Character Demise?

[Silvanoshei]

Here's a question to all. D&D has lots of cool challenging aspects to it's very deep adventures. So really it comes down to the DM, to make these things happen. That would be challenge, good plot, and solid rules to prop up his/her world to the would be challengers of said world. Keeping these things in mind...

Do you mind if your DM's world kills you?

It's a risky thing adventuring, going up against an empire, fighting off that dragon. So many things can be done for said character that died, unless it was the cleric that fell down that 1000 foot pit... lol. Early or late career? Does it matter? Would it piss you off? I'm interested in others opinions of death in the D&D world.

[ArcturusV]

Death is part of why I like, and come back, to Tabletop RPing even though it's a lot easier to get Forum RPing and such going on. Forum RPing usually is more like Joint Storytelling. And there is an unfortunate pattern of Mary Sueness, along with Happy Endings all around with unspoken rules like "Nothing bad can happen to my character unless I say so".

The element of Death, and Failure, brings Risk. Risk brings Drama. Drama brings excitement. It's why I stick with the hobby. If you go in knowing what the outcome is going to be... or at least know that certain bad endings will never happen, it removes some of the fun.

If I should die, so be it. I shall burn my character sheet, roll anew, and have an even better character than before.

[Slipperychicken]

I don't mind much, as long as it happens fairly and by the rules. It's good to have a death once in a while, to remind us that our PCs are vulnerable to danger, and still quite mortal. It keeps the life-threatening bits of the game interesting when you know your PC really can get himself mauled by a bear or eaten by a T-Rex (or even killed by, le gasp!, another person!), and the die-rolling isn't just a pre-victory formality.

[Invader]

I don't mind as long as its reasonable. Dying because mook monster rolled a critical on a x3 multiplier and stuff like that always seemed kinda crappy to me.

[Fortuna]

The reason that I play D&D, more than anything else, is the challenges. The roleplaying is one of those, but in a mechanical sense the real challenge is getting in, getting loot, and getting out (or getting in, killing stuff, and getting out, or whatever). And there's no real challenge if you can try again and again and again. So yeah, if I screw up, if I miss something, or if my teammates don't have my back... I damn well expect to die, and consider it a lucky break if I don't.

[Eric Scott]

I expect my characters to die... which is why if I can, I sacrifice my characters to keep the people I'm playing with alive... and I find character creation to be fun, and a chance for me to try something new or make something that more suits a role that the party isn't yet covering quite as well as I want...

Dieing is a part of life... besides, it's always more fun to willingly jump into the maw of a dragon and try to tear it apart from the inside out, than to sit around farming and never doing anything with your life...

[SimonMoon6]

At medium to high levels, no character dies for good unless the whole party dies (barring the most bizarre situations like NPCs that actually bother to use Trap the Soul). So, that's not an issue. And at low levels, you probably haven't gotten attached enough to your character to care that much if you die.

[Elycium]

At medium to high levels, no character dies for good unless the whole party dies (barring the most bizarre situations like NPCs that actually bother to use Trap the Soul). So, that's not an issue. And at low levels, you probably haven't gotten attached enough to your character to care that much if you die.

Well, this is my opinion but, I do get attached to my characters even if I didn’t play it as much as I would have wanted. The process of creating it, give in it life, a propose a reason to live (and the hours spend doing so xD), whit that alone makes me feel attached to him/her (or it in some cases O_o).

[limejuicepowder]

At medium to high levels, no character dies for good unless the whole party dies (barring the most bizarre situations like NPCs that actually bother to use Trap the Soul). So, that's not an issue. And at low levels, you probably haven't gotten attached enough to your character to care that much if you die.

This is exactly why I remove all resurrection-type spells. I think it (almost) completely destroys any notion of danger, or of heroic sacrifice. And it's not even that high of a level, as druids can bring people back at level 7 and clerics at level 9.

[Glimbur]

I feel that the game needs a real risk of character death, and therefore sometimes characters should die. I don't mind, because even if I am enjoying a character there's another one I would also like to try.

[prufock]

Do you mind if your DM's world kills you?
I don't mind a fair death.

What does that mean? Well, a fair death to me:
- comes during an encounter that is important to the story. Fortunately the games I play in have precious few random encounters.
- is a fair fight, meaning I have a chance of winning (ie CR no more than party level + 5).
- I at least make some sort of meaningful contribution to the encounter, not die in the surprise round.
- isn't some BS power trip on the part of the DM (ie enemy wizard scrys you, waits until you're asleep, ports in, blasts you, ports out).

As long as the death is fair, let the dice fall where they may. After all, remove the threat of death and much of the tension of the game goes with it.

[Acanous]

I don't mind as long as its reasonable. Dying because mook monster rolled a critical on a x3 multiplier and stuff like that always seemed kinda crappy to me.

If it was a one-player game, or a "Person X goes off on his own" thing? I usually give the mook a class level and hand it to the player. "Here ya go, now you get to keep playing with all your old gear!"

Like a Reincarnate only without the dirty looks.

Personally I don't mind if the DM kills my characters in most games. But those games are the ones with dice-rolled combat and focus on gear. If it's a forum-based freeform, then hey, you were signing up for cooperative storytelling, and killing off someone else out of hand is bad mojo.

[yougi]

I'm with everyone else: it depends HOW I die.

From most acceptable to least acceptable:

- Planned Death (If it was part of my plan for the character, for example, I once played an Assassin with a wish for vengeance, whose only goal was to murder those who killed his wife. When they were dealt with, he committed suicide. Other players were kinda surprised...)
- Heroic Sacrifice (Never actually done it, but I would, with the right character)
- Killed by a "boss" (Only if I am actually helpful)
- Killed during an important combat encounter
----------------- Division between acceptable and bitter ------------
- Killed during a meaningless encounter (I've done it once as a DM I must admit, but despite the PC's having a scroll of raise dead, he preferred to reroll)
- Killed during the surprise round
- Killed by a trap
- Killed while I'm absent (my group made me believe this once, a month ago when I went away from Christmas vacation. Racked up a good internet bill trying to keep up to date on what exactly happened, and how we'd deal with it; I also did it once as a DM, but the player had moved and hadn't come in 5 sessions, so I did not feel too bad.)
- Killed offscreen (happened to me once. I was captured by ogres, and the DM just made me shut up, said he'd deal with my situation later. When the group found me, they couldn't find my head)

[Elycium]

- Killed offscreen (happened to me once. I was captured by ogres, and the DM just made me shut up, said he'd deal with my situation later. When the group found me, they couldn't find my head)

This one just made me crack on laughter xD

[Laserlight]

If it's fair, if it's dramatically appropriate, if it's something the character would choose, then it's fine.

Bad: "You walk into the first room. A green blob of goo drops onto you. Make your save...oh, too bad. You die."

Good: In the climactic battle against the BBEG: "The elf is at negative HP, so if those Magic Missiles hit her, she'll die. I step in front of her, and take the Magic Missile hits myself. With my last breath, I cast Lay On Hands on her, to bring her back up to 1 hit point."

[Silvanoshei]

If it's fair, if it's dramatically appropriate, if it's something the character would choose, then it's fine.

Bad: "You walk into the first room. A green blob of goo drops onto you. Make your save...oh, too bad. You die."

Good: In the climactic battle against the BBEG: "The elf is at negative HP, so if those Magic Missiles hit her, she'll die. I step in front of her, and take the Magic Missile hits myself. With my last breath, I cast Lay On Hands on her, to bring her back up to 1 hit point."

Wait, you can do that? lol

[Vorr]

Do you mind if your DM's world kills you?


I'm a Killer DM myself and I just don't like the Safe Playstlye. Once you say ''a character can only die in an important battle'', or also saying ''everything else is not important.'' And this can really effect the game: I've seen tons of 'unimportant bandit attacks' where everyone just mechanically goes through the encounter just to fill up time.

And I really don't get the idea that ''a character must contribute'' in a fight before they can die. It's such a slippery slope, as what is ''contribute''? Attacking once? Doing at least 100 damage? Killing the foe?

In my game, characters can die at any time. The couple of random wolves in the woods can kill a character. Or a trap. Or a random lucky roll. Or a random unlucky roll. This is what makes an RPG great for me: anything can happen. But once you add Safe Rules, you take away from the anything.

Example:Paladin charges at the lich to end his quest. Paladin misses, fumbles, trips and then falls off the cliff. We had a couple seconds of silence and just blinked a ''woah what just happened''. Then the rest of the characters ran, figuring the gods of good must want the lich to be left alone. Pure chance and bad rolls, but it was great fun.

[ArcturusV]

Exactly. When you put limiters on what is and is not Safe... you are effectively just handing out free stuff to players. Or minor inconveniences. It's the unexpected and the random nature that really drives it home. Every fight is serious because there are no safety nets.

[Krazzman]

Oh dieing...

I won't be mad if it was a "normal" dead. Like killed in a reasonable fight or after a few encounters contributing to the story.

But there are 3 things that I think are bad deaths:
Killed due to Party incompetence/pvp.For example in one of our groups a player died because the healer couldn't heal against the blizzard another player tried to kill one foe with [he hit the whole party except himself with it].
A Cleric I was playing died once because in the mids of a dungeon the Fighter and Rogue thought about how good it was to go back to the inn, we actually said that and they should bring food... instead they stayed there to eat cue the cleric who was waiting for them hungry and suddenly had the clue to the puzzle and after waiting nearly half an hour opened the puzzledoor and was killed by the ghoul behind it. (This is additionally unfair because suddenly the dm wanted to roll for saves, else I would've gone saved(I rolled a nat20) and rebuked it)
Killed off-screen or in an anticlimatic matter. The mentioned ogre thing, dieing to a lucky crit of the dm. Killed by a Randomthing (the Paladin in our current group was killed by a lucky crit from a demon random encounter that retreated pretty fast after that). His whole death was pretty anticlimatic and didn't even helped building up any tension. Off-Screen has the "oh crap can we save her" building up tension but as the ogre example has a sudden drop due to the dm saying "no, she's already dead."
Killed through DM-Fiat. See the spoilored cleric example under Party incompetence/pvp, it's similar to off-screen but off-screen/Anti-climatic sort of have a drop in the builded up tension.

[Azoth]

I am usually the party "corpse", so if it isn't off screen, or a rocks fall scenario I am almost always okay with it.

I can not count the number of times my character (usually some flavor of rogue build) has died due to accidentally triggering a trap, missing a trap, being poisoned, overwhelmed when scouting ahead, killed in his sleep due to the 8 wis fighter taking watch (grumble), getting too close to something big mean and wielding something larger than me as a weapon...

Really the list goes on.

If you are afraid to die, be a farmer/merchant/tradesman...not an adventurer.

Getting pissy with the DM because you died openly and honestly, is like becoming an Atheist because God let your puppy die. Stupid, immature, and proof you shouldn't be playing.

[Elycium]

Wait, you can do that? lol

I think that you can’t O_o

I mean, the magic missile don’t let you have a saving throw, so I theorize that is because it’s so fast that you cannot dodge it (or something like that), taking that in account I think that he won’t be capable of doing such feat in time. But hey, this is just me thinking, and half of what I said aren’t facts but toughs of a new guy talking xD


getting too close to something big mean and wielding something larger than me as a weapon...

lol

[Eric Scott]

Wait, you can do that? lol

Perhaps if it were a readied action to move into the way... other than that, I can't see a way to do that other than a lenient DM...

[Vorr]

Exactly. When you put limiters on what is and is not Safe... you are effectively just handing out free stuff to players. Or minor inconveniences. It's the unexpected and the random nature that really drives it home. Every fight is serious because there are no safety nets.

I agree. Once you put 'safe limits', there is no end in sight. And soon you get the ''never die'' type game.

I'd ask though, to all the players that say they want a meaningful death where they contribute, what does that mean specifically? How would a DM ''know it is the right time'' and that you'd be ok with your character dying?

As a hardcore, unfair, killer DM, I can say that I've never killed a character ''off screen''. That one makes no sense to me.

But I've killed hundreds of characters by player mistakes, foul ups and such.

[Wyntonian]

I'm one of those people who's there to tell a story.

Now, failure doesn't prevent that. As long as anything, failures, successes, anything serves to advance the story, it's good with me. I don't demand happy endings, a chance to ride off into the sunset or even a dramatic death speech. I just want it to mean something, to be memorable enough I want to come back.

Level 1 orc with a battleaxe and a 3x crit is neither meaningful nor memorable.

Taking a bullet for someone, heroic sacrifice or even something as mundane as being a speedbump to a powerful bad guy (provided I enter into it willingly and I'm not just bushwhacked by some dual-katana Lightning Warrior Mary Sue NPC) can all be memorable and meaningful.

Qui-gon, Gandalf, Martin Septim, Boromir... these are good. Everyone who plays an epic character deserves to go out like this. This doesn't mean that can politely decline the reaper/GM/dice every time they're in trouble until it's just how they want, only that they die in reasonably cool circumstances and the player makes it memorable.

I want to be able to tell my friends about this years later, not go "Well, ****, looks like I need to re-roll. Freaking dice, man."

[ArcturusV]

I think the problem with the "Freakin' dice man!" issue with death is that the Players and the GM aren't playing the same game.

Particularly at low level where this can happen.

As I see it, as a DM, at low level your team is more Indiana Jones than Action Hero. You may punch out a bad guy here and there or do something. But you're not looking for a fight. If you get shot, you'll die. You're more likely to run from overwhelming enemy odds than go "BRING IT ON!" and charge in their faces. You don't enter into combat going, "Well I'm a badass adventurer, no one who doesn't have a NAME can stand against me!" Ideally you try to set up the odds in your favor as much as possible, striking only when you can get an advantage against the enemy through surprise, superior tactics, etc. You go without fighting at all if you can swing it. Why risk charging at the Orc Berserker with a Battleaxe when you can trick it with a Silent Image and sneak past, or have your cunning rogue set up a trap that allows him to slit his throat before he can raise the alarm, etc?

Now as Players tend to see it, "I am the hero!". And as such they expect a certain level of Plot Armor. They aren't going to go out because they charged at an enemy who was equally skilled as them, or maybe even more so, and the odds didn't favor them. No, the only thing that can take them out is another source of Plot Armor, like a Villain or elaborate death trap/hero's dilemma. They ignore the fact that, in all honesty, that Orc with a battleaxe IS just as much a trained warrior as them. That all else considered equal, it can kill them about 50% of the time as a baseline. That said Orc isn't just some goober who barely knows which end of the axe is the business end but a trained warrior who has probably killed dozens of men in combat and been skilled and ruthless, maybe even luckier, than all of his victims.

[JBento]

My biggest problem with the "only if it's a memorable encounter" philosophy:

Why the hell am I wasting time on the other encounters, then?

Might as well go "you run into 4 orcs, you slaughter them, here's the loot."

[Elycium]

My biggest problem with the "only if it's a memorable encounter" philosophy:

Why the hell am I wasting time on the other encounters, then?

Might as well go "you run into 4 orcs, you slaughter them, here's the loot."

But I like slaughter orcs T_T

[Aractos]

--Hello. My name is Aractos and I am dead. I've been playing a near future campaign with some friends for 2 years now. We're levels 7-9, depending on the player, but it's a heavily modified 3.5 d&d game where the biggest hp scores are about 50 (30 average), and average dmg is about 10-20 per attack.

--I got killed last year by rolling 7 consecutive critical fails (not all were attack rolls), while the 2 opponents rolled 3 consecutive critical hits. No ordinary die rolls were made. After 2 crits I was on the ground. The third one was directed at me, even though there were two of my allies standing 5 feet away from me, armed with guns pointed at the 2 foes in question. The party paladin was 1 round of movement away, but he couldn't cast lay on hands on me because he had compromised his goodness many times over. (apparently, selling drugs to a hooker didn't help his cause to fight evil) At that point, the party's surgeon tried to heal me but rolled a critical fail.

--So... How do you guys feel about this? I've seen people go on about how it isn't fun if you can't die and I agree, but this game... The universe just hated my guts and it really pissed me off. The worst part is that I had a healing item on that should have saved me, but the DM didn't take it into account and I forgot about it too. He wouldn't allow it to take effect retroactively.

[Morbis Meh]

Well this topic really depends on what style of play the group/player enjoys: If it is more of a cooperative story telling game where the PC's are main characters then simply dying off screen or being genked by a killer DM is anticlimatic and generally disliked.

If it is more like a dungeoncrawl with little regards to plot more just KILL KILL KILL then killer DMing is fine since the PC's aren't everly invested in character development.

I fall into the former group, do I have problems with dying? Well depends if it is important to plot relevance then no, but if i get genked by a jerk DM for no particular reason and have to sit out of the game for a while then no I am not fine with it.

[ArcturusV]

As Jack Snipe said, "Being Foolish leads to pain" or something like that. In this case it sounds like that was the case. Your paladin couldn't help you because he compromised himself. Your Medic wasn't in position to help you when you needed it (Otherwise would have had more than one shot at doing it). You forgot that you had a heal available. And generally most DMs I know don't allow "Retroactive" things unless you are dealing with a newbie who honestly doesn't know any better.

It is what it is. It wouldn't have bothered me as the Death was less about "Bad Luck" and more about the triple failure there.

[jindra34]

Aractos: If the dice decide to hate you that much your character really is should die. Maybe the DM should add some reason why your luck turned sour but yeah no pulling out a suddenly your alive from it.

And me personally? I'm very much a let dice fall where they may kind of person, on both sides of the screen. So I'm actually one of the people who would prefer the cold honesty of saying your dead to bending the rules to allow me to live. And I try to put that up front when possible when DM'ing a game (along with the fact that the PCs are not unique, special, chosen or any of that blah, and that there are things out there that I expect the PCs will never be able to deal with).

[Rogue Shadows]

but if i get genked by a jerk DM for no particular reason

This perception...has always bothered me. If a mook scores a critical hit and kills a PC - and I'm talking straight combat against a EL-appropriate monster that should have been easy and just happened to get lucky this one time and all attack and damage rolls were done in plain sight - that's not the DM's fault, and he should never feel obligated to do anything about it under any circumstance.

DMs are discriminated against in D&D...

[Silvanoshei]

--Hello. My name is Aractos and I am dead. I've been playing a near future campaign with some friends for 2 years now. We're levels 7-9, depending on the player, but it's a heavily modified 3.5 d&d game where the biggest hp scores are about 50 (30 average), and average dmg is about 10-20 per attack.

--I got killed last year by rolling 7 consecutive critical fails (not all were attack rolls), while the 2 opponents rolled 3 consecutive critical hits. No ordinary die rolls were made. After 2 crits I was on the ground. The third one was directed at me, even though there were two of my allies standing 5 feet away from me, armed with guns pointed at the 2 foes in question. The party paladin was 1 round of movement away, but he couldn't cast lay on hands on me because he had compromised his goodness many times over. (apparently, selling drugs to a hooker didn't help his cause to fight evil) At that point, the party's surgeon tried to heal me but rolled a critical fail.

--So... How do you guys feel about this? I've seen people go on about how it isn't fun if you can't die and I agree, but this game... The universe just hated my guts and it really pissed me off. The worst part is that I had a healing item on that should have saved me, but the DM didn't take it into account and I forgot about it too. He wouldn't allow it to take effect retroactively.

I feel this is how most people would react to such an event. A lot of answers on here so far have been pretty reasonable towards their characters death. However, I'm getting the feeling that it's the same kind of question as, "If you could save 1000 people or your wife, what would you choose?", and most people, on the outside would say "of course 1000" to be a good samaritan about it. But really on the inside, or when the choice actually came to be, they'd choose their wife.

All speculation on my part, many of you may not indeed care about the death of your character. Just as long as you feel it's justified?

[Palthera]

I got squashed by a giant last Friday. Greasy smear, all my equipment smithereened. No cleric. Which leads me to my favourite part of D&D - Character Creation! I have no caring if I die, I'll just roll up someone new. :)

[Rogue Shadows]

I feel this is how most people would react to such an event.

Are you kidding? That much epic failure concentrated into a single spot would be a blast to watch!

Then again I'm the guy who plays Resident Evil 4 and creates separate saves at all the parts where Leon can die in funny ways. Especially Del Lago.


The worst part is that I had a healing item on that should have saved me, but the DM didn't take it into account and I forgot about it too. He wouldn't allow it to take effect retroactively.

I will touch on this, though. How retroactive is "retroactive," here? Are we talking you remembered 1 or 2 rounds later, or 1 or 2 sessions later, or what?

[thamolas]

I'm a Killer DM myself and I just don't like the Safe Playstlye. Once you say ''a character can only die in an important battle'', or also saying ''everything else is not important.'' And this can really effect the game: I've seen tons of 'unimportant bandit attacks' where everyone just mechanically goes through the encounter just to fill up time.

And I really don't get the idea that ''a character must contribute'' in a fight before they can die. It's such a slippery slope, as what is ''contribute''? Attacking once? Doing at least 100 damage? Killing the foe?

In my game, characters can die at any time. The couple of random wolves in the woods can kill a character. Or a trap. Or a random lucky roll. Or a random unlucky roll. This is what makes an RPG great for me: anything can happen. But once you add Safe Rules, you take away from the anything.

^^ My thoughts exactly. I get more annoyed when the game is stupid (or the effects of my actions on the game are consistently illogical) than when my character dies. And when I run a game (not just D&D), I can be lethal with everything, if the players put themselves in a position to be killed. One of the funnest encounters one of my old groups ever had (while I was running) was dying in an elaborate trap where, at the end, they were eaten by rats. They talked about it for years afterward and probably still do.

[Morbis Meh]

This perception...has always bothered me. If a mook scores a critical hit and kills a PC - and I'm talking straight combat against a EL-appropriate monster that should have been easy and just happened to get lucky this one time and all attack and damage rolls were done in plain sight - that's not the DM's fault, and he should never feel obligated to do anything about it under any circumstance.

DMs are discriminated against in D&D...

I wasn't referring to a critical hit, I meant literally the DM looks at the character and kills it out of spite for no reason other than being biased. It hasn't happened to me but it happened to my brother in law who tried playing a gnome and the GM dropped an epic level Lich on him at level 1 because the Gm hated gnomes for no particular reason

[Rogue Shadows]

I wasn't referring to a critical hit, I meant literally the DM looks at the character and kills it out of spite for no reason other than being biased. It hasn't happened to me but it happened to my brother in law who tried playing a gnome and the GM dropped an epic level Lich on him at level 1 because the Gm hated gnomes for no particular reason

I once had a party of level 3's encounter an elder red wyrm...but the wyrm was CN, leaning CG, and wanted to hire them, not kill them, so it's probably not the same situation.

Kinda' funny that dragons can't "turn off" their Frightful Presence, though, meaning that he showed up and then had to just kind of stand around cleaning his talons while he waited for them all to stop panicking.

[ArcturusV]

That's when you take the old Player's Bolt, go punch your DM in the arm and point out that what he's doing isn't a cool thing to pull.

Closest I've gotten to biased GM Bolting like that was a few guys who were ruining the game for everyone else at the table. Players going and complaining to me how they didn't like the guy and what he was doing... he refused to change or listen to suggestions and complaints. Then eventually it turns into getting eaten by Bahamut, King of Dragons.

[Morbis Meh]

I once had a party of level 3's encounter an elder red wyrm...but the wyrm was CN, leaning CG, and wanted to hire them, not kill them, so it's probably not the same situation.

Kinda' funny that dragons can't "turn off" their Frightful Presence, though, meaning that he showed up and then had to just kind of stand around cleaning his talons while he waited for them all to stop panicking.

Having them encounter an elder worm as a plot hook is much different then having your level 1 gnome PC get hit with a metamagicked disintegration because they peeked through a key hole in a door at a tavern while the rest of the group who is standing right behind them just walks away scott free. Dying in battle is legit, it's part of the rules the dice fall where they fall. I don't hold back punches when I run games but i don't arbitrarily kill PC's out of spite because I am biased towards a race or a class. If in your case the level 3 party goes kamakazee and charges at the red dragon... well that was there choice, a very bad one but theirs nonetheless.

[JBento]

I once had a party of level 3's encounter an elder red wyrm...but the wyrm was CN, leaning CG, and wanted to hire them, not kill them, so it's probably not the same situation.

Kinda' funny that dragons can't "turn off" their Frightful Presence, though, meaning that he showed up and then had to just kind of stand around cleaning his talons while he waited for them all to stop panicking.

For the record: that sounds hilarious :smallbiggrin:

On another record:


I wasn't referring to a critical hit, I meant literally the DM looks at the character and kills it out of spite for no reason other than being biased. It hasn't happened to me but it happened to my brother in law who tried playing a gnome and the GM dropped an epic level Lich on him at level 1 because the Gm hated gnomes for no particular reason

There are douches. At least you got to identify the douche at level 1, therefore allowing you to limit your playtime with him to the bare minimum (to clarify, the douche here refers to the DM, not the guy who played the gnome - now, if he'd played a kender...).

[Rakoa]

I desire an element of risk, in both the games I play and the games I run. Death is a part of the game, and so it should be. With the ready availability of Resurrection, it can become a non-issue quite quickly anyway.

I have a question for the all of you, however. I don't want to divert the focus of the thread, but this situation occurred a few weeks ago and I would like to hear some opinions on the matter.

We were playing a small game, myself as DM, two PCs and my DMPC. We had just started not too long ago, and they all level 1 I believe, possibly 2. Everybody in the party had taken at least some damage in a random encounter, and the Cleric insisted that he would not heal anybody in the party until they really needed it.

Well, in their next battle, they started dropping. The Cleric converted his spells and healed as best as he could, but of course he was losing actions, and as the other player and my DMPC hit the negatives and had to be brought up, were also loosing actions. In the end, the PCs won the battle, but my DMPC died. It was a shame, as I liked him.

Now, this was a stereotypical dungeon crawl. The PCs had been sealed into this dungeon upon entering, and so had no way out other than to go forward and hope for the best. With the DMPC dead, however, the entire rest of the dungeon was now above-CR for the survivors. I allowed the other PC, the Wizard, to make a knowledge roll and figure this out.

This is where the dilemma comes from. The DMPC died because the Cleric refused to heal outside of combat. The party had already been sealed in the dungeon. They demanded that I lower the CR of every other thing they encountered in the dungeon to make up for the dead party member and their lack of ability to escape the dungeon.

What would all of you do in this situation? I ask before I tell you what I did.

[Aractos]

--Glad I got some replies about the 7 crit fail comment I made. Some made me feel less spoiled for whining about it. Rogue Shadows the retroactive was about 3 rounds after the fact. The battle was about half way trough and it was a random encounter while exploring a hostile village. And as for the ridiculous death, the DM wasn't very creative I'm afraid. A natural 1 while attacking in melee just meant that you're open for attacks of opportunity from anyone within range. The other critical fails had similar, simple and quite crippling effects.

--The DM in that game is my best friend and I think he was stern with me because he felt everybody else in the party thought I was allowed to have a stronger character because of our friendship. The fault was actually with just three players of the 8 player party taking character building seriously, so I was one of the top three combatants. Besides my Getsuga-Tensho-impossible-monk with a katana who dodges bullets and runs on walls (I love that characters ridiculous flare), there is a paladin in absurdly heavy armour, wielding an anti-tank rifle and a cursed sword that hosts a necromancer. The third guy who makes up the punch of our 7-man (+1 girl) party is actually the coolest in my opinion. He's just an assassin wearing a hawaian shirt and pawning dozens of foes with pistols, trough careful hiding and planning his shots. He really plays out his character in a way that makes his qualities shine. It's no tougher than the other party members on it's own, except for the awesome stealth skills. Me and the paladin on the other hand try to take the bullet whenever the other characters get in trouble... I tanked bosses more than once.

--As for the "justifiable death"... I care about my character. I've role played with him for over a year (not dungeon delving and farming xp, some actual role play) and if he had to get killed, I'd prefer it to be more meaningful, or by a clear mistake on my end, but simply not by sheer randomness. When I DM, I roll in secrecy and cheat when a lucky shot kills a PC. If he didn't play like a jackass and deserve it, I don't want to kill him. You can die, but just not out of bad luck. I was almost killed by a car when I was 6, and I don't need an frp that reminds me of what that felt like.

--Like many people here mentioned, frp should be fun, so I think character death should be used sparingly. After all, what's the point in finishing a story when your party rooster changes so much that none of the new PCs are actually involved in it, or know why and how it started? It can be done, but I think it would kill the game in question.

[ArcturusV]

One, congrats on not saving the DMPC and generally being one of the reasons why people hate DMPCs.

But otherwise? Just because things are slightly above CR now that they are down a member doesn't make things impossible. Though likely impossible based on how hard that battle went, mostly due to Cleric Foolishness. Well I presume Cleric Foolishness. If you didn't heal when someone was 11/12 or something I can kinda understand. But if it was something like they were at 6/12, well, sure you might be "Wasting" a Cure Light Wounds, if you max the roll, with a couple of points of overbleed. But not likely so just go for it, you'll get your mileage out and it's a better idea than going into the next fight half dead.

Failure, should be painful. Foolishness should require a bit of a "Fool's Tax" in pain and suffering. They dug themselves into this hole. They can dig themselves out. Maybe they'll have to try to avoid some fights. Or take extra effort to set up ambushes and favorable circumstances and not just brute their way through. At least in the immediate stretch I wouldn't change a thing. Maybe change things a session or two down the line. But just because you screwed up doesn't mean everything magically reduces in difficulty and enemies just disappear at that moment.

[Aractos]

--I second ArcturusV's comment. Foolish play should bring about a break point where they either shape up, or pay the price.

--Of course, it's not so simple if you're playing with friends. You don't want to antagonize them. It all depends on your relationship with then. Mine are good enough not to hold it against me if I kill them, so I'm lucky. ^^

--I guess I'd tone down the difficulty if I noticed they just couldn't keep up with the stuff I throw at them. (but then I probably wouldn't be likely to DM for them long)

[Eric Scott]

Having them encounter an elder worm as a plot hook is much different then having your level 1 gnome PC get hit with a metamagicked disintegration because they peeked through a key hole in a door at a tavern while the rest of the group who is standing right behind them just walks away scott free.

I must say, that would be quite hilarious to have happen... well, at least it would be to me so long as I was the one who had it happen to them.

[Rogue Shadows]

--Glad I got some replies about the 7 crit fail comment I made. Some made me feel less spoiled for whining about it. Rogue Shadows the retroactive was about 3 rounds after the fact.

Hmm. If I was DM'ing I'd have ruled that the device or whatever malfunctioned temporarily and then activated, ressecutating you. I'd put you at -1 hit points, unconscious, and stable: you're still out of the fight (since it's not my fault that you forgot about it and I don't think it's bad form for a DM to target dying characters since it's just common Bad Guy sense to kick someone when they're down), but you won't be further targeted and, again, are stable (because the Bad Guys are pretty sure you're dead and have other things to worry about at the moment, and it really would suck to lose a character simply because you forgot about something that could save you).

[Kelb_Panthera]

Wait, you can do that? lol
Not normally, no. There're a few class features floating around that let you take damage for someone else, but even a readied action can't throw you in front of magic missles. They unfailingly and unerringly strike the target as long as LoE exists. Your body can't break LoE to your ally.

I feel this is how most people would react to such an event. A lot of answers on here so far have been pretty reasonable towards their characters death. However, I'm getting the feeling that it's the same kind of question as, "If you could save 1000 people or your wife, what would you choose?", and most people, on the outside would say "of course 1000" to be a good samaritan about it. But really on the inside, or when the choice actually came to be, they'd choose their wife.

All speculation on my part, many of you may not indeed care about the death of your character. Just as long as you feel it's justified?

I wouldn't even pretend to say the 1000 people. Unless the rest of my family is included in that 1000 people, I'll choose my wife every time. Make it 1000 puppies and children and I'll say the same. If you're not a member of my family or my close circle of friends your death means nothing to me. If that makes me a bad person, oh well.

To the OP's question: As long as it's a RAW legal death, the dice are part of the game. As long as the DM can show, in detail, exactly how he accomplished my death, so be it. I've got a back-log of unplayed characters as long as my arm. Bad luck happens or I made a tactical error.

[Laserlight]

stepped in front of a magic missile

Wait, you can do that?

Yes, of course. Because I asked The GM if I could, and he said "yes." :smallbiggrin:

This was about 30 years ago.

[TuggyNE]

I once had a party of level 3's encounter an elder red wyrm...but the wyrm was CN, leaning CG, and wanted to hire them, not kill them, so it's probably not the same situation.

Kinda' funny that dragons can't "turn off" their Frightful Presence, though, meaning that he showed up and then had to just kind of stand around cleaning his talons while he waited for them all to stop panicking.

Technically this could have been avoided just by not flying overhead. :smalltongue:

[Rogue Shadows]

Technically this could have been avoided just by not flying overhead. :smalltongue:

Well...technically they were in a cave surrounded by scores of goblins who were going to sacrifice a mayor's daughter in order to awaken the Great Gilgamesh the Red that Gilgamesh might basically do what the goblins wanted him to do. They believed this because the goblin leader had been recieving prophetic dreams about Gilgamesh the Red allying with the goblin tribes.

Of course...once the PC's showed up and decided to still fight their way through to the goblins despite being outnumbered and outmatched, Gilgamesh turned off his invisibility and ate the goblin leader. This was an attack, of course, so Frightful Presence turns on. The goblins scattered, the PC's tried to as well, but Gilgamesh just put them in a cage until they calmed down. Then he gave the mayor's daughter a pretty golden necklace for her troubles and teleported her back home.

See, Gilgamesh was looking for true heroes, so he'd staged the entire thing by sending the goblin leader dreams, etc. Of course, even true heroes panic at the sight of a dragon appearing from nowhere and eating something, even if that something doesn't taste very good and gave Gilgamesh indigestion. This is especially true of that dragon is basically one step short of a god, which Gilgamesh was, and indeed his plan revolved around him making a bid for godhood. He was hopeful that the PC's could become his prophets thereafter, or...something. He planned to work that out later after becoming a god.

Once they'd calmed down, he took them into his permanent Mordenkainen's Even More Magnificent Mansion, where he showed off his horde/treasure collection, which of course included Mordenkainen's Magnificent Pants.

Gilgamesh was awesome.