First Character Deaths

[Mandar]

Do any of you remember your very first character deaths?

Okay, last night, after playing for 2 1/2 years my character Mandar died. He was caught off guard by an Angel of Decay and his flesh was tore from his bones while his party members watched helpless.

Manny-

[Daelen]

My very first character's death was back in 2e AD&D. Elven Thief, still one of my favorite characters ever.

He got involved in a money-making scheme, started a fake church and took donations, then while the congregation was enthralled by the sermons, another thief would steal the rest of their money. Went well for a long time, until we decided to upgrade to a bigger venue and set up a street-side tent revival in Waterdeep. Found out the hard way that you need a license to preach in public.

Failed every roll I could try to get out of it and got thrown in prison. He then got caught trying to escape, and spent the rest of his life in jail.

[Jorda75]

My first character death was my 2E fighter, he was killed by a giant hamster. No seriously.

[Magic Myrmidon]

I'm not entirely sure if it was my first, but my monk based on Captain Falcon died after this spirit challenged one of his friends to a duel and killed him. Enraged, my monk took another challenge to the death, but he lost too. It was pretty much a total party wipe, actually. :/

[Amphetryon]

Toward the end of 2e, I had a Fighter/Thief mimicking the Skaald kit named Ragnar doing the advanced scouting for our party. He tripped the trap door in the floor and fell into the watery pit. While treading water, 10' down, he got attacked by a couple of Lacedons. Choices were trying to keep swimming and make it easier for the Lacedons to hit me, try to climb the sheer, wet, stone walls with a Thief not focused on Climb Walls and hope the Lacedons missed, or fight and start sinking further underwater. One failed save versus Paralysis later, and Ragnar was officially doomed.

*moment of silence for the fallen*

[Knaight]

I don't think I've ever had a character die. Clearly this means I GM too often, NPCs die by the dozen, important ones still die frequently, but I've never lost a PC. Odd.

[Pelfaid]

Elf ranger went a scoutin' and found a half-dragon ogre with a greataxe. I soon had a half-elf.

[Zanticor]

Back in first edition my elf mage/fighter (all elves where) and a human fighter buddy walked into some goblin cave. We already hit third level and where quite full of ourselves. We hacked away at some normal goblins and then met the lieutenant guarding the door to the chief. Just one more we thought so we started trading blows. The dice just did not go our way and the little yellow creep kept saying "you shall not pass!", but we just could not accept it was time for the big guns. Even after the fighter lay dieing my elf kept swinging (and throwing 1's). I could have used a healing potion on the fighter or a sleep spell to take down the gnat but instead after about twenty rounds the little goblin stood triumphant over two dead adventurers. Harsh times.

Zanticor

[Woodsman]

This one's a bit odd.

My character, Roth, and the party we were in were fighting a massive battle against an army of deadly dancers (Tome of Magic.)

Poor guy gets torn to shreds by about three of them, but something odd happens. Instead of dying, he transforms into a yuan-ti and proceeds to scare the crap out of the dancers in the area (aversion ability).

The party has to kill him, at which point he turns back into a human, fully healed, albeit passed out.

'Twas quite the shock for everyone. He was an amnesiac, so I l;eft the backstory up to the DM.

[Sliver]

The very first character I played was the only character death I faced. It was an elven sorcerer, I didn't know any of the rules and I didn't have the PHB, made the character over some site that had all the PHB options of character creation...

Considering I didn't know about defensive casting, 5ft stops, or that magic missile isn't that good (my second spell was mage armor which I didn't want to waste a spell slot on), I think my character fared all too well... Even though my character had 3 fights total. The first two he was knocked out on, the third was his demise.

Although my second character didn't fare to well either. A dwarf fighter that was knocked out before the first fight, and on his second fight he spent most of it running away. Campaign was actually fun, even though I was useless. Didn't last much after that tho...

[Tanuki Tales]

Wish I could. Going on 6 or so years of playing DnD and I don't think I've ever had a single character die on me.


On the same hand none of the campaigns I played in ever lasted more than a few sessions anyways.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I've had, let's see...4 or so 1e characters, 6+ 2e characters, and about 21 3e characters, all of which were played through at least 12 levels and none of which have died on me. Like Knaight, I DM most of the time and have NPCs die by the score, but they they're supposed to.

[Geech000]

First character death that I remember was a greatsword fighter in a custom system. We were in a dungeon where the path split 3 ways, each with their own perils. The party started debating which path to take and they were taking their time. My big dumb fighter got bored and figured he'd just go on without them. One of the paths was a section of 3 pits that had to be jumped, each one larger than the last. I figured that I was a big, strong fighter, I could make the jumps. Made the first two fine, botched the third one. Found out that the pit was very deep and ended in a lake of acid. It was okay, because I can back as a frog demon and ended up giving a superweapon to the demon god. Fun times!

[Aharon]

2nd ed.
I rolled an absolutely substandard Paladin, he barely fulfilled the requirements of the class, the rest of his attributes were all below 10.
That was my first character who died. I played him as a very valiant character. Unfortunately too valiant to notice the clues the DM left that opening a certain door was a really bad idea. It was. My first character death was a first level paladin being eaten by Ctulhu. In retrospect, I find this awesome. Back then, I didn't.

[Claudius Maximus]

I'm another one who's never had a character die in an actual campaign. I'm either playing the sort where you really can't lose, or a more serious game that lasts only two sessions and ends before it can happen.

[Scorpina]

My second ever character was a Cleric of Tymora, who tried her luck in jumping over a chasm in order to escape from the ghouls that were chasing her. She fell to her death. It was rather... unheroic.

[Primehunter74]

A few months ago, my level 5 human cleric died, we were at the end of the adventure, about to kill the vampire we had tracked down.
I got pummled to a pulp by my ally's zombie bugbear after I had attacked him (stupid confusion spell). After I died, the zombie did not unstand that i was dead, and continues to mutilate my corpse. Another party member and I died, another 2 were turned into vampires, or artificer only lived because he was not there that day.

[EvilElf]

My first character death happened when I first played in 3.5e. Playing a halfling rogue, that was tossed by a Half-Orc barbarian into a wall, then fell to his death in the guard dog pits. Never let a barbarian play toss the halfling. =/

[Kaje]

Mine's a bit different.

Returners Final Fantasy. McGivern, an Elvaan fencer. He had amnesia (I know better now) and I told the gm he could fill in the holes. We decided he had been an important secret antagonist in the past of two of the other PCs. At the appropriate time I surrendered control to the gm and McGivern was all set to become an important recurring villain, but then Tilly the Moogle used two Scenario Points to one-shot him in the head with her rifle.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I died in my first game, I was only 9 at the time but my dad was a huge nerd so he convinced me to play AD&D (I still thank him for that). My first character was an elf magic-user, I spent a lot of time making him and got kinda attached to him before the game even started. Me (and a few of my dad's adult friends) got TPKed by orcs with pointy sticks after getting beaten badly by a bone-golem and I was crushed. After I was done sulking (I was very emotional) I made my second character, a human thief. I still have both sheets somewhere.

[DemonSlayer]

My party of lvl 3-4 characters is facing off against a kua-toa wizard, who is hiding behind a group of 30 or-so watered-down-yet-impressive blue slaad minions (luckily we had a lot of lvl 1 NPC's backing us up). My sorcerer tries to do the smart thing, uses Alter Self to gain wings, and flies over the slaad's heads.
Now, my most impressive damaging spell at the time was burning hands, so I needed to cover a lot of ground, fast. So I charge the wizard.
Turns out it was a level 12 cleric with a good spot check, and reflexes fast enough to cast Lightning Bolt at me.
So I missed the rest of the combat (in which, apparently, a lvl 10+ gnome druid riding a big green dragon did most of the fighting for us), but since it was my first character, I was given a free ressurection spell after the dust had settled.

[DwarvenExodus]

Found out that the pit was very deep and ended in a lake of acid. It was okay, because I can back as a frog demon and ended up giving a superweapon to the demon god. Fun times!

Sorry, this thread is for D&D, not nethack.

[Mystic Muse]

I was a dragonborn Rogue. I was killed by either fire bugs or ettercaps. I forget which.

[D Knight]

heck mine was a bad idea to start with but i was just wanting to have fun. So first level fight, his name was Crystal, going into a 3 or 4 round 3.0 mod. so i get to the last round and hiding in a bush to surprise a caravan. big guy climbs out of the first wagon and walks right up to my hiding place and one shots me. i was the first KIA of the round and the reaper would not see me first, that ....

[World Eater]

"So, anyway, the Void Elemental crits you. And rolled max damage."

And it put me at exactly -10 HP.

[Brendan]

On my first session ever, I tried to use diplomacy on a mindless undead. I spent my actions on that for a round or two and was hit with a crit on a javelin followed by a crossbow. it was essentially the BBEG of the one shot, and I died quickly and easily.

[d13]

Third character ever...

Just trying a spellcaster... Works out that punching a Shocking Grasp in the Orc Chieftain's face is not a very good idea...

[arguskos]

My first character (whos name I utterly forget) fell down a magical elevator shaft and died.

He was an elven cleric, back in ye olde days of 2e. I liked him. He has been mostly forgotten now. *silence for a moment of remembrance*

[Creed]

First character death?!

Homebrewed Oriental Adventures, Ad&d.
My shapechanging Bushi/Shukenja/Wu Jen (who rode an awakened dire-tiger and carried a sword that had stole the soul of whoever the blade touched, DC 35). The gods decided he was too powerful, and destroyed the world in an attempt to kill him.
He survived, via dimension door spell he had learned from a western mage, so then they all dropped a giant chunk of primordial creation on him. Then he died.

...What? I said it was homebrew! The characters were so powerful that I think the world was destroyed about 9 times just to make our empires collapse. I didn't have an empire, instead I was a mercenary who literally fought armies alone.

[Vangor]

Never had a character die. I tend to DM, and whenever I do not we usually play pretty strongly via roleplaying and the Rule of Cool which allots me plenty of opportunity to avoid death, generally through enchantment.

Actually, I cannot say never died, but this was a story element for a Ghostwalk inspired campaign where we were facing an all too powerful shade'esque wizard who had captured us at the start (not Shadovar, but evil enough to be wreathed in shadow and such). I killed his apprentice, which I thought was our captor, initially, by disintegrating a metal door, taking the pile of powdered metal, inhaling so as to cause myself to sneeze, covered the apprentice with the powder, and casting fabricate to make a jagged, flanged, spiked random whatsit inside of him. My plan was the sneeze was technically not aggressive, so any protections the apprentice might have wouldn't try to stop the dust, and since I was using the dust he was covered in the whatsit should be produced at the center of the cloud, which would be him.

My victory was short lived as the actual captor appeared, far more imposing, after having used time stop to do a few things. His round again where he disintegrated an ally. Fearing for my life, I was about to wet my pants, but instead used his pile of ashes in my last round of life.

-----

Since that death doesn't really count, the first total party wipe I caused was by employing a Drow Cleric/Ghost-Faced Killer designed to maximize shivering touch. Immobilized two party members, a Cleric and a Warblade on back to back rounds. Coup-de-graced the Cleric with a scythe followed by a Frightful Attack on the Ranger turned into a Frightful Cleave against the Barbarian. Two functioning members of the party left with the Monk and Dread Necromancer. Killed the Dread with a full round attack and ghost stepped away as his minions tore apart the Monk and immobile Warblade.

Granted, the entire purpose of the character was to force the group to really start rethinking the lack of magic, utility, and protection they were using in my campaigns because I constantly had to rein in any potential fight or risk killing people left and right.