Lamest character deaths ever!

[William Ronald]

Piratecat: One character in a campaign I was in thrust his hand into an opening that was a sphere of annihilation. (The Tomb of Horrors had many ways to eliminate characters who did not act cautiously.)

In another game, with a different DM, a paladin character died when the character was suspended upside down in a rising sewer. Not a clean death by any definition.

 

[MoonZar]

four character in one of my games jump in a colossal demon mouth thinking it was a portal. Two of them end up swallowed by the creature

Fortunatly, the two other escape the mouth with a teleport ring...

hehehehe

MoonZar

 

[Tormenet]

Ahh..relief. I read this thread just waiting for my player's to post some of their unsatisfactory passings.

My first 3.0 PC, a teenaged halfling thief, was killed by a dire rat. The party was crossing a pit when the attack came. The party fighter fell into the pit so the party ranger went after him to patch him up. The party barbarian ruthlessly attacked a nearby wall (rolled alot of ones), and the party cleric stepped aside and cast Sanctuary on himself- leaving the 1st level thief as the only remaining target.

 

[Beckett]

Not a character death, but pretty close.

In an AU game I'm running, my quasi-girlfriend carries a frying pan as a backup weapon (she's found them to be occasionally useful in real life). I had ruled that it would do 1d4 subdual, if such a time came that she'd actually use it.

Her character is a bit jumpy and paranoid- in part I think because her second battle left her within a few rounds of death after a critical hit from a battle axe, and in part because of a new type of regenerating undead running around.

The party has uncovered a stone slab, and most of the party is trying to figure a way to move it. She prefers to have no part of this whatsoever, imagining quite clearly all the frightful things that might be lurking down there. The others finally get the slab to move, and the giant warmain calls her over. When she draws near, he yells, "BOO!"

She screams and hits him with her frying pan.

"Okay, roll to hit."
*20*
"Mm-hmm, roll to confirm."
*20*
"Mm-hmm, and that was two handed?"

It was. All told, the giant took 14 points of subdual, out of 18 hit points. Wouldn't have been so bad, but before he'd had a chance to rest off more than a couple points, another character decided he was done waiting and hurried down the newly uncovered stairs. The giant, being the main fighter, rushes down to take lead. The first room, a large spider gets the drop on him. A few bites, and he goes unconscious thanks to the remaining subdual. And, despite having the best fortitude save in the party, he still misses enough that after secondary effects, he's sitting at a strength of 1 (from a starting 20).

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

I've always hated the "Make a fortitude save DC 40" when my bonus is +12... That's a pretty lame way to die.

Then again, there are worse things than death, like having your 15th-level character permanently lose all items in the middle of a dungeon- including his spellbook...

 

[MoonZar]

After a super-tough combat where 2/3 of the group died, one of the 2 survivor litteraly ran to a trapped door and died of the lightning who protected it.

LoL

MoonZar

 

[rgard]

A couple of mine died lamely...

1. In a 1E campaign, my 3rd level illusionist blew up trying to write the 1st level 'light' spell into his spell book. Yes, I argued before hand that illusionists didn't have to write into the spell book with the same chance of failure and resulting damage as magic users had.

2. We did a Traveller/D&D crossover campaign. My 1E 7th level Assassin stepped off the ship when we landed somewhere (very first encounter in the Traveller Universe) and was obliterated by a sniper shooting a Fusion Gun 15. Just a pile of goo left.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Evil campaign.

I was playing a Brd/Rog/Clr-with-Trickery-domain, heading for some custom Doppelganger-style PrC. Master of disguise and impersonation, that sort of thing.

And in the character creation process, I'd decided that he wasn't just going to have certain roles he used a lot... he was actually going to have multiple personalities.

I was playing a selfish, self-interested, subtle evil. Unfortunately, I discovered everyone else was playing over-the-top, twirl-the-moustache, kick-puppies-and-make-sandwiches-out-of-them, cartoony evil.

We were assigned a task by an evil mastermind. Hamm (the character in his bard personality) noted that he had some contacts he wanted to check with for information... and he would send someone more suited to an assault on a church. He went off, talked to his contacts, and then let the Grey personality (the evil cleric) to the fore. He rendesvoused with the rest of the group moments after the attack on the church began, and took up a backstop role, preventing anyone escaping to get help.

Once the fight was over, he entered the building to suggest to the characters bathing in the blood of the slain, etc, etc, that perhaps now was not the time, and they should accomplish the task and leave before the Watch arrived.

He was seized, and a dagger held to his throat, with a demand that he stop this farce and admit he was Hamm, or be killed.

I sent an email to the DM - "What should I do? Grey doesn't believe he's Hamm... should I play him to character, or just drop the whole multiple personality idea to avoid derailing the game?"

"Your call," she replied.

So I decided To hell with it, and played him as he was originally envisioned - he claimed that Hamm had sent him to help, and they were being ridiculous.

So they cut his throat.

-Hyp.

 

[BASTON!!!]

Pathetic...



We were in The Temple of Elemental Evil, Ed. 3.0.

My fighter level 5, injured, opened a door. There was a low level cleric (L2) and a few squeletons. So i charged. The cleric casted "Random action" (level 1) and i missed the saves. The Dm roled to know what would happen: "Attack Self". That's what i did and i critical myself!

That was so lamentable...

BASTON!!!

 

[tarchon]

"Oh, the campaign was really great over the summer while you were gone - we finished off that lich and... well, I've got some bad news..."
"My character? What'd he get... cursed or something?"
"He... er... died."
"Oh, man. How'd it happen?"
"Well, we were in the lich's dungeon and there was this big purple glowing stone. We weren't quite sure what to do with it, so we figured somebody should touch it... and since Bran had NPCitis... he ended up doing it..."
"What? Why would he just touch a glowing purple stone?!"
"Well, We figured it must do something."
"So what did it do?"
"Oh, save or die. You rolled a 1."
"That's it?"
"Yeah, it was just this big glowing purple stone that killed you if you touched it."