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My first ever PnP experience was an AD&D game, some 10 years ago, that I named "Max's Gate" - so named for the DM, Max.
We, the stalwart level 1 adventurers (rogue, fighter, wizard/magic user, fighter, and priest of Helm - I was the priest) were hired by a self-styled "Pasha" from Calimshan to make some rubbings of the hieroglyphics in an ancient tomb, which was potentially dangerous, what with traps and ancient magics and such - long story short, the 'adventure' was about as exciting as watching your friend play on his PsP - regardless, we dutifully made charcoal rubbings of each wall, and, with some luck, managed to find, flag, and avoid every trap in the place.
Eventually (and moving on to the humorous death) we made our way through all the surface and basement levels before working our way into a narrow sub-basement, wherein we found a sarcophagus. Our rogue, a clever fellow, pried it open and discovered a mummy resplendent with jewels, a scepter and an ankh made of gold, and covered in jewels of obvious worth. His response was to immediately drop the pretense of doing any rubbings, and begin stuffing his pockets/adorning himself with the treasure. While this was going on, our wizard looked the wall over, found some writing in Draconic directly over the sarcophagus, and read it aloud, it went something to the tune of "My name is [so and so], high priest of Set, speak "[this word]", and bask in my glory and the glory of Set."
About ten seconds after that, the room became very warm, the mummy sat up, took one look at the rogue (who at this point was wearing his crown, scepter, and assorted jewelry), spoke something in a groaning, twisted tongue, and Max said "roll initiative." Suffice it to say, the look on the rogue player's face about the time his character turned into a well-decorated pile of dust was absolutely priceless.
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Hai guise, first time poster here.
I'll try to keep this as spoilerless as possible, considering that most here probably haven't played or mastered RotRL #1 just yet.
We had had around 4 sessions playing Rise of the Runelords and during our adventures in Varisia had managed to penetrate the fortress of Thistletop. Last session, the party crawled as far as the second level of the dungeon and after a run in with a certain miniboss where we narrowly avoided death by elfbane arrows(our party druid and ranger/wizard are both elves, of Mierani and Mordant stock) and getting shamefacedly beaten to our very last bit of strength, Sandpoint called. This fifth session though, this was supposed to be different, we were all 2nd level, which everyone agreed was a bit low for the opponents in Thistletop, but our metagaming minds thought it'd be enough if we just scoured this dungeon level and returned later in the day to have some sweet leveling up.
That's where the things started to get sour.
In our absence, the big bad had dutifully restocked some of the dungeon with new foes and adversities. Let's not even start about the bridge having been dropped and about our new acquintance in the seaside cave which almost killed us. Besides that, the fights went decently well, since our Shoanti barbarian did not really give a frig about damage resistance or high AC's. That is, until our run in with a spell called "Shatter". Twice. This was about the time our party fighter, a dwarf gladiator, started to miss in anger and we were very nearly spent when Jearis, the ranger, found a door to the third level.
"Hrmm," surmised Niero(my char, a varisian rogue), "Skrym(the shoanti) at least can take it for a bit more, bless that Calphiak constitution, and you longears don't seem that bad either"
<elvish>"Listen now Mister "Ae cannae find anethin' even if itsa holdin' to mah leg" can go screw the Tenta..." started Dairhe, but I cut in:
<elvish>"Right right, fair enough, but let's go anyway. Just a peek"
So, that was probably, at least I hope so, the worst idea the party agreed on during this adventure. Long story short, the peek ended in a very short meeting with the BBEG after Niero botched a trapped hallway. BBEG totally cleaved our frontline and as the second line, including me started to creep back towards the stairs and maneuver a barricade to the only door, this happened:
"Go go Rufus(the dwarf), I'll cover your behind if that poodle follows!"
"<dwarven curse> No, just run, you are in no condition to..."
*Niero gets promptly charged by the BBEG's hound and devoured*
<a smattering of Janderhoff expletives>
The amusing part was that since Niero was such an ass, half the party was undecided on whether to charge back in force and recover his -6 body from the enemies. Undecided! The chaotic neutral fighter and barbarian were more in favor than the cookie cutter neutral goods!
Right then, Nitessine, the GM, looks up to me, grins sarcastically and says that it's better to end this session here. Go roll a new character. Naturally, we had hit third level a it before descending to third level. Such is greed and folly.
Needless to say, my new character was a cleric. With a fully charged happy stick to go along.
This was my first 3.5 character, an elven Ranger. The party was assaulting an Orc fortress that we really had no business in actually taking on by ourselves. We had a little help from the local high-level NPC ranger/arcane archerish homebrew class who was something of an idol/love interest for my character (and about 5 levels higher than the party). She took on a scouting war party in the woods surrounding the fortress, creating a distraction with lots of various explosions and whatnot. This drew out a substantial portion of the fortress's inhabitants, allowing us to sneak around the back and take out those that remained inside.
We mopped up the guards and freed the prisoners, with me being rather anxious to get back out to the woods to find out what had happened to our companion. Just as we're about to head out we see her running full tilt for the fortress, with two ogres and near-full war party right behind (including the leader of the orc tribe). She gets inside and we have a couple of rounds to get ready. She and I stand side-by-side, just exchanging knowing glances, ready to lay down a hail of arrows on whoever breaks through the gate first. One of the coolest moments I've had in the game.
The fighter of the party decided to climb up one of the guard towers (built up and around a large tree; we suspected that the output used to be elven) and snipe at one of the Ogres. Said Ogre flung his greatclub at the fighter in retaliation and scored a critical hit, dropping him to -7 or so. The DM described the club as essentially becoming a new branch of the tree with the fighter impaled/sandwiched. Shortly after the gates were broken down and all hell breaks loose. Arrows fly, the our barbarian rages, the sorcerer flings lightning, and surprisingly quickly the battle is over. In the process I'm severely wounded, down to 1 or 2 HP left, but I'm still alive.
At the end of the battle I immediately run to the guard tower to go check on my friend the fighter. I start climbing and... fail my climb check. Taking the 1d6 damage I drop to... 0 points. I'm ok! I call out weakly to the Bard to go check on the fighter in the tree, as I slump down at the base. The Bard runs up, sees the gory scene... and fails his Heal check miserably and thinks the fighter might still have a chance. So he pulls the club out of the tree (scoring a natural 20 on the STR check to do so). And then I stupidly ask the DM "Uhm... where did the club land?"
He rolls. Winces.
"On you."
He rolls. "12 points of damage."
The bard memorialized my death in song, stating that I had been felled by an Ogre's club, curiously omitting some details.
THis was my first game I played of 3.5 a couple of weeks before pathfinder was released.
My character was a neutral evil rogue and we were starting at lvl 5 using the eberon setting. We just got off a boat which crashed unto the shore and the party was going to meet up. We met at a tavern in the town that is close to the shore and I was a escaped convicted criminal and require some documents to move through the land/various townships. At the tavern I sneak into a sailor's room where he was sleeping. I go to coup de grace him and the dm asks me what I use to which I answer a scimitar (cause I was new and didn't get a dagger). The dm describes me slicing his head off and there is a huge bloody mess in the room. I have to escape the scene of the crime so I hope out of the second story of the tavern.
The first mate of the ship comes and checks on his freind (the sailor). He sees his dead freind and rushes downstairs and tells everyone that there is a murderer afoot. While this is happening I head to the church where I wash my hands and clothes in the holy water and am preparing to leave the town. As I am leaving the town the monk (who goes to the church and sees the bloody holy water) questions me and I lie to him that I saw someone go into the forest and that they were messy. I fail my bluff and the monk doesn't believe me. Needless to say after a trashing from the monk and everyone finding out what I did I was killed shortly after.
One of my favorite tricks is using a gelatinous cube to seem undead. My favorite instance of this was when one of my players was playing a cleric with a horrible spot score (3.5e). The players come across this floating suit of armor that seems to shake and quiver slightly while holding one hand outstretched toward the PCs. None of the party members hit their spot to see it's a cube.
The cleric smirks and declares "I'll handle this! I use turn undead." *Rolls* I tell him the floating suit of armor moves closer to them. The cleric turns undead again and the whole party backs up a bit, no effect. In fact, the party is able to keep distance with this, and should be just fine.
Now the wizard is asking if they should fight or flight, meanwhile the ranger fires a couple shafts at the suit and suprise suprise, they slow and float just outside of the armor itself. The wizard mentions he will be casting detect magic on his turn, but before he has a chance to do that, the barbarian says "screw it" and she charges in to rage pound the floating suit. Big Mistake... she enters right into the cube, and to my suprise fails her fort save.
The spellcasters had used up most their resources on previous battles, so this was actually tough for them. The reason this is my favorite is because it wasn't until the barbarian was in the cube that they figured it out.
My all-time favorite PC death was back in the 1st edition days. We had a party of 6 1st level PCs and we had just spent 2 hours rolling them up and equipping them with gear. The DM tells us we are all setting off on a long journey through rough terrain and after 30 days we get to our jumping off point. At which point the player of PC #4 says, "Uh, guys, I didn't bring along any rations."
He died of starvation. We all died laughing. Poor sod.
Another memorable encounter didn't result in PC death, but was good for a laugh nonetheless. In The Keep on the Borderlands there is a room with a bunch of pools in it. One of the pools is filled with a green, icky substance. The whole party except for one fighter knows in their core it is green slime. The fighter says "Nah, it can't be green slime" and promptly sticks his arm in up to the elbow to feel around for anything in it. Of course it was green slime and said fighter lost half his arm. Much later in the campaign the party had an efreeti bottle and used it to wish for his arm back. The efreeti grudgingly obliged and the missing part of his arm appeared in the air and fell to the ground. The efreeti just smiled as the fighter roared in anger. Too much fun!
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Eberron CS. The 4 players(bout lvl 13-15) were based out of stormreach in Xendrik working for an expedition company that was a rival to the Wayfinder Foundation, called the Wayward Foundation. The owner claimed he was there before the wayfinders.
So they search some giant ruins, get some relics, sell some to an inspired antique collector. They hear plans of a quori monolith built underneath sharn by "possesed" mindflayers.
So with some things to sell and a chance to be heros, they set sail.
They find information, etc, and head on down to the Cogs (below Sharn) and find a workcamp of enslaved gnomes who just completed working on the monolith. They kill the mind flayer overlords and free the gnomes. Now they have a spelljammer ship that was also being built down there.
The "go me-i'm a better hero-must save the world" paladin decided that they both must be destroyed. So the rest of the team, (monk, wizard, and rogue) go to check out the monolith to see how to turn it off or dismantle it. The paladin stays back to protect the gnomes and watch for more bad guys, just in case.
So off they go and off the paladin goes to control the ship flys it straight into the monolith, now remember, this is under a city which is next to a volcano......
Needless to say a major city in Eberron sank into the ground a few feet, a volcano erupted, a monk made his reflex save (and was able to live (the only one)) and the paladin did in fact....save the day (kind of).
According to some of these posts if I make the DM work on adjudicating some rediculous idea I have (just check other posts and you will see it). Or my hairbrained scheme.
My kender often uses smokestick and carries them around to provide concealment and finishes off helpless opponents with a tanglefoot bag and feathers the COOP DA GLUE as it were.
I think you posted in the wrong thread.
Well, the death was fairly mundane, but I thought the poem the character wrote about it was amusing.
He touched the glyph
upon the door.
He failed his save,
A f****** four.
I was DMing four PCs. One dandy elf sorcerer, one human finesse fighter, one human druid and one half-orc barbarian. In the middle of the forest they were attacked by a dire bear. The bear took down the barbarian pretty quick but he stabilized a round or two into the negatives. The druid (and the party’s only source of healing) had cast a regenerate on himself early in the fight. The spell healed him 1 hit point a round for 15 rounds, if I remember correctly. He liked this spell. It saved his life a couple time previously when he was dropped into the negatives but never had to make a stabilize check due to the magical healing.
Anyway, the barbarian was down and the bear hits the druid and drops him into the negatives. The bear then five foot steps into the square that the druid was standing and attacks the fighter. The fighter and sorcerer manage to kill it later in that same round, at which point it falls down onto the prone druid! The druid was alive but in the negatives. He had a couple rounds of regeneration left. Unfortunately he was underneath 8000lbs of bear. Add insult to injury, the only PC strong enough to move the bear carcass was the barbarian and he was unconscious and a fair distance away. The finesse fighter and the dandy sorcerer had no way to bring the barbarian back up in time to save the druid who was suffocating and being crushed (oh so slowly because of the regenerate). We stopped the session there to give the PCs some time to think of solutions but, due to real life issues, were never able to continue to play.
This one probable PC death would have most likely caused a TPK since the whole party failed to prepare properly to go into the forest and after eating all their rations were counting on the druid’s survival skills to keep them fed and on track. Chances are they would have starved to death looking for a way out of the forest…
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I have to include this one only because it's one of the most spectacular deaths I've ever witnessed.
We were all playing 2E characters around 9th level or so, and my bard had a follower named Rudy (whom most of the group utterly loathed). As a part of our adventure we were clearing out a lich-infested keep (at this point I had already experienced two level drains). One section was a chapel in a round tower with a spiral staircase going from the floor all the way to the top of the tower around the inside wall. About half-way up we met up with a Stained Glass Golem.
We at that time had a significant lack of magic capable of taking down the golem and were quickly overwhelmed. Unfortunately this stained glass golem eventually got all of us in a prismatic spray. My bard died a very inglorious death to the damage, but Rudy was far, far luckier.
First he was blinded.
Then he was turned insane.
Then he was poisoned.
Then he was dropped to -6 hit points.
Then he was teleported to another plane of existence.
We still don't know what happened to Rudy.