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Jade_Tarem
2007-02-07, 09:31 AM
Pretty simple. I just wanted a change of pace. I'm not sure why, but many of the current threads depress me. I figured maybe we should have a nice fun talk about what typically kills PC's.

Bears With Lasers
2007-02-07, 09:32 AM
It depends entirely on the game.

Jade_Tarem
2007-02-07, 09:33 AM
Well, yeah. But I'm not trying to get it down to a science. I'm just asking people to go with what thier experience tells them. You're not being graded :P

Tweekinator
2007-02-07, 09:36 AM
I'm pretty sure I've been killed at least once with by all of those. The only possible exception would be another PC.

Equlan
2007-02-07, 09:38 AM
In our games, we're generally pretty lenient, since we normally prefer to keep the same characters throughout the same story, rather than change characters, so we rarely have deaths. However, the thing that generally puts me, personally, in trouble is my curiosity, that and having a tendency of playing strongly LG (I like paladin (and cleric)...) which can sometimes push confrontation to violence *whistles innocently*
Vote for curiosity.

I blame my lack of social skills ;)

pestilenceawaits
2007-02-07, 09:39 AM
Seems to me that a combination of player stupidity and bad luck generally kill characters. I voted bad luck because there have been times that that same stupidity has lead to amazingly good things happening also.

The J Pizzel
2007-02-07, 09:39 AM
I actually had a PC die last night (he took it rather well too) from sheer bad luck. I felt bad, since I was the DM, but it wasn't really my fault. He just get gettin' smacked by my hill giant. Well, he wouldn't leave melee either, and the cleric couldn't get to him. Anyway, in our case last night, bad luck.

jp

Telonius
2007-02-07, 09:39 AM
"Foolishness" can mean "lack of planning or foresight," so I picked that one.

Melrob
2007-02-07, 09:50 AM
Hmm since curiosity is often what drives us in our games I would say bad luck really. Last week, 5 Vrock (two uber-Vrock of some sort with 250+ hit points) all mirror imaged etcetc. Not one of them rolled under an 18 during two rounds of petrifying gaze attack saving throws and two prismatic sprays...

that's alot of rolls >< and we could very well die next week, lol, I'll edit as appropriate on Sunday =P

Ayrynthyn
2007-02-07, 10:02 AM
bad luck man... bad luck. If i had a nickel for every time i heard "...all i need is to roll higher than a 2 on this save". Well, i'd have about 15 cents, but you get the idea

Harstrack
2007-02-07, 10:08 AM
In my experience, ignorance is the guilty! Like some people that doesnt remeber a feat or a class feature that would have saved him...

jjpickar
2007-02-07, 10:10 AM
DM: "The Dragon criticals and confirms." Is not fun to hear and tends to be the death of more than a few players. Personally I tend to notice a tendency to over-plan on the part of players to the point that they give up any sympathy from the impatient DM and are subsequently put in a bad situation. So DMs themselves run a close second. And personal stupidity is a common enough affliction, lets not discriminate against those of us who are, shall we say, less than intelligent. But it does rank third in my list of PC killers. (he he he)

Dairun Cates
2007-02-07, 11:10 AM
For me, it's gotta be bad luck. I haven't really ever seen too many people die in our campaigns for any other reason. I mean, we had one GM that REALLY REALLY wanted to kill one player out of spite, and we've had one player die because he attacked two prowlers (or was it maulers) with his level 3 bard without knowing what they were. Still, if someone dies in our campaign, it's usually just pure bad luck.

Closet_Skeleton
2007-02-07, 11:11 AM
All PC deaths I've ever had have been bad luck or the DM using too powerful monsters.

Teloric
2007-02-07, 11:12 AM
Another PC killing you would make you unwelcome in our group. Outsmarting or tricking your fellow PC's is okay, but killing them is a no-no.

A bad DM is something we don't have to contend with.

Curiosity and Foolishness both lead to adventure. Especially if your characters are made this way.

So, I voted for Bad Luck...

Chris_Chandler
2007-02-07, 11:21 AM
I DM alot more than I play. I keep track of what players are doing, how they participate, how conscientious they are - basically, whether they are trying or not. Luck favors the prepared, and it also favors the invested.

Bad luck comes around pretty regularly, but I've gotta say, I'm not going to ruin someone's night because of a die roll. Now, if they were foolish/ignorant/arrogant/lazy, and their "bad luck" was a result of sloppy play, then that's when they get bit. My PC deaths, personally, are all sloppy deaths, each and every one - either I wasn't paying attention, I thought something else was going on, or I didn't think "it would be that bad".

Tengu
2007-02-07, 11:27 AM
I voted Foolishness/Ignorance, the only good of those reasons to kill a PC. Especially in a game where, unlike DND, "ressing" items and spells work only if the subject died very recetly (usually a matter of minutes, not hours) and if the body is more or less intact.

Amiria
2007-02-07, 11:38 AM
Bad Luck kills PCs. Some years ago when I played City of the Spider Queen, all three PC deaths in that module were bad luck (with saving throws against death effects).

1) The fighter rolled a natural 1 on his Fortitude save against a drow priestress' Slay Living spell.
2) The cleric rolled a natural 1 on his Fortitude save against a kuo toa assassin's Death Attack.
3) The bard rolled too low on his Fortitude save against a drow sorcerer's Finger of Death spell.

Foolishness/Ignorance and Curiosity is also common in my games.

Malachite
2007-02-07, 11:39 AM
I said foolishness or ignorance too - for me, this includes knowing when to run away. If you fight to the bitter end with something that's owning you and about to tear you into bloody pieces, you deserve what you get. Making it impossible to escape, however, would fall under the 'irate DM' category :D

Bad luck definitely plays a part, but I'd have thought it would only rarely cause actual death if the PCs showed some sense.


EDIT: Ok, except for the above :D

PnP Fan
2007-02-07, 11:54 AM
We don't have too many deaths, as my group tends to enjoy taking characters all the way through the campaign. We tend to be story driven, though crunchy stuff is a close second. However, lately, one of our GMs has taken to running a very high level campaign (almost Epic level characters). Because there are a number of very powerful characters, and because this particular DM has no idea how to scale the power of his villains/encounters (his way of thinking is that encounter X should have power level X, and if the players don't match the encounter when it comes up, in grand railroad fashion, then I guess they'll just die), TPK has become commonplace in his game. Though it doesn't seem to be out of maliciousness. I'm not sure why he does it. Maybe he doesn't want to run games any more. I don't know. In any case, whenever his wife (party cleric) makes the "god call", it succeeds, and the PC's find themselves assigned new equipment/roles/lives/etc in a brief conversation with the gawds. One divine resurection later for the entire party. . . and the game continues.
Thankfully, I don't play in this game.
Otherwise, most of our games are mostly death-free.

Thomas
2007-02-07, 01:05 PM
Bad choices are the most viable reason for PC death. I don't like death by bad luck; it's rarely dramatic or meaningful, just frustrating.

Matthew
2007-02-07, 01:35 PM
Stupidity, definitely stupidity.

Sardia
2007-02-07, 01:55 PM
From my perspective, that'd be foolishness, hands down.
Players will do things they get rewarded for, and stop doing things they don't-- if I'm running a game, I want them to be displaying curiosity and testing the limits a bit, so I'm more inclined to fudge things in their favor if they do-- fortune really does favor the bold in those cases.
Stupidity, on the other hand, is just irritating. The dice roll where they may with cold indifference, bearing in mind that many NPCs are generally very bright and very well-prepared.

LotharBot
2007-02-07, 02:46 PM
Every game will have strings of good and bad luck. If you play your character well, you should be able to contend with that.

In my experience, it's mostly foolishness -- taking a risk the player knew was risky, or rushing into a situation without knowing what we're up against, or whatever. Then it only takes a little bit of bad luck for things to go south...

Fax Celestis
2007-02-07, 02:51 PM
Most of my PCs (and many of my players) die due to predetermined plot points set down by the players themselves.

Hario
2007-02-07, 02:57 PM
Sometimes its not our faults, we were lvl 8 in a dungeon in Xendric, I'm the Artificer in the group with maxed out search ranks and then with over a 15 modifier, the rogue who also is maxed out in search, searches a trapped closet, I roll a natural 20 and get a total of 35 on the search check the DC for the trap to find was 37, it was a wail of the banshee spell, with a DC 28 Fort save, so it would have whiped the group but we said that the rogue who rolled a 18 overall a 33, an aide another and I got a 37 and found and disabled the trap. Sometimes using premade adventures kill parties, stupid CR 8 dungeon with 9th level spell traps...

Hefty Lefty
2007-02-07, 02:58 PM
Stupidity and bad luck. If you're a level one sorcerer trying to jump a 30-foot gap, that's stupidity. But if you're a level 10 monk making the jump, who had the party wizard cast "Bull's Strength" on them, but you roll a natural one...that's bad luck.

Fax_Celestis, what do you mean by that?

LotharBot
2007-02-07, 03:14 PM
Hario brings up a good point: "badly designed adventures" can kill characters. But then, I'd put that in the "foolishness" category, too -- just happens to be DM or module-writer foolishness instead of player foolishness.

Fax Celestis
2007-02-07, 03:21 PM
Fax_Celestis, what do you mean by that?

I mean that, instead of playing a game, my players have a story to tell. At the end of that story, the PC may die. And if that's the case, the character dies.

gaymer_seattle
2007-02-07, 03:25 PM
For me personally, most of my characters have died due to the designs of the DM. I had one character who was repeatedly killed by the DM because he wanted to see him get down to a 0- CON, back in the 2nd Edition rules of Raise Dead. For most other characters I have seen, it was rash, unplanned decisions.

DM - "You see in the distance several Ogres with Dire wolves in the distance patrolling the town."

Player- "We charge in and attack"

DM - "You die"

Player - "What? Why?"

DM- "You're 1st level and I don't want to waste time with the slaughter. Roll your new characters"

Hario
2007-02-07, 03:31 PM
For me personally, most of my characters have died due to the designs of the DM. I had one character who was repeatedly killed by the DM because he wanted to see him get down to a 0- CON, back in the 2nd Edition rules of Raise Dead. For most other characters I have seen, it was rash, unplanned decisions.

DM - "You see in the distance several Ogres with Dire wolves in the distance patrolling the town."

Player- "We charge in and attack"

DM - "You die"

Player - "What? Why?"

DM- "You're 1st level and I don't want to waste time with the slaughter. Roll your new characters"

no that's bad dming, though bad pcing in a way, you should know most of those creatures are several levels higher than you, though no everyone would have died, the ogre was probably a CR 3 or 4 so its a dumb move on the DM to have you face against them, but obviously they didn't want you to go that route, what you should have done was try to find a different way in like a sewer which will probably have dire rats CR1 plz!

Amphimir Míriel
2007-02-07, 07:29 PM
no that's bad dming, though bad pcing in a way, you should know most of those creatures are several levels higher than you, though no everyone would have died, the ogre was probably a CR 3 or 4 so its a dumb move on the DM to have you face against them, but obviously they didn't want you to go that route, what you should have done was try to find a different way in like a sewer which will probably have dire rats CR1 plz!

While I agree that anybody except really newbie players should have realized that charging in this case would have been a stupid idea, it is also bad DM'ing to just say "you die, roll up new characters"

I, as a DM, would simply ask "Are you sure? There might be an easier, non-suicidal way..." with a meaningful raise of one eyebrow... After that, if they still want to charge in, I wouldnt hold myself responsible for their characters deaths.

Skyserpent
2007-02-07, 07:40 PM
In my games? Bad luck and or idiocy. Usually idiocy.

Ravyn
2007-02-07, 10:01 PM
In games I've been in, it's been as likely as not to be another player at the root. Usually another player being stupid. We nearly lost one of mine to one of my players getting the nonlethal damage system confused with D&D's during a sparring match (until the player rolled one success on twenty-one dice of damage, we were starting to panic), there was the time someone went all out on a fellow PC during a martial arts tournament, and of course, there was the campaign where two of the players' incompetence kept putting us in more danger than absolutely necessary. Nobody quite died, though.