How many PC deaths do you see per session?

[Ogre Mage]

This is a current discussion in our game group. One player insists that playing D&D, one player death per session is the norm. Having played D&D for almost 12 years now (he's played longer than me), I don't see this being normal. He insists that it has nothing to do with being a killer GM, it's just the norm for the system. Any comments? How many deaths occur in your game per session?

One death per session is certainly not normal! One would quickly get tired of rolling up new characters!

We have two campaigns going right now. In the first the characters have ascended to 9th-10th level. There have been five character deaths since the campaign began -- and this is a no raise dead, no resurrection world.

In the second campaign, the party has advanced to 7th level. There have been three deaths since the campaign began.

Of the eight deaths between both games, I would say three were due to extreme player stupidity, three were because of ill luck, one was a heroic self-sacrifice, and one was because of bad DMing and should not have happened.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

0 HP Death, or -10 HP Death

I have dropped players to zero about once every other game. But those players are usually stabilized and dont have to roll new characters. So I have had a healthy number of near kills.

But a character hitting -10 HP, on the other hand, means its time to bust out the character generator because a character is well and truly dead.

So 0 HP happens about once every other fight. -10 HP has happened only once, and was due to there being no reason for the character to be stabilized. He was 2nd level and trying to take down a pair of hobgoblin guards by himself. He was brought to zero, and goblinoid types arent big on saving the lives of their victims.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Mokona]

The Dead Stay Dead

I don't have many deaths in my game because I don't allow resurrection spells.

 

[Severion]

In 19 years of DMing, every time one PC dies, the rest of the party goes all berserk and it turns into a TPK. Every time, different groups, different editions, must be me...

 

[Mercule]

"Other". In twenty+ years of gaming (mostly as GM), I've probably killed off less than a dozen PCs.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Depends

Depends on whether or not Asad is playing. If he is, then once every two or three sessions. If he is not then death is few and far between (though convalescing is not).

 

[Dark Dragon]

Voted for other.

Last session, the ftr/clr/dis died by the vorpal bite of a famine spirit. Several sessions before, it was predicted by an intelligent item related to Beshaba that the cleric will die in combat with famine spirits. Still, I (the DM) didn't try to fullfil that prediction and I almost forgot it. But then the dice decided: I rolled up a 20 and confirmed it with a 19...very strange.

But normally, lots of sessions may pass without a killed PC. My death list since D&D 3.0/3.5 is out:

Pal/clr died of massive damage from a Firestorm cast by a Balor (rolling a 1 on a 2+ save).
Pal/clr died due to a Ring of Friends, when the group was fighting a White Slaad and a wizard. The wearer of the other ring was hit hard, but had more HP than his buddy...
Half-elf ftr/clr/dis of Kelemvor died by a vorpal bite from a famine spirit.
Drd was killed by a Flamestrike after failing her Ref save.
Brd was killed by a shadow, the rising shadow was then killed by the party (does that count double?)
Brd was killed by a Flamestrike, she was low on HP before...
Wiz was killed by a Finger of Death from a Death Tyrant.
Clr was killed by a Red Dragon's breath, after failing his Ref save, despite a Fireshield...
Rog/ftr/dws and brd died by a banshee's wail, despite a previous warning (Silence, anyone?).
Asimaar pal died by fighting a Retriever, alone...
Halfling rog and elven rog/asn were hacked into pieces by troll fighters.
Halfling rog commited suicide due to mental torture.
Half-elf ftr/clr of Tempus died in a fight against mohrgs.
A confused bbn killed the asimaar pal.
A confused elven rgr/dws crit'ed the bbn, killing her...
Bbn, rgr/dws, pal and ftr/rog/dws died by Tolodine's Killing Wind cast by a netherese arcanist (I rolled a 20 for the save DC, resulting in a Fort save DC of 42...).

Heck, a quite long lisr, and perhaps I forgot some PC deaths.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

In the campaign I play in, we are somewhere around 1 death per 12 sessions, all due to bad tactics that I can recall. In the Scarred Lands campaign I DM we have had about 15 sessions so far and no deaths (although I did pull one fudge when a PC would have died a really lame death after he fell into the water - he kept rolling miserably in his attempts to grab a line thrown to him - I only gave a DC of 5 at one point and he still blew it - he should have drowned but instead I gave him another chance and smacked him with some subdual damage).

In my Midnight campaign we have had one session and nobody has died yet - but I doubt that will last

 

[Maliki]

In the last campaign that I ran, the party which varied in size from 5-7 players had a total of three deaths. They campaign ended with the most the characters at 9th-10th level.

The first was a near the beginning(2nd) when the part stumbled upon a single ankheg, won iniative and all seven missed thier attacks. The ankheg then scored a crit on the uninjured dwarf cleric and slayed him outright (-15)

The second was shen one player tried to switch charcters and started a fighter at second level(the rest of the party was about5-6) he then proceeded to charge directly into the most powerful monsters they encountered and was slain the first night.

The final death was near the end of the campaign when the halfling rogue failed to detect a magical trap and was hit with either slay living or finger of death I cant remember exactly.

As a player in the campaign run by one of my players we will never have a death(the DM has been rather obvious in not killing characters) In another campaign run by a player we lost 4 out of five characters on the second night(DMs fault, new to DMing).

 

[Darth K'Trava]

I voted "other" as it depends on the game, circumstances and well..... circumstances. One game, we lost 3 PCs (out of 5) of which, two came back. Another game, we lost two; neither came back. Most of the time, we don't deal with party deaths as it's not too common but when they happen.....oh, BOY, do they happen!!