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JacksonAces
2007-01-23, 08:10 AM
Ok, so, thisis my first post here at giantitp, but I didn't see a thread like this, and thought it would be a fun idea.

What is your favorite character death story? How about your favorite party death story? The story of your re-birth or reincarnation is optional, though I love those too, as they are almost always comical.

I'll start out.

My first character ever, in my first D&D game ever, was an elven fighter who specialized in archery. We were about lvl 3, and coming to a climax in the plot. We were attacking the galleon of our BBEG in the night, and my fighter had gotten his hands on a pair of "Arrows of Detonation."

So, the cunning plan consisted of me jumping up onto the railing of the ship, and launching off an arrow of detonation at the opposite end of the ship, causing general havoc and allowing us to gain the element of surprise. So, of course, I lithely spring up upon the deck (after brilliantly succeeding at my climb checks, mind you) and draw back my composite longbow, nocked with the magical explosive. I pick my unsuspecting target. "Roll to attack" says my DM.

The d20 rolls, and dramatically comes to a stop.

1

Critical Failure.

"The bow string breaks, the arrow falls to the ground between your feet and goes off." (I fail my reflex save) "Roll for damage"

I swear I have never rolled so many 6's in a row. My character, the fighter, the tank in the party (yeah, my elven fighter archer was the "tank", we were new...) is taken to -15 hp. He evaporates.

The good news is the explosion did cause general havoc on the deck of the ship, the bad news is that it also caused havoc in my party. Oops.

I guess that will teach the DM to give lvl 3, low-hp characters high-explosives.

So there's mine, lets hear yours.

~jack

healbot42
2007-01-23, 08:18 AM
I have two that I'm going to mention. The first is my character and the second is a friends.

We were around level 10 at the time and my character (mystic theurge) managed to get locked up in the jail of an opposing faction. I tried to convince the leader of the faction that I would join them if they let me out. We argued for a while and finally the DM had me roll a diplomacy check. I rolled a 1:smallfrown: .

The woman got fed up with me and told her guards to grab me because they were going to do an "experiment". This "experiment" involved launching the mystic theurge out of a trebuchet. I survived the fall and considered healing myself but decided it would be best to wait. Stupid decision. In about 2 rounds I was back with the party, and some time after that we were in an ally fighting with another enemy faction. I hadn't even taken my initiative when 3 snipers on top of the buildings on either side of us decided that it would be a good idea to kill the theurge. The DM rolls their attacks and tells me that I may want to reroll a character, then announces that all 3 crit.

I learned something that day, Always heal yourself if you can.

That was longer than I intended, I suppose I'll save the other one for later.:smallbiggrin:

Morty
2007-01-23, 08:53 AM
What I've learned from my current campaign is to never charge an Ankheg. We were only level three, and while hunting ankhegs, ranger got critical hitted by one, and that put him below -10. Finding diamonds to perform Raise Dead was a whole adventure itself. And we were lucky that ranger's player was away.

clericwithnogod
2007-01-23, 09:13 AM
I don't know that any of them are a favorite, but the most recent was special in my own way.

Three sessions ago, we were in a combat and a monster rolled two 20s in a row against someone and the DM mentioned an old house rule we used to play with that you'd roll a third d20 and if it was a 20 it was an insta-kill.

One of the players that hadn't been there then said that that sounded great and that we should bring it back. I disagreed and explained why we didn't use it any more - that while it would occasionally be nice to do to a mob, it was almost certainly going to happen to one of us because randomness favors the mobs, who are supposed to die anyway, while when we die we both lose XP and spend time doing nothing. And, having had a few other recent experiences with failed saving throws which the characters could fail only on a one keeping characters out of action for extended periods of time, character deaths due to critical failures on skill checks (a house rule) and normal crits in sequence because we were down either the parties best melee fighter or offensive caster in successive sessions and couldn't drop monsters fast enough we'd had more than enough people doing sit-and-do-nothing time recently.

We moved on (well, actually we had moved on while discussing). A couple of our turns went by and then the next monster attack came. It was directed at my character and it hit on two 20s in a row. Someone suggested rolling another just to see what would come up, but we moved on. The next action I got to get a full attack in and finished the thing off ending the encounter. I healed up the other party members and it was late near the end of the session and figured I'd get the rest of things taken care of next week.

Next week we had a new player, so I was busy trying to figure out his movement to be sure I kept myself someplace I could get to him if needed, his HP to know about how much damage he could take before I had to get to him and give him his Cure potions in case he was cut off or needed to stabilize someone I couldn't reach. I had trouble getting his attention as he was still getting his stuff together. Everyone wanted to get started. I asked if anyone needed healing, nobody did, and off we went.

The first encounter, we entered combat when someone looked at the roster and said, "Hey, why do you only have 20 HPs?" I had forgotten to check my own HPs, but needlessly asked the others, all of whom are quite vocal about their current condition. I'm not terribly worried, as I had a 23 for init and figured I'd just get to the back, cast a haste to free up the wizard to drop an offensive spell, heal and/or buff myself the next round or two, and hopefully still get to whack something or light something up a couple times before needing to Cure/Remove/Dispel something.

Turns out it's a surprise round and the first attack is directed at me. The monster rolls a 20 (the third in a row dating back to the last session), confirms the crit, gets the maximum on his damage roll and kills me at -13. So, three twenties in a row was going to kill me one way or another.

The only saving grace is that I was a little higher in level than the rest of the party and have a cohort (which had been sidelined because of an influx of new players), so I still can do something useful and interesting until the other cleric in the party levels, even though I'm not getting any XP, which isn't a big deal as it lets the rest of the party catch up.

MrNexx
2007-01-23, 10:11 AM
This was from Rifts. My character was a Shifter who had become a witch (in Rifts, meaning he'd sold his soul to a demon lord for a substantial boost of power), but then he'd reneged on the deal.

The Last Day of Harakhamis Arimi Acherean
We awoke at dawn of the last day. Something about that dawn seem crisper and purer than any dawn I'd ever seen before, and I knew that the day would be momentous beyond imagining.

We knew where the tomb was, roughly, so Nightfall and I flew in slow passes over the plateau, seeking out a magical signature that would tell us where He lay. Once we had him, we could go home. On the sixth pass, Nightfall motioned me down. He'd found the tomb. A rough hole cut into the wall, bearing a faded inscription. It was beyond my ken, until I flipped down the optics on my helmet, translating them from arcane script to my native Egyptian. "Let only he who is true enter here, for he who knows maliciousness shall surely fall." I knew maliciousness, that was before the Village of the Damned... not anymore.

We retrieved the others in quick order. Only Maelstrom, Nightfall, and I felt up to the task of going in... too main stains on the other's souls from this campaign, I suppose. A quarter mile in, we came to an archway. Nightfall read the Gaelic inscribed, and we found the trap... one set for he who entered with an impure heart. I stepped through, even though I knew my heart wasn't pure. I had to. My family, my clan, my people... my homeland... depended on us waking the man who lay in that sarcophagus. I passed through with nary a scratch... I wish I'd had time to wonder why.

We lifted the lid from the sarcophagus, and gently lifted out Arthur Pendragon, greatest warrior of Old Atlantis. He awoke, slowly, shaking off the dreams of twelve thousand years, looking at us quizzically. The others, Bagh-Dach, stood in awe. I kept my head, as Acheran do, and stepped forward with a bow.

"Arthur Pendragon, I am Harakhamis Arimi Acheran. May I present to you Nightfall and Maelstrom, of the Bagh-Dach clan?"

He seemed more at ease with his own clanmates there, and questioned me about the date. "It has been twelve thousand years since you last breathed, Arthur. There is much to do, and we will explain later."

He hesitated, wanting his sword, his armor. Why is it that warriors always want a sword? The Bagh-dach found it concealed in the room, and he seemed much relieved to have it on his hip, clanging against his armor. As we walked up, we spoke briefly of the situation with Atlantis, telling him of the loss of Atlantis and the ongoing campaign to reclaim it. He was not comforted by our news, but I did not expect him to be.

When we stepped onto the ledge overlooking the valley, the scent of evil was palatable in the air, even to those of us with normal senses... the presence, though, was enough to send Nightfall reeling for a brief moment. Before us, in the quiet air, hung a man, long hair and wild eyes. Some part deep within me, some stain I had long tried to purge, knew this man to not be a man... he was a god, one of evil and deceit. I shoved to Gecko all but a tiny portion of my power, whispering into the radio that they should leave, now, through a portal I knew Zoderhan could make. In that instant, the man spoke, his voice like a roll of thunder across the plains.

"Harakhamis! You owe me a debt, the debt of a life! You will slay him, Harakhamis, to pay your debt to me!" I didn't even need to look to know that he pointed to Arthur. Time slowed to a crawl, and I knew that all debts must be paid. Quick as thought, I flew along the wall to stand in the empty air across from him.

"You know I can't do that, Mephisto." Please, gods, let them have the time. Let them have the time. A crackle in my senses told me the Rift was opened... they could go home. Maelstrom spoke to me in the radio, asking me if I was sure. I had no choice... I had to pay my debts. I sent them through the portal with my blessing, until only Zoderhan remained.

"Then you know the cost." Mephisto's words contained more hate than I had ever known, and his negligent gesture summoned nearly a score of deevils to stand before him. In the corner of my eye, Zoderhan blinked out of sight. For an instant, I thought he was gone through the portal, and wished him well. I felt his parting gift materialize around and inside me... armor of pure energy, and a bubbling, magical strength. I knew the cost.
With both hands, I raised my sword. A thought sent the energy of life running down its blade, and it glowed green in the light of an early morning. As I raised the blade higher, over my head, the sun crested the cliffs, bathing me in its light. The exultant energy was too much for me, and a word rang out of my throat. "HORUS!" I charged into melee, a mortal against a god, and knew that I would never die.

And then I knew no more.

Indon
2007-01-23, 10:33 AM
I was the somewhat dim-witted fighter in a level 4 party, and we were in a dungeon crawl.

Before us was a patch of magical darkness, which they insisted I go forth and examine (blindly, mind you). After some convincing, my character had a rope tied around him and walked in.

The horrible screams immediately afterwards prompted my friends to pull me back out. Dying and without one arm (the DM said later he tweaked the damage of what I was hit by a little, because they one-rounded me straight below neg 10), the party stabilized me but didn't have the remaining spells to heal me.

However, a Warforged in the party had a potion which he'd asked an alchemist to make, which they decided to feed me just in case it healed me. It killed me, of course, which is what you would expect of a potion made of vampire ash and minotaur dung.

After a large argument about what to do with my possessions, in which the DM notified one of the characters that due to his actions over a period of time, his alignment had changed to good, the party went on and eventually everyone died but the Warforged.

The Warforged looted everyone and left, retiring on more than 25,000 gold worth of goods.

Tormsskull
2007-01-23, 10:49 AM
This is going to ping me as a sadistic DM, but I have a favorite death of one of my PCs.

The characters are traveling by ship, through a lake that had a lot of bad history to it. They had successfully moved a whole village out of the path of an army by boat, across to a fortified city. On their way back, skeletons rise from the lake, climbing up the ship's sides and boarding it. The 4 PCs were like level 5 or 6, so a dozen level 1 skeletons didn't really phase them much. It was mostly for the fear effect.

The PCs are mopping up the skeletons, and the very last skeleton is charged by a PC named Silv. Silv is a 1/2 silver dragon 1/2 elf who wields 2 battle axes, is geared to the hilt, etc. TPB Silv is a total min/maxer, optimizier, his 'roleplay' consists of always trying to be the strongest character possible. He constantly compares himself to the other PCs to determine how strong he is. Well, one of the other PCs had already killed 4 of the skeletons by himself, and Silv had too, but Silv wanted to get the last one to "win".

So Silv rushes up to the skeleton, the skeleton swings at him. Skeleton rolls a 20. So I roll again to see if it is a critical and bam, another 20. well since we play with instant death, I now needed a 19 or 20 to instantly kill Silv. I told him I could roll it or he could roll his own fate. He choose for me to roll the die, I did, and it came up 19. Silv, the level 6 BAMF, killed by a level 1 skeleton. Everyone was laughing their rear end off. Well, everyone except TPB Silv.

purepolarpanzer
2007-01-23, 11:54 AM
Posted in another forum, but here goes again.

DMing a game, I had an elven arcane archer with good ranks in craft alchemy spend some time and make some blasting powder, which she tied to her arrows and used to do some major area damage. Move forward a couple of sessions and a bunch of levels and she's doing quite well with the magical arrows of boomstick. While defending a castle, a group of huge slaughterstone behemoths are charging the castle. She pulls out the arrows, thinks for a second, then smirks at me, thinking she has the perfect plan. "Maximized fireball imbued into my arrows, with the blasting powder, aiming for the joints on the behemoth." Realizing this is ALOT of damage, the party cleric buffs the weapon further, making it quite lethal. Sighting down the arrow, she takes aim and fires- a natural one. The entire party sighs, then she rolls on the ciritcal fail fumble chart we were using. Surprizingly, it didn't seem that bad- 1d6 damage from weapon breaking in hand, and another roll of the attack dice to see if the arrow hits. Another natural 1. Another fumble roll critical hit the cleric, bringing it to 1/4 health. "Oh that sucks, sorry." she said, then realized how much magical bull s*it was on the arrow. The fireball and the blasting powder exploded at the same time, killing the party rogue, cleric, and ranger. The barbarian and aracane archer managed to make good saves and were only severely weakend. I rolled a d100, and the blasting powder blew up the wall, sending both flying. Miraculously, they both survived the fall and the debris. Only to be stepped on by a slaughterstone behemoth, crushing both. And this is how one arrow killed the entire party (I had to do a bring-em-back-from-the-dead-plane mission to keep everyone from leaving that day in disgust)

Zaggab
2007-01-23, 12:03 PM
The best character death story I have isn't one of my characters, but I'll tell it anyway.

It was a d20 modern game. The first adventure in a campaign. We were going to get something from someone, but that person didn't want to give it to us. So, one player decides (without the approval of the rsest of us) that violence is the way to go (we were btw in a crowded mall). So he pulls out his gun and shoots at this guy (who were lvl 4, we were lvl 1). He misses. Then it's the guy's turn. He also pulls out his gun and shoots. And he crits with a 2d8 gun, dealing 22+ damage. The charcater who got shot had 1) 12 hp 2) 14 massive damage treshold and 3) failed the fortitude save that we called for "just because".

So: First hit in the campaign, and the second shot fired kills a character double up.

Otherwise we try to avoid killing characters, so I have very few death stories.

MaxKaladin
2007-01-23, 12:04 PM
This happened back in a 2nd edition AD&D game I ran in college. It happened more than 10 years ago, so forgive me if I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.

The party was in Cormyr in the Forgotten Realms. They'd gotten pretty powerful and were probably 12th-14th level by this point. They also had collected quite an arsenal of magic items, which shall become important later. They'd gotten a land grant and were at the point where they were establishing their own keep and settling the land. Unfortunately, drow raiders were showing up and causing havoc.

After fighting off various attacks on their lands, the PCs headed off into the mountains to try to figure out where the drow were emerging from the underdark and eventually close it off. They manage to track the drow to a cave mouth recessed in a chasm. They decided to set up an ambush and wait. Their tactic was to use magic to hollow out part of the chasm slope and then cover it with an illusion. A couple of the PCs could go invisible through various spells and items they'd accumulated. The idea was that they could hide behind the illusion and the invisible PCs could poke their heads out to observe then the entire party could spring from hiding when the time came.

Well, eventually the drow emerged from the cave mouth and were obviously on another raid. The PCs fell quiet as the drow were set to pass very close to their position and they planned to spring out and attack them from behind. Unfortunately, it turned out that one of the wizards who was with the raiding party was wearing some goggles that gave him True Seeing. He was looking around and did a double-take as he saw the party right through the illusion. He shouted an alarm and cast Cone of Cold at the assembled party members.

Now, normally this group could have handled the drow without problems. It was one of their own party members who did them in -- quite accidentally. There was a player who we shall call "Joe" to protect the guilty. Joe was playing a wizard and announced that he'd absorb the Cone of Cold into his Staff of the Magi (which was not considered an artifact back in 2e, "just" a really good standard item). The 2e version of the staff allowed you to recharge it by absorbing spells thrown at you and converting them to charges. One spell level became one charge. Thus, what he did was a valid move. It would save the party from taking any damage at all - except for one little detail...

Me: "Ok, you absorb the spell. How many charges does that bring you up to?"
Joe: "Thirty!"
Me: "Uh, staves can only hold 25 charges. Are you saying the staff was fully charged before you absorbed the spell?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "And you meant to do that?"
Joe: "Yes"
Me: "Ok, you remember what happens if you overcharge it, right? "
Joe: {Thinks for a minute} "Awww...."
Other Players: "GROAN!"

The 2e Staff of the Magi, if overcharged, would explode in a "Retributive Strike" unleashing all of the energy in the staff as a massive explosion. The explosion caused 1d6 damage for every charge, thus this staff exploded for 30d6 damage. Even this, the party could take. It was a fairly high powered game and they had lots of magic and everything else. That proved to be their undoing. See, if you failed your save (at all, not like in 3.x) your items all had to save or be destroyed. Some saves were failed and items started failing saves and being destroyed. Unfortunately, one of the other party members was wearing a Necklace of Fireballs and it, of course, failed it's save causing all of the fireballs on it to detonate...

To make an already long story a bit shorter, there was a cascade effect. The Staff of the Magi exploded and did 30d6 to the party all packed nicely together in their little ambush spot. The Necklace of Fireballs exploded and did a bunch more, items failed and were destroyed and several custom magic items with explosive potential similar to the Necklace of Fireballs also exploded doing yet more damage and destroying more items. The effect must have looked something like a fireworks factory exploding. I can't remember the damage total anymore, but it ended up being at least 100 points more than anyone had at full even if it was all reduced to half for successful saves.

I ruled that they'd been more or less vaporized and any surviving items had been looted by the very surprised drow.

Technically, one PC did survive. His player had to work that night so we had his character stay behind to watch the keep. When he got home (he was a roommate), I told him that his character was on the ramparts of the keep looking into the mountain when he saw a large mushroom cloud...

They learned their lesson about carrying around a bunch of dangerous stuff like the Necklace of Fireballs though...

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-23, 12:11 PM
Imagine a room full of webs ala the web spell and 2 driders on the ceiling shooting arrows at the party. the party is slogging its way through the webs when the sorcerer decides to just fireball everything to make it easier. The sorcerer survived the fireball but was killed by the fire he created in the webs Only the barbarian survived the encounter and that was because he ran away. I know I shouldn't have laughed the way I did, but it was hilarious and the other players just glared at the sorcerer.

MaxKaladin
2007-01-23, 12:15 PM
I'm going to add a "Joe" story as the favorite PC death, though it was actually two deaths.

In a different campaign, the player with the staff from my last story, "Joe", was also playing a wizard. He and the party ranger needed to go somewhere pretty quickly for some reason and going by horse would take several days. Joe protested there was no need for this tedious journey because he could just Teleport the two of them there in an instant! The ranger's player balked. He knew quite well that Teleport was risky. This was 2e and even teleporting to a well-known destination carried a small but not-zero chance of arriving high in the air and falling to your death or arriving low and dying instantly from appearing in solid earth.

The two players spent a good 20 minutes arguing about this. The ranger's player didn't want to take the risk while Joe's player insisted the chances of horrible death were so small as to be not worthy of consideration. Finally, he managed to convice the ranger's player to take the risk and off they went.

Well, we all know what's coming. Joe's player rolled his dice and they appeared in solid earth, dying instantly. The ranger's player was not amused.

Saph
2007-01-23, 12:41 PM
A long-running GURPS fantasy campaign. Our party had the usual mix of casters and fighters, with two humans, an elf, and three dwarves. Most of the players were around college age, but one of the dwarves was played by a 15 year old boy. Let's call the player Alec.

Alec was a real pain to have around, and tended to make characters that reflected that. His dwarf character, for instance, had a delusion that every tunnel in the world belonged to him, and thus he'd try to charge the party rent whenever we went underground. It was funny the first time, but before long it started REALLY getting on our nerves. Alec also had a big mouth.

So we were investigating an underground temple to the god of death. We walk in, Alec does his usual "This is my cave!" routine, everyone else hits him and tells him to shut up, we work our way down. Things go wrong and we wind up getting attacked by a group of incorporeal life-draining wraiths. Alec's character gets killed, and the last sight our PCs see of him is his obviously dead body having the last traces of energy sucked out of it by the wraiths. The DM takes Alec's player out of the room for a few minutes, then they both return.

We're discussing what to do now that Alec's character was dead when Alec interrupts with "I'm not dead!"
Us: "Yes you are."
Alec: "No I'm not!"
Us: "We just watched you die. You went down to about -30 health, for god's sake."
Alec: "That's what you think."
Us: "Are you there with our characters?"
Alec: "No . . ."
Us: "Then you can't talk to us. Okay, now that the dwarf is dead . . ."
Alec: "I'm not dead!"

. . . and so on. A couple of hours pass. We work our way down to the bottom of the temple, negotiate with the high priest, and work our way up again. All this time Alec keeps insisting that he's not dead. Then we get up into the mouth of the cave, and . . .

DM: "Through the afternoon sunlight you see a familiar figure in the cave mouth. It's him." (nods to Alec.)
Alec: "YES! Ha ha! I told you! I TOLD you I wasn't dead! Ha ha ha! See! I'm right here!"
(We all look at each other.)
Alec: (has jumped to his feet now) "Ha ha ha! See? I told you I wasn't dead! I TOLD you! Ha ha ha! And you said I was dead! I told you! Oh, this is so cool! Just wait till you-"
(The two dwarf players lean over next to each other and mutter something. I didn't hear any of it except the last two words.)
Dwarf Player 1: "Axe?"
Dwarf Player 2: "Axe."
Dwarf Player 1: "Hey, DM? We both chuck our throwing axes at his head." (pointing to Alec.)
Alec: "I told you I wasn't- what?"

They knocked him down with one hit and then hacked his head off. Their explanation was that since they'd seen him die, he was obviously some kind of undead and needed killin'. It was kind of hard to hear them because Alec was wailing so loudly.

I later found out from talking to the DM that Alec's character had been supposed to have been resurrected as a kind of champion of the death god or something. There would have been a whole subplot and stuff.

Most of the rest of the party didn't stop laughing for weeks. Even now, when we see each other, the "Axe? Axe." line still gets us laughing again.

- Saph

Fhaolan
2007-01-23, 12:51 PM
They learned their lesson about carrying around a bunch of dangerous stuff like the Necklace of Fireballs though...

Extremely similar experience:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24326&page=2&highlight=helm+brilliance#49

illyrus
2007-01-23, 01:20 PM
We had this very annoying player in our gaming group that no one really liked. He would never, ever, ever under any circumstances listen to another PC or player in our out of game. He would also never ever shut up. We'd make a plan that relied on him casting x spell or using x wand(he was playing a wizard) and sure enough he'd use it before the plan. He'd fireball or web the party half the time and it was beginning to strain our suspension of disbelief that we hadn't killed him yet. Cue 2 game sessions back to back.

The party is fighting 7 hill giants who are busy throwing rocks at us. All the PCs seek cover behind a wall and are now safe from the rocks.

Wizard: I cast fly on myself and fly above the wall.
Me: Um, you might not want to fly up and over just yet.
Wizard: No, I do it anyway.

With only one target to throw rocks at, all 7 hill giants made his wizard into a blood splatter.

He gets ressed and the next day we're fighting a stone giant cleric that has righteous might and divine power going. We're standing inside an obscuring mist and letting our tank deal with him while we provide support.

Wizard: Having fly on myself, I fly outside the cloud and cast a spell at the stone giant.
Other party members: You're going to die again if you do that.
Wizard: No, you're wrong, I do it anyway.

DM proceeds to roll an attack, and crits for 1.5 times the wizard's health. The spell the wizard cast before his death, baleful polymorph, on a stone giant cleric. Yay high fort saves and not rolling a 1.

Soon after he was removed from the group.

blackrogue
2007-01-23, 05:06 PM
Lol.

Okay, my party and I have come upon a door in a dungeon and we're pretty damn sure that it is trapped.

Me: Hrm. I'm gonna check it for traps.
Bard: What? Screw that. Dude. The last 4 doors were'nt trapped.
Me: I'm still checking.
Bard: Forget it. *Bard walks through door*
*Lightning trap goes off and he's reduced to dust*
Sorcerer: Well, I guess the traps done now. I light my staff and procceed through the door.
*Sorcerer is reduced to dust*
Me: Holy ****....well I try to disable trap
*Roll a 1*
Well at least I'll be cremated....
*Zap*

The DM was somewhat shocked by what happend...We had to start everything over...

Aust_Arrowsplitter
2007-01-23, 07:29 PM
My favorite character death has got to be the way my first character ever, Aust Arrowsplitter, died.

They were in this giant dungeon made by elder dragons looking for a magical dagger that could, when used in conjunction with six other magical daggers, seal away all the demons that were plaguing the world. Well, we come into this room filled with pillars, and all the other rooms have had similar pillars, so we just assumed that the huge statues at the end of the room were some kind of guardian we all had to overcome, since the other rooms had had giant monsters in them, too. Well, we were dead wrong. When my character, a spellsword who specialized in the bow. entered one of the rows between the columns, a wall of force shot up between him and the rest of the party. Well, one of the giant statues woke up, walked into the 'hall' created by walls of force, and smashed my character into a gory paste. Not before I did some damage, but a lone Sor/Ftr/Spellsword doesn't stand much of a chance against the equivalent of a Warforged Titan.

The rest of the party found a way around the trap, however, and then defeated the monster together, but yeah. I got squished.

silentknight
2007-01-23, 07:38 PM
My first character (a halfling thief, 1E) in my first game was killed by a lucky shot when two bandits ambushed him. Total time: about 10 minutes.

I had a player whose half-orc barbarian was killed by a critical hit from a hill giant (one of many) that was assaulting the fort the party was camped in. Fast forward a few weeks and the barbarian has been brought back with a raise dead and earned enough experience to regain his lost level.

The party has tracked the location of a sought after magic item to the lair of a white dragon. The lair is rimed in ice and frost despite the otherwise temperate autumn hills around the cave. The party makes its way into the cave to confront the dragon. Although the dragon gets the jump on the party, the dragon is severely hurt in the ensuing battle and seeks to escape. The dragon charges out of the cave and leaps into the sky, winging away over the hilltops. Following, the party can only stand and watch as the dragon wings away.

Unbeknownst to the party, standing a few yards away is a group of frost giants that had tracked the dragon to its lair so that they could kill it and loot its hoard. Then the two groups notice each other. Well, the half-orc barbarian decides to rush the giants and unknowingly charges the chieftain (i.e. the one with levels in fighter, highest attack bonus, and most hit points).

Although, the party holds its own against the giants, the barbarian once again is...bereft of life force...by a critical hit from a giant before a truce is called so that the returning dragon can be dealt with.

Afterward, when the barbarian had once again been returned to life with a raise dead spell, he sold off many of his magic items so that he could afford heavy fortification armor.

The name of this half-orc? Hurtem Lotz.

Maltrich
2007-01-24, 01:16 AM
The first time I DM'd a game of D&D1e, the level 1 characters (a dwarf, an elf, a thief, and a magic-user) were going to loot/explore a cavern that had previously been inhabited by a goblin civilization. The elf had Charm Person, the magic-user had Magic Missile and a houseruled-in crossbow, because I already knew he was unlikely to be competent and didn't want him charging things with his dagger.

So, they enter the dungeon. They come to a set of reinforced wooden doors, slightly ajar, rusty hinges. They hear human voices inside, and they all ready their weapons, and the elf, wielding a short spear and carrying a shield, decides to push the door open with his foot, so that his shield can be in position as the door opens (in case somebody had a bow pointed at the door or something, I guess). I give him a funny look, and ask him if he wouldn't rather just push it with his hand. Of course he wouldn't. Roll vs. Dexterity, I tell him. He fails, and the door slams open.

There are six men in the room, five of whom are wearing leather armor and carrying swords. Two have short bows. stop investigating the tapestries, chairs, and such and spin to face the door. The unarmed man, who seems to be the leader, asks them who the heck they are. At this point, I fully expect the elf to cast Charm Person and enlist his aid in exploring the rest of the dungeon. I'd counted on my players knowing better than to fight six against four. Instead, the magic-user shouts "I shoot him!" He misses.

Combat begins, the players pull back into the hallway, with the thief hiding behind the door. The swordies charge. The thief waits until all three swordsmen are in the hallway and engaging the dwarf and elf, then backstabs one, who doesn't quite die and turns to face her. The dwarf has poor luck with die rolls, and dies very quickly. The magic-user remembers he has Magic Missile and casts it; it fries the guy who killed the dwarf. It's the only hit he manages the whole time; if we'd been playing with critical failures, he would have shot himself in the face at least twice.

The thief falls to bowfire, and her swordsman runs past the elf and his opponent, who are both rolling terribly and can't seem to hit each other. The magic-user dies at his hands. Now the elf starts rolling high, finishes both swordsmen, and the bowmen. Through all this, the unarmed man has just been standing there, shouting obscenities and waving his fist.

The last hanchman goes down, and the last guy laughs. "Get him, my servant!" he shouts, and an eight-foot suit of armor materializes in a cloud of smoke and light. I make a roll for the elf in secret, and he fails. The elf's player panics when it starts advancing, and he runs out of the dungeon, leaving the corpses of his companions and swearing off adventuring forever.

At this point, I'm laughing my head off, and the elf can't understand why. After giving him his XP, which he doesn't want because they wanted to start over anyway, I tell him what's so funny: there was no way that magic-user could summon an iron golem. He'd just been chased away by a Phantasmal Force.

dungeon_munky
2007-01-25, 10:11 AM
I'll save you all the torment of re-reciting my star wars TPK. So I shall tell another.

Level one party is elfin fighter (me) dwarf cleric, human ranger, and gnome rogue. Had a run in with some goblins, that resulted in some more goblins coming. Our ranger and rogue fall in a few rounds, so the cleric and I bolt, clearly unable to stop the seemingly endless wave. On our way back, there is a sapling on the path. I'm thinking "This tree wasnt here before, no way Im getting near that." Dwarf has other ideas, and pokes it with his hammer. The tree animates or something and stabs him with a branch, so I hack it in half in a single swing (twas a fairly small sapling.) But the dwarf is in negatives, and I have no ranks in heal to stablize. So he dies. Its at about this point where quite a few goblins peak over the hill. With the town nowhere in sight, I draw my longsword and took a few of them with me as I am overrun.

Viscount Einstrauss
2007-01-25, 03:43 PM
It's a small, simple tale, but it's still funny to me.

I was DMing recently, and the party's druid was underground with one of the other PC's when she found a cart on a track with a lever nearby. She somehow decides it's a good idea to put her animal companion, whom she dearly loved and created a name, backstory, and complex personality for, into the cart and pull the lever. Little did she realize that this was a magic cart, and pulling that lever made it careen away at an insane speed, far outside of her link range.

Instead of doing the intelligent thing and pulling the level back again, she decided to just run down the tunnel to the other end to try and find her companion. It took them something like three days to reach the other end, where they found a party of hobgoblins eating some fresh dog meat. She was so upset over the incident that her new hawk companion has yet to get a name.

jayphonic
2007-01-25, 06:20 PM
A certain power gamer in our party insisted on playing a Frenzied Berserker. TPK.

Brauron
2007-01-25, 06:33 PM
This girl was originally in our group, playing a gnome bard. She quit because she had trouble differentiating between the game world and the real world. She was Jewish, and got extremely offended that her character was served pork at a banquet. So she quit the group in a huff.

So the DM looks at us, looks at his notes, looks back at us, rolls a couple dice, and says, "Uhm...Gillian the Gnome Bard...spontaneously combusts."

kensai
2007-01-26, 04:11 PM
Sometime in the 1980s, a game with 5th level AD&D1 characters. I played monk with dismal stats and a penchant for getting killed. After a few sessions the enemy was leading 2-1; I had managed to kill one monster, and gotten killed twice (nice to have a fine NPC medic along), typically with one blow. At that point I decided that a crossbow is more useful than melee.. until we encountered an undead spellcaster. The skeletal variety.

GM: "the undead creature rises from a throne, looks at you, and starts casting a spell."
Players: *perform a variety of actions and preparations*
GM: "the undead continues to cast the spell. Looks like it will be a long one."
I: "I run across the room with the benefit of my awesome monk speed, jump with both feet against the the throne, and tackle the creature in a bear hug."

The fellow players were puzzled, but I thought that at the very least a tackle to the back should disrupt the spell. Damage caused to the monster would be irrelevant - the other players were a lot better at damage.

So,

DM: "Roll dice."

Not a good time for a critical miss.

DM: "You miss the throne."

The good news was that behind the throne was the safest place in the room when the spell went off.

Artanis
2007-01-26, 04:24 PM
I've never had a character die. Mostly because I've had too few characters in too short of campaigns to get them killed, but still...:smalltongue:

...although, I was feeling kinda smug when the GM, frustrated that I wasn't there to totally **** over some more, decided to take it out on the rest of the party and killed half of them.

Orzel
2007-01-26, 05:06 PM
I TPK vs a 1 of each base class.
1 guy. 11 core base classes.

We were all elves (Favored enemy- humanoid- elf). He's buffed on every good level 1 spell. He gets us on the suprise round. Smite sneak crits our cleric. Then runs pass everyone to crit the rogue (since he won init). Our wizard tries to hit him with a spell but since he took 1 of each class he has +12 of saves. He drains my melee guy's STR down with RoE then jets next to the wizard. Then his animal companion, familiar, and wild empathy animal shows up. 2 lucky crits later, everyone in the party is near death.

His name. Jack O'alltrades.

Lial Swiftlight
2007-01-26, 06:01 PM
Here's mine: We were exploring an artic ice-themed dungeon when we happen across a large room with a pedastool with a large gem set upon it. From past experience we knew that touching the gem would summon two frost worms. No-one particularly fancied fighting them, but our wizard had a plan: one of us would go in to grab the gem, and he'd seal the doorway into the room with a wall of force so the woms couldn't get to the rest of the party, leaving a hole just big enough to lob spells through.

My kobold rogue/sorceror quickly pointed out the flaw in the plan: Whoever grabbed the gem would be trapped with the worms, if anything went wrong it would take too long for the party to get in and help.

Needless to say, by complaining I had instantly volunteered myself as bait. "But you're the rogue!" they said, "you can cast fly and invisibilty on yourself, they won't be able to touch you!" they said. Yeah right.

Reluctantly, I gave in and went ahead with the plan. Within two minutes the wall of force had been dispelled and the rest of the party were slicing frost worms open and pulling out half-digested kobold bones (apparantly frost worms have very fast digestive systems).

The worst part was, the worms had somehow managed to paralyse my character and decided to eat her alive, an unpleasant experiance she's never quite forgiven our wizard for.

moes247
2007-01-27, 01:43 AM
There are two incindents that come to mind. The first was one in a Spycraft game I was playing in. Are GM wanted the game to be kinda realistic so if the group ever split up, we would go to diffrent room in his house and use the intercom to talk to the other group and so on. Which partially is the cause of the accident. Our spy group was sent to get this nucualer weapon research from facitly in the mountians. So after some preperation I got a crap load of explosives from the company, along with enuff soap naplam and dyamite (thank you Fight Club), to blow up the main gate, and anything in the way. ( I was the demo guy). So the night of the operation, we split up with me in the van told to bring down the gate when I got the signal, and everyone else in the woods around the base. So I go off in the other room and they com me and say the gate and main building are bigger than orginally estimated. So I decide to go and get some extra explosives :smallsmile:. I go to the nearest gas station buy them out of gas cans and fuel and proceed back up to the hill. I then get the signal to break down the gate and come in, due to them being able to sneak in. So figureing Iam going to have to blow the gate up, I decide to rig the van up so it will drive itself into the gate. Well after I set the van up and release it, I come to find out the gate was not some massive stone gate, but an actually chain fence. So the car crashes thru the gate, the guards decide to start shooting at it. But, the van hits the main building and in a spectualur crash and explosion, the whole party except for me was DEAD. With the last thing I heard and they said was "what was that sound?" Which was the crash of the gates and a small bit of gunfire. I couldnt help but laugh.

The next instance was in a Star Wars game I was running. Several of the PC's were fighting in a ship and one of them got thrown into and escape pod. The villian decied to lauch the escape pod to split up the group. The PC who was stuned recovered the round after the pod was launched. His course of action for the round, to Force Push the door open of the pod. I remined him of what had just happened and he still decied to push the door open. So he rolled and got nat 20. Which he was very happy about and asked what happened when he blew the door off its hindges. Which was he gets sucked into space and dies. Everyone in the group fell out of there chairs laughing.

Trond Forgelighter
2007-01-27, 08:32 AM
This hasn't resulted in any character death yet but it will soon (this happened last wednesday).

We had been exploring an abandoned monastary that had a subteranian temple to tharzidun, god of madness and the void, below it, it was also nfested with goblins. The female elf rouge, played by your typical horny 14 year old male, had found a bottle of wine in the temple, drank it, and got drunk. We knocked her out (sleep spells don't work on elfs) so she wouldn't alert the goblins and took her back to the camp outside the monastary. We gave her a day to rest and sleep off the wine. I was a 2nd lvl dwarven cleric who was very annoyed at the elf for various reasons,fed him about his flashing the high cleric of pelor while we were trying to get his asistance, trying to get all the Npc's in the party drunk, checking every 5 feet for traps no matter where we were and never alerting the party of the incoming monsters even though he hears them with his ridiculosly high listen check. So when the elf woke up i annoyed him by talking very loudly and shouting in his ear "are you ok?". The elf got mad and started making nonlethat attacks on me, rolling high every time. I shrugged it off and we headed into the dungeon, after destroying a goblin gambling hall (apparently in goblin games it is possible to get 16 aces, or they are just stupid). We came into another room and fought two hobgoblins but were ambushed by 8 more hobgoblins and their leader. The elf got rid of one and the other party member were pummeled into pulp pretty soon (the fighter took out one or two i think). I teased the elf about his terrible melee attack bonus and he got mad and punched me in game for nonlethal damage. He was knocked out and i was knocked unconcious because the hobgoblins knocked me down to 1hp and with 2 nonlethal damage i passed out. We were captured and the DM who always manaed to leave us with a cliffhanger left us with the goblins grinning about what they were going to do to us.

Saint George
2007-01-27, 05:13 PM
The best character death I ever had was one of my very first characters. He was a level 10 Dwarf Warrior who started off just the standard "bash em' guud man" and somehow managed to evolve into a tiny hero. Over time, he picked up the habit of being a bit of a packrat. He loved holding onto random gems instead of selling them and also had quite the pack of random potions. We were nearing the end of the campaign and were going up against some reborn avatar of a death god. We had been hunting him for awhile and the we finally found him in a burnt out temple with his lacky friends. Seeing as this was going to be quite the epic battle, my dwarf finally decided to break into his potion stores.
"I drink a potion of storm giant strength, a potion of heroism, and a potion of invulnerability"
"Uh... I know this hasn't come up before... but you are mixing three very potent magical potions in your stomach. Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Damn right"
After several succesful saves, my dwarf became a primal being of fury. Each round our DM was rolling to see if anything happened from the potion mix. The dwarf took an entire quiver of exploding arrows without flinching. Finally, near the final round of combat... he exploded. Best death ever.