I like it when my PC dies! Share your coolest death!

[InVinoVeritas]

I created a brand-new, fresh halfling fighter, level 1. We traveled to some arctic wasteland, and knew of an ogre mage in the area. Long story short, the group decided to crazily bother the ogre mage, who summarily captured us all, and took our stuff.

We had a scroll of recall that would allow us all to be teleported back home, but it required us all to be holding hands to work. So, I offered to stay as the ogre mage's slave if he let everyone else go with their stuff. Once everyone else had their stuff--or at least the scroll, we could all hold hands and disappear. Everyone liked the plan, and the ogre mage was suitably impressed to let it happen (we were all too weak for him to care, really).

Except that everyone decided to hold hands first, and then approach me. The ogre mage wised up to that instantly, grabbed me, and ran off, sealing the cavern with a wall of ice behind him.

That's when it got interesting. My first level halfling fighter was unarmed and unarmored. As the ogre mage took me deeper into his caverns, I bit him. Hard. I watched him grab for some magic thing on his belt, and grabbed a scroll of his as I ran and hid. We played cat and mouse for a while, as I ran around looking for a way out while the ogre mage started smashing stuff. I eventually found a large chimney that he used as a back entrance to his carverns, and climbed out....

...to a featureless arctic landscape. Flat, white, with nowhere to hide. The ogre mage, following, climbed out of the chimney, grabbed me, and dangled me over his mouth, ready to eat me. That's when I jammed that scroll of his down his throat. He started choking, and let me go. So here I was, next to this ogre mage wanting to kill me, and he was choking and standing right next to his chimney. So I push. I bash him as hard as my little halfling body will let me. Unfortunately, as you can guess, halflings don't beat ogre mages in many pushing matches, and this time was no different. Eventually, the ogre mage cleared his throat.

The rest of the party found my body, cleft in twain, next to a badly chewed scroll. But they all remembered what courage was.

 

[Asmor]

Never have I been so entertained by getting hit...in fact, it prompted me to start looking for a "Masochist" Prestige Class that gets more powerful as it takes damage.

Good times!

Here's something I made a long time ago for d20 Modern which you might like. The concept is raw, untrained psionic power which is unlocked in times of need (i.e. when you're reduced below a certain percentage of HP).

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=86178

 

[roguerouge]

I had one 2E character who had just been infected with a brain disease that would slowly turn him into a plant zombie under the control of an evil druid. A vine was entwined in my character's brain, starting to control his thoughts and actions, albeit feebly. There was just a tip of the vine peeking out his nose.

And he had a wand of telekinesis with one charge....

 

[Shadowsmith]

My favorite PC death ever was in a 1st edition game. My paladin was around 12th level. His noble brother-in-law was tricked by a devil into opening a gate to Hell pulling him into Hell in the process.

My paladin stepped through the gate and pushed his brother-in-law back through the gate. With the help of his party my paladin defeated the trickster devil as an army of devils closed in on us. I ordered the rest of the party back through the gate and once they were through, I destroyed the anchor holding the gate open and charged the devil army. We didn't play out the rest of that.

 

[jdrakeh]

My friend Chad ran a great Deadlands: Hell on Earth one-shot where myself and a GMNPC (he played fair) infiltrated an abandoned military bunker to salvage bullets, MREs, etc. Above ground, there was just one small-ish building housing a garage and an office. A non-functioning elevator and a stairwell led to levels below.

IIRC, there were ten levels in all, with the generator and armory being on the lowest level. The intervening levels housed some useless research labs. . . and a small-scale production facility for those robotic terrors in Hell on Earth (I forget what they're called). Anyhow, the whole place was pretty much empty except for the armory, the few dozen deactivated robots, and the garage. Which presented a problem. . .

Multiple boxes full of live ammunition are heavy, see? To say nothing of the weapons we found. We decided that powering up the generator to use the elevator would be the prudent course of action, seeing as how we had a limited amount of time to get back to our enclave with the goods due for. . . reasons I forget in my age. So we powered up the generator, got the elevator working, and took several loads up to the garage where we piled them in a jeep.

On the last trip, we did another sweep of the facility to make certain that we weren't missing anything. . . and noticed that two of the robotic death dealers were missing from the production facility. Right about the time that the generator gave out and the lights went down again. So there we were, trapped some six levels underground, with two Terminator-like nasties on the loose.

What began as a pretty run-of-the-mill scavenging expedition turned into a full-on gauntlet run, as we tried to make our way to the surface. We had a running battle with the robot-things which took us down to near dead (the GMNPC was hemorraging blood like a water fountain by the time we got to the second level of the facility). Luckily, some quick thinking and the application of a few grenades collapsed the stairwell and trapped the cybernetic killers below us. Or so we thought.

We had (wrongly) assumed that both robotic sentries were hunting us in the dark.

We stopped to patch up the best we could, though Johann (the GMNPC) wasn't looking well. So, dragging my wounded mate on a makeshift stretcher, I opened the door to freedom -- only to see the other robotic sentry lurking in the garage. He immediately splattered me on the gargage wall. I wasn't dead, but I could feel the life running out of me. My now nearly dead partner had one last grenade on him. So he did what any man would do. He pulled the pin and. . .

Took a bullet right in the face.

Which left a live grenade at my feet.

And I wasn't in much shape to do anything about it.

Despite dying a horribly bloody death, I can honestly say that the atmosphere, the pacing, and everything else was carried out expertly. This was one of my favorite game sessions ever.

 

[Robert Ranting]

The Two Deaths of a Loresong Faen

I would say that both of my character deaths have been quite memorable. The only things that have ever managed to kill one of my characters are an Undead Half-Field Colossal Green Dragon with the Tempest breath and Quickened breath feats and a conjoined twin pair of Balors. Both deaths happened to the same character in the first Arcana Evolved campaign I was in (1st-21st level in two years), and in both cases, he was resurrected afterward.

The first death was the culmination of a long adventure where we were exploring a fortress built by the Crystal Weavers (Spellweavers from MM2). We were about 12th or 13th level by the end of it, and in the final chamber we encountered what was described to us as an undead Dramojh (the long-vanquished BBEGs of the setting). My character, a loresong faen magister (think gnome wizard), had recently gained access to a spell that essentially was a beefed up version of Searing Light combined with a Positive Energy "ray of enfeeblement" effect that reduced the strength score of an undead who fails his save by 2 points, as an exception to the usual immunity of undead to such effects.

Well, I managed to beat the dragon on initiative, quickened the spell, and then cast it a second time, dealing a 24d8 damage and sapping four points of Strength from the creature. Understandably angry at that point, it began to focus all it's attention on me. First, it attempted to catch me in a heightened web spell and then used his breath weapon on me. I nimbly avoided the web and took half from the breath weapon, and stood in mocking defiance. The other six party members charged into melee or fired arrows at it from a distance, but it ignored them. The next round, I blasted him two more times with diminished versions of the spell (no Str damage). He full attacked. They party's Champion of Love, who I had rebuffed and mocked throughout the campaign, leaped in the way with a hero point to save me, and dropped, bleeding, at my feet. The rest of the party full-attacked. The third round, I blasted him once more, and expended the last of my quickened spells to try and save the champion. As I kneeled, cradling her head in my arms, the dragon hit us both with a quickened breath and then full-attacked the party "cleric", slaying three of the seven party members in one round. Yet even before the smoldering and bleeding corpses could hit the ground, the Wolverine totem warrior of the party leaped on the dragon's back and ripped it apart with his teeth and claws in a display that would make his totem (or the x-man of that name) proud. Fortunately, the dragon's hoard was such that the party was able to resurrect all three of us, and the campaign continued...

We were 15th level when we finally caught up with the BBEGs attempting to perform some nasty ritual (Shackled City AP). We barged into the ritual chamber and found ourselves facing off against a Balor with what looked like a stunted and deformed head and wings of a second Balor attached to his shoulder. The Balor(s) had been the result of a summoning attempt gone awry, While one was fully functional and focused on melee, its "twin" was still able to use it's spell-like abilities as if it were a seperate creature. Once we killed the "main" Balor however, the "twin" became fully summoned and was able to go into melee (although it was at that point a perfectly normal Balor). In any case, my character acted before it in the first round of combat and managed to cast a quickened wall of force that effectively put a low ceiling on the cavern we fought him in to keep him within the fighters' reach, and followed that up with a Crystal Eruption spell (Complete Book of Eldritch Might), which proceeded to do 15d6 impact damage per round for 15 rounds in an AoE, no SR, reflex save half, any who fail are knocked prone . Well, when the Balor's turn came up, he took the damage, and managed to make the concentration check to implode my character, but botched the second check and failed to get anyone else in the party. Since the crystal eruption is not dismissable, the DM ruled that it continued to the end of its duration after my death, so it created a neat battlefield for the remaining members of the party to engage him (or them) in. While not as dramatic as my first death, there is still a sense of pride in the fact that only two advanced CR 20+ creatures ever managed to put an end to one of my characters.

To date, none of my core D&D characters have ever died, just that little faen magister, but I haven't played any of them nearly as long either.

Robert "Shrewd Tactics and Broken Spells" Ranting

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I can't say I actually like it...but I'm willing to share the pain. Usually when one of my PCs dies, its because of a monumental foulup.

I had one last year who burst through a door which (unbeknownst to him) opened onto the ledge of an underground chasm...he rolled a 2 on his Dex check to grab a handhold.

However, the first of two I'll remember forever (or up until Aldsheimer claims my brain) was a 2Ed dwarf Ftr/Wild Talent Psi with a 19 Con who:

1) Charged an MU.
2) Failed to shrug off the mage's spell targeted upon him (rolled a 1).
3) Failed his saving throw against the resultant poisonous cloud the summoned (rolled a 1), causing him to stand around retching.
4) Failed to shrug off the mage's next spell targeted upon him (rolled a 1).
5) Failed his saving throw against the resultant polymorph and became a frog (rolled a 1).
6) Was thus forced to make a System Shock %ile roll, for which he had a 99% chance of success...and rolled a 1, thus dying instantly.
7) The dead frog was then ground zero for a fireball, becoming ash.

Said ashes were subsequently used as spell components.

The second was my first ever D&D PC. A human fighter with a 2Hd sword, he was one of the last 2 of his party to make it to the dungeon's mist-shrouded pentultimate room. The other PC was a wizard.

Halfway across the room, a Purple Worm reared up to face him and the wizard. We attempted fighting in retrograde to reach the door through which we entered. A few choice blows were landed and the mage was soon out of spells, but the Worm lived. My fighter had a dry spell, and next thing you know, the wiz was engulfed on a natural 20.

A few more strikes, and both the Worm and the Fighter were reduced to 4 HP. Initiative was simultaneous. I missed, he hit. End of fight.

Even though he died, everyone at the table cheered because it was simply so classically epic.

 

[Asmor]

Here's a death that I personally wasn't that thrilled with, but it's pretty funny in retrospect.

The DM vetoed my new character, so I had to come up with something quick on the spot (for a 17th level game!). Complete Scoundrel had just come out, so I decided to make a monk who specialized in luck feats, and took that luck prestige class. The character was concepted as a poor martial artist who was just really, really lucky.

Anyways, almost immediately after meeting the party, the DMPC mentions something about his Deck of Many Things. Being the happy-go-lucky monk I was, I immediately decided to draw... and drew the card that summoned a dread wraith.

One of the PCs tried to help, got his own wraith, killed that, but the DM said that if he interfered with me he'd get yet another, so he backed off. My guy couldn't do anything against the wraith and was summarily annihilated.

That's the only time I ever crossed out a character's name and wrote in a new one for my "new" character.

 

[werk]

Thinking back to a homebrew game that we cooked up prior to Dragonstar that had a lot in common with that setting...we called it Star Lords (in case those old-timers are out here). Anyway, I had a character whose concept was weaponsmith and munitions designer. He made bombs out of almost anything and we found ourselves forced to abandon our homeship which, of course, was heavily pimped out with experimental technology. At some point I became separated from the rest of the crew while we were fighting off these cold-based space parasite giger-looking alien things. We'd figured out that they didn't like heat and the cap'n (the other PC that wasn't with the rest) was running engineering, changing internal and hull temperatures trying to corral these bugs into an area that we could wipe them out and begin repairs. Sounds like a plan?

So the reason my PC was separated was because he had to collect up all the incindiaries or munitions that dealt heat damage to try to jerry-rig a big enough bomb to get the job done. He was small and fast and heavily cybernetically augmented, so I wasn't having much trouble getting everything together. The problem was that I found myself basically in the center of a quickly contracting ring of parasites that were being herded into my position... Wait, was that part of the plan?!?

He went down in a flurry of claws and frozen gore, holding out just long enough for the bad guys to be in position then hit the go button...FOOM!

The rest of the party all were safe and the bugs were destroyed. The ship was horribly damaged, but they were able to get to a dock where it was repaired after quarantine.

The DM said we could collect enough DNA to regrow enough of my PC to keep him going in another chassis, but I thought there was too high a likelyhood that the DNA would be tainted by the ice bugs. "Leave him dead, I'll roll up a big cockroach with beautiful teeth."


My second PC in 3.0 was an elven paladin that, when faced with a moral dilemma, chose to sacrifice himself rather than choose the worse of two evils. "So I have to choose the protector of this world, and whoever I pick will die and their life energy will suffuse the world and influence life on this plane for lifetimes to come...and I can choose a super evil guy or a hapless innocent...yeah...I'll do it myself!" Is pride a sin in the church of Tyr?

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Two spring to mind.
One was a save-or-die by being turned inside-out spell. I didn't save.
The other was climbing down a ladder into a pit with darkness, silence, and 4 hasted vulture lions. I didn't reach the bottom rung.

Other than those death is actually too common an experience for particular deaths to stick out. Die in flames, frost, raw energy, poison, petrification, various and sundry bodily stresses (System Shock), falling from great heights, materializing inside solid matter, detonating powder kegs, collapsing towers, diseases, life energy drain, disintigration, beheading, simple combat damage, etc.

The only deaths I can think of off-hand that my characters have NOT experienced would be death by thirst or starvation.