That's NO WAY for a PC to die.


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Oh! Forgot about this stupid, unlucky death in a shadowrun campaign.
I played this amazing physical adept that could throw anything, even a pencil and turn it into a deadly weapon. Almost killed one with a pen once...

I had sooo many dice to roll when I threw weapons. Then came the fateful grenade-toss... I just rolled too many ones and that was an instant failure, so I ended up blowing myself to smithereens!
Normally you say he who rolls the most dice wins, but in this case you die... :D


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Funniest Death Ever : Hackmaster

I made a pixie fairy with mASSIVE physiologic and physical flaws.. I had
like 119 building Points (average character has 20 or 30).. after
rolling up the character and stuff.. I went thru training ( I was a
thief)..3 years... I was incarcerated(prison) for 5 years.. and the max life expectancy for a pixie fairy is 8 years . I got out of prision on
7th year.. Dmed rolled my max Life of 7 years.... so I died when I got out of prision.. During Character Creation..

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Best death: Solo arial combat in RHOD with...

Spoiler:
the red dragon. I was playing a tiefling rogue/wizard who came within inches of assassinating the dragon, and then she made a HUGE mistake on guesstimating the dragon's power level. Her preparations were for naught, and she was turned into a flying torch. But hey, she distracted the dragon from torching the city, and the party resurrected her shortly afterward. Was still awesome.

Dark Archive

Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:
The dm then goes on to explain what was thereafter known as the slushie effect also known as a channeled explosion. Since the hallway was only eight feet wide and the ceiling was only eight feet high the explosion was channeled back into the elevator because the hallway made its integrity rolls. The group might have survived had the elevator not blown its functionally hardness roll and proceeded to drop 46 stories.

Ah... the Shadowrun "chunky salsa effect" and channeled explosion effects have killed more 'runners in my game than bullets or spells ever could. Good times. :)


Cydeth wrote:

Best death: Solo arial combat in RHOD with...

** spoiler omitted **

Aerial combat and stuff!

Funny Death:
I was GMing, it was a long campaing and the players were facing the captaion of the BBEG forces, in a floating island. In order to dimish the power of the captaing they went to engage his dragon mount first.

The wizard casted fly on the party, in order to avoid a sure fall or a bullrush. (My dragons were famous for bullrushing PCs into lava and such)
After a few rounds of combat, the dwarf fighter was crushing the dragon. So the dragon tried to fly away and escape. The fighter went for the kill and after a few rounds of chase. the dragon turn around and dispeled the fighters Fly. Only to be disintegrated by the wizard.

Sadly, the wizard didnt prepared Feather fall, so the dwarf became a bright red spot on the landscape.


Way back in high school (1e) we had a large group of players create characters for a 1 shot. One player in particular (Player 8, say) took a long time to create his character, being very meticulous about every little thing. Finally, he's ready and the game starts...

DM: Okay, it is a 30-day overland journey from X to Y.
Player1: Good thing I brought rations!
Player2: I make liberal use of create food and water during the trip.
...
Player8: Erm, guys, I don't have any food or water!

After a mad scramble to see if anyone could help him, it was decided that he died of thirst/starvation on the journey. Poor sod.

Silver Crusade

Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:


Funniest near on tpk.

Shadowrun. The majority of the group is in an elevator. Our "self proclaimed demolition expert" decides to lob a grenade down a narrow hallway towards a group of guards. The dm asks him if he's sure. The group is screaming at him not to throw it. He says the guards are thirty feet away and the grenade only has a blast radius of twenty five. The DM asks...

Funny, but it's also an example of DMs and players actually failing to understand how certain weapons work. That would have been, and should have been in game, more or less a safe action for the party-- because grenades really don't have that much of an explosive charge in them. If your average (or even above average) grenade derived its entire kill radius solely from the blast of its explosive charge, it'd be about 5 meters at most, and might still ring your ears from a little farther away. The current standard grenade (and for good reason I don't think the grenades in Shadowrun will have changed that much) only has 6.5 oz of Comp B explosives for its charge. The real killing power of a grenade isn't from the explosive charge itself, its from all the fragmentation that explosive charge propels... and fragmentation might get somewhat channeled your way, but is still going to lose all that dangerous velocity from bouncing off of walls and ceiling. Even channeled, the explosives in a grenade aren't enough to do that kind of blast damage that would smear the party and drop the elevator (let alone seriously challenge the hallway's integrity).

(good reason why Shadowrun grenades still won't carry much more of an explosive charge -- because they too still are designed and derived to get their killing power from the fragmentation, not the explosive charge itself-- more boom is a waste of resources-- unless your self-proclaimed expert was using some kind of specialty grenade. Now, if your demolitionist had chucked a few blocks of C4 with a blasting cap down there, or some similar door-busting satchel charge, I could see this happening as described)


Actually they were high explosive concussion grenades and work exactly as described.

Not all grenades are fragmentation grenades.


Own character death? Failed a saving throw in 2E with a Helm of Brilliance and then failed the item saving throw despite significant bonuses granted by the helm, causing ALL of the gems to detonate at the same time. Average damage in the hundreds. :)

Someone else I saw die after having Slay Living turned back on him with Spell turning. He rolled a 'one'.


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The Funniest Death and Killer DM award went together on in my case.
I was DM'ing Crimson Throne part 1 (edge of Anarchy) where the party was going after Lamm. They went around the fish house along the deck and the fighter failed his acrobatics check (rolled a 1) and fell in the water. The shark ate him before he could get out.

I decided that since we just started the campaign, I would take a short break, and let him tweak/change his character and continue where we left off. Well he played a fighter, and failed his acrobatics test again. The shark ate him again.

This happened a third time.

On his fourth incarnation, he made it across (finally rolled over a 3) and got to Lamm and his Croc. In the battle, he slipped for the 4th time, and fell in the water. The shark was waiting with an open mouth.

Silver Crusade

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Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:

Actually they were high explosive concussion grenades and work exactly as described.

Not all grenades are fragmentation grenades.

So it was a specialty grenade... Gotta love "explosives experts" who forget the characteristics of explosions.


Russet mold. Yep.

My ranger and his party were swarmed by Vegepygmies in a jungle, and my poor ranger failed 7 consecutive DC 15 Fortitude saves.


Finn K wrote:
Jak the Looney Alchemist wrote:

Actually they were high explosive concussion grenades and work exactly as described.

Not all grenades are fragmentation grenades.

So it was a specialty grenade... Gotta love "explosives experts" who forget the characteristics of explosions.

Not specialty, as in, not custom.

It was a specialty grenade in that it's designed to take out awakened critters, like the Juggernaut.

Juggernaut wrote:


The Juggernaut is an awakened cousin of the mundane armadillo, it is physically a match for the common armadillo, however at a much grander scale. Measuring at more than 14 meters from head to tail, the creature is far larger than metahumans and, although it has no teeth like its mundane cousing, it does have serrated bony ridges in upper and lower jaws, allowing for the rending of anything it eats.

Being an omnivore in the truest sense of the word, it eats vegetable, animal and mineral material, making no distinctions or preferences. Due to their size and non-restrictive eating habits, they tend to simply cut swaths of destruction in areas, causing massive damage to areas. Government bounties on the creatures have little effect on the destrution since the creatures are extremely hard to kill.

So imagine a 45 foot long armadillo, with a carapace harder than the shell of an M1-Abrams, and more strength than a mammoth that eats anything organic that get's in front of it's snout.

This is what the high explosive concussion grenades were designed to distract and disorient, not kill. And this guy used an autofire grenade launcher full of them in an enclosed interior hallway.

Basically, he blew out every internal wall on the floor, ripped the elevator apart, blew out every window on that floor (and the two floors above and below that floor) and turned him and his team into chunky salsa.

Scarab Sages

My first level paladin was paralyzed in fear by a gaze attack of a yeti. He then did a coup de grace. At second level, I would have had the will save to make the gaze attack. At third level, I'd be immune to fear.

Scarab Sages

My first time GMing, I ran Crown of the Kobold King. It ended poorly for the group:

Killer DM:

crown of kobold king spoiler:

TPK by a kobold. The three party members were all human or half-human, and one neglected to tell the others that the kobold boss had a human-bane axe. So they went straight into melee, rolled bad, and he rolled great.

After the first PC died, the kobold's sorcerer buddy ripped her heart out with a special dagger, making the dagger flaming.

When their siblings came back to avenge their deaths, there was a trap made from the barbarian's axe, and they found their former pcs' bones had been chewed on.

haha!! I love kobolds. :)

Silver Crusade

mdt wrote:


Not specialty, as in, not custom.

It was a specialty grenade in that it's designed to take out awakened critters, like the Juggernaut.

Point accepted. I was conditioned to think "specialty" if it's not a frag grenade, because, well-- that's how we referred to grenades other than fragmentation or smoke (when referring to them as a general group) in every unit I was part of when I was in the Army. Sometimes RL reflexes interfere with my proper reaction to in-game terms when they're very similar. :)


@FinnK

No problem, just wanted to make sure everyone understood. It's actually a very common mistake in SR. Which actually brings up a funny story.

Close Call to Death

A player of mine, in an SR campaign, when he was fairly new to the system, was fighting in the entryway to a mansion with a weretiger and a werepanther. He was a wired street mage (cybernetically enhanced magician).

In SR, were's are nasty, as they heal pretty much instantaneously if you don't outright kill them, or hit them with things that cause massive system shock (like napalm, high explosives, damaging magic, etc).

Him and his friends are getting torn up pretty well, so he pulls out two hand grenades and primes them. Now, they'd already had the issue of tossing one earlier, and the were scooped it up and tossed it back at them during a fire fight. He didn't want to have the same thing happen again, especially since the last one was an offensive concussion (relatively little damage), and the two he had in his hands were HE frags.

By default, it takes 5 seconds from arming to detonation, unless you reset the timers (which can be done, if you do it before you activate them). He didn't. So since he didn't want to get hit with his own grenade, he held them both in hand. Then he realized, after a turn went by, that he couldn't do anything else while holding them. So he put them back in his pocket, intending to pull them both out in 3 rounds to toss (I think we can all see where this is going).

Two rounds later, the weretiger crits him, and takes him from lightly wounded to deadly wounded, with enough overflow damage to almost kill him. At this point, he realizes not only is he in danger of dieing, he's got two HE frags in his coat pocket, and all his friends are standing right on top of him.

He asks for a will check to be able to grunt out 'Frags in pocket!' before he keels over. I set it to a 12 target (have to roll a 6, and then another 6 on the same die). He does it though (actually got like 2 or 3 successes, he had a very very high will).

The physical adept manages to retrieve the grenades and throw them into the mansion foyer. She shields his body as they go off, and everyone on their team is left heavily wounded. The were's are also messed up, so they retreat.


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I love this thread.....

Funniest/Most Epic death: Came in a game that an ex-friend of mine made, a home brew system he tried publishing (it's been going for 10 years, he won't quit, and it has only had maybe 20 players, all but 5 of whom quit).... I was playing an Angel Guardian (very much a death-dealing paragon of good and justice, with face-melting light powers), and we were going through a sea-side mountain to free some Mermaids from the Drow, who were enslaving them to get at an artifact at the bottom of the sea. We were clearing them out relatively easily.

Finally, our group of 8 decide to split, five go to free the mermaids, while myself, a pixy ice-specialist, and a human bomb-loving theif all scamper off in the opposite direction to scout ahead and deal with threats that would invariably be coming back to bite us in the ass. We come across a two closed doors on level up. The first one is a large store room for alchemical components (this game's magic uses a customized spell system using mana, and 'alchemy' were mana-charged natural plants, ores, creature parts, etc.)... The thief snuck up to the door and rolled his perception.

He heard casting on the other side. The 2-inch tall pixy and myself hover over (due to flying not needing stealth checks) and peek in as the thief opens the door. It's a wizard's lab! The wizard and his two assistants are buffing up a hulking brute of a drow. The wizard stops after another spell and converses with his assistants. "What other spells can we put on this guy before he goes and slaughters the intruders?"

They never got an answer. Having used up all our mana (the pixy and myself, thief didn't cast), the three of us whipped out the scrolls we had. 2 60ft diameter storms of ice and 1 60ft diameter lightning storm tore through the lab, each dealing 10d6 points of damage, right as the human shut the door. We decided to sit and wait for the spells to die down in 10 in-game minutes.

DM looks at us and goes "You really wanna sit there?"
The pixy goes "Hmmm... True. We start looting the store room"
The DM blinks twice "Seriously... You're going to loot the store room...."
The thief sits there and goes "Yeah, on second thought I start going THATAWAY" and moves his full move back the way we came (away from the lab)
Pixy and Angel look at eachother, the thief being the only one of the entire party who has survived four near-TPKs, we decided to follow, with me bringing up the rear due to positioning and movement speed.

The DM nods and goes "Ok. The entire mountain rumbles as explosions echo through the caverns. Group A (the other group) watches as the roof collapses, blocking off this half of the mountain for you. The rest of the drow who you didnt' find and kill outside watch as the mountain suddenly raises, rounding off like a bubble, before collapsing in on itself as tons upon tons of rock and debris crash down. The entire mountain is now half as tall, with what was once the top half now forming the smouldering crater within the bottom half. YOU THREE! You two survive..."

My character got caught in the massive several thousand d6 worth of pure mana explosion.... ONE MORE INCH and I'd have made it (movement is done in war-game inches, without a grid, and with a little tape ruler). Still. I got to retire the character back on his home plane have brought down a mountain. The part that makes this anecdote funny is that my character's deity, whom he served, being the god of both pranks AND magic, applauded him and said "You sir, are a maniac... Why didn't I think of that?"

Dark Archive

Deidre Tiriel wrote:
My first level paladin was paralyzed in fear by a gaze attack of a yeti. He then did a coup de grace. At second level, I would have had the will save to make the gaze attack. At third level, I'd be immune to fear.

DM Coup de graced you... ouch, thats just cold... lol I do admit having that happen to me once... but I deservedit. I was playing the Uber-Charger Build from 3.5 with all the skill tricks to turn, go up/down hills and so on... 9th level was (non-crit) hitting average 200-400 dmg.

Killer DM lured me into charging what I thought was the BBEG (well he was Large size)... downed him 1 hit. Boss was 5ft. away stepped up and went to town. If anyone remembers that build you used the Feat Shocktrooper to keep your BAB up by sacrificing AC... so at the end of my charge i had an AC of 2, he couldn't miss. I went down and next round BBEG full round coup de graced me... lol


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Nasty... I HATE the Coup de Grace rules. They ruin more encounters than any other rule I have ever seen. I might be biased because of a GM who loved using them at every opportunity.

Sczarni

Brand new to 3.5ed, and I made a Halfling Sorcerer in a convention game.

Unfortunately, being brand new to the game, he has a 10 Con.

I believe we can see where this is going, can't we?

Very first round of the very first combat he participated in, he caught a light crossbow bolt from a bandit, dropping him to -1. Luckily, he managed to be healed just before expiring right off the bat.

Fast forward several levels, and this little guy has acquired quite the personality. Despite coming very near to death tons of times, his color sprays and invisibility spells saved the day repeatedly.

Against a handful of mooks (troglodytes or human bandits, I can't remember now) he takes a Nat-20/Nat-19 spear to the face. DM lists damage, which is just enough to KO the poor little guy. Until I say the fateful words: "Aren't spears times-three crit weapons?"

Yes, I know, my PC died because I was "that guy" but hey, fair's fair, right?

A few resurrections later, and that PC eventually made it to 11th or 12th level, with a healthy paranoia of wizards, cultists, and mooks with simple weapons.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

When the Bough Breaks, The Cradle Will Fall

Setup: A band of vicious gnoll bandits have been plaguing the nearby countryside for almost a decade. Last year the region's inhabitants were led by a band of young heroes in a series of highly successful skirmishes against the gnoll rabble. The remaining gnoll survivors fled.

A year later they returned, led by a new diabolical leader who has organized and brainwashed them towards a desire for bloody vengeance. Under this new leadership the gnolls have grown strong. They have made plans to terrorize the town in a manner far worse than simple slaughter.

Last night, the gnolls infiltrated the town, raided the armory, set fire to the orphanage, and kidnapped over a dozen young children. The townsfolk acted quickly, sending a magical message to the heroes who saved them yonder year. The heroes came via teleport within the hour, arriving to the anguished wails of the townsfolk and the tortured screams of the youth still not yet far away. None of the brave souls who chased after the gnolls, including the Halfling sheriff, have returned. It is now up to Guymelef, Meredith, Milerna, and Owl to rescue the captured orphans before their minds or their bodies break from the most horrific forms of torture known only to the depraved gnolls.

Player Characters:
Guymelef, Magus Stormlord
Meredith, Landbound mermaid
Milerna, Expert Halberdier
Mister Owl, Gunslinger

Non-Player Characters (CR 12):
Elite Gnoll Cavaliers (4) on Hyaenodon Mounts (4)
Gnoll Marauders (10)
Hyenas (4)
Paegin, Diabolic Sorcerer

Scene:
The characters left the village with all haste, attempting to catch up to the gnolls before further harm can come to the orphans. As they move down the road into the county side, the sun begins to set, casting eerie shadows all around. The nearby wood on either side of the road makes for ideal ambush terrain, but the heroes are less concerned for their own safety and are simply focused on getting to their destination as fast as possible. To this end, Guymelef has cast fly on both himself and on Milerna (using his arcane pool for the second casting) while Mister Owl rides along in Meredith's flying fish bowl, taking great care not to get his alchemical cartridges wet. They are all about 20 feet from the ground about to breach a clearing when the ambushers strike.

SURPRISE ROUND:

Initiative:
18 Mister Owl (rolled a 9)
18 Milerna (rolled a 14)
12 Guymelef (rolled a 9)
12 Hyenas x4 (rolled a 10)
08 Meredith (rolled a 2)
05 Gnoll Marauders x4 (rolled a 5)

Perception*:
Guymelef, rolled a 6 for a 16. Failed.
Meredith, rolled a 6 for a 6. Failed.
Milerna, rolled a 10 for a 21. Failed.
Mister Owl, rolled a 12 for a 28. Success!

* Against DC 22, for the gnolls opposed Stealth checks; includes a +5 DC for distractions (screams of children being tortured), a +3 DC for distance, and a +2 for unfavorable conditions (twilight shadows).

Just as they are about to break into the clearing ahead, several hyenas dash from the surrounding wood towards the PCs while several gnoll marauders simultaneously leap from their hiding spots high up in the tall trees hoping to snatch and grab at the heroes with their filthy paw-hands.

Mister Owl not only wins initiative, but is also the only one to see the enemy ambush. Reflexes kick in and his blunderbuss is suddenly in hand. As he shouts a warning to his comrades he blasts a cone of pellets into two air-born gnolls.

He rolls a 19 and a 17 for a 35 and a 33, respectively, against touch AC 10. Two hits. Each gnoll takes 1d8+9, with the first suffering 8+9=17 damage and the second taking only 1+9=10 damage. The first gnoll is blown backwards back into the shadows of the trees, where he lies unmoving. The second gnoll is bleeding profusely from pellets in his shoulder and neck. Owl, not hesitating, drops his emptied blunderbuss on the rim of the bowl and quick draws both double barrel pistols.

Nevertheless, the remaining gnoll lands on the slippery slope of the flying fish bowl, clinging to the bowl's lip with one hand and trying to get a choke hold on Meredith with the other.

The gnoll attempts to grapple Meredith, getting a 19+3=22 against her 23 (flat-footed CMD). Sadly, neither Meredith nor Owl get an attack of opportunity (AoO) due to not having an appropriate melee weapon in hand.

The other two gnolls fly at Guymelef and Milerna, attempting grapples of their own. One misses Guy with a 11+3=14 against 22 and falls 20 feet after Guy shakes the disgusting claw from his ankle while the other gnoll misses Milerna entirely (9+3=12 vs. 34) and crashes into the other gnoll on the way down. Furthermore, Milerna gets an AoO due to Combat Reflexes, scoring a hit (12+20=32) with Power Attack, dealing 1d10+21 damage (6+21=27), and instantly decapitating the gnoll as it flies past her. Both gnolls take an additional 2d6 (1+1=2) damage as they hit the hard-packed dirt road 20 feet below.

The hyenas leap and nip at the heroes' feet to little effect.

ROUND ONE:

Initiative:
18 Mister Owl
18 Milerna
12 Guymelef
12 Hyenas x4
08 Meredith
05 Gnoll Marauders x2 (one at 9 hp, another at 1 hp)

Mister Owl fires both barrels of lethal shot into the gnoll passenger's face. This provokes, however, and the gnoll attempts to disarm Owl of one his gun as it goes off (19+3=22 vs. 28). He is too slow, however, and one bullet goes through his reaching hand and catches him in the right eye while the other goes through his heart (11+11=22 and 20+11=31, 9+11=20 to confirm crit; 4+9=13 damage on the first and 6+5+5+6+36=58 on the crit).

Owl then turns and fires both barrels of his other pistol at the prone gnoll below. The gnoll never rises again (14+10=24 and 14+10=24, both hit for 1+9=10 and 2+9=11 damage). With nearly magical speed, Owl reloads both pistols, dropping one with his weapon cord as a free action, reloading the other as a free action with his newly freed hand, and quick drawing it up again while repeating the process with his as yet unloaded pistol.

Milerna dives down in a charge and cleaves one of the hyenas in half (nat. 20, 2+22=24 to confirm; crit deals 9+9+1+63=82 damage).

Guy reprimands Milerna ("Leave them! We need to get to the children!") but nevertheless shoots at a second hyena with an arrow as he flies onward. 3+12=15, hit; 3+7=11 damage. The arrow catches the hyena in the shoulder.

The three hyenas circle Milerna and attack, two of them from flanking positions. The first (non-flanking) hyena gets 15+3=18 vs. 21 and misses. The second also misses (nat. 1). The third, however wraps its toothy maw around her ankle (16+5=21 vs. 21 and 5+3=8 damage) and attempts to pull her leg out from under her (10+5=15 CMB vs. 40 CMD), but she holds fast.

Meredith calmly casts magic missile (4+2+2+3+2+5=18 damage) at the injured hyena, killing it, and wills her flying water bowl to continue moving forward. The bowl's sudden speed up in movement causes Owl's blunderbuss to fall to the road below.

ROUND TWO:

Initiative:
21 Paegin (delayed from previous rounds, 200 feet above the battlefield, out of sight/hearing range)
20 Gnoll Cavaliers/Dire Hyenas x4 (delaying)
19 Gnoll Marauders x6 (delayed from previous rounds)
18 Mister Owl
18 Milerna
12 Guymelef
12 Hyenas x2
08 Meredith
00 Orphans

Mister Owl, Guy, and Meredith enter the clearing. A stony cliff gives way to raging river rapids in a ravine over 150-feet below, and the beginnings of a 30-foot-wide, 50-foot-long wooden bridge shine in the moonlight ahead. At the bridge's center are eight children surrounded by four fearsome gnolls on dire hyenas, each wielding a guisarme and wearing full plate. It appears as though a ninth child has already been killed by their terrible dire hyena steeds (actually the sherrif). In addition, 6 more gnolls with spears and leather stand on each end of the bridge, three to each side.

Not hesitating for a moment, Mister Owl takes aim with his pistols as Meredith's bowl carries him to within point blank range of the three "bridge trolls" standing in his way of the children.

Despite his quick reflexes, the three gnolls were waiting for the party (after hearing the ambush), and they hurl their spears at Owl, Meredith, and Guy as they enter the clearing. A moment later, a tall opaque wall of flame appears behind the three heroes, preventing an easy retreat down the road and setting much of the surrounding wood ablaze.

One spear misses Guy (4+1=5 vs. AC 25), souring off into the wall of fire; one misses Meredith (7+1=8 vs. AC 32), bouncing off her glass bowl; and the last one is easily dodged by Owl (13+1=14 vs. AC 29), sticking into the dirt below him.

Each of the three heroes take 3+1=4 fire damage from the heat emanating from the wall of fire behind them.

The four gnoll cavaliers hold the bridge, seemingly content to frighten the children with their guisarmes and drooling mounts.

Owl activates his boots of speed to haste himself and makes a full attack with both pistols against the three gnoll bridge guards (he stays hasted throughout the rest of the encounter).
Gnoll One: 16+14=30, hit. 6+9=15 damage. Gnoll 1 collapses holding a bleeding gut.
Gnoll Two: 19+14=33, threat. 12+14=26, crit. 8+3+6+3+36=56 damage. Gnoll 2 gets shot through the neck. The bullet ricochets off a metal bolt on the nearby bridge and goes through his neck a second time. The gnoll collapses, nearly decapitated.
Gnoll Three: 18+14=32, hit. 6+9=15 damage. Gnoll three is shot through a lung and collapses in futile gasps for air as he dies a slow and painful death.

He then aims his remaining shots at a dire hyena devouring what appear to be a child's remains 60 feet away on the bridge.

Attack 4: 10+12=22 vs. AC 15, hit. 5+8=13 damage.
Attack 5: 9+8=17 vs. AC 15, hit. 6+8=14 damage.
Attack 6: nat. 1, misfire. (Owl drops the gun)

The hyaenodon takes two bullets to the breast and collapses, causing its rider to tumble away (9+1=10 Ride, failed soft fall, takes 3 damage).

Milerna, isolated and alone on the other side of the wall of fire, hacks at the hyena holding her ankle (20+20=40, threat; 20+2=22, crit; 8+8+1+63=82 damage) decapitating it. She then turns towards the remaining hyena (stumbling over the head still on her ankle as she does so) and stabs her halberd’s spike towards its heart (16+12=28, hit. 2+21=23 damage.), killing it.

Guy drops his bow, and flies into melee with the prone gnoll cavalier attacking with his longsword and an intensified shocking grasp spell (via spellstrike). He hits (14+14=28 vs. AC 21), dealing 8+7=15 damage and 3+3+4+3+5+6+4+5+6+5=44 electricity damage (59 total damage), dropping the elite gnoll into negatives.

Meredith casts shield on herself and wills her bowl to hover over the bridge, directly over the three gnoll cavaliers.

The children take advantage of the gnoll cavalier's distraction and attempt to run away, only to be stopped by three gnoll marauders and their spears on the far side of the bridge.

ROUND THREE:

Initiative:
21 Paegin (200 feet above the battlefield)
20 Gnoll Cavaliers x3 (delayed from previous rounds)
19 Gnoll Marauders x3 (delayed from previous rounds)
18 Mister Owl
18 Milerna
12 Guymelef
12 Hyenas x2
08 Meredith
00 orphans (non-combatants)

Paegin blasts Owl, Meredith, and Guy with a lingering selectivefireball from afar, making his elite gnolls immune. Each of the three heroes takes 1+2+2+1+2+6+1+5+3+2=25 fire damage (Ref DC 16 for 12 damage).

Reflex Saves:
Guymelef, rolled a 2 for a 11. Failed. 92-25=67 hp left.
Meredith, rolled a 16+2* for a 28. Success! 75-12=63 hp left.
Mister Owl, rolled a 20+2* for a 35. Success! 108-12=96 hp left.

* Circumstance bonus for being partially submerged in water.

The bridge catches fire.

The three gnoll cavaliers ready actions.

One gnoll marauder guards the kids, while the other two close the distance to the heroes, readying their spears for ranged combat.

Mister Owl leaps laterally out of the boiling water of the fish bowl out of the fiery area and lands on the bridge 20 feet below (auto-success on Acrobatics to reduce damage, taking only 2 damage and landing prone). Now 10 feet away from the lingering fireball behind him and 10 feet away from the three gnoll cavaliers in front of him, Owl goes to fire both barrels at the lead gnoll.

Before he can do so, however, the gnolls' readied actions go off and they partial charge/bull rush/aid another him 20 feet back into the fiery inferno (17 base roll + 10 CMB + 2 charge + 10 aid another from five allies + 4 attacking prone target = 43 CMB vs. 28 CMD) by batting him around with their longspears like a polo ball.

Owl rolls a natural 1 on his Reflex save as he re-enters the lingering fireball and suffers from 1+1+1+2+3+1+1+3+1+5=19 fire damage, as does one of his precious items!

Owl's four most likely items to be effected are his buckler gun (1), his armored coat (2), one of his two, two barrel pistols (3), or his cloak of resistance (4).

A 1d4 roll comes up a 2, causing Owl's armored coat to take 19 fire damage, or 9 on a successful save. As a CL 6 item, it has a save modifier of +5. 11+5=16. Passes. As +2 mithral armor, Owl's armored coat has hardness 19 and 40 hp. The fire damage (9) is reduced to 4 and then applies to hardness. Owl's coat is completely unharmed (mithral is tough stuff!).

Owl is now down to 94-19=75 hp and remains prone. Nevertheless, he tries to get a bead on the lead cavalier, though the hungry flames licking at his tender flesh make it extremely difficult (20% miss chance). He rolls a 15 on his percentile die and misses his shot.

Milerna takes the run action, shaking the hyena head from her ankle, and dashes through the wall of fire (taking 2d6+10 or 4+3+10=17 fire damage). She finds herself at the foot of the bridge, roughly 20 feet away from her allies and their makeshift sun.

Guymelef casts fire shield, hoping to use the inferno around him as cover from the cavalier's polearms. Due to ongoing damage from the fire, however, he loses any hope of defending against further fire-based attacks (Concentration 1+15=16 vs. DC 26).

What's more, the three gnoll cavaliers standing at the edge of the flames see the opening and swing with their guisarmes. Luckily, they do not get a +1 "higher terrain" bonus on their attacks because Guy is flying. Nevertheless, the gnolls land all three blows with Power Attack (19+7=26, 18+7=25, and 20+7=27 to hit; all beating miss chance with 32, 54, and 24, respectively; 8+7=15 no crit; 1+4+12=17, 3+2+12=17, and 3+2+12=17 damage for a cumulative total of 51 damage).

Guy is now on his last legs at 16 hp. Not wanting to expose himself by moving away, he instead pulls out his wand of cure serious wounds.

Meredith begins casting dominate person (succeeding on her Concentration check with a 12+18=30) on the nearest gnoll cavalier.

The orphans mostly cry a lot, though one particularly brave child kicks a gnoll in the shin, only to be knocked out with a spear butt to the head.

ROUND FOUR:

Initiative:
21 Paegin (200 feet above the battlefield)
19 Gnoll Marauders x3 (one busy torturing children, two approaching)
18 Gnoll Cavaliers x3 (engaged)
18 Mister Owl (75 hp, bridge center)
18 Milerna (83 hp, edge of bridge)
12 Guymelef (16 hp, above bridge center)
08 Meredith (63 hp, above bridge center)
00 orphans (non-combatants, far edge of bridge)

Paegin sends down another lingering selective fireball, this time targeting the weakened Guy and the prone Owl (Meredith being too high up to be caught in the same area) dealing 1+5+4+3+4+1+6+2+5+1=32 fire damage.

Guy gets a 9+9=18 on his save for 16 damage whereas Owl gets a 12+16=28 for 16 damage as well.

Guy: 0 hp
Owl: 59 hp

The bridge takes even more damage from the fireball as well as the spreading flames from the last one. It creaks loudly, alerting everyone to the threat of collapse.

Too stupid to recognize the danger, the two gnoll marauders move closer and chuck their spears at the weakened wizardly fellow floating amidst the flames. Their spears take 45 fire damage upon entering the lingering fire and are destroyed before they can reach their mark, however.

Two of the gnoll cavaliers and their mounts attack the prone and vulnerable Owl while the third attempts a stab at the wavering wizard.

Gnolls One and Two: 13 roll + 7 power attack + 4 prone + 1 higher ground = 25. Miss. 5+7+4+1=17. Miss. Owl rolls from side to side, narrowly missing being chopped by the guisarmes.

Dire Hyenas One and Two: The Hyaenodons have similar trouble hitting him, though one catches a fang on Owl's ear (narrowly missing his whole head). 6+11+4=21, miss; 6+18+4=28, hit; 51% roll; 3+3+6=12 damage.

Owl is now at 47 hp.

Gnoll Three and Dire Hyena Three: 6+7=13, miss. 3+6=9, miss.

All three hyenas take 5+1+3+6+1+5+4+4+2+4=35 fire damage from the lingering fire as they are not protected from the fire like their riders. The first two fail their saves (7+6=13 both) taking full damage and collapsing as their faces are scoured from their skulls, whereas the third takes only half damage (16+6=22), yelps, and springs backwards a few feet (having seriously burned half its face).

Mister Owl, while still prone, growls in frustration at the surrounding flames. He points his remaining pistol at the face of Cavalier One and open fires with both pistol barrels. 16+16=32, hit; 16+13=29, hit. 2+9=11 and 4+9=13 damage. Cavalier One is down to 21 hp with two lead balls buried deep in his chest. Owl then stands up and reloads his pistol, looking like Sephiroth in all his fiery badassness.

Milerna leans her halberd on the side of the bridge, draws out her bow, and arcs a shot over the miniature sun at Cavalier One (having seen his last location in between lingering fireballs). Her seeking bow hits true: Natural 20. 11+14=25, crit. 5+4+3+15=27 damage. With an arrow in his heart, Cav One goes down with a resounding thud.

Guy 5-foot steps into melee range with Cav Two and full attacks with power attack and spell combat, first taking the time to heal himself with his wand (3+3+6+5=17 cured). 15+12=27, hit. 2+7=9, miss. 3+11=14 damage.

Cav Three is dominated (11+2=13 Will save vs. DC 23). Meredith sends him a telepathic command before willing her crystal bowl to move towards Paegin (now 120 feet away).

The orphans cower and plead for help as their gnoll guard begins to lead them away from the scene.

ROUND FIVE:

Initiative:
21 Paegin (120 feet above PCs)
19 Gnoll Marauders x3 (one kidnapping children, two engaging)
18 Gnoll Cavaliers x2 (one dominated and the other at 31 hp)
-- Dire Hyena Mount (9 hp)
18 Mister Owl (47 hp, bridge center)
18 Milerna (83 hp, edge of bridge)
12 Guymelef (17 hp, above bridge center)
08 Meredith (63 hp, way above bridge center)
00 orphans (non-combatants, being lead into the woods)

Paegin, seeing an enemy caster approaching dives to within 30 feet of Meredith and attempts to blast her with enervation. 2+7=9 vs. touch AC 20, miss. Realizing his blunder, he threatens, "Come any closer, witch, and I'll see your friends dropped into the ravine with my next spell and the children butchered as well!" His lingering fireball from last round disappears, though the bridge continues to burn of its own accord. As if to accentuate his point, the bridge suddenly shutters violently, forcing everyone on the bridge to make Acrobatic checks (DC 20) to remain standing.

Acrobatics Checks:
Cavalier rolls 17+6*=23. Cavalier's mount remains standing.
Gnolls x2 get 13+0=13 and 3+0=3. Both fall prone.
Milerna manages 7+18=25. Succeeds.
Mister Owl simply auto succeeds.

* Mount's check, not rider's. Includes a +4 circumstance bonus for being a quadruped.

The Gnoll Marauders each stand up and draw new spears.

Cav Three, turns his mount away from the heroes and charges across the far half of the rickety bridge past the two gnoll pikemen (who let him by) to impale the third gnoll marauder with his guisarme (natural 20, 2+2+7+1=12 no crit; 6+12=18 damage), splattering the kids with warm canine blood. Cav Three's head then twists mechanically to stare at the frightened children with blank eyes. "You have been rescued. There is another bridge not too far south of here. Flee now back to your homes and families," it says in Meredith's voice.

Cav Two, no longer with a mount, backs off a step, pulling out a potion of enlarge person from his belt as he does so, and drinks it. This puts both Owl and Guy within his guisarme's reach. The added weight of his enlarged full plate also causes the bridge to give way and fall a few feet before catching again on narrowing rock walls (DC 25 Acrobatics to remain standing, fail by 5 or more to go over edge).

Acrobatics Checks:
Cavalier rolls 9+1=10. A hole opens up underneath the Cavalier causing him to fall. His lengthy guisarme catches on the hole, however, and he is left hang over the chasm by his hands.
Gnolls x2 get 4+0=4 & 20+0=20. Both are pitched over the side and fall to their deaths.
Milerna manages 14+18=32. Succeeds.
Mister Owl rolls 18+20. Succeeds.

Mister Owl, barely able to keep his footing on the bridge surface breaking apart all around him, nevertheless stumbles over to the edge of the new hole at the center of the bridge, being careful not to fall himself. He aims his pistol at the gnoll's guisarme and open fires with one barrel. 19+18=37, threat; 13+18=31, crit; 8+8+3+3+36=58 damage; 58/2 (ranged attack against an object) - hardness 5 = 18 vs. 20 hp (large 2-handed hafted weapon). "It's been fun. Hope to see you next fall."

Milerna moves through fire to the near edge of the bridge and begins climbing the rock wall (taking 2 damage and [Ref 2+9=11] catching on fire as she does so). Climb check 16+16=32 vs. DC 25 to move up 5 feet this round (5 more to go).

Guymelef yells at Owl to vacate the bridge and flies over to give Milerna a hand (aid another, climb 4+5=9, failure).

"You shall not harm anyone this day!" Meredith screams as she casts rainbow pattern, hoping to keep Paegin preoccupied while her friends attempt to escape yet another dangerous predicament. Suddenly, the sky bursts open, revealing a myriad of wondrous color. Will save 8+9=17 vs. DC 22, failed. Paegin begins to float about dumbly trying to "catch" the pretty colors in an ensorcelled stupor.

She sends another mental command to her gnoll slave.

The orphans are well on their way home, scared and alone in a dark wood, but otherwise fine.

ROUND SIX:

Initiative:
21 Paegin (70 feet above PCs, fascinated)
18 Gnoll Cavaliers x2 (one dominated and the other at 31 hp hanging on for dear life)
18 Mister Owl (47 hp, bridge center)
18 Milerna (83 hp, climbing rock face)
12 Guymelef (17 hp, above rock face)
08 Meredith (63 hp, way above bridge center distracting Paegin)

Paegin continues to chase after imagined butterflies, bubbles, and delicious-looking flying rabbits.

The dominated cavalier pulls its spiked gauntlet out of his mount's brain and, having completed its master’s latest order, turns towards the cliff face to stare blankly out at oblivion.

The hanging cavalier cries out in frustration before reaching down with one hand (causing the fingers of his other hand to slip slightly) and pulling out a small pouch from his belt. "If I fall...you fall too...meatbag! I shall dine on you flesh in the afterlife!" threatens the beast in stunted common. He then hurls his tanglefoot bag at Owl's feet. 12+5=17, hit. Ref 1+15=16, auto-fail. Owl is now entangled AND rooted to the bridge, unable to move from his square.

Realizing that he will never escape to make it to the cliff face in time, Owl simply grins, staring at the giant flailing gnoll with his overly large right eye: "After you, beast." *BLAM-BLAM!*

13+16=29, hit; 2+9=11 damage; 11/2 = 5-5 = 0
10+16=26, hit; 8+9=17 damage; 17/2 = 8-5 = 3 damage
Guisarme: -1 hp.

The splintered remains of the gnoll's guisarme explode violently, with wood splinters and lead balls both flying into the cavalier's grotesque canine visage. The beast's screams echo off the canyon walls until they come to a sudden decisive stop.

Milerna continues to climb, attempting to pull herself up over the lip of the canyon. However, being on fire doesn't help. She takes another 5 fire damage. Two climb checks (one normal, one for damage): 10+16=26 & 1+16=17, critical failure!

Milerna's great skill and Guy's outstretched hand are no match for a tiny loose rock. As she reach’s for the magus’ hand, Milerna's other handhold gives way and she slips off the rock wall, falling 10 feet and landing hard on the shaky bridge (taking 4 damage as she does so).

Milerna: 92 hp.
Owl: 47 hp.
Bridge: 0 hp.

With a final shuttering snap, the bridge finally gives way underneath the force of Milerna's hard fall.

Owl, several dead and dying dire hyenas, and the flaming wreckage of the bridge plummet over 140 feet into the shallow raging river rapids and jagged rocks of the ravine below.

Guymelef uses his arcane pool and casts feather fall quickly enough to save Milerna. Unfortunately, Owl was affixed to the bridge and unable to benefit from the spell as the dead weight of the wreckage dragged him down into the ravine. He did not scream, merely looked over his shoulder at his friends one last time.

Scarab Sages

Regarding the coup de grace:
He was a newish GM, and this was his first kill. I was the only PC near this guy - he would have to go out of his way to attack the other PCs, and he had a very low intelligence.
Since a full-attack (three attacks) would have killed me anyways, I told him to coup de grace me - only two attacks, but I had to make the save. I didn't need to make the save because he did enough damage to kill me outright. This was the second time I had played the character (PFS), so I wasn't particularly attached yet. The only hard feelings I had was that I had just bought the mini for the character, though it wasn't expensive. Now my husband is going to repaint the mini as a bad guy for his game.

Silver Crusade

Ravingdork wrote:
(stuff)

Okay, that rocked. Sucks to be Mister Owl, though.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Proudest death? My fighter/rogue (swashbuckler-type) in a heavily-houseruled 3.0 game back in the day. We had to roll for hit points every level (including 1st), and he had a Con modifier of -1... and kept rolling 1s and 2s for hp. He made it all the way to level 5 with a grand total of 12 hit points (he made liberal use of the total defense action). He finally perished valiantly attempting to keep an evil cleric at bay while the rest of the party was playing Keystone Cops with a bunch of ghouls - the evil cleric got a crit with a scythe and then used some kind of wacky domain power to STEAL HIS SOUL.

The upside was the tiny flyspeck village that was ultimately saved in that adventure was renamed in his honor - and for many years after that, every new character I rolled up came from that village, seeking to follow in the inspiring footsteps of "that dashing swordsman who gave his life."

Most frustrating death was a warblade who got killed in a... very challenging beach encounter in Savage Tide. Anyone who's played ST knows what I'm talking about. My warblade was doing his level best against a pretty potent foe, and just kept dishing out punishment, and finally got a critical hit! But since we had just gotten the nifty critical hit deck, I decided to draw instead of just taking the double damage... and got a result that was "normal damage, and target focuses on you." The baddie finished me off the next round, after which the party rogue hopped up and dealt 1 point of damage... killing it.

I've never touched the critical hit deck since.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Finn K wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
(stuff)
Okay, that rocked. Sucks to be Mister Owl, though.

Maybe, maybe not.

The GM ruled that Mister Owl's body was never found, presumably having been swept away by the river below.

He may still be out there somewhere...


Ravingdork wrote:
Finn K wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
(stuff)
Okay, that rocked. Sucks to be Mister Owl, though.

Maybe, maybe not.

The GM ruled that Mister Owl's body was never found, presumably having been swept away by the river below.

He may still be out there somewhere...

I'm sure he's all over, there's a bit of Mr. Owl in all of us*.

*:
Us referring to crawfish, catfish, and other river dwelling bottom feeders that clean up the environment from old corpses.


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I had a player who managed to get killed three times in four sessions by reckless play in what was not a character killing campaign. After the third death I wrote this up and presented it to him at the next session, printed out in fantasy font.

Mutual of Greyhawk
Proudly Serving the Prime Material Plane for Over 1000 Years

Dear Sir:
We regret to inform you that your policy with Mutual of Greyhawk has been canceled. We assure you we did not make this decision lightly, but only after casting several divination spells.

Three untimely deaths in such a short period of time, four adventure "sessions", would have been excessive during the Greyhawk War, much less while doing low to mid-level adventuring.

We paid off your fist claim, which I believe was "Death by Hill Giant Bashing", even though entering an obviously occupied hill giant cave to "do a little looting" is the reason your third level rogue never made fourth level.

We questioned "Death by Falling in Lava" because you do not technically carry lava insurance and at least two other party members warned your new rogue not to try to flank the owlbear by getting on the cliff edge overlooking the lava.
However, as we were required to settle a claim on a magic dagger from the same incident, we felt obligated to settle with you as well. (Letting you "borrow" a +2 dagger from undivided treasure shows bad judgment on the part of your fellow party members, which is why the replacement was downgraded to +1)

We only agreed not to drop you after the second instance because you elected to try a druid rather than another rogue. (As the druid survived two sessions, there was a glimmer of hope you might actually take part in a "treasure split" and therefore keep your policy up-to-date.)

However, if you will look over your policy again, which is only a Mid-Level Adventurer Term Policy, you will see that "Death by Being Eaten by Giant Sea Snake While in Seal Form" is neither covered nor implied. When the real seals are bolting onto the shore, the water is churning and red with blood, and the rest of your party is shouting "Don’t go in the water!" in common, elven, dwarven and pig-Latin, we can’t understand how you thought it was a good idea.

We considered continuing your coverage when you wanted to start a fourth character who begins as a stable hand in a very peaceful small village but as soon as someone at the meeting said "pitchfork" that option was rejecting unanimously.

We hope you will find suitable coverage elsewhere, and suggest you take out a low coast liability policy just in case you get someone else killed next time.

Sincerely,
Urshlan T. Yarl, Claim Adjuster.


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Killer GM: My roommate had near TPKs several times in one game with a bunch of new players (aside from myself), and every character died (aside from myself). The short of it is his games tend to be lethal for what may seem like no reason at all, but this game cemented his status as the most lethal of GMs that rotate at our table, as well as the surprising resilience of my wizard/shadowcaster/noctumancer, Wyvernjack.

Funniest Death: Same killer GM, running a different game (Eberron? I forget), characters falling all over the place. The middle of battle, our friend finishes up his new character and we're in need of some help. So skip introductions and here comes this dude busting through the doors and valiantly declares his immediate assistance in our struggle. Wielding a huge hammer of a weapon he swings. Rolls a 1. FUMBLE house rules, confirm the fumble, draws a card. Critical hits himself. His weapon was a special type that had a variable crit multiplier modification. Normally, it was an X4 weapon, this mod made it a X1d8. Rolls an 8. Critical hit himself for 8 times damage and dies. We never even knew his name.

Dark Archive

Kantrip wrote:

I had a player who managed to get killed three times in four sessions by reckless play in what was not a character killing campaign. After the third death I wrote this up and presented it to him at the next session, printed out in fantasy font.

Mutual of Greyhawk
Proudly Serving the Prime Material Plane for Over 1000 Years

Dear Sir:
We regret to inform you that your policy with Mutual of Greyhawk has been canceled. We assure you we did not make this decision lightly, but only after casting several divination spells.

Three untimely deaths in such a short period of time, four adventure "sessions", would have been excessive during the Greyhawk War, much less while doing low to mid-level adventuring.

We paid off your fist claim, which I believe was "Death by Hill Giant Bashing", even though entering an obviously occupied hill giant cave to "do a little looting" is the reason your third level rogue never made fourth level.

We questioned "Death by Falling in Lava" because you do not technically carry lava insurance and at least two other party members warned your new rogue not to try to flank the owlbear by getting on the cliff edge overlooking the lava.
However, as we were required to settle a claim on a magic dagger from the same incident, we felt obligated to settle with you as well. (Letting you "borrow" a +2 dagger from undivided treasure shows bad judgment on the part of your fellow party members, which is why the replacement was downgraded to +1)

We only agreed not to drop you after the second instance because you elected to try a druid rather than another rogue. (As the druid survived two sessions, there was a glimmer of hope you might actually take part in a "treasure split" and therefore keep your policy up-to-date.)

However, if you will look over your policy again, which is only a Mid-Level Adventurer Term Policy, you will see that "Death by Being Eaten by Giant Sea Snake While in Seal Form" is neither covered nor implied. When the real seals are bolting onto the shore, the water...

Lol... Outstanding! I luv this idea and know of a certain Bard who will think of this as a great business idea. Thanks!

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

psionichamster wrote:

Brand new to 3.5ed, and I made a Halfling Sorcerer in a convention game.

Unfortunately, being brand new to the game, he has a 10 Con.

I believe we can see where this is going, can't we?

Very first round of the very first combat he participated in, he caught a light crossbow bolt from a bandit, dropping him to -1. Luckily, he managed to be healed just before expiring right off the bat.

Fast forward several levels, and this little guy has acquired quite the personality. Despite coming very near to death tons of times, his color sprays and invisibility spells saved the day repeatedly.

Against a handful of mooks (troglodytes or human bandits, I can't remember now) he takes a Nat-20/Nat-19 spear to the face. DM lists damage, which is just enough to KO the poor little guy. Until I say the fateful words: "Aren't spears times-three crit weapons?"

Yes, I know, my PC died because I was "that guy" but hey, fair's fair, right?

A few resurrections later, and that PC eventually made it to 11th or 12th level, with a healthy paranoia of wizards, cultists, and mooks with simple weapons.

If I'm recalling properly, his Wisdom got pretty darn low too :)


There have been some very entertaining and funny posts so far. I'll try and match up. Ebberon home brew campaign. I think we were fighting psionics and some other arcane castor type character. We were higher level, around 10 or 11. The psions cast eagle whip on the sorcer of party, crippling his casting ability by doing charisma damage. At the time I hadn't read rules you didn't know so I cast restoration on him to restore ability damage. Castor casts dominate on fighter, who fails will, another dominate on sorcerer, who also fails (easy save both rolled below 3). They turn to face me and I decide that I'll give the fighter a new save. I cast the same spell 2x on fighter to give another save and he failed 2x. He proceeded to wack me with a maul. Sorcerer is up and eldrich blasts me. Dead cleric. Wizard companion teleports away. That's the last time I tried and save party members before myself.


mdt wrote:

So imagine a 45 foot long armadillo, with a carapace harder than the shell of an M1-Abrams, and more strength than a mammoth that eats anything organic that get's in front of it's snout.

This is what the high explosive concussion grenades were designed to distract and disorient, not kill. And this guy used an autofire grenade launcher full of them in an enclosed interior hallway.

Basically, he blew out every internal wall on the floor, ripped the elevator apart, blew out every window on that floor (and the two floors above and below that floor) and turned him and his team into chunky salsa.

In a building that can handle a 45 foot long armadillo with a carapace harder than the shell of an M1-Abrams, and more strength than a mammoth stomping around in it...

all is good though weirder things have happened -- and will again I'm sure.

Proudest survival -- Played a Malkavahen (however you spell it) in a VTM game. We were supposed to be exploring some old ruins that turns out had some cthulhu-like tentacle monsters in it. My particular madness was my 'telepatheticness' (yes that's how he said it) Came across some tentacles and due to my madness managed to make them unable to affect me since I didn't believe they were there. Later on hooked the darn thing up to the madness network and apparently it recoiled and decided to sleep for a while longer.

The rest of the party was totally wiped however.


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Leaped headfirst into a very large Sphere of Annihilation without realizing what it was.


My favorite: I was actually getting to play for a change rather than DM, and the guy taking over the wheel in our little clown car was going to run us on the classic, original "Ravenloft" module (this was many years ago).

He has the driverless black carriage arrive to pick us up, and we careen through the mountains on the way to the lair of the greatest vampire ever. He goes into amazing detail regarding our surroundings, setting a great atmosphere as the castle loomed closer. The road led to a chasm spanned by a bridge leading into the courtyard.

As the black, fiendish horses sped forward, he looks up and says, "The horses veer to the right and they, along with the wagon and all of you inside, disappear into the blackness of the chasm". The last thing our party saw was Strahd closing the shutters on a window and a gloating voice saying, "All too easy." We laughed for a good 20 minutes over this before he said he was just screwing with us and we launched into the actual module.


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Leaped headfirst into a very large Sphere of Annihilation without realizing what it was.

A former player of ours did something similar. Except first he investigated this strange hole in the air by poking it with a big stick, the stick disappeared without a trace, so he thinks the most sensible follow up action to this is to stick his head inside.....


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Best Death?

I would have to say the moment of desperation where my monk in 3.5, the only party member still up as we were fighting a Vampire Lord who kept renewing a protection from fire spell whenever we would deplete it, grabbed a pair of type VII necklaces of fireballs that we still had left and grappled the vampire lord. He then proudly declared that if the whole party was going to die, they would take this monstrosity with them... and thrust his necklace wrapped forearm into the still burning ruins of the vampire's coffin.

Asked to make saving throws for the first necklace, I try to convince my DM that we can deliberately fail those if we want, and his response is "for your character, sure, but not for your items. Things are built to not go off willy nilly, or you wouldn't wear them about your neck..." So, I roll, and the die comes up a natural 1. He insists I have to roll evasion and the other necklace as well... and both of those come up natural 1s.

In the end, the rest of the party stabilized and recovered to find themselves on on the edge of a glass crater, trying to figure out what happened. The monk and the vampire had both been destroyed by all the beads on the necklaces going off simultaneously.

Dark Archive

DungeonmasterCal wrote:
Leaped headfirst into a very large Sphere of Annihilation without realizing what it was.

Sounds like something out of Tomb of Horror or the Return to Tomb of horror... lol I seen so many mentions of that adventure that i downloaded it from the link Wraithstrike left and am now running it for a bunch of 8th level PC...

So far they have not even made it into the "Tomb" yet and the rogue of the group took 12d6 rock falling dmg and in a sep try 16d6 ceiling crushing dmg and in another try fell into a pit trap and took 7 con dmg from poison stakes. That is one wicked module. lol


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Lord Tsarkon wrote:

Funniest Death Ever : Hackmaster

I made a pixie fairy with mASSIVE physiologic and physical flaws.. I had
like 119 building Points (average character has 20 or 30).. after
rolling up the character and stuff.. I went thru training ( I was a
thief)..3 years... I was incarcerated(prison) for 5 years.. and the max life expectancy for a pixie fairy is 8 years . I got out of prision on
7th year.. Dmed rolled my max Life of 7 years.... so I died when I got out of prision.. During Character Creation..

You win the thread.

Dark Archive

Azten wrote:
Lord Tsarkon wrote:

Funniest Death Ever : Hackmaster

I made a pixie fairy with mASSIVE physiologic and physical flaws.. I had
like 119 building Points (average character has 20 or 30).. after
rolling up the character and stuff.. I went thru training ( I was a
thief)..3 years... I was incarcerated(prison) for 5 years.. and the max life expectancy for a pixie fairy is 8 years . I got out of prision on
7th year.. Dmed rolled my max Life of 7 years.... so I died when I got out of prision.. During Character Creation..

You win the thread.

LOL... that is truly funny.


The time I almost TPK'd my own party.

I was playing in a 3.5 Realms game, and was playing a savage-species progression of a Astral Deva. We were in this fog-shrouded enchanted hedge-maze that nailed you with mad lightning if you tried to fly or otherwise circumvent the "game" of the maze. We eventually made it to what we thought was the center of the maze, a large open area shrouded in some sort of mist from which seemingly endless waves of Zombies were emerging.

What I knew: Endless zombies, all coming from the same place, into what seemed to be a good bottle neck, and I had Blade Barrier as a Supernatural ability.

What I did: Drop the blade barrier as a wall, crossing the "room" well into the mist. Zombie-bits were spraying like a salad shooter.

What I did NOT know, part the first: there was a Yellow Musk Creeper hidden in the mist, not within the Blades, and it has this wonderful ability to spew spores that make people who fail their save walk toward it and stand there.

What I did NOT know, part the second: in 3.5, Blade Barriers were not dismiss-able.

So, the Cleric, the rogue, and one of the heavy hitters all failed their saves, and walked into an active blade barrier, then stood in the middle of it, next to the Musk Creeper.

Overwhelmed by the grief from having caused the deaths of his companions, my Deva fled into the air, and somehow managed not to be killed by the lightning because of his resistances and immunities, but had to spend the rest of his nigh-upon-endless existence as a divinely good creature knowing that he had killed innocent companions of great virtue. The only other PC that survived was a poison-using high-elf supremacist that I really did not particularly like.

So I didn't kill the whole party... but I did manage to kill the game. Years later, the guys STILL give me a hard time about it.


Aboard a galley, fighting with a couple of scrags:
Cleric cast a freedom of movement.
The scrag bull rushes him over the edge.

Due to freedom of movement, cleric falls to the sea bottom, happens to survive the fall, but suffocates before he can get up.


stringburka wrote:

Aboard a galley, fighting with a couple of scrags:

Cleric cast a freedom of movement.
The scrag bull rushes him over the edge.

Due to freedom of movement, cleric falls to the sea bottom, happens to survive the fall, but suffocates before he can get up.

I'm fairly sure Freedom of Movement doesn't do that.


Probably not quite suitable given the thread title, but my most epic character death was...

Spoiler:
I once had a Divine caster class in a 3.5 game, I think a Cleric, around level 7 in party of six, taking on what our DM had dubbed a "Lesser Balor" that was around CR 15 or something like that. It was toying with us, of course, and ultimately my Cleric was the only one left alive because he was using archery as opposed to trying to melee the demon. I finally rolled a natural 1 and the DM ruled that I was out of arrows (I was probably actually really close). The next round came and the only other character alive at the time provoked from the Balor and got ripped to pieces.

Knowing it was likely futile to turn and run, my Cleric drew his mace, pointed it skyward, shouted "FOR <insert deity name here>!!!" and charged the demon. The DM looked at me like I was crazy, but said roll it. Nat 20. Rolled to confirm. Nat 20. Now, my DM had a house-rule that if you roll two straight nat 20s, you get a third roll, and a third confirm is insta-death on whatever you're hitting. Made the third roll...nat 20. Lesser Balor insta-killed by the Cleric with about 9 HP left, who was vaporized when the demon exploded in his face. I didn't care if he died, that was freakin' amazing. Also, the DM re-incarnated my character as a Centaur for the awesomeness of that moment.

Dark Archive

Phillip0614 wrote:

Probably not quite suitable given the thread title, but my most epic character death was...

** spoiler omitted **

Great ending but man does it suck when you beaten the unbeatable boss and Die to his death throes... I had a DM (3.5 days) who used the feat Final Strike from savage species on the majority of his monsters... Even though you try to keep player knowledge out of the game, it was hard to wade in on a monster when you were low hit points for fear of it exploding and killing your fav PC... lol


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

lol. Just like Gandalf. :D

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Ravingdork wrote:
lol. Just like Gandalf. :D

Never really thought of that battle in that way but yeah... lol


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Hmm, not quite on topic, but definitely relating to character death.

We where playing through Rise of the Runelords and my character had the worst time of it.
After the first TPK (one survivor, by stint of the player was away for that session) my new character, Devlin Blake a human conman/snake oil sales man/swashbuckler, met his end once each module, or rather four of the five modules we completed.
Hopefully I've put in enough spoiler tags :)

Burnt Offerings

Spoiler:
In the assault on Thistletop

During a nasty fight against the goblins, the party lead called for a retreat. Being the swashbuckler he attempted to tumble past a pair of goblins at the rear to set up flanking and clear the way. Failing the roll by one or two he provoked, and wore a couple of attacks from them and was dropped to negatives. Unfortunately the party didn't think to have anyone move to cover their downed companion so the next turn saw a coup de grace.
His corpse was recovered and taken to some druids in the area, and he was reincarnated as an Elf.

Skinsaw Murders
During a side quest relating to one of the other characters back-stories the party travel to the Mushfens where a giant snake managed to do enough damage to kill him (I'm a bit hazy on the details of this death, I think it was just straight damage in a straight up fight.)
Back at the druids, and a quick reincarnate later, he wakes up to find he's now a half-elf.

Hook Mountain Massacre

Spoiler:
We'd just dealt with a pack of (what we assumed where) wild dogs, when an ogre...

...stepped out of the foliage and cleft him in twain, with a crit. from a large great-axe.
Yet more Druids! And he now finds himself back as human, kind of, but female! We found out later she was actually a fetchling, but it was before there was anything more than juts a one or two line description of that race, so mostly human, with lowlight, and cold resistance IIRC.

Now going by the name Lynn we continue the adventures...

Fortress of the Stone Giants
Whilst trying to infiltrate the fortress, she got dropped by a couple of

Spoiler:
wyverns
but by this point the cleric had Breath of Life so was back on her feat quite quickly.

Sins of the Saviors
Miraculously she didn't die here, but I do recall using a lot of the advance rogue talent Defensive Roll

Spires of Xin-Shalast
We only got halfway through this module and while being put into a lot of near death situations never actually died.

From what I recall there where only a couple of other deaths in the campaign (other than the TPK which I might regale you of later), one player lost a character or two in ways we couldn't retrieve the body, and once we had it Breath of Life came in handy in the latter half of the campaign.

Dark Archive

My latest died anticlimactically. A Sorc of the group we had just finished the BBEG but one of his minions remained. I was outside the door he needed to use to escape. he charged me and critted. My Sorc went down to a minion. Jsssshhhh what bad luck or maybe fate.

My team did take him down though so he did get what was coming to him.


Most heroic
In a magical maze where the doors were locked and totally impossable except by drawing a card that was affixed to each door. The cards were the cards from a deck of many things.

The last card (as the veterans among the players knew) was the death, which in itself is not very frightening but becomes so when the whole party was out of spells and in single didgit hitpoints.

The Paladin managed to occupy Death until the Rogue could open the door. Just as the party left Death landed the final blow upon the Paladin at the very doorstep.

Most stupid
Possessing a Flying Carpet powered by the spirit of a mischievous air genie and being steered by verbal commands one PC commanded the carpet to turn by 180 degrees (because the party forgot something).

The carpet, being about 300' into the air turned just as commanded, by 180 degrees but around the horizontal axis, dropping 2 out of 5 PCs to their deaths...

Killer GM
I GMed a high level adventure back in the times of AD&D. The party had just aquired a powerful wish from Bahamut, which he expected to be used for the greater good (and the party was being told so).

This didn't stop the CN Thief to blurt "I wish for a whole lot of money" at the first chance she got...

When a shadow befell the party the other members knew what to do and jumped out of the way as she stood there when a mountain of goldcoins descended fromt he heavens to kill her, only to vanish at her death.

I found that very funny but got reminded why it is a bad idea to kill your wives character, even when totally justified, quite fast...

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