I had triggered a spike trap that slammed me into the ceiling, dealing 1d6 damage, before dropping me down onto the spikes, which were pressure sensitive. I ended up being found a couple minutes later az literal mince meat.
A correction on the red slaad: Red slaad create blue slaad, and it's the blue slaad that create the red ones (because the chaos realm has a cruel sense of humor).
@@VasiliyOgniov Been awhile, but I think the blue ones slash at you and you turn into a red one, while the red ones slash at you and a blue one burst out of your chest (or the other way around, it's been awhile). They also hate each other but literally can't live without the other. I think MrRhexx did a video on them or their domain of Limbo.
The one that always stood out to me was the slaads. You mentioned the chestbursters, but you forgot that in some editions they can shapeshift into the person they burst out of, some versions with memories of their past self but only wishing to create as much chaos as possible. I love the idea of a champaign where someone isn't quite who everyone thinks they are, with disastrous consequences. Haven't got one lined up for slaad levels of fuckery yet, but I have a Ravnica campaign with someone who's secretly a Dimir agent.
I think the gibbering mouther should have been here. If one of them "kills" your character, they become part of the creature and its madness until said creature is killed itself.
Honestly, I think the worst way to die would probably be getting stuck in a Demiplane while being unable to die from exhaustion (so, being a construct or having a Spoon of Nourishment). In essence, you would spend the rest of your life completely alone in an empty room, going insane from isolation over, and over, and over again.
My friend made one of these he called the Teri's demiplane Shaped like a T piece Too bad I was being a cunt and had a pet bag of devouring to plane hop with
9:17 That sounds horrible. Imagine being chained to a cliff and every day an eagle would eat your liver over and over and over again. What a godlike punishment.
I would like to suggest that the gibbering mouther is actually worse than _feeblemind,_ for having a similar effect in terms of death-of-personality while keeping you conscious, but also making you a PART of a lemure-like creature that gibbers madly to itself forever and ever.
Dm had to improve a pathfinder 1e encounter due to the diplomacy player having to leave. Cue a party of level fives fighting, and I'm sorry I can't remember the actual creature name, animated triceratops skeleton with on contact petrification curse. I get tapped once, and get cursed with it. Cue a timeskip cause 'we can't stop while traveling to get you cured'. They then kicked by petrified body off a pier.
I’ve only died once, I was a wizard/cleric multiclass (wanted the AC boost and minor healing abilities) fighting against a clockwork dragon With the de facto tank down, it turned to me, but and knocked me out, which wouldn’t have been so bad, if us finally defeating the thing didn’t cause it to explode and collapse the roof onto my unconscious body, turning me into a mangled corpse …I got better tho.
Don't forget "sickening radiance". This spell inflicts radiant damage and exhaustion. It's not officially stated, but that literally sounds like radiation-posioning for me. And acute radiation poisoning is one of the most gruesome ways to die in my opinion. Google that Stuff yourself, you'll know what i mean.
7:51 The party was investigating a mysterious red river that has turned up in a forest in the Material Plane. Wizard, to Sorcerer: Hmm, I wonder if this is the Styx. Me, the Monk: Hey I can see some hoof-prints and marks like boats were landed on the other side. Finally I have a chance to use my run-over-water ability, to go and have a closer look. (Fortunately we had Greater Restoration prepared to fix me quickly.)
The most embarrassing way to die in D&D is to be killed by a Flumph. Given that they are weak monsters and pacifists, if a Flumph kills your PC, you really messed up somewhere.
In our current playthrough of Saltmarsh, our captain (a goliath barbarian) had a Periapt of Wound Closure and was knocked out in a fight. They sahaugin dragged him off into another room while we were still trying to get to him and repeatedly just ate parts of his body because the periapt kept closing the wounds whenever they took a bite. They ate a good majority of his body before we managed to break through their ranks to save him.
"Death in most ttrpg's is a painful heart-wrenching experience," is a statement that I agree with in most cases, but as someone who apparently plays death-seeking characters, death is something I've become desensitized to. In the campaigns I've played, I was always tempted to prepare a second character sheet just in case that was the week ny character was going to die; however, there is one moment where I sorely regret not having done so. About a year before the pandemic happened my one buddy was running a Ravnica D&D campaign that had been going on for several months at this point, and I had joined in by the time summer rolled around and I would be available to reliably attend the sessions. While I was working on my character with my DM, I just casually mentioned that I have low expectations of my character surviving for very long, and thought it'd be a good idea to come to the first session with a second character sheet prepared just in case. My DM told me to not worry about it, but I thought about it a lot, but I eventually decided against doing it, because dying in the very first session would be quite odd. Some time passes, and the day where my character would be introduced to the campaign arrives, and I get written in as a character who works as a security guard or had some form of credentials at the prison that some of the PCs were detained at, and I get roped in into their shenanigans. After having successfully freed some our fellow PCs, we flee the scene, and make use of one of the other PCs backgrounds to secure our way to our intended destination in the Underdark (think of it as the rotting underbelly of the city of Ravnica), and along the way, we encounter a Lich, who isn't necessarily hostile to us. Iirc, the dude was marking the one PC as a potential underling for the future, and we could technically walk past him. I don't remember what the exact situation involved, but essentially, even though the Lich was not immediately hostile, walking past him still provoked an attack of opportunity unless I disengaged; however, as an Artificer, I thought it would be a bright idea to drop a turret in front of him, and then attempt to walk past him, thinking he'd be distracted by the turret. I get immediately one-shot, and spend the rest of that session putting together the character sheet for my longest lived character in the campaign, an Aasimar Sorcerer who made it to the session just before facing the BBEG, which concluded the campaign.
6:01 Gas spores' spores take 1d12+con hours to kill you, so unless you have a con mod in the negatives, you have a few hours to get to someone who can cast Lesser Restoration, which may be a member of your party since it's only a 2nd-level spell. Of course, it is still a horrible way to go, and the fact that it's so preventable under any but the worst possible conditions would only make the death even more tragic. Also, the only way to get more than 17 hours (as far as I know) is if you have a limit-breaking feat or boon, or if you've used the Manual of Bodily Health. 8:07 The spell doesn't affect your wis, so you can still be a very street-smart dog-person if you fail the initial save. Also, you can make a save against Feeblemind every 30 days, and if you make the save, your stats are restored. It also doesn't kill you, so I'd question why it's even on this list. 8:48 It's an 8th-level spell, not a 5th-level spell. 9:50 How can you go through a whole section on eternal punishment via healing and not mention Prometheus even once? Also, that's just a method of torture; it can't kill you, so I'm not sure if it should be on this list either. 10:23 The duration is 1 minute (or 10 turns), and the creatures make a save every turn, so assuming it has high wis and/or a lot of HP, it's not that deadly, though it would be a terrible way to die if it does kill you. Finally, if causing death isn't a prerequisite to being one of the worst ways to "die" in D&D, I'd argue that drawing the Donjon or the Void cards from the Deck of Many Things should at least warrant an honorable mention.
Good notes! Surprised I fumbled Feeblemind's spell level, haha. As for regeneration, so long as you're killed at the end of it, it's basically an endless death until the plug is pulled.
@@BlaineSimple That's just torture not death its endless torture till death and its the shock of torture that kills you. Its like how people say Mosquitos are the deadliest animal when its the disease that kills them not the insect.
@@BlaineSimple You can die via knife cutting you and killing you like a knife to the neck or stabbing in certain areas. Bled out death is death via blood loss. Two different ways meanwhile your example of regeneration doesn't kill you. Cause the regeneration CAN'T kill you in the game. A whole lot of unfunny smug youtuber energy bud.
About Gas spores, if it is a non-magical disease, it only takes 5 points of Lay on Hands to cure. So if you have a paladin, they can cure a number of creatures equal to their Paladin level each long rest.
You forgot this one: Being taken prisoner my mind flayers, and used as a host for a new mind flayer.. they put one of their tadpoles in you, which then slowly eats your brain and morphs your body into it's own.
Regarding the regeneration, I was thinking of the Positive Energy plane described in original Spelljammer. If you go there, you constantly regain hp, but if you ever reach twice you maximum hp score you explode due to overexposure to super powerful healing energy.
One thing to be sure, in the dnd multiverse dying is not THAT bad, the scarier thing is that you have to make sure your soul won't be fucked afterward, be mindfull that even some GOOD planes will annihilate your persona and memories (essentially killing you). Worse is not being able to die while under brutal pain/torture. Death of the mind is far worse than death of the body, far, far worse...
It's no secret why some people become devil cultists though, since as long as you don't completely suck at it, you get to keep your memories in hell and get to skip being a lemure. If you have a soul contract and are important enough, you might even get to be a type of fiend that gets to avoid fighting the blood war entirely, like a succubus. Doesn't sound too bad really
Had a campaign take us into Carceri and it is just like this. Although it is possible to die, you will respawn with nothing and be forced to travel the planes of suffering for eternity.
I think you missed the rutterkin. They poison you in a way that, when you drop to 0 hit points, you die and instantly become an abyssal wretch, as your flesh and bones melt and reform in you in your killers image.
I'd like to present the Gibbering Mouther as one of the worst, and I quote: "All-Consuming. Driven to devour any creature it can reach, a gibbering mouther flows over victims transfixed by its ranting, its multitudinous voices temporarily silenced as it gnaws and swallows living flesh. The monster liquefies stone with which it comes into contact, hindering creatures that overcome its gibbering and attempt to flee. A gibbering mouther leaves nothing of its prey behind. However, even as the last of a victim’s body is consumed, its eyes and mouth boil to the surface, ready to join the chorus of tormented gibbering that welcomes the monster’s next meal." It's set of abilities are terrifying.
I've only ever lost 1 pc. He was a warforged and was scouting underwater when a cube attacked him. He broke out, climbed up stairs and almost reached the surface when the cube got him again and he melted inside. Coincidentally, the first player death I ever saw was to a gelatinous cube as well. He got absorbed by one, then opened a potion that boosted acid or something, trying to make it explode... but it just doubled the cube's damage and melted him faster.
If you’re including Feeblemind and “death of the self,” then, uh… chaos beasts. *Chaos Beasts. CHAOS BEASTS.* (Would you, yes *you,* like to melt into an ever shifting, amorphous mass of flesh straight from the twisted depths of Limbo itself, blind, deaf, and driven to violent madness by the constant agony you exist in? Only able to stabilize your form through an incredibly difficult save, and then only for 60 seconds at a time? Unless your friends are willing to waste *all* their AC buffing spells to make your skin stop melting and buy you a couple minutes of not-misery? Oh, and if you ever come into flesh-to-flesh contact with any living creature, you also infect them? Well then, do I *ever* have a cuddly mess of slime, skin, meat, claws, teeth, tongues, pseudopods, tails, stingers, formerly-internal organs, and *pain* for you to go have a wrestle with! Or just shake its hand, assuming it has one this round. Or just stand in its path and wait for it to realize you’re there, lashing out in a desperate attempt to find any relief or distraction from the constant agony of its existence. That’ll be *you* in a couple rounds!)
Death is not the worst way to go by far. Consider casting imprisonment on someone to put them to sleep. Now cast dream on them to torture their mind with a monster eternally.
9:00 That's actually something the main baddie of my novel capitalized on when he realized one of his captives could heal by drinking or touching water. Within a few hours, she was literally begging him to kill her, yet he kept this up for several weeks before she was finally able to escape with the help of her friends. It left her traumatized for years after the horrific experience occurred.
Drake says, "Hello. And I want the influence you promised me with that collab video before I make your life Blaine Complicated!" Worst way I can think of to die? Based on sadly RL experience, the necrotic cyst spells from 3.5's _Libris Mortis._ _Necrotic consumption_ where the magically implanted cyst consumes your entire body, and even if you survive you can't heal the damage outside of a _consecrated_ or _hallowed_ area (vile damage). Imagine pain so intense you want to die just to stop it.
1:05 But Hand of Vecna is a _left_ hand! About the regeneration: I've done it to NPC trolls. There is an alchemist out there, which harvests bodyparts from living trolls. The bodyparts are vital, but since the means of harvesting include no fire or acid, the trolls survive it anyway. Also, "A troll dies only if it starts its turn at 0 HP and doesn't regenerate." What if someone Disintegrates a troll, reducing it to dust (but not killing it), and then someone accidentally inhales some of the dust?
I would think turning into a mind flayer would be up there, feeling your mind slip away knowing you're about to transform into a monster who will feed on the minds of others only to continue the cycle.
In 5E, Polymorph accidents are pretty much the only No-save Messy Megadeaths left. Imagine polymorphing a horse into a piece of gagh and feeding it to the nearest Klingon! 5E shut down most of the old two objects in the same space anomalies, but missed (or maybe even added) this one. In earlier editions we had creating a pit using Passwall then dispelling it after something falls in. In an extreme variant I once Gated an annoying demigod into a Phase Door, hopped out, then dispelled it. Death by magical backfire is always fun. Traps that incorporate illusions can induce a wizard to teleport into a solid object. Then they try casting True Seeing to avoid that, only to discover the illusion-covered Symbols everywhere they look. My two favorite backfire deaths were 1) casting True Seeing on an avatar of Yog Sothoth (character sees the entire universe all at once; brain explodes), and 2) a party hid in a Prismatic Sphere. An angry flying beastie dived through at full speed, got petrified, and flattened the hapless ranger.
I actually did the immortality torture thing to one of my players (dw I explained my plans in detail beforehand and they said it was okay) and it was absolutely terrifying. They ended up getting turned into a sock puppet
7:53 Sooo fun thing happened My Group wanted to retire his Grung Rouge and decided to create a Thri-Kreen Druid instead to replace him His rouge had gone down in campaign history as an eldrich abomination and so he's made it a habit in our group to continue this tradition w/ a few other one shots we did His Goblin artificer became possessed by a Nilbog and then became a Sentient sphere of annihilation) His Human Wizard Was So British it Broke Reality because British people and Culture Didn't Exist in the world in the 1st place) But this Druid was just the universe punishing him for changing characters Because the 1st session he played as this DRUID he INSTANTLY got Feebleminded in by a neolithid He failed the save and so he was Reduced to 1 int and 1 Cha for almost 3 months worth of sessions because no one in the party knew anything about him And as such all party members in character Could not help him in ANY way He was also the only party member who even had a Chance of casting Greater restoration to end the effects in the 1st place So this was unfortunately a long 3 months for him And at the end of the 1st session His only question was What cosmic Sin did this Character commit in their Backstory to deserve this instant punishment by the Dice gods Leading to what is in my opinion the BEST quote of this campaign "What sin did he commit? Did he play league of Legends!?" And from there the gears turned and we worked out that his Druid didn't just play league of Legends He LIVED it, as in he was Transported to this World from Runeterra. And that automatically made him an Eldritch abomination His other Famous Eldritch horrors include Kyle the Teenager human Jock who gained Draconic Power The Thri-Kreen Rouge who later discovered he was Created to be a puppet for a Sword (Basically it was a Feywild Domain of Dread type Setting and the sword Was the Darklord) And brazz Crackhammer the Giant Gnolls who acts like a kindly old uncle who got traumatized by the weapons my Yuan-ti paladin commissioned
So I was playing a Goliath barbarian (bear totem obvi) and one of my buddies was playing a kenku rouge, it was my first time playing 5e and his first time playing dnd. Being a bird race based on corvids he played his character well, stealing everything that wasn't tied down. Dm decided to let me find an axe of the berserker, which caused me to frenzy when I rage and was cursed that I didn't want to part with it. At one point we came to a massive hole in a cave, was over 300ft deep. Rouge trying to free me from the curse grabs the axe and chunks it down the hole...rouge was forced to follow shortly after, when rouge didn't respond I decided to rage and jump myself. Dm asks left or right...I pick left and land on the rouge.. all I say after I land is "oh hey, my axe" XD
The regeneration made me think of 3e/pathfinder and mutations associated with the positive energy overflow. Well, it is possible to just die from overhealth in positive energy plane, but even if not, the exposure without defense is supposed to have lasting effects. and number 1 is definitely the gibbering mouther. technically it doesn't kill the victims but being incorporated into the amalgam of mutilated flesh and souls is quite horrific. And since soul is trapped, forced to experience the sensations from misplaced nervous system bits scattered around this "being" it also counts for possibly worst afterlife, as whatever is left of mind will quickly fall into madness. It's not strong monster so it might not get enough press, but the implications are quite something as it wanders around in constant search for more energy to sustain itself, and the more it absorbs the more it needs to absorb to keep existing, so soon enough there are also the necrotic centers floating somewhere inside of the gibbering mouther, just to add to the charming structure. And it is impossible to reverse unlike just about everything else on the list since it messes up the soul and mixes it with others in the same situation.
I mean by the time you can cast Wish at all you have won the game and are effectively a demigod, why would you bother with tormenting mortals at all at that point.
I wonder how Weird would affect a Mind Flayer? What kind of nightmare fuel would send one of them screaming for a quicker death? Also, would the rest of the hive mind be forced to endure the effects as well?
How about: It remembers who it was before ceremorphosis, and the humanoid/person they once were is horrified at what they are and what they have done, that there is no escape, and when the spell ends they will go back to being a monster.
One of the worst (best) deaths that happened during my professor's campaign played out as follows: GM: "You find a bag of holding on one of the bodies, ..." (the bag of holding is basically a Mary Poppins bag) Wizard (with 19 intelligence): "What if I get in the bag?" GM: "I don't think that's a good idea" Half-orc (with 6 intelligence): "But we would have a pocket wizard!" Wizard: "I think it's a good idea. I get in the bag." GM: "Are you sure you want to do this?" Wizard: "Absolutely." GM: *Sighs heavily* "roll for system shock" Wizard: "Uh oh." *rolls a two* GM: "I tried to warn you. The wizard jumps into the bag, only to realise that it does not hold oxygen. He flails around, turns blue, and dies."
Rolling 2 consecutive natural 1s in a game where that is instant death and you thought it would be funny to roll a dexterity check for peeing your name into the snow.
Really? Out of all the things that have existed in D&D's history, the best you could come up with for #1 worst way to end a character is 'Insert worst thing you can imagine here'? Bit of a cop out, isn't it? There are a plethora of other creative choices you could have picked, like a sphere of annihilation, the Void card in the Deck of Many Things, having your soul imprisoned forever inside a black gemstone by a lich or necromancer, or being reduced to a pile of dust. If we want to go back to 3.5 edition, the Epic Level Handbook has the option of being murdered by a team of epic level assassins, having no-rez poison poured in your corpses eyes, then sending the corpse into a magic cape that leads to a void dimension even the gods can't rescue you from. I'm sure other things I didn't think of when coming up with examples exist too. (The Epic Level Handbook had a bit of an obsession with coming up with ways to really super duper kill your high level character forever no backsies) And beside the fact that there are actual defined options you can have an opinion on, I don't think I've ever seen someone use Wish to kill another entity outside of circumstances like the Tarrasque, where you absolutely have no other option because it's written into the rules that the spell is required to permanently kill them. It's such an expensive to use spell that there's an immediate incentive for PCs to not use it for something as boring as killing a bad guy, and if the DM is whipping out an NPC who can cast Wish (Or Miracle), I'm pretty sure they'll want to do something more creative than "I wish the party's fighter would perish in a eternity of pain' or whatever. It's just not a very interesting use of such powerful (and expensive) magic, narratively speaking. You had some good examples in your earlier options, at least, it just feels like you didn't really nail the #1 option very well. The Slaad was an exciting one I don't see mentioned very much for unpleasant character deaths... though I admit this one is almost impossible to pull off on a team of PCs, as the death is kind of a slow burn and they are almost guaranteed to figure it out, through in or out of character knowledge, before the death happens, and remove the tadpole. But it makes a good surprise NPC death!
Older players still play like this. Session zero is a conscription. Someone HAS to be the cleric, someone HAS to be the wizard, someone HAS to be the thief. What's this rogue you're talking about? No I said thief, for lockpicking and traps. That's a "archetype" now? Alright fine whatever.
Haven't been the victim of it, but there was one moment of awesome when my warlock character succeeded on casting Feeblemind on a nigh-ascendant mind flayer, completely ruining their plans to become exponentially more powerful.
I discovered feeblemind in my first year of DMing, tho I didn't use it for the first and last time until many years later. In this case, don't put the story over your players' feelings.
I recently made a homebrew curse but I know for a fact would be number one on this list, even topping Wish. I call it hell's cycle of Eternal suffering, where every time the cursed creature, character, or NPC dies, they are resurrected by their bodies being burned alive as if by the searing flames of Hell, their wounds reheal and a painful way yet they still bear the mark upon their body. But it gets worse, as when they die again, they relive the pain of each previous death. Meaning, if they died eleven times, they will relive the pain of the previous ten deaths. And this curse can only be caused by a very powerful home-brewed undead deity. And it cannot be removed by Wish either.
One of my old groups had a campaign end in a TPK under similar situations to the regeneration thing, they basically ended up held as blood dolls by some archfey troll mother to be fed and bled until they eventually perish, most likely from old age, we lacked the power to fight her and the party kept screwing up any outs the DM offered us, the easiest of which was to leave one party member behind with her as a sacrifice, but majority refused to leave anyone behind. Another option was to allow her to contact Oberon because one of his chosen was traveling with us, but that got screwed up by one of the party throwing a bead of fireball at this archfey that was cursed to never feel warmth, so the fireball didn't harm her but it DID destroy the conduit she was using to contact Oberon, we might even have been able to talk our way out but one of the party opted to attack instead, so yeah, it was bad.
Ok but like how did the undead not make this list when some of them either make you one of them or permakill your eternal soul (looking at you Nightwalker)
So I played in an anime game years ago. I played a homunculus sniper. He was also very tech savvy. Because of how I made him and who I wanted him to be str with his dump stat. We ended up inside of a volcano and we had to climb. I failed my climb check.... Do you know what the one thing is I can kill a homunculus? I mean like for good? Lava! My philosopher stone was completely destroyed 😭 R.I.P Demi 😭
I know it's homebrew, but being eaten by a False Hydra is probably one of the worst ways to leave life. I just can't remember it happening to anyone...
The deck of many things holds a lot of deaths that can be horrific to suffer. At least getting killed by the avatar of death feels like a cool way to go out. Void on the other hand removes your character from existence, and puts saving them on a party that may not have your best interest at heart. If they decide your character is not worth the trouble that character have effectively been erased from exitance with no way to save themselves from their fate, barring D.M. intervention.
I'd say death (and "revival") by wraith would be awful because of your eternal fate. You turn into a specter, something that briefly remembers its old life, just enough to torture it with what it's become. It's forced to exist until death obliterates it completely, where nothing short of divine intervention brings it back. Not fun.
Before watching the video here's my death, see if it can ive up to the videos standards. Played as a Plasmoid (an Ooze) Found a beating heart Ate the heart Eating heart attunes you to it & replaces your heart with itself As an Ooze I can stop disgesting I ate my own heart, there was pain... was.
I took Feeblemind for my druid as soon as it became available. To quote him, "some creatures abuse the Weave in ways that cannot be tolerated. Some crimes are punishable by the removal of the privileged access to the Weave. One should never take this privilege for granted."
9:10 YOU FOOL! The troll's adaptive nature will mean that give it a day and you might have a Fire Troll! I met a Fire Troll once, it was not a pleasant experience!
...Honestly, having lost TWO consecutive characters in Dungeon of the Mad Mage to the same fate, I have to wonder why Intellect Devourers didn't make the list... Intellect Devourers are the most imbalanced monster in all of 5e, challenge rating-wise, given that they're allegedly a fair challenge for a 2nd-level party (which, assuming point buy, can never be immune to the little blighters' mental attacks), while requiring a *9th*-level bard, cleric, or druid and a hundred gp worth of diamond dust, plus whatever the caster demands as compensation for the casting itself, to fix...
As a DM running a one shot for my friends little brothers it was the best feeling ever kicking a 12 year old off a 100ft cliff to his death after his haste was dropped. Before this he talked ruthless smack to both me and other players to the point his own brothers were telling me to focus him.
"...all to have it cut short..." Whenever I hear stuff like this, I wonder why people are not using the resurrection spells that are in the books. No PC high enough level to bring back the dead? Whatever happened to having a NPC clerics at the High Temple of Shmugeddaboudit in the nearest city to do the job for them?
I had a friend one time that got level 5 exhaustion right before the bbeg. Instead of backing away, we decided to tie him to my wolves’ back and just have him cast spells. Still kinda funny and sad that he almost died because my wolf got close to a dangerous substance.
I know this isnt rules as written but I rule power word kill as having your heart or some other internal organ combust inside your body. I feel like that would make it on the list
so theoretically for maximum suffering you should just cast wish to give you a vastly superior version that allows you to chose who’s deepest fears the target is terrorised by then chose a gods deepest fear for the spell and depending on the lore in the campaign you’d probably make em see some eldritch shit
2:47 - not according to Honor Amongst Thieves. But I think the movie plays fast and loose with... just a FEW rules : / (like wild shape and owlbears for example) and exactly how powerful certain character types are supposed to be (especially outside of a set location - which is a thing I had to look up)
Can confirm how bad Feblemind is. My DM actually had the balls to use it on a character after she tried to fight a god in a memory. She got a one on the save so it could only be fixed with wish (We did have a wizard but we were only level 11 at the time). Then DM had the party decide weather to kill the character (Who I should add was the last member of her family line) or a different NPC. We debated for over half an hour before deciding to kill the character.
The worst way to die is to die from something from the background of your character Like a oathbreaker paladin dying from the thing that made them break their oath, or from the order they used to be Or a monk that released an emotion demon from themselves in a mental cleansing trial and it was something they always feared
There's a comic book called Wolverine: Killing Made Simple where Wolverine is trapped and describes to a kid he's trapped with some of the most gruesome ways he could be killed, even with his healing factor. The one that stood out the most to me was when he described being de-aged. He talks about how the adamantium in his body would rip through his bones, flesh, and shred him from the inside out. That was what I immediately thought of when you said being killed through recovery
This is probably not the worst one for the character, but in mordenkainen's monsters of the multiverse there is a monster that can instant kill a character on a nat 20. No avoiding it, no death saves. I'm sure that would be pretty disappointing for the player to just get decapitated because of pure luck
I had triggered a spike trap that slammed me into the ceiling, dealing 1d6 damage, before dropping me down onto the spikes, which were pressure sensitive. I ended up being found a couple minutes later az literal mince meat.
This is why traps are built with reset timers that don't just activate infinitely per turn. Lol
@supermcspotty I mean it's effective
Sounds like you did this to yourself. Shoulda stayed with the rest of party.
@Skyrkazm 101 Looks like a good idea
damn vicioce
The best way to die in D&D is getting attacked by crabs 🦀🔥🦀🔥🦀
The power of crabs
Crab rave intensifies
What a glorious end that would be
The crebs declared war
Honestly I would not even be mad if a crab killed me
A correction on the red slaad: Red slaad create blue slaad, and it's the blue slaad that create the red ones (because the chaos realm has a cruel sense of humor).
What is the difference though? (genuinely asking, 'cuz I don't know how their society work)
@@VasiliyOgniov Been awhile, but I think the blue ones slash at you and you turn into a red one, while the red ones slash at you and a blue one burst out of your chest (or the other way around, it's been awhile). They also hate each other but literally can't live without the other. I think MrRhexx did a video on them or their domain of Limbo.
And a green magic one that eventually turns gray if either attacks casters
There was a thing about them in strixhaven
Does this only happen if you play female characters
As a dead person, this is relatable. Thank you for shining light on us
One skeleton horse to another, friend!
necromancy alert!
r/UsernameDoesntCheckOut
@@yannismpa3701 I mean depending on their mental state..
A wins a win🤷🏾
The worst possible has to be the wizard dropping concentration on Fly while you are the only one above lava.
Wildshape ending in a too small space
@@penguin_Penguins Thanks for the tip! I'll make sure to traumatise my player's Druid!
@@davidperte62 Dex saves for rat traps.
@@TheHorribleCreature ?
My monk once stunned a cloud giant flying just outside of their flying castle. Needless to say, the fall was long.
The one that always stood out to me was the slaads. You mentioned the chestbursters, but you forgot that in some editions they can shapeshift into the person they burst out of, some versions with memories of their past self but only wishing to create as much chaos as possible. I love the idea of a champaign where someone isn't quite who everyone thinks they are, with disastrous consequences. Haven't got one lined up for slaad levels of fuckery yet, but I have a Ravnica campaign with someone who's secretly a Dimir agent.
when the imposter is slaad
I think the gibbering mouther should have been here. If one of them "kills" your character, they become part of the creature and its madness until said creature is killed itself.
You can't even be easily resurrected, because your soul is still trapped in your brain in there.
Should definitely have been on the list.
I wonder if this creature was based on When Day Breaks or the other way around
Honestly, I think the worst way to die would probably be getting stuck in a Demiplane while being unable to die from exhaustion (so, being a construct or having a Spoon of Nourishment). In essence, you would spend the rest of your life completely alone in an empty room, going insane from isolation over, and over, and over again.
My group did this by accident to an NPC in Rime of the Frostmaiden
This is exactly what happens in Pandemonium. Except you don't die. You suffer insane and starving, unto eternity.
My friend made one of these he called the Teri's demiplane
Shaped like a T piece
Too bad I was being a cunt and had a pet bag of devouring to plane hop with
But you aren't dead you're still alive you're just stuck.
@@WhyYouMadBoi Is the complete and utter destruction of a person's conscious, of who they once were, not a death in itself?
9:17 That sounds horrible. Imagine being chained to a cliff and every day an eagle would eat your liver over and over and over again. What a godlike punishment.
Prometheus say hi
I would like to suggest that the gibbering mouther is actually worse than _feeblemind,_ for having a similar effect in terms of death-of-personality while keeping you conscious, but also making you a PART of a lemure-like creature that gibbers madly to itself forever and ever.
You can't even be easily resurrected, because your soul is still trapped in your brain in there.
Should definitely have been on the list.
What are some of the worst ways your own characters have died? Curious to hear how horrific some of your DMs have been
Dm had to improve a pathfinder 1e encounter due to the diplomacy player having to leave. Cue a party of level fives fighting, and I'm sorry I can't remember the actual creature name, animated triceratops skeleton with on contact petrification curse. I get tapped once, and get cursed with it. Cue a timeskip cause 'we can't stop while traveling to get you cured'. They then kicked by petrified body off a pier.
Being disembowled and seeing my guts Being eaten by red caps and and then taking a bath in my blood and corpse
They died because one of them didn't read their character sheet. Gg wp
I’ve only died once, I was a wizard/cleric multiclass (wanted the AC boost and minor healing abilities) fighting against a clockwork dragon
With the de facto tank down, it turned to me, but and knocked me out, which wouldn’t have been so bad, if us finally defeating the thing didn’t cause it to explode and collapse the roof onto my unconscious body, turning me into a mangled corpse
…I got better tho.
Wild magic on the D10000 table [multiple compounded effects] very gruesome
Don't forget "sickening radiance".
This spell inflicts radiant damage and exhaustion. It's not officially stated, but that literally sounds like radiation-posioning for me.
And acute radiation poisoning is one of the most gruesome ways to die in my opinion. Google that Stuff yourself, you'll know what i mean.
The worst way to die in dnd is when scheduling issues stop you from playing and you need to leave the group.
That's how I lost my first character.
7:51
The party was investigating a mysterious red river that has turned up in a forest in the Material Plane.
Wizard, to Sorcerer: Hmm, I wonder if this is the Styx.
Me, the Monk: Hey I can see some hoof-prints and marks like boats were landed on the other side. Finally I have a chance to use my run-over-water ability, to go and have a closer look.
(Fortunately we had Greater Restoration prepared to fix me quickly.)
The most embarrassing way to die in D&D is to be killed by a Flumph. Given that they are weak monsters and pacifists, if a Flumph kills your PC, you really messed up somewhere.
In our current playthrough of Saltmarsh, our captain (a goliath barbarian) had a Periapt of Wound Closure and was knocked out in a fight. They sahaugin dragged him off into another room while we were still trying to get to him and repeatedly just ate parts of his body because the periapt kept closing the wounds whenever they took a bite. They ate a good majority of his body before we managed to break through their ranks to save him.
"Death in most ttrpg's is a painful heart-wrenching experience," is a statement that I agree with in most cases, but as someone who apparently plays death-seeking characters, death is something I've become desensitized to. In the campaigns I've played, I was always tempted to prepare a second character sheet just in case that was the week ny character was going to die; however, there is one moment where I sorely regret not having done so.
About a year before the pandemic happened my one buddy was running a Ravnica D&D campaign that had been going on for several months at this point, and I had joined in by the time summer rolled around and I would be available to reliably attend the sessions. While I was working on my character with my DM, I just casually mentioned that I have low expectations of my character surviving for very long, and thought it'd be a good idea to come to the first session with a second character sheet prepared just in case. My DM told me to not worry about it, but I thought about it a lot, but I eventually decided against doing it, because dying in the very first session would be quite odd.
Some time passes, and the day where my character would be introduced to the campaign arrives, and I get written in as a character who works as a security guard or had some form of credentials at the prison that some of the PCs were detained at, and I get roped in into their shenanigans. After having successfully freed some our fellow PCs, we flee the scene, and make use of one of the other PCs backgrounds to secure our way to our intended destination in the Underdark (think of it as the rotting underbelly of the city of Ravnica), and along the way, we encounter a Lich, who isn't necessarily hostile to us. Iirc, the dude was marking the one PC as a potential underling for the future, and we could technically walk past him.
I don't remember what the exact situation involved, but essentially, even though the Lich was not immediately hostile, walking past him still provoked an attack of opportunity unless I disengaged; however, as an Artificer, I thought it would be a bright idea to drop a turret in front of him, and then attempt to walk past him, thinking he'd be distracted by the turret. I get immediately one-shot, and spend the rest of that session putting together the character sheet for my longest lived character in the campaign, an Aasimar Sorcerer who made it to the session just before facing the BBEG, which concluded the campaign.
6:01 Gas spores' spores take 1d12+con hours to kill you, so unless you have a con mod in the negatives, you have a few hours to get to someone who can cast Lesser Restoration, which may be a member of your party since it's only a 2nd-level spell. Of course, it is still a horrible way to go, and the fact that it's so preventable under any but the worst possible conditions would only make the death even more tragic. Also, the only way to get more than 17 hours (as far as I know) is if you have a limit-breaking feat or boon, or if you've used the Manual of Bodily Health.
8:07 The spell doesn't affect your wis, so you can still be a very street-smart dog-person if you fail the initial save. Also, you can make a save against Feeblemind every 30 days, and if you make the save, your stats are restored. It also doesn't kill you, so I'd question why it's even on this list.
8:48 It's an 8th-level spell, not a 5th-level spell.
9:50 How can you go through a whole section on eternal punishment via healing and not mention Prometheus even once? Also, that's just a method of torture; it can't kill you, so I'm not sure if it should be on this list either.
10:23 The duration is 1 minute (or 10 turns), and the creatures make a save every turn, so assuming it has high wis and/or a lot of HP, it's not that deadly, though it would be a terrible way to die if it does kill you.
Finally, if causing death isn't a prerequisite to being one of the worst ways to "die" in D&D, I'd argue that drawing the Donjon or the Void cards from the Deck of Many Things should at least warrant an honorable mention.
Good notes!
Surprised I fumbled Feeblemind's spell level, haha.
As for regeneration, so long as you're killed at the end of it, it's basically an endless death until the plug is pulled.
@@BlaineSimple That's just torture not death its endless torture till death and its the shock of torture that kills you. Its like how people say Mosquitos are the deadliest animal when its the disease that kills them not the insect.
@@WhyYouMadBoi "You didn't die to the knife, you bled out" energy
@@BlaineSimple You can die via knife cutting you and killing you like a knife to the neck or stabbing in certain areas. Bled out death is death via blood loss.
Two different ways meanwhile your example of regeneration doesn't kill you. Cause the regeneration CAN'T kill you in the game.
A whole lot of unfunny smug youtuber energy bud.
About Gas spores, if it is a non-magical disease, it only takes 5 points of Lay on Hands to cure. So if you have a paladin, they can cure a number of creatures equal to their Paladin level each long rest.
You forgot this one: Being taken prisoner my mind flayers, and used as a host for a new mind flayer.. they put one of their tadpoles in you, which then slowly eats your brain and morphs your body into it's own.
I had half a two-year to-lvl-20 campaign be about fending off a slaad invasion. We got to make slaalad at the end.
Regarding the regeneration, I was thinking of the Positive Energy plane described in original Spelljammer. If you go there, you constantly regain hp, but if you ever reach twice you maximum hp score you explode due to overexposure to super powerful healing energy.
That's kind of funny. Imagine constantly stabbing yourself to not die.
One thing to be sure, in the dnd multiverse dying is not THAT bad, the scarier thing is that you have to make sure your soul won't be fucked afterward, be mindfull that even some GOOD planes will annihilate your persona and memories (essentially killing you). Worse is not being able to die while under brutal pain/torture.
Death of the mind is far worse than death of the body, far, far worse...
It's no secret why some people become devil cultists though, since as long as you don't completely suck at it, you get to keep your memories in hell and get to skip being a lemure. If you have a soul contract and are important enough, you might even get to be a type of fiend that gets to avoid fighting the blood war entirely, like a succubus. Doesn't sound too bad really
Had a campaign take us into Carceri and it is just like this. Although it is possible to die, you will respawn with nothing and be forced to travel the planes of suffering for eternity.
Imagine being a salamander, afraid of water and cold, and all of a sudden Weird is cast and a bucket of water is dumped on your head.
I think you missed the rutterkin. They poison you in a way that, when you drop to 0 hit points, you die and instantly become an abyssal wretch, as your flesh and bones melt and reform in you in your killers image.
7:43 small correction: not all eternity, you can get promoted just like other devils.
One of my character actively tried to find himself an hellfire weapon just to cross some names off the list
I'd like to present the Gibbering Mouther as one of the worst, and I quote:
"All-Consuming. Driven to devour any creature it can reach, a gibbering mouther flows over victims transfixed by its ranting, its multitudinous voices temporarily silenced as it gnaws and swallows living flesh. The monster liquefies stone with which it comes into contact, hindering creatures that overcome its gibbering and attempt to flee.
A gibbering mouther leaves nothing of its prey behind. However, even as the last of a victim’s body is consumed, its eyes and mouth boil to the surface, ready to join the chorus of tormented gibbering that welcomes the monster’s next meal."
It's set of abilities are terrifying.
I've only ever lost 1 pc. He was a warforged and was scouting underwater when a cube attacked him. He broke out, climbed up stairs and almost reached the surface when the cube got him again and he melted inside.
Coincidentally, the first player death I ever saw was to a gelatinous cube as well. He got absorbed by one, then opened a potion that boosted acid or something, trying to make it explode... but it just doubled the cube's damage and melted him faster.
If you’re including Feeblemind and “death of the self,” then, uh… chaos beasts. *Chaos Beasts. CHAOS BEASTS.*
(Would you, yes *you,* like to melt into an ever shifting, amorphous mass of flesh straight from the twisted depths of Limbo itself, blind, deaf, and driven to violent madness by the constant agony you exist in? Only able to stabilize your form through an incredibly difficult save, and then only for 60 seconds at a time? Unless your friends are willing to waste *all* their AC buffing spells to make your skin stop melting and buy you a couple minutes of not-misery? Oh, and if you ever come into flesh-to-flesh contact with any living creature, you also infect them? Well then, do I *ever* have a cuddly mess of slime, skin, meat, claws, teeth, tongues, pseudopods, tails, stingers, formerly-internal organs, and *pain* for you to go have a wrestle with! Or just shake its hand, assuming it has one this round. Or just stand in its path and wait for it to realize you’re there, lashing out in a desperate attempt to find any relief or distraction from the constant agony of its existence. That’ll be *you* in a couple rounds!)
It's really a shame these things are a pitiful low level monster, when they really should be a horrific end game plague.
Death is not the worst way to go by far.
Consider casting imprisonment on someone to put them to sleep.
Now cast dream on them to torture their mind with a monster eternally.
9:00 That's actually something the main baddie of my novel capitalized on when he realized one of his captives could heal by drinking or touching water. Within a few hours, she was literally begging him to kill her, yet he kept this up for several weeks before she was finally able to escape with the help of her friends. It left her traumatized for years after the horrific experience occurred.
Drake says, "Hello. And I want the influence you promised me with that collab video before I make your life Blaine Complicated!"
Worst way I can think of to die? Based on sadly RL experience, the necrotic cyst spells from 3.5's _Libris Mortis._ _Necrotic consumption_ where the magically implanted cyst consumes your entire body, and even if you survive you can't heal the damage outside of a _consecrated_ or _hallowed_ area (vile damage). Imagine pain so intense you want to die just to stop it.
Oh that reminds me of the spell that causes a person to expell all their blood and said blood becomes a golem
1:05 But Hand of Vecna is a _left_ hand!
About the regeneration: I've done it to NPC trolls.
There is an alchemist out there, which harvests bodyparts from living trolls. The bodyparts are vital, but since the means of harvesting include no fire or acid, the trolls survive it anyway.
Also, "A troll dies only if it starts its turn at 0 HP and doesn't regenerate."
What if someone Disintegrates a troll, reducing it to dust (but not killing it), and then someone accidentally inhales some of the dust?
I would think turning into a mind flayer would be up there, feeling your mind slip away knowing you're about to transform into a monster who will feed on the minds of others only to continue the cycle.
Could trolls solve world hunger? Actually now that I think about it, they wouldn’t taste very nice.
i think in 5e, if you eat troll you get bad status effects or something, but i'll have to double check that
In 5E, Polymorph accidents are pretty much the only No-save Messy Megadeaths left. Imagine polymorphing a horse into a piece of gagh and feeding it to the nearest Klingon! 5E shut down most of the old two objects in the same space anomalies, but missed (or maybe even added) this one. In earlier editions we had creating a pit using Passwall then dispelling it after something falls in. In an extreme variant I once Gated an annoying demigod into a Phase Door, hopped out, then dispelled it. Death by magical backfire is always fun. Traps that incorporate illusions can induce a wizard to teleport into a solid object. Then they try casting True Seeing to avoid that, only to discover the illusion-covered Symbols everywhere they look. My two favorite backfire deaths were 1) casting True Seeing on an avatar of Yog Sothoth (character sees the entire universe all at once; brain explodes), and 2) a party hid in a Prismatic Sphere. An angry flying beastie dived through at full speed, got petrified, and flattened the hapless ranger.
Are we forgetting being sent to Hades and turning into one of those horrible soul larvae?
I actually did the immortality torture thing to one of my players (dw I explained my plans in detail beforehand and they said it was okay) and it was absolutely terrifying. They ended up getting turned into a sock puppet
My character got turned into a doll after making a deal with a fey.
@@Leo-p4x8b Sounds like fun
7:53 Sooo fun thing happened
My Group wanted to retire his Grung Rouge and decided to create a Thri-Kreen Druid instead to replace him
His rouge had gone down in campaign history as an eldrich abomination and so he's made it a habit in our group to continue this tradition w/ a few other one shots we did
His Goblin artificer became possessed by a Nilbog and then became a Sentient sphere of annihilation)
His Human Wizard Was So British it Broke Reality because British people and Culture Didn't Exist in the world in the 1st place)
But this Druid was just the universe punishing him for changing characters
Because the 1st session he played as this DRUID he INSTANTLY got Feebleminded in by a neolithid
He failed the save and so he was Reduced to 1 int and 1 Cha for almost 3 months worth of sessions because no one in the party knew anything about him
And as such all party members in character Could not help him in ANY way
He was also the only party member who even had a Chance of casting Greater restoration to end the effects in the 1st place
So this was unfortunately a long 3 months for him
And at the end of the 1st session
His only question was What cosmic Sin did this Character commit in their Backstory to deserve this instant punishment by the Dice gods
Leading to what is in my opinion the BEST quote of this campaign
"What sin did he commit? Did he play league of Legends!?"
And from there the gears turned and we worked out that his Druid didn't just play league of Legends
He LIVED it, as in he was Transported to this World from Runeterra.
And that automatically made him an Eldritch abomination
His other Famous Eldritch horrors include Kyle the Teenager human Jock who gained Draconic Power
The Thri-Kreen Rouge who later discovered he was Created to be a puppet for a Sword (Basically it was a Feywild Domain of Dread type Setting and the sword Was the Darklord)
And brazz Crackhammer the Giant Gnolls who acts like a kindly old uncle who got traumatized by the weapons my Yuan-ti paladin commissioned
My character was making a last stand in a one shot and instantly to feebleminded after my party escaped.
So I was playing a Goliath barbarian (bear totem obvi) and one of my buddies was playing a kenku rouge, it was my first time playing 5e and his first time playing dnd. Being a bird race based on corvids he played his character well, stealing everything that wasn't tied down. Dm decided to let me find an axe of the berserker, which caused me to frenzy when I rage and was cursed that I didn't want to part with it. At one point we came to a massive hole in a cave, was over 300ft deep. Rouge trying to free me from the curse grabs the axe and chunks it down the hole...rouge was forced to follow shortly after, when rouge didn't respond I decided to rage and jump myself. Dm asks left or right...I pick left and land on the rouge.. all I say after I land is "oh hey, my axe" XD
Dm told me after that rogue had 1 hp and was unconscious until my 350+lb Goliath caved in his chest cavity XD
Be safe arround monsters. A message from the adventurer's guild.
The regeneration made me think of 3e/pathfinder and mutations associated with the positive energy overflow. Well, it is possible to just die from overhealth in positive energy plane, but even if not, the exposure without defense is supposed to have lasting effects.
and number 1 is definitely the gibbering mouther. technically it doesn't kill the victims but being incorporated into the amalgam of mutilated flesh and souls is quite horrific. And since soul is trapped, forced to experience the sensations from misplaced nervous system bits scattered around this "being" it also counts for possibly worst afterlife, as whatever is left of mind will quickly fall into madness. It's not strong monster so it might not get enough press, but the implications are quite something as it wanders around in constant search for more energy to sustain itself, and the more it absorbs the more it needs to absorb to keep existing, so soon enough there are also the necrotic centers floating somewhere inside of the gibbering mouther, just to add to the charming structure. And it is impossible to reverse unlike just about everything else on the list since it messes up the soul and mixes it with others in the same situation.
Cast wish to make enemy immortal, cast Weird on them, Cast wish to make the Weird permanent.
I mean by the time you can cast Wish at all you have won the game and are effectively a demigod, why would you bother with tormenting mortals at all at that point.
I wonder how Weird would affect a Mind Flayer? What kind of nightmare fuel would send one of them screaming for a quicker death? Also, would the rest of the hive mind be forced to endure the effects as well?
How about: It remembers who it was before ceremorphosis, and the humanoid/person they once were is horrified at what they are and what they have done, that there is no escape, and when the spell ends they will go back to being a monster.
Cast Weird on the Elder Brain.
I think it was the Looney Toons series in the army 2010s, daffy tries to crawl into a fridge to escape a heatwave.
One of the worst (best) deaths that happened during my professor's campaign played out as follows:
GM: "You find a bag of holding on one of the bodies, ..." (the bag of holding is basically a Mary Poppins bag)
Wizard (with 19 intelligence): "What if I get in the bag?"
GM: "I don't think that's a good idea"
Half-orc (with 6 intelligence): "But we would have a pocket wizard!"
Wizard: "I think it's a good idea. I get in the bag."
GM: "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Wizard: "Absolutely."
GM: *Sighs heavily* "roll for system shock"
Wizard: "Uh oh." *rolls a two*
GM: "I tried to warn you. The wizard jumps into the bag, only to realise that it does not hold oxygen. He flails around, turns blue, and dies."
Rolling 2 consecutive natural 1s in a game where that is instant death and you thought it would be funny to roll a dexterity check for peeing your name into the snow.
2 consecutive nat 1s is instant death? A 1 in 400 chance of dying when you roll seems like you’d end up never getting anywhere in a campaign.
I think time stamps on videos like this are really helpful for rewatching
Really? Out of all the things that have existed in D&D's history, the best you could come up with for #1 worst way to end a character is 'Insert worst thing you can imagine here'? Bit of a cop out, isn't it?
There are a plethora of other creative choices you could have picked, like a sphere of annihilation, the Void card in the Deck of Many Things, having your soul imprisoned forever inside a black gemstone by a lich or necromancer, or being reduced to a pile of dust. If we want to go back to 3.5 edition, the Epic Level Handbook has the option of being murdered by a team of epic level assassins, having no-rez poison poured in your corpses eyes, then sending the corpse into a magic cape that leads to a void dimension even the gods can't rescue you from. I'm sure other things I didn't think of when coming up with examples exist too. (The Epic Level Handbook had a bit of an obsession with coming up with ways to really super duper kill your high level character forever no backsies)
And beside the fact that there are actual defined options you can have an opinion on, I don't think I've ever seen someone use Wish to kill another entity outside of circumstances like the Tarrasque, where you absolutely have no other option because it's written into the rules that the spell is required to permanently kill them. It's such an expensive to use spell that there's an immediate incentive for PCs to not use it for something as boring as killing a bad guy, and if the DM is whipping out an NPC who can cast Wish (Or Miracle), I'm pretty sure they'll want to do something more creative than "I wish the party's fighter would perish in a eternity of pain' or whatever. It's just not a very interesting use of such powerful (and expensive) magic, narratively speaking.
You had some good examples in your earlier options, at least, it just feels like you didn't really nail the #1 option very well. The Slaad was an exciting one I don't see mentioned very much for unpleasant character deaths... though I admit this one is almost impossible to pull off on a team of PCs, as the death is kind of a slow burn and they are almost guaranteed to figure it out, through in or out of character knowledge, before the death happens, and remove the tadpole. But it makes a good surprise NPC death!
just remember that if Diavolo dies this is all cannon to jojo's Bizzare Adventure
Phantasmal Killer is a single-target version of Weird and it's accessible at a far earlier level (still does the same damage) :)
D&D inspiring the creative death animations in Soulsborne games.
8:40 It's stuff like this why in older editions having a cleric in the party was mandatory.
Older players still play like this. Session zero is a conscription. Someone HAS to be the cleric, someone HAS to be the wizard, someone HAS to be the thief. What's this rogue you're talking about? No I said thief, for lockpicking and traps. That's a "archetype" now? Alright fine whatever.
No doubt, the most cruel way to your character dying is the DM canceling the table.
thats why i always unplug my stove, so nobody burns themselves on the dials
From personal experience, a honorary way to die is being eated by a giant frog
Feeblemind is an 8th level spell
As I was listening to the vile description of the gas spores I realized i play a paladin who is immune to disease poison etc.
Haven't been the victim of it, but there was one moment of awesome when my warlock character succeeded on casting Feeblemind on a nigh-ascendant mind flayer, completely ruining their plans to become exponentially more powerful.
My wish spell would be to have a person suffer all these 10 worst ways to die, they couldn’t die because of high regeneration so it’s just torture.
Suprised unravel wasn't on the list. Being undone like a poorly made sweater has got to be painful
Had a potion to cure my lycanthropy but had to roll a d100 and not get under a 5 and rolled a 01. More stunned then anything but a laugh nowadays
I discovered feeblemind in my first year of DMing, tho I didn't use it for the first and last time until many years later. In this case, don't put the story over your players' feelings.
I recently made a homebrew curse but I know for a fact would be number one on this list, even topping Wish. I call it hell's cycle of Eternal suffering, where every time the cursed creature, character, or NPC dies, they are resurrected by their bodies being burned alive as if by the searing flames of Hell, their wounds reheal and a painful way yet they still bear the mark upon their body. But it gets worse, as when they die again, they relive the pain of each previous death. Meaning, if they died eleven times, they will relive the pain of the previous ten deaths. And this curse can only be caused by a very powerful home-brewed undead deity. And it cannot be removed by Wish either.
One of my old groups had a campaign end in a TPK under similar situations to the regeneration thing, they basically ended up held as blood dolls by some archfey troll mother to be fed and bled until they eventually perish, most likely from old age, we lacked the power to fight her and the party kept screwing up any outs the DM offered us, the easiest of which was to leave one party member behind with her as a sacrifice, but majority refused to leave anyone behind. Another option was to allow her to contact Oberon because one of his chosen was traveling with us, but that got screwed up by one of the party throwing a bead of fireball at this archfey that was cursed to never feel warmth, so the fireball didn't harm her but it DID destroy the conduit she was using to contact Oberon, we might even have been able to talk our way out but one of the party opted to attack instead, so yeah, it was bad.
For the red salad, we were playing a campaign and fought one of them. We saw all of our friends die and if it was horrifying.
Ok but like how did the undead not make this list when some of them either make you one of them or permakill your eternal soul (looking at you Nightwalker)
So I played in an anime game years ago. I played a homunculus sniper. He was also very tech savvy. Because of how I made him and who I wanted him to be str with his dump stat. We ended up inside of a volcano and we had to climb. I failed my climb check.... Do you know what the one thing is I can kill a homunculus? I mean like for good? Lava! My philosopher stone was completely destroyed 😭 R.I.P Demi 😭
I know it's homebrew, but being eaten by a False Hydra is probably one of the worst ways to leave life. I just can't remember it happening to anyone...
The deck of many things holds a lot of deaths that can be horrific to suffer. At least getting killed by the avatar of death feels like a cool way to go out. Void on the other hand removes your character from existence, and puts saving them on a party that may not have your best interest at heart. If they decide your character is not worth the trouble that character have effectively been erased from exitance with no way to save themselves from their fate, barring D.M. intervention.
I'd say death (and "revival") by wraith would be awful because of your eternal fate. You turn into a specter, something that briefly remembers its old life, just enough to torture it with what it's become. It's forced to exist until death obliterates it completely, where nothing short of divine intervention brings it back. Not fun.
Before watching the video here's my death, see if it can ive up to the videos standards.
Played as a Plasmoid (an Ooze)
Found a beating heart
Ate the heart
Eating heart attunes you to it & replaces your heart with itself
As an Ooze I can stop disgesting
I ate my own heart, there was pain... was.
Okay, but imagine crossing a particularly vindictive character to hit you with the wombo combo of Weird than Wish
You forgot being tortured to death by power word: pain
I took Feeblemind for my druid as soon as it became available. To quote him, "some creatures abuse the Weave in ways that cannot be tolerated. Some crimes are punishable by the removal of the privileged access to the Weave. One should never take this privilege for granted."
9:10 YOU FOOL! The troll's adaptive nature will mean that give it a day and you might have a Fire Troll!
I met a Fire Troll once, it was not a pleasant experience!
fun fact about the slads... it doesnt always kill you
Devils can get promoted to become stronger Devils, so it isn't technically for all eternity
Freezing is the 2nd best way to go. (Number 1 is old age) apparently it feels like falling asleep but you never wake up.
dumb idea on how to prevent exhaustion, have the party befriend a traveling merchant that sells basic supplies at a discount.
Not as bad as dying to an L on the forehead through vicious mockery
...Honestly, having lost TWO consecutive characters in Dungeon of the Mad Mage to the same fate, I have to wonder why Intellect Devourers didn't make the list...
Intellect Devourers are the most imbalanced monster in all of 5e, challenge rating-wise, given that they're allegedly a fair challenge for a 2nd-level party (which, assuming point buy, can never be immune to the little blighters' mental attacks), while requiring a *9th*-level bard, cleric, or druid and a hundred gp worth of diamond dust, plus whatever the caster demands as compensation for the casting itself, to fix...
dont forget that lemures get reborn if they die, making it a cycle of endless suffering
As a DM running a one shot for my friends little brothers it was the best feeling ever kicking a 12 year old off a 100ft cliff to his death after his haste was dropped. Before this he talked ruthless smack to both me and other players to the point his own brothers were telling me to focus him.
This was truly surprisingly fun to watch.
"...all to have it cut short..." Whenever I hear stuff like this, I wonder why people are not using the resurrection spells that are in the books. No PC high enough level to bring back the dead? Whatever happened to having a NPC clerics at the High Temple of Shmugeddaboudit in the nearest city to do the job for them?
Yeah, even the movie had a quest to find a single-use magic item of resurrection, and that was a low-level party.
I had a friend one time that got level 5 exhaustion right before the bbeg. Instead of backing away, we decided to tie him to my wolves’ back and just have him cast spells. Still kinda funny and sad that he almost died because my wolf got close to a dangerous substance.
I know this isnt rules as written but I rule power word kill as having your heart or some other internal organ combust inside your body. I feel like that would make it on the list
so theoretically for maximum suffering you should just cast wish to give you a vastly superior version that allows you to chose who’s deepest fears the target is terrorised by then chose a gods deepest fear for the spell and depending on the lore in the campaign you’d probably make em see some eldritch shit
Im missing Vicious Mockery from this list...
Note to self, if Blaine gives my character a ring of regeneration, RUN. XD
2:47 - not according to Honor Amongst Thieves. But I think the movie plays fast and loose with... just a FEW rules : /
(like wild shape and owlbears for example) and exactly how powerful certain character types are supposed to be (especially outside of a set location - which is a thing I had to look up)
Can confirm how bad Feblemind is. My DM actually had the balls to use it on a character after she tried to fight a god in a memory. She got a one on the save so it could only be fixed with wish (We did have a wizard but we were only level 11 at the time). Then DM had the party decide weather to kill the character (Who I should add was the last member of her family line) or a different NPC. We debated for over half an hour before deciding to kill the character.
The Vecna artifacts be like:
Skedaddle skadoodle
Your bones are now a noodle
Don't let your DM see this. Don't give them idea.
The worst way to die is to die from something from the background of your character
Like a oathbreaker paladin dying from the thing that made them break their oath, or from the order they used to be
Or a monk that released an emotion demon from themselves in a mental cleansing trial and it was something they always feared
There's a comic book called Wolverine: Killing Made Simple where Wolverine is trapped and describes to a kid he's trapped with some of the most gruesome ways he could be killed, even with his healing factor. The one that stood out the most to me was when he described being de-aged. He talks about how the adamantium in his body would rip through his bones, flesh, and shred him from the inside out. That was what I immediately thought of when you said being killed through recovery
Before watching the video, I had a dwarf jump into the river of Styx for a wooden bucket.
This is probably not the worst one for the character, but in mordenkainen's monsters of the multiverse there is a monster that can instant kill a character on a nat 20. No avoiding it, no death saves. I'm sure that would be pretty disappointing for the player to just get decapitated because of pure luck