I finally got my first kill!

[msully4321]

I started DMing last December, and I just finally got my first kill of a player.

My party of 6 level 8 guys were fighting a Duskblade 9 and an Adult White Dragon on the wall of a fort. The sorcerer had just failed 4 caster level checks to bypass SR in a row. People were having trouble hitting the dragon since they hadn't bothered to dispel its buffs.

The party started retreating into the tower at the end of the wall, but the Artificer didn't move away in time, and the dragon landed next to him. But that's OK, he has a plan: he uses a scroll of Body of War that I foolishly let him buy. The wizard thinks this is awesome, and runs out and Enlarges him.

He is now a Gargantuan Warforged Titan.

Except he is now an obvious threat and has 6 touch AC.

He then sucked down a scorching ray and a quickened (via quick cast) scorching ray from the duskblade and the dragon's breath weapon.

Oops.

[FoE]

Congratulations! It sounds like it was a challenging encounter.

Now have the player's head mounted on your wall as a warning to all those who would dare defy you.

[Sliver]

Bah, if I ever use any kind of half decend strategy against my players they will complain and the fight will be far from fun from there on due to that.. That's why I stopped DMing for them (and they are the only ones I can find in the area to play with, and the only one that can DM, so no IRL rping for me..).
Its practicly "Dont set us against anything that fights smart!" "Why? because you don't do it yourselves?" (A druid that complains that a frenzied berzerker charges better then him when he just charges, without any spells on him or his AC? awesome..)

/rant

Congratz to slaying your first PC..

[KuReshtin]

We havea tradition in our gaming group that if my character doesn't go down to negative hitpoints at some point during the session, then the session has been a bit of a let-down.
This last session, I foolishly ran into a corridor that the enemies had ran into before me, and they teleported me into a room of fire and the DM critted on the attack roll of the fire attack. Took me down to -5HP.
Later on, one of my colleagues did the same thing, got teleported into the same room, and I was again hit with that same fire-attack, this time taking me down to -19HP.

4e rules are very generous when it comes to negative HP.

[msully4321]

Congratulations! It sounds like it was a challenging encounter.

Now have the player's head mounted on your wall as a warning to all those who would dare challenge you.

It was a pretty tough encounter; I was happy with it. It's probably my favorite encounter that I've designed.

One of the traditions I inherited from my first DM (kjones) is placing a skull on my screen for every kill. I've finally got a skull.

AncientRealms: Your friends are lame. My players expect me to play smart opponents intelligently and dumb opponents stupidly, and I think I do a pretty good job of that.

KuReshtin: Nice. I'm pretty the only session where nobody dropped to negatives was the first one.

[FoE]

AncientRealms, your players are too coddled. I would either mock their whining by sending incredibly weak and pathetic monsters at them (Fluffy Bunnies of DOOM) or by using incredibly obvious traps. For instance, have a room with no doors that has a great big button in one wall with a sign above it stating "DO NOT PRESS." Pushing the button makes a boulder drop on their heads. When they complain, say "Hey, I put up a sign!"

[Sliver]

Nah.. the last game we had was last week, and it sure is the last game.. Zero commitment and every time they think something is tough ("What do you mean I don't hit?! I totally rolled a 10 here with my +15 attack, un-buffed druidic a**!"), instead of playing smart, they start complaining and just making plain attacks and hoping that luck will be on their side...
Nah, its mainly the one that played that druid.. The others are new or just.. I donno, don't care or something, the druid player before played a ranger and they faced a higher level druid, and when the wizard pulled his familiars back and wanted to retreat, the ranger mocked him.. It's mainly him, and he always brags about how he loves strategy and challanges, it just drives me mad that he always attacks without any attempt to do anything but that, and is the first one to complain, even when there is no actual threat..
Might be my fault, as I was their only DM and at first I was afraid to kill a PC so most fights weren't fully planned and always winged it so there won't be a real risk.. As soon as I got rid of that fear (and told him that) and actually had a valid threat, he started complaining..
Its just not worth it for the time I put into it..

[t_catt11]

Heh. Before the first die is rolled in character creation, I make it clear that adventuring is, by definition, dangerous, and that there is real chance of character death. I don't actively seek to kill players (heck, I've been known to fudge die rolls in their favor), but I make it clear that stupidity *will* proove deadly.

I only kill characters off in rare instances, but it happens just enough that my players fear me (as they should). And guess what? They love it.

If there's no threat, then there is no accomplishment. If there is no accomlishment, why play?

Tell them to go play candy land.

[Philaenas]

If there's no threat, then there is no accomplishment. If there is no accomlishment, why play?

I respect thy opinion .

Congrats on killing your first player! I never really succeeded on that respect, but my campaigns were more focused on wacky fun stuff in stead of tactical combat I guess .

[Gamgee]

In my four year career I have only killed 12 PC's across numerous campaigns. I'm also known for being very lenient in trying to keep them alive.

[The Mentalist]

I don't like killing them, not as much fun... I think my players should be at -9 with a curse or two and blind.

[Trodon]

I just realized, I have never killed a player, not as a dm or another player.

[t_catt11]

I really don't kill them very often. Every now and then, one will go down in a fight. As stated, I will fudge dice to keep them alive, but sometimes... meh, what can I say?

One that I could do nothing about, though (I regard this as quasi-suicide, not as much me killing the PC) follows:

AD&D campaign (that's 2nd edition to you whippersnappers). Player has his 1st level mage, who is wielding a longsword with a -4 penalty to hit due to being nonproficient (probably should have been my first clue as to this player's lack of ability to make intelligent decisions).

Party is chasing down an evil wizard who has stolen a pair of enchanted daggers. Guy is on the top of a hill, party is in the valley. Our mage casts grease on the hillside in an attempt to force the evil wizard to slip down (this fails). Evil wizard tries to parlay, is willing to make a bargain with the party.

Now understand, the bad guy is level...5? 6? Enough to be able to cast fireball and lighting bolt. Party was aware of his power. So what does the mage do at this point (since he's out of magic)? Why, he charges up the hillside, waving his sword.

One lightning bolt later, party is mageless.

I just realized, I have never killed a player, not as a dm or another player.

I'm sorry, Trodon. There's always the next game!

[Lost Demiurge]

Hey, cool! I'm assuming the guy took it well...

Dice fall where they may, and sometimes heroes die. So it goes!

[HailDiscordia]

Congrats on the kill. I agree with some others that the occasional death really makes it a more rewarding experience for all involved. I can't imagine D&D without characters dying. However, too many deaths will go a long way to disrupting the continuity of a campaign.

As a DM one of my favorite deaths was when a 9th level cleric forgot to cast defensively and was killed by a hydra's attack of opportunity. I am very much a stickler for adhering to whatever a player says. There are no take backs.

[t_catt11]

To his credite, the guy did take it well.

I agree, too many kills is a bad thing (with most groups). Kill them often enough, and they love you for it. Heh.

No takebacks, absolutely. I always allow them to argue out what they want to do, but when the action is confirmed, the results are what they are.

[Sipex]

I'm still at the point where my group has someone hit negatives and they feel challenged and threatened, which is good, they know I'm not going to hold back from killing them if the situation calls for it (although I try to keep my encounters balanced).

[Glimbur]

I don't kill PC's, unless you count the one encounter I ran for another DM because I felt us PC's were getting too uppity. You can do silly things with Half Fiends and Humanoid Hit Dice.

PC's, on the other hand, do tend to kill themselves or each other in Wuthering Heights games I'm running. Maybe they're doing it wrong, but it is amusing.

[Keld Denar]

I generally try to avoid killing players. There are usually some nasty legal ramifications for doing so.

Characters, however, are a different story. Their season opens as soon as they sit in their players sit down at the table!

[Elfin]

Congratulations!

[Calmar]

Sounds like a cool encounter.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I prefer to not kill the PCs, but rather to make it obvious that I could have at any time. My current PCs stumbled upon a meeting of the high priests of 5 major evil religions and had to fight their way past over a dozen guards before the guards could raise the alarm. It's an 8-person gestalt party...and by the end of the session, two people had taken 10 Wis damage (one with 2 Con on top) and all but one was in single-digit HP (the other one being at -9). They knew that a single additional hit point in damage would have dropped that last guy, and a single additional point of Wis damage would have put one of them in CdG territory, so the tension was the thickest it's been all campaign.

Why ruin that mood by actually killing one?

[BobTheDog]

I refused to kill a PC last session.



They had just entered a dungeon and were attacked by three ghouls (4e, btw). The paladin was in the lead, and the ghouls won Init, so he got swarmed. First ghoul, hit, some damage, the paladin was near bloodied and immobilized. Second ghoul, hit, lotsa damage (ghouls deal 2d6 extra against immobilized targets), the paladin was at 5 hp or something, and stunned. Third ghoul, crit!

Me: "Okay......"
Paladin: "I'm dead?"
Me: "How much HP you got?"
P: "5"
Me: "The crit was 22 damage, so it would take you to -17. Does that kill you?"
P: "My bloodied value is exactly 17. "

Then I got this weird soft feeling in my dead cold heart, and reduced the damage by 1...

[Vortling]

This made me realize I've never had a PC death either. Mind you that doesn't mean it hasn't been close several times, I've had some drop into the negatives, but never had any of them bite the bucket.

[Solaris]

*Golf claps*

As for the rest of you cowards, I consider it a personal failing if I don't manage to bag at least one PC per adventure (to be fair, my adventures tend to be long). I run a setting with widespread access to guns and a healthy kobold population. You do the math.

[BobTheDog]

*Golf claps*

As for the rest of you cowards, I consider it a personal failing if I don't manage to bag at least one PC per adventure (to be fair, my adventures tend to be long). I run a setting with widespread access to guns and a healthy kobold population. You do the math.

Oh, I didn't throw kobolds at my players (yet). That would surely end up badly for them.

[Deastorm]

Last game of the last session I ran, I killed half the party. 3.5.

It was an evil campaign, and half of the party were undead after a fiasco in an evil temple. There was a ranger and paladin of significantly higher level in the area, but there were 6 PCs and 6 DMPC's/NPCs with them. It would not have been a contest full on, and the PC's had the advantage of holding the temple. They ONLY had to wait til dark, since one of the members was half-wraith (homebrewed, and not yet fully helpless in daylight, could only take a partial action per round) and a vampire spawn.

So, instead of waiting til night, the halfwraith soulknife traipses off on his own, trusting in his insane sneaking to get some scouting in. I even commented, "You're trying to sneak up on a ranger?" to give him a hint, but "(expletive) yes!" was his response. "You know this guy gave that other group of higher levels hell..." "They aren't me!" Right on. He gets jumped, beat down, and killed, as undead can't get knocked out.

The other players watched this happen. They saw how fast it happened, and had all the same IC knowledge that the ranger was lethal. So... the warforged artificer and the morhg crusader go out, JUST THE TWO OF THEM, go find the remains of the wraith, stand there a minute, get jumped, beat on, DON'T RUN, and killed.

The rest of the party waits til night, goes out en masse, and kills the ranger, kills the paladin, and shrugs.

I did let the dead players use some of the NPC's so they weren't useless the whole afternoon.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

*Golf claps*

As for the rest of you cowards, I consider it a personal failing if I don't manage to bag at least one PC per adventure (to be fair, my adventures tend to be long). I run a setting with widespread access to guns and a healthy kobold population. You do the math.

I find that nearly killing a player every session (or every other session) with an actual death maybe every third adventure is much more effective than at least one death per adventure; they don't get to the point where death is expected or routine, but they come close enough that they still feel plenty of dread.

[Solaris]

I find that nearly killing a player every session (or every other session) with an actual death maybe every third adventure is much more effective than at least one death per adventure; they don't get to the point where death is expected or routine, but they come close enough that they still feel plenty of dread.

After we get past third-fifth level, the deaths get a lot less routine on account of the party having gone through a couple shakedown runs and they can actually take a couple rounds of combat. I run very stealth-friendly games - if you're assaulting a complex and you stop to loot, don't be surprised if every random/fixed encounter in the grid square comes to find you.

[msully4321]

As a DM one of my favorite deaths was when a 9th level cleric forgot to cast defensively and was killed by a hydra's attack of opportunity. I am very much a stickler for adhering to whatever a player says. There are no take backs.

This session also featured something like this.

I also came very close to killing the party sorcerer (the dragon was fleeing with the unconscious duskblade on his back, and the sorc dropped a fireball, killing the duskblade; the dragon wanted revenge). The dragon (a *white* dragon) was right next to him, and he tried casting orb of cold.

Fortunately, he failed his concentration check to cast defensively, losing the spell. I say fortunately because I was not looking forward to the argument that would likely ensue when I pointed out that he did not say he was using energy substitution (lightning) on it, and the dragon would be immune.

Turns out, that saved him: he used his move action to tumble away, and managed to roll a natural 18 on his tumble check. The dragon only managed to get a single attack on him before dying (bringing the sorc to -6).