Tragic Character Deaths, your horror stories.


Pathfinder Adventure Card Game General Discussion


Just curious to hear some of your most tragic character deaths. Only fair that I start...

We had Kyra, Seiona, and Erzen playing Crow Bait. My sister playing the sorceress explores an area where we already KNEW the Scarecrow Golem was and got pummelled... and that wasn't the tragic death...

I was playing the wizard and just finished beating the another henchman at the Farmhouse and was preparing attempt to close. I had a couple of Ray spells, Arcane Armor and a full hand, plus I had just enough cards in my deck to handle an entire hand wipeout, so I thought I was safe. So Farmhouse brings a random monster to fight to close and what do I get..... a damn SIREN.

.... Ray spells useless (Wisdom Check)
.... Arcane Armor useless (Siren power)
..... rolled a 1. Full hand wipe
..... Siren power removed an ally that was within the top 3 of my deck
..... Unable to draw up and died.

If any one of those things hadn't happened, I'd have survived.... truly tragic random encounter from the box.

Anyway, can anyone top it? ;p


Wow! Now THAT is some bad luck, right there.


I assume no one had a blessing to give you another die? We always try to roll at least two dice against the Siren.


elcoderdude wrote:
I assume no one had a blessing to give you another die? We always try to roll at least two dice against the Siren.

seiona had just died and we were pressed for time, but yeah no other support was available. Kyra managed to finish that scenario despite it all.


My brother-in-law killed off his Seelah on one of the first "Perils" scenarios because he was overly aggressive with his card usage and burned his deck down, then taking a chance on an encounter and failing. Not truly tragic, except for the fact that he assumed Kyra could come along and cast a Cure to revive him before the scenario ended and he "died". (At the time, we all were thinking in RPG terms where when you hit zero HP you're not dead yet, and can be revived.)

The more tragic death was at the end of a tough scenario. My wife and I were playing with a friend in a 3-character game. Due to bad rolls, bad draws, and bad luck, we were down to the very last turn with one shot to take out the villain and win. Our friend, playing Lem, encountered the villain while my wife and I covered the other two open locations. We managed to temp close them, then aided Lem however we could. Our friend rolled absolute crap! Failed the encounter by one, and had no cards to draw. Needless to say, since he failed, he had to complete his turn, which meant resetting his hand and dying!


Ironvein wrote:
..... Siren power removed an ally that was within the top 3 of my deck

It looks at the top three of your character deck?! Man,. we read that wrong. Thought it was the location deck.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Just finished a game of Righteous. 2 players - Enora and Seelah. Enora went down after defeating monster and successfully closing her (only other open) location. Seelah at location with villain encounters villain - Savash.

Savash does 1d4+1 fire damage AFTER Seelah acted if she used a weapon with slashing or piercing. She used a long sword and defeated him, but took 4 points of fire damage with no way to deflect it.

Seelah defeated the villain, game over, but couldn't draw to reform her hand - by one card. A Pyrrhic victory as both Seelah and Savash go down at the end of the game. Epic.


Unless I'm missing something, if you defeated the villain and he could not escape you won, right then and there. Your turn does not continue beyond that point, so you don't need to reset your hand.


Hawkmoon269 wrote:
Unless I'm missing something, if you defeated the villain and he could not escape you won, right then and there. Your turn does not continue beyond that point, so you don't need to reset your hand.

Yeah. Meeting the victory condition ends the scenario. It's only when you meet a scenario fail condition that you have to end the current turn.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I had a 14 year old summoner who went on an ill-advised secret quest with some other village teens to save a group of 7-11 year olds that had been kidnapped as sacrifices by kobolds. They save some of them.

While he was away, his village was raided by orc slavers, his father was killed in defense of the town, and his mother was taken to be sold into slavery.

After rescuing his mother, and returning to the village, his mother pleaded with him to stop his foolishness and adventuring. He said he has to protect the town and those he loves.

A kobold necromancer out for revenge raises the dead from the local cemetary and they attack the village. The Summoner ends up slaying so many undead with his companions he is temporarily trapped in a collapsing mountain of corpses from all the mindless zombies piling up. He gets bit by a Ghoul, contracting ghoul fever.

The trauma of being trapped in a mound of dead bodies of former friends and loved ones drives him to insanity and he contracts amnesia, forgetting he was a summoner, some of his friends, and that he and the Paladin (a 16 year old) had recently confessed their mutual crush on eachother.

His grieving mother takes him home to care for him, the ghoul fever gets worse, by the time anyone realizes whats wrong its too late and near the end. He is tied to his sick bed, constantly hungering for food that doesn't satisfy.

Paladin girlfriend tries one last ditch effort to cure him of the disease and fails, he turns into a Ghast infront of her, snarling and writhing on the bed. She has to decapitate the boy who doesn't even remember that she loves him, or any of the events that led him to love her.

The Summoner's mom killed herself after the funeral.


Subparhiggins wrote:

I had a 14 year old summoner who went on an ill-advised secret quest with some other village teens to save a group of 7-11 year olds that had been kidnapped as sacrifices by kobolds. They save some of them.

While he was away, his village was raided by orc slavers, his father was killed in defense of the town, and his mother was taken to be sold into slavery.

After rescuing his mother, and returning to the village, his mother pleaded with him to stop his foolishness and adventuring. He said he has to protect the town and those he loves.

A kobold necromancer out for revenge raises the dead from the local cemetary and they attack the village. The Summoner ends up slaying so many undead with his companions he is temporarily trapped in a collapsing mountain of corpses from all the mindless zombies piling up. He gets bit by a Ghoul, contracting ghoul fever.

The trauma of being trapped in a mound of dead bodies of former friends and loved ones drives him to insanity and he contracts amnesia, forgetting he was a summoner, some of his friends, and that he and the Paladin (a 16 year old) had recently confessed their mutual crush on eachother.

His grieving mother takes him home to care for him, the ghoul fever gets worse, by the time anyone realizes whats wrong its too late and near the end. He is tied to his sick bed, constantly hungering for food that doesn't satisfy.

Paladin girlfriend tries one last ditch effort to cure him of the disease and fails, he turns into a Ghast infront of her, snarling and writhing on the bed. She has to decapitate the boy who doesn't even remember that she loves him, or any of the events that led him to love her.

The Summoner's mom killed herself after the funeral.

My condolences.

You might not be aware, but this is actually the card game forum. And, while what you've related is truly a tragic character death and a horror story, I suspect it does not involve the card game. Don't feel bad about that though. It happens from time to time. Plus, maybe someone will take this tragic story and make a scenario for it. Or an adventure, because there is a whole lot of material there.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Sandslice wrote:
Hawkmoon269 wrote:
Unless I'm missing something, if you defeated the villain and he could not escape you won, right then and there. Your turn does not continue beyond that point, so you don't need to reset your hand.
Yeah. Meeting the victory condition ends the scenario. It's only when you meet a scenario fail condition that you have to end the current turn.

It would be completely awesome to have it end with the Paladin suffering a mortal wound as it defeats the master demon, you must admit. Total Seelah move.

Thanks for the adjudication, though. The player running Seelah will be happy.

Cheers!


dinketry wrote:
Sandslice wrote:
Hawkmoon269 wrote:
Unless I'm missing something, if you defeated the villain and he could not escape you won, right then and there. Your turn does not continue beyond that point, so you don't need to reset your hand.
Yeah. Meeting the victory condition ends the scenario. It's only when you meet a scenario fail condition that you have to end the current turn.

It would be completely awesome to have it end with the Paladin suffering a mortal wound as it defeats the master demon, you must admit. Total Seelah move.

Thanks for the adjudication, though. The player running Seelah will be happy.

Cheers!

Just to be clear, you will most often not have to worry about what happens after you defeat the villain at the end. That is, you don't have to reset your hand. But you do have to close the location and perform the "When Permanently Closed" clause before you can check for scenario victory. So some locations can force you to draw cards from your deck at that point and possibly kill you.

I think that would make an epic story if it happened so if anyone encounters this, please share!


We had a definite epic fail. Playing as a group of four in WotR, the group consisted of Seoni, Balazar, Crowe and Enora. Seoni, Balazar and Enora all had a complete hand wipe on their first turn. And their second turn. With a hand size of six each, they were all dead. So, eight turns in, three out of four characters were eliminated. And so our very first game of WotR ended in a mass rage quit. I will say, the game definitely lives up to the Wrath part of the title.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
jones314 wrote:

]Just to be clear, you will most often not have to worry about what happens after you defeat the villain at the end. That is, you don't have to reset your hand. But you do have to close the location and perform the "When Permanently Closed" clause before you can check for scenario victory. So some locations can force you to draw cards from your deck at that point and possibly kill you.

I think that would make an epic story if it happened so if anyone encounters this, please share!

Hang on there - when you defeat the villain, the location automatically closes. No need to close it. Also, there's nothing in the rules that states that you need to perform the "When Permanently Closed" condition for the villain's location at the end of the game.

Unless you're referencing some other rules source....


The order of events when you defeat the villain are:

1. Close the villain's location. Do not perform "When Closing" but do apply "When Permanently Closed".
2. Check to see if the villain can escape. If he can't you win.

So you will not check whether you have won (though you will probably know) until after you have fully closed the location.


Ezren(Class deck version) First Explore, or his first game in Skull and shackles. Encountered a Cecaelia. Failed the Wisdom check, so it was a 15 combat, rolled horrible on his spell damage check, failed to recharge the spell. Failed constitution check had to bury top four cards of his deck, 5 cards left, couldn't do anything about it and died.


Wotr rules, p16 wrote:
If You Defeat the Villain, Close the Villain’s Location. You do not need to fulfill the When Closing requirement. Examine the location deck; if there are no additional villains in it, banish all of the cards. The location is permanently closed, and the location’s When Permanently Closed effect is triggered.

If the When Permanently Closed forces you to take cards out of your deck, it could kill you. Only after this do you check to see if the villain escapes and if you win. But you could still win the scenario if you have any surviving characters! :D

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Hawkmoon269 wrote:

The order of events when you defeat the villain are:

1. Close the villain's location. Do not perform "When Closing" but do apply "When Permanently Closed".
2. Check to see if the villain can escape. If he can't you win.

So you will not check whether you have won (though you will probably know) until after you have fully closed the location.

Thanks for the clarification. Always learning.


Going to bring this thread back with an actual story of horror and loss.

Enora had found the villain in the first scenario of Wrath hiding in the manor house. Seelah had closed the armory, so there was nowhere left for her to run. Enroa was well equipped to deal with her, but first she had to defeat her summoned monster which was...a carrion golem. Long story short, a dead Halfling. Seelah went on to lose the scenario based on some bad dice rolls and time running out.

Was not a happy evening, that is for sure.


That's odd. In our run of The Godless Ones Enora had defeated Sophini twice: Once in the Laboratory (where she was the very first card) and at the Manor House. Then her player was like "Oh yeah let her go to the Watchtower. She has two Attack spells in her hand." When she found an armor and she could easily have tried to roll for that stupid 4 I stupidl said "Didn't you want to fight a monster to improve your odds?" Well guess what the random monster turned out to be: Carrion Golem.

I mean that has to be lethal for a pure caster; if you fail your Strength check you lose 3 cards additional to the combat induced damage. Before those powers where combine with a "If undefeated the... does not deal damage, instead..."

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Card Game / General Discussion / Tragic Character Deaths, your horror stories. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion