Another dead a NPC but still (Grand total: 3 NPCs dead,4 PCs dead)

CHARACTER:Alek Certival (Aristocrat 1/paladin 9)
CATALYST:Massive fire damage
ADVENTURE: Test of the smoking eye
LOCATION: The celestial rubble before the Cathedral of feathers

The PCs saved Alek from Nabthotoron, and carried him over to Occipitus.
When camping outside the cathedral to replenish the spells before entering, the get attacked by two green slaads who rained fireballs upon them, delay death spells saved two of the party members but sadly they couldn´t save the improved version of Alek.

1 near miss in Life's Bazaar thanks to hero points!

Another death in the final session of my SCAP game, which brings me to a grand total of six deaths.

First character death. Vander Hollow the duskblade was killed by Xukasas the "ogre" with a falchion swipe.

I've had 11 deaths in total, almost half due to party in-fighting

Don't allow any of your players to take the Frenzied Berserker class...

Chapter 3 - party rogue got hit by a fireball
Chapter 4 - Mummy Rot killed a druid
Chapter 4 - 10D6 Lightning bolt trap on mystic Theurge
Chapter 6 - Ranger pc was bored of his character, so he tried to kill himself in the test of sacrifice. Came back to life as the ruler of occiptus (lol)
Chapter 7 - Warlock PC accidently killed the ranger next session with Chilled tentacles
Chapter 7 - The rest of the party killed the Warlock in retaliation...
Chapter 7 - Warlock player came back as frenzied berserker, killed another player accidently
Chapter 8 - Frensied beserker thought he could take on 3 demodands by himself, was wrong. (the other players just watched & laughed instead of helping)
Chapter 10 - Mage killed by Hookface
Chapter 11 - Beserker killed ranger again by accident
Chapter 12 - Cleric got killed by Valantru's Finger of Death ray

I'm expected a couple more as they go through Skullrot

Just racked up deaths 2 and 3 in the campaign. Despite knowing that they were at the very least facing Vitriss Bale, a green dragon, and the fact that he had been in Karran Kural (sp?) for many, many years they did not take any precautions for the fight with him.

The combat was a cakewalk for Vitriss. He wiped the floor with the party, killing both the 12th level Warblade and the 12th level Hexblade whilst only taking damage from a Disintegrate cast on him by the Conjurer. The party ran off with their tails between their legs to regroup (and raise dead! :-D).

The second time they came back with Freedom of Movement, Haste and Fly spells on, as well as Resist Acid. This time the fight went much more according to plan. The only casulty was the Monk, who was killed when he copped a full attack from Vitriss. Luckily the Favoured Soul was close enough to administer a Revivify and prevent a more permanent death.

Olaf the Stout

So far the first and only charecter "death" is my charecter.
Dorian the Grey, Cleric of Wee Jass.
2nd level cloistered cleric variant from unearthed arcanna. It was in the abandoned gnome city and I got hit for 7 points of damage from a automoton, then I got hit for a crit from a skulk that was flanking me,confirmed the crit and added in sneak attack. I was at 10hp and took 24 points of damage.

My group took me back to the temple of St. Cuthbert but jennya couldn't do anything. They took me back to Wee Jass and Ickle Iverson himself cast raise dead which was them boosted to a true resurection because wee jass has plans for me.

I was stareing at a veil of grey and was about to go though when a perfectly formed human female hand reached out from beyond the veil and placed me in her palm. She told me that I was a true follower and that she was sending me back to observe. She warned me that she was not at all pleased with what was being done in her temple and that I was to obey her in this.
Ever since then I have been haveing strange prophetic dreams about the kidnapped boy terren being surrounded by eyes and then he starts crying tears of blood, theres more to the dream but thats the gist of it.

Thank goodness for the true res I was only 100exp away from 3rd level and a regular raise dead would have put me back at first since it costs you a level.

I'm sure there may be more party deaths but so far I'm the first.

Update.

The next charecter deaths are a two'fer.

Our druid lost his climb dog animal companion Brinn. We were fightning the dwarf and half orc mercenairies underneath theb bath house complex. We had already stommped the vamp(yea scroll of searing light) and we should have left but we had full health and spells and wanted to explore. So our theif was scouting ahead and got jumped. The rest of the party charged in and began the fight of our lives.

The climb dog was hit by multiple attacks and then when the druid announced that he was barley at neg 9 the druid went invisible thanks to his potion and left his dog to die. He didn't mind because the dog had out lived it's usefulness and he wanted a flesh raker dinasaur as an animal companion anyway.

The theif got hit for 10 then 8 then got crited for 35 from the halbeards the half orcs were weilding. By this time the sorcerer and the cleric of wee jass(me) were laying down fire and destruction with the sorcerer criting TWICE with the spell Fangs of the Vampire King(dm allowed BoVD version Not the nerfed one in spell comdendium) the sorcerer killed the dwarf and I fireballed the half orcs with my type 2 neclace and the fighter mopped up.

Now we have a flesh racker dinosaur animal companion(we don't let the druid bring that monster in town) and a halfling-scout/theif/fighter.

More deaths to follow I'm sure.

The party I'm running this campaign for is into Chapter 4 now, and they've finally had their first character deaths. (Lots of close calls up till now, and I think everyone's been in negatives at least once, but this was the first time anyone really bit it for good.) So, in memoriam:

Audhild Strackel, Dwarf Fighter 6
Ursula Drausdatter, Half-drow/Half-elf Rootwalker 6 (Subterranean druid)

It was Gottrod that did them in. He had already done the party a lot of damage -- he had breathed twice, and he caught 5 of 6 party members in the first breath for 6d10 each --but was getting low on HP, so he decided to grab the dwarf (who had a fly spell cast on her and was trying to reach him to engage in melee), make a run for it, and pump her for information before he toasted her for an afternoon snack. The other party members were able to hit him with a lightning bolt and a couple of arrows as he fled, and he was within 2 HP of death. If the dwarf had been able to hit him with her armor spikes, even, she would have finished him off. But he talked her into not struggling, and he was able to run away at 600 ft. per round by air. The druid cast call lightning, turned into an eagle, and took off after him, hoping to finish him off before he could kill her comrade; the rest of the party was left far behind. But the dragon was so fast that it outflew her, got to the other side of a nearby mountain, and hid in a copse of trees. While the druid-eagle drew closer and started to search, Gottrod told the dwarf that he was going to set her down, and if she tried to flee, attack, or do anything other than slowly open her cure potions and pour them in his mouth, he was going to burn to her a cinder. She followed his instructions, and two potions later he was 30 HP better off. So when the eagle spotted them and zapped him with a lightning strike, he had enough HP to withstand it. Pissed off, he torched the dwarf into negatives, leaving her 1 HP from death, and launched himself after the eagle. The dwarf didn't make her stabilization roll, and she was done. The eagle/druid tried to run for it and get back in range of the party so she could get some assistance, but the dragon could easily keep pace with her, kept putting himself between her and the party (who were something like 2000 ft. away at that point over rough terrain), and made attacks of opportunity when she tried to rush past. He knocked her down to 3 HP left, she tried to get around him again, and he bit her for critical damage, knocking her to -24, slicing her body in half, and letting the parts fall to the ground, returning to her normal form as they did. So he followed her body down, collected it with all its gear, went back to gather up the dwarf's remains, and then departed, carrying them both back to his lair to feed, recuperate, and examine his new additions to his hoard.

Ah well, it had to happen eventually! And if you're going to get taken out, a red dragon is a pretty respectable way.

So what happens next, Cleanthes? Replacement characters? Some sort of rescue mission (seems too late for that)? Or do a different campaign?

If you do replacement characters (or recovery somehow), I'd like to hear about how you do it. Traditionally, I've always said every character starts at 1st level, though there are two loopholes: (1) play a "monster" character with a higher ECL or (2) take over an existing NPC in the campaign.

I don't have many permanent deaths in my campaigns, but route 2 is popular for people joining new, midgame.

I'm letting my players work up new 6th level characters, whom we'll insert into the story wherever it seems appropriate -- which will of course depend on what sorts of characters they create. One obvious place to insert them is in the prison at Bhal-Hamatugn, so that is probably my fall-back position, but depending on the character and his/her/its backstory, I may also have the party run into them somewhere in the Underdark on the way to Bhal-Hamatugn. I certainly wouldn't end the campaign over a couple character deaths, and making them start from level 1 isn't much fun. I think it's bad enough just to lose your character (and they were both pretty invested.) I do think, however, that the party intends at some point to seek revenge against Gottrod, and as a secondary matter to retrieve some of the items Gottrod took. (Those two characters were the party's chief pack mules, so they were carrying some equipment for other players when they got carried off by the dragon. Ouch!) The player playing the party's elf scout seemed more upset about losing his silk rope the dwarf was carrying than about losing the dwarf! Ahhhh, friendship.

Casts Raise Thread

Deaths:

1 in Life's Bazaar:
Dwarf Monk 2,

Catalyst: Tougher than he looked half-dwarf...

1 Death in Drakthar's way:
Gnome Gunslinger 3
Catalyst: Don't split the party

0 Deaths in Flood Season (amazingly, but close!)

0 Deaths in Zenith Trajectory

1 Death in the Demonskar Legacy
Goliath Druid 7
Catalyst: 2 Huge Fire Elementals (party was split. Again. For the heroism, though, the Goliath did earn an apology at the beginning of the encounter).

Only 3 real deaths. Wow. I'm actually impressed by this.