Death by Vanity

[Sand]

Well, my friends, I have killed a PC in my campaign. It was a sad death of a faen akashic (Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved) that involved an animated Vanity. The dashing young faen and his partner was to save a sleeping damsel in distress with the other members of the party distracting the inhabitant of the home. Well, when they entered the bedroom where their quarry laid the vanity dresser attacked and scored a critical hit on the poor faen, doing massive damage and with a failed save...

 

Death by vanity. A sad way to go.

[metadigital]

What, no bonfire?

[Sand]

That might come later knowing my group.

[Deraldin]

I suppose that's a little better than losing to a gazebo...

[Tale]

I suppose that's a little better than losing to a gazebo...

That was one of the most hilarious stories I'd ever heard. Anyone have a link saved for posterity?

Edited February 21, 2007 by Tale

[Deraldin]

I suppose that's a little better than losing to a gazebo...

That was one of the most hilarious stories I'd ever heard. Anyone have a link saved for posterity?

 

A quick google search found this.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Deraldin

[Walsingham]

The pun is mightier than the sword.

[ghosta]

Well, my friends, I have killed a PC in my campaign. It was a sad death of a faen akashic (Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved) that involved an animated Vanity. The dashing young faen and his partner was to save a sleeping damsel in distress with the other members of the party distracting the inhabitant of the home. Well, when they entered the bedroom where their quarry laid the vanity dresser attacked and scored a critical hit on the poor faen, doing massive damage and with a failed save...

 

Death by vanity. A sad way to go.

 

I think it thought that you were to ugly to saved.

[Darque]

Once more, Sand kills a player character.

 

Who's keepin' score?

[Sand]

What can I say? Let the die roll where it may!

[Walsingham]

I think that without the possibility of sudden unexpected death the PCs don't act sensibly. It's like playing poker without cash.

[Farbautisonn]

ED: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo.

It catches you and eats you.

ERIC: (Reaching for his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so

I can avenge my Paladin.

 

That was hilarious !

 

-Farb

[Volourn]

PCs have a knack of finding the oddest ways to die. I've seen this as both a DM, and experienced it in my own foolish way as a player. It's part of pnp role-playing's charm.

 

I'm glad there's another DM out there who won't always pull punches to 'save' the PCs from their own foolishness. I rarely 'cheat' with the die and only do so on those rare (not bragging; it comes with experience) situations where I overrated the PC party prowess and made an over powered enemy...

Edited May 28, 2007 by Volourn

[Walsingham]

I think it cheats a ot of the experience as I say. We were playing a very fine Cthulhu adventure this evening set in WW1 and were being advanced upon by a strange skeleton thing. Having dispatched one previously with copious firepower we were grimly reloading and muttering to on eanother what we could do. Suddenly one of the party shouts "I'm going at him with my rifle butt. RAAAGH!" There's a moment of stunned silence and I shout "Come on then, you slugs!" and charge after him. Shortly to be followed by the rest of the squad.

 

The first fighting went predictably badly, with no damage done by us. The return was two lots of claw lacerated innards. The point being we figured we were certain dead, knowing the referee wouldn't cheat to save us from what was a silly but altogether good roleplayed charge. Then in the second round the plucky but weedy feller who started the charge tried to grapple this flipping beast! Hilariously he actually succeeded in his roll with a critical. He successfuly swarmed over it and just grabbed its arms into a full nelson. Anyway I followed up with a double critical using my rifle butt and knocked it's head clean off. You've not heard such a hearty cheer in a long while.

 

If the above incident had been done with a kinder referee there would have been far less payoff for getting away with it.

[metadigital]

Does a skeleton need its head? After all, it's not like it uses its eyes to see ...

[Volourn]

"If the above incident had been done with a kinder referee there would have been far less payoff for getting away with it."

 

Yup. Tales of heroics 'comebacks' against overhwelming odds is something that 'cheating' DMs take away from player sby pampering. Like I said above, the only time a DM should ever 'fudge' the die rolls is if HE (or she) errored in sending an enemy well beyond the players' ability to win.

 

There's a fine line between between overpowering but possible to win against and just too much.

[Sand]

Well, it wasn't an overpowering animated object. It was well within the party's capabilities to kill it. It did a critical that took it above the character's massive damage threshold and the character failed his fortitude save which immediately drops him to 1d4 points away from his death threshold. The rest of the aprty didn't get to him to stabilize him in time and he failed his stabilization checks.

 

Could have happen to any one of the party.

[Sand]

Does a skeleton need its head? After all, it's not like it uses its eyes to see ...

 

The animus, or the animated spirit needs the full form to bind the necrotic energies for animation. Without the fully binding energies of the skeletal form their isn't enough residual energy for the animus to animate the skeleton.

[Gfted1]

^So if you only chop off an arm or leg from the skelly it should "die" too?

[Sand]

It may, but the head, like in the living holds the brain, holds the largest chunk of the animus.

[Gfted1]

It may, but the head, like in the living holds the brain, holds the largest chunk of the animus.

 

 

Interesting. Its always rattled around in the back of my head, how do you "kill" whats magically animated? Like the old "cut off the evil hand and the evil hand comes after you".

[Volourn]

I like to think of undead's hit points as a symbol of the 'magic' that keeps them animated. For unintelligent ones like skeles it's the magical force makes them animated while for intelligent/free willed ones like vamps it's their 'will power' keeping what should be dead 'alive'.

[Deraldin]

PCs have a knack of finding the oddest ways to die. I've seen this as both a DM, and experienced it in my own foolish way as a player. It's part of pnp role-playing's charm.

 

I'm glad there's another DM out there who won't always pull punches to 'save' the PCs from their own foolishness. I rarely 'cheat' with the die and only do so on those rare (not bragging; it comes with experience) situations where I overrated the PC party prowess and made an over powered enemy...

 

The DM for the last game that I was a part of pulled punches on occasion to save my little kobold from dying. I think there was at least twice that he used some "DM license" to save me and another half dozen times where I ended up about 2 HP away from being fully dead. I had a horrible time with heights. 5 separate occasions I either went into negative hit points after a fall or being dropped to negative hit points caused me to fall from a good height.

[metadigital]

It may, but the head, like in the living holds the brain, holds the largest chunk of the animus.

But ... how does it see?

[Sand]

It may, but the head, like in the living holds the brain, holds the largest chunk of the animus.

But ... how does it see?

Magic.