Epic PC Deaths

[Lycan 01]

PCs die. Sometimes the die normal deaths. Other times, lame deaths. Sometimes, their demise is cool. Occassionally, it might be awesome to behold.

And then, you have the rare "epic" death scene.

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One such epic death scene occured Saturday during a CoC game I was hosting. A massive battle against a large crab-like monster monster was occuring in an underground cavern. Player A had been grabbed by one of the monster's tentacles, and was being held 20 feet in the air. He had 4 HP left - considering that the next round he would either lose 2d6 health from the crushing or falling, he was effectively doomed.

Now, due to it being an underground cavern, their was massive stalagtites on the roof of the area. They'd already shot one down on top of the monster, and they figured that since the were (supposedly) losing, another one was worth a shot. So player B (who had a vendetta with player A... ergo I doubt he had much reason to hesitate) opened fire on a stalagtite. I gave it a 50/50 chance of landing on the monster... One roll later, and the monster seemed to have sprouted a target on its back.

I then realized that a stalagtite of such size would probably injure player A, and even if it didn't kill him, the fall would. So I escorted him to another room, and asked him if he'd be upset if his character died. He knew we were moving from the 1920's to the modern era next session anyway, so he decided he would accept death with open arms.

We returned to the room, and I did what the rulebook says Keeper's should do: I gave him an epic death scene.

The monster lifted him up - either out of absent thought, or to protect itself - and held him over its body. His character, seeing Player B shoot into the air, looked up, and saw a massive stalagtite falling towards him. Naturally, he screamed. The pointy rock of doom then landed on his face. In his own words... he deepthroated a stalagtite. The large rock proceeded to rip through his head, and tear through his body on its way down. His character was effectively turned inside out and crushed into pulp by the stalagtite as it slide through him and the creature's grasp.

The stalagtite then impaled through the creature and pinned it to the ground. It died shortly thereafter, naturally. But there was still the issue of the 3 grenades Player A had clipped to his belt. I decided that the force of the impact set them off, and a massive firey explosion ripped through the air, obliterating any trace of Player A that would have been left.

Player A decided that he was content with his death, and together with Player B, they both ripped up his character sheet as a sign that they'd given up their vendetta.

So yeah... I decided that having a stalagtite go down your throat, rip through your body, turn it inside out as it passes through you, and then having 3 grenades go off to destroy what's left of you counts as an Epic PC Death.

Any objections?

[drengnikrafe]

Hmm....

I'd have to say that's a pretty epic death. I can't really say I've ever seen or heard of a more epic one, off the top of my head.

[Lycan 01]

Well, I read somewhere about one player who's paladin not only killed and rode a falling dragon to his death, but was later revived only to die by riding a pegasus into the mouth of a dragon being ridden by the BBEG in order to kill it from the inside... or something like that.

That > my story

[blackout]

Well, this was two weeks ago during a playtesting session for my Dustworld system. I'd say it's pretty epic.

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The players had been working to track down the hideout of some slavers that had been raiding a town in the middle of nowhere. The hideout in question was an old, abandoned military depot. Needless to say, they found it.

Player A is the groups pistol-slinger/medic/survivalist, Player B is geared towards shotguns and hacking, Player C towards rifles, stealth, and secondary first aid, Player D towards melee combat, and Player E towards driving(he picked up a Rig with no weapons and some passenger seats, and sat out the actual fighting. )

Players A through D sneak around and find a hidden entrance into the slaver fort. Upon sneaking in, they get ambushed by a few slavers, and kill them almost instantly. The sound of gunfire alerts the rest, and the players are fighting their way through the fort pretty soon. Finally, their stuck facing off against the slaver warlord, a massive, well-spoken mutant.

The warlord immediately charges at Player D, and starts going toe-to-toe with him in melee combat. Nobody else wanted to risk getting a shot off, on the off-chance they might hit Player D, so they sat and watched. The mutant, wielding a sword, successfully hacks off Player D's head. Player D had an ace in the hole, though; A primed hand grenade he found before entering the fort. He primed the grenade just as the mutant kills him, and the mutant turns to face the rest of the party. That grenade goes off just as the mutant takes a step towards everyone else.

Player D was pleased with his 'victory' over the slaver warlord.

[Brauron]

In my long-running Cthulhu campaign, the PCs were scaling the inside of an extinct volcano. One of the PCs, who has a prosthetic hand due to a bad experience with a Byakhee, fails a Climb check. Roll a luck check, I say, to catch yourself before you fall. He gets a 97 on the Luck check. Almost the worst possible result. He spends a benny (house rule for my CofC game, shamelessly stolen from Savage Worlds) to reroll his Luck check. And rolls a 100. Worst possible roll. He sighs, and says, "Well...I guess it's my time...goodbye everyone. How much falling damage do I take?"

He took eighty points of falling damage. He had 12 HP to begin with.

[Lycan 01]

^ There's a word for when the human body recieves more damage than it can withstand, and actually explodes into pieces/chunks/goo/bits/jelly/gore/salsa. I believe "gibbing" is what its called. I might be wrong...


But yeah... 68 points of extra damage... Sweet.

[Oracle_Hunter]

^ There's a word for when the human body recieves more damage than it can withstand, and actually explodes into pieces/chunks/goo/bits/jelly/gore/salsa. I believe "gibbing" is what its called. I might be wrong...


But yeah... 68 points of extra damage... Sweet.

We at the One True Wiki like to refer to it as producing Ludicrous Gibs

[Dorizzit]

I had a pretty epic death once.

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I was playing a Paladin/Kensai (Oathed to destroy Palaxis) named Ark. One of the house rules was that any artifact could be Retributive Striked. It was the final battle between the epic level group and Palaxis, who is the ruler of the setting, and also a Great Wyrm Shadow Dragon. The battle was taking place on a large plateau hundreds of feet tall. The party had reduced Palaxis to the point that he tried to flee. Ark, unwilling to let Palaxis go, takes a running leap off the edge of the plateau (in platemail, mind), and rolls a natural twenty, barely managing to get a hold on Palaxis' leg. The DM makes everyone else leave the room, because the other characters can't make out what's happening. He then has me make a strength check to hold on. Three very high climb checks later, he is clinging to Palaxis' back. Palaxis tries to shake him off, which results in two more strength checks (both passed, barely). Ark stood up, took his sword (which was an artifact, the physical embodiment of divine fire), and plunged it into Palaxis back. Crit. Max Damage.
Me: Palaxis is dead, right?
DM: Wrong. He breathes, barely, and you are now unbalanced and easily shaken off. Any last words?
Me: Yeah. Retributive Strike.
The DM says nothing, and calls everyone else into the room. He then narrated the following (paraphrased):
Ark grabs Palaxis by the leg, clinging for dear life to his hated enemy. Soon they travel far from you, and it is difficult to make out what is going on. Then, suddenly, a titanic explosion blasts through the sky, the shockwaves knocking you to the ground even from that great distance. The flaming corpse of Palaxis hurtles to the ground, crashing into it with a resounding slam.
Our Wizard: I teleport us to the crash sight.
DM: It's not pretty. Palaxis corpse is a wreck, and flaming pieces of him continue to rain over the area. But worse is Ark; his armor is gone, disintegrated, and his flesh is charred and broken. But suddenly, above you the sky cracks open. A beam of purest light descends, enveloping Ark. His body is healed, his flesh returning to normal, even his many scars gone. Then from that crack a host appears: dozens of angels descend to surround Ark's corpse. They turn and bow to you, before tenderly taking him in their arms and ascending back into the divine realm from whence they came.

If anyone can top that, I'll be impressed.

[black dragoon]

I'm impressed. The closest we had was a loved NPC who maginuked himself.

[Swordguy]

One of the trio of submissions from my "Stupidest players EVAR!" Shadowrun campaign to the now-defunct CLUE Files (an archive of Shadowrun player stupidity).

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...

Personally, my imagination is still reeling from that. It's like something out of a
bad comedy/action movie, don't you think?

Regarding our next little tidbit (which was submitted by one of CLUE's network of alert readers), this is NOT a clue story. And it's not even a stealth story. But it sends enough chills up the spine to warrant mention, especially so close to Halloween.

Please note that this account was submitted by eye-witnesses, and I did confirm.
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"My group of six runners was in the process of breaking camp to continue on our journey through some flatland. From over the horizon came the silhouette of two GMC Banshees. Not prepared for a firefight, the team scrambled to break out the ordinance, the rigger sprints for the Bison, etc.

The troll mage, who has had an unfortunate experience with Banshees in the past, panics and tosses a fireball at the closest one, throwing in all the dice he can get his hands on. The result? He rolls 28 dice for the fireball.

The group was hushed as he shook the huge handful of dice and cast them onto the table.

They came up all ones.

So, as the Banshees bear down onto the camp, the troll mage erupted into a mushroom cloud of organic debris.

We stopped playing for the night. It was a baaadddd omen…"

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Wow. I hope never in my life to see that. Can you calculate the odds of that happening?

Players get complacent about the rule of one, after all, if you're rolling more than two or three dice, the odds of getting all ones are pretty negligible, right? Guess not. Let this serve as a warning to us all…

See you next month!
Karen

/hotlinked for her pleasure

[black dragoon]

Was he playing with loaded Dice!? I've never heard of a such a thing!

[Swordguy]

Was he playing with loaded Dice!? I've never heard of a such a thing!

Not. At. All.

That's what made it so damn scary.

[nobodylovesyou4]

Hmm... here's mine, wasn't my character though.

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Game is Cyberpunk 2021, with a twist: our characters have mild psychic powers. Two of us, the hacker and the stealthy-guy, are in a corporate office building attempting to infiltrate (and failing). The other, the heavy weapons guy with a cyber-arm, is across the street positioned in case anything goes wrong. Of course, being the Jackass he is, he opens fire on the building before we tell him to. A helicopter comes from no where and starts shooting him, but he manages to make it to the fire escape unscathed.
Then he reaches the bottom. He ducks around the corner into an alleyway, and comes face-to-rifle barrel with a mercenary. One shot takes his head mostly off. However, with what little brain function he had left, he punches COMPLETELY through the guy's stomach, spreading intestines and stuff all over the ground. They both die shortly after.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Dorizzit, that's pretty good. This one wasn't Epic (and I was cheesed off at the GM for it) but man, it was cinematic.

Background

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I was playing Shadowrun as a Spike Spiegel knock-off, complete with Ex-Mafia (Yakuza, not Triad) and a bag of guns. I was playing driver (in a beat-up Ford Americar) for this particular run, in which we infiltrated a gated community when the dreck hit the fans.

I take off, crashing through the gates and high tailing it back to Seattle. Now, for some reason, the private security force radios Lone Star back in Seattle and sets up a roadblock for us... so I crash it, ditch my car and we dive into the sewers. Lone Star follows us down into the sewers, which we shake off after I chuck a HE Offensive Grenade behind me before rolling down a drain. Chunky salsa time

We finally make it back to the streets where an armored Yakuza limousine is waiting for us () with an African-American () spokesman who wants to hire us for a job. Being ex-Yakuza myself (and supposedly lying low in Seattle!) I refuse and we get out.

We crash for the night in a safehouse, and the next day we make our ways back to our homes to see what's going on. As I approach my home I pull out my bug scanner and find out that I'm under high surveillance... so I keep walking down the street.

The Death

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It is now roughly 2 pm on a weekday. I am walking down a main street in Seattle after having refused the Blackuza's offer. Suddenly, a van pulls up and a squad of yakuza thugs pop out with guns. Thinking quickly (and still well armed) I chuck another HE Offensive grenade at the van and duck behind a car while it goes off. After hearing a very satisfying boom, I locate a storefront and declare that I am going to make a run for it - hoping to bust out a back door and escape.

The GM says that as soon as I get up from behind cover, I am killed by a hail of automatic fire. Now, this may not sound too epic, but considering my source material (Spike Spiegel) there was a certain... cinematic quality to the death.

It was appropriate, I suppose. Spike ducks behind a car, throwing a grenade into an open van of thugs, scattering them across the street. Like a man with nothing to lose, he makes a leap for an open storefront when a hail of bullets cuts him down, dropping his riddled corpse inches from safety, a rueful grin upon his face.

Why I was cheesed

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I asked the GM how the heck Lone Star and the Yakuza were able to track me so well. He says they ran a check on my license plate which said where I lived. I took a deep breath and explained to the GM that, as an ex-yakuza hiding out in Seattle, I would not have a SIN for them to trace. In the event that I had registered my car for some reason, I would certainly have not used my actual residence, or my real name, since I was hiding from a powerful multinational criminal organization.

He at least looked embarrassed, and explained that I was supposed to have accepted the job from the Blackuza, and that the van full of thugs were just going to capture me to force me to do the job... before I threw a grenade at them. I'm not entirely certain why they did this on a busy street in the middle of the day, but I was dead, so I guess it didn't matter.

[Vexxation]

^ There's a word for when the human body recieves more damage than it can withstand, and actually explodes into pieces/chunks/goo/bits/jelly/gore/salsa. I believe "gibbing" is what its called. I might be wrong...


But yeah... 68 points of extra damage... Sweet.

In honor of this story, a hastily and shoddily made GIF!
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...s/epicfall.gif

Ta-da!

[Graymayre]

I'm not sure if it can be considered epic, but I'll post:

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My illusionist, a master thrower, and a barbarian were fighting a vampire and his consortium of minions. We were wiping the floor, I had mirror imaged myself, thus making me a hard target because of all the illusion copies.

Unfortunately, the vampire had the gall to use the dominate person ability on our barbarian (which, big surprise, worked).

Normally I wouldn't be worried about that. Unfortunately, this barbarian happened to be made by a player who just loves to make "combat savants" (I.E. a character who can give the gods a good a** whoopin but is, in all other aspects, an untrained child).

On his turn he attacked me and hit an image, but when the image dissapeared he got to take a 5ft step and cleave. He then proceeded to do this with all of my copies and then attacked me (in one turn I might remind you all) killing me in one super ultra cheese shot.

It may not be epic, but I'll say right now that I'm never making another spellcaster again who can't break enchantments.

[Brauron]

In honor of this story, a hastily and shoddily made GIF!
http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g1...s/epicfall.gif

Ta-da!

That's beautiful.

Also, reminds me that I forgot to mention...with that 100 on the die, we decided that the only possible explanation was that his prosthetic hand detached itself from his arm.

[drengnikrafe]

That's beautiful.

Also, reminds me that I forgot to mention...with that 100 on the die, we decided that the only possible explanation was that his prosthetic hand detached itself from his arm.

Sounds fun... though I think you should have had it... maybe... detatch itself, only to fly over and pry his other hand off of the cliff, like it was demon-posessed?

Nah, now I'm just going too far. Ignore me.

[Mx.Silver]

Wow. I hope never in my life to see that. Can you calculate the odds of that happening?

Odds of getting 28 1s in a single roll? >6x10^21
That is: over six hundred quintillion to one against.

I can't really think of any meaningful comparison to that. The number of seconds that pass by in a thousand years is still a few figures short of that range.

[BizzaroStormy]

Hmm... here's mine, wasn't my character though.

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Game is Cyberpunk 2021, with a twist: our characters have mild psychic powers. Two of us, the hacker and the stealthy-guy, are in a corporate office building attempting to infiltrate (and failing). The other, the heavy weapons guy with a cyber-arm, is across the street positioned in case anything goes wrong. Of course, being the Jackass he is, he opens fire on the building before we tell him to. A helicopter comes from no where and starts shooting him, but he manages to make it to the fire escape unscathed.
Then he reaches the bottom. He ducks around the corner into an alleyway, and comes face-to-rifle barrel with a mercenary. One shot takes his head mostly off. However, with what little brain function he had left, he punches COMPLETELY through the guy's stomach, spreading intestines and stuff all over the ground. They both die shortly after.

Just to clarify, Protoss did tell me to start raising hell. If anyone cares, i definately gibbed that guy by dealing 86 points of damage. (Maximum HP possible was 40)

[Brauron]

While it is distinctly not epic, in fact I killed the character in the least epic way I could imagine, the story nevertheless needs to be told.

I had a player who treated CofC as shoot and loot. His first character was a plastic surgeon (a new career path in the 1920s) who did reconstruction work for the Mafia on the side. Despite 20 or 30 declarations that he was a non-combat character, he was the most heavily armed one in the party -- a pistol (actually used once, brandished stupidly, almost shooting off his own foot twice), a rifle (never used) a fencing sabre (which he assumed had the same stats as a cavalry sabre, swung maybe three times), and surgical scalpels (seriously, he had them listed as weapons on his sheet).

His investigative activities had caught the eye of his Mafia buddies, leading to him being grabbed by a couple of goons, dragged before the don, told to knock it off, and then beaten up for good measure. Next adventure, they encounter a large, amorphous thing (not a shoggoth or formless spawn, though similar) that is manifesting enormous eyes and mouths, absorbing them and re-manifesting them elsewhere on its elephantine bulk.

He declares that he's drawing his pistol, and sticks his hand into its mouth, so he can fire down its throat "and bypass its damage reduction." He then proceeded to get angry with me when the mouth slammed shut, severing his arm at the elbow.

Since a one-armed surgeon is useless to the mob, he was smothered under a pillow by Vinnie "Pig Face" Vincenzio while recuperating in a hospital bed.

It took several more dead characters for him to learn how CofC works, but that's a story for another thread.

[Prometheus]

I had an epic non-death. A paladin was forced to plunge a sword into her chest to prove that she was undead (she wasn't). She rolls for a coup-de-gra and survives, and with enough lay on hands to seal the wound behind the blade.

Other than that most of the epic deaths were NPCs.

[Sequinox]

The most non epic death ever.

The climax of the campaign. One of the big bad villains comes out and casts either weird or phantasmal killer (whichever one attacks the whole party). Everyone passed their saves except for the ranger and the samurai (it was like a 7 person party). The ranger's worst nightmare was everything that he had built up in life crashing down (considering that he was born a bastard child, a half elf, and he never found out who his father was, a disgrace to the Elven Court. It turned out much later on that his father was a human lord, but still. He had become one of the most powerful people in the elven nation. His power reached everyawhere via his spy network.) Anyway, he died from grief.

The Samurai/Ronin was quite the ladies man. He died from the fear of angry ex girlfriends with weapons.

[arguskos]

I had a player in one of my games who had a seriously awesome death (and later retcon, since he really REALLY loved the character, and wanted to keep playing). It's not really EPIC, but we liked it.

So, they are level 1, and on this demi-plane with lots of lava. The party gets attacked by a vasuthant (this undead ball of shadow and cold that eats Small sized things). The party is mostly safe from it's attacks, except when the halfling shoots it. The undead thingy notices a small critter, and uses Fly-by Attack and Imp. Grapple to totally grapple the crap out out of him, and fly off towards the lava. To cut a story short, the party ends up killing the vasuthant OVER the lava, with the halfling inside. She falls out, and I give her a Ref Save+Balance check to land on a rock and live. She makes both, and is now on a tiny rock, 20 feet from the party, separated by lava.

They lash a few ten-foot poles together, and toss them out there for her to walk across. She gets halfway, and slips. A few (more like 6 each) Balance checks and Ref saves later, and the halfling, after a serious bout of fighting gravity, tumbles into the lava.

I later retconned that she got one final chance to make it, which she did with a natural 20 (an epic back flip ten feet onto the main island, at her reduced Str score of 1), but it's a story that the party holds onto, because it looked great.

-argus

[Ravyn]

So this was when one of my friends was running a game that was supposed to be the backstory for his primary campaign. It was an odd one, with the group at wildly mixed levels, including--this is important--one highly nerfed archmage by name of Argus, who had been cursed so that he took temporary Con damage every time he cast a spell.

So we're off looking for a kidnapped prince in the snowy mountains to the North, when we run into Dragon-King. Think one very large, very angry red dragon, more than any of us should be able to handle, and you've got about the right idea. (Bear in mind, other than Argus, the average level was about nine or ten at this point, and this dragon, as was proved later, was capable of one-shotting most of the party at Average Level 12-13.) We thought we could negotiate, until someone, we figured from the country that was perpetually fighting with ours, sniped him, and he blamed us. This was about to end badly, until Argus stepped in.

He looks up at the dragon. Steels himself, and declares, "I. Wish. You. Gone." Lands the spell. Fails his Fort Save.

Best way to die ever.

(Amusingly enough, the second party death was also against the dragon: My character, though that was a bit more scripted and definitely offstage, and after she'd cheated death something like four times. She left him a couple very nice scars, though.)

[Lycan 01]

Sooo... the dude wished the dragon from existance... but he blinked out of reality as well?

Sweet.

[Oracle_Hunter]

He looks up at the dragon. Steels himself, and declares, "I. Wish. You. Gone." Lands the spell. Fails his Fort Save.

Okay, that is cool. And by cool, I mean totally sweet. I'd sig it, but I have no room

[arguskos]

So this was when one of my friends was running a game that was supposed to be the backstory for his primary campaign. It was an odd one, with the group at wildly mixed levels, including--this is important--one highly nerfed archmage by name of Argus, who had been cursed so that he took temporary Con damage every time he cast a spell.

So we're off looking for a kidnapped prince in the snowy mountains to the North, when we run into Dragon-King. Think one very large, very angry red dragon, more than any of us should be able to handle, and you've got about the right idea. (Bear in mind, other than Argus, the average level was about nine or ten at this point, and this dragon, as was proved later, was capable of one-shotting most of the party at Average Level 12-13.) We thought we could negotiate, until someone, we figured from the country that was perpetually fighting with ours, sniped him, and he blamed us. This was about to end badly, until Argus stepped in.

He looks up at the dragon. Steels himself, and declares, "I. Wish. You. Gone." Lands the spell. Fails his Fort Save.

Best way to die ever.

(Amusingly enough, the second party death was also against the dragon: My character, though that was a bit more scripted and definitely offstage, and after she'd cheated death something like four times. She left him a couple very nice scars, though.)

That. Is. AMAZINGLY AWESOME. May I please have the honor of sigging your post sir?

-argus

[Eldan]

I have one!
Ok, first: this was in a homebrew sci-fi system. It was based of D20 but since we were to lazy to learn D20 modern and it seemed boring without having classes, we made our own. In that system, it was possible to injure yourself with grenades if they didn't fly far enough. Area damage.

The characters broke into a secret research facility, which belonged to the government. At least they thought it did, in fact it belonged to a private corporation.
Anyway, they suddenly found themselves chased by about a dozen security guards. They had two options left they could think of: jump out of high-up window or try to open a secured door not knowing where it would lead. They took the door.
Opening it would take a few rounds, so the party's heavy weapon guy stayed behind, standing in a small door around a corner from the room with the door. He waited until the guards came around the next corner and threw a grenade. Good idea, probably, except he rolled a 1. Followed by a 4.
Player: "Oh, ****. Well, I can probably still survive that, if I roll low enough for damage..."

Of course he didn't. However, to make his death sufficiently epic, the DM decided that the ten other grenades he had at his belt went off as well. He collapsed a hallway.

[Baxbart]

Maybe not epic, but certainly one of those mindbogglingly unlikely deaths:

A friend and I were playing in a Final Fantasy homebrew system a few years back. We are surrounded, heavily outnumbered and about to get wiped out by a small army of strange plant-like creatures. My friend's turn comes up, and he yells at me to cover him whilst he whips up a big fire spell, centered on us. We figure that we have probably a 50-50 shot of surviving with some bad-ass scars or the like.

That is until he rolls the damage dice. We should have survived, except he rolled 21 sixes, and a five (on 22 dice).

It was quite a way to go, that was for sure.