Mechanics of Death aka How have you died?

[fba827]

I skimmed through and took a VERY informal counting, and took MANY liberties and assumptions.

But here is a rough tally on reasons that PCs have died, as told in this thread so far.

13 negative bloodied damage (including taking recurring damage from an effect or just hit really really hard when already low)

10 overwhelmed/outmatched (resulting in either a tpk or abandoning one or more pcs to save the others)

18 failed death saves (and the rest of the party is nearby but unable to assist for some reason/dazed/isolated)

4 Misc other (became bait to be killed so others could ambush, forgetting/misunderstanding rules/etc)

Again, this is just a very very imprecise counting. But being cut off from the party while you bleed to death (they can't reach you in time, or don't have line of sight/effect, or they're dazed/occupied, or don't have the movement to get to you, etc) seems to be the winner...

while negative bloodied is the silver medal.

of course, many people also talked about near-deaths but in the end they were saved and therefore not counted... so this informal count won't help judge the general lethality, merely give some idea as to causes of death in 4e parties that shared their experiences in this thread.

 

[illwizard]

A halfling rogue in my group died from failing death saves. This was really his fault though as he decided to explore the excavation site in KotS by himself. He was caught out and torn up by those nasty drakes I think they were.

 

[Hejdun]

The only real death came at level 3, and was because of overconfidence and a staggeringly difficult encounter. Basically, we entered a complex which had already been alerted to our presence, so every single encounter (5 or 6 "normal" encounters' worth) arrived in waves in one giant battle. After defeating 1750xp worth of monsters, we made the mistake of chasing a few survivors instead of falling back and regrouping.

At that point, we could've gotten out with only one PC lost if we ran, but being stubborn we fought to the end. It should've been a TPK but the DM was nice to us. One PC died from failing 3 saves.

Another one that was close was when we got surprised by a tough encounter at the end of the day. We were almost out of healing surges (everyone had either 1 or 2), had absolutely no dailies left, and literally every single person missed with every single encounter power they had. The solo went all out on my character and in 3 rounds or so, I was down to within 3 of negative bloodied. He was within 1 on a d20 roll of insta-killing me (from 5hp or so to negative bloodied).

 

[Storminator]

One more session, one more death. That brings us up to 3, and we're 23 XP short of 5th level.

This one was nearly a TPK... again... we're chasing wererats in the sewers, managing to set off all the traps in addition to starting encounters the hard way. I think the one rat we captured alerted the rest to our presence, because they had a nasty surprise for us.

Two brutes and an elite skirmisher in a small room, with some Blast Patch right outside the door. We all run and leap over the patch and burst into the room, where upon the skirmisher drops the portcullis style door, closing off the room (with the Warlord still outside), and setting off a Stinking Cloud trap. Holy sweet bejesus is Stinking Cloud nasty. The monsters in the room couldn't hit to save their souls, and the team tooled them. My cleric and the fighter took on the skirmisher, who was guarding the mechanism to raise the door. It took a few rounds to kill him, and the Stinking Cloud was tearing up everyone on the team. Even after we killed the skirmisher, we had to winch the door open, then run and cross the Blast Patch - that was trouble with the unconscious characters. We used all the Healing Words, all the Inspiring Words, all the healing potions... a least a couple Second Winds. The rogue, dragging the wizard, dropped from the fumes in the last square of the effect, leaving the wounded wizard in the effect, where he died at negative bloodied and 2 failed death saves. My cleric, who could have triggered the wizard's Second Wind, was holding the winch up inside the room, as far from the wizard as possible.

PS

 

[unan oranis]

level 18 campaign - many close calls only one death so far

8th level dwarven cleric got boiled to death by a hazard; technically a strategic error as he could have been rescued by another character; but that guy didn't see the option until afterwards.


There are no leaders or healers in our party - just strikers and one wizard.

The shock and awe opening salvo usually finishes off whoever they are facing in short order, but the lack of healing turns every encounter that weathers their initial onslaught into a very dangerous one.