First character death in a campaign...

[Mattarias, King.]

Our druid just died. Boss battle. Very young shadow dragon (we're level 2-4.) The dragon was at 0 HP, and it used it's dying breath to totally level drain old longears into nothingness. I coup de grace'd the thing right there and then. He's currently buiried in a grave fit for the greatest knights, in the middle of a forest.

.. He wasn't terribly knightlike, though, but I felt he deserved some respect. ^^; He fought well. My character values that.

The party's taking it kinda hard, though. I, for one, am gonna be at a bar drinking my head off. Fort save or not.

How did the first character deaths you witness occur, and how did you deal with them, in-character and out?

(.. Also, Are there side effects to being killed via level drain? Sounds nasty..)

[SadisticFishing]

The first character death I saw was actually my fault entirely.

I decided to play a Stormlord, as everyone was complaining they wanted a healer - and what's more Talos-like than Chaotic Evil?

Turns out the Paladin had a problem with that. I came up disguised as a cleric of Pelor with a NE Shadowcaster with me. The paladin comes up to greet me and sees the dude wearing all black - two readied actions against detect evil later, ta da! First player kill we've seen.

[Mattarias, King.]

O.o;; I see...

Who's Talos, though, if you don't mind my asking?

[Callix]

FR god of storms, destruction and dirty fighting. All-around bad guy. Specialises in lightning.

[Starsinger]

Wow... That poor Druid.. I liked your story Mattarias... very sad

[Mike_Lemmer]

Wow, your group actually mourned a death? IC?

That's a new one.

[Starsinger]

Wow, your group actually mourned a death? IC?

That's a new one.

Not everyone is a vulture who grabs their buddy's loot and redistributes it before the corpse hits rigor mortis.

[shaddy_24]

I'm the DM and I almost killed the level 2 wizard in our third session. I introduced 2 new players (bringing us up to 8 players!) by having the new ones be ambushed by goblins and the other players run in to help them. 11 goblins vs. 8 level 2 PCs. The party consists of:
human fighter 2, human samurai 2 (not the complete warrior one, our own homebrewed version, able to magically enhance a focused weapon), elf rogue 2, elf ranger 2 (brothers with rogue), elf monk 2, grey elf evoker wizard 2, human bard 2 (new) and dwarf cleric 2 (and new).

The surprise round? Only the wizard hit anything. I am serious, no one else rolled higher than a 3. The wizard hits the lead goblin (level 3 fighter, the rest were level 1 warriors) with an orb spell for 7 damage.

Next round initiative was rolled and the goblins act third (more miserable rolling, only the ranger and monk got higher rolls). A goblin with a bow crits the wizard and does 9 points of damage, knocking the wizard to -2. The rest of the players are unable to roll the 7-13s needed to hit the heaviest armored goblins, or the lower rolls needed to hit the others. Meanwhile, the goblins pull of at least 6 15+ rolls (right in front of the players). The fighter takes at least 8 points and the monk 6. None of the players managed to hit anything this round either (it was rediculous).

Eventually the players win, killing all the goblins and the wizard was stabilized by the ranger at -8 (before combat was actually over). The cleric finally ran over and cured him back up.

Wow, this is really long. Sorry. And great story about the druid.

[SadisticFishing]

Not everyone is a vulture who grabs their buddy's loot and redistributes it before the corpse hits rigor mortis.

How does one say "quoted for untruth"? QFU?

... :P

[Mattarias, King.]

FR god of storms, destruction and dirty fighting. All-around bad guy. Specialises in lightning.

Ah, i see. thank you.


Starsinger- Thank you kindly. it was a pretty sad affair. Now only if we weren't missing three of our party members..

[de-trick]

wow we usually laugh at the character and leave them there take items and go wait for new character

[SadisticFishing]

Oh did I mention that every character death throws off the in-party economy greatly? It's annoying.

My players don't mourn. The earliest I've died was level 14, and I just got True Resurrected - though my character was shaken and a bit less brave for a few sessions, no one cared. =(

[Damionte]

I have absolutley no recollection of the first PC deaths I've seen. I've been playing over 20 years and just can't remember back that far.

I can tell you the first two deaths in our current campaign.

These two deaths were at the lead in fight to the "Battle Of Gnoll Ridge" which is now famouse in our current campaign.

In the "Battle leading up to gnoll ridge" we the party got our butts kicked. Let's see.....

A still as of yet unknown foe had been sending armed gnoll bands into our territory and kidnapping tradesmen of all kinds for some unknown reason. Our party "about 5th lvl at the time" was out investigating the issue.

We had tracked a group of gnolls back towards one of thier camps.

"Bit of side note." In our group if you miss a session your character goes "grey". Like in an MMPORG if you're not logged in your characters not there. We kinda play the same thing at our pen and paper games. This week out rogue couldn't make it. Thus we didn't have any one with the built in abailities of a scout.

While I "the party cleric" was back tying up the horses our Barbarion decided to go scout it out. Doing so before I could bring reason to the table.

Well this barbarion only recons in one manner. Reconasence in force. So he simply charges over the hill into the middle of this gnoll camp. It was a pretty long run, maybe 3-4 combat rounds and he's faster than everybody else. None of who'm were prepared for his charge to begin with. So he get's to the camp a good two rounds before anybody else.

The gnolls had wolves as camp gaurds. Normally not too difficult a problem for a 5th lvl barbarion. But there were a bunch of them, maybe 5-6 plus all the gnolls in the camp and he had them one on one. He charges in and puts the royal smack down on the first gnoll he sees. he is then prombptly surounded by gnolls and wolves.

At this point he's still not afraid. Except wolves and I think war trained dogs too, have a natural trip attack. The very first one rolls a natural 19 vs his natural 1 to trip him. The rest promptly souround all 8 hexes including a few gnolls in the back row with spears and start to put the beat down on him.

Now two round slater the rest of us come trudging over the hill. actually I am a whole round further back. They ran off while I was still taking care of the horses and I literaly didn't know where they went. I just followed the noise of thier charge.

Anyway, we coem over the hill, and I swaer to god it was liek that last scene in the movie "GLORY" we're all just standing there lookign down into this war camp of gnolls. And there's our barbarion gettign the beat down i the middle of the camp. Funny thing is he was still alive. wolves and first level gnolls don't do a ton of damage, and since we're using the armor as damage reduction alternate rules from unearth arcana he was still kicking it when we got there. Granted he was almost gone.

Now I had a decision to make. No one else made a move yet. They know I am a survivalist. "That's not the word they use. They usually say coward" and will run if the odds don't look to good. Needless to say the odds here didn't look to good so i was ready to get the hell out of dodge but didn't want to hear it from the dead barbarion that I left him there to die for the next 3 months in RL. So I led the rescue charge down the hill.

Which is to say I cast invisibility on myself and tried to sneak down there so I could heal him. :) Meanwhile the rest of the squad, Swashbuckler, and Wizard came also made thier way down the hill. "We actually had 2 players missing that night, and this encounter was designed for the full party.

The barbarion actually died before I could get down to him. Our swashbuckler got down there while our wizard started pelting them all from a small rise besides the camp.

We were also using one of the variant spell point systems from EU, along with a coupoel of house rules. Our caster could keep on casting even after he was out of spell points but he became fatigued and was slowly killign himself in the process.

Between the three of us we did manage to take out most of those in the camp but not before they could callfor help. This camop it turned out was jusdt an outlying camp of a much larger gnoll force that had moved into the area. Reinforcments were on thier way.

It was time to retreat but our caster was in no condition to run for it. He insisted on staying to cover the retreat. I argued with him for ... like 1 and a half rounds then agreed with him that he was doomed before I booked it out of ther emyself. Our swashbuckler who's nickname is "The Dash" booked it in another direction away from the horses. I ran back to our horses, took all off them by the reigns and took off. letting the extra horses go whenever I came to a fork to throw off pursuit.

Our wizard actually put up a good fight by himself before he fell in about 4 rounds of combat.

The barbarion still gives me a hard time for lettign them die. Like I could do anything about it. It was his dumb a$$ that charged the camp.

The same player has died a couple more times in this campaign. Usually in equaly silly ways.

The characters in this campaign are now between 13-15. We have 7 players. Only myself, "The Dash" and the Rogue who was missing that night are original characters that have been with the party since lvl-1. The other players have all lost characters along the way. A couple of them have lost 2 or more. Ha actually the same two players who died that night are on thier 4th characters each.

[TheLogman]

Way, Way back, playing 1st edition. I had to keep my abilities as I rolled them, and I kept coming up with Wizards. I ended up with 2 Wizards, a Cleric, and 3 Fighters. We went into the Dungeon, made it a few rooms in, and fought some Vermin. 3 rounds later, after looking for Treasure, huge amount of wandering Vermin come in, total Party Tpk. Minor annoyance, a few rerollings later, new party ready to go. I actually rejoiced, cause I had two parties worth of Treasure now, and the knowledge to stay out of the vermin room next time.

[Mattarias, King.]

oh, wow, crazy stories here. Sucks to be that barbarian, though, Damionte. No offense.

Though from Logman's story, I guess not all deaths are totally bad. At least metagame.

[CockroachTeaParty]

The last campaign I ran... last year? Yes... let's see...

Oh yeah! This one guy was playing a psion. His CON score was only 10, so he had really low hp. The final battle of this long adventure finally comes around, and he single handedly destroys the BBEG's champion, a Hill Giant, with a single power (Mind Crush?). Everyone is very impressed. Then, the BBEG shoots a Prismatic Ray at him (PHB II, I believe), and does 30 damage to him. He was flying 90 ft. above a canyon at the time, and he fell unconscious... and then fell to his death, Roy style. SPLAT!

Still, the battle was epic enough that his death seemed... fitting? At least it wasn't in vain. It was a pretty cool way to die, after all. At least he wasn't critted by a random orc warrior's greataxe.

[Mattarias, King.]

The last campaign I ran... last year? Yes... let's see...

Oh yeah! This one guy was playing a psion. His CON score was only 10, so he had really low hp. The final battle of this long adventure finally comes around, and he single handedly destroys the BBEG's champion, a Hill Giant, with a single power (Mind Crush?). Everyone is very impressed. Then, the BBEG shoots a Prismatic Ray at him (PHB II, I believe), and does 30 damage to him. He was flying 90 ft. above a canyon at the time, and he fell unconscious... and then fell to his death, Roy style. SPLAT!

Still, the battle was epic enough that his death seemed... fitting? At least it wasn't in vain. It was a pretty cool way to die, after all. At least he wasn't critted by a random orc warrior's greataxe.

... Ouch. Still, I have to agree. Nice end. I'm resisting a joke related to a parody of a children's card game show, but good end nonetheless.

[CockroachTeaParty]

No gay clowns were harmed during the campaign.

[ocato]

In my first session ever my Half-Orc Fighter was killed by the head of the bugbears we were sent to kill. He was actually eviscerated by a terrible crit. Jokes still fly whenever we see bugbears. I hate them. I hate them so much. I miss playing D&D.

[Mattarias, King.]

Cockroach- XDXD heheh. Ok, YOU win a cookie.

ocato- ouch.. Well, at least you were felled in battle with ther leader. it should be a bardic tale to be told for some time.
-also, good luck finding a ew group, too.

[Jasdoif]

(.. Also, Are there side effects to being killed via level drain? Sounds nasty..)

There can be.

A character with negative levels at least equal to her current level, or drained below 1st level, is instantly slain. Depending on the creature that killed her, she may rise the next night as a monster of that kind. If not, she rises as a wight.

[Starsinger]

Okay, I'll share. The first time I encountered death in the party was my first game of D&D ever. The party consisted of an Elven bard (Me! My first character ever!), a half-orc fighter, a human cleric, and a halfling rogue. Well, some orcish cultists were performing a ritual to make a volcano, called the Eye of Gruumsh, explode, taking out the small kingdom nearby. So, like good adventurers, we set out to stop it.

We fought through and at the end, the head cultist killed the Half-orc fighter. And we ran off, as the volcano began to erupt, despite our best efforts we failed. (This is the way!!) Anyways, as we were escaping, the halfling failed a jump check and fell into a river of lava, our second death. As the cleric and I ran towards the entrance to the volcano, he pushed me out of the way of a boulder, and tragically died, squished beneath it... So the Eye of Gruumsh exploded, destroying the nearby town, and the only person who survived was the only elf around. Like I said, I was new to D&D so I wasn't quite as attached to him as I would've been had I played longer... but it was still a nice story.

[Maerok]

Doesn't death via level drain create a Wight (seeing as the lifeforce is all torn asunder to create some vile shell of its former self)?

[Mattarias, King.]

Doesn't death via level drain create a Wight (seeing as the lifeforce is all torn asunder to create some vile shell of its former self)?

.. OH. Oh dear. Egad. Uhm...

How do you fix that?

[ClericofPhwarrr]

.. OH. Oh dear. Egad. Uhm...

How do you fix that?

Easiest way: make sure the DM doesn't learn about it.

[Mattarias, King.]

Easiest way: make sure the DM doesn't learn about it.

... O.o; good point, but, uh...

If that falls through...?

[ClericofPhwarrr]

Cremate the body?

Unfortunately, that would require digging it up...

[Inyssius Tor]

Well, in one night you won't have to worry about digging it up...

[Vuzzmop]

Our first campaign's character death happened the first day I wasn't there. There were two ways to get into the tomb, one of them gaurded by two ogres (we were low level), What do my party do? Charge!!. They run away, badly beaten, especially our barbarian. They could have easily, gone the other route, and knew it was undefended, but, Charge!!!!!!!!!. Barbarian dies. Idiots.

[Callix]

I'm playing a Crusader, and I almost got wiped by rats. That's right. Rats. Four standard, 1 advanced to 1HD (Small size). The scouts were injured from an earlier fight, and the DM didn't want casters, so I went into what I knew would be an ambush because I had the HP and AC to take it. Or so I thought. The advanced rat hit, then two of the other rats did too. One of them got a crit. Then we roll initiative. They roll a 19. I roll a 3. Rats!
Two more hits. I'm at 3, with 5 points delayed. And I'm rolling lousy. I just manage to hit with Furious Counterstrike, and get Martial Spirit healing, so I go to 0. Now my party nukes the rat. I was this close to being out, and I ws the party healer. I proceeded to miss all my attacks except 1 for the next 3 hours of play. Against rats. Go figure.