Lamest character deaths ever!

[Dannyalcatraz]

So many lame deaths over 27 years...

-I had a Half-Orc Barbarian die falling into an underground chasm as he tried to bust open a door the party's thief has juuuuuuuust opened.

-In the original version of Traveller, I had a character die during character generation due to wounds suffered as a space-marine. That's right-the PC died before ever being played.

-A 2nd Ed 19Con dwarf fighter charged into a stinking cloud, failed his saves vs magic, poison, and system shock (note-that is a series of dice rolls with only a 1% chance of failure I botched)-and subsequent fireball incinerated body. Later, failed to be ressurected by appropriate spell, yet another 1% chance of failure. Currently, remains being used as spell components.

-a gnome Ill/Thief who allowed the party's barbarian to fling her across an underground chasm with a rope attatched to her. The cave fisher above in the darkness scored a crit, and ate the gnome like a tossed doggie treat.

-the mid-level Paladin that everyone forgot to heal (including me) who fought off the pursuing monsters while the cleric healed the mage. Same paladin, a couple of years later, wound up alone on the wrong side of the Prismatic Sphere with the agitated Learnean Pyrohydra. Charisma notwithstanding, she seemed to be invisible to her partymates.

-(not a death, but close enough) a high level 1st Ed Assassin/Illusionist got his hands on a ring of spell storing, with a 21 HD Delayed Blast Fireball on it. While adventuring with his party in White Plume Mountain, he launched the spell at a group of security robots that were attacking the party, targeted on the center robot...with maximum delay on the spell's detonation. The robots closed with the party before the spell detonated, and while the robots were slagged, the party lost 2 PCs and nearly got finished off on the way out.

 

[LordVyreth]

This first one was another player's PC in a campaign I was in a few years ago. The player was a ranger back in 2nd ed, when rangers had to be good. At one point, we stayed the night in a "mobile" inn, which was basically hitched up to a team of horses. However, we learned in the middle of the night that the inn was cursed, and we had to fight our way out of it. On the way out, we discovered the inn's owner, who knew of the inn's nature but was forced to help it by the evil magic cursing it. We first saw him quietly sobbing in the kitchen, and the ranger attacked the helpless sobbing man immediately. It didn't kill him, but it cost the ranger his good alignment and thus turned him into a fighter. We survived the inn, but he went out hunting the next day, and was promptly killed by a giant snake. Maybe it wasn't the lamest death, but being killed by an animal right after losing one's ranger-hood ranks as one of the most ironic deaths ever. We used it as a running joke for the rest of the campaign, as we often would spot a snake with a "ranger-shaped" lump in it.

My character wasn't much better, though. He died four times over the campaign, and they were all lame deaths. The first time, he was knocked unconscious (for the hundredth time; it was a tough campaign for the party mage,) and one of the bad guys we were fighting decided to finish off a downed enemy instead of fighting the surviving party members. Guess which party member was finished off? And this was the first time a bad guy used this tactic in the entire game.

The second time, I was killed by my own party, after being dominated by a devil. They tried using nonlethal methods to stop me, but eventually the party sorceror gave up and just lightning bolted me. The third time, I was invisible and flying, and fighting a large number of leveled frost giants in a fortress. After one spell too many, their leader, who was in a tower, waited for me to cast a spell, and then leapt on top of me aftering seeing the spell's source. I took something like 74 points of damage after hitting the ground, which was more than enough to kill me. I still think the DM made it too easy for her to hit me.

Finally, after detecting a source of magic above a gateway we have to pass under, I used mage hand (we had converted to 3rd ed midway through the campaign,) to levitate a mirror into the room, and then to look up at the magic. It turned out to be a symbol of death, which killed me instantly. Luckily, after the three earlier deaths, the party felt sorry for me and had me true resurrected that time!

In my current campaign, which I am DMing, the worst death came from a ghaele eladrin that was going the Savage Species route. After the group was mostly arrested (after being framed by a supposed ally,) he was able to stay free both because he's a celestial and because he was so new to the group that they didn't have anything on him yet. He later went back to investigate the party's stronghold, which was being ransacked by some thieves in league with the framers. They saw him coming and hid, then ambushed him. One round of surprise sneak attacks, a really bad roll for initiative on the celestial, and another half-round of sneak attacks later, the celestial was killed. He was later raised by the city for questioning, but by now the player was ready to move on to a new character anyway.

 

[Desdichado]

In my very first d20 Call of Cthulhu game (in which the GM admits he didn't know the rules very well) we had a character fall off an oil drum and die. Another character was killed by regular rats.

Then again, another character killed Deep Ones by dropping a crate suspended from a crane on them, and I ran over (and killed) two Deep Ones with a 1973 Chevelle.

 

[Chimera]

Lame God Death

CoC game. We're fighting Fish-men outside a town in 1920's Connecticut. The GM had the Fish-men's enemies, some snake people, give us a bunch of sharp stakes coated with a poison that was exceptionally deadly to the Fish-men.

We retreat down a back road to a hill, stopping to set up a bunch of these sticks in the roadway as a trap.

Next thing we know, here comes Dagon, marching down the road to annihalate us. GM rolls badly and Dagon steps on more than a few of the punji sticks. GM rolls even worse and Dagon dies.

Fish-men freak out, total loss of morale, break and run in all directions. A total rout.

Here we are, retreating for what we think is a final stand, and we end up killing what is essentially a God and winning the day. Because he stepped on some pointed sticks...

 

[Tewligan]

Err -- sorry about that. If it's any consolation, I almost made them cows.

Wow - in a 2e campaign I played in, WE were nearly done in by goats. Those farm animals are dangerous! Admittedly, the goats were apparently under some sort of malevolent influence, but it would still have been a shameful death. Also, there was some debate afterward as to how big a goat is. One side pictured "enormous shaggy mountain goat", while the other pictured "spindly-legged little animal that you see in a children's petting zoo." If Sabathius is reading this - I'm telling you, goats are HUGE!

 

[The Madhatter]

I'm not sure it this is the lamest death but it is quite awful. A very good character (Jacelyn Bywater) was the subject of a Drow Priestess' hold person. Of course he failed his save. She put a scarab(I'm not sure what the exact name of the item was) on his hand that ate his way(subcutaneously) to his heart and devoured it whole. Poor Jacelyn was alive at the time and helpless to do anything about it.

Another gem is a gnomish evoker by the name of Tweek. In an adventure, he was heading to the roof to fight a dragon and some giants while poor Jacelyn and I were taking the drow on. Tweek was riding shotgun on a broom of flying. I told him "Giants throw really big rocks, get off that stick and hit them with everything you've got!" Tweek didn't, his flying match hit the ground and Tweek ceased to exist.

 

[The Madhatter]

Oh, that happened to me once, though it was Miss Scarlett in the library.

LOL, that didn't even cross our minds!!! We were too busy laying into the poor fellow!!

 

[Thotas]

Curse of the Azure Bonds. Those who are familiar with it know that everytime you meet a sub-BBEG, they have the advantage of being able to try to "Hold" everyone who's got the bonds, which is the whole party. My wizard failed the save every single time, I had to sit out every single major fight. (I recuse myself from all debates over the merits of the change in those rules in 3.5 -- I could be a bit biased.) Approaching one of them, we decide maybe the the effect has to be targeted and won't work if they don't realize exactly where you are. So I try turning invisible. It doesn't work, of course, so now I end up invisible in the middle of the battlefield, the villians don't know I'm there. One of them uses Lightning Bolt on one of my allies, who just happens to positioned such that I'm in the path of the Bolt. Being held, I don't even get a saving throw. I got to do absolutely nothing, and the bad-guys got me with out even knowing I was there.

 

[Uvenelei]

Err -- sorry about that. If it's any consolation, I almost made them cows.

~ The author

I wish you had, or I had; that would have been so much funnier:

"Bessie looks down upon you as you lie motionless on the ground. 'The days of cowtipping are over, human,' she spoke in a deep voice as her jaw unhinged, grew, and filled with remarkably sharp teeth. 'Now we shall tip humanity into its doom!' *CHOMP*"

That would have been more fun.

It would have been more fun for me; the player may have felt otherwise as he grabbed a new character sheet...

 

[Balrog]

In 1st Edition(Unearthed Arcana Era), one player in our campaign had an elven Mage/Thief-Acrobat (around 11th level or so both classes) who was reknowned for being impossible to kill. With his spells, his thieving skills, and his plethora of horded magic items, he was always the last man standing in any near-TPK. He always had an Ace up his sleeve.

Well, one encounter, our party is actually holding its own against a fearsome opponent (I cannot recall what it was). The Mage/ TA decides while we are doing great, he would go back and check out a side room that we did not check out as a group. A chance to possibly score some free treasure and not have the rest of the party lay claim to it. Anyway, while the rest of us are busy, he decides rather than physically travel back and find the room, he would Teleport back to the crossroads of passages to get to the unknown room.

Wouldnt you know it, he rolled a '00' on his Teleport roll, and was encased in solid rock! It was the only time I ever remember him being on the short of the stick with Death.....