Stupid Deaths
You know that part of Return of the King where the Rohirrim charge the forces of evil? It stands as my single favorite moment in all of fantasy literature, and makes a pretty swell action sequence on-screen. Replicating that moment at the table, however, is not a good idea. And if I have to explain why, you’ve forgotten Theoden’s war cry.
Sacrificing yourself for the sake of your party is a fine and noble thing. Unless your backstory involves a pilgrimage to Karak Kadrin, however, it probably shouldn’t be your main goal in life. That’s because PCs take work. As gamers we devote months and years and dozens of sessions to our favorite PCs. That way, when they finally do go out in a blaze of glory, there’s some real weight behind it. In other words, it’s tough making a “stupid death” feel properly heroic.
What do I mean by “stupid death?” Such pathetic ends lie in an ill-timed crit from an ogre at level 2. In the “oops I forgot to heal” between goblin fight #2 and goblin fight #3. And at higher level, in charging out for death and glory against a non-boss enemy without taking the time to buff, do a little recon, or think through a proper strategy.
Thus far I’ve talked about noble sacrifice like it’s always intentional. But far more often it only becomes a “noble sacrifice” in retrospect. Ya know… During the eulogy. Doing like Magus and seeing the dollar signs, leaping the barricades, and declaring a charge is a question of impulse control. Especially if you’re running in a Gygaxian naturalism kind of game, you’ll want to know whether the dragon on yonder mountaintop is of the “young adult” or “great wyrm” persuasion. In all cases, a healthy amount of caution is about more than beating the game as a game. It’s also about earning the epic finale that your character so richly deserves. No one wants to bump heads with an APL +∞ monster only to go out like a chump. So my advice is simply this: Pick your spots and bide your time. If you’re lucky, your last stand will be an epic triumph rather than and pathetic whimper.
Question of the day, then! Have you ever endured a “stupid death” in one of your games? Was it bad dice luck, or did you make a critical tactical blunder? Let’s hear about your most deadly oopsies down in the comments!
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I was really new to Pathfinder and tabletop RPGs in general. I was playing a bard and had been given a crossbow that I didn’t have proficiency in. So I wasn’t able to hit anything with it. I was inside a building while a Magus was attacking my party outside. So, instead of shooting and likely missing with the crossbow, or going out the door and spending a round or two running around the corner, I instead to go straight for the Magus by climbing out the window. I failed an Acrobatics check and got hit by an AoO. The very next turn was the Magus’. He attacked me a second time and I was out. The next session was the debut of Irlana. Who knew better than to climb through a window.
There’s a reason you pay extra for the flying boar. Far fewer deaths from gravity that way.
Gravity wasn’t the problem. It was a single story house. I got wailed on by a Magus two turns in a row at level two.
Given the size of that energy flare, I think Magus remembered to buff along the way to the charge lane.
Sadly, she didn’t reckon with the shield bonus of her enemy’s big toenail. Those things are crazy hard to hack through.
My stupidest death was my first. We had been invited into the abode of a powerful mage, who we discovered had zombie servants walking around. As we were shown around the place, a noticed a book. I immediately assumed it to be the mage’s spell book. I grabbed it and ran, hoping that the loss of it would do great injury to this necromancer. It turned out however, that this necromancer was a lich.
I gave the book to the acaroka monk and he fled, while I and our NPC allies took another direction. A power word kill took out one ally; fireballs and magic missiles took out the other. I was targeted by a hold person, and failed miserably. The other player, the monk, then chimed in, “You’re a divine soul sorcerer. You can add a bonus to the roll!”. I knew that, with my poor roll, it was highly unlikely that I would succeed, but I was trying out divine soul for the first time, so against my better judgement, I decided to anyway, still failing. I managed to break free and run for the trees. The lich, bored with the chase, decided to give up, offering a parting magic missile before flying off.
…I had five health left. I failed two death saves, then made two, then failed the last by ONE. If I had saved that saving throw bonus I would of made it, but I had already spent that ability.
And the worst part? The “spell book” was actually the lich’s diary, which contained no useful information and was disliked by the lich anyway.
Steal from liches? Get stitches.
I’m starting to think Magus might have a grudge / Dwarf-level hateboner towards giants.
What mysterious event happened in her past to set her on thin insane vendetta against the big folk? The world may never know.
A giant stole her favorite treehouse/scratching post to use as a club, perhaps? Or stepped on whoever was brave/insane enough to train Magus in the mystic art of “Will it blend?”.
Naw. We already know who “taught” Magus her skills…
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/dropping-some-knowledge
…at Miss Spine Eater’s School fro Unruly Young Ladies:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/origin-stories-team-bounty-hunter
And it was the opposite of a giant that killed that guy:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cessation-of-hostilities
I have sort of an opposite story, oddly. So, our party had a stupid death, but it wasn’t mine, and it led to my character being robbed of a good death. To understand the full background, you have to know that my group plays with a sort of loose multiverse understanding – all the settings exist in different universes and times in a weird mashup between the MCU and Wheel of time that sounds cool, but only is when you’re lucky.
Because of this, we tend to recycle characters a with the understanding that they’re the old character re-incarnated at level one. This campaign was a big one. We all picked some of our favorite champions, all wizards because of the weird homebrew we use which is basically a new system, and we do the wizard thing, studying and developing and delving for secrets in ancient catacombs. You know, standard. But, in one of these sessions, our pixie illusionist accidentally rips out her own soul with a mysterious arcane machine. I say accidentally; she knew what she was doing, but she didn’t think through the consequences which were that the god of death (a former PC whose rules were well established) would hunt her down and drag her to the otherworld. Her player appealed to the GM, but she died fair and square, so the rest of the party intervened with what leverage powerful wizards had and appealed to death and, because we’d done some work for his temple and I’d worked at his alter to learn some magic concerning souls, he agreed to fast-track her re-incarnation.
So, next session, we find a tribe of shifters who are being oppressed by some drow, one of whom is quite young and has the skillset of our pixie, minus some magic and plus some more mundane rogue skills. We fight off the drow, escape with the tribe, and think it’s good, but the player who died didn’t agree.
Cut to about twelve sessions on, and we’ve come to the end of a big arc. The end of the world is looming, and my character, who was always the bad egg of the group, has pulled on some strings to track down his evil uncle, who offers to give us the information in exchange for a powerful macguffin that will let him do generic evil things and take over a different world. We, being largely good guys if in more of the renaissance ‘enlightenment and learning are righteousness’ way, refuse him, until he offers the one of us who agrees a boon an top of this.
Now, he’s powerful. The same way PC’s recur, the GM tends to have big bads recur if we don’t beat them, but usually they don’t die but just hop through the cycle and get more powerful, until they’re unassailable evils who’s minions are campaign bosses. He could give us pretty much anything and my character, whose power base is summoning demons and who started the game with dark deals made before he was born binding him, is the obvious sell. But my character, unbeknownst to him, is real good at soul magic. I realize that I can pull the information out of him with a magical sucker punch by merging with his soul, around the same time I realize he has a Very Bad Spell pre-cast through his familiar, ready to go off as a reaction if one of us attacks.
This spell is another big one, because it’s one of the biggest sins a character can commit to cast it. It’s powerful dark magic which auto-kills if it hits you by destroying your soul. If it hits me, I’m dead. But if I’m merged with him while it happens, so is he. I realize that in one move, using everything my character has built up for, I can save the world the party has been building up, take out one of the big reoccurring villains, get out of my existing dark compacts, and die like a hero.
Then, before I can open my mouth, the pixie-turned-shifter says “I’ll do it, if you change me back into a pixie.” Never mind that his character has no recollection of any past lives, or that it’s meta-gaming. And since we have a no table talk rule, it can’t be construed as out of character. So big bad agrees, makes a verbal magical contract, snags the macguffin, tells us what we needed to know, and bounces.
I was so lost as a character after that, and so mad at him, that i wound out retiring my demon summoner next session, dropping him out into the space between worlds, and coming in as a comic relief treasure hunting british rodent. I’ve never quite forgiven him for it.
That’s a long way to go for anti-climax. I gather you were trying to replicate your character’s experience with the wall o’ text. 😛
Honestly though, I’m surprised the GM didn’t call a halt right there. If it’s metagaming with no way to know, that seems like the kind of spot where you’re supposed to cut the tension and pump the breaks. “Hey man, your character has no memory of being a pixie. We’re going to retcon the last 15 seconds.”
Pretty sure I’ve told the story of this death before – I ran across the heads of a herd of giant goats, in order to land next to a giant elemental T-Rex. I was nearly eaten alive, until I died in it’s mouth.
I ignored every “are you sure you want to do that?” along the way, and got a pointless death in a travelling encounter between plot points. But it was cinematic, and in character, and I wouldn’t do anything differently if I had the chance again.
“It was cinematic, and in character, and I wouldn’t do anything differently if I had the chance again.”
–That dude’s tombstone.
How many times has Eldritch Knight died?
My first character in D&D ever was Gabe the human Wizard. I was 6 at the time, this was AD&D. He used his 1 spell a day to cast Magic Missile then got cut in half by a Frost Giant.
During Tomb of Annihilation we were fighting off a horde of Devils. One of my allies was badly wounded. The plan was to heal her up with all of my Paladin healing. Then the Devil’s leader entered the scene. I attempted to open negotiations since I know Devils value souls and the Death Curse is probably hurting their bottom line. Negotiations break down and instead of healing my ally, I get mad and attack the Erinyes. She then kills my ally which really pisses me off.
Shortly thereafter we had a player joining for one session. They were actively detrimental, catching us in their own AoEs and the like. They then decided to run ahead triggering an encounter with 10 Quadrones. Quadrones have 4 shortbow attacks apiece, so their 40 arrows blotted out the sun, killing the idiot in the first round before we could come to fix things.
Arrowed!!!
http://gph.is/2pyIk2E
I have to admit, your magus getting into all the same trouble as my miqo’te red mage (built on a magus) has me wondering if you are secretly following her exploits.
Either way, any Magus post gets shared with a “Dammit, Cam” in the group now.
The path of the feline gish is a narrow one, and often ends in splatter sound effects. That’s why you get the other eight lives.
Godspeed, Red Mage! May you spend your remaining lives wisely.
From one feline gish to another, live fast, die fabulous!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/440985358164033538/464499728848257034/20170708145905_1.jpg
Stupid deaths? Oh boy.
My first character, a Tiefling Bard, died in a spectacularly silly way. Whilst visiting a random town on the way to the party’s manor, the DM rolled a random weather effect… And by incredibly poor luck, got a tornado.
Now, these things are deadly as heck – pummeling you for 8d8 damage per round, so we made sure to get as many villagers as we could to shelter, as well as ourselves. All seemed well… Until my Bard realized, they forgot his dire bat! It was still in the stables of the town, completely unprotected from the oncoming vortex of death. My bard paid good money for her and was rather fond of the flying fuzzball, so in a gesture of foolish heroics, he made a mad dash to rescue her by dragging her off to the shelter.
Unfortunately, as heroic and dramatic as it was, a failed reflex save from both of them lead to them reaching new and exciting heights. A mere two rounds of deadly winds and flying debris were enough to end his musical career. It took quite the effort for the party to find his equipment and/or body afterwards!
As for my current campaign, we’ve had:
Death by giant fish, two players. Our monk was ambushed by a huge-sized fish with an absurdly powerful bite, which critted, one-shotting her. Our Swashbuckler dove in to rescue her whilst the others pulled her out of the water, but alas, a failed stabilization check lead to her bleeding out. Luckily, the ship’s captain had a scroll of Breath of Life, and all was well… Except our Swashbuckler was still tangling with the fish. One chomp brought him to near-KO, and the second one would tear him apart. We had to fry the fish with magic to recover his body (and the plot artifact he was carrying!).
Death by betrayal. We found an alchemist in the middle of a dungeon, and rescued him. During a fight with a powerful spider-like fiend however, he betrayed us, tossing bombs that did tremendous damage to our already-hurt brawler, putting her at death’s door, and allowing the spider to rip her head off. We had to flee the battle with dimension door afterwards, leaving the Alchemist to enjoy the ‘company’ of the spider in our stead.
Death by KALI MA and UNLIMITED POWER! Turns out, giving a level 11 party the challenge of fighting a 15th level wizard necromancer with mooks amps the difficulty significantly. A single spell targeting our Sorceress lead to her heart exploding out of her chest, and her dying horribly the next round. The only possible prevention was Death Ward, which was used on a different player. That particular encounter forced us to use a precious True Rez scroll, as we wouldn’t have access to regeneration for a long while – and the regular rez spells don’t work if a death effect kills you. The other player was whittled down by a combination of bad reflex saves and high damage blasts. Taking 50 damage whilst at 10% hp was enough to kill her off, and force her character to leave for the Fey courts due to their Fey-based prestige class.
Poor bat… It remind me of the old Crimson Skies game where you could get bonus XP for saving your dog when you bail out. Extremely heroic, and extremely deadly.
After fighting with a group of giant ants, my Oracle asked the party if everyone was okay or needed healing. I foolishly did not suspect the boisterous claims of the Barbarian or the rest of the party that they were fine – until said Barbarian was unconscious on the floor. Our frontline crumbled quickly after that and our entire party got grappled and devoured by ANTS.
So I suppose being below half HP counts as being fine in Pathfinder. But I do count this as being way overconfident in your skills.
Sometimes, good RP makes for bad tactics. And dead barbarians.
Not me, luckily. Still other one in the group once got the great idea of using Circle of Death, his exchange with our DM was more or less this.
My friend: I cast Circle of Death on that guy
Our DM: Are you sure?
My friend: yes!!
Our DM: But you-
My friend: I cast Circle of Death. On. That. Guy!!!
Our DM: Yes, but see-
My friend: What there is to see? I roll damage.
Me: Wait may be you should-
My friend: Roll damage? I already did that.
(Our DM and me seeing each other and deciding to let him do as he pleased)
My friend: I got (does some quick math) 34 necrotic damage. Hey, even with the saving throw that is enough to kill that guy!!!
Our DM: Great! Now roll a constitution saving throw.
My friend: What? Why?
Me: Maybe because you are in the area of effect?
My friend: Fck! (roll a con-ST) Fucking f*ck!!! Why you guys didn’t told me?
(The whole group putting a “Seriously?” face)
In my friend defense it was the first time he used a magic user class and that day he was more stupid than usual 🙂
On a side note have you seen the fight against the Gleam Eyes in Sword Art Online? I think is a good example of an almost stupid death, for the protagonists at least 🙂
Heh. The self-blast is never fun. My sorcerer pal damn near killed me when I told her that her fireball struck a nearby wall when she tried to shoot blindly down a trap door.
I only saw season one of sword art. It’s been a while though, so I’m not sure if that fight was in there.
Yes, SAO S01 E08-09, eighth the boss appears and in the ninth episode Kirito almost die. Way to avert a Stupid death, lucky kid 🙂
Since in many games, computer for example, there is not friendly-fire and the area of effect is only relevant for the critters, in a tabletop game and with a player that usually not play a magic user class you can got many accidents, if not “accidents” indeed. I usually play magic users classes, Wizard, warlock/witch and sorcerer, in that order, the first thing i read of any rpg is the magic system rules. My friend was playing a magic class for the first time, and as i said he was more stupid than usual 🙂
By some ridiculous miracle, none of the characters I’ve played have ever died. The closest to stupid death I’ve ever had was in a 4e game where I played as an eladrin cleric. The party was battling kobolds for the first encounter of the game. We were inside a tiny hall between two rooms, facing to the room where the kobolds were. After bringing the rune priest’s HP back to above zero, for some gosh darn reason I teleported into the kobolds’ room and cast an AOE spell that damages enemies and buffs allies who are in the blast radius. I managed to make one of the kobolds bloodied, but when it came to the kobolds’ turn, one of them brought my character down in one hit. So I was making death saves for my character while the rest of the party dealt with the kobolds. Not only did the party won and my character didn’t die, but the minotaur rune priest brought my eladrin cleric’s HP above zero.
I definitely learned my lesson after that.
Sounds like my first encounter with burning hands. As it turns out, being close to orcs is not good for a squishy wizard’s health.
There’s always the possibility that Magus turns out to have that Touch of Golden Ice exalted feat.
We can only hope.
Stupidest death was not me but the gunslinger in a campaign I was running we were using the early fire arms rules so two misfires without a quick clear does 1d2 damage. So as you might expect our noble gunslinger misfires once then shoots again the next round misfires again only he’s an orc and is in ferocity and the 2 damage from the misfires kills his character.
Well at least now you’ve got a gun with the Mjölnir shtick. ‘Whosoever holds this gun, if he be worthy….”
I think our stupidest party death was our monk. (Was large, and quadraped, so super high carry) we were in a place that had a broken iron golem, and an unbroken looking metal statue.
The sorcerer, bard, and swashbuckler see the room, and refuse to enter with the heavy stone door. The paladin goes in, as we were searching for a famous paladin that was the queens guard. Alongside our ranger who was the more perceptive to help.
The pair are looking over an ornate display sarcoughagus, as the monk goes up to the statue, and says “I Suplex it.” Despite 3 dead and crushed bodies in the room, and the whole party looking aghast.
Queue the whole party looking at the monk, as he gets one shot, the paladin barely manages to find the control word and symbol from things, barely clinging to life after, as the party could only sit there and listen.
Play chaotic random games, win chaotic random prizes.
My stupidest death was because the DM in a 2e AD&D game decided to use some third-party critical hit/fumble tables.
So after winning initiative in the very first round of the very first combat of the campaign, my character rolls a natural 1 – fumble. The DM rolled on his fumble chart, which resulted in “Critical hit to self”. He then rolled on the critical chart, and got “Decapitation”. The campaign literally began with my character cutting her own head off.
If we ever get to finish our little game (currently in hiatus due to problems), the first order of business is checking out how many of our 4th level kiddos will die via royally pissing off one certain Jarlaxle Baenre and then hanging out in a secluded place to try and lure one of his henchmen out. Without any real plan or setting up defences, of course. We all got a case of stupid that evening.
Oof. Reading Salvatore increases life expectancy. True facts.
It didn’t help. He’s really insufferable and we just had to douse him with magic shampoo. Also we managed to get away that time, so everything should work out, right? Right?
Oh yes I stupid death I have had and it wasn’t even my fault. The very first encounter we were fighting a goblin raid and during it my friend was trying to shoot one of the goblins. He ended up rolling a nat 1 and in so doing hit my in the back of my head killing me instantly.
Another stupid death I had was my fault. It was session one and we were at the quest givers mansion. He offered us something to drink. I was playing a cocky goliath so i said “Bring me your strongest drink!” He brought me something called skull crusher wine. Me being the cocky goliath decided to drink the whole bottle in one go! Needless to say foam came from the mouth.
Not your friend’s fault either. That’s Clown Shoes’s fault.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/fearsome-foe