The D&D survival guide Part 1

Ok, I admit it. I kinda ripped the idea off from another(unnamed to avoid lawsuits)website but hey, it's a completely different perspective! Anyway, as you know, death is not good. Not good at all. Of course, there are revival items and stuff, but you have to waste them. The prevention is better than the cure. But how are you going to prevent death? That's what these posts are all about: Surviving. There are 3 parts. This, the first part, is going be about mistakes that a player can avoid making in order to ensure survival. The second is going to be about avoiding combat, which is a large cause of death. The third is going to be about what to do after the actual thing: revival or burial(if you can't revive the PC)
Now, down to business. Here are the top three mistakes that cause death:
1)Not checking a room for traps before entering.
Shadow the rogue is checking patiently for traps in a room. Crusher the fighter, however, is not so patient and asks,"Hey Shadow, how long is this gonna take?" Shadow replies,"About a few minutes more."Crusher is not happy and instead chooses to barge recklessly in the room, ignoring Shadow's warnings. Suddenly, 5 magical spikes shoot out and hit Crusher. The good news is, his most prized possession, Slicer the +5 axe, was not destroyed. The bad news is, Crusher was not so lucky.
In this case, Crusher was too impatient and rushed out into the heavily trapped room. Luckily, this was not based on a real situation. However, most players DO actually rush out into rooms without checking for traps. The solution is simple and requires no extra resources, at the benefit of saving a PC's life: be more patient. This could save literally dozens of adventurer lives.
2)Forgetting to add spells when calculating entercounter attack damage.
After being resurrected and reprimanded by the rest of his party, Crusher now knows better than to run into a room randomly and is now not so stupid. The same cannot be said for Slayer the Warlock, however. Shortly after the spikes incident, there was a battle with some monsters. During the battle, Slayer got bloodied, resulting in Holy the Priest , Moonhat the Wizard and Healer the Cleric to protect him. When a goblin attacked Slayer, it scored a natural 20, severly wounding Slayer. Healer asked,"Did you remember to add in Holy's Inner Fire resistance?" "No.""What about Moonhat's Protective Aura?" "No." "You're not being healed by me anytime soon."
Instead of Crusher, we now have Slayer(to avoid "discriminating" against Fighters)making a foolish mistake. Moonhat and Holy could have saved him from going from bloodied to near death, but he forgot to add their spell effects. This can be also countered with a simple solution: Pay attention at all times, even during someone else's turn.
3)Trusting the shady NPC
Awhile later, the party met an NPC half-hidden in shadows while having a round of drinks in a bar. "Hey, I have a quest for you group." he whisperers, checking to make nobody notices. "If anyone's interested, meet me in the heart of the Dark Forest. I'll pay you 900000 GP for completing the quest." "Wow!" Ritual the Invoker exclaims, "900000 GP!" Crusher warns him that it may be a trap, but Ritual still insists, despite Crusher's warnings(well, he DID have a bad experience with some spikes earlier on!). When he reaches the middle of Dark Forest, suddenly 5 assassins drop out of nowhere and attack him. Outnumbered, Ritual is quickly defeated. In the distance, he can hear the NPC laughing cruelly
.
In this scenario, Ritual blindly trusted a shady NPC because of his greed for GP. This, once again, can be solved with a solution that requires almost no work: think carefully before following a shady stranger's instructions, even if you are tempted with some kind of a reward.

I hope that more people will now stop making these mistakes in the future. Thanks for reading! ;D