Most Epic D&D Character Death Ever

[Lord Loss]

Post tales of your most victorious character deaths ever.


Our party rogue, a half-dragon halfling and one of my first characters, (me ) singledhandedly infiltrated the ship of Lord Cateran, an evil Beholder-worshipper, very corrupt lord. Now, I later learned we were actually supposed to do a little recon, fire a few shots with our cannon, and flee. This hsip was to be the centerpiece of the next 4 levels of adventuring. Of course, being me, I rolled a bunch of great rolls, was near the Lord's private chamber, and sneaking in, rolled a natural one on entering the room in which he was. All the guards (15+ ogres, orcs, and drow with class levels) turned towards me. I was completely surrounded, but I pulled ot my flaming aroows and started firing randomly all over the ship. I got four arrows per shot and four attacks per round (including the one provided by a feat). So, full round action: Fire at the lord's desk, fire at the wall behind him, fire at the door behind me, fire at the ceiling. It was a surprise round, and i won initiative. Fire at two remaining walls, fire at Lord's chair. Fire at floor below me. Die gloriously. The ship burned down.

[AslanCross]

I was playing Prisoner of the Castle Perilous, using two characters (nobody wanted to play a caster and I've never played one, so I wanted to try it out).

One of my characters was a Wizard/Cleric/Geometer/Silver Flame Pyromancer. He was mostly utility, but his high-level slots had some metamagicked spells. His Arcane Thesis was fireball.

The final boss of the adventure is a simulacrum of Acererak, pre-demilich. Said lich has grown incredibly powerful on his own by sucking out souls using the tower he lives in.

The lich rolls initiative right before my wizard. The DM casts Time Stop and fires off three Delayed Blast Fireballs beside me, THEN casts Gate beside me to summon a Balor. Conveniently he forgets to set the timer on the Fireballs.

I calmly walk away from the fireballs and instantly kill pseudo-Acererak with an Empowered Maximized Explosive Smiting Energy Admixed Fireball.

He dies instantly.

The dread wraith in the room attacks me, dropping my CON to critical levels. My HP is down to 18. The Balor steadily approaches me, threatening to rip me to shreds.

On my next turn:
-Celerity
-Power Word Stun on the Balor (by now it's been reduced to less than half HP by my party members)
-Maximized Sacred Orb of Fire (Silver Flame Pyromancer class feature turns the damage into sacred damage, piercing the Balor's immunity)

The Balor's death throes consume my wizard as he yells "IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!"

[Harperfan7]

2nd level fighter went through a room of 12 orcs and hobgoblins before finally going down against the last orc. Nothing really special, just me and the DM looking back at each other like, "I cannot believe this is happening". It was cool.

[EndlessWrath]

The entire campaign for my character (his personal goal) was to take vengeance on his brother for the murder of his entire family. I spent long hours planning out how to do this and spent many meetings training and getting ready for it. Finally the day comes when my character stands before him, declares his challenge to the death and dukes it out. He makes most of his hits and hits harder then ever before. Finally the man drops below 0, but inside him is a demon.. and when he dies it activates an avatar state... It created an explosion and a starfall effect that ripped through my characters chest...yet he fought on... his hands burning from pure energy of the demon. In the end, he did not survive 3 rounds with the demon till he died. but after the beasts temporary release, it was to taxing on the brothers body and he died. I exacted the revenge that i had spent 1 year and 2 months planning (for the character it was 7 years).

Pretty epic in my eyes, but not so much in my comrades, who failed to slay any of the opposing group and did not like watching

-------------------------
in a much lamer fashion...my character in a single adventure was a halfing rogue level 1 and fought a bunch of constructs... which had dr to piercing and slashing.. so i had to use a lit torch. improvised... i failed most of my attacks. Finally the boss was a dragon made out of gold pieces. immune to fire.. sneak attack, and dr 5 (i could only deal 5 damage.. at max) to piercing and bludgeoning versus a party of 7 adventurers. I saved the fighter (who eventually killed the dragon) by hurling a stone (borrowed a sling) onto the dragon with a crit which got its attention. i was eaten and killed instantly. the rest of the party mourned my loss like a kid dreads christmas morning.

[Zeta Kai]

A couple of years ago I was running an Epic campaign with my regular group at the time. The BBEG was finally revealed to be an avatar for the God of Entropy (GoE). His plans had been repeatedly thwarted by the party, & each time he upped the ante. So after being prevented from literally destroying the planet, he decided that his final master plan would be to kill the sun using crazy epic magic. The party managed to find him & destroy him...

...But not before he succeeded in halting all fusion reactions in the sun. Faced with the end of all Life as We Know It™, the party's cleric (who was prepared for such a prospect, with his god's help) decided to sacrifice himself & reignite the sun. After a tearful goodbye to him party, the party wizard teleported him to the center of the dying star.

It worked. Life as We Know It™ was saved. The GoE was sealed for all time. Campaign over. Bittersweet Ever After.

[Lord Loss]

A cleric died. Reigniting a SUN?!?!? Holy Chicken! All you guys have better stories then me...

A friend of mine' high level barabrian/totemist/ totem rager was on the top of a cliff. Evil army (Including BBEG) at the bottom. Horde of Kythons at the top. '' I jump off the cliff towards The Thurum Highpreist and stab him. Rolls a 20 on jump check. Rolls a natural 20 on his attack. The sword is Vorpal. You do the math.

[Raynn]

Slightly less cool because he came back but my brother and I were playing MnM; his character, Isiah Washington, was a traveller jumping from parallel reality to parallel reality with little or no chance of getting home.
He stumbles on to a world with a more Russian America but not communist, it's Russian element was around before communism became a threat. He makes a deal with The Iron Man, which in this world is actually a robot posing as a human in a suit, who is in charge of the superheroes of that America to attack a super-terrorist's base in Alaska which in this world is part of Canada so they can't intervene if he gets caught.
The only reason he does it is because he's paid in diamonds worth about 10,000$.
HE proceeds to teleport hundreds of feet over the base and falls till he's splatters over the bases roof.
His logical reason for this being that they would bring him inside so long as he stayed dead long enough and he wouldn't have to bother sneaking in.
Sadly for him he resurrects, because he has a healing factor that would make Wolverine cringe, too soon but stays unconscious he wakes up in a cell he can't get out of with his diamonds taken and a bomb in his stomach.
He was a vary malicious "Hero" so it was karma more than anything else:P

[Anxe]

The most epic death I've had in my 9 years of playing and DMing was when one of my players' characters was a low-level Archer. The party had been invading a cave filled with Orcs and found themselves outmatched when they reached the central cavern. The party of brave adventurers decided an advance to the rear was the most appropriate option. The Archer was the lowest on the initiative order, so he was left behind surrounded by Orcs. The three rounds they took to kill him bought enough time for the rest of the party to get away. He killed 10 Orcs during their retreat.

[Overlord Xeam]

My most epic death was when our party was fighting our way through this system of towers ment to open planar rifts if they were networked. So we had make it to the top of these things and destroy the projectors at the top of em. We were on the 3rd tower and we were about to make it to the top when we hear a crack and a balor and 2 marliths appeared out of nowhere to stop us and so we fought a battle to make it to the top. Finally we killed all of them when I realized that the balor hadn't exploded so I looked around and the balor was crawling to one of our incapacitated party members, his skin bubbling from the explosive force welling up inside of him, he was going to explode on our friend and kill him and we can't ressurect in this campagin so I was bewildered of what to do. In a split second descion I belowed in rage and charged the balor with all my magical and physical strength grappled him and slamed him and myself through the stone wall and off the 100 foot tall tower to explode and crash on the ground to save my friend. It wasn't all bad... after the rest of the party had defeated the threat and closed the rift they erected me a monument for my heroic sacrifice.

[Calenestel]

Most Epic character death? Weeell... The most epic is not EXACTLY a character death. More an NPC death. But it comes close.

After a long chronicle our group faces of against the evil mastermind, some kind of necromancer. Can't remember exactly anymore. Anyway. The CN human barbarian wins initiative and declares: "I switch sides. I attack the sorcerer." Pointing at ME. He had an vorpal greataxe with enhanced crit capabilities, so you'll understand why I went "Eeeep". However the Barbarian rolls a 1 and the DM rolls on her very own "Fumble Table" declaring: "You hit your nearast ally in the head." The axe slips from the traitor's grasp, flying across the room and kills the enemy instantly! The DM then stops us from killing the traitor explaining that to us it seemed like he had never switched sides, simply thrown his greataxe at our mutual enemy!
After all this the best part is imagining our characters profound sense of anti-klimax.

The most epic TRUE character death on the other hand must have been when the group's wizard makes a last stand. In a cavernous dungeon. To make sure the entire rest of the party gets out alive. Against a BALOR!

Aure Entuluva!
Calenestel.

[Iceforge]

My first character ever suffered a quite horrible death at the hand of the other players, but it felt epic.

It was AD&D, with a few houserules (I think, I do not know the AD&D rules, but you died at -11hp, not at -10hp, and I think that was a house rule)

I had a concept and had my characters statistic made by the GM, I played a 'Holy' Warrior devoted to a quite violent diety.
I Adventured with the party, which largely consisted of other pretty evil minded characters.
During our exploration of a Dungeon we came across a force-like barrier, and the parties Cleric and Mages tried their best magic to break down the barrier, so we could cross it, but eventually gave up. We adventured down another path and found an old underground temple, which had its holy symbols removed a long time ago and a connected library where we set up camp for the night.
I sneaked away from the party and back to the barried, kneeled infront of it, and prayed to my God to let me past, drew my sword and stepped into the barrier, and I passed it and found out what was on the other side and that I could take the party with me through the barrier. I went back, but before reconciling with the party, I went to the temple to say a prayer of thanks to my God for giving me such a blessing.
The parties drunken arrogant dwarf warrior came in while I was praying and started dismissing my God, telling me I was worshipping a fraudulent God, which didn't really exist.

This fueled a lot of anger from my warrior, who did not hesistate to draw my sword and start hacking away at the unarmed dwarf (the player had forgot that he previous unpacked all his things, so the GM ruled that his gear was in the library)
He started backing away, with me furiously taking swings at him.
We enter the library, where the other characters are meet with the sight of me swinging furiously away at the dwarf.

The parties NPC companion, a ranger, starts firing silver arrows into my legs.

First one hits, and I am told I need to do a save to continue on, if I want to keep advancing on the dwarf. I make a save and success.
The dwarf is by now not focusing on getting his weapon, but on protecting himself from my attacks, as the second arrow hits and I succeed at my 2nd save.
The party's barbarian (half-orc? not sure) starts running towards me like an angry quarterback, while another player (theif) picked up a crossbow and my legs was hit with a 3rd silver arrow and a crossbow bolt, I make a very high difficulty save and continue swinging away on the dwarf.

Immediately following that, the barbarian jump full weight and speed into my legs, wrapping his arms around them and trying to put me off balance. I make another high difficulty save to remain balanced and yet another to be able to move forward with the heavy big barbarians weight around my legs and I make yet another swing at the dwarf, putting him to -10hp, as the cleric and mage enters the room.

The cleric runs to cast heal on the dwarf, while the mage casts a spell to put me down unconscious, a save I do NOT make.

Having only missed killing the dwarf by 1 hit point, they are afraid of me (their characters don't know what happened), so they put me inside a big bag (the kind you get potatoes in), and ties 100ft of rope (my own rope) around me, and to top it off, the mage casts a spell on me that makes me cough up snails for 24 hours.

The Dwarf is restored to health and he tells the others I attacked him without any provocation.

My "trial" following that consists of them untying the rope and pulling the bag off me and my head being immediately chopped off by the dwarfs big axe

[dsmiles]

Not very epic, but...

I once killed a Huge Ancient Red Dragon (yes, AD&D 1e) by accidentally teleporting into it's heart...instakill...for both of us...

[Calenestel]

Not very epic, but...

I once killed a Huge Ancient Red Dragon (yes, AD&D 1e) by accidentally teleporting into it's heart...instakill...for both of us...

Wow... Just wow. If noone else think that epic that is just sad because... That is the greatest character death I've EVER read about. Not only is it a good way to die (taking a huge ancient dragon with you) but it ALSO is immensly comical.
I am in awe.

Aure Entuluva!
Calenestel

[Lioness]

One of our party members got killed by something...CR14. Thanks to enervation, he was level 6

He shall be remembered bravely. It wasn't entirely epic, but it was pretty sad.

[Bayar]

"No, Friend Computer, YOU ARE the commie mutant traitor." Then my last clone was vaporised.

Totally worth it though.

[Gnaritas]

However the Barbarian rolls a 1 and the DM rolls on her very own "Fumble Table" declaring: "You hit your nearast ally in the head." The axe slips from the traitor's grasp, flying across the room and kills the enemy instantly!

This sucks, not only is it sad that a party member is a traitor, what is even worse is that a one can lead to an instant kill. At least i assume he did not even roll for damage, since the BBEG should not be killed in one blow. Also, if he attacked the BBEG he would have insta-killed a party member....how about that for Most Epic D&D Character Death Ever.

I played a 'Holy' Warrior devoted to a quite violent diety.
I Adventured with the party, which largely consisted of other pretty evil minded characters.

Oh yay, another inter-party battle coming up.

[Heliomance]

For the capstone of our campaign, we invaded hell. On our journey through hell, we took out about 6 pit fiends (at level 15), took the Lord of the Nine down to <20 HP, and did serious damage to the devils' supply chain, setting their nefarious plans back by millenia. We then ran for it. As I was holding the portal open for everyone to escape, the Lord of the Nine showed up again. he taunted us for a few seconds, then the Pit Fiend next to him drops invisibility just in time for us to hear him say, "I Wish you dead." DM's ruling, a Wish spell to kill someone deals 1000 points of untyped damage, split u among as many targets as you like, Ref half. Only the Druid failed his save. The Rogue Evaded it. Everyone else took half damage to the face and survived. We dragged the Druid's body through the portal and closed it behind us in a hurry.

[Calenestel]

This sucks, not only is it sad that a party member is a traitor, what is even worse is that a one can lead to an instant kill. At least i assume he did not even roll for damage, since the BBEG should not be killed in one blow. Also, if he attacked the BBEG he would have insta-killed a party member....how about that for Most Epic D&D Character Death Ever.

Now now... Let's not be rude. Yes, it was kind of sad. But in a comic way. At least we in the gaming group thought so.

Well, anyway. I hardly remember the gaming session in every vivid detail anymore. But I do remember that the Insta-kill was due to the axe's vorpal ability and that everything was according to how the DM was mastering her dungeons, so to speak.

I, however, would have played it differently, as you may say. I would have at LEAST rerolled the fumble roll. But hey, every DM has his/her own way of managing things. And we did have a barrel of fun.

Aure entuluva!
Calenestel

[Calenestel]

Oh, I forgot one thing.

A character being a traitor isn't sad. It can be frustrating. Even offensive (if done wrong). But it can also give a LOT of roleplaying and many good memories. If done right.
I look forward to my next gaming group with a mole/traitor. If it's done right.

Aure entuluva!
Calenestel

[Tavar]

Well, this was for the Neverending Dungeon Crawl, down in the PbP forum. The character in question had decided to rest, though he had been warned that the results could be unpleasant. This is what happened to him;

You wake up slowly, noticing immediately that something isn't right. You look towards the door, and start in shock. Your faithful wolf, or what you assume is your wolf, lies near the door, a desiccated corpse, drained of blood. Standing next to it, is the sorcerer you killed, smiling broadly, pointing behind you. Glancing backwards, you see that the rear wall is gone. Instead, you see a hellish landscape, and, in the distance, a imposing figure sprawled over a throne of skulls, pools of blood at his feet. You hear movement, and have but a moment to prepare before you are pushed off the edge, with the sorcerer's shout following you down.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

[dsmiles]

Wow... Just wow. If noone else think that epic that is just sad because... That is the greatest character death I've EVER read about. Not only is it a good way to die (taking a huge ancient dragon with you) but it ALSO is immensly comical.
I am in awe.

Aure Entuluva!
Calenestel

I swear, we had to stop playing for about 45 minutes, we couldn't stop laughing. Having a few beers in us didn't help any...every time we would stop laughing, somebody would yell "TELEPORT!" and we would all start again.

I miss that gaming group.

[Sprainogre]

We were retrieving this artifact from beneath a temple to the death god in a friends home brewed world. It had been a nasty dungeon, and we'd gone through a lot of resources, but we got to the MacGuffin. Huzzah! We snagged it and were just leaving the super creepy inner sanctum, when the coffin in the corner began to open. You could see it on every one at the table's face: crap, vampire! Sure enough, rising from the her coffin, came a geared out vampire. As the DM began to recite the flavor text, I caught a few points. I also DMed a lot, and new the MM pretty well, so it didn't take me long to realize this was the Shadowdancer vampire out of the MM. Probably juiced up a bit to boot. Now, fully rested, with all our spells and items ready to go, we could probably take her. It's be a hell of a fight, and we'd lose PC's, but we could do it. As is, not a chance. However, I was playing the Paladin.

We all ran of course, but I stopped in the door and told them to run for sunlight, I'd hold it off. The vampire strolled up to me, annoyed at my obvious holy symbols, and not wanting to leave me behind to outflank it. After all, not like she couldn't catch up to the rest of the party. I took a swing, and as expected, missed on a decent roll. She slashed me pretty good. I responded in the next round with burning the last bit of my lay on hands in a touch attack. That pissed her off. She decided I was just enough HD to make a good vampire minion. So, I went full defensive and held her off. It worked to, I bought the party nearly a minute worth of rounds before I was brought to 0 hp, and told by a gloating vampire that it was time to try the other side of the alignment coin.

I took my final action to fall on my own blade, doing enough damage to die on the spot. I had a smug grin on my face though. Held off the bad guy and deny the forces of darkness a new soldier monkey? Good way to go.

[Iceforge]

This isn't one of mine, but a friends I remembered now and I think it is one of the coolest way anyone has gone out.

He was attending a school where all the students was living there; It was for 1 year only. He joined a DnD group, and at the end of the year, their long 1 year campaign had to come to an end.

They had played with really slow advancement, so they where still low level, but really enjoying themselves, according to my friend, I think they was around level 5.
The party consisted of:
My friend - Brute Barbarian
A dwarf fighter, the drinking buddy for my friend in the game
Evil Wizard
Lawfull Good Cleric
The Fallen Paladin, brother of the Cleric, but had become fallen due to the works of the Wizard, who made him drop his faith and become evil slowly, but steadily.

So to end the year with a bang, the GM decided to take them out with a Dragon, and as they left a big pyramid like structure (with long stairs, leading up to a massive wooden door), they encountered a red dragon in the forest right outside; Now, I can't remember if I was ever told the age catagori of the dragon, but as I understood it, it was at least mature adult.

The fight breaks out; The dwarf, the paladin and my friend, the barbarian, charge the red dragon head on, while the cleric hangs back to perform heals. Meanwhile, the Wizard is hidding nearby, waiting to see who the battle turns out in favour too, hoping to jump in and aid the winning party in the end and be spared that way.

The Dragon notices the Wizard in the bushes and thinks he is going to cast a long casting time spell and snaps over in one attack wastes the Wizard, while a kick from one of it's legs smashes the fighter to the side, knocking him unconscious.

Following that, my friend retreats from combat to aid his unconscious friend, while the cleric is focusing on the paladin, who is tanking the dragon, but without much success.

Seeing how the paladin is not going to last much longer, my friend (the barbarian) makes a swift decision: He must save the dwarf and their keg of ale, so he picks up the ale over one shoulder and the dwarf over the other, and starts running for the temple.

As he is running, he hears the deathcry of the paladin, as the dragon finishes him off, soon followed by the cries from the cleric, as the dragon eats him up like a snack.

He is starting to run up the stairs, as the dragon turns around and furiously follows after him, running across the ground rather than flying due to the distance being so short.

My friend makes it inside the temple, the dragon hot on his tails, and he throws down the dwarf and the keg of ale, and graps the door to shut it behind him, but it is just a wooden door, it won't hold a dragon out for long, so he decides to slam it shut on the nose of the dragon, hoping to buy extra time to get further inside the temple, where he and the fighter will be safe from the dragon.

He rolls to hit...20.... 20.... 20... and as they was playing with instant death optional rule, he kills the red dragon. The group cheers (specially the dwarf) and the GM just goes "Well, good hit... but there is a tiny problem; Thats the only exit, and you got an enourmous dead red dragon corpse blocking it now. Despite your heroic kill, the corpse blocks any escape and you both die of starvation a week later"

Nobody whined about that DM fiat through, as they knew the campaign had to end, but taking out an extremely high challenge on your way out, which you was not supposed to have a chance against... thats epic.

[Zeta Kai]

If that were an ongoing game, I'd have cried foul. But as a campaign-ending session, I say kudos & good show, sir.

[Shademan]

SNIP SNIP

I took my final action to fall on my own blade, doing enough damage to die on the spot. I had a smug grin on my face though. Held off the bad guy and deny the forces of darkness a new soldier monkey? Good way to go.

YOU! You win a golden internet of paladinhood!
that is indeed EPIC!

[Drakevarg]

Mainly because my characters don't often die, I haven't got much by way of epic deaths.

My best one would be the time I boarded a pirate ship that for some reason used shield walls for boarding parties, pulled a Thermopolaye on their boarding ramp, a process that included slicing someone's tower shield completely in half, then boarding the ship so that I could find their gunpowder-equivalent supply and light it in the name of Awesome. Unfortunately I'd scared the pirates so much that they abandoned ship and lit the stuff themselves... with me still on board.

[FlamingKobold]

I have so many of these... But my favorite, as a DM, was a group of 100 kobolds with no class levels that took down a level 18 party (It was a low magic campaign setting, but still).

I did everything by the books, didn't change rolls at all or anything. Also, the PCs weren't stupid by any means. They had outsmarted a Lich, stopped complex assassination attempts, tracked down vaguely referenced artifacts and so much more. But 100 kobolds with 7 days of prep time can get a lot accomplished in a mine shaft.

It was almost a TPK (The monk survived, somehow). But he managed to get all the bodies onto a sled and run away. He ended up getting out with 7 HP left. I almost got him. The monk then avenged their deaths by persuading the king to send 4000 soldiers to kill all the kobolds. Sadly, even the ingenious kobolds couldn't stand that much sheer firepower.

And yes, I love kobolds way too much.

[Alex Ashgrave]

My death was due to the DM not looking up Dimension Door rules properly. That and he plays to kill all PCs. Curse him.

Anyways, the party (Feral Gargun Fighter, x2 Human Clerics (one male one female) and a Grey Elf Wizard-me) end up in a house. A sentient house from hell. That can plane shift at will and stop use fleeing by putting a wall of unbreakable bricks around our escape routes. We only had 1 item each-a weapon of our choosing-the rest of our stuff was taken from us.

Demon possesed halfing is sneak attacking every round, hiding in the darkness while I prattle on with my speech(which clued the male cleric in), searching for her and avoiding the litterally hundreds of traps until the fighter finds her and starts beating the stuffing out of her (after a command spell and a light spell revealed her to us.) She grabs onto him and D-Doors into a room that will explode, an insta-kill. I, knowing we wouldn't survive without him-and having figured he would go for the gargun use my readied action to cast Benign Transportation and switch places with the Fighter, just before the trap was triggered. My last words were "Oh....lived to long....This is my honour everyone."
My level 3, 16 HP Wizard. Takes 129 damage. And those were poor rolls.
Gone.

The Fighter and the male Cleric immediately set out to avenge me-the Cleric bellowing "This is for the Elf!" and the like. Meanwhile, the second cleric (female)-who had been following my character as he was somewhat of a mentor pulled a big "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" before recovering his scarf (Which was left on the stairs) and keeping it.

They survived-as the Gargan lifted them to the second floor through the large hole made by the explosion so they could get to the halfling without another death-to the DM's great annoyance.

Best heroic sacrifice I've made.

[Rhiannon87]

Awesome story of epic win

I took my final action to fall on my own blade, doing enough damage to die on the spot. I had a smug grin on my face though. Held off the bad guy and deny the forces of darkness a new soldier monkey? Good way to go.

This, my good sir, is how you play a frelling paladin. That is AWESOME.

[Raiki]

This was actually done by one of my players, not me, but it wins, hands down.

Playing in a low level gestalt game, where the party consists of all gestalted favored-souls.

One player was a goliath barbarian/fighter//favored soul, One was a rogue//fs, one was a warlock//fs. They were at about level 5 IIRC, and fighting an Elder Black Pudding (ECL 12 gelatinous cube). Considering that they were all gestalted healers I knew they could win a war of attrition against this thing. However, that battle style just didn't seem to appeal to them. After duking it out with the pudding for about 10 rounds, they were all pretty messed up, but the pudding was almost dead. The Goliath is at 0 HP, the rest of the party is in negatives, and dropping. So the goliath, rather than healing herself or anyone else, casts Balor's Nimbus (Cleric spell that lights you on fire) and charges headlong into the pudding. Pudding dies of fire damage, goliath dies of acid damage, the rest of the party eventually succumbs to their wounds.

It somehow managed to be a Total Party and Monster Kill.

That's the closest I have to Epic anyway.