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What is your memorable death you have witnessed?
Mine is:
I was controlling a friends character, a female Human Barbarian with a great sword. She was a bit of a stupid person, even for a (stereotype) Barbarian. She saw a goblin run into a house and close the door. So she decided to do a running kick to open the door (as was her style), but when she made the attack to hit the door, I rolled her a natural 1! Then to check to see if the fumble was confirmed I rolled another natural 1! Talk about bad luck.
So I pulled a Fumble card, it said "The attack hits you instead and is a critical threat, roll to confirm". So I rolled to see if it was a critical and guess what...Natural 20! Now this was just terrible luck, but I couldn't help but laugh, neither could the other players and GM. I pulled a Critical card, it said "The attack does triple damage", by this time my mouth was hung open and my jaw hurt from all the laughing. I rolled the damage to see how much it would hurt and it just happened to deal maximum damage, which meant more than her Hit Points minus included!
Death by door, even today we can't stop laughing about that. What makes it even more amusing is that the door was not even locked! Now if we ever come to a door, we make sure to check the door is unlocked!
What is your memorable death you have witnessed?
Mine is:
...Death by door...
That's one of reason's I don't like fumbles; hilarious story, heroic fantasy not so much. Speaking of not very heroic....
One of the more amusing deaths I witnessed, took place in a large city. We were investigating a cult and our investigation lead to The Tower of Doom™. There were some locals outside that warned us not to tread in The Tower of Doom™ lest we encounter The Unspeakable Horror™ that dwelt within.
One of our stalwart band told the assembled peasants not to fear for we were brave adventurers. Again the locals warned us that only death would be found at the hands of The Unspeakable Horror™ in the The Tower of Doom™. Again our brave companion said there was nothing to fear for we were strong adventurers. And again the townsfolk warned him the The Unspeakable Horror™ will kill him.
Our friend, a bit of braggart perhaps, even suggested a small wager.
That matter settled. We then confidently entered The Tower of Doom™. Upon entering our brave friend, showing his cat-like reflexes, jumped into battle and missed the foe completely. At which point The Unspeakable Horror™ proceeded to critically hit our good friend, to the point his body was nearly cleaved in twain.
We went on to defeat our adversary, only to find our companion was beyond hope and already dead. I quickly removed the poor lout's purse, opened the door, threw the purse in street and shouted "You win. You were right. He died."
The Tower of Doom™ nearly claimed the entire party. We survived, but only by jumping off the top of the tower while screaming at the mage to cast feather fall. Not exactly the stuff of epic fantasy.
Wow, that was hilarious! I bet those locals became rich, quick thinking about the purse too!
Ok in this campaign setting we were trying to win over this queen's favor so that we could gain her military support to stop an invasion. Problem was the queen was not well liked by many of the nobles. Some of the more powerful nobles got together and hired a group of assassins which included a Rouge Sniper (with a crossbow that used alchemist bombs to increase the range and damage of the bolt or something the dm never explicated), an alchemist, a barbarian, a wizard, and the leader who was a shadow dancer. We succeeded in defending the queen from the first attempt (I stood at her flank while invisible while the rest of the party was checking out this large tower with a good view to snipe her from). Our own barbarian decided to go on ahead by himself and ended up getting captured while I got shot by 2 crossbow bolts meant for the queen, but hit my invisible character instead.
We spend the next two hours trying to get our barbarian back which ended in us agreeing to help the assassins kill the queen. As a precaution they strap our barbarian friend with a ton of alchemists fire and acid flasks (which our DM refused to have tampered with in any way or they would detonate).
We agreed to rendezvous in a bar that was in decent range of the castle balcony where the queen was making an appearance. I went early bought the bar from the owner and knocked down one of the walls into the next room where me and the barbarian were waiting (rest of the party was guarding the queen). I was a sorcerer and waited until I heard the assassins come up the stairs. Then when I heard them I casted silent image to make a wall appear (where I had broken one down) separating the two rooms. The assassins come up and the barbarian charges into the next room after we hear them finish setting up.
If you are still reading this is the good part. The barbarian hits the wizard and then it is my turn. I maximize and quicken a fireball and shoot it into the room. The barbarian's bombs go off with the fireball killing everyone except the shadowdancer who is then picked off by our ranger who was on the roof. Everyone was in on this plan except the barbarian who was really angry afterwards (so was the DM).
Great use for illusions and meta-magic feats. Not to mention it made the Barbarian seem worth having in the group!
So..
We figured out that the next step was this bell tower joint.. so we went exploring it.
Setup? Arcane Duelist bard, a paladin, a ranger, a cleric, and a sword/board fighter.
We go in and easily dispatch the first minion before setting our sights on the top of the tower- and the long-enough-to-be-extremely annoying stair case. One guy gets spider climbed, another flies, the rest of us run..
Flying guy gets seen.. combat ensues while most of the party is trying to ascent the tower. Someone gets away, and alerts.. something.. to our presence. Flying guy (cleric) goes after the runner and more combat ensues.. the rest of the group reaches the top just in time to see.. something.. basically one shot the cleric. (maybe not a "one attack roll" one shot but I'm fairly sure it was a "one attack routine" one shot).
Now we're not sure what did it, or where whatever it is- is.. all we see is a bloody, bleeding, dying cleric slowly floating away on the wind. Literally.
A mass retreat ensues whereon the fighter and the bard (me) decide that as the thingie chases the other two (ranger and paladin) that we'll drop the bell on its head.
We drop the bell, but it misses the Big Bad and.. well, pretty much nails the ranger dead on the head and takes out most of the stairs as well. Big bad smokes the Paladin and lights his mount- who he's tied to- on fire. Unconscious paladin becomes barbeque halfling with a slight canine aftertaste.
The fighter grabs me (literally) and Spiderclimbs he and I down the outside of the bell tower. Thanks to two Vanish spells, we make it within 15 feet or so of the ground when my spell wears off. His still has 1 round left.
I jump off only to get splattered by Big Bad. Fighter runs off so as not to become the 5th and final casualty.
Big Bad: Three. Bell Tower: One.
Note: If you know what and where this is from please do not say so in the thread. I sanitized it as best as possible to prevent possible spoilers while still getting the point across.
The end result:
The New Heroes, made up of aforementioned Fighter and a resurrected Cleric who are accompanied by a wizard, a rogue, and witch, with whom they continue their journey..
-S
In the first game I played one of our characters was a Gnomish Necromancer called the UnGnome. He had a skull painted on his face and wore black robes. Well we were in a dungeon and we hadn't met him yet. We had found a storeroom in one of the basements. I (a ranger) investigated with my wolf companion, looking for anything useful while everyone else looked around outside for stuff.
Suddenly, a barrel of fish explodes and all we hear is our friend go, "I AM THE UNGNOME!" My character screams, "What the f***!" and immediately pulls his bow and nocks an arrow. We get things settled, apparently this is not where they barrel was supposed to go. anyway, we go on our way. We come to a trap with 5 levers controlling pillars in a pool of lava. We're supposed to find the combination of lever pulls to get us across the pit of lava to another lever which we thought would level them out enough for us to pass.
Well we can't figure it out so we get a plan. Each lever moves 2 pillars, so we can get someone to jump from pillar to pillar while it's moving and hopefully not die. The UnGnome says he can mage hand the lever once he gets to the last one and level them out. So we get the plan in motion, he gets to the last one and pulls the lever, which drops every pillar into the lava. He turns around and waves at us as his first character dies with only 30 mins of game time. The pillars did raise back up and even out for us though.
Good stuff all around.
I started up a campaign that had only reached about session two. The party consisted of:
1) A heally half-orc witch
2) A generic human sword and board fighter
3) A tiefling ranger
The heroes were looking to clear a mine of kobolds but feared they weren't strong enough, so they decided to seek help. Eventually, the barkeep told them of a frightening fellow named Morthos who hangs out in the graveyard who will take any mission for cash. They were told that he was very good at mercenary work, but to watch their backs around him.
Arriving at the graveyard, the group found a figure in pitch black plate armor kneeling by a grave and examining the earth around it. Suddenly he turned his helmeted head at the party. In a raspy, half dead growl he proclaimed-
"Who cometh?"
"We are but a party of adventurers. Are you Morthos? We would pay you a good share of gold for your help."
"It is I, Morthos, lord of death and spells!" he proclaimed gutterally.
"What's up with your voice?" Asked the foolish tiefling, giggling.
Staring into the tiefling's eyes, Morthos grew irate. This was the part where I as the DM didn't want to go nuts but felt like the group's actions warranted it (through the eyes of Morthos of course). Morthos drew his blade and aimed it threateningly at the tiefling ranger.
"I will not be mocked by one as pathetic as you. Take a knee, fool."
The tiefling kept giggling as every other character begged for his cooperation. Finally, Morthos knocked him prone.
"Down, all of you!" He proclaimed. "Take a knee!" The Witch and the Fighter obeyed as the ranger lay on the floor. "For this indignity you will all be repaid. Beg for your lives. Beg and cower, and I will doeth unto ye horrible deeds of the flesh that cannot be done. Then and only then will I allow you to resume what you will never again call life!"
Under threat of rape and/or torture, the characters decided to fight. Quickly, a small army (5/6/7) ghouls and zombies emerged from the ground. First, the prone ranger was eviscerated by a couple of ghouls. The fighter shot with his bow against impossible odds for a couple of turns. The stubborn half-orc witch, frail as she was, didn't move. She just kept healing the fighter. Finally the fighter told the witch to run and did so himself. The fighter was caught by an attack of opportunity and was slain. The witch, only decided to flee when it was too late, was also destroyed as she tried to sleep.
They did eventually kill him with new characters, but the very mention of Lord Morthos has become legendary around my circles.
Note: If you know what and where this is from please do not say so in the thread. I sanitized it as best as possible to prevent possible spoilers while still getting the point across.
It's The Tower of Doom™. (likewise sanitized for your protection.)
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I have so far only encountered one PC death in Pathfinder, so I guess that makes it my most memorable.
It involved a double scorching ray against a level 3 fighter, rolling above-average damage on the 8d6.
Reye is still mourned among the regulars at my local PFS games. (Irony in the name though, don't you think?)
Playing return to the Tomb of Horrors, we started high levels and one player created a Mystic Theurge that he spent a week making, and that came to somewhere between 6-10 pages.
In the first encounter we realize the highest perception bonus in the party is +9, so we do not notice the Vampire rogue sneak into our camp, and surprise round sneak attack/coup de gras the sleeping Theurge. The Theurge somehow rolled the necessary nat 20 to survive the attack, though he was at one hp. The vampire then went first with a initiative of 30, killing the Theurge.
One week's work, 10 pages of character, died in the first attack, of the first round, of the first encounter.
However, because he survived the surprise round attack, the Vampire wasn't able to coup de gras another party member, before we woke up, so that's something...
Yes, thanks for killing off Adina, Faelar....
You may have found it funny, but I actually liked her! It was a sad day for me when I found out you killed her (which you have a habit of doing to all of my characters, so I panic whenever I can't make the session, in fear of my characters life being wiped out).
She can stupidly start on Hell Knight's, hack through two or three of them alone (were we level 3? I forget), but when it comes to doors and guards, she fails completely.
I still love the concept I had for her; "Standing tall, this dark haired and gorgeous woman is happy, positive and confident. She moves with grace but always carries her Great Sword over her shoulder wherever she goes. She may be thin, pretty and innocent, but she's barbaric at heart and as strong as an oxe!"
So strong.....she killed herself with her own kick. She's kicking herself now.......
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I DMed a spectacular player death a few months ago.
One character (a somewhat powergamed summoner with 7 Int and 7 Wis) had picked up a variant Deck of Many Things off a defeated foe, which had fewer cards, less chance of death, and disappeared after 10 draws. He somehow managed to draw all the good cards.
The summoner spent the next couple levels looking for another deck, because his character had an addictive personality (I give the guy credit for roleplaying his character through what he knew was a terrible idea). He finally found a REAL Deck of Many Things.
As a DM, I generally like to go by RAW, but I think it's silly to say that it's only possible for one character to draw 1-3 cards. It's an artifact, after all. So I let him draw as many cards as he wanted.
So he kept drawing.
By this point he'd made the party cleric (LG) so frustrated and angry that the cleric just about lost it. He wanted to help the summoner kick the addiction and show him that he was making a dumb decision, so he kept saying, "Fine. Draw another one, I'm not going to heal you."
Eventually, the summoner got frustrated with the cleric, and yelled, "Okay! I draw them all."
Gambling kills, y'all.
How 1d3+str modx3 nonlethal would ever kill someone is beyond me. A level 1 barbarian with 7 con and 18 str, maybe. 10 hit points. 3d3+12. That 3d3 has to deal 3 threes to get me to -1. I'm just saying, that's absurd.
Our most memorable death is when the monk pissed off a wizard by calling him repeated names. The wizard then lightning bolted him to shut him up.
The monk made his reflex save and had evasion... but his brother, a witch, behind him, did not and did not. Poof.
I've never seen a Charisma 8 character so thoroughly disliked both by the enemies and the party.
Eventually, the summoner got frustrated with the cleric, and yelled, "Okay! I draw them all."Gambling kills, y'all.
I actually did this myself, I drew 22 cards from a deck of many things on a level 2 Dwarven fighter in my very first DnD campaign, (we reshuffled after each draw so it wasn't just me picking every single card and getting all the good & bad at once) It turned out with me suddenly reaching level 14 overnight, killing the specters of death that were sent after me, & angering a minor minotaur diety, as well as coming to own a small fort in the middle of the cavern we were in. The rest of the party were level 2 so they were a bit ticked at my sudden rise to (relative) godhood, and more so when the minor diety led an assault on my fortress. Well that particular assault ended with my character being slaughtered over his own throne as a ritual sacrifice to the minotaur demigod. Luckily though, the rest of the party escaped through a secret backdoor after the assault, and most of the townspeople who were trapped down there in the cave with us followed suit.
Pretty memorable for a first character if I do say so haha, after that, I never touched the Deck of Many Things again as a character (I ended up back in that campaign as a Drow Binder, which was fun for the brief run in the underdark that took place afterwords). Since then I've run a couple campaigns myself, and had alot of fun when it came time to put a Deck of Many Things in the path of my players =D
How 1d3+str modx3 nonlethal would ever kill someone is beyond me. A level 1 barbarian with 7 con and 18 str, maybe. 10 hit points. 3d3+12. That 3d3 has to deal 3 threes to get me to -1. I'm just saying, that's absurd.
I didn't know any of this went on until it happened, but doesn't that mean my character should have in fact taken Non-Lethal damage (being a kick and all)?
Surely I'd have just been knocked unconscious or something.
She really didn't have much luck thinking about it.
I got her to steal bread from a Wizard who then asked for it back, and when she refused to, he started mocking her, so Adina ate a chunk out of it and then put it back and said "there, I've returned it".
So, the Wizard curses her which took either -4 or -6 str away from her score. She then got annoyed, went into Rage and started chasing him and hacking him apart.
Unfortunately for her, when he went down to like 3hp (I was told this when the campaign ended), he started to double move everywhere, and Adina being fatigued with Str drain just couldn't keep up, so I had two choices:
Option A: Keep chasing him and hope that she can get him to run past, provoking an AoO. This didn't happen as there was too much space.
Option B: Stand still and wait for him to stop hiding. This didn't happen and he went back to mocking her, saying "is that all you can do? Run around? What could you possibly do to me with that strength?"
Adina replied; "Come here and find out!"
He then went on to act like a child with "Nah nah, you can't catch me, you can't catch me", so she replied with "Is that all you can do? Run away? You're just a weak little coward who has to curse people and hide behind spells. Now I'm going to eat the rest of your bread!"
So she ate his bread, climbed up the ladder, back into the main basement and sewage area and left with a permanent curse as nobody could remove it! I can't remember if it ever got removed actually, which would make killing herself with a flying kick even more ridiculous.
The rogue of our group was particularily dim (having only a 4 intellgience) and the party was trying to help a local alchemist discover who kidnapped and was ransoming his kid. Well the alchemist told them they could use anything in his shop and the rogue asked what was around. Besides many of the other potions there were some unlabeled ones, one of which was green with bubbles flowing inside. The rogue decided he wanted to find out what it was, turns out it was acid
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A group of us were fighting against a troll. Two PCs were adjacent to it; I was a bit farther away. The GM pointed at the two players whose characters were adjacent to the troll, rolled a die and said, "Odd, it attacks you; even, it attacks you." The die landed half on a book, on its edge. The troll attacked me. Claw, claw, rend, 40 points of damage on a second-level cleric. "All dead." I mean, we're talking, "Go through his pockets and look for loose change" dead. Little bits of scale mail were strewn about the room.
(My companions had enough gold, after looting my corpse and selling most of my stuff, to pay for a Raise Dead spell, so I suppose my story doesn't really belong in this thread. I bought replacement scale mail as soon as I could afford it.)
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Yes, thanks for killing off Adina, Faelar....
You may have found it funny, but I actually liked her! It was a sad day for me when I found out you killed her (which you have a habit of doing to all of my characters, so I panic whenever I can't make the session, in fear of my characters life being wiped out).
She can stupidly start on Hell Knight's, hack through two or three of them alone (were we level 3? I forget), but when it comes to doors and guards, she fails completely.
I still love the concept I had for her; "Standing tall, this dark haired and gorgeous woman is happy, positive and confident. She moves with grace but always carries her Great Sword over her shoulder wherever she goes. She may be thin, pretty and innocent, but she's barbaric at heart and as strong as an oxe!"
So strong.....she killed herself with her own kick. She's kicking herself now.......
Sounds like
The only death at a table I was at came when I was DM. It was my first time DMing and I suppose With the settup it was inevitable. 4 1st level PC's vs a Minotaur. The barbarian got axed into two halves, but the rogue, bard and cleric manage to distract the minotaur with an illusion and flee with the corpse.
But being an evil party, they decide the best thing to do is sell the bisected body. So my DM challenge? Who would possibly be interested in buying two halves of a half-orc?
So we were entering a dark underground area and something hits our heavy hard -- real hard. Being a wizard I drop 'bubble' (quickened resilient sphere) on the party, and say, "I willingly fail my save throw against the spell." We go around the table and you hear, "I fail" from about six people and the last guy goes, "I got a 25! Does that succeed on the save throw?"
I'm baffled but go, "Yeees." And he cheers, "Woot I'm not in there with you all!" and looks around the table excitedly... as if on cue everyone looks at him very sadly and slowly waves goodbye to him as the GM says, "You see what everyone is doing? That's what your character sees right before he's turned into pulp from the 10 tentacle attacks that hit him... along with the 15 negative energy levels you just took from those attacks. Everyone inside the sphere sees the ranger look at you with a puzzled look on his face right before he turns into a fine red mist... his boots are all that's left... and they are empty."
Sounds like
I've never heard of that before, and google didn't help all that much either.
So, I'm going to assume she's the same as Xena The Warrior Princess, which my character was nothing like. :p
Brambleman - How ironic. The Half-Orc was literally half an Orc. XD
Abraham - To be fair, I would have probably done the same as the Ranger. As a Ranger, unless I were metagaming I wouldn't actually know what that spell did. I've been taught not to metagame, so I wouldn't just jump into a bubble because everyone else is. I'd want to know why everyone was jumping into the bubble and what the bubble actually did. :p
Being on the subject of silly and random things, as a player I had no idea what Vampires were capable of (aside from sucking blood), so when the DM said "A Vampire stares at you", I said "I stare back".
The joke was actually on him by the end of the encounter though. I hacked his head off and put it in a bag, carrying it around with me for the rest of the mission and then left it out in the sun. :)
We spend 4 hours making characters for a 13th level campaign. 2 minutes into the game our wizard tries to non-nonchalantly jump over a lava flow after seeing another player do it. The DC was 5. He failed. I didn't cut him any slack because he had a broom of flying, the fly, overland flight, levitate, jump, dimension door, and teleport spells, rope, and one of the other players had even suggested to him that he just go over the bridge or fly over. But no, he didn't listen, and now he's dead.
How 1d3+str modx3 nonlethal would ever kill someone is beyond me. A level 1 barbarian with 7 con and 18 str, maybe. 10 hit points. 3d3+12. That 3d3 has to deal 3 threes to get me to -1. I'm just saying, that's absurd.I didn't know any of this went on until it happened, but doesn't that mean my character should have in fact taken Non-Lethal damage (being a kick and all)?
Surely I'd have just been knocked unconscious or something.
She really didn't have much luck thinking about it.
Yeah... yeah, you should have.
Did you take improved unarmed strike? If not, it's nonlethal. With -6 strength (I guess bestow curse) I couldn't see anyone ever killing themselves with their own 1d3 nonlethal unarmed strike.
I think it's actually really ridiculous. If I was in your position (a character dead when I wasn't there, a permanent curse, GM fiat ruling against me to make me a joke) I would be pretty mad.
I guess the title of the thread should really be "Times when your GM killed off a character you liked because he thought it would be funny."
Oh I was pretty annoyed and asked if she could be unkilled, but I was told she's dead and there's no coming back, and me not knowing the rules back then sighed and accepted it.
It was in Council of Thieves, so I'm tempted to replay it and bring her back, though I can't remember her stats, age, weight or height. Also, yep. It was bestow curse.
Ah, I doubt I'll get the chance to play it properly so may have to find a slow paced PBP. I haven't seen a fast paced one yet. :/
P.s. I didn't have improved unarmed strike, no. I recall the DM just telling me I fell into a door and died, but nobody said I landed on my head to take lethal damage. Cheated out of a character lol.
But being an evil party, they decide the best thing to do is sell the bisected body. So my DM challenge? Who would possibly be interested in buying two halves of a half-orc?
I'll take the human half, you can keep the orc one. Is 10g ok?
My players were in a large metropolis when a large portal opened up in the middle of town causing various demons and devils to spill out and go on a rampage.
While most of the party was concerned with gathering citizens and evacuating the city, the Alchemist and the Ranger decided to sneak into the local university to check for stragglers and collect a mcguffin that had been introduced a few sessions earlier. They split up shortly after entering (both of them being either invisible or trained in Stealth with a Chameleon Ring) to cover more ground. Unfortunately for the Alchemist, he ran into a Babau and was the one with the Invisibility potion, so he got spotted and had to fight the thing on his own with his Bombs (he wasn't very good with any other weapon, nor was his backup dagger cold iron).
After a few rounds of fighting, he saw that the situation was hopeless. Not being the type to run away, the Alchemist asked if I'd allow him to drop all of his bombs simultaneously, blowing up both himself and (hopefully) the Babau. I agreed to let him do it (since I liked his explanation and it sounded like a cool idea), so he dropped the dozen or so bombs he had left. The resulting explosion took out himself, the Babau, and the surrounding wall of the university.
My two months pregnant cleric, who had wanted a husband and family since the very beginning of the campaign - it was one of her "goals" to marry and raise her own children in a land that was free (she was a former Qadiran harem slave) - literally MELTED by black dragon acid. She was using her daylight aura as a cleric of Sarenrae to make it so that the fighters could kill the nasty buggers. Failed reflex save on first blast, brought down to 35 hp. Failed reflex save on second blast, husband and GM rolled something like 60 damage...
It was pretty sick. Newlywed paladin hubby had to pick up the slick of his pregnant wife and scoop it up into a wine skin to get her raised. Baby miraculously was okay, hubby ruled.
This is just a couple of months after paladin nearly fell because some evil fey and very very bad bard folk in the next country over altered his memories and compelled him to believe that she was foolin' around with every Tom, Dick and Harry that ever talked to her. And the paladin was Akiros Ismort of Kingmaker fame, so it was very terrible to watch.
I'm the de facto GM of our group, so it's been since before Pathfinder for me.
However, early on in the Kingmaker leg of the campaign:
The Queen with her party behind her is entering a certain (trapped) cairn. All by her lonesome without a deathward to her name she strolls up into the dead center of the middle chamber.
Four enervations, one of them a confirmed critical hit, dealt 15 negative levels, 3 more than her 12 levels. "I'm feeling woozy here ..." *thud* and one deceased Queen falls to the floor stone dead from full health.
The rogue with the "auto-detect" for traps talent was 15 feet behind her ... ^_^
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Sounds likeI've never heard of that before, and google didn't help all that much either.
So, I'm going to assume she's the same as Xena The Warrior Princess, which my character was nothing like. :p
Brambleman - How ironic. The Half-Orc was literally half an Orc. XD
Abraham - To be fair, I would have probably done the same as the Ranger. As a Ranger, unless I were metagaming I wouldn't actually know what that spell did. I've been taught not to metagame, so I wouldn't just jump into a bubble because everyone else is. I'd want to know why everyone was jumping into the bubble and what the bubble actually did. :p
Being on the subject of silly and random things, as a player I had no idea what Vampires were capable of (aside from sucking blood), so when the DM said "A Vampire stares at you", I said "I stare back".
The joke was actually on him by the end of the encounter though. I hacked his head off and put it in a bag, carrying it around with me for the rest of the mission and then left it out in the sun. :)
Kendra is a movie character played by a recurring character in several Christopher Moore novels. I recommend "The Stupidest Angel", "A Dirty Job" and "Fool".
Sorry about the obscure reference. The reference didn't seem obscure to me because I have just finished "The Stupidest Angel".
So I was playing a stupidly optimized Barbarian, who had a severe distrust of any and all things magical (but especially druids). We were sent along on a quest by a major deity (representing chaos itself). We went through zany misadventures, got to the end, and the god decided to stiff us on our reward. Needless to say, the Barbarian was not happy with this magey-person who had cheated us out of our fair reward.
"Now you listen here, bub. You're paying us fair for the work we did, or I am going to stab you right in the damn face."
"I don't think you can." the god replied.
Being someone who had never backed down on a dare, the Barbarian proceeded to full-attack the god. He did succeed in hitting the god for quite a lot of damage, stabbing him in the face as promised.
The god was not amused, and responded with a Power Word: Kill.
It was still totally worth it. After the party res'd him he added 'I am the guy who STABBED GOD IN THE FACE!!' to his list of boasts and taunts he uses to introduce himself in lieu of a name.
Regarding the death by door, it did make sense at the time, considering the crit card also made the damage lethal, I think... been a while since I've seen that particular crit card and seeing as the owner of them refuses to let anyone read the things unless they've just drawn one in gameplay, it wouldn't surprise me if I never saw it again. AND, if memory serves, you did manage to pay a cleric to remove the curse, which I recall letting you pay less than you should have, though when the cleric learnt WHY you were cursed was rather unsympathetic.
The curse was due the fact you were STEALING BREAD FROM A CRAZY, HOMELESS WARLOCK WHO WAS LIVING IN THE SEWERS! When the other characters learnt this, none of them were sympathetic either. And you chasing him around, was because you were trying to get him to cast the remove curse spell that he didn't know. He even told you, in his mocking way, that he didn't have the power to remove curse, and that maybe next time you'll think twice about stealing break from a homeless man for silly reasons. Silly reason being? He wanted to be left alone. Classy.
Now, I do recall a pirate called Captain Cortez, who died trying to dropkick an ogre, said dropkick tacking him over the heads of his four party members, all of whom were dwarves. I realise that it might have seemed that the party was against him at the time, but... well, RP-wise, they were... they were all dwarves, and had been together since the start of the campaign, and about 5/6 sessions in, they meet a new party member who's introduction was cursing at his sinking boat, (and when asked why he didn't just get out and swim to the very close beach his response was 'too much effort') and then climbed the mast of the boat and 'triple back flipped into a swan dive' after the sinking boat was beached... the dwarves were vaguely amused at this, but less than thrilled when he started to tag along with them.
I have a feeling the dwarves all partied when this pirate was swatted out of the air by a club not unlike how we swat flies.
Alas, that was my first ever attempt at DMing, and I made a LOT of mistakes, which even at the time I sort of groaned after the fact and wondered what I was doing.
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Alrighty, here's a story.
In a group of four players the mage gets bitten by a werewolf and contracts lycanthropy. Now his player made a great speech that for science they should leave him this way so he can document the process. "If you hit me? Do I not bleed?" etc. Very moving. They let him be cursed.
So when they were all tied up to each other and exploring a blizzard room with one of the PCs waiting outside with the rope it happened. The mage fell into a pittrap he did not see. The second player down the line (the cleric) failed to respond in time and gets dragged in as well. The third player, chaotic neutral, decides 'screw this, I am cutting the rope' and she cuts the rope, dropping the cleric and mage down the pittrap. She herself retreats outside.
She figured they would survive. They did, no problem. The falling damage triggered the curse and the mage changed alignment. Then the cleric falls on top of him "You fall on something soft and furry, also it growls."
They start fighting, the werewolf figuring he can claim the cleric died from the fall.
Meanwhile, outside, the last PC listens to the girl that cut the rope and heads inside to help (with a silver axe btw). In round 7 he falls on top of the fighting werewolf and cleric. The cleric just going in the negatives.
They fight, fighter vs werewolf. It got close, but he lost. The werewolf player decided to off the characters, since it is in his character.
Now all of that is not even that special, but it's the punchline here.
The werewolf player then tried to get out of the pit with climb checks, but it is a solid ice wall. He tries to stack the player corpses, etc, etc. but fails. Eventually he gets up far enough to take falling damage and dies from falling damage.
Tally: 3 death PCs, 1 that has no clue outside.
As a DM I had nothing to do with it and have never seen anything as bad as that as a result of in-party fighting.
My players decide to accept a suicide scouting mission in a forest full of enemy skirmishers (they're at war) and monsters. After a few days of camping in the woods, they find out why the scouts before them never returned : the forest is full of monsters 2 or 3 CR over their level! However, they meet an elven ranger who gives them advice to survive in the forest : "At night, sleep high in the trees. The stealthy monsters won't be able to reach you and you'll hear the flying monsters coming. That's how a lone wanderer like me stays alive. Don't stay awake at night, just sleep, everything'll be fine."
Still, the human fighter decides he wants to keep watch at night, just in case. He looks around and sees a giant lizard. The next second, I ask him to roll a save and tell him he passes out. Then, the two other party members (dwarf barbarian and human sorceress) wake up as they see a basilisk trying to climb the tree... and a statue of their fighter ally on a branch nearby!
The sorceress warns the dwarf not to look at the beast and they try to take it down without looking at it. They waste all their crossbow bolts and end up blindly throwing random items at it without looking, not even sure when they hit and when they don't. Eventually...
Dwarf : "I'm gonna throw the statue on him."
Fighter's player : "Dude, you can't be serious!"
Sorceress : "Don't! We can still save him if we kill the beast!"
Dwarf : "Girl, he's made of stone. Us dwarves know everything about stone, and we know for sure that stone doesn't live. If he's made of stone, then he doesn't live, so he's already dead!"
The dwarf pushed the statue down the tall tree. He missed the basilisk. Player death by dwarven barbarian logic.
The sorceress then tried to get down the tree to run away, but failed her climb check to go down and broke a leg. Instead of listening to her ("PLEASE, GRAB ME AND TAKE ME AWAY FROM HEEEEERE!"), the dwarf just put his armor on and proceeded to "avenge the death of his companion" (that he had killed with his own hands thirty seconds ago) by running towards the basilisk, who just turned him into stone too before doing the same with the incapacitated sorceress.
Moral of the story? When the ranger tells you not to keep watch, DON'T. And don't expect any thoughtful rescue maneuvers from a dwarven barbarian.