Strangest (or the most funny) deaths

[Orichin]

I was running a game for a group of 3 friends, it was their first high game (each was 18-19 or so). The wizard had crafted magical items he called loraxes that were skulls that could turn into vicious fighting beasts if thrown (the loraxes had a tendency to get bigger and stronger as they took more damage, too).

The 3 of them came through a hallway and found a pillar of rushing water flowing from the floor and 'falling' up through the cieling, with a black orb about 18 inches in diameter in the center at chest level, and a bubble of air visible above the orb inside the waterfall.
PC1: I throw a lorax into the orb.
me: The Lorax grows as it flies through the air and disappears with a pop when it touches the orb.
PC2: Is it a portal?
PC3: (the wizard) I try a spellcraft check.
me: It doesn't appear to be a spell, it is something you've never heard of before.
PC3: I throw my Lorax.
me: It also disappears.
PC1: I jump in.
PC2: I follow him.
PC3: me too.

You may have guessed it was an orb of annihalation.

 

[Pants]

Bah, try a 2nd ed wizard with 39 hp getting a full red dragon's breath (80 hp damage) in the face, failing the save and then falling a hundred feet to the ground. I think I was a -80 smudge on the ground afterward.

Heh. I DMed a game where a pissed off Glabrezu crushed a character to -75 with one of its pincers.

Anyways, I've had a couple of interesting deaths in games I've played in and DMed.

In my first 3e campaign, the party (consisting of a half-elf ranger and a human monk) were investigating an ancient dwarven complex. On one of the lower levels, the party came to a room full of sarcophagi. After stepping into the room the door slams shut behind them and the sarcophagi all open, unleashing about 6 mummies. Now, instead of fighting the mummies, the party clamber on top of the sarcophagi. The ranger pulls out his bow and starts shooting mummies. The mummies being of quite limited intelligence start shaking the sarcophagi. The monk fails his balance check and falls off. The mummies swarm him and beat the hell out of him, not before he drops one of the mummies though.

During this time, the ranger is still shooting at the mummies from the top of his sarcophagus. When the monk is finally hit with one last critical, he drops from around 4 hp to -11 (!), the ranger clambers down and proceeds to wade through the remaining mummies within a few rounds mostly due to very poor rolls by the mummies and very good rolls by the ranger. He was later raised.

Same campaign, the two players are in some desolate desert temple searching for some item that they had been dreaming about. It turns out that they aren't the only ones searching for the item in question as while they are holed up in an empty room, a group of humans led by a barbarian attack. The monk, possessing a rod of wonder, uses the rod and sends the barbarian to another plane of existence. During his next round, he uses the rod again and summons up a rhino. Now, I ruled that the rhino wasn't under his control and proceeded to attack the closest creature... namely, him. He gets gored once and tries to climb up a nearby tree. He gets a quarter of the way up before boffing a climb check and falling straight downward... right onto the rhino's horn. That dropped him to below -10. The ranger, who had been hiding in another tree, kills the rhino in one round with his bow. He was raised later on.

Same campaign, same monk. The characters are helping to defend a dwarven citadel from the attack of an elven army. During their foray into the aforementioned desolate desert temple, they recovered the blackened heart of a dead godling... pretty much a single use artifact that created a very large explosion when thrown. The monk, sneaks into the elven encampment, finds the command tent and throws the rock. He wipes out 3/4 of the army, kills the commanders, and utterly disintegrates himself. He chose not be resurrected after that one.

Same campaign world, different characters, but same player as the monk. The characters (4 in total) are resting up in a city and looking for a way to relieve themselves of some well gathered coin. The party rogue finds a magic shop and espies a rather nice sword that is well out of his price range. He decides to come back to the shop later that night... and steal it! He finds the back door, easily picks the lock, but fails to notice the rather nasty trap. He steps inside and sees a glowing, green finger flying towards him. He fails the save and drops dead.

His next character is introduced into the campaign by seeing his old character die!

Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil Spoilers follow...

During a RttToEE game, the party (4 PC's a drow fighter, dwarven fighter, gnome bard/ranger, human rogue, and an NPC cleric) has pretty much cleared out the moathouse and his preparing to head down into the cavern with the giant, black, soul-sucking crystal thing. They discover the platform that can be raised or lowered into the cyst and the party members with darkvision (a dwarven fighter (played by the monk's player) and a drow fighter) are chosen to go down first. The human rogue/assassin-wannabe decides to follow the group by climbing (!?) down the rope. While heading downward, a grell attacks from the darkness and is pretty much just annoying the drow and the dwarf.
The gnome decides to also join in by climbing down the rope (!!?). He botches a climb check and falls, slamming into the platform and causing it to sway mightily. The dwarf fails his balance check and plummets into the darkness below and impales himself on a stalagmite. During all of this, the rogue/assassin has been hanging onto the rope for dear-life. When he finally decides to come down, he also botches the climb check AND after slamming into the platform, he fails his balance check and rolls off into the darkness below. Two dead PC's. Alas yea hungry Temple.

In one game that I played in, in the very first game another player and I were searching through an old wizard's lair. I was playing a dwarven druid and my companion was an elven fighter (the very same player who played teh aforementioned monk, rogue, and dwarf!). After thoroughly looting the entire place, we discover a freestanding door. Upon opening it, we discover that it is one of those infamous freestanding-door-into-another-world. The elf decides to go through and as a precaution, I tie a rope around his waist and he goes through.
On the other side, he discovers an empty void. Retrieving a slim, black wand that we had earlier discovered, he takes the wand and throws it. It sails away into the darkness, unimpeded by gravity or other such mortal concerns. In a fit of genius, the elf unties the rope around his waist, and attempts to fly after it. Unsurprisingly, he loses the wand and also loses the location of the door.
After a short while (30 minutes or so), I go in after him and since I don't find him anywhere, I leave and close the door. My rationale being that leaving doors to other unknown realms open is not a very smart idea. The elf, horribly lost in the empty void, goes insane and later on in the campaign, he returns as a villain. Not a death persay, but still funny.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the most 'infamous' in my group.

 

[Roman]

Roman, it sounds like your DM was trying to destroy your party! Damn, you took it pretty well. I admit, i've had to stack the odds against my PC's just because they were so powerful and innovative, but it sounds like he had every avenue of escape covered.

The campaign has been rather deadly so far especially once we passed level 5. Since then we have generally had at least 1 death per session. I am on my 5th character in the campaign (currently we are between level 7 and level 9 inclusive). The DM often creates his own monsters, which tend to be rather powerful and sets fights in interesting situations that the party sometimes finds difficult to surmount. The high death rate makes it difficult to proceed with the story-line, but the DM has been creative at integrating new characters into the group, so the story does continue.

 

[demiurge1138]

Demiurge casts Raise Thread...

Theobald "Trapspringer" had it tough. A poor, dumb half-orc, Theobald's only saving grace was his skill at unarmed combat and rather methodical approach to life. He earned his honorific by infiltrating a den of theives on the outskirts of Sharn and triggering every trap in the place. Rolling iron balls to the face, falling chandeliers, slippery tiles, collapsing stairs, swarms of spiders... Theobald got all of it. And survived all of it.

He was not so lucky, however, when it came to investigating the trail of a wolf-like creature that had disappeared into the depths of the Sharn sewers. Theobald and the rest of the Freelance Police found an ancient and looted House Cannith forgehold deep in the sewers, its schema long since stolen by adventurers. Searching around, Theobald found a toad in a nook in the forgehold. Having decided that the toad was not poisonous and not valuable, Theobald, in his methodical way, decided it was food.

As he lifted it to eat, the polymorphed quasit assumed wolf form, critted, and bit poor Theobald's head off.

There was much confusion, a few curses, and then laughter. Fortunately, a lot of it was from Theobald's player...

Demiurge out.

 

[William Ronald]

So many deaths, so little time. I should not that I was not the DM in the following incidents.

In one game, over 20 years ago, a player had his paladin caught upside down in a trap in a sewer. The sewage rose, and the character drowned.

One of my PCs died within a few minutes of a game session when he was killed for opposing an NPC.

More recently, I saw a PC rogue climb a tower and come face to face with a dracolisk. The PC failed the save, was petrified, and fell 30 feet. This was within a few minutes of the game starting.

 

[julius27]

Freeport Campaign:

My female elf mage/rogue was captured, raped, and impregnated by an orc pirate, forcing her to marry (in the mind of the character, the only way to save face in polite society) the orc monk in the party (also played by me). Don't get me wrong, I originally created the characters for dramatic tension what with the stereotypical hatred of the two races for each other. At one point, she had gotten hold of a mirror of soul trapping and built a sling and removable cover for it so that she could carry it like a shield. The other characters, shile thinking this odd, decided that it was just the latest in a recent series of odd behaviors for her and left it alone. After she had found out about the pregnancy and deduced the contributor, the party was in need of information that only the leader of the Fighter's Guilde had. Inside the Guilde building, she notices the father talking with another gentleman and strolls near him. She stands slightly behind the other fighter and calls out the culprit's name while pulling the cover off of her "shield." He of course, looks up to see who's calling his name and vanishes. She quickly pulls the cover back down and wanders aimlessly while the rest of the party is attending to the gathering of the information.

Techniquely, he isn't dead, but everyone thought that was pretty creative.

 

[Nathan P. Mahney]

In a 2e game, we were fighting a badass vampire that had managed to charm our party fighter. Things weren't going well, we were dishing out tons of damage to this fighter, and he just wasn't dropping.

So, my halfling thief decided to backstab the guy. How was I to know that he only had 1 hit point left?

First off, we were desperate. I had a dagger that could do double damage once per day, so I activated it.

I rolled a natural 20. Double damage. We had always played allowing multipliers to stack. As I was a very high-level thief, my backstab was x5. Double that for the magic dagger and I had x10, double that for the crit and I had x20.

Not only that, but my halfling possessed a girdle of giant strength, and I rolled maximum damage, which came to 20. 20 times 20 is 400.

I had just backstabbed the party fighter down to -399 hit points.

After we finished laughing, we continued fighting the vampire, and I beheaded him with my vorpal sword. Killer.