Closest Calls: TPKs and Brushes with Death for Favorite PCs

[RickAllison]

Tonight, we concluded our Hunter game with a duo of honorable 1v1 duels between members of our cell and a clan of vampires to prevent war. Despite my maneuvering and having neither my PC nor my retainer be present for the altercation that caused the war to threaten, we were selected as the representatives for our cell.

My retainer fared well, as he was fairly optimized for combat. Won initiative and used Combat Marksmanship with a 8-again to down the enemy in one turn, followed by an execution.

Then it was my PC, Raquel. She was a negotiator, not a fighter (though she was fairly proficient with firearms for being a politico). Fortunately, she had just spent XP to get the Mjolnir, a lightning gun that deals a set amount of damage. Oh so conveniently, that was enough to force a roll to remain conscious with a head shot. Also conveniently, it was enough to make the vampire be threatened for unconciousness with low health. This was good, I landed the hit, and got the joy of electrocuting a vampire to death.

I was jumping for joy, as my PC was the newest and so theoretically the most likely to die of the party. I found out from my Storyteller afterwards that I had definitely lucked out. Odds were that the vampires would have one-shot killed either of us if we had failed. This got me thinking:

What are your favorite brushes with death? Either for the party or just the self, these are moments that can fundamentally change a character. So do share all the details of how that near-death (or actual death, we aren't picky!) affected the character or the party.

With the above example, it clued my TFV Hunter in that there was corruption in the agency when her backup never arrived. This will shift her into being a secret subversive within the organization, but one in a position of power already.

[Haveatya]

My party got ambushed by a half dozen marauders and a stone giant. The stone giant crits with both of his thrown weapons and my back line sorc and wiz go down first round. All that was left was my knight, a paladin, and a bard/rogue. The paladin gets bogged down I combat with the giant, the bard hides and shoots his bow at whatever, and I run around lancing from horse back. 6 rounds later. Ive mopped up all 6 bandits and the paladin goes down. The bard dashes away afraid he will be next. The stone giant was at about half health. The party was awake but out of combat, so were all watching this giant go to finish the paladin as my lance disarms him with a stab in the wrist and I follow up with a longsword crit that bisects the giant's head. It was just one of those crazy battles.

Another is with the same character where Im supposed to be taken hostage for defending myself and killing my opponent after he cheated in a duel. 12 men at arms with spears came out as my squire rushed to my side. The party was elsewhere so myself (lvl 8) and my squire (lvl 4) fought back to back and cut down them all. The guard captain and 2 others came out so I then took the captain out while my squire took the guards. It was crazy and everyone was freaking out at the picture of my black armor clad knight and his chainmailed squire rotating back to back dispatching guards in short order.

[mgshamster]

I was GMing a game where my players were fighting an Ettin and a bunch of deep dwarves.

Towards the end of the fight, only the Ettin remained still standing. With in two rounds, it finished off all of the PCs. Between the Multiattack and being able to move between attacks, it knocked one PC to 0, covered the distance to another PC and knocked him to 0. Then finished off the rest of the party in the next round.

We had a TPK. And they were so close to winning - another round of hits would have done it.

But they still had their death saving throws.

Two of the PCs rolled a Nat 20 in the same round and came back to consciousness with 1 HP each! The first PC attacked and brought the Ettin down to 8 HP. The other PC was a bit of a distance away, but he had a hand crossbow and a dagger - he fired the hand cross bow and brought the Ettin down to 3. Then he used his bonus action to throw his dagger and finished the Ettin off. (We have a house rule to allow hand crossbows to be used with two-weapon fighting). That was the second time that little dagger of his (he named it cobble because it was made out of stone) had the killing blow for a major bad guy that nearly killed the party.

[SearchHunt]

Once, I did something extremely stupid and my DM said "Rocks fall and you..." then his pone rang and he forgot. I mean he was one word away from killing my character. That was about as close as I've been.

[Shining Wrath]

Sorceress talking one on one with a hostile blue dragon polymorphed into human form; the party had been split due to a series of unfortunate events. I made a saving throw against lightning and he decided I was interesting enough to talk to while the rest of the party gathered just out of sight.

Then, in the ensuing battle, he did kill almost all of us, but the party wizard managed to have access to clerical magic (long story) and pulled us out.

[Mjolnirbear]

We were fighting bandits in the LMoP and only three of us were able to make it to this session. My paladin was the only thing between the squishy mage and the squishy rogue. I was blocking a hall or door and went down. My boon companions looked at each other and booked it.

Before the bandits could follow, I rolled a Nat 20, got up, and finished one off. It was the bandit's turn and they attacked me. The last one to go brought me down again.

My companions were still making an excellent impression of Expeditious Retreat. I rolled another natural 20. And I killed the last two bandits.

[Renvir]

I was GMing a game where 5 players used a teleportation alter to get into the lair of a crazed cambion. They were all low level but this was the first encounter of the day. The tunnel they were in required a Wisdom saving throw each round or become frightened of the teleportation device and forced to move as far away from it as possible (the environmental fear, sleep, etc. save is fun, you should try it). The DC was 1 and it increased by 1 every round. Leaving and coming back resets each persons save DC back to 1. The cambion was alone and in a normal situation was either a Hard or just got into Deadly territory for a party of their size and level. It didn't have its innate spell casting due to going crazy but could still charm, fire ray, attack, etc.

The ranger failed the very first save and was useless the entire fight because he kept failing it. The fighter was charmed by the cambion immediately and put the paladin 6 feet under with a max damage crit. The wizard used every spell she had and then took the teleportation alter back out of the tunnel. The bard did more damage to teammates than the cambion in an attempt to break people out of their charmed state and otherwise busied himself with almost letting the paladin die with poor medical checks. Eventually, the wizard returns and with the help of the now un-charmed (de-charmed? charmless?) fighter was able to defeat the cambion.

Of course the fear DC has kept climbing for everyone but the wizard so the wizard and revived paladin had to spend quite a bit of time running out and back into the lair while attempting to drag back out the other players.