I've been reading through some archived threads and trolling for interesting ideas for tonight's session and I had a thought.
Too many people get upset or depressed when they die. I lost another character a couple days ago and I felt downright happy by the relative coolness and completion of the character. So this thread is to celebrate a glorious death and tell the story of how your character bit the ultimate bullet. I think that many people will be able fill this thread with great tales.
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After traveling to the Plane of Negative energy to fight the Lich mastermind of our struggles, our party fought through a tower of constructs and undead to reach the Lich's personal chambers. We rode an 'elevator' of raising stone which was the only way into the final chamber.
Gnarack, my half orcish summoner jungle shaman jumps out of the (large) elevator with his creature, Xuktul, a 6 legged tiger with blood eternally pouring from his fur, right into the Lich's readied forcecage spell. As I do little but obstruct the path for my comrades to wade into battle, my companions quickly destroy the Lich's remaining minions and attempt to close for battle. The Lich triggers a trap and destroys a portion of the floor, creating a 10" wide pit.
The party notices that the Lich is immune to all of the spells cast at him thus far and then spots the rod he is holding. I cast "grease" to attempt to disarm the rod and fail. Xuktul begins to attack him and is horribly damaged due to a chill shield and does little damage due to his DR. The Lich casts a spell at the party and also target dispels the Paladin's flying potion with a quickened dispel magic.
Our fighter manages to close and disarms the rod, which falls to the floor. I use Maker's Call with transposition (btw, Dimension Door is Astral travel: important to note for future people in Forcecages) to switch with Xuktul and use my move action to pick up the rod and put it in my pocket. As a free action I taunt the Lich in orcish.
In return for my audacity, I am the target of a Finger of Death. 140 damage to my 99 max hp. I fall dead.
Shortly thereafter, our re-flying paladin manages to smite the Lich doing incredible damage and ending the threat... for 1d10 days at least.
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Anyone else got some epic deaths that made the sacrifice worthwhile?
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In second ed my Ftr/Ma/Thf got to break the staff to save her PC romantic intrest from some sort of uber demon. I did one of those cheesy "I Love you..." as her form was blasted into nothingess. The Paladin had no idea of her feelings he had just been trying to be a good influnce for the "troubled soul" of the party. He tried to get me sainted.
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Prehaps the best character death I ever had was in one of my the first campaigns that I played. It was a bit after the Expanded Psionics Handbook came out and after some back and forth the DM agreed to let me play a psionic character. So I ended up playing a CG Human Wizard/Psion that went on to become a Cerebremancer (A Mystic Theurge style class for arcanist and psionics). I played him as a wantabe Mr. Cool/Lady-Killer that would never be do to crippling self-confidence issues that stemmed from the disfiguring burns that he had recieved as a child and covered most of the upper left half of his body. He tried to hide his scars with magic but his subconcious self-hate keep him from willing allowing an illusion or transmution spell from hiding his appearance, so instead he was a constant drunk and a chain smoker with no social graces to keep people away. It also didn't help that he was a boarder-line pyromanic
Anyway, after a long and rough journey that included such highlights as running a bar, working through a wonder-life style dream world to return a piece of the Regaila of Good, helping a PC (whom he was secretly in love with) to deliver her and another PC's baby in the middle of a seige, serve as best man in their wedding, and helping pull together the fractured nations to prepare for a planar invasion, he went from level one to sixteen.
It was during the invasion that he died. Reality was being torn apart as an corrupted parallel world attempted to force their way into the material plane and spread the taint of their universe. The battle was going poorly for the good people of the world and the moment of truth was at hand. A huge tear had been ripped into fabric of reality and the full force of the parallel world was about to be brought to bear. The party had split in two; one to hold the line and another to protect the council of magi as they work to reinforce the veil between dimensions. Of course my character was there to hold the line, and of course the magi needed just a little more time.
As everyone got ready to take their last stand, he turned to the PC that he was secretly in love with and looked her in the eyes for just a moment and turned to her husband.
"You keep an eye on her, she's a handful." He said.
"Yeah,... I'll do that. Thanks for the laughs." The husband said.
Then he turned to the portal and started walking towards, throwing up all the protective spells/powers he could, turning to look back at the last moment and said "Comic Relief, Exit Stage Left." and stepped into the portal never to be seen again.
But hey, he bought the world the few more seconds it needed.
I couldn't think of a better way to send a well loved PC off.
I forgot the best part. After a quick game of d20 Modern the DM ran another campaign set in the same world, only two hundred years later. The one PC who my character had been secretly in love with had become the leader of her religious order in the intervening time and had him made the Saint of Heroic Sacrifice.
At fifth level the party went the Cathedral/Fortress that the one PC had built on the site of the battle to watch over the weakness in the veil between realities. In the courtyard of the Cathedral was a thirty foot tall statue of my former character with a base that read:
"Life.
Courage.
Goodness.
Sacrifice."
To top it off it was the player of the other PC that came up with the idea and not the DM.
My favorite character of all time. After that I retired him to never be played again because I can't think of any better way to see a character off.
My only problem is that was my first group and they set one mighty high bar for all the rest.
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Despite my best attempts, most of my characters die in the lamest gayest way possible, often to repeated laughs of my fellow party members.
That said, one of the most amazing send offs for a character was something my friend Pat did.
We were playing old school WEG Star Wars d6, and after literally a 2 year campaign fraught with misadventure, pain and various hero-istic acts, everyone had these epic uber characters on par with any NPC that WEG had statted up...guys that make the Emperor, Vader, Luke and Han all go "WTF?"
Enter the scene: Most PC's in a souped up light transport, Pat all alone in his wigged out X-wing. Having earned the enmity of a few different sector Moffs, the Empire had gathered a small fleet and set their snare. The PCs, knowing it was a certain trap (cue Ackbar!) still went into planetary orbit.
Sure enough, the faced an Interdictor Class Cruiser, an ISD, and what appeared to be a large fleet of TIE fighters. When the interdiction field slammed on, the outcome of the battle looked bleak. To further complicate matters, they failed several soak rolls from the ion weapons, and now were essentially dead in the water.
Spiraling out of control, caught in the planetary gravity well, both ships had barely any functioning controls left. The transport had life support, communications and sensors. Pat's X-Wing had communications and, of all things, Hyperdrive. As they worked feverishly on the transport to get main thrusters, hyperdrive and navigation back online, Pat just sat there calmly reading the main rule book. As GM, I kind of thought he had just given up, and was trying to figure out what to play next. That was much more his style. He was about to prove me wrong.
As the Empire maneuvered to take their quarry into the cargo hold of the ISD, the PCs, having used a ridiculous amount of stored up character points and force points staged a few very successful heroic dice rolls and fixed all their major systemic malfunctions. Pat just sat there. As they brought everything back up and prepared to escape, suddenly it dawned on them that, barring a miracle, there was no way for them to rescue Pat. They quickly turned to him and were like "dude, fix your ship!". Pat just sat there.
I informed the PCs that they had but a short time until they were in tractor range, and they had to start figuring out a way to plot their hyperspace navigation. Pat just calmly sat there. I repeatedly warned of the looming Imperial threat, the large capital ships getting closer and closer. Pat just sat there. As I kept mentioning how the Interdictor was filling his view screen, Pat suddenly leaned forward, and asked me in a serious and quiet voice if he could navigate his ship to fly, at hyperspace velocity, straight through the looming Interdictor. I informed him that yes, he could if he rolled well enough, first he would have to bypass the built in safeties, he would have to override the controls, he would have to jettison his R2 (because it would in turn override his piloting to "save" him) and he would have to successfully role his piloting roll.
Pat picked up his trusty d6's, and proceeded to use every saved point and Force point, and then heroically make EVERY SINGLE ROLL.
As the party literally sat there in stunned silence, Pat dropped his R2, piloted the ship, astrogated the star charts, got on the mic and said "Guys, get out of here. I got this." He then proceeded to drive his ship straight through the heart of that Interdictor, cutting off the field and paving the way for the escape by his friends.
From that day forward, whenever Pat said "I got this" we knew he wasn't screwing around. And to this day, its still one of the most single amazing acts of sheer self sacrifice on a players part.
I had a character in my current campaign defeat one of the Soul Riders of Ptolus by getting himself and the soul rider and him put in a trap the soul gem and then having the gem disintegrated (one of the few ways you can kill it). It was a very low key act of self-sacrifice, and the player suggested it as a way to go out with some class. Even the party does not truly know what happened.
This thread contains much win.
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I've always been fond of the steampunk Iron Kingdoms setting by Privateer Press. It's downright lethal due to it's limited magical healing and lack of a revolving door of death. In one of the most memorable games I've had the opportunity to play in, almost the entire party managed to konk off one after the other in epic fashion after a two and a half year campaign.
We'd managed to gain egress to an ancient temple containing the campaign McGuffin when one of the campaign's recurring villains turned up with a horrific force of blighted draconic monstrosities.
The party fighter (an eternally optimistic Midlunder Trencher) glanced back, looked at the rest of us, shrugged and said "There's no way we can stop them."
The entire group paused. There was silence. Here was the heart and soul of the group - the one who repeatedly laughed in the face of danger and lived to tell the tale admitting defeat.
He tightened his helmet strap, checked his rifle, fixed his bayonet, then turned around and started walking calmly backwards into the face of death. His final words were - "You've got half a minute."
He was wrong. On the 6th round of combat, his final blow was a crit impaling the head BBEG.
He lasted one more round before being torn apart.
Hacking our way into the temple's shrine, the artifact was at the bottom of a massive shaft. There was no time to climb down to plant demolition charges and we were all fairly near death so nobody could make the jump. The party Monk looked around, thought for the moment, glanced at the Rogue and quietly declared "I've got your back."
He used his body to shield the fall of the party rogue who was our demolitions expert. The falling damage killed him. The rogue survived the drop with 2 hp left.
The Rogue joined him shortly afterwards as well, manually detonating his demolition charges. His last words were "It's beautiful. Never seen anything quite like it. Alright. Three, Two, One."
As the party's Arcane Mechanik/Paladin/Warcaster, my character was subsequently killed overloading his mechanical prosthetics and steam armor to hold up the temple's collapsing roof. Warcaster power-fields really aren't meant to hold up multiple tons of collapsing obsidian. He managed to hold up the roof just long enough to buy enough time for his companions to escape though. Then his power-field collapsed and his back gave out.
The Party Bard and Sorcerer managed to hobble back to the safety of civilization, the sorcerer dying of his wounds hours later in her arms afterwards (Yay... Poison Con Damage).
The Bard who had been in unrequited love with the Sorcerer, penned the tale of our last Hurrah then was last seen walked out into the desert.
We still talk about this.
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Hmm ... this isn't *my* character death (I generally GM), but it's pretty epic.
The PC's were on a long quest continent-hopping to try and accumulate items of massive power before the evil conqueror's managed it first (abbreviated here clearly). Essentially, we're looking at about 2 years worth of adventuring to get to this point in the story I'm about to describe.
The PC's had made their way into the depths of this defensive labyrinth that was designed to forever contain one of the artifacts they were searching for. They made it to the lowest level and came face to face with a Baalor that was tasked with forever guarding this item until it was defeated. Being a Baalor, it created a portal to the abyss and had a way to open it for a time (rather than just a straight up gate - it had time to kill, so it basically crafted a magical item of it's own to aid in it's task). Anyway, the battle is going very dangerously, with threats of impending death on all sides by the PC's, and finally one of them managed a fatal wound on the Baalor (or at least a plane-banishing wound). So as it is dieing, it opens the gate ... and leaves it open.
The final level of the labyrinth was huge - like large enough to hold a small pyramid (atop on a pedastal rested the artifact), and had still maybe 200' on all sides, and a ceiling that was at least 400' high. The portal was on the far side of the pyramid, and the combat took place all right there near the pyramid. So 200' away this portal is opened and activated as the Baalor is disappearing ... and demons start to pour through the opening. Hordlings if I remember right - just ... hundreds of them start pouring out of the opened portal and start streaking towards the PC's as fast as they can.
The PC's are panicked - they rush up the pyramid to get the artifact, and then start running like crazy back up the way they came - I mean, they're hauling for everything they're worth (knowing that nothing less than a small army of demons had just been let loose upon them).
They get to a spot close to the opening and they begin to plan and argue about what should be done. They've all been playing together for a long time, and their adventures together have given them strong connections to each other, but none of them had any good plans for how to stop THAT many demons. The corridor they took leading to where they had stopped to discuss, however, was about a 5' wide corridor and had a run of some 400' of pathway to that spot. While everyone is arguing, the bladesinger that was there just fades into the background, and after a while everyone asks, "Hey ... where is Galevon?" At which point, I inform them that Galevon is missing ... but that they can hear faint foot steps fading away - already far down the corridor. (the player had passed me a paper while the others were playing out their strategy discussions in character - his paper said something to the effect of "walk away slowly and unnoticed, and just head down into the corridor - once there, cast up all of my defensive and offensive spells, and wait." I was stunned, but decided to not show it and just nodded nonchalantly.)
By this point the PC's were trying to figure out a way to hold off the demon horde or find a way to generate enough of a lasting defense that they *might* be able to stop the entire horde from moving past that spot where they were. They finally got to the point of trying to decide who should take the point and so they wanted everyone's say - at which point, when they wanted Galevon's opinion, he was not there to weigh in.
The looks of shock and realization that went around the table were SO completely worth the wait. Galevon had taken the decision out of everyone's hands and was going down to hold off the hordlings in a narrow choke-point.
System-wise, were were using GURPS, and all things layered up, there *was* no one that could get the defenisve boons he could manage, especially on the passive side (PD was like an auto-defense vs. an attempted one), so he was clearly *the* most likely to handle overwhelming odds ... even so, it was overwhelming odds -he'd clearly just made a suicide play to buy the others some time.
The PC's had more in-character dialogue about moving to save him, about joining him, about continuing the quest, etc. Ultimately, it was the paladin that reminded them to not waste his effort and that their goal was more important - that Galevon knew that as well, and it was why he chose as he did. The character said this with tears in her eyes, but respected his choice.
In the end, the PC's moved forward and when they told the keepers of the artifact that they had successfully retrieved it, but that hordlings were coming up and they did not know how long they would be kept at bay, they collapsed the primary tunnel system that opened into the labyrinth.
We didn't play out his combat down there, but it went without saying that it was an epic confrontation with an unavoidable ending. It was probably the best character death we'd had in-game. Most of us still talk about his sacrifice and the way it played out.
I'm happy to say that most of my characters are still alive.....but I can think of one awesome character death that sticks with me.
Campaign using a homebrewed system set in Tolken's Middle Earth during the first age (ie the Silmarillians). I had been playing this character for quite a while, a whole bunch of stuff had happened. I could fill a thread with the stories.
Well one of the other characters picked up a card that was enchanted to kill whoever picked it up (no save either....). As he was being striken I prayed for divine intervention (I was a paladin among other things).
I was given the choice: My life or his life. It took a lot of thought, but eventually I chose for him to live. The character had inadvertantly made some bad choices out of grief and anger, and had very involunterily (they had to tie me up with ropes) watched on as her husband and his people committed atrocities on their own kind. This had come to haunt her deeply and it was time to let one young and unstained continue the fight.
It was a moment of rp that I will remember forever. That game and character stands out as among the best I've ever gotten to play in.
I'd like to keep this thread alive, so I'll share the story of a friend of mine known in our gaming circles as "Don the Dieing One" for good reason.
The party was facing a spell caster who was on a platform over lava. He and the other ranged attackers were trading blows furiously, but poor Don's character was a melee combatant.
So eventually he got tired of not being able to help and threw his sword at the enemy. It feel short.
Not wanting to lose his sword, Don jumped in afterwards. With predictable results.
One of the coolest deaths I can recall didn't come from a tabletop game, it came from a MUD (multiuser dungeon) named Gemstone III. Character levels were (seemingly) unlimited in that game, and there were some legendary characters that were level 120+ compared to my wimpy little level 12 character. Anyway, the game would occasionally have GM-run invasions of the major city and during one such invasion by incredibly powerful giants the most powerful caster in the world singlehandedly fought off the invasion at a geographical choke point outside the city while other (lesser) heroes gathered and prepared inside the city. Just as the greater force of heroes arrived to help him, he finally was overwhelmed and fell. It was one of the most epic scenes I can recall.
And yeah, I was summarily dispatched by the invaders. Just something about a level 12 character getting run over by level 80 giants or somesuch. *grin*
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there is much win here.
After a long-running homebrew game, set in Eberron, the party consists of:
Planar-Hopping Conjurer with a Spaceship and Personal TIme Machine (more on this later)
Kineticist of Doom.
Gnome Cleric-Healer
Half-Orc Melee Brute
and
Elf Druid/Monk (shapeshifter variant)/Psionic Monk PrC.
We're all relatively high level, somewhere in the low teens, and the Monk gets Mind-Seeded by a high level Telepath. A LN Monk goes NE Psion for about 4 or 5 levels, but the personality manages to keep itself in check.
Turns out, the NPC Telepath was looking for the same Magic Power Item we were, and her dying was a PLAN to eventually get her hands on it. At the last encounter, we manage to kill the guardian and grab the Mcguffin. That's when the Psion Personality struck.
Going Ethereal and popping some other buffs (as well as the normal, fight the end boss in our group, spells and powers), she almost one-shotted my Conjurer. Unfortunately for her, she failed.
Unfortunately for us, noone else could really do anything to her. We were at a stand-off for a few minutes before I remembered I hadn't used my Belt of Battle yet that day.
Burning all of the charges, I managed to pull out, fuel, and activate my Personal Time Machine (basically, a Persistent Time Stop for you and 10' around you...fed by Psionic Items as fuel).
Wizard + Known Enemy (we had adventured side-by-side for 15-16 levels) + a day to prepare = Dead Known Enemy.
A fantastic end to a great game, and when the DM and Monk revealed the plan, we all had the same response: "D'oh!"
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Best death I've ever seen. I was DMing. The party was trying to protect a group of refugees fleeing from an oncoming evil army. The wounded, sick, ill and children kept falling behind to the extent it became obvious they couldn't stay in front of the bad guys forever, forcing tough choices on the PCs. They found a choke point, a road through the forest the army had to pass through. The paladin pulled his sword, planted his feet, and said: "Here I stand, they will not pass while I still breathe." The others in the group wanted to stay with him and all go down together, but he convinced them they were needed to escort the refugees to safety, so they loaded him up with all their healing potions and any other relevant expendables, and reluctantly left him.
The vanguard of the evil army was worg-riding goblins, and he mowed them down like grain in a field. Next came a detachment of orcs and orogs. Same result. Then I threw some ogres at him, and he finally started breathing heavy, but drove them off. Next came a hill giant, and he killed it while taking significant wounds. After that, common troops refused to approach him. One of the army commanders, an evil half-orc barbarian, then came at him with a few lieutenants in support. This is where I thought he would die, but after a vicious battle, with all expendables gone and down into the teens in hit points, the paladin emerged victorious.
By this point, I ruled that his god had personally noticed his valor and I healed him and gave him several free buffs before sending the army commander, a lich, and his personal bodyguard of undead giants at him. The paladin eventually went down to the lich's spellpower, but not before dismembering the bodyguards and getting in a single powerful hit on the lich himself.
The army was forced to pause while the lich healed and refreshed his spells, and it took a permanent morale hit from the carnage this one hero had caused to their army, including seeing their "god" seriously wounded. The refugees escaped, and the rest of the PCs came back at the head of an army and opened a huge can of whup-ass on the lich and his minions, using the paladin's name as a rallying cry.
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I'm not a regular poster, but I like this thread and have a story that needs to be told.
This one is a TPK that was pretty epic.
We were playing City of the Spider Queen and coming towards the end of the module. For those of you not familiar with it, it is Forgotten Realms based and pretty much a long trek through the Underdark. I was the DM although I had just taken over for this module and had a character that the party insited on accompanying them--even if it would be a DMPC.
The party was fairly high level, somewhere in the teens and consisted of an Aasimar paladin of Kelemvor (with dire lion mount) that was the default leader, a Tiefling rogue (my DMPC) and foil to the paladin, a half elven archer ranger that was a living gatling gun, a bear warrior that was a backup character for a human monk of Ilmater that had been previously abducted by demons, and a gnome air elemental savant sorcerer that dubbed his lightning bolts 'shraks' and used them on pretty much everything.
The party had finally made it to the Underdark city where the evil undead army that would destroy the world would be unleashed. The drow 9all but the ones raising the army) had abandoned the city but it had been taken over by all sorts of monstrous humanoids, giants, and goblinoids. It was a war zone with bands of monsters roaming the streets causing whatever havoc they could.
The monsters were led by a half-fiend fire giant blackguard residing in the city arena complete with Balor advisor. As expected, the party went straight for him and demanded an audience. And, again, as expected the result of the audience was combat in the arena between the blackguard and paladin. If the paladin one, the party went unmolested to the temple of the drow priestesses raising the undead army. If the blackguard one, then the rest of the pary would be enslaved. Of course it was to the death and of course there would be NO outside interference. The rest of the party would watch from the VIP boxe seats with the balor and elite ogre guard. Mounts were allowed and the blackguard countered the paladin's dire lion with a fiendish dire elephant.
It was at this moment that the paladin gave the rogue 'the nod'. 'The nod' meant 'I know your not going to listen and do something that I'm going to find questionable so I'm just going to look away and I never want to hear about it'. We knew going in that it might go bad but if we wern't coming out, none of the bad guys were either. The rogue slipped off (a convenient way to get the DMPC out of the real action) to bar all the doors going into the arena and rig the portcullis that the blackguard would be coming out of when the fight began.
The balor announced for the battle to begin and good and evil charge. The blackguard and his mount are surprised when the portcullis come down on them, but it does very little to slow them. When the two clash, the paladin is still standing but his mount isn't so lucky.
The gnome air elemental savant is the first to crack (I knew one of them would). it's already looking bad for the paladin since he's now on foot and the blackguard is still mounted. There is a moment of indecision, a look at the balor, and then, "F**k it, SHRAK". Followed shortly after by an Implosion cast by the balor. No more gnome.
All hell breaks loose at this point. The lightning bolt did very little to the blackguard and his mount, but the volley of arrows from the archer that followed took the elephant down. The rogue returned and provided protection from the elite ogres as best he could so the archer continued to decimate the crowd of monsters in the stands watching the fight. The bear warrior quaffed a fly potion (love those potion belts), raged, shifted to bear form, and launched himself at the balor. Not the best of tactics, to grab a balor, but remember the player's other character was a monk of Ilmater--god of suffering.
The battle on the arena floor raged on and the paladin was getting his licks in but taking a beating. The archer managed to eliminate the mooks in the stands but a rogue, even a high level one, isn't meant to defend against several leveled ogres. Awesome Blow is a bad feat to be on the recieving end of, especially off the upper deck of an arena built for large and huge humanoids. The rogue fell to his death in front of the paladin. The paladin, saddened and enraged, burned a smite and cut the blackguard for decent damage. The bear warrior, smartly I might add, focused on disarming the balor of his vorpal sword and succeeded but managed to get entangled in the balor's whip.
Without the rogue running interference, the archer was overwhelmed by the remnants of the elite guard. Even a gatling gun runs out of ammo, and a short sword doesn't really match up to great clubs. The paladin finally kills the blackguard, but he's low on hp's (in the teens) and out of resources. The bear warrior is trapped and will soon die, in single digit hp's. The balor's grapple check is just too much.
I should mention here that the previous DM was the paladin's player and the adventure was a redemption of his character after he'd been the victim of a cursed ring that caused him to commit genocide of the elven race. He had been just recently atoned for his acts.
And he was failing again
The undead army would succeed
His closest friend, the monk, would be tortured for eternity
The rest of his friends, even the bear warrior that he barely knew, were dead or dying around him.
There was nothing he could do, no matter how much he wanted to. He was spent, there was nothing left.
Except the vorpal sword at his feat that he picks up and hurls in frustration at the demon.
Natural 20.
But.....we all know what happens to balor's when they are killed.
We went on to finish the campaign. I did a pretty big deus ex machina to bring the party back (Hey, it was the realms. Not like it never happens.) In hindsight though, I should have had the blast of light destroy the entire city, temple and all.
Nat 20 with perfect timing... always epic!
Not a Pathfinder game, but I need somewhere to put it!
Last night, I was playing a game of Dark Heresy. I was playing a Psyker who felt he was an abomination and wanted to die so that either he was erased from history, no longer a blight on his family and God-Emperor's name, or in such a blaze of glorious service to the holy Emperor that his stigma would be washed away. Well, last night he managed to accomplish both at once.
Spoilered for anybody who might play the Haarlocke Trilogy.
Since only the Guardsman survived, and he knew of my character's desire, he didn't tell of his part, so he was forgotten, but he was able to go out literally in a blaze of glorious service.
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In a recent Weird War 2 game I finally had a character death worth talking about.
Our squad had been sent into occupied France to retrieve a Jewish occultist before he could be captured by the Nazis. We finally managed to locate him and load him, along with some of his books and the golem he had been working on, into the truck when we heard the roar of engines. Just as we pulled away a jeep and a half-track turned the corner of the street and started pursuing us. My character, usually referred to only as 'The Sarge', was in the back of the truck with some of the other troopers. After a few rounds of ineffectual shooting at the jeep's driver by the other soldiers Sarge decided to show them how it was done and popped the driver's head like a melon. The commander sitting next to him managed to grab the wheel in time to avoid a crash but they were out of the chase. The half-track was closing and firing with the heavy machine gun mounted on it's top and there was very little we could do about it, as the armor was too thick. After a couple of poor grenade throws and popping the front tires the vehicle still wasn't slowing down, so Sarge decided to do the Sargiest thing he could. He gathered up his companions grenades and his knife, and jumped. He landed on the front of the half-track and began doing his best to climb up the front of the vehicle. The truck carrying the rest of the party turned down a side-street but skidded into a wall (no one had Driving). Meanwhile the half-track kept going. The driver slammed on the brakes to try to throw Sarge off, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. The machine gunner kept firing at him, but couldn't hit him due to the angle. Sarge climbed up the front of the half-track, using the blazing hot machine gun barrel as a handhold without a second thought, and looked into the back of the half-track. Sitting there in front of him was an entire squad of SS soldiers. Sarge merely shrugged and tossed a grenade into their midst. The SS had a few seconds to try to grab the grenade and toss it out, but weren't fast enough. Sarge was blown off the back of the half-track and into a pile of rubble, but he still wasn't down! He stood up just as the driver was exiting his vehicle, the only other survivor. Sarge tried a quick draw but couldn't quite do it in his condition. The driver already had his gun in hand and it only took one shot to finish Sarge off.
His sacrifice allowed the rest of party the time they needed to recover from their crash and escape. He was posthumously promoted to master sargeant and recieved a citation for meritorious service.
I usually run, but I'll share some shining moments. I was introducing my old group to Star Wars SAGA edition on a trip home. I made up characters for each of them, set in a Knights of the Old Republic game during the Mandalorian Wars. There were several Jedis (including one who was waiting to betray the party to the Mandalorian Sith Lord), a scout, an assassin droid, and a republican rocket jumper sergeant, complete with a squad of troopers, all assigned to capture or destroy a secret installation (built by the Rakatans and used as a Dark-Side powered superweapon).
After fighting their way to the interior of the installation, where the BBEG waited (complete with Mandalorian Super Commandos as back up), the bad guy proceeded to slice her way through the party. Since it was a one-shot game, I wanted to make the death toll as high as possible. The BBEG was using the deaths of the group to power the superweapon to destroy the republic (and mandalorian) fleet battling in orbit).
The lowly sergeant rocket jumper, seeing that the Jedis were seriously outclassed and outgunned, used his force points and destiny points to throw himself at the control console, and to blow it up and take the BBEG with him. Marvelous.
A later SW Saga game where everyone was clone troopers (for my friend's son's first campaign), left the explosives expert surrounded by bad guys that were hammering the rest of the party, a squad of purpose-built melee-brawling Geonosians. I told the player he was crazy, since they were obviously a group of melee monsters. He looked around him, trying to draw as much attention as possible, and to get as many people in the blast radius, after getting the unconscious leader of his squad to safety, and then set off his explosives. All of them. Glorious.
As a GM, I usually reward heroic sacrifice with bonuses on the next character. That clone explosives expert was the very definition.
It was a SWSE campaign, we were level 4. I was Trik'tel Gladius, a Kel Doran Jedi specializing in the lightsaber, my friend Matt was Ga'wain, a Human Sith all about the Force powers. Only he doesn't know he treads the darkside since his master, the imprinted mind on a holocron, never told him he is a Sith. The campaign takes place between part 2 and 3 of Dawn of Defiance.
Our characters got along very well, since I had been running half my life from the Empire and finally had discovered a fellow Jedi, and Ga'wain had been searching for Jedi's himself because he knew only their power could overcome Lord Vader. We really were close and had saved each others lives on numerous occasions. But I had begun to see violent tendencies in Ga'wain, and, just prior to last night, I saw him use force lightening. I let it pass, knowing my companion was tredding the dark side. I decided to see if there was a moment I could talk to him, but because of events, we were too busy to have a sit-down. Eventually we did what we had to, captured a 16 year old girl who sold her parents out to the Empire. After the NPC interaction, everyone but myself, Matt, and the GM went home. Everyone was hurt, Matt the lowest at about 6 hp. Matt decided to question the girl to discover what she knew. When she refused to give up anything, Ga'wain crushed her throat. I immediately used Force Sever, barely making the lowest DC. Matt did not know I had the power though. The following discussion took place, and a lot of it refersto past events:
Ga'wain: (looking at me) What was that? Why have you attacked me?
Gladius: You are treading the dark path, I must do what I can to save you!
Ga'wain: Save me! What have I done that is so wrong?
Gladius: You killed our prisoner. She was defenseless and in our power. All you did was murder!
Ga'wain: Not murder, justice. She attacked us, wanted to kill us. We had no choice!
Gladius: Death is not the answer. It is a last resort. There was no reason to kill her.
Ga'wain: There was every reason to kill her. She deserved death. That is justice.
Gladius: That is not justice! That is revenge! You talk as one who follows the dark side!
Ga'wain: So what if it is revenge? Do you expect me to spare those who have done wrong?
Gladius: No, I expect you to do what is right! Bloodshed is not a solution, it only begets further violence.
Ga'wain: You, you toting about peace! You are the first to draw a weapon, to attack.
Gladius: I do what I must to protect those that I care for.
Ga'wain: Yet what of that time you killed that defenseless soldier?
Gladius: Yes, I made a mistake, and I have atoned for it. And I pay for it every day, and lament every death that I have caused.
Ga'wain: Yes, right. You lament. And I do something about the injustice in this galaxy. And is it not I who tries to talk our way past difficult situations while all you do is wave your blade?
Gladius: I have been forced to fight, to fight all my life. I was abandoned at 12, alone on a world that feared and hated me. Do you know what it is like to live a life in constant fear?
Ga'wain: No, but I do know of loss. I watched my wife and children murdered by the Empire, all because of the Jedi on my world who refused to fight. I must stop the Empire for what it has done.
Gladius: That is not right, that is revenge! You let your emotions run rampart! You are giving yourself up for what, quick and easy power?
Ga'wain: Yes power, the power to confront the Empire.
Gladius: That is the same power Darth Vader uses. It is the same lines of reasoning Skywalker fell, the same need for control, for revenge, for power that made the Empire what it is.
Ga'wain: Yes, in control.
Gladius: A Jedi would never uses their powers for these reasons.
Ga'wain: The Jedi are dead! All of them dead. Their vaulted values of logic and reason over passion is what has caused them to fall!
Gladius: The Jedi are the reason this galaxy was safeguarded for so long!
Ga'wain: The Jedi are fools! It was this reason they were doomed to failure. It is not knowledge but ignoracne they had!
Gladius: Not ignorance but balance.
Ga'wain: No, ignorance. Ignorance of true power.
Gladius: How can you act this way? How can you believe this? You are a focus for the Force. You are to maintaine the balance, be a safeguard for life.
Ga'wain: And that is what I shall do. I shall save lives...
Ga'wain: What will you do if I keep to this path.
Gladius: What I must.
Ga'wain: And what would that be?
Gladius: I would stop you. And if need be...kill you.
Ga'wain: You will kill an ally and friend?
Gladius: To protect those I love, as well as themselves. Let me ask you, what would do once Vader and the Emperor is dead?
Ga'wain: Live a peaceful life and die free.
Gladius: Do you believe that?
Ga'wain: I must.
After a pregnant pause.
Gladius: We don't have a choice.
Ga'wain: No we don't.
With that, Ga'wain force gripped me and began to kill me..
Ga'wain: I'm sorry.
Gladius: You seal your own fate. With my death you complete your fall and extinguish the last hope we had for salvation. Yourself.
Ga'wain: You were noble, and you were a friend. Now, no more.
And with that, he crushed the life from my body.
Immediately, he felt the tendrels of a prescence in his mind, one full of malevolence, hatred and lust, as a powerful force found him and laughed with tainted glee.
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Great story, dood.
I am going to link to an old thread where I described my character and the circumstances surround his death. The actual combat between me and the Paladin player occurred after the final game session, the next day when he asked if I had my character sheet on me. Mutual death was probably the best outcome for the story, though was definetely not a good thing for the game world.
before i found this thread, i posted my best rp deaths @ "The RPG Character Mortuary". just google that, and it'll take you right there.
and there are some dosies!