Most Ignoble PC Death

[Reynard]

We haven't had one of these in a while.

I was 12, playing an 8th level cleric of the sun god in BECMI D&D. My oldest brother was DMing and me, my middle brother and a couple of friends were playing. We were traveling across the open plains on our way to the next adventure when a random encounter was rolled: a gorgon. It was munchy quietly on the grass among a herd of mundane cows (a playa, no dount) and other than glancing threateningly at us, it ignored us. That is, it ignored us until my middle brother -- rest his soul -- fired an arrow at it. "Just because". It charged and we took off as fast as our mounts could carry us. Being young and naive and Lawful, I turned to face the beast. Of course, it breathed and I was petrified. Literally.

If only the humiliation had stopped there.

My companions did not leave me to stand forever in the open field. nay, they carried my immensely heavy stone form with them -- hoping to find a buyer for such an exquisite sculpture. I should have been pleased that no buyer could be found -- note: I did not have a new character, as I wasn't officially "dead" -- but once they boarded a boat to explore the isle of dread, they decided to drop me unceremoniously over the prow into the deep in the middle of the ocean.

On the upside, my next character was a Chaotic thief that caused them no end of grief.

 

[Angrydad]

I recall my friend Brian was playing a half-orc barbarian, a rather reckless one at that, and he managed to get himself killed rather quickly by a spear trap in a hallway. Instead of pulling his body to safety for potential recovery, one of the other players immediately said, "Dibs on his axe!". They promptly used his body to jam the gears of the trap.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the campaign's first adventure, I had a Half-Orc Ranger try busting down a door...only to have his momentum carry him through so well that he went over the precipice on the door's other side (he rolled a 2 for a Ref check to avoid the fall).

In a DarkSun campaign, my Con 19 Dwarf charged into battle, and immediately failed a save vs magic, vs poison, vs magic (again), vs polymorph, and vs system shock in that order. (For those who want the math, each roll for that PC was a 1 in 20 chance of failure, except the last, which was a 1 in 100 roll.) For giggles, the enemy mage fireballed the area in order to burn the dead Dwarf (now a dead frog) into ashes for use as spell components, so I jokingly rolling to see if the ashes saved any better. They didn't.

 

[malraux]

Gnome Paladin- We enter a building. There's a spellcaster in the back protected by a Behir. He decided to charge around the behir to engage the caster directly, figuring the AoO would hurt, but not too bad, plus he had a huge AC. Unfortunately, the behir can also grapple for his AoO, so the gnome ended up being grappled. Shockingly, at that point, the gnome had no shot of surviving, as grappling between small creature and huge creatures is pretty much a forgone conclusion. The behir also has a swallow whole attack, so the poor gnome ends up traveling down the behir's digestive track. By the near end of the fight, the behir drops and the gnome is able to start wiggling out of its far end, when the main boss uses that chance to behead the gnome, who was only exposed from the head up. Twas not a noble death.

 

[Orius]

Most ignoble would have to be getting killed by a flumph. Just think of the shame.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Most ignoble would have to be getting killed by a flumph. Just think of the shame.

That will be tough to beat.

 

[jgsugden]

I was very young. My brother was charged with babysitting me while he and his friends played D&D. They decided to get some kicks, so they had me role up a first level thief and serve as their 'mine detector'.

They found their way to a cliff lair of some horrible beastie and sent me to climb the cliff and lower a rope to them. This was back in the 1E days, so climbing a cliff for a first level thief should have been pretty much suicide, especially when the entrance to the lair was 200 feet up the cliff.

Somehow, the dice loved me and I made it up. I lowered the rope and my brother and his friends had their characters start to climb up the rope.

As they climbed the DM began to describe a horrible moaning coming from the chamber behind my puny little thief. I listed to his description for a few moments, and then said, "Neat. I cut the rope."

My brother's PC and his friends fell to their deaths. My thief dropped another rope down and climbed down. He collected their gear (they were eighth level) and skeedadled back to town to retire.

Hey, you didn't say it had to be my character's ignoble death. I'm not about to tell you the story of my paladin that - due to a case of mistaken identity - was put to death for killing the mayor's young daughter who was NOT in fact a doppelganger.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As they climbed the DM began to describe a horrible moaning coming from the chamber behind my puny little thief. I listed to his description for a few moments, and then said, "Neat. I cut the rope."

My brother's PC and his friends fell to their deaths. My thief dropped another rope down and climbed down. He collected their gear (they were eighth level) and skeedadled back to town to retire.

Ha! From mine detector to man of leisure in one day! I bet there was at least one spray of Coke after hearing "Neat. I cut the rope."

 

[ppaladin123]

In a game I was running last year, my players encountered a group of "entombers" and ghouls. One of the guys, who was playing a rogue already low on HP, decided to attempt to tumble past all of them even though the other players warned him that he stood almost no chance of succeeding. He failed to meet the sky-high DC (of course) and provoked three attacks of opportunity. The first infected him with ghoul fever, the second killed him outright, and the third (against his body coasting through the air) embedded him 6ft underground (one of the entomber's special abilities). The other players spent a good 10 minutes laughing at him and then decided to simply leave his corpse to reaniminate as a ghoul forever trapped in a rather-tight grave (they weren't playing a particularly honorable bunch).

 

[Wik]

Most ignoble would have to be getting killed by a flumph. Just think of the shame.

If that happens, don't you have to quit D&D?

Um. Our most ignoble death? In an earlier game, the PCs got involved with a halfling crime leader (in the campaign, the halflings are a cross between gypsies and the mob). The PCs threaten the guy, and come back to their ship... to find the area swarming with halfling minions. A big fight ensues, and the warlock teleports from cover to cover, picking off minions. The wizard does the same.

Unfortunately, the warlock forgot to stay behind cover. Open target, fifteen minions with ranged attacks... one dying warlock. And, of course, the minions rushed the warlock so his allies couldn't help him.