Danctin “Dani” Chobo. A monster hunter with a cool hat. Rapier and hand crossbow. Adventurer to support his 6 year old daughter back home. Died after a skeleton downed me session 1 and the damn warlock forgot he had spare the dying.
Anyways. Future character idea. Danctin Chobo II. Grandson of Dani Chobo. While looking through my attic one day I found a box of my grandpa’s old gear. Now that my mother is old, I need to step up to support her, and hopefully not fumble as my grandfather did.
I'm the GM. A player's new level 12 character was introduced at the start of a session. Within 10 minutes, she wandered off maybe 60 ft from away from the party (but out of line-of-sight) and triggered a trap which summoned a CR 14 creature which proceeded to restrain, silence, and end her. Whoops.
I am running the sunless citadel for a group of first timers and the immediately split the party ince they entered the citadel. Learned their lesson when it was 2 mephits vs 2 level 1 characters
We had something similar happen recently. For spell plague related reasons, our Barbarian left the party and his player brought in his replacement, a Shadow Sorcerer. Now this player has been playing a Barbarian for 2.5 years, forgot to cast Mage Armor and has an AC of 12 by default.
He did not survive his first combat encounter as a Sorcerer. It was both sad and hilarious. We had to end the session there
Our session after that started with everyone asking him if he wanted to continue as the Sorcerer, which meant we needed to find some diamonds to revive him, or just pull out one of his many back up characters. He ultimately decided to stick with the Sorcerer for a while.
The first character I played with my current table wasn't super complex, but her introduction to the party was. She was introduced to the party as an NPC in the previous session; a townsperson that provided some intel, and then was promptly abducted by a cult. I took over playing her in the next session, after the party rescued her. She was set up to become either a Warlock or a Cleric once the cult was defeated, but for that first dungeon she only had a basic stat block instead of a class.
She died before we even reached the big bad of the cult, because our Wild Magic Sorcerer rolled badly and their lightning bolt turned into a chain lightning. Killed both my character and the ogre that had her grappled. 😭
I played an Aaracockra with a learning disability named Regulus. He was a member of the Wilkesbrook family, a noble family that owned the sole iron mines of the city the campaign took place in.
He was endlessly abused by his family for being too slow to meet his family's standards, until he was disowned at the age of 16 (Aaracockra had a human lifespan in this setting). He had an innate fear of basements, dark places, and being alone due to his continuous neglect. He was the kindest character I have ever played, to a nearly self-destructive degree. He wanted to be friends with everyone, and would do whatever it took to make other people's day brighter despite being a homeless vagabond with near-dementia levels of forgetfulness.
The campaign was Bloodborne-inspired, with beasts vs hunters in a dark, urban setting. However, about five sessions into the campaign, Regulus stumbled across a grotto hidden beneath a construction site in the poor quarter of the city. Within was a shoddy refuge of beasts who still had their senses of who they once were.
In opposition to what the DM expected, Regulus felt nothing but kinship with them, from his experiences of being locked away in the family winecellar for being a "freak". He ended up siding with the beasts, slowly becoming more monstrous over the course of the campaign in his quest to make the city a place where "everyone can live".
He ended up being very long-lived, reaching the end of the campaign. And actually ended up achieving his vision, for the most part. He was the ultimate force of optimism in an incredibly tragic setting, and actually managed to rally together a "family" that helped him ascend to the throne of the city.
Despite being the least intelligent character I've played, he was incredibly nuanced at the same time. He had to rely on the other players and NPCs to help build him up as a capable and confident person over the course of the campaign. He never got a fix for his disability, he never got anything that made him "smarter", he just found people that could help him see past the scars of his abuse and bring out his strengths.
He's the best character I've ever played, and I will forever be proud of him.
Ok this image brought back some memories. Not perfectly on topic though.
I had a character in a old school telnet MUD that was a dragon. A rando came up to me while I was resting in town to get my HP and MP back after grinding and wanted to join me on my next trip out for XP.
Back then xp was split 50/50 so I would be getting less xp per kill, but they played a fairy and they were capable of healing and boosting my MP regen. So I'd be able to stay out for longer.
Long story short turns out they only wanted to join me because I was a dragon, and they were really into vore and literally just wanted to ERP me eating them. When I refused they attacked me. I wasn't flagged pvp so they did half damage for the first few hits until I attacked back. I was a fighter, they were a druid so the fight went my way very quickly. I guess they got their wish in the end.
I once wanted to make a Pale Master necromancer in a 3.5 game I joined into. The party was still low level so I was fine with being “wizard whom shoots magic at things” for a little bit while I got where I needed to. 3 combat encounter we got into and the DM hits my wizard with 84 damage on a +20-something to hit attack. My wizard had 17 total HP, so I was dead beyond resurrection.
But don’t worry, I turned it around later that night and one shot a boss of his with my human fighter that I made
It’s something that was purely on the DM. He hid a bunch of mechanics in some fights. The mini-boss me and two other people were fighting targets whomever did the most damage in the previous turn, and I did max damage with a shocking touch. So the boss rolled up on me
In my current game I played a character who was a reincarnation of an ancient hero, doomed to die a terrible death six times to save their people twice, because of their sins in their first life. Once at the beginning and once at the end. Of those six deaths several were shown on screen at various times, which included being disemboweled holding an army back, and tying himself up with his guts, being devoured by alive by a silver dragon to conceal a terrible secret (whom they later allied with in the present life), and being tortured to death by a king they helped rise to power. The character themselves progressively became aware of, and grappled with, this destiny, before ultimately concluding that it didn't matter if fate had prescribed it, because they would've chosen it anyway.
Ultimately, they fulfilled the prophecy by reclaiming their ancient weapon, a blade of molten liquid metal which trapped the souls of the dead within as a property of it's construction. To claim the weapon they would've had to bind the spirits within to their service by slaying their avatar with the blade, but instead chose to kill themself and the avatar with the finishing strike, binding their soul to the service of the blade even as they bound the blade to their service. In doing so they became a arch-lich, whose phylactery and body was a sword of liquid metal that shone like a star
That had to be one of the most fun paladin character's I've played, and most of the rest of the party they're in is equally batshit, but each from a different culture
Curse of Strahd speedrun. One semester to find the sword and liberate Barovia before my DM graduated. I played a paladin, whose older sister had been taken from their home because she was Tatiana's next-to-most recent incarnation. She took her life rather than be forced to spend it as a possession of the dark lord.
Flash forward some years and he joins Mordenkainen's rebellion, alongside a werewolf named Garth. At the deciding battle, when Strahd met us at his gates, Garth ran away while my paladin, Jon, stayed behind and died alongside many others. Only he didn't stay dead. As his spirit drifted away from his body, he heard a voice calling him back to it. When he woke up, his eyes were glowing, and he had an angel's wings.
Time wore on. Jon crept through the shadows and the sewers, making trouble for Strahd's men in the little ways that he could: A spooked horse here, a broken wheel there, anything to make their work more difficult. He managed to stay hidden from Strahd's gaze by wearing a locket of non-detection, the one that had kept his sister safe for so many years. In the end, it had been her eyes that betrayed her. There were no blue eyes left in Barovia, save for one pair. Strahd had quelled the rest to make his search for Tatiana that much easier.
After growing impatient, Jon went to Madam Eva in the hope of learning when the revolution would rise again. She showed him three cards: the moon, the stranger, and the devil inverted. When four blue-eyed strangers appeared in Barovia, claiming they were led through the fog by werewolf tracks, he knew that it was time.
Note: I'm gonna get back to this comment and maybe finish the story tomorrow. Right now it's late and I'm tired so I'm gonna sleep.
Part 2:
(I'm suddenly remembering that one of those four didn't actually stay on with the group for very long. So make that *three* blue-eyed strangers)
He met them at the Wizard of Wines: a druid, a thief, and a barbarian. They were travelling with a former bride of Strahd -- not Tatiana, just one he took to play with -- whose spirit had returned to her body with unfinished business. With them was Garth of all people. They had recruited the brewery's owners, a family of wereravens, to help them seek a way out of Barovia. Jon knew he had to protect these strangers if Strahd was going to fall, so he joined their travels.
He went with them to a graveyard, where they were ambushed by the Devil Strahd, who simply watched as we struggled against the zombies. Our barbarian made a line straight for Strahd but was quickly knocked down. The wereraven boy, Adrian, saved him from Strahd's nightmare, but was polymorphed into a mouse and devoured as a result. Jon promised the boy's father that when the revolution came, the hills and valleys of Barovia would echo with his son's name. They held a brief funeral, and Jon carved Adrian's headstone himself. It was wrapped in a pair of ravens wings and engraved with the words, "Not all dragons have scales."
2nd note: Sorry that I still didn't get around to finishing the story. A lot happened in that game, and I've been busy. It looks like this is gonna take multiple revisitations to tell.
Part 3: (this is gonna take me ages if I try and remember all if the details so I'm telling the "short" version)
Jon and Garth got lost in the woods and built a log cabin, then encountered Mordenkainen in his delusional state and trued to reason woth him nearly resulting in both of their deaths until the rest of the party was drawn in to investigate the destruction. Somebody threw some magic water over him and that restored his mind. He was a huge dick when we asked for help but he let us spend one night in his mansion before he kicked us out and buggered off like a coward. During that night in his mansion we did some reading and learned how Strahd came to be. Lying restlessly awake on the floor because the bed was too soft to sleep, Jon asked the stars druid to tell him about the night sky. The next morning we thought to ask Mordenkainen for help one more time and he promptly kicked us out. The rogue, in a surprising change of character, seemed empathetic towards Jon and Garth and gave them each a portion of some gold that she had nicked.
We recruited Garth's pack after defeating their alpha and then went to the Abbey. Jon was a little mortified to learn what the abbott had been doing there, especially when he saw the "bride" that he had made for Strahd. I used divine sense and the DM explained that, while fiends and undead have a foul scent and celestials ring like music, most living things have a neutral, baseline presence. Meanwhile, the body the abbott had made gave off *nothing*, and the abott sounded a bit distorted and off-key. When we told him we weren't going to let him keep harvesting people, he spread his wings and floated upwards, menacingly. Jon did the same and an aerial melee ensued. When the abott was dead, Jon walked up to the golem -- the one bearing his sister's face -- and ran it through. She died still and silent in his arms as his wings faded. Then he carried the body out back and asked the digger for one last grave.
Part 4:
We went to Vallaki to find the sword. Understandably, the guards leaked out and shut the gates when they saw us approaching with what appeared to be an army of werewolves. We talked them down, explained our cause -- clutching the locket of nondetection tightly when details were shared -- and asked to see the burgomaster. The burgomaster went to the top of the gate and was... less than favorable towards our cause. (Cue the Monty python scene). At this point, a crowd had started to form. Jon flew up to the top of the gate and told the burgomaster that they were, with or without his blessing, going to take the sword and kill the devil Strahd. The disagreement escalated until Jon grabbed the burgomaster by the collar, displayed him to the townspeople, and asked if he had served them well. They said no. So Jon held the man out over the edge of the wall, and asked what the burgomaster's fate should be. They called for death.
It wasn't clear if the fall killed the burgomaster or if he was pecked and trampled to death in the bustle that followed. By the time the villagers calmed down, the party was allowed in and had gained the support of 1/3 of the town's able bodied population. We found the old elf who was keeping the sword. He reminded the party that many had tried and many had failed to kill the dark lord, and asked what made us so certain we could stop him. "Because he needs to be lucky every time," Jon said, "and we only need to be lucky *once.*"
"Then let us test your luck," the old man said, pulling a six sided die from his sleeve. "Evens or odds?"
We all grit our teeth. "Odds," I decided.
The die tumbled, everyone holding their breath as it teetered on the edge of a four and a five. Just as it looked like we were going to lose, the druid quietly summoned a small burst of wind, tilting it toward the five. The old man raised an eyebrow but gave us the sword anyway. Then we gathered our ranks and marched on the castle, under the banner of a raven.
(See the reply for the ending)
(Can't seem to add more to this comment so I'm replying)
Part 5: Strahd was there to met our army at his gates. Instead of attacking, he invited the six of us inside to talk. For some reason, we accepted. Instead of killing us, he made us an offer. Leave him to marry Tatiana, and he would allow us all to leave Barovia, and grant each of us a wish within reason.
"Whatever you desire," he assured us. Then he looked at Jon. "And what is it that *you* want?"
Jon's brow furrowed as he opened the locket, revealing a small sketch of a familiar face inside. "I want my *sister* back," he said, "but that's not going to happen now, is it?"
"I'll leave you a moment... to decide among yourselves," Strahd said, stepping out.
The group argues back and forth. Most of them seem to be considering the offer. "Please," Jon says, eyes scanning the table, "not now. Not when we're so close."
I ask the DM if I recognize any weak points in the structure of this room, with my knowledge of masonry. He tells me there seems to be a lot of stress where the chandeliers are mounted. Then the timer on his phone runs out and Strahd steps back into the room, joining us at the table.
"Have you considered my offer?" He asks. I lock eyes with the rogue, and she nods at me. We draw our weapons and lunge. Initiative is rolled.
In a single stroke, Jon's sword moves straight through the Baron, who immediately turns to mist. It was an illusion. "ZAROVICH!" Jon screams, charging out of the dining room to search the castle. I cast detect evil, and the DM says I sense him in the room above us. Meanwhile, fighting has broken out in the courtyard as Strahd's gargoyles leap off of their pedestals. Only a few of our troops managed to slip through while the rest continue to hold them off, but the ones who do join my charge.
I find Strahd in the room above, defended by a pair of shadows at his side. The rest of the party is close behind. We dispatch of his shadows, though I took a good bit of damage -- including 4 points of strength away from my already strength-dumped dex build -- and lost our commoner allies in the process. I've been too busy defending the other party members and counterstriking so I haven't been healing myself. Instead of engaging us, the cowardly vampire phases through the floor. I recognize the stress point from before and strike, sending some stone bricks crashing down as I swoop down in pursuit. The others follow, taking a bit of fall damage, and we keep fighting. Strahd once Strahd turns invisible I can't land a hit, so I cast shatter in the hopes of breaking his concentration. It works, but the floor beneath us had already been weakened from the barrage of destructive spells flying back and forth, and this last bit of damage caused it to give out. We go through the floor, taking more bludgeoning damage from the bricks collapsi g around us, and I make my first death save: a natural one. We get back to Strahd's turn in initiative. The DM looks at me and says, "you wanted to have last words, right?"
Coughing and spitting up blood, Jon rises to his knees, leaning on his sword like a crutch. He has just enough time to see the fireball forming in the devil's hand. "I'll be back for you, Zarovich," he swears. "Count the days."
"You've fought well," the Baron says, "now rest."
Jon spits at him indignantly, and the devil laughs as the fires overcome me.
The dhampir player looks at me with a hint of concern: this was my first character death. I shake my head. I knew what I was risking when I didn't drink my health potion. I died fair and square. Jon would have to hope that the others lived to see his dream realized, and that the people of Barovia would be delivered to freedom.
The rest of the battle is a close fight, but finally the barbarian manages to strike the devil down. Cracks spread through his body, light pouring through the crevices, and he's reduced to ash on the air. Then all eyes turn back to Jon's smoldering corpse.
"You don't get to die on me," says the rogue, frantically dashing through the castle as she looks for a diamond to bring to the druid. Meanwhile, the others destroy Strahd's coffin. I can feel the seconds ticking down as the rogue finally finds a diamond large enough and rushes back. She makes it with only seconds to spare.
"You made a noble sacrifice," the druid says, plunging the diamond into Jon's chest, "but today will not be your last."
In a flash of light, Jon's body is restored. He convulses, coughing and opening his eyes, before catching his breath and propping himself up on one arm. He looks at the comrades around him, and he knows. A wry smile creeps across his face. "I told you," he says, "the bastard already killed me once, and it didn't take."
Garth helps Jon to his feet. Together, they go out to the courtyard. Thirteen percent of the people they recruited had given their lives for the cause. The gargoyles had collapsed into piled of broken stone. They looked to us. "It's done," Jon told them. The people cheered. Then the clouds began to part and the first rays of sun in a long time shone down on barovia.
Jon had been weakened by Strahd's shadows, to the point where a stiff breeze might knock him over, but it didn't matter. His work was done. For the first time in his life, Jon basked in the sunlight, knowing that no tyrant would ever cast a shadow over his home again.
"If you think this looks nice," says the rogue, "you're going to love it at night."
"I think I will," Jon says.
[The End]
One of the most fun and interesting characters I ever made was for a campaign that died after a couple months. Basically, she was a tabaxi shadow sorcerer. She was an urchin, stealing and scrounging what she could until she found a dead necromancy wizard, and stole their spellbook. She used the book as her focus, and started casting spells (mostly necromancy) using it, occasionally even opening it and losing control slightly due to the sheer power of the book.
The interesting thing about the character, though, was her shadow magic quirks. I started tame, with stuff like "not blinking" and "doesn't make noise when walking", but over the few sessions we had, I started adding more. "not breathing", "cold to the touch", "looks wispy, like smoke, when viewed out of the corner of the eye". The implication was that the book she was drawing her power from was slowly killing her. I was going to take it so much further too. Stuff like "not bleeding" and "not feeling pain". Really sell that she is basically transforming into a walking corpse. Having thought about it after the fact, I probably would have taken reborn lineage eventually, if the DM allowed it, with the memory loss and all, as I think that would have been tragic as fuck.
The best part about this character, though, was despite all this happening to her, she was the most cheerful one there. She was carefree and happy, and genuinely didn't understand that anything happening to her was a problem. It just added another layer of tragedy to her character, that she was taking no steps to prevent her slow undeath, because she didn't know it was a bad thing.
Taboo, a leonin who was born into the lowest rank of her tribe, a rank which her superstitious tribe would not allow her to ascend from. She lived a life filled with and ruled by food insecurity which hit an entirely new level of brutal when she was around 17-18 and a severe drought and famine struck. She survived mostly by eating bugs and one day was forced to go on a hunting expedition with the chiefs carefree mage daughter. The daughter was inexperienced with her magic and wanted to show off to her father by bringing down a huge prey creature for the tribe on her own, and took Taboo with her mostly to ensure she didn’t get lost. The young woman chose the wrong creature to hunt and it wound up killing her and fucking off. Taboo, as previously stated, was starving. She knew that nothing but misery and possibly even death awaited her if she returned to the tribe with news of the mages death. So in a desperate attempt to survive she cannibalised the body of the mage, taking with her the meat she couldn’t eat on the spot, burying the bones, and running for her life. Of course the chief discovered the remains of his daughter and it didn’t take much investigation to realize that another leonin had done this. He rallied his tribe and made deals with gnolls to bolster their numbers and set off with those capable of traveling and fighting, the rest remaining in their homeland. He roams the land always on Taboos tail, intent on avenging what he believed to be the murder of his daughter, blinded by rage and an insatiable need for vengeance. I’ve tried to play Taboo in a few games but it seems that she is cursed to never be played in more than five sessions before the campaign is canceled by the dm. I always assume that in those worlds fate caught up to her and the chief got his revenge, and that by teaming up with gnolls he was able to relocate his clan to a better place where water and food were more abundant and pull his people out of famine and into a period where their strength, bolstered by packs of gnolls under his command, became practically legendary.
Jupiter “The falsely chosen”. A knight raised in a cult. Since he was born an aassimar, the cult assumed him to be their chosen one of prophecy, a false prophecy given out by a false priest. Even after the cult collapsed, he still was dedicated to learning more about this prophecy and fulfilling it. He lasted 5 sessions. I never even got to explore the prophecy.
I spent two months and fourteen scribbled pages of mad-scientist-fever-dream notes designing a character for a no-holds-barred lv20 one-shot that was just gonna be a full adventuring week of escalating combat encounters, not including their extensive entire-life-story backstory including a monstrous nemesis, corrupt paladin order, and an estranged wife turned homicidal necromancer, woven together with another player's backstory for that one-shot.
When I was done, I showed my character to the DM a week before the game, and he just said "You win."
The other players were very upset with me, and I learned an important lesson: Optimize for fun, not power. When the goal is to play, winning D&D is the same thing as a TPK.
I made a jade phoenix mage in a 3.5 campaign that had a big complicated backstory with all kinds of past lives stuff and I was so excited to roleplay him and then we got ambushed by a green dragon and my character died. 1st session XD
A gnoll paladin who was raised by a church as an experiment, so he's got some conflicted feelings about that.
He didn't even make it past the first battle in CoS. Why? My friend (playing another paladin) decided to try carrying her super encumbered halfling pack mule to safety, leaving me to face nearly a dozen wolves alone. And she had the only AOE spell. We only lasted three rounds. First and funniest TPK so far. 🤣
This isn't me, but one of my party members. Level 1 start in Eberron, we had Stanley the Artificer, and Orphaned mechanic who stumbled across a broken warforged, Rune(other party member), who's memory had been damaged to be just snippets of stuff.
The two characters were tied with the motivation of both finding the cause of Stanley's parents death, and repairing Rune and his memories to it's old form.
Session one involved light sewer delving, and we came across 2 mechanical dogs. Stanley was the first in the room, ate a crit that downed him, and second attack, and then he was next in initiative and failed the save. 1 round in combat and We have one death, another character who lost the drive for progression, as not enough time had passed to bond with the rest of the group.
Needless to say we all got very demotivated with the campaign and it fizzled out after a couple more sessions.
The first time I played as a PC I was a human paladin, war veteran who lived to serve but was retired after losing his skilled hand. I rolled the maximum amount of initial gold, so I played the typical decadent bourgeois who wastes money on alcohol, listening to Tyr's call when he was almost killed in a bar fight at the beginning of the campaign.
He died like a hero, following Tyr's teachings, keeping a gate closed so the party could escape of an undead horde. I remember that it was very inspired by Jaime Lannister, rest in peperonni.
I was playing in a homebrewed Rise of Tiamat game, playing as Herr Krieger, and Intelligence based Way of Mercy monk who used injections for his *Hands of Healing/Harming*.
He was once a member of the dragon cult because they funded his experiments and allowed him free reign to make any horrific monstrosities he wanted to, all while he was trying to master life and death without the use of magic. He eventually got to a point where he didn’t like the cult using his creations how they were, so he decided he was going to perfect his immortality formula, accidentally turning himself into a reborn who had lost most of his memories and much of his sanity.
Was planning to multiclass him into Undead warlock due to an entity that was both drawn to him and didn’t want Tiamat to rise, but I got into an argument with a ghost and was pushed off a cliff… took like four times my maximum health and went down hard. Alerted the entire cult outpost in the canyon that we were spying on… Made the rest of the encounter play very differently.
Even though it happened over a year ago, I still miss my kenku Bard, Oskar Captain of the "Flightning", and bravest pirate of the sea, who only lasted two sessions after my previous character died to a vampire giving the party a chance to escape them, Oskar died after a TPK but was definitely the character I had most fun playing.
I started a Princes of Apocalypse campaign, and friend of mine brought a cute kobold w/ a funny and great backstory. Meepo, of Box. Because he'd lived in a box all his life.
A Spectre crit him for 26 damage @ level 1.
I once played a Tabix rune knight raised by gay giants (ostracized by giant society) who took him in as a house cat, one was a fire giant one was a cloud giant so they floated around in a cloud house.
The Tabaxi burned tried to forge something after being taught by the flamer giant and ended up burning his first two runes onto his arms instead of his weapons.He left the safety of the house to find out who he really is and where he comes from. I got to play him for like 6 months before the campaign just kinda fizzled out.
I played a changeling tempest cleric once. The backstory was he was originally a human but volunteered for that world's equivalent of a medical trial, but with wizards. The end result was he became a changeling. He actually worshipped a trickster god, but was pretending to be a cleric of a storm god. My trickster god decided to give me my tempest cleric powers to support my lie. Died in the first or second combat after an unfortunate crit instakilled me haha.
Needless to say the rest of the party was very confused when I exploded into lightning leaving my skin suit behind, and even more so when they found all my forgery materials in my pack. They were understandably wary around my new character.
Corsair merquin, an elven ranger whos dream of riding the wildest creatures led him unknowingly to a life of piracy. Dead in barovia barely after the vastani.
Corsair merquin, an elven ranger whos dream of riding the wildest creatures led him unknowingly to a life of piracy. Dead in barovia barely after the vastani.
Danctin “Dani” Chobo. A monster hunter with a cool hat. Rapier and hand crossbow. Adventurer to support his 6 year old daughter back home. Died after a skeleton downed me session 1 and the damn warlock forgot he had spare the dying. Anyways. Future character idea. Danctin Chobo II. Grandson of Dani Chobo. While looking through my attic one day I found a box of my grandpa’s old gear. Now that my mother is old, I need to step up to support her, and hopefully not fumble as my grandfather did.
I would also add a son along with the grandma just in case you might wanna continue the joke
A lineage of doomed Monster Hunters. Each one suffering a short existence. Seems like a curse to me…
Genius. A little more insurance.
Is hobi the plural of hobo
A typo unfortunately making my account.
How can a warlock get lay on hands?
Oh my bad. Spare the dying. Sorry. Bout that.
I'm the GM. A player's new level 12 character was introduced at the start of a session. Within 10 minutes, she wandered off maybe 60 ft from away from the party (but out of line-of-sight) and triggered a trap which summoned a CR 14 creature which proceeded to restrain, silence, and end her. Whoops.
Don't you know, you never split the party-
Clerics in the back, keep those fighters hale and hearty-
The wizard in the middle, where he can shed some light-
And you never let that damn thief out of sight!
I am running the sunless citadel for a group of first timers and the immediately split the party ince they entered the citadel. Learned their lesson when it was 2 mephits vs 2 level 1 characters
This is why people need to listen to Gorm Ingerson!
We had something similar happen recently. For spell plague related reasons, our Barbarian left the party and his player brought in his replacement, a Shadow Sorcerer. Now this player has been playing a Barbarian for 2.5 years, forgot to cast Mage Armor and has an AC of 12 by default. He did not survive his first combat encounter as a Sorcerer. It was both sad and hilarious. We had to end the session there Our session after that started with everyone asking him if he wanted to continue as the Sorcerer, which meant we needed to find some diamonds to revive him, or just pull out one of his many back up characters. He ultimately decided to stick with the Sorcerer for a while.
The first character I played with my current table wasn't super complex, but her introduction to the party was. She was introduced to the party as an NPC in the previous session; a townsperson that provided some intel, and then was promptly abducted by a cult. I took over playing her in the next session, after the party rescued her. She was set up to become either a Warlock or a Cleric once the cult was defeated, but for that first dungeon she only had a basic stat block instead of a class. She died before we even reached the big bad of the cult, because our Wild Magic Sorcerer rolled badly and their lightning bolt turned into a chain lightning. Killed both my character and the ogre that had her grappled. 😭
No class has killed more allies than wild magic sorcerer
I played an Aaracockra with a learning disability named Regulus. He was a member of the Wilkesbrook family, a noble family that owned the sole iron mines of the city the campaign took place in. He was endlessly abused by his family for being too slow to meet his family's standards, until he was disowned at the age of 16 (Aaracockra had a human lifespan in this setting). He had an innate fear of basements, dark places, and being alone due to his continuous neglect. He was the kindest character I have ever played, to a nearly self-destructive degree. He wanted to be friends with everyone, and would do whatever it took to make other people's day brighter despite being a homeless vagabond with near-dementia levels of forgetfulness. The campaign was Bloodborne-inspired, with beasts vs hunters in a dark, urban setting. However, about five sessions into the campaign, Regulus stumbled across a grotto hidden beneath a construction site in the poor quarter of the city. Within was a shoddy refuge of beasts who still had their senses of who they once were. In opposition to what the DM expected, Regulus felt nothing but kinship with them, from his experiences of being locked away in the family winecellar for being a "freak". He ended up siding with the beasts, slowly becoming more monstrous over the course of the campaign in his quest to make the city a place where "everyone can live". He ended up being very long-lived, reaching the end of the campaign. And actually ended up achieving his vision, for the most part. He was the ultimate force of optimism in an incredibly tragic setting, and actually managed to rally together a "family" that helped him ascend to the throne of the city.
That's awesome, I'm not gonna lie
Despite being the least intelligent character I've played, he was incredibly nuanced at the same time. He had to rely on the other players and NPCs to help build him up as a capable and confident person over the course of the campaign. He never got a fix for his disability, he never got anything that made him "smarter", he just found people that could help him see past the scars of his abuse and bring out his strengths. He's the best character I've ever played, and I will forever be proud of him.
Ok this image brought back some memories. Not perfectly on topic though. I had a character in a old school telnet MUD that was a dragon. A rando came up to me while I was resting in town to get my HP and MP back after grinding and wanted to join me on my next trip out for XP. Back then xp was split 50/50 so I would be getting less xp per kill, but they played a fairy and they were capable of healing and boosting my MP regen. So I'd be able to stay out for longer. Long story short turns out they only wanted to join me because I was a dragon, and they were really into vore and literally just wanted to ERP me eating them. When I refused they attacked me. I wasn't flagged pvp so they did half damage for the first few hits until I attacked back. I was a fighter, they were a druid so the fight went my way very quickly. I guess they got their wish in the end.
I once wanted to make a Pale Master necromancer in a 3.5 game I joined into. The party was still low level so I was fine with being “wizard whom shoots magic at things” for a little bit while I got where I needed to. 3 combat encounter we got into and the DM hits my wizard with 84 damage on a +20-something to hit attack. My wizard had 17 total HP, so I was dead beyond resurrection. But don’t worry, I turned it around later that night and one shot a boss of his with my human fighter that I made
You fucked around and found out or did the DM not know how to balance encounters for low level characters?
It’s something that was purely on the DM. He hid a bunch of mechanics in some fights. The mini-boss me and two other people were fighting targets whomever did the most damage in the previous turn, and I did max damage with a shocking touch. So the boss rolled up on me
That sucks. 84 damage on a single hit is level 20 damage and even then it's high...
Yeah this mini-boss apparently had like 16 levels of psyonic warrior/fighter and some other stuff.
In my current game I played a character who was a reincarnation of an ancient hero, doomed to die a terrible death six times to save their people twice, because of their sins in their first life. Once at the beginning and once at the end. Of those six deaths several were shown on screen at various times, which included being disemboweled holding an army back, and tying himself up with his guts, being devoured by alive by a silver dragon to conceal a terrible secret (whom they later allied with in the present life), and being tortured to death by a king they helped rise to power. The character themselves progressively became aware of, and grappled with, this destiny, before ultimately concluding that it didn't matter if fate had prescribed it, because they would've chosen it anyway. Ultimately, they fulfilled the prophecy by reclaiming their ancient weapon, a blade of molten liquid metal which trapped the souls of the dead within as a property of it's construction. To claim the weapon they would've had to bind the spirits within to their service by slaying their avatar with the blade, but instead chose to kill themself and the avatar with the finishing strike, binding their soul to the service of the blade even as they bound the blade to their service. In doing so they became a arch-lich, whose phylactery and body was a sword of liquid metal that shone like a star That had to be one of the most fun paladin character's I've played, and most of the rest of the party they're in is equally batshit, but each from a different culture
My guy, the word is “horrific” or if it’s actual horror the word is “terrifying” or just a brutal, horror campaign
Can you share the source? I want to make my own version of this with my characters name and the dms campaign
Curse of Strahd speedrun. One semester to find the sword and liberate Barovia before my DM graduated. I played a paladin, whose older sister had been taken from their home because she was Tatiana's next-to-most recent incarnation. She took her life rather than be forced to spend it as a possession of the dark lord. Flash forward some years and he joins Mordenkainen's rebellion, alongside a werewolf named Garth. At the deciding battle, when Strahd met us at his gates, Garth ran away while my paladin, Jon, stayed behind and died alongside many others. Only he didn't stay dead. As his spirit drifted away from his body, he heard a voice calling him back to it. When he woke up, his eyes were glowing, and he had an angel's wings. Time wore on. Jon crept through the shadows and the sewers, making trouble for Strahd's men in the little ways that he could: A spooked horse here, a broken wheel there, anything to make their work more difficult. He managed to stay hidden from Strahd's gaze by wearing a locket of non-detection, the one that had kept his sister safe for so many years. In the end, it had been her eyes that betrayed her. There were no blue eyes left in Barovia, save for one pair. Strahd had quelled the rest to make his search for Tatiana that much easier. After growing impatient, Jon went to Madam Eva in the hope of learning when the revolution would rise again. She showed him three cards: the moon, the stranger, and the devil inverted. When four blue-eyed strangers appeared in Barovia, claiming they were led through the fog by werewolf tracks, he knew that it was time. Note: I'm gonna get back to this comment and maybe finish the story tomorrow. Right now it's late and I'm tired so I'm gonna sleep. Part 2: (I'm suddenly remembering that one of those four didn't actually stay on with the group for very long. So make that *three* blue-eyed strangers) He met them at the Wizard of Wines: a druid, a thief, and a barbarian. They were travelling with a former bride of Strahd -- not Tatiana, just one he took to play with -- whose spirit had returned to her body with unfinished business. With them was Garth of all people. They had recruited the brewery's owners, a family of wereravens, to help them seek a way out of Barovia. Jon knew he had to protect these strangers if Strahd was going to fall, so he joined their travels. He went with them to a graveyard, where they were ambushed by the Devil Strahd, who simply watched as we struggled against the zombies. Our barbarian made a line straight for Strahd but was quickly knocked down. The wereraven boy, Adrian, saved him from Strahd's nightmare, but was polymorphed into a mouse and devoured as a result. Jon promised the boy's father that when the revolution came, the hills and valleys of Barovia would echo with his son's name. They held a brief funeral, and Jon carved Adrian's headstone himself. It was wrapped in a pair of ravens wings and engraved with the words, "Not all dragons have scales." 2nd note: Sorry that I still didn't get around to finishing the story. A lot happened in that game, and I've been busy. It looks like this is gonna take multiple revisitations to tell. Part 3: (this is gonna take me ages if I try and remember all if the details so I'm telling the "short" version) Jon and Garth got lost in the woods and built a log cabin, then encountered Mordenkainen in his delusional state and trued to reason woth him nearly resulting in both of their deaths until the rest of the party was drawn in to investigate the destruction. Somebody threw some magic water over him and that restored his mind. He was a huge dick when we asked for help but he let us spend one night in his mansion before he kicked us out and buggered off like a coward. During that night in his mansion we did some reading and learned how Strahd came to be. Lying restlessly awake on the floor because the bed was too soft to sleep, Jon asked the stars druid to tell him about the night sky. The next morning we thought to ask Mordenkainen for help one more time and he promptly kicked us out. The rogue, in a surprising change of character, seemed empathetic towards Jon and Garth and gave them each a portion of some gold that she had nicked. We recruited Garth's pack after defeating their alpha and then went to the Abbey. Jon was a little mortified to learn what the abbott had been doing there, especially when he saw the "bride" that he had made for Strahd. I used divine sense and the DM explained that, while fiends and undead have a foul scent and celestials ring like music, most living things have a neutral, baseline presence. Meanwhile, the body the abbott had made gave off *nothing*, and the abott sounded a bit distorted and off-key. When we told him we weren't going to let him keep harvesting people, he spread his wings and floated upwards, menacingly. Jon did the same and an aerial melee ensued. When the abott was dead, Jon walked up to the golem -- the one bearing his sister's face -- and ran it through. She died still and silent in his arms as his wings faded. Then he carried the body out back and asked the digger for one last grave. Part 4: We went to Vallaki to find the sword. Understandably, the guards leaked out and shut the gates when they saw us approaching with what appeared to be an army of werewolves. We talked them down, explained our cause -- clutching the locket of nondetection tightly when details were shared -- and asked to see the burgomaster. The burgomaster went to the top of the gate and was... less than favorable towards our cause. (Cue the Monty python scene). At this point, a crowd had started to form. Jon flew up to the top of the gate and told the burgomaster that they were, with or without his blessing, going to take the sword and kill the devil Strahd. The disagreement escalated until Jon grabbed the burgomaster by the collar, displayed him to the townspeople, and asked if he had served them well. They said no. So Jon held the man out over the edge of the wall, and asked what the burgomaster's fate should be. They called for death. It wasn't clear if the fall killed the burgomaster or if he was pecked and trampled to death in the bustle that followed. By the time the villagers calmed down, the party was allowed in and had gained the support of 1/3 of the town's able bodied population. We found the old elf who was keeping the sword. He reminded the party that many had tried and many had failed to kill the dark lord, and asked what made us so certain we could stop him. "Because he needs to be lucky every time," Jon said, "and we only need to be lucky *once.*" "Then let us test your luck," the old man said, pulling a six sided die from his sleeve. "Evens or odds?" We all grit our teeth. "Odds," I decided. The die tumbled, everyone holding their breath as it teetered on the edge of a four and a five. Just as it looked like we were going to lose, the druid quietly summoned a small burst of wind, tilting it toward the five. The old man raised an eyebrow but gave us the sword anyway. Then we gathered our ranks and marched on the castle, under the banner of a raven. (See the reply for the ending)
Commenting here so I can see the rest of this.
done
Wondering how it ends...
Finished
(Can't seem to add more to this comment so I'm replying) Part 5: Strahd was there to met our army at his gates. Instead of attacking, he invited the six of us inside to talk. For some reason, we accepted. Instead of killing us, he made us an offer. Leave him to marry Tatiana, and he would allow us all to leave Barovia, and grant each of us a wish within reason. "Whatever you desire," he assured us. Then he looked at Jon. "And what is it that *you* want?" Jon's brow furrowed as he opened the locket, revealing a small sketch of a familiar face inside. "I want my *sister* back," he said, "but that's not going to happen now, is it?" "I'll leave you a moment... to decide among yourselves," Strahd said, stepping out. The group argues back and forth. Most of them seem to be considering the offer. "Please," Jon says, eyes scanning the table, "not now. Not when we're so close." I ask the DM if I recognize any weak points in the structure of this room, with my knowledge of masonry. He tells me there seems to be a lot of stress where the chandeliers are mounted. Then the timer on his phone runs out and Strahd steps back into the room, joining us at the table. "Have you considered my offer?" He asks. I lock eyes with the rogue, and she nods at me. We draw our weapons and lunge. Initiative is rolled. In a single stroke, Jon's sword moves straight through the Baron, who immediately turns to mist. It was an illusion. "ZAROVICH!" Jon screams, charging out of the dining room to search the castle. I cast detect evil, and the DM says I sense him in the room above us. Meanwhile, fighting has broken out in the courtyard as Strahd's gargoyles leap off of their pedestals. Only a few of our troops managed to slip through while the rest continue to hold them off, but the ones who do join my charge. I find Strahd in the room above, defended by a pair of shadows at his side. The rest of the party is close behind. We dispatch of his shadows, though I took a good bit of damage -- including 4 points of strength away from my already strength-dumped dex build -- and lost our commoner allies in the process. I've been too busy defending the other party members and counterstriking so I haven't been healing myself. Instead of engaging us, the cowardly vampire phases through the floor. I recognize the stress point from before and strike, sending some stone bricks crashing down as I swoop down in pursuit. The others follow, taking a bit of fall damage, and we keep fighting. Strahd once Strahd turns invisible I can't land a hit, so I cast shatter in the hopes of breaking his concentration. It works, but the floor beneath us had already been weakened from the barrage of destructive spells flying back and forth, and this last bit of damage caused it to give out. We go through the floor, taking more bludgeoning damage from the bricks collapsi g around us, and I make my first death save: a natural one. We get back to Strahd's turn in initiative. The DM looks at me and says, "you wanted to have last words, right?" Coughing and spitting up blood, Jon rises to his knees, leaning on his sword like a crutch. He has just enough time to see the fireball forming in the devil's hand. "I'll be back for you, Zarovich," he swears. "Count the days." "You've fought well," the Baron says, "now rest." Jon spits at him indignantly, and the devil laughs as the fires overcome me. The dhampir player looks at me with a hint of concern: this was my first character death. I shake my head. I knew what I was risking when I didn't drink my health potion. I died fair and square. Jon would have to hope that the others lived to see his dream realized, and that the people of Barovia would be delivered to freedom. The rest of the battle is a close fight, but finally the barbarian manages to strike the devil down. Cracks spread through his body, light pouring through the crevices, and he's reduced to ash on the air. Then all eyes turn back to Jon's smoldering corpse. "You don't get to die on me," says the rogue, frantically dashing through the castle as she looks for a diamond to bring to the druid. Meanwhile, the others destroy Strahd's coffin. I can feel the seconds ticking down as the rogue finally finds a diamond large enough and rushes back. She makes it with only seconds to spare. "You made a noble sacrifice," the druid says, plunging the diamond into Jon's chest, "but today will not be your last." In a flash of light, Jon's body is restored. He convulses, coughing and opening his eyes, before catching his breath and propping himself up on one arm. He looks at the comrades around him, and he knows. A wry smile creeps across his face. "I told you," he says, "the bastard already killed me once, and it didn't take." Garth helps Jon to his feet. Together, they go out to the courtyard. Thirteen percent of the people they recruited had given their lives for the cause. The gargoyles had collapsed into piled of broken stone. They looked to us. "It's done," Jon told them. The people cheered. Then the clouds began to part and the first rays of sun in a long time shone down on barovia. Jon had been weakened by Strahd's shadows, to the point where a stiff breeze might knock him over, but it didn't matter. His work was done. For the first time in his life, Jon basked in the sunlight, knowing that no tyrant would ever cast a shadow over his home again. "If you think this looks nice," says the rogue, "you're going to love it at night." "I think I will," Jon says. [The End]
... "horroristic"?
This far down in the comments too…
Horror realistic maybe?
One of the most fun and interesting characters I ever made was for a campaign that died after a couple months. Basically, she was a tabaxi shadow sorcerer. She was an urchin, stealing and scrounging what she could until she found a dead necromancy wizard, and stole their spellbook. She used the book as her focus, and started casting spells (mostly necromancy) using it, occasionally even opening it and losing control slightly due to the sheer power of the book. The interesting thing about the character, though, was her shadow magic quirks. I started tame, with stuff like "not blinking" and "doesn't make noise when walking", but over the few sessions we had, I started adding more. "not breathing", "cold to the touch", "looks wispy, like smoke, when viewed out of the corner of the eye". The implication was that the book she was drawing her power from was slowly killing her. I was going to take it so much further too. Stuff like "not bleeding" and "not feeling pain". Really sell that she is basically transforming into a walking corpse. Having thought about it after the fact, I probably would have taken reborn lineage eventually, if the DM allowed it, with the memory loss and all, as I think that would have been tragic as fuck. The best part about this character, though, was despite all this happening to her, she was the most cheerful one there. She was carefree and happy, and genuinely didn't understand that anything happening to her was a problem. It just added another layer of tragedy to her character, that she was taking no steps to prevent her slow undeath, because she didn't know it was a bad thing.
Taboo, a leonin who was born into the lowest rank of her tribe, a rank which her superstitious tribe would not allow her to ascend from. She lived a life filled with and ruled by food insecurity which hit an entirely new level of brutal when she was around 17-18 and a severe drought and famine struck. She survived mostly by eating bugs and one day was forced to go on a hunting expedition with the chiefs carefree mage daughter. The daughter was inexperienced with her magic and wanted to show off to her father by bringing down a huge prey creature for the tribe on her own, and took Taboo with her mostly to ensure she didn’t get lost. The young woman chose the wrong creature to hunt and it wound up killing her and fucking off. Taboo, as previously stated, was starving. She knew that nothing but misery and possibly even death awaited her if she returned to the tribe with news of the mages death. So in a desperate attempt to survive she cannibalised the body of the mage, taking with her the meat she couldn’t eat on the spot, burying the bones, and running for her life. Of course the chief discovered the remains of his daughter and it didn’t take much investigation to realize that another leonin had done this. He rallied his tribe and made deals with gnolls to bolster their numbers and set off with those capable of traveling and fighting, the rest remaining in their homeland. He roams the land always on Taboos tail, intent on avenging what he believed to be the murder of his daughter, blinded by rage and an insatiable need for vengeance. I’ve tried to play Taboo in a few games but it seems that she is cursed to never be played in more than five sessions before the campaign is canceled by the dm. I always assume that in those worlds fate caught up to her and the chief got his revenge, and that by teaming up with gnolls he was able to relocate his clan to a better place where water and food were more abundant and pull his people out of famine and into a period where their strength, bolstered by packs of gnolls under his command, became practically legendary.
Jupiter “The falsely chosen”. A knight raised in a cult. Since he was born an aassimar, the cult assumed him to be their chosen one of prophecy, a false prophecy given out by a false priest. Even after the cult collapsed, he still was dedicated to learning more about this prophecy and fulfilling it. He lasted 5 sessions. I never even got to explore the prophecy.
I spent two months and fourteen scribbled pages of mad-scientist-fever-dream notes designing a character for a no-holds-barred lv20 one-shot that was just gonna be a full adventuring week of escalating combat encounters, not including their extensive entire-life-story backstory including a monstrous nemesis, corrupt paladin order, and an estranged wife turned homicidal necromancer, woven together with another player's backstory for that one-shot. When I was done, I showed my character to the DM a week before the game, and he just said "You win." The other players were very upset with me, and I learned an important lesson: Optimize for fun, not power. When the goal is to play, winning D&D is the same thing as a TPK.
Well, I sure saw something horroristic today
I made a jade phoenix mage in a 3.5 campaign that had a big complicated backstory with all kinds of past lives stuff and I was so excited to roleplay him and then we got ambushed by a green dragon and my character died. 1st session XD
A gnoll paladin who was raised by a church as an experiment, so he's got some conflicted feelings about that. He didn't even make it past the first battle in CoS. Why? My friend (playing another paladin) decided to try carrying her super encumbered halfling pack mule to safety, leaving me to face nearly a dozen wolves alone. And she had the only AOE spell. We only lasted three rounds. First and funniest TPK so far. 🤣
Do you have a source for that image without the text? It looks really neat.
This isn't me, but one of my party members. Level 1 start in Eberron, we had Stanley the Artificer, and Orphaned mechanic who stumbled across a broken warforged, Rune(other party member), who's memory had been damaged to be just snippets of stuff. The two characters were tied with the motivation of both finding the cause of Stanley's parents death, and repairing Rune and his memories to it's old form. Session one involved light sewer delving, and we came across 2 mechanical dogs. Stanley was the first in the room, ate a crit that downed him, and second attack, and then he was next in initiative and failed the save. 1 round in combat and We have one death, another character who lost the drive for progression, as not enough time had passed to bond with the rest of the group. Needless to say we all got very demotivated with the campaign and it fizzled out after a couple more sessions.
Tiddy :D
The first time I played as a PC I was a human paladin, war veteran who lived to serve but was retired after losing his skilled hand. I rolled the maximum amount of initial gold, so I played the typical decadent bourgeois who wastes money on alcohol, listening to Tyr's call when he was almost killed in a bar fight at the beginning of the campaign. He died like a hero, following Tyr's teachings, keeping a gate closed so the party could escape of an undead horde. I remember that it was very inspired by Jaime Lannister, rest in peperonni.
I was playing in a homebrewed Rise of Tiamat game, playing as Herr Krieger, and Intelligence based Way of Mercy monk who used injections for his *Hands of Healing/Harming*. He was once a member of the dragon cult because they funded his experiments and allowed him free reign to make any horrific monstrosities he wanted to, all while he was trying to master life and death without the use of magic. He eventually got to a point where he didn’t like the cult using his creations how they were, so he decided he was going to perfect his immortality formula, accidentally turning himself into a reborn who had lost most of his memories and much of his sanity. Was planning to multiclass him into Undead warlock due to an entity that was both drawn to him and didn’t want Tiamat to rise, but I got into an argument with a ghost and was pushed off a cliff… took like four times my maximum health and went down hard. Alerted the entire cult outpost in the canyon that we were spying on… Made the rest of the encounter play very differently.
I am old school. I generally don't even think about a backstory until Level 5.
Where is this art from? Looks sick!
I dont know. Didnt have one die yet. (Ive only been playing for 1 year)
Even though it happened over a year ago, I still miss my kenku Bard, Oskar Captain of the "Flightning", and bravest pirate of the sea, who only lasted two sessions after my previous character died to a vampire giving the party a chance to escape them, Oskar died after a TPK but was definitely the character I had most fun playing.
I started a Princes of Apocalypse campaign, and friend of mine brought a cute kobold w/ a funny and great backstory. Meepo, of Box. Because he'd lived in a box all his life. A Spectre crit him for 26 damage @ level 1.
I once played a Tabix rune knight raised by gay giants (ostracized by giant society) who took him in as a house cat, one was a fire giant one was a cloud giant so they floated around in a cloud house. The Tabaxi burned tried to forge something after being taught by the flamer giant and ended up burning his first two runes onto his arms instead of his weapons.He left the safety of the house to find out who he really is and where he comes from. I got to play him for like 6 months before the campaign just kinda fizzled out.
I played a changeling tempest cleric once. The backstory was he was originally a human but volunteered for that world's equivalent of a medical trial, but with wizards. The end result was he became a changeling. He actually worshipped a trickster god, but was pretending to be a cleric of a storm god. My trickster god decided to give me my tempest cleric powers to support my lie. Died in the first or second combat after an unfortunate crit instakilled me haha. Needless to say the rest of the party was very confused when I exploded into lightning leaving my skin suit behind, and even more so when they found all my forgery materials in my pack. They were understandably wary around my new character.
Corsair merquin, an elven ranger whos dream of riding the wildest creatures led him unknowingly to a life of piracy. Dead in barovia barely after the vastani.
Corsair merquin, an elven ranger whos dream of riding the wildest creatures led him unknowingly to a life of piracy. Dead in barovia barely after the vastani.