Your Best Death.

[mjames]

In all your play experiences, what was your most notable/rememberable death? Was it at the hands of a god? Were you facing 3,872 Orcs and cut through half before running out of healing? Was it a mere goblin who happened to triple crit you after you threatened his village? Please feel free to share all stories of death, dismemberment, and most importantly shame.


P.S.: bonus points if you are first to point out the reference I made up there?

[Escheton]

munchkin card

I never die well. It's usually just that one time I don't buff vigor because I want to get more hits in and get critted to death.

[The Glyphstone]

As a blooded Munchkin, I am obligated to pedantically point out that it's 3,872orcs.

I can't actually think of any times my characters have died - all my PbP games fizzle out before I'm in danger, and all my RL DMs have been too afraid to kill off PC's.

[Daelen]

Best death for me by far was when I was playing an Elf Barbarian. Yes, I know, woefully unoptimized. Anyway, I was having a bad dice day (I'm sure we all have them), and something the DM threw at me just to make me laugh ended up killing me. Apparently someone had it out for me, or for elves in general, and I got hit by an Arrow of Slaying. Failed my save by rolling a 1, and died. On the upside, and what makes it memorable is that I met the Elven Pantheon, and was brought back with a new ability, when I took my first level in Bear Warrior.

[lyko555]

My best death was as a Paladin, he started off his career as a fearless defender of the week and eneded his careere as the same. His motto was introduced in the first session as "fight on its only
(insert derogatory comment about the creature your fighting here)
first fight was Theyre only rats after fighting off a horde of wererats.

His heroic death came from being the only meleecharacter not afraid of the big red dragon. His triumphant cry Of its only a dragon was heard as he stabbed the thing in the belly taking away its final 3 hp and it fell on him with his remaining 1. (squish)

[Beelzebub1111]

Fell out of a tree...twice.

[Stompy]

Our party was plot-entered into a room with a (12-headed?) cryohydra, with the door disappearing. It gets a higher initiative than I do, and nukes the room. My level 8 red "3 quarter"-dragon* sorcerer manages to roll a 2, then another 2 on an action point, takes ~130 cold damage and die. Then he got revivified, and immediately proceeded to maximize fireball him .

*I got the template for free, due to a plot Mcguffin.

[Jokasti]

I was a Monk, level 15 right. We have to go to the next multiverse over, through the Omni-Elemental Gate of Multiversal Travel. When we get there, its a huge 100 foot high vortex of prismatic explosions. In it is a scroll and the Heart of the Warrior. They throw me in, cause I have the most Speed. I grab the two items, and run out. 5 feet, 5 FRICKIN FEET away from cool grass and dew, cold sky, I die due to Omni-Elemental Damage. They drag me out, and use the Scroll for something, I forget. Anyways, the DMPC, a lich sorcerer-necromancer, transplants the heart into me and uses Lightning Bolt to start it up. Cleric patches me up, and I have something like +50 to physical stats (I remember now, the Scroll gave +50 to Mental Stats). It was not the DMs idea, but its what he wanted to happen. Naturally, every other melee person is pissed and wants to kill me, but the Lich calmly tells the party it was a one time thing. I am now basically, the most bad-@$$ monk/melee fighter in this multiverse. The Heart also gave me some awesome abilities, like Fireball 5/day and other cool stuff.
I guess that counts as a death?

[Curmudgeon]

Call of Cthulhu, in a late 1920s setting. After repeated exposure to horrific stuff my character was on the verge of losing his Sanity. Cultists were trying to raise some Elder God using a deep mine they'd spent years digging over his sleeping spot. They'd finished the excavation and were doing the ritual to raise the EG, and had plenty of guards around the mine. My fellow Investigators and I added some heavy sheet steel around the engine and driver's area of our Model T truck, and filled the back with TNT. With my more sane colleagues adding covering fire from rifles, I ran the truck through the board fence and (more or less, with shot-out tires) straight into the mine shaft.

The mine collapsed, and the explosion took out the ritual chanters. It was a good day to die.

[Escheton]

you go there, you go back. thats 2x whatever move.
How are you coming 5 ft short? was it 57 and a 1/2ft away?

[Snake-Aes]

Oddly enough, my monk's death and subsequent reincarnation into a weasel also started with "We throw the monk first".

[Dracons]

I've rarely died in the game.

I've had two deaths.

1: Slain by the god Torm in forgotten realms, because my CG Human 4th level Ranger muttered he felt Torm was too stuffy. DM rolled a d20, got a 15, so I was struck by 15 lighting Bolts, and lost all my charisma. I learned later that Torm was that's DM's favorite God.


2: 1st level Sun Elf Wizard in solo game. Slain by a snake. Stinking con poison.

[Another_Poet]

Miss Anna Ilona Béla, Knight2, on the lethal Northern Frontiers campaign.

Ilona came to the frontier searching for her sister, Barina (my previous character), who was missing and presumed dead. Barina in turn had come in search of her fiance Rovard (my previous previous character) who had died in a fiery holocaust fighting a Gargantuan fire being in a castle.

To gives you some sense of the lethality of the campaign, Rovard's battle-trained mule was just about the only ally who had survived more than a couple of sessions. It passed from Rovard to Barina, and wandered back to the fort to be passed to Ilona. Jacquelyne was the name of that mule.

With Jacquelyne, Bingo the dog (former animal companion of another dead character), two expendable battle-trained dogs named ONE and TWO, and two pack mules, Ilona had her own small force to command, and she was intent on finding Barina or proof of her death. She was a brave woman.

The other players had gotten cautious after 3 or 4 character deaths per person. I don't blame them. But we ended up just going on routine patrols with occasional low-XP, low-loot encounters close to the fort which was considered our safe haven. Ilona could not stand what she viewed as cowardice, and needed to go deeper into hostile territory to look for her sister.

So as the group turns back from a routine patrol to go to the fort, Ilona loads all of her valuables and gear onto one of her two pack mules and gives it to her allies. "I'm going north," she says. She points to the road that leads to a lost city completely overrun with undead. No party in the campaign has ever lived to even reach the city, let alone get there and back. The others protest that it's suidice.

"I have to do it," she says. She hobbles her remaining pack mule so that it moves slowly, and parts ways with her more careful colleagues.

Two miles later one of her dogs detects movement in a thicket of trees. She sends ONE in to investigate. ONE does not come back. She is about to order TWO to follow when a ghoul emerges from the thicket. Barina readies her lance.

Two ghasts emerge, backing up the ghoul. Already down one dog, she decides it's time for her hobbled pack mule to do its job. Striking it with her lance, she wounds it and draws blood. Hobbled, it does its best to run away from her.

"Bingo, COME! Two, COME!" she yells and takes off on Jacuqelyne the battle-mule to run away south. Her plan is to let the ghouls eat the hobbled mule, and circle widely around them to continue north.

The undead ignore the sacrificial mule and begin to chase after Ilona. Moving at mule speed, she cannot outrun them. After a few minutes the GM informs me the mule will get winded soon. She decides to turn and fight.

"Bingo, ATTACK! Two, ATTACK!" Catching her breath, she sneers at the undead, "Why wouldn't you take the freeby?" she mutters.

To her surprise they respond in common. "It will still be there after we eat you," one rasps. The GM informs me that ghasts and ghouls are intelligent. Sonova!!

The dogs charge in and flank the lead ghast, working their trip attack magic on it and effectively blocking the ghasts from charging Ilona. She charges it as well, doing good damage with her lance but not dropping it.

Next turn two of them are on her. They ignore the dogs and go for the knight.

After two turns she has made all 3 fort saves against paralysis from their successful hits. One of her dogs is holding the third undead off from surrounding her. She backs up and potions to heal. The undead move back in and decide to go for the mount.

Jacquelyne fails her save. Mule paralyzed. The GM rules the mule does not collapse, but Ilona dismounts and drops her lance to use her falchion.

TWO dies blocking the undead from her.

Jacquelyne awakens from her paralysis. Ilona orders her to melee, and she acts as a living shield against the ghoul-ghast team. One of the ghasts goes down. Then Jacquelyne is killed. The most experienced and long-lived character of the entire campaign, a simple mule trained for combat charging, with the fire of a devil in its eyes and the soul of a hero in its heart, wavers and brays. Her front legs go out, then her back legs, and she hits the ground dead.

The other players are very interested in the battle at this point - with one undead down, there is a chance Ilona could actually win! Ilona swings her falchion rolling a crit thread, which doesn't matter against undead. At near full hits she feels confident that she will vanquish these creatures and carry their heads back to the fort as proof that bravery can conquer the dangerous frontier.

Then she fails a fort save.

Paralyzed, she would have been coup de grace'd. Would have, except that the undead have a more immediate concern.

Bingo the dog snarls and leaps on them. He fights alone, risking his life to protect his mistress. Had he run he could have lived... but that is not what a war hound does. He snaps his jaws on the wretched undead flesh, filling his mouth with their maggots and taking one to the verge of its final destruction.

Everyone holds their breath as the rounds go by. One round, Bingo is up. Two rounds, Bingo is up... a couple more turns and Ilona's paralysis will wear off. She could still win!

Bite, trip. AoO, bite, trip. The ghouls give up trying to to move into flanking position around Bingo. One of them sees Ilona coming out of her paralysis....

"Oh no you don't," and it turns its attention to her. In one grisly round Ilona is torn to pieces. She dies, seeking for her sister in the afterlife, or perhaps waiting to be raised as a ghoul in her own right... another life lost on the heartless frontier.

But the fight is not over. Bingo knows his mistress is dead. But something in his purebred heart just won't give up. Growling, he commits himself to the final lunge against the undead, vengeance in his eyes...

Bingo fought on for several rounds after Ilona's death. In the end the ghouls had to kill him in straight combat, their paralysis never quite affecting him. Bingo went down as the hero of the day...

The entire traveling menagerie of the knight was wiped out, and of them all, it was mule and hound who were most effective and valiant. It was really their deaths, not Ilona's, that were the most tragic - Ilona expected to die. The animals were just doing their job.

Note: I can only vouch that this description is about 70% accurate. This happened over a year ago and I'm recounting it from memory. If fellow Northern Frontiers players see this and remember it differently, sorry if I got things wrong. But it more or less happened as described above.

[Admiral Squish]

I has awesome story for this!

I was playing a man-hating psion (kinetecist). Me and my party killed a bunch of salamanders the day before and we got to town and had a nice nap.

Next morning, we wake up the find the city gates swamped with salamanders howling for the blood of the one who killed their patrol, promising open war. The Salamaders had a pretty sizable force, I couldn't tell you exactly HOW big, but big enough that war wasn't something we wanted. So, I, with my mysteriously high charisma, was elected as the representative.

I got sent out through the gate unarmed and walked the corridor of sneering, shouting, and mocking salamanders, all the way to the general's tent. The general was an elder salamander and there were a few more powerful elite guards around the corners of the tent. The negotiations went south almost immediately when the salamander boss says something misogynistic. This moment actually had me torn. Do I betray character and do the smart thing, or do I be really stupid and go with my character?

The latter won and she let off a maximized mind thrust into his skull and a quickened energy missile (cold) to blast his guards. Then spend a round or two buffing myself and wade out of the tent, letting off energy balls, energy bursts, everything I've got for maximizing the number of targets. The camp is chaos. I've got flying spears going for me, energy retort is blasting back as best as it can, and I'm hemorraging HP and PP as I go at it. The party notices and starts fighting their way out to come get me as fast as they can. I'm working my way to them, slowly through the hordes of salamanders that want me dead. I've got like 2 HP left, and just enough PP left for one good blast. So I do it. Fully augmented, overchanneled, widened, empowered energy burst (cold). Next thing everyone sees is a massive 80' radius crater of frozen earth engulf me. I go down to the overchannel damage and a salamander coup de graces me.

I'm not sure what the EXACT killcount was at the end, but my DM tells me my last stand basically cut their forces in half. They scatter after a few more rounds of the melee-ers hacking their way through them like a chainsaw. The party arrives at my body and due to the epic nature of my death, the DM decides I'm satisfied on the other side and un-rezzable. Kinda sucked, but you know, it WAS epic.

[AslanCross]

My Elf Silver Pyromancer had 16 HP left and was facing a balor summoned by Acererak's Simulacrum in Prisoner of the Castle Perilous. He used a Maximized Sacred Flame (sacred damage) Orb of Fire against the balor, killing it.

The balor's death throes incinerated him.

[Ranos]

I played a ghost, father to the BBEG and ultimately responsible for his madness (failed magic experiment, which had also resulted in my death). My reason for lingering on this plane was to atone for this, and when it had become clear that it was impossible, I did the next best thing.
We died together as I held him in my (telekinetically enhanced) arms in the middle of his collapsing throne room (the artificer could blow stuff up pretty good). In the epilogue of the campaign, it was said that whether we went to Celestia or Hell, we went together, for no force in the universe could break that last embrace.

All my other deaths were pretty lame by comparison.

[Critical]

My halfling wizard suicided by his own raven familiar, which plucked his eyes off. That was pretty awesome.

[Analytica]

This was in a VtR (Sabbat) game. I was playing Friedrich, a ventrue antitribu ancilla (~200 years old vampire) modelled after "Otto" in the movie "A Fish Named Wanda". A moody, romantic fascist with a tenous grip on reality.

Friedrich had entered into a dysfunctional relationship with a young Toreador neonate with an equally tenous grip on reality, and let her convince him to use his Dominate ability (mind control) to help her blood bond the other vampires in the city to like her. Of course this was detected, and we were sentenced to death by the end of that night's gathering.

Before the night was over, we had gathered a lot of explosives. The initial idea was that we would just blow ourselves up, but then, the neonate got cold feet and ran away once the fuse had been lit (in the end, she made a farewell speech and blew herself up anyway before the other Sabbat). The very resilient Friedrich held onto the grenade as it went off, but survived, smoking and bitter. After ranting a bit on how you could never trust women, he decided to leave.

Now, several other vampires had the ability to summon someone against their will. To avoid this, Friedrich Dominated a random car driver to put a stake through his heart, put him in the trunk of the car, then leave the city.

Of course he forgot to specify what direction. They crossed into werewolf territory, the werewolves picked up the scent, and...

[Volos]

I had a player of mine die from a level 1 commoner. Commoner stats. Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1. Seriously. The commoner decided to attack the player in the defense of his farm. I was, or atleast for this campaign, rolling infront of the players. So I roll. Nat 20. Crap. Okay, so I go to confirm the crit while all the players are laughing at the barbarian for getting hit by a stupid 80 something year old commoner. Nat 20...again. Now the laughing has stopped and everyone is looking at the barbarain with very serious looks. I explain to him that the poor guy needs another 20 to even hit him, much less kill him instantly. The barbarian's player calms down a little bit, so I roll again. Another F***ing Nat 20. Now he's looking at me as if I've cheated him or something. I say that the dice must be broken or something, so I roll again for the hell of it. Nat 20.
So in the end not only was the barbarian killed by a 80 something commoner with all stats a 1, his soul was also obliderated by the awesomeness of a quad-nat-20 roll out. I don't think my players ever messed with the townsfolk ever again.

[Another_Poet]

I had a player of mine die from a level 1 commoner. Commoner stats. Str 1 / Dex 1 / Con 1 / Int 1 / Wis 1 / Cha 1. Seriously. The commoner decided to attack the player in the defense of his farm. I was, or atleast for this campaign, rolling infront of the players. So I roll. Nat 20. Crap. Okay, so I go to confirm the crit while all the players are laughing at the barbarian for getting hit by a stupid 80 something year old commoner. Nat 20...again. Now the laughing has stopped and everyone is looking at the barbarain with very serious looks. I explain to him that the poor guy needs another 20 to even hit him, much less kill him instantly. The barbarian's player calms down a little bit, so I roll again. Another F***ing Nat 20. Now he's looking at me as if I've cheated him or something. I say that the dice must be broken or something, so I roll again for the hell of it. Nat 20.
So in the end not only was the barbarian killed by a 80 something commoner with all stats a 1, his soul was also obliderated by the awesomeness of a quad-nat-20 roll out. I don't think my players ever messed with the townsfolk ever again.

Just one of the reasons why "triple nat 20 = insta kill" is a bad houserule.

Still, it's a good story :)

[Sc00by]

My best ever death was directly attributable to excess alcohol consuption on my part and thus I can't remember it... :)

It involved a Dragon and a hole of some kind. I think?

[Talon Sky]

I was playing a half-elf bard, and my party was a human druid and a half-dragon (no class until we reached his LA).

We stumbled across an army of goblins, and we were level one (except for the half-dragon's LA, but we're talking like 10,000 goblins). We were meant to head back to the capital and warn them, but for whatever reason we decided to rest for the night. The next morning I set my bard about finding food (always put ranks in Survival). The other two, in a brazen moment of geniusness, go to spy on the army.

And promptly get captured.

So it's up to me. Instead of, you know, going to the capital....I sneak along a mountain ridge above the goblin army. The DM was nice, thinking I only meant to make sure my companions were safe, so he placed them relatively near the mountain, tied up.

My bard buffed up, and jumped down into a pack of surprised and screaming goblins.

Through some amazing good roll, he actually took down about 20 goblins before the tide started to turn. Everyone was amazed, and the druid and half-dragon started trying to get loose (Escape Artist and Str checks respectively). But by the time they got free, I was cut off by almost fifty very angry goblins, albeit my bard was standing on a rather large pile of dead ones. He got killed off by the time the dragon hacked his way there, but they got the body of my bard and managed to get away (our DM is realistic, but not too harsh).

This was actually one of my shining moments in D&D, I really loved feeling like a true hero. Yeah, there were smarter options I could have chosen, but this was the coolest and worked out in the end. I can't remember this character's first name, but since then I've used the surname Kingsbane for most of my characters in his honor.

[theos911]

@Admiral Squish
I Remember your story from one of the other character deaths threads abouta month ago. I told the story to my player(s), and he laughed his head off.(Sorry when i told it, I said you were a wizard, but oh well). My favorite for when it gets posted, is a story I remember about a lich and a barbarian, going something like "Never let the world forget, WHO WAS STRONGER" as he smashed the lich through a wall and laughed maniacly as they fall into the swirling suicidal energy mass. Ya, it was awesome, so whoever actually owns that story, ya sorry to steal your thunder... Consider it a compliment to it's awesomeness.

[Jokasti]

you go there, you go back. thats 2x whatever move.
How are you coming 5 ft short? was it 57 and a 1/2ft away?

Something like that. My DM was pretty cruel. But! It all worked out. I went on to dog-slap the Universe back into motion, and traveled to Earth. Took out most of South Africa with a sneeze, on accident.

[Shinizak]

Killed by quote "two Kuo-Toa's magical gay hand holding powers"

>=[

[Aeromyre]

It wasn't my death but my brother's (DoodlesD) I don't figure he'll post it.
This was back when we played AD&D, He was Orando the Elf Magic user 4th level at the time if i recall. He had a wand of lightning and rolled a 1 to hit then rolled percentile dice and got 0 and 00, the wand exploded doing more than enough damage to fry my elf friend.
To resurrect him we had to do a massive quest, by retrieving an evil tome and seeing to it's destruction...

[Darwin]

I had a level 13 Beguiler/Shadowcraft Mage who had lived a long and healthy life as a very rich succesful adventurer until he ran afoul of a gruesome illusion trap.

The story begins when Seebo recieves an artifact, an untyped +2 bonus to Int is nothing to complain about, had it not been for a slight drawback: Whenever the wearer would attempt to teleport, or shift from one plane to another, he would instead be teleported to the lair of a great gold wyrm who couldn't care less about your puny little existence. Naturally I cast a teleport spell at some point, and I end up at the wyrm's mercy. After hours of begging, reasoning that I would be less of a pain if teleported back, rather than being kept around convinced the dragon to return me to the company of my party.

Later, as we're exploring a dungeon we come across a room disguised by Illusions. My True Sight spell reveals that what appeared to be a pristine water fountain is in fact a stone basin filled with the Green Slime, a flesh eating parasite. Cocky as I am I wander right up to the basin, having though I'd already beaten the trap. A compulsion effect goes off, and I am deeply compelled to have a drink from the fountain. As the parasite starts eating my face I panic, tearing open our portable hole to retrieve a remedy. What poor Seebo forgogt is that the Portable Hole is a pocket plane in itself, and as he jumps inside he's immediately teleported to the dragon's lair again.

This in itself would have been a good thing, had I not given the dragon a promise never to return to it's lair again after I had been teleported out the first time.

The last thing he heard as he lay screaming on the cavern floor was merely an annoyed grunt from a being who could've saved him with a flick of a claw had it not been for it's integrity.


Poor Seebo, I knew thee well...

[horus42]

My most epic death was in a nWoD Mage game. One part Heroic Sacrifice, one part falling out of a moving truck at 80 miles per hour, and one part being torn apart by a werewolf. But hey, at least I took the werewolf down with me.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The party rogue was kidnapped by a fiendish assassin and my fighter ran off into the night without his armor to save her.

I fault off an NPC several levels above me, a few elementals and a crap load of goblins with the wizard and cleric at my side. It was my best death because I took on a challenge I knew would probably be fatal even if I had my armor because its what Zorr would do.

I had a near epic death when my Gnomish wizard charged at a huge white dragon carrying a bag of alien explosives planing on self sacrifice to blow the dragon up. The dragon rolled a natural 1 on its AoO, so my gnome realizing he wasn't cut down dropped the bag and kept running.

[Danin]

I was playing a half-orc barbarian in pathfinder. You know, me big, smash stuff. Fairly standard deal.

Well as we all know will saves and barbarians don't mix, so when the yuan-ti baleful polymorphed me into a snake thanks to 2 natural 1s in a row, I was a little perturbed. The friggin thing then transforms into a snake itself, identical to me, and tries to escape. Since the others had retreated out of the room at this point, when two snakes came slithering out, one past each group, they made the same assumption.

They met up in a hallway each holding a dead snake, one with an arrow through it and the other having been chopped in half lengthwise with an axe.

Well, they don't have enough money to raise me, so whats the next best thing they figure? Reincarnate. So they find the friendly neighborhood druid (who had already brought back our previously-elf rogue as a dwarf), guess what one is right (correctly) and bring me back...

... as a gnome. I take a good long look at my squishy pink naked gnome body. Take a look at all my gear, now too big for me. Turn to the druid, hand her money for another reincarnate and tell her simply:

"This won't take long. Kwan shall pray for a swift death" and march back into the dungeon naked. I then grappled and punched a black pudding to death so I wouldn't loose a level when I came back...