What killed a party member in your last campaign and why?

[Buufreak]

In short, bad storytelling (on my part, admittedly) and the party as a whole.

A friend and my wife bicker often, OOC. This tends to bleed over into games, and while incapacitated he PK'd her. Lecturing ensued.

Shortly after, new characters for a handful of players due to "poor life decisions," (Paul's words, not mine), they ended up on a new plane that had its own pantheon. Someone became chosen by a god in a war of cosmic power, and he chose to ignore it. Eventually, the sun crashed into the plane. I'm not exactly sure the amount of fire and gravity damage that would do, but we figured it was enough.

[balegar]

Our party was framed for murder.

I was the party rogue and earlier in the campaign we found a wand of reincarnation and another one of restoration. We didn't have a divine caster so my rogue kept the wands. So one by one we had the barbarian coup de gras each party member and the rogue used the wands. Everyone except the rogue since he was the one with umd, so he mostly hides nowadays.

[Malimar]

A rakshasa, a couple of efreet, and a monkey. The party didn't know how to deal with wall of fire and so a couple of them died.

(The monkey was in case the witch used her sleep hex on the rakshasa -- it was riding the rakshasa's shoulder and had a prepared action to wake him up.)

[GiantFlyingHog]

Level 0 bandits. TPK.

[Tiri]

Level 0 bandits. TPK.

There's no such thing as a level 0 character.

[chainer1216]

Balor went BOOM!

The poor necromancer was blown through a mansion.

[Inevitability]

There's no such thing as a level 0 character.

Sure there is! As a result of having no HD they have — HP, which is what makes them so dangerous to low-level parties.

[Tiri]

Sure there is! As a result of having no HD they have — HP, which is what makes them so dangerous to low-level parties.

I hope you are being sarcastic. I'm pretty sure you are, but you never know.

[Dante Daylight]

Our halfling druid got beheaded by our fighter.

As the party was infront of a cave labyrinth and doesn't knowed the right way, the druid just yelled into the dark. As we heared wolf steps from inside he ran towards the sounds and a giant dire wolf leaped onto him and pinned him down. After animal charm from the druid doesn't worked against the wolf, he revealed his true form as a baghest and stunned the swift hunter. After the barghest managed to devour parts of him, the druid got free and run away, but the barghest managed to dominate our fighter and forced him to attack the druid our only real caster.

Long story short, fighter won against the animal companion gorilla who tried to stop him, rolled critical with his Greatsword, confirmed and the druid was gone. I as a paladin had lower initiative and casted protection from evil to supress the domination (dm was fine with this). The fighter then killed the Barghest with the rest of us before the protection went off.

We then found the right way through the caves and the gorilla helped to transport the parts of his master to the next towncleric where he got revived.

[Xaroth]

Last campaign...? Uh...hm.

I think I got obliterated by a disruptor beam.

Current campaign though, I'm DMing, and the last person that was murdered was the Warforged Artificer. The party came across some Dire Apes, and the smart member of the party managed to calm them down, and make it so that at the very least, they would be keeping their distance and the party could go past/around (Dire Apes are territorial, right?). This was just after murdering some Apes that they'd found previously, too.

So what does the Gnome Barbarian do?

Charges one of them.

What occurred afterwards was a bloody mess nearly ending up in a TPK, and even I was amazed at just how goddamn powerful the Rend ability is. It was kinda early-campaign so I decided I'd go easy on them, so as to not deter them from wanting to play, but the Warforged's death was honestly unexpected even on my end. Who the hell expects a dire ape to crit twice and then roll max damage on the rend?

Needless to say the party had a newfound respect for our silverbacked friends after that.

The Gnome Barbarian's Black Bear pet also died in the battle.

This was 3 dire apes against a group of 8 EL 4 characters.

[GilesTheCleric]

What occurred afterwards was a bloody mess nearly ending up in a TPK, and even I was amazed at just how goddamn powerful the Rend ability is. It was kinda early-campaign so I decided I'd go easy on them, so as to not deter them from wanting to play, but the Warforged's death was honestly unexpected even on my end. Who the hell expects a dire ape to crit twice and then roll max damage on the rend?

Crits will always happen when you least expect them. I TPKO'd my two member party (both level 2) with a pair of lucky CR 1/3 skeletons. Roll the bones!

[Xaroth]

Crits will always happen when you least expect them. I TPKO'd my two member party (both level 2) with a pair of lucky CR 1/3 skeletons. Roll the bones!

Doot doot!

I just found it absolutely ridiculous and couldn't stop laughing at the time while the Artificer was just like "...WHY?!" and what with a certain gorilla meme circulating the internet recently, many jokes were had about the critting ape.

[Inevitability]

I hope you are being sarcastic. I'm pretty sure you are, but you never know.

Don't worry, I am.

[ComaVision]

Last Monday I killed two PCs and two of their NPC companions.

I was running Tammeraut's Fate. The gist is the party goes to a small island with a keep and zombies attack at night. There are various trade supplies and some NPCs hiding inside the keep to fortify and defend the building.

My group got to the front door and fought a Peryton and two Assassin Vines. The Psion spent most of her PP during the fight, and the Warlock had expended his Healing Belt and damage boost charges, so they decided to camp in the courtyard. I tried to foreshadow a bit by having them see a dozen bloated, rotting figures on the beach as the sun was setting but they stuck to their plan of resting in the courtyard. Jump a few hours and they're set upon from all directions by a dozen, hivemind undead.

It probably doesn't help that I was rolling hot. Both PCs and one of the NPCs died by critical hits. The other NPC died after multiple rounds of failing stabilization checks, and the Psion failing multiple Heal checks. Oh, and the diplomancer of the group lied to the undead that he was sent to help them and helped kill one of the PCs.

The Psion is planning to go get some muscle from a nearby fishing village and try to get revenge tonight. Hopefully they don't do one fight and chill in an unprotected area again.

[Uncle Pine]

The stupidest character in the party suddenly went to town alone to buy a type II necklace of fireballs of his own volition and hiding it from everyone else in the party. There he meets an old friend of his who decides to accompany the character and even help him (by lending him the money necessary to buy a type III necklace) because he likes him that much.
Fast forward half an hour later, when the party realizes after 2,5 years that the charming warlock they befriended near the start of the campaign is actually working for the BBEG and he loves to use Brimstone Blast to blow his problems away.

EDIT: There were no survivors.

[Malimar]

A rakshasa, a couple of efreet, and a monkey. The party didn't know how to deal with wall of fire and so a couple of them died.

(The monkey was in case the witch used her sleep hex on the rakshasa -- it was riding the rakshasa's shoulder and had a prepared action to wake him up.)

Oh, I just remembered I lied: a level 1 character died to a bunch of flotsam oozes more recently than the rakshasa/efreet/monkey incident.

[Calthropstu]

A coup de grace from an undead at one hp. It had successfully paralyzed a party member, the group had it surrounded, but had left a spot where it could 5 foot step and be unthreatened and adjacent to the paralyzed characters. Its orders were to kill one of the party members at any cost.

So the undead 5 foot stepped, and coup de graced. The reason for the order is there is a plot device that can resurrect a party member, but allows them to be tracked from a particular location by a particular group.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The only time there was a death in the party for our games (we tend to switch games too frequently for death's to occur, unfortunately) was in our D20 Future game. Long story short, the party are fleeing from some Grasshopper alien commando dudes with a natural invisibility ability. They had captured the commando leader (and left the other 2 to flee), and took the leader to the orbital base above the planet they were on. They had to wait for an escape ship to arrive, to they scattered throughout the (mostly abandoned) base in search of supplies and a functioning long range communication's array to get their escape ship to come sooner.

The Commando Leader, who they left on their small ship (incapable of interstellar travel), in the hangar, regained consciousness and broke free of his binds. This happened just as the pilot came back down to check out the ships in the hangar for anything useful. Proceed with absolutely epic sequence where the pilot (not a combat focused character) fought an enemy the entire party struggled to handle together. It ended with the Commando outsmarting the pilot, locking himself in the ship and them ramming the pilot against the hangar wall, with the ship. The damage the Commando took from the crash made it easy for the tech specialist (who saw the commotion on a security feed and ran to help) to finish him off.

Everyone agreed it was a good first death.

[ZamielVanWeber]

My DM rolled near max damage on Forbiddance after I failed my Will save vs it, then I failed my Fort save vs massive damage, then houseruled massive damage sets my HP -10. Boom. I was super salty too, since I failed the Fort and Will saves by 1 both AND he dealt the damage through a 19 HP false life.

[Thealtruistorc]

Bard ran out of healing spells and happened to be the only caster in the group. We were fighting the quasit witch in Rise of the Runelords. Party Ranger got decapitated by a minion.

In retrospect, running this adventure with newbies may have been a bad idea.

[Deadline]

Let's see, from the last campaign alone we have the following (in order):

• Old General of an Evil Kingdom - Struggling against the remnants of his god-queen and oh yeah he's been dead the whole time (FFX Auron style). Finally laid to rest at the conclusion of the campaign.
• Grumpy caravan master and former executioner for one of the only "safe" (kinda but not really) kingdoms left in the magical post-apocalypse - killed himself after being possessed by an outer evil so that said evil no longer had an anchor in this world and was banished. Returned as a ghost powered by the souls of the dead because his task wasn't finished yet. (He actually returned to life at the end of the campaign).
• Dragonborn alchemist - turned to stone and had his name erased from existence after using his ability to punch things out of existence one too many times (worth it to erase an eldritch evil and save his wife and children from oblivion!)
• Young street-thief - destroyed his own soul after absorbing evil taint from the soul of his "adoptive step-sister" who had been cared for and loved by the BBEG (who was the street-thief's father), thereby destroying said taint forever and allowing his step sister and father to pass peacefully into the afterlife.

It was a heck of a ride.

[vasilidor]

One character made a deal with one evil deity for power, betrayed said deity for a deal with a different one for more power, got caught but was killed in combat before either one could kill him themselves. so they just took his soul and our reincarnate artifact did not work because of that.

another character died by bad luck in combat, but was quickly reincarnated.

dying permanently in that game takes some doing, can't remember them all but some are on there 5th reincarnation.

[Azoth]

In the last game I DMed it was death by Manticors. Group saw a dual tiered room down a hallway and heard heavy shuffling. They buffed the Island Troll Warlord to the nine's and hurled a Sunrod into the room so he could see the enemy ahead of him. He charged in and almost one shot the Manticor at the base of a stairway. The other 4 from its pride opened fire on him from the second story. The rest of the party looked on in horror as their only frontliner became a pincushioned corpse in a matter of seconds.

Last time I played (same guy as the Island Troll) was playing a Half Dragon Half Giant Dervish Defender Warlord. We got contracted to clear out a band of barbarian raiders, and well he Leeroy Jenkins'd himself. While the party spread out and used various means of reconnaissance to ascertain the threat level of this massive tribe, he just took a nap and double checked his gear. After nightfall, when we decided it was time to go, he agreed to wait for the signal to start, and that he would deal with the bulk of the mooks as he was a walking blender. We begin by everyone using Wall of Stone to create a ring around the encampment, followed by a Control Winds to set the air to spiral inside the bow from the outer edge to the center, a few scrolls of Cloud kill are the finishing touches. Our goal was to let the spells do most of the work separating the threats from the red herrings. Thankfully, we get this much done while the dragon is using potions/scrolls to buff himself.

Shortly after some of the barbarians start making their saves and an alarm is raised. Cue the entire encampment going berserk. They know an attack is happening, but can't tell where from. Our Hidden Blade Rogue disguised as one of the barbarians goes to work avoiding the Cloud Kills and causing pure havoc in their encampment. He is setting tents on fire, driving horses into the Cloud Kills, and being a menace. I am hanging back waiting for the enemy Shaman to appear, as it is my job to tie up the tribe's only real caster. The other two members of the party are just picking off targets of opportunity.

The plan is working, until the Chief exits his tent. Our half Dragon immediately abandons the Rogue and charges the Chief. After failing to hit him, the Half Dragon issues a challenge to 1V1 combat for the fate of all the lives present. The entire melee comes to a screeching halt. The party is floored and none of us can articulate how bad an idea this is, or that we don't accept the terms before the Chief accepts. One condition, no outside aid or magic.

Cue our Half Dragon tossing aside all of his gear, dismissing his buffs, and stepping into a bare knuckle brawl with a Dragon Totem Invulnerable Rager Barbarian. He got beaten go death in less than 3 rounds. We only survived because I quickly challenged the tribe Shaman for his position and Flesh to Stoned him in round 1. I bartered our lives for that of his Shaman.

[Shinn]

The party itself killed our Duergar Rogue : first our Barbarian crushed him to death between his hammer and a wall, then the Sorcerer drowned him, then the Warlock cooked him by boiling the water and then turning the body to ashes.
Then the Life Cleric resurrected him with a Breath of Life spell, and the War Cleric attached him behind our carriage for twenty miles, for finally crucifying him.

Hey, he killed hostages we were supposed to save, betrayed us, sold our epic artifact to the BBEG for 5 GP, tried to rob us, then to poison us, then to stab us !

[Waazraath]

I think it was aprox lvl 10. We got ambushed by a bunch of drow archers, accompanied by one mountain troll. After taking some damage from the archers, the barbarian player decided the bbn wasn't going to use the weakling hit & run skirmish tactics the other two party members were using, and went toe to toe with the troll. One full attack later, we were minus 1 barbarian and had a huge stain in the middle of the street

MM3 trolls are nasty.

[Matrota]

My halfling bard bet her soul in a game of Olidimarra's dice and lost. Our orc fighter won the soul and the soul of a dwarf npc as well.

[Calthropstu]

The party itself killed our Duergar Rogue : first our Barbarian crushed him to death between his hammer and a wall, then the Sorcerer drowned him, then the Warlock cooked him by boiling the water and then turning the body to ashes.
Then the Life Cleric resurrected him with a Breath of Life spell, and the War Cleric attached him behind our carriage for twenty miles, for finally crucifying him.

Hey, he killed hostages we were supposed to save, betrayed us, sold our epic artifact to the BBEG for 5 GP, tried to rob us, then to poison us, then to stab us !

See, that's justifiable homicide.

[denthor]

I would like other players in DM's thoughts on this death.

Evil campaign I'm an AsMO worshiper the others are all evil we were told there was a group of CE demon worshipers.

Turns out they worship one of the Seven hells most of the party is knock down except for me half work wizard and the party Thief who is four levels above me.

Upon realizing that these are not but we were told they were but are actually align with us. I attempt to broker peace with the final remaining cleric on the field from the opposite party saying I will not attack you if we can speak .

The thief takes three rounds to walk over to me and backstab me. This allows the LE cleric to leave the field.

I am bleeding out the thief then bandages the other players leaving me before the other group returns say just because they worship a plane of he'll does not mean we let them live. backstab me again flees the field.

What do you think of the role playing?

[stack]

Mythic warlord vs mythic chimera. Not the stock mythic chimera, a custom job to be an actual challenge.

Die-hard kills. If he had dropped, he would have lived. If he has made either of 2 reflex saves he also would have lived. Ah well.

[Blu]

In a "low magic" campaign(DM refused to give us items or money) after a hard combat we managed to get a crazy tide of luck and finish off two of the three enemys. While we started to run after the last one the lvl 10 party meets the CL 20 delayed blast fireball... The sole survivor was the fighter that managed to save the reflex(almost died anyway).