In the first, I was playing a rather unique character. It was an Elven Cleric/Rogue, a trickster priest of the elven god of stealth, trickery, revelery, etc. etc. It was a super fun campaign. We had a straight kender thief in the party and we’d constantly play practical jokes on each other. many times resulting in very negative effects for the very stupid half-ogre priest of Pholtus in our party.

The character was level 8/8 and we were playing in a pretty wicked campaign, so to save ourselves we used the edge point rule.

Coming up against a basilisk, which we made very short work of, my character was set upon by its petrifying gaze attack. I needed somewhere around a 5 or 6 to pass the save, and was promptly turned to stone.

I used my edge point to reroll the save, failed again.
The DM particularly liked my character as I brought a lot of fun and excitement to the group, so she allowed me to use another character’s edge point. Still stoned.
Finally, the remaining character in the group, a gnomish wizard Shamdex the Many, who was very selfish and self absorbed (had a magic pair of gloves that would manicure his fingernails), was convinced to give up his edge point in my name…….one more roll!……and I’m still a garden gnome….er…garden elf.

Same campaign, different character, Sump the half-orc Fighter (raised by his elven mother, who of course was forced upon during a raid on the elven village, the same raid where his father was slain) was gifted before he set upon his adventuring days with his father’s old set of enchanted plate armor, and two beautiful enchanted elven blades. (these items in no way made me more powerful than the rest of the party, they were level appropriate)

After joining with the party, they decided to enter a magical cavern complex, a place where adventurers could test their mettle, known as “phillius’ phantabulous caverns”, after paying phillius a hefty sum to do so of course.

I really should’ve suspected that the DM was out to get my chracter now that I think back on it.

Our first encounter? A rust monster who made quick work of my father’s precious enchanted armor, stripping it down so that my only remaining clothing was the padding under it.

Our second? A Xorn who devoured my two enchanted blades.
My remaining equipment? A greatclub.

Sump didn’t last long wearing no armor and wielding a nonmagical greatclub at his level.

Sad too, because shortly after his death in a treasure horde was a paired set of blades that the DM had designed specifically for him.

Well, at level 12 a group of like 30 Orcs is next to nothing, so the rest of the party charged in like maniacs while my Knight of the Chalice decides to play it smart, takes cover behind the wagon and starts plinking away with his bow. One of the Orcs stopped and returned fire with his bow. The Orc needed a natural 20 to even hit me with my magical plate armor class and the cover. So the DM rolls, Natural 20.
Ok, not so bad, I can take a bow shot no problem.
Rolls to confirm the critical? natural 20.

We were using the optional instant kill rule….and you can guess what happened next. natural 20, instant slay.

So, my bad@ss fiendslayer took an arrow through the visor of his helmet into his eyeball, instantly puree’ing his brain.

So much for Holy Awesome Fiendslayer. That orc just leveled himself a few times. It was pretty embarassing for the character. I don’t think he chose to accept the resurrect.

My first was in a homebrew d10 game and it was my first RPG character ever. After surviving a party breakup, forming a new party, traveling to our objective and fighting a vicious battle relativly unscathed, I criticaly failed an acrobatic role. This is ironic because my character was very athletic and in this system each roll uses a certain amount of d10s. I rolled 5 ones or critical fails and no successess. I died painfuly and uninterestingly ANND managed to take the story arc with me.

My second critical fail was my first D&D character who was a dark elf rogue. He was robbing a shop and I rolled ones on every single spot check that would have let me see the haphazard thief who ninja-ed me out of the loot. I later spotted him as he ran away and found out it was a thirteen year old kid, who I then fought. Please note I said fought not “beat up” because I failed several strategic rolls that amounted to my character being impotent in the extreme.

I’m more into when the bad guys roll an instakill on what was supposed to be a plot related attack.

The BBEG’s response was Power Word Stun, as I recall, which took me out of the fight long enough for him to waste about half of the party. I came out of it just in time to see our shapeshifting bard turn himself into a centaur, pull out a lance, and roll a critical hit, killing the bad guy.

Oddly enough, my complete incompetence allowed me to survive the fight, because I was clearly not a threat.