Have you experienced your character dying in 5e?

[Sindal]

Ello

So my dude almost died last night
A lvl 3 monk who got swallowed by a frog and knocked out to digest before being spat out.

He SHOULD have died. But apparently a god intervened even after I rolled the third death saving.

Regardless, I has already sorta made peace with the possibly off my death and it was a very odd feeling. I got rather emotional.

But I wanted to ask, since I know it's not an everyday thing:

Have you had your character die before?

If so, how did you feel about it? Did it feel fair? How did you react or cope. How did they die?

Honestly just curious

[Sigreid]

Yep, I've had 2 or 3 die. Interestingly, the most recent one was by being eaten by a giant toad (a few unlucky rolls on those grapple checks is rough). In a nutshell, without the possibility of dying the game loses nearly all the fun for me.

[Lokishade]

Come to think of it, I never really experienced character death outside of campaign ending TPKs.

I play with softies.

[KorvinStarmast]

Yes. KorvinStarmast died during our first 5e campaign in 2014.
How did they die?
Two of the six PC's died in that battle (got trapped/fell into a pit trap that opened during the battle. (Let's just say that the battle did not go well. The other four PCs barely got out with their lives. Korvin ended up as ogre poop).
If so, how did you feel about it?
That it sucked, as it always does when a PC dies. Time to roll up another character. (In retrospect, if our DM and players had a better clue on short rests at that point in the edition, that fight may have gone differently, but that's water under the bridge).
Did it feel fair?
Yes.
How did you react or cope.
I had a beer (we all raised a glass in the honor of the two dead PCs and I rolled up a new character.
He met the party during the next session.

EDIT:
If you are asking "ever" as in "all editions" there are/were many, many dead PCs. I figured this question was confined to D&D 5e.

[TyGuy]

First death was emotional as I had put a lot of thought into the character. It was my first campaign PC and was only a few levels and sessions in. It also solidified that I had an adversarial DM and a group of jerk players.
Second death was the very second PC with the same campaign and table. Also unfair. But the DM must of had remorse over his antics because he "let" me play the PC mangled and undead.
Last death was against a tarasque in a level 20 one-shot.
Over the years it's gotten easier to make a PC I both care about enough to roleplay and feel is expendable if death comes their way.

[elyktsorb]

Had a Druid/Rogue die, like at, level 13ish. Some magic fight, I died due to a weird spell thing. It was very stupid tbh because my character had potions on them and the character trying to get them up used their medicine check instead of just checking if they had potions on him lol.

Not that I minded, I was happy to be done with the character, they basically existed in order to open locks and be sneaky and that's about it. Assassin Rogue/Moon Druid didn't work out as well as I wanted it to, though that's more of an issue of circumstance than the actual design.

It's hard to say if I felt it was 'fair' that I died since I was a-okay with them dying. The character didn't get rezzed because a part of his whole identity with being a druid was that he wouldn't allow himself to be brought back in the first place, I immediately got to work making a less terrible Spore Druid/ (I don't even remember the subclass)Rogue. That wasn't much less terrible, but a bit less terrible.

Other than that, I've never had a character die, and if you don't count deaths where I basically let the character die, then I've never had one die. Came close, mostly at early levels, I also hate playing at early levels now lol. I usually play characters that either don't fight up close, or if they do, they are pretty sturdy.

I'm the sort of person who isn't sad that a character dies, but rather I'm more excited to make a new character. Which does make me somewhat reckless at times~

[nickl_2000]

Never in 5e only a few close calls (2 failed death saves from a nat 1 and an additional failure saved by inspiration), I've had a few in 3.5 and one in PF2.

The 3.5 character was a Paladin being Lawful Stupid and being the stereotypical Paladin. The party was being overwhelmed with undead creatures and he found a chokepoint holding off as many of them as he could while the rest of the party ran for cover. He died a heroic death and that was perfectly fine with me, because it fit him.

In PF2, my barbarian bit the dust in the intro adventure, but then everone bit the dust in the intro adventure when facing a dragon way to early. It was a 2 session character and I didn't much care.


Now, I would be a little sad if either of my current characters died, I like them, I like who they are. However, I have so many character ideas running around in my head, it will be short lived before I create someone or something new.

[Mastikator]

Not yet. But I do follow the Jem'Hadar mantra that when I roll initiative I am already dead and now the task at hand is to reclaim my life.

[Trask]

Yes, I've had about half a dozen characters die on me, many of them from "Tomb of Annihilation" actually which was a deadly adventure for my group. I lost my first character to mummy rot and a few more to similar bad luck, but I've found that most of my charcters died because I did something reckless, like going ahead to rescue our captured rogue and got ambushed by a flind alone.

Character death doesn't happen much in this game, but when it does it's usually the result of a mistake, bad luck is rare especially past the low levels. But I think it's important for dms to give PCs the opportunity and the incentive to get themselves into mortal trouble, I couldn't imagine the game being the same without it.

[Foolwise]

Not yet. Only experienced the death of the gaming group as we lost to many players to RL.

[Xihirli]

My Goblin Ranger died a few times, but our cleric always got her back until the last one, where she didn't so much die as she was teleported to the afterlife (and no one had Plane Shift).

My Bugbear Barbarian died in the epilogue for story reasons. She was a Zealot and elected to remain dead under Gentle Repose until she was needed.

I was in an Out of the Abyss campaign where I died several times, bringing in new characters every time because there were no bodies left to be revived.

Since then I've mostly been in campaigns that have died. Does that count?

[follacchioso]

Yes, several character death, all glorious and fun.

My first druid character, a ghost halfling barely able to speak, tried to infiltrate a nest of ettercaps, and never seen again.

My changeling wizard, an elder woman with a gift for witchery, was merciless slaughtered by another player, in an accident.

My bard prince was invited to a meeting by a former ally, and never seen again.

My orc bard, a funny guy who used to carry his own harpsichord with him all the times, was slaughtered during a mission by the sahuagins.

[da newt]

Have you had your character die before? Yes

If so, how did you feel about it? Did it feel fair? How did you react or cope. How did they die?

My first PC death was a lvl 11 bear totem / battlemaster. I really liked this PC, and he died in a TPK w/ a vampire-ish caster and her minions in a fight that was completely unfair (in my opinion). She had a legendary action charm she could use 3x per round with a DC that my PC and 2 others could not pass. By the time we realized we had no chance to win, we also had no chance to flee. My agency was taken round 2, and I never had any way to get it back. When 2 PCs were killed and the other 5 charmed, the death of the charmed PCs was handwaved with a 'she walks you to the edge of a cliff, tells you to close your eyes and she pushes you off - you die." It felt very unfair, and I was bitter. It was the end of that campaign.

Since then I've had another PC die (an invisible beholder disintegrated him) and it felt unlucky but fair. I created a new PC for the next session - no big deal.

In my current campaign (about 18 months, play almost weekly, big party) we've had 5 PC deaths/losses, but they have all been fair / were at least partially due to the decisions of the Players, so it hasn't been an issue - it's just been an important part of the narrative. Some of those losses have been very emotional - in game, but the players are onboard with it so it works just fine.

[Psyren]

Yes, but not in 5e yet.

One thing I have to credit 5e and its subclass system for is that it makes rolling up new characters very simple. Losing a character here would be a lot less painful for me than doing the same in PF1 with all the build points I'd have to revisit.

[strangebloke]

Yes, my first character. It was a blatantly overtuned DMPC that did the deed. I was very upset, but mostly because of how contrived it was. The DM wanted a TPK because we'd been getting too 'uppity' and this became obvious as the damage on the DMPC started wracking up. The party druid kept going for five rounds after the rest of us had been disintegrated, and her conjured wolfpacks got in something like a hundred damage more (this was at 5th level) but still the DMPC kept fighting.

Suffice to say this was a very bad DM. :smallbiggrin:

I really haven't played much DND since then unfortunately. All DMing. But from what I've seen character death can be a really cathartic thing, or frustrating, depending on the context. The first 5e campaign I ran saw five PC deaths, most of them are remembered as fine moments.

[jas61292]

A number of times, actually.

First I lost a cleric in a TPK playing through Hoard of the Dragon Queen. We were pretty far into the module, but made poor choices and paid for it. Not a big deal to me. I had my fun in that campaign, and it didn't feel unfair to me specifically (though some things in the module did, in general).

Next, I lost a fighter due to getting separated from the group in a battle in a forest at night. No one else was willing to put themselves in the middle of a pack of enemies to try and save me. Can't really blame them due to the circumstances, and we do use private death saves, of which I failed the in a row, but I can't say I was not a bit frustrated that not one of the handful of healthy people even wanted to attempt to save me. But it is what it is.

Later on in that campaign, we basically had a TPK, though technically my sorcerer did not die. He's just trapped in his own head unable to do anything while a fiend controls his body. But for gameplay purposes, he might a well be dead. And the rest of the party died. This one was largely due to real life stuff. The DM could not afford to take the time to DM and more, so it was a climactic session that would either resolve the outstanding plot points, or kill us all. And it ended with the latter. All in all, I had no problems with this. It was a fun end to a campaign.

In another campaign, Iost a bard well before his time in what basically amounted to a random encounter in a campaigns second session. That one sucked, and it was easily the most upsetting one I've had. If put a lot of thought into that character, and was having a ton of fun role playing as them, only to have it cut super short in a very anticlimactic way. The only good thing I can say about it is that it was nice that it was confirming that there were not going to be punches pulled in that campaign, which I generally like.

Later in that same campaign, I lost a barbarian to an intellect devourer. The campaign ended with another TPK, but this was not exactly part of it. The TPK happened the following session, but in the same dungeon. Rather than make a new character, since none of the other characters knew my character had his brain eaten and replaced, I just worked with the DM, and ended up helping carry out the TPK. While unlike the last campaign I mentioned, this one did not need to end for real life reasons, we had been having scheduling issues and interest had been waning, so it was probably a decent thing that it happened. As for my personal feelings on the death, well... intellect devourers are BS, but playing along in what followed was fun.

Finally, I lost three more characters, playing through Tomb of Annihilation; one in the jungle and two in the tomb. In some other modules I might have been upset, but I went in to this one with the mindset that this works likely happen, so it was no big deal.

And now, I realize that I may have just listed all my long term characters. One shot and very short term characters have certainly survived, but that's about it. While I've DMed a number of campaigns that often end well, as a player I don't think a single campaign I've played in that lasted more that a handful of sessions had ended happily, for my character or anyone else's. And that is honestly far more depressing than any of these instances by themselves.

Hopefully my current character breaks that steak. We seem to be approaching the climax of our current campaign, so... there's hope.

[Naanomi]

A few, and I've killed a few as a DM. Mostly in TPKs or near TPKs, a few in sort of intentional 'noble sacrifice' tactical retreat decisions. I don't count the Zealot in the party who 'sacrificed' himself every other game it seemed

[nickl_2000]

A few, and I've killed a few as a DM. Mostly in TPKs or near TPKs, a few in sort of intentional 'noble sacrifice' tactical retreat decisions. I don't count the Zealot in the party who 'sacrificed' himself every other game it seemed

Isn't that the whole point of a Zealot Barbarian? Death has very little consequence for them?

[Naanomi]

Isn't that the whole point of a Zealot Barbarian? Death has very little consequence for them?
Yes, but I don't count it in my mental tally of 'times a character died'

[Sigreid]

Yes, but I don't count it in my mental tally of 'times a character died'

I think if the character comes back like it was nothing, the death doesn't count. I only really count character death if you move on to a new character.

[Gryndle]

I've had three characters die in 5E. In other editions, well I just cant count that high. I've been playing since the early 80's and Basic and AD&D were a lot less forgiving, and in some cases so were the DM's.

[MrCharlie]

First character ever died; we were playing through an adventure module in the early days of 5e, when we entered a cave with A. Kobalds on a ledge with bombs, B. A roper in an area down some stairs and C. A guard drakes waiting to eat whatever the Roper grabbed.

My poor life cleric dwarf gets grabbed by the roper while trying to help rescue the Paladin (I think there was a sorcerer there as well? It was a long time ago), and ended up being part of a very near TPK. We managed to get the Paladin out, nearly killed the roper, but my last hail Mary attempt to kill it with inflict wounds was a double 1.

It was actually a really great experience. Everyone was laughing, chanting TPK, TPK, and we were overall treating it really lightly. It was in the start of a published adventure at a gaming store, and we were the first group to completely biff it during that fight. We also had some younger (teenage) players who were being introduced to character death, and the light atmosphere helped keep them from getting upset.

[Warder]

Yeah. We don't play with any form of resurrection in our games so when a character is dead, they're dead. I've been lucky compared to the rest of my group and only had one character death - at the culmination of my then-current character's personal storyline, so it was thematically pretty cool. But in the rest of my group, there've been deaths left and right. We've been bisected by ankhegs, fallen to death, assassinated by Vistani assassins, brutally murdered by our own stupid choices, dragon breathed, yochlol slammed, etc etc etc. There's been a lot, and I think in every situation but one it's been a very cool moment.

[Pex]

Yes, but only in my first 5E campaign because the players were That Guy and the DM a tyrant. The campaign didn't start that way. There were two DMs, one shared world, but the DM I had who was good bailed so the great players I was with got meshed with the terrible DM and terrible players, and it went downhill from there. I quit that game.

I otherwise never lost a character in 5E, but I have been in campaigns where other players did. It was sad but not malicious DMing nor player stupidity. It happens. The dice speaketh.

[Jerrykhor]

My first death was a pre-made character in LMOP. The dice gods hate us that day. (TPK)

2nd death was a AL Horde of the Dragon Queen. Died right at the 1st session, because some idiot decided to taunt the dragon in draconic. (TPK)

Then it was a homebrew Dark Souls type campaign, DM mistakenly thought the enemy sorcerer could use Quicken metamagic to cast two Fireballs. We didnt know better. (TPK)

Next one was a newish DM who made us fight trolls. At level 1. My Druid rolled a nat1 on her death save. The character was revived later on though.

The final one is my longest played character, my Soulknife Mystic that i played for 2 years+. We were overwhelmed by incredibly powerful monsters in the Astraldark, the plane of the Waiting Lady (the right hand of Lolth). This one hurts the most, as we were really invested in our characters. (TPK)

[BloodOgre]

Yes, I've had about half a dozen characters die on me, many of them from "Tomb of Annihilation" actually which was a deadly adventure for my group. I lost my first character to mummy rot and a few more to similar bad luck, but I've found that most of my characters died because I did something reckless, like going ahead to rescue our captured rogue and got ambushed by a flind alone.

Character death doesn't happen much in this game, but when it does it's usually the result of a mistake, bad luck is rare especially past the low levels. But I think it's important for dms to give PCs the opportunity and the incentive to get themselves into mortal trouble, I couldn't imagine the game being the same without it.

There are a few places in ToA that really are designed to kill PCs. I had a goblin Monk that got taken out by one such trap. Sadly, the damage was literally the exact amount needed to kill him. Had he been healed before the event, he would have survived. He climbed into a trunk to open a sarcophagus. Turns out one of those trunks does a disintegrate on the PC that climbs into it.

How did I feel? Well on the one hand, it seemed kind of arbitrary and he never had a chance to defend himslef, so it irked me a bit, but we had been told up front this was a deadly campaign. As it was, only one player finished the campaign with their original character, and mine wasn't the first to die.

My son played in the Ravenloft campaign (I forget the name) and the entire party got wiped out (TPK) about two months in (they played once a week) and his girlfriend took the loss of her character pretty hard.

[Ganryu]

Have you had your character die before?
A few times honestly. For some reason, I ALWAYS get hit with power word kill. Dm's one of my best friends, so less being spiteful and more my characters tend to live {And die} in the limelight. Apparently taunting a lich is a poor idea. Psshaw, plebs don't know how to make an entrance. Generally been rezzed, but not always, so don't count 90% of my lich pissing attempts.






If so, how did you feel about it? Did it feel fair? How did you react or cope. How did they die?


Honestly, I generally go "That's awesome!". Makes a scene more intense, I have a pile of new characters, and generally makes the party more willing to move onto the objective. Hell hath no fury like a party that has a clear reason AND motive. In character, group always gets pissed.


There was one time I lost a character because it was a sabotage campaign, and we went in as a group with masked figures... and one PC kept using my character's real name! We'd agreed on code names. We counted 4+ times! Nobody was mad at the DM that I was screwed over. The player, meh, a little bit.

[KorvinStarmast]

Apparently taunting a lich is a poor idea. Our sorc-lock kept issuing nasty sending spells to the lich we had defeated after she found herself alive again in her phylactery and sent us each a 'sending' message (25 words or less) telling us we were doomed ... and our little dog too ...
Yeah, you guessed it, we got a second date.
Beat her, but was the sorclock egging her on really necessary?
Our hexblade died but the paladin revived him ...

[NecessaryWeevil]

If by dying we mean "not resurrected soon after," twice.

The most recent one sucked. It was Tomb of Annihilation in Adventurers' League. One PC was the "rush in first/alone to get more kills!" type. He rushed in once too often and vanished. My character insisted that the party go and rescue him/recover his corpse, leading to a TPK by carnivorous plants.

But the other one was epic. Sir Dakk, Half-Orc Knight Templar of the Silver Flame, died in combat with Lady Vol herself. Picking himself back up by sheer determination, he was (over)killed a second time. Which gave the rest of the party time to pin her and blast her to bits. True to his faith, he merged with the Flame rather than accept resurrection, but was posthumously celebrated as a hero of the Faith.

[TheNotoriousSMP]

My Orc Grave Cleric actually died last monday, one of the first times a 5e character of mine has actually died now that I think about it (I have poor luck with games, and it's rare for them to go long enough for my characters to die unfortunately).

Level 5 party that stumbled across a pair of dragons (a young blue and white) that were working with the Cult of Dragons to subvert control of a city towards them. We managed to take out the white without too much difficulty, the blue then targeted like three of us with it's breath weapon and I took just enough damage to drop. Forgot that Orcs have the ability to drop to 1 HP if they would hit 0, though it didn't matter since my first death save I rolled a 20 and got right back up.

Like 2 rounds later the dragon's breath recharges and he gets me in the line again, and this time I take so much damage that I die outright, no saves at all.

Of course, between the two dragons there were enough diamonds that I could have been raised four times over, so getting back on his feet wasn't a real problem.

[JonBeowulf]

Several of mine have died since I started playing (in the early '80s) but only one so far in 5e. Vengeance Pally held the bridge while the rest of the party evacuated with the VIP NPC and the Macguffin. Took the bad guys a lot of time and a lot of bodies, but they finally took me down.

We didn't plan it that way but sometimes you gotta be the one to lay it down. The rest of the players RP'd it really well. It was freaking awesome.

[Kane0]

Yeah, more than a few.

Fighter 9 died via self-sacrifice
Monk 2 died to poor rolls
Warlock 13 died to plot-related deathtrap
Sorcerer 6 died via arrogance and ambition
Paladin 7 died by drowning at sea
Bard 4 died via near-TPK
Wizard 11 died to illithid brain removal
Rogue 5 died to exhaustion via dehydration & sleep deprivation
Warlock 8 died via disintegration
Fighter 3 died from fall damage

I dont remember any of my clerics, barbarians or artificers dying, unless you count the game dying.

Edit: forgot a ranger succumbing to lycanthropy and another fighter driven to madness.

[Yakmala]

Multiple times. Most of the deaths happened to lower level characters due to unfortunate crits, including one that died on the first D20 roll of his first combat encounter.

I’ve had two high level characters die. One got shoved through a prismatic wall and then pulled back through again in the same round (14 saves was a few too many). Another died by choice, sacrificing himself as part of a deal to ensure the success and protection of the rest of the party.

I’ve never minded character death, as long as it’s meaningful or memorable (preferably both). I have far more ideas for characters than time to play, so when one dies, that just means a slot opens up for my next creation.

[Zuras]

I’ve had four PC deaths in 5e, along with several close scrapes.

First was a 6th level cleric who was Meteor Swarmed by an Archmage. I had even positioned myself where they couldn’t hit me without including themselves in the AoE, but the DM decided they would rather kill themselves and TPK our tier 2 party. That one didn’t exactly feel fair, and I’m still not sure if we were supposed to negotiate and the DM was punishing us or what. Definitely not a great experience, and the DM ended up having the quest giver rez us all shortly after.

Second time was the same cleric at 8th level, again killed by an NPC we were supposed to know was too tough for us and negotiate with/cower before. This time it was a demon who started the encounter killing the NPC we had spent the whole session escorting. This time it actually felt fair, though, as the demon only focused all its attacks on me after I hit it with 85 points of damage in a single turn alpha strike. Also, I got revivified and used as part of the negotiations, so my actions felt meaningful.

Third time was a Paladin who died from failing 3 death saves after getting stunned by a mind Flayer. That time I was more annoyed that none of my allies even bothered to stabilize me than with the DM, although I was a bit salty about the encounter, since it involved quite a few illusions used by our opponents that we used multiple actions on before the DM gave us useful feedback that they might be illusions.

Finally, I also had a cleric/Ranger do the whole heroic self sacrifice thing, which was simultaneously very sad (because I loved playing the character) and amazing (because it was a great character moment). That character is now retired (rather than resurrected) and canonically a saint in the campaign world.

[Eldariel]

As I mostly DM, I've killed more than died. I don't think I've ever had a character of mine die for good in 5e (Revivified and Resurrected though, yes), though I've been the only survivor in near-TPKs a couple of times and I've lost a campaign without actually dying (as in "the world is ****ed and so are you"-kinda losing).

[tokek]

I've had a lot of characters die over the years, probably less in 5e than in any edition. Its very forgiving when it comes to death. So of the last 3:

1. Hit a horrible essentially random encounter. Probably could have survived but I got derailed by a poor ruling by the DM and was not on my game even after they admitted their mistake and I mis-played it. No big deal. Carried on a while there with another character.

2. Westmarches thing, DM put an absolutely insane encounter for level 3 characters. Properly stuff of r/rpghorrorstories. After about a turn 3 TPK (all anyone did after that was make death saves waiting for the enemy to coup de grace them) the DM then tried to blame it on inconsequential choices by the players. Massively overtuned CR14 encounter opening with a fireball to the entire party, yeah sure. I quit that westmarches. Not so much over the character but more over having my intelligence insulted.

3. Super gritty game basically TPK by a giant boar and some boars. Level 1 characters are still super-squishy even in 5e. Had no hard feelings about this but it was obviously only starting out and wasn't really into the play style of the DM so I politely used the opportunity to drop out of the game.

So I was fairly bitter about one of those but really it was the attitude of the DM afterwards that had me salty as anything.

[sithlordnergal]

I have had several characters die over the years, some felt fair some felt BS. The most hilarious pair of deaths occurred during a run of Storm Kings Thunder. We were playing the old AL rules back when SCAG first came out, and our table decided to try and all wizard run. Well, I was an Abjuration Wizard with the Healer feat to pick people back up when they fell.

We ended up fighting some Fire Giants and the Evocation Wizard was knocked out. So instead of retreating to safety, I saved his life. I was then crit by a bolder and crushed. We had no potions, no one else could really save me, and the Wizard died. It was early on in the session, so I made a Cleric since people were bringing in different classes when their Wizards died. Again, old AL rules so I was a little level 1 Cleric...We got into a fight with some Ogres, I got a single turn, then an Ogre crit me, did max damage, and insta-killed me by dealing more than double my max hp. He was alive for about 10 minutes XD

[TheCleverGuy]

My only character to die was a Halfling Forge Cleric in Curse of Strahd. We were trying to visit Van Richten in his tower, but our Sorcerer screwed up the dance-code to unlock the door (I think it was a nat 1 on a Performance roll), and a blue dragon appeared. I thought at first it was just an illusion. But then it knocked out the Sorcerer and the Rogue with its lightning breath. I managed to get them up, and tried to get the dragon to focus on me so the others could get away. The party bolted, but I went down.

DM was going to have me wake up in Castle Ravenloft for a one-on-one dinner with Strahd, but the next session the rest of the party tried to rescue me instead of just running, so it turned into a TPK instead.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm usually the GM, so I've got more stories about after I killing characters than losing them, but my second-most-recent character managed to go out with style.

We were working our way through a modified Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and the party was tasked with scouting out a sahuagin stronghold. Things went south pretty quickly. Sauriv, my lizardfolk wildling (a homebrew Druid spin-off who gives up spellcasting for expanded wild shape abilities) snuck in the back way and came across a locath

"The hell with that," I said to myself. "I'm level 7, I can take a pair of shark dudes nice and quick. This poor soul will be able to tell us plenty after I save him."

So I jump the two sahuagin, only to discover that they're actually CR 3 elites. Oops. I'm forced to retreat, and the party decides to try again with a different approach.

We figure the above-water entrance to the compound won't be well guarded. We weren't wrong, and we managed to fight our way in and it'sclear out most of that first floor.

I'm not going off alone again, so the Soulknife joins me as we scout out the underwater areas ahead. We cover most of the second floor without any issues, make friends with a telepathic lobster, things are going well. At last there's just one staircase left, leading down. The Soulknife and I cautiously descend, only to find ourselves in a great hall filled with feasting sahuagin.

And NOW, of course, is the moment we flub our stealth checks.

We start hauling ass back to the party, a small army of angry shark-dudes literally nipping at our heels. The party, alerted via the Soulknife's telepathic link, come rushing in to save us. Everyone collides in the middle of the second floor, and blood starts to fill the water.

After about two rounds, it's pretty clear we're outmatched. Another round and two party members are down, and it's pretty clear we're going to die. I could maybe dash around a corner, turn into something small and innocuous and slink away, but everyone else is doomed.

"Alex," I say slowly, looking across the table. "I've got a narrative proposal for you..."

With the GM fully on board, Sauriv manages to shift into his biggest, scariest wild shape form and launches himself into the midst of the sahuagin, ordering the party to run. They grab their injured and book it as the battle turns into a feeding frenzy with their friend as the main course. The last thing they hear is his final thought, slipping out across the telepathic link.

"One life for many."

[Witty Username]

I have neither seen a PC death as a DM or had one of my PCs die since I started playing 5e. I think we have had a game I was in where another player failed Three death saves but the DM ruled that one of that characters abilities triggering would be a more dramatic moment,player was using a random homebrew he found on the internet for a Saiyan, which had the ability to turn into a great ape, the DM ruled that turning into a great ape in a berserk state would be more fun in that moment then the character dying.

This is kinda why I have gotten into the habit of using increasingly higher CR monsters against the party, my 5th level party was able to kill: a flind, an assassin, a storm giant, and a 20th level GWF fighter build. so far 2 characters have dropped (1 was hit by a near max damage from an intellect devourer's mind attack when they were first level, and one other was hit by the assassin's surprise round dropping them to 0, healed before rolling any death saves)

[firelistener]

I've never had a character of my own die, but I almost never get to be a player. As DM, I've killed only a few characters, and I could tell the players were a little bummed out sometimes. I helped one player with suggestions on new characters that would mesh really well with the world, and then he made a new wizard that he had a blast with since I could give his new guy a slightly bigger share of the spotlight. If a player is truly distraught, I'd work something out where the party could bring back their old character (which I did one time after I threw a black dragon at them and accidentally vaporized someone's fighter).



Yes, but not in 5e yet.

One thing I have to credit 5e and its subclass system for is that it makes rolling up new characters very simple. Losing a character here would be a lot less painful for me than doing the same in PF1 with all the build points I'd have to revisit.

This is probably one of the biggest reasons I love 5e so much more than other games. I tend to reroll characters a lot, and it's so quick and easy to make a new solid character.

[GreyBlack]

Twice, but I feel like I'm cheating on this one because I asked for it.

Context: I tend to make very powerful characters by accident, and while I don't mean to do it, I can sometimes start to feel like I'm outshining the other players. I don't like this, so I then have to go and redesign/revise my character so I can bring them down to parity.

The first time a character of mine died, I wasn't really having fun with the game and asked the DM to kill my character off so that I could stop attending sessions. It worked, I excused myself from the group. There were a multitude of problems in this one; I was asked to play a healer but didn't want to, we were using outdated Adventurer League rules, the DM was very rigid with a PHB only format even though I had expressed multiple times that these formats were not for me, etc. I could have just walked away, but we were coming up on a boss and the DM expressed to me that he was fairly certain that the party would wipe if I weren't there, so for the party, I agreed to stay on for the session and only asked the DM to kill off my character as a part of the fight.

Remember, kids: No D&D is better than bad D&D.

The second time actually happened just recently. Let me tell you the story of Darren, Goliath grappler extraordinaire. I had built him as kind of a jokey "Tee hee, grappling!" character complete with Groundskeeper Willie bad Scottish accent, but wound up accidentally trivializing multiple encounters for the party. I felt kinda bad and had a discussion with the DM about it, and we agreed to kill him off in a "Death of Superman" moment. This has now led to the party literally making the plan to GO BACK IN TIME AND CHANGE THE EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN TO BRING HIM BACK. Which is awesome to me, because I felt like my character was getting too much spotlight and now, they're all choosing to bring the character back.

It also led to a very serious discussion in group that, if they're going back in time to stop the events of the campaign (long story), should they kill Darren? To which one of the party members, in a very solemn tone, asked "Less a question of should we, and more a question of 'Could we?'"

[Sandeman]

I had a dwarf cleric that ended up on the wrong side of a Blight spell cast by Stradh himself. The rest of the party were fighting for their lives and the poor unconscious dwarf got dragged out into the dark woods and killed by Stradhs wolves.
Harsh but fair.

The curse of Stradh campaign killed of 3-4 other charachters (not mine) as well along the way.

I think lethality in the game actually brings a sense of meaning to the challenges faced by the party.
If the DM always saves the PCs, the combats are pointless.
It might hurt a bit when a loved charachter dies but in the long run it is actually something that makes you remember them.

edit: this is also why I despise resurrection spells. they should be banned.