My group and I have been religiously playing through the published campaigns for the last 5 years. In all that time we've never had a PC death. Some very close calls and tense moments but we've weathered the storm and come out if not smelling like roses, at least wiser and more cautious or creative with our solutions. I'm sure that our groups experience must be odd and now I find myself curious as to other players and GM's experiences
So here I present the Player Character Death Archive--
If you've had a death in your party or one of your own characters has kicked the bucket, please give them a little tombstone with Name, Class, Basic background, Flaws, memorable exploits and of course in what Campaign they died.
My Redemption Palladin was killed during a fight with a powerful water fae, but the rest of the party defeated it, and I didn't fail my last death save until the party was trying to fly my unconscious body out on the broom of flying before the room flooded.
The next session they spent scoring the feywild for a diamond they could use to bring me back and I was able to resume playing the character.
My first character was murdered when they tried to take out an OP spotlight-stealing DMPC. I consider that an honorable ending, as far as deaths go.
Xorian Aeravel Class: Ranger (Gloomstalker) Background: Noble Backstory: Grew up the son of a noble, ran away in search of adventure and entered the service of an orc chieftain after he decided he enjoyed killing people. Memorable Exploits: Helped to kill a grick alpha at level 4, survived the tarrasque, killed a bunch of people
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
As a DM I've had 2 PC deaths. The first was just bad luck for the player (don't remember anything about the character) they rolled poorly and I rolled really well on damage resulting in an instant death which I had promptly undone next session by a cleric.
The second was due to party stupidity. Three of the party members each had separate plans and none of them communicated their plans with the rest of the party. The first and best plan was the ranger's plan, which was to get the first wave of enemies locked into a chokepoint and blast them to death (the issue with that is that the tanks were at the back of the party for some reason). The second plan was to start off the battle with a big (for their level) aoe and to try and destroy the main way for the rest of the enemies to get down causing them to take fall damage upon entering combat. The third and worst plan was the barbarian's; he Leroy-Jenkinsed up to the rest of the enemies, including the boss, and challenged the boss to a duel. This understandably went horribly, he did more damage to the boss than I expected but still got beat. The barbarian then died due to failing his death saves because the NPC healer prioritized bringing up the others.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
It is so interesting to me to see how different all our play experiences are with the same game. I have been a DM for over 25 years and havent had a PC death since 3.5. Im sure campaign, party and players all make a huge difference. Lets hear some of your best of those 50!!
I was playing a beast master ranger and I had a bear named honey hunter. Our party were moving a whole village and we had to kill the beast that a group of gnolls were using to track us. We killed the creature but then my bear was stuck in combat and as we were running away I went back to save my bear and in doing so died. A heroic death but a dumb one.
Argyll, human fighter turned paladin. Died trying to save (enemy) NPCs from death by sea serpent. He was a religious guy who felt awful when he discovered the true face of his goddess.
Beathan, dwarf cleric. Not a character I enjoyed playing. Died while bringing the barbarian back to 1hp. Massive damage.
Near miss, Flynnbarr. Halfling druid. Horny little bugger who thinks his dad is a god. Should have died to spider creatures but DM fudged things in his favour.
I've been DMing for 4 or 5 years now but a lot of my campaigns have sputtered out due to scheduling issues and thus didn't get too far. I also usually have a bigger group.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
As DM I have had three deaths, all which I call player errors/bad rolls:
Artificer who decided to sneak into the base fo the enemy to spy then, ALONE, used a knock scroll (Makes a loud noise) to try and open the door where the minor BBEG was right behind...and a bunch of his minions in the building.
Warlock and party were clearing a building and he basically lost track of his hp. He Attacked the Blood witch who Hellish rebuked him and took him to 0 hp. Her round - circle of death which took him to exactly dead dead on hp. (NOTE: The party had an elaborate death at deal for this warlock who worshipped an ancient kraken... He was revived later by his patron...
Druid/Warlock (played by my daughter) was fighting a mage and his flesh golem minion. The warlock above killed the mage with a lightning bolt (but healed the flesh golem to full hp) then he and the bard ran upstairs to search for the book they were after leaving the druidlock and ranger alone.. Golem knocks the druidlock to the ground. Ranger (tries to grab her and run but get knowcked to 0 hp by the golem. Druidlock then proceeds to roll a 9, 9 and 1 on death saving throws. The golem went after the other two and they killed him and the ranger managed to make all his death saves,,,, Such bad decisions.
I’ve never had a PC die, at least, not on purpose, a small problem I have is that once my PC hits 6th level, they become invincible, does anyone else have this problem?
It is so interesting to me to see how different all our play experiences are with the same game. I have been a DM for over 25 years and havent had a PC death since 3.5. Im sure campaign, party and players all make a huge difference. Lets hear some of your best of those 50!!
I'll give ya a few..recent ones. 5th edition.
Pain in the ass character. The player LOVED the character but the rest of the players, not so much. Anyhow, somewhere mid teens, a fight with a demon, few key rolls (I always roll in front of players and don't fudge anything), the PC dies. Follow up attacks chewed through death saves. I was told by every other player, "if he dies, we will not resurrect him and if some NPC does it, we won't let him back in the group." Dead PC was sucked into the demon's legendary blade and thrown into the plane where the demon came from.
I have a player named Justin. He went through 9 characters (we've counted) in one campaign. He's our favorite player and often the favorite PC of the group. Reckless, gets things done and is by far the most unlucky PC/player. We've had situations that after 10 hints of, "if you keep pushing this, it's save or die sorts of consequences", the group kept pushing. All in good fun. I still gave them a way out. "Ok. Everyone roll d100. If anyone rolls 01, even the gods don't intervene..and I warned ya." Justin rolls 01. He's done it twice.
I've TPK'd the same group twice during an boss-fight Frost Giant encounter. Group 1 almost had him but lost (obviously). Group 2 came back with some new PCs and a couple of resurrected ones and continued on the journey. Months of real time later, they fight the giant again. I won again.
I'll offer more as I come to it. Death is as real and frequent as anything else in our campaigns. I don't pull punches, never target a player (I'll just tell them to make a new dude because your character sucks for the game), and never pull a rocks fall everyone dies without about 90 hints and various stages. My style is:
At some point, you're out there doing heroic stuff. In the greatest challenge comes the greatest accomplishment. But..it's not a given. I'm rolling dice and I'm trying to ruin you. If they turn against you or you do stupid stuff, I'll kill your PC. 1st round, last round, mid fight, one after the other, whatever.
I have never lost a player at my table for reasons other than family/moving. They love the style and tone.
Great answer! I think we all need a dice cursed happy go lucky player. My group has a player that is just a damage magnet, but somehow has never failed that final death save. but if someone is going to go down in a fight. It's him. Are you home-brewing or running a published campaign most times?
Great answer! I think we all need a dice cursed happy go lucky player. My group has a player that is just a damage magnet, but somehow has never failed that final death save. but if someone is going to go down in a fight. It's him. Are you home-brewing or running a published campaign most times?
I want to hear this story about the player you mentioned. What do you think was their best/closest to death moment?
Coincidentally, this describes one of my characters very well. Nearly died around 3 times and have made some stupid decisions that resulted in weird occasions and jokes within the group about my character.
I think my first PC death for a PC I was playing was actually when I was playing an Inspector class I had homebrewed (this was pre-XGtE and the dawn of inquisitive and mastermind rogues).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I think his closest call was in Curse of Strahd, During the final Strahd battle. His Moon Druid was killed and reduced to 0HP due to the life drain ability Strahd had. During the course of the campaign however, he had accumulated a huge list of boons and curses (he was a mess) One of the boons was upon death he was instantly reincarnated. So his human druid came back as a dwarf, Naked, and now growing fur and loosing all his teeth (due to other curses still in effect) he continued to fight(and take damage) and stake Strahd so the rest of the party could finally kill him.
My group and I have been religiously playing through the published campaigns for the last 5 years. In all that time we've never had a PC death. Some very close calls and tense moments but we've weathered the storm and come out if not smelling like roses, at least wiser and more cautious or creative with our solutions. I'm sure that our groups experience must be odd and now I find myself curious as to other players and GM's experiences
So here I present the Player Character Death Archive--
If you've had a death in your party or one of your own characters has kicked the bucket, please give them a little tombstone with Name, Class, Basic background, Flaws, memorable exploits and of course in what Campaign they died.
Enjoy and long may their memory live!
My Redemption Palladin was killed during a fight with a powerful water fae, but the rest of the party defeated it, and I didn't fail my last death save until the party was trying to fly my unconscious body out on the broom of flying before the room flooded.
The next session they spent scoring the feywild for a diamond they could use to bring me back and I was able to resume playing the character.
My first character was murdered when they tried to take out an OP spotlight-stealing DMPC. I consider that an honorable ending, as far as deaths go.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
As a DM I've had 2 PC deaths. The first was just bad luck for the player (don't remember anything about the character) they rolled poorly and I rolled really well on damage resulting in an instant death which I had promptly undone next session by a cleric.
The second was due to party stupidity. Three of the party members each had separate plans and none of them communicated their plans with the rest of the party. The first and best plan was the ranger's plan, which was to get the first wave of enemies locked into a chokepoint and blast them to death (the issue with that is that the tanks were at the back of the party for some reason). The second plan was to start off the battle with a big (for their level) aoe and to try and destroy the main way for the rest of the enemies to get down causing them to take fall damage upon entering combat. The third and worst plan was the barbarian's; he Leroy-Jenkinsed up to the rest of the enemies, including the boss, and challenged the boss to a duel. This understandably went horribly, he did more damage to the boss than I expected but still got beat. The barbarian then died due to failing his death saves because the NPC healer prioritized bringing up the others.
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
Just curious. How long have you been DMing?
My number is well above 50.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
It is so interesting to me to see how different all our play experiences are with the same game. I have been a DM for over 25 years and havent had a PC death since 3.5. Im sure campaign, party and players all make a huge difference. Lets hear some of your best of those 50!!
I was playing a beast master ranger and I had a bear named honey hunter. Our party were moving a whole village and we had to kill the beast that a group of gnolls were using to track us. We killed the creature but then my bear was stuck in combat and as we were running away I went back to save my bear and in doing so died. A heroic death but a dumb one.
Argyll, human fighter turned paladin. Died trying to save (enemy) NPCs from death by sea serpent. He was a religious guy who felt awful when he discovered the true face of his goddess.
Beathan, dwarf cleric. Not a character I enjoyed playing. Died while bringing the barbarian back to 1hp. Massive damage.
Near miss, Flynnbarr. Halfling druid. Horny little bugger who thinks his dad is a god. Should have died to spider creatures but DM fudged things in his favour.
I've been DMing for 4 or 5 years now but a lot of my campaigns have sputtered out due to scheduling issues and thus didn't get too far. I also usually have a bigger group.
call me Anna or Kerns, (she/her), usually a DM, lgbtq+ friendly
As DM I have had three deaths, all which I call player errors/bad rolls:
Artificer who decided to sneak into the base fo the enemy to spy then, ALONE, used a knock scroll (Makes a loud noise) to try and open the door where the minor BBEG was right behind...and a bunch of his minions in the building.
Warlock and party were clearing a building and he basically lost track of his hp. He Attacked the Blood witch who Hellish rebuked him and took him to 0 hp. Her round - circle of death which took him to exactly dead dead on hp. (NOTE: The party had an elaborate death at deal for this warlock who worshipped an ancient kraken... He was revived later by his patron...
Druid/Warlock (played by my daughter) was fighting a mage and his flesh golem minion. The warlock above killed the mage with a lightning bolt (but healed the flesh golem to full hp) then he and the bard ran upstairs to search for the book they were after leaving the druidlock and ranger alone.. Golem knocks the druidlock to the ground. Ranger (tries to grab her and run but get knowcked to 0 hp by the golem. Druidlock then proceeds to roll a 9, 9 and 1 on death saving throws. The golem went after the other two and they killed him and the ranger managed to make all his death saves,,,, Such bad decisions.
I’ve never had a PC die, at least, not on purpose, a small problem I have is that once my PC hits 6th level, they become invincible, does anyone else have this problem?
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
I'll give ya a few..recent ones. 5th edition.
Pain in the ass character. The player LOVED the character but the rest of the players, not so much. Anyhow, somewhere mid teens, a fight with a demon, few key rolls (I always roll in front of players and don't fudge anything), the PC dies. Follow up attacks chewed through death saves. I was told by every other player, "if he dies, we will not resurrect him and if some NPC does it, we won't let him back in the group." Dead PC was sucked into the demon's legendary blade and thrown into the plane where the demon came from.
I have a player named Justin. He went through 9 characters (we've counted) in one campaign. He's our favorite player and often the favorite PC of the group. Reckless, gets things done and is by far the most unlucky PC/player. We've had situations that after 10 hints of, "if you keep pushing this, it's save or die sorts of consequences", the group kept pushing. All in good fun. I still gave them a way out. "Ok. Everyone roll d100. If anyone rolls 01, even the gods don't intervene..and I warned ya." Justin rolls 01. He's done it twice.
I've TPK'd the same group twice during an boss-fight Frost Giant encounter. Group 1 almost had him but lost (obviously). Group 2 came back with some new PCs and a couple of resurrected ones and continued on the journey. Months of real time later, they fight the giant again. I won again.
I'll offer more as I come to it. Death is as real and frequent as anything else in our campaigns. I don't pull punches, never target a player (I'll just tell them to make a new dude because your character sucks for the game), and never pull a rocks fall everyone dies without about 90 hints and various stages. My style is:
At some point, you're out there doing heroic stuff. In the greatest challenge comes the greatest accomplishment. But..it's not a given. I'm rolling dice and I'm trying to ruin you. If they turn against you or you do stupid stuff, I'll kill your PC. 1st round, last round, mid fight, one after the other, whatever.
I have never lost a player at my table for reasons other than family/moving. They love the style and tone.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
Great answer! I think we all need a dice cursed happy go lucky player. My group has a player that is just a damage magnet, but somehow has never failed that final death save. but if someone is going to go down in a fight. It's him. Are you home-brewing or running a published campaign most times?
On my 6th consecutive 5E campaign.
1. My world. Our stories, etc.
2. My world. Out stories, etc.
3. My world (my big baby, currently working on releasing it in full 300 page glory). Our stories, etc.
4. Guildmaster's Guide to Ravinca. Obviously official world, but our stories, etc.
5. Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. Homebrewed here and there (I have 8-10 player so nothing fits elegantly without some twisting and turning).
6. Eberron: Rising from the Last War. Homebrewed here and there and our stories, etc., but obviously within the details of the world of Eberron.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
I want to hear this story about the player you mentioned. What do you think was their best/closest to death moment?
Coincidentally, this describes one of my characters very well. Nearly died around 3 times and have made some stupid decisions that resulted in weird occasions and jokes within the group about my character.
Not my own character, but we lost our paladin, wizard, monk, and the dmpc barbarian last session during the final session of ToA. ;-;
Only two characters left that place alive.
I think my first PC death for a PC I was playing was actually when I was playing an Inspector class I had homebrewed (this was pre-XGtE and the dawn of inquisitive and mastermind rogues).
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Death by bad DM.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I think his closest call was in Curse of Strahd, During the final Strahd battle. His Moon Druid was killed and reduced to 0HP due to the life drain ability Strahd had. During the course of the campaign however, he had accumulated a huge list of boons and curses (he was a mess) One of the boons was upon death he was instantly reincarnated. So his human druid came back as a dwarf, Naked, and now growing fur and loosing all his teeth (due to other curses still in effect) he continued to fight(and take damage) and stake Strahd so the rest of the party could finally kill him.
Was that luck?