Player Character Deaths

[Drake Farstrider]

So what is the biggest death toll of PC\'s in a single session that you have been invovled in?

For me It was while I was running the WOTC 3E D&D adventure Heart of Nightfang Spire. During the course of the adventure the entire party got killed, all 4 PC\'s and both NPC\'s. It was brutal. The theif fell through a trap door and fell 300 feet to her death, the paladin was killed by a gibbering mouther vampire, the fighter and the cleric both died from a Mummy monk, the bard was killed by a wraith and the psychic warrior died at the hands of vampire spawn.

This adventure is insane, the rewards are great, but there will be some deaths.

 

[Equus]

I usually don\'t kill off PC\'s...just a matter of taste. I like to run things like there\'s a storyline that\'s being illuminated. That being said, I\'ve killed three PC\'s and a party NPC rather horribly because they just did about everything wrong that they could. It was in a Mage - The Ascension game. Actually, come to think of it, I didn\'t kill them...they killed themselves. One of the players got a little desperate and pretty much yelled \"You may kill me, but I\'m taking you with me.\" He then turned his clothes and most of his skin into explosive material just as the bad guy was shooting him. He, of course, died. So did his 3 crippled comrades.

The next group of characters they created were all combat mongers. Heh. I took a look at the sheets, handed them back, and said that we wouldn\'t game that night and we\'d come back to character creation after all the knee-jerk reactions had died down.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Well if you notice it was all there doing, not mine on that one, there was a lot of failed saving throws that night.

I have also had PC\'s kill other PC\'s. The 1st time it was 1 player did not really like the other player so when the 2nd placers character was lying on the ground at 0 hit points he performed a coup de grace on him and killed him out right. The other time the players got inot a bickering match with the new member of the group one thing led to anouther and the newest member was dead. He had fun while his character lived.

Then there was the 7th lvl Paladin that failed his will save versus charm person (DC14) (rolled a 1) and that resulted in 1 PC and 1 NPC death.

 

[Equus]

Heh...but this wasn\'t even failed rolls...this was a player choice because he was feeling vindictive and frustrated. Kaboom! No more PC\'s.

We became very creative in one of my friends\' campaigns. One guy was playing an orc barbarian...and he went through a whole bunch of prestige classes. He would go into frenzy. I think we finally decided that we\'d NEVER allow him to have anything that would allow him to fly until his saves were high enough to drop out of frenzy.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Boy now theres a picture I thought I would never see. An enraged flying orc barbarian. lol

That is right up there with my enrage halfling barbarian.

 

[Itchy]

Only had one PC die on me... he thought he was a god at level 4 because the last session he took zero HP of damage and took on a guild of shadow dancers... lights out except one candle in the middle of the room, he couldn\'t even find them, let alone hit one.

 

[Equus]

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
Boy now theres a picture I thought I would never see. An enraged flying orc barbarian. lol

That is right up there with my enrage halfling barbarian.

One of my good friends likes to play \"problem characters\". He created a rude gnome barbarian that liked to start bar fights. *sigh* He was a pain of a player sometimes.

 

[salun]

character deaths? yeah, got a few of those under my belt by now, both own and a few players... I think...

First of, the last time I played D&D 3.5, our GM hadn\'t really got the challenge-ratings right, and still haven\'t , so we, 3 players of around lvl 7, stumbled into a monster CR 8 - *whack-whack-whack-mosh* down we went, quite dead. GM\'s remark \"Woops...\" :duh:

Also I can assure you - you should never pick up a duck in a dungeon - not even when there\'s potatoes and gravy next to it... but at least the bugger got fryed along with me by that fireball :flip:

Then there where this paladin of mine - died a true hero
Lvl 4 or 5, and went up against a blackguard! around lvl 10-ish...
alot of dodging, running, and keeping distance from him, while taking a swing at him every now and again. He actually got hurt quite a bit, but then my smite missed
I got such a whooping, and later the group found his head on a stick...
But they all managed to escape the blackguard due to my heroic actions

*thinking - thinking - thinking*
actually can\'t remember killing any players off, neither by accident or anything... I\'m just to nice I guess - have to make a change of that!:flame:

No! Wait! There is one
The scene is Paris, the system Vampire: The Masquerade, the group: A nosferatu, a ventrue, a gangrel and a brujah(without potence!!). The task was patroling for sabbat activities, and their patrol area where near the new Arch of Triumph...
One night, after recieving a tip, they are driving along in 2 cars, ventrue and nosferatu in one car(bmw or mercedes - ovned by the ventrue ), and the other two in the other(citroen bx owned by the gangrel).
Suddenly this girl stumbles out on the road.
The first car avoids her, ending unharmed at the side of the road. The second one avoids her too, but is a bit more unlucky - hitting some solid object(lamp-post I think).
They all get out to se what\'s happend, the ventrue asking the girl if she\'s hurt, the gangrel furious over his car being wrecked.
The girl just lies there, curled up on the road, whimpering and shivering.
The group gets a bit suspicios by now, but just imagine their surprise, when that cute little girl(looking to be around 15 or 16 years of age) starts transforming!
They\'ve run into a werewolf, going thru her first change
The nosferatu and the ventrue do the only sensible thing - \"RUN AWAY!!!!\" - where as the gangrel and brujah try to fight her...
The gangrel attempts to make some fancy move against her - and misses(he did that quite alot, to everyones great amusement, luckyli also his own).
The brujah graps his baseball-bat, and takes a swing at her, connects, and get her attention... *wham* he flies through the air, landing on the wrecked car, gets up, goes at her again.
At about this time the gangrel is seeing the futility of their actions too, and is about ready to run away.
Then the werewolf takes another swing at the brujah, he failes in blocking it, she get tons of successes. The result? Head\'s off! Brujah head bouncing down the road.... and the gangrel running as fast as he can
The campaign ended at this session, but we had all had quite a blast and tons of fun - even the guy that died.

But let me take a few rounds of TRoS, and I\'ll bet I\'ll have stories to tell - great system - combat can kill in this system if you aren\'t carefull, and use your head :bouncy:

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Originally posted by salun
character deaths? yeah, got a few of those under my belt by now, both own and a few players... I think...

First of, the last time I played D&D 3.5, our GM hadn\'t really got the challenge-ratings right, and still haven\'t , so we, 3 players of around lvl 7, stumbled into a monster CR 8 - *whack-whack-whack-mosh* down we went, quite dead. GM\'s remark \"Woops...\" :duh:

A CR 8 monster should not of wiped out an entire lvl 7 party. What monster was it? CR 10+ sure, I could see that, but thats why you dumb down the monster some if you want to run that particular monster.

 

[Godlikebuthumble]

Oooh, I\'m not that much into \"dumbing\" monsters down... Like the ever-so-popular \"Beholder-that-always-flies-at-ground-level-and-never-uses-his-antimagic -ray\". C\'mon. Where\'s the fun in that? There are heaps of lover-level monsters that are fun, too.

Speaking of wrongly calculated CR: We once had a game of aspiring adventurers (two level 2 and two level 3). One night, our DM throws a Gargoyle at us (CR 4). Needless to say, we didn\'t stand much of a chance, as most of us had to do critical hits to get around the \'goyle\'s Damage Reduction... Later, the DM (a pretty good one otherwise) said he thought it\'d be a piece of cake, cause we would add up to, like, CR 10 rolleyes And he still thinks that\'s how you figure out CR. Luckily, we mostly get self-invented monsters...

 

[Drake Farstrider]

I agree that there are heaps of great lower lvl monsters. And dumbing down a monster may not be the best idea for certain monsters, like Beholders. Some monsters though you can do that, like giants or trolls. What I always like to do is give realitivly weak monsters like goblins some umph.

I had an adventure were the characters were sent to retrieve a dwarven relic, that was lost in an old Dwarf hold. The problem was the hold was infested by goblins and a insane sorcerer, who traind the goblins to be better fighters. It was so funny to see the PC underestimate these little goblins that just so happened had lvls of fighter. The PC\'s won the day but not before taking some heavy damage, half the party was on the brink of death, because they thought they could just piss on the goblins and they would die. lollol

 

[Itchy]

Yeah, i LOVE setting extensive Kobold traps, or pumping up Goblins with character/prestigue classes. Like this Goblin Duelist i unleashed on the Order i DM

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Thats awsome, did you sculpt it your self?

 

[Itchy]

Yup, but still haven\'t painted it yet. It\'s one of my better sculpts and i\'m waiting untill i paint better to finish him. But he\'s a gobbo so playing with him green doesn\'t hurt muchlol

 

[DM of Doom]

The PCs in my group rarely die (having a high-level paladin helps) but they go into the negatives often enough. Someone should ask ipaintminis about her experience today. (it involves going to Hell, and spraying water...)

 

[Drake Farstrider]

PC deaths are part of the game. They will happen. You just got to make sure that you don\'t off the characters out of spite. Let the players kill their characters.

 

[Naukhel]

Character Death Mayhem

This happened in my old High School gaming group. I was, back then, a 2nd edition AD&D tournament DM, and had attracted a monstrous crowd of players.

13 in all.

Four fighters, two thieves, two wizards, one ranger, one paladin, and one cleric.

The party had been making significant headway through a particularly challenging dungeon I\'d put together, and had reached the climactic battle.

An Adult Red Dragon.

Round one: Saving throws vs. Dragon fear. All succeed (they were, on average, level 8-9, and dragons back then weren\'t as threatening as they seem to be, now).

Most characters set to rolling initiative, save one, who happens to be the toughest fighter in the lot. He declares that he runs away. Dracophobia, he states more quietly.

Three rounds into the fight, half the party is dead, due to bad saving throws against dragon breath, the paladin getting swallowed whole, and one of the wizards getting torn in half by the dragon\'s claws.

Round five, four fighting characters are still alive, and out of nowhere, David (the toughest fighter guy) yells at the top of his lungs...

\"I\'m stiiiiillll ruunnnniiiiiiiiiinnnnnnng!!!!!\"

Ten minutes later, when the laughter died down, the remaining parties finished off the dragon, and added up all their treasure, finding it just barely enough to get everyone else resurrected.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Originally posted by Naukhel

Round five, four fighting characters are still alive, and out of nowhere, David (the toughest fighter guy) yells at the top of his lungs...

\"I\'m stiiiiillll ruunnnniiiiiiiiiinnnnnnng!!!!!\"

lollollol

Classic! Did he ever live that down?

 

[Naukhel]

Are you kidding? Live it down?

Though Dave has not been with us for 10 years, now, the incident is still fondly discussed among the remaining group...

Yes, I still play with guys from my high school group.

Also discussed with fondness...

A dwarven fighter, wearing full plate mail, diving overboard from a ship in the middle of the ocean, because his favourite battle axe went overboard in a critical fumble.

He gave up +3 full plate mail in favour of the axe, because he didn\'t want to sink and die.

The axe? +2.

 

[tzor]

That reminds me of something, not quite a death, but similiar. My dwarf was in this boat while another character was exploring the bottom of this lake when he is attached by something. Seeing this from above my dwarf decides (low wisdom score at the time) to dive bomb the monster from aove. He missed the monster and hit the surface of the lake bed, being very weighed down by the heavy armor and his natural dwarfness.

His natural reaction was to curse, followed by a quick inhalation of ... water? The heavy drowning dwarf was eventually pulled to the boat above. Everyone agreed he was a heavy dwarf.

Ironically, consdering his 6 wisdom score, he had in his posession a sword of three wishes.

In a very random and bizzare event he drank from one of the DMs nasty fountains which caused a series of dice to be rolled which resulted in a +6 to his wisdom score. Considering that one of the dice was a 50%/50% chance of it being a + or a -, he could have just as easily turned into a 2nd edition vegtable. As it was his wisdom was doubled.