My 1st-level Fighter / 1st-level Wild Magic Sorcerer died fighting off creatures with blindsight... after he threw up a Fog Cloud hoping to "even the odds" and not realizing what senses the enemy actually possessed. The miscalculation caused the death of two teammates as well.
It didn't help that I didn't realize I could drop the Fog Cloud at any time by just no longer concentrating on it. Literally went down fighting. Ah well, that was early into my exposure to 5e, I chalk it off as a learning experience.
I was playing as a Skeleton Pirate, and I had a crew of like 40 men with me while I was raiding a witch's stronghold one time. We encountered a Nothic, and there were literally 40 men in between me and this Nothic, yet somehow he jumped over 40 MEN and one-shot me, and that's the end of Captain Skellybones. Rest In Peace
Not me, but I accidentally let one of my party members die in a non-canon one shot once. We were fighting a chimera in a cave, and our Drow Rogue thought he was being so clever and stealthy, using his brand new spider boots on the ceiling. Well, the chimera noticed him and he passed out up here. Neither myself (the Cleric) or our party Paladin could reach him, and he just kept failing death saves. He slipped out of his boots, Fighter failed her DEX check, Rogue fall down and go boom.
I suddenly remembered I had Channel Divinity that whole time.
I saw there was a gelatinous cube at the bottom of a 40 foot hole. I was mostly made for melee, and wanted to get to the battle first. I was also a sorcerer. This is where things went wrong.
Instead of going down the long stairs, I jumped down the 40 foot hole, and my health was a max of 10. The DM said, "Why, you can just take the stairs. You're going to die". "I know, but I might not." is how I responded. I took over 20 damage, we were level 3 so there wasn't anyone who could revive me, and because I was in the hole with the cube before anyone else, it dissolved me.
I saw there was a gelatinous cube at the bottom of a 40 foot hole. I was mostly made for melee, and wanted to get to the battle first. I was also a sorcerer. This is where things went wrong.
Instead of going down the long stairs, I jumped down the 40 foot hole, and my health was a max of 10. The DM said, "Why, you can just take the stairs. You're going to die". "I know, but I might not." is how I responded. I took over 20 damage, we were level 3 so there wasn't anyone who could revive me, and because I was in the hole with the cube before anyone else, it dissolved me.
"Made for melee" and "max 10 health" and "level 3"
Having 10 health at level 3 is incredibly bad (average for Sorc would be 14 without factoring Con) and if you're made for melee as a Sorc you'd be pumping your Con as high as you can. If you have 10 max health at Level 3, you're not made for melee at any class.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I saw there was a gelatinous cube at the bottom of a 40 foot hole. I was mostly made for melee, and wanted to get to the battle first. I was also a sorcerer. This is where things went wrong.
Instead of going down the long stairs, I jumped down the 40 foot hole, and my health was a max of 10. The DM said, "Why, you can just take the stairs. You're going to die". "I know, but I might not." is how I responded. I took over 20 damage, we were level 3 so there wasn't anyone who could revive me, and because I was in the hole with the cube before anyone else, it dissolved me.
"Made for melee" and "max 10 health" and "level 3"
Having 10 health at level 3 is incredibly bad (average for Sorc would be 14 without factoring Con) and if you're made for melee as a Sorc you'd be pumping your Con as high as you can. If you have 10 max health at Level 3, you're not made for melee at any class.
I had presumed "my health was a max of 10" just meant that, at the moment he made his decision, he was pretty sure it wasn't any higher than that.
I saw there was a gelatinous cube at the bottom of a 40 foot hole. I was mostly made for melee, and wanted to get to the battle first. I was also a sorcerer. This is where things went wrong.
Instead of going down the long stairs, I jumped down the 40 foot hole, and my health was a max of 10. The DM said, "Why, you can just take the stairs. You're going to die". "I know, but I might not." is how I responded. I took over 20 damage, we were level 3 so there wasn't anyone who could revive me, and because I was in the hole with the cube before anyone else, it dissolved me.
"Made for melee" and "max 10 health" and "level 3"
Having 10 health at level 3 is incredibly bad (average for Sorc would be 14 without factoring Con) and if you're made for melee as a Sorc you'd be pumping your Con as high as you can. If you have 10 max health at Level 3, you're not made for melee at any class.
I had presumed "my health was a max of 10" just meant that, at the moment he made his decision, he was pretty sure it wasn't any higher than that.
All the spells I had were buffs for combat, and he used daggers with good dexterity. The reason I had 10 health was also because I had 10 in constitution and rolled 2's for my level ups. I did have ways of avoiding damage, like mirror image, I just like using character with really bad stats though.
Literally just started so we’re level one and just cleared the first floor
My girlfriend tried to save one of our other party members from dying by pouring a vial of mysterious liquid down their throat... turned out to be an acid that burns through everything except glass.
Not only did it burn through the skull of our now very dead rogue, the DM calculated the path of the acid through every floor of the dungeon where it burnt a hole through the throne of a very angry wizard by the name of Klarkosh
This is not tabletop, but I'm going to tell it anyway.
Years ago, there was an internet service called Delphi. It was sort of like Prodigy or AOL. It was an IP, but it also provided a certain amount of content. One of the things it had on the site was a game called Quest. Quest was a DND based MUD--no graphics, all text. It was DND at its most basic. There was a town in the center of the map, surrounded by a wilderness full of monsters. You bought your equipment in town and traveled the wilderness alone to fight creatures, get gold, and buy better equipment. If you died in the wilderness, you didn't respawn. You didn't get to keep any equipment. Everything you owned would lie there with your corpse for a certain amount of time, and then just disappear into the ether.
I had a character named St Anselm, a cleric that I had leveled up and equipped pretty well. He met an untimely end, though, and in a desperate attempt to get back the equipment that he had been carrying, I quickly created a new first level character. I was going to just run out, grab the stuff, and get as close to town as possible before dying, and then rinse and repeat. Since I had no hope of actually making it back to town with this character, I named him Dirk the Damned.
Miracle of miracles, though, he made it back with all of St Anselm's awesome stuff.
I began to adventure with Dirk the Damned then, and I was able to level him quickly. It soon began to seem that he could go anywhere on the map with impunity. Forests, hills, mountains. He could even swim in the ocean, due to the magic armor he was wearing.
All foes fell to Dirk the Damned.
One of the things the game did was make little announcements when a character did something. Like, "Dirk the Damned has killed a pixie," or "Dirk the Damned has slain an ogre." Things like that.
Then one day, while swimming in the ocean I noticed something weird. The terrain for the game was basically just a set of letters arranged in a hexagonal pattern around a central letter, which was your character's current location. The letters represented the type of terrain: F for forest, H for hills, O for Ocean... like that. To move, you picked a direction, went to that location and it became the new center point, surrounded by a hexagon of letters. Except suddenly, while swimming in the Ocean, there was no longer a hexagon. I saw letters on the upper right, the right, and lower right, but none anywhere on the left. What did that mean? If I went to the left, would I end up on the opposite edge of the map? Or would it just say that I can't go there? I typed in the command to move left, and hit enter. The game made an announcement:
This wasn't my character but totally my fault. I play a Tabaxi Bard that is known for pranks. One of the members in our group was playing a cult leader that had some followers. Well they couldn't make a couple of sessions so me and a couple of other guys in the grup convinced the followers that they're leader had died. This made the followers very depressed especially one follower in particular who took it quite hard. When they came back we were split from the followers so he sent a letter attached to a squirrel he could talk to and sent it to the followers to let them know he was ok. Well I intercepted the letter and changed it out with one that read "sorry for your loss." When the other guy found out he left the party to go back to the town the followers were so he could reassure them in person. The squirrel got there first lol. He reassured the followers except for the one that took it really hard who was in the process of throwing himself off a cliff. He then tried to save said follower as he was flinging himself off the cliff. However his character had very low strength and he rolled super low killing both characters off the cliff. It was one small prank that spiraled out of control to his death.
I DM a high difficulty campaign. In session three, they found a very powerful magic crystal that was providing power for an entire town. This crystal was located at the top of a tower, and a single staircase spiraled up the inside of the tower to the top. The wizard and bard distracted the guards at the bottom of the tower while the dear old rogue snuck past to the top. In his attempts to steal said crystal, he soon found it was the soul of a very angry dragon trapped inside the crystal that was providing all of the magical power. Never provoke an angry dragon soul. He pissed off this dragon to the point of the dragon deciding he'd rather destroy his own crystal than listen to the rogue anymore. So the crystal began shaking violently and shining brighter and brighter. Correctly assuming the crystal was about to explode, the rogue decides his best course of action is to huck the thing down the stairs. Ya know, towards his friends. About this time, the bard and wizard had managed to incapacitate the guards, and had started up the spiral staircase to the top. They hear a sound like something bouncing down the stairs towards, them, and they see a crystal shining brighter than the sun falling down the stairs to them. It detonates in a tremendous explosion, completely destroying the middle section of the tower, causing whats left of the top to collapse. Of course, being a rogue, he has uncanny dodge. He succeeds on his dex save when jumping out of the tower to the ground below, taking no damage, while his two companions were killed instantly in the explosion. And that is how the first two character deaths in my high difficulty campaign weren't even my fault. Now its one of our favorite stories, and we all get a good laugh every time it comes up. Moral of the story, don't screw with angry dragon souls, and more importantly, DONT THROW AN ACTIVE MAGICAL DRAGON SOUL GRENADE AT YOUR FRIENDS.
I was in an evil campaign playing a cleric of Vecna. As I was completing a ritual to summon my Dread Lord, the party rogue threw the arm of one of my sacrifices at me. I took 1 damage, lost concentration, and the scroll I was reading Exploded, killing me, the rogue, and my followers.
I was in an evil campaign playing a cleric of Vecna. As I was completing a ritual to summon my Dread Lord, the party rogue threw the arm of one of my sacrifices at me. I took 1 damage, lost concentration, and the scroll I was reading Exploded, killing me, the rogue, and my followers.
Good job rogue:(
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The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
My Minotaur Death Domain Cleric of Vecna was swimming ahead in an underwater tunnel to confront a character that was name-dropped who had been bothering villagers. This character was hard-headed and didn't want to ask any more information and wanted to get the situation handled right away, so he proceeded forward. The human wizard decided to follow as well, and the other two players were absent and ended up dropping out of the campaign after the session anyways.
Long-story short, the human wizard followed me about ten minutes later after learning the character in question was a Green Dragon; and I didn't want to meta-game and have my character swim back to his friend. My Minotaur confronted said Dragon alone (having cast water breathing) on himself where-as the wizard did not and drowned in the tunnel, and I tried going back to give the wizard some of my air, but was ruled against it, so the wizard was dead. I proceeded towards the dragon (knowing it was a dragon as a player, but not as my character) and ended up getting wiped out in a single hit from a Breath Weapon and then swallowed by the dragon.
I had fun.
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DM/Founder for Mimics & Monstrosities, a D&D network.
It's in the title. I was wondering what the dumbest way you died in d&d was. There are a LOT of dumb ways to die in d&d, so I wanted your stories. Leave the story below! Cheers!
goodberry poisoning
unconscious. Fed a goodberry by my Druid friend.
who liked the movie Van Wilder too much and did that to his goodberries during watch when he makes them.
goodberry fed. Failed a con save. Goodberry poisoning.
More recently. Level 6 Gloomstalker. Big. “Survival of the fittest guy”
this guy, rather than spend 8 hours climbing down a ravine. Wants to run and jump off the ledge holding onto a rope. And wants to time his “rope trick” to stop him before he hits the bottom.
several checks involved. Int. Wis. Str. Con. Int again. You get the idea
9 points of rope burn on his hands but lives and takes a long rest waiting for the rest of the party to meander down.
Same guy. 2 weeks in game later. Dies from a Mindflayer that was (to quote our Sorceror) “a new friend” attacking us with friendly fire during and then immediately after beating a demon.
sorceror introduces as “new friend”. A “not bard” Sorlock wannabe bard who just wants to make friends “a new friend!” Not suspicious.
the sorceror.
a first time session newbie warforged barbarian.
and my apathetic Gloomstalker who’s thought was “if he attacks he attacks if he doesn’t he doesn’t. We’ll cross it if it happens”
yep. Sadly, the Gloomstalker died. His brains eaten, having an 18 int. Sorlock was unconscious. Warforged was unconscious.
My 1st-level Fighter / 1st-level Wild Magic Sorcerer died fighting off creatures with blindsight... after he threw up a Fog Cloud hoping to "even the odds" and not realizing what senses the enemy actually possessed. The miscalculation caused the death of two teammates as well.
It didn't help that I didn't realize I could drop the Fog Cloud at any time by just no longer concentrating on it. Literally went down fighting. Ah well, that was early into my exposure to 5e, I chalk it off as a learning experience.
Sterling - V. Human Art Bard 3 - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
I was playing as a Skeleton Pirate, and I had a crew of like 40 men with me while I was raiding a witch's stronghold one time. We encountered a Nothic, and there were literally 40 men in between me and this Nothic, yet somehow he jumped over 40 MEN and one-shot me, and that's the end of Captain Skellybones. Rest In Peace
Not me, but I accidentally let one of my party members die in a non-canon one shot once. We were fighting a chimera in a cave, and our Drow Rogue thought he was being so clever and stealthy, using his brand new spider boots on the ceiling. Well, the chimera noticed him and he passed out up here. Neither myself (the Cleric) or our party Paladin could reach him, and he just kept failing death saves. He slipped out of his boots, Fighter failed her DEX check, Rogue fall down and go boom.
I suddenly remembered I had Channel Divinity that whole time.
I saw there was a gelatinous cube at the bottom of a 40 foot hole. I was mostly made for melee, and wanted to get to the battle first. I was also a sorcerer. This is where things went wrong.
Instead of going down the long stairs, I jumped down the 40 foot hole, and my health was a max of 10. The DM said, "Why, you can just take the stairs. You're going to die". "I know, but I might not." is how I responded. I took over 20 damage, we were level 3 so there wasn't anyone who could revive me, and because I was in the hole with the cube before anyone else, it dissolved me.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
"Made for melee" and "max 10 health" and "level 3"
Having 10 health at level 3 is incredibly bad (average for Sorc would be 14 without factoring Con) and if you're made for melee as a Sorc you'd be pumping your Con as high as you can. If you have 10 max health at Level 3, you're not made for melee at any class.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I had presumed "my health was a max of 10" just meant that, at the moment he made his decision, he was pretty sure it wasn't any higher than that.
Sterling - V. Human Art Bard 3 - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
All the spells I had were buffs for combat, and he used daggers with good dexterity. The reason I had 10 health was also because I had 10 in constitution and rolled 2's for my level ups. I did have ways of avoiding damage, like mirror image, I just like using character with really bad stats though.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
Emerald Spire converted for 5e.
Literally just started so we’re level one and just cleared the first floor
My girlfriend tried to save one of our other party members from dying by pouring a vial of mysterious liquid down their throat... turned out to be an acid that burns through everything except glass.
Not only did it burn through the skull of our now very dead rogue, the DM calculated the path of the acid through every floor of the dungeon where it burnt a hole through the throne of a very angry wizard by the name of Klarkosh
This is not tabletop, but I'm going to tell it anyway.
Years ago, there was an internet service called Delphi. It was sort of like Prodigy or AOL. It was an IP, but it also provided a certain amount of content. One of the things it had on the site was a game called Quest. Quest was a DND based MUD--no graphics, all text. It was DND at its most basic. There was a town in the center of the map, surrounded by a wilderness full of monsters. You bought your equipment in town and traveled the wilderness alone to fight creatures, get gold, and buy better equipment. If you died in the wilderness, you didn't respawn. You didn't get to keep any equipment. Everything you owned would lie there with your corpse for a certain amount of time, and then just disappear into the ether.
I had a character named St Anselm, a cleric that I had leveled up and equipped pretty well. He met an untimely end, though, and in a desperate attempt to get back the equipment that he had been carrying, I quickly created a new first level character. I was going to just run out, grab the stuff, and get as close to town as possible before dying, and then rinse and repeat. Since I had no hope of actually making it back to town with this character, I named him Dirk the Damned.
Miracle of miracles, though, he made it back with all of St Anselm's awesome stuff.
I began to adventure with Dirk the Damned then, and I was able to level him quickly. It soon began to seem that he could go anywhere on the map with impunity. Forests, hills, mountains. He could even swim in the ocean, due to the magic armor he was wearing.
All foes fell to Dirk the Damned.
One of the things the game did was make little announcements when a character did something. Like, "Dirk the Damned has killed a pixie," or "Dirk the Damned has slain an ogre." Things like that.
Then one day, while swimming in the ocean I noticed something weird. The terrain for the game was basically just a set of letters arranged in a hexagonal pattern around a central letter, which was your character's current location. The letters represented the type of terrain: F for forest, H for hills, O for Ocean... like that. To move, you picked a direction, went to that location and it became the new center point, surrounded by a hexagon of letters. Except suddenly, while swimming in the Ocean, there was no longer a hexagon. I saw letters on the upper right, the right, and lower right, but none anywhere on the left. What did that mean? If I went to the left, would I end up on the opposite edge of the map? Or would it just say that I can't go there? I typed in the command to move left, and hit enter. The game made an announcement:
"DIRK THE DAMNED HAS STEPPED INTO THE ABYSS."
And that was the end of Dirk the Damned.
He was truly damned.
The noble soul has reverence for itself. -- Nietzsche
http://forgotten-realms.wandering-dwarf.com/
This wasn't my character but totally my fault. I play a Tabaxi Bard that is known for pranks. One of the members in our group was playing a cult leader that had some followers. Well they couldn't make a couple of sessions so me and a couple of other guys in the grup convinced the followers that they're leader had died. This made the followers very depressed especially one follower in particular who took it quite hard. When they came back we were split from the followers so he sent a letter attached to a squirrel he could talk to and sent it to the followers to let them know he was ok. Well I intercepted the letter and changed it out with one that read "sorry for your loss." When the other guy found out he left the party to go back to the town the followers were so he could reassure them in person. The squirrel got there first lol. He reassured the followers except for the one that took it really hard who was in the process of throwing himself off a cliff. He then tried to save said follower as he was flinging himself off the cliff. However his character had very low strength and he rolled super low killing both characters off the cliff. It was one small prank that spiraled out of control to his death.
I DM a high difficulty campaign. In session three, they found a very powerful magic crystal that was providing power for an entire town. This crystal was located at the top of a tower, and a single staircase spiraled up the inside of the tower to the top. The wizard and bard distracted the guards at the bottom of the tower while the dear old rogue snuck past to the top. In his attempts to steal said crystal, he soon found it was the soul of a very angry dragon trapped inside the crystal that was providing all of the magical power. Never provoke an angry dragon soul. He pissed off this dragon to the point of the dragon deciding he'd rather destroy his own crystal than listen to the rogue anymore. So the crystal began shaking violently and shining brighter and brighter. Correctly assuming the crystal was about to explode, the rogue decides his best course of action is to huck the thing down the stairs. Ya know, towards his friends. About this time, the bard and wizard had managed to incapacitate the guards, and had started up the spiral staircase to the top. They hear a sound like something bouncing down the stairs towards, them, and they see a crystal shining brighter than the sun falling down the stairs to them. It detonates in a tremendous explosion, completely destroying the middle section of the tower, causing whats left of the top to collapse. Of course, being a rogue, he has uncanny dodge. He succeeds on his dex save when jumping out of the tower to the ground below, taking no damage, while his two companions were killed instantly in the explosion. And that is how the first two character deaths in my high difficulty campaign weren't even my fault. Now its one of our favorite stories, and we all get a good laugh every time it comes up. Moral of the story, don't screw with angry dragon souls, and more importantly, DONT THROW AN ACTIVE MAGICAL DRAGON SOUL GRENADE AT YOUR FRIENDS.
The Wandering Cursed
Barbarian tried to sneak into a krakens mouth...head bit off
That same barbarian was a halfling who shoved a torch up lizardfolks butt
I was in an evil campaign playing a cleric of Vecna. As I was completing a ritual to summon my Dread Lord, the party rogue threw the arm of one of my sacrifices at me. I took 1 damage, lost concentration, and the scroll I was reading Exploded, killing me, the rogue, and my followers.
Good job rogue:(
The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
Tries to throw a hand grenade.
Rolls two natural 1's.
Grenade explodes in their hand.
Been there, done that. Hurled the die across the room, and never saw it again. I must have thrown it straight into another plane of existence.
The noble soul has reverence for itself. -- Nietzsche
http://forgotten-realms.wandering-dwarf.com/
My Minotaur Death Domain Cleric of Vecna was swimming ahead in an underwater tunnel to confront a character that was name-dropped who had been bothering villagers. This character was hard-headed and didn't want to ask any more information and wanted to get the situation handled right away, so he proceeded forward. The human wizard decided to follow as well, and the other two players were absent and ended up dropping out of the campaign after the session anyways.
Long-story short, the human wizard followed me about ten minutes later after learning the character in question was a Green Dragon; and I didn't want to meta-game and have my character swim back to his friend. My Minotaur confronted said Dragon alone (having cast water breathing) on himself where-as the wizard did not and drowned in the tunnel, and I tried going back to give the wizard some of my air, but was ruled against it, so the wizard was dead. I proceeded towards the dragon (knowing it was a dragon as a player, but not as my character) and ended up getting wiped out in a single hit from a Breath Weapon and then swallowed by the dragon.
I had fun.
DM/Founder for Mimics & Monstrosities, a D&D network.
Mimics & Monstrosities Youtube
Mimics & Monstrosities Twitch
Occasional DM's Guild Content Creator
goodberry poisoning
unconscious. Fed a goodberry by my Druid friend.
who liked the movie Van Wilder too much and did that to his goodberries during watch when he makes them.
goodberry fed. Failed a con save. Goodberry poisoning.
Blank
More recently. Level 6 Gloomstalker. Big. “Survival of the fittest guy”
this guy, rather than spend 8 hours climbing down a ravine. Wants to run and jump off the ledge holding onto a rope. And wants to time his “rope trick” to stop him before he hits the bottom.
several checks involved. Int. Wis. Str. Con. Int again. You get the idea
9 points of rope burn on his hands but lives and takes a long rest waiting for the rest of the party to meander down.
Same guy. 2 weeks in game later. Dies from a Mindflayer that was (to quote our Sorceror) “a new friend” attacking us with friendly fire during and then immediately after beating a demon.
sorceror introduces as “new friend”. A “not bard” Sorlock wannabe bard who just wants to make friends “a new friend!” Not suspicious.
the sorceror.
a first time session newbie warforged barbarian.
and my apathetic Gloomstalker who’s thought was “if he attacks he attacks if he doesn’t he doesn’t. We’ll cross it if it happens”
yep. Sadly, the Gloomstalker died. His brains eaten, having an 18 int. Sorlock was unconscious. Warforged was unconscious.
sorceror ironically killing “our new friend”
good times
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