My very first character in GURPS was an indian (asia) character who was a paladin of some order.  He was a fairly decent warrior and sported full-plate.

In several different occasions he was put in situations that should have killed him and would have killed any other character -- all of these occassions involved ballista.

We were sieging a dwarven castle (dunno why, really) and while crossing the bridge to the castle he took a ballista bolt to the chest, pinning him to the ground and removing him from the rest of the fight.  Miraculously, he survived.  In another instance we were attacking yet another castle of some sort, and again, he caught a ballista bolt and survived.  Yet a third instance he was hit by, and survived, a ballista bolt.

In each instance, he not only survived but also remained conscious for the whole affair.  Probably not very enjoyable for him.

What proved to be his undoing was a mere arrow.  He was riding his horse in to battle and had a particular target in sight.  Plowing through the ranks of enemies, he paid little heed to anything else (got a little overconfident if you ask me).  Suddenly an arrow hit him square in the back and bypassed all armor (darn those criticals).  Not only did it do that but it also did enough damage to bring him to a death check (he may have already been injured before?).  Having made all those successes before, I felt like it was a sure thing and rolled... only to have failed.  He died.

Several years ago I was playing an ogre in one of my brother's campaigns.  This ogre had a penchant for getting himself in to trouble, whether acting impulsively or otherwise.

In one particular instance, we were transporting a gem of some sort that had the soul of a very powerful demon trapped inside and were to dispose of it somehow.  As we were travelling, we came across a particular area where a massive tower sprung from the earth and grew into the heavens.  I'm not certain how we knew, but we knew that there was a way within that we could deposit the gem into and be rid of the demon.

Investigating the tower, we found that it had a stairwell leading deep in to the depths of the earth; the stairwell was a winding staircase set on the edges of the tower spiralling downwards in to darkness.  The center of the tower was completely hollow and had a straight shot all the way down.

One enterprising mage in the party decided to get clever.  He cast a spell of continual light on a helmet or rock or somesuch object and cast it down directly ahead of him and then jumped down the hole after it.  His design was to be far enough behind the object and (postulating on the laws of gravity that objects of different weight will still fall at the same rate), he would cast levitate on himself just prior to smashing in to the bottom. 

Meanwhile, another party member thought he would just run down the stairwell (which we suspect was at least two miles deep, if not more) and join the mage at the bottom.

The mage descended and kept eye on the object until it suddenly disappeared.  While that wasn't what he was hoping for, he knew something was amiss and levitated himself thus able to prevent splatter.  He noticed that the object had actually passed through a portal at the bottom.  Placing his hand through to investigate, he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary so he decided to take a risk and entered completely through the portal.  Immediately upon entering, he noticed that the gem he carried (which carried the demon) began to grow.  It got to the point where it pushed him back out the portal and he waited a few seconds before sticking his head through, only to notice a VERY large and furious demon lashing out at him.  The demon itself was not able to leave through the portal, but somehow did manage to get his arm through it and was groping around for the mage.

Back to the party at large.  My ogre and another character (fire mage) were busy being very bored during the whole process.  They were initially invited to join the descent through the tower but declined on basis of too much work and all the mage needed to do was put the gem down there.  Having reached the point of absolute boredom (of course, this translates to my other brother and myself getting bored ourselves and starting to get silly), the characters started looking through the nearby pasture and managed to wrangle a cow.

Bringing the cow back to the tower, they doused it in oil and the mage lit it on fire.  The ogre then prodded the frantic beast in to the tower and straight down the hole.  Needless to say, the GM was forced to have the other character descending the cavern make a DX check to avoid being plastered by this cow, and made a couple rolls himself to try and decide what was going on.  Additionally, the mage at the bottom of the tower was frantically trying to escape the demon when he felt a warm rush of air and noticed the demon was gone.

Long story short, the cow hit the demon square in the shoulder closely proximate to his neck and, due to his now terminal velocity, ripped the demon in half.  Once our friends climbed back out from the depths of the tower, we were approached by one of the "head demons" (dunno how he got there, really) who offered us a reward for dispatching one of his rivals.  I can't remember what reward he (Foober) reaped, but it was an item of no small worth.

Another incident involving Foober...

My little brother at some point joined up with our gaming group and had been gaming with us for some time.  He was in the process of attempting to retire his character--Richard Head (who is a funny story all on his own, but that's a tale for another day)--and introduce a new character--Gargamael.

The party was hunting for a young girl who had been kidnapped and they were hired to investigate.  A farmer on the edge of town had somehow become an object of interest (I think perhaps via a "Seeker" spell) and owner a particularly suspicious barn (no windows, only one door).

My little brother's character, anxious to prove himself to this party of successful adventurers, devised a most clever way to gain grace.  He wanted to teleport just across the door and then open it for the party (it being barred from the inside).  The GM reminded him of the -5 penalty for not being able to see the location he wanted to teleport to which he shrugged.  He rolled his spell roll and had a critical success--for which he was very proud.  Unfortunately, the GM had to let him do that...

Just on the other side of the door, exactly where this poor mage had teleported, was a pressure plate.  The pressure plate activated a large axe hanging over the door which then swung down and cleaved the wizard, pinning him to the door.  The wizard immediately fell unconcious so he couldn't apprise the party of the situation.  (having survived, there were healers in the party capable of healing even this grevious a wound).

My ogre, ever the helpful sot, along with the rest of the party heard the loud thump and saw the door splinter a tad.  Additionally, they noticed some blood pooling out from under the door.  Foober decided he waited long enough to entertain their schemings and pulled out his large warhammer.  With a powerful swing, he smashed in to the door intent on breaking it down.  When the maul went clean through rather than break the door down, he pulled it back out, dropped it to the ground, and then decided to rip the door clean from it's hinges.

Wrenching at the door with all his might he ripped it completely clear of the frame and casually tossed it aside.  The party sat staring in to an empty barn, still with blood on the ground.  Bewildered, the party was busy trying to deduce what had happened when one of them noticed the (now dead) wizard still pinned to the door laying on the ground. 

Seems that Foober's attempt at smashing down the door pushed the wizard over his death threshold, which he missed, and killed him.  Oops.

Ok, so I ripped the title off from Anne Rice's "Vampire" series... but you'll quickly understand why.

In a Supers campaign my brother ran several years ago, one player made a completely wimpy character that had excellent mental powers. One of these powers was Mind Switch - and his reasoning for making such a wimpy character is that he would then switch bodies to a more powerful body once he found one.

So, anyways, the characters discover some information about some secret corporate research to create supers. The party hacks some information (I don't recall the whole adventure, I just recall the main points of what happened) and discovers where this base is.

When the party gets near the area, they notice that the installation is heavily guarded. They enter a nearby "gas station" that is actually a perimeter defense station. They discover a group of men in back and take them out. The uniforms are stolen, and Mind Switch man takes out of the men's bodies.. (this time, the party is aware of the switch - as it was part of the plan.)

So, they hop into the jeep in the station and start driving out to the installation. They come across another jeep of men, and decide to start attacking them (they were acting suspicious, and were about to be "captured") So, they open fire, and the rest of the party jumps off the jeep, leaving Mind Switch Man to man the machine gun on the jeep. He was hit, and Mind Switched into one of the guards' bodies on the opposing jeep. At the moment of the switch, he was still firing on the party members. So he turns to fire at the other men "on his side." At that moment, the magician of the party blasts the jeep (he, again, is the only one on the jeep) and he is sent flying into the air. The remaining trooper starts firing at him. Mind Switch Man switches bodies just as his body is blown to pieces, and is now the man with the gun.

They snuck into the installation under the guise of being wounded soldiers. Mind Switch Man influenced things greatly, and scouted the base by switching frequently (and disposing of previous bodies.)

Eventually, an alarm was sounded, and the party was faced by some other supers. Mind Switch Man took the body of one of the opposing supers (some guy made out of rock) but neglected to tell the rest of the party. His new body was destroyed only one or two rounds later. As he was being pummeled, he found a new body -- "The Void." This body was an insubstatial one, so he was able to let the party know before they started trying to destroy it.

When we were originally just getting in to GURPS, one of the things our GM allowed was the player's to create their own race in the Fantasy campaign.  I think only one player actually took the GM up on his offer and spent a LONG time putting together a humanoid rock character.  This character/race turned out to be extremely tough (read high strength, extremely high DR and tolerance)... but not that smart.

My brother (the GM) brought in this character as a charmed character in opposition to the party during some battle.  We were busy dispatching this group of bandits when suddenly a huge rocklike creature ran out and yelled "I'M INVINCIBLE!" 

The enterprising mage in our party (from the tower incident) thought quickly and prepared a spell of entombment, targeting this huge creature.  He was successful.

We never heard from that character (or that race) again.

At some point, a player had recently lost (or decided to get rid of) his character and needed to introduce a new one.  He spent several hours working on a sneaky little leprechaun that he thought would be the perfect addition to our party as a thief.

There came a point where the GM needed to introduce the new character so, as the party was walking along a road with thick forest on either side, he told this player that he (the character) could see a band of adventurers walking by.  Rather than just come out and greet us, the little leprechaun began sneaking along in the trees.

One player succeeded a senses roll and heard something in the trees.  Being quite the archer, he took out his crossbow, aimed in direction of the sound, and fired.  Rather than investigate (the sound going away immediately after he fired his bolt), we just moved on.

It just happened he succeeded... by a lot... and hit the poor little leprechaun square in the chest and killed him instantly.  So much for sneaky little leprechaun.

Yet another time in our adventures, we were called upon to guard a castle/town from a marauding army.  I have no idea why we were there or why we actually decided to help defent the fortification... but there we were.

So here we are on top of the walls watching the army approach.  As expected, they (the army) send forward a small contingent under the flag of truce in order to attempt negotiating the city's surrender.  The general(s) of the city sally forth to meet them and do their diplomatic mumbo-jumbo.

Meanwhile on the walls, we had a particularly rich character in the party who seemed to do things just because he could (sounds like a rich guy, right?).  We also had a particularly poor character in the party by named of "Joe Average" because he was, well, average.  The details are a little sketchy, but some people believe that he had straight average scores in absolutely everything, while others think that he was average in everything except for his crossbow skill.

Either way, the story doesn't change much.  The rich character turns to the poor character and says "I'll give you a piece of gold if you shoot the enemy captain with your crossbow."  The poor character, not giving it a second though, turned and while saying "OK!" takes aim and fires, hitting the enemy captain square in the forehead with a prod.

Needless to say, negotiations were over and a battled ensued.  We (the party) knew that this was a hopeless battle for the city and retreated out a back entrance, leaving them to their doom.