How many PC deaths in your current campaign?

[Al]

My party's now 16th/17th level in a "high mortality" campaign. I don't pull punches, use coup de grace, x4 crit weapons, death attacks and save-or-die spells. It keeps the players on their toes. Needless to say, I would plump for a 9+

 

[Jolly Giant]

Voted 7-8, but only because there wasn't anything HIGHER to vote for...

I'm running two campaigns at the moment and both are well into a two-digit death count.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I clicked 3-4; one player lost two characters, and to be fair, one wasn't dead, he was just floating in the Elemental Plane of Air in to perpetuity, so it's posible he survived, food and water permitting. His next character (a construct type unique to the campaign) suffered a terminal fall. A third PC died in conflict with shadows, and the player got the joy of playing his risen shadow seeking to destroy all the other PCs for a while. The fourth death was pure mean GM spirit: the player could no longer make it to sessions, and I decided to make his PC a casualty rather than an NPC. But overall, this campaign has been going for a year now with mostly weekly sessions, and that's a slightly better than normal kill ratio for my style of gaming, which is player-focused and usually with a low mortality rate.

 

[Thanee]

6

Current campaign is pretty heavy on PC death's.

Human Sorceress died once from a grapple from hiding + swallow whole monster, which did automatic Con damage each round as well (no chance to escape at level 6 or so, but my character could prevent a TPK by casting Polymorph inside from a wand we had found, increasing her size to large). Raised.
Aasimar Cleric was killed by two shambling mounds (at level 7). Replaced by Halfling Paladin.
Human Bard died from the death-gaze of a bodak. Resurrected.
Halfling Paladin died (at level 6), but I don't really recall where... I do remember it involved a failed save, which would have succeeded on a 2+. Might also have been the bodak's death gaze. Raised/Resurrected.
Hobgoblin Fighter died in a trap, falling to death (into a stream of lava). Replaced by Centaur Fighter.
Human Barbarian/Ranger/Fighter/Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple died by solo rushing a 12th level Cleric (at level 8, flamestrike, harm, mass inflict light wounds - all saves have been successful, tho - My Sorceress had to retreat out of sight after failing her save to the damn blade barrier to heal, but then could at least revenge our Barbarian by killing the Cleric, the Bard and Mystic Theurge couldn't contribute much unfortunately, other than the healing, of course, and the other two weren't around). Being raised soon.

I think the only one who hasn't died yet is the Human Mystic Theurge (and the Centaur Fighter, but the player had another character die), but he isn't around everytime and thus lacking behind somewhat, anyways.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Old One]

Where are (contact) and Plane Sailing when you need 'em?

IMC (PC levels currently 5-7) we have had 3 deaths + 1 possession:

(1) Halfling rogue (Lvl 1): Killed and half-eaten by rats in abandoned mine complex

(2) Human fighter (Lvl 1): Fell down a pit in the same complex...twice! Failed to stabilize after cracking head open (the second time) and bleed out.

(3) Human Bard/Ranger (Lvl 3/1): Ripped apart by giant ape. Raised in return for the party allowing the spirit of an ancient dwarven priest to possess the body of the human cleric.

(4) Human Cleric (Lvl 4): Possessed by said dwarven spirit (although this only counts as 1/2 since the player was leaving the game).

We have also had 1 PC death retracted by the DM after I discovered a glaring DM error that directly led to PC's death after I was writing up my SH after the game. Discussed it with the player off-line and settled on a good RPing solution that introduced several new plot hooks into the game and made him (Human Barbarian Lvl 4) "mostly dead" ala the Princess Bride. Fortunately, the other PCs hadn't buried him yet !

Huge number of close calls...though...all PCs have been within 1-2 points of death, then stabalized...most multiple times!

~ Old One

 

[Chroma]

Started our current campaign in January 2001, deaths seem to be sparse, with occasional blooms of near TPK. Have been generally running with 7-8 PCs and most are now around 7th level, nearing 8th.

1st: Human Mnk2 - crushed by a bugbear's greatclub

2nd: Human Bar2/Ftr1/Rog1 - stabbed by a goblin (the shame!), raised by a Shadowdancer cult

3rd, 4th, 5th: Human Rng5 - flamestrike (note: don't sass insane barbarian shamans); Human Ftr5 - shredded by ghouls; Human Sor6 - glyph of slay living, resurrected by the Church of the Holy Mother

6th: Half-Orc Ftr6 - one-on-one with the 13th level Big Bad! (and actually had a pretty good showing... til the wargolem started in...)

7th, 8th: Half-Elf Rng5/Rog1 - lured off a cliff and clawed by a harpy (failed three Will saves in a row!); Human Bar2/Ftr2/Rog3 - toasted by the fire shield of an evil sorceress and the keen slices of her Devoted Defender's bastard sword, scroll of limited wish used by the party sorcerer to raise her, as this was her second visit with death, she decided to retire.

So, eight deaths, with three of them being "reversed". All the deaths have had significant impacts on the party, and the raisings have seriously altered the paths of the restored characters. I really like it that my players take the concept of death seriously and make experiences with it life-altering (no pun intended!) for their characters. It's not just a matter of reloading the character when things happen.

 

[Fenes]

In my monday campaign, which has been running for some years now we have had 1 death, but I don't really count that - the player left after a stint as a DM, and told us in his parting e-mail that his character had died from wounds.

I don't kill PCs unless the player wants it.

 

[jerichothebard]

So far, one, my character. Of course, we have only had three sessions so far, so I expect that count will rise...

 

[DragonLancer]

In my current Dragonlance game, I've had two deaths.

1st: Dagon Borrowlots, Kender, Rogue 2.
Decided that on his own was going to try and "cut da grass" on a sleeping cave giant (which the rest of the party had decided to leave alone). He failed to kill it and it squashed him with its club as he tried to escape.

2nd: Talon Variunum. Silvanesti Elf. Ranger level 3/Rogue level 2/Fighter 2/Duelist 1.
Party was in a mad mosh with a party of Githyanki Knights and he was cut down when he got into the middle of four of them. He was later raised by the Githyanki as a Bound Shade and he gave up the party's plans to fight the Githyanki.

 

[ForceUser]

We are currently playing trough RttToEE... there have been somewhere between 10-15 deaths so far.

I don't get this. My friends and I love making characters, and we put a lot of craft and backstory and heart into them. By the 3rd death I'd quit in frustration. I have to play a character that I can get into and enjoy roleplaying. What's the point of coming up with a cool character if he's destined to die in a meatgrinder? I guess that's why we didn't play RttToEE. It seemed like nothing but a humongous dungeoncrawl with little opportunity for interesting character development.

As for character deaths, I've had one recently. A character I'd played for over a year and a half died. That sucked. Before that, the group I was DMing made a poor tactical decision and we got a TPK as a result. No deaths in my current campaign, but I bent the rules. Two of the four party should have died in the last encounter, but the players would have been really unhappy, so I fudged it. I don't normally do that, but their last characters were still fresh in the grave, if you know what I mean. It's a group of newbie players so I am lenient.