How many of you have you ever accidentally killed a party member?

[Azranod]

I was playing a CN Fighter/Wild Mage. My party was exploring a cave, I was in the rear of the party as we were having to go in single file. The PC at the front shouted, "Trolls!!!" I instantly thought, "Trolls are hurt by fire, my strongest fire spell is fireball." So I set the fireball to go off nineteen feet back from the first troll(because of the twenty foot radius burst). I forgot it had to go twenty feet in every direction. The cave was twelve feet tall by six feet wide, so instead of only encompassing the trolls, it singed off my eyebrows. Took out half the trolls and two of my own party.

 

[el-remmen]

Well, to answer the question, not as a player. . .as a DM I have underestimated the difficulty of an encounter and "accidentally" killed a whole party (more than once!)

In terms of your experience, in 3E fireball doesn't work that way any more - it does not expand out in small spaces but just fills up what it can and stops at the radius.

However, I too still play with the old school 33,000 cubic feat of flaming death. ROCK ON!

 

[Blacklamb]

I don't know as I so much killed my party member as accidentally brought him back as a vampire.
See we were in a slightly modified WoTC dungeon(Night Fang). Our party consisted of Orcs, Hobgoblins, Goblins and the like.
We were mostly evil, but only in that selfish sort of way, we didn't go out of our way to kick kitten or anything.

My Character was is a Goblin Sorcerer/Dragon disciple, with love and abject devotion to all god, but his favorite is We Jas.

Anyway Our Hobgoblin Enchanter was slain by one of the numerous nastys. So my character starts hearing a voice and it sounds suspiciously like he had always thought Wejas would sound like. He had to use his new familiar to assist as we were at a statue that was a little tall for my character to reach to do all the requirements.(the Soul eating rats, yay for improved familiar!) I closely followed the instruction of WeJas to resurrect our slain wizard. Well as you can guess he didn't come back happy as he was now a vampire and it would seem also that my little familiar also seemed to have garnered most of the anger if our new paler, hungry companion.
Hilarity ensues, a little chaos then a good hug and a round of beer for the crew and Wench for Vampy!

Blacklamb

 

[fafhrd]

While I don't remember killing a fellow PC, my characters haven't been quite so lucky.
In a 2nd ed game I played a druid/wizard who had gotten himself in a situation with a constrictor staff. After a couple of squeezes I was on the verge of death and called out to fellow party members to give me a hand. The bard obliged and fired two arrows at the snake. Sadly, he rolled a pair of snake eyes. Thus ended the tale of the mage/druid whatshisface.

 

[Thanee]

Never on accident... always on purpose... j/k

I only recall one of my characters who died because of another PC's action... that was a rod of wonder that shot a spray of gems into my back instead of doing something useful, that was 6 damage from my previously full fiftysomething, so not really that bad, but those 6 hit points were the difference between life and death in the next combat... oh well... never underestimate light wounds.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Haltherrion]

I was playing a CN Fighter/Wild Mage. My party was exploring a cave, I was in the rear of the party as we were having to go in single file. The PC at the front shouted, "Trolls!!!" I instantly thought, "Trolls are hurt by fire, my strongest fire spell is fireball." So I set the fireball to go off nineteen feet back from the first troll(because of the twenty foot radius burst). I forgot it had to go twenty feet in every direction. The cave was twelve feet tall by six feet wide, so instead of only encompassing the trolls, it singed off my eyebrows. Took out half the trolls and two of my own party.

El-remmen is right, 3E doesn't work that way any more but in the old days, it just wasn't right if the mage didn't at least singe his party with his first fireball. It was required by tradition I recall a few PCs dying as a result.

I got myself and 3 other PCs killed by a rash act. We had a collar of demon control (put one loop around the demon's neck, one around your own, and chain connected the pair). We knew of a pit fiend polymorphed as human. Plan was for me to sneak up on him, pop the collar on his neck (it was already on mine) and then control him.

He noticed me sneaking up somehow and poly'd back to normal form. He was kind of tall now and I could only reach his knee well so I clipped on there. I spent the rest of the battle being flung around by my neck (which was chained to his knee now) while he killed 3 other party members. IIRC I eventually burned to death in his walls of fires or fireballs. Two PCs smart enough to run survived. Oops.

 

[Tiberius]

Unsurprisingly, mine is another fireball story. I was also playing a CN wild mage at the time, and we had cowed three hobgoblins or bugbears into submission. We were chasing a fire elemental through some corridors, and the party bard (on his first session) and I were staying behind, away from the ambulatory fiery doom. Not trusting the goblinoids to stay cowed, I readied an action to fireball them if they did anything aggressive. The bard wanderd close to one for some reason or another. One of the goblinoids got brave and tried to take the bard hostage. The DM was nice and asked if I still wanted to trigger my readied action. I reasoned that bards likely have good Reflex saves and/or evasion, so I let fly. Bard rolls his save... and comes up "1". Oops. I roll my spell level (being a wild mage), and end up tossing a 9d6 fireball (being 6th level at the time). Oops again. I end up rolling a bunch of damage and incinerating two of the goblinoids and the bard. The character had lasted 4 hours.

Shortly thereafter we ended up tripping his cohort so that the large shadow we were fleeing could eat him first, giving us more time to escape.

 

[Fieari]

While 3e doesn't have fireballs like that anymore, it should. My group houserules volumetric fire, in a sphere... which makes it even MORE deadly in tight corridors with a low ceiling. We like math. We also like clearing warrens of all those pesky kobolds sneaking around setting traps and making ambushes. We like having to be careful when in cramped quarters. YMMV, of course.

 

[Darkness]

Just once, in Vampire: The Masquerade. I was just way too hungry*, you see.

(*Down to 1 Blood Point, the other guy spilled some blood chopping off his own legs to escape the effects of some magical trap, and I botched my Instinct check.)

 

[DethStruck]

Chopped off his own legs?

I've never accidentally killed any other PC.

I was on the verge of a TPK DMing last week... they pulled it out in the end though.