D&D General Your Character Died! Who's Fault Was It?

[EzekielRaiden]

The last time a character I was playing died, at least in a campaign that didn't fold within six weeks of starting, it was specifically because:

1. I took a risk I shouldn't have, going toe-to-toe with something big and scary
2. I forgot to make use of a magic item that would have given me enough HP to survive
3. The monster got a lucky crit specifically on its single-use, extremely powerful attack

So, the lion's share of the blame is on me, but a small portion does come down to the dice (which were completely fair--this was played in Roll20 so we could see the rolls) just happening to align with the worst possible time it could occur. Had any one of these factors not been true, my character would have lived.

Of course, just because the character died didn't mean I stopped playing him. Even though we were only level 2 at that point. Because this was a DM who understood that, in at least a good number of cases (IMO the majority), survival or resurrection at a cost is far more interesting and engaging than death.

And, for anyone curious, this was with by-the-book 4e. The DM was very experienced in general, but new to 4e and wanted to run things purely by the books until he had working experience with the system.

I'm overlooking the (numerous) times that my characters have died in 5e, because allegedly those are all totally unrepresentative.

 

[Quartz]

so my character and one other kept up the fight while the other three ran out and collapsed the ceiling of the tavern over our heads, taking the majority of the enemies (including the boss) down with us.

Valhalla awaits! Such stories are what make roleplaying so fun and memorable.

 

[overgeeked]

Depends on the circumstances. Is the referee being antagonistic, it’s on them. Did I make a bad choice, it’s on me. But sometimes the dice just go against you.

Last time a character of mine died it was because they picked up a powerful magic item that went against their alignment. It killed them. I had no way of knowing. It was a funnel in Dungeon Crawl Classics so I had another character standing there, he picked up the item and was fine. He had a matching alignment.

 

[KYRON45]

My character didn't die. They moved out to the country to live on a farm with other characters.

 

[plecostomus]

My Level 9 party is in a flooding sewer, escorting a group of orphaned children to the surface before they drown. The BBEG's lieutenant is in the sky above us, summoning monsters all around the city. As we are helping the children, a beholder appears! When this happens, some of us (including my monk) are helping the kids get up a ladder, while our fighter is bringing in stragglers from the south.

Some imps also appear to the right of our child escape ladder, but the sorcerer electrocutes those and they really only serve to distract him for a round.

When the beholder shows up, it's not announced as a beholder. It's announced as evil laughter and a creepy voice coming down the hallway. My character and two others investigate. When we figure out the monster is floating towards the children, we engage!

This was my first D&D character. I did not know what a beholder's abilities are. I did know it is the cover monster for the MM so I figured it was pretty strong. In-character, the only party member who could ID the beholder was up top in the city proper.

Based on its physical description and a couple rounds of eyebeam attacks, I decide to jump on it and see if it would fire the beams at itself. Instead it rolls around and I fall off. The other two party members with me get hit by a beam and fail a save, which gives them some condition I don't remember, maybe frightened or paralyzed?

I run west down the hallway to where our fighter is bringing up the straggler kids. I hope the beholder will follow me because I annoyed it more than everyone else. It does.

I tell the fighter to take the kids "the other way around" to the ladder. I mean the lower horizontal hallway in the map above. That way I can lure the beholder down the hall to the south, and hopefully it will forget about the children.

However, the fighter is concerned her heavy armor is too loud and will attract the beholder's attention as she moves the kids. So instead she goes south, off into the deeper sewers that wind around east to the ladder. I now have nowhere to take the beholder.

The sorcerer joins me behind the last pillar on the far west side and attacks, creating a Wild Magic Surge that pelts the beholder with ice. The sorcerer asks me to hold his hand, and thinking he is going to capitalize on the beholder being unstable with some kind of cool attack, I agree. But he teleports both of us back to the ladder.

Those two party members that got hit by a beam earlier still cannot not do anything. The beholder recovers from the Surge and starts moving back towards the kids.

I run out to distract it again, and this time it fires a Disintegration Ray at me. My monk(!!!) fails the Dexterity saving throw, falls to 0 hp, and becomes a pile of dust. RIP.

You might wonder how my party defeated the beholder afterwards. The answer is the DM said the lieutenant left and all the monsters teleported away.

However, I prefer the following canon based on in-game events: Angry at my death, the sorcerer takes out a bag of magic beans he'd been holding onto for about 1 year RL time, and throws them at the beholder. The beans summon a bunch of things, like a campfire, a nest full of eggs, and also a 60-foot-base black pyramid. Surely the beholder got squished, and we had a great if tragic victory!

The DM asked the sorcerer to post the text of the magic beans in Roll20 to figure out what he needed to roll, so we all saw that the pyramid contains a mummy lord. After the session, I asked the DM if my next character could be the mummy lord. We homebrewed an Improperly Mummified Mummy Lord (a skeleton with bandages on it), and that is my current cleric character that I play for the group.

So yeah, my bad, dice bad, maybe tactics bad, but you know in the end...I don't feel bad.

 

[E-life Lauburu]

I blame myself first. BUT I blame the dice too ! And one day, finally, I won't rely too much on the dice...

 

[Stormonu]

My character didn't die. They moved out to the country to live on a farm with other characters.

So....they all bought the farm?

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

I chose: "I don't understand the question. Characters can die." But I changed the question mark to a period.

 

[Ogre Mage]

The last time I died we were playing a very dangerous one-shot. And we all knew it. Several characters died. No one's fault -- it was designed to be very dangerous.

I have a story related to this from my 3.5E days. We had a stupid player who was playing a sorceress. He had an AC and Constitution of 14. For some reason, he thought the best strategy was to run into melee and cast color spray or burning hands. He did this multiple times. When his sorceress was killed doing this he said the DM was "out to get him."

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

The last time a character of mine died he snapped a Staff of Power over his knee next to a four-armed gargoyle and did maximum damage, butt instead of getting shunted to another plane of existence...he died spectacularly.

This was in a you-kill-it-you-keep-it miniatures game and I was determined to get me that gargoyle.

It was my fault.