First PC Death in my 4e Campaign!

[the Jester]

I had my first pc death in my 4e campaign last night!

I'm a pretty notoriously high-fatality dm, and the party has made it through probably close to a dozen sessions without a death. Finally, last night, in an intense "jump from floating log to floating log across a river while under massive fire" combat, we finally had one.

I was starting to worry that 4e's lethality rate was too low for our taste. Glad to see that I was wrong- and I'm also really happy that it looks like pc deaths are most likely in serious, hard encounters.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Congratulations! *passes cigar*

No one in my game has died yet. I'm hoping that KotS will have at least one fatality!

 

[Engilbrand]

I had a fauxtality in my last game. My players were taking an extended rest in an area that I decided was like a Plaguelands.
The Dragonborn Paladin was standing watch next to a tree in a clearing. The Elven Warlock (Dark Pact with Infernal tendencies) was 10 feet up in the tree. The Warlock woke up coughing up black sludge and 3 small balls of blue flame that grew into monsters. The battle begins.
They were level 5. The monsters were a 5 Skirmisher, 6 Brute and 8 Artillery. They run around hurting each other a lot. The Flameskull is hounding the Warlock. In the end, the Warlock was almost dead, the Paladin is ridiculous when it comes to healing, and the Flameskull is at 33. It does a blast that drops the Warlock to -1. I describe the flames coming around the face, lengthening out to the Warlock as it had happened before, but the beam actually pegged him in the eyes. As he felt that the fire, the face rushed into him. And they wake up.
The Warlock fell out of the tree. The Paladin's back hits the tree and he wakes up. As the Warlock and the Paladin are looking at each other, the Paladin notices that the Warlock's eyes have changed to blue and his eyebrows have a blue tint. I gave the Warlock access to a Spellscarred encounter power, and he can now gain the feats. The Paladin was able to resist the corruption of the area. I'll probably give him a Barbarian power.
While "it's all a dream" is normally cheesy, I wanted to make sure that it made sense to the players. They loved it. The Warlock can't wait to touch that much more darkness. My actual goal was to "kill" both of them to give them access to the Spellscarred stuff. I guess the Paladin's too pure for that. That's why I call it a fauxtality.

 

[Jengenritz]

I was starting to worry that 4e's lethality rate was too low for our taste.

I had the same concerns. I run the Dungeon Crawl tournament at Gen Con every year, and I thought 4E was going to make PCs unkillable.

Turns out, not so much. We almost tied our TPK and bodycount records. Some of that had to do with new-ness of the system and rookie mistakes (a few people went down with unspent action points, for example), but some of it was just good ol' D&D mortality.

It's a dangerous life, adventuring. Bring a helmet.

 

[mattcolville]

My players are going through Pyramid of Shadows, they are two levels too low, but have 2 to 3 too many PCs so it kinda balances out except not really.

One PC died this week, but he died in the room that has a Raise Dead scroll in it, so its all good.

 

[mach1.9pants]

If you want more fatalities just make each encounter harder, multiply the DMG XP table by 1.25 and you'll have 'em dropping like flies

 

[Celtavian]

We've had three deaths so far. Two leaders and a defender. One of the deaths was a result of me trying to stay bloodied to keep my dragonborn frenzy going. I waited too long to heal myself and took a hard series of hits and died. Rough death.

You can usually avoid death in 4E. But you can also have a few bad rounds and bite the bullet.

 

[Thanee]

The Irontooth encounter in KotS was a near TPK... two fatalities and the party only survived, because the cleric managed to get back to consciousness with a natutal 20, when only the Warlock was (barely) standing.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I am so waiting for someone to have a story of a party being completely wiped unconsciouss (dying). With the BBEG very weak but still alive parading around them, laughing, etc.

Then someone roll a natural 20, gets up and guts him right there.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I had my first pc death in my 4e campaign last night!

I'm a pretty notoriously high-fatality dm, and the party has made it through probably close to a dozen sessions without a death. Finally, last night, in an intense "jump from floating log to floating log across a river while under massive fire" combat, we finally had one.

Sounds interesting. Would you be willing to write this up for the War Stories Wiki?

It's Dungeons & Dragons page is still waiting for its first entry...