D&D 5E RIP Murder Hobos

[Shiroiken]

In my current campaign, I've had a few PC deaths, plus a Petrification. All but one were recovered from.

The first was our half-elf Loremaster Bard, who was crushed under the Juggernaut in the Temple of Elemental Evil at level 5. Recovered by Revivify (Cleric).

The next was our human Life Cleric, who was killed in a 3 way battle between 2 Adult White Dragons and 5 Cloud Giants while trapped in the Air Node of Elemental Evil at level 7. Body lost during the travel back to the Material Plane.

The next was our Golaith (half-giant) Wolf Totem Barbarian, who was petrified by a Medusa while trapped in the Earth Node of Elemental Evil at level 7. Recovered (along with several discovered NPCs) with Spell Scroll (Wish) luckily cast by the Sorceress.

There might have been a few more, but the most recent was the half-elf Loremaster Bard (again) who was killed by a multitude of AoE spells and abilities while fighting a pair of Adult White Dragons inside the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl at level 11. Recovered by Revivify (Paladin).

 

[Ovinomancer]

8th level monk PC. The party had staged an ambush for a group of cultists posing as tinkers. The party was aware that at least some of the cultists were werewolves, but that wasn't much of a problem for them. What they didn't know was that two of the cultists were greater werewolves (custom CR 8 critters). It was a tough fight, but they party prevailed, killing or disabling all of the cultists except one of the greater werewolves who fled into the night. The monk was very low on hp, and, in the typical fine fashion of my players, unwilling to allow a foe to flee. While the ranger and rogue sent arrows into the moonlit night after the werewolf, the monk decided to run it down. And so, almost 200' from the rest of the party, he caught a mostly undamaged greater werewolf and offered it battle. The werewolf, now taking only the occasional arrow from the archers (dimly lit night = disadvantage), took the offer, downed the monk on it's first blow, and proceeded to take a round or two scattering parts (still under fire, but, again, somewhat ineffectual) before returning to it's flight.

The look on the player's face when the werewolf turned to fight and he realized exactly how low his character was on hp clearly showed he understood the grave (heh) error he made.

 

[Tormyr]

I had my first permanent character death last night in 2.5 years of Age of Worms 5e. We started April 2014 using the October 2013 play test rules.

The party has destroyed Dragotha's phylactery, and they are now going to destroy Kyuss' general. Exploring the Wormcrawl fissure, they discover they are called by visions to a cavern. As they enter the cavern pitch black cavern, an alarm spell notifies the owner of the massive cavern that there are intruders. He has his minions (large, fast centipedes and gargantuan scorpions) to attack the party while sniping the party with spells from cover.

As the battle progresses, the party is doing fairly well (aside from tripping every trap and notifying every enemy that they are there). The kobold bard is the only one who does badly on his saving throws. Halfway through the battle, the first mindkiller scorpion let's off his once a day, 30 foot radius, mind bending blast. The bard failed his saving throw and took a form of short term madness for 1 minute. All his communication came out as gibberish, and he could not cast spells other than hypnotic pattern (no verbal componenet). He drew a quick picture to show another party member the ulgurstata that was hiding around the corner, but it was not understood. In frustration, he flew to the corner so that both the ulgurstata and party could see him and pointed wildly at the ulgurstata while spouting gibberish. He cast hypnotic pattern at the ulgurstata and rejoiced when I rolled a 1 for its saving throw, but his expression turned to dismay and fear as the ulgurstata threw off the effects of the spell with a use of legendary resistance. At that point, the second mindkiller scorpion lets its blast loose, and the bard is again the only one to fail the saving throw. This time his mind retreats into itself for 1 minute. He plumments into the 100 foot gorge that he had been flying above.

The party finished off the minions, and the ulgurstata decided it was time to go in and try to eat some adventurers. He cast fly on himself and flew across the gorge and engaged the adventurers. He ate the sorcerer, who used the once a day power of his ring to turn into a lightning bolt and escape. The ulgurstata took some damage and decided it was time to escape. He cast dimension door and teleported to the bottom of the gorge where the bard lay. He ate the kobold and ran away, and the necromantic acid started dissolving the bard's body. The party figured out where the bard should have landed, saw large tracks going away, and carefully followed.

Now the party had been using Rory's telepathic bond to stay in communication with each other. When the bard's mind turned in on itself, "on hold" music started playing in the background of the telepathic bond. When the bard was swallowed, the music turned discordant, and after a few rounds the music stopped...

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

What are the most recent character deaths in your campaign?

Let's see... it's been a while since a character died at my table. In fact, the most recent character death at my table was actually me getting to play for the first time in a handful of years, so I'll give a double answer and describe that death and the one most recent from a campaign I was DM of:

The party was a small group of near strangers that had met during a festival in a nearby town. That festival was interrupted by goblins attacking the town, and this small group of people made up of the PCs wanted to track down the goblins that gotten away to make sure they weren't regrouping for another attack on the town - you know, heroics.

That led us to a patch of woods heavy with briar undergrowth, where we found some kind of goblin spellcaster and it's pet leopard. For a moment it seemed our newly established team was working well together, as we had moved in and nearly surrounded our pair of foes... but then the goblin put some distance between us for his advantage, and the entire party followed after him, leaving my character (a sorcerer I didn't think was so frail) face to face with the cat. His death was swift.

Long before that... like 5 years probably, I was running a 4th edition game that had managed to rise to mid-paragon tier. The party felt indestructible with their combination of all the healing a cleric can muster and stout dwarven fighter loaded with abilities to surround himself with monsters to beat on while the cleric funnels most of that healing into making that not suicide.

But the snow was deep, and the winter wolves were hungry. Before the fighter had a chance to make himself the focal point of their attacks, they'd already surrounded the cleric and drawn blood. And when the cleric fell, the entire party nearly joined her because they wouldn't let the wolves take their tasty meal and leave without further exchange of violence.

It was an awesome moment that shines through a campaign which we were all basically done with at that point (it ended in a "let's just not play this anymore" majority vote a month or so later), and it was also the first (and only) time I've seen the player of that cleric not react poorly to a character death - so I gave him a digital painting of the character's tomb to memorialize the event.

 

[Tony Vargas]

TPK (not quite but might as well have been) in Acropolis of Voor Darayn. Wasn't expecting that from 7th level characters, but the party was small and the players unfamiliar with the pregens.

Fighter killed in CoS, the Death House, by the specter.

 

[Valetudo]

No deaths in the current campaign (Lost Mine of Phandelver), although they came close. In a wilderness random-ish encounter with a wolf pack , the ranger's choice of words an actions combined with a flubbed Animal Handling roll led to combat that should have easily been avoided. Cold dice lead to a comedy of all four PCs being knocked prone and standing up repeatedly. Three of them have fairly good Strengths , and two of those are proficient in Athletics, to no avail.

This eventually gave way to a comedy of round robin Medicine checks, and then the cleric trying to heal and or stabilize people before they got injured/dying again like a vaudeville plate spinner. He finally drove the wolves off solo, with everyone else at two failed death saves.

I actually wiped my group with wolves right after they hit 2nd lvl when we first started 5th edition. I had set up the encounter to be a chase scene involving 17 wolves being controlled by a werewolf in the background, but my players decided to jump off their horses and fight the wolves which are insanely nasty in a group like that. I did feel a little sorry for them because some of them where new. But I had warned them that not all encounters where to be solved by combat and that death was a real threat in my campaigns.

 

[bedir than]

One of my PCs lost their dog, but I allowed it to be Revivified. They were fighting a "Tunneling Nightmare" a huge sarlac type beast that tunnels through the dirt, puffs out a noxious gas, and then tries to trip and throw its prey into its gaping maw. The dog was only beaten by the larger tentacles. Another dog dodged in and drug it to safety and the waiting cleric. It seemed more heroic than a death. The dog that "died" does have a limp and a smushed shoulder/face now.

 

[Demetrios1453]

TPK (not quite but might as well have been) in Acropolis of Voor Darayn. Wasn't expecting that from 7th level characters, but the party was small and the players unfamiliar with the pregens.

Fighter killed in CoS, the Death House, by the specter.

The group I was playing in had three TPKs in the aptly-named Death House, once to that specter even though we all already knew it was there...

 

[Spookyboots]

My group broke in to this dungeon and did relatively well getting through the traps (my brother is 10 ft pole crazy) and slaughted two dozen zombies with a well placed/timed burning hands.
Then they encountered a succubus....and that was the end of them. The wizard was killed outright and the ranger was slaughtered by the charmed fighter. We have a strange case of Schrodinger's fighter right now. If the new party ever makes it's way back to that dungeon we'll find out.

 

[rgoodbb]

Not sure if this counts as the player was leaving the group and was seeking a death.

The DM decided it would be a good idea in this session to meet Strahd for the first time (level 5). With a shout of "Face me Von Zaro-bitch", The Paladin/Warlock challenged him and then died in a blaze of necrosis. The rest of us eventually ran after putting up a respectable fight.