Rest in Peace

[Jsaur]

Our 3.5 campaign has had its first casualty.

A third-level fighter, referring to himself as "M", died today while rescuing a large number of civilians. He was stabbed by one town guard and critted by another.

He will be dearly missed, seeing as we can't bring him back.

Discuss this: report your own PC deaths if you want.

[UndertakerSheep]

I'm the DM of our group, and I've never had my own PC die in other people's campaigns so far. However, as a DM, I always try to make character death important to the story. There has to be this strife, this conflict, some last heroic effort and a meaning to one's death.

I love it when players are already discussing how to bring back the Fighter, when the fighter's player suddenly goes "No guys, I don't think my guy would want to come back. He achieved his goals and lived his dream." That's the good DM inside of me.

The bad DM in me however, enjoys it when the rogue goes below 0 again because he made a stupid decision and now the monsters are rolling crits.

Why is the dark side so tempting?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

Why is the dark side so tempting?

Because it's fun!

I had my first real PC casualty a few weeks ago. The party rogue, suffering from the kleptomania flaw, tries to loot the Troll King's Golden Axe while he's using it to fight. One critical later, the rogue is in two pieces, the other players are in tears, and then they sick the Ranger's Bear on the Troll. They purposefully collapsed a thousand year old church on top of themselves to avenge her.

And then they split up the party, because they decided the heart of the team was gone. They went their separate ways and never looked back...which kinda killed the entire campaign, but dem's da breaks...

[Roak Star]

I just lost my Guardsman in a Dark Heresy campaign I'm playing in. We were fighting an Ork Warboss, and I had to burn a fate point to keep him alive. After the fight, I decided that it was time for him to go out in a bloody trail of Ork blood since he was half-dead anyway. The DM gave him a spectacular end that was meaningful, dignifying and heroic. I'm sad to see him go, but my replacement character (a cleric) is already proving to be great fun.

[Scow2]

I lost my 7th-level Mighty Godling in a pathfinder campaign somewhat recently. We found ourselves in a dungeon, and after a number of miscommunications, believed we were facing an archway marked with a skull above the door to the next area. Our demonically-possessed party member warned us that their was a powerful undead through the arch that was going to kill us, but we largely dismissed him because up until then, the player had made his character insufferably patronizing, and we believed the Succubus within him (Suppressed by permanent Protection from Evil) was merely taunting us.

However, when we stopped to let our Grippli Alchemist check for magical traps, our Paladin (A graduate of the Leeroy Jenkins Paladin Academy, and looking for a fight), decided to down the Extract of Shield the grippli gave her earlier and just barge on through - and suddenly, we were fighting a Minor Reaper (WAY beyond our ability to confront!). The grippli tried aiding the Paladin in the fight, only to be killed (GM fudging to death by HP loss instead of Negative Energy drain) when her attempt only summoned another, identical reaper to kill her, and the paladin went down as well because nobody wanted to summon yet another goddamn OP reaper.

Then, an argument broke out between the two survivors (Just me and the possessed elf - our Artificer was DC'd from the session) - he wanted to release the succubus to have her bring the paladin's body back. My character had previously been possessed by her, and nearly killed the entire party under her influence, so I objected to the chance of her getting free. I was going to go through (Hoping that since the trap had been triggered, it wouldn't trigger for me - and if so, that I could force my way back through), grab the body, and dash to safety. However, things went awry, and I learned the Minor Reaper had a fear effect - so I was sent screaming further into the labyrinth, and nat-1'd on a Reflex Save to avoid falling into a 30' pit. The reaper got and killed me in 2 shots, negative energy drain (1d4 negative levels/hit is an OBSCENE amount. Especially when both hits roll 4) So, dead for good.

[Slipperychicken]

I love it when players are already discussing how to bring back the Fighter, when the fighter's player suddenly goes "No guys, I don't think my guy would want to come back. He achieved his goals and lived his dream." That's the good DM inside of me.


Seems like a fine thing to write in a will, or at least a note on the body. Have some language in there which says "Please, do not try to resurrect me. I would much rather stay in the afterlife. Also, as my dying wish, return my possessions (including my share of the current job's pay) to my family in [location] and tell them to be happy, and that I will always love them no matter what [etc.]"


...I just realized how much RP you can have through a last will left by a warrior for justice who knows he could die at any moment.

[SilverLeaf167]

The Dwarf Fighter had a ring that grants Haste to everyone around him. Sure, he got an extra attack, but so did the five super-goblins. And they critted. Four times. With heavy picks. He's gonna get raised though, since they're on an urgent mission, but he definitely swore off that darned ring.

[AdmiralCheez]

I've lost several characters, and seen many more die in the gaming group I used to play in. We tend to play where anyone can die, at any time, for any reason. No hand-holding in that group. It wasn't entirely vicious, though, as most of the time, the deaths were the result of poor player decisions, or unlucky rolls.

Characters I've lost:
Good-aligned cleric: Died after being paralyzed by final demon boss, and crushed to death in its giant tail. Unfortunately for other party members, he cast a spell earlier that day from the spell compendium that causes the cleric's body to explode upon death. It critically hurt the demon, but also killed the wizard who was standing too close.

An evil cleric that died in a fight that we had no business fighting. The party "leaders" lost an argument with a local militia general, and caused a huge battle in the middle of a city. He became isolated from the party and was flanked on all sides by enemies. He did not survive.

Perhaps my favorite character death was my inventor character, who died in a bus crash during the final boss fight with a nightlord. He was driving the bus, as it was his personal creation / official team transport, and managed to hit the nightlord in reverse gear, at the speed of light, from orbit.

[TuggyNE]

The Dwarf Fighter had a ring that grants Haste to everyone around him. Sure, he got an extra attack, but so did the five super-goblins. And they critted. Four times. With heavy picks. He's gonna get raised though, since they're on an urgent mission, but he definitely swore off that darned ring.

That should go in the mean magic items thread, I think. :smalltongue:

[TypoNinja]

Through a combination of campaigns that die the ignoble deaths of apathy, a small dose of paranoia, and more good luck than any one man should be allowed to possess, I have never had a PC death.

As a DM, I try to make it so the dice don't kill PC's. I feel like a mistake should be made to result in death, PC's should be heroic and simple bad luck shouldn't wipe them out.

One of the most Memorable PC deaths I've presided over however wasn't amazing because of the death, in fact I've forgotten how the death happened. The resurrection was far more impressive.

The party was quite high level at this point 15+, and the cleric who was in the process of founding a Church in an attempt to resurrect a dead God (my cosmology was interesting :P) had bit it. Its also important to note the nature of the campaign setting was pretty much the opposite of The Realms, no magic marts, social stigma against all forms of magic, except clerical healings, and the PC's are the highest class level people by far, at least 5 levels. No high level NPC's at all.

So the party wizard decides to help the church along a bit. He arranges for a massive state funeral, all the trimmings, casket up on a dias, VIP speakers, the whole nine yards. The Pope would be jealous.

With a Twist. Prior to the main service he Planar Binds himself a freaking Solar, and asks it a favor. Due to a previous adventure the PC's are kind of famous on the outer planes (Expedition to the DemonWeb Pits), so he gets the favor gratis.

The Solar then proceeds to crash the funeral service and Res the Cleric, in the middle of a packed cathedral.

The place of course goes nuts, as their Bishop, who'd been lying in state all week, gets up out of his coffin, and stands up next to a freaking angel who'd just crashed the party. What does your average peasant make of this? Why God sent him back because he still has work to do of course.

[CombatOwl]

Our 3.5 campaign has had its first casualty.

A third-level fighter, referring to himself as "M", died today while rescuing a large number of civilians. He was stabbed by one town guard and critted by another.

He will be dearly missed, seeing as we can't bring him back.

Discuss this: report your own PC deaths if you want.

One of the groups I was in had 28 character deaths over ~32 sessions. We were averaging pretty close to one death a session.

[Dienekes]

Never lost a character myself, but a lot of my players have. For me character death is kind of an idiot tax. Some of the highlights:

-Stabbing a world destroying bomb with a lightsaber
-Attempting a TF2 Soldier style rocket jump
-Deciding to separate from the rest of the group in the middle of a high level lichs chambers, then proceeding to call out the lich.
-Charged at a great dragon to kill it, at level 7. It was supposed to be a quest-giver.
-Howling a battle cry and charging during a stealth quest. Then while already on the run and at half life from that little incident attempting to "find out what is on the other side of this trap-door." It was a trap.
-Insulting the obviously insane and bloodthirsty orc warlord, while dining as his guest, while surrounded by his men, at level 1.

There were some actual dramatic and blaze of glory style deaths as well. But the idiotic ones are by far the most prevalent.

[Angel Bob]

Our group is very casual, so in our few years of gaming, we've only had one death. Naturally, it was mine: the party rogue tossed a magic item to the warlord, who failed to catch it and was killed by the impact.

To elaborate (spoilered for length):

The DM set us against a young red dragon, which would have been an appropriate challenge for our party if it weren't that a) as mentioned, we're casual players, ergo most of us had no idea what we were doing, and b) the kleptomaniac psion and her rogue partner-in-crime deserted us to loot the dragon's hoard.

As it turns out, a young red dragon can really mess up a party of: (1) warlord, (1) paladin with a history of never rolling lower than a 15, and (2) somewhat OP wizards, none of whom really had any grasp of 4E tactical combat.

Anyway, after about 6 rounds of a brutal smack-down by the dragon, both our warlord and our paladin were at less than 10 hit points each. Note that since the paladin's player wasn't here, I was rolling for both of them (hence why the paladin was in the negatives).

The psion and rogue finally returned, both heavily encumbered by gold, and my warlord requested a magic weapon, on account of not having one even though we were level 5 (our DM really is more used to older systems). The rogue tossed a lightning sword, and the DM arbitrarily called for a Dexterity check to catch it. I failed abysmally, and was knocked unconscious, even as the dragon dropped our paladin.

The death saving throws were the hysterical part. Each time we came to my turn, I rolled for the warlord and the paladin. The former bled out over three rounds. The latter, evidently channeling his player's luck, rolled a natural 20, sprang back into action, and was dropped again... only to roll another natural 20 and then help win the fight.

I'm now the DM of that group, and I'll admit I kind of want to inflict some Cerebus Syndrome by killing PCs. But I've realized that at this point in their story, a death would be an annoying and random obstacle. I need to wait until at least one or two personal quests are resolved... or close to being resolved... before I get lethal.

[Aolbain]

I hereby report the death of one Nicomo Castelo. Elven rogue, mercenary and captain in the army of Hextor. After a long struggle with a rival-army-branch related disease he has finally left us and this earth. He died as he lived: afraid, crying and with his pants filled with his own urine. May he rest in Peace.

[Hyena]

It wasn't DnD or even a pen-and-paper system, but there was this game, Eternal Night. Over thirty players, over 130 dead characters. Here are mine deaths:

1) My first character to die was an orc warlock, who botched his attempt to throw a grappling hook. Said grappling hoor crushed his head.
2) Second one exploded with the majority of the party when one genius decided to slash some unknown machinery with his flaming sword and ignited the fuel.
3) Later on, my gladiator was fighting on the arena. Against a steam tank. Hillariously, he actually SURVIVED long enough to be taken to the doctor... And died a few hours later, because so many people were almost killed by the tank, the doctor just couldn't save everyone.
4) My gnome-tinker was killed by an invincible spirit who then mysteriously dissappeared without a trace. Maybe, easily solving the riddles thrown at her in the labyrith was the reason.
5) And finally, my insane cultist swordmage actually lived long enough to see the finale - she killed the final boss with the help of the only other survivor... And then we were devoured by an ash storm.

That was fun.

[Lothmar]

I've lost 2 close pc party members and 2 others who had been around for a handful of sessions. I've also had to 'seperate' from 4 other pcs dues to conflicts of 'opinion' and 'duty' that they felt it was more important to slow down the enemy at home and attempt to defeat them that way then on the main quest so they're kind of having npc effects on the mainland while me and the main group are still on the main quest.

Im the only original party member since our campaign began (granted I had to sit out three sessions which gave me a chance to play a temporary character for a time because I had to stop a war between my nation and an ally due to an enemy ploy to trick us into war) and even if I felt like I would want to change my character, I almost feel as if im obligated to stick it out for the long-haul so as not to dishonor their memories. ~chuckle~

Not going to list how they died or left the party though due to time constraints.

[genderlich]

All my PC deaths, coming up. I have four to speak of.

First is Siarnaq, Nagaji Inquisitor of Pharasma. He didn't have a whole lot to his story or personality - I was still trying to figure out the homebrew setting the DM was using. His death was also nothing special; he was shot to death by some obscure monster like a celestial bird-person with rainbow feathers and a bow.

Then the next two were in the same campaign. I started with Alberio, a human alchemist. He was a bit insane, but quiet; he was sort of a standard mild-mannered scientist type, but he did love his bombs. It was a semi-pirate campaign. At one point, a wererat who clearly had class levels turned up on our ship and we didn't know how he got there. So we tried to kill him. Two out of five party members were missing, and the fight was tougher than expected - especially when a Witch PC cast Reduce Person on the foe in an attempt to weaken him that just made him stronger. (We still give that player crap about that spell...) The third PC in attendance was knocked unconscious, so Alberio snapped at the seeming-death of his friend. He Enlarge Person'ed himself and then drank one of his Mutagens for the first time - he turned out to be a Ragechemist, so that was why he was so quiet all the time. He turned into a hulking 12-foot monstrosity, beat on the wererat for a round, then the rat critted and brought him below negative 10. I wanted a moment, though, so the DM let me spend a Hero Point to stay up for one more round. I picked up the tiny wererat, crushed him between my giant clawed hands, and toppled over the side of the ship, never to be seen again...

I replaced Alberio with Rigel, a halfling Summoner. His eidolon was Antares, and resembled an Orc in heavy armor weilding a pair of warhammers. Rigel came from a nation where arcane magic was persecuted, so he always claimed that Antares was just his bodyguard. Rigel had fallen in with some bad people and owed a lot of money, and when he didn't pay up they started sending assassins after him, so he ran and ended up on this ship with the party. He was incredibly paranoid and did not trust ANYONE, least of all the fellow PC who was openly a member of an assassins' guild. So he kept to himself and.came across as distant and aloof; accordingly, everyone hated him, in and out of game. This despite the fact that he was by far the most effective member of the party. Antares was a god in melee, and Rigel's buff spells got the group through otherwise highly difficult fights. He also Charmed two hydras that we were supposed to fight along with the dragon at the end of the dungeon, and got them to instead carry out vast amounts of gold from the dragon hoard that we weren't really supposed to have. But even after all this, everyone still hated him and I was sick of it, so I made a deal with the DM that Rigel would finally get killed and I would play his assassin from there on.

The last death is even more angering to me than Rigel's. I had Malachi Jefferson, a low-level Human Oracle who really worked and acted more like a Paladin. I put a lot of work into his background and I loved this character. He was the long-lost son of my previous character, a greedy and mean old wizard, and I made Malachi as different as I could. He was generous, compassionate, selfless, and just. (This was also an attempt to counter a character another player had in the Rigel game who was a smite-happy "paladin" who kept trying to kill my characters because "I'm just playing my character's alignment, man!" But I digress...) Malachi was awesome. He had a deep Southern accent and was always courteous to everyone, a big change from my tendency to play borderline evil characters. His catchphrase was "My mamma and my poppa always taught me..." So the first session, he was in a woods/swamp chasing a necromancer and ran into another PC who was supposed to join the party, a halfling bard and a ferryman who just sat out on his river all the time and didn't care about anything. Malachi and the rest of the party (actually just one other character plus a few weak NPCs we convinced to come with us) explained the threat from the necromancer threatening to destroy the whole territory. The ferryman pretty much said "Nah, I'll just sit on my raft and stay here, because I don't care about anything." So the rest of the party went off to find the necromancer, tracked him to a cave. In the second room of the cave is a Gray Render, a pretty tough encounter normally for our level, but since we were missing the third PC it turned into a disaster. Malachi and all the NPCs died, the other PC barely surviving. First session. We decided to just end that campaign right there. I'm still bitter about that - the one time I try to actually play a Good character and this happens... I'm still thinking about bringing him back in the future if it ever makes sense. I did spend a lot of time on his backstory.