First Character Deaths

[Scratched_back]

Oh embarrassing times...

Okay, the first adventure I played was the "Time of Troubles" trilogy, although I can't remember if that's it's real name or not. We'd never played before, didn't know the forgotten realms history at all and when we aqquired an NPC named "Cyric" nobody batted an eyelid.

Anyway, this was 7 years ago so I'm a little fuzzy, but there's a point in the campaign where all the gods lose all there powers and request your help to find the tablets of fate to restore them. At this point, Helm had manifested himself as an avatar and couldn't return to the heavens. So, my rogue, being a cheeky young chappy started taunting him...

"Why should we help you? What if we don't, will you smite me? Oh wait... YOU CAN'T! I don't think you're Helm at all, anyway, you can't prove it. Come show me how tough you are... oh godly one!"

And... well... he came and showed me how tough he was. Hahah, may not have been a god, but he was still bloody handy with his greatsword

First games, good times.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm not sure if this is the first character death, but it's the earliest one I remember, and it also involves a stronghold of the Githyanki. I was playing a paladin in 1e, named Sir Torril. The group had decided to go extraplanar to raid a Githyanki fortress (they'd heard legends of the silver swords). Everything went well until the time to escape came. Hordes of gith were threatening to overwhelm us. So, standing in between the githyanki army and the portal home, he sacrificed himself so that everyone else could escape.

 

[skinnydwarf]

First level magic-user. Died when a red dragon breathed on him.

Sam

You fought a red dragon at first level? Man, and I thought *I* was a mean DM.

Good stories all, keep 'em coming!

 

[Ranger5]

AD&D half-elf fighter named Rand (had just finished reading "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" and loved the character of Tanis).

Anyway, I was playing in my friends home made module set in Greyhawk and we were exploring a dungeon. Suddenly a wizard appeared in our midst and started blasting at with magic (fireballs, magic missiles, etc). We fought back and the wizard disappeared.

I had the bright idea to search for secret doors and found one. Upon opening it, the wizard was right behind it and blasted me with a magic missile. Did I mention that we had not healed at all before opening the door?

Well that was the end of Rand. <sigh>

I took it well but I did really like the character.

 

[sniffles]

Okay, the first adventure I played was the "Time of Troubles" trilogy, although I can't remember if that's it's real name or not. We'd never played before, didn't know the forgotten realms history at all and when we aqquired an NPC named "Cyric" nobody batted an eyelid.

Anyway, this was 7 years ago so I'm a little fuzzy, but there's a point in the campaign where all the gods lose all there powers and request your help to find the tablets of fate to restore them. At this point, Helm had manifested himself as an avatar and couldn't return to the heavens. So, my rogue, being a cheeky young chappy started taunting him...

"Why should we help you? What if we don't, will you smite me? Oh wait... YOU CAN'T! I don't think you're Helm at all, anyway, you can't prove it. Come show me how tough you are... oh godly one!"

And... well... he came and showed me how tough he was. Hahah, may not have been a god, but he was still bloody handy with his greatsword

First games, good times.

LOL!! I suffered my first PC death in that module too! Actually I sort of lost 2 characters. The GM had let me have a dire wolf as my elf ranger's animal companion - an unusually intelligent dire wolf. Myrkul god of the dead showed up and was about to zap my PC when my wolf selflessly leaped in front of me and took the blast. I was just crushed by that.

Later on we were trying to rescue Mystra from Castle Krag and one of the other PCs tried to open a trapped door. Zap! Two PCs dead on the floor. After the rest of the party rescued Mystra and then Helm showed up, everybody was raised.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

Elf wizard in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

We made it to the lake in the centre, with the lightning towers. We'd already heard from one of the NPCs about these towers, so the monk volunteers to see how close she can get to the door across the bridge and possibly to try to find a way in to the castle. She gets zapped multiple times but makes it to the end of the bridge and climbs up inside one of the towers. Then about a 20 Spider Eaters, waiting within the tower, start attacking her . My wizard Dimension Door-ed herself and the rest of the party into the tower to help the monk out. Fighting ensues, my wizard is paralysed by one of the aforementioned Spider Eaters, but we manage to take out the inhabitants of the tower. Cleric and paladin decide to explore the tower and come across the magical device that powers it- they then make the extremely foolish decision to destroy the device- which they succeed at doing, thanks to the cleric rolling a 20 on his dispel check. Tower begins to collapse around our ears. Great amounts of panic since the only one with any teleport spells is my paralysed wizard. Giant owls are summoned to carry us away. Owls promptly get zapped (as do the entire party) the second they leave the tower. We fall from the sky, and everyone but the cleric dies from either the lightning damage or the falling damage. The cleric drowns two rounds later, trying to swim out of range of the lightning towers underwater while wearing full plate.

Ellie

 

[Riggs]

The odd thing about my first character death (I think it was first) wasn't that he died or that I had to remake a guy, but just how commonly he died.

Playing Rolemaster means "rolling up a new guy" meant "haha go sit over there and I'll work you in next time", which means death=suck. I was so newbie that I had a dwarven archer, maybe ranger. So he survives all manner of big stuff, only to take a bad crit during a brawl in an inn hallway. All the party was there, but none had the time or chance to save him. I just had to sit there while his HP drained away and nobody could do anything. This after the week before he had nearly died but epic-ly saved by a party member. It was just so off-putting to have your guy get thugged very blandly. No foul by DM or party, just bad luck and he was the first guy. Early on I'd get upset (more based on time invested and paperwork to then be redone) some but now whatever. I try not to get them killed but a good death is to be savored as well.

 

[azmodean]

A little history, my DM had (has) a homebrew setting that he has been running for like 10 years with another group, which is sweet because of all the history that has accumulated. Anyway, at one point he mad a super badass death knight named Niven to put the fear into his other group, who were around lvl 15 at the time. Along comes the group I'm with, lvl 5 at the time IIRC. (2nd ed) I was playing a gung-ho paladin, my first character, and we have a run-in with Niven, who we have been told about previously in-character. I announce I'm charging him. The DM was like, "You remember what you heard about him, right?" and I reply, "Yea, but I just have to try." The party was able to wrangle a raise dead somehow, and all was fine, untill the next time we ran into him. I think Niven killed that character a total of 5 times throughout the campaign. At one point I was finally strong enough... to ask him to take me on as his apprentice and train me, so I could kill him. He said something about it keeping him sharp or something and accepted. Eventually we were seperated (world war), and the character continued training. The now epic-level fighter continues to hunt for the death knight in the current incarnation of the campaign (though I'm not playing in that campaign ATM, so he's a NPC)

 

[Arnwyn]

My very first character, a 3rd level Red Robe wizard in a (slightly modified) Dragonlance game (going through the classic modules) was killed by a red dragon.

I was fine with that death.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Hey all. On the SO's & gaming thread The Shaman brought up the subject of first character deaths. I was wondering, how did your first character die, and how did you take it?

For myself, I was not present when my first character died. The castle the party was in collapsed, killing everyone. (DM ended the campaign). I didn't take it too badly.

I didn't take it too hard with my first character dying. He came back later in the session. The DM made it where the wand we were getting from this blue dragon had a Raise Dead on it so my character could come back after getting double-zotted by the dragon, before he even got to do anything! He had "natural" fear of electricity for awhile after that..... even when some bad guy shot off a lightning bolt at the party, he went up a tree and stayed there for awhile...

His second death was to a hydra, when he went to attack it to draw part of its attacks off a fellow party member.

He nearly died a third time to a behir and the DM decided to let it let go of him instead of swallowing him, to go after another party member. Because he'd not have survived the swallowing damage...

I don't recall the last time he died, but I decided that enough was enough.... and rolled up a new character.

The time another DM decided to end our epic party, he basically nuked 3/4ths of the party while at their keep with a major monster assault. Our sorceress decided to utilize her epic spell to turn all of us into Force Dragons and it got counterspelled! OUCH! That blast obliterated everyone in the area, including the party! We were quite unhappy about that as we loved playing those characters!

I dealt more with the ranger dying multiple times than the one time my epic-level Tormish cleric died... She resides with her god and can never return to the Prime or else Shar would hunt her and the party down.