Ouch. That's a hell of a way to go for a high level character.
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A few memorable deaths of mobs and players come to mind.
First level campaign and we're playing with (I'll call him) stupid player #1 and stupid GM #1. GM let us make our characters however we wished, warned us that we would probably be taking on evil monsters, and we could optimize however we wished with a point buy. Stupid player #1 decides that a necromancer is the way to go. Won't give it up. Wants to play an evil character. Meanwhile players 2-6 are busy making up a dwarf twf(double weapon) barbarian rager, a paladin, a cleric of some good god, a rogue, and a ranger with some sort of double bow (as I recall).
First combat in: This is where the stupid part of stupid GM comes in - sends in 2 owl bears and a troll (yeh, against level 1 party). Stupid player #1 decides to attack the party and help the "obvious winners" of the encounter. Casts a spell at the cleric. OK. Wahtever. Idiot. Paly drops protection from evil ring, right next to him, then the ranger drops two arrows into his head (one with a nat 20). Dead. Idiot. Whatever. Dwarf rages, runs up to one of the owl bears, stupid GM smirks "whatcha gonna do?" I hit it. OK. No problem. 8 damage or something like that. Owl bear's turn. Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss. WTF? Yeh, barabrian rager is wearing best medium armor with best ac bonus. Rogue goes and flanks, hit 16 damage (max w/o crit). Barbarian comes up again before owl bears and does a full attack on it: crit. confirmed. 34 points. Owl bear dies. Owl bear decides (GM) to attack the rogue instead (because hey, why not metagame if you are the GM, right?) Miss. Miss. Turns out the rogue also has a 20+ AC. The rest of the combat(s) went just the same and we just decided not to play with that player or GM again after the player says aloud "I'll just roll up another necromancer." (First, it was point buy... oh... my... god). Because we just sort of got the implication that this first encounter was the "easy" one that he had planned... for FIRST LEVEL CHARACTERS. (yeh, that is two CR 4, one CR 5 mob in a single encounter, nearly 150 HP... vs what turned out to be about 50 hp worth of first level characters).
Stupid player #2: Party got to a mountain with a cave in it. Wasn't particularly supposed to go in. One member, stupid player #2, decided he would explore it. Started walking in. Party was like "what? why? it is obviously not where we were going" but he insisted. Didn't bring food or water or rope. Just started walking down the tunnel. OK. You walk for two hours. OK. On with the adventure for the rest, you have reached your destination. SP#2 you realize that this tunnel probably doesn't end. "I keep walking." OK. On with the adventure. Players get about halfway through, so at this point we are about 2 hours in in real life. SP#2 do you turn around or keep walking, at this point it's been about a day, you are tired, blind, hungry, and thirsty. "I keep walking." OK. On with the rest of the adventure. Complete it, get loot, etc... but still a little more to do. SP#2 it's been three days now, do you turn around. You realize that because you didn't bring food or water you are probably already dead. Do you do anything else? "I keep walking." OK. Finish up with players, and wrap up the adventure. Now, at this point, it has been about five hours real time. He's done nothing, said pretty much nothing, and just sat in his chair quietly watching the adventure. SP#2 You kept walking? "Yes." Ok. You saw a light above you for a bit, but then your feet got really hot, as something seemed to be pulling at your legs dragging you downward. "Do I need a roll?" No. The sensation is only momentary. And then it all fades back out to the black cavern you have died in. You realize somehow that you are in hell. There is no exit to this cavern which you have chosen to needlessly walk down to your death. "Oh. Ok." - and he was fine with that ending. Five hours! Some people just cannot be helped.
The most glorious low level death belongs to my brother though. We're in the woods, he's got a grappler character, and we come across a bear. He figures, "easy kill, easy experience." Bear won initiative. Bear claw claw bites. We have long had a "all rolls in front of everyone" rule, so no fibbing or GM fiat allowed. Brother's character died in one go. Laughter is had by all. Even my brother laughed at this one. We could have easily just left the bear alone (what the rest of the party decided to do).
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This happened yesterday and I immediately thought of this thread. One of my fellow players has an item the GM created called a gravity belt that allows him to control gravity by making knowledge (engineering) checks. We we're fighting the city guard and he decided it would be a great idea to fly 200 feet in the air and slam himself down onto a guard. This deals 20d12 damage split half and half between them. He ended up taking 73 damage and completely killing himself (We are level 5). The guard died too though.
Then it was a SMASHING SUCCESS!
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So, OP here.
I was running a Pathfinder game, but the setting was Redwall. Magic was starting to emerge for reasons unknown. And the setting never got resolved because of the impact this death had on all the players. One felt like an idiot, one felt like it was his fault.
Anyway.
I have a friend who has the tendency to, well, overthink things. He's a good fellow indeed. However, this taught me not to let him play high int low wisdom characters.
He was running a high int low wisdom bard. His character got the bright idea of making a parachute. I'm don't remember why the needed one though.
Anyway, there was no silk to be found. So he made it out of flax linen. The prototype (super tiny and using a rock) worked just fine.So he decided to make a full size one. And I secretly rolled his engineering check. It was a 1. I expected him to do a small-scale test.
Nope. He has the Fruit Bat Alchemist fly him up 200 feet above the pond in Redwall Abbey and let go.
He was level 5.
I rolled max falling damage, and the "parachute" acted more like a millstone because flax linen is not a light material.
Boots of the Cat. 1000 GP. "Saving would be flyers for decades now. Get yours in matte black or new tabby colors! Tiger prints available upon request."
He spends 5 real life hours having his character just walk along a tunnel for several in-game days? Wow.
Sheesh. If something like that ever happens again, I suggest having the tunnel end in a cave-in or something. Or sic some gremlins on him. Make his death exciting at least.
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Lv5 party. A huge size red dragon lands in front of the party and demands tribute for passing through his lands. Everyone in the party pays except for the party monk.
Monk:"Guys I'm broke"
Fighter: "Here I'll pay for him"
Monk:" No that's alright". Drinks potion of enlarge person. Runs up and attempts grapple
Dragon takes attack of opportunity from not having improved grapple. Crit. Max damage. Monk dies. Party buys the dragon's lunch for 2x the tribute cost and drags it to town so they can then pay for raise dead
Tribute was 500gp
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When we played skull and shackles, one of the characters literally drank himself to death in a drinking contest. The player was aware of how much constitution damage he had taken, and kept on going.
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Not sure if this was a dumb way for an NPC to die or just creative: My brother's character cast Gaseous Form on himself and forced himself into the mouth and nostrils of the bad guy. Once he was in his lungs, he dismissed the spell and returned to his normal body, killing the foe instantly. Not sure that's allowed RAW, but I had to let it stand because the rest of the players loved it.
And here are some more dumb ways to die:
My paladin once jumped into a Sphere of Annihilation thinking it was a portal leading out of a locked room.
A player's character committed suicide after failing her save vs the Death Urge spell.
Using the old 1e "Good Hits and Bad Misses" crit and fumble charts a character in a game I was running managed to decapitate herself with a greatsword.
Not sure if this was a dumb way for an NPC to die or just creative: My brother's character cast Gaseous Form on himself and forced himself into the mouth and nostrils of the bad guy. Once he was in his lungs, he dismissed the spell and returned to his normal body, killing the foe instantly. Not sure that's allowed RAW, but I had to let it stand because the rest of the players loved it.
And returning to his normal form inside of the guy didn't kill him as well?
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My paladin once jumped into a Sphere of Annihilation thinking it was a portal leading out of a locked room.
It was, in a fashion.
In the surprise round.
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Not sure if this was a dumb way for an NPC to die or just creative: My brother's character cast Gaseous Form on himself and forced himself into the mouth and nostrils of the bad guy. Once he was in his lungs, he dismissed the spell and returned to his normal body, killing the foe instantly. Not sure that's allowed RAW, but I had to let it stand because the rest of the players loved it.And returning to his normal form inside of the guy didn't kill him as well?
It was just such a creative act that I allowed him to live, but he lost 50% of his current hitpoints doing it.
I see.
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In the surprise round.
If we're gonna go there, I'll go with during character creation. (Hello, Traveller!)
I remembered a couple more stories of stupid deaths, so thought I'd share again. These are in Red Hand of Doom, set in Forgotten Realms, so I'll put it in spoilers.
The second death was of my character, and I will state it was fully deserved. See, early in the game we'd seen the army of the Red Hand, complete with the red dragon flying over it. I vaguely remembered hitting it with a longbow on a decent but not great shot at the time. This when I was playing a fey-ri rogue/wizard multiclass who was two levels behind the party. Well, when the army closed on the main city where the Climactic Battle was to be fought (I'd gained a couple of levels), I decided to sneak into the enemy encampment and assassinate the leaders.
I got all but one of them, then retreated. The red dragon freaked out and attacked the city. Drunk on my success, I remembered my (incorrect) bowshot, and decided that I could take the dragon. So I used a scroll to summon 1d3 giant eagles and took on the red dragon in the air with a fly spell. It roasted the eagles and me, and knocked me out of the sky without me taking a single point of damage, and I died. I deserved that.
Honorable Mention: My character was a follower of Sune, and believed that pretty people/things were good. This led to some... poor decisions. Like when we'd lost 3/4 our party after the first town (players switching characters) and she happily invited the spy trying to infiltrate the party to join them (and managed to diplomacy the spy into changing sides by accident). Or when the party, after confronting the end boss... almost died to the Big Bad's erinyes consorts because they charmed everyone but my fey-ri, who had to talk fast despite her skewed point of view.
That was an interesting campaign.
Derp, well past the editing window... but I didn't DEAL a single point of damage in the example. I hate it when I typo like that...