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gallagher
2010-08-04, 01:17 PM
i must say, there have been quite a few deaths throughout my RP career that i am ashamed of, and i am sure you have some too. here is mine, its 3.5

i was foolishly playing a dwarven defender (it was an extensive dungeon crawl, and i was a new player, but i was advised that it would be a decent meat shield). we had with us a charging Frenzied Berserker, an assassin, a cleric and an Evoker. we were going into the cave entrance and the frenzied berserker decides to check out a room because she saw something shiney.

wouldnt you know it, inside, there was a vampire with a few spawn and some other undead. we have no idea what happens inside the room, because the DM pulls the player to the side and talks with her for a minute after a quite roll (wouldnt you know it, its a will save). but the rest of the room came out to mean the party, which kills the assassin and uses up most of the clerics resources (alot of poor rolls). i am dutifully keeping the wizard alive, and he foolishly decides to throw the biggest boom he could and kills off our cleric. great.

now we finish off the undead and stuff that came out of the room, and as we go looking for our berserker buddy, she walks out of the room in a frenzied state. boy howdy, she is being controlled (i think dominated, i dont remember for sure) by the vampire, who was invisible to us. guess what happens? you guessed it, charge, ran around me, and power attacked the wizard for full with her valorous glaive with a leap attack thrown in. the wizard is down, and it is up to me to outlive the frenzy and kill the vampire, then take all the bodies back to the town so we can resurrect them (ended up rerolling everyone). but, lo and behold, i am a useless dwarven defender, stuck in defensive positions, against a frenzied berserker with reach.

i ask for 5 minutes to look through some books, while the other players get a few drinks or something. in the time i bought, i looked through the quintessential monk II for grappling techniques. i figure, as i had a pretty good strength score and with the right rolls it could work (i doubted i could do anything otherwise, again, i was a pretty new player. heck, i only knew of teh quintessential monk II because i played a monk in my first game!) and found what i was looking for. choke hold. i decided that i would try and knock out the berserker.

anyway, as i was more than 5 feet away, and didnt want to take teh AoO, i decided to take my turn taunting the berserker. guess what happened in the next turn? if you guessed that the vampire would make his appearance, you were right. if you guessed that he was going to grapple me and bite me and drain some of my Con, you are even more correct!

even worse, teh DM was the type who ran games to try and TPK us as fast and as often as possible. he gave the vampire a belt of battle, used it to gain another standard action, and turned gaseous. now i am by myself, worse HP, and prone (i dont know if it is RAW, but according to the ***hole DM, you can not grapple while standing). five foot step by the frenzied berserker, full power attack, full attack, dead. the terrible DM won.

anyway, what is one of your embarrassing deaths?

Kaww
2010-08-04, 01:26 PM
(i dont know if it is RAW, but according to the ***hole DM, you can not grapple while standing).

anyway, what is one of your embarrassing deaths?

You can pin while standing easily. I don't know about the rules, I know about real life.

As for an embarrassing death. I was sleeping and I was pulled out of a tent by ghouls in front of our guards who didn't notice it and was killed. Never played with that DM since...

Snake-Aes
2010-08-04, 01:27 PM
Short Group's wizard died in an incredibly lame and un-int-18 way, we were lvl 5.

dm: npc <lvl 17 guy> goes to enter the portal to hell
wiz: i go with him
dm: he says "Do not follow me. I cannot ensure anyone's safety"
wiz: ok
dm: npc enters the portal
wiz: i wait a few moments and sneak in
dm: as you enter, a fireball explodes and you are hurled back into the material plane.
<rolls dice>
dm:congratulations, you're at -13.

Eldan
2010-08-04, 01:48 PM
My very first death.

I was an elf wizard, level 2.

DM: "So, you have killed the sentry, but made a lot of noise in the process. The rest of the orc army is now running at you over the hill."
Me: "I loot the corpses!"
DM: "An army is running towards you, they are only carrying basic gear, and you are looting them?"
Me: "You're right, that's stupid. I shoulder the two corpses and run, so I can loot them later!"


Yeah.

gallagher
2010-08-04, 01:52 PM
My very first death.

I was an elf wizard, level 2.

DM: "So, you have killed the sentry, but made a lot of noise in the process. The rest of the orc army is now running at you over the hill."
Me: "I loot the corpses!"
DM: "An army is running towards you, they are only carrying basic gear, and you are looting them?"
Me: "You're right, that's stupid. I shoulder the two corpses and run, so I can loot them later!"


Yeah.lol, how foolish to think that an elf, even when not a wizard, would have the strength to carry a pair of corpses

Eldan
2010-08-04, 01:54 PM
It was my second session ever, late in the evening, and I was tired.

gallagher
2010-08-04, 01:59 PM
It was my second session ever, late in the evening, and I was tired.

of course, i am merely amused by the picture in my head of the whole situation

Malificus
2010-08-04, 02:00 PM
It was a Vampire the masquerade campaign. I had a Lasombra die because they were hiding in a dumpster from a powerful Hunter, when it was apparently garbage day. It took me two more characters in as many sessions before I said 'screw it,' and made one too strong to kill.

Tshern
2010-08-04, 02:03 PM
A friend of mine was lured to dive into an underground lake. The DM mentioned that there were some shiny stones there and the character jumped right in. Other players felt kind of obligated to let the stupidity have its price.

Traveler
2010-08-04, 02:21 PM
It was an almost embarrassing death. I was on my own trying to get a level. Ran into a behir that was equal to my challenge rating. Fought for awhile and managed to pin it down so it couldn't move. Now I was pretty beat up and should have peppered it with arrows, but I had a shiney new hammer and wanted to use it. Well, I forgot behir has constrict and I couldn't get out of the grapple checks. So the DM basically said I had won save for being stupid right at the end and had a outsider that owed me a favor save me. The behir had 4 hit points left before it grappled me :smallsigh:. Thankfully, the party dosn't know about that incident.

Amphetryon
2010-08-04, 03:34 PM
I keep telling this story enough I ought to save it to a wordpad file for convenience. :smallwink:

Spoilered for hilarity length:3.5 game with an old-school DM who still has, and uses, a book of weird magical artifacts from 1e. As one of our treasure hauls around level 6 or so, we got 1) a Portable Hole and 2) a big overstuffed chair that just oozed magic. We got it Identified and Legend Lored to be a chair that transported its occupant from any point in our prime material plane, through the astral plane, to any other point in our prime material plane. Hmm, seems useful. Fast forward a few sessions to find that the plot needs us to be on the other side of Faerun, considerably quicker than our newly-7th level Wu-Jen could get us there. We had a bright idea. All but one of us hopped into the Portable Hole, with the one with the highest UMD left outside to shout 'All Aboard!', settle into the La-Z-Boy of Translocation, and proclaim the activation word. The activation word, naturally, activated the curse. Captain UMD was gagged and bound to the chair, by the chair, which then teleported to a random spot in the middle of the woods. He was going to be stuck there for several hours before the chair released him, and we would be stuck in the Portable Hole until he released us. DM told him that as long as he didn't roll a random encounter, there should be no issue. Cue the Natural 1 on the random encounter check. We still had a couple of outs, as the random encounter table could have given us merchants or similarly innocuous beings. Of course, Captain UMD rolled up... wolves. He was devoured where he sat in the chair, and we, stuck in a folded Portable Hole in his pocket that the DM ruled (before the activation word was used) that he needed to release us from, suffocated to death. TPK by La-Z-Boy and Portable Hole. :smallsigh:

Dr Bwaa
2010-08-04, 03:46 PM
Hehe. This wasn't my death, but it was pretty funny.

Our party is high-level (around 14-15). The party is split (always happens in this party) and several of us are fighting for our lives against higher-level wizards in a small room. There's a wall of fire in the middle of the room to block their LoS, but they Wall of Forced the door (underground, so no windows) so we had to stand and fight (our sorceress has no teleportation magic). However, we do have a message, so we've called to the monk (who has really good items that make him actually decent), and he's on the way.

The sorceress and I (fighter-type) are barely holding our own against the two wizards, when our monk arrives. He's been told there's a Wall of Force, but regardless, knowing the impossibilities of it, makes a leaping kick to attempt to break it down. He rolls a natural 20 on his jump check, so the DM asks him for a STR check. Natural 20 there too, so the DM let him shatter the Wall of Force, ending his movement inside the room in front of the stunned enemy wizards. One of the stunned wizards quite appropriately decides this new guy is a threat, and quickened-true-strike-Disintegrates him. And the monk botches his Fort save. :smallfrown:

ryzouken
2010-08-04, 04:03 PM
We-ell... Pathfinder Walls of Force have hit points and Hardness...
Amazing stuff though.

I guess while I'm here...:

Epic level game, I join late and roll up a quickie to play alongside my friends. They say they need a rogue since their last one had to quit, so I draft up a Teflammar Shadowlord rogue thing. Trouble is, skill points in 3.5 come at a premium, even at epic, but I was barely able to scrape together enough to cover the roguey basics, or so I thought.

The setting: Forgotten Realms, in an arctic region where there's a huge dead magic zone (that we didn't know about til we got there!). Our party heads toward the dungeon, me in the lead, and note our magic items suppress. "Well, no helping it, just gotta keep moving forward." Across the ice floes we go until, without warning, the ice beneath my character explodes before a pair of great, clawed arms and a large toothy maw. Down into the arctic depths i go, grappled, it turns out, by a dire polar bear. In a dead magic zone. No free movement for me, no spiffy strength or dex boosters, no teleportation shenanigans, can't even do my shadow jumping junk. I am up **** creek and my paddle's back in Neverwinter. "But wait!" exclaims my party members "You're an epic level rogue! Surely you have a significant Escape Artist score!"

NO! Remember how I said skill points are at a premium? Escape Artist managed to fall just beyond the cusp of necessary skill point expenditures into the land of "If I just had one more skill point per level." To make matters worse, the dead magic zone extended a mile under the ice floe. My poor rogue drowned that day, but at least that d*** polar bear got what was coming as the wizard PaO'ed an orca into a half dragon orca and offered up the polar bear as a snack. Serves the fuzzy demon right.

I still don't take Escape Artist ranks. The story still gets circulated, and each time the teller receives an indignant middle finger from me as I curse about epic freaking polar bears in dead magic zones. :smallbiggrin:

Origomar
2010-08-04, 04:10 PM
Hehe. This wasn't my death, but it was pretty funny.

Our party is high-level (around 14-15). The party is split (always happens in this party) and several of us are fighting for our lives against higher-level wizards in a small room. There's a wall of fire in the middle of the room to block their LoS, but they Wall of Forced the door (underground, so no windows) so we had to stand and fight (our sorceress has no teleportation magic). However, we do have a message, so we've called to the monk (who has really good items that make him actually decent), and he's on the way.

The sorceress and I (fighter-type) are barely holding our own against the two wizards, when our monk arrives. He's been told there's a Wall of Force, but regardless, knowing the impossibilities of it, makes a leaping kick to attempt to break it down. He rolls a natural 20 on his jump check, so the DM asks him for a STR check. Natural 20 there too, so he shatters the Wall of Force, ending his movement inside the room in front of the stunned enemy wizards. One of the stunned wizards decides this new guy is a threat, and quickened-true-strike-Disintegrates him. And the monk botches his Fort save. :smallfrown:

what he gets for try to be a show off! :P

I have done the impossible! *disentigrate, gust of wind*

Zieu
2010-08-04, 04:15 PM
My first real campaign and character, relatively simple dungeon crawl. We were running away from some water elemental that we couldn't converse with and assumed was hostile (turns out it wasn't, actually would've helped us progress, but I was new and didn't argue otherwise) when we came to a ladder. Very tall ladder, something like a 100ft climb to a tiny hole of light above. Fighter goes first, followed by NPC Cleric, Sorceror, Me (half-elf ranger), then the Barbarian. Fighter is attacked by some flying creature that grappled her and tried to pull her off the ladder, but we eventually killed it off and the fighter reached the top. She was promptly asked for a Will save, which she failed miserably, and immediately became paralyzed. At the top of the ladder.

Everyone below her heavy armor-clad ass is told to make a Reflex save or get hit by her. Cleric? Makes it. Sorceror? Fail. Me? Fail. Barbarian? Makes it.

After contemplating the situation, I asked the DM if I could make a Strength check to determine if I could hold onto the ladder despite being hit by our blundering companion. Sure, he says.

It didn't really matter of course because I had a heavy Fighter and a sorceror weighing down upon me, but I'm sure rolling a 2 didn't help much either.

Now, REALLY afraid about losing my first character, I did a little bit o' math and figured out that at 2nd level and my current HP, I could survive the 10d6 fall damage if he rolled consistently low. So I asked him if he'd roll them in front of me:

6.
6.
4.
6.
DM: "....do...do you want me to continue?"

So I died miserably. The Sorceror had 1 less die of fall damage because my body absorbed a bit, but he died too. The Fighter also died, albeit just barely.

The incident was henceforth referred to as "Whump, whump......SPLAT"

Shinizak
2010-08-04, 04:39 PM
Me and a friend died due to two Kuo-Toa's "magical gay hand holding powers"

Panigg
2010-08-04, 04:53 PM
My level 11 fighter died to 4 clerics with scrolls of harm that were cast as a spell (not a melee touch). The best part? There was a knight in front of me and some ghoul thing behind me, so they could've never made it to me.

Yes I know, it wasn't my fault, except I should've told the DM that he should read the description of the spell again.

It was an honest mistake tho. :P

Harris the Ford
2010-08-04, 05:09 PM
I had a 4th level warmage named Sam Sirus (a pun off of serious sam) that was involved in a raid against the forces of Hexxtor. The big bad of the dungeon was a stone giant or something like that, sitting there in the middle of the room all alone. we roll initiative and I come up last. after a few rounds of blasting (I had a super high int so I was doing a lot of damage but the thing wasnt dieing so I ran up to it and delivered my biggest boom in my book. After nuking half its max hp it turns to me and full attacks. 4th level warmage with an average con vs full attack from the big bad... yeah I ended up at something like -23 hitpoints. all this because I had forgotten that our tank was DMing (we did round table dm) so now the joke is whenever someone casts Cure Serious we would have a moment of silence for my brave warmage.

Lothmar
2010-08-04, 05:17 PM
Okay, it's a 3.0 pirate's campaign - half the party has been captured for various reasons/ship wrecks and are being escorted by imperial galleon to the main content. Im an Ogre from the oriental countries, the imperial red coats had never seen anything like me and were taking precautions (lots of extra security, chains, a pair of guards with a small cannon). But im just sitting there, occassionally looking up at the other two with me in the cell who occassionaly try to talk to me - etc. I dont let on that I can speak common etc but they eventually Sense motived that I could understand them. So anyway, the ship is attacked by a small group of pirates with the other two members at it's head.

The guards are nervous and start facing down the hall with the cannon and with the help of one of the pirates I manage to free one arm and as our rescue starts to come downstairs and the guards light the fuse I nat 20 my held action and smack the cannon with the chain I pulled from the wall and flipped it backwards at the guards as it goes off.

We have some fun on the way out, I end up stalling swaths of enemies by pulling up the anchor chain and anchor and using it is a swinging weapon, I've got Cleave, Great cleave, Cleave asunder and everything else is dedicated to a 'sunder' build. So, I get my initiative and notice a sniper in the crows nest and a line of redcoats lining up on the decks to hurt me, Guess what. Boom nat 20 max damage on the mast, it's severed and begins to fall, the anchor cuts through the first rank of muskets and the mast crushes the second rank because our DM lets us have a luck stat and allows us to roll random extra things on occassion a number of time's per day equal to our modifier and I used my +1 to roll change the random direction dice by up to 2 positive or negative (which landed it right where I wanted).

So, our group has the boats ready, both row boats for escape etc - one tied to another. So I get on my boat and we cut the ropes and fall into the water. I realize I weigh to much with my anchor & chain makeshift weapon so I get one last good swing into the side of the ship and rip open a nice big 30 foot gash because I can use cleave on sunder attempts, it would have been bigger but I rolled minimum and got 1 under total break on another 5ft section so the anchor was wedged in. So I start rowwing as the rear boat keeps us covered from the imperials who try to shoot at us, we get to port and we montage to the equivalent of tortuga because it's a new session.

So on request of the 'captain' NPC I go into the bar with him reluctantly while everyone else is shopping even though he keeps making witty comments about my height and jokingly prodding me no matter how much I tell him to stop or i'll hurt him with high enough intimidates to leave him shaken each time. So, while im eating at the table next to the bar where he's talking things over with the bartender - a group of 20 or so pirates walk in the door and form a near tripple half ring around the captain.

They start talking about debt / blah blah blah - plot lead in information and I stand up slowly when one of them tries to get me to leave by brushing my food off the table and yelling because they're getting everyone to go etc. *Touch attack, Grab - TOSS out the door* "A spill for a spill," I grumbled brushing off my hands, im reluctantly about to leave because they're yelling etc and about ready to draw weapons if I dont, when the captain pops out from their periment in front of me and starts talking boisterously about his new body guards etc. Im like 'you have got to be kidding me...' And I begrudingly stay there because he's saying 'any proposition you have for me, you can say to me crew. Isnt that right Mongo?' He adds slapping me on the back to which I say "Didnt I tell you not to touch me so freely?" and slap him in the back of the head subdual minimum damage etc.

DM doesnt explain anything as the 20 or so enemies open fire - on me even though they're pissed off at my 'captain' and were looking to kill him anyway. They all roll low/crappy but it's nearly enough to kill me overall so I decided to intimidate them a little by Rolling one of my Clan Techniques and manage to make all my fort saves etc individually and ignore all the damage at the loss of con that wont hurt me until after the encounter etc.

They're standing there shocked as they listen to all their bullets clinking to the floor as I stare at them angrily through the clearing smoke. Dm rolls crappy trying to smooth over the situation with his NPC captain and I roll a fumble on a self imposed save on whether or not I was going to return the favor. And so I grab the weapon they bought for me in port (another anchor chain) and yell "No more cowards weapons!" And sunder through each of their drawn pistols with my first attack, second attack cleave through the second row, third attack the third row because of awesome combat rolls. Effectively breaking 20 pistols in 3 attacks. "GET OUT!" I say and half of them accomidate, a quarter are shaken and the rest are simply nervous/too TO'd to be afraid cause pistols are rare and expensive in thiss world (apparently not rare enough if everyone in the crew has one) so the captain NPC run's out with the crowd as I start fighting off the 5 rogues willing to engage me.

Anywho, the party hears the commotion and slowly comes to investigate. Unfortunately they meet the captain first, who explains the situation 'badly' to say the least. "I dont know what happen, he suddenly struck out in a rage and some old acquantances I was trying to do business with attempted to defend me -blah blah blah monster blah blah blah..."

So, the party arrive's im half dead from a minute of fighting off sneak attack flank monkies and im beating the enemy captain with his own luitenant - and taking the situation at face value - they engage/open fire etc. one of them may have been willing to talk, but I was in a barbarian rage so I cant think clearly/etc to his diplomacy as he 'command: sits' me. Im mainly not listening because a person before him and two people after simply attack me in various manners. Of course, im down after that initial salvo 'unconcious' and even though half the party wanted to break initiatives one of the other party members said no because he was half spec'd for Coup de Grace and had a loaded blunderbluss. So *POP* goes ogres head and I leave the table for the night (would have probably killed the party if I had rerolled that night). Sad thing was, the party still defends their choice 'Even out of context'.

fryplink
2010-08-04, 07:57 PM
The party wizard and the party rogue were being chased and so they trapped and explosive runed a door that the chasers had to go through to get to them. The Chasers later used scry-n-die to get into the room (knowing that the door was trapped) so, naturally, when the enemy appears they retreat through the trapped door without thinking. The good news is the wizard was holding the MacGuffin so if was destroyed with his corpse, and the bad guys never did get to take over the world

Edit for more:
The LG cleric was escorting a group of evil ex-cultists (still evil, just not as evil) who were selling cult secrets out to a good king when they were attacked by bandits. How does the Cleric kill the bandits? Holy Word, you know who else died? the cultists and the LE party ranger was also blinded

Lycan 01
2010-08-04, 08:20 PM
Inadvertent Heroic Sacrifice.


It was in a homebrewed World War I era wargame, and my squad was taking part in street-to-street combat. We enter a building, and suddenly find ourselves in a point-blank firefight for our lives. We're all hunkered down behind some overturned tables, the enemy are all hunkered down behind some overturned sofas and chairs on the other side of the room. Suddenly, a grenade lands right in the middle of us. The rest of the squad tries to make a break for the door, but half the team fails their saves, so they're gonna get caught up in the blast. While not fatal (we were Dwarves - URAH!!) it would have stunned them, and the enemy could have just popped out from cover and Coup De Graced them. So, I did what had to be done.

I tried to pick up the grenade and throw it back at the enemy.

Unfortunately, I rolled a 3. The good news is, the blast didn't cause any serious damage to my comrades, and only one of them was lighty stunned, so he was dragged out the door by the rest of the squad. The bad news is, I lost my entire left arm and my entire body was peppered with shrapnel. Bleeding out, my stunned and deafened Sniper drew his revolver and fired off one last shot at his hated enemy. The shot missed, of course, but he died with a grin on his face, knowing he'd saved the rest of the team.


Then the GM told me OOC that I'd basically killed myself for nothing, since the blast would have only lightly wounded 2 of us, maybe stunned one or two of us, and the enemy wouldn't have had time to shoot the dazed PCs before they staggered out the door. It was a bit aggrivating...

But I felt a bit vindicated when some of the other players agreed with me, and their characters actually lit a candle in an alleyway and held a short funeral for their fallen marksmen.

aivanther
2010-08-04, 08:49 PM
D20 Modern. My character was dared to take a leak on the wall of the enemy base. My character went ahead and did it. DM rolls a d20 then says, "uh, we're on the east corner right? "As you feel relief you suddenly feel a sharp pain...and then a burning." Roll a reflex save.

I roll a 3

"You're locked in pain as the burning sensation continues. Roll a fort save."

I roll a 1

"You take...ah he**, a lot of electric damage."

Yeah, apparently I peed on some sort of electric box and died...on a dumb bet.

sdream
2010-08-05, 09:39 AM
I'd been studying very young dragons, and knew they had low CR and small breath weapons.

My DM mentions our party sees the wizard we've been chasing (research wizard, more like artifacer, rather than a boom save or die) riding a dragon on top of a tower.

I can see the dragon is only large size, and only barely at that, so it is a quite young dragon. I constantly tell everyone else it's just a baby dragon and we don't need to worry at all.

Then after I threaten the wizard, his mount flies down and breathes - I fail an pretty easy reflex save, he rolls basically all 6s on the breath and just barely exceeds 50 damage, and I fail my fort save against massive damage.

Still the only time this character has died (and we just completed Tomb of Horrors and reached level 11), and it was an instagib from a monster I had just studied and repeatedly dismissed publicly as no threat.

Morph Bark
2010-08-05, 10:15 AM
I was playing a Half-Fiend Drow Wizard//Rogue with massive Int and skill ranks maxed or near-maxed, our second campaign ever. In an encounter with some Yugoloths I decided to go around the Nycaloth that was in charge so I would be flanking him and would get Sneak Attack. Missed since Strength and BAB were still pretty bad combined. Next turn? Got critted by the Nycaloth swinging an axe my way.

That's actually the only death in our campaigns ever to have happened in the midst of a campaign rather than the end. He got reincarnated though, but not as something as physically great as a Half-Fiend Drow.

Xallace
2010-08-05, 10:27 AM
A giant leech fell on me. During a "cutscene." :smallfrown:

In a 4E game I ran, we had a number of embarrassing near-deaths. The party paladin was the biggest crit-magnet I'd ever seen, and would often be struck down within the first round of combat and lay there dying for the rest of the fight. He never got to actually defend anything.

Thorcrest
2010-08-05, 10:43 AM
This is During my first Campaign.

We had been tasked with exploring a Wizard's Tower, not sure why anymore, but that is unimportant. We eventually came to a room which had two stairwells, one up and one down, and we couldn't decide which way to go. The Party consisted of A human wizard, an elf wizard, a human Druid (animal companion had died earlier in the tower when we werejumped by bandit rogues), and a Dwarf Monk (me) and this was the forth (fifth?) adventure in a campaign. The wizards wanted to go up, and I wanted to go down, the druid did not really care. We decided to split the party, report what we found in the next two rooms and then return here to decide on the plan. The Wizards were fine using summoned creatures as meat shields/trap detectors and the two rooms brought them to the top of the tower after fighting absolutely nothing, but smashing down a few doors and deactivating some traps (read: Used Ogres as shields).

We went down and came into a small hallway. Partway down, we triggered a trap that I had failed to detect, but I passed my reflex save and took no damage, but the Druid was hit pretty hard. Anyways, we came to the end of the hall and fought some form of mini-boss (some type of giant), and easily take him out (note that I did most of that due to the fact that the DM had been nice and allowed me to get some great magic items which increased unarmed damage, one of them being some robe which added 2d6 per hit and another giving me another d6, as well as several armour enhancers so he just couldn't hit me). We then noticed that there was a small room, attached to this one and a corridor. In the small room there were several glass vials, and we figured they could be worth something, so we brought them into the "giant's" room, and then the druid decided to have a peak down the next hall while I grabbed the last of the glass.

So, he heads down and sees a small pool of water, but not much else, and not wanting to explore solo, waits for me to arrive. I, however, found a that the last glass bottle said "good for one wish" on the label, and was filled with smoke. We were low-mid level, so I figured this had to be some kind of trick, but my character thought it would be interesting to see what it was, so he opened it, and a black cloud came out with glowing red eyes and laughed, while I heard the sounds of breaking glass in the other room,before disappearing. Looking into the other room I notice that the glassware has been replaced with several ogres, a troll, and some Kobolds that see me and start rushing the doorway, I decide to wait within and simply use the doorway as a chokepoint to prevent more than one from attacking me. It worked well, and I brought down a couple ogres when the Druid heard the sounds of battle.

He decided to come rushing back to help me and fight these creatures. He managed to kill a few Kobolds, but was already low health from a trap and an ogre brought him down to just above zero, so he decided to retreat since he had killed everything near him, and I seemed to be ok with the troll and ogre that were left. He decided to run, not back the way we came from, but the way he had just explored and entered the room with the pool, which remember he had only viewed no entered. Well with there was a many tentacled beast, think Moria monster in Lotr. As the Dice stopped rolling, the DM ruled he had been tentacle raped... to death.

Anyways, I won my battle (due to one magic item causing fire damage to unarmed attacks) and went in search of him, seeing only a pool and no sign of him, I figured he must have run further in, and not willing to explore further than what was agreed upon, I went to regroup with the wizards to decide what we should do.

Bet no one thought the Dwarf Monk would survive :smalltongue:

That was long, so spoilered!

Serpentine
2010-08-05, 10:46 AM
Another player's centaur Ranger was killed by posies.
My bad, gotta be careful with Con damage...

Lapak
2010-08-05, 10:51 AM
Still the only time this character has died (and we just completed Tomb of Horrors and reached level 11), and it was an instagib from a monster I had just studied and repeatedly dismissed publicly as no threat.This is my favorite, because it's not just bad luck or a hostile DM or a single bad decision - it's an in-character and out-of-character dismissal of a threat coming home to roost. It's a genuinely embarrassing moment. :smallsmile:

Thanks for sharing it!

Fulkerin
2010-08-05, 10:58 AM
The first campaign I was in (3.5).

We were getting to the end of the session, and the rogue was low health. Both me (lvl 4 druid) and the cleric are out of spells for the day. We debate resting, but the dm assures us we can finish the rest of the dungeon as there are no more monsters. After searching a bit we find a room with the quest item sitting in a pedestal in the middle of it. I enter the room to get it, dont bother searching as we hadn't had any traps yet. He said no monsters... guess what he left out.

After about 4d6 of each energy damage (including positive energy mind you. But it's kinda... outnumbered), you have one very, very dead druid. Rest of the party had to make willsaves or be afraid of magic after that...

Tl;Dr: Traps kill tired druids, and leave the party rogue and barbarian aftraid of magic.

derfenrirwolv
2010-08-05, 11:07 AM
My 3.0 Conjurer has a habit of polymorphing himself into a dragon and was working on the multi attack feat with the monk in his back yard. Since the fights attracted attention , the wizard had built a mini stadium back there. The big bad wizard showed up to tell the party not to interfere, and cast insect swarm on one of the spectators. The monk ran the kid to the temple, and the wizard/dragon charged the BBG and grappled him.

BBG blew the concentration check to teleport away, and instead cast "Searing seed" ... which impregnates a character with a fiendish version of themselves that claws its way out of you in 1d4 rounds, doing 4d6 con damage. So my Wizard teleports himself to the temple of pelor and starts bellowing for a remove curse .. dm rolls a 1, followed by near max con damage, killing the male character in child birth in front of half the temple.

shiram
2010-08-05, 11:07 AM
We we're playing a scifi game based off the Star Wars Saga edition, we just removed anything force related to have a scifi setting.
First missions is to be airdropped on a battlefield, i have an npc (John D.) with the players to guide them along this first session.

He grabs the rope hanging from the shuttle and proceeds to fail his climb check, i tell my player the npc grabbed the rope to go down, but that he let go and fell to the ground.
This was ok as i wanted them to feel left alone, so that npc was meant to die early anyways.
But before i can add anything else one of my players says "I jump out and follow the npc"
Well he jumped, good jump check too, took falling damage and died as the npc did just before him... You gotta use the rope.

As this was literally 5 minutes in the campaign i gave him a do over.
We always celebrate the memory of John D. though, as now every campaign we start as an npc die of a stupid death, it adds a bit of fun.

jiriku
2010-08-05, 11:16 AM
One of my players died quite shamefully in an encounter several months back. The party ambushed a drug cartel in one of their safehouses and was engaged in some furious room-to-room fighting in close quarters. My beguiler character fired off a confusion spell in an extremely small, crowded room. I reminded him of the area of the spell and the size of the room, then asked him where he wanted to center it. He selected a spot that would include the maximum number of enemies, but also included his druid ally who was in tiger form. The druid failed his save. No problem, right? Maybe he'll just stand confused? We rolled "attack nearest creature." Still ok. There are five adjacent targets. He's only 20% likely to attack his friend. We rolled...the tiger attacked the beguiler. Still not a problem! The beguiler used an immediate spell to halt the druid. ...aaand the druid saved. And Attacked him. And grappled. And raked. And scored two critical hits. One self-inflicted tiger-mauling? Check.

Kol Korran
2010-08-05, 11:42 AM
Here is the tale of Kharandor, our heathen dwarven fighter. Why do i say Heathen? because we're playing in the FR, and our DM quite likes it, and so said we should choose the gods we follow. this guy said he doesn't believe in any poxy gods. this will be importent later on... please read.

oh, and one very importent note: we're quite certain the DM doesn't want to kill us, and we suspect that at certain times he has gone out of his way to avoid killing us. so this is not a case of a meany meany DM.

when it all began:some time ago, we're in the shadow plane investigating some canyons of evil or whatever, when the bloody dragon that has been harrasing us for ever appears again. as has become a tradition, our dwarf feels the frightening Aura, says "Mommy! dragon!" and runs away. as is tradition, I as the cleric follow him to hopefully get in reach of a "remove fear" spell. we enter another cavern, where we meet a gorgon! i fear the gorgon's save or stone, but Kharandor's player's boast- "finally! an enemy i can defeat, my fortitude save is sky high!"

he charges. the gorgon breathes, and he rolls a 1... luckily for us the gorgon's handler had a scroll of break enchantment for later. now you guys would say- a lucky fluke? we shall see.

more stony fun: another adventure, we almost finished with the damn dungeon, where we search the high cleric's room. suddenly 3 undead shadow basilisks appear from under the bed... you guessed it? "i have the highest fort save!" followed by a natural 1. (only the rogue and me weren't stoend in that battle, and fought the beasties with eyes closed and puny spells. hillarious battle). by then my cleric allready had a break enchantment spell.

the very next day: long story short, we were supposed to fight some unique monster that guarded some portal. we prep up real nicely (potions,m spells, bard songs) that when the monster shows up, we reap it up nearly to dead before the fighter gets to act. angry, Kharandor charges, gets in reach, get bitten, critical, 54 hit points. "roll to save against massive damage" "how much is it?" "15 i think" "no problem, i have the highest.." that's when his gaze froze. slowly he rolled the die. one dead dwarf.
desk head smash. "my dice are cursed" "this is because you didn't choose a god!" luckily for us, we had teleport and therefor access to greater ressurection. it was just money after all...

The Battle of Cloudkills: some place in the underdark, yet another door to another temple. we make some ruckus, and all the place defenses come upon us. the defenses includ some sort of demon (Mezzoloth?) that can cast a cloudkill twice a day. and the can summon other mezzoloth, oh, and our wizard favorite spell is... you guessed it. there were 9-11 cloudkills in that battle (i don't remember), and Kharandor was caught in some of them. the player nearly cried then, and i sure am glad i saved a few scroll of lesser restoration and a scroll of restoration.

inqueries about religion: the player started to inquire me about dwarven gods in the FR, and we played it as if the cleric has been speaking with him the whole time about religion, trying to spark that divine spirit within him. he decided to do a did- he'll forge a holy symbol to represent his new belief. sound simple, right?

only problem is: we're in the middle of zhanterim occupied territory (bad guys), and though we're posing as merceneries, it will be hard as hell to just use the local forge (which is used to fix and resupply the occupiers). so we concuct a ruse- i'll say this dwarf mercenery of mine wishes to use the forge for a day, and that we'll pay for the use. besides, his expertise in crafting might come in handy (he put ranks in it).

but the dwarf needs to play it right, and not blow his cover or he is in deep s**t. so we add a little detail- Kharandor is mute, and doesn't hear that well. we ask the DM if that might be plauisble, and he says that the bluff DC will be very low.

not low enough that a natural 1 can't mess it up it seems. he was caught in the spirit of his dwarven god, and absentmindedly began to sing hymns.
that could have been a very very hillarious death if he had not acted VERY swiftly, and VERY resolutley. he (and we) nearly died twice in the escape.

The Dwarf died out of a Symbol trap or something (i forget), again a natrual 1was paralized upon his paralized pegasuss and sank into a river (dying out of a natural 1), adding a god didn't help, changing dice didn't help, and the player is stubborn (as well he should be!) and won't change character. but finally he got that feat that makes a 1 not an auto fail, and it had saved him twice so far.

tl;dr: dwarf fighter rolls a LOT of 1's on fort saves. hillarity ensues.

Morph Bark
2010-08-05, 11:52 AM
A giant leech fell on me. During a "cutscene." :smallfrown:

In a 4E game I ran, we had a number of embarrassing near-deaths. The party paladin was the biggest crit-magnet I'd ever seen, and would often be struck down within the first round of combat and lay there dying for the rest of the fight. He never got to actually defend anything.

Heh. Oddly enough, in the same campaign my Wizard//Rogue died in, the Half-Dragon Woodling Human Paladin//Cleric and the others went to find a higher-level Druid or Cleric to get him back, and when they fought a corrupted aberrant tree in a swamp, the Paladin//Cleric got smacked down by it and kept in the negatives constantly whilst a summoned unicorn kept trying to heal him faster than he got damage.

Everyone was extra surprised the tree could actually hit him so easily too, since he had a lot of armour and natural armour.

Basically, that battle was one of the longest ones with only a single enemy, and featured a lot of wood-on-wood beating.

reptilecobra13
2010-08-05, 12:03 PM
My friend decided to run a "Back to Basics" dungeon crawl, single-class, core-only level one 3.5 game to get everyone back on track after the crazy overpowered gestalt games we'd been playing. I was playing Dorn, a dwarven cleric of Moradin, and my stats were **** because of unlucky rolls (everything was exactly by the book, including rolling for starting gold). Luckily for Dorn, the dungeon was full of undead! Our DM had forgotten how much having a cleric around, even at level one, can trivialize encounters based on fighting undead, and the rest of the party was thrilled to have me around, despite my limited heals (yay for natural 20s on turn attempts!). Anyway, we had been in this dungeon for a couple of days, trying to solve some of the puzzles within and letting me recharge my heals between combat sessions. One fateful day, while exploring a basement, a creature falls from the ceiling and grapples my face, doing enough damage to drop me to -7. We had a couple of potions of cure light wounds on us, but the thing was attached to my head, so my mouth was covered (think facehugger). Dorn, the party cleric, was unconscious and dying, so what does Monty, our wizard decide to do? Instead of making a heal check to stabilize the dying cleric, he uses his one attack spell (Ray of Frost) against the thing on my head, and misses, hitting me instead. It took them over a month (in game) to finish the rest of that dungeon because they had to rest for several days after every battle.

Lhurgyof
2010-08-05, 12:52 PM
My most embarrassing death was when I was playing the Knight of Ni (Pronounced Ku-Nig-get of Ni), Who was a night/night protector and he had an AC of 40 or so.
So, we're in this premade dungeon designed to be the "prelude" to Tomb of Horros.

And there's a bodak, so I make my knowledge and put up the tower shield. The DM read the entry and said that it merely had to look at me to use its death gaze.... and so I was dead.

Another was a fellow of mine, just created a new character, a rogue pretending to be a ninja. First round of combat, he crits himself with a thrown CLUB and brings himself to -9. He dies the next round as someone crit fails their heal.

Rhavin
2010-08-05, 01:20 PM
That sounds like one of my favorit DMing stories:

The party was trying to clear out a castle full of undead stuff and through their creativity had gone straight to the highest CR encounter in the place: a Bodak.

Combat ensues and the bodak uses its gaze on one of the party members, who makes their save. I describe the effect as the person's soul almost being torn from their body, and the party cleric (who wants to be an undead hunter) gets to thinking. The next round, the cleric (and player) shouts a the creature "LOOK AT ME!!!" so the bodak complies. I tell the player to make a fort save, he rolls, counts up all his bonuses, and replies "14". My response of "You drop dead." leaves the room silent for a full thirty seconds. The party immediately shuts the door, grabs their cleric's lifeless corpse and flees the castle.

The next time they went back, they dropped the bodak like a good habit (since bad habits are the hardest to break) in one or two rounds, but I don't think they ever quite forgot that first encounter.

chaosgirl
2010-08-05, 01:27 PM
I once rolled a really strange stat line for 3.5.

It was like 16, 16, 16, 18, 10, 4.

I had never played a Bard before, so I decided that I would take the high-scores for Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence, Dexterity, and the 10 in Strength, and 4 in Constitution.

It was a planescape game and one of the PC's was an earth elemental (I'm not sure if its an official playable race, or if it was home brew)

So at one point we find a portal and go through it. The DM VERY specifically asked the order we were going through it in.

My bard goes in first, and fails her reflex save as she drops 15 feet.

3 seconds later, the several ton elemental comes in after her, and falls directly upon her, crushing her, and her 5 hitpoints.

Yes Ladies and Gents, death by buttocks

Trodon
2010-08-05, 01:27 PM
Well not my death, but funny. (My brother's friend's character)

Okay, so from what I have gathered somehow the character (I have almost no details.) got a 12 year old kid really angry and so the kid tried to kick the character, so my brother (The DM) rolls 20, okay he rolls again 20, and one more time 20... that character got killed by a kick to the shins my a 12 year old kid.

I'm not sure if it was a house rule or not that if you roll 3 natural 20s on one attack it's an insta kill, is it?

Lhurgyof
2010-08-05, 01:31 PM
I'm not sure if it was a house rule or not that if you roll 3 natural 20s on one attack it's an insta kill, is it?

Optional rule in the DMG. Two 20's followed by a confirmation is an instant kill. It helped my monk kill a cerebrelith before, that nobody else was hitting.

Trodon
2010-08-05, 01:38 PM
Optional rule in the DMG. Two 20's followed by a confirmation is an instant kill. It helped my monk kill a cerebrelith before, that nobody else was hitting.

Sweet thanks, and nice. *high-five*

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-05, 01:43 PM
Okay, so from what I have gathered somehow the character (I have almost no details.) got a 12 year old kid really angry and so the kid tried to kick the character, so my brother (The DM) rolls 20, okay he rolls again 20, and one more time 20... that character got killed by a kick to the shins my a 12 year old kid.

I'm not sure if it was a house rule or not that if you roll 3 natural 20s on one attack it's an insta kill, is it?

Yet another reason why the instant death rule is a stupid variant. :smallsigh::smallsigh:

Thorcrest
2010-08-05, 01:45 PM
Yes, but it can be a hilarious variant in short games/one-shots. Like what happened above: pure hilarious ridiculousness.

Machiavellian
2010-08-05, 01:45 PM
Here's one that one player did recently:

We were at a tavern known as the Purple Beaver (my DM ran out of good tavern names, hence tavern, the infamous "Fuschia Catobleepas") and one player, a Half-Kobold Half-Gnome (didn't ask how THAT one worked) Swashbuckler picked a fight with the Ogre bartender. Needless to say the bartender was a 40th level ex-adventurer (one of the DM's old player's characters to be exact) vs a 3rd level current adventurer (guess how THAT went) and used his hide to wipe his counter. We all paid our tabs and left, as he died painfully.

Thorcrest
2010-08-05, 01:55 PM
Here's one that one player did recently:

We were at a tavern known as the Purple Beaver (my DM ran out of good tavern names, hence tavern, the infamous "Fuschia Catobleepas") and one player, a Half-Kobold Half-Gnome (didn't ask how THAT one worked) Swashbuckler picked a fight with the Ogre bartender. Needless to say the bartender was a 40th level ex-adventurer (one of the DM's old player's characters to be exact) vs a 3rd level current adventurer (guess how THAT went) and used his hide to wipe his counter. We all paid our tabs and left, as he died painfully.

Sounds like a really high level game world... also trying to imagine what a Half-Kobold, Half-Gnome would look like... the parents are now accepted in society in comparison to their child.

Anyways, I had one player die when his teammates (one was a centaur and the other two were riding him... don't ask) decided that instead of attacking the NPC standing over him, they should pull back to charge next round... one PC later they charged... and won the fight, though I was really tempted of having my NPC randomly Use a Healing potion he didn't have since I thought they had pulled a really dickish maneuver.

Xallace
2010-08-05, 01:57 PM
For a oneshot, two of the players wanted to use some old wild mage rules; something about spells going off randomly when you're surprised or excited or something. I dunno how it worked exactly.

So anyway, we're five minutes into the session, on an airship headed for Sharn. Some engine trouble surprises one of the wild mages, who (after some random rolling by the DM) sets of a Delayed Blast Fireball spell at caster level 15, killing us all 5 seconds later and setting the airship on fire, resulting in the crash landing and death of the remaining passengers.

Thorcrest
2010-08-05, 02:49 PM
Another one from me...

We were playing an adventure that was basically: Raid the Bandit Camp, get fame and Money.

At one point the party split into two groups, one sneaking in, the other causing a distraction (idea was that the two could assassinate the leader while all the bandits ran to the burning walls, yes the distraction was burning down the pallisade around this camp... but no that did not cause the death). Anyways, the two that snuck in myself, a rogue, and some custom minor spellcaster/sneaker character that could use a light weapon with Mage Hand, found the main building and enterred through a window. I snuck in the hall and killed two of the guards with sneak attacks, but another guard upstairs heard and started coming down, so I jumped back in the room and took cover behind the door to ambush him when he came in... my other adventurer stood in the center of the room.

I thought he might pull out his sword and go to the other side of the table, using his short sword to fight the new guard, but he just stood there. When the guard entered, he grabbed a chair and swung at the guard, breaking the chair in the process and causing minimal damage. I jumped out and sneak attacked, but missed. The Guard, taking the chair wielder as the greater threat attacked him and critical hit him, killing him in a single blow. I then dispatched of the guard and snuck out to meet up with my comerades, who also suffured some misfortune... mainly not realizing how many bandits there were and were forced to retreat, but survived.

To this day I still don't know why he grabbed the chair...

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-05, 04:17 PM
This wasn't technically death, but it was certainly embarrassing.

I was playing a teleporting parkour thief (Mage the Awakening). We were purging a city, and I was on recon. I spotted an npc across a rooftop who used to be my friend, but switched sides. He was as good at me at parkour, and better if he buffed his physical stats, which he could. The DM tells me I see him notice me and start to leave. So I follow him, seperating from everyone else in the process. After a bit, he suddenly speeds up, drops off a building, and seemingly vanishes.

I say: 'This is very clearly a trap'. Another PC (over radio) says 'Yup its a trap'. I ask the DM, 'from what I know of this guy, it seems likely this is a trap right?'. He says 'yup'

I say: 'Ok, I'm going to investigate'. Cue facepalms from everyone. Surprise surprise, its a trap, and he brains me with a piece of wood, knocks me out, and escapes.

gallagher
2010-08-05, 04:35 PM
This wasn't technically death, but it was certainly embarrassing.

I was playing a teleporting parkour thief (Mage the Awakening). We were purging a city, and I was on recon. I spotted an npc across a rooftop who used to be my friend, but switched sides. He was as good at me at parkour, and better if he buffed his physical stats, which he could. The DM tells me I see him notice me and start to leave. So I follow him, seperating from everyone else in the process. After a bit, he suddenly speeds up, drops off a building, and seemingly vanishes.

I say: 'This is very clearly a trap'. Another PC (over radio) says 'Yup its a trap'. I ask the DM, 'from what I know of this guy, it seems likely this is a trap right?'. He says 'yup'

I say: 'Ok, I'm going to investigate'. Cue facepalms from everyone. Surprise surprise, its a trap, and he brains me with a piece of wood, knocks me out, and escapes.
your DM should have screamed ITS A TRAAAAAAAAAP

Morph Bark
2010-08-05, 05:38 PM
Yet another reason why the instant death rule is a stupid variant. :smallsigh::smallsigh:

Only if you allow threat-threat-threat to do so, and then are surprised the guy with the keen scimitar gets a lot of kills.

20-20-20 is 1-in-8000, so very rare. Luck goes a long way, just as with rolling for stats at the start.

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-05, 05:51 PM
Only if you allow threat-threat-threat to do so, and then are surprised the guy with the keen scimitar gets a lot of kills.

20-20-20 is 1-in-8000, so very rare. Luck goes a long way, just as with rolling for stats at the start.

No, it's still stupid if it's only on 20s. I hate any rule variant that makes completely dumb things happen just because you rolled a 20 or a 1. Critical success/failure on skill checks is also a stupid option. "The ogre rolled a 1 on his Jump check, so instead of leaping the 3 foot wide gap and coming to kill you, he falls 1000 feet to his death." :smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:

Ankhman
2010-08-05, 05:59 PM
not mine but one of my players (as i'm the DM) ....
they were still quite lowlvl .. around 3 or 4 i think and they scouted a dungeon. the bard saw a huge gong in one room and run to it to aw it's perfect making .. turned out, it was a mimic and the gong made some funny things with the bard. the other players didn't know what to do ... laugh or help.

i was nice and he survived with -9 .... but he was never the same around gongs (neither is the player as he still blushes every time a gong appears :) )

Viskocity
2010-08-05, 10:24 PM
This was our party's first encounter with a minor BBEG who had been working under the radar for a while. He blindsides the party, gets initiative, and starts doing some strange power up ritual thing. This wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't been down three members due to the wizard casting sleep and proceeding to t-bag two helpless PCs. In a fruitless attempt to escape the druid casts entangle, catching every other character in its area. Only two characters escaped (big party).

The only upside was that it lead to a great quote.
Wizard *begins to t-bag*
Other Player "Oh god...really?"
DM "You feel a dark force draw closer." :smalleek:

Edit- Actually, our group has a very bad history with area effects. Since we don't use minis, we can't see the spatial relations between all the characters. Friendly fire isn't.

FelixG
2010-08-05, 10:59 PM
Blowing up a quarter of a hive world along with myself because i crit failed an intelligence check and figured the best way to fix a fusion reactor was to bring its containment shielding down

Shade Kerrin
2010-08-05, 11:16 PM
I had a character, based on a concept I had made before knowing any RP system rules, and I decided to put him into the 3.5 rules. He was basically an Illusionist who laughed at the idea of any deception that was even slightly obvious, in particular the "you'll never hit the real me" multi-copy trick.

After a while in game, myself and the local optimiser both came to the conclusion that Greater Mirror Image would be the best defensive spell for me, and in-character due to it being an illusion. The party later found itself on a ship, being attacked by a kraken. the beast went for me first, giving me reason to whip out the Mirror, letting me avoid its attack.

As we finally got rid of the thing, we noticed a Leviathan approaching us rapidly from the distance. Since the Mirror was still active and had time to reach the max number, I thought to myself "It will never hit the real me," just before it performed an area attack that shattered my elven wizard bones to dust.

Serpentine
2010-08-05, 11:20 PM
No, it's still stupid if it's only on 20s. I hate any rule variant that makes completely dumb things happen just because you rolled a 20 or a 1. Critical success/failure on skill checks is also a stupid option. "The ogre rolled a 1 on his Jump check, so instead of leaping the 3 foot wide gap and coming to kill you, he falls 1000 feet to his death." :smallsigh::smallsigh::smallsigh:I disagree with your opinion. Critical successes and failures can make for some of the best stories. I use the 1 = -10, 20 = 30 rule, but still.

druid91
2010-08-05, 11:52 PM
Whole party destroyed by the mama of the red wyrmling we had just killed, Except for me, I cut my losses dropped the treasure and ran, the others didn't and became a molten pile of treasure and corpse, I ran messed up a balance check when going down the rocky hillside tripped rolled down the hill and slammed into a boulder, being already injured this was enough to finish me off.

Fulkerin
2010-08-06, 12:09 AM
Blowing up a quarter of a hive world along with myself because i crit failed an intelligence check and figured the best way to fix a fusion reactor was to bring its containment shielding down


Um... quarter of a hive or a hive world? Cause if it was a world that's... a massive reactor.

FelixG
2010-08-06, 12:19 AM
Um... quarter of a hive or a hive world? Cause if it was a world that's... a massive reactor.

hive world, it was a series of reactors, cascade failure, once the first one went the rest sort of went like dominos, the rest of the party thought it was funny as hell

Trickywiggy
2010-08-06, 12:58 AM
I disagree with your opinion. Critical successes and failures can make for some of the best stories. I use the 1 = -10, 20 = 30 rule, but still.

I have always used this rule as well I love it.

The dumbest death I have ever seen is when I was dming, I made a hill giant fight and I wanted them to get a couple rocks off so I put them on top of a windy ramp that would take a couple turns to get across, enough to where it would hopefully take them forever so I could soften them up as they approached or they would stay at the bottom and wit for the giants to get angry with the wait.

Well I did not think about some possible alternatives to this, their party had a swashbuckler, a rogue/cleric, a crusader, a warlock, and a dread necromancer.

The swashbuckler and rogue decide to just climb the cliff faces and I designed the ramp stupidly enough to give them a running jump between each level and low enough to be an easy climb check, so thewy make theiur way up the cliffs in three rounds and then climb up the wallks straight in front of the hill giants. I just looked at them as they were both flat footed in mid climb holding the ledge at the feet of three hillgiants, so I said, "Well they look at you and pull out their clubs and each take one really hard swing at the two of you, I crit on all three and take them between -10 and 0. The dread necromancer wastes his spells doing phantasmal killer and blindness/deafness on the giants who have to roll a 2 or lower to fail if I remember, and the crusader with his 20 foot movement speed trots along while the warlock shoots over and over again instead of using umd with hsi cure wand and they let the two guys go to -10.

I blamed myself for the encounter a little though.

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-06, 06:34 AM
I disagree with your opinion. Critical successes and failures can make for some of the best stories. I use the 1 = -10, 20 = 30 rule, but still.

It also makes for some of the stupidest stories. "I rolled a natural 20. I jump to the MOON!"

The skill system was simply not designed with the possibility of automatic success/failure in mind. There are some things that you just should not have a 5% chance of succeeding or failing at.

boomwolf
2010-08-06, 07:21 AM
The most amusing death in a game I ran (as the DM) was not only one player, but an entire TPK, and its all the fighter's fault.



See, you got a dread necromancer BBEG. he has a big army, but really does not like to go into a fight, he does however have a (custom) spell that lets him destroy an undead and heal equal to the destroyed undead's former HP. undead not controlled by him get a save.

The party knew that, so naturally the ghoul ranger is forbidden from going melee with him. (free-willed one. hating the necromancer because he made him. so he plays along despite being evil.)
The cleric is the best anti-undead around, so he must tend to the army. he is quite bad at delivering damage to living targets however.
The sorcerer is the best crowd control (AoE mostly, taking out multiple undead each attack.)
The scout is ranged combat expert, with a bit homebrew to get archery useable. (mostly altering the limited range of thinks like manyshot and such to be 100 ft. instead of 30.)
The dungeoncrasher fighter also has improved thug variant (6+int skillpoint. hide+MS (and a few other irrelevant) as class skills, d8 HD, light armor only and he DO get the level 1 feat.)

The fighter and scout make a good team, fighter bullrush the opponents away, scout pincushin them.

So this is their battle plan: split up (dumb) to Cleric/Ghoul/Sorcerer to distract the (nigh-infinite) army while the Fighter and Scout infiltrate the necromancers tower, and kill him. I let them go with it. but the battle grid had a huge screen in the middle and each "sub-party" sat at a different side, not knowing what the other is doing.

It worked out pretty damn well. the distraction managed to hold the line well until fighter and scout clear the traps and the little guards that remain at the tower and reach the BBEG.

The the fighter dungeoncrush him, and they go throw the wall.
On the sorcerer. that died from the fall.
And the fighter dropped to -9 due to bad rolls on fall damage. died next round from a zombie.
The necromancer however, survived with 1 hp.

Then it's the necromancer's turn. he uses his custom undead drain spell at the ghoul. and he fails the save. dropping dead. necromancer is back to nearly full health, leaving the cleric alone against the army with his leader. he lives for three rounds.

The scout is still in the tower, but close to the exit. but the army of undead sweeps in for the kill before he manages to get to safty.

funny thing is, if the fighter didn't dungeoncrush the BBEG out of the tower, they would have probably won without any deaths.

gibbo88
2010-08-06, 07:30 AM
Carefully watching a Basilisk as you walk past it. Enough said.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-06, 07:43 AM
I disagree with your opinion. Critical successes and failures can make for some of the best stories. I use the 1 = -10, 20 = 30 rule, but still.

Playing the ol' devil's advocate, that can very much break verisimilitude at times. For example, lets say you have 20 ranks in balance and I have 10.

For DCs between 31 and 40, at the point where I can only succeed on a 20, my rate of success is increasingly unrealistically skewed compared to yours, until DC 40, where I am succeeding exactly as much as you (1 in 20) despite having 10 less ranks.

Serpentine
2010-08-06, 09:08 AM
So you get lucky *shrug* Honestly, this is a case where I find fun takes precedence over verisimilitude, and I find these things fun. Of course, I know that's not everyone's thing, and I understand why many people choose not to have them. But that's very different to constantly saying "this is why that is always always dumb no matter what" every time it comes up, even in the context of a really cool story.
It also makes for some of the stupidest stories. "I rolled a natural 20. I jump to the MOON!"Aside from doubting that anyone would actually allow that, that would be fine by me. "Okay, roll a check to hold your breath. Uh huh. Okay, now a fortitude save. Right, you take 1d4 Cold damage every round. Now, how do you intend to turn around? You have nothing? Okay, you keep floating out into space... Care to roll a new character?"

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-06, 10:42 AM
See I don't mind the occasional unlikely success, I just prefer them to be less frequent than 1 in every 20 rolls.

I thing NWoD models it better. You can technically get a success far above your ability, but it gets progressively less likely.

Additionally, you don't get the buggery where a skilled character fails spectacularly 5% of the time. You only get massive cockups when you have heavy circumstantial modifiers (i.e. your on fire) and/or you suck at what your trying to do.

So, an uber scientist is not normally going to forget newtons laws to comic effect, while a big dumb ogre might. Both can succeed far above their usual potential - however, the ogres success will still be far below the scientists.

kestrel404
2010-08-06, 10:58 AM
Not my death, but pretty funny. I was playing in a one-shot demo for a new game system (wildside). Most of the players were magic users of various flavors. One guy was playing a necromancer, specializing in raising minions.
We got through almost half the game without killing a single thing, and the Necromancer is getting mildly aggravated by his lack of minions. So when we finally come across this weirdly-transmuted chimera like beast, he charges into combat with it. Despite the fact that we know, from the last NPC we met, that this critter was once a human being who was cursed with this new shape.
It's not a tough fight - with all the casters, we disable and blast it easily.
Then, the Necromancer attempts to raise it from the dead. Since this was once a person, most of the party objects. They walk off and leave him, and a couple of other players who aren't quite as scrupulous, to their own devices.
Well, in this system, any time you want to cast a spell you roll percentile dice to see how well you do. The necromancer botches his raise dead roll. So the critter comes back to life - and attacks him again.
This fight is harder but not impossible. The necromancer is down to single digits of health because the undead creature only attacked him, but we were in good enough shape to continue. But of course mister necro can't leave it there - he's got to try raising it as his minion AGAIN. Well, everybody who was OK with him the first time tells him he's an idiot to try it twice, and we run to see if we can catch up with the rest of the party.
Heedless, he re-casts the spell. And rolls. And BOTCHES AGAIN.

The rest of the party proceeded to complete the quest, but the Necromancer never made it to the final dungeon.

Roderick_BR
2010-08-06, 11:19 AM
My top two:

Cleric dwarf, 5 minutes into the story (the other players had already started playing before I arrived). Ran over by a mine cart as he just step inside and say hi. The cart was being "riden" by the human fighter. Quickest death ever.

Wizard elf, moving through a dungeon, the party was split. Half of them cleared some room filled trap. The rest comes later. I ask where is safe to step, the fighter says "you can step on that and that panel". The ranger turns to him and say "wait, didn't we just jump over that one? we didn't really test it." Cue me rolling a new character minutes later.

Aeromyre
2010-08-06, 11:27 AM
Back when we played AD&D My brother Orando the Elf Magic user 6 used his wand of lightning, rolled a 1 on the d20 to hit then 00-0 on percentile. The wand of lightning explodes dealing some large number of d6's killing my fragile friend.
The irony of it is that I killed the rest of the assassins in the next round with ease. I actually decapitated one with my vorpal weapon like Battle-Axe.
The fee for resurecting him was to hunt down this evil tomb of necromancy which my character is renowned for having and rumored be supremely evil when he is actually the CG king of the dwarves.
Ugh thanks Orando...damn elves

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-06, 07:35 PM
So you get lucky *shrug* Honestly, this is a case where I find fun takes precedence over verisimilitude, and I find these things fun. Of course, I know that's not everyone's thing, and I understand why many people choose not to have them. But that's very different to constantly saying "this is why that is always always dumb no matter what" every time it comes up, even in the context of a really cool story.

Sorry, that's my opinion. And being that this is a thread about embarrassing deaths, I contest your assertion that the story was "really cool," as coolness would mitigate the embarrassment somewhat.

EDIT: Even so, being cool wouldn't stop it from being stupid. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Lycan 01
2010-08-06, 09:28 PM
hive world, it was a series of reactors, cascade failure, once the first one went the rest sort of went like dominos, the rest of the party thought it was funny as hell

And you didn't have a single Fate Point left to burn? :smalleek:

Serpentine
2010-08-06, 11:24 PM
Sorry, that's my opinion. And being that this is a thread about embarrassing deaths, I contest your assertion that the story was "really cool," as coolness would mitigate the embarrassment somewhat.

EDIT: Even so, being cool wouldn't stop it from being stupid. The two aren't mutually exclusive.I was actually referring to a different story. I still think it made a good story, anyway. And I have no problem with opinions, just when they're stated as universal fact.

mint
2010-08-07, 06:22 AM
I have three:

Embarrassing death the first:

The party is running through streets flanked by five story buildings. After us is a mob of guards we have to stay ahead of (move slowly, game over if they catch up device) and every few rounds teams of fighters and one wizard teleport in, wizards summon grappling centipede monsters.
My shape-shift druid just got the flight form and I take to the sky to scout ahead for the best route to safety. Once on the rooftops I run into a group of guards just warping in.
Naturally I forget to thing in three dimensions and get killed because I don't just ascend. After a short struggle I fall to my death.


Embarrassing death the second:

Same campaign, now playing a sorcerer. We are at war with annoying elves. Fighting outside the city gates. Elves are archery-types.
I polymorph into a golden dragon, juvenile maybe, I don't recall why. I think the natural armor made me harder to hit at the time.
It was a good move at the time because the elves start having trouble sniping me and I go to town on the archers with some rays while my party finishes of an air elemental and some melee elves.
We've turned the tide of the combat clearly in our favor and get to work polishing of the rest of the elves.
However, I've overextended myself with the archer elves and I am having trouble with some who closed to melee.
I decide to get airborne. I get above the tree-line and immediately get shot out of the sky by the group of archers we hadn't gotten to yet.

I do not do flight well.


Embarrassing death the third:

Much higher level. My druid from before is back, rebuilt better. Maybe level 17 by then.
The party, a warblade/master of the nine, a shifter ToB freak with redonkulous DEX approaching the 50s and the ToB feat for DEX -> Damage, a tiny, tiny bard and also a girl with swords and almost every stat to damage. My druid was a Cha-based-Druid/Sorc/AH/MT.
Really not built for melee at all, had diversified to fill the caster role better. Not optimal, worked ok.
In process of stopping astral plane natives from mining out precious god-metal. They were gith pirates riding enormous astral construct sealions. Not whales, that would be silly.
We land, talk smack, they are fun and friendly. Fixing to brawl. They don't want to give back the metal.
End of session. Go for fight next time - the DM suggests. There are a lot of gith on the sealion, he explains.
We we're already buffed up and ready to tussle. I had my whole suite of defensive spells going. Starmantle, heart of earth, fly and a then some.

Next session we draw up the map, some 50 gith level 10 maybe one or two higher than that?
Doable, we have a history of violence.
Initiative is rolled, fighting words are exchanged, in the first round of combat the leader of the gith crits our tank, her sword is vorpal.
I beeline to use last breath. I think we were all to shocked to remember if that's doable after being vorp'd.
Here is the embarrassing part:

I had forgotten all about my buffs. I remember only that I do not need to buff, I don't remember that I have my full suite of defensive spells going.
I feel safe enough to eat a few AoOs to get to our tank.
Without Temp HP, armor, damage prevention from starmantle, I go down then and there.

It was... not great.

KillianHawkeye
2010-08-07, 07:04 AM
I have no problem with opinions, just when they're stated as universal fact.

I never said such a thing.

Unnecessary Disclaimer: The contents of this post are solely the opinion of me, the writer.

Closak
2010-08-07, 07:24 AM
Depends on what you mean by embarrassing.

I certainly know of a very ironic death.

Really, a freaking Succubus being raped to death? Seriously?
Granted, the epic level BBEG of pure evil did it, but still...

A physical manifestation of illicit sex suffering death by sex at the hands of a greater evil...

DemLep
2010-08-07, 09:33 AM
A giant leech fell on me. During a "cutscene." :smallfrown:

In a 4E game I ran, we had a number of embarrassing near-deaths. The party paladin was the biggest crit-magnet I'd ever seen, and would often be struck down within the first round of combat and lay there dying for the rest of the fight. He never got to actually defend anything.

Not my fault.

And at least it was the ending cutscene.

In an evil campaign the DM got bored, and led us into a dungeon only to be eaten by Fiendish and Dire sharks.

Pink Ranger
2010-08-07, 11:53 AM
I have two:

The first was my husband's character. About ten minutes into the first session of the campaign, his half-orc rogue (don't ask) successfully finds a trapdoor...then trips onto it as he goes to disable it. Fails three different Reflex saves to catch himself on the way down. Ends up at -1 when he hits the bottom. Finally manages to stabilize at -9 as we start climbing down after him...only to be killed by the swarm of tiny spiders that started crawling on his inert form.

The second was me. About ten minutes into the first session of a different campaign, my rogue decides to scout ahead. The wizard casts Invisibility on me, and tells me that if I find anyone, not to attack, but just to come back. He didn't tell me why, and my complete lack of knowledge about spells at the time didn't help. I ran across three lizardfolk. I thought to myself, "They can't see me; I can sneak attack them! Forget what the wizard says, I'm doing the rest of the party a favor by killing these guys and saving them the trouble!" So I attack, and miss, and become visible, and get smeared all over the walls, and the party had no idea that I'd died.

Creed
2010-08-07, 11:59 AM
Mine is sad.
My character got into a barfight, with his fists of course, then somebody pulled out a sword and proceeded to kill me because I left my mithril chain mail and two +5 longswords in my room.
:smallannoyed:I was not amused.

arrowhen
2010-08-07, 12:12 PM
I fell in a magical pit trap that killed me, turned me into a zombie, and levitated me back up into the room to attack my fellow party members. They "killed" me again, and dragged me back to town to get me fixed up.

We went back to the dungeon and in the very same room were attacked by a gargoyle. We killed it... directly over the pit trap. Needless to say, it fell in, got turned into a zombie, levitated back up into the room, and critted me to death.

Avilan the Grey
2010-08-07, 04:22 PM
CoC, 1890ies setting:

Party survived a lot of crap and seriously scary stuff. Then on the way from the final really dangerous encounter one of our characters did a fumble on his riding skill. He died falling off the horse...

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-07, 05:40 PM
CoC, 1890ies setting:

Party survived a lot of crap and seriously scary stuff. Then on the way from the final really dangerous encounter one of our characters did a fumble on his riding skill. He died falling off the horse...

Brilliant! How bleak

iDM
2010-08-08, 04:56 PM
I once had a friend who played a rogue, and I was playing a mystic theurge. The rogue, as it happens, was one of the most skilled people at annoying DMs that I have ever known. We were both evil, but we were clearing out a temple of Heironeous because we were being paid well. At the end, we fought a group of nagas that killed the rogue and almost finished off me as well.
I was too low level to Resurrect him, but as I was looting (with the rogue's body in my Bag of Holding) I came across a solid gold statue of Heironeous bearing an inscription along the lines of "Resurrection Statue". Seeing an opportunity, I placed the rogue's body on the altar and prayed for his resurrection.
The statue summoned an aspect of Heironeous nope, it was an angel to "kill the evil usurpers". Funnily enough, I remember the DM specifically telling me not to prepare Dismissal because it would be a "waste of a spell slot". That's what you get for adventuring with people the DM doesn't like.

Lycan 01
2010-08-08, 06:06 PM
Did you point out the sheer amount of douchebaggery that was? Because if the DM told me not to prepare a specific spell, only to be met with a TPK that only spell could have avoided, I'd be pissed. Because the game is no longer fun, as its now just an excuse for him to kill my character. And I would not put up with that sort of stupidity. :smallannoyed:

iDM
2010-08-08, 06:20 PM
Did you point out the sheer amount of douchebaggery that was? Because if the DM told me not to prepare a specific spell, only to be met with a TPK that only spell could have avoided, I'd be pissed. Because the game is no longer fun, as its now just an excuse for him to kill my character. And I would not put up with that sort of stupidity. :smallannoyed:

I did, in fact. This was about when I stopped letting my friends fill in for me while I took a break from DMing. Fortunately, it was a one-shot game and I really didn't intend to use the character again anyway.

Poil
2010-08-08, 06:26 PM
My embarrassment lies in that I have never had a character die or even get close to dying, they tend to be replaced by new ones instead. For some reason my characters tend to take most of their damage from friendly fire too.

Bladesong
2010-08-09, 08:08 AM
Most Embarasing death?

My 2nd edition druid Rohan Anur Belcova the Glib died in his first adventure in White plume mountain from faling damage, sustained when he fell into a pool of life. His wolf skin cloak then got up and danced off down the coridor never to be seen again...

Alcopop
2010-08-09, 08:59 AM
Calzone Golem. Nuff said.

MariettaGecko
2010-08-12, 01:22 PM
I think I have a really good one from when I was DMing. Spoiler for length.

I had a party running in a pre-built dungeon. One of the features in the first room the players come to is a huge chasm with a rickety rope bridge going over it. Unfortunately, one of the PCs is a Warforged (no, it wasn't in Eberron, but I allowed it anyway), who couldn't make it across the bridge without breaking it. As a result, the party started searching the walls on the near side of the chasm. On the walls at either end of the ledge are secret doors (although, the party doesn't know this at first). The party splits up and starts searching. On the right side (looking from the door in across the chasm), the barbarian and another character find a door. The Barbarian decides that he's going to beat the door open. Specifically, he's going to try to ram it and break it down. I look at him and explain that it looks like a rock wall. I ask how he wants to do this. He points to his head. I ask if he's sure that's what he wants to do. He asserts that he does.

At this point, I ask him to make an intelligence check to realize that this is a stupid idea. He fails.
I then ask him to make a strength check to break down the door. He fails.
I then ask him to make a Fortitude check to not be dazed by having just run into a wall head first. He fails that too.
Ok, next, it's a touch attack for the other player with him to try to grab him and keep him from falling off the ledge, which he was immediately adjacent to. Yep, they failed that too...

At this point, I ruled that the Barbarian bent over, ran at the wall, hit it with his helmet (not breaking it open), then fell to the ground clutching his head. As he was falling, he happened to fall towards the chasm and, despite the attempt of the other player to grab his hand to keep him from falling over the edge, he falls... and starts bouncing off the walls.

Just to add insult to injury, one of the players heals him using a wand of healing until he falls outside of max range, so that he doesn't actually die until he hits the bottom, some 300 feet below, and gets swept away by the underground river below.

We still laugh over that incident to this day.

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-08-12, 01:26 PM
During the first half of a campaign of Deadlands, my pacifist mad scientist bit the dust in his longjohns due to a jackolope of all things.