My Dungeons and Dragons group started a new game tonight, and I chose to play a vampire spawn changeling, which I grew quite fond of as I filled in scores on my character sheet. Some of you might have figured out by now that in my opinion the only thing cooler than a __________ is a vampire __________. Suffice it to say, I was very careful not to let him fall prey to the pits and snares that would inevitably kill the less prudent members of my party. I refused to get in the barfight with an obviously undefeatable dwarf, and even managed to suppress my desire to suck every drop of lifeblood from the party halfling. Little did I know that my cherished PC would be nothing but dust before the party met its first monster. We went to clear an old castle of critters... (No, I did not walk outside in the daytime, give me some credit!!) Someone had the bright idea to bring an angry dwarf that almost resulted in a total-party-kill in the first five minutes of gameplay with us because he was strong. After searching an empty room, the party proceeded onward. Being a changeling, I decided to make my appearance indistinguishable from that of the dwarf, so foes would be less likely to attack me (this guy was buff). --At this point I had to get up and use the restroom.-- I came back and was greeted with "Oh. You died." *blink*

"I was already dead, I corrected."

And so it turns out that the npc dwarf, who must not have read the rules about nonlethal damage in his life, had dealt my level one character 16 points of damage in response to my changing appearance. For D&D saavy folks out there, you may remember that an undead creature has d12's for hit dice. Needless to say, my PC was utterly destroyed. But wait, my generous DM decided to give me the chance to survive by letting me treat dying like a normal character, who is not gone until -10 hp. While normally I would object, I was particularly fond of my vampire who I had affectonately named 'Zsarachnor'. Then the dwarf comes back with a healing spell. *gulp* Knowing what I do about positive energy and undead, I saw this one coming a mile away. The curative spell caused my already dying body to burst into dust, to the amusement of my ignorant party members. What bothers me more than the dwarf not knowing how to deal nonlethal damage, or the fact that my foolish companions outlived me, was the fact that they kept the dwarf with them, even after he had almost killed everyone in a barfight, and blew up their buddy. (None of them knew enough knowledge arcana to know otherwise)

*rant* *fume*

I'll just end up playing a dry-personalitied artificer and heal the warforged I suppose. *sigh*