Fastest PC death yet

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Stygian Inquirer
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Fastest PC death yet

Post by Stygian Inquirer »

Hey guys, what has been the least amount of time someone has been able to play a given character?

I just had a wierd session today where someone had been playing their character for a total time of 1 hour 24 minutes and then died through a wierd set of coincidences. First, he failed a horror safe and got the revulsion effect. Then, he got infected with lycanthropy. Then, he failed another horror save (DC 20) with a zero (0) and triggered a madness save (DC 20) and failed with -1. He suffered from system shock for the horror save and suicidal thoughts from the madness. He took 15 constitution damage reducing his constitution to 1. Then, his charisma and wisdom were reduced to 2 and his intelligence to 1, from the failed madness save. Then, they faced a sith and the sith used his fear aura and the character failed and that triggered the suicidal thoughts and the character got a critical on throwing himself on his axe, taking his hitpoints to -28. Anyone else have things like this happen?
Information seems to come my way whether by chance or by fate, but all this means, is that I have yet to find out what will kill me and why. - The Stygian Inquirer
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Post by Cole Deschain »

I had a character die in the first encounter once.

Granted, we were all very young at the time, but it was still funny...

My PC, a 1st-level mage, got pegged with a goblin's arrow first shot out of the box. Ow. :roll:
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Re: Fastest PC death yet

Post by Ultramyth »

Stygian Inquirer wrote:Hey guys, what has been the least amount of time someone has been able to play a given character?

I just had a wierd session today where someone had been playing their character for a total time of 1 hour 24 minutes and then died through a wierd set of coincidences. First, he failed a horror safe and got the revulsion effect. Then, he got infected with lycanthropy. Then, he failed another horror save (DC 20) with a zero (0) and triggered a madness save (DC 20) and failed with -1. He suffered from system shock for the horror save and suicidal thoughts from the madness. He took 15 constitution damage reducing his constitution to 1. Then, his charisma and wisdom were reduced to 2 and his intelligence to 1, from the failed madness save. Then, they faced a sith and the sith used his fear aura and the character failed and that triggered the suicidal thoughts and the character got a critical on throwing himself on his axe, taking his hitpoints to -28. Anyone else have things like this happen?
My god... how much do you cram into 1:24? I usually only have one encounter per session.

I was playing in a solo campaign once and embaressingly fell fighting a trio of dire rats in the very first session/encounter.
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Post by Kessler »

Well, it was long time ago when my new character came into game, met other characters who where puzzling how to get over the river. I saw no problem and decided to swim to the other side. But the river was quite wide and in the middle of it I started to have convulsions and then drowned quickly.

I think altogether it took about five minutes.
P((hρ (A)- ρ/<έ) →n-∞1 (∑>0)
P(x=k)=(n/k)ρk(ˇ1-ρ)n-k
P(x≥1)=(10/1)•(1/6)•1(1-1/6)10-1+…1
+(10/10) : (1/6)10(1-1/6)0
=0,8385
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Post by Dion of the Fraternity »

Once my monk character died after being attacked by a doppelganger plant, and the campaign wa5 only three hour5 old. The DM wa5 not quite Ravenloft-5avvy, so I gue55 I enjoyed every minute of it.

Good time5, they were, good time5...
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Post by Catman Jim »

In a group of 1st levels, we were investigating the unusual goings-on at the village cemetary. My fighter was hit by a ghoul after opening the door to the crypt. Immediately paralyzed, "he" could only watch as the rest of the party ran away.
I've always hated ghouls ever since. :x
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Re: Fastest PC death yet

Post by Stygian Inquirer »

Ultramyth wrote:
Stygian Inquirer wrote:Hey guys, what has been the least amount of time someone has been able to play a given character?

I just had a wierd session today where someone had been playing their character for a total time of 1 hour 24 minutes and then died through a wierd set of coincidences. First, he failed a horror safe and got the revulsion effect. Then, he got infected with lycanthropy. Then, he failed another horror save (DC 20) with a zero (0) and triggered a madness save (DC 20) and failed with -1. He suffered from system shock for the horror save and suicidal thoughts from the madness. He took 15 constitution damage reducing his constitution to 1. Then, his charisma and wisdom were reduced to 2 and his intelligence to 1, from the failed madness save. Then, they faced a sith and the sith used his fear aura and the character failed and that triggered the suicidal thoughts and the character got a critical on throwing himself on his axe, taking his hitpoints to -28. Anyone else have things like this happen?
My god... how much do you cram into 1:24? I usually only have one encounter per session.

I was playing in a solo campaign once and embaressingly fell fighting a trio of dire rats in the very first session/encounter.
We have a 3 1/2 hour session once a week and we just started (the PCs are at level 3) and the pace is usually set by the PCs. If they roleplay fast, I need to have more stuff ready. This was actually our first session of this campaign too. Also, with these characters, they are a hack 'n slash group so they don't really talk to NPCs, they just try to find out if they are evil and then they attack them.
Information seems to come my way whether by chance or by fate, but all this means, is that I have yet to find out what will kill me and why. - The Stygian Inquirer
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Post by B~E »

You people actualy leave the fate of your players to the dice ? As a master, I always roll them dice to give an impression of luck, but I chose if, who, and for how much damages a character suffer. I keep a total personal control of how the fighting goes, so I can give the effect I desire on any battles.

Of course, I had characters killed on my watch, but it was mainly due to their stupid fault, not because of the invisible hand of fate. For exemple, I remember that half gnoll character. The city was being invaded by zombies à la dawn of the dead, and while every players were busy barrickading the inn, he had the bright idea of taking, all by himself, a wounded, near-death, infected priest NPC to his church to get him healed.
So what had to happen happened : half-way to the church, the priest revived as a zombie, start attacking the half-gnoll character, and other zombies joined, 2 per round. Instead of retreating, he keept stupidly fighting until he was surrounded by a total of 17 zombies. So he deserved top die.

But it ended up being a good thing : I used this newly undead half-gnoll as a recognisable recurent zombie npc that was fought many time during the escape of the characters from the city, causing horror checks.
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Post by Jasper »

The fastes death of one of my characters ever was two minuets and that was before he even got to the first encounter.

It was a simple go into the swamp and rescue the villagers from a swamp dragon adventure. It was night time so my character thought that it would be a good idea to light a torch to light his way...

...right as he was standing in a patch of swamp gas.
Even with minimum damage I failed my system shock and ended up a fried snack for the swamp dwellers. :)

In all fairness the Dm did warn me about the nasty smells coming out of the group but i didn't chatch on fast enough.
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Post by AdamGarou »

First PC I ever created, a 1st-level cleric of Odin.

There was this bar fight that was supposed to get the various characters in the group arrested, thrown in jail, and then sent out on a mission for the city council as "amends" for the fight (the dungeon, of course).

My cleric died in the brawl when one of the fighters threw another bar patron in his general direction and the dice went like this:

1.) DM figures a 5% chance that the cleric is in the line of fire--rolls 04 on percentile dice.

2.) DM says, "Make a DEX roll to see if you can get out of the way." The cleric's DEX is 14, I roll a 19, so the cleric is flat-footed.

3.) DM rolls the flying body as an attack at -4 penalty (since the fighter wasn't aiming at the cleric in particular). Rolls a 20.

4.) DM says "No way. That's ridiculous," and rolls again. Another 20.

5.) DM says, "I'm using a different die." And does. And rolls another 20.

6.) DM looks at me and says, "Okay... you're crushed under the flying body--your head cracks open against the floor, and the next thing you know, you're standing in front of a muscular, white-haired guy with one eye... and he looks disgusted with you."

Total time in the campaign:

24 minutes of real-world time

48 seconds of game time.
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Post by tec-goblin »

Do Paranoia clones count?
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Post by Tobias Blackburn »

tec-goblin wrote:Do Paranoia clones count?
Are you kidding? :shock:
Last edited by Tobias Blackburn on Thu May 05, 2005 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

My very first (sort of) D&D character got herself killed -- no bad luck involved, just blatant overconfidence and newbie enthusiasm -- in about 4 minutes.

My parents had a babysitter on duty (for my little sister, I insisted, NOT for me ;-D), and her boyfriend stopped by after his AD&D game ended in another house. He had his books with him, and I -- having recently learned of the game -- pestered him into showing my sister and I how it worked. He re-staged the encounter he'd just been running for his own friends, loaning me and my sister a couple of characters from his stash of NPCs. Mine was a 4th level paladin; I forget what hers was.

Unfortunately, the opponent was a fire giant. Even more unfortunately, the version of the game I'd been reading was for Basic D&D, not the Advanced version: PCs in the former game were significantly weaker than this "super-character" (more hp, powers, etc) he'd handed me. Most unfortunately of all, my kid sister had no idea just how overmatched we were! She had her PC -- as I said, I don't recall the class ... not that it mattered! -- charge the giant, and got knocked cold by a single attack.

My natural first impulse was to run away, but the babysitter's boyfriend teased me about "You're going to abandon your comrade? Your sister?" He probably didn't mean it that way, but I suddenly found myself picturing the two PCs as sisters: my first foray into developing any hint of character background, in a sense, and pretty weird considering we hadn't even bothered to name the two borrowed characters! So I had my paladin turn back and rush forward to the rescue of my PC's "sister" ... only to get roasted alive by hellhounds (huh? where did they come from? the Basic D&D book's monster descriptions hadn't said anything about them hanging with fire giants!) before I even reached her.

Not much of a first battle, but it did give me some insight into how there could be more to these "player characters" than what the numbers on the sheet had to say ... and at least my kid sister got HER character killed before I did! ;-)
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Post by Hrtofdrkns »

It was my first game. I had just gotten the 3.0 box and had sent my PC's in the easist adventure, rescue the unicorn from the goblins. The goblins got initiative and killed the half-elf sorcerer in on hit. The player was pissed. I mean REALLY pissed. He hasn't played since.
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Post by tec-goblin »

Tobias Blackburn wrote:
tec-goblin wrote:Do Paranoia clones count?
Are you kidding? :shock:
I can lose 3 clones in a single hour! I've even died from a thermal slipper!
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