alternative to negative level from death [Archive] - Wizards Community

alternative to negative level from death [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
OneArmedassassin
06-03-05, 09:18 PM Just as the title implies...I'm looking for an alternative to the negative levels associated with being raised from death. This is a 3.0 party if that even matters. I just wanna try something different than the generic level loss. Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks,

OneArmed

*edited for spelling*
Tony Vargas
06-03-05, 09:37 PM My groups primary DM uses this alternative: The first time you're raised, Raise Dead or any other spell like it will work. The second time you need Resurection. After that, only True Resurection or Wish will work.
NeueRegel
06-03-05, 10:08 PM The first time you're raised, Raise Dead or any other spell like it will work. The second time you need Resurection. After that, only True Resurection or Wish will work, but it doesn't matter, because no sane adventurer will risk being around you.

Call it, "poetic license"... ;)

Neue
Maddcap
06-10-05, 03:52 PM My DM never liked the level loss. He felt dying and being brought back should be worth a few hundred points for the experiance (Especially if you play out the reserection, raise dead...). But he also feels that people often come back wrong. He may lower an attribute, give a flaw or take away a racial ability (low light vision, stone cunning...). This can make playing the character interesting.
Dalthbar
06-10-05, 04:06 PM Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive.

In many cases, you go to your god when you die - and that's somethign that can not be effectively communicated with words. This largely is for Good gods, but if you've ever felt like you've belonged somewhere, it's in the presence of your god. And going back to "the living" likely will not stand up to the perfection that is a god's realm and sphere of influence.
mvincent
06-10-05, 05:03 PM My DM never liked the level loss. He felt dying and being brought back should be worth a few hundred points for the experiance (Especially if you play out the reserection, raise dead...). But he also feels that people often come back wrong. He may lower an attribute, give a flaw or take away a racial ability (low light vision, stone cunning...). This can make playing the character interesting.I do something similar, but since flaws aren't detailed in the core rules, I do this simply as flavor text that helps represent the negative level.

Example: the party kills their nemesis with a critical arrow hit, which I flavor-texted as a "shot through the throat". His minions eventually find his body and bring it back (minus a level).

When party next encounters him, his voice is raspy and he still has a scar on his throat, so he is a bit weaker or less impressive (well, one-level weaker). With time (i.e. experience), he can eventually gain the level 'back', but he will always be behind were he "could" have been (and so his voice will likely always be a bit scratchy), even though he didn't actually lose any life "experiences"
mvincent
06-10-05, 05:16 PM Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive.Yup. In a magical world where good after-lives can be verified, you'd think most people would anxious to get there... kinda like looking foward to a long, pleasant stay at a vacation resort.

My own Paladin was pretty simple in this respect and so worshipped a death God (Wee Jas). He looked forward to death and the party had strict orders not to revive him should he fall in battle.

This worked from a meta-game standpoint too. Fighters-types aren't that effective past a certain level (and the replacement character would start at the party's average level). Plus, it gave him a reason to be fearless in battle, and to enjoy killing things (he's doing them a favor, really). Oddly, he also would try to prevent truly hated enemies from dieing (if possible).
Cilveran
06-11-05, 02:21 AM Oooh, I like tony vargas and maddcapp's suggestions =) (Implementing combination of both in my campaigns :dancin: )

Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive.

Well, being resurrected still allows the dead character to make the choice whether he will return to the living or not, he is not automatically brought back. He makes the choice after being told who is resurrecting and what level he is and so on, look in core rulebooks... So actually the mental state of the resurrectee would be a little more complex than happy/not happy, as to why he "chooses" to return to the living... Is it because of duty and unfinished tasks, or because the love of his life is resurrecting him, has he now got a confirmed belief that he will go to the place of his god? Did he actually go there or was he still in "Hades" (I can't remember the name of the plane that is the "waiting grounds" for soul transference ;) ) when the resurrection call came...
CryoSilver
06-11-05, 03:15 PM Or maybe he just didn't want to be dead.
SilverFoxKnows
06-11-05, 06:41 PM Example: the party kills their nemesis with a critical arrow hit, which I flavor-texted as a "shot through the throat". His minions eventually find his body and bring it back (minus a level).

When party next encounters him, his voice is raspy and he still has a scar on his throat, so he is a bit weaker or less impressive (well, one-level weaker). With time (i.e. experience), he can eventually gain the level 'back', but he will always be behind were he "could" have been (and so his voice will likely always be a bit scratchy), even though he didn't actually lose any life "experiences"[/QUOTE]

I like that
Rulebook
06-12-05, 01:32 AM A while back, a group i was with expirimented with "Soul Charms": basically little charms that made a copy of your soul (or at least its template). it cost a hell of a lot to get them set (they werent continous copy) but you could be ressurected pretty cheap and get your soul re-implanted in your body. but you only could have your abilities and memories up to the last time you got Imprinted.

wealither adventurers would just imprint themselves and leave thier Charms at the temples with instructions like "If I dont return here within 2 months, raise me back. Here's the money in advance" too.

it fell apart pretty quick, but i thought it was a good basic idea. it even opens up the idea for some Charm Imprinter PrC's and stuff!
Greyman
06-12-05, 09:25 AM Just as the title implies...I'm looking for an alternative to the negative levels associated with being raised from death.Actually, gaining negative levels would be an alternative to actually loosing a level. Just make it permanant, or at least only removable by recovering enough experience.

Example: Bob the fighter is level 3 with 4000 XP when he dies. On being raised by Eric the cleric, Bob is still level 3, but with 2000 XP and a -1 negative level adjustment from death (losing 5 hp, and taking the other penalties imposed by a negative level). When he regains another 1000 XP the negative level adjustment is removed. Unlike a negative level, a negative level adjustment cannot be removed in any other way.
Obi-Wan Shinobi
06-12-05, 10:14 AM our group dislikes the losing of a level as well. just because you died, you forgot how to do something???

what we are trying to come up with we stole from another game but havent been able to figure out all the mechanics of it yet. if anyone has played City of Heroes you know about the experience debt you get when you die. for those that havent played CoH, it basically works like this:

when you die, you acrue a certain amount of Exp Debt. you dont actually lose a level, you dont forget how to do something you could do BEFORE you died, etc. but what does happen is that any future Exp you gain goes to paying off the debt you gained. so if im 5th level and died, when im ressed/raised/whatever i am still 5th level. however, i now have a certain amount of Exp debt i have to pay back before i can gain more levels.

what we are having a hard time figuring out is how much debt you gain. we are thinking of using it this way. when you die and are brought back, you come back with the minimum Exp needed for that level. whatever your exp total was BEFORE you died is how much you need to make up. for example, Bob the Fighter is 5th level and has a total of 11000 exp. he dies and is ressed. he now has 10000 exp (minimum for 5th level) and also has an exp debt of 1000 exp. he has to pay this debt off before he can gain any more experience and levels. this makes it so that the closer you are to leveling, the more debt you have, making it more of a hinderance. almost works like buying off EL.
warpdragon
06-12-05, 07:08 PM Using that system can also be good for wizards who craft, so they dont lose levels by making stuff.
Meshakhad
06-12-05, 07:18 PM I might implement a system borrowed from the now-deceased computer game Earth & Beyond.
When you die, and are ressurected, you suffer "XP Debt". This might be equal to the XP needed to gain a level. Half of the XP you get goes to fill your XP debt.

This results in you ending up a level behind the rest of the party, but perhaps you could do some sidequests on your own to fulfill your XP debt, then rejoin the party.
Thelon Fairblade
06-13-05, 10:04 AM IMC, we use XP debt. The debt is equal to 1000 xp * your current level. Die at level 9 = 9000 xp debt. While you have "debt", you may not do anything that requires the expenditure of XP (i.e. mostly spellcasting, item creation, and a couple "spend XP for Action Points" homebrew feats).

We thought about a negative level, but that is actually worse in some cases than just straight up losing the level. Instead, we impose the fatigued condition for 1 day per current level, which can be removed through the use of restoration spells (1 day per spell).
Pathanus
06-13-05, 02:21 PM The group I game with has adopted a modified level loss policy for when characters are raised (with pentalty-giving magics).
The character will suffer a -1 to all rolls except damage, and lose a caster level until he gains his current level times 1000 exp from his current exp count. If the player should happen to die and be raised again, the penalty would go to -2 and the second -1 would have a different exp mark.

This works out well because there is no experience point loss so it keeps the characters at the same (or around the same) level, and the penalty is enough to affect the game, even if it is only a -1.

I personally never liked the level loss system when raised because if you are down a lvl and want to hang out with non-raised-before PC's of higher lvl, you may get killed again while fighting higher CR baddies, and just slide down into commoner status, or become a large liability for the PC group to deal with. This same RP situation could just as well be handled by an NPC instead of a PC if the DM wanted to game a situation like that, and the players themselves would stay happier.

Enuf of my rambles for now,
Path
ShinZero
06-13-05, 02:43 PM I would make a character make a will save...with DC based on what reasons they have to come back vs reasons to stay dead. If they have reached their netherworld, then likely they would have a harder time coming back, esp if they are a Paladin or Cleric. Id make them argue their reasons to come back vs staying...roleplay it out. If enough time passes, have them role play their time in the netherworld, and maybe gain a task from their god or gain some info that pertains to the living plane.

If they make the save, then they come back with no problem...other than maybe a lack of XP from the time it took to ressurect.

If they fail their save, they make another save.

If they fail this one, they are gone. If they succeed, they come back but are depondant. They still have an attachment to the plane they went when dead. They'd gain a -2 on all saves vs anything that could kill them and if reduced to 0 by lethal damage they die as opposed to being unconcsious.

Increase the DC for the save by 5 each time they die and give them a bonus to the save based on how they were resurrected.
weasel fierce
06-14-05, 03:01 AM We play AD&D, so its plain old -1 constitution, and a % roll based off your con, to see if you actually come back to life.

Having raise dead work automatically is far too video-game for our tastes
Quirriff
06-14-05, 04:11 AM and if you die, you get an experiance BONUS, for dying.
The_Fan
06-14-05, 09:29 AM I personally take a cue from video games (specifically Baldur's Gate). If you're brought below -10 from a single hit, you're not just dead, you're "chunked." IE, that last hit so utterly destroyed you that Raise Dead just ain't gonna cut it.

I also have smart villains mangle or otherwise dispose of corpses to make bringing them back harder, or even make people consider whether it's worth bringing the person back at all. Taking a hand as a trophy, for instance, can seriously cripple any adventurer, and if there's a convenient pool of lava there's no reason why a villain wouldn't roll a dead bod in there at the first opportunity. Mangling the body prevents Raise Dead and making the body irretrievable prevents Resurrection. At that point you're up to True Res, and I don't know about you but there are very few favorably inclined 17th level clerics in my world. Reincarnate works as long as you have some part of the body, but that's a crapshoot anyway.

Speaking of crapshoot, I realize I failed to answer your question. If you want to add a penalty, you might want to take a cue from Eberron. Occasionally one of the planes will interfere with resurrection spells, causing potentially catastrophic malfunctions:

d%
01-50: Spell functions normally
51-80: 1d4 ghosts (cr = raised character's level) appear near raised character
81-90: As above, but the wrong spirit claims the body and the intended spirit returns as a ghost
91-99: The spell functions normally, but a nalfeshnee possesses the raised character
00: The spell does not function. Instead, a nalfeshnee reanimates the body

You could modify the table accordingly, most likely by removing the 50% chance of something good happening. :D
princelian
06-14-05, 05:55 PM I also disliked the idea of losing levels to death-and-raising, but I still wanted to have some kind of penalty for being dead - it's an experience that should shake up even the steeliest adventurer.

I came up with Death Levels, which are like negative levels in most respects. If you're suffering from a Death Level, you have a -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. You have a loss of 5 (or average for you, the lower) hit points. You have -1 effective level for effects. You lose one slot from your highest available spell/psionic slot. This is all just "the usual negative level effects," with the average hit points thing and the mention of psionics tossed on as logical if not purely SRD.

The Death Level lasts for one week, stacks with negative levels and/or additional Death Levels if you're that unlucky, and after that you get a Fort save to throw it off (DC 20) once per week. If you fail, you just keep suffering the effects, and feel free to take 20 if you wish (and the DM lets you have 20 weeks to convalesce).

If you're in the middle of a short-timeframe campaign of assault against the Lich Queen of Everhost's minions, the Death Level is pretty darned inconvenient. The same applies if you're raised mid-dungeon.

If you died at the end of the assault against the LQE....scratch that....if you're RAISED at the end of the assault against the LQE and the party's going to spend a few months learning things and having items made and generally vacationing, it's not so bad.

If your campaign regularly takes long breaks between adventures, you can always set it to "lasts a month with one roll per month thereafter," or raise the save DC. I toyed with adjustable save DCs but "20" was simpler.

If you're so unfortunate to have Death Levels + negative levels greater than your level, you cannot be raised, but you'll still "throw them off" eventually, which probably put you outside of the duration of raise dead anyhow, but in any event requires resurrection or true resurrection...or reincarnate, for that matter.

Princelian

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
OneArmedassassin 06-03-05, 09:18 PM	Just as the title implies...I'm looking for an alternative to the negative levels associated with being raised from death. This is a 3.0 party if that even matters. I just wanna try something different than the generic level loss. Any ideas are welcome. Thanks, OneArmed edited for spelling
Tony Vargas 06-03-05, 09:37 PM	My groups primary DM uses this alternative: The first time you're raised, Raise Dead or any other spell like it will work. The second time you need Resurection. After that, only True Resurection or Wish will work.
NeueRegel 06-03-05, 10:08 PM	The first time you're raised, Raise Dead or any other spell like it will work. The second time you need Resurection. After that, only True Resurection or Wish will work, but it doesn't matter, because no sane adventurer will risk being around you. Call it, "poetic license"... ;) Neue
Maddcap 06-10-05, 03:52 PM	My DM never liked the level loss. He felt dying and being brought back should be worth a few hundred points for the experiance (Especially if you play out the reserection, raise dead...). But he also feels that people often come back wrong. He may lower an attribute, give a flaw or take away a racial ability (low light vision, stone cunning...). This can make playing the character interesting.
Dalthbar 06-10-05, 04:06 PM	Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive. In many cases, you go to your god when you die - and that's somethign that can not be effectively communicated with words. This largely is for Good gods, but if you've ever felt like you've belonged somewhere, it's in the presence of your god. And going back to "the living" likely will not stand up to the perfection that is a god's realm and sphere of influence.
mvincent 06-10-05, 05:03 PM	My DM never liked the level loss. He felt dying and being brought back should be worth a few hundred points for the experiance (Especially if you play out the reserection, raise dead...). But he also feels that people often come back wrong. He may lower an attribute, give a flaw or take away a racial ability (low light vision, stone cunning...). This can make playing the character interesting.I do something similar, but since flaws aren't detailed in the core rules, I do this simply as flavor text that helps represent the negative level. Example: the party kills their nemesis with a critical arrow hit, which I flavor-texted as a "shot through the throat". His minions eventually find his body and bring it back (minus a level). When party next encounters him, his voice is raspy and he still has a scar on his throat, so he is a bit weaker or less impressive (well, one-level weaker). With time (i.e. experience), he can eventually gain the level 'back', but he will always be behind were he "could" have been (and so his voice will likely always be a bit scratchy), even though he didn't actually lose any life "experiences"
mvincent 06-10-05, 05:16 PM	Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive.Yup. In a magical world where good after-lives can be verified, you'd think most people would anxious to get there... kinda like looking foward to a long, pleasant stay at a vacation resort. My own Paladin was pretty simple in this respect and so worshipped a death God (Wee Jas). He looked forward to death and the party had strict orders not to revive him should he fall in battle. This worked from a meta-game standpoint too. Fighters-types aren't that effective past a certain level (and the replacement character would start at the party's average level). Plus, it gave him a reason to be fearless in battle, and to enjoy killing things (he's doing them a favor, really). Oddly, he also would try to prevent truly hated enemies from dieing (if possible).
Cilveran 06-11-05, 02:21 AM	Oooh, I like tony vargas and maddcapp's suggestions =) (Implementing combination of both in my campaigns :dancin: ) Another thing to consider is that the PC shouldn't always be happy to be alive. Well, being resurrected still allows the dead character to make the choice whether he will return to the living or not, he is not automatically brought back. He makes the choice after being told who is resurrecting and what level he is and so on, look in core rulebooks... So actually the mental state of the resurrectee would be a little more complex than happy/not happy, as to why he "chooses" to return to the living... Is it because of duty and unfinished tasks, or because the love of his life is resurrecting him, has he now got a confirmed belief that he will go to the place of his god? Did he actually go there or was he still in "Hades" (I can't remember the name of the plane that is the "waiting grounds" for soul transference ;) ) when the resurrection call came...
CryoSilver 06-11-05, 03:15 PM	Or maybe he just didn't want to be dead.
SilverFoxKnows 06-11-05, 06:41 PM	Example: the party kills their nemesis with a critical arrow hit, which I flavor-texted as a "shot through the throat". His minions eventually find his body and bring it back (minus a level). When party next encounters him, his voice is raspy and he still has a scar on his throat, so he is a bit weaker or less impressive (well, one-level weaker). With time (i.e. experience), he can eventually gain the level 'back', but he will always be behind were he "could" have been (and so his voice will likely always be a bit scratchy), even though he didn't actually lose any life "experiences"[/QUOTE] I like that
Rulebook 06-12-05, 01:32 AM	A while back, a group i was with expirimented with "Soul Charms": basically little charms that made a copy of your soul (or at least its template). it cost a hell of a lot to get them set (they werent continous copy) but you could be ressurected pretty cheap and get your soul re-implanted in your body. but you only could have your abilities and memories up to the last time you got Imprinted. wealither adventurers would just imprint themselves and leave thier Charms at the temples with instructions like "If I dont return here within 2 months, raise me back. Here's the money in advance" too. it fell apart pretty quick, but i thought it was a good basic idea. it even opens up the idea for some Charm Imprinter PrC's and stuff!
Greyman 06-12-05, 09:25 AM	Just as the title implies...I'm looking for an alternative to the negative levels associated with being raised from death.Actually, gaining negative levels would be an alternative to actually loosing a level. Just make it permanant, or at least only removable by recovering enough experience. Example: Bob the fighter is level 3 with 4000 XP when he dies. On being raised by Eric the cleric, Bob is still level 3, but with 2000 XP and a -1 negative level adjustment from death (losing 5 hp, and taking the other penalties imposed by a negative level). When he regains another 1000 XP the negative level adjustment is removed. Unlike a negative level, a negative level adjustment cannot be removed in any other way.
Obi-Wan Shinobi 06-12-05, 10:14 AM	our group dislikes the losing of a level as well. just because you died, you forgot how to do something??? what we are trying to come up with we stole from another game but havent been able to figure out all the mechanics of it yet. if anyone has played City of Heroes you know about the experience debt you get when you die. for those that havent played CoH, it basically works like this: when you die, you acrue a certain amount of Exp Debt. you dont actually lose a level, you dont forget how to do something you could do BEFORE you died, etc. but what does happen is that any future Exp you gain goes to paying off the debt you gained. so if im 5th level and died, when im ressed/raised/whatever i am still 5th level. however, i now have a certain amount of Exp debt i have to pay back before i can gain more levels. what we are having a hard time figuring out is how much debt you gain. we are thinking of using it this way. when you die and are brought back, you come back with the minimum Exp needed for that level. whatever your exp total was BEFORE you died is how much you need to make up. for example, Bob the Fighter is 5th level and has a total of 11000 exp. he dies and is ressed. he now has 10000 exp (minimum for 5th level) and also has an exp debt of 1000 exp. he has to pay this debt off before he can gain any more experience and levels. this makes it so that the closer you are to leveling, the more debt you have, making it more of a hinderance. almost works like buying off EL.
warpdragon 06-12-05, 07:08 PM	Using that system can also be good for wizards who craft, so they dont lose levels by making stuff.
Meshakhad 06-12-05, 07:18 PM	I might implement a system borrowed from the now-deceased computer game Earth & Beyond. When you die, and are ressurected, you suffer "XP Debt". This might be equal to the XP needed to gain a level. Half of the XP you get goes to fill your XP debt. This results in you ending up a level behind the rest of the party, but perhaps you could do some sidequests on your own to fulfill your XP debt, then rejoin the party.
Thelon Fairblade 06-13-05, 10:04 AM	IMC, we use XP debt. The debt is equal to 1000 xp * your current level. Die at level 9 = 9000 xp debt. While you have "debt", you may not do anything that requires the expenditure of XP (i.e. mostly spellcasting, item creation, and a couple "spend XP for Action Points" homebrew feats). We thought about a negative level, but that is actually worse in some cases than just straight up losing the level. Instead, we impose the fatigued condition for 1 day per current level, which can be removed through the use of restoration spells (1 day per spell).
Pathanus 06-13-05, 02:21 PM	The group I game with has adopted a modified level loss policy for when characters are raised (with pentalty-giving magics). The character will suffer a -1 to all rolls except damage, and lose a caster level until he gains his current level times 1000 exp from his current exp count. If the player should happen to die and be raised again, the penalty would go to -2 and the second -1 would have a different exp mark. This works out well because there is no experience point loss so it keeps the characters at the same (or around the same) level, and the penalty is enough to affect the game, even if it is only a -1. I personally never liked the level loss system when raised because if you are down a lvl and want to hang out with non-raised-before PC's of higher lvl, you may get killed again while fighting higher CR baddies, and just slide down into commoner status, or become a large liability for the PC group to deal with. This same RP situation could just as well be handled by an NPC instead of a PC if the DM wanted to game a situation like that, and the players themselves would stay happier. Enuf of my rambles for now, Path
ShinZero 06-13-05, 02:43 PM	I would make a character make a will save...with DC based on what reasons they have to come back vs reasons to stay dead. If they have reached their netherworld, then likely they would have a harder time coming back, esp if they are a Paladin or Cleric. Id make them argue their reasons to come back vs staying...roleplay it out. If enough time passes, have them role play their time in the netherworld, and maybe gain a task from their god or gain some info that pertains to the living plane. If they make the save, then they come back with no problem...other than maybe a lack of XP from the time it took to ressurect. If they fail their save, they make another save. If they fail this one, they are gone. If they succeed, they come back but are depondant. They still have an attachment to the plane they went when dead. They'd gain a -2 on all saves vs anything that could kill them and if reduced to 0 by lethal damage they die as opposed to being unconcsious. Increase the DC for the save by 5 each time they die and give them a bonus to the save based on how they were resurrected.
weasel fierce 06-14-05, 03:01 AM	We play AD&D, so its plain old -1 constitution, and a % roll based off your con, to see if you actually come back to life. Having raise dead work automatically is far too video-game for our tastes
Quirriff 06-14-05, 04:11 AM	and if you die, you get an experiance BONUS, for dying.
The_Fan 06-14-05, 09:29 AM	I personally take a cue from video games (specifically Baldur's Gate). If you're brought below -10 from a single hit, you're not just dead, you're "chunked." IE, that last hit so utterly destroyed you that Raise Dead just ain't gonna cut it. I also have smart villains mangle or otherwise dispose of corpses to make bringing them back harder, or even make people consider whether it's worth bringing the person back at all. Taking a hand as a trophy, for instance, can seriously cripple any adventurer, and if there's a convenient pool of lava there's no reason why a villain wouldn't roll a dead bod in there at the first opportunity. Mangling the body prevents Raise Dead and making the body irretrievable prevents Resurrection. At that point you're up to True Res, and I don't know about you but there are very few favorably inclined 17th level clerics in my world. Reincarnate works as long as you have some part of the body, but that's a crapshoot anyway. Speaking of crapshoot, I realize I failed to answer your question. If you want to add a penalty, you might want to take a cue from Eberron. Occasionally one of the planes will interfere with resurrection spells, causing potentially catastrophic malfunctions: d% 01-50: Spell functions normally 51-80: 1d4 ghosts (cr = raised character's level) appear near raised character 81-90: As above, but the wrong spirit claims the body and the intended spirit returns as a ghost 91-99: The spell functions normally, but a nalfeshnee possesses the raised character 00: The spell does not function. Instead, a nalfeshnee reanimates the body You could modify the table accordingly, most likely by removing the 50% chance of something good happening. :D
princelian 06-14-05, 05:55 PM	I also disliked the idea of losing levels to death-and-raising, but I still wanted to have some kind of penalty for being dead - it's an experience that should shake up even the steeliest adventurer. I came up with Death Levels, which are like negative levels in most respects. If you're suffering from a Death Level, you have a -1 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. You have a loss of 5 (or average for you, the lower) hit points. You have -1 effective level for effects. You lose one slot from your highest available spell/psionic slot. This is all just "the usual negative level effects," with the average hit points thing and the mention of psionics tossed on as logical if not purely SRD. The Death Level lasts for one week, stacks with negative levels and/or additional Death Levels if you're that unlucky, and after that you get a Fort save to throw it off (DC 20) once per week. If you fail, you just keep suffering the effects, and feel free to take 20 if you wish (and the DM lets you have 20 weeks to convalesce). If you're in the middle of a short-timeframe campaign of assault against the Lich Queen of Everhost's minions, the Death Level is pretty darned inconvenient. The same applies if you're raised mid-dungeon. If you died at the end of the assault against the LQE....scratch that....if you're RAISED at the end of the assault against the LQE and the party's going to spend a few months learning things and having items made and generally vacationing, it's not so bad. If your campaign regularly takes long breaks between adventures, you can always set it to "lasts a month with one roll per month thereafter," or raise the save DC. I toyed with adjustable save DCs but "20" was simpler. If you're so unfortunate to have Death Levels + negative levels greater than your level, you cannot be raised, but you'll still "throw them off" eventually, which probably put you outside of the duration of raise dead anyhow, but in any event requires resurrection or true resurrection...or reincarnate, for that matter. Princelian