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Tough Butter
2016-10-05, 08:31 PM
Haha.

Worst PC death I've ever had. Homebrew Star Wars campaign. Party consisted of this:

-Trandoshan Outcast Jedi
-Zabrak Jedi Master
-Me, a human bounty hunter
-My brother, my trusty pilot and partner. (Sulustan)

We were about the D&D equivalent of level 6. I had regularly weaselled my way out of death before. And was marked for death. Hoping to clear my case, we travelled to hunt down a man who could settle the conflict for us. In a short period of time, it was discovered that our group of bounty hunters contained a Jedi, and word leaked to our contact, who ran into hiding.
Hoping to find a lead before he was cut off from us entirely, we headed into a large spaceport and stalked down our targets last known informant. As we followed him, he turned on us. This is what followed.

Group: Stop! We need to talk.

Him: No need. I know what you want.

*He spilled enough secrets to give us a lead*

Him: I'll have you know that the our friend from the dark side *chuckle* is with us. Be warned about following.

(The with he had mentioned was meant to be a boss our group rolled way to many Crits fighting the first time, launching him into space. He promised to kill my relatives, which I dismissed, thinking he was dead.)

At this moment, he whirled around to us and pulled out a large bomb. He laughed, but I was way to caught up in this realization. I threw myself at him knocking him to the ground and yelling at him when he blew up. I died, no save.

My group at the time didn't role play at all. This was so weird to them and me.

My PC died from getting to involved in a plot hook. Yours?

Esprit15
2016-10-05, 08:49 PM
Pretty much any encounters that had an enemy'/ turn start with "Make me a Fortitude/Will save against death." Nothing more disappointing than a single roll deciding life and death.

Recherché
2016-10-05, 09:00 PM
My group once had a character die of malaria on his first session. He caught it from a giant mosquito minion of the boss. We defeated the boss but he just kept not making the fortitude save and the group didn't have a cleric. So he died of malaria before we could scramble out way back to civilization and a temple.

Malimar
2016-10-05, 09:09 PM
This actually happened 4 years ago today; I know this because I posted it on Facebook at the time and Facebook's On This Day feature turned it up today:

The DM drew a bunch of pink and purple circles on the map. My factotum made the knowledge check to recognize them as purple funguses and shrieker mushrooms. We formulated an elaborate plan to use silence to render the shriekers impotent and not wake up the purple funguses.

Turned out the pink circles were purple funguses and the purple circles were shriekers, not the other way 'round as we had assumed. We silenced the purple funguses and tried to walk past them and they attacked.

Such was the ignoble demise of Jack Jackson, Attorney at Law, Specializing in Interspecies Law, Also an Adventurer and his trusty mule, Oxford.

Earthwalker
2016-10-06, 05:02 AM
[snip]
Turned out the pink circles were purple funguses and the purple circles were shriekers, not the other way 'round as we had assumed. We silenced the purple funguses and tried to walk past them and they attacked.

Such was the ignoble demise of Jack Jackson, Attorney at Law, Specializing in Interspecies Law, Also an Adventurer and his trusty mule, Oxford.

Its stories like this that reminds me of the bad times in my gaming past. Why the DM wouldn't just point out to the players they had the information wrong of what purple and pink circles mean is beyond me.

etrpgb
2016-10-06, 05:10 AM
Hanged for trying to help his kingdom...

Earthwalker
2016-10-06, 05:51 AM
In a Shadowrun game I was playing an Ork Street Thug. With three other players. A group face (we will call Face) another thug (we will call BA) and a mage (we will call Hanibal).

We were hired to get a blood sample from 3 people.
We do the job and get the blood samples. We are told to make the exchange in 2 days. Ok fair enough I hide the blood samples in a locker at my local gym and stash the key in the boot of my car.

One day before the meet to hand over the blood we each get ambushed and captured. A true show of force nothing you can do, none of your protections worked (it was shadowrun I had fake IDs for my Fake Ids and bolt holes built into my apartment for secret get aways)

We wake up. Tied up and surrounded by guns. Our hosts wanted the blood samples back. To show they were serious they shot and killed Face. They would give Face a trama patch and maybe keep him alive if we give over the blood samples.
What followed was my bargaining and cajoling trying to get people out safe. I offered everything apart from handing over the blood samples for nothing. I would give them the blood samples if the trama patch was applied and BA and Hanibal were let loose.
We went round for about 2 hours of game time.
End result. Face died.

I refused to give up the blood sample. I was shot and died.
Finally after 2 hours BA spoke for the first time. “Only the Ork knew where the blood was”. BA and Hanibal are let free.



After the wrap up of the session I spoke to the GM asking what all that was about. Turns out the GM thought BA and Hanibal weren’t doing enough talking. So the Face got killed to make them talk more.
Then they could get out of the situation by bargaining and he listed the things you could do I explained I did all them things. His response. Yeah but you’re an Ork and they wouldn’t listen to you.

So I died because I choose race Ork. Face died because he was good at being a face.

OldTrees1
2016-10-06, 07:03 AM
The PCs were in a dungeon accessed from a sewer. While the other PCs were being diplomatic with the denizens, the PC newest to the party (lacking prior context) fled the scene to go get the guards.

Despite the PC being 9th level or higher(I forget exactly) a single Gelatinous Cube is rather unforgiving if you fail a spot check and a Fort save. One would hope the PC would have held out against the acid long enough to get another chance to escape. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Summary: First session for a new PC, failed 2 checks against a much weaker monster and died of slow acting acid.

gtwucla
2016-10-06, 08:26 AM
Watched as a parade of ghostly knights rode overhead. We had nowhere to hide as the mysteriously abandoned village around us burned (a third party set fires around the entirety of the town as we were resting at the center of town).

As we readied to attack, eight glimmering orbs floated down from the sky. Before we could realize that the 'floating orbs' were actually caster level 20 fireballs- boom, we all died.

MrZJunior
2016-10-06, 08:48 AM
Haha.

Worst PC death I've ever had. Homebrew Star Wars campaign. Party consisted of this:

-Trandoshan Outcast Jedi
-Zabrak Jedi Master
-Me, a human bounty hunter
-My brother, my trusty pilot and partner. (Sulustan)

We were about the D&D equivalent of level 6. I had regularly weaselled my way out of death before. And was marked for death. Hoping to clear my case, we travelled to hunt down a man who could settle the conflict for us. In a short period of time, it was discovered that our group of bounty hunters contained a Jedi, and word leaked to our contact, who ran into hiding.
Hoping to find a lead before he was cut off from us entirely, we headed into a large spaceport and stalked down our targets last known informant. As we followed him, he turned on us. This is what followed.

Group: Stop! We need to talk.

Him: No need. I know what you want.

*He spilled enough secrets to give us a lead*

Him: I'll have you know that the our friend from the dark side *chuckle* is with us. Be warned about following.

(The with he had mentioned was meant to be a boss our group rolled way to many Crits fighting the first time, launching him into space. He promised to kill my relatives, which I dismissed, thinking he was dead.)

At this moment, he whirled around to us and pulled out a large bomb. He laughed, but I was way to caught up in this realization. I threw myself at him knocking him to the ground and yelling at him when he blew up. I died, no save.

My group at the time didn't role play at all. This was so weird to them and me.

My PC died from getting to involved in a plot hook. Yours?

That sounds like a pretty good death to me, you stayed in character and got so into the story that you ignored the most rational choice and went with what your character would do. That speaks strongly to your role playing skills and the engagement of the game in question.

eru001
2016-10-06, 09:36 AM
Was playing a medieval spy in a homebrew.

Another player's character, who had fallen into the worst kind of DM pet plus special snowflake disorder, to the point of making the game much less fun for everyone else, tried to sell my character into slavery to a demon king, and when this failed, sold a different character whom mine liked. Being less of a straight up fighter and more of a knife in the dark sort of guy, my character plotted an assassination. After two failed attempts due to bad luck in one, and cheesing of the rules on the part of the other player in the other, I finally pulled it off, even had a way to make it perfectly legal with local law enforcement and get off scot free...

But I had forgotten to take into account the DM pet aspect of the problem character.

Low and behold, the next NPC down the road was a good (and hugely powerful) friend of the character I'd just taken down (from about 4 plots ago who had no reason to be anywhere near us). What a coincidence that this had happened right after the assassination. How fortunate for the dead character that he just so happened to have a resurection scroll in his inventory. How unlucky for me that he also just happened to have the exact skill set necesary to completely wreck me. Who could have seen that coming? Now my character was dead and hers was alive.

I left the group shortly therafter.

Garimeth
2016-10-06, 12:02 PM
My top 3 came from the same game, AD&D, when I was in middle school:

Character 1 (first PC ever!)
Rolled a half-elf cleric, heard the horses whinny at night, went to check on them - got mobbed by grimlocks and killed then carried away to be eaten while my party slept undisturbed and uninterrupted not 30 feet away.

Character 2
Human Ranger. At 5th level got sent on a quest that resulted in our party fighting the original vampire, who got to do the damage of a Maruk - his punches did 1d100.

Character 3.
After character 2 got reanimated as a vampire, and then later cured of his vampirism and turned into a were wolf we rolled a new batch of PCs to play as essentially SWAT guards. We got sent on a quest to fetch a particular flower. We got to the cave and found a sleeping tarrasque. Behind him there was a pedestal with many flowers floating suspended, they all looked identical. We chose the wrong one, not the top one, and all the others were poisoned. That person died and the tarrasque woke up and killed everyone else.

Its a wonder I kept playing TTRPGs, lol.

Flickerdart
2016-10-06, 12:03 PM
Pretty much any encounters that had an enemy'/ turn start with "Make me a Fortitude/Will save against death." Nothing more disappointing than a single roll deciding life and death.

Hey, at least you get a roll.

Malimar
2016-10-06, 12:14 PM
Its stories like this that reminds me of the bad times in my gaming past. Why the DM wouldn't just point out to the players they had the information wrong of what purple and pink circles mean is beyond me.

Yeah, that DM was of the adversarial "my job is to kill the PCs" mindset.

Draconi Redfir
2016-10-06, 02:34 PM
So after my main character that i had started the campain with died, i brought in a new "character" that had a simple premise. Every time he died, one of his many half-brothers would teleport in to replace him, all in a quest to die in battle to cause the death of their shared immortal-until-all-his-sons-are-dead-so-he-had-over--a-thousand-sons father.

The seccond of theise characters to show up was hit by a spell from a lich that made him insane. The only thing the party could do was lock him in a room and wait for him to kill himself between small bouts of sanity.

Then sevral incarnations later, annother version of him was hit by a prismatic spray that sent him to the plane of agony. Moving the character somewhere else, the one way you could remove him from the game.

MintyNinja
2016-10-06, 02:51 PM
During the 5e playtest I was the one person trying Rogue and I chose the Assassin Archetype. So I did what any reasonable player would do and I would hide, shoot, and assassinate foes from a distance. It got to the point that the GM had an Adult Black Dragon come to our village, crushing my house. I had a reason to not be home, so when the party lined up to hear the Dragon's words, I was very polite and obedient to our new overlord, but one PC was antagonistic. In response, the Dragon chose to kill me. We were level 4. So, stepped on, no save, no Death Saves. When I asked for a chance my GM said, "Sure. Oh, look at that, you're dead."

This GM has a habit of being adversarial with his playstyle. If you excel, he'll target you. If there's no combat, he thinks no ones having fun. It might just be that he's one of the older guys in the group.

Zazax
2016-10-06, 03:43 PM
It was the first time my group was trying 5e and the DM was running a module (I'm not sure which one, unfortunately), and since only three of us could make it that night the DM had the other player and I run two pre-genned characters each. The other player didn't much like spellcasters at the time and I had no preference, so he took the Rogue and Fighter, and I got the Sorcerer and Cleric. So we read over our stuff, discuss and introduce our characters, then head out for our first quest; protecting a caravan. We're promptly set upon by goblins.

The dice choose this moment to betray us, and all the goblins roll higher on initiative than every party member save my Sorcerer. He casts, misses, and then promptly gets killed almost twice over by a critical hit. The very next round, my Cleric goes down to another critical before he can even act.

:smallannoyed:

So I just lost not one, but two characters in the very first round of the very first combat of my very first session playing 5e. That was embarrassing.

oxybe
2016-10-06, 03:59 PM
Pretty much any encounters that had an enemy'/ turn start with "Make me a Fortitude/Will save against death." Nothing more disappointing than a single roll deciding life and death.

This.

2 years of playing a character, we got caught unaware before our daily buffs were cast:

GM: Ox, make a spot check.
Me: *roll* 3 total. no surprise.
GM: Ox, make a fort save.
Me: *roll* 2 on dice, guess i failed?
GM: ... huh. Guess you're dead.
Me: -_-

as a fun addendum: we were on a time-critical mission so we couldn't backtrack and find a cleric to revive me.

I spent a session and a half dead and waiting to be revived.

JAL_1138
2016-10-06, 04:31 PM
I lost so many characters back in the AD&D days it's hard to decide on a "worst."

I think the most frustrating, if not necessarily worst, might have been [Thief whose name I don't remember more than a decade later], who died when one of the coins in a chest he found in knee-deep water turned out to be a Lock Lurker. It stung him, he failed his save vs. paralysis, fell over, and drowned. The drowning was partly my fault--I had split the party and gone off on my own, so none of them knew where I was, that I had been paralyzed, or that I had fallen down into the water until it was too late.

Khi'Khi
2016-10-06, 05:02 PM
Worst would have to be my straight-up murder by my fellow party members.

So I'm joining a new Pathfinder group where I only know one person, party's at level 10. I'm coming in to replace someone, and I got very little info beyond "we need a healer." So I rolled up a good-aligned cleric for the task.

What I was not told was that the rest of the group was neutral at absolute best. Sorcerer was a secret necromancer, witch was secretly summoning demons, and the wizard and de facto leader had convinced an elven PC that he was a demigod. (Her people worshiped natural predators, and our wizard was a cat man.)

So my good aligned character actually managed to survive several sessions with the party, as they weren't doing strictly "evil" stuff. I thought it would eventually turn into a Shepard Book from Firefly kind of situation between me and the rest. But alas, eventually the wizard finally saw my character as a liability, and ordered his "disciple" to kill me. To her credit, the PC running the elf was conflicted about this, and her character and mine had developed a bit of a friendship. But a divine order can't be refused.

So the elf (who's a rogue) sneaks up on my character while she's praying/preparing daily spells. The GM ruled that it was a trance-like state, so I got a penalty to perception. She makes her stealth, sneaks up behind me and stabs me in the top of my spine.

Silver lining though, I got my revenge. I fought with the GM for a fortitude save against insta-death, and he finally gave it to me. Crit. I turned, saw the elf, and spoke my Word of Recall, which dumps my spasming body onto the floor of the sanctuary of our hometown chapel. Made another fortitude roll to gasp out out the wizard's name and identify him as my killer before I succumbed to the literal and figurative knife in my back. (It had already been established that there were no other high-level priests in the area, and thus no resurrection.)

While needless to say I don't play with the group anymore, I am still friends with the one whose character did the actual killing. Funny old world, isn't it?

Quertus
2016-10-06, 05:27 PM
I've had characters die to DM fiat. I've had characters die to PvP. I've had characters die to DM-instigated totally metagamed PvP. That was probably actually the worst.

But the story I'm gonna tell is one of the times my character died by being careful, and wound up outsmarting himself.

Why am I telling this story? Well, because I've been thinking about this character for a while now, trying to remember how he died. When I read this thread, I connected this death to this character, and decided to run with it.

The Story of John

One upon a time, one of my DMs and I were talking about the characters I'd run who had ascended to godhood. During this conversation, he noticed that I had N gods, but he had only seen me ruin clerics of N-1 of them. He inquired, and I explained that I had never made a PC cleric of that last deity, because they weren't well suited to adventuring.

Mind you, as this DM was well aware, I'd specifically created a Death religion whose followers were forbidden to avoid death. This meant, among other things (such as a hatred of undead) that the clerics could not wear armor, could not benefit from protective devices, and had a maximum dexterity of <whatever have a penalty to AC>. Thus, their AC was always worse than 10. And I had created and enjoyed running a cleric from this religion.

My DMs curiosity was piqued. How bad could a cleric of this religion be, that even I had no interest in running it? The DM encouraged me to create such a cleric for one of his games, so that he could see it for himself. Since he was one of the DMs who allowed us to run multiple characters simultaneously, I reluctantly agreed. And thus began the story of John.

So, the problem with the Delvanti, as the poor clerics of this unloved deity were called, is that their magic was entirely centered around sacrifice. An NPC, sitting in the comfort of his church, can simply power his spells with donations, burnt offerings, and the occasional vow from the petitioner to abstain from some... comforts. Heck, a higher level priest probably has several of those vows themselves.

But, out in the wilds, when spells are needed at a moment's notice, it isn't so easy. John did what he could. He pulled a cart loaded with caged chickens. Whenever he sensed trouble, John would grab a chicken, and hide behind his cart. Invariably, by the time he had performed a proper sacrifice, the battle would be over, and his sacrifice was mitigated to powering healing magic.

As John gained access to higher level spells, their casing necessitated increased sacrifices. I don't remember what all John wound up sacrificing, except that pulling his cart was a death sentence, and he was running out of fingers on his left hand. He may have also sacrificed an ear.

Then the party met the BBEG. He offered the party great wealth, including magical items, to join him. Being the valiant heroes they were, they turned him down. No, wait, I'm thinking of someone else. The party quickly agreed to the free loot. After all, the BBEG hadn't done anything yet any of us found personally objectionable. Well, most of us. There were a few holdouts, who were allowed to leave peacefully.

John picked a few cool trinkets. But, fearing that these items might be stolen (the other players were still present at the table), John made some oblique requests to have his items "hidden" on his person, which were granted.

Time passes, the adventure continues, the BBEG gets worse, but many of us are (magically) contractually obligated to continue to assist him.

Then the heroes who had never gotten entangled in the BBEG's schemes get the powers of good to release us from our bonds... by removing the magical items.

I sit there stunned for a few seconds. Then I ask for details of exactly how that happens. All the items simply disappear. I think for a moment, and say that John falls over, dead.

It's the rest if the table'a turn to be stunned. They ask why.

As it turns out, John had implanted several magical items in place of his internal organs. When, among other things, his skull and heart simply disappear, well, that's all she wrote for our John.

So, by attempting to protect his items from theft, the first, and AFAIK last, adventuring Delvanti was killed by the party attempting to save John from being bound to the BBEG.

Telesto
2016-10-06, 06:47 PM
I have slaughtered whole parties with shocker lizards. It's a form of training for my players. It makes them think and question instead of walking everywhere like they're Shar's gift to the world.

Zaydos
2016-10-06, 07:29 PM
Worst would be when I was a little kid, just finally got enough XP so that at the end of the adventure I'd reach level 2 Elf, and my fellow PCs fed me to hobgoblins because... well it did nothing to help us and I think got one of them killed in a later encounter.

Kane0
2016-10-06, 07:33 PM
Our group came into possession of a mansion around level 5ish, and had spent the night there. Come morning we were hailed for an emergency and hastily made our way downstairs. One of us was a bit slower than the rest to so he decided to slide down the bannister to catch up with us.
He failed the skill check to slide down gracefully, then the save to avoid falling off THEN the save to not catch anything before he fell 3 floors and landed right in front of the butler, taking enough fall damage to kill himself outright.

~xFellWardenx~
2016-10-06, 08:19 PM
Depends on your value of "worst."

Stupidest? One of my D&D characters critically fumbled a Knowledge:Arcana check and came to the conclusion that disbelieving an illusion makes it real. (!?!?!?) Walked out onto a known illusory bridge over a canyon. Some say if you listen closely to the wind passing between the canyon walls, you can still hear him face palming.

Made me feel the worst? My character, a teenage girl with no combat training but reasonably good detective skills, ended her final case in a pool of her own blood as she confronted a suspected murderer she'd just gotten seemingly damning evidence against to try and trick a confession out of him, while a trusted ally waited outside the door with a gun in case the suspect got aggressive. The man countered her incriminating evidence, leaving her stunned, then she connected the dots with the new information and realized her "trusted ally" outside the door was most likely the murderer. Of course, he pretty immediately knew that she'd figure it out from the information she was given, so the door swung open. Neither my character nor the prior prime suspect were armed. Bad End.

Most horrifying? One of my characters in a homebrewed Uzumaki game turned into a giant snail and got crushed by an overturned freight car.

Yukitsu
2016-10-06, 10:09 PM
I once played a Valhalla seeking Viking that survived literally every encounter that the DM threw at the party. Everyone else died at least twice. I died of old age in the epilogue, undefeated, and went to Helheim.

Deophaun
2016-10-06, 10:50 PM
Had a dwarf that did the stereotypical thing of spending the night in a tavern, drinking until he was blind. Well, except it wasn't the night. It was the morning, because it's never too early to get stinking drunk. DM decided to have a little fun. So, step out of the tavern to stagger towards adventure! Make a spot check. A 2. D20 rolls. Natural 20. Confirm. Natural 20.

And thus ended the life of Dakin Stormhammer, killed by a speeding carriage because he was too intoxicated to look both ways before crossing the street.

Knaight
2016-10-06, 11:47 PM
I don't think I've ever had a PC die - probably because I GM 98+% of the time. I have seen my fair share of sad PC deaths though - some were rank stupidity, there were a fair few friendly fire incidents, and then there's the overlap of those two categories.

slaydemons
2016-10-07, 12:28 AM
my worst death was also my first character, half-elf samurai,from D&D 3.5, specifically the complete warrior, died to a bunch of rats on his first night. his name might of been forgotten by the times but what happened will remain forever in my head, you lasted a good thirty six seconds before dying.

AshfireMage
2016-10-07, 02:01 AM
Not my character, but at least partially my fault:

D&D 3.5e with a relatively new DM. Party is traveling to an abandoned temple in the middle of the jungle. We get to the outside (after losing the better part of two characters' stuff thanks to an enchanted moat, a ninja with no ranks in Use Rope, and a series of crit fails), fail at answering the riddles to get inside, and fall into a very large pit trap. After managing to trigger the second pit trap inside the first one without any issues and get across with some help from my druid's Wild Shape. The session ends.

Next session, we're faced with the problem of how to incorporate our cleric, whose player was absent from the last game. DM rules that he's been following along behind us, but is still on the other side of the pit we just crossed. He doesn't want to climb across wearing plate armor, and we're debating what to do when I realize that I have a new spell that might help and offer to change him into something that can fly across.

Turns out I accidentally used Baleful Polymorph. You know, the permanent one. I've since read the rules closer and realized that we might have been interpreting them wrong, but the sum total of it was that the DM ruled that he didn't get a save because he didn't think the effect was harmful. So I managed to turn our cleric into a pidgin. Permanently.

We continue on our way, figuring that we'll wait until the next morning, have him cast Remove Curse and be fine. Except that we ran into a gargoyle and the ninja and the rogue decided that they didn't feel like fighting. So they ended up offering our transformed cleric to a monster as a snack to get out of a fight. Yeah.

I apologized profusely to the player after that.

This was actually pretty typical for that story, leading to it later being dubbed "The Fail Campaign" due to the sheer amount of "what the hell" moments.

hymer
2016-10-07, 02:29 AM
Back in 2e days, the DM designed a trap for a party around level 4. You had normal chances of detecting and disarming it, so you'd have to make two rolls with below 50% success rate each in order to safely disarm the trap. The macguffin we were after was behind the trap, so we had to deal with it one way or another. It turns out that the trap in narrative terms was a poison dart. Once it went off, there were no rolls - no chance to avoid being hit whether by save or rolls to hit, and no chance to survive the poison once the dart hit. It was simply a miniature 'rocks fall, you die', which we were obliged to subject ourselves to in order to move ahead along the railroad tracks. To add insult to injury, you got a round before death took place, but any attempts to save my character during that time was shoved away by the DM, as he indicated there was nothing we could do.
Well thanks a bunch!

DoomedPaladin
2016-10-07, 04:40 AM
New player to an experienced group got to make his very own wish (without the rest of the party's guidance) when they released a malevolent genie from its lamp.

Genie: What is your wish oh Master?

PC: I wish for weapons out the ass!

GM and Party: ...!!!...

Genie: ...Alright... I don't normally do this but... are you sure that's your wish?

PC (player looking upset): Hey! I'm not stupid I know evil freaks like you try to trick adventurers out of having to do their wishes. So what I want is simple, I want to be super-geared. I wish for weapons out the ASS!

Genie: "Evil freak" huh?

GM: Let me see your character sheet... **tears sheet in half** Make a new character.

Several levels later while exploring other planes the party comes across a demi-plane chocked-full of mundane weapons of every description, a humanoid skeleton, at the top of a 40' pile in the middle of it, with several bladed and spiked ones in an un-tangleable mess in and around its pelvic bone.

vasilidor
2016-10-07, 06:30 AM
playing a dwarf druid in a pathfinder game, the elf fighter tried to diplomat the warg in mid combat.

Esprit15
2016-10-07, 12:59 PM
New player to an experienced group got to make his very own wish (without the rest of the party's guidance) when they released a malevolent genie from its lamp.

Genie: What is your wish oh Master?

PC: I wish for weapons out the ass!

GM and Party: ...!!!...

Genie: ...Alright... I don't normally do this but... are you sure that's your wish?

PC (player looking upset): Hey! I'm not stupid I know evil freaks like you try to trick adventurers out of having to do their wishes. So what I want is simple, I want to be super-geared. I wish for weapons out the ASS!

Genie: "Evil freak" huh?

GM: Let me see your character sheet... **tears sheet in half** Make a new character.

Several levels later while exploring other planes the party comes across a demi-plane chocked-full of mundane weapons of every description, a humanoid skeleton, at the top of a 40' pile in the middle of it, with several bladed and spiked ones in an un-tangleable mess in and around its pelvic bone.

What the... He's genre savvy enough to know that genies mess with wishes or take them literally, but not enough to realize what he said?

pwykersotz
2016-10-09, 02:51 PM
Depends on your value of "worst."

Stupidest? One of my D&D characters critically fumbled a Knowledge:Arcana check and came to the conclusion that disbelieving an illusion makes it real. (!?!?!?) Walked out onto a known illusory bridge over a canyon. Some say if you listen closely to the wind passing between the canyon walls, you can still hear him face palming.

Made me feel the worst? My character, a teenage girl with no combat training but reasonably good detective skills, ended her final case in a pool of her own blood as she confronted a suspected murderer she'd just gotten seemingly damning evidence against to try and trick a confession out of him, while a trusted ally waited outside the door with a gun in case the suspect got aggressive. The man countered her incriminating evidence, leaving her stunned, then she connected the dots with the new information and realized her "trusted ally" outside the door was most likely the murderer. Of course, he pretty immediately knew that she'd figure it out from the information she was given, so the door swung open. Neither my character nor the prior prime suspect were armed. Bad End.

Most horrifying? One of my characters in a homebrewed Uzumaki game turned into a giant snail and got crushed by an overturned freight car.


I've had characters die to DM fiat. I've had characters die to PvP. I've had characters die to DM-instigated totally metagamed PvP. That was probably actually the worst.

But the story I'm gonna tell is one of the times my character died by being careful, and wound up outsmarting himself.

Why am I telling this story? Well, because I've been thinking about this character for a while now, trying to remember how he died. When I read this thread, I connected this death to this character, and decided to run with it.

The Story of John

One upon a time, one of my DMs and I were talking about the characters I'd run who had ascended to godhood. During this conversation, he noticed that I had N gods, but he had only seen me ruin clerics of N-1 of them. He inquired, and I explained that I had never made a PC cleric of that last deity, because they weren't well suited to adventuring.

Mind you, as this DM was well aware, I'd specifically created a Death religion whose followers were forbidden to avoid death. This meant, among other things (such as a hatred of undead) that the clerics could not wear armor, could not benefit from protective devices, and had a maximum dexterity of <whatever have a penalty to AC>. Thus, their AC was always worse than 10. And I had created and enjoyed running a cleric from this religion.

My DMs curiosity was piqued. How bad could a cleric of this religion be, that even I had no interest in running it? The DM encouraged me to create such a cleric for one of his games, so that he could see it for himself. Since he was one of the DMs who allowed us to run multiple characters simultaneously, I reluctantly agreed. And thus began the story of John.

So, the problem with the Delvanti, as the poor clerics of this unloved deity were called, is that their magic was entirely centered around sacrifice. An NPC, sitting in the comfort of his church, can simply power his spells with donations, burnt offerings, and the occasional vow from the petitioner to abstain from some... comforts. Heck, a higher level priest probably has several of those vows themselves.

But, out in the wilds, when spells are needed at a moment's notice, it isn't so easy. John did what he could. He pulled a cart loaded with caged chickens. Whenever he sensed trouble, John would grab a chicken, and hide behind his cart. Invariably, by the time he had performed a proper sacrifice, the battle would be over, and his sacrifice was mitigated to powering healing magic.

As John gained access to higher level spells, their casing necessitated increased sacrifices. I don't remember what all John wound up sacrificing, except that pulling his cart was a death sentence, and he was running out of fingers on his left hand. He may have also sacrificed an ear.

Then the party met the BBEG. He offered the party great wealth, including magical items, to join him. Being the valiant heroes they were, they turned him down. No, wait, I'm thinking of someone else. The party quickly agreed to the free loot. After all, the BBEG hadn't done anything yet any of us found personally objectionable. Well, most of us. There were a few holdouts, who were allowed to leave peacefully.

John picked a few cool trinkets. But, fearing that these items might be stolen (the other players were still present at the table), John made some oblique requests to have his items "hidden" on his person, which were granted.

Time passes, the adventure continues, the BBEG gets worse, but many of us are (magically) contractually obligated to continue to assist him.

Then the heroes who had never gotten entangled in the BBEG's schemes get the powers of good to release us from our bonds... by removing the magical items.

I sit there stunned for a few seconds. Then I ask for details of exactly how that happens. All the items simply disappear. I think for a moment, and say that John falls over, dead.

It's the rest if the table'a turn to be stunned. They ask why.

As it turns out, John had implanted several magical items in place of his internal organs. When, among other things, his skull and heart simply disappear, well, that's all she wrote for our John.

So, by attempting to protect his items from theft, the first, and AFAIK last, adventuring Delvanti was killed by the party attempting to save John from being bound to the BBEG.


New player to an experienced group got to make his very own wish (without the rest of the party's guidance) when they released a malevolent genie from its lamp.

Genie: What is your wish oh Master?

PC: I wish for weapons out the ass!

GM and Party: ...!!!...

Genie: ...Alright... I don't normally do this but... are you sure that's your wish?

PC (player looking upset): Hey! I'm not stupid I know evil freaks like you try to trick adventurers out of having to do their wishes. So what I want is simple, I want to be super-geared. I wish for weapons out the ASS!

Genie: "Evil freak" huh?

GM: Let me see your character sheet... **tears sheet in half** Make a new character.

Several levels later while exploring other planes the party comes across a demi-plane chocked-full of mundane weapons of every description, a humanoid skeleton, at the top of a 40' pile in the middle of it, with several bladed and spiked ones in an un-tangleable mess in and around its pelvic bone.

These are all amazing. The illusory bridge and the genie actually made me laugh out loud. The girl detective was incredibly tragic and compelling. And John...well...that's a combination of brilliant and an illustration of why GM handwaves by painting with broad strokes for custom effects are not always useful.

All very entertaining!

SimonMoon6
2016-10-09, 04:05 PM
In the many years that I've played games, I've more often run games than played them, and in the ones I've played, my PCs never died permanently. I recall being on a solo adventure in one D&D (1st edition) game and running into a beholder. I failed a save against disintegration. And I laughed because the DM had been giving all these hints about how my character was "the Chosen One" who would do something or other. "So much for the chosen one," I laughed, and so the DM decided that the beholder *didn't* disintegrate me after all.

I also don't have many good stories of killing people off. I have had a player who has suicided a few characters, like having a barbarian go solo against an army of dragons in a D&D game... or in another game, where each PC had been allowed to create his own universe with its own stuff, so this guy had created a fantasy setting in which there was a wish spell that if you tried to cast it (or if you failed to cast it, I don't remember), you permanently lost a point off a particular ability score (and once you were at 0, you died). His character wasn't good at casting spells, so as he kept trying to cast this wish spell, he just kept losing point after point of that ability score, until he died.

I found out later the reason he killed off that character that way later: this was a game where everyone was playing themselves, and his character had a romantic interest in that game (an NPC). However, in real life, the player was getting involved with a girlfriend who was getting jealous of his imaginary girlfriend, so he had no choice but to kill his character and make a new one.

Of course, in Call of Cthulhu, I killed lots of people. There was one time, when one PC was really the group's resident smart guy and spell-caster. The group of PCs were engaged in a battle with some minor monsters that were still fairly deadly (because everything is deadly in Call of Cthulhu). This guy decided to have his weak feeble wizard guy in the front lines of the fight. I actually fudged one die roll so that instead of him being killed, he was 1 hp above being unconscious. He did not choose to retreat or anything. So, I didn't fudge the next die roll, so he died. The group still managed to survive that particular fight, but they had no hope of winning the adventure without their main spellcaster, so the entire group (and, I think, the world) died because of him.

Velaryon
2016-10-09, 06:24 PM
Three stories have come to mind as I've been reading this thread, though only one is my own character. Guess I'll lead with that one:

This is D&D 3.5 in a homebrew setting. My character and one other are students at a school of wizardry, and rivals who don't like each other. I'm an abjuration specialist (headed for Abjurant Champion) who comes from the streets, who scrimped and saved every copper piece to afford tuition, while the other PC is a wealthy nobleman's son specialized in necromancy. We could work together, but frequently traded insults and tried to one-up each other in combat. We escape the destruction of our school and most of the city it's in by demons and flee with the rest of the party, making a couple new allies along the way, including a Hexblade PC who became more than a little unhinged after his entire village, including his family, was slaughtered by monsters. Though my character and at least one other were NG, this party had some less-than-good tendencies sometimes, and we stepped on a few toes during our adventures.

Eventually the Hexblade's player changed characters for whatever reason, I forget if the character died or he decided that character was just too crazy to stay with the party. Brings in some sort of LG character, the specifics I can't recall. Maybe a paladin, maybe something else that just had a few paladin-ish tendencies. We were attacked by one of the enemies we'd made throughout the game, and the new PC upon hearing their grievances against us decides that they are actually in the right and sides with them against us. We were down a player already because he hadn't shown up that day, so with another one betraying us we were down to three. Seeing that things were going south, the necromancer teleported himself to safety, and left the rest of us to die. My character was a couple casting levels behind because of multiclassing to qualify for Abjurant Champion faster, so I couldn't teleport myself out. We were all killed.

The real kicker though, is that the DM used to give out what he called a "1 up" as a birthday gift to players, because money was tight for him at the time. If you had a 1 up, you could have your character instantly resurrected at any time with full health, spells, etc., no questions asked. It was the day before my birthday when we played, so I was just about to get that 1 up, and he refused to let me have it early.

Another 3.5 game a few years earlier, with mostly the same group but one or two different players, and the same DM. This was using the 3rd edition Ravenloft setting (the one that was licensed to another company), but took place in a homebrew domain that was like a twisted version of Candyland. For those who are not familiar with Ravenloft, each land is tied to a darklord, a particularly evil character who is afflicted by a unique curse. The land is a twisted reflection of that person, but typically they have great powers within that land as well. The lord of this land was Hansel, from the Hansel and Gretyl folk tale, except that he had become such a glutton that he literally ate people. The land itself was creepy as hell, with birds that were living Peeps, literal gummy bears, and so on.

My character was a Crusader who had multiclassed to Spellsword (my optimization skills were very poor at the time, to say the least). Two of the other players, cousins in real life, were playing brothers in the game. One had dumped int, to the point where he was basically dumber than Forrest Gump, and so they played it like the other was basically his caretaker. I don't know, it was weird.

We did our adventuring through this crazy land, and had stopped to rest for the night somewhere (knowing this game, it was probably inside a gingerbread house or something). We had all taken some fairly big wounds and didn't have healing magic handy (I don't remember if we had a healer or not). The two brothers fell to arguing about something, and the one who hadn't dumped Int ended up hitting the other for some reason. DM had him make an attack roll, and he ended up killing the other PC. For no good reason that I could see. My character quickly scurried away and informed the murderer that I had a lightning bolt with his name on it if he came any closer. I had just seen him murder his own brother, after all.

I forget how things went after that, but it was such a random death that I had to bring it up here.

And last but not least...

I almost don't wanna tell this one, because the player in question also posts on this forum and he might want to tell it himself. But what the heck, he can chime in later if he wants to.

This time it's Star Wars d20, the Revised rules (the one before Saga Edition). We have an all-Jedi group set during the KOTOR time period, though the game has gone seriously off the rails and completely demolished that story before most of it ever happened. In short: Revan was assassinated (by one of our PCs) during the Mandalorian Wars before he ever had the chance to openly proclaim himself a Sith Lord, so none of the events of the video games have even happened yet. Somehow his spirit has possessed another body though, and that person has risen to become Chancellor of the Republic. At this point in time I don't think we know it's Revan yet, but we do know that Malak has aligned himself with this new Chancellor and most of the rest of the Jedi are on the outs.

One of our PCs is a Jedi Ace with a seriously tricked-out starfighter that he gets some nice bonuses from his class when he's using this ship. It gets destroyed while in a hangar on Coruscant, and the PC is wounded (he may even have lost a hand) but still alive. You have to take some unreasonably long time like a month, maybe longer, before you can bond with a new one. It's been years since I played this system, so I don't quite remember the specifics.

Well, we had discovered a rules loophole that would allow time travel. There was a chart in the rulebook that listed hyperspace travel times, which were adjusted by factors such as the route you were taking, how good your ship's hyperdrive is, and how current your astrogation data is that you're working with. You could shave some time off the trip with a good Astrogation check as well. It turned out that our hyperdrive was fast enough, and we were high enough level, that we could actually reach a negative number for travel time, meaning that by RAW we arrived several hours before we had left. Surprisingly, the GM allowed it.

We decided as a group to travel back in time to prevent the starfighter's destruction. We arrived at the hangar a little while before the fighter was destroyed and laid in wait for the saboteur. It turns out to be none other than Malak.

One of our PC's, a pretty badass martial artist who carried a lightsaber but didn't have much use for it, rolled first in initiative. He sprang from cover and ran out to attack Malak, who is headed toward the starfighter we're trying to save. He goes for an unarmed strike, probably some kind of kick... and crit fumbles. We use a confirmation roll on the fumbles - if your second roll would hit then it's just a normal miss - but he rolls another 1 on the confirmation. The GM rules that he whiffs the kick and falls prone on the ground. I joked that he must have slipped on a banana peel, and others laugh and pretty much agree that must have been it.

Unfortunately, Malak's up next initiative. He ignites his lightsaber, rolls a critical hit, and kills the PC in one shot.

This system uses Vitality/Wounds, where you have your normal HP per level (Vitality) and a number of Wound points equal to your Constitution score. Critical hits go straight to Wound points, which means they are very lethal. The GM had already attempted to mitigate this with a very sensible house rule that gives characters an additional number of Wound points equal to their character level, which at this point basically doubled the PC's wounds. But unfortunately, the Jedi classes also got bonus damage dice with lightsabers as they leveled up, which means it's basically impossible not to kill with a lightsaber crit in this system, even with the house rule.

So in sum, we traveled back in time to save a ship that was destroyed, whose pilot got injured but had lived and would have been fine. In so doing, our team's best fighter was killed in one hit because he slipped on a banana peel and fell prone at the feet of the BBEG's lieutenant. Naturally, the rest of us killed Malak but it was too late, and we were afraid to mess with time travel again for fear of making it even worse somehow.

Templarkommando
2016-10-09, 11:28 PM
I think my DM got sick of a particular character once upon a time. He doesn't play this way anymore, but the floor collapsed under this character as part of a trap. The pit beneath the floor ended in a portal that planeshifted to the plane of fire. It was basically "No saving throw, you're dead. Also you can't be rezzed."

nedz
2016-10-10, 03:57 PM
I couldn't make a session because of a family event and was informed that my character had been killed while I wasn't there.

hymer
2016-10-11, 05:25 AM
I couldn't make a session because of a family event and was informed that my character had been killed while I wasn't there.

Classical. Oh the memories this brings back... :smallbiggrin::smalleek::smallamused::smallfrown:: smallyuk:

Earthwalker
2016-10-11, 06:57 AM
I couldn't make a session because of a family event and was informed that my character had been killed while I wasn't there.

I have one of them stories too.
Oh you weren't here and we didn't have your character sheet. You fell into a lake. We didn't have your character sheet so we just assumed you had 50% skill in swimming to be fair.

You failed loads and drown....

(Looks at character sheet, swim 85%. The highest skill on my character sheet)

Khedrac
2016-10-11, 07:04 AM
I couldn't make a session because of a family event and was informed that my character had been killed while I wasn't there.


Classical. Oh the memories this brings back... :smallbiggrin::smalleek::smallamused::smallfrown:: smallyuk:

It does, doesn't it (must be about 30 years ago now)...

Playing a cleric in the original G1-3 (slightly miffed because the DM's best friend had been brought in as a cleric/something who was one level higher than me in both classes, making me rather redundant).
I missed one session (can't remember why) and came back to find I had not only died, but had been reincarnated as an ogre. :smallfrown::smallyuk: I think I gave up on that campaign.
Looking back at it now, I can see room for trying to infiltrate giant rooms as an ogre servitor, but back then (and coming at it as such a fait accompli) this was a show-stopper for that campaign.

Calthropstu
2016-10-11, 11:24 AM
Ad&D 2nd edition, skills and powers.
Add in a stupid homebrew artifact.
Add a dm who is a ridiculous power gamer.

The artifact was dumb. It gave every member of the party an elemental equivalent of spellfire. Each character got a number of charges per day. It was stupid powerful.

So I am playing a swanmay. It has the special ability of turning into a swan. I am playing with some real jerks here. One of the characters conspires with gm to rape my character in her sleep and get her pregnant. Yeah. Seriously. It was bull****.

So, since I am constantly turning into a swan, the dm rules that I give birth to a freaking egg. My solution? Let's cast haste on the egg.

My dm ruled it like this: So, the egg has been exposed to the artifact for long enough to gain the spellfire abilities. Haste ages your character a year (hence why I was using it). He gave the baby a years worth of spellfire charges which caused it to explode in a 365 * 8d8 fire bomb.

Strigon
2016-10-11, 11:47 AM
D&D 3.5; our party had just wrapped up a pretty big boss fight against some flying creature (I don't remember exactly what it was, but it could levitate at will, which is important to the story.)
We were low on health, deep underground in the thing's lair, and the place was filled with toxic fumes that required a Fort save every minute against damage. Not strictly RAW, but it kept the pace up and it wasn't too much of a hassle, so we didn't mind.

Anyway, we're in the middle of this dungeon, at death's doorstep, the dungeon is actively trying to kill us and it's a long way out. Then we find an escape tunnel leading directly outside, which we run through. Now, there were four major things we forgot to account for.
1) Our enemy was intelligent.
2) Our enemy can fly.
3) Our enemy would not want anybody following him out the escape tunnel.
4) Our enemy would not want anybody coming into his room through the escape tunnel.

So, guess what our enemy did? If you said "booby trapped the escape tunnel", you'd be right.
To be fair to the DM, he gave me a fighting chance. He rolled for a reflex save, which I hit the DC of - exactly - so he ruled that I stepped on the pressure plate, heard the click, and stopped before lifting my foot.

After a few minutes of debating what to do, party rogue started to unearth the mechanism, which was connected to a hole in the wall. We assumed this was an arrow trap, and just had me lean out of the way so that it would miss.
Then I lifted my foot, and out of the hole spewed forth fire, filling the entire square with a raging inferno that killed my poor Warblade.

TL;DR, I was killed on the way out of a boss fight.

Blue Duke
2016-10-11, 12:52 PM
level 3 Rogue/Sorc. its late at night we are tired and have just fought a bunch of misquito things - went to open a door and was killed immediately by an awful fire trap.
Happy orc fighter with the best Attribute rolls ever, an apprenticeship to a black smith and resized full plate (we were level 3) waiting in town after the adventure.....cut in half by an enemy lieutenant on the WAY to the adventure.


also geting killed by the shambling mound in strahd but that was a relief because it meant i could stop playing strahd, UNTIL the party made a deal with the witch to rez me (thankfully they finally managed to realize i dont want to play strahd i think).

Quertus
2016-10-11, 06:18 PM
Ad&D 2nd edition, skills and powers.
Add in a stupid homebrew artifact.
Add a dm who is a ridiculous power gamer.

The artifact was dumb. It gave every member of the party an elemental equivalent of spellfire. Each character got a number of charges per day. It was stupid powerful.

So I am playing a swanmay. It has the special ability of turning into a swan. I am playing with some real jerks here. One of the characters conspires with gm to rape my character in her sleep and get her pregnant. Yeah. Seriously. It was bull****.

So, since I am constantly turning into a swan, the dm rules that I give birth to a freaking egg. My solution? Let's cast haste on the egg.

My dm ruled it like this: So, the egg has been exposed to the artifact for long enough to gain the spellfire abilities. Haste ages your character a year (hence why I was using it). He gave the baby a years worth of spellfire charges which caused it to explode in a 365 * 8d8 fire bomb.

So you responded by casting haste on the rapist and his crew, right?

fatbaby
2016-10-12, 12:44 AM
So I DM typically. Decided to start a new campaign with some new players at my local nerd store. Have one guy that I know is going to be a "problem" player. Everybody's nerdy, but this guy is over the top. Way into anime. I'm fine with anime, but for this guy it bleeds into every part of his life. Anyhow, being busy don't really see what he is building. We divide everybody up and have two campaigns. I end up with anime-fella in my group. Cool.

Go over backstory and characters with my group. Anime guy has a elf monk that is effectively the mysterious protagonist from every anime. scarf over face, raiden hat, etc. Not running that style of campaign. Everybody else has traditional D&D character. Ok, we'll see how it goes. Goes in to swamp town, anime guy refuses to play in the typical format. Doesn't go to the bar, doesn't go to the inn, tries to sleep in the woods. Somehow get him worked in to the first mission to find the culprits of a ransacked caravan. They go searching into the swamp to find the goods stolen from caravan. 3 mud mephits, really easy first encounter. Initiative is rolled, PCs are attacking, get to anime guy.

ME: "What do you do?"
Anime: "Well idk these people so I hang back and see what happens"
ME: ...ok

Random attacks for the monsters, roll a d6 to see who is hit. Next roll is him. Hits him, he goes to 0. No cleric, tell the rest of the party how to stabilize him. Have him roll death saving throws on his turns. 3 straight fails, no one tries to stabilize. Give him a second chance, say I will roll final saving throw for him, for all the marbles. Fudge it, he lives.

Second game, he is hanging back, still trying to RP this terrible PC. Get to a river see crocodile. Cross river with rope, I'm rolling d20 to see when the croc comes out the water and attacks the group on the first bank. Croc comes out, two PC's on bank, anime guy and tank. random roll to see who is hit. Anime guy. Roll crit, roll max damage. 22 damage, HP is 11. Insta-dead. Anime guy says he wants to give a letter to the party. Gives to me, some crazy story about his character time traveling to before his death, leaving the party, going home to fix his driving reason for adventuring, becomes "king" of his home, and basically the earthly embodiment of Bahamut.

ME: "No."
Anime: "So do you want to read it to them"
ME: "No."
Anime: "So I will read it then"
ME: "No, doesn't work like that"
Anime: "So I will just give it to them"
ME: "No. You know what.....

Redact his death, say he is just unconscious.

TL;DR: Crazy anime guy refuses to play and refuses to die without insane consequences. What do?

Remedy
2016-10-12, 01:16 AM
So you responded by casting haste on the rapist and his crew, right?
It seems to me like he means he used the egg to firebomb the rapist for thousands of damage.

Calthropstu
2016-10-12, 03:02 AM
It seems to me like he means he used the egg to firebomb the rapist for thousands of damage.

I was hit with the thousands of damage.

Hawksteel
2016-10-12, 04:42 AM
I have slaughtered whole parties with shocker lizards. It's a form of training for my players. It makes them think and question instead of walking everywhere like they're Shar's gift to the world.

The best part of this is you act so proud of yourself. You sound exactly like the adversarial GM described here by others.

NecroDancer
2016-10-13, 03:48 PM
My character has yet to die but he came VERY close twice.

We were playing CoS and our party was walking back to vallaki, the DM rolls on a random encounter chart and we get attacked by 8 wolves. I was in the front of the party using my darkvison to guide the rest of the party, I was also a warlock and had the worst strength, AC, and weapons so the wolves attacked me first. I was knocked prone and each wolf dealt about 5-8 damage resulting in me Having failed 2 death saving throws in one surprise round. Luckily our ally was able to kill all the wolves with a cone of cold.

The next session my warlock had infiltrated a demon cult and got his cover blown. By the time the party came to rescue me I was at 10 hp and being mauled by 10 zombies. I cast hypnotic pattern to immobilize the zombies but it also effected my ENTIRE party who had just entered the basement. A few zombies succeed the saving throw and one got a critical hit on me and I was at 2 failed death saving throws before you could say "ravenloft".

Quertus
2016-10-13, 05:40 PM
My character has yet to die but he came VERY close twice.

We were playing CoS and our party was walking back to vallaki, the DM rolls on a random encounter chart and we get attacked by 8 wolves. I was in the front of the party using my darkvison to guide the rest of the party, I was also a warlock and had the worst strength, AC, and weapons so the wolves attacked me first. I was knocked prone and each wolf dealt about 5-8 damage resulting in me Having failed 2 death saving throws in one surprise round. Luckily our ally was able to kill all the wolves with a cone of cold.

The next session my warlock had infiltrated a demon cult and got his cover blown. By the time the party came to rescue me I was at 10 hp and being mauled by 10 zombies. I cast hypnotic pattern to immobilize the zombies but it also effected my ENTIRE party who had just entered the basement. A few zombies succeed the saving throw and one got a critical hit on me and I was at 2 failed death saving throws before you could say "ravenloft".

Um... What system was this, that zombies could be affected by hypnotic pattern?

ComaVision
2016-10-13, 05:43 PM
Um... What system was this, that zombies could be affected by hypnotic pattern?

D&D 5e got rid of the undead immunity to mind-affecting spells.

The Fury
2016-10-14, 03:04 AM
Who wants to hear a story? A long story? A long story full of misremembered details in which I'm a total idiot?

Over the years I've gotten reasonably good at avoiding character death. There are some cases where my luck's just been bad or my character got killed off in PvP or something. Then there's Spycraft. Spycraft has always been a weird one for me, being the sort of person that needs to have things explained outright most times was a huge handicap in being able to build a character or play one properly. At a more experienced player's suggestion I made a getaway driver. When I couldn't make it to one session the GM had my character drive off to parts unknown, (I think hollering "yeehaw" as well, I don't remember for sure,) leaving the rest of the PCs standing on the curb wondering what the hell.

When I came back my character showed up in time to pick up everyone after an arms deal that went badly, having apparently Sawzall'd the roof off of the BMW sedan we were using. I reasoned that there must have been a place that my character had done this, like a garage or something. I asked the GM if we could return there as it might be a good place to plan our next move, he said that we could. We could still gather intel on the arms shipment as we have a good idea of where it's being delivered, a warehouse near the waterfront. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the BMW that my character hacked the roof off of and the wheels started turning.

I started to recall a Hotrod magazine that someone showed me in a school cafeteria. It had an article where the staff deliberately trashed a car and one of the first things they did was saw the roof off, just like our current getaway vehicle. So I started thinking of other things in the magazine-- like how you can make a car faster and accelerate quicker by making it lighter, and make it handle better by bracing the frame. I figured that a car with no top has little use for side windows or their mechanisms, and the carpet and insulation likewise no longer served that great of a purpose, and so on. I even asked if this garage had materials that I could fabricate bracing for the chassis with. He said that I could. I seem to recall someone asking if I added a Confederate flag, (I did not.) After having finished my work, thinking that I made a cool getaway car except... I didn't. As the GM explained, lightning a car improves the handling, not top speed or acceleration. And since I've added bracing, I've added weight so now it's actually worse than ever. Crud. Whatever, clock's a-tickin' and the only car we have is this piece of garbage I made. Better than nothing, I guess.

Around here is when things really started to go wrong. The main group began their infiltration of the warehouse while I kept the mutant BMW moving, but close by. My thinking was to pass it off as just another car on the road, except one of the things my character removed in an effort to make it lighter must have been the muffler because the GM said, "The Fury's modifications aren't exactly quiet."
So in effect I gave away the spy team's position with excessively loud engine noise and now they're being intercepted by arms dealers. Crud. I can still do something about this-- I'm in a mutant BMW! So I get the idea to run over the assault rifle-toting baddies with my trashy car which got me a windshield full of bullets for my trouble. My character got tagged in the arm, lost control and rolled the car, I think killing one of the other PCs. The baddies were all fine though. I don't remember if my getaway driver died in the wreck or not, but it's not really that important. Through my idiocy I not only got my character killed, but at least one other PC and derailed the campaign to the point of being unsalvageable for the PCs that did make it out. Also, probably my worst car experience in an RPG.

Earthwalker
2016-10-14, 04:41 AM
Who wants to hear a story? A long story? A long story full of misremembered details in which I'm a total idiot?

Me Me I do !!




[snip]

That Was a story, it was a long story, I am sure it was full of misremembered details. Makes your GM seem like an idiot tho not you.
If your character has the skills to make the car lighter and brace it. The character would know if it was or wasn't going to help.

Nice story tho

hymer
2016-10-14, 04:51 AM
As the GM explained, lightning a car improves the handling, not top speed or acceleration.

In what universe is this? Because acceleration will definitely be improved by lightening the load all things being equal, and to a lesser degree it affects top speed, too. But to a higher degree if you happen to, say, go uphill. The only time the GM may have a point there is if the lightening becomes so extreme that tyres can't get a grip on the surface.

Remedy
2016-10-14, 11:10 AM
I was hit with the thousands of damage.
... I... But...

Wait, you mean to say the GM enabled your rape and then firebombed you to death when you tried to do something in response to it?

Please, please, please tell me you never played with either that player or GM ever again.

The Fury
2016-10-14, 12:13 PM
That Was a story, it was a long story, I am sure it was full of misremembered details. Makes your GM seem like an idiot tho not you.
If your character has the skills to make the car lighter and brace it. The character would know if it was or wasn't going to help.

Nice story tho

This is one of those GMs that seems to believe that it's not a GM's job to save a player from their own stupidity. Fair enough. I guess the moral of the story here is that if you're planning to do something outrageous, read the rules first.


In what universe is this? Because acceleration will definitely be improved by lightening the load all things being equal, and to a lesser degree it affects top speed, too. But to a higher degree if you happen to, say, go uphill. The only time the GM may have a point there is if the lightening becomes so extreme that tyres can't get a grip on the surface.

Mind that I don't agree with the ruling, but it was apparently taken from the rulebook. I wasn't about to press the issue, because arguing that the book is wrong never goes well. Honestly, I was surprised that the book had a rule on this at all.