MOST DESERVED CHARACTER DEATH (in our group so far).

[Zingzing Jr.]

(spoilers for CoS)

So in our CoS game we began by selling some items to the local vistani.

Our cleric spends over 10 minutes selling his items to gain a bit over 1,000 gp, the cleric is very greedy and always tries to get more money at every point and will always sell useless item no matter what (he has actually become a better at negotiating in real life over this campaign). The cleric is so stingy he will steal anything not bolted down (and sometimes tries to steal stuff bolted to the ground). The cleric would cut the fabric off couches to sell it, the cleric would steal carpets, he would steal commoner clothes from closets and try to sell them, he would sell anything that could be sold.

This session we stopped at an abandon outpost in the mountains and rested after a fight with demons. At the top of the outpost we found a statue that was plated in gold, the cleric said the following:

Cleric: "I want to scrape the gold off the statue"

DM: "Are you sure?"

Cleric: "yes, of course"

DM: "as you start scrapping the statue 6 creatures formed of ice with hatred in their eyes rise around you, the ice creatures tell you to keep away from their treasure"

DM: "roll initiative everyone"

(these ice ghosts show up if a randomly generated item is found at the outpost, they wouldn't normally appear but the cleric found the ONE way to get them to appear. No one else was "stealing" and only the cleric was steal the gold off the statue)

So the initiative is
1). Barbarian
2). Warlock
3). Cleric
4). Ice ghosts
5). Wizard
6). Paladin
7). Rogue (me)

The Barbarian decided to dodge until the ice ghosts attacked. The warlock shot two blasts at the ghosts and moved out of melee. The cleric, who has turn undead, frequently uses turn undead, knows that the monsters are ghosts, knows the ghosts are going next, DECIDES TO CONTINUE SCRAPPING THE GOLD OFF THE STATUE! The ice ghosts go next and attack the cleric who is stealing their treasure (this is exactly what they would do in the module) attack the cleric, the ghosts then all hit and kill the cleric (as in past death saves). The Wizard then fireballs and kills the ghosts. (n.b. the cleric also has fireball)

The cleric, who can fight undead, knows the monsters are undead, is so greedy he decides to continue scrapping the gold off the statue even though he knows the ghosts are going to attack him and are right next. His greed was so strong he got killed because he wanted to scrap gold off a statue instead of defend himself, this cleric has stolen bathroom towels, couch fabric, picture frames, servant clothes, and human teeth to fuel his greed and now that utter greed got him killed (in the same session he sold the aforementioned tacky items to get more money).

As punishment we took all his gold (we left him his copper, sliver, and small amount of platinum). and the Warlock borrowed his armor for now. Next session we will try to bring him back.

The best/worst part is that the cleric had every chance, the DM gave the cleric so many chances (and the only reason the ghost's attack the cleric was because the module specified as much), everyone else was prepared to fight the ghosts to save the cleric. No one was to blame for this death but the cleric and his utter greed.


(the cleric's player is fine with everything that happened).

[jaappleton]

He died how he lived....

Like a greedy ass.

[GPS]

On the minus side, I lost 6,100 GP to a well deserved fleecing. On the plus side, I got 50 GP worth of scrap gold when i was revived, so I feel like it about evens out.

Do I regret it? Yes.
Would I do it again? Most likely.
Will I do it again when we get back to the area? Yes.
Have I learned anything from this experience? Always fireball first, the gold isn't going anywhere.

(Ironically, I learned nothing from the actual greed thing itself because my character rolled a raise dead madness that makes him think he's always right. It's perfect for him.)

On an unrelated note, the price for revivification is now 600 GP or a rare magic item to cover "expenses". I'm not bitter, just petty.

Wait, ready to defend me? I told you guys to run, and you guys ran!

[NecroDancer]

True, we did run away when you asked us to. However I find it hilarious that you thought a glass goblet in a holy area that we just purified was a trap but not the golden statues in an abandon outpost that was guarded by demons.

EDIT: the statue was surround by bones as well!

[Kane0]

You know what suprises me most? This guy wasn't playing a rouge.

Anyways, one from my group:
We decide to do a seafaring mini-campaign, 3-5 sessions long. I'm a paladin, the captain. Fighter is the lead boarder, alchemist is the head lieutenant and shipwright, druid is navigator and surgeon, storm sorcerer is spiritual advisor and second in command. He intentionally portrays himself as a sinister vizier type as much as possible. He gives 0 reasons behind any advice he gives and frequently witholds information.

When our faction is called to go to war, he votes against it. When that fails he votes against siding with the obvious ally (our closest neighbour and best raid/trade buddy).
When he loses both of those arguments he advises we avoid the fighting in order to raid a neutral faction in order to help fund the war instead of participate in it. This one we relent to.
That fails spectatularly and we move to the front. All the good fighting is already done but we are sent north to bring back an allied fleet to help storm a port city. While meeting with the captains up there he is off with the local fish people instead.
We bring back the fleet and everyone readies to storm the city. Sorcerer chooses to remain on the flagship while we are part of the initial landing force.
We successfully assault the city and capture the wall, moving inside with some effort. Meanwhile sorcerer is just lighting buildings on fire from way back.
We are ordered to sieze the temple where the city's duke is holding out, capturing him could force a surrender. The sorcerer is forcibly deposited with us to help, but gives only token support and advises retreat every time we roll initiative.
We capture the duke and he is taken to the flagship by allies, whereapon the force we went north to collect aid from promptly turns on us and butchers whats left of our forces. We hide in the city but our ships are destroyed.
The sorcerer reveals he is a member of an evil kraken worshipping cult (the kraken saved him from drowning once and is holding his life ransom. There is a brief argument whether this os actual faith or mere coersion), plus his sorcerer friends are behind the betrayal and resulting civil war. This is because we are apparently a threat to them because we got rid of some old clerics in our faction which lead to their rise to prominense. He had no actual say in what went down and disagrees with the rest of his cult's methods and renounces the cult but remains a firm 'believer' in the kraken and refused to tell us anything prior to the events taking place. This information is extracted at swordpoint, but we give him one final benefit of the doubt. He accompannies us as we attempt to escape back to our ship but are intercepted by a third party, an entity of some power and apparently an ally of the fighter (there was a deal made in his backstory). The sorcerer is immediately distrustful and makes a break for it despite the fact that the fighter was completely forthcoming with all the information he had, and the mage asks us if he wants us to take care of him before he gets away.
Not one of us thinks for more than 2 seconds before saying 'Yep, kill him'.

[dejarnjc]

I like that your player played true to his character right up until the very end :)

[King539]

The cleric in this story sounds astonishingly like a cleric I'm playing with. He is also incredibly greedy, and is also a light cleric.

[Fey]

Once my party was fighting some giant bees.

Our monk fell and was unconscious, in need of stabilization/healing.

We had a fighter in the group who was a very flirtatious, fun-loving woman who tended to innocently flirt with all the other PCs.

When the battle was over, she cut off one of the giant bee's stingers, planning to use it as an improvised dagger sometime in the future. She then saunters over to the unconscious monk, straddles his chest, and leans forward to pour a healing potion down his throat, so that when he wakes up, he'll get a very nice view of her cleavage.

The monk's player says, "When I wake up, before I open my eyes, I say, 'There's this great weight on my chest.'"

The fighter, upset at being called fat, stabs the bee stinger into his face, killing him.

[Finback]

Not D&D, but we had a player in TMNT: After The Bomb (we're literally talking a game that occurred in 1993) wherein a PC decided to fire a flare gun upwards into the gasbag of a hydrogen filled airship. Not helium - HYDROGEN.

He was the only one who survived the fall, ironically, but he fell unconscious, whereupon a random encounter had him drained of blood by giant mosquitoes during the night.

The other felt that was a suitable death.

[Arcangel4774]

I enjoy this story so much more after seeing the some of the forum members who are in the game comment on it. Makes it oh so obvious that people are playing their characters, vices and all.

[Zingzing Jr.]

You know what suprises me most? This guy wasn't playing a rouge.

Honestly I (the rogue) would have done the same thing. However, I would have either used Ice Knife to kill them or used Invisibility and dashed away, or if they were in melee range, disengaged and then dashed. The one thing I would not have done is continued to scrape the gold off.

[Zingzing Jr.]

I enjoy this story so much more after seeing the some of the forum members who are in the game comment on it. Makes it oh so obvious that people are playing their characters, vices and all.

In fact, almost every member of our party is on GITP.

[Camman1984]

I am glad the character got punished, but hope the player got rewarded for sticking to his chosen character trait.

It wasnt a smart trait but then he's a cleric, he probably dumped intelligence, failed his knowledge religion check and thought they were bunnies.

[GPS]

I am glad the character got punished, but hope the player got rewarded for sticking to his chosen character trait.

It wasnt a smart trait but then he's a cleric, he probably dumped intelligence, failed his knowledge religion check and thought they were bunnies.
Don't you worry about ol' GPS. Now that the death specters are gone, I'm going to grab the gold on the way.

[furby076]

I once had a cleric charge the group for any healing services. Then we got into a fight, the cleric was surrounded and about to die. He screamed for help. I looked back, "thats gonna cost you". Cleric, not getting the point, "how much". I looked at the rest of the group, "all you got times 10". The cleric shouted "no", and we let him die. We killed the monsters, and took his stuff.
The player was like "wtf dude, thats outrageous". I shrugged, "if you are gonna charge us for healing services, ia m gonna charge for sword services. Wanna retcon your decision to charge your party?". He did, the DM was happy to retcon his death. He paid back the party. All lived happily after.

Point is, it makes zero sense to charge your travelling buddies for healing services. Everyone contributes to the group in some way. If someone doesnt, you oust them from the group cause they are dead weight

[DMBlackhart]

In my most recent 5e campaign, which occured last night in fact, i had a player willfully sacrifice their tiefling druid to interrupt an apotheosis ritual that was being willfully undertaken by her npc half elven lover who had, up until this point, manipulated her to see this ritual come to fruition.

Now the tiefling is the vessel of a goddess in a godless setting and her lover Janasha is safe and sound. Maybe not a deserved death, but certainly a worthy one.

Also the druidtiefling was a devote atheist. Which i found funny.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Man, I wish my group played more so we'd have more stories like this. LFG
I remember when a ninja in my group (3.x) ran up to a brain in the jar to punch it. He was level 1 and a ranged build, but for some reason his character hated fish bowls/aquariums. If i recall correctly its because his older brother was a wizard who polymorphed his goldfish into a scary monster scaring his character for life. he made it out just barely with 1 hp. also left the party to die.

Its always fun to rp.

[Dappershire]

My first character I ever played (and still have) was a Kender. And I played him really well. That alone is probably enough to deserve the deaths I got.
Luckily enough, I always seemed to have, legitimately, juuust enough treasure, and/or enough favor with at least one party member, to force a resurrection trip. Sure, the stat decreases added up (subtracted down?), but it was kind of fun, from a character development point of view. Our DM eventually just explained my uncanny knack for coming back, as the Gods getting annoyed with my constant visiting. So long as I didn't try to weasel out of the consequences, he'd ease the party's ability to get me back.

[Shining Wrath]

I agree with OP that the cleric had it coming.
I'm glad to see the player is taking it well. :smallsmile:

Role-playing means that sometimes your actions aren't optimal for success. What's the INT of the cleric? Cleric of a god of greed with INT=8, yeah, you keep scraping off the gold.

[Juantanamo]

I had a great one a few years back that I love to tell.

Player had a gnome rogue who was really, really into alchemy. Rest of party is NPC cleric (healbot), multiclass wizard gish, and trip fighter. All level 5. They finish a minor dungeon where the goal was to thwart a necromancer and who had fled his even eviler master. They now are out of spells, healing, and still wounded. There were a load of clues about how this necro was building up some skellies to oppose his former master and was worried the master was going to find him. Players previously knew eviler master had done find on the necro's ancient tome he got his power from.

So they capture this necro and decide not to question him at all. Instead of resting they then ventured into a swamp... they find a Hydra and get the drop on it but decide to engage to my surprise. To my even greater surprise they roll well and pull good tactics and beat the thing. Now at 0 spells, no healing, and under 1/2 HP I'm thinking "whew, near TPK there, good thing they'll rest now, and maybe during rest they'll pull some info from necro and find out what he knows, or examine his tome in closer detail".

Nope.

Party hits the main road in broad daylight with high value captive and the ancient tome. Necro's master intercepts them on the road as he's got Find on the ancient tome which he wants back. Head necro has 4 really strong bodyguards with him. He asks politely for the tome. Gnome says "what tome". He points at it. Gnome says no. Necro annoyed but somewhat polite chap asks to have his servant back. Gnome says no in a very impolite way then attacks head necro master with projectile weapon. Attack misses badly, necro laughs and I decide to go 80's villain on them. "Now you will see the price of your insolence" and he has his nearby lacky crossbow the servant necro, who dies. Necro turns to leave.

Gnome attacks again, to the utter horror of the party. Attack misses again badly. Necro casts fire wall, in a circle, enclosing them, and turns to leave yet again. (I know, I was too merciful)

Gnome charges the fire wall. Gnome fails dex save. I ask Gnome to roll the fire damage. He rolls 22. I ask him his HP. He says he has... 7. So the Necro and his bodyguards see this belligerent, thrice rude and twice aggressive Gnome charge at them through the flames only to fall into a crispy heap on their side of the wall. Cue bad guys laughing to see flaming dead Gnome fall at their feet.

Except remember the part about the Gnome being really into alchemy? This character is covered in belts stocked full of explosive and flammable potions. And he charged through a firewall and fell flaming on to the other side. Gnome goes boom. Party retreated then came by later and slit his throat to be sure and took his items.

...at the time I was horrified. But it's funny now.

[Beastrolami]

That's way to nice ^

I guess i can tell an opposite story... story of the least deserved player death. To preface this, I told all the players before the game started that it would be very tough, there would be player death, and it was meant for experienced players only.

I was dming and had an aasimar cleric in the party. In my world there are a bunch of demigods running around killing each other so they can extract the divine power, and eventually get enough to ascend to godhood. Aasimar are essentially super weak demigods. They make really good targets for demigods, so most aasimar don't make it.

Anyways, we also had a paladin. Party was level 3, and paladin had chainmail. They ran into a mysterious magic item seller on the road who offered to sell them a piece of enchanted chainmail of resistance (resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing) for 100gp. (All the experienced players reading this will say WHAT, obviously cursed) yes, it was cursed, chainmail of vulnerability, resists bludgeoning, vulnerable to slashing and piercing.

That party knows the paladin is the tank, and coerces him into buying this armor without asking any questions. I felt kind of bad, but figured he would just have to deal with it. The next session, party decided to visit a demigod in the shape of a Sphynx, and the Cleric was the first to walk in the room. The Sphynx says, "you look tasty" and attacks. Everyone decides this is a fight they can win (they can't) and throw everything they have at it for 1 round. Paladin landed a pretty good smite on it, so on it's turn it cast a high level magic missile to drop him just below half health.

Party asks, "how does it look?"
"Pretty much fine."
"Wait, you mean we aren't supposed to fight the demigod on the cusp of Deity at level 3?"
"You make your own choices."
'We run!"

Everyone in the part ran.... except the paladin, who decided he wanted to kill this thing.
He missed.
Sphynx crits, with slashing damage, which is doubled because of his cursed armor.
Paladin dies immediately.

Party never looks back.

I felt kind of bad.

[NecroDancer]

I'm reminded of another battle that almost got me killed because of some chaotic stupid things I did in the past. My party was delivering a sacred dragon skull to some revenant paladins (I was levitating the skull for ease of movement).

The revenant paladins challange us to a friendly non-lethal melee before we put them to rest and we agree. As we fight our paladin was going head to head with some spirit warriors, our cleric was hurling fire into the fray, and our Rogue was ducking and weaving out of combat (bad HP). The battle goes south very fast. Soon only I, the warlock, was left standing and the only revenant paladin (called RP from now on) left was the leader (who was wielding a Kirk Hammer), the rest of my party was unconscious and the RP revealed that he was going to kill me permanently because my character opening collaborated with a demonlord (I worked for Graz'zt as the chief of the department of soul redistribution). As the RP got near I dropped concentration on the dragon skull and managed to pin the RP with it. Then I cast Eldritch Blast to finish him off. I rolled a one for the first blast (we have critical fails that apply to both us and to enemies), I was brought down to 5 hp from the crits fail but I fired another Eldritch Blast and dealt exactly enough damage to kill the RP.

[Jamgretter]

I'm reminded of another battle that almost got me killed because of some chaotic stupid things I did in the past. My party was delivering a sacred dragon skull to some revenant paladins (I was levitating the skull for ease of movement).

The revenant paladins challange us to a friendly non-lethal melee before we put them to rest and we agree. As we fight our paladin was going head to head with some spirit warriors, our cleric was hurling fire into the fray, and our Rogue was ducking and weaving out of combat (bad HP). The battle goes south very fast. Soon only I, the warlock, was left standing and the only revenant paladin (called RP from now on) left was the leader (who was wielding a Kirk Hammer), the rest of my party was unconscious and the RP revealed that he was going to kill me permanently because my character opening collaborated with a demonlord (I worked for Graz'zt as the chief of the department of soul redistribution). As the RP got near I dropped concentration on the dragon skull and managed to pin the RP with it. Then I cast Eldritch Blast to finish him off. I rolled a one for the first blast (we have critical fails that apply to both us and to enemies), I was brought down to 5 hp from the crits fail but I fired another Eldritch Blast and dealt exactly enough damage to kill the RP.
It was sick as all heck, probally the best fight of the campaign so far.

[GPS]

It was sick as all heck, probally the best fight of the campaign so far.

Very true, that tension was so high, and that epic ending! It was the best fight by far!

[Silfazaris]

One fun story I have is about a 3.5 World of Warcraft game a friend was DMing.
The group had a Tauren Paladin and we were fighting a demon.
Then the paladin said "I'm going to use all my lay on hands on him to deal damage". Everyone said "Dude, he's clearly a demon, not an undead". He insisted.
Then the DM said "Player X, he doesn't look like an undead."
And again he insisted "I believe he's an undead because of his facial features"
It was a 15th-level group. The demon was close to die and the party was already very low on resources. He healed like 100hp for the demon. The demon then killed him and another PC, but died in the end.

[Zman]

Party has allied with a local Hill Hiant king and hill giant to eradicate the cult to Baphomet that had sprung up near them.

Fast forward through the literal Maze filled with cultists and minotaurs to the inner sanctum where some of the high priests are summoning an aspect of Baphomet, a Goristro, into the material plane. Ritual is interrupted and the Goristro, which is way out of their weight class, forces its way into this plan but is tethered and being slowly drug back into the Abyss. Goal is survive, and lee the Goristro close enough to the portal as it eventually gets drug back into the closing portal.

It's reaching the climax and the barely hurt Goristro is locked in a shoving match with the near death giant king with the party trying to help. We're in the last seconds of the Goristro's stay in this realm when the giant king is downed, the Rogue is punted to Ohp and unconsciousness, and the Goristro uses its last attack in the material plane to grapple the Dwarven Fighter that was helping take him out at the knees during the shoving match. Dwarf can't escape the grapple on his turn, and is consequently drug kicking and screaming into the abyss.

It was a deserving death fit for a hero. May the gods take mercy on Garen's soul.

[GPS]

Update to the Story: With the specters gone and Aaron freshly revived, Squiddish and Zingzing Jr. went to help me retrieve the gold. This time, as we started scraping all the gold plated statues turned to Stone Golems. Facing 8 Stone Golems was way out of CR, so we had to flee. Unfortunately my character lost initiative and would have been killed. Fortunately one of my allies was close enough to push him off the roof of the guard post, meaning he took 5d6 fall damage instead of 8 snow golem attacks. Squiddish helped everyone escape with a wall of stone, and we were well on our way before the Stone Golems could catch up