2012 PC Bodycount thread

Jhaelen said:

It also illustrates marvelously why I dislike the alignment system: Players tend to use it as an excuse for acting stupidly, counterproductively, or just plain homicidally.

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If you have much experience outside of the alignment system, you'll find that players don't need excuses for this.

But yes, truly there is no more certain path to destruction than to split the party.

My 3.5 campaign was getting completely out of hand. Well, the good news is that it ended and we will now start something new. The sad thing is that the campaign that lasted 73 session and three years ended in an extremely unclimactic way.

Since there has been too many PC-deaths lately, I decided to be honest with my players and hint them that now there will be the BBEG they have been hunting all this time. They had three 7th-level characters and I placed a 8th-level melee-NPC to protect them.

They went to save a city, which was obviously on a brink of total destruction, and exhumed the giant mummy which was used a focus, as a sort of phylactery.

The mummy's CR was 8 and the NPC was unfortunate to die during the second round. No biggie, now the PCs had their chance to launch their attacks...

And they launched... Invisibility, Fly and a sneak attack (ineffective). One of them flew away, one escaped while invisible and one died. The one that flew away was completely eliminated from the rest of the session. I tried to give the invisible PC some fighting chance by introducing a lesser BBEG which was intentionally suboptimal.
However, the invisible PC insisted to avoid all contact with any enemies.

In the end I let them have their way and the city was destroyed. Everyone had to evacuate. Now there are about 10,000 - 15,000 spectres, numerous high-level demons and lots of other things inhabiting the area, simply because the PCs decided that escape spells were the best way to approach an enemy who was about the destroy their lives and homes.

Now my campaign will continue in a totally different place with totally different PCs.

In total: 2 PC deaths.

Not a death, but a PC who's been relegated to NPC status:

Rhaelle, changeling witch 12
System: Pathfinder

Rhaelle and the rest of her party lived in a world with two key things to note:

First of all, the country where most of their adventure took place was ruled by a single high-wizard, and a council of 12, 10 powerful wizards, a magus and a sorcerer. The current council being very elitist about arcane study with the majority, deriding non-wizard/magi arcane casters as lesser beings. One of the wizards on the council was particularly bad, advocating a sort of magical eugenics program to wipe out sorcerous bloodlines (after which he would plan to move on to witches, summoners, and bards) in order to create a world where the only ones with arcane power were the ones who'd studied to earn it.

Second, flight is considered an impossibility for living creatures. The spell doesn't exist on any class' spell list, monsters that normally have magical flight can't use it, and winged creatures do not exist. The concepts of wings, and of hot air travel (such as by balloons or airships) has been theorized, but had never come close to being executed successfully, except for by the land's original high wizard.

Well, Rhaelle (and the rest of the party, including the party's own enchanter wizard) were working against the schemes of Mr. eugenics-wizard while trying to maneuver their way into positions of influence themselves. When the council turned on their own sorcerer however, whom Rhaelle was quite close to, the witch grew fed up with the slow process of gaining influence. She snuck into the home of their villain and attacked him in his sleep, the advantage of surprise giving her enough of an edge to kill the evil wizard in single combat, despite his higher level, but not before his wife saw Rhaelle, fled, and warned the council of her actions.

Rhaelle was branded a criminal on policy, although over half of the remaining council had been somewhat uneasy about their own eugenics-wizard's actions lately. The party was convinced that they could keep Rhaelle in the council's good graces, though it would be difficult.

By the time Rhaelle's best friend, the party's enchanter wizard, had found her though, Rhaelle was set to break the city's border defenses and escape, and she'd done the impossible. Rhaelle had become the second person in the campaign setting to achieve flight, doing so by crafting a broom of flying and exploiting a loophole that allowed objects to fly when people could not.

The enchanter spoke just before Rhaelle was about to take off:

"I hope you're happy!
I hope you're happy now
I hope you're happy how you
Hurt your cause forever
I hope you think you're clever!..."

The two broke into an entirely spontaneous and almost word-for-word rendition of "Defying Gravity" from Wicked (Rhaelle singing the vocals of Elphaba, the enchanter singing the vocals of Glinda, and the rest of us singing the vocals for the citizens of Oz). It was downright amazing, and both Rhaelle's player, and the player of the enchanter were in tears by the end from the sheer amount of emotion they put into the song.

Rhaelle still lives, out in the uncharted wilds west of the city. Meanwhile the enchanter finally managed to make her way into one of the two now-open spots on the council, and she befriended the other new member of the council, a magus, who became Rhaelle's player's new PC. With Rhaelle's departure, the party finally reached one of the goals they'd been striving for for a long time, and a new party ambition: to unseat the current head wizard, has been born.

Long story short: GMing for musically-inclined players is AWESOME.

We had a death today. In the wizard's lab, inside the Cannith Forgehold in the Cogs of Sharn, the PCs had found the warforged Creation Forge of Merrix d'Cannith. And broken it apart to get the Hand of Vecna (reskinned) that powered it. This activated the Guards and Wards spell, and various warforged strike teams were sent into the fog to kill the PCs. A pair of teams - each team with a spellcaster, a giant warforged soldier, and a mechanical dog with a wide area spark attack - converged on the PCs.

In a tense combat, the fighter/rogue grapple one of the giant warforged, preventing its deadly stomp/axe attack all fight. Finally the warforged stopped trying to break out of the grapple and just pounded the f/r into the dirt. A couple rounds of healing and dropping again later, the spark attack finally put him down for good, and he bled out on the floor.

Another PC was turned to stone by a medusa. She had helped the party escape and they were discussing the victory in her lair. I roleplayed out the medusa attacks. I was the medusa, and if I ever saw a players' eyes it was a successful attack. Only one petrified PC, and easily remedied, but it was a fun scene.

PS

I've been running a Rippers game using the Savage Worlds system. The group has gotten to a buried pyramid called the Saqqara Necropolis, and one of the players decided (stupidly) to go off by himself. He went through a hall that was filled with threads (triggers for a stone falling), and he was able to maneuver through them to a side chamber. He decided on his way back out, he'd run through the threads swinging his saber. It triggered the trap and he got hit by it, dealing too much damage to soak with the exploding dice.

Mourning the death of the spectacularly useless knight of fame, Cid (Polearm fighter 8). The group, famous among the land for their role in slaying 3 great dragons one after another, was very disliked by the church of Iomedae for containing an exile in their group. Ten mercanaries were hired to assault the group.
Cid, being his overconfident self, charged into a duel with one, and was surrounded by two others. The famed knight fought off two of them but was slain when the third sliced his arm clean off, followed by his legs.

(That makes three by the same player. The first inquisitor slain by the goblin, The summoner/zen archer, and now this)

Finding an unguarded waterhole in the wide wastes of Athas must surely be a sign of good luck, right?

Well, too good to be true, as it turned out rather quickly since the lone, large cactus that grew there turned out to be a zombie cactus waiting for fresh prey.

Three members of our party now serve as fertilizer after they killed each other, dominated by cactus-pollen:
Harrask, our Mul Fighter,
Ragh, our Mul Barbarian, and
Vimak, Half-Giant Barbarian.

All of them were 6th level at the time of their demise.

My FeyLock yielded to mortal wounds in the Scales of War setting.
For once, the battle was written with an interesting set up. After stepping through the portal, we are in a room with a Solo monster that can push us into hostile terrain that makes us vulnerable to all the monster's attacks. So our cleric dismissed it, and we ran out the door, alerting the Githyanki guards outside. We did get a short rest, then fell into the double-encounter. Symon the Fey-pact warlock attempted to hold off/delay the Githyanki while the rest of the party pounded on the Solo Beast. Sadly, he was more of a speed-bump than a serious delay. Just bad spacing for my tactics. Anyway, our cleric was forced to keep healing the fighter and avenger, and I failed 3 death saves.

But Symon will be back. As a Revenant FeyLock. So more emo, less efeminate.

We've been playing every week since a month after 4E came out, and this is our second fatality.

A no-holds barred illegal gladiator tournament full of intrigue, betting, controversy and exotic fighters.

It proved to be a bit too deadly for my players

Before the tournament I specified one of the NPC-gladiators as a very dangerous opponent. He was the smallest of the gladiators, a happy halfling man without armor and wielding a greataxe. This NPC's job was to create tension for the tournament but unfortunately he was too much for my players.

An 8th-level Psychic Warrior PC was pitted against the greataxe-halfling. Psychic Warrior won initiative and used it to boost himself. A big mistake. Now it was the halfling's turn. He cast Deep Slumber and approached the sleeping human. The halfling sorcerer wasn't proficient with the greataxe and was laughable inefficient in its use, but still he rolled natural 10 as the damage roll for the Coup de Grace. Psychic Warrior had to roll Fortitude Save DC 40 (base DC 10 + 3*10) in order to avoid instant death. He failed and the little fella danced around with the severed head. I guess he had to take off the helmet first so was able to lift it.

We have an African hougan in our Savage Worlds Rippers game. While underground in Iceland, they fought a large stitched together monster, which was a Tyrannosaurus Rex and giant gorilla put together. It threw a giant rock at the group, which managed to miss most of them but hit the hougan. He got killed from multiple aces. My team has bad luck with boulders.