Lamest character deaths ever!

[Piratecat]

My first character died when he opened a secret door, it fell completely on top of me, then the rest of my party walked on top of it (and me!) while trying to figure out where I had gotten to.

A character in one of my games once jumped into a sphere of annihilation, thinking that it was a gate.

 

[Zandy]

In a low level game I ran years ago; the group was investigating stuff by the docks. They get into a confrontation with the dock workers. The mage in the group shocking grasps a worker, who, since he was a lvl 0 NPC, promptly dies. The other workers advance on the mage, who jumps into the water and drowns. "But it was only a shocking grasp!"

In our long running campaign (4 years+) the wizard died from; Crit hit arrow as he was escaping bad guys on a horse, collapsing cavern from other party members knocking down support beams to get at frozen treasure, unlucky roll from a banshee he stumbled upon, long range crit hit from a boulder from a mountain giant. ... he was a frail as a newborn giraffe...

 

[Cor Azer]

Back in 2ed - one of my players' wizards had an amulet of non-detection, so the rest of the party, with a device capable of scrying on people, could never pick him up. On a side trek, the wizard sells his amulet to get enough money to buy a scroll of a high level spell (can't recall what). He decides to teleport back to the party, but messes up the roll, appearing 50 odd feet underground, in solid rock, killing him outright. The rest of the party, however, never finds out he's dead - assuming that the reason they can't scry on him is because he still has his amulet of non-detection.

At the start of my current campaign, the party of 6 first level characters was nearly TPKed by a murder of 6 crows. They're now very much afraid of birds that look at them funny (and given the party has a druid, a nature cleric, and a ranger, a lot of animals look at them funny).

 

[ShaggySpellsword]

It was the first adventuring session of a new home-brew game, and I had a Sor1/Rog2 Human who was a lot of fun with a well fleshed out history, personality and was really neat in general. Unfortunately, he was a little obviously too full of himself and died his very first round of combat. We had been travelling for about a day to investigate a mine that had lost contact with the town and we ran across an owlbear. A bunch of the party ran off after it to kill it. I stayed a round with one of the fighters trying to convince everyone that it was safer on the road and that we should let it come to us. While doing this I was casting my Shield/Mage Armor, getting ready to fight if need be. I charged the Owlbear, and it scored a crit on it's AoO and killed me, one hit. The other PCs had no intention of bringing the nancy-boy back to life and took his stuff. I was okay with that, he had a humorous ending that fit with his character type.

Same session I made a new character, a bit more combat heavy, if not as well fleshed out. He was a home-created race called Enfar (a race of gentle giants) Monk2/Bbn1 (we have no alignments in this game). I brought him into the game with a late-arriving PC and proceeded to be a quite successful lookout while we were camping for the night. Across the grass I saw something moving. I walked to the edge of our camp and WHAM! Get pounced on by a Dire Lion. I then roll a 1 on initiative and the lion goes before me, taking a full round and knocking me to 3 HPs. I rage and close with the lion (in our game 5ft steps provoke AoO) and boom, I died. There was some hope of a resurrection deal being made, but alas, this was not to be. The characters didn't want to give up anything for this guy they hardly new. I played him all of 45 minutes.

Same session, character number three rose from the ashes of character 2's burial pyre. Literally. This time, playing a slightly less combat-heavy character who made an effort to stay on the back lines, surely I can survive the session. I was playing a home-brew race "Salamander" (small sized fire affinity lizard people) Sor3. I did survive, sort of. I managed to be infected with the evil corrupting the entire mine when I picked up the focus stone that was causing it. While I was fighting against the stone's influence, the other PCs decided I'd gone all wrong (I was speaking to the corrupt god of Stone that only I could hear) and started talking about attacking me. I played this character as very high-strung and a little paranoid anyway, so I decided not to let them get me when I heard their plans and pulled out my almost purnt out wand of fireball and started going to town. Out of spite I killed the donkey pulling the cart and incinerated the cart with alchemist fires, including a bunch of stuff that had been bought before the trip, most of the food, and my last two character's things. I embraced the corrupt stone out of self-preservation and fought back. The PCs all fled in terror. When I started summoning Ooze guardians who would envelope me and heal me.

Session one ended there. My old PC chased them down as they were running away and, since his new template made him a VERY poor sorcerer, he was killed along with the oozes.

I started a new PC at that session that I still play now, 9 months later. This guy has died plenty of times, but manages to get raised (and we don't lose levels with death!) every time.

Killing two PCs in one session as a PC and turning a 3rd NPC? Gotta be some kind of record, right?

 

[kamosa]

Two come to mind.

We were playing a whimsy game. 40th level characters and all that. I was playing the wizard. So, it took me like 12 hours to write up a 40th level wizard with all the spells, items etc... First round of combat I take a thousand points of radiation damage. Up to that moment radiation damage didn't exsist, so I hadn't taken any protection spells. 12 hours of creation, two minutes of play. UGGHH


The other one was when our party was wondering through a dungeon and the GM said "you open the door and see nothing in the room." So, one of the characters said they "went in and searched it out". Turns out what the GM ment by nothing was that it was a void that instantly sucked the character out of exsistance, no save, no nothing.

 

[Uvenelei]

1. The 3rd level barbarian, murdered in his sleep by horses, prior to the first fight of the campaign. A pair of evil horses with psychic powers, but still, murdered in his sleep by horses.

2. Three 28th level characters getting killed by a single (super buffed up) orc, standing alone in a 10' by 10' room, guarding a pie.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

We played Dungeons & Dragons for three hours! Then I was slain by an elf.

 

[SteelDraco]

My lamest character death, bar none, as the wild mage back in 2e. It was the beginning of the campaign, and I was looking forward to trying out my elven wild mage. It seemed like a fun character, and I had rolled pretty well.

We were on our way to fight some orcs, and I started the fight by tossing a magic missile. This was the first combat encounter of the campaign, with a couple of guys new to the game. I roll for my wild surge, and... yep. My first spell is a wild surge. The DM rolls on the surge table, laughs, and pulls out a different book, rolls percentiles. He then tells me to roll a save vs spells. I do, and fail it.

My 1st level wild mage, casting his first spell, randomly polymorphs himself into a squirrel in the middle of a forest, and fails the roll to keep his own mind. He bounds off into the forest to join all the other squirrels, and disappears forever.

That was my worst character death ever, and the last time I played a wild mage.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Using the old "Good Hits and Bad Misses" crit charts from 1e, one of the party's fighters beheaded herself with a greatsword on a fumble. We actually stopped the game to try and recreate this with some mock swords my room mate had. After about 10 minutes, the girl playing the now deceased warrior conceded that given the location she was fighting in and the footing conditions, it WAS possible. She rolled up a backup character who then fell from her horse and was trampled by the rest of the party during a charge on the enemy camp.

Another was when a party member had been attacked by trolls, who threw themselves off the cliff with him, knowing they'd regenerate any damage they took. The party mage, having only one spell left, decided he could save the player by casting fireball, because..you know..trolls and fire..anyway...the trolls made their save and ran away. The party member...didn't.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Holy cow...I forgot the best one... in a 2e game, the party was defending a castle during a siege. Down in the armory, one of the players found a box of Potions of Exploding (from a Dragon article, I think). These did 2d6 damage each on impact. Carrying the crate up to the battlements, the ranger (played by my brother) decided that if they could somehow lash the bottles onto arrows, he could fire them into the mass of warriors below. The very first attempt, he rolls a fumble and the result was "drops weapon". The potion exploded. This set off the remaining 7 bottles, because the psionicist carrying them was still standing there. My brother made his save (even with huge negative modifiers) and lived, but the psionicist and his brother were both killed, the other ranger blown off the wall and knocked unconscious, and my brother's character standing there looking like Wile E. Coyote after the grenade goes off in his hand. The bad guys then poured through the hole created in the wall by the explosion. It got really chaotic after that.

Oh...and another. A dwarven fighter and a human rogue (2e again) are with a human bard and a human ranger. They're trying to cross a room guarded by skeletons enchanted to explode upon being struck (again from a Dragon article). After the first exploding skeleton really knocks the Dwarf on his kiester, the guy playing the rogue comes up with The Plan. They HAVE to get across this room, because the way back has been blocked by a cave in. So, the guy playing the rogue tells the guy playing the dwarf to tie their ropes together, go to the other side of the room, and on his signal, they'd run down the sides of the room, knocking the skeletons over with their rope. The wife of the guy playing the rogue was playing the ranger, and she tried like hell to convince him this was bad, but he was having none of it. Well...12 skeletons at 3d6 each with blast radii equal to a 3rd level fireball later, the bard and ranger walked out unharmed, leaving the charcoal briquet like remains of their companions behind. Ahh...good times.