D&D Discussion: Your first character death

[Rain Yupa]

Some of us have only been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a short time. Some for a couple years. Some of us might have even been playing since it was first released! As such, there's a high chance we've all had more than one character in our history.

Perhaps the game kind of fell apart and fizzled. Perhaps you successfully finished a prolonged campaign without incident, saving the country, the world, even the multiverse.

Or perhaps you were slaughtered like a pig.

I know I was. MY first death was at the hand of ghouls. Being my first time playing D&D, in my second session... to fill a gap in the party, and not knowing any better, I was cajoled into playing a Samurai, back in the youth of 3rd ed. Heck, how Mobility was explained to me, was like how Spring Attack worked, so I wasn't even explained how to use my character correctly.

But, needless to say, I filled a very important melee gap, and as such, I was constantly shoved through the doorways first, to check to monsters. No exaggeration on that one. A couple of times, there WERE monsters.

One of the encounters was a pack of ghouls which left me making (and failing) stabilization rolls as combat wrapped up. Without a proper healer, the player with the best Wisdom score attempted to do an untrained Heal check to stabilize me.

That player was playing a Necromancer. Using an untrained heal check. And rolled a natural 1.

That, is how I lost my first character.  

[SporkMaster5000]

My first character death was a few months back. I only started playing with 4e, and haven't managed many live groups. My first was a few guys who used to play 3.5 but i guess fell out of the habit of gaming. One of them invited me to join in when he saw me with the eberron player's guide from 4e.

I was the only person who had a firm grip of the new system, and the guy DMing I don't think had much experience with that either. He threw together a loose string of encounters and we were off slaughtering goblins, with most of the rest of the group doing their best to Piss off every NPC we came across. Second session saw us in a different town (running from the cops in the first) looking for work. At my suggestion we took an offer to collect crocodile skins (the other options were a possible dragon, or giant bugs). I was a halfling fighter, and the onyl other melee character wasn't big on getting into melee, and the ranged characters were all being very sure to keep at maximum range, all the better for running in terror.

After one crocodile got me caught in his jaws and I failed to escape, the crushing jaws and a second croc attack saw me hit 0 HP. With the fighter down, everyone else turned tail and ran. My first character death was being torn limb from limb by crocodiles.  

[NayrVentess]

Nice Story! ^^

I am probably one of the rare few DnD players who has yet to have a character die on me. That isn't as strange as it sounds, because despite the fact I have been playing DnD for more than five years now, I only started PCing about a year ago. In 3rd Ed, I was the DM all the time, which suited me because I love DMing. But eventually one of my PC's (none other than Mr JoeDude) decided he wanted try his hand at DMing, which was in 4th edition.

My main character is a rogue called Lucius Kane (if any of who have read the Shadowmage novel, you will know where I got the inspitation from, although I truly believe I have made the character my own) and he has never died. Although I've told Joe, the DM, that if he does die in the campaign, it won't be 'oh s**t lets go find a cleric who knows Raise Dead,' he's going to come back with a vengeance as a Revanant twisted so if that does happen, then my first death won't be too bad.

I do have a couple of other character that I am invested in also, one in another IRL campaign, a few on Gaia here, and one more coming up in a new IRL game possibly, but Lucius is my first and foremost love ^^  

[Mokumegane]

Bard Jelly :: sinickers :: Toe jam for a giant- yup, that was me! But... I went down fighting- well, making others courageous and stuff, yeah!  

[Yurro]

My first character death was all a part of the Dm's story. It was my second game I've played, with my 3rd/4th character. (Didn't have enough players, so me and my friend had the liberty of playing 2 characters at the same time.) Lets see if I can get the run-down short enough this post doesn't become a 'wall-o-text'...

Party: Lvl 1 Halfling rogue, Human Paladin (both my friend's), and Half-elf Wizard, & Human Cleric of Pelor (mine). [3.0/.5 edition]

OpeningUpon creating our characters the Dm sets us off on our trip down his home-brewed world's history. Basically there has been wars between multiple nations/parties, one of which being a high-leveled Blackguard Tyrant. We are on our merry way to a nearby town to restock on supplies when in the middle of the day a giant shadow flies over us. We didn't have enough time to even look up before a Great Red Wyrm lands in front of us. As we are starting to be overcome by the Frightful Presence, 3 more dragons cover our flanks. Up on the first dragon sits a man in obviously evil armor, which screams to us that this man is our BBEG. Being set down by his dragon, he strides over to us and challenges us to a fight, one-on-one, or all at once. The dragons back off enough to lift the fear effect long enough for us to attack, which is what we did.

The Paladin charges with his longsword, gets grabbed by the face, and 'Smite Good'-ed to death. The Wizard tries to case his most offensive attack while the Cleric tries to set up a flank for the rogue. The Blackguard uses some kind of spell (which even now I've never figured out what it was) that kills both the Cleric and Wizard on failed Fort/Will saves from a distance. Finally the Rogue who was able to maneuver behind the Blackguard tries to get an attack in, only to miss, and be picked up by the villain, stabbed by a black short sword, and have the sword thrusted into his hand. Leaving us, the Blackguard laughs about how easy it was to defeat 'Destiny'.

Next thing we know, a cleric is overlooking us in a building, casting healing/resurrection spells on our rogue friend who was last to be healed. And thus started our 'Debt payment' guests... Despite all the obvious hardships between my friend and the Dm over the TPK, I preferred this over a "You meet in a bar" start.  

[NayrVentess]

That is a pretty cool beginning... I may nick it for my next campaign! ^^  

[Slave Xaccheus]

I was playing a *very* drunken dwarf fighter that was the comedic relief of the group, but also a pretty hefty damage-dealer with his DWA (Dwarven War Axe).

It was a 3.5 rules, James Bond-style showdown in a warehouse where we were taking on the Mithril Fist Triad. These guys had been running everything from drugs to weapons to slaves, and we'd been charged to put a stop to it.

Now, there were a ton of barrels around full of some sort of unnamed black, smelly granules. One of us tried (and failed) to identify it as Gunpowder.

Now, we had a party of five: Me, a Human Cleric of Pelor, an Elven Evoker (that's wizard, for those who don't pay attention), a Half-Orc Barbarian, and our DM, who played a Half-Elf Ranger.

The Barbarian and I were on the front lines, close to the barrels, and just chopping a ton of people in half (seriously, I scored almost three critical hits). Our DM was up on a stack of crates, taking pot-shots at people behind us with a Musket (we were a unique time-period).

This is when our wizard decides that it'd be a good idea to use Fireball to take out some Mithril Fist that were clustered around several barrels. The fire also managed to overcome the hardness of the wood. Gunpowder ignites when burned.

In a sense, our mission was accomplished. The Warehouse was reduced to burning splinters, and all the Triad members inside got killed either when the barrels caused a chain reaction and blew the whole place to hell, the roof fell on them, or they were burned to death underneath the roof.

The Barbarian and I got crushed by the roof. Our Wizard inadvertently killed himself when all the explosions went off. Our DM fell off of his crates and got crushed when they fell over. Our cleric managed to survive the explosion (taking some heavy damage, but not to the point of Massive Damage), avoid the roof, and actually sunder his way through the roof and come out alive.

So, all in all, we had four dead guys, a completely destroyed warehouse, a heavily weakened crime syndicate, and a battered and bruised cleric. What a day.  

[Raganui Minamoto]

Haven't died yet... all the games I've been in do before my character.  

[Yurro]

Eternality_Cannon

I was playing a *very* drunken dwarf fighter that was the comedic relief of the group, but also a pretty hefty damage-dealer with his DWA (Dwarven War Axe).

It was a 3.5 rules, James Bond-style showdown in a warehouse where we were taking on the Mithril Fist Triad. These guys had been running everything from drugs to weapons to slaves, and we'd been charged to put a stop to it.

Now, there were a ton of barrels around full of some sort of unnamed black, smelly granules. One of us tried (and failed) to identify it as Gunpowder.

Now, we had a party of five: Me, a Human Cleric of Pelor, an Elven Evoker (that's wizard, for those who don't pay attention), a Half-Orc Barbarian, and our DM, who played a Half-Elf Ranger.

The Barbarian and I were on the front lines, close to the barrels, and just chopping a ton of people in half (seriously, I scored almost three critical hits). Our DM was up on a stack of crates, taking pot-shots at people behind us with a Musket (we were a unique time-period).

This is when our wizard decides that it'd be a good idea to use Fireball to take out some Mithril Fist that were clustered around several barrels. The fire also managed to overcome the hardness of the wood. Gunpowder ignites when burned.

In a sense, our mission was accomplished. The Warehouse was reduced to burning splinters, and all the Triad members inside got killed either when the barrels caused a chain reaction and blew the whole place to hell, the roof fell on them, or they were burned to death underneath the roof.

The Barbarian and I got crushed by the roof. Our Wizard inadvertently killed himself when all the explosions went off. Our DM fell off of his crates and got crushed when they fell over. Our cleric managed to survive the explosion (taking some heavy damage, but not to the point of Massive Damage), avoid the roof, and actually sunder his way through the roof and come out alive.

So, all in all, we had four dead guys, a completely destroyed warehouse, a heavily weakened crime syndicate, and a battered and bruised cleric. What a day.

Reminds me of a time that the group I was with were having a bar fight. Bar was complete with huge kegs of alcohol the size of horses, if not bigger. A player was playing a General Wizard decided to take up residence under the door frame (barrels facing him) and shot a Burning Hands spell at that location. Dm house-ruled that this was extremely flammable beer, which had the same properties as Gunpowder to some extent. Everything goes *BOOM!* with the Wizard having some protection from the ceiling collapsing thanks to the door frame, and took damage from the fire and explosion debris. Only the NPCs died, but still funny all the same.  

[Arc Vembris]

I think my first character death might have been a rather unremarkable halfling rogue in 2e. The first that I can actually remember was a custom race I made up, they were a small catfolk I called the Grimalkin, who were essentially furry gnomes in execution. He irritated all the other players. In a fight against an ogre I thought it would be clever to lead him charging toward a cliff while I nimbly used my awesome climbing skills to grab onto the side, sending him hurtling over the edge. The ogre simply stopped at the side and smashed my guy into a fine paste. I learned after this to always explain your clever plans to the DM before you execute them.  

[Slave Xaccheus]

Yurro

Eternality_Cannon

I was playing a *very* drunken dwarf fighter that was the comedic relief of the group, but also a pretty hefty damage-dealer with his DWA (Dwarven War Axe).

It was a 3.5 rules, James Bond-style showdown in a warehouse where we were taking on the Mithril Fist Triad. These guys had been running everything from drugs to weapons to slaves, and we'd been charged to put a stop to it.

Now, there were a ton of barrels around full of some sort of unnamed black, smelly granules. One of us tried (and failed) to identify it as Gunpowder.

Now, we had a party of five: Me, a Human Cleric of Pelor, an Elven Evoker (that's wizard, for those who don't pay attention), a Half-Orc Barbarian, and our DM, who played a Half-Elf Ranger.

The Barbarian and I were on the front lines, close to the barrels, and just chopping a ton of people in half (seriously, I scored almost three critical hits). Our DM was up on a stack of crates, taking pot-shots at people behind us with a Musket (we were a unique time-period).

This is when our wizard decides that it'd be a good idea to use Fireball to take out some Mithril Fist that were clustered around several barrels. The fire also managed to overcome the hardness of the wood. Gunpowder ignites when burned.

In a sense, our mission was accomplished. The Warehouse was reduced to burning splinters, and all the Triad members inside got killed either when the barrels caused a chain reaction and blew the whole place to hell, the roof fell on them, or they were burned to death underneath the roof.

The Barbarian and I got crushed by the roof. Our Wizard inadvertently killed himself when all the explosions went off. Our DM fell off of his crates and got crushed when they fell over. Our cleric managed to survive the explosion (taking some heavy damage, but not to the point of Massive Damage), avoid the roof, and actually sunder his way through the roof and come out alive.

So, all in all, we had four dead guys, a completely destroyed warehouse, a heavily weakened crime syndicate, and a battered and bruised cleric. What a day.

Reminds me of a time that the group I was with were having a bar fight. Bar was complete with huge kegs of alcohol the size of horses, if not bigger. A player was playing a General Wizard decided to take up residence under the door frame (barrels facing him) and shot a Burning Hands spell at that location. Dm house-ruled that this was extremely flammable beer, which had the same properties as Gunpowder to some extent. Everything goes *BOOM!* with the Wizard having some protection from the ceiling collapsing thanks to the door frame, and took damage from the fire and explosion debris. Only the NPCs died, but still funny all the same.

The only times I've ever gotten into a bar fight were used as a distraction from some various nefarious evil guy.

A really close encounter (for everyone in the party) was when we were flying in a Zeppelin armed with quite a few Ballistas. We were taking potshots at ground-level siege engines and large vehicles and dealing some serous damage when suddenly a Mountain Giant hurls a javelin (sized for him) and just cuts a hole in the balloon all the way through.

Well, our team was really handy with spider poles (see arms and equipment guide for more info) and had managed to make collapsible hang gliders. So, we jump out of the almost falling Zeppelin right as another spear hits it and destroys the balloon entirely.

So now we are gliding through the air over a huge battlefield, and there's people throwing things at us. This was not fun.  

[Seiryna]

Raganui Minamoto

Haven't died yet... all the games I've been in do before my character.

ditto =x I don't want my char to die...but would be nice to have a game last more then 2 games XD  

[Mongooseh]

Mine was quite unspectacular.
Nooby cleric tried to smite a brown bear at level 1.
*thud*  

[Slave Xaccheus]

How can I say this and not sound crazy? Ummm...

Pun-Pun (yes, my DM used him) blew up The Fourth Wall (an actual homebrew environment), eliminating the Dungeon Master and thus unravelling the entire multiverse. Naturally, this takes out EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. My DM was bored with D&D.  

[Rain Yupa]

Eternality_Cannon

How can I say this and not sound crazy? Ummm...

Pun-Pun (yes, my DM used him) blew up The Fourth Wall (an actual homebrew environment), eliminating the Dungeon Master and thus unravelling the entire multiverse. Naturally, this takes out EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. My DM was bored with D&D.

I'm actually somewhat amused by this.

Rocks fall Pun-Pun shows up, everyone dies!