Now, had the character been at full strength, he would have easily survived the fall. Thus, setting up a tense scenario and climatic finish to the evening with the party trapped between a gaping pit and trapped colleague, and marauding orcs closing fast.
The down side was that the previous encounter had drained this particular characters hit points to nearly nil. By roll of the dice, the fall easily ended our hero’s life. As I described the scene unfolding, the players' head sunk into his hands; he knew, barring some sort of dice god’s miracle, his character was toast. What also grabbed my attention, though, was how the demeanor around the table changed as well. Everyone pretty much knew it was game over for that character and with that their will to continue fighting, or put together some sort of alternative escape plan, almost immediately diminished.
Seeing this I quickly adlibbed, turning the pit into a pit with a bottomless body of water. A quick saving throw to get out of the armor before drowning (and thus, surviving…but losing his magical armor and weapon to the depths) saved not only the character, but the session.
Now, I have no issue killing off a character. Adventuring is a dangerous business with a short life expectancy. I will also admit that I take a slightly guilty pleasure in sending a character to the Promised Land because of fool hardy actions, or some “I’m too much the hero to die” bravado. But in that particular moment, our hero needed to survive and live to fight another day regardless of what the dice rolled.
As a GM, how often (if ever) do you advance the story line, regardless of a dice roll or rule? And in all fairness, that can go either way. I’ll also admit to, on more than one occasion, having a natural 1 rolled behind the GM screen being “magically” turned into a natural 20.
