Fastest PC death in combat?

[Saph]

We just, at long last, came to the end of our Phantasy Star IV campaign. The BBEG is an entity called the Profound Darkness, which the main group of PCs have been gearing up and preparing themselves to fight for about four sessions now. At the last minute two new players come over to the table and ask if they can join the game. It's explained that they'll have about a 95% chance of dying, but they don't mind. One rolls up a 10th-level warlock, the other rolls up a 10th-level rogue called Shayla.

The PCs reach the demiplane that the Profound Darkness is sitting at the centre of. I read out the description and start up the mood music on my laptop. Every PC gets one round of actions, then the music shifts to "Battle with Magus" from Chrono Trigger and they roll for initiative. Rogue goes first. The Profound Darkness goes second.

Rogue: "I move forward . . . oh, I can't get into melee range."
Other player: "You can use a ranged weapon."
Rogue: "I didn't bring one."
Me: "Its turn. Well, since there's only one active target, it fires a ray of flickering rainbow-coloured light at Shayla." (Prismatic Ray - basically a single-target Prismatic Spray. The P.D. has three forms, and this is the first and weakest one.)
Rogue: "18? Yeah, it hits."
Me: "Okay, roll a d8."
Rogue: "3."
Me: "Make a reflex save."
Rogue: "19."
Me: "You take 80 points of electricity damage."
Rogue: "Oh. I'm dead, then."
Other player: "What? You're a 10th-level rogue, didn't you take Improved Evasion?"
Rogue: "I didn't think I'd need it."

Fastest in-combat death I've ever witnessed.

The player got resurrected, but later failed his save against the P.D.'s mass-disintegrate effect and was reduced to a pile of dust at -110 HP or so.

So, what's the shortest length of time you've ever seen between rolling initiative and a character dying?

- Saph

[Chronos]

Is this the same campaign where a couple of PCs went to great trouble to feed themselves to a sandworm? That was fun.

Other player: "What? You're a 10th-level rogue, didn't you take Improved Evasion?"

Really, Improved Evasion is the worst option on the list of rogue special abilities. You've got the best Reflex saves of any class in the game; why take an ability which only does anything when you fail a reflex save? Yeah, it'll occasionally save your butt, but Defensive Roll or Slippery Mind will save your butt a lot more often. Skill Mastery has good all-around usefulness, and Crippling Strike is a solid offensive option. I'd have to have a lot more Special Ability slots, or a lot less choices for them, before I'd bother with Improved Evasion.

The lack of a ranged weapon, though, is pretty inexcusable. Even if you're not going to invest any magic on it, at least pick up a bow, or some throwing daggers, or something.

[Saph]

Is this the same campaign where a couple of PCs went to great trouble to feed themselves to a sandworm? That was fun.

Yeah. This was less hilarious, but still kind of funny. :)

Really, Improved Evasion is the worst option on the list of rogue special abilities. You've got the best Reflex saves of any class in the game; why take an ability which only does anything when you fail a reflex save?

The game's been themed after a console RPG, so the bosses have favoured giant, flashy, explosive spells, because those are what bosses in CRPGs tend to use (and because also they give the PCs a chance to survive, as opposed to spells like Power Word Kill). But to be fair to the player, he didn't have any way of knowing that.

- Saph

[Oslecamo]

Oh god , so many times I've lost count. Here are the more memorial.

A sorceror lv8 shot down by an hail of arrows from a gnoll army( around 150) after he decided to spend the first turn of battle casting fly and going up "to get out of range".

A fighter lv 11 bursting in the middle of an evil cult we were suposed to spy from a safe distance and stumbling on a pit fiend and his enforcers. Some failed will saves later.

A wizard attacking a group of goblins from distance and a higher position and geting shot back by an hail of javelins. Damnit, humanoid monsters usually carry ranged weapons, you already should have learned that!

A band of digesters circling the party and submiting us to an hail of acid wich took down more than half of us.

[an kobold]

There's a bit of a backstory to this character's death.

One of the players in my group had a natural tendency to roll natural twenties as a monk. Everyone used the same dice and rolled out in the open, however, it will be apparent, especially as this story progresses, not everyone used the same luck. But this player's luck had kept up, so he decided it was worth the risk to get the DM to houserule that two natural twenties in a row resulted in the target rolling a fortitude save, dc 15, or dieing. As others in the group did not have such luck, we were a little more than uneasy about this since we were relatively low level. Ironically enough, shortly after this rule was verified, the monk was killed due to, ahem, Darwinism.

Enter second player. His initial character, a paladin, had been tied, backstory wise, to another PC, a cleric, whose player had to leave the campaign due to medical reasons. It did not make sense that the paladin would stay with the party. So he rolled up a shugenja, a character both the player and the DM had invested time in, primarily in backstory.

We began the session that night with the shugenja joining the party for the first time as well as the first time of the full implementation of the "double 20" rule. Suspicions abounded as the character's story comes to light and no one really trusts this outsider. The distrust seems to be confirmed when the group is ambushed and we are asked to roll for initiative. That distrust was disproved when the shugenja was the first target of the surprise round. Tragically, as it happened. it was is last round. The DM had rolled a natural 20 twice. Silence. Then the fortitude save. A natural one.

Needless to say, lulz ensued.

[Stormcrow]

Prior to initiative. In the surprise round. Great Axe, Power Attack, Sneak Attack, Critical.

[AslanCross]

First enemy round against a Hobgoblin Warsoul and her retinue. One of the casters had webbed the PCs. The Warsoul used her Soul Tyrant ability to raise the DC of her fireball. The druid was scorched beyond recognition before her second turn. I think only the paladin and the bard were left in serviceable condition after that.

In another group (same campaign, though), the cleric was too focused on healing the wizard (who was flying with 0 HP). She didn't defend herself when the boss (a tiefling swordsage) used Elder Mountain Hammer on her. She still didn't bother to move away, so the swordsage did that for her---throwing her 40 feet across the hall and straight into the masonry. She got dropped to-5 from 32 HP. This was turn 3. Not fast per se, but the player sure didn't see that coming.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

1st level half-orc vs 1st level orc warrior. Both with Greataxes. Orc wins initiative, and crits. Kills in one blow. Cuts the orc in half at the waist.

[Xyk]

I think in one of my games the rogue sneaked off and sneak attacked the enemy without telling the party wizard who sees the enemy and fireballs. The rogue dies...so sad...

[Kurald Galain]

Two cases come to mind.

One was simply a poor DM. One guy was playing a nervous wizard character extremely carefully, resulting in that wizard never really taking any damage (not because he was so uber, but because he was so cautious). Then, at one point, we encounter a small dragon. Dragon wins initiative, breathes flame, and one-shots the wizard. We then proceed to slaughter said dragon in one round.

The other was simply a poor player. This was in a game of Vampire: the Masquerade, wherein one clan of vampires, the Malkavians, are known to be insane. Now if played well, these result in nasty, unpredictable and horrid psychos as seen in various good horror movies. If played poorly, they work like this.

Our group was centered around a rich and influential (albeit crippled) Toreador vampire, a player character who was our de facto leader. The rest of us were his advisors and bodyguards, and having agendas of our own, of course. One day, he was coming out of a meeting in his wheelchair, accompanied by the three of us. And this is when the new Malkavian character was introduced. That player figured that, since his character was insane, the logical thing to do would be to jump out of an alley, scream maniacally, draw a knife, then charge at and stab this leader character. Who needs reasons if you're crazy?

Our own characters made the logical response, which is to say we drew a variety of guns, high-powered shotguns, and a machine gun, and hit him before he could reach our boss. He lasted only a single round, never reached his intended target, and had less than thirty seconds of playtime total.

[NullAshton]

Thought slayer phased into the material plane and combat started... gaze attack affected my rogue instantly, he failed his fortitude save, and died.

I don't think we even had a chance to roll initiative yet.

[AlterForm]

I bet the CharOp boards could do it in a free action.

[Zocelot]

In a campaign that I was DMing, I ran the first battle as a warmup against some kobolds and troglodytes. The Barbarian won initiative, so he raged, and charged in. He one hit on of the kobolds. The next round he got critted by the troglodyte, and was sent to -8 hit points. I got the Kobolds to ready actions to wait for the last kobold to move, at which point 4 kobolds coup de graced the Barbarian at the same time. The barbarian was the only front liner in the party of 4, and I had a TPK in 4 rounds.

[Quincunx]

Two cases come to mind.

One was simply a poor DM. One guy was playing a nervous wizard character extremely carefully, resulting in that wizard never really taking any damage (not because he was so uber, but because he was so cautious). Then, at one point, we encounter a small dragon. Dragon wins initiative, breathes flame, and one-shots the wizard. We then proceed to slaughter said dragon in one round.

The other was simply a poor player. This was in a game of Vampire: the Masquerade, wherein one clan of vampires, the Malkavians, are known to be insane. Now if played well, these result in nasty, unpredictable and horrid psychos as seen in various good horror movies. If played poorly, they work like this.

Our group was centered around a rich and influential (albeit crippled) Toreador vampire, a player character who was our de facto leader. The rest of us were his advisors and bodyguards, and having agendas of our own, of course. One day, he was coming out of a meeting in his wheelchair, accompanied by the three of us. And this is when the new Malkavian character was introduced. That player figured that, since his character was insane, the logical thing to do would be to jump out of an alley, scream maniacally, draw a knife, then charge at and stab this leader character. Who needs reasons if you're crazy?

Our own characters made the logical response, which is to say we drew a variety of guns, high-powered shotguns, and a machine gun, and hit him before he could reach our boss. He lasted only a single round, never reached his intended target, and had less than thirty seconds of playtime total.

PLEASE tell me this wasn't a LARP session. . .

[dyslexicfaser]

Ugh, the dreaded Fishmalk.

The only one that comes to mind for myself is in a group of level 2-3 guys in... I dunno... might have been Sharn.

We're exploring the sewers, we've been killing these ratling things left and right, including one as big as a bear. We come to a room with a pool of water. The ranger takes a look. There are a pair of rat-men in the pool.

Ratmen with guns. Bang. Ranger falls dead.

[Reltzik]

DM: You all edge closer to the strange substance covering the walls, stopping about ten feet away, and bring your light to bear. Knowledge dungeoneering checks to identify.

*the wizard and ranger both pass*

DM: It's yellow mold. It doesn't seem to have registered your presence yet... at least, you're not yet choking to death on a spore cloud. Roll initiative.

*the wizard wins initiative*

Wizard: It's going to gas us any second! I'm holding my metamagic rod, right? Quickened fireball at it and then follow up with a regular one!

DM: O....kay.... Let's play good news bad news.

Other players: IDIOT!

DM: The good news is, the mold's dead, and with the first fireball, even. No need to cast the second one. The bad news is, you all need to make reflex saves.

Wizard: .... oopsies.

Killed himself with a free action right smack at the beginning of the surprise round for the first encounter of the dungeon. Took a fair chunk of party HP with him as he went.

[Vonriel]

This was probably my second real character, it's been a while so I'm not sure.

We were starting an adventure in Sharn, and the party wizard had just permanently enlarged my dwarf fighter. We encounter a rage drake, which wins initiative. First round, it sees my large dwarf, and charges. DM rolls for its first attack, and rolls two 20s. Enter the critical table. He stabbed me through my heart, and I died in the first round of the first turn of combat. Do I win?

[RTGoodman]

Back when we started running our FR Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign a couple of years ago (before it fell apart), I was playing a Half-Orc Monk. (I was originally told that we were going to play an oriental-type party and didn't want to be a shugenja or samurai or ninja, so I just went with monk, despite the weakness of the class).

First combat was a random encounter with an owlbear. The Cleric won initiative and tossed me a potion of Enlarge Person. I drank it down. My first round, I charged in and hit it for a little bit of damage. The owlbears first attack on me? Claw-claw-bite, including a crit on a claw and the bite, that brought be down to like -5 hp. By the time someone hit me with some healing, I was at like -8 or -9. So I survived. Barely.

We got through several encounters, and then ended up fighting some ghouls or ghasts down in the dungeon of the moathouse or whatever. I lost initiative, and was in the back of the party, which soon led to a hiding ghoul paralyzing me on the first round, and then a Troglodyte Cleric came up and used a coup de grace on me. One natural one later, I was dead.

[Quxelopqr]

My favorite quick death was the party's Paladin, Alonzo. Created by the party's fighter after an unfortunate encounter with dread wraiths (we told him to buy a locked gauntlet a thousand times, so what does he do? Drop his scythe while surrounded by things that drain con on touch attacks), this character was relegated to dmpc after the fighter was revived via my rogue's scroll. Next encounter was a lich. Paladin appears to win initiative and charges the lich, who uses its readied action to cast finger of death. One natural 1 later, the only character in the party who was made to kill undead is down and the next round my rogue is dominated. Slippery mind saved my rogue, but we barely made it out of there.

Second favorite is same campaign, same dungeon crawl actually. Our 17th level mystic thurge spots what looks like a choker on the cieling. He magic missles it, figuring a poor little choker will die instantly. We did not know that this was actually an uber-choker, statted up to almost epic levels. It rushed to the thurge and strangled him with some kind of life draining decapitation attack. The rest of the party almost dies again, due to the thing only being weak to magic (AC 42? Come on.) and our primary caster dead. We now fear the choker, no matter what level we are. (This DM is not evil per se, in fact he is probably the best I've ever played with. We were in a reclematory for prisoners on Carcari looking for a dead God's belongings after all. Gotta figure there'd be some tough creatures in there. The pit fiend though...)

[Triaxx]

Third play through of Baldur's Gate Remix (My paper version.), first time with the 3.5 rules. The party wizard steps up against the enemy, and casts Magic Missile. AoO goes off, and manages a natural twenty with a Scythe. The wizard had a total of 6HP. The Scythe rolled it's full 8, damage, plus strength bonus... -42HP.

[The_Werebear]

I have a two round and a Surprise Round

The first, I was playing a Naga Sorcerer, 6th level plus racial stuff. The DM pits us against a Nightwalker. First turn attempt to escape via flight and get Dispelled, dropping into his range and taking severe falling damage. Second turn, while attempting to leave his range, get AoO'd to death.

The surprise round was me DMing for a Gestalt Group. The Druid/Dread Necromancer was stepping forward to try and identify the cloaked figures on the road. Their wizard fires off a disintegrate, which I thought would miss due to me never being able to hit him before. It tags him. He then fails his first fort save of the campaign and is reduced to a pile of dust.

[Xefas]

I have one, but it isn't very funny.

All during 2nd edition, I had this one DM Screen that had been handed down to me by my older (half) brother, which had been handed down to him by his older (half) brother, of which I'm not directly related to. It was very handy with every single 2nd edition rule I would ever need just sitting in front of me. Anyway, I also always rolled behind it, as DMs are ones to do.

When we switched to 3rd edition, I still used the screen for nostalgic purposes and because I couldn't find a good 3rd edition one for cheap. However, in my group's first 3rd edition game, my players got a little leery about the monsters always making their saves. Which, wasn't really my fault, considering they were very unoptimized (this being our first 3rd ed game), and so the monsters were just making them on their own. Anyway, they ended up accusing me of fudging the rolls too much, and that it was making the game unfun. So, I agreed to not use the screen anymore.

The next battle was against an Ogre. The level 2 Fighter (with 25hp) charges it in the first round and misses, and is then hit for 18 on an AoO and 20 for the Ogre's action, killing him instantly. The screen was swiftly reinstated, and no one else died for the rest of the campaign. Well, in an actual fight anyway. One died for epic plot reasons, and a few deaths were had via stupidity (all by the same guy, who we don't game with anymore).

I have a lot more "knock-out" stories, most of which are probably funnier, but they don't end in death, so they aren't appropriate for the thread. One involved a Minotaur Pimp.

[Dode]

1st level PCs
Start the campaign in a bar full of miners.
Start a fight with the miners, drawing weapons in a fistfight.
One of the miners swings his pick. Critically hits.
Fastest PC death in combat.

[Paragon Badger]

Half-Giant throws the dwarf fighter towards a T-Rex, so he can get to him faster.

T-Rex eats him during his attack of opportunity.

Later on, the Half-Giant killed the dinosaur, which fell over on another party member.

[Werewindlefr]

AD&D 2nd edition, I'm playing a level 4 cleric (that I've rolled 20 minutes before) in a level 6 party. We're walking in a forest and all goes well, until...
A few Yuan-Ti ambush us, they have the initiative. They cast fireball, 6D6 damage, I fail my save; I take 30 points of damage, instadeath.
So, my character lasted 20 minutes, and 10 seconds after initiative was rolled. Feels like playing "paranoia" :p.

[Deepblue706]

This PC died in the first round of combat, before any NPCs had a chance to act.

Player 1 (Fighter): I charge! *does some rolling*
DM: You mightily swing your greatsword at the armored orc, bringing the blade down upon a small gap located at the shoulder. He is greatly wounded, but still stands.
Player 2 (Elf Wizard): Okay, I don't wanna waste spells, so I'm gonna use my longbow to finish this guy off!
Player 1: Okay.
Player 3: Wait, that's not a good idea...
*Player 2 rolls* - a gasp!
DM: Okay, you just fumbled. Roll again.
*Another roll*
DM: Dear lord, you just got a 20. Roll again.
*another roll*
DM: Another 20? Okay...um...roll damage.
*another roll*
DM: Okay, so your arrow flies astray, and into the back of the Fighter's head, dealing 24 damage.
Player 1: But I only have 14 HP!

[Skjaldbakka]

My first experience with Living Greyhawk. We ran around for 3 hours trying to find the plothook, since LG modules have no room for going around the plot hook, like a normal campaign would. We finally stumble across a clue, that clue being an ambush. My level 1 wizard took a crossbow bolt to the throat before anyone else got a chance to act. What makes it worse is that he was the only one to spot the ambush, but then lost initiative.

Yeah, I never really got into LG after that.

[Ninjalitude]

Other player: "What? You're a 10th-level rogue, didn't you take Improved Evasion?"
Rogue: "I didn't think I'd need it."
- Saph

Good god, can you ask that rouge if he ever played in a campaign with an Orc bard, gnome swashbuckler, and a ludicrously overpowered DMPC who managed to construct the perfect ambush for the BBEG that would have killed him instantly, but the rouge charged out and got everyone (including DMPC) killed? because if he has, i have my own revenge to seek.

[kieza]

Level 6 dwarf fighter, fighting a giant centipede-thingy. It was his first combat. On his first action, he charges, and takes an attack of opportunity, which criticals with a x3 modifier and rolls max damage, about 60, which is enough to kill him. Fails massive damage save, and dies again. Takes 17 Con damage from poison, reducing him to 0 and killing him a third time.

This is the only time that I've heard of someone dying three times in one round.

[riddles]

Level 2, delving into a dungeon in Ptolus. i was late to the campaign, so this was my first session.

first encounter - 3 large ratmen. i charge, miss but stand in the way of them and the squishy characters. wizard casts sleep. i'm the only failing character. next round - coup de grace