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I am sure that all DM's have encountered some degree of amusing death among their player character's in their time...I'd love to know what stories are out there and see if we can vote on which one was the most hilarious.
Out of all the PC deaths I have ever encountered, this is perhaps one of the best...
The party ventures into a decent enough looking town, looking to sell their wares after a successful adventure which involved putting an end to rampaging goblins and orcs that are attacking some frontier settlements.
Small stuff aside, this is the amusing bit - it so happens (for a bit of spice), an exotic beast trader was in town, among some of his specimens was a 'Cockatrice' in a cage. Que an old enemy of the PC's, a Gnome Illusionist shows up, trailing the party and watches them divide up and venture around town to do as they will - he picks one of them (rolled randomly, turns out it was the partys Half Orc Barbarian) and trails them.
The Half-Orc ventures near the exotic animal trader and spots the 'Cockatrice' in the cage, he doesnt even bother to ask what it is and doesnt even have the Knowledge skill to roll to see if he can identify it. Theres a sign on the cage that warns people not to touch or get too close - he doesnt even bother to ask why this hairless weird looking chicken is in there or even what it is - the trader was unobservant and dealing with another customer at the time (determined randomly) and didnt notice the imposing, rippling barbarian.
Que the Gnome Illusionist...he throws his voice using 'Ventriloquism' toward the 'Cockatrice' and the voice begs the Half-Orc to free it, saying its a forcibly changed human woman with some generic name. The Half-Orc fails his Sense Motive test and decides the exotic beasts salesman is a bad guy so he grabs the cage and runs with it without thinking, with the 'Cockatrice' mercilessly pecking his fingers. He fails his FORT save and slowly begins to calcify by the time hes a few streets away. In panic he drops the cage (smashing it) and freeing the beast which in a panic starts pursuing random townspeople. By the time the Half-Orc reaches his companions again hes now a statue and so are half a dozen villagers, plus now the Exotic Beast trader gets thrown in jail for bringing such a dangerous creature into town despite his signs and warnings and the party gets a bad rep on the Half-Orcs behalf...
They couldnt really afford to turn him back to flesh again even with their low level loot, and so the town had a most unusual 'statue' to add to the town square forevermore...score one for Pickle Glitterblade the NPC villain illusionist against his foes...lol
Let me know what other stories people have to share!
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Probably the funniest character death story I can recall was from Neoncon. We were playing at Josh Frosts PFS table, most of us were playing the Paizo Pregens. Daigle was across the table from me playing Merisiel (who he named Mather). We entered a town and were searching it and we heard something. Daigle says "Mather hides in XXXXX". Josh has him roll a perception check. Turns out something was already hiding there. Josh rolls some dice and Mather is hurt. Next the original creature we heard comes storming out of the building it was in and charges... Mather. The creature crits, Mather dies before making a single action in combat.
Daigle looked pole-axed. We finished the encounter and Josh says "Mather's older brother Mother shows up" and Daigle played the rest of the day as Mother.
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A small preface. Me and my group, we're all Icelandic, and are used to the metric system. Not Imperial units.
This happened during my group's first campaign (ohh about 9 years ago). We were tasked with entering a temple - which was hidden deep inside a mountain - to recover a book for a certain lich. After trekking through the wilderness and braving the perils of the mountain we come to a chasm (which the DM made clear was bottomless), and on the other side we see our destination, the temple.
The DM gives us the lay of the land, as well as how far we'd have to jump to clear the chasm. My rogue took the initiative and leapt across with rope and secured it to a boulder. Then in an orderly fashion the rest of the party started to make their way across using the rope to help them along.
The last to cross was the Paladin. He failed his check, and fell into the bottomless chasm never to return. The DM had described the chasm as 5 feet wide, although in his head he was thinking something more... (and we, not used to Imperial units didn't object) so the brave Paladin fell down the bottomless chasm because he couldn't clear 5 feet.
I've got two, though only one resulted in a true death:
First, it was our first adventure, PCs realized too late they were being tricked into leaving a town defenseless and raced back in. They knew well enough to expect a trap and ordered themselves accordingly as they went into the fortified town where only one door remained open; the baddies weren't trying too hard to hide things. They're sneaking through the shadows and out steps Bad Guy #1 near the town square, taunting the party. Behind them, Bad Guy #2 steps up near the massive wooden gate and closes it behind the party. Bad guys are both werewolves, go hybrid, and we roll for initiative. Necromancer gets first, charges at BG #1, a werewolf rogue, while BG #2 gets second roll...and he's a barbarian. Closes the gap in nothing flat, comes up on the party's rear and nails a perfect critical on the swordsage near the back of the group. CREAMS the guy. Being the nice GM I am and not wanting to kill a character on the first outing I fudged the damage a hair so he wasn't dead, but it was a solid swing and a squishy character.
Second, it was the second adventure, same group. Convoluted circumstances resulted in a scenario written to introduce a new player w/ a rogue character. Original guy backed out, was replaced, and the player who backed out decided he actually wanted in. Guy was mildly annoying, and the replacement fellow was better liked after the first couple nights, but we let the first guy in anyway. So the party is being tailed through a street celebration in a trading town, crew gets a bead on one of the guys tailing them and runs after. Necromancer chucks a mug at the fleeing spy's head, strikes true, picks a fight in the midst of the crowded street. The ranger and the replaced rogue are behind the necromancer, ranger gets the idea to mask their particular fight from the city guards by starting a drunken brawl in the street, convinces the rogue to play along, and they start a convincing enough fight that the drunken revelers join in. Fight started, the replaced rogue works his way toward the necromancer and gets clipped by a random party-goer...and in response, draws his blade and runs the guy through. Cries go up around him, "Murderer!", he flees. Town guard shows up, takes in the ranger, swordsage, and necromancer, as there is a dead merchant and several dead rogues at their feet. Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the crowd, the cleric and the other rogue, the guy who replaced the annoying fellow, watch it all go down. They track "someone" to the out skirts of town and hang around a while. The replaced rogue decides to come in from the brushes and back toward town...whistling. The replacement rogue and cleric take that up, track the "someone" through the shadows and attack the "mysterious person", knowing full well they were taking out the other guy. Combat ensues, replaced rogue is dropped in a heartbeat, guy makes a lot of noise, threats, and storms off. While it doesn't sound *that* amusing on paper, we get a good chuckle just out of the moment, and that the guy made two, REALLY, bad calls back to back.
Me:
PC: Mel, Human Cleric of Kord 3
Adventure: The Bullywug Gambit
Location: The Hall of Hanging Silks
Catalyst: Ripclaw, and some concerned adventurers
Unlike his little dragon friend, Mel survived Ripclaw's attacks, barely. He was dropped to -3 by Ripclaw's death throes and stabilized by Willaby, the gnome warmage. At this point, the three remaining PCs began to argue over whether or not to kill Mel. Like Sven-toth, he'd been bitten (several times), and Orin the scout and Ariana the ranger were concerned that he would eventually become Savage. Willaby insisted they shouldn't give up on him. While Ariana and Willaby fought over the remaining heal potion, Orin finished off Mel. In the end, neither Orin nor Ariana were able to convince Willaby that it was the right thing to do.
Orin was played by my ever so lovely wife, who[ then:
PC: Orin Tilak, Human Scout 4
Adventure: The Bullywug Gambit
Location: Vanderboren Manor, Master Bedroom
Catalyst: Drevoraz
Always quick on his feet, Orin was the first one to enter the bedroom after Lavinia managed to escape from Drevoraz. His first attacked hit Bua Gorg, distracting the bullywug cleric from his casting. Unfortunately, Drevoraz moved in on him and cut him down with a devastating blow from his scimitar. He is deeply mourned by his fellow adventurers, and Lavinia insisted on paying for his funereal arrangements. He left behind him a journal of love poetry devoted to a maid named Lucerine, who had recently become engaged to one of Orin's rivals.
Note who gets a paid funereal.
Many centuries ago, I was playing a thief in a game of the shiny new 2nd edition game, when our party defeated the big bad evil guy of the moment. I don't even recall who he was, or what it was that made him so evil. He just was. Anyhow...* the defeated bad guy lay dead at our feet, and the party paladin had (for some reason) just gone through his possessions and discovered a shiny necklace in his pocket. She took a liking to it, and announced that she was claiming it in the name of her deity. Being a suspicious bugger, my halfling thief imediately stepped in, claiming that the only reason that a big bad evil guy of his magnitude would be keeping something like that in his pocket was if it was a trap, and it was probably a necklace of stangulation, or something equally nasty. A heated debate began, along the lines of 'Oh no it isn't' - 'Oh yes it is', until my thief grabbed the necklace from the paladin, dropped it over his own head and had the fleeting satisfaction of being proved right, once again...
Reggie.
It took us a full year to complete Second Darkness. This occurred during the final installment.
So, as we go up some steps we see a Ba'alor, wielding 2 magical swords, and raining fire upon us (of course, not in the actual adventure). Being the 'tank' of the group, I proceed to charge him to disrupt his casting ability and keep him away from the rest of the group.
On his next turn, he swings his sword @ me and crits with a 20. Funny thing about those vorpal swords...
Some time ago our party was on a revenge quest in a dungeon, seeking out a vile gang of orcs that had sacked our town and murdered our families.
The party's halfling rogue heard noises around a bend in the cave tunnel, so he scouted ahead for a ways. He came across a closed door in which he could hear about a dozen orc voices talking about their recent victories and playing gambling games. The rogue signaled the rest of the party, which all moved up to the door to set the ambush. The rogue checked the door for traps and locks, the barbarian got into position to kick in the door, and the sorcerer prepared an action to hurl a fireball as soon as the barbarian gave his kick.
The barbarian gave the mightiest kick he could and watched in horror as half his leg plunged through the rotten wood, getting stuck there. He also spun his head around and watched in horror as the sorcerer's fireball came flying towards the still shut doorway.
I believe his last words were "No! Not ye--!" The fireball did high damage, taking out the entire party (who were all crowded around the door itching for a fight) except the barbarian and the rogue, who each still took lots of damage. The ~25 orcs laughed heartily as they put the would be avengers/survivors to death.
My group had one involving the Critical Hit Deck. We're fighting a group of Draconian rangers, all of whom are wielding falchions. Our wizard, who until that point hadn't been hurt, get's crit by one of the Draconians. He says "Well, it shouldn't be enough to kill me." The rest of all groan, and lo-and-behold the DM immediately pulls out... Decapitation. Disbelieving groan for him, and sly chuckles for the rest of us.
My first campaign EVER, playing a stout dwarf fighter, not much nuance - swing my axe at orcs and learn the rules a little at a time. Built to be a tank - spiky armor, big gauntlets, the works. For a couple of encounters a mysterious gang of slavers are hounding the party, repeatedly trying to kidnap us. Nets and combat don't work, we fight them off; sleep spells fail on the elf, who wakes us up and we fight them off. Finally, a disguised sorceress posing as the musical act in the local tavern nearly gets us with a charm spell of some sort, but the cleric makes the save and starts going to town.
The noise and violence of the fight rouse the rest of the PCs and the bar's patrons as well, and all of a sudden the rest of the slaver group ditch their disguises and decided to fight. We're off to the races, and my fighter has something to do! Of course, the big burly wereorc singles me out as the threat as I'm about to take down the rogue villain harassing our hapless wizard.
I try to jump across one of the bar tables to get between the wereorc and our wizard, and fail the acrobatics check by a mile, boom, I'm prone. Attack of opportunity, GM rolls huge damage, and I'm unconscious and bleeding out. Huge constitution score, though, so I have a few rounds before I really need to worry, right?
Wrong.
Cleric was played by another rookie, who kinda lost track of the whole "party healer" role thing and keeps on brawling. Twelve rounds go by and I fail every check to stabilize, meanwhile the enchantress has turned invisible, doubles back, and resumes trying to kidnap us by dragging my unconscious body out the door. Finally the cleric and the rogue notice I'm out and come over to help. On my last possible chance to stabilize, my kind GM passes me a note saying that the invisible sorceress has stabilized me - they want us alive, in any case. Still out cold, though, and now the rogue and cleric are having a tug-of-war with the invisible sorceress over my unconscious body halfway out the door, creating, from the perspective of passersby in the alleyway, an unconscious, levitating dwarf in spiked armor thrusting in and out of a bar entrance.
At this point, the rogue decides to shoot a crossbow bolt at full penalty at the invisible sorceress (the player being the "shoot first, ask questions never" type). With zero margin of error re: my neg HPs, what happens? Fumbles, of course. Crossbow bolt to my face, no more dwarf.
(The worst part? The party decides the cheapest way to bring me back to life is not a resurrection but a reincarnation. Bad-mutha stompy spiky dwarf with a huge STR score? Yup, now I'm a kobold...)
LOL...Love the stories, keep them coming people!
Most of the times, the players themselves, had lay a foot in the coffin by their own precipitate desitions.
I remember when a friend of mine, Erick, was playing a sorcerer. He spent near 3 hours building his character, and for those who like spellcasters, you know what it implies: Check loads of spells, carefully choose them to better fit in every situation that may arise.
Erick "discovered" Bestow Curse, maybe its difficult to make it work against monsters with good saves, but he knew that in the moment the curse succesfully made it way, it could turn the whole battle at the players favor.
Almost 3 AM and Erick was displaying his new sorcerer, with a cool picture, cool background and the like, also all of the guys were congratulating him because of his birthday that was no more than 3 days before.
Then, when it was time to act, he chose to deliver Bestow Curse (which is a touch spell) against a Zmey Gorynich, that russian, three-headed, flying, nasty, dragonlike monster that have reach. Of course he provoked attacks of opportunity for moving on an threatened area, as natural.
All became awful when the dragon scored a natural 20, then confirmed for another natural 20, and then again a hit. For those that dont know, there is/was/will be(?) a variant rule that allows to perform an instant kill if you roll two natural 20s (one to score, the other to confirm) and then succed a normal attack, with no exception.
After arriving late after work, spending hours making an elaborate sorcerer, he suddenly dies the first round when making his great debut.
Early in second darkness I was playing a human wizard. We were on an island investigating a meteor impact and were defending a small tower of wounded survivors against these doglike aberrations that were swarming the area. My mage was on top of the tower using grease to keep them from scaling while attacking with ranged spells managing to avoid taking any damage mostly through luck.
The tower started to list to one side due to damage and looked like it was going to topple over so as many as we could quickly lowered down with ropes, myself going down with feather fall now that most of the aberrations had been destroyed. Most of us had come out without serious injury and myself had been uninjured despite having very few hit points and a fairly low armor class.
Then the tower toppled, and rolled down the hill as it crumbled. I rolled my saving throw to jump clear. Die came up a 1. So.... I roll my save again as I fall down the slope in the chaos following the tower collapse. End result, I end up covered in tower rubble dying via the avalanche rules. To this day we still laugh at the mage that the DM had to resort to dropping a house on in order to kill :)
I recall an half-orc barbarian that failed his save vs a levitate spell cast by an undead warlock at the same time the party rogue triggered a blade barrier.
Everyone had to dodge out off the bladebarriers area to not get caught, next round the party wizard was trying to throw a fireball at the warlock, which used a readied action to put a wall of force up just infront of the wizard, cutting the party off from the barbarian that was floating 10 feet in the air (and also roasting himself and the other players that dodged the barrier).
We could do nothing but watch the barbarian get cut to pieces,took quite a while too, the player had focussed on lots and lots of hitpoints.
I feel I have to share another good story of mine, here is the scenario - a party of low level characters, a Whisper Gnome Spirit Shaman, a Elven Bard, a Human Fighter, an Elven Druid and a Halfling Rogue all approximately 2nd-3rd level in an adventure I personally designed.
The situation - they are travelling between cities in my campaign world when they take refuge in this 'friendly' military encampment from the nation they are in who are engaged in an ongoing war with their neighbors a few miles away (but for the time being diplomatic negociations are ongoing to create a peace between both countries). The players arent involved in this dispute of course and just want to get a good bed for the night and a warm meal, so theyre allowed to stay within the confines of the camp by passing themselves off as citizens of the country they were in.
There they happen to come across some other travellers - one in particular, a handsome dapper human aristocrat and his pretty half-elven attendant approach the out-of-place characters and offer them a proposition - to recover the contents of his caravan he had to abandon in a raid by the other countries scouting party. They eagerly accept it when he offers a decent reward - but he insists he and his assistant has to come along (no complaints from the characters at this point).
Ontop of that, they HAD to venture out in the dead of night and avoid trouble and questions from the soliders in the camp, so the party ventures out,the Whisper Gnome using 'Silence' (his racial ability once a day (3x a day with a feat unique only to his race)) to cover the sounds of them sneaking out under the cover of darkness. Nobody asked questions as to why they had to sneak out the camp other than to be told the negociations meant that nobody from either camp can venture into the disputed land and spark a new fight between both sides (a plausible excuse they thought).
So they successfuly avoid getting out without being seen and track the remains of the caravan, not much of it left but the 'thieves' did leave a trail that they could follow and so they followed. It led to a cave sunk into a depression in the disputed land and so they followed inside, with the Arisocrat and his assistant insisting they brought up the rear since they werent capable in a fight (nobody passes their 'Sense Motive' rolls).
The party ventures inside, with the Rogue scouting out ahead of the party, the cave descends down on a decline to a stone staircase at the bottom - with a trail of debris from the caravan visible still leaving a trail. So they venture deeper inside - no enemies in sight, nobody gets suspicious yet. They finally venture into a large room strewn with corpses of soliders from both sides - wondering what happened here they continue to press ahead wondering where the Aristocrats stolen valuables were kept. One player stops to examine some of the corpses, notices savage animal type attacks, claws and bite wounds and so on, but nobody still has any clue about whats going on.
The Rogue ventures ahead, he finds the goods before anyone else stored in a dead end cave...AND the corpse of the same Aristocrat they were adventuring with. Before the Rogue could respond (he was informed of what he found away from the others and sworn to silence until he reached them to tell them) he heard the screams of the PC's being attacked by the 'imposter'(who was under the benefit of a 'Hat Of Disguise' he wore) and his assistant, who happened to be Werewolves, and there was NO silvered weapons in the party...que a hard fight.
The players overcome the threat through a few successful and devastating critical hits, but not before nearly all of them got bitten or wounded. (Note : Que awful metagaming coming up) The players left as quick as they could and hurried back to their camp before anyone knew they left (they succeeded but only just, managed to pull off a few bribes and bluffs). The party dont know who contracted Lycanthropy and who didnt, but the party Bard does something pretty drastic - without telling ANYONE, he decides he couldnt live with the thought of being an infected Werewolf, so he killed himself in his sleep with a silent note he passed to me discreetly - he didnt just kill himself, he composed a symphony using 'Ghost Harp' a 0th Level Bard spell from the 'Spell Compendium' which "records a song recently sung or played in its vicinity" upon the bards magical musical instrument...this 'ballad' was his lifes greatest work (he managed to roll a natural 20 on his perform roll when he cast it) and he wanted people to weep at it when it played to express how violent and beautiful his life was....
...It was never to be, the Bard's player was dismayed when the party Spirit Shaman found the Bards corpse first and before recognising the Lute he had to be magical (but visibly worth a bit of money) he swiped it and stored it in his 'Bag Of Holding' where it triggered soundlessly the following round, playing this one-time song in this extradimensional space where nobody would ever hear it...
...Heres the real kicker, the Spirit Shaman from all the characters had on him a scroll of 'Remove Disease' he discovered earlier, shame the minimum level to remove Lycanthropy is 12...so no dice there. But in reality he DIDNT contract it, he only assumed he might have done, so he killed himself for nothing. Truth is I made the saves myself secretly behind my screen and rolled high for all of them (fortunate for them) though I was tempted to fudge the rolls at their tender low level I cut them the slack...lol, couldnt stop that happening though.
It was a shame but so funny once everyone found out about it later on!...lol
This happened to me a few years ago when I was a player. Played in another system though.
Our group were suspicious of a known nobleman and had decided to infiltrate his citymanor, and we decided to scale the walls surrounding his manor. My character was an older man, a doctor who served as a war medic. We made it over the walls nicely enough and did our stuff when we are spotted by guards. The group immediately flees over to the next garden and from there over to the next. Thing is, my older character lost his balance and fell down the wall into the next garden, broke his legs and was eaten by guard dogs...
I want to share the story of the "Kosh-No-Porz" (Zero XP guy).
This player's characters always had guts, lots of them - or were all terribly naive. And they shared the trait of never lasting long enough to actually level up.
So in this session, the players character gets creamed in a random encounter with heavy hitters, who he shouldnt stand next to but still is. As he goes down, DM tells him to grab dice and make a new char. Another player leaves (get pizza and stuff), and...
...the newly rolled char, a diviner type (mind that diviner part), is freed from a prison cell, which is the stereotypical way of introducing new characters, I know. Thing is, he has no weapons (but is a diviner, anyway, so shouldn't use some). Still, he insists to go get some, and contrary to the party's advice ventures back into the dungeon to the place where, so he was told, a former party member lay slain.
.. the other guy comes back with pizza, asks, hey, you still rolling? - No, again! Diviner (didnt' even had a name yet) wandered, without weapons, without divining, alone, to a place where a battle had taken place and which was scavenged by wandering monsters.
Kosh-No-Porz stopped playing soon thereafter.
The most amusing death I have ever seen was in Vampire: the Masquerade and as much as I adore the player, I was really glad to see the character go. He deserved what he got but it was a long and winding road.
The character in question's name was Deiros, a Ravnos who had managed to backstab just about everyone he knew to the point that if ANYHTING when wrong it was automatically his fault. My Toreador hated him cause not only did he get her human facade arrested so she lost everything, he eventually blew her up.(She has officially left the game for sanity's sake.)
During the game we came across a 4th Gen Gangrel who we befriended through the pure charisma of a humanity 10 Tremere. Anyway, without us knowing, Deiros essentially sold his soul to her in pieces for information which he then sold on to others.
He eventually unwittingly sold the wrong piece of information to her and when he arrived back, she tore his head off. Literally. What made it funny was the conversation went something like this.
Deiros Player: "I thank her for her time and patience and bow"
GM: "She looks you up and down and smiles"
Deiros Player: "I turn, leave and go back to my apartment"
GM: "No you don't. As you turn around, she rips your head off."
Deiros Player: "Pardon?"
GM" "She. Rips. Your. Head. Off. Find a new character sheet."
I will never forget that moment.
Other not so fun death was my Earth Genasi 12th level monk of Sune in the City of the Spider Queen campaign. She survived everything from the insta-death traps, to the hordes of soldiers, to the giant spider that builds the web briges, to a 80 ft fall but was taken out by a lone black pudding ooze. So bleak that day...
Ashnod ( human fighter 5)
Delisar (elf Cleric 5)
Sylvancys (elf rogue 5)
Fredric (human Wizard 5)
The ground had been sent on a quest by the church of pelor to help the town of lynwood, nobody was sure what the problems were but they went off to investigate knowing that it paid well. As they arrived in the town the first thing they notice is bodies hung from the sign 'welcome to Lynwood' by a noose. As they walk through the town they notice that all the houses are bored up and only the town hall had any kind of light. After looking into the window a women yells and suddenly the doors burst open and gaurds start attacking, after a brief combat they explain that they are the heroes sent to help. They are informed that Lycan's have been a ambushing travelers and town folk turning them into lycan's, and that a crazy old wizard who lives an hour away may be able to help them. So after they arrive at the wizards house which is all runed down they decide they are going to split up. Ashnod takes the basement, Fredic took upstairs and Sylvancys and Delisar stayed where they were at. Ashnod's trip to the basement discovered an old dusty alcemy lab, but that was destroyed when a lycan ambushed him and bit him. A failed fortitude save ment that he had caught the Lycanthropy. He defeated the werewolf and went back up to get healed by the cleric; before they joined fredric upstairs.
As they got up with him he had released a bunch of prisioners who told them that the old wizard was prefecting a cure on them and show them a vile of black ooze. They discover its suppost to be a cure of Lycanthropy, so Ashnod unware he has it tosses it into his bag. Evedience they find show that the wizard had went out to collect more wolfsbane for his cure, and there was only one place that grew it near by. They arrived at the old cave and heard an echo from inside "no get off me" They rush to the seen where to see the old wizard trying to force himself upon a beautiful young elf. The wizard begins casting fireball which does alot of damage to the party, but with some careful tatics the party was able to take him down without killing him. The beautiful lady had thanked them, and was over joyed that she offered each of them a kiss. I had them all made will saves, and nobody passed, so after each kiss they were drained one level, and sadly the process repeated itselfs. The players soon realized that the beautiful elf they had resuced was a succubus, but sadly it was too late at this point.....death through exotica was the way this party had bought it
This one involves an old I.C.E. Middle Earth campaign where we were playing orcs in Southern Mirkwood. There were 2 Uruk-Hai in the campaign, mine and friend's - Matt - who was the leader of our band. We were in a cave around a roaring bonfire, dividing loot after a very successful raid. Amongst other items, we had acquired a very nice bow from the elves we'd ambushed.
Now, it should be mentioned that the rest of the group was made of lesser - Snaga - orcs. They far outnumbered the Uruks, but were considerably weaker in melee combat, so they pretty much did what Matt told them to.
One of the Snagas, played by Keith, was an exceptional archer...he wanted, even demanded that bow. Matt would have none of it, and a fight ensued. The battle involved a lot of Keith staying out of melee range, and peppering Matt's Uruk with arrows. After much running about the cave, Matt was finally able to land a serious blow with his Irgaak (double-crits anyone?) on Keith's Snaga, who ran away, never to be seen again.
In triumph, Matt's Uruk sat down by the fire to tend his wounds and admire his new bow. Whereupon I decide that it's time for a new leader, and take him down with one shot from a battle axe. I win: new bow, new Irgaak, and a promotion!
Now for the best part: Matt was heard to exclaim as I rolled to hit: "What a cheap shot! Thats not a very honorable way to fight!"
I must have missed "honor" in How To Be An Orc Leader school...
In 36 years of playing RPGs I've seen a few amusing and a lot of downright stupid deaths..here are the ones that stick in my memory
[1]Playing Masks of Nyarlathotep..in the cave in the Adairs in Kenya and fighting the cultists one character summons the mystical giant gecko from the idol..deciding he cant see the fight because his huge lizard buddy is in the way he leaves the safety of the alcove he is standing in and is promptly stepped on by the geko resulting in squishy death.It's summoner having perished the gecko promptly vanishes having had no other effect on the fight.
[2]Same campaign..different player. In the tunnels under the Australian Desert..the alcoholic big game hunter with a lightning rifle shoots at a guard who he almost but not quite kills..the guard legs it round a corner to escape and the character follows him..only to find the guard waiting just round the corner with his own lightning rifle..one critical later theres a smoking boot marking the hunters demise
[3] Same player as above..in Trouble at Durbenford by Necromancer.
Having lost his Monk character to an unlucky critical from a beetle with vorpal abilities. the player rejoined the party as they prepared for a second foray into the same dungeon..and so Krugg the 10th level half orc Barbarian was enrolled into their ranks.
Two encounters into the raid the party encounters a bebilith..the raging and poisioned Krugg is locked in combat with the beast when his own parties sorcerer drops a 10HD fireball on top off them..exit Krugg in a blaze of inignomy..having lasted one game session from creation to death. The party stripped his body and threw it in a chasm because
he would have wanted it that way
.
[4]Same player AGAIN!!.. Warhammer FRPG Death on the Riek.
Playing a thief with a penchant for arson he loads up with flasks of oil..on attempting to throw one at a Daemonette of Slanesh he fumbles drops the flask at his feet and all his other flasks explode. He invokes a luck point to reroll ..this time he succeeds..the Daemonette now engages him in melee and bisects his body with a claw
[5]CoC King of Chicago..a near TPK in this one..Investigating the lair of the Monster two characters died ..seeing their gruesome demise a third character developed extreme paranoia and found himself stand next to a Chinese man with a auto shotgun..whereupon he shot him at point blank and impaled killing him immediately..unfortunately this character was a cop(played by the same unfortunate player as the previous three incidents) and the cop killer went to the chair leaving only one survivor from a party of 5.
[6] RoleMaster...player spends 5 hours tweaking his character gets it perfect..refuses to wear a helmet as his elf character is way too vain to cover his good looks. First random encounter as they cross the plains of Rohan results in his getting a javelin through the head and dying instantly..
Our party was sent to rescue a town from the clutches of an evil "demon queen" (min/maxed halfing druid), and felt the best way to get her to come to us would be to go to her mountain top shrine and defile it (naturally). Our drunken master lizardman decides he would like to get my female elf warmage drunk, having never tried drinking before (she was a shelter book wormy type)becomes quite inebriated, the purposeful defiling turned into a bit of a two person party, while the others looked on shaking their heads. Lizardman suggests that now quite tanked warmage elf should defecate on the alter, of course to this sheltered, first time letting loose creature that sounded like a wonderful idea. After stumbling up onto the alter she relieves herself, after this happens we realize that those massive trees surrounding the place are not trees but Treants. Warmage begins drunkenly blasting away at the trees lighting them all ablaze one such treant sensing its death coming attempts to crush Warmage as it falls. Warmage horribly fails saving throw and is crushed beneath tons of burning wood. She was carrying 40 dragonsbreath arrows along with other combustible/explosive objects that now begin to go off like a fourth of july display, she also had a bag of trick which now meant that random burning things that rhyme with at (inside joke we had, look at the gray bag of tricks) begin jumping off into the wilderness. about a round later the lizardman succumbs to an almost identical fate but with enough liquor and booze to make a Japanese frat house cringe. So here our poor remaining party members sit, at the top of a mountain with two huge "hey look over here!" displays of explosives and flame lit up the countryside.
good news is I think we got her attention. :P
Well the most interesting death I have seen within my time as a DM came about 7 years ago in a 3.0 campaign. My players had recently defeated some big bad evil, and the fight had ended with only the human paladin standing, and the dwarf fighter and kobold sorcerer being fused together as a statue of aluminum.
The party was unable to afford the proper spells to restore the two (I think they were unwilling to part with some magic items from the recent quest) so they managed find someone that could partially restore the two. The resulting spell allowed both players to act normally, but left the kobold's tail fused to the fighter's left arm.
The fighter took possession of a new shiny weapon the party had just received, a +2 Spell Storing Battle Axe with the Fireball spell stored in it. In the next fight with a river monster, with him and the sorcerer at critical HP, he used the spell from the axe while in melee with the beast. He failed his save and died, while the sorcerer succeeded his savfe and lived. We ruled it that the sorcerer had hid behind the fighter's shield and had managed to escape certain doom.
Heres another: GURPS Horror, Victorian England. The PCs are investigator/troubleshooters. There's the college professor, retired major general, big-game hunter, and one reporter character who decided his MO was that he didn't believe any of this hogwash about fantastic goings-on.
He died with much laughter when the group was on a lonely mountaintop in Wales, confronting the winged, lobster-like minions (name escapes me). He rushed up to one, hoping to get a snapshot that would debunk the "myth". Grabbing him in its claws, it lept into the air as it was crushing him, to take his corpse into the Beyond. The stoic Sergeant-Major (the big-game hunter has fled, damn fear table) raised his elephant rifle and calmly shot the creature through what passes for a heart (rolled a 3), saving our intrepid (but foolish) reporter. He had just enough time to thank the Sergeant-Major's player before he realized that he was "mythically" 300 feet off the ground, and that he was about to suffer a very real death on the very solid terra firma of Mother England.
EDIT: btw, the player of Sergeant-Major knew exactly what he was doing. "two birds with one stone, wot?"
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Players were in a dungeon. The floor to a large room opens in the middle and drops 4 of the 6 characters into a 40' deep pit. The huge stone floor closes, resetting the trap. The guys below get in a battle with some Monks that were in stasis in the pit (magical, lost civilization thingy). Dwarf barbarian takes some decent damage in the battle and afterwards decides to climb the walls and use his crowbar to work at the stone hinges that I described as 'piano hinges'. While he is working on that the other 2 party members(cleric and wizard I think) cross the room and check out the other way out of the room.....walking into the other pressure plate that activates the pit trap.
One failed reflex and 15d6 damage later there is a smeared dwarven barbarian sliding down the pit wall after the floor flips downward on it's hinges....
If he'd of taken a potion of healing or something he would've lived as he only died by about 5-6 hps.....
What a fun night to be a DM!
A few years ago, right around the time 3.5 was released, I was running a high-powered 3.0 game. I decided to test out of few 3.5 elements. One of the first was the new, supposedly less lethal harm spell. The evil cleric tagged one of the party's toughest fighters with it. He blew his save and promptly exploded.
"Hey," I said, "what are you complaining for? That was the new, kinder version of the spell."
:)
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This happened at the end of our last night playing 3.5. We'd planned to convert our characters to pfrpg for the next weekend's game.
Well, our rogue was taking a lot of flak that night because, in an earlier encounter, he had spent almost the entirety of the battle on the outskirts of the skirmish, neither dealing nor taking any damage. I believe he was trying to set up a ranged sneak attack situation, but it never panned out. Meanwhile, the rest of the group is taking heavy damage, and, if not for a lucky crit by the dwarven fighter at the end, might have suffered a pc death at this point.
So, jump ahead a few hours, and we were facing a group of skeletons, led by an ogre skeleton. Well, the rogue beat the clerics initiative and, hoping to redeem himself, attempts to over-run the intervening skeletons to reach the Ogre. Well, one bad roll later he found himself on his ass at the Ogres feet. The ogre, of course, can't pass this up and scores a massive crit on the guy, dropping him to -11 in a single blow. By 3.5 rules he was dead as a doornail. Well, he was pretty upset (he's new to the game, and this was his first character death) so, after the cleric handily mopped up after him, we called it a night. Later we realized that switching to pfrpg you had to reach a negative equal to your CON (his was 14), so, as if by divine intervention, he managed to survive the ordeal.
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This happened a few years back. I was DMing a group of six guys while in the military. One of the guys wanted to play a Bard. First time I had been asked to have a Bard in one of my campaigns, and since I was not too sure that I wanted one in this particular game I tried to disuade him of his choice be saying, "You know that you will have to RP out your songs including lyrics?" "No Problem I like to sing!" he says. Riiight?! Anyway the first few sessions the party gets into scrapes and he is able to bolster their morale by signing, THE IMMIGRANTS SONG, by Led Zepplin no less! The party likes their new "Spell-Singer" and all is well with the world. Until...
Abandoned Tower in the trackless forest. No one questions the stench and bones strewn about the place. Party enters tower to investigate. Bard moves off by himself to search a likely area for a secret door. Rest of the party opens another door and is confronted by a Troll, battle ensues. The Bard across the tower watches the battle, until the first Troll's mate comes out of the secret door the Bard failed to find! Bard commences to sing in order to charm the Troll. This works at first and the Bard is making up pretty good lyrics to charm the Troll while at the same time calling attention to the fact that he is alone with a Troll like, "The Troll in not my friend he will eat me in the end, Come quick and don't delay, I don't know how long I can play, My music has him in a swoon but you better help me soon!"
We all laughed and for 4 rounds he did a great job on his rolls. Then on the fifth round, just as the others finished off the other Troll the Bard missed his roll..BAD! I informed him that a string on his lute broke with a PING! The Troll became enraged. Claw, claw, bite attack routine begin with all hitting for at or near max damage. Since this was over double the Bard's hp I told him, "The Troll roars at you and then grabs one of your arms in each of his claws and then bites your head off whilst pulling them both out of socket at the shoulder!"
"What?" Was his witty reply.
I repeated myself, to which he asked,
"Am I dead?"
Yeah, VERY I reply!
We all laughed until we cried! No one played a Bard for a Loooong time!
Great stories...lol, keep them coming, this makes for good reading and perhaps a cautionary tale for others...lol
I almost forgot this one. This was in the Warhammer RPG. Our group consisted of a witch hunter (me), a light magician, a spy, a justiciar and a another character, I forget what her career was, let's just call her an adventurer.
We had been travelling together for quite a while and in our travels we met an old man who travelled with us for a while. Unbeknownst to the rest of us the adventurer had nightly talks (done via email) with this npc. And apparently this npc was a worshipper of Tzeentch, and promised her that he would teach her magic (which he did). But to do this she had to be marked by Tzeentch, which causes a forever unhealing green scar. She was able to keep both these talks and the mark hidden from us for a looong time.
Eventually though, her magic backfired on her and mutated her arm into a crablike claw. Of course the light magician and witch hunter declared that she needed to be cleansed, in order for her eternal soul to be saved.
And the way we talked about this with her ingame lead her to believe us and that she could be saved. Of course, anyone who've participated in a cleansing know that you do not survive a cleansing, but your soul is indeed saved from chaos.
So the character agrees, and here's the kicker. The night before the cleansing, the character sneaks out, finds her magician friends and they help her return the hand back to normal, and the next day she goes through with the cleansing. All the while the player knows that this will indeed kill the character.
Ah the facial expressions.
I got another one
John (Half Orc Barbarian/Rogue/Frenizied Beserker)
Dan (Dwarf Cleric/Prestige Paladin/Ordained Champion)
There were actually 4 of us in the group, but we were in this dwarf city and two of the temples were being attacked, myself and Drew went one way, while John and Dan went the other. They busted down the door of the temple and seen bodies laying amoungest the floor and the high priest holding his holy symbol chanting a pryer. They both noticed that the bodies weren't dead, but they got up and started attacking as a mob, so in order to save them they dealt a whole lot of non leathal damage to put them down, all the time though the high priest kept chanting away, buffing himself up for what would be an eventual fight. When the players finally approached him he cast dominate on John who failed his will save and started attacking Dan, who moves out of the way and casts a spell to snap john out of his trance. John then rages and frienzy's and attacks the priest who they have determined is actually a dwarf vampire cleric. Its now the clerics turn again, and he takes his +2 Icy Burst Battleaxe and begins taking his shots at John. The first shot natural 20, the second confirms and he does a massive 87 points of damage (John had around 140), but we were using the rule if you take more then 50 points of damage you made a fortitude save DC 15 to stay alive, John had +18 to his save....of course natural 1 came up on the die. I described the seen as 'You feel a cold chill enter your body as the massive blow is deleivered, you cant feel anything as your heart freezes in place before shattering and you collaspe to the ground' Everyone laughed but if that wasn't bad enough, Dan took a 5ft step away to cast delay death of himself, that gave the cleric time to go up to Johns body and reanimate it as its undead servent. I let John continue rolling the dice at its normal stats but with either a move or an attack action, luckly Dan cast Turn undead which affected John who turned tail and ran for the rest of the fight; which Dan eventually won, and then went and finished of John.
I dont know about amusing, but this one was lame.
I was DMing a homebrew campaign, and the party was in combat against a drow dread necromancer. This necromancer had the mother cyst feat allowing her to use the cyst spells from libris mortis.
The necromancer had the hots for the party paladin, and hit him with the necrotic cyst spell, and amazingly he failed his save against the spell. SHe was defeated before she could use it to controll him though.
The party didnt have the magic to remove the cyst, and no one trained the heal skill, so they took the paladin to a local doctor to get it removed. That doctor must have been drunk, cause he got a natural 1 on his heal check, and according to the cysts rules, if you fail to make the check to remove the cyst, you die.
That poor paladin, survived many adventures, to die on the operating table during routine surgery.
Shortly after 3rd Edition came out, I tried my hand DMing the new module, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Originally there was a party of 4, which grew into a party of about 10 players as people started bringing friends to try out the new system. Things were a bit chaotic as you might guess.
During one stage of the game, several players were on a platform on top of a large 'crystal' which grew tentacles and pulled them into the crystal if they stayed in direct contact with it for long. They were in the center of the top on an elevator platform and needed to get to the edge which had another elevator to lower them even further into the large chamber. I told them that their most likely chance was to run at full speed to the other elevator and likely have to do a Dex check to grab something to stop themselves from plummeting off the edge.
At this point the Wizard came up with the idea of using Mage Hand to tie the end of a rope to a part of the elevator apparatus, while tying the other end to his belt so as to not fall off the edge. After determining the negatives to the Use Rope skill remotely, the player actually rolled a natural 20 on this roll, securing one end of the rope to the apparatus. Overcome with the wonderful success he made he immediately started the mad dash to the structure, forgetting the important roll needed to secure the rope to his belt. As the player essentially jumped off the side of the crystal, confident in the success of the rope being tied, I informed him of the need to make the second Use Rope skill.
Suddenly not so confident the player rolled his d20, as everyone watched, coming up with... a 1! The players heckled and laughed as the character fell for, I believe, 200 feet before coming to a sudden stop, at which point I rolled 20d6 for falling damage, resulting in exceptionally crappy numbers. I believe it was less than 30 points of damage total. He had survived! Everyone cheered for the luck of the player.
But then another player opened their mouth, saying that he was lucky that the 10 flasks of alchemist's fire in the wizards backpack hadn't blown up. Unfortunately for the character and player, I didn't feel I could ignore such a blatant set-up (What's the worst that could happen?) and promptly blew the character into little bits of gore, doing much more damage than the fall. Amazingly, this entire scenerio set up the usefulness of Rope Use within my group for years to come.
My first EVER Pathfinder character (and I haven't played any 3.5 either) was a Human Fighter, and at level 3 he was a capable Fighter 1 Wizard 2 (transmutationist). I would run around with a Greatsword and chop things up (this was beta, Overhand Chop was awesome!) and it was a blast having spells to assist me.
A favourite strategy was to cast Enlarge Person on myself, run in and destroy everything. Pretty basic, but massive fun. Effective for a long while.
We were exploring a cave for a lich and it was packed full of slimes and oozes, and we were in a VERY low wealth and gear game so we were harvesting and collecting mineral deposits. We collected about 50gp worth of salt. We discovered a large group of slimes, and they hit us really hard, but a Knowledge check revealed that they were highly allergic to salt... (cheeky DM!) We started liberally raining down the salty doom on the slimes and they shriveled up and wasted away instantly, and our most valuable possession was now our most powerful weapon.
We moved on through the caves and came across a room with a locked steel-bar door, our Rogue, try as he might, couldn't get it open, and there were chests on the other side. I took the prerogative and started shooting at the chests to try to break them open, and one of them did. A MASSIVE Slime thing poured out of it, it was 16 feet high. Initiative. I popped Enlarge Person, kicked the door down and ran in. Immediatley, special slimes with readied actions started hitting us with spells. There were about 6 of them. The rest of the party were a bit shocked, but started do hit the slimes back. From the roof, however, a Gelatenous Cube dropped into ambush and had a go at my raven familiar.
My fighter ran back to assist but got utterly hammered. Exactly -2HP. Cleric was out of heals. Now at this point, my Enlarged character weighed something like 1200lbs, and nobody had the strength to lift, carry or even drag me. The Rogue throws the salt at me and the rest of the party decides to flee (even my raven...)
They regroup upstairs and find more trouble. They get stuck up there.
Downstairs, I'm slowly recovering from my wounds, until I reach 0. Cold, alone and confused in a pitch black room, I start feeling around for a lantern, a torch, anything. I find nothing, so I start moving. I roll a d4 to decide which direction I will go. My character reasoned that the party rescued him, they were all asleep and using the cave as a shelter, but not wanting to rouse any party members or alert any latent monsters, I start crawling to see if I bump into anyone.
My fighter crawled directly out of the salt barrier and directly into the gelatinous cube.
Game over, man.
The GM was kind (or cruel) enough to let me play as the distraught familiar for the rest of the session, which was a hoot! It sucked to die, but it was fun.
I hate having such a bad memory. The only thing I can remember for now is when I was first learning D&D, I ran a game where someone tried to jump down the stairs in a dungeon. A long set of stairs. I had them roll balance to land it, and they rolled a 1. I then had them take 1d6 damage per 10 feet as they rolled down the stairs (somewhere around 3d6 from his point of landing). Unfortunately, at the bottom of those stairs was a pit trap. They failed that reflex save as well, and it was a 30 foot drop. He's still barely alive, and the cleric runs down to heal him, and I have him roll a balance check for running down the stairs. He fails and takes falling damage as well, rolling into the pit trap after another failed save. I make an attack roll with the falling cleric's body, and I crit. I don't confirm, but the falling damage from the cleric kills the guy, and the cleric's unconscious body has to be bailed out by some other, much more careful party members. He survived.
I still to this day have not dealt that much damage with a dungeon object and a single inanimate trap to any of my other groups.
Death number one happened to one of my characters. It was 4AM after an evening and an all-nighter of playing AD&D 2nd edition, some years ago. Since it was my first character (a paladin), I remember it quite well.
Me: "I look through that keyhole."
DM: "You see a room with some dogs, and some crates at the far end."
Me: "Since we are to find an item, I enter the room and activate my ring of flying to reach the crates over the dogs."
DM: "They are looking at you."
Me: "Alright, alright. What's in those crates?"
DM: "These are dog houses, not crates."
Me: "What?"
DM: "And the dogs open their mouth, and spit some sort of fireball at you."
Me: "WHAT?"
Roasted and eaten by fire-spitting dogs, what a nice way to die :|
Death number two happened to another player's character. I was GMing and the party entered a room with a pool. The character approaches and sees a woman chained to the bottom, calling for help (an illusion, and you might remember the adventure this room is in). It was a trap with a magical compulsion to jump to save her. Not even waiting for me to drop the other shoe (I asked him "are you sure?" twice, while the other more experienced players were shaking their heads) the character jumps in... a pool of acid. Barely escaping with a tenth of his life, he succeeds in crawling out. Next round, the illusion activates again. Now, he doesn't want to go, but fails his save and crawls right back.
You'll note that the other players (same group in both cases) didn't interact with these two characters' deaths. Which brings me to...
Death number three: the party enters a cave with two tunnels. Going right, they meet a small army of goblins whom they block at a chokepoint. Everything seems under control, but they notice that half the army goes back and turn left at the next intersection. "Uh oh..."
At the time the other half corners them, they also meet the goblins' chief, who is a human mage. Blocked as they are, they can't escape the AoE spells he throws at them. The end result is that the BBEG and the party's mage are sole "survivors". The PC notice that the BBEG hasn't seen him and that he is GOING TO "un-stabilize" his friends/allies/whatever. Despite his Str score of 20 (how did I even let that pass? it's AD&D2! said the character's a half-demon and has been made with another GM who was playing too, and hosting... *sigh*) he flees, condemning the rest.
Death number four: same group, another GM. We were walking through a forest, escorting a cart of gold. A dragon jumps from behind a tree (the guy's words!), unlaunchs its breath weapon, and takes off. Result: most of the party dead, including the 14th-level wizard who just happened to have obtained a scroll of Limited Wish.
Do you see a pattern here?
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Anyone remember how hard it was to become a 1st edition bard? PC finally gets there (Fighter 7th/Thief 7th/ Bard 1st) and we begin the Tomb of Horrors. In the long hallway, after arguing for nearly an hour what was the meaning of the floor riddle, grabs the wizard and halfling thief, then leaps into gargoyle’s mouth to prove that black is “…nights good color….”. Unfortunately the mouth held a sphere of annihilation.
Amazingly, I remembered a near TPK that I graciously allowed my players to survive.
The party was traveling with a halfling caravan when they came upon a temple. After a few routine fights and finding a kobold with two badly broken (and healed over) legs in a pit, they found a central room that contained a small set of rooms, each with a small alcove containing a gem, and one containing what one of them identified as an orb of storms. They needed to get the item for a god-like creature who had basically pulled them over and told them to. At any rate, three other alcoves besides that one contained gems, a ruby, an emerald and a sapphire. They were valued at 2500 gp, 5000 gp, and 10000 gp. They of course take the 5000 gp one, and then move out of one of the rooms. One of the other shutters closes, and a voice says "Return the gem immediately or your life is forfiet!" They do so. The shutter reopens. They take the least valuable one. A quieter voice repeats the same message. They talk amongst themselves, and a small earth elemental hops out of the ground in the room the gem was in and attacks them. They stomp it.
Thinking they're clever (Of course they weren't), they tie rope around each of the gems, and move back out of the dungeon, after asking the halfling caravan to arm themselves (Halflings in the setting are well known for training everyone in their family how to fend off attackers). Using the goblin rouge's pig, they haul the gems in. Cue a medium and a large earth elemental following the slowly hauled gems out of the earth.
The medium elemental is actually killed, but in the first round of the fight the fighter runs up to trip the large earth elemental. Taking a successful opportunity attack, he runs up and fails, rolling miserably. The elemental lays into him with its two slams, reducing him to below -20 in short order. Because of this, the party loses, and half of it gets stomped by the lone earth elemental (Who shrugs off the halfling's slings thanks to his DR 5). The kobold NPC (actually a sorcerer) successfully kites the elemental with the help of the bard (Who offered to put the elemental's gem back) and almost drops it. This is done while he's being piggy backed on a rouge.
So the fighter was allowed to be healed, and was thereafter berated by the goblin for being less useful than the kobold with the broken legs.
Most of the times, the players themselves, had lay a foot in the coffin by their own precipitate desitions.
I remember when a friend of mine, Erick, was playing a sorcerer. He spent near 3 hours building his character, and for those who like spellcasters, you know what it implies: Check loads of spells, carefully choose them to better fit in every situation that may arise.
Erick "discovered" Bestow Curse, maybe its difficult to make it work against monsters with good saves, but he knew that in the moment the curse succesfully made it way, it could turn the whole battle at the players favor.
Almost 3 AM and Erick was displaying his new sorcerer, with a cool picture, cool background and the like, also all of the guys were congratulating him because of his birthday that was no more than 3 days before.
Then, when it was time to act, he chose to deliver Bestow Curse (which is a touch spell) against a Zmey Gorynich, that russian, three-headed, flying, nasty, dragonlike monster that have reach. Of course he provoked attacks of opportunity for moving on an threatened area, as natural.
All became awful when the dragon scored a natural 20, then confirmed for another natural 20, and then again a hit. For those that dont know, there is/was/will be(?) a variant rule that allows to perform an instant kill if you roll two natural 20s (one to score, the other to confirm) and then succed a normal attack, with no exception.
After arriving late after work, spending hours making an elaborate sorcerer, he suddenly dies the first round when making his great debut.
My group uses that same house rule. We call it a 20-20-kill.
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In no particular order...
1. Too trusting: Nature-loving character feeds an apple to a gorgimera because it looks like a friendly creature (old-school variant on the chimera, one of the heads is a gorgon). Creature stood still then turned her to stone when she gave the bull head the apple.
2. Improbable roll: 2nd edition had "system shocks" for taking massive damage. Our character could only die if he rolled 100% naturally. We joked, and then he rolled the dice. One pair of dice flew across the room seconds later as double zeroes showed.
3. Hide and go Seek oops: Party at 2nd level decided to irritate an ettin by throwing rocks at its tower to get it to come out. They didn't have a plan when it came out pissed. Rather than run, they tried to hide in the nearby ruins. One player, who protested the "prank", failed the Hide (Stealth) check. One hit later, one dead PC.
4. Heroic but odd: At finale of an epic campaign, party was attempting to retreat from a 5-headed dragon down a massive vertical shaft that had been partially damaged from one player tossing a Tree Token atop it. Rather than face a TPK, our druid with his last spell (Soften Earth and Stone) didn't follow his friends or the 5-headed dragon down the well but rather cast his spell on the exposed unworked stone (from the tree), weakening the entire shaft foundation and burying the dragon and rest of the party in thousands of tons of stone and dirt. Then the druid flew off rather than have to explain anything to anyone...
5. Where's my Friends? Player trailing the party in a dungeon has a nasty ooze drop on her, suffocating her. Rest of party goes to battle against monsters down the hall, either forgetting their friend or assuming she could handle a simple ooze. One dead suffocated friend later, and she had some words about the concepts of loyalty...
I'm sure my players over the years could tell me some more, but these are the ones we (er...mostly I) still get a chuckle out of.
Playing a goblin rogue, our party stumbled upon an alter in a temple underneath a goblin village. I had to relieve myself and finding the place empty except for my companions, I dropped my pants and relieved myself on the alter which had some desecrated ashes upon it. What i failed to notice was the 2 yeth hounds on the ceiling that dropped on me and attacked, taking me from 19 hp (max) to 3hp. They beat my initiative and took me from 3 to -17 before anyone could react.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Anyone remember how hard it was to become a 1st Edition bard? PC finally gets there, and we begin the Tomb of Horrors. ...
Oh, the rest of that story writes itself.
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My most amusing death as a player: 1st Edition AD&D, callow young fellow player, quick to grab the magic sword.
Stephanie the DM: It's cursed. You can't get rid of it. It's stuck to your grip.
Mike the Callow PC: Oh no.
Me, feeling puckish: I can get that off you, Mike.
Mike: You can? Great!
Me: Just set your hand on this tabletop here.
Mike: Like this?
Me: Perfect. (To the DM:) I cut his hand off at the wrist.
Mike: What? Nooo!
Stephanie: Are you keeping your hand still, so it's a clean cut, or trying to yank it away as the blade comes down?
Mike: Yanking it away!
Stephanie: That's too bad. Make a System Shock roll, why doncha?
I feel kind of bad about this one because I had no business throwing a monster like this at such a low level party, but the players were tracking down this homebrew wraith thing I concocted that had enervation as a touch attack (and 5ft as a move speed, the idea was they'd primarily use ranged attacks or reach weapons to take them down). The players knew this, or so I thought, considering they'd fought one and got zapped by the touch attack.
They track one down to it's hiding spot in a pocket plane, a flat featureless place. The reaver does a clawing motion at the party, I describe this thinking the party would realize it's threatening them.
Barbarian says: "I fly in and grab it's outstretched hand" (he had wings)
Me: "What?"
Barbarian: "I want to fly to it and grab it's hand"
Me:"uhh, ok, if you want to"
I think his plan was to grab it, fly up with it and then drop it so it takes falling damage. It was a good plan, except he forgot about the enervation as a touch attack thing. I rolled max on the level drain, which brought him to 0, killing him.
Most amusing near death ---
In 1st Edition I was runnning a half-elf magic-user/thief (1st level - 3 HP). The party is charged with clearing out a reputedly haunted manse and recovering an important prayer book for the local temple.
On this first adventure, my half-elf - Tess - tells the party that he is an apprentice wizard and a thief and...GASP... chaotic neutral! They decide to put him on point duty. The party is doing fairly well, exploring the place into the wee hours of the morning. The sun rises and all extingush their torches/lanterns. Up front, Tess enters a room solo.
The DM describes the scene to me in notes - another dust and cobweb filled room - this one has a table with some rotting food on it. Tess approaches the table, and gets a face full of rot grubs! As they burrow into his flesh, he looks about for a fire source to get rid of the deadly vermin. No luck. He runs out of room and back to the party.
He yells, "Fire! Anybody got some fire?!?" and the other party members - who have no idea what is going on - shake their heads. Tess swears, crosses his arms, touches his thumbs together with his hands in a fan shaped display toward his own head and unleashed his BURNING HANDS spell on himself (his only spell).
Now a literally fiery half-elf throws himself on the ground in front of the party shouting "Put me out! Put me out, you idiots!" Two rounds of rot grub infestation and the burning hands wipe out all 3 of his hit points. As he is passing out, one of the party members treating his wounds says, "Tess, we knew you were chaotic, but GEEZ...."
Got a couple.
We're crawling through a dungeon and come across a copper dragon thats acting feral. My cleric makes his knowledge check and recalls that copper dragons are good aligned. He thinks why would a good aligned dragon protect the BBEG? He thinks its an illusion and tries to convince the rest of the party who are still wary. He strolls up close to the dragon and as he realises that its an illusion (i.e. makes a save) wears the dragon breath in full and collapses to the ground with his final words being, "I...believe..."
Back in 2nd ed. days we were making our way through the night below and experiencing a bit of character turnover. The PCs were getting to keep the gear of the fallen and so the DM sort to balance things out by having new characters come in with half gear. So the new fighter comes in and we decide to roleplay the new addition out, which turned out to be painful as some thought it wasn't realistic that we'd give up well over 100k in gear to a guy we don't know. It took something like an hour before we finally got on track. We enter into the underdark and make our way down to where we had last made it to and the new fighter kicks open the door and BAM! He wears a mindflayer blast, fails save abysmally and is dead. All that pain to die before the first combat even got to start.
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In no particular order...
1. Too trusting: Nature-loving character feeds an apple to a gorgimera because it looks like a friendly creature (old-school variant on the chimera, one of the heads is a gorgon). Creature stood still then turned her to stone when she gave the bull head the apple.
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The best death ever, was when our mid-level wizard decided to toss a fireball into a very small room with even narrower hallways only to discover the real meaning of the meaning of area spells. The one spell kill the entire party just because we were too close to the room,,, I forget but it was so bad that it nearly killed ever thing in the dungeon.