Most Ignoble PC Death

[rgard]

3.5E. I was the DM. One of the PCs was beaten to death by goblin children wielding small wooden baseball bats. The kind of bat you get on bat day at the ball park. I had one at the table from a Pirates game as a prop.

Same player, same session, new, different PC. An adult goblin bull rushed the PC into a bottomless pit. The goblin had a rope tied around his waist held by his goblin friends. They pulled the bull rush goblin out of the pit as the PC reached terminal velocity.

Same player, same session, new (3rd), different PC. Player wises up and gets another player to string a rope between the two of them as they work their way around the pit to get at the goblins. Rope is tied to both PCs' waists. Goblin archers turn the 2nd PC into a pin cushion. 2nd PC dies and falls into the pit...taking the original player's PC with him.

The player had another (4th) PC rolled up 'just in case.' I don't remember if that one died or not.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Nymrohd]

3.5E. I was the DM. One of the PCs was beaten to death by goblin children wielding small wooden baseball bats. The kind of bat you get on bat day at the ball park. I had one at the table from a Pirates game as a prop.

Same player, same session, new, different PC. An adult goblin bull rushed the PC into a bottomless pit. The goblin had a rope tied around his waist held by his goblin friends. They pulled the bull rush goblin out of the pit as the PC reached terminal velocity.

Same player, same session, new (3rd), different PC. Player wises up and gets another player to string a rope between the two of them as they work their way around the pit to get at the goblins. Rope is tied to both PCs' waists. Goblin archers turn the 2nd PC into a pin cushion. 2nd PC dies and falls into the pit...taking the original player's PC with him.

The player had another (4th) PC rolled up 'just in case.' I don't remember if that one died or not.

Thanks,
Rich

Did that player call your mother fat or something? So much hate

 

[Wrathamon]

I am not sure death by flumph would be the worst. You could always end up getting killed by a Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing. . .

not sure if I know anyone who has died from this... but its up there.

My worst death was in AD&D 1e... when I followed a Carbuncle into the brush only to run into another Fiend folio classic (which the name escapes me) that was so ugly I died when gazing upon it. It was the beast with the ugly face with a super long neck

surprised no one mentioned the crap golem in Rappan Attuk.

 

[Nymrohd]

Catoblepas?

 

[ronin]

I was playing a bard aspiring to become a fochlucan lyrist with an 8 strength. I wanted to cross a rickety bridge over a river and decided to cross without getting tied to a rope first. Of course I failed a balance check and fell into the river- and promptly drowned after a few failed swim checks.

Same character was raised and continued on in the campaign. We were in an underwater city trying to get information at a local watering hole. The DM was running every NPC as a jerk so I got annoyed and left. I decided to use my lyre of building to tear down then entire block before being ran out of town. Once we left we were resting in the middle of the ocean with my PC on watch. I failed to notice the gargantuan shark approaching which promptly grabbed me and swam away before the others could even wake up. This happened about 10 minutes later in the game after I was ran out of town.

I guess he showed me who was the boss.

 

[Wrathamon]

Catoblepas?

Bingo!

 

[Khairn]

Here's the scene.

Party of 5 are tracking a group of orcs that have been preying on a village. The party has followed them to the foothills of a mountain range, and after a long days travel they decide to camp and continue the hunt in the morning.

On the 2nd watch, Bob, who was playing the cleric, climbs a tree to get a better view of the surrounding area. Everyone else is asleep.

Halfway through his watch, with the fire little more than smoldering coals, he spots 2 orcs just on the edge of the camp.

"Aleryn.." I ask, "What do you do?"

"I point to the orcs to warn my friends!" he cries, only then realizing they were all asleep. Eventually he decides that the party is in a vulnerable position, what with him up a tree, and the rest in their skivies. "I'll wait and see what they do next." he declares with conviction.

I describe how the 2 orcs creep up on one of his companions (my future brother-in-law playing a paladin), then lay a cloth over his head which they then beat on with blackjacks. None of the party notice the muffled thuds.

"What do you do?" I asked the now worried cleric up a tree.

"I get ready to scream if they draw weapons." he replies.

The orcs then pick up the unconscious paladin and carefully leave the camp.

"What do you do now?" I ask.

" I'll wait just a few more minutes...since they might come back. Won't they?" he says with rising doubt in his voice, as he see's the glowering faces of his party members watching him in shocked silence.

The party eventually was awakened by the cleric and set out to find their lost companion. Tracking the paladin ladened footprints of the orcs they eventually discovered his body bloated after having been cooked in a stew pot.

 

[mmu1]

In a game I was running, a fight in an underground cave complex went very badly, and the players decided that the PCs still standing should run for it.

Unfortunately, one of them was cut off from the exit by the enemies, so he went for a nearly vertical shaft that led deeper underground, that they didn't get a chance to explore. Which, despite its unassuming appearance, was heavily trapped.

He rolled horribly on his climb check, and fell. I winced inwardly, and gave him a chance to catch himself (it was quite narrow in places) which he rolled even worse on. On his way down, he fell by a series of glyphs of warding - damage, paralysis and blindness. He failed all three saves. Badly hurt, he arrived at the bottom and landed in shallow water. The damage didn't kill him outright, but he dropped to -10 before he had a chance to drown...

 

[On Puget Sound]

1976. Eldritch Wizardry has just been published, and along with the psionics and other weirdness, there are random outdoor encounter tables in the back. My friend and I have been rolling 6 characters each and sending the party of 12 into the wilderness. The one or two who survive and make it back become 2nd level, and are now given names. They recruit some buddies and repeat, until after many weeks we have a party of 4 in the level teens; the highest is my 17th level hobbit thief. Yes, a hobbit; this was before the Tolkien estate's lawyers got all medieval on Gary Gygax.

Random result: Lycanthrope. Random type: Other. Roll on animal table: Irish Deer (sort of a dire elk). Number appearing: 3-30; rolled 30.

TPK, stampeded to death by were-elk.

Later that year saw Gods, Demigods and Heroes[, which statted the various pantheons including their psionic stats. The chaotic evil wizard in the group cast Gate to summon Odin, psionically dominated him and ordered him to cut down Yggdrassil, the tree that holds up the Universe.

TUK, by divine annihilation.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

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