1000 Ways to Die in d20

[Schadenfreuda]

So, in the interest of creating a decent variety of traps for a dungeon I'm making, and also in general for a reference sheet on the matter, I'm looking to find all the possible ways to die in d20. So far, I have:

- Physical damage, including any attacks that ignore hitpoints like coups de grace or suffocation

- Death effects, such as level drain, Finger of Death, or Power Word Kill

- Poison

- Ability Score Damage

- Old Age

- And getting PAOd into a rock or otherwise turned to stone and then being shattered

I feel like there are plenty of omissions here, but these are the ways that I remember encountering. What else, then, is there?

[Calthropstu]

Planeshift.

Disintigrated.

Old age via aging effects.

Soul traps.

Drowning.

Suffocation.

[Segev]

Overhealing - on the positive energy plane, you gain hp every round. This can take you over your maximum. When you hit twice your maximum, you explode.

Diseases can kill, though they admittedly do it via ability or hp damage. (So do poisons, though, usually.)

The psionic power of Mind Seed implants the manifester's personality in the victim, making them become the manifester in all save HD/class levels. Essentially death-of-personality. The original person is certainly gone.

Any irreversible transformation that doesn't preserve the mind: vargouille kisses come to mind. Chaos beasts. Blue Slaad bites (as opposed to red slaad egg implantations, which are disease/damage-based).

Angering the DM, of course, is also often fatal.

[Calthropstu]

Overhealing - on the positive energy plane, you gain hp every round. This can take you over your maximum. When you hit twice your maximum, you explode.

Diseases can kill, though they admittedly do it via ability or hp damage. (So do poisons, though, usually.)

The psionic power of Mind Seed implants the manifester's personality in the victim, making them become the manifester in all save HD/class levels. Essentially death-of-personality. The original person is certainly gone.

Any irreversible transformation that doesn't preserve the mind: vargouille kisses come to mind. Chaos beasts. Blue Slaad bites (as opposed to red slaad egg implantations, which are disease/damage-based).

Angering the DM, of course, is also often fatal.

Also along these lines, the psionic power decerberate removes the target's brain stem.

You can also starve.

I also hear pissing off the DM's SO is also a fast track to death.

I also wonder what would happen if a trex swallowed someone alive and then got polymorphed into a sparrow.

[Telonius]

Deliberate changing to undead: Lich ceremony, Leveling up (Walker in the Waste 10), Rite of Crucimigration.

Vorpal weapons. Mind Flayer's "Extract" (Ex) ability, assuming you only have one head.

Worshiping the Lady of Pain.

Similar to [Death] effects, but lacking the [Death] tag: Holy Word, Blasphemy, Dictum, Word of Chaos. Can kill anything with a neutral or opposed alignment, no save, if their level is too low.

[Ken Murikumo]

Not strictly death, per se, but ultimately losing your character and needing to make a new one:

Turning into an NPC due to overusing the shadowsun ninja ability or the like.

being in a bag of holding, while the bag is destroyed

[jintoya]

Ethereal plane travel and getting your silver thread cut

Consumed by mimic

Licking the dragon on a dare
(this one actually happened to a player of mine)

Talking smack to a lich

Dissolved by slime

One night stand with a succubus
(also happened in one of my games)

[Gallowglass]

ruining your character sheet and not having a backup/duplicate.

[heavyfuel]

There was a thread a few years ago about this theoretical commoner that had infinite lives, and after each resurrection he became immune to whatever killednhim last.

If anyone can find it, I'm pretty sure the members of this forum exhausted all possible ways of killing him

[Telonius]

There was a thread a few years ago about this theoretical commoner that had infinite lives, and after each resurrection he became immune to whatever killednhim last.

If anyone can find it, I'm pretty sure the members of this forum exhausted all possible ways of killing him

Ah, poor old Punchbag! Link here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?462619-If-it-has-stats-we-can-kill-it-Adaptive-Evolution).

[Random Sanity]

Baleful Polymorph into a literal fish out of water.

[Calthropstu]

Let's not forget the sphere of annihilation.
There is also the annihilus which instakills any psionic creature, including a deity.

[Cruiser1]

Old age via aging effects.
Also young age via reverse aging effects. Flux Slime (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/obstacles.htm#fluxSlime) can make you age in reverse, in which you disappear at the moment of "birth". :smalltongue:

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Mind control or similar that forces you to attack the rest of the party, potentially killing and/or being killed by them.

[Thurbane]

I guess this was kind-of covered by poison, but any other effect that reduces your Con to 0, like the attack of a Wraith.

[Schadenfreuda]

- Radiation. I don't know of any official rules for radiation effects, though I imagine radiation would deal permanent physical ability drain with no non-magical regeneration.

(IIRC, real radiation damage is permanent, and cumulative over the course of a person's life; one can't simply get over acute radiation sickness and then go back to a cleanup site or some such and keep working like it didn't happen. Even if it doesn't kill right away, radiation damage never really heals).

- Being sucked into a black hole, if indeed General Relativity and the consequences of a finite and absolute speed of light apply to the Prime Material Plane. Nothing can escape an event horizon, and will eventually just be turned into Hawking Radiation as the black hole slowly evaporates. Getting dragged into a singularity likely ignores any immunities or qualities that protect a creature from lesser deaths.

- Matter-antimatter annihilation is also a possibility, though again this may be physical damage. Complete annihilation however is still complete annihilation, and even if a creature with Regeneration can come back from a single surviving atom, I do not know if it can come back from being converted totally into gamma rays.

- Positive energy effects. For creatures of evil-aligned planes and for undead, positive energy has the effect of negative energy on creatures from neutral and good-aligned planes. This may not count as a separate way to die.

- Force effects.

[Thurbane]

- Radiation. I don't know of any official rules for radiation effects, though I imagine radiation would deal permanent physical ability drain with no non-magical regeneration.

Return to the Temple of The Frog (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070223a), p.23:


Leaking Nuclear Reactor: CR 8; mechanical; location trigger; constant effect; never miss; onset delay (2 rounds) (radiation, DC 20 Fortitude save resists 1d4 Con/1d6 Con, plus –1 Con each round of exposure after secondary damage); multiple targets in defined area (25-ft.-by-45-ft. room); Search DC 35; Disable Device DC 40 + nuclear engineering training.

For each point of Con damage that a PC takes from the leaking reactor, there is a 5% cumulative chance that the exposure causes the PC to mutate. Mutations should be rolled randomly from the following chart. A mutation can be removed only by a wish or a miracle, at the DM’s discretion.



d10
Mutation


1
Gills


2
Extra digits


3
Great horns


4
Light sensitivity


5
Scaly armor


6
Tail


7
Thin skin


8
Unnatural hair/eyes/skin


9
Scent of prey


10
Smoke screen



...the mutation effects are detailed in the module.

[jintoya]

Seeing a gru (not the knock off one they portrayed in the books... The one from mythology)

Cuddling the softest owlbear

Stuck in a literal nightmare of a creature that never wakes

Looking longingly into the stunning eyes of a... Beholder

Dropping a deuce on a lolth statue from the ceiling rafters of an underdark church... While it's occupied by followers (again... Same player as the other two)

[tstewt1921]

Adamantine Cow from Orbit

Failing a Dex check to jump through spinning metal walls

Getting crushed by a water elemental and have your soul sucked into an amulet.

Dysentery

[noob]

Ah, poor old Punchbag! Link here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?462619-If-it-has-stats-we-can-kill-it-Adaptive-Evolution).

Actually the last defences he got preventing him from doing anything interesting made his life way worse than dying over and over
Getting immunity to everything is probably a fate worse than death.

[mabriss lethe]

Someone using the lucid dreaming skill to drag a victim into the Dreamheart and abandoning them there.

[Malphegor]

Radiation stuff snip.

There’s also magical uranium in the form of Sickstone, which i think was either in a web doodad or Drow of the Underdark. Does a little bit of damage each round to those in its area, and it glows a sickly green glow

[Firechanter]

Set fire to your hair
Poke a stick at a grizzly bear
Eat medicine that's out of date
Use your private parts as Piranha bait
Dumb ways to die
so many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
so many dumb ways to die
Get your toast out with a fork
Do your own electrical work
Teach your self how to fly
Eat a two week old unrefridgerated pie
Dumb ways to die
so many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
so many dumb ways to die
Invite a psycho killer inside
scratch a drug dealer's brand new ride
take your helmet off in outer space
use a clothes dryer as a hiding place
Dumb ways to die
so many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
so many dumb ways to die
Keep a rattle snake as a pet
sell both your kidneys on the internet
eat a tube of super glue
i wonder what's this red button do
Dumb ways to die
so many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
so many dumb ways to die
Dress up like a moose during hunting season
disturb a nest of wasps for no good reason
stand on the edge of a train station platform
drive around the boom gates at a level crossing
run across the tracks between the platforms
they may not rhyme, but they are quite possibly
the Dumbest ways to die
the dumbest ways to die
the dumbest ways to die-ie-ie-ie
so many dumb
so many dumb ways to die

[Silentline]

Character in game additions:
----- I got some.
Succumbing to old age at the beginning of the campaign because your race could not possibly live that long thanks to the DM actually keeping track of your IC background story length that says you were 170 and human.

Purposefully pulling your friend with you after you botched your climb check so you wont die alone.

Discombobulation by an arcane trickster and suffering from a severe nervous condition

Dehydration through Desiccation spells

Cannibalization by kobolds

Powerful Frightful presence vs. weak heart

Having a portable tower stone activated and shot down your throat

Diminutive size fairy getting killed by a dwarf who slid it a drink to fast.

Having the entire traveling party sacrificed to a far planes God in exchange for a bottle of fecal matter because the warlock botched the check to read and identify the terms of the 4 foot high contract.

A curse that literally makes your head become a creature and fly away.

Impact onto the waters surface flat enough to kill you

Overeating

Killing yourself trying to abuse sacrificial weapon damage bonuses multiple times every round.

Ranger chokes on black root (Willows version of Ginseng)

Character truly believes he's on fire and fails panic save tumbling to his doom

Having your soul slowly eaten to death by mephisto.

Volunteering to help your party shove all 7 extra portable bags of holding at the same time into a single bag of holding for storage with the logic, "If we are fast enough it should work".

Using monk snatch skills to catch a void stone

Being stuck to the foot of a trampling creature four times your own size because your wearng spiked armor

Opening a portal between the plane of lightening and a grounding plane while standing in the middle wearing adamantine clerical vestments.

Being pinned to the castle wall by the very ballista you shot yourself across with.

Sneaking poison into a targets home in your mouth and when your searched you swallow it to hide the evidence.

Making a tumble check right off a cliff in the under dark because you lack dark vision.

Botching a whip check and literally hanging yourself in front of the group of raiders you were trying to fight.

Taking a single gold coin from a Red dragons nest thinking she wont notice.

Being blended to death by multiple objects after deciding to fly through maelstrom that just tore apart the castle armory.

Getting stuck upside down in an opaque gelatinous cube posing as a massive part of the floor.

Exploding and then burning to death painfully when an enemy strikes your lantern on your travel pack that ignites ALL the extra lantern oil.

[Mordaedil]

As a paladin traveling to Lord Strahd's domain, call him a nerd and ask for him if he's got the money he owes you.