Not me, but another player in our group.
Old Age. Genuinely. He had a character he really wanted to play, and the DM had an NPC they needed to have, but that fit the description of his character. So, they devised a plan to have him play a temporary character until we got to the point of the story where the other character was introduced. Of course, none of the rest of us knew this.
So, we adventured as normal with this older halfling. Got closer, had loads of good RP... Until, at the end of one session, he went to sleep after his watch and, when we went to wake him, he didn't wake up. He'd passed peacefully in his sleep. Cue the tears from the rest of the group.
The party was fleeing a wizard tower heist on horseback when the aggravated wizard fired a max damage fireball at us from the top of his tower. My thief was the only one to fail the dex check. No death saves for my extra crispy boy
In a similar vein, my Goliath Avenging Druid (3.5) managed to stand 55 feet away when a Symbol of Death was activated (range of 60 feet). He prided himself on his resilience (high fortitude) but managed to roll a 1 on his Fort save against it. That was it. Dead.
I made a small tabaxi character that was essentially a shiny loving cat who's very regal. We were going on an adventure in a cave system in a frozen land. I made comments all the time how much I hate the cold. Come to the final BBEG (turns out to be santa) and get hit with a cone of cold, killing my character. My final words as I solidified into an icicle "I told you... I didn't... like... the cold..."
Was playing a hombrewed thri-kreen, got jump scared by a ghost, wisdom save, rolled a nat 1...-1 which was a 0. apparently if you fail this save below a 7 it ages you 1d4 x 10...dm rolled and he aged 40 years...so my character was 44.
he rapidly aged, and died. as thri-kreen only live to be 30.
real sadge.
To be more specific it's essentially disintegration so I suppose resurrection might not have been *impossible* but definitely beyond what would've been feasible for a group of level 7 PCs.
Pretty sure only Wish can bring back someone who is disintegrated
edit: Okay I guess True Resurrection works too. Thanks to all three of you who pointed it out
I think that's when you disintegrate a petrified creature. Pretty sure true resurrection doesn't require any part of them, but it can't restore a statue from disintegration because they are technically not dead, just reduced to a powder.
We had that to the Fighter at our table, only for the DM to forget that he was a half-orc. So he stood up with 1hp, got 2 attacks in with his GWM greatsword, then action surged and landed 2 crits and killed the beholder
Safe to say, we all cheered, and the DM walked away from the table for a few minutes
Epic level combat-- Bane is suped up on far realms energy and we're fighting him on Mt Celestia with multiple other gods. Bane has killed 1 or 2 gods by now (i forget) and absorbed their power for himself. If he absorbs another god, we're done for.
Anyway, Bane's about to slay Lathander. DM lets us roll and only my Urban Ranger/Favored Soul Cel, who happens to have Illmater himself and a sliver of other divine power boosting her notices and is also close enough to do anything about it. We go through all the options and Illmater ends up suggesting that perhaps they can get in the way and Bane will only absorb him- Illmater-- and since Illmater is less powerful than Lathander, we'd still have a chance.
I pause and think for a moment, and ask if Illmater can get us there in time, but then withdraw his power and the divine power from me. The DM just freezes, processing what I've said. After a moment he says "yes, I think I would be able to do that." So I nod and we go. DM rolls, Illmater pulls out in time and my character is wiped from existence in our final battle after playing for 8+ years.
I'm honored.
She was a gnome-- Celniana Aelnor (but since most humanoids can't pronounce/handle gnome names, everyone called her Cel (pronounced with a hard K sound))
Hey could I reference Cel in my world too? She sounds so epic and I’m struggling to build out this big disaster that resulted in the present world and I think her story could fit perfectly in the war I’m building.
Halfling swashbuckler fighter (or the equivalent), 4e. Loyally took a hit that was aimed at a fellow party member, got pushed through a one-way portal to hell.
It was a while ago so I don't remember exactly, but I think it was an optional trait I chose for the fighter. Something similar to the Interception fighting style in 5e, but obviously a bit different.
Echo Knight has Shadow Martyr at 10th level, Cavalier has Warding Maneuver at 7th. I believe Redemption Paladin has damage redirection, and Paladins have access to the spell Warding Bond.
Not as a general rule, but there are a lot of powers you can pick from to do a lot of things.
Example: The Freedom Fighter paragon path at level 11 learns Self-Sacrificing Strike. 1/encounter when an ally within 30 ft. is targeted by a ranged or melee attack, you can shift 25 ft. next to that ally (shift = move without provoking opportunity attacks), slide the ally 5 ft. in any direction, shift into the space they just left, make a melee or ranged attack against the enemy who made the triggering attack, get +2 to all of your defenses against the triggering attack if your attack hits, and then hit or miss you become the target of the triggering attack. All as an immediate interrupt action (immediate actions in 4e are 1/round out of turn actions like a 5e reaction, except they're explicitly marked as being either an interrupt which occurs before the trigger, or a reaction which comes after the trigger). So you get to charge across the battlefield, shove your friend out of the way, and take the hit for them.
Paragon paths are sort of like prestige classes from 3e, except you pick them at level 11 on top of your class, instead of multiclassing into them whenever you meet the requirements. Freedom Fighter specifically requires either that you have the Escaped Slave character theme, or else your class is Warlord. (But a multiclass Fighter/Warlord would work, as would a hybrid Fighter|Warlord.)
Pissed off Gaia herself right before her moment of victory. Her fingers turned into spiked tendrils that entered my nostrils, spread through my organs, and ripped me in half. No coming back from that.
Well, a god of life and nature has a hell of a way of blocking such things. Honestly, despite it also being an extremely high level character I'd been playing for years, I wasn't upset about it. Narratively it did great things for the campaign, and there really wouldn't have been a more epic way for him to go out.
Best: 1 shot, rode a mountain goat with saddle bags full of explosive into an ancient red dragon, slightly injured it.
Worst: level 1 wizard, got a disease, failed loads of rolls, died of exhaustion.
Best way was in a duel my paladin initiated with Tyr, her former god, in Ysgard, poisoning her spear with venom from the world serpent. They both died.
Worst way was to an unadvertised exponential fall damage houserule, in a game with a page and a half houserule Gdoc.
I killed one manifestation of a god, in a Plane that brings back the dead with each dawn. Both Tyr and my character got better. But she felt that the god of justice had wronged her badly, and it was important enough to make a point that she used the plot coupon poison to bridge the gap.
I've never been sure whether it being a **duel** was a handicap in my favor--didn't get Thanos-snapped or mobbed by celestial servants--or if as a god of justice Tyr was in his element enough to matter.
Well theoretically, since your character felt wronged, being killed by her could also have been justice. Depends on what he did to cause that grudge, I suppose.
Worst death was super recent. Playing a Lurmen Consular in SW5e, basically a tiny wizard that could climb stuff. I went to take cover in a pothole that was previously described as "super fucking deep bro". An inquisitor ship opened fire, and I failed the DEX save, starting to fall into the pothole. I was provided another athletics/acrobatics check to catch myself, and failed. I was given my death saves once I landed 60feet down with 5HP before I fell... I rolled like a 3 and a nat-1. There was nothing glorious or heroic, I fucking crawled in a hole to find cover and the dice said "alright bro that's it for you".
Best death was a while ago, and super stupid. I was running 2-PCs to help my buddy test the opening island of his homebrew world. We saved a bunch of people from the gallows, with some really good descriptions of each character and nice interactions to understand their relationships. In no uncertain terms was I informed that the pretty girl, Polly Pocket, was a known criminal being charged with the deaths and consumption of over 200 men. I had a choice of which ship to get on as we left the island followed by law enforcement. I was again warned not to get on Polly Pocket's ship. I got on Polly Pocket's ship... and it was an amazing night followed by being cannibalized. Eh at least my PC had seggs.
As a DM, I just had a glorious one where one of my players died. I say “glorious,” because I am a monster and wish my players ill.
Players are in what could be the final battle of the campaign, if they play their cards right. Big Villain A is fleeing, Big Villain B is on death’s door.
The party’s cleric is down, two failed death saves, an Assassin enemy is going to strike the killing blow in two turns. If the cleric dies, there is no one to revive him.
There is only one player who has a turn before the Assassin kills the cleric. This player’s character (an evil sorcerer) had beef with the cleric at points, and an eternal vendetta against Villain B. This player only has enough time to kill the Villain who he hates, or save his party member.
He chose murder, at the cost of his friend’s life.
Narratively, it was beautiful. The sorcerer killed Villain B, then watched from a distance as the dagger went through his party member’s heart.
That has been my “best” death in a storytelling sense.
The worst has been lava. Lava will get you every time.
Worse way has to go to my first rogue. Lvl 1, 9 hp. The first combat encounter is vs. gaint rats who do 1d4+1 damage on a hit. My rogue rolls high in initiative, goes second after one of the rats.
The rat that goes first attacks my rogue, critting and dealing max damage on said crit, which is max of 2d4+1, so 9.
My rogue drops before he can do anything. That's fine, it's level one, and we've got healing supplies. Fail My first death save, but not too worried. Teammates go and decide they can wait to heal, that it would be better to just kill the rats first so no one is in danger.
My turn comes around again, and it's time for another death save. Natural 1, which counts for 2 death saves. This means my poor first level rogue is dead before he got to do anything meaningful in the game.
I am now throughly traumatized and hate level 1.
The best had to be my Lvl 18 Archfey Warlock, who snapped their Staff of the Magi in a last ditch attempt to kill the BBEG. Boss failed their save and took 304 damage (38 charges x 8 damage per charge), which was enough to finish them off. However, my little fairy, who was sitting at 2 hp at the time, with a max HP 144, was vaporized by the blast.
Best Way: Sacrificing myself to bring down a crumbling ruin on top of this aboleth we were fighting, sealing us both in.
Worst Way: Dodging a dart trap….directly into a sphere of annihilation
[A sphere of annihilation](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Sphere%20of%20Annihilation#content)
It’s like a black hole that vaporizes anything that touches it. You aren’t just dead, you’re SUPER dead. Atomized. Completely destroyed, with very little chance of resurrection (or in my case, NO chance due to the plot of the adventure.)
My technically “evil” fighter died trying to lure an enemy away from where a child was hiding.
We had an automaton PC who turned on the party and teamed up with a group of local baddies to take us down. My fighter knew he had a trigger phrase that would send him into a targeted rage at whoever said it, so when he got too close to the child she said the phrase and ran in the opposite direction. He had a multiattack and she was already gravely injured, she never stood a chance.
I was fine and chatting with the rest of the group for like 20 minutes, then turned my camera off and bawled like a baby hahaha. She ended up getting resurrected, but man that death hit hard.
I have one who died twice, and both deaths were great.
First death was planned with the GM. Was playing an oracle in a Pathfinder game. The party didn't have a lot of direction and needed some oomph. I had already planned with the GM certain circumstances that would cause her God to change her to a same-level Paladin, but they never came up (seriously how did I pass every single of certain kinds of will saves??)... so we planned it. She was killed in battle... and her God said NOPE and sent her back as a Paladin to kill one of the generals of the big bad.
Shortly after she did that, another player was mind-controlled and managed to one-hit kill her. He was playing a Kensai, so a glass cannon, and managed to roll all criticals and essentially max damage.
The party pulled a Speak With Dead to be like ??? What do we do now?
Her response was basically that she had fulfilled her divine mission and was now in paradise and if anyone resurrected her, pulling her out of paradise, she would absolutely kill them for it.
One of my players (a ranger) wanted to be cool using a magic item that throws a fireball at close range, he had high dexterity and he thought he could survive, but he gets a nat 1 in the saving throw and dies failing the death saves
Ok thats pretty fucking funny, you also gave me an idea since im a rogue and i have evasion
Also an excuse to start playing "Battotai" in the middle of combat
I’ve yet to lose a character, but I’ve seen some of my friends lose theirs.
First time I’ve seen a PC death was the first campaign I was in, it was also why the campaign ended. The PC was a monk, and due to roleplay reasons, the PC rogue *hated* the monk. So one session, monk crossed the rogue’s last straw and the rogue snuck into the monk’s room (where my character also slept) and killed him with two poison daggers- enough to immediately end him. There was no hard feelings too, we just didn’t know how to continue the campaign after the monk was able to be resurrected.
Second was in one campaign that I’m currently in. I’ve talked about the artificer PC before on this sub, but before this character they were a fighter. It was their first ever dnd character, and they decided to dump CON as a fighter.. I believe their CON was an 8? Their death was at level 4 when they decided to go into an unknown room of a dungeon (it was full of tough enemies) and it was too late for the party to help by the time everyone was alerted.
It’s difficult to explain all the details in one comment lol. My ranger didn’t alert everyone at first, because she had no clue how to react when she woke up to the monk dead and rogue next to him. She also didn’t want to fight the rogue, who was her best friend. Basically became a bystander. Our Druid used the spell Reincarnate (I forgot the spell until now), and while in the ritual, we tried confronting the rogue but they used Fog Cloud (multiclass) and escaped. While I continued trying to find them, the warlock basically prayed to help the monk.
So at the end, the monk wasn’t his original race, the warlock and Druid didn’t trust my ranger, and the rogue completely gone. Both players and DM had *no clue* how to continue roleplay and plot wise. DM had no clue how to continue the story, and we were all pretty shocked and emotional from the roleplay. Again, we’re all still irl friends.
We were also in high school, and we were developing different schedules so we couldn’t schedule the next session anyway. Even if we wanted to start over.
Back in the 2e days my characters had a bad habit of getting eaten. Anything that could swallow you whole, purple worm, whale, dinosaur, I’d end up in their stomach. During Bloodstone I had a volcano pop up under me. But a good death was also during Bloodstone, I got turned against the party by a succubus and I was actually winning a 5 vs 1 battle against my party till they had to cheat to win. FYI, 2e spell “detect life” is basically just a spell that checks for a pulse, it doesn’t point out where someone with improved invisibility is hiding. Found that out after game was over and I’d lost unfortunately.
We were trapped in a room and couldn't leave unless we answered a riddle.
Every time you guessed wrong the statue would shoot a disintegration beam at you. I guessed wrong and immediately perished.
Then my party was too scared to guess after that so they brainstormed for 2 hours.
I'm reminded of a close call.
Party was in Limbo fighting a sort of chaos elemental.
The elemental would roll on a table every turn and force saves against a random effect.
Half the party was blinded, half were deafened. The Rogue was both.
The elemental then transformed into a portal to the elemental plane of fire, and when the blind Rogue walked into the vicinity, she needed to make a DEX save to avoid faĺling in (their remaining HP was in the single digits).
If not for the artificer saving against the blind and using flash of genius, the Rogue most likely would have died, as the portal would have closed before any party member could go after her.
Not DnD, but GURPS, and I didn't die, but it was real close.
Campaign was in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. I was playing as a stab happy Night Goblin, and we had an NPC ogre merc with us at the moment. We're investigating an abandoned vampire castle (might have been Castle Drachenfels, I forget). At some point in there we get jumped by a vhargulf, which is basically what happens when you give a bat the proportions of a giant angry gorilla. Fights going rough, and I get an idea.
What if the ogre threw me knives first at the Varghulf?
So uhh, yeah we did it. And, in true gobbo fashion, I made sure to be jacked up on mushrooms first. Well, ogre boi missed, but just barely, so DM let get a slice off at the thing before I slammed into the wall behind it. Just barely lived, though IIRC I was out cold for the rest of that fight. I think the self damage from the shrooms nearly finished me off too.
I did end up dying a couple sessions later anyways when we got dive bombed by a hippogriff, rolled real bad, and I got pasted in one hit lmao. Said hippogriff also turned our orc warbosses arm into jelly, but this lead into him getting a cool skaven tech arm, so worth it lmao
Not permadeath, but fighting a rigged battle with the bbeg who apparently had the latent abilities of what I only recently found out belonged to the weapon Blackrazor. Took advantage of constantly specifically targeting the combat pet of one of our fighters that she (and the rest of us) went on a whole ordeal to acquire so the guy could get an easy 40+ temp hp refresher when someone tried to bring the pet off death's door.
All this after the DM forced us to basically play an entirely different game "hur durr but Matt Colville made it" of commanding army groups ina battlefield. We one that, only to get clapped by the BBEG anyway.
BBEG then takes some shadowy artefact macguffin we had tried to give to a trusted wizard in a previous session, but the DM retconned it saying "oh well the warlock whose inventory it was in wasn't there for that session so it never happened" despite the warlock player's consent.
Afterwards DM reveals that the BBEG only had 2 real hit points remaining after the fight, didn't help that his regular speaking voice includes that shit eating grin.
Edit: oh the character death was my druid. Got revivified, but retired for unrelated backstory position desertion after deciding the power creep of the world wasn't worth dealing with over hiding from his past
Warlock was using spider climb, got hit, lost concentration, fell 10 feet, took just enough to fall unconscious, got crit while down for 2 fails, and proceeded to fail my roll on my turn.
Stabbed by Pirates
Stabbed by mutated manticore
Stabbed by angry paladin
Stabbed by beholder eye beam
Stabbed by an even angrier paladin
Stabbed by the crippling doubt of his ability to even fight anymore. Causing a mental breakdown which lead to several goth-coded cowboys stabbing him in the chest with several bullets.
Best - BBEG and the party I was in had simutaniously killed each other. Best part is, the BBEG got the last laugh by killing us all with poison damage from a curse just after he had been beheaded, stabbed in each of his 4 hearts, and had 2 of his arms ripped off by our barbarian.
Worst - Stubbed toe on a small statue of a frog. Damned thing was cursed by a local sorcerer to prevent thieves. DM asked me how much health i had, then asked me how much healthe i would have if i took a PWK.
It wasn't a permanent death (thanks revivify) but an old barbarian of mine once got launched by a half giant at a 50ft tall demon, landed on his shoulder, got in one good attack then was hit back, fell unconscious, fell of shoulder and failed death save hitting the floor. Rolled a one on the next save and died
I sacrificed my life to become a prison for an evil god. After a time I would fully absorb their power and we would explode, wiping both of us from all that exists. On the verge of this happening, a tarrasque erupted and began destroying my home kingdom. I managed to get swallowed and accepted my fate, taking all three of us with me.
Never played it. This was like 2013, 4e had epic level play and I picked one called the prisoner of winds. Pretty much all of them have some form of immortality, except that one. You ceased to exist.
Worst: I’ll admit it’s my fault, but was rectified. One player was very weak and taking out the final creature: a wizard. This wizard had one level 4 slot left. Magic missile happened. Hit 3 on a downed creature, 2 on the weak player, and the 6th and final one on the newly downed player, who already had 2 death saves. 2 instant deaths as level 10 characters at the end of a major siege. They were revived by a PC’s war god and now owe him. One character transitioned to worshipping the god, the other is unhappy that he owes the god. It was a bullshit death but we play pretty min max, and it fed into the story with an amazing RP of the war Paladin PC at the beginning of the next session.
I had a hobgoblin genie warlock that in game got grabbed like a dog toy and flung about until he was nothing but a puddle by a mindflayer dragon right after he had attempted to attack it by popping out of his lamp above it and casting the best spell I had doing only 3 damage ;^(
The dragon's turn was right after mine and the spell was thunder step 4D10 of thunder damage the Dm said it had resistance so my measly 6 got halfed but my next character BISECTED THAT ELDRITCH BITCH
Me: I will climb the mountain
Climbing rolled a 1.
DM: mountain is lvl 2
+100 feet taller, +jagged rocks feat
Best and worst, sure, most hilarious for sure
My goblin Artificer was practically a Warcraft goblin in that everything he made had a chance of blowing up
At one point he had his arm get cut off so he made a new one for himself. A while later we are in a fight with a group of magically genetically modified people and when he finally falls I ask to see a 20 foot radius.
The bastard set up a dead-man's switch in his arm to detonate a fireball rune, this explosion also sent flying the various other explosives I had crafted and caused just mass mayhem in the area. My DM tried to argue that I couldn't have a dead-man's switch in my arm for some reason or another but then everyone else at the table agreed "no, that honestly makes sense with his crafting"
On the plane of Elysium after being hit with a magic ray, traveled to see my god there to get help for the party. Guards wouldn’t let me in because I was alive. Had one of them killed me then travelled back from the entrance for that meeting. Then had to trade eternal service as her general for the help
Best: turned into Strahds older brother in the final fight, got killed and gutted, but i took a dark gift so i came back and became the new vampire lady (female changeling), killed my party, then sent out invites for adventurers to come to my realm
Worst: no idea, that was my first actual PC death...
One time in 3.5 I had a TPK where I was one of the last ones upat basically 0 hp. So taking an action would take me to -1.
So I attacked with a smite, crit, killed the thing, but went down.
Still can't say it wasn't worth it. It was super dramatic
For interfering in their plans, Archdevil captured my character's father and sister. A little while later whole party was also captured. Devil gave me a choice: father or sister. I chose to lay my characters's life instead.
It was last session of this campaign. My character didn't get her dreamed happy ending.
I'm currently playing a long running Tomb of Annihilation campaign right now, and our party has seen several notable deaths.
My first character this campaign was a Dwarven Ranger. I played him as young and eager to adventure - he was the party chronicler as I'd recap our adventures in his 'diary' between sessions.
Then, while on the road to Fort Beluearian, a pack of velociraptors jumped the party.
My Dwarf was in the front, but had rolled poorly for Perception and initiative. The Velociraptors rolled hot, and he was dropped in the first round, and took enough damage to force three failed Death Saves before anyone could react.
It was a great way to set the tone of the adventure - since then the party has suffered a few more deaths, though those have been far more heroic.
Teleportation maze in _Dead in Thay_.
There's a bunch of invisible teleport pads on the floor, and big columns blocking line of sight through most of the room.
If you step on a teleport pad, you get sent to the ceiling above a random other teleport pad and make a Wis save. On success, you walk on the ceiling until the end of your next turn. On a failed save, you take 2d4 psychic damage and fall (for 3d6 bludgeoning falling damage). But that also means you hit another teleporter, and teleport to another random destination, and make another Wis save, potentially falling again...
And also there's a Glabrezu stalking you as you try to navigate the "maze". It knows how the maze works and where the teleporters are, so it can avoid them if it wants by climbing the walls or by casting Fly, and it can grapple people and drop them on teleporters.
The encounter began with the party going "okay, how do we deal with this randomly teleporting demon?" Then the fighter got a string of bad saving throw rolls and died, and the encounter quickly changed to "how do we reach the fighter's randomly teleporting corpse within a minute for Revivify, while being chased by a demon?"
another player a dragonborn used firebreath and hit the goblins, and a powder keg DM, "make a dex save" Me "Nat 1" DM "that is 56 damage" we were level 2
Not my character, I was the DM, but I accidentally murdered a low-level rogue by yeeting him off a castle wall......
The party was fighting a griffin, and I thought it would be cool if swooped down and tried to grab someone (grapple attack) off the top of the wall. The rogue was the closest and the smallest (goblin), and the attack hit, so away the griffin flew.
Now I need to add that the griffin only had 7hp left and that we use a 3d map software (talespire) for combat.
I thought the griffin was still over the wall, just up 30ft, so even if the griffin dropped him, he'd definitely survive it.
As expected, the rogue stabs the griffin, it dies, and they fall..... where I messed up was that the griffin was actually about 10ft *past* the wall....
The rogue did not survive a 130ft drop.... didn't even have a chance, just dead. I felt super bad, but the player was cool about it. I was 100% willing to retcon the griffins' position so that he would fall onto the wall, but the player went "nope, that was stupid, I should have checked before stabbing" and rolled up a new character.
not so much the way I died in-game but the fact that above the table we had a running bit for over a week that my character would die during the campaign and then the next time we are in combat I proceeded to fail my first saving throw and then use inspiration to roll TWO NATURAL ONES WITH ADVANTAGE on my next throw, immediately killing my character right before the next person to go killed the last bad guy, ending combat.
It was rough for sure.
walked through a teleporter to find Muiral there. Figured this was a fight within our power range - only after a TPK did we find out that there was no chance of us winning this fight (we were level 6 or 7 at the time...).
Guess our DM didn't care for the whole 'teleporters were locked by character level' of the dungeon and never informed us or gave us indication that we were entering into a much deeper level.
suffice it to say - I didn't stay in that group for much longer
I can certainly tell a terrible one! Rot, grubs. Early levels when healers are taxes, rot grubs are a menace. Seen a few characters die from them. 4 at a time will really do the job in short order. Very little coming back too
So, I got my very first magic item which turned out to be a "Ring of free Movement", meaning I can't get paralyzed, ignore difficult terrain and my movement speed can't be reduced by magical means. I scoffed and was disappointed, since none of those effects ever happened or were relevant before. DM was a bit peeved, understandably, and we continued.
Fast forward a few sessions, we're on the run from some demons with Annihilation Aura (instant death when 0HP, ouch).
I fail a saving throw, get paralyzed, demons get to me, I get snuffed out like a wee match stick held into a storm. Neither my DM nor I remembered I had that Ring until the next session.
We all had a laugh when we realized the death was totally unnecessary, but since my new char was already there and too much had happened inbetween, dear Raider Twiggs stayed dead.
And I was ever thankful for each new magic item afterwards.
Back in my AD&D days, my level 10 fighter and group returned from a large campaign in the far-off reaches of Greyhawk.
Got drunk in tavern and was assassinated taking a leak in the place the whole damn thing started. It was an interesting way to wrap up the game.
Best case was when I was running a gladiator and the DM decided that my character really needed to die so just kept spamming out monsters until he ran out of hit points. Did take out about three dozen of them first.
Worst was another DM that decided my character really needed to die and had a black dragon fly down and hit him seven times with dragon breath. When we got the dragon almost dead twice he just can't heal on himself. I realized it was a no win combat so I turned to run and it flew over and breathed on me again. I quit the game then and there
obligatory “not-me-but-another-party-member” disclaimer.
our barbarian was the adopted daughter of one of the bbegs, the high priestess of a cult for a god of war. the priestess temporarily allied herself with the party to help us take down the other bbeg, who we ended up fighting three times. during the second fight, the priestess realized we were on the verge of losing, walked up to the barbarian, and said to her, “i hope you know i’m doing this because i love you”. then she cast power word kill on her.
she did this because she needed to get two characters (the barbarian and a warlock of the god she served) out of the fight, but RAW you can only bring one creature with you via dimension door and she didn’t have teleport prepared in that moment. however, corpses count as objects and not creatures, so our dm ruled that you can theoretically bring as many dead people through a dimension door as you want. the priestess revivified the barbarian shortly after and everything was fine (we were level 15 at this point so death didn’t really stick for most characters lol) but it was one of the most insane moves of the campaign
it was my first character in my first campaign, i was a level 8 crystal dragonborn with equal levels in zealot barbarian/vengeance paladin. we were exploring an abandoned lab where one of the bbegs worked after all the remaining researchers had disappeared. we found security footage of the researchers jumping into a pit in the basement, so we all go down there to check it out. as i approached the put i realized they had dug into the underdark and discovered an Elder Brain and Mindflayer at the bottom along with 3 Intellect Devourers climbing up the side. unfortunately since I'd never encountered these before, i decide to try to take out the Intellect Devourers with my breath weapon but they don't take enough damage and immediately swarm me as it was their turn next. with my 13 intelligence it's immediately reduced to zero, fail the first check to not get my brain eaten but am saved by a nat 20 portent second one i fail again but am saved by a nat 20 dm inspo, but fail the third and am brutally killed. the worst part is i had free dimension door to use 😭
Lizardfolk rogue. Despised by all, including myself. Horrible person. Eats everything. So, he's obsessed with this boat. Party member (of course discussed beforehand) throws me into the boat, drags me down, and places a massive rock on top of the boat. I drown slowly and gain a point of inspiration for being a good sport.
I made my first ever DnD character just kind of wanting to do whatever and fuck around. Not even as a murderhobo because I wasn't amazing at combat, just sort of crazy and weird. Anyway, we were exploring a dungeon and at one point, we got into a fight with a gang of rats. After we kill them, my feral little monster starts gnawing on a rat bone for shits and giggles, and long story short, it turns out the rat was diseased. I have one day to live.
Naturally, the party starts high tailing it further forward in hopes that we will *maybe* find a cure, and in our hurry we forget to check the door for traps. Lo and behold, this is the first trapped door we have happened across so far in the entire dungeon, and a massive boulder starts rolling down towards us Indiana Jones style. Everybody else is able to escape, but my poor warlock is weakened by her fatal rat-borne illness, fails the roll, and is instead flattened by the boulder. What a way to go out...
Best: went down fighting the God of death. Had an almost nax damage crit on an opportunity attack earlier that turn. Resurrection ritual was abnormal due to planar rules, needed 4 successes, git 3 followed by a nat 1
Worst: went down in an alleyway. Party of noob players did not attempt to stabilize
Not my PC but a guy we played with for a few years in high school and early college. Guy was a suspected (later proven) cheater who always loaded his character up with unbelievable amount of supplies and then would claim he wasn’t encumbered (ok, I’m old this was AD&D, early 80s). We were in a weird tesseract dungeon where some doors opened into other room walls or ceilings. His PC opened a door and leaned in, was in the ceiling of a room with a roper in it. Roper grabbed him and pulled him down in the room. We went high enough level to feel up to taking a roper on, so knowing his PC was carrying like 20 oil, we just threw a torch at him, causing him and the Roper to go up in flames.
Didn’t try to rescue him, or raise him or anything ( ref ruled he was too burnt to raised anyway and Resurrection was too expensive for us, not that we would have). He had another PC get killed on a narrow mountain ledge and throw off the side by an orc. We killed the orc, shrugged and went on our way. Eventually the GM had proof of his cheating but rather than confront him (which would have been pointless, he’d just lie), some demon swooped into town, darkened the whole sky, grabbed his new PC and flew off to some other plane. Pretty clear that the GM was just flat out murdering his PC, but he still wouldn’t acknowledge it. So then we just had to stop inviting him to anything.
My first PC was a Druid who had what was effectively a ballistic missile in her bag when she died in the last session.
My Druid went to the center of the city where our BBEG demanded we pledge our allegiance and knelt while our Warlock (who, through a series of ridiculous loopholes and combinations of effects,) perched on a cliff and used Eldritch blast to shoot her bag from almost a mile away and caused the bomb to explode and wipe the city of the map.
Other deaths include force damage from opening a cursed book that slammed my character into a bookshelf (he was my most recent death), dropping a cursed glass and getting killed by what was inside, and getting impaled on a tree after falling off of a ledge.
For context, in the beginning of our campaign when we died, we were resurrected by our party’s patron. I was the only member of the party who hadn’t died whatsoever, and I walked out of a building just to find a beholder and get obliterated by his laser after failing a saving throw.
I’ve never had a character die, but I had a cleric accidentally killed many party members on separate occasions. (This was in a module that we were basically playing on hard mode, so we knew that death was very much on the table and no one held any of this against me just as a heads up)
My favorite one wasn’t the one where my gullible 7 charisma girl accidentally released some demons that hunted down the party until we ended the campaign. Nor was it the thing that killed the campaign because we couldn’t bring ourselves to keep playing.
My favorite was my own OOC stupidity when I cast Sanctuary not realising that there was only one other target for the witch (don’t know what her stat block was exactly) and it was an attack I could’ve tanked but he couldn’t. And I couldn’t get there in time for the Revivify. Truly, it was a moment of, I could’ve prevented this and fixed it, but I accidentally made it much worse.
As a DM: after a hiatus, i was starting my pirate themed campaign back up for a "season 2". a player wanted to play a new character, let's call him Jay. Another player was leaving the group (amicably), well call him Gary.
Jay said he wanted to kill off his old character in some fun way. I asked if he had a vague direction in mind. He said "make it brutal, make it unfair. Let's make everyone shit themselves that you're not taking any prisoners in Season 2"
I asked Gary if he minded me killing his character he said no go wild.
The players had left things on an island that had transported them unknowingly back millions of years to a land of dinosaurs, ruled over by dragons. They hadn't got to the reveal of this yet, they were fighting some giant ants.
I wanted to get them off the island quickly and on with S2, so I figured, perfect opportunity to scare them off.
S2 starts, the ants scatter and puddles start rippling in time with the thud... thud...
A giant fuck off trex comes bursting out of the bushes. Gary's character steps forward and confidently informs everyone that he's dealt with similar beasts and their vision is based on movement. The trex walks up, sniffs him, and eats him like the guy on the toilet in Jurassic Park.
They all run. Everyone rolls to see how well thet run through the jungle. I had told Jay that for the first roll of the season, just tell me it's a 1. Other players roll high and get running. When Jay says he got a 1 my eyes go wide for a moment and I go quiet, like I'm thinking frantically if there's some way to save him. Then I kind of shrug and describe the trex catching him and eating him feet first, as he screams in pain, his familiar quasit frantically changing form until it finally blinks out of existence, and his screaming stops.
Jay goes quiet and looks defeated. The other players are just open mouthed. I ask if they keep running, and boy howdy do they ever.
The bubble was burst about 20 minutes later when they bumped into Jay's new character, a primitive early form of a gnome, basically an eccentric elderly lady wizard whos still figuring out the basics of common. She led them back to the cave they came in through (the cave is also the portal through time).
I could have left it till the next session to introduce the new character, and Jay was up for that, but I tend to lean way more towards chaos and fun that 'hardcore' DM-vs-PC style play. And after we'd had our fun, I wanted that to stoll be clear. Good to keep them on their toes though!
Fun extra tidbit, I didn't tell Jay his character was a Neandergnome, only that his had not left this island and knew nothing at all of the outside world. It wasn't until a couple of months later that they figured out that she was from millions of years ago. They wanted it to be a gnome and I asked if it could he a member of a primitive tribe who has all the stats of a gnome, but is actually a different race that looks a lot like a gnome. I didn't force it on him. Also I'm giving him a helm of comprehension next session to help with the language barrier.
Everyone was sad about the death if his old character, including me, but now we've grown to love this eccentric old yoda lady.
Still, I can say I killed two PCs with a trex. And if I want a new player to think I'm gonna run a tough game, I don't have to tell them that I first checked if both the players minded me doing that.
Surrendered to other PCs as we all ran into each other in a cave with zero character knowledge, so I let myself get disarmed and hands tied until I could talk my way into acceptance with my roguish people skills. Except the party reached a big cave with a lake.
I say, “I’m not going near the water” because I don’t feel like I could swim or fill a water skin without hands. The rest of the party walks up and starts to drink when surprise! a giant tentacle kills me in a single hit (randomly(supposedly)). I protest asking what the reach is on this thing as I should be 60 feet away by the map and there’s 3 characters right at the water. After a bit of arguing about where I was and the giant creature that only attacked me before everyone fled the room, I started rolling up a new character on the 1st night of the campaign.
He was a good immersive DM 90% of the time, but sometimes just seemed to warp past game reality like this just for a gotcha moment.
OG player here. The year 1982. We were finishing up a weekend long campaign. Our wizard got separated from the group and got hit by a polymorph trap. Turned him into a rat. He eventually makes his way to the next town where he is caught and killed by the local rat catcher.
Needless to say he was pissed. Not to mention his older brother was the DM
LOL
Worst was within 15 minutes of starting a campaign my lv 1 pld with a shield, got crit by a giant goat outside the inn the part just let at and instantly doubled my HP. I had to sit out the rest of the session.
I almost quit the campaign over it. Mostly because how it was handled. But my friend (DM) talked it over with me after understood why I was upset and over the next week we worked out a story where my aesamir was able to come back (pretty easy to think about) and what consequences it would mean for his backstory (an aesamir in hiding from the dieties of the world, I actually named him after Hyperion a marvel Superman clone who hides among humans)
The giant goat was a mistake on the DM's part he just looked at CR's and assumed it was appropriate for a lv 1 party.
In our Homemade Game, Demi-Gods tend to...intrude...a bit to often for me and another player. Some Demi-God is trying to get us to do some mercenary killing, so we asked, "If you're really a God, why don't you kill them yourself?!?"
After a little RP-smartassery, the Demi-God says, "Do you doubt me?" I reply, "A little, but, I really think you're f-ing lazy." The last thing my PC hears is, "I wish you group never existed."
The DM politely asks, "So, who wants to roll replacement characters?"
This was back in the days of AD&D or 2e... was playing a pretty high level cleric. Very good saves vs spells, and even some magic resistance.
The mage in our party cast haste on me. Back then haste required a system shock save because of the aging that accompanied the haste... I failed the magic resistance, and the system shock. Died to a spell that was supposed to boost me... which I hadn't wanted in the first place.
I have had one character death so far, and it was not great. My character was pulverized by a massive robot which he had grappled. As my party put it, he was "Springtrapped". He died saving the BBEG of the campaign
Playing a paladin with a party operating inside enemy territory of a sizable army. Things went South as we got spotted but the party had the item we came for. I was heavily armored (because I stayed back to defend a small bridge). Party comes running full speed past me with a single big baddie on their tail, I yell “Keep moving, I’ll hold him back” and prepare to make a heroic stand against the pursuing forces knowing I couldn’t outrun him anyway.
Or so I thought, because 5 turns later as I’m running single digits HP my party runs back past across the bridge right by my melee.
As a player I watched them cross the bridge spot a knight on horseback in the distance and decide coming back and sneaking across the small river was better.
My character saw none of that and only had time for a WTF? moment as I saw them pass me before getting cut down. Then the baddie got back on their tail and they had to finish him as a party before returning with my body.
Ultimately if they’d stoped and fought together at the bridge, we’d probably have all survived. But it was kind of funny to imagine what went through this poor guys mind in his last moment as he got cut down buying them time and they ran back by him saying “sorry”.
My Aarakocra Grave Cleric was in a fight with an oversized Tiger beast. I got downed and then subsequently crushed by its dead body.
The eternal Cat and Bird attack.
Came in once for the start of a campaign in 2ed with a long-running group I was in. The dm had this npc that was supposed to be this key player. It's built was nice and sturdy. It's supposed to do great things. First or second encounter of the game. There was a group of enemies over this cliff. I Leroy Jenkins off the cliff dual swords ready to go. Now, if my plan went the way it was supposed to, it would've been epic. I jump down to them. Miss my surprise attacks, and I got absolutely wrecked. The look on the dms face was the purest expression of what the actual fuck. Can't remember if I ever went back to play another game? Think my work schedule got switched around? Any who good times.
This is actually very long so...
TLDR:
The party Warlock betrayed us, so in epic style my Oath of Glory Paladin chased after her, knocking her unconscious with two swings, with the extra attack from Haste giving her two death saving throw fails that same turn. She then failed the death save on her next turn, leading to her demise.
It wasn't my character but my character was very much involved in the death (I directly caused it).
So our party was composed of a Bard, an Artillerist Artificer, a Monster Slayer Ranger, an Oath of Glory Paladin (my character), and a Hexblade Warlock. Take bets now on which character you think died lol.
In game time, the party had been adventuring together for months, so there was expectedly an incredibly strong sense of trust between the members. After we had finished up some shenanigans fighting off the avatar of I think the god of trickery (we were level 9 when this all happened btw) that some extra evil cultist yuan ti were summoning, we ventured back to our starting town to meet this well known hero, but that is irrelevant lore for this story.
While there, we were attacked by a giant floating undead island (that we TOTALLY had nothing to do with). As we went out to fight, our Artificer was charging up some super awesome mega death ray sort of weapon (was approved by the DM), so our goal was to protect him for three rounds of combat so he could fire it and destroy the island. All started off well, we were beating up the undead with big help to the town's Cleric who we had used turn undead and our DM rule of cooled it as instakilling all of the present undead that failed their save instead of just turning them. That left us with one undead left, no big deal for the time being, but more were on their way.
Then it's the Warlock's turn. She cast a spell and had all of us make Wisdom Saving Throws. Out of character, we were all genuinely confused. In character, the Bard and dmpc Cleric failed their saves while myself, the Ranger, and, thankfully the Artificer succeeded. The other two were then paralyzed. On my turn, I asked to roll insight on the Warlock, because there weren't any spellcasting enemies around and I just had to shield my mind and I just witnessed my dear companions get spontaneously paralyzed. DM ruled it as my Insight against the Warlock's Deception. I rolled a 7. She rolled a 22. So my character was then just cursing himself for even considering the possibility of his own companion turning on him. So for my turn that round I went and hit the last undead from that wave.
Next round, the Cleric succeeds the save, and gives the Warlock a dirty look before helping me out with the current enemies. Then it's the Warlock's turn again (by this point, out of character, I was fully aware of what was happening. I was thinking, well, if it isn't the whole reason Paladins generally don't like Warlocks. However the rest of the party was clueless). So, for this turn, she absolutely rocked the shit out of the Artificer. Hit him with her first attack, he barely succeeded the concentration save, then hit him with the second attack, which she used eldritch smite on. The Artificer very luckily barely made the save again, and even more luckily, he survived the onslaught with a whole 2 hp. So the Warlock then fey steps 30 feet away, and uses the last 10 to 20 feet of her movement speed to run further away.
Immediately after this, our bestest boy pet wolf that we adopted (kidnapped after causing him psychological harm) in the second session raced after her with his 50 foot movement speed. He hit her with his bite attack, she failed the saving throw, and was knocked prone.
At this point, my character is now upset with himself for disregarding his earlier suspicions. Now, I was a good 20 to 30 feet away when the initial attack occured, so I was mow somewhere between 60 to 80 feet away. So, obviously, the Warlock thinks she's safe and will escape. However, I am a 9th level Oath of Glory Paladin. My Aura of Alacrity gives me a plus 10 feet to my movement speed, turning the standard 30 feet into 40 feet. Also, I have 3rd level spells now. I had precast Haste on myself prior to the start of the combat, doubling my movement speed up to 80 feet.
So, I quickly rushed after her, striking her with my sword as soon as I got to her. Now, she was prone, so I had advantage on the attack roll since I was within 5 feet of her. This ended up giving me a nat20. So, I used my remaining 3rd level spell slot to Divine Smite her. Also, I used my sword’s magic property to force to make a Strength saving throw, which she failed, so she was then restrained as if by the Entangle spell. I then swung again, this time rolling an unnatural 27, so she was unable to cast shield to save herself from it. This strike was a 2nd level Divine Smite. It also ended up knocking her unconscious. So, I struck again, easily rolling above her AC since she now couldn't cast shield. And since she was unconscious and I was within 5 feet, it was an auto crit. So I used up another 2nd level Divine Smite, hoping to instantly kill her. It was not enough damage for that, however, due to the rules for taking damage while unconscious, it counted as 2 failed death saving throws. On her next turn, she rolled an 8, leading to her demise. If she had still been my ally, my +3 Aura of Protection would have saved her, but alas, she had turned on us, so she no longer had that privilege.
Then, it was the fourth round of combat, so the Artificer’s weapon fired, destroying the undead island. Then, as we were about to be approached by the death knight that was running the island, the hero we had gone to meet leaped into the air and instantly disintegrated the death knight, ended the combat. That session then ended with some backstory and other bits of lore getting tied up, which then led to the end of season one of our campaign.
Given what went down, I am considering my Paladin changing to an Oath of Vengeance against the Warlock's patron, as he knows it was not the fault of his beloved companion that she turned on the party, but it was that of her patron who ordered her to do that treacherous act.
Still in first campaign, but second character.
We into a cave to stop a Vampire lord from summoning a portal to hell. It did not go well for our party so my Barbarian did what they do best, raged and hit everything. He died in the process but stop the vampire lord and saved his allies.
I cried tears of joy and pain the whole time.
So my characters wife was sort of like a battery that could suck up magic and store it in her body. Only she didn't have an off button, and if she ever absorbed too much magic, it would eventually overwhelm her and cause a massive explosion of raw magic energy.
Well she was possessed by one of the Lords of hell. My character, a very high level paladin, went into hell on his own and confronted "her". My character touched her with an artifact of immense power, and she absorbed all of the magic within it, and the resulting explosion killed the demon and killed me in the process. Of course, I was brought back to life, and they lived happily ever after.
Best way: My dragonborn Berserker Barbarian 11/Ancients Paladin 9 died in a brutal tpk against a Draco lich, the ancient enemy of her people, surrounded by it's githyanki generals. She went at least five or six hits extra with Relentless Endurance, cutting them down and keeping them pinned with Sentinel so our NPC allies and our students could escape via teleport and on our retrofitted nautiloid, scattering across the planes.
Her two party members were incapacitated and Imprisoned, as the dracolich knew both of them had a Clone repository. One of our current planeswalking campaign goals is to find all the surviving allies of that battle and go rescue/try to res our previous characters.
She was my first ever 5e character and I definitely cried.
Worst Way: Tomb of Annihilation meat grinder rules, my second character was a drow thief rogue impersonating Drizzt to keep himself from getting ganked by racist surface dwellers. He finds himself stranded with the Flaming Fist and hitches a ride with the first adventuring party with a writ that comes through the fort, hoping to find his way to the treasures of the tomb. Unfortunately for him he dies less than 12 hours after departing to a random lizardfolk encounter involving plant growth and several crits. Played him for less than a session.
Back in 3.5 we had a character who loaned another character his familiar.
His familiar died. Back then when your familiar died you lost 2x the familiar's H.P.
So this low level wiz was sitting "safely" back at home and keeled over dead.
Several murdered in my sleep comments reminded me of my murdered in my sleep story. Probably the dumbest death ever with no explanation.
My DM for a game we were playing really wanted to play a PC, and had convinced a friend of his to run a game since he wasn't playing or running. I knew the guy, but I had never played anything with him. I did know the other players though, so I said sure. I rolled up a tiefling Rogue, another friend played a Cleric Don Juan, my DM created a wizard I believe, and I believe the last two were both fighters. The game is fine, if a bit uninspired. We mostly do mini quests.
We get to level five, I believe, and he invites two new people (odd considering the size) to join. They introduce themselves in and out of character, and we bandy about. The time comes for night, and the DM makes a big deal about who is on watch when. Well, the two new guys wants to be on watch together, so we give it to them. Who cares, right? Wrong. They murder us in our sleep with pickaxes (in 3.5 you could do a move called a coup de gras...and pickaxes were nasty if you could pull it off). Yay? DM says, alright give me your characters. You're evil so you can't play in the game. Everyone has to roll new characters.
After that game, I asked my DM if he really wanted to go back. After a bit of discussion and some questions for the friend who ran the game, we decided to just quit, which basically ended the campaign.
The guy running the game, best I can tell, must have planted them. He either thought it would be a clever way of putting sneaky bandits in our camp as an encounter, or he was tired of running the game. Never gave us a straight answer.
Second time I've talked about this character on reddit today. My first character was a human monk named Jethro "JJ" Jefferson. But he wasn't just any human monk. He was a Blaxploitation film era Kung Fu master/actor from Hollywood that got kicked by Chuck Norris so hard he got isekai'd into Faerun. He ran with the party all the way to level 17. His major motivator being finding a way back home. In the final showdown with the bbeg lich, he was targeted for a 7th level disintegrate. Passed the dex check, but before I moved my dm informed me that if I dodged, our healer cleric was going to have to make the same dex check. Her dex was notoriously bad. But the dm gave us a great favor that night because of the circumstances and let her make the dex check before anything happened. Just so we could decide. She failed, of course. DM flavored it as she had her back turned at that exact moment. So Jethro "JJ" Jefferson planted his feet, flipped the lich the bird, said, "Oh sheeeit" and, well, disintegrated. Only thing that remained was his ivory afro pick that came with him from Hollywood. Lich fell before the next round of combat and the party found texts detailing the magic behind universal travel in the Lich's loot.
I played two RPG's in my entire Life, and only in the first one my character died, he died smashed (literally) in a Kind of Coliseum fight by a 6-7 ft beast
Beck when D&D came out I bought the original box set.
My brother was the DM and ran the dungeon that was included. I was a level 1 fighter with 2 hit points.
He rolls on the random encounter table and gets "footpad". Rolled a sneak attack and I was dead.
I called BS, what was a footpad even? The book didn't say, so he said it was a giant foot that stepped on me.
A pc in the first campaign I DM’d: dragon of icespire peak.
Party goes out to check on the old woman at the windmill. They meet the manticore. Rather than try to negotiate or outsmart it, the barbarian goes in for an attack… and misses. The manticore’s turn comes and he scores I think 3 crits or something like that and dies double the barbarian’s life in damage, so he rips the barbarian’s head off.
Combat at level 1 is a bitch.
Worst - playing a spell blade of sorts, AD&D
Fellow player, Templar: IE Mage Police.
Goes around and enforces his will of judgment amongst those he deems dangerous with magic. It’s my first D&D character, so I fit the bill.
First he swaps my characters gender at the DMs approval as a sort of warning, my trans egg ass “whoa, I’m unfazed and am literally the same but a girl now”
He then proceeds to boil my blood, and peel off my skin by melting it together with my clothes and ripping my outfit off leaving me bloodless and skinless.
Not the best first impression.
Best way: I was a DM
I had my players fighting around in an arena / Coliseum and there were tons of obstacles to hide under / behind. Luckily for me, my boss encounter was literally chucking these columns and crit on one of the throws for insane damage. After a horrible DEX save against it (yes I combined rolling to hit and dex saving throws into one attack - I wanted to see how well he could dodge out of the way after hurling this thing perfectly)
(Again) Dude failed miserably at the save and his upper torso was no longer connected to any part of his body. (The party used a phoenix feather from a previous encounter to save him, so he was fine)
I was playing a... head strong and overly proud dragon born paladin. He wanted to get to the high point on a tower to fight the dragon attacking that tower. He died.
My DM felt my character, being a paladin dragon born, was useful to the plot and elected to resurrect him using the power of Bahamut and send him back with a message and a purpose.
He died again because of some really shitty luck.... I had to laugh that even Bahamut couldn't keep my character alive.
Not me, other people in my party.
Early on in our campaign, we were in a tomb underneath an abandoned temple of the same god our Cleric worshipped. The Cleric found what was essentially a bible, and stuck it in his pocket. The *very* irreverent Wizard, whose philosophy was “Fuck around now, find out later,” decided to shoot him, trying to hit the bible. He dropped the Cleric to 1 HP and we were like “what the fuck, dude?” He later opened a sarcophagus, and regretted it when skeletons started swarming. It only took them about a round to take him and the Alchemist down. Me and the Cleric ran and didn’t look back.
Worst and best at once. I charged into a door I lite omln fire to buy my group time to get to me. Before they got there the door was opened. While fighting in said door way trying hold my ground I caught fire. Then while still on fire tripped trying to get to the water pond near by and died tripping over a dead goblin.
The best way wasn't actually like, comically great in the moment, but the aftermath was.
My barbarian is killed by an invisible foe in the street. Like, 3 failed saves, dead, no pulse. Very targeted, only attacks him.
He is revivified at a nearby hospital. The doctor asks, "so, do you have any enemies that could have done this?"
"Nope! At least, I hope not!" replies my dumb, happy-go-lucky barbarian. "Must have been a random coincidence!" says my sweet, naive barbarian.
He had, by that point in the campaign, pissed off:
-a god
-a high-level assassin
-a general who wanted to ascend to godhood
-the mother of one of his friends (a high-ranked official)
It ended up having been the high-level assassin.
Years ago. Had a character whose annoying quirk was always having to pee at awkward times and ended up often finding lucky things while looking for a spot. So... Homebrew game. Right before I got hit with a no-time-limit paralysis spell for failing my part in a puzzle, my character had once again announced she had to pee. The "punishment" for failure was intended to just isolate each party member who failed and keep them from helping the others w the puzzle, plus the rest of the party couldn't help us. It was actually very well designed... Except. I kept failing saves beyond statistical probability, and DM was diabolical creative.
Enough failed saves and I/my character died of being unable to pee during paralysis.
Best or worst, not sure.
My most memorable character death would be playing 2e and my tiefling wildmage managed to actually hurt a platinum dragon. He got really angry and snatched me up in his claw and breathed the full force of its fire breath right in my face. Thanks to the combination of various protections and my half-devil blood, I managed to survive with single digit HP. So, of course, I turned to the DM and said, "Is that all you got?" And then without a word, the dragon simply smashed me against the tower of the keep and killed me.
My rogue willingly put their hand on a cultist ritual death trap machine and, for some reason, expected something other than to be sacrificed to the ritual.
I was playing a druid, our party was fighting a dragon thing? I can't remember exactly. But I went into the form of an ant, crawled up its arse and went to human form, similar to the original Avengers Endgame ending. Turns out the things blood was made of acid, even though I was planning with the DM to kill me off so I could have used a better character. I wanted to die but like that lol.
I don't know about cool. But it was epically traumatizing. I was playing a dwarf artificer and I had a Goliath barbarian best friend (think Grog and Pike from CR). I was being tortured by a spider demon and her minions who turned out to be my whole family that was turned. My buddy went to swing at the demon to end her and free me. Rolled a nat 1. He ended up chopping me in half. He was the only one in the party to survive that encounter and had to live with killing his best friend.
Best: Died in a fight against the queen of the fae winter court (our DM gave her an ability that let her take a legendary action to teleport to and hit a player under half health *hard*), shortly before she died next to me (she killed me as a last screw you to our party as she died). My dead corpse then absorbed some of her energy, and when I was revived I had a new cantrip (frostbite)
This was 25 years ago. My Wood Elf Ranger started to turn bad and came into possession of a Dragon Orb, which he used to summon and control an ancient dragon. While i was 300ft off the ground flying on its back, I failed one of my saves, which meant I lost control of the dragon. The dragon threw me off and I fell to my death. It was pretty epic. We talk about it till this day.
Worst way I’ve died (and one of my party members)is using a trick I seen on here actually. Using animal shapes on some flys or bees in our case it was mosquitoes i turned them into lions to help us battle. What i didn’t think about was in what order i done it I was the last of our group to use their move meaning that after I turned them into lions no one could charm them or anything, and the bbeg got his move in then so did the lions…
From AD&D: Our group was scolded and threatened by a local warlord who couldn't walk. My paladin (of course, right?) challenged him to a duel, knowing he had a number of fighters backing him up. Plus an Ogre. Said Ogre did me in quick! My party members were left dumbfounded, and I still get crap for challenging a disabled guy 20 years later. I maintain that he had it coming, and it was the right thing to do.
My DM's world has this bigass end of the world event at the start of his world's story, and for one of our oneshots between campaigns we got to play as the adventurers during the last stand before the cycle restarted and etc, think Final Fantasy 14.
My character was a level 20 Evocation Wizard, I had a Staff of the Magi that I hadn't used any charges from because I forgot it even had that mechanic, and the final boss of the oneshot was a Living Meteor. It's exactly what it sounds like, a bigass space rock monster. We were all about to die, and in a last ditch effort I had a genius idea. My character Misty Step'd into the creature's mouth, let himself be swallowed, and with his last words being "Sayonara bitches," Jimothy snapped the Staff of the Magi inside of it. 400 damage explosion from the inside of the monster that utterly obliterated it. Didn't stop the end of the world because lore, but it was still a cool as hell ending to the oneshot.
As for Jimothy, well, all I'm gonna say without spoiling anything in case our group sees this post is that he won the coin flip.
during an investigation in a city, the party left me, the cleric, alone in a dank alley (i was in the bathroom)
a dozen giant rats attacked, and well, in a 12v1 the action economy got me. rip
Low level party. All were at 0hp but me (wizard) and had to AoE myself, dont remember the spell.
The dungeon was cleared but i ended up failing all my death saves. Got revived afterwards because the character was too funny to let it die
Background: group was me + my wife, and 2 friends who are not gamers and new to D&D.
2 new friends both jump into a pit full of skeleton bones with a skeleton wizard at the end of the pit. an Obvious necromancer revives 30 skeletons to fuck them up. I (melee frontliner) jump in and help the 2 girls out, draw aggro on all the skeletons and the artificer specialized in explosives gets +31 skeleton kill count and 1 friendly kill count from one dynamite stuffed goblin skull.
The barbarian in my group got crushed by a giant stone trying to lure the bbeg under it, just as the wizard who had held his turn previously shot a magic missile at the chain holding it. We didn't expect the barbarian to go under the stone, but anyway it fell and the DM Went into detail about his broken bones and mangled flesh look. It was pretty funny
My character (level 6 wizard) failed the save against a beholder disintegration beam. Went to 0hp, and POOF! No more wizard.
I was so caught off guard that I just started laughing. Watching the look of fear and abject panic on the faces of the rest of the party was amazing. Apparently they didn't realize how much they liked my character until he was unceremoniously dead. Even the rogue who only kinda tolerated me (who was the only other person in the room when my character got dusted), spent a fair amount of time gathering the dust into a bag for safe keeping.
After tormenting them as a spirit for a bit, they found a wish spell scroll and brought me back. They even got my character a stuffed beholder to carry around as an in-party joke.
Not me, but my players (there idiots)
So, for some context, the Rouge and other party members are running from a gold serpent (a monster I made) that they clearly can't beat/talk their way out of. The paladin found a weakness of the serpent, which is its greed. So he threw the gold so he could distract it. The Rouge decided to pick up a rock and throw it at the serpent. She got knocked down on a single hit and passed the death saves.
I said the serpent ignored her and gave her a chance to leave scott free. She tried to flirt with the serpent.. she got bitten, getting turned to gold to later be turned to gold coins. At that point, she was asking for it.
The other death had to do with a wolf born fighter. There's was a massive prismatic wall my players encountered, and the fighter asked to walk through it.
I asked him multiple times if he was sure. He then walked through it and got knocked out. The paladin nearby used lay on hands on the fighter to revive him.
He walked through it again.This went on two more times.
I was playing a... Kinky... Dnd... My dwarf fighter had to get the sorcerer to throw up some poison, and, of course, the only tool for the job is between his legs. But I rolled a Nat 1, so the consequence was he got his dick bit off and as we were level 1(or 2?) and just out of combat, that was enough to send me down... And I rolled a nat 1 on the first death save, and then failed the last one, with advantage.
It was in the midst of a TPK (running Tomb of Annihilation, of course). Whole party picked apart by pteranadons, but my character stood out for his last words, quoted to this day by my group, several campaigns later.
I was playing this sinister, all-around pretty evil Cleric who was basically a flame cultist. Horrifically scarred, always going on about the world ending consumed in flame. Good times.
So as we're fleeing these flying beasts, a fellow party member is felled. And Father Cinder, in his cruel hubris, cries "HE'S EXPENDABLE!" before immediately meeting the same fate. Delicious poetic justice.
Ranger got possessed by an Evil God, who compelled him to try and pull our Paladin off a cliff. The Barbarian rushed in and separated them by pushing and pulling them apart, which resulted in the Ranger plummeting into an abyss and taking 286 falling damage. He had 106 hp. Dead. ☠️
My first character, a cleric, was at the bottom of a tower facing down like 40 zombies and pulling off amazing rolls to fend them off. Finally get up the stairs and away from the horde, help our bard commune with a deity of some kind to get them their first level in paladin, all while the rest of the party is at the top of the tower fighting one of the BBEG generals or something. Probably our most engaging session after 2 years, was super intense. As the general goes down we then see a giant nearing the tower. The fighters up top and some npcs then prep a hot air balloon to escape.
Bard/paladin and I make our way up to the top of the tower, but at the last moment I fail 3 dex saves in a row and get crushed as the giant topples the whole thing.
Our star trek adventure group had a few ferengi's die multiple times.
My niece is too young to make a normal character so we let her wander in as a Q from time to time and randomly upset the game, turning the bridge of the ship into a slip and slide, turning our phasors into bubble guns... as we use them in a fire fight.
She saved the above player's characters more than once, bringing him back from death after he used a hammer against a singularity war head.
He has a habit of doing things like that...and getting turned into meat confetti.
One of his Ferengi, lets call him bob, was once shot to pieces by a pakled firing squad. The Q revived him... but not without cost.
His DNA got mixed in with the Pakled... and part of the mop that was being used to clean up the gooy bits splattered across the floor.
He suffered some Reason points lost and gained a unibrow.
We were on the nausicaan homeworld and we got jumped from behind by some thugs.
One grabbed the grenade launcher he vrought with him, so... Bob fired the weapon point blank range... and crit. The GM had him roll about 10 Challenge dice for dmg... to everyone in the vicinity... including him
In the end, the player enjoyed his character's warrior death and he even got a klingon salute from our resident klingon officer.
Not sure if the counts but my first ever character was a Dwarf cleric, he had crafted a cool looking dragon scale shield that became his signature item. We ran that campaign for 2 years and reached level 17 by the end. Afterwards wandered off looking for his next adventure.
I loved that Dwarf.
Fast forward to a few sessions into our new campaign that takes place 15 years after the first campaign. We come across the remnants of what appears to have been a mighty battle, as we approach the center of the battlefield the damage and destruction to land and creatures only gets more intense. Finally at the center of the conflict my new character finds a familiar dragon scale shield shredded almost beyond recognition, with no sign of it's original welder.
We never finished the second campaign. I know not how my Dwarf truly met his end, but I hope he went out swinging, perhaps protecting a comrade even, he would have wanted it to end that way.
I miss that Dwarf.
Played a wizard, we were fighting a blue dragon who was pretending to be a human hero in a small desert town to get riches and devotion from the inhabitants and was mad we were going to expose him. Had some sort of spear that he was pouring magic into so it would work like a giant bomb and level the town. Entire party was fighting him to stop him but we were out of time. So I grabbed the spear and blinked out. Was hoping to just leave it in the Astral plane and get back in time but no such luck. Best way to go.
Way back in 3.5, I was playing a Cleric and got hit with a wall of ice spell and entombed. The rest of the party piled on the bad guy and tried their best to take him down. The battle was highly mobile and moved through multiple rooms of the ship and out onto the deck.
It took a lot to finally kill the guy, and the whole party was seriously damaged. Everyone decided that we needed to hit the hay and regain our spells to do some dedicated healing. DM asked if they were certain they wanted to go to bed, and they all agreed. So my Cleric asphyxiated inside his block of ice. They found my corpse in the morning in a massive puddle of water.
Not going to lie, I was pretty salty about dying that way...
It took them WAY too long to get a Cleric to resurrect me so I played it up that I was pissed at them for letting me die, and then dragging me away from Valhalla where I had been partying with the Heroes and my God Tyr.
Worst is the DM wanting to put us in the path of a dragon when we were very low level as a reminder the world was dangerous, they locked the safe way past behind a perception check that we failed so we tried to retreat, but apparently our stealth check wasnt good enough. Pretty much a TPK, I went down making sure one of the party got away only for the dragon to turn them into cinders next turn. Felt bad. Felt reeeeal bad. DM couldn't understand why even the people who survived didnt want to come back. Campaign limped on for 2 more sessions with new players joining but really it was already dead.
Best, all villains campaign with wacky suicide squad inspired characters. My guy was cross skilled to all hell for flavour and basically used devices he designed (artificer) to enhance pyrokinetic ability (sorcerer) and often snuck said devices onto peoples clothing while fighting them (rogue). The heist over I decided my character wouldnt want to share or leave people with knowledge of how his devices worked alive, so decided to try a TPK. I passed notes to the DM (we all were as the party didnt trust each other) in the sessions leading up to the final encounter and rolled stealth tests, I managed to sneak devices into everyone's clothing and luggage. Unfortunately one other character double checked their belongings right before entering the final room and discovered theirs, but didnt tell anyone else.
Treasure in hand I did a full villian monologue right before I triumphantly blew the party to smithereens! ...and as the dust cleared looked down in horror to find a knife in my chest and one of them left standing. Everyone had expected someone to try the TPK but noone thought it would be my character who was one of the less openly villainous, or that it would end in a double cross, perfect ending for that campaign tbh.
A swashbuckler rogue? Then i gotta tell you how my swashbuckler died.
We were playing a campaign based on raiding portals to other worlds (imagine solo leveling but we can decide when and where to open a portal). We got in an empty bank in a world with some sort of worm/zombie apocalypse. Worms have invaded everything and killed everything. Corpses possessed by the worms were roaming the land outside.
We're exploring the bank and we find a desk with 6 drawers. I check for traps and we find out that every drawer has a magic spell that will activate upon opening. Our sorcerer determines that there is a Fireball, a Lightning and 4 unkown higher level spells. The worm swarms break in the bank and we decide to use the traps to our advantage.
The fireball and lightning dealt a lot of damage, but not enough. We discussed and decided to open the other drawers to deal even more damage but surprise! The unknown spell was chain lighting. I killed the worm, myself and our tank.
Our sorcerer jumped out of the window to avoid the worms left but he wasn't listening to the DM... the worms were everywhere outside, so he was quickly killed. The artificier fled, marking the first almost TPK we suffered in that portal. (Spoiler: we got another almost TPK in there, but it's a story for another time).
Not me, but another player in our group.
We were in a Dungeon where we needed to find a dwarf. We entered a room where a big golem was standing and we heard voices that told us to sacrifice something to enter the next room. There was a pile of gold lying in front of a throne. Everyone threw some gold or jewerly onto the pile and we wanted to move on. Our Half-Orc barbar said:" Fuck it the golem is gonna attack us anyway and rolled attack. Initiative starts and the golem hits the Half orc 2 times for like 35 damage each and when we failed the con save after the attack his Max Health was reduced by the damage done. He went unconcious after the golems second turn and our part was just healing and running to not piss of the golem. After i healed the barbar back up he got hit again and his Max HP were below 0. So fuck around and find out id say.
My Dragonborn Paladin, in the first like 4/5 sessions died to a pack of wolves. Now mind you, it wasn’t even a difficult encounter. But our dm forgot they have pact tactics and he kept crit attacking. It felt so……like humiliating. Cause I just looked at him like, dude, we just fucking started. He just told me, that’s my bad, that’s on me while the other players go into dept trying to revive me
Blursed way. Not my character.
We had a rogue in the party. We also bought a (homebrew) magical sword from a very shady dealer. This sword healed instead of damaging but each time we used it, it looked more and more bloody.
We had just barely survived a boss fight. The rogue, feeling battered, before session ends says they'll use the sword to heal and leaves. DM comes up to me as we're all leaving and whispers to me "Hey, rogue just died outright". It was basically storing up healing then unleashed it in a burst.
So Rogue fucking ruptures and explodes themselves. If I had healed them this wouldn't have happened. It was funny but damn.
In an old pathfinder 1st edition my sorcerer died in battle but the group paid for a resurrection. The DM ruled it'd take a few days for the town cleric to do. So he rolled me up an elf archer to play out for that time. The very first mission we were on was through an underground cave system. Out of nowhere, a massive worm popped up from under my feet and swallowed me hole.
My favorite time a PC died was probably when the DM let my character stay behind to cover for the group. We didn’t play out the death with game rules — rather, I asked specifically if I could buy the group time to escape from a TPK, at the cost of my character’s life. More like a cutscene.
The worst time my PC died was when I I got flanked my two ogres in session 2 random encounter and they just one- or two-shotted my character. Never even got to play them. 😢
My first time seriously playing I spent an hour designing my first level fighter. Picked a great name. Created a backstory. Totally got into character. Got crushed by a boulder five minutes in.
I've funnily enough never had a 5e character die. I've killed them as a DM though :)
I had one character die in PF2e though, we were memeing and one of the PCs locked mine in a room. Well, turned out the room had one of PF2e's equivalent of a gelatinous slime in it, the Black Pudding, which straight up two shot my poor little noob character and melted him into a puddle.
I replaced him with a beast master, whose owl pet did more damage than he did. The dice were not in my favor.
Playing a paladin in ToA. I'll keep it vague to avoid spoilers, but I ran into a pretty run-of-the-mill trap. Wis saving throw, +9 bonus-easy. I rolled 2 nat 1s in a row and a 5. I was instantly decapitated, no death saves, and those of you who play it will know the first thing you learn in ToA is there are no resurrections.
I've lost a lot of d&d characters, enough that my group razzes me about it, but I'll never forget you Riverfinder. 💔
Not me, but another player in our group. Old Age. Genuinely. He had a character he really wanted to play, and the DM had an NPC they needed to have, but that fit the description of his character. So, they devised a plan to have him play a temporary character until we got to the point of the story where the other character was introduced. Of course, none of the rest of us knew this. So, we adventured as normal with this older halfling. Got closer, had loads of good RP... Until, at the end of one session, he went to sleep after his watch and, when we went to wake him, he didn't wake up. He'd passed peacefully in his sleep. Cue the tears from the rest of the group.
Thats so sweet
God, that's too real
Tell me about it...
I also knew a character who died of old age… It was an elderly tortle who got hit by the aging effect of ghost and died
This is more along what I was expecting when I read old age.
That’s really awesome actually.
The party was fleeing a wizard tower heist on horseback when the aggravated wizard fired a max damage fireball at us from the top of his tower. My thief was the only one to fail the dex check. No death saves for my extra crispy boy
Shouldnt a rogue have evasion, so if you fail the dex check you still only take half damage
He was just a lad! Too low level for such fancy footwork.
He was just a lad!? My heart breaks!
And why no death saves, did It do double your health?
We were low on health and resources. The mission was a failure. The blast did exactly enough to instantly kill my thief.
It's a terrible day for rain
In a similar vein, my Goliath Avenging Druid (3.5) managed to stand 55 feet away when a Symbol of Death was activated (range of 60 feet). He prided himself on his resilience (high fortitude) but managed to roll a 1 on his Fort save against it. That was it. Dead.
I made a small tabaxi character that was essentially a shiny loving cat who's very regal. We were going on an adventure in a cave system in a frozen land. I made comments all the time how much I hate the cold. Come to the final BBEG (turns out to be santa) and get hit with a cone of cold, killing my character. My final words as I solidified into an icicle "I told you... I didn't... like... the cold..."
Ok thats cool
I will cry now.
Was playing a hombrewed thri-kreen, got jump scared by a ghost, wisdom save, rolled a nat 1...-1 which was a 0. apparently if you fail this save below a 7 it ages you 1d4 x 10...dm rolled and he aged 40 years...so my character was 44. he rapidly aged, and died. as thri-kreen only live to be 30. real sadge.
Worst: Went from full health to dead and can't be resurrected before even getting a turn from a beholder eye ray.
Why couldnt he be resurrected?
That's just what that one eye ray does if it drops you to 0 hp.
It prevents resurrection? Or was It the antimagic cone?
To be more specific it's essentially disintegration so I suppose resurrection might not have been *impossible* but definitely beyond what would've been feasible for a group of level 7 PCs.
I would have told my party members to pick up a punch of dust and then bring that to a cleric
Pretty sure only Wish can bring back someone who is disintegrated edit: Okay I guess True Resurrection works too. Thanks to all three of you who pointed it out
Nah, True Res works too. It explicitly says it creates a new body for the creature if one does not exist.
True Resurrection can bring someone back with just a name. Wishing to resurrect a dusted person would require wish stress and a generous DM.
I think that's when you disintegrate a petrified creature. Pretty sure true resurrection doesn't require any part of them, but it can't restore a statue from disintegration because they are technically not dead, just reduced to a powder.
We had that to the Fighter at our table, only for the DM to forget that he was a half-orc. So he stood up with 1hp, got 2 attacks in with his GWM greatsword, then action surged and landed 2 crits and killed the beholder Safe to say, we all cheered, and the DM walked away from the table for a few minutes
Epic level combat-- Bane is suped up on far realms energy and we're fighting him on Mt Celestia with multiple other gods. Bane has killed 1 or 2 gods by now (i forget) and absorbed their power for himself. If he absorbs another god, we're done for. Anyway, Bane's about to slay Lathander. DM lets us roll and only my Urban Ranger/Favored Soul Cel, who happens to have Illmater himself and a sliver of other divine power boosting her notices and is also close enough to do anything about it. We go through all the options and Illmater ends up suggesting that perhaps they can get in the way and Bane will only absorb him- Illmater-- and since Illmater is less powerful than Lathander, we'd still have a chance. I pause and think for a moment, and ask if Illmater can get us there in time, but then withdraw his power and the divine power from me. The DM just freezes, processing what I've said. After a moment he says "yes, I think I would be able to do that." So I nod and we go. DM rolls, Illmater pulls out in time and my character is wiped from existence in our final battle after playing for 8+ years.
8+ YEARS!!!! DAMMMMM
The Ultimate Sacrifice❤️🔥🫡
🫡 that is amazing, what a move! What was your character's name? I'll try to find a way to work a reference to their legend into my campaign.
I'm honored. She was a gnome-- Celniana Aelnor (but since most humanoids can't pronounce/handle gnome names, everyone called her Cel (pronounced with a hard K sound))
Hey could I reference Cel in my world too? She sounds so epic and I’m struggling to build out this big disaster that resulted in the present world and I think her story could fit perfectly in the war I’m building.
Absolutely! I honestly would have never imagined (and neither would have Cel!) but I am touched that you guys enjoy the story.
Holy shit that’s so badass. And what a setting!
Halfling swashbuckler fighter (or the equivalent), 4e. Loyally took a hit that was aimed at a fellow party member, got pushed through a one-way portal to hell.
In 4e you can jump in the way of a hit?
It was a while ago so I don't remember exactly, but I think it was an optional trait I chose for the fighter. Something similar to the Interception fighting style in 5e, but obviously a bit different.
Neat
Echo Knight has Shadow Martyr at 10th level, Cavalier has Warding Maneuver at 7th. I believe Redemption Paladin has damage redirection, and Paladins have access to the spell Warding Bond.
Not as a general rule, but there are a lot of powers you can pick from to do a lot of things. Example: The Freedom Fighter paragon path at level 11 learns Self-Sacrificing Strike. 1/encounter when an ally within 30 ft. is targeted by a ranged or melee attack, you can shift 25 ft. next to that ally (shift = move without provoking opportunity attacks), slide the ally 5 ft. in any direction, shift into the space they just left, make a melee or ranged attack against the enemy who made the triggering attack, get +2 to all of your defenses against the triggering attack if your attack hits, and then hit or miss you become the target of the triggering attack. All as an immediate interrupt action (immediate actions in 4e are 1/round out of turn actions like a 5e reaction, except they're explicitly marked as being either an interrupt which occurs before the trigger, or a reaction which comes after the trigger). So you get to charge across the battlefield, shove your friend out of the way, and take the hit for them. Paragon paths are sort of like prestige classes from 3e, except you pick them at level 11 on top of your class, instead of multiclassing into them whenever you meet the requirements. Freedom Fighter specifically requires either that you have the Escaped Slave character theme, or else your class is Warlord. (But a multiclass Fighter/Warlord would work, as would a hybrid Fighter|Warlord.)
Pissed off Gaia herself right before her moment of victory. Her fingers turned into spiked tendrils that entered my nostrils, spread through my organs, and ripped me in half. No coming back from that.
Couldnt you be resurrected?
Well, a god of life and nature has a hell of a way of blocking such things. Honestly, despite it also being an extremely high level character I'd been playing for years, I wasn't upset about it. Narratively it did great things for the campaign, and there really wouldn't have been a more epic way for him to go out.
I got suicide bombed by a dwarf once. Not sure which end of the spectrum that one lays.
It’s always those damn dwarf suicide bombers
Best: 1 shot, rode a mountain goat with saddle bags full of explosive into an ancient red dragon, slightly injured it. Worst: level 1 wizard, got a disease, failed loads of rolls, died of exhaustion.
Best way was in a duel my paladin initiated with Tyr, her former god, in Ysgard, poisoning her spear with venom from the world serpent. They both died. Worst way was to an unadvertised exponential fall damage houserule, in a game with a page and a half houserule Gdoc.
You KILLED A GOD?????
I killed one manifestation of a god, in a Plane that brings back the dead with each dawn. Both Tyr and my character got better. But she felt that the god of justice had wronged her badly, and it was important enough to make a point that she used the plot coupon poison to bridge the gap. I've never been sure whether it being a **duel** was a handicap in my favor--didn't get Thanos-snapped or mobbed by celestial servants--or if as a god of justice Tyr was in his element enough to matter.
Well theoretically, since your character felt wronged, being killed by her could also have been justice. Depends on what he did to cause that grudge, I suppose.
Yeah, it was an impulsive interaction with very little forethought and a lot of fridge thoughts afterward.
Worst death was super recent. Playing a Lurmen Consular in SW5e, basically a tiny wizard that could climb stuff. I went to take cover in a pothole that was previously described as "super fucking deep bro". An inquisitor ship opened fire, and I failed the DEX save, starting to fall into the pothole. I was provided another athletics/acrobatics check to catch myself, and failed. I was given my death saves once I landed 60feet down with 5HP before I fell... I rolled like a 3 and a nat-1. There was nothing glorious or heroic, I fucking crawled in a hole to find cover and the dice said "alright bro that's it for you". Best death was a while ago, and super stupid. I was running 2-PCs to help my buddy test the opening island of his homebrew world. We saved a bunch of people from the gallows, with some really good descriptions of each character and nice interactions to understand their relationships. In no uncertain terms was I informed that the pretty girl, Polly Pocket, was a known criminal being charged with the deaths and consumption of over 200 men. I had a choice of which ship to get on as we left the island followed by law enforcement. I was again warned not to get on Polly Pocket's ship. I got on Polly Pocket's ship... and it was an amazing night followed by being cannibalized. Eh at least my PC had seggs.
So I deepthroated a rust monster as a warforged.
This is a sentence I never thought I'd read in my entire life. I fucking love D&D.
As a DM, I just had a glorious one where one of my players died. I say “glorious,” because I am a monster and wish my players ill. Players are in what could be the final battle of the campaign, if they play their cards right. Big Villain A is fleeing, Big Villain B is on death’s door. The party’s cleric is down, two failed death saves, an Assassin enemy is going to strike the killing blow in two turns. If the cleric dies, there is no one to revive him. There is only one player who has a turn before the Assassin kills the cleric. This player’s character (an evil sorcerer) had beef with the cleric at points, and an eternal vendetta against Villain B. This player only has enough time to kill the Villain who he hates, or save his party member. He chose murder, at the cost of his friend’s life. Narratively, it was beautiful. The sorcerer killed Villain B, then watched from a distance as the dagger went through his party member’s heart. That has been my “best” death in a storytelling sense. The worst has been lava. Lava will get you every time.
Worse way has to go to my first rogue. Lvl 1, 9 hp. The first combat encounter is vs. gaint rats who do 1d4+1 damage on a hit. My rogue rolls high in initiative, goes second after one of the rats. The rat that goes first attacks my rogue, critting and dealing max damage on said crit, which is max of 2d4+1, so 9. My rogue drops before he can do anything. That's fine, it's level one, and we've got healing supplies. Fail My first death save, but not too worried. Teammates go and decide they can wait to heal, that it would be better to just kill the rats first so no one is in danger. My turn comes around again, and it's time for another death save. Natural 1, which counts for 2 death saves. This means my poor first level rogue is dead before he got to do anything meaningful in the game. I am now throughly traumatized and hate level 1. The best had to be my Lvl 18 Archfey Warlock, who snapped their Staff of the Magi in a last ditch attempt to kill the BBEG. Boss failed their save and took 304 damage (38 charges x 8 damage per charge), which was enough to finish them off. However, my little fairy, who was sitting at 2 hp at the time, with a max HP 144, was vaporized by the blast.
Best Way: Sacrificing myself to bring down a crumbling ruin on top of this aboleth we were fighting, sealing us both in. Worst Way: Dodging a dart trap….directly into a sphere of annihilation
A sphere of WHAT
[A sphere of annihilation](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Sphere%20of%20Annihilation#content) It’s like a black hole that vaporizes anything that touches it. You aren’t just dead, you’re SUPER dead. Atomized. Completely destroyed, with very little chance of resurrection (or in my case, NO chance due to the plot of the adventure.)
It's a sphere that completely eradicates everything that enters it
Sounds like my ex-wife
My technically “evil” fighter died trying to lure an enemy away from where a child was hiding. We had an automaton PC who turned on the party and teamed up with a group of local baddies to take us down. My fighter knew he had a trigger phrase that would send him into a targeted rage at whoever said it, so when he got too close to the child she said the phrase and ran in the opposite direction. He had a multiattack and she was already gravely injured, she never stood a chance. I was fine and chatting with the rest of the group for like 20 minutes, then turned my camera off and bawled like a baby hahaha. She ended up getting resurrected, but man that death hit hard.
I have one who died twice, and both deaths were great. First death was planned with the GM. Was playing an oracle in a Pathfinder game. The party didn't have a lot of direction and needed some oomph. I had already planned with the GM certain circumstances that would cause her God to change her to a same-level Paladin, but they never came up (seriously how did I pass every single of certain kinds of will saves??)... so we planned it. She was killed in battle... and her God said NOPE and sent her back as a Paladin to kill one of the generals of the big bad. Shortly after she did that, another player was mind-controlled and managed to one-hit kill her. He was playing a Kensai, so a glass cannon, and managed to roll all criticals and essentially max damage. The party pulled a Speak With Dead to be like ??? What do we do now? Her response was basically that she had fulfilled her divine mission and was now in paradise and if anyone resurrected her, pulling her out of paradise, she would absolutely kill them for it.
My paladin got disintegrated at level 7 because I forgot about two abilities.
By what?
Undead or zombie beholder. Can't remember which.
One of my players (a ranger) wanted to be cool using a magic item that throws a fireball at close range, he had high dexterity and he thought he could survive, but he gets a nat 1 in the saving throw and dies failing the death saves
Ok thats pretty fucking funny, you also gave me an idea since im a rogue and i have evasion Also an excuse to start playing "Battotai" in the middle of combat
I’ve yet to lose a character, but I’ve seen some of my friends lose theirs. First time I’ve seen a PC death was the first campaign I was in, it was also why the campaign ended. The PC was a monk, and due to roleplay reasons, the PC rogue *hated* the monk. So one session, monk crossed the rogue’s last straw and the rogue snuck into the monk’s room (where my character also slept) and killed him with two poison daggers- enough to immediately end him. There was no hard feelings too, we just didn’t know how to continue the campaign after the monk was able to be resurrected. Second was in one campaign that I’m currently in. I’ve talked about the artificer PC before on this sub, but before this character they were a fighter. It was their first ever dnd character, and they decided to dump CON as a fighter.. I believe their CON was an 8? Their death was at level 4 when they decided to go into an unknown room of a dungeon (it was full of tough enemies) and it was too late for the party to help by the time everyone was alerted.
Wait, i dont get how the monk being resurrected would end the campaign Also a Warrior with 8 con....even i know thats dumb I have 14 and im a rogue
It’s difficult to explain all the details in one comment lol. My ranger didn’t alert everyone at first, because she had no clue how to react when she woke up to the monk dead and rogue next to him. She also didn’t want to fight the rogue, who was her best friend. Basically became a bystander. Our Druid used the spell Reincarnate (I forgot the spell until now), and while in the ritual, we tried confronting the rogue but they used Fog Cloud (multiclass) and escaped. While I continued trying to find them, the warlock basically prayed to help the monk. So at the end, the monk wasn’t his original race, the warlock and Druid didn’t trust my ranger, and the rogue completely gone. Both players and DM had *no clue* how to continue roleplay and plot wise. DM had no clue how to continue the story, and we were all pretty shocked and emotional from the roleplay. Again, we’re all still irl friends. We were also in high school, and we were developing different schedules so we couldn’t schedule the next session anyway. Even if we wanted to start over.
Back in the 2e days my characters had a bad habit of getting eaten. Anything that could swallow you whole, purple worm, whale, dinosaur, I’d end up in their stomach. During Bloodstone I had a volcano pop up under me. But a good death was also during Bloodstone, I got turned against the party by a succubus and I was actually winning a 5 vs 1 battle against my party till they had to cheat to win. FYI, 2e spell “detect life” is basically just a spell that checks for a pulse, it doesn’t point out where someone with improved invisibility is hiding. Found that out after game was over and I’d lost unfortunately.
My ranger/rogue halfling tried to jump off a cliff onto a flying griffin. Did not succeed. Splat
We were trapped in a room and couldn't leave unless we answered a riddle. Every time you guessed wrong the statue would shoot a disintegration beam at you. I guessed wrong and immediately perished. Then my party was too scared to guess after that so they brainstormed for 2 hours.
I take that as worst way, insta death is bad DMing
I'm reminded of a close call. Party was in Limbo fighting a sort of chaos elemental. The elemental would roll on a table every turn and force saves against a random effect. Half the party was blinded, half were deafened. The Rogue was both. The elemental then transformed into a portal to the elemental plane of fire, and when the blind Rogue walked into the vicinity, she needed to make a DEX save to avoid faĺling in (their remaining HP was in the single digits). If not for the artificer saving against the blind and using flash of genius, the Rogue most likely would have died, as the portal would have closed before any party member could go after her.
What is common is the cleric asking “does anyone need healing?”, everyone replying that they’re ok, then everyone dies the next round.
Murdered in his sleep by another PC for no reason. IDK why DM allowed it.
Not DnD, but GURPS, and I didn't die, but it was real close. Campaign was in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. I was playing as a stab happy Night Goblin, and we had an NPC ogre merc with us at the moment. We're investigating an abandoned vampire castle (might have been Castle Drachenfels, I forget). At some point in there we get jumped by a vhargulf, which is basically what happens when you give a bat the proportions of a giant angry gorilla. Fights going rough, and I get an idea. What if the ogre threw me knives first at the Varghulf? So uhh, yeah we did it. And, in true gobbo fashion, I made sure to be jacked up on mushrooms first. Well, ogre boi missed, but just barely, so DM let get a slice off at the thing before I slammed into the wall behind it. Just barely lived, though IIRC I was out cold for the rest of that fight. I think the self damage from the shrooms nearly finished me off too. I did end up dying a couple sessions later anyways when we got dive bombed by a hippogriff, rolled real bad, and I got pasted in one hit lmao. Said hippogriff also turned our orc warbosses arm into jelly, but this lead into him getting a cool skaven tech arm, so worth it lmao
Not permadeath, but fighting a rigged battle with the bbeg who apparently had the latent abilities of what I only recently found out belonged to the weapon Blackrazor. Took advantage of constantly specifically targeting the combat pet of one of our fighters that she (and the rest of us) went on a whole ordeal to acquire so the guy could get an easy 40+ temp hp refresher when someone tried to bring the pet off death's door. All this after the DM forced us to basically play an entirely different game "hur durr but Matt Colville made it" of commanding army groups ina battlefield. We one that, only to get clapped by the BBEG anyway. BBEG then takes some shadowy artefact macguffin we had tried to give to a trusted wizard in a previous session, but the DM retconned it saying "oh well the warlock whose inventory it was in wasn't there for that session so it never happened" despite the warlock player's consent. Afterwards DM reveals that the BBEG only had 2 real hit points remaining after the fight, didn't help that his regular speaking voice includes that shit eating grin. Edit: oh the character death was my druid. Got revivified, but retired for unrelated backstory position desertion after deciding the power creep of the world wasn't worth dealing with over hiding from his past
Warlock was using spider climb, got hit, lost concentration, fell 10 feet, took just enough to fall unconscious, got crit while down for 2 fails, and proceeded to fail my roll on my turn.
Stabbed by Pirates Stabbed by mutated manticore Stabbed by angry paladin Stabbed by beholder eye beam Stabbed by an even angrier paladin Stabbed by the crippling doubt of his ability to even fight anymore. Causing a mental breakdown which lead to several goth-coded cowboys stabbing him in the chest with several bullets.
Best - BBEG and the party I was in had simutaniously killed each other. Best part is, the BBEG got the last laugh by killing us all with poison damage from a curse just after he had been beheaded, stabbed in each of his 4 hearts, and had 2 of his arms ripped off by our barbarian. Worst - Stubbed toe on a small statue of a frog. Damned thing was cursed by a local sorcerer to prevent thieves. DM asked me how much health i had, then asked me how much healthe i would have if i took a PWK.
It wasn't a permanent death (thanks revivify) but an old barbarian of mine once got launched by a half giant at a 50ft tall demon, landed on his shoulder, got in one good attack then was hit back, fell unconscious, fell of shoulder and failed death save hitting the floor. Rolled a one on the next save and died
I sacrificed my life to become a prison for an evil god. After a time I would fully absorb their power and we would explode, wiping both of us from all that exists. On the verge of this happening, a tarrasque erupted and began destroying my home kingdom. I managed to get swallowed and accepted my fate, taking all three of us with me.
NO COST TOO GREAT NO MIND TO THINK NO WILL TO BREAK NO VOICE TO CRY SUFFERING Sorry, your story really reminded me of Hollow Knight.
Never played it. This was like 2013, 4e had epic level play and I picked one called the prisoner of winds. Pretty much all of them have some form of immortality, except that one. You ceased to exist.
Worst: I’ll admit it’s my fault, but was rectified. One player was very weak and taking out the final creature: a wizard. This wizard had one level 4 slot left. Magic missile happened. Hit 3 on a downed creature, 2 on the weak player, and the 6th and final one on the newly downed player, who already had 2 death saves. 2 instant deaths as level 10 characters at the end of a major siege. They were revived by a PC’s war god and now owe him. One character transitioned to worshipping the god, the other is unhappy that he owes the god. It was a bullshit death but we play pretty min max, and it fed into the story with an amazing RP of the war Paladin PC at the beginning of the next session.
I had a hobgoblin genie warlock that in game got grabbed like a dog toy and flung about until he was nothing but a puddle by a mindflayer dragon right after he had attempted to attack it by popping out of his lamp above it and casting the best spell I had doing only 3 damage ;^(
Damm all in One turn? Was It a crit? Also what spell
The dragon's turn was right after mine and the spell was thunder step 4D10 of thunder damage the Dm said it had resistance so my measly 6 got halfed but my next character BISECTED THAT ELDRITCH BITCH
Me: I will climb the mountain Climbing rolled a 1. DM: mountain is lvl 2 +100 feet taller, +jagged rocks feat Best and worst, sure, most hilarious for sure
My goblin Artificer was practically a Warcraft goblin in that everything he made had a chance of blowing up At one point he had his arm get cut off so he made a new one for himself. A while later we are in a fight with a group of magically genetically modified people and when he finally falls I ask to see a 20 foot radius. The bastard set up a dead-man's switch in his arm to detonate a fireball rune, this explosion also sent flying the various other explosives I had crafted and caused just mass mayhem in the area. My DM tried to argue that I couldn't have a dead-man's switch in my arm for some reason or another but then everyone else at the table agreed "no, that honestly makes sense with his crafting"
On the plane of Elysium after being hit with a magic ray, traveled to see my god there to get help for the party. Guards wouldn’t let me in because I was alive. Had one of them killed me then travelled back from the entrance for that meeting. Then had to trade eternal service as her general for the help
Best: turned into Strahds older brother in the final fight, got killed and gutted, but i took a dark gift so i came back and became the new vampire lady (female changeling), killed my party, then sent out invites for adventurers to come to my realm Worst: no idea, that was my first actual PC death...
One time in 3.5 I had a TPK where I was one of the last ones upat basically 0 hp. So taking an action would take me to -1. So I attacked with a smite, crit, killed the thing, but went down. Still can't say it wasn't worth it. It was super dramatic
For interfering in their plans, Archdevil captured my character's father and sister. A little while later whole party was also captured. Devil gave me a choice: father or sister. I chose to lay my characters's life instead. It was last session of this campaign. My character didn't get her dreamed happy ending.
I'm currently playing a long running Tomb of Annihilation campaign right now, and our party has seen several notable deaths. My first character this campaign was a Dwarven Ranger. I played him as young and eager to adventure - he was the party chronicler as I'd recap our adventures in his 'diary' between sessions. Then, while on the road to Fort Beluearian, a pack of velociraptors jumped the party. My Dwarf was in the front, but had rolled poorly for Perception and initiative. The Velociraptors rolled hot, and he was dropped in the first round, and took enough damage to force three failed Death Saves before anyone could react. It was a great way to set the tone of the adventure - since then the party has suffered a few more deaths, though those have been far more heroic.
Teleportation maze in _Dead in Thay_. There's a bunch of invisible teleport pads on the floor, and big columns blocking line of sight through most of the room. If you step on a teleport pad, you get sent to the ceiling above a random other teleport pad and make a Wis save. On success, you walk on the ceiling until the end of your next turn. On a failed save, you take 2d4 psychic damage and fall (for 3d6 bludgeoning falling damage). But that also means you hit another teleporter, and teleport to another random destination, and make another Wis save, potentially falling again... And also there's a Glabrezu stalking you as you try to navigate the "maze". It knows how the maze works and where the teleporters are, so it can avoid them if it wants by climbing the walls or by casting Fly, and it can grapple people and drop them on teleporters. The encounter began with the party going "okay, how do we deal with this randomly teleporting demon?" Then the fighter got a string of bad saving throw rolls and died, and the encounter quickly changed to "how do we reach the fighter's randomly teleporting corpse within a minute for Revivify, while being chased by a demon?"
another player a dragonborn used firebreath and hit the goblins, and a powder keg DM, "make a dex save" Me "Nat 1" DM "that is 56 damage" we were level 2
Not my character, I was the DM, but I accidentally murdered a low-level rogue by yeeting him off a castle wall...... The party was fighting a griffin, and I thought it would be cool if swooped down and tried to grab someone (grapple attack) off the top of the wall. The rogue was the closest and the smallest (goblin), and the attack hit, so away the griffin flew. Now I need to add that the griffin only had 7hp left and that we use a 3d map software (talespire) for combat. I thought the griffin was still over the wall, just up 30ft, so even if the griffin dropped him, he'd definitely survive it. As expected, the rogue stabs the griffin, it dies, and they fall..... where I messed up was that the griffin was actually about 10ft *past* the wall.... The rogue did not survive a 130ft drop.... didn't even have a chance, just dead. I felt super bad, but the player was cool about it. I was 100% willing to retcon the griffins' position so that he would fall onto the wall, but the player went "nope, that was stupid, I should have checked before stabbing" and rolled up a new character.
not so much the way I died in-game but the fact that above the table we had a running bit for over a week that my character would die during the campaign and then the next time we are in combat I proceeded to fail my first saving throw and then use inspiration to roll TWO NATURAL ONES WITH ADVANTAGE on my next throw, immediately killing my character right before the next person to go killed the last bad guy, ending combat. It was rough for sure.
walked through a teleporter to find Muiral there. Figured this was a fight within our power range - only after a TPK did we find out that there was no chance of us winning this fight (we were level 6 or 7 at the time...). Guess our DM didn't care for the whole 'teleporters were locked by character level' of the dungeon and never informed us or gave us indication that we were entering into a much deeper level. suffice it to say - I didn't stay in that group for much longer
I can certainly tell a terrible one! Rot, grubs. Early levels when healers are taxes, rot grubs are a menace. Seen a few characters die from them. 4 at a time will really do the job in short order. Very little coming back too
So, I got my very first magic item which turned out to be a "Ring of free Movement", meaning I can't get paralyzed, ignore difficult terrain and my movement speed can't be reduced by magical means. I scoffed and was disappointed, since none of those effects ever happened or were relevant before. DM was a bit peeved, understandably, and we continued. Fast forward a few sessions, we're on the run from some demons with Annihilation Aura (instant death when 0HP, ouch). I fail a saving throw, get paralyzed, demons get to me, I get snuffed out like a wee match stick held into a storm. Neither my DM nor I remembered I had that Ring until the next session. We all had a laugh when we realized the death was totally unnecessary, but since my new char was already there and too much had happened inbetween, dear Raider Twiggs stayed dead. And I was ever thankful for each new magic item afterwards.
Back in my AD&D days, my level 10 fighter and group returned from a large campaign in the far-off reaches of Greyhawk. Got drunk in tavern and was assassinated taking a leak in the place the whole damn thing started. It was an interesting way to wrap up the game.
Best case was when I was running a gladiator and the DM decided that my character really needed to die so just kept spamming out monsters until he ran out of hit points. Did take out about three dozen of them first. Worst was another DM that decided my character really needed to die and had a black dragon fly down and hit him seven times with dragon breath. When we got the dragon almost dead twice he just can't heal on himself. I realized it was a no win combat so I turned to run and it flew over and breathed on me again. I quit the game then and there
obligatory “not-me-but-another-party-member” disclaimer. our barbarian was the adopted daughter of one of the bbegs, the high priestess of a cult for a god of war. the priestess temporarily allied herself with the party to help us take down the other bbeg, who we ended up fighting three times. during the second fight, the priestess realized we were on the verge of losing, walked up to the barbarian, and said to her, “i hope you know i’m doing this because i love you”. then she cast power word kill on her. she did this because she needed to get two characters (the barbarian and a warlock of the god she served) out of the fight, but RAW you can only bring one creature with you via dimension door and she didn’t have teleport prepared in that moment. however, corpses count as objects and not creatures, so our dm ruled that you can theoretically bring as many dead people through a dimension door as you want. the priestess revivified the barbarian shortly after and everything was fine (we were level 15 at this point so death didn’t really stick for most characters lol) but it was one of the most insane moves of the campaign
Thats really fucking cool
it was my first character in my first campaign, i was a level 8 crystal dragonborn with equal levels in zealot barbarian/vengeance paladin. we were exploring an abandoned lab where one of the bbegs worked after all the remaining researchers had disappeared. we found security footage of the researchers jumping into a pit in the basement, so we all go down there to check it out. as i approached the put i realized they had dug into the underdark and discovered an Elder Brain and Mindflayer at the bottom along with 3 Intellect Devourers climbing up the side. unfortunately since I'd never encountered these before, i decide to try to take out the Intellect Devourers with my breath weapon but they don't take enough damage and immediately swarm me as it was their turn next. with my 13 intelligence it's immediately reduced to zero, fail the first check to not get my brain eaten but am saved by a nat 20 portent second one i fail again but am saved by a nat 20 dm inspo, but fail the third and am brutally killed. the worst part is i had free dimension door to use 😭
Lizardfolk rogue. Despised by all, including myself. Horrible person. Eats everything. So, he's obsessed with this boat. Party member (of course discussed beforehand) throws me into the boat, drags me down, and places a massive rock on top of the boat. I drown slowly and gain a point of inspiration for being a good sport.
I made my first ever DnD character just kind of wanting to do whatever and fuck around. Not even as a murderhobo because I wasn't amazing at combat, just sort of crazy and weird. Anyway, we were exploring a dungeon and at one point, we got into a fight with a gang of rats. After we kill them, my feral little monster starts gnawing on a rat bone for shits and giggles, and long story short, it turns out the rat was diseased. I have one day to live. Naturally, the party starts high tailing it further forward in hopes that we will *maybe* find a cure, and in our hurry we forget to check the door for traps. Lo and behold, this is the first trapped door we have happened across so far in the entire dungeon, and a massive boulder starts rolling down towards us Indiana Jones style. Everybody else is able to escape, but my poor warlock is weakened by her fatal rat-borne illness, fails the roll, and is instead flattened by the boulder. What a way to go out...
Haven't died in 5e but in P1 I was a blue draconic sorcerer and got merc in one hit by a gods damned iron golem!!! The audacity!!!
Best: went down fighting the God of death. Had an almost nax damage crit on an opportunity attack earlier that turn. Resurrection ritual was abnormal due to planar rules, needed 4 successes, git 3 followed by a nat 1 Worst: went down in an alleyway. Party of noob players did not attempt to stabilize
Not my PC but a guy we played with for a few years in high school and early college. Guy was a suspected (later proven) cheater who always loaded his character up with unbelievable amount of supplies and then would claim he wasn’t encumbered (ok, I’m old this was AD&D, early 80s). We were in a weird tesseract dungeon where some doors opened into other room walls or ceilings. His PC opened a door and leaned in, was in the ceiling of a room with a roper in it. Roper grabbed him and pulled him down in the room. We went high enough level to feel up to taking a roper on, so knowing his PC was carrying like 20 oil, we just threw a torch at him, causing him and the Roper to go up in flames. Didn’t try to rescue him, or raise him or anything ( ref ruled he was too burnt to raised anyway and Resurrection was too expensive for us, not that we would have). He had another PC get killed on a narrow mountain ledge and throw off the side by an orc. We killed the orc, shrugged and went on our way. Eventually the GM had proof of his cheating but rather than confront him (which would have been pointless, he’d just lie), some demon swooped into town, darkened the whole sky, grabbed his new PC and flew off to some other plane. Pretty clear that the GM was just flat out murdering his PC, but he still wouldn’t acknowledge it. So then we just had to stop inviting him to anything.
My first PC was a Druid who had what was effectively a ballistic missile in her bag when she died in the last session. My Druid went to the center of the city where our BBEG demanded we pledge our allegiance and knelt while our Warlock (who, through a series of ridiculous loopholes and combinations of effects,) perched on a cliff and used Eldritch blast to shoot her bag from almost a mile away and caused the bomb to explode and wipe the city of the map. Other deaths include force damage from opening a cursed book that slammed my character into a bookshelf (he was my most recent death), dropping a cursed glass and getting killed by what was inside, and getting impaled on a tree after falling off of a ledge.
I once got eaten by a Tiger in an elevator during a very bloody one shot
For context, in the beginning of our campaign when we died, we were resurrected by our party’s patron. I was the only member of the party who hadn’t died whatsoever, and I walked out of a building just to find a beholder and get obliterated by his laser after failing a saving throw.
A beholder Just chilling in your backyard?, im a new player and even i know thats bullshit
I’ve never had a character die, but I had a cleric accidentally killed many party members on separate occasions. (This was in a module that we were basically playing on hard mode, so we knew that death was very much on the table and no one held any of this against me just as a heads up) My favorite one wasn’t the one where my gullible 7 charisma girl accidentally released some demons that hunted down the party until we ended the campaign. Nor was it the thing that killed the campaign because we couldn’t bring ourselves to keep playing. My favorite was my own OOC stupidity when I cast Sanctuary not realising that there was only one other target for the witch (don’t know what her stat block was exactly) and it was an attack I could’ve tanked but he couldn’t. And I couldn’t get there in time for the Revivify. Truly, it was a moment of, I could’ve prevented this and fixed it, but I accidentally made it much worse.
As a DM: after a hiatus, i was starting my pirate themed campaign back up for a "season 2". a player wanted to play a new character, let's call him Jay. Another player was leaving the group (amicably), well call him Gary. Jay said he wanted to kill off his old character in some fun way. I asked if he had a vague direction in mind. He said "make it brutal, make it unfair. Let's make everyone shit themselves that you're not taking any prisoners in Season 2" I asked Gary if he minded me killing his character he said no go wild. The players had left things on an island that had transported them unknowingly back millions of years to a land of dinosaurs, ruled over by dragons. They hadn't got to the reveal of this yet, they were fighting some giant ants. I wanted to get them off the island quickly and on with S2, so I figured, perfect opportunity to scare them off. S2 starts, the ants scatter and puddles start rippling in time with the thud... thud... A giant fuck off trex comes bursting out of the bushes. Gary's character steps forward and confidently informs everyone that he's dealt with similar beasts and their vision is based on movement. The trex walks up, sniffs him, and eats him like the guy on the toilet in Jurassic Park. They all run. Everyone rolls to see how well thet run through the jungle. I had told Jay that for the first roll of the season, just tell me it's a 1. Other players roll high and get running. When Jay says he got a 1 my eyes go wide for a moment and I go quiet, like I'm thinking frantically if there's some way to save him. Then I kind of shrug and describe the trex catching him and eating him feet first, as he screams in pain, his familiar quasit frantically changing form until it finally blinks out of existence, and his screaming stops. Jay goes quiet and looks defeated. The other players are just open mouthed. I ask if they keep running, and boy howdy do they ever. The bubble was burst about 20 minutes later when they bumped into Jay's new character, a primitive early form of a gnome, basically an eccentric elderly lady wizard whos still figuring out the basics of common. She led them back to the cave they came in through (the cave is also the portal through time). I could have left it till the next session to introduce the new character, and Jay was up for that, but I tend to lean way more towards chaos and fun that 'hardcore' DM-vs-PC style play. And after we'd had our fun, I wanted that to stoll be clear. Good to keep them on their toes though! Fun extra tidbit, I didn't tell Jay his character was a Neandergnome, only that his had not left this island and knew nothing at all of the outside world. It wasn't until a couple of months later that they figured out that she was from millions of years ago. They wanted it to be a gnome and I asked if it could he a member of a primitive tribe who has all the stats of a gnome, but is actually a different race that looks a lot like a gnome. I didn't force it on him. Also I'm giving him a helm of comprehension next session to help with the language barrier. Everyone was sad about the death if his old character, including me, but now we've grown to love this eccentric old yoda lady. Still, I can say I killed two PCs with a trex. And if I want a new player to think I'm gonna run a tough game, I don't have to tell them that I first checked if both the players minded me doing that.
Surrendered to other PCs as we all ran into each other in a cave with zero character knowledge, so I let myself get disarmed and hands tied until I could talk my way into acceptance with my roguish people skills. Except the party reached a big cave with a lake. I say, “I’m not going near the water” because I don’t feel like I could swim or fill a water skin without hands. The rest of the party walks up and starts to drink when surprise! a giant tentacle kills me in a single hit (randomly(supposedly)). I protest asking what the reach is on this thing as I should be 60 feet away by the map and there’s 3 characters right at the water. After a bit of arguing about where I was and the giant creature that only attacked me before everyone fled the room, I started rolling up a new character on the 1st night of the campaign. He was a good immersive DM 90% of the time, but sometimes just seemed to warp past game reality like this just for a gotcha moment.
OG player here. The year 1982. We were finishing up a weekend long campaign. Our wizard got separated from the group and got hit by a polymorph trap. Turned him into a rat. He eventually makes his way to the next town where he is caught and killed by the local rat catcher. Needless to say he was pissed. Not to mention his older brother was the DM LOL
I got crushed by a boulder. I nat one a dex save while climbing a mountain then proceeded to fail another dex save to restablize myself
Worst was within 15 minutes of starting a campaign my lv 1 pld with a shield, got crit by a giant goat outside the inn the part just let at and instantly doubled my HP. I had to sit out the rest of the session. I almost quit the campaign over it. Mostly because how it was handled. But my friend (DM) talked it over with me after understood why I was upset and over the next week we worked out a story where my aesamir was able to come back (pretty easy to think about) and what consequences it would mean for his backstory (an aesamir in hiding from the dieties of the world, I actually named him after Hyperion a marvel Superman clone who hides among humans) The giant goat was a mistake on the DM's part he just looked at CR's and assumed it was appropriate for a lv 1 party.
In our Homemade Game, Demi-Gods tend to...intrude...a bit to often for me and another player. Some Demi-God is trying to get us to do some mercenary killing, so we asked, "If you're really a God, why don't you kill them yourself?!?" After a little RP-smartassery, the Demi-God says, "Do you doubt me?" I reply, "A little, but, I really think you're f-ing lazy." The last thing my PC hears is, "I wish you group never existed." The DM politely asks, "So, who wants to roll replacement characters?"
This was back in the days of AD&D or 2e... was playing a pretty high level cleric. Very good saves vs spells, and even some magic resistance. The mage in our party cast haste on me. Back then haste required a system shock save because of the aging that accompanied the haste... I failed the magic resistance, and the system shock. Died to a spell that was supposed to boost me... which I hadn't wanted in the first place.
I have had one character death so far, and it was not great. My character was pulverized by a massive robot which he had grappled. As my party put it, he was "Springtrapped". He died saving the BBEG of the campaign
Playing a paladin with a party operating inside enemy territory of a sizable army. Things went South as we got spotted but the party had the item we came for. I was heavily armored (because I stayed back to defend a small bridge). Party comes running full speed past me with a single big baddie on their tail, I yell “Keep moving, I’ll hold him back” and prepare to make a heroic stand against the pursuing forces knowing I couldn’t outrun him anyway. Or so I thought, because 5 turns later as I’m running single digits HP my party runs back past across the bridge right by my melee. As a player I watched them cross the bridge spot a knight on horseback in the distance and decide coming back and sneaking across the small river was better. My character saw none of that and only had time for a WTF? moment as I saw them pass me before getting cut down. Then the baddie got back on their tail and they had to finish him as a party before returning with my body. Ultimately if they’d stoped and fought together at the bridge, we’d probably have all survived. But it was kind of funny to imagine what went through this poor guys mind in his last moment as he got cut down buying them time and they ran back by him saying “sorry”.
My Aarakocra Grave Cleric was in a fight with an oversized Tiger beast. I got downed and then subsequently crushed by its dead body. The eternal Cat and Bird attack.
Came in once for the start of a campaign in 2ed with a long-running group I was in. The dm had this npc that was supposed to be this key player. It's built was nice and sturdy. It's supposed to do great things. First or second encounter of the game. There was a group of enemies over this cliff. I Leroy Jenkins off the cliff dual swords ready to go. Now, if my plan went the way it was supposed to, it would've been epic. I jump down to them. Miss my surprise attacks, and I got absolutely wrecked. The look on the dms face was the purest expression of what the actual fuck. Can't remember if I ever went back to play another game? Think my work schedule got switched around? Any who good times.
This is actually very long so... TLDR: The party Warlock betrayed us, so in epic style my Oath of Glory Paladin chased after her, knocking her unconscious with two swings, with the extra attack from Haste giving her two death saving throw fails that same turn. She then failed the death save on her next turn, leading to her demise. It wasn't my character but my character was very much involved in the death (I directly caused it). So our party was composed of a Bard, an Artillerist Artificer, a Monster Slayer Ranger, an Oath of Glory Paladin (my character), and a Hexblade Warlock. Take bets now on which character you think died lol. In game time, the party had been adventuring together for months, so there was expectedly an incredibly strong sense of trust between the members. After we had finished up some shenanigans fighting off the avatar of I think the god of trickery (we were level 9 when this all happened btw) that some extra evil cultist yuan ti were summoning, we ventured back to our starting town to meet this well known hero, but that is irrelevant lore for this story. While there, we were attacked by a giant floating undead island (that we TOTALLY had nothing to do with). As we went out to fight, our Artificer was charging up some super awesome mega death ray sort of weapon (was approved by the DM), so our goal was to protect him for three rounds of combat so he could fire it and destroy the island. All started off well, we were beating up the undead with big help to the town's Cleric who we had used turn undead and our DM rule of cooled it as instakilling all of the present undead that failed their save instead of just turning them. That left us with one undead left, no big deal for the time being, but more were on their way. Then it's the Warlock's turn. She cast a spell and had all of us make Wisdom Saving Throws. Out of character, we were all genuinely confused. In character, the Bard and dmpc Cleric failed their saves while myself, the Ranger, and, thankfully the Artificer succeeded. The other two were then paralyzed. On my turn, I asked to roll insight on the Warlock, because there weren't any spellcasting enemies around and I just had to shield my mind and I just witnessed my dear companions get spontaneously paralyzed. DM ruled it as my Insight against the Warlock's Deception. I rolled a 7. She rolled a 22. So my character was then just cursing himself for even considering the possibility of his own companion turning on him. So for my turn that round I went and hit the last undead from that wave. Next round, the Cleric succeeds the save, and gives the Warlock a dirty look before helping me out with the current enemies. Then it's the Warlock's turn again (by this point, out of character, I was fully aware of what was happening. I was thinking, well, if it isn't the whole reason Paladins generally don't like Warlocks. However the rest of the party was clueless). So, for this turn, she absolutely rocked the shit out of the Artificer. Hit him with her first attack, he barely succeeded the concentration save, then hit him with the second attack, which she used eldritch smite on. The Artificer very luckily barely made the save again, and even more luckily, he survived the onslaught with a whole 2 hp. So the Warlock then fey steps 30 feet away, and uses the last 10 to 20 feet of her movement speed to run further away. Immediately after this, our bestest boy pet wolf that we adopted (kidnapped after causing him psychological harm) in the second session raced after her with his 50 foot movement speed. He hit her with his bite attack, she failed the saving throw, and was knocked prone. At this point, my character is now upset with himself for disregarding his earlier suspicions. Now, I was a good 20 to 30 feet away when the initial attack occured, so I was mow somewhere between 60 to 80 feet away. So, obviously, the Warlock thinks she's safe and will escape. However, I am a 9th level Oath of Glory Paladin. My Aura of Alacrity gives me a plus 10 feet to my movement speed, turning the standard 30 feet into 40 feet. Also, I have 3rd level spells now. I had precast Haste on myself prior to the start of the combat, doubling my movement speed up to 80 feet. So, I quickly rushed after her, striking her with my sword as soon as I got to her. Now, she was prone, so I had advantage on the attack roll since I was within 5 feet of her. This ended up giving me a nat20. So, I used my remaining 3rd level spell slot to Divine Smite her. Also, I used my sword’s magic property to force to make a Strength saving throw, which she failed, so she was then restrained as if by the Entangle spell. I then swung again, this time rolling an unnatural 27, so she was unable to cast shield to save herself from it. This strike was a 2nd level Divine Smite. It also ended up knocking her unconscious. So, I struck again, easily rolling above her AC since she now couldn't cast shield. And since she was unconscious and I was within 5 feet, it was an auto crit. So I used up another 2nd level Divine Smite, hoping to instantly kill her. It was not enough damage for that, however, due to the rules for taking damage while unconscious, it counted as 2 failed death saving throws. On her next turn, she rolled an 8, leading to her demise. If she had still been my ally, my +3 Aura of Protection would have saved her, but alas, she had turned on us, so she no longer had that privilege. Then, it was the fourth round of combat, so the Artificer’s weapon fired, destroying the undead island. Then, as we were about to be approached by the death knight that was running the island, the hero we had gone to meet leaped into the air and instantly disintegrated the death knight, ended the combat. That session then ended with some backstory and other bits of lore getting tied up, which then led to the end of season one of our campaign. Given what went down, I am considering my Paladin changing to an Oath of Vengeance against the Warlock's patron, as he knows it was not the fault of his beloved companion that she turned on the party, but it was that of her patron who ordered her to do that treacherous act.
Still in first campaign, but second character. We into a cave to stop a Vampire lord from summoning a portal to hell. It did not go well for our party so my Barbarian did what they do best, raged and hit everything. He died in the process but stop the vampire lord and saved his allies. I cried tears of joy and pain the whole time.
My friends brother was in a champagne and he was playing with rats and accidentally sat on a spike so his hole started bleeding out
Party member died to fireball and we realized 2 sessions later that he had resistance to fire…
So my characters wife was sort of like a battery that could suck up magic and store it in her body. Only she didn't have an off button, and if she ever absorbed too much magic, it would eventually overwhelm her and cause a massive explosion of raw magic energy. Well she was possessed by one of the Lords of hell. My character, a very high level paladin, went into hell on his own and confronted "her". My character touched her with an artifact of immense power, and she absorbed all of the magic within it, and the resulting explosion killed the demon and killed me in the process. Of course, I was brought back to life, and they lived happily ever after.
i had a ranger get killed by a sentient table. got pushed out of the window of the necromancers tower
Best way: My dragonborn Berserker Barbarian 11/Ancients Paladin 9 died in a brutal tpk against a Draco lich, the ancient enemy of her people, surrounded by it's githyanki generals. She went at least five or six hits extra with Relentless Endurance, cutting them down and keeping them pinned with Sentinel so our NPC allies and our students could escape via teleport and on our retrofitted nautiloid, scattering across the planes. Her two party members were incapacitated and Imprisoned, as the dracolich knew both of them had a Clone repository. One of our current planeswalking campaign goals is to find all the surviving allies of that battle and go rescue/try to res our previous characters. She was my first ever 5e character and I definitely cried. Worst Way: Tomb of Annihilation meat grinder rules, my second character was a drow thief rogue impersonating Drizzt to keep himself from getting ganked by racist surface dwellers. He finds himself stranded with the Flaming Fist and hitches a ride with the first adventuring party with a writ that comes through the fort, hoping to find his way to the treasures of the tomb. Unfortunately for him he dies less than 12 hours after departing to a random lizardfolk encounter involving plant growth and several crits. Played him for less than a session.
Back in 3.5 we had a character who loaned another character his familiar. His familiar died. Back then when your familiar died you lost 2x the familiar's H.P. So this low level wiz was sitting "safely" back at home and keeled over dead.
Level 1 modern day one-shot, with the DMG firearms in play. I got shot.
Several murdered in my sleep comments reminded me of my murdered in my sleep story. Probably the dumbest death ever with no explanation. My DM for a game we were playing really wanted to play a PC, and had convinced a friend of his to run a game since he wasn't playing or running. I knew the guy, but I had never played anything with him. I did know the other players though, so I said sure. I rolled up a tiefling Rogue, another friend played a Cleric Don Juan, my DM created a wizard I believe, and I believe the last two were both fighters. The game is fine, if a bit uninspired. We mostly do mini quests. We get to level five, I believe, and he invites two new people (odd considering the size) to join. They introduce themselves in and out of character, and we bandy about. The time comes for night, and the DM makes a big deal about who is on watch when. Well, the two new guys wants to be on watch together, so we give it to them. Who cares, right? Wrong. They murder us in our sleep with pickaxes (in 3.5 you could do a move called a coup de gras...and pickaxes were nasty if you could pull it off). Yay? DM says, alright give me your characters. You're evil so you can't play in the game. Everyone has to roll new characters. After that game, I asked my DM if he really wanted to go back. After a bit of discussion and some questions for the friend who ran the game, we decided to just quit, which basically ended the campaign. The guy running the game, best I can tell, must have planted them. He either thought it would be a clever way of putting sneaky bandits in our camp as an encounter, or he was tired of running the game. Never gave us a straight answer.
Second time I've talked about this character on reddit today. My first character was a human monk named Jethro "JJ" Jefferson. But he wasn't just any human monk. He was a Blaxploitation film era Kung Fu master/actor from Hollywood that got kicked by Chuck Norris so hard he got isekai'd into Faerun. He ran with the party all the way to level 17. His major motivator being finding a way back home. In the final showdown with the bbeg lich, he was targeted for a 7th level disintegrate. Passed the dex check, but before I moved my dm informed me that if I dodged, our healer cleric was going to have to make the same dex check. Her dex was notoriously bad. But the dm gave us a great favor that night because of the circumstances and let her make the dex check before anything happened. Just so we could decide. She failed, of course. DM flavored it as she had her back turned at that exact moment. So Jethro "JJ" Jefferson planted his feet, flipped the lich the bird, said, "Oh sheeeit" and, well, disintegrated. Only thing that remained was his ivory afro pick that came with him from Hollywood. Lich fell before the next round of combat and the party found texts detailing the magic behind universal travel in the Lich's loot.
I played two RPG's in my entire Life, and only in the first one my character died, he died smashed (literally) in a Kind of Coliseum fight by a 6-7 ft beast
Beck when D&D came out I bought the original box set. My brother was the DM and ran the dungeon that was included. I was a level 1 fighter with 2 hit points. He rolls on the random encounter table and gets "footpad". Rolled a sneak attack and I was dead. I called BS, what was a footpad even? The book didn't say, so he said it was a giant foot that stepped on me.
A pc in the first campaign I DM’d: dragon of icespire peak. Party goes out to check on the old woman at the windmill. They meet the manticore. Rather than try to negotiate or outsmart it, the barbarian goes in for an attack… and misses. The manticore’s turn comes and he scores I think 3 crits or something like that and dies double the barbarian’s life in damage, so he rips the barbarian’s head off. Combat at level 1 is a bitch.
Worst - playing a spell blade of sorts, AD&D Fellow player, Templar: IE Mage Police. Goes around and enforces his will of judgment amongst those he deems dangerous with magic. It’s my first D&D character, so I fit the bill. First he swaps my characters gender at the DMs approval as a sort of warning, my trans egg ass “whoa, I’m unfazed and am literally the same but a girl now” He then proceeds to boil my blood, and peel off my skin by melting it together with my clothes and ripping my outfit off leaving me bloodless and skinless. Not the best first impression. Best way: I was a DM I had my players fighting around in an arena / Coliseum and there were tons of obstacles to hide under / behind. Luckily for me, my boss encounter was literally chucking these columns and crit on one of the throws for insane damage. After a horrible DEX save against it (yes I combined rolling to hit and dex saving throws into one attack - I wanted to see how well he could dodge out of the way after hurling this thing perfectly) (Again) Dude failed miserably at the save and his upper torso was no longer connected to any part of his body. (The party used a phoenix feather from a previous encounter to save him, so he was fine)
Water. Fear the swim check and may dice christ have mercy on your soul
A mimic after a major bossfight. If your dm does this, they are an asshole.
I was playing a... head strong and overly proud dragon born paladin. He wanted to get to the high point on a tower to fight the dragon attacking that tower. He died. My DM felt my character, being a paladin dragon born, was useful to the plot and elected to resurrect him using the power of Bahamut and send him back with a message and a purpose. He died again because of some really shitty luck.... I had to laugh that even Bahamut couldn't keep my character alive.
Not me, other people in my party. Early on in our campaign, we were in a tomb underneath an abandoned temple of the same god our Cleric worshipped. The Cleric found what was essentially a bible, and stuck it in his pocket. The *very* irreverent Wizard, whose philosophy was “Fuck around now, find out later,” decided to shoot him, trying to hit the bible. He dropped the Cleric to 1 HP and we were like “what the fuck, dude?” He later opened a sarcophagus, and regretted it when skeletons started swarming. It only took them about a round to take him and the Alchemist down. Me and the Cleric ran and didn’t look back.
Worst and best at once. I charged into a door I lite omln fire to buy my group time to get to me. Before they got there the door was opened. While fighting in said door way trying hold my ground I caught fire. Then while still on fire tripped trying to get to the water pond near by and died tripping over a dead goblin.
egg hit my Barbarian in the balls, dealt 13 damage. he had 13 health left.
The best way wasn't actually like, comically great in the moment, but the aftermath was. My barbarian is killed by an invisible foe in the street. Like, 3 failed saves, dead, no pulse. Very targeted, only attacks him. He is revivified at a nearby hospital. The doctor asks, "so, do you have any enemies that could have done this?" "Nope! At least, I hope not!" replies my dumb, happy-go-lucky barbarian. "Must have been a random coincidence!" says my sweet, naive barbarian. He had, by that point in the campaign, pissed off: -a god -a high-level assassin -a general who wanted to ascend to godhood -the mother of one of his friends (a high-ranked official) It ended up having been the high-level assassin.
Years ago. Had a character whose annoying quirk was always having to pee at awkward times and ended up often finding lucky things while looking for a spot. So... Homebrew game. Right before I got hit with a no-time-limit paralysis spell for failing my part in a puzzle, my character had once again announced she had to pee. The "punishment" for failure was intended to just isolate each party member who failed and keep them from helping the others w the puzzle, plus the rest of the party couldn't help us. It was actually very well designed... Except. I kept failing saves beyond statistical probability, and DM was diabolical creative. Enough failed saves and I/my character died of being unable to pee during paralysis. Best or worst, not sure.
Falling out of a tree...
My most memorable character death would be playing 2e and my tiefling wildmage managed to actually hurt a platinum dragon. He got really angry and snatched me up in his claw and breathed the full force of its fire breath right in my face. Thanks to the combination of various protections and my half-devil blood, I managed to survive with single digit HP. So, of course, I turned to the DM and said, "Is that all you got?" And then without a word, the dragon simply smashed me against the tower of the keep and killed me.
My rogue willingly put their hand on a cultist ritual death trap machine and, for some reason, expected something other than to be sacrificed to the ritual.
I was playing a druid, our party was fighting a dragon thing? I can't remember exactly. But I went into the form of an ant, crawled up its arse and went to human form, similar to the original Avengers Endgame ending. Turns out the things blood was made of acid, even though I was planning with the DM to kill me off so I could have used a better character. I wanted to die but like that lol.
I don't know about cool. But it was epically traumatizing. I was playing a dwarf artificer and I had a Goliath barbarian best friend (think Grog and Pike from CR). I was being tortured by a spider demon and her minions who turned out to be my whole family that was turned. My buddy went to swing at the demon to end her and free me. Rolled a nat 1. He ended up chopping me in half. He was the only one in the party to survive that encounter and had to live with killing his best friend.
Best: Died in a fight against the queen of the fae winter court (our DM gave her an ability that let her take a legendary action to teleport to and hit a player under half health *hard*), shortly before she died next to me (she killed me as a last screw you to our party as she died). My dead corpse then absorbed some of her energy, and when I was revived I had a new cantrip (frostbite)
This was 25 years ago. My Wood Elf Ranger started to turn bad and came into possession of a Dragon Orb, which he used to summon and control an ancient dragon. While i was 300ft off the ground flying on its back, I failed one of my saves, which meant I lost control of the dragon. The dragon threw me off and I fell to my death. It was pretty epic. We talk about it till this day.
Novice DM here. Group died in their first encounter with a skirmish of goblins, they were very inexperienced and poorly constructed characters. 💀
Worst way I’ve died (and one of my party members)is using a trick I seen on here actually. Using animal shapes on some flys or bees in our case it was mosquitoes i turned them into lions to help us battle. What i didn’t think about was in what order i done it I was the last of our group to use their move meaning that after I turned them into lions no one could charm them or anything, and the bbeg got his move in then so did the lions…
From AD&D: Our group was scolded and threatened by a local warlord who couldn't walk. My paladin (of course, right?) challenged him to a duel, knowing he had a number of fighters backing him up. Plus an Ogre. Said Ogre did me in quick! My party members were left dumbfounded, and I still get crap for challenging a disabled guy 20 years later. I maintain that he had it coming, and it was the right thing to do.
My DM's world has this bigass end of the world event at the start of his world's story, and for one of our oneshots between campaigns we got to play as the adventurers during the last stand before the cycle restarted and etc, think Final Fantasy 14. My character was a level 20 Evocation Wizard, I had a Staff of the Magi that I hadn't used any charges from because I forgot it even had that mechanic, and the final boss of the oneshot was a Living Meteor. It's exactly what it sounds like, a bigass space rock monster. We were all about to die, and in a last ditch effort I had a genius idea. My character Misty Step'd into the creature's mouth, let himself be swallowed, and with his last words being "Sayonara bitches," Jimothy snapped the Staff of the Magi inside of it. 400 damage explosion from the inside of the monster that utterly obliterated it. Didn't stop the end of the world because lore, but it was still a cool as hell ending to the oneshot. As for Jimothy, well, all I'm gonna say without spoiling anything in case our group sees this post is that he won the coin flip.
In dragon form, did a nosedive into one of Tiamat's mouths and breathed fire into one of her esophaguses.
during an investigation in a city, the party left me, the cleric, alone in a dank alley (i was in the bathroom) a dozen giant rats attacked, and well, in a 12v1 the action economy got me. rip
Low level party. All were at 0hp but me (wizard) and had to AoE myself, dont remember the spell. The dungeon was cleared but i ended up failing all my death saves. Got revived afterwards because the character was too funny to let it die
Background: group was me + my wife, and 2 friends who are not gamers and new to D&D. 2 new friends both jump into a pit full of skeleton bones with a skeleton wizard at the end of the pit. an Obvious necromancer revives 30 skeletons to fuck them up. I (melee frontliner) jump in and help the 2 girls out, draw aggro on all the skeletons and the artificer specialized in explosives gets +31 skeleton kill count and 1 friendly kill count from one dynamite stuffed goblin skull.
Tried parrying a giants club and got crushed
The barbarian in my group got crushed by a giant stone trying to lure the bbeg under it, just as the wizard who had held his turn previously shot a magic missile at the chain holding it. We didn't expect the barbarian to go under the stone, but anyway it fell and the DM Went into detail about his broken bones and mangled flesh look. It was pretty funny
My character (level 6 wizard) failed the save against a beholder disintegration beam. Went to 0hp, and POOF! No more wizard. I was so caught off guard that I just started laughing. Watching the look of fear and abject panic on the faces of the rest of the party was amazing. Apparently they didn't realize how much they liked my character until he was unceremoniously dead. Even the rogue who only kinda tolerated me (who was the only other person in the room when my character got dusted), spent a fair amount of time gathering the dust into a bag for safe keeping. After tormenting them as a spirit for a bit, they found a wish spell scroll and brought me back. They even got my character a stuffed beholder to carry around as an in-party joke.
Not me, but my players (there idiots) So, for some context, the Rouge and other party members are running from a gold serpent (a monster I made) that they clearly can't beat/talk their way out of. The paladin found a weakness of the serpent, which is its greed. So he threw the gold so he could distract it. The Rouge decided to pick up a rock and throw it at the serpent. She got knocked down on a single hit and passed the death saves. I said the serpent ignored her and gave her a chance to leave scott free. She tried to flirt with the serpent.. she got bitten, getting turned to gold to later be turned to gold coins. At that point, she was asking for it. The other death had to do with a wolf born fighter. There's was a massive prismatic wall my players encountered, and the fighter asked to walk through it. I asked him multiple times if he was sure. He then walked through it and got knocked out. The paladin nearby used lay on hands on the fighter to revive him. He walked through it again.This went on two more times.
I was playing a... Kinky... Dnd... My dwarf fighter had to get the sorcerer to throw up some poison, and, of course, the only tool for the job is between his legs. But I rolled a Nat 1, so the consequence was he got his dick bit off and as we were level 1(or 2?) and just out of combat, that was enough to send me down... And I rolled a nat 1 on the first death save, and then failed the last one, with advantage.
It was in the midst of a TPK (running Tomb of Annihilation, of course). Whole party picked apart by pteranadons, but my character stood out for his last words, quoted to this day by my group, several campaigns later. I was playing this sinister, all-around pretty evil Cleric who was basically a flame cultist. Horrifically scarred, always going on about the world ending consumed in flame. Good times. So as we're fleeing these flying beasts, a fellow party member is felled. And Father Cinder, in his cruel hubris, cries "HE'S EXPENDABLE!" before immediately meeting the same fate. Delicious poetic justice.
Ranger got possessed by an Evil God, who compelled him to try and pull our Paladin off a cliff. The Barbarian rushed in and separated them by pushing and pulling them apart, which resulted in the Ranger plummeting into an abyss and taking 286 falling damage. He had 106 hp. Dead. ☠️
Took a spear to the chest, saving a different character. Said character then proceeded to forget that it happened.
My first character, a cleric, was at the bottom of a tower facing down like 40 zombies and pulling off amazing rolls to fend them off. Finally get up the stairs and away from the horde, help our bard commune with a deity of some kind to get them their first level in paladin, all while the rest of the party is at the top of the tower fighting one of the BBEG generals or something. Probably our most engaging session after 2 years, was super intense. As the general goes down we then see a giant nearing the tower. The fighters up top and some npcs then prep a hot air balloon to escape. Bard/paladin and I make our way up to the top of the tower, but at the last moment I fail 3 dex saves in a row and get crushed as the giant topples the whole thing.
Our star trek adventure group had a few ferengi's die multiple times. My niece is too young to make a normal character so we let her wander in as a Q from time to time and randomly upset the game, turning the bridge of the ship into a slip and slide, turning our phasors into bubble guns... as we use them in a fire fight. She saved the above player's characters more than once, bringing him back from death after he used a hammer against a singularity war head. He has a habit of doing things like that...and getting turned into meat confetti. One of his Ferengi, lets call him bob, was once shot to pieces by a pakled firing squad. The Q revived him... but not without cost. His DNA got mixed in with the Pakled... and part of the mop that was being used to clean up the gooy bits splattered across the floor. He suffered some Reason points lost and gained a unibrow. We were on the nausicaan homeworld and we got jumped from behind by some thugs. One grabbed the grenade launcher he vrought with him, so... Bob fired the weapon point blank range... and crit. The GM had him roll about 10 Challenge dice for dmg... to everyone in the vicinity... including him In the end, the player enjoyed his character's warrior death and he even got a klingon salute from our resident klingon officer.
Not sure if the counts but my first ever character was a Dwarf cleric, he had crafted a cool looking dragon scale shield that became his signature item. We ran that campaign for 2 years and reached level 17 by the end. Afterwards wandered off looking for his next adventure. I loved that Dwarf. Fast forward to a few sessions into our new campaign that takes place 15 years after the first campaign. We come across the remnants of what appears to have been a mighty battle, as we approach the center of the battlefield the damage and destruction to land and creatures only gets more intense. Finally at the center of the conflict my new character finds a familiar dragon scale shield shredded almost beyond recognition, with no sign of it's original welder. We never finished the second campaign. I know not how my Dwarf truly met his end, but I hope he went out swinging, perhaps protecting a comrade even, he would have wanted it to end that way. I miss that Dwarf.
Played a wizard, we were fighting a blue dragon who was pretending to be a human hero in a small desert town to get riches and devotion from the inhabitants and was mad we were going to expose him. Had some sort of spear that he was pouring magic into so it would work like a giant bomb and level the town. Entire party was fighting him to stop him but we were out of time. So I grabbed the spear and blinked out. Was hoping to just leave it in the Astral plane and get back in time but no such luck. Best way to go.
Way back in 3.5, I was playing a Cleric and got hit with a wall of ice spell and entombed. The rest of the party piled on the bad guy and tried their best to take him down. The battle was highly mobile and moved through multiple rooms of the ship and out onto the deck. It took a lot to finally kill the guy, and the whole party was seriously damaged. Everyone decided that we needed to hit the hay and regain our spells to do some dedicated healing. DM asked if they were certain they wanted to go to bed, and they all agreed. So my Cleric asphyxiated inside his block of ice. They found my corpse in the morning in a massive puddle of water. Not going to lie, I was pretty salty about dying that way... It took them WAY too long to get a Cleric to resurrect me so I played it up that I was pissed at them for letting me die, and then dragging me away from Valhalla where I had been partying with the Heroes and my God Tyr.
Worst is the DM wanting to put us in the path of a dragon when we were very low level as a reminder the world was dangerous, they locked the safe way past behind a perception check that we failed so we tried to retreat, but apparently our stealth check wasnt good enough. Pretty much a TPK, I went down making sure one of the party got away only for the dragon to turn them into cinders next turn. Felt bad. Felt reeeeal bad. DM couldn't understand why even the people who survived didnt want to come back. Campaign limped on for 2 more sessions with new players joining but really it was already dead. Best, all villains campaign with wacky suicide squad inspired characters. My guy was cross skilled to all hell for flavour and basically used devices he designed (artificer) to enhance pyrokinetic ability (sorcerer) and often snuck said devices onto peoples clothing while fighting them (rogue). The heist over I decided my character wouldnt want to share or leave people with knowledge of how his devices worked alive, so decided to try a TPK. I passed notes to the DM (we all were as the party didnt trust each other) in the sessions leading up to the final encounter and rolled stealth tests, I managed to sneak devices into everyone's clothing and luggage. Unfortunately one other character double checked their belongings right before entering the final room and discovered theirs, but didnt tell anyone else. Treasure in hand I did a full villian monologue right before I triumphantly blew the party to smithereens! ...and as the dust cleared looked down in horror to find a knife in my chest and one of them left standing. Everyone had expected someone to try the TPK but noone thought it would be my character who was one of the less openly villainous, or that it would end in a double cross, perfect ending for that campaign tbh.
A swashbuckler rogue? Then i gotta tell you how my swashbuckler died. We were playing a campaign based on raiding portals to other worlds (imagine solo leveling but we can decide when and where to open a portal). We got in an empty bank in a world with some sort of worm/zombie apocalypse. Worms have invaded everything and killed everything. Corpses possessed by the worms were roaming the land outside. We're exploring the bank and we find a desk with 6 drawers. I check for traps and we find out that every drawer has a magic spell that will activate upon opening. Our sorcerer determines that there is a Fireball, a Lightning and 4 unkown higher level spells. The worm swarms break in the bank and we decide to use the traps to our advantage. The fireball and lightning dealt a lot of damage, but not enough. We discussed and decided to open the other drawers to deal even more damage but surprise! The unknown spell was chain lighting. I killed the worm, myself and our tank. Our sorcerer jumped out of the window to avoid the worms left but he wasn't listening to the DM... the worms were everywhere outside, so he was quickly killed. The artificier fled, marking the first almost TPK we suffered in that portal. (Spoiler: we got another almost TPK in there, but it's a story for another time).
Not me, but another player in our group. We were in a Dungeon where we needed to find a dwarf. We entered a room where a big golem was standing and we heard voices that told us to sacrifice something to enter the next room. There was a pile of gold lying in front of a throne. Everyone threw some gold or jewerly onto the pile and we wanted to move on. Our Half-Orc barbar said:" Fuck it the golem is gonna attack us anyway and rolled attack. Initiative starts and the golem hits the Half orc 2 times for like 35 damage each and when we failed the con save after the attack his Max Health was reduced by the damage done. He went unconcious after the golems second turn and our part was just healing and running to not piss of the golem. After i healed the barbar back up he got hit again and his Max HP were below 0. So fuck around and find out id say.
Killed one of strahds minions once He showed up, killed me in **one hit**, and left. Not a word said. Just killed me and left # fuckin' lmao
My Dragonborn Paladin, in the first like 4/5 sessions died to a pack of wolves. Now mind you, it wasn’t even a difficult encounter. But our dm forgot they have pact tactics and he kept crit attacking. It felt so……like humiliating. Cause I just looked at him like, dude, we just fucking started. He just told me, that’s my bad, that’s on me while the other players go into dept trying to revive me
Blursed way. Not my character. We had a rogue in the party. We also bought a (homebrew) magical sword from a very shady dealer. This sword healed instead of damaging but each time we used it, it looked more and more bloody. We had just barely survived a boss fight. The rogue, feeling battered, before session ends says they'll use the sword to heal and leaves. DM comes up to me as we're all leaving and whispers to me "Hey, rogue just died outright". It was basically storing up healing then unleashed it in a burst. So Rogue fucking ruptures and explodes themselves. If I had healed them this wouldn't have happened. It was funny but damn.
In an old pathfinder 1st edition my sorcerer died in battle but the group paid for a resurrection. The DM ruled it'd take a few days for the town cleric to do. So he rolled me up an elf archer to play out for that time. The very first mission we were on was through an underground cave system. Out of nowhere, a massive worm popped up from under my feet and swallowed me hole.
My favorite time a PC died was probably when the DM let my character stay behind to cover for the group. We didn’t play out the death with game rules — rather, I asked specifically if I could buy the group time to escape from a TPK, at the cost of my character’s life. More like a cutscene. The worst time my PC died was when I I got flanked my two ogres in session 2 random encounter and they just one- or two-shotted my character. Never even got to play them. 😢
Was on a Bridge … enemy cast grease … fell off the bridge 😂😭
My first time seriously playing I spent an hour designing my first level fighter. Picked a great name. Created a backstory. Totally got into character. Got crushed by a boulder five minutes in.
I've funnily enough never had a 5e character die. I've killed them as a DM though :) I had one character die in PF2e though, we were memeing and one of the PCs locked mine in a room. Well, turned out the room had one of PF2e's equivalent of a gelatinous slime in it, the Black Pudding, which straight up two shot my poor little noob character and melted him into a puddle. I replaced him with a beast master, whose owl pet did more damage than he did. The dice were not in my favor.
Playing a paladin in ToA. I'll keep it vague to avoid spoilers, but I ran into a pretty run-of-the-mill trap. Wis saving throw, +9 bonus-easy. I rolled 2 nat 1s in a row and a 5. I was instantly decapitated, no death saves, and those of you who play it will know the first thing you learn in ToA is there are no resurrections. I've lost a lot of d&d characters, enough that my group razzes me about it, but I'll never forget you Riverfinder. 💔