PC Death

[HMS Invincible]

I had a guy attack with cleave, and the wizard was in the cleave radius. He said, "HP: -15. I die." despite having abrupt jaunt. I asked him why he didn't abrupt jaunt and he said it's too late now. I told him to stop being stupid and jaunt out of danger.

Later on, one of the players complained about kid gloves and me not killing players for their mistakes. How should I deal with PCs who are going to die? He later brought up the point of him, a level 4 fighter, running into a temple of doom, where he was attacked a single lvl 4 hobgoblin, instead of the 4 he was expecting. He then told me he wanted his character to die, and wasn't happy when he lived. It ended up kinda weird; he lived with 1 hp, then drank a cure light wound, and explored further. Upon hitting a single arrow trap, he ran back out. The player mumbled something about willing to explore with 12 hp, but not with 6hp.

[(Un)Inspired]

It sounds like a LOT of your players want to die.

That's kinda morbid. Are they having fun?

[Gavinfoxx]

Tell them, "If you dont like your character, you are allowed to retire it with no repercussions."

[Kazudo]

To quote someone whose name or tag I can't remember:

"Sometimes 'the DM won't kill us' is a bubble that needs to be popped."

[HMS Invincible]

To quote someone whose name or tag I can't remember:

"Sometimes 'the DM won't kill us' is a bubble that needs to be popped."

I've only had a complaint from one. I'm not sure why the wizard didn't abrupt jaunt, it was a chaotic fight, so I had chalked it up to distractedness. I had a talk with the suicidal PC guy, he said he wasn't sure why. Which is frustrating to hear, you have a problem but don't know how to articulate it or what to do about it. What I wanted to hear was, lets reroll and be done with it, or lets change the personality of the PC along with some stats.

[Nettlekid]

How...weird. I'm mainly just commenting so I can keep track of this thread, because as a DM I try really hard not to kill my PCs. Give them a challenging fight, sure, get them close to death, but try not to deal any finishing blow. Sometimes I drop the ball, but my players tend to be very invested in their characters and would hate to see them dead, as would I. The old Gygax Tomb-of-Horror-esque games seem so heartless and difficult to get invested in to me. So it's weird for me to think of a party that complains that the DM WON'T kill their players.

[Honest Tiefling]

They could simply like that game style, where things are dangerous and you need a stack of character sheets. They want the danger, so victory is so much more sweet when they do suceed.

They may also wish to learn the game on their own, including their own mistakes, even if that results in the death of a PC. That they want their PC to succeed only because of their tactics and their decisions, and no one else's.

[Captnq]

Ahhh... Abrupt Jaunt:
Benefit:
You gain a spell-like ability that reflects your chosen school of magic.
This is an extraordinary ability.

Oh wait, the errata:
The first sentence should read: “You gain a supernatural ability that reflects your chosen school of magic.” Text describing these abilities as extraordinary abilities or spell-like abilities can be disregarded.

So it's a supernatural Spell-like Extraordinary ability.

Not the point, but just... sigh.

[Captnq]

I had a guy attack with cleave, and the wizard was in the cleave radius. He said, "HP: -15. I die." despite having abrupt jaunt. I asked him why he didn't abrupt jaunt and he said it's too late now. I told him to stop being stupid and jaunt out of danger.


Back on topic.

He is dead.

You an use an immediate action to interrupt someone else's action. But you can't use an immediate action to interrupt a result.

Good example: Someone is trying to swing at me. I abrupt Jaunt out of reach. He never gets to swing. He gets his swing to use on someone else.

Bad Example: Someone swings at me. He hits. THEN I choose to abrupt Jaunt. Sorry. He hit me. The damage took effect. Even if I choose to jaunt before damage is rolled, it's too late. When I 'port, I'm taking the damage with me.

From your story, the guy had been hit and damage had been rolled. He died.

Bit of advice? Murder your players. Murder them as hard as you can. You know why? Because I just ran PCs vrs Tiamat tonight. They won. You know what? They believe it. They know I didn't pull any punches. They know I showed no mercy. They KNOW they got an honest kill they can brag about.

And afterwords, when one of them opened the Iron Flask, and a programed illusion fo Tiamat jumped out shouting in draconic, "ROUND TWO, BITCHES!" They Honestly Panicked. One player abandoned everyone and emergency teleported away. The look on their faces was priceless.

And afterwords, when one said, "Wait, I use true seeing." And I said, "Yup, it's an illusion." They laughed so frickin' hard. I got flipped off, but they loved it. Why?

Because they believed it.

If you "Protect Them From Themselves", they will never come to care about their PCs. It will be like walking around in a world made of nerf. It'll be more interesting to play Minecraft.

Warn your players. Point out things their PCs would know that they might not know. A PC might know that you shouldn't insult the king, whereas the player might not understand.

But you only warn them once and ask, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" Then when they say, "Hell Yes!" You roll the dice and they take their chances.

What you did was save a player from death by changing the rules. I can see why he doesn't want to play anymore. What's the point of playing if you can't lose?

[Khedrac]

I had a guy attack with cleave, and the wizard was in the cleave radius.
This reads as if you are treating cleave like the MMO form (e.g. World of Warcraft) where it hits everyone in a given area. You may want to re-read the feat description here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#cleave).
If you are playing cleave correctly then it might have been better to leave it out of your post, as it bears no relevance on the situation you are asking about.

[Brookshw]

If your players don't want kid gloves take them off. PCs die, it happens.

[HMS Invincible]

I see we have two schools of thought here, or at least a spectrum from no mercy to get them close enough to death that it gives a good tingle.

For the record, it is two players. Player A saw Player B not die when he should have, and Player A complained later on. Player A charges into a different battle alone to die. Player A unable to describe why he doesn't like his PC in the party.

At first I asked him to tell me what he wanted, and see what I could do. Then he told me that it wasn't something to be rushed. I almost punched him if he wasn't texting from the city. Why would you say that now if you ran into a temple to die alone first?


Off topic: It was a manuever, it had a radius. I called it cleave because I didn't want to complicate things, but alas, I have failed to do so.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I have quit a few games because I knew, or VERY strongly suspected, that the GM(s) were breaking the rules to keep my character (and therefore, probably others) alive.

In one LARP, I wandered off by myself briefly for a sulk after some emotional roleplaying plot my character was involved in. Just then, a gang of bandits attacked, found me on my own, and killed me.
I was hit with more than the rules said I could survive - not just unconscious, but killed outright.
When I turned up at the NPC hut to join the NPC crew for the rest of the event, the GMs told me No, you have survived. Get back to where you were attacked and wait for the Healers.
So I carried on with the event, to be polite, and then retired from that game.

It's not that we want our characters to die, but when it happens, and the GM fudges it, then like Captnq says - the danger of the game becomes unbelievable, and success becomes cheap.

[mashlagoo1982]

I can see where it would be very tempting as a DM to undo the death of the caster. Just because the player forgot they had the ability to avoid the killing attack before it landed does not mean character would have.

This goes back to casters being paranoid and super prepared. It is actually a failing on the players part (imo) without more information.

As a DM, I don't hold back on killing PCs, but a death like this would really bother me. It seems VERY out of character. Unless there is some legit reason as to why the character would allow their self to be cut down, I would probably tell the player to stop being suicidal.

The other player who wanted to die and wanted the caster to die does not seem to understand this. I would try to explain it... stupid death =/= kiddie gloves or no kiddie gloves... stupid death only = stupid death... which should be avoided. It is another way of cheapening the game.

[The Prince of Cats]

Oh, I know the DM has fudged a roll or two. Once, it was pure rule of cool; my ranger was naked, facing off against a snake alone in the dark with only a pair of snapped femurs (improvised slashing weapons, but he had a feat to let him ignore the 'improvised' bit) and was on one hit-point from a roll which was 'not quite high enough' to kill him.

We knew he should have died, I would have considered it a perfectly acceptable and heroic end to his life, but the DM said he couldn't let it end like that. I'd even rolled a new character up after my ranger was tossed naked into the snake-pit, but...

After that, he was re-captured by the snake's owner and the DM just flat out asked me if I wanted him to die in custody. He was never the same after that, but I wasn't sure I wanted it to end on a torturer's table and the other players begged to save him, so I said no.

I wasn't sure I liked the fudging, but I could see his point; the other players confessed that it would have felt like an anti-climax to see him die down there, so I brought him back.

It was kind of hard to sit there and say 'feel free to kill my character', but the tension went out of the games after we started noticing obvious fudging.

The ranger's experience, which I will not relate here, was brutal and designed to break him, so he came back wrong. From that day forth, he would run into battle - I almost gave him a level of barbarian, based on the berserk rages he would fly into when faced with evil-doers - and yet he always survived everything.

The trouble was that a PC looking for a good death in battle met a DM who hated the idea of killing characters and eventually two of us asked him to stop fudging. In plain, unambiguous language, we asked him to let us die if our actions and dice-rolls betrayed us.

He also let me retire my fatalistic ranger, since he was well-liked and it seemed unfair to make the DM kill a character that even the other players wanted to see recover from his traumatic experiences.

[Red Fel]

Rocks fall, valar morghulis. It's unfortunate, but when a player isn't paying attention, PCs die. It happens.

What struck me is how blase he was about it. "Nope, my character is dead. Too late." No bargaining, no requests, no kicking himself over missing an option - just "Whoops, dead now." When I hear that from a player, I give him exactly what he wants.

You cannot give players plot armor. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny; consume you, it will. The PC is dead. Don't try to save this or any other PC from himself; that way lies madness.

[mashlagoo1982]

You cannot give players plot armor. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny; consume you, it will. The PC is dead. Don't try to save this or any other PC from himself; that way lies madness.

I would not call this plot armor. I would call this anti-stupid out-of-character armor if we want to name it. However, in this case it seems like the character came down with a bad case of Obi-Wanism of which ended up being fatal.

[The Prince of Cats]

Players are not their characters.

I mean, we tend to feel that our 20 Int wizard is best represented by all four players working together rather than just relying on the player.

Our DM likes to nudge us and check that there was nothing we might have done or used to ward off that final blow. He also reminds us when one more hit like the last one would finish us off for good. It's all based on the idea that our characters have lived in these bodies and with these abilities for 18-30 years, while we only live in their heads for four hours a week.

f a player decides that they would not have thought of that or done that or decides to do a Wis / Int save to think of it, that is up to them. A DM just flat out saying 'you live' is the problem, not one who asks you if you would have done something obvious.

[Katana1515]

Firstly a massive plus one to Captnq's entire post. It sums up the feeling on most of my tables perfectly. If their isn't any risk to combat then what's the point? knowing that their is a real risk to their characters existence drives the players to work hard on their sheets to produce worthy hero's and gives them a reason to work as a team and plan out their strategies effectively.

As to 'Kid gloves' they do have a time and a place and the clue as to where is in the name "kids". not necessarily just young people but with people new to the game generally. when running a 'noob' game a slightly different tact can be taken.

Also Deaths should ideally be caused by either poor tactics or dramatic effects. The most notable Character death I have ever seen was when our transmuter decided to start a fight flying 30 ft above the rest of the party vs a trio of armanite's (demonic centaurs). In that case he had rolled really high on his Know Planes check and i gave him a lengthy description of Armanite culture/history/ and abilities. Among the most notable of which is the ability to Air Walk for 1 hour per day. despite me pointing this fact out 3 times the player was dead set on having his character flying above the party in easy charge distance basically covered in 'Skewer me' signs. needless to say he did not survive round 1. He did learn to listen to the DM though.

Despite all this, I wouldn't question the ruling the OP took in his example with adrupt jaunt. 3.5 is a wondrous yet fiendishly complex game and its entirely up to the DM how the game deals with little oversights like 'I forgot about adrupt jaunt'. If you wanted to make sure the player learnt a lesson from it you could do something inventive, perhaps along the line of "caught unaware's you activate your teleport a moment too late, the blade sinks into your shoulder causing (enough damage to knock the player below 0 but not kill him), by moving to the other side of the room you have prevented yourself from taking the worst of the blow but you are out of the fight for now."

[Gnaeus]

They could simply like that game style, where things are dangerous and you need a stack of character sheets. They want the danger, so victory is so much more sweet when they do suceed.


This. I don't WANT to die. But I want to know that if the dice say I die, I die. Otherwise, the risk is not there and it isn't fun for me.

[mashlagoo1982]

If a player decides that they would not have thought of that or done that or decides to do a Wis / Int save to think of it, that is up to them. A DM just flat out saying 'you live' is the problem, not one who asks you if you would have done something obvious.

The majority of the time I would agree with this. But the death of a character is NOT something to take lightly. I actually recently had to kill a character but it was done in an in-character and legit manner that was fair.

In this one case though, I feel it is the DM's responsibility to at least point out there was a HUGE problem with the death (also, the other player should NOT have given the DM a problem considering there was such glaring mistake).

If the entire party was fine with it, I may have let it fly... but I would have made sure to state that this was not standard and I was not fine with it. People typically don't let themselves get killed if there is something they can do to stop it... especially if it is so easy to avoid. If anybody in the party thought it was wrong, the character would have lived. If the player wanted to roll a new character, that can be arranged and his old character can leave the party ALIVE.

[Perius]

Besides, a PC party with no casualties has no opportunity to RP dealing with survivors guilt/carrying mementos of former comrades/adapting to accommodate a 'replacement'.

One of the best RPs for story I can remember saw only four of the original seven PLAYERS survive to start the final mission, with only two of those characters having been in the group that started the campaign. The reduced group size and feeling of darkness closing in an all sides as long-term PCs were killed off was key in the epic feeling of the final few games.

[mashlagoo1982]

Firstly a massive plus one to Captnq's entire post. It sums up the feeling on most of my tables perfectly. If their isn't any risk to combat then what's the point? knowing that their is a real risk to their characters existence drives the players to work hard on their sheets to produce worthy hero's and gives them a reason to work as a team and plan out their strategies effectively.

As to 'Kid gloves' they do have a time and a place and the clue as to where is in the name "kids". not necessarily just young people but with people new to the game generally. when running a 'noob' game a slightly different tact can be taken.

Also Deaths should ideally be caused by either poor tactics or dramatic effects. The most notable Character death I have ever seen was when our transmuter decided to start a fight flying 30 ft above the rest of the party vs a trio of armanite's (demonic centaurs). In that case he had rolled really high on his Know Planes check and i gave him a lengthy description of Armanite culture/history/ and abilities. Among the most notable of which is the ability to Air Walk for 1 hour per day. despite me pointing this fact out 3 times the player was dead set on having his character flying above the party in easy charge distance basically covered in 'Skewer me' signs. needless to say he did not survive round 1. He did learn to listen to the DM though.

Despite all this, I wouldn't question the ruling the OP took in his example with adrupt jaunt. 3.5 is a wondrous yet fiendishly complex game and its entirely up to the DM how the game deals with little oversights like 'I forgot about adrupt jaunt'. If you wanted to make sure the player learnt a lesson from it you could do something inventive, perhaps along the line of "caught unaware's you activate your teleport a moment too late, the blade sinks into your shoulder causing (enough damage to knock the player below 0 but not kill him), by moving to the other side of the room you have prevented yourself from taking the worst of the blow but you are out of the fight for now."

I agree with this entirely. I really like the idea of still taking damage as well.

[Zethex]

only four of the original seven PLAYERS survive

This can be interpreted much more tragically than I hope you meant.

[(Un)Inspired]

One of the best RPs for story I can remember saw only four of the original seven PLAYERS survive to start the final mission

Oh my god. Is this ... Is this a murder confession?

[The Prince of Cats]

Some players hate the idea of losing their character. They will fight tooth and nail to survive.

Others will fight tooth and nail to survive, but not because they can't let go; they know that all heroes must die, but they crave a death worthy of song.


The majority of the time I would agree with this. But the death of a character is NOT something to take lightly.
I agree, I simply mean that using pure GM fiat to prevent death is not something to be taken lightly either.

If you are the victim of a string of unlucky rolls and the DM saves you because dying from a constitution-poison trap while still at full HP is just stupid, that's a good use of the god-like power invested in you.

If you refuse to let a character die when they did something REALLY stupid or when they are single-handedly holding off a mighty foe to give the party time to escape, you can easily cheapen the game.

I was once taught the three-strikes rule of DMing player-death; strike one is 'that might not be a good idea', strike two is 'you do not think you can survive another of those' and strike three is 'roll 4d6 and drop the lowest six times, assign scores as you see fit'.

I was also taught the 'last stand' way of thinking where you basically let a player trade their character's life for those of the party. You should never say it out loud, but when they stand between a monster and the door to let the others escape, you should find a way to make their death meaningful...

[Eldest]

Good example: Someone is trying to swing at me. I abrupt Jaunt out of reach. He never gets to swing. He gets his swing to use on someone else.

Bad Example: Someone swings at me. He hits. THEN I choose to abrupt Jaunt. Sorry. He hit me. The damage took effect. Even if I choose to jaunt before damage is rolled, it's too late. When I 'port, I'm taking the damage with me.

One thing I disagree with, the swing is still used on the wizard, it can't be retargeted, it just failed. Otherwise I think this is correct.

[mashlagoo1982]

Some players hate the idea of losing their character. They will fight tooth and nail to survive.

Others will fight tooth and nail to survive, but not because they can't let go; they know that all heroes must die, but they crave a death worthy of song.


I agree, I simply mean that using pure GM fiat to prevent death is not something to be taken lightly either.

If you are the victim of a string of unlucky rolls and the DM saves you because dying from a constitution-poison trap while still at full HP is just stupid, that's a good use of the god-like power invested in you.

If you refuse to let a character die when they did something REALLY stupid or when they are single-handedly holding off a mighty foe to give the party time to escape, you can easily cheapen the game.

I was once taught the three-strikes rule of DMing player-death; strike one is 'that might not be a good idea', strike two is 'you do not think you can survive another of those' and strike three is 'roll 4d6 and drop the lowest six times, assign scores as you see fit'.

I was also taught the 'last stand' way of thinking where you basically let a player trade their character's life for those of the party. You should never say it out loud, but when they stand between a monster and the door to let the others escape, you should find a way to make their death meaningful...

I agree that a earned death should be enforced. To me they take many forms of which you described several.

This one instance seems like the DM and player (mostly on the player) had a brain fart and forgot the character had a simple spell that would have negated the threat. The DM offered to undo the error, but the player wanted to let the death remain. I do not know what the player's motives were, but if this was my game I would inquire as to why the player was allowing their character to die.

If reasoning's were:
1) We already rolled and must play it out.
Response 1) True, but that was obviously out of character behavior and we both messed up. Since this is (I am assuming here) not long after the event, we will just ignore that slip-up and have the caster move away and have the enemy target someone else.

2) I want to can create a new character.
Response 2) Um.... ok. I guess roll a new character. *Further inquire into motives after game*

3) Everyone else said I should die.
Response 3) Refer back to 1st response. If any player has an issue, we will discuss out of game after this session.

[Cofniben]

I've been running a game on and off for about 6 months, and so far I've accumulated 2 TPK's and while they were upset, they understood that while I wasnt trying to kill them, they did how ever know that these were difficult encounters. One player jumped to his death twice for two different reasons. They were all accepting of what happened and just vowed to try harder. All my players are seasoned players and know the rules. I am hoping that with the current game we are playing, they will be able to work together and not die.

[Amphetryon]

Back on topic.

He is dead.

You an use an immediate action to interrupt someone else's action. But you can't use an immediate action to interrupt a result.

Good example: Someone is trying to swing at me. I abrupt Jaunt out of reach. He never gets to swing. He gets his swing to use on someone else.

Bad Example: Someone swings at me. He hits. THEN I choose to abrupt Jaunt. Sorry. He hit me. The damage took effect. Even if I choose to jaunt before damage is rolled, it's too late. When I 'port, I'm taking the damage with me.

From your story, the guy had been hit and damage had been rolled. He died.


I agree, but some of this could come down to how combat is narrated, and how dice are rolled, at a given table.

I have known many a DM who rolls attack and damage simultaneously to save a few seconds, often while narrating the attempted attack. Strictly speaking, a Player who doesn't choose to interrupt the DM in mid-sentence at such a table would never get to use Abrupt Jaunt, following your 'bad example' guideline.

[iceman10058]

Back on topic.

He is dead.

You an use an immediate action to interrupt someone else's action. But you can't use an immediate action to interrupt a result.

Good example: Someone is trying to swing at me. I abrupt Jaunt out of reach. He never gets to swing. He gets his swing to use on someone else.

Bad Example: Someone swings at me. He hits. THEN I choose to abrupt Jaunt. Sorry. He hit me. The damage took effect. Even if I choose to jaunt before damage is rolled, it's too late. When I 'port, I'm taking the damage with me.

From your story, the guy had been hit and damage had been rolled. He died.

Bit of advice? Murder your players. Murder them as hard as you can. You know why? Because I just ran PCs vrs Tiamat tonight. They won. You know what? They believe it. They know I didn't pull any punches. They know I showed no mercy. They KNOW they got an honest kill they can brag about.

And afterwords, when one of them opened the Iron Flask, and a programed illusion fo Tiamat jumped out shouting in draconic, "ROUND TWO, BITCHES!" They Honestly Panicked. One player abandoned everyone and emergency teleported away. The look on their faces was priceless.

And afterwords, when one said, "Wait, I use true seeing." And I said, "Yup, it's an illusion." They laughed so frickin' hard. I got flipped off, but they loved it. Why?

Because they believed it.

If you "Protect Them From Themselves", they will never come to care about their PCs. It will be like walking around in a world made of nerf. It'll be more interesting to play Minecraft.

Warn your players. Point out things their PCs would know that they might not know. A PC might know that you shouldn't insult the king, whereas the player might not understand.

But you only warn them once and ask, "Are you SURE you want to do this?" Then when they say, "Hell Yes!" You roll the dice and they take their chances.

What you did was save a player from death by changing the rules. I can see why he doesn't want to play anymore. What's the point of playing if you can't lose?

i second this.