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Tanuki Tales
2014-07-22, 08:36 PM
For those unfamiliar with the title, here (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RasputinianDeath) is a handy dandy link to explain the concept to you. Now that is out of the way, this thread is for all of us to swap the stories from our games of player characters or NPCs who either survived obnoxious amounts of damage before dying or died in the most extremely contrived way possible.

I wish I could kick us off with a good example, but my games are unfortunately boring, with people surviving horrific occurrences to their characters to tell the tale, dying in one shot or dying in quite mundane, run of the mill ways.

mr_odd
2014-07-22, 09:17 PM
For those unfamiliar with the title, here (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RasputinianDeath) is a handy dandy link to explain the concept to you. Now that is out of the way, this thread is for all of us to swap the stories from our games of player characters or NPCs who either survived obnoxious amounts of damage before dying or died in the most extremely contrived way possible.

I wish I could kick us off with a good example, but my games are unfortunately boring, with people surviving horrific occurrences to their characters to tell the tale, dying in one shot or dying in quite mundane, run of the mill ways.

In the last campaign I played in, one encounter killed/downed all of the characters but two, a gnoll and a raptorian. The whole time, the gnoll (through his wizard translator) made remarks about wanting to eat the raptorian.

Well, the Raptorian was a survivor of practically a TPK, and then the Gnoll eats him...

Warlord476
2014-07-22, 09:55 PM
I can offer one somewhat Rasputinian death and one somewhat contrived survival from the same fight.

I was trying my first ever half-orc (barbarian, natch). I pushed his Int up to 14 at chargen. The other characters were a Dwarf of typically enormous size, a skinny Bard, and an obnoxious-but-lawful Cleric. Neither the latter were physically strong.

I had not quite picked up on our GM deciding he didn't want a clever half-orc. My bad.

So using my adequate L1 skills I guided my comrades to a pretty obvious kobold ambush. On a swamp trail between reed beds, leading to a river and cliff. The GM railroaded us into the middle of it, crossbow bolts flying, damage amassing.

I ought to have just cut and run but decided to try to turn the fight around, with a raging leap across the river and quick climb up the cliff. Unfortunately we were playing under 3.0 rules and my raging leap simply got me 3/4 the way across. The river was deep. More damage taken as my half-orc struggled across and climbed, only to find the kobolds on that cliff departed.

Meanwhile the Dwarf had tried the reeds, and had sunk deep, being incredibly huge and heavy for a dwarf. More damage taken. Eventually he keeled over unconscious and rolling to avoid heading for -10HP (3.0 rules) but (GM) not drowning.

Some attempts to track the kobolds later I crossed back over using treacherous reed pads, only to be bushwhacked by the kobolds. Now realizing the GM wanted a 'party surrender' scenario I refused to surrender and took more crossbow bolts while trying to swim underwater. Very dead.

The bard and cleric were captured but for (GM reason) were not simply executed. Instead the kobolds looted them, and let them free, allowed them to drag the (still not drowned) incredibly heavy dwarf back to town.

So there you have it. Me Rasputin. Dwarf, I dunno, Toon character? I didn't mind being killed off because it was my mistake trying to break through, but I did mind being 'teleported' forward into the ambush and I really minded the inconsistency of killing one character while bending a couple of rules to keep another alive.

Dimers
2014-07-22, 10:46 PM
I decided to kill off my paladin-ish character in a Deadlands game so as to help GM, since there were way too many players and way too few Marshalls. The closing fight's wounds included (IIRC) fire, poison, a couple bullet wounds, and chain-axe insanity on the part of one crazed PC. The Marshall and I hadn't told the other players of the plan to have me exit the game, so at first they were trying really really hard to save my character.

That was the same Deadlands group that later spawned one of the more memorable IC activities of my gaming life: naked nun sledding. Normally you'd expect that sort of maneuver -- being used as a soft surfboard to ride ahead of an avalanche -- to be part of a Rasputinian death itself, but no, the nun lived to fight another day.

SiuiS
2014-07-23, 12:48 AM
I was playing a psychopathic sociopath "paladin" (fighter 1/warlock 1/retrained into Eldritch knight 6; We misremembered the warlock qualification rules, theyc. A not normally become Eldritch knights without feat cheese), who kept putting the DM off because e couldn't get the group to turn against me.

I dual wielded a great sword in one hand and a tower shield in the other, because I didn't have anything useful to blow my feats on and I didn't want to undermine the other, much less optimal players. I used hideous blow as a "smite evil" effect and used my continued powers as proof of my virtue because smithing someone non-evil wouldn't work. All my money went into my full plate armor, Adamantine buoyant swimming nimble anti corrosion and calling, etc., and I think I had enough rW cash left over for. +1 silver great sword.

Well, when a DM can't think outside of big damage numbers are totally scary you guys, a warlock with quickened hideous blow DR 3/— is too much to handle :smallsigh:
The problem is, everything he tried failed for silly reasons. We came across a town I'll of listless, still people. The party paladin (a real one, designed as my foil. The player was going to be an undercover blackguard until he found out I was already fraudulent!) confirmed that none of these people had souls, just blackened pits. So I began to execute them. The DM grinned and told the paladin it was so terrible to see a knigt butcher the innocent! But it was a mercy killing.

A stable boy manhandles and wounds my horse, loses my things and tries to pick my pocket, so as a noble of the knight class I execute him! DM tried the same, but it didn't work because I was right, I am the law, and this guy was totally in the wrong.

Bla bla bla standard mysterious magical plague plot line, an old folks' village of retired heroes all senile and bent survives by detaching and flying aboe the ground, revealing an ancient dungeon of something something. We must go on an epic quest to find the key for

"I break down the door. I'm in a hurry."

Well, the door is... Uh, it's Adamantine!

So we study it, magically. Turns out is magical Adamantine, hardness increased by two.

"I break down the door. My armor overcomes it's hardness because it's stronger. I combine that with my hideous blow to punch through the lock."

Several escalations later, and the DM decides a magical force field that wasn't picked up by any of our rigorous study protects the door, and hitting it causes (surprising no one) an explosion that launches me... Up to the floating village where the DM wanted us to go. Long story short, I punched in an old man's head and claimed the key as spoils because he was chaotic and in a psychopath who justifies my actions the same way Kore from Goblins does.

So we get in. The "dungeon" turns out to be trapped like shiz, every five foot square of floor, ceiling and wall not only covered in magic symbols, but they switch and flash like in some sort of video game puzzle. Naturally, we stop the session there for a break. He is smug, my DM, and hands out mid-game experience. We go for pizza and coke break. I put my newest feat into getting a familiar. A horse. Because paladins need mounts.

Being a warlock, I use Flight to get us past the hallway, we all close our eyes and zoom. The next room? Trapped. Sort of... Pit traps and fall away floors. We keep flying. It's at this point that I witness how much sweating and cursing the DM is doing, how things are targeting me, how only when I succeed does he get frustrated.

The next room is filled with massive statues, each maybe forty or fifty feet high, with four arms and wings. The BBEG somehow got in ahead of us and was racing down the hallway distance, between the legs of two statues that now animate! "Go get the heathen!" I call to the paladin, who trivializes the statue with his ring of blinking and begins running down the villain. The fight begins, me, a suboptimal level 8 cleric who plays like a poor man's fighter, my familiar horse, and five stone golem collosuses. The cleric, realizing this is t his fight, casts shield other on me, mounts the horse, spends an action point to also cast invisibility on himself and the horse ("we have action points?" "Yep" "cool, noted") and flies. The first collosus gets into a sprinter's stance and gets ready to charge. My eyes gleam.

I begin to furiously move through the books, looking for numbers. "Quick!" I say, "Garus, toss oil on the floor, I need a slick! A huge slick!" And he obliges with his action, upending our holding bag of oil in a line while riding the flying magic horse. I ready an action, triggered by the collosus charging. I'm doing math on paper; I'm committed, even though I don't know it'll work.

"The collosus charges! It—"

The trap springs. The DM knows this look. Doesn't matter, win or lose; this is gonna be hilarious and probably epic movie moment to boot. As soon as the collosus enters my range, I trip it with a lengt of magic chain. My epic, inhuman strength rips against it's defenses and already off balance, it falls. Because of the oil, the chain, the dice rolls, it goes flying, sliding towards me, towards the door. With a leap (always invest in jump and tumble as a martial character!) my knight leaps, almost pirouettes, upside down, an slashes out with a single fell blow to a wing... *chunk* and a cleave *chunk* and an action point for great cleave *chunk* *chunk* *chunk* and *chunk*, removing all six limbs from the four armed, winged statue which now fits the massive doorway, sliding to it's doom in the pit room.

The paladin gets smote, barely, leaving the BBEG smoking and an inch from death even at level 8, and his body is grabbed by the fleeing cleric. I toss them a gauntlet for future reclamation (it was calling armor, if I died I wanted them to have it), and then Squared off against the remaining collosuses.

Turns out their innate magic immunity makes them immune to Eldritch blast, I only got lucky on the sundering. Their DR trivializes my sword and board damage. Their size and resilience make beating their AC ridiculous even for me. Their flanking and their massive stone fists make my armor class and DR trivial. So I go out the only way I can.


It's thirty rounds later, thirty rounds of dodging between colossus legs, hiding behind a tower shield, rolling, tumbling, readied actions, Adamantine fist to ankles, flight and hiding and making them hit each other, asking cover behind their massive stone limbs, before the final stone fist descends, rendering my body from human shaped meat to Adamantine can of soup as I am dashed against a wall.

The DM jumped out of his seat and did a double fist bump, exclaiming "yes! I finally friggin' killed you!" Only to get the incredulous stink-eye from everyone who was wondering why the campaign had slowly seemed to lose story and purpose.



There was also the time I held my breath and dove into the ocean to strangle a magic immune and weapon reisssnace murlock but the DM wasn't actively trying to kill me at that point.