as cog's and often served as a secondary tank)

and last, the third rotating dm was playing a dwarf cleric of thor



now i know it may seem rather.... self centered to be able to rattle off all of Cog's stuff by memory and struggle with everyone elses characters, even their names, BUT, humor me for a moment. no one else in the group invests as much time in creation of characters as i do, typically my character is the only one ready to be rolled when i show up(and almost always the only one with a name) etc etc. i can go on about that in another message, if you'd reeeally like to hear me rant.

so anyways, technically speaking this was a 'third' session (we'd hopped contiunity about 3 times with rotating dms but keeping most of the 'plot' "intact")

the session was going to revolve around us tracking down a merchant who had sicked some (rather incompetent) assassins on us in order to avoid paying his full promised price for a +3 falchion no one in the party needed/wanted.

incompetent assassination


the party was walking from point A to point B (point B i believe being a wizards tower, but don't hold me to that)so Cog walks past a building, dm tells us all to roll a spot check, entire party rolls low, like abysmally, oh crap roll new characters low. then the DM rolls for whatever is after us. and he rolls worse than us (double 1s) so off of this building fall two black clad thugs, right in front of us, the party proceeds to trounce them.

so long story short, via a rather.... extensive, interogation by the party of one of the assassins we discover that they were sent by aforementiond merchant 'jok'
so the party concocts a plan to raid the house.

I don't remember the plan that well (it is largly overshadowed by the punchline to this story)

but essentially, the plan revolved around the 18 charisma female sorcerer with ginormic boobs (yes, we all smacked JC around for this, and he is no longer allowed to cast spells for having huge boobs)

getting back on track, the rogue was styled after a witch hunter, broad brimmed hat, trench coat, etc, so the plan was hilariously simple (and juvenile)

the rogue, was a pimp, the 18 charisma sorcerer, a harlot, and Cog? the muscle

the cleric was to stand watch outside (we couldn't figure out how to get him in as part of the plan)

so, we make it into the house, the guards to the merchant/noble quarter buy the story, as does the doorman.

so jok comes to meet us, (cog had hidden in the room so he could jump out and nab jok and carry him out wrapped up in a carpet)
recognizes the rogue and bolts before cog can nab him. and then part of the ceiling falls in on the divan the rogue and the bimbo... i mean, sorcerer, are sitting on. followed by two more black clad assassin/thugs, the rogue makes his save and dives out from underneath the falling ceiling, the sorceress, kinda.... made it out, but he/she/its leg was trapped underneath, Cog tells the rogue to chase jok while he deals with the assassins (by painting the room with their inards) so while cog is busy chopping henchmen and furniture to pieces with reckless abandon (and wanton joy) the rogue... (aha i remember his name) cyrus chases after jok and after searching for the right door bursts into joks bedroom, where he finds the merchant, talking with a man in black, SURPRISE ROUND, cyrus rolls a 20 on throwing a javelin, and pins this spellcaster (man in black) to the wall like a bug, killing him instantly, he then punches out jok's lights and wraps him up in a swanky carpet. (meanwhile, downstairs in the reception room, cog has liberally redecorated and freed the sorceress)

we book it outa the town and about half way to the woods that surround the city so we can ...'discuss' things, with jok in privacy

the interogation, not necessary to the punchline, but you said long version


Cog being TN/CE plainly told jok that he had no qualms about breaking very important bits of anatomy till he got the information he wanted, starting with his fingers. he then proceeded to break one after jok answered a question (just to prove he could)
so back and forth cog and jok go with questions, insults, and finger breaking. until finally cog decides fingers arn't important enough. and kicks in his teeth in. and threatens to have the sorceress cast.... oh dear what spell was it... some 0 level cold spell that would have seeped cold directly into the broken teeth, jok caves, and in exchange for us replacing his teeth (which to our surprise, were all fake to begin with) he agrees to never bother us again and tell us what we want to know... (yes, i know it didn't make sense, but we went with it, the dm finally just flat out told us that jok would hold to this) just to assuage my paranoia, we threatend to remove his regrown teeth (with my boot) should he ever go back on his word...
thus leading us too the important information that....
dun dun dun
that an evil caster was going to attack the lord of the keep!
HOLY BAT GUANO BATMAN! TO THE BATMOBILE!

unfortunately the party cannot convince anyone in the town of the danger, and thus we go about our buisness and prepare

-speed of plot- three days pass... i think

DM: you awake to the sound of screaming and alarm bells

party: the city is under attack!!!

we then proceed to book it to the city's keep. which, coincidentally, also held the city zoo. leading too

AN ENCOUNTER WITH A CELESTIAL LION!!!
which we managed to sneak around, (since half the city guard was trying to capture the beast) and entered into the keep. we ended up having to fight a baby "dragon" (in hindsight it was more likely a drake of some sort, as it wasn't even as long as cog's arm). we eventually find the basement, and enter.

now at this juncture, i'd like to explain the disciple of khorne a bit more in depth, as it impinges upon the next scene, however, it doesn't add much to the punchline, so you may skip it if you wish


khorne is the blood god, god of war, slaughter, wanton destruction etc. he HATES magic. and i felt that it would be representative of khornate worship to have some sort of ability to ignore magic. (i cribbed the idea from a book i read, a demon of khorne was bound by -evil faction- and the only way they could keep it dormant/under control, was to chain it up and pump the blood of casters through it's veins, net total effect: -evil faction stronghold- was impervious to magic) now, being the blood god, and me having played that up whenever possible. often argued that more blood = more power

the party enters a chamber in the basement, the DM speaks:
as you enter the chamber, you notice several things simultaneously, first, the room is COVERED in blood -i raise my hand to speak once he's through) second, in the far corner of the room, you see the lord of the manor stapled to the wall by large iron spikes, and his belly has been cut open, one of his intestiens has been pulled out, and is now being used for a jump rope by a man dressed in black robes (not the same one from earlier, not the one pinned to the wall via javelin)
the DM pauses and asks me what i need to say
i ask "so... how much blood is covering the room?"
the dm gestures above the table (about 3 inches of blood cover the floor) sooo....... would that be enough blood to enhance the discipleship of khorne?
the DM thinks for a moment and nods, telling me that for duration I am in this room, i have a 3 out of 20 chance as opposed to 1 in 20.
the DM continues:
the robed man spots you all and laughs maniacally before walking toward you, -looks at cleric player- what do you do?
(he continues around asking each of us, starting with the cleric, and ending with me)

cleric: i rush towards him and draw my warhammer
rogue: i throw a javelin and then rush him
sorceress: i cast enlarge person on cog
me: Cog howls "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! and charges, raising his axe -cog becomes enraged-

again, not a huge impact on the punchline, but, as mentioned before, you wanted long version
party standard operating procedure


the short version of the party S.O.P. was 'enlarge and buff cog, and watch him obliterate the room in two swings', nobody liked it, not even me, but it worked, and i enjoyed being 13 feet tall

the Dm speaks, pointing towards the rogue,
' the man in black gestures and your javelin bounces off of him and richochets into the wall'

-party turn-
cog stops to throw a hammer at the man in robes
the cleric continues his rush (on his wee lil legs and ard boots)
the rogue stops to put on his spiked guantlets
the sorceress cowers.

the DM speaks
the man in robes points at you -points at cleric- and utters an incantation, you're limbs sieze up, you fall on your face and skid several feet through the blood

the man points at you -points at rogue- as you are putting on your gauntlet, and you go flying

-party turn-
rogue and cleric are frozen, sorceress is goofing off (both in game and out)
cog will reach the caster on his turn.

the DM speaks
the man in robes gestures repeatedly with his hands and then points in your direction.
me: ha! i have a 3 in 20 chance to ignore it -rolls-
DM: he didn't cast ON you, he cast AT YOUR FEET
me:
DM: you feel something solid in front of your legs and you trip.
me: DAMN!...........waaait.
how far away from cog is the caster?
DM: about ten feet...
me: >=] COG IS THIRTEEN FEET TALL @$$HOLE!!! YOU JUST DROPPED A HALF TON WEIGHT ON YOUR WIZARD!!!
DM: - rolls- -fails-
DM:... you... uhm........ you fall on the wizard, smooshing him into the ground with your forehead, killing him

party: -celebrates loudly-

and thus concludes one chapter in the saga of Cog Skulltaker

and now for the edited bit from his character sheet
-written in character-


Heroic achievements:
While enlarged, after being tripped by level 7 wizard, I fell on him, and KILLED him. Earning 500 exp. And leveling up to level 2. I am the ultimate badass

in conclusion:

the session ends, partly because of what the DM is about to tell us -see below- and partly because that was the extent of what he had prepped for today

*The Big Reveal*
and the punchline

as we are packing up our dice, shutting down our laptops, and cleaning up the food (and i still occaisionally gloat about smooshing someone)
the DM speaks: yea... guys, uhm, that wizard at the end? he was the BBEG of the whole campaign
party: =O
DM: yea, uhm...... he was a level 7 wizard, and was meant to be the BBEG of the whoooole campaign AND a recurring villian.... and the guy that cyrus killed earlier? yea.... he was the BBEG's right hand man.



I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and my story
this is to the best of my memory (with certain events being given creative liscense) what actually happend on that day.

OMG PONIES
2010-06-21, 01:12 PM
In a Dragonlance campaign of ours, my always-conniving NE beguiler had developed a fondness for our group's kender rogue, kind of a mother-child thing. We were approaching what we knew was the end of the campaign, and we were all expecting something big. We were not disappointed.

Our kender ran off chasing somebody into a warehouse, starting a horribly lopsided fight (split party, tricky terrain, etc.) that ended in the death of the kender. There was much sadness all around, but we had to press on to stop the BBEG. I'm sad that I don't remember more of the actual plot, but it ended with us winning an epic battle and some celestial being popping in to say "thank you" and offer us our prizes, essentially in the form of a Wish. One character regained his lost kingdom, another got a sickening amount of loot, etc. We get to my character, the contract-saavy businesswoman.

Me: "Just bring him back."
Angel: "What?"
Me: "Luckyfoot. Bring him back."
Angel: "I know it's difficult for us to lose those we care about, but I can't just--"
Me: (tearing) "Take me if you have to, just bring the little guy back. Please."
Angel: "Very well. Come with me."

In the end, the character who the party was expecting a betrayal from winds up sacrificing herself just so a kender could live again. The DM said that this act of selflessness was so huge that it redeemed my character's soul, securing her a place in Celestia. So, she had that going for her. It wasn't an epic action scene, just a small part of the epilogue, but I love that my shrewd wheeler-dealer was reduced to pleading for the only person she had ever cared about.

Shadowbane
2010-06-21, 01:21 PM
Throwing an artifact helm into a star to destroy it, then having the star turn into a black hole.

Yes.

Mauther
2010-06-21, 05:02 PM
My most flashy death: Fighting a group of Frost Worms (yes they’re supposed to be solitary, and now we know why), my wizard pops some damaging juju on the silly beasty killing her as planned. Not part of the plan, she explodes as 20d6 worth of damage washes over me, miraculously I survive. I’m feeling pretty good about myself and dodging death when one of the players points out that not only were most of the party in the blast zone, but so was the other Frost Worm. Enough of the blast is non-cold to finish worm #2 off, resulting in another explosion. Another 20d6 washes over my poor little wizard from the back… There wasn’t even a smudge left. Took out most of the party too. Good times.

Not my death, but a barbarian in the party gets snatched by an old red dragon, and the wounded dragon flies off with him tucked in his claws. The barbie continues to attack despite being grappled, cutting into the dragon with a pretty butch dagger. He actually manages to kill the dragon, while in mid-flight. The DM points out before the damage is finalized that they are several hundred feet in the air and that the fall will most likely kill him. The Barbie declares no mercy, guts the dragon in midair, and is then crushed in the subsequent fall and buried under several hundred pounds of dragon. When we did a speak with dead, the Barbie refused to be resurrected and demanded his body be placed back under the dragon corpse, what he called his cairn.

apolloxi11
2010-06-21, 11:43 PM
My best death was at my hands as a DM. One of the players in my group had killed off my rouge with troll using rend when he had DMed the previous campaign which he had ran. But I got the last laugh with the next campaign, where I did the same exact thing to his rouge. He still owes me a beer.

Balain
2010-06-22, 12:56 AM
We started as first level. Playing the wizard tried to be threatening and flashy, "Beware your doom is before you...yada yada yada" while waving my arms around. Kobold throws dagger, critical hit killing me


Call of Cthulhu, in a late 1920s setting.

This reminds me of a campaign I ran. The party didn't die but were the cause of small towns to be destroyed horribly.

First town they visit one of the party members trying to sneak around and the cultists notice him and they start blowing up buildings with dynamite. Now granted the cultists were planning to do it eventually after some other plans but the party member caused it to happen earlier before they could stop the cultists.

The next small town they enter trying to defeat a Dark Young they summon a leng spider. Okay they weren't sure exactly what the spell would do but figured it might help . The fight moved into town causing half the town to go crazy. Then the leng spider turned on the town cause the party didn't know the bind spell was a different spell so the rest of the town went crazy and then more got eaten.


The third and last town the party entered they messed while trying to stop some machine and ritual that caused all the original town members/buildings/animals to merge and become mutilated odd creatures/buildings with all the current(1920) town people/buildings/animals

Whammydill
2010-06-22, 08:03 AM
I made a bard with Perform: Vuvuzela... My DM promptly had my character be massacred by swarms of giant killer bees. It was great!

Viskocity
2010-06-22, 10:00 AM
Not my own, but two of the better ones from the campaign I'm in. Both involve various vermin for some reason.

The first was at the very beginning, at level one. Our party's barbarian decided to make a dynamic entry into a fight against one (1) dire rat. He leaps down a flight of stairs, totally botches the landing, and slams into the floor face first. Next round he is poked to death by the rat.

Next one happened after part of our party had been captured by a (small) BBEG. We were bound in chains against a wall when we saw a couple of vipers approaching. Hoping to appease them, we got our party's monk to sacrifice a couple of toes (yeah, I know). Unfortunately, he fails his saves and dies minutes later. The plan worked, though...

Snake-Aes
2010-06-22, 10:28 AM
I made a bard with Perform: Vuvuzela... My DM promptly had my character be massacred by swarms of giant killer bees. It was great!

Was he a master?
http://apps.startribune.com/blogs/user_images/randmid_1276895543_vuvuzela.jpg